So one of my mains (I have too many chars for any one to qualify as The Main) is Steffon, my Rogue/Ranger. He suffers something terrible from lack of inventory space. A str-based Rogue/Ranger is actually the worst in this case: melee weapons for every situation (and as a TWF'er, we carry more weapons than just about any melee class, doubling up on everything), 3-4 bows, ammunition, thieve's tools, +skill items, and a variety of scrolls (Raise Dead, Heal, Restoration, etc.) and of course potions that every character should have.

It is not unusual to start a quest with maybe 3-4 backpack slots available. Seems to me that this is a problem that is endemic to the Ranger population.

Recently, I undertook an inventory purge. Sacrifices had to be made. This is where I ended up.

Weapons:

I elected to drop all greater banes (except Construct) in order to save space. I know I'm making a sacrifice on DPS vs. that targeted enemy type, but it was really unreasonable to carry Greater Giant, Undead, Construct, Dwarf, Monstrous Humanoid, Elf, Evil Outsider, Chaotic Outsider, etc. around.

The hardest was to drop my Greater Dragon and Giant banes -- those are raid bosses after all. But sacrifices had to be made -- and I could do just as well with +5 transmuters.

So I ended up with these:

WoP (x2)
Banishing (x2)
Vorpal (x2)
Smiting (x2)
Transmuting (x2)
Disruption (GT of Disruption - dualed with GT of Greater Undead Bane)
DPS set (Holyburst of PG rapier, Treason)
Greater Construct Bane (x2)
Paralyzer (x1) <-- I rarely use this, btw.

Getting rid of the second disrupter was a difficult choice, but I wanted ghost touch as well -- and by going with two GT anti-undead weapons, I saved having to waste a slot.

All of my elemental weapons are now gone. All of my Greater Banes. Second disrupter, gone. The +5 backstabbing, gone. The second paralyzer, gone. All told, I banked over 10 weapons.

Bows:

I never did carry a lot of bows, as I'm a Strength Tempest build. But I pared down even further. Now I carry three:

Silver Bow
Transmuting Bow
Wounding Bow (don't have a WoP, and I don't have IC: Ranged, so not sure it'd be worthwhile)

I got rid of the Smiter, the Banisher, the Paralyzer, the Cursespewing, the Shattermantle, etc. I can see the value of the paralyzer, the cursespewing and the shattermantle bows for a build that is more of an archery build that does party support, but that isn't my build. So I banked those. I'm seriously flirting with the idea of getting rid of the Wounding bow and the Silver Bow and just going with Transmuting, but can't bring myself to do that just yet.

I have no arrows besides House D returners, and silver arrows when fighting the Pit Fiend (I delete them after each run).

Gear:

I used to carry a bunch of Greater Resist cloaks/rings, etc. despite being able to cast the spell, because I wanted to be Dispel-proof. I can't afford the space hit. All of those are now on my Barbarian or my Fighter. I banked the Marilith Chain, and will have to do without built-in Seeker bonus. I used to have both Chaosguarde and Steadyhanded Armbands to flip from defensive mode to offensive mode -- I got rid of both and replaced it with Green Steel bracers.

A lot of the "often useful" items had to go, and I downgraded. For example, no more Spot +15 goggles -- instead, Blindness Ward of Spot +7 is in its place. Big hit, but choices had to be made.

Concordant Opposition from the Shroud is an absolute MUST for my build -- and I suspect most Ranger builds. That item alone saved six slots --> Wisdom item, Mana item, anti-fear, anti-poison items. That also meant I dumped my Remove Fear and Neutralize Poison potions, as I'm now immune to them. Disease Immunity of GFL belt was also a critical find.

I dumped my +6 Dex item, electing to lose 1 from Reflex, and ranged To-Hit, and I go with Madstone Boots fulltime.

Scrolls & Potions

As a UMD build, I have and continue to have a large number of these. I dumped as much as I could of random scrolls (Divine Power, Stone to Flesh, Displacement, etc.) but I still have a bunch I have to carry.

Raise Dead
Heal
Restoration
Dimension Door
Teleport (I know... luxury, but still...)

Potion-wise, I still have these:

CSW (Healing potions are a must, of course)
Haste
Rage
Remove Blindness
Remove Curse
Lesser Restoration

Thankfully, my other items cover Fear, Disease, and Poison. I am considering dumping Lesser Restoration, since I have Restoration scrolls, but haven't done so yet. There's too much utility in just drinking a potion if I get hit with Waves of Exhaustion or something.

Add in the Thieve's Tools, CSW wands (I'm not quite at no-fail Heal scrollage yet), Planar Girds, Stoneskin wand, and the +Disable, Search, Open Locks items. And arrows. And spell components.

Nonetheless, I now have almost a full backpack of space, where I literally had 3 slots. Yes, I'm no longer QUITE as effective vs. some mobs as I was before. Yes, I do a little less damage using plain transmuters when I could have used holy byeshk or cold iron or what-have you. But inventory management is a must.

I thought I'd share this with you guys, because I know all Rangers everywhere suffer from inventoryitis. Sometimes, you need to just say, "I'll bank this Greater XXX Bane and just use plain +5's" in order to have room for all your lootz.

What are your experiences? How are you managing inventory?

/gren