Which guild(s) for a Ranger

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Ommamar
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Which guild(s) for a Ranger

Post by Ommamar »

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Last edited by Ommamar on Sat Apr 18, 2020 2:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

RealTeddyRed
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Re: Which guild(s) for a Ranger

Post by RealTeddyRed »

The Fighter's Guild quests often involve hunting down Werebeasts, giants, harpies in dungeons, as well as beasts loose in homes. For a classical ranger, this is probably your best bet for quests that fit with your roleplaying. Thieves guild also works with the stealth theme, but the quests probably won't fