Ranger18...Now What for the Other 2 Lvls?

[Visty]

also if you wear medium or heavy armor you loose the TWF feats you got for free

[LeKute]

also if you wear medium or heavy armor you loose the TWF feats you got for free

In pnp yes but not in DDO, I tested it.

[Dragavon]

Staying pure on a ranger is a perfectly good option. The only current capstone is rather ****, but there may be other capstones that are better. A pure ranger will get more mana, his healing will be more powerful and you get one more favoured enemy at 20. You also get BAB 20. It is not at all a bad deal.

Taking 1 level rogue gives you access to a load of nice skills. Depending on how high INT (12 for oomans, 14 for everyone else) you start with is is quite possible to pump up all the most important rogue skills (DD, Spot, (I know a lot of people say you dont need Spot, I dont agree. The skill is useful in every quest even when there are no traps around, with all the stealthed monsters) Search, UMD, OL). You loose capstone, BAB 20, but gain 1d6+3 sneak attack dmg.

The primary reason for taking one level monk is getting your wisdom bonus added to AC. It is not at all difficult to get 22-24 wisdom, a +6/7 bonus to AC is quite a lot, and you easily get 60ish AC unbuffed with two weapons. You also gain a free feat, even tho the list is limited like fighters feats it has a lot of really useful feats, thoughness and mobility amongst them. You also gain +2 to all saves, which is not at all bad. Monk 1 is a BAB 0 level, so you loose another point of BAB if you take it.

I see you dont want to be lawful for monk tho, and fighter is a perfectly good option then. You get a little more HP and a free feat, but apart from that not really much.

Other options that will not gimp you are 2 levels fighter and 2 levels pally. Both good options that add totally different things.

I would not take 2 levels rogue or monk, the 2nd levels adds very little imo.

[Dragavon]

also if you wear medium or heavy armor you loose the TWF feats you got for free

Jeez Visty, you should know better

[Visty]

Jeez Visty, you should know better

well, i havent checked it myself but last time someone said you loose them...was just too lazy to test it myself that time....

**** myself for believing what others say


yes, i should know better :/

[Club'in]

As for the rogue skills, you can neglect Open Lock a little. Just put your four 1st level points into Open Lock, then ignore it on the Ranger levels. Maybe a couple more when you take the second level of rogue, but that will then be plenty for 95% of the game. Keep Disable Device, UMD and Search maxed each level up. Don't worry about sneaking skills. Spot is handy, but items and your Wild Instincts spell can make up for not maxing the skill out on level ups. Jump and Balance are good ones for spare points you have (if any).

[SquelchHU]

Heavy armor doesn't necessarily give better AC anyways. Just saying.

[Cyiwin]

Maybe I missed it but I didn't see anyone mention that you only get the monk wisdom AC bonus while unarmored. Something to factor in...

[Zarakk]

Thanks for all the great input thus far.

I have one other question about selecting Rogue for UMD Class Skill: Is this going to cost me 2 skill points per 1 full point of skill (increments of 0.5 because it will end up being recognized as a "non-class" skill after I switch to Ranger)?
This is what the Character Planner is showing.

In that case, why would I sepnd points on this just to get up to a base UMD of 23 (according to the planner this is all I would get after maxing this skill out at each level) when everyone says you need around 39? Is the addon equipment used to boost this going to push me up to 39?

[SquelchHU]

Thanks for all the great input thus far.

I have one other question about selecting Rogue for UMD Class Skill: Is this going to cost me 2 skill points per 1 full point of skill (increments of 0.5 because it will end up being recognized as a "non-class" skill after I switch to Ranger)?
This is what the Character Planner is showing.

In that case, why would I sepnd points on this just to get up to a base UMD of 23 (according to the planner this is all I would get after maxing this skill out at each level) when everyone says you need around 39? Is the addon equipment used to boost this going to push me up to 39?

Yes, but since you have one level where UMD is a class skill you can raise it to 23 instead of just 11.5.

As for other stuff, you have:

Charisma, probably around +2 or +3 with an item.
Heroism pots, which you can easily just drink at those levels for +2 morale to skills.
Greater Heroism for another +2 on top of that, but you'll need a friendly caster, a DC 36 check on a scroll, or a rare item to get this. Note you should only use Heroism if Greater Heroism is NOT available.
Voice of the Master, +1 luck to all skills.
Golden Cartouche, +3 competence to UMD.

= +33 or +34 without ever setting foot in a raid. You can also temporarily raise this by 5 with a skill boost for important checks like trying to Raise someone, though you're close to no fail without it. Can help at levels lower than 20 though, or if you don't feel like using a +Charisma item.

If you do go raiding you can get a set of gloves that gives +5 enhancement (improvement of +2 over cartouche), a trinket that gives +2 luck (improvement of +1 over voice) and an item of your choice that gives +6 to all charisma skills (along with a large boost to mana, this stacks with everything mentioned). This eliminates the need for some of the temporary boosts.

[Pwesiela]

Thanks for all the great input thus far.

I have one other question about selecting Rogue for UMD Class Skill: Is this going to cost me 2 skill points per 1 full point of skill (increments of 0.5 because it will end up being recognized as a "non-class" skill after I switch to Ranger)?
This is what the Character Planner is showing.

In that case, why would I sepnd points on this just to get up to a base UMD of 23 (according to the planner this is all I would get after maxing this skill out at each level) when everyone says you need around 39? Is the addon equipment used to boost this going to push me up to 39?

