[4e] Gnome Ranger Build (warning: newbish)

[Gnome Alone]

Howdy Playgroundistas, I thought I'd ask some quick advice on account of y'all so knowledgeable.

I am pretty new to playing D&D, and especially 4e - I've played in two one-off games, and the first was seriously just a skill challenge. But it turns out that a local gaming store near me does Friday night dungeon crawls, in which Level 1 characters traipse off into a pit in the ground belonging to some crazy wizard, blah blah blah, etc.

Supposedly it's pretty deadly; they mark the positions of and draw your attention to the corpses of previous adventurers. Now, I'm no sore loser but I'd like to not die, so with that in mind I asked the advice of my brother, a long-time RPer and DM, for some advice on creating a guy with a decent chance of surviving - he said go Ranger or Cleric. As it turns out I was thinking Ranger anyway for some reason, so Ranger it is.

This seems a good time to mention that the store's dungeon (interesting phrase there) allows only classes, races and feats from the PHB 1, except you can also be a Goliath, Drow or Gnome. Again on brotherly advice, I went Gnome for the racial encounter power Fade Away, which will allow me to go invisible after getting wailed on.

So I'm an Archer Ranger with a longbow and hide armor, my at-wills are Twin Strike and Nimble Strike, my encounter is Evasive Strike, my daily is Hunter's Bear Trap and my feat is Lethal Hunter. Basically I figure I'll try to ventilate everything before it gets too close as my main survival strategy. (Stealth is definitely on the Trained Skill list [along with Acrobatics, Perception and Dungeoneering.])

So I'd appreciate any advice on any of this, but where I'm especially worried is stats. I'm a big fan of rolling for stats, but the policy is all stats starting at 10 except one at 8, then 22 points to distribute anywhere. I'm not sure, but isn't point-buy weighted in some way the higher it gets? Because putting the 8 in INT and with the Gnome's +2 to INT and CHA, I came up with STR 12, DEX 18, CON 14, INT 10, WIS 18, CHA 12, but I'm not sure I can actually do that and it makes me feel munchkin-y.

Well, any ideas, folks? Thanks in advance.

Also, since if you've read this far you clearly don't mind me yammering on wasting your time, I will tell you I've decided to name my lil' ranger Sloopy. As in, hang on, Sloopy. Sloopy, hang on.

[cupkeyk]

You can't use a longbow with a gnome because they are small. the small descriptor says you can't use large two-handed weapons. So shortbow! or crossbow, which deals better damage but reloads better.

[Gnome Alone]

Aw crap. Thanks. Shortbow is d8, right? Crossbow...? (Don't have the book just yet.)

[Kurald Galain]

As it turns out I was thinking Ranger anyway for some reason, so Ranger it is.

Rangers are the most damaging class in the game, so you're on solid ground there.

Evasive Strike is decent but Fox's Cunning is better (out-of-turn attacks are great). Hunter's Bear Trap is not very impressive, but neither are the other ranger-1 dailies. Lethal Hunter is an okay feat but deals less damage than Weapon Focus.

Yes, 22-point-buy is supposed to be weighted. That said, you should definitely try for an 18 dexterity, although you won't be able to also get an 18 wisdom. That's okay, wisdom is your secondary stat. Don't worry at all about strength or charisma on an archer ranger, they do pretty much nothing for you.

[Master_Rahl22]

Regarding "feeling munchkin-y", don't. 4E is designed from the outset that your character will be cool and do cool things even at level 1. None of the previous edition's "You're gonna be awesome later so you have to suck right now" philosophy. Also, the whole point of the point buy is to put everybody on equal footing. 4E places a great emphasis on class balance and making sure nobody in the party feels useless, and part of that is making sure you don't have one guy with nothing but 18s and one guy whose highest stat is a 12 or something.

I agree with Kurald that you can ignore STR and CHA. Get an 18 in DEX, get a decent WIS at 14 or so, and probably put CON around 14 as well if you're that concerned about survival. You then have a decent score to boost each NAD (Fort, Ref, Will defenses) and those are all good stats to have. Since you seem to have trouble figuring out how the PB works, try this link for a 4E point buy calculater

Are you allowed to take powers from other books? You didn't mention them, but if you are you should take Spitting Cobra Stance from Martial Power at 5. It lets you attack anything that moves within 5 squares of you, very awesome for an archer.

