The Righteous Ranger

[Yajerman01]

BUILD GOALS
- Evasion
- Self healing/survivability
- Ability to tank Raid bosses
- Premium saves for minimal failure
- UMD capability for buffing or team assisting.

Dwarf 12 Ranger (Tempest II) /6 Paladin (Knight of the Chalice I PRe) /2 Monk


Starting stats and targets to 20
STR 16 + 5 levels + 6 item + 3 tome +2 Ram's Might, = 34
DEX 15 + 2 Ranger + 6 item +3 tome = 28
CON 14 + 2 Dwarven Constitution + 6 item +2 tome = 24
INT 11 + 3 tome = 14
WIS 14 + 3 tome + 6 item +2 exceptional bonus, +1 Monk Wisdom = 26
CHA 7 + 3 tome + 6 item = 16


YOU WILL NOTE I DID NOT ADD +4 TOMES, MADSTONE, RAGE, SCOURAGE CHOKER, OR ADDITIONAL EXCEPTIONAL ITEMS INCLUDING TURBINE POTS.

Level Progression (M=Monk, P=Paladin R=Ranger) R, R, M, R, R, R, R, M, P, P, P, R, R, R, P, R, R, R, P, P.


Master feat list in order of leveling:

Dodge, FEConstruct), TWF, Mobility,Toughness, FEElemental), Spring attack, ITWF, Power Attack, Evasion, Empower Healing, Combat Expertise, Quicken, FE: (Evil Outsider), GTWF, Maximize.

Level sequence and important Feats

Level 1 (Ranger)
Feat: (Selected) Dodge
Feat: (Favored Enemy) Construct
Feat: Bow Strength
Level 2 (Ranger):
Feat: Two Weapon Fighting
Level 3 (Monk):
Feat: Mobility
Feat: Toughness
Level 4 (Ranger):
Feat: Diehard
Level 6 (Ranger)
Feat: Favored Enemy Elemental
Feat: Spring attack
Level 7 (Ranger)
Feat: Improved Two Weapon Fighting
Feat: Manyshot
Level 8 (Monk)
Feat: Power Attack
Feat: Evasion
Level 9 (Ranger)
Feat: Empower Healing
Feat: Aura of Good
Level 10 (Ranger)
Feat: Divine Grace
Feat: Lay on Hands
Level 11 (Paladin)
Divine Health
Fear Immunity
Level 12 (Paladin)
Feat: Combat Expertise
Level 15 (Paladin)
Feat: Quicken
Level 16 (Ranger)
Feat: Favored Enemy (Evil Outsider)
Level 17 (Ranger)
Feat: Greater Two-Weapon Fighting
Feat: Precise Shot
Feat: Improved Precise Shot
Level 18 (Paladin)
Feat: Maximize
Level 20 (Paladin)
Feat: Remove Disease


YOU WILL NOTE THAT I DO NOT HAVE IMPROVE CRIT: SLASHING. I will have it in place of Combat Expertise until I aquire my Mineral II Dwarven Axes. After that, I will have no need for this feat as my alt weapons will have keen on them and/or because its will be a vorpal.



AC at Level 20
10 base
01 Dodge
03 Tempest
01 Paladin Aura
01 Bulwark Enhancement
08 Dexterity bonus
07 Monk Wisdom bonus
01 Alchemical
07 Bracers
05 Combat Expertise
05 (+5) Protection Item
49

Additional Equipment Items(Hard to get unless you quest alot stuff


Instead of going Icy Rainment for maximum AC, I wanted to free up some slots at the cost of 2 AC; therefore I chose the Dragontouch Robe

Dragontouch Robes with the following properties:
06 Dragon Touch Robes -1 AC vs. bracers
03 Dodge (Frees up and Replaces Chattering Ring)
05 Protection (Frees up and replaces +5 Protection Item)
51

Additional Items:
02 Chaos Guards
04 Shroud Insight Bonus
01 Shroud +2 Exceptional Wisdom Bonus
58 Beholder AC

Self Buffs:
01 Haste
03 Barkskin
01 Shield spell
02 DDO Store +2 Ability Pots
65

Outside sources
04 Bard AC song
02 Recitation
02 Ranger Barkskin
73 AC
05 Paladin PRe III Aura (I minus -1 because I have +1 Pally Aura Already)
78 Full raid Buff
(80 AC against favored Enemy - see enhancement setup)

SAVES:
Base/self buff Saves + enhancements will be:
Fortitude: 22 +19 = 41
Reflex: 20 + 21 = 41
Will: 15 +20 = 35

Enhancements to saves include:
+3 from Key stat items
+3 from my Paladin Charisma bonus
+2 from the Head of good fortune
+1 from the Alchemical resist bonus
+5 from Dragontouch Armour (i.e. +5 Resist)
+1 to all stats from the DDO +2 Stat pot (i.e. +2 to Dex & Wisdom)
+1 to Will save from Exceptional Bonus on my Greensteel item
+1 to reflex from Haste
+2 Vorne's Belt (+2 Exceptional Bonus to Will and Reflex)[must have combo raid set]
+4 from Greater Heroism

THESE SAVES DO NOT ACCOUNT FOR BARD SONGS, BUT REALLY DO YOU CARE WITH SAVES LIKE THAT

Base Skills
Looking at the skills for this character there are essentially 5 main skills and a few dumps here and there. The primaries are as follows:

Balance
UMD
Jump
Concentration
Spot

Depending how you want your character to turn out and what Intelligent tomes you are able to eat/read will dictate how many skill points you are able to disperse. You must remember one thing, for this character to have any decent UMD you must put all skill points possible into UMD and try to eat a +2 Tome as early as possible (level 7).


Laslty, put at least 1 skill point into Tumble, because Tumble is cool! :P


UMD

This character is not going to be sitting around, maxed out on UMD at all times. In fact, he will be riding his base UMD most of the time. What I am pointing out though is he can, sit back fully buffed and be a quasi-wanna-be-cleric in reserve, or can in the beginning of a long and hard quest, ease the cleric or casters mana by supplementing with basic buffs while upping his own AC buffs.

Based on potential UMD projections, you can establish the following:
11 Base
04 Greater Heroism
03 Charisma item
06 Shroud item
05 7-fingered gloves (Golden Cartouche is only +03)
02 Head of good fortune/recitation
31 (or 29 if you only can get the cartouche)



HIT POINTS AT LEVEL 20
With Toughness and using all the avaiable toughness enhancements he will be at a base of 359
+10 from favor in Gianthold
+30 Greater False Life
+45 Shroud Item
+20 Minos Legens
+60 from a +6 Con item
+5 From Monk Way of the Patient Tortiose
For a grand total of:
529

KEY NOTE ABOUT HPs: I did not add a +2 Exceptional Con Bonus to be calculated into this build nor a +4 tome


Enhancements in level order:

Level 1 (Ranger)
Ranger Sprint Boost I
Dwarven Axe Damage I
Ranger Favored Damage I
Level 2 (Ranger)
Ranger Favored Defense I
Ranger Devotion I
Ranger Dexterity I
Level 3 (Monk)
Dwarven Constitution
Racial Toughness I
Level 4 (Ranger)
Dwarven Axe Attack I
Level 5 (Ranger)
Ranger Devotion II
Level 7 (Ranger)
Racial Toughness II
Ranger Favored Enemy II
Ranger Tempest I
Ranger Dexterity II
Level 8 (Monk)
Dwarven Axe Damage II
Level 11 (Paladin)
Dwarven Constitution II
Way of the Pateitn Toriose I
Paladin Bulwark of Good I
Paladin Resistance I
Paladin Extra Lay on Hands I
Paladin Extra Smite I
Monk Wisdom I
Paladin Toughness I
Level 12 (Ranger)
Dwarven Axe Damage II
Level 13 (Ranger)
Paladin Courage of Good I
Paladin Focus of Good I
Ranger Favored Attack I
Level 14 (Ranger)
Ranger Favored Damage III
Ranger Favored Defense II
Level 15 (Paladin)
Paladin Extra Smite Evil II
Paladin Eneergy of the Templar I
Level 17 (Ranger)
Racial Toughness III
Level 18 (Ranger)
Ranger Tempest II
Level 19 (Paladin)
Paladin Divine Sacrifice I
Racial Toughness IV
Level 20 (Paladin)
Paladin Attack Boost I
Paladin Divine Righteousness I
Paladin Knight of the Chalice I

KEY NOTE: Ultimately you set up your enhancements how you want. I found this to be my best set-up for the time.