The biggest problem you have with spashing rogue this late in the game is that you 1) don't get the +3 bonus to the skill for choosing it at character creation and 2) you're going to have to dump every single skill point into it for two levels of rogue in order to get a sub-par skill level. You're a ranger. You didn't take int up very far (base) did you. So, you have what, 6 or 7 skill points per level? That means at level 20 you'd have 12-14 base umd with some bonuses (lets say the cartouche and head of good fortune, for a +5 bonus) and possibly some negatives (yeah, you're a ranger. You didn't take your cha up, did you). So, you'd have what, a 23-25 umd with GH? Probably less? You'd have a 5%-10% chance to use a heal scroll?

Not worth it.

[Dragavon]

You didn't take your cha up, did you). So, you'd have what, a 23-25 umd with GH? Probably less? You'd have a 5%-10% chance to use a heal scroll?

Not worth it.

U dont know what you are talking about. 23 ranks, +3 from golden cartouche, +1 from masters voice, +4 from GH, +5 from skill boost and you have 35, enough to pop raise dead scrolls on a 1, and heal scrolls on a 5. Very very useful imo. Craft a mana/CHA skill item in Shroud and you have 36 unboosted.

Oh, and read the OP. This is not a character that is lvl 18, it is for a plan for a new character. That has been stated several places.

[Zyn]

U dont know what you are talking about. <yada yada>

People make mistakes. I seem to recall someone just yesterday in this very forum, telling a tempest builder they should drop OTWF from their build because it was a waste of a feat, even though it was their chosen prereq for T-III.

FWIW, other than the line one rhetoric, I agree with the rest of your statements.

-Zyn

[Dragavon]

I guess I deserved that

[ArichValtrahn]

I have a level 5 Ranger that I had thought about throwing 2 levels of Rogue on. My question is, how many points do you need to put into search/spot/unlock/etc for the thief trap/door related skills to be of value? Is 2 levels of Rogue enough?

[honkuimushi]

I have a level 5 Ranger that I had thought about throwing 2 levels of Rogue on. My question is, how many points do you need to put into search/spot/unlock/etc for the thief trap/door related skills to be of value? Is 2 levels of Rogue enough?

If you're going to do this, you need to take Rogue at first level. Search and Disable Device have to be pretty much maxed. Open locks is much more forgiving, even 5 ranks will allow you to do a fair amount if you have a good item and tools. But if you want to get everything, you'lll probably want at least 15 ranks. Spot can be neglected if you've memorized all the trap locations, but it's really useful if you haven't. It's also really nice for seeing stealthed enemies. Wild instincts can help, but I would try to keep it maxed on a Ranger since it is a class skill.

If you want to try this, make a new character with a 14 Int. Start Rogue and you can take Ranger the rest of the way. You still get Evasion from Ranger, so Rogue 2 isn't needed. However, it does free up a lot of skill points and may allow you to get Evasion earlier.

[ArichValtrahn]

If you're going to do this, you need to take Rogue at first level. Search and Disable Device have to be pretty much maxed. Open locks is much more forgiving, even 5 ranks will allow you to do a fair amount if you have a good item and tools. But if you want to get everything, you'lll probably want at least 15 ranks. Spot can be neglected if you've memorized all the trap locations, but it's really useful if you haven't. It's also really nice for seeing stealthed enemies. Wild instincts can help, but I would try to keep it maxed on a Ranger since it is a class skill.

If you want to try this, make a new character with a 14 Int. Start Rogue and you can take Ranger the rest of the way. You still get Evasion from Ranger, so Rogue 2 isn't needed. However, it does free up a lot of skill points and may allow you to get Evasion earlier.

Thanks, I see what you are getting at. Ill start a new char.

[Smellfire]

how much charisma do you need for umd to work though, or doesn't it matter as long as you have the points?

[KoobTheProud]

If you're going to go 18/2 Ranger/Rogue then start with a Rogue level and go straight Ranger after that until you have Tempest I at least. I think you probably actually want to go Rogue, 18 Ranger, Rogue, so that you can use the Rogue point dump at the end to max out some things that are Rogue class skills. That'll let you avoid the 2 points for 1 skill level in something for 6 to 8 levels and let you bump Ranger skills cost-effectively.

I'm only 9 on my attempt at this so far but I can tell you that having 6 skill points a level makes it really tough to do more than bump UMD and Disable Device as cross-class skills each level. I've been bumping Balance and Search as the Ranger skills alongside them and I'm going to do a hard dump for a level or three into Concentration at some point and skip UMD and Disable Device, getting the missed points back with my late Rogue level.

If you really want Hide, Move Silently and Open Lock alongside UMD, Disable Device, Balance, Search and Concentration you're going to need to go at least 14 Int at the start and probably 16. Spot is out of the question after the initial dump from the first Rogue level.

I'm going to do a 14 Rogue/6 Ranger at some point and that's the guy who is going to be able to max out all the skills I'd like. 18 Ranger/2 Rogue just does not have the skill points to even come close.

[RuneStriker]

If he's really only interested in keeping UMD up and not OL, DD then what about splashing the 2nd non-Ranger level as a Bard vs a second Rogue level? It will give +1 Ref and +2 Will save bonuses, +50 SP, access to a few new spells, access to a slightly greater range of wands and still have UMD as a class skill so it can be kept high. Unless I'm missing something it seems like it would only lose 2 skill points and 1 BAB vs taking Rogue 2 but give a lot more in return (free Evasion is a wash since Ranger gets that already and HP are equal between Bard and Rogue).