It's 26 lvls builds time for me. I should play the number at the lottery. I've been recently fooling around with PM builds. Some combos have been done already, some others were not of my like. Mith pulled out the other build I was working on, with his Eternal Knight.

We've got a STR based, BoE Ranger here with quite an AC and Crit immunity, what to ask for more? UMD and Taunt? Here you go and for free you get listen too to counter those nasty sneakers.

You can easily choose to dual wield in light armor, your PM AC will make up for the DEX mod loss. DEX gear will make it even better.

One could start with STR 14, DEX 14 instead drop Heavy Armor for a feat of your choice (Stealthy?) and plan on a more stealthy approach to the build wearing light armor and going for dual wield. Move skillpoints to Hide/MS and get good use out of Ranger's Camouflage and One with the Land.

Saves are low, but are kinda decent vs spells. Save boosters are a must though.

You can still squeeze out 1 AB from the build if you feel so inclined by going all Ranger preepic; it costs playability and -3 Will/Ref saves though. Not worthy IMO.


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Death Bane - Ranger(26), Bard(4), Pale Master(10)
Human, any non good, non lawful
PvM, Playable 1-40



ABILITIES (ending)
STR: 16 (32)
DEX: 10
CON: 14
WIS: 14
INT: 14
CHA: 8


STATS SUMMARY
Hitpoints: 482
Skillpoints: 281
Saving Throws (Fortitude/Will/Reflex): 23/21/21
Saving Throw boni: Spells: +8
BAB: 29
AB: 44 (melee), 49 (melee self buffed), 30 (ranged)
AC (naked/Full Plate and Tower Shield): 26/37 (38 with +2 to DEX)
Spell Casting: Ranger(4)
Spells per lvl: 4/4/3/3
Bard Song, 4/day: +1 AB, +2 Dmg, +1 Will, +1 For


SKILLS
Discipline 43(54)
Listen 41(43)
Perform 10(9)
Search 1(3)
Set Trap 23(23)
Spellcraft 38(40)
Taunt 43(42)
Tumble 40(40)
UMD 41(40)
no points leftover


LEVELING GUIDE
01: Ranger(1): Armor Proficiency Heavy, Weapon Focus, Favored Enemy I, {Dual Wield}
02: Bard(1)
03: Ranger(2): Knockdown
04: Ranger(3): STR+1, (STR=17)
05: Ranger(4)
06: Ranger(5): Blind Fight, Favored Enemy II
07: Ranger(6)
08: Ranger(7): STR+1, (STR=18)
09: Ranger(8): Improved Knockdown
10: Ranger(9): {Improved Two-Weapon Fighting}
11: Ranger(10): Favored Enemy III
12: Bard(2): STR+1, Improved Critical, (STR=19)
13: Ranger(11)
14: Ranger(12)
15: Ranger(13): Toughness
16: Ranger(14): STR+1, (STR=20)
17: Ranger(15): Favored Enemy IV
18: Ranger(16): Lightning Reflexes
19: Ranger(17)
20: Ranger(18): STR+1, (STR=21)
21: Ranger(19): Great Strength I, (STR=22)
22: Ranger(20): Epic Weapon Focus
23: Ranger(21)
24: Ranger(22): STR+1, Great Strength II, (STR=24)
25: Ranger(23): Bane of Enemies
26: Bard(3)
27: Pale Master(1): Great Strength III, (STR=25)
28: Pale Master(2): STR+1, (STR=26)
29: Pale Master(3): {Darkvision}
30: Pale Master(4): Great Strength IV, (STR=27)
31: Ranger(24)
32: Pale Master(5): STR+1, (STR=28)
33: Pale Master(6): Great Strength V, (STR=29)
34: Pale Master(7)
35: Pale Master(8)
36: Ranger(25): STR+1, Great Strength VI, Epic Prowess, (STR=31)
37: Pale Master(9)
38: Pale Master(10)
39: Ranger(26): Armor Skin, Favored Enemy V
40: Bard(4): STR+1, (STR=32)


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Advantages
• Decent melee AB
• Good AC
• Crit immunity
• Immunity to Paralysis, Stun and Hold
• BoE
• UMD
• Taunt
• A useful animal companion
• Some useful spells


Weaknesses
• Low saves, Spellcraft helps vs spells
• Tight on skills
• Spell selection could be better; I mean, come on, look at the Paladin's spellbook!
• More Hps wouldn't hurt a meleer, luckily you are crit immune


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Feedback and constructive criticism are, as usual, gladly appreciated.