HEALS

I do not have this character up high enough yet to gauge the heal aspect and therefore will leave this open at this time. I pressume with Empower Healing, Maximize, Ranger Devotion III, and Torin's Neckalce with Cure Moderate spell I should hit around 100++ hp regen or so, but again, im not up to spec on the totality of this yet.

EQUIPMENT:

Yes this build is equipment tied, but that is not to say he needs everything, he just needs everything to be all he can be like any other character. Obviously I have chosen particular equipment over others for specific reasons and you might not agree with the set-up but it works for me and I feel the equipment used gives the most of what I want from this build.

He is still in the experimental phase and as indicated im not at cap to discern the best gear for him, but I use the premise of my survival build (see signature) for the base set of what he would be wearing. The twist is that he will be wearing dragontouch armour this time over the Icy Rainment.

Thus far his daily wear will look like this:

Helm: Minos

Necklace: Torin's Choker (Swaps include: Silverflame Neckalce, Jargundals Collar)

Trinket: Bloodstone with +1 resist (Swaps include: Head of good fortune with +1 resist, Mummified bat, Pearl of Sirinis, Raise dead shards turn-ins)

Cloak: +6 wisdom greensteel with +25 Hit points
Belt: Vorne's Belt +6 Con & Greater false life (Swap includes: Planar gird)

Gloves + Greenstell Guard with +20 HP(your choice of type of guard- swaps include ethreal gloves and Psyonic +6 strength Gloves)

Ring slot 1: Gnawed Ring (+6 Strength) Charisma +6 (Swaps include: all the greater elements resist when needed, +15 Intimidate)

Boots: (30% striders, fire greeves, Kundarak Boots)

Ring slot 2: Tumbleweed

Wrists: Chaos Guards or Bramble Casters (sic)

Amour: Dragontouch (+6 armour, +3 dodge, +5 protection)

Goggles: Greensteel Guards (Swaps include Tharnes and Fleshrenders)

I chose the Torin's Necklace and Gnawed ring combo bonus set for two reasons. 1. It allows me to group my greater false life with con while boosting my self healing capabilities and garnering more spell points for my Paladin/Ranger cure light/moderate wounds, plus the combo set grants me +2 to my will and reflex saves AND a permanent Spell resistance of 22. I honestly have not looked at other combo sets yet.

[Aspenor]

Why go with Pal7 over Mnk2? Mnk2 gets better saves and a feat. Granted the evasion is redundant. You really only lose a very, very minor hit to your BAB, and a very small number of hit points to Paladin toughness III and your hit dice.

Another question, since when do you get a feat at level 16? Rangers get ITWF at 6, and no bonus feat. I'm not seeing how you can squeeze both gtwf and maximize at the end unless you replace the 7th pally level with a monk level.

The way I would do it is this: take monk at levels 1 and 2, take Toughness and Mobility or Power Attack, your choice. Flesh out ranger next, but sprinkle two, maybe three pally levels in over the next 15 levels. Finally, go paladin to 20. Just my 2 cp.

[Yajerman01]

Why go with Pal7 over Mnk2? Mnk2 gets better saves and a feat. Granted the evasion is redundant. You really only lose a very, very minor hit to your BAB, and a very small number of hit points to Paladin toughness III and your hit dice. yeah, i went only 1 monk because of the redundancy in evasion. moreover, I wanted the extra AC from bullwork and +1 more resistance "across" the board, not just on wisdom, but in looking at the structure of the build wisdom appears to be the lessor of the three so that might work out better. ill check out the 1 level of monk as noted into the build

Another question, since when do you get a feat at level 16? Rangers get ITWF at 6, and no bonus feat. I'm not seeing how you can squeeze both gtwf and maximize at the end unless you replace the 7th pally level with a monk level. dont ask me, ask Ron's character creator as that is how it progressed and why i took what i did when i did. Honestly - i can do without the maximize as i looked at it as a bonus, but if it is in fact incorrect, then ill stick with GTWF; however, the additional level of monk would probably make that possible if.

The way I would do it is this: take monk at levels 1 and 2, take Toughness and Mobility or Power Attack, your choice. Flesh out ranger next, but sprinkle two, maybe three pally levels in over the next 15 levels. Finally, go paladin to 20. Just my 2 cp.

