We ran into an issue in our game today, and I’m just wondering if anyone else has seen this or might know a solution.
One of our players is (well, was…) a ranger. Every time he would use animal companion (after level 5, this wasn’t always the case), it would instantly aggro him and start a combat. No one else had him marked as an enemy, only the ranger. We once tried attacking it when we were in camp, and Astorian ran over to heal it. If no one made any moves and just ended their turn, the combat rotation just went in circles and nothing would happen. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
The problem is Swords Bard 7/Thief 3/Fighter 2 does everything that build does but better.
Swords Bard 6 is double Gloomstalker Ranger 5’s damage in every situation, it gains more expertise and proficiencies, and it’s full spell casting is insanely useful in dialog and combat. Enhance Ability basically means never failing a skill check from Bard 3 on.
Even the Fall back of SB 8/Thief 3/Fighter 1 outpaces the Ranger build on all fronts.
Completely agree - I was responding to someone who expressed surprised at anyone playing Ranger at all. The Gloomstalker build is certainly overshadowed by the swords bard build, but it’s still a very strong build and perfectly viable in tactician - as you know, it just isn’t that tough. And while swords bard is stronger, it too is overshadowed by Sorlock EB rider-stacking builds which are in turn completely ec;lipsed by simple tavern brawler zerker throw builds.
All I was saying is that it’s not completely unreasonable for someone to play Ranger and while it’s certainly not the best it’s still a very strong build and perfectly capable of destroying tactician.