Cheers,
Kail
_________________
Unto to the darkness
I commend my soul
Never shall I repent
Never shall I be saved

I'll go into the House of Death
Before my last breath
My enemies all shall die!

Edited By Kail Pendragon on 09/01/06 08:36

Similar builds in the search engine:

Undead Ranger (Ranger 21/Bard 3/Palemaster 16) by Hediyoshi
The Tormented Warden /Ranger 21/Bard 5/Palemaster 14 by Saosin777


Saosin's build is the closest, but I'm not going for Dev Crit and I end up with a higher STR and AB, more HPs, an earlier BoE a different lvl split and overall enough differences to deem this build worth posting.
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Looking for a realm of adventure? Check out World of Greyhawk, you won't regret it. Well done Kail. No suggestions from me this time, the build is pretty much the same build I would have come up with. Pretty solid and playable all the way through and your AB is pretty good against favored enemies. Shame about the ranger spell list, but I guess some of them are useful.
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Two wrongs don't make a right but three lefts do. You should do a listing of the damage here, Kail. Cool build, wonder why I havenζt done it. Perhaps because I focus to much on the offense of the ranger to get decent defence. Like you said, BoE, crit immunity and extra AC from PM makes this an ideal dual-wielder. Do some tests on both and you'll see. Great build no matter.
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I see the fear you have inside, you can run but never hide.
I will hunt you down and tear you limb from limb.

I run the Pre-Epic Builders guild. Join and share your experience. I use this Damage Calculator, it's a good tool unless sneaks get in, cause it multiplies them on a crit. It takes some practice to make it work right (for example it doesn't stack WF and EWF so you have to add a +1 to the weapon bonus to hit; also you have to write your lvl 20 BAB then add +10 to the weapon bonus to hit for a lvl 40 build and some other tricks).

Anyhow, to make it short, I compared single wielding a scimitar to dual wielding shortswords. Dual wielding shortswords gives a higher damage output till AC 64 where it evens out; the difference is more noticeable vs FEs and with a +5 weapon. Against non FEs and with mundane weapons the scimitar gets slightly better at the highest AC (really slightly). Against Fes with +5 weapons shortsword are basically always better.

Decreasing STR to 30 reduces the range in which shortswords are the best choice by something like 10-12 AC vs FEs. With mundane weapons vs non FEs scimitar gets definitely the best choice already starting at an AC of 48-52.

Even with STR gear a bare +2 STR difference drastically changes the effectives of dual shortswords vs scimitar.

Summing up: dual wielding is overall the best choice if you keep the same STR. It is especially true vs FEs and with +5 weapons. PM AC and crit immunity will cover the AC loss from having to use light armor. DEX gear will bring the AC closer to that with single wielding in full plate (up to -4 AC to be exact, with +8 DEX, not too difficult it's Cat's Grace and a +5 DEX item) but you'll also have the definite possibility to put points into Hide/MS and go for some sneaking.


Cheers,
Kail
_________________
Unto to the darkness
I commend my soul
Never shall I repent
Never shall I be saved

I'll go into the House of Death
Before my last breath
My enemies all shall die!

Edited By Kail Pendragon on 09/01/06 20:00

I like this build Kail. It uses Bard, is immune to crits, and you get Bane early. Nice.
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It's rogue, dammit, ROGUE!!! Darn nice work. This is the kinda thing I was trying to come up with meself. You beat me to it. I was trying to come up with a way to avoid the AC loss, and PM never occured to me though. *slaps self on forehead*

Nothing to add. Just really cool.

-cs
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“If you bring a Ranger with you, it is well to pay attention to him...” I must say it is very sweet!

There is one thing about it though... no DWARF!!

I dont mean to be pciky, but I logged earlier today (at work) and noticed 3 bard4/pm10's! One by mith, one by cinn and one by kail!! WOW! I immediately thought that we were seeing the birth of a new guild.. the pale singing dwarven ale guild, or something.. alas, there are only 2 members of that one so far...

Anyway, nice idea! You dont need me to tell you that!
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Quote: Posted 07/24/06 22:47:54 (GMT) -- FinneousPJ

You should listen to avado