Noted insofar as the 1 more level of Monk. I agree that getting Paladuin in earlier would be nice - so i guess ill have to restructure it to see how it progresses and make the adjustments.

Bottom line Asp - is and in my other build non-cookie cutter and something unique with overall fun and versatility.

thank you for your input, much appreciated

[Aspenor]

While I greatly appreciate all the hard work Ron has put into his builder, I always rely on what I know about leveling characters. Here's my important question: is Level 16 planned to be the ranger level where you automatically get Greater Two Weapon Fighting? If so, it's probably just the case that you forgot to list Improved Two Weapon Fighting in your leveling break down, and its absence confused me. It's one of the reasons I always list every level from 1 to 20, even if I'm doing nothing important except leveling in a class.

In that case, your leveling break down should work, I think. I just can't tell without all the in-between "unimportant" levels.

I'm all for original builds, as exemplified by my Arcane Knight in my sig.

[Yajerman01]

no problem - i did list it in my master feat list, but somehow negated in the breakdowm list; mea culpa, ill post it in the appropriate space therein when i have time to post.

[Yajerman01]

Okay Asp. I tweaked him and I like what I see. Im not loosing out on HP -3, +1 more will save and I changed him from a DoS to a KoTC and I get 1 extra feat so I opted for Quicken for those tough times; however his concentration is pretty high already, but nice to cast off a 100++ spot on a heal.

[Fetchi]

This is an interesting deviation of Illuminati's Iron Monk. I have a 15ranger/3paladin/2monk that I deviated from the template myself. When I was at the 11ranger/3paladin/2monk cap at 16 I thought about 6 paladin as well, but couldn't justify the rewards vs. 3 paladin besides KotC. My AC is the same as well as my saves.

Can you help me see why 12ranger/6paladin outweighs 15ranger/3paladin. I'm not very good laying out the builds.

[Yajerman01]

sure thing. Ill take a look and get back to ya

[Yajerman01]

This is an interesting deviation of Illuminati's Iron Monk. I have a 15ranger/3paladin/2monk that I deviated from the template myself. When I was at the 11ranger/3paladin/2monk cap at 16 I thought about 6 paladin as well, but couldn't justify the rewards vs. 3 paladin besides KotC. My AC is the same as well as my saves.

Can you help me see why 12ranger/6paladin outweighs 15ranger/3paladin. I'm not very good laying out the builds.

After review it comes down to preference. I first lined up similar enhancements and feats and added the same progression insofar as skill points. Since you did not have enough paladin levels for some of the ehnancements I chose, I simply took upon your favored enemy feats as a default. So here is the breakdown:

The Righteous Ranger:

+16 HP
Knight of the Chalice Pre I (My main reason)
1st level Paladin Spells
Remove Disease feat
+1 fort save

15/3/2 Ranger/Paladin/Monk

+1 Favored Enemy feat
Access to Ranger level 4 Spells (The big option here)
+1 on Barkskin Spell

(Again, since I had so many extra action points I put them into the following)
Favored Damage IV (I have III)
Favorde Attack II (I have I however I could acquire II)
Ranger Devotion IV (I have III however I could acquire IV)
Favored Defense III (I have II)

That is about all I can see in difference, yes they are very similar

[Fetchi]

Thanks for breaking that down. Now to decide if i want to TR her lol. I built her as an elf for the rapier enhancements a long time ago. She dual weilds lightning strike rapiers. I think if I go halfling 2nd time around I can squeeze out some more AC. And sneak attack damage is always nice since she is lacking in the dps department, although the lightning strikes do make up for it from time to time.

Thanks again.

[Yajerman01]

Thanks for breaking that down. Now to decide if i want to TR her lol. I built her as an elf for the rapier enhancements a long time ago. She dual weilds lightning strike rapiers. I think if I go halfling 2nd time around I can squeeze out some more AC. And sneak attack damage is always nice since she is lacking in the dps department, although the lightning strikes do make up for it from time to time.

Thanks again.

You might wanna check out my survival build on my sig. It gives some nice insight to halfling potential which might be right up your alley. Post 16 identifies the ranger version of this build. But alas, your all set up on rapiers, but at least this will give you another perspective.

happy hunting!