[Fallbot]

Lethal hunter was the first feat I took with my first ranger, but I have to agree with Kurald and say weapon focus is a better choice, especially in heroic tier when you're only rolling one die for quarry damage.

The ranger handbook is worth looking at, if you haven't already.

Shortbows are indeed d8. As a gnome you'd only be able to use a hand crossbow (I think. I'm not really familiar with the rules for small characters), which is the same prof, 1d6 damage and 10/20 range, so has nothing over a shortbow except potentially flavour.

[Mando Knight]

Gnome is honestly one of the worse races you can pick for Ranger, actually. Its stats are in all the wrong places and the Small size hurts since you don't get the same free +1 AC/attack that you do in 3.5. The elf races, Humans, and Halflings are ones that I'd look at before Gnome for an archery ranger, since they can all get bonuses to Dexterity and aren't restricted in their weapon selection. (Except for the Halflings, but they get +Dex and a racial ability to force an enemy to reroll, so it's still better than just the one-shot invisibility power)

Although you can ignore Strength, I still wouldn't put an 8 in it, since you never know if your DM will decide to use encumbrance and a penalty to Athletics isn't very helpful, especially since you're supposed to be wearing Hide armor, which gives another penalty. Train Athletics, by the way.

[Gnome Alone]

Yeah, I'm ditching the Gnome idea. Here I just wanted to be different, but nooooo. Sigh. I could live with plusses to dump stats, but the weapon restrictions on top of that are too much. So Elf it is, deadly, deadly stereotypical Elf.

Thanks for the advice, everyone, on build choices and not feeling like a munchkin and such. I think I will take Weapon Focus and Fox's Cunning, those seem solid. Oh, and I can't take powers or anything from any source but the PHB.

I still can't wrap my head around point-buy, though - I know it's weighted, but how? I tried using that calculator that was linked to and it said I couldn't do 18 Dex, 14 Wis and Con, so I'm a bit confused.

[Fallbot]

You can get a total dex of 18 if you apply the unweighted +2 dex you get from being an elf - tick the +2s for dex and wis and then select 16 from the drop down menu, which should leave you easily able to buy your other scores up to 14.

For reference it costs 1 to increase to 11, 2 for 12, 3 for 13, 5 for 14, 7 for 15, 9 for 16, 12 for 17 and 16 for 18. ...I'm allowed to post that, right?

[Ozreth]

None of the previous edition's "You're gonna be awesome later so you have to suck right now" philosophy.

Don't make it sound like such a bad thing, some of us like starting off as humble farm boys setting off to a nearby cave in search of giant rats armed with nothing but big sticks and sleeping bags : p

(sorry if i just started an edition war!)

[tcrudisi]

For an elf ranger, I would advise starting with
Str 8 or 10
Con 11
Dex 20
Int 8 or 10
Wis 16
Cha 8 or 10

Make one of the Str/Int/Cha trifecta an 8, the other two are 10's. I'm a big fan of the starting 18(+2 racial) for Rangers since that impacts hit, AC, and Reflex. Wis is very much your secondary stat and should not be neglected either. Con 11 really only helps once you hit level 11, but hey, at least it's +1 hp in the mean-time.

[Kurald Galain]

For an elf ranger, I would advise starting with
Dex 20

This, oh so very much. You'll be glad you did.

If an elf is a bit too cliched for you, consider that eladrin also make good rangers and get teleportation ability, and that halflings are also useful. Also, gnomes are better than you think: a good racial power has a much greater impact than having stat boosts that match your class.

[erikun]

I'm a big fan of Gnomes, but the 4e Ranger is one of the worst matches possible. Small size for less weapon damage on your multiple [W] attacks, less speed for getting in and out of a situation, and bonuses in the stats that don't matter. If you want a magical race that has a trick up its sleeve, you might give Eladrin a try. The ability to teleport into a good position (or out of a bad on) is probably rather similar to what you had in mind for the Gnome to begin with.

[Kurald Galain]

I'm a big fan of Gnomes, but the 4e Ranger is one of the worst matches possible. Small size for less weapon damage on your multiple [W] attacks, less speed for getting in and out of a situation, and bonuses in the stats that don't matter.

