Rangers and Paths

[Waldo52]

I'd like to start off by thanking the team for listening to (and in some cases approving) our ranger totem suggestions. I think the lack of diversity with animal skins is the biggest problem with the class from an aesthetics and customization standpoint. But I have another more mechanical concern.

Rangers are currently locked into two weapon fighting or archery. We can play plate wearers or dudes with a single giant axe, but they're somewhat gimped because the bonus feats TWF/archery feats don't do anything for them.

I recommend that we get another path or two which replace TWF with something else for the sake of diversity. Maybe something that gives free melee friendly feats like power attack, something that hands out goodies like rogue grenades, something that grants bonuses for using a shield, etc. I'm not really suggesting anything in specific but I feel we need more options for fighting styles.

While I'm on the topic of current path options and their limitations, the totem path is kind of a problem in its current state. You're really forced between choosing archer OR totem, meaning archers are arbitrarily prevented from gaining a totem early on. I suggest that we replace the totem path for future characters and simply keep a totem chooser NPC in the Arelith entry area. This will free up archers (and hypothetical future paths) to make the the character they want from level 1.