However:
(1) The ranger's damage comes not from the weapon damage die, but from static modifiers. You could dual wield daggers and still have huge damage output.
(2) Speed is important for melee characters, much less for ranged.
(3) Having bonuses in the wrong stats is unfortunate, but you can still easily get an 18 in your main stat.

Also, Fade Away is a very useful (and fun, and iconic) ability. Don't discount mix-and-match races: 4E is more flexible than you think! Heck, the OP specified he didn't want to be munchkin-y; it's not like gnomes are bad at rangering. They're good at rangering. Not as good as elves, but still good. Try it.

[erikun]

Perhaps I am missing several new powers, but I see a lot of 3[W] and 4[W] attacks in the Ranger's selection. That isn't as big as the Barbarian's attacks, but it is a lot more common than for the Paladin (a class that I consider a good match for the Gnome). Rangers get some static bonus damage, true, but a Rogue gets far more and benefits more from Fade Away. Their use of daggers isn't affected by the Gnome's size, either.

On that matter, Fade Away is far more interesting on, say, a Warlord - especially with the PHB2 feats that allow you to vanish an ally. Or cause the attacker to grand CA when you use it.

As for how good a Gnome is at rangering, well... I would like to see another race that pairs worse with the Ranger. It is true that even the worst matchups in 4e are still quite useable characters, but that doesn't prevent it from being one of the worst class pairings for the Gnome.

[Kurald Galain]

Perhaps I am missing several new powers, but I see a lot of 3[W] and 4[W] attacks in the Ranger's selection.

Sure, but you also see a lot of "two or three attacks at 1[W] each" or "make an out-of-turn attack for 1[W]". Those tend to be the better powers, because they multiply your damage mods. It starts with Twin Strike. It doesn't matter much if you do 1d6+20 or 1d8+20, but it does matter if you do (2x 1d6)+20 or 2x (1d6+20).

a Rogue gets far more and benefits more from Fade Away.

Not particularly. The point of Fade Away is (1) that you don't get hit, and (2) that you get a free round of movement without OAs. That you get combat advantage is more useful to the ranged archer, because a (melee) rogue will already have CA in a variety of other ways. Even a non-gnome rogue has CA 95% of the time.

As for how good a Gnome is at rangering, well... I would like to see another race that pairs worse with the Ranger.

That's easy. Any race with a racial power that (1) sucks, or (2) only works in melee. For example, bullywugs, or minotaurs, or orcs.
Also, surprisingly, a half-elf makes a pretty bad ranger. This is because half-elf is usually taken to add Twin Strike to another class; you don't need half-elf on a class that already has TS.

[erikun]

That's easy. Any race with a racial power that (1) sucks, or (2) only works in melee. For example, bullywugs, or minotaurs, or orcs.
Also, surprisingly, a half-elf makes a pretty bad ranger. This is because half-elf is usually taken to add Twin Strike to another class; you don't need half-elf on a class that already has TS.

Odd; I've played a Minotaur Druid with only 12 Strength, and I still found plenty of uses for his racial ability. They only appeared every three or four encounters, but it was still a very handy ability to have during those times.

I'm sure I could find something useful for a Half-Elf Ranger, especially a ranged one that is at least as beneficial as turning invisible once after already receiving damage.

[Kurald Galain]

Odd; I've played a Minotaur Druid with only 12 Strength, and I still found plenty of uses for his racial ability.

Precisely my point. Since you have personal experience with playing a race with the "wrong" stat bumps and a seemingly unmatching racial power, you should not be so dismissive of the idea of a gnome ranger.

[Gnome Alone]

Precisely my point. Since you have personal experience with playing a race with the "wrong" stat bumps and a seemingly unmatching racial power, you should not be so dismissive of the idea of a gnome ranger.

Indeed, I believe you have convinced me to stick with my original
plan. Thanks. I do get caught up in the thrill of Ye Olde Min-Maxing sometimes but I really like unconventional things even if they're not "optimized.". I just got the PHB finally and am looking forward to making a bunch of characters to have something to choose from. Well, and for the thrill of doing it. Gotta be a wacky choice for a Tiefling out there somewhere.

[Master_Rahl22]

A Tiefling Fighter with feats from Martial Power and some Dragon stuff can actually be a decent choice.

[MeeposFire]

Just note in the recent update to gnomes they now can choose to have dex as a boosted stat which is nice for this gnome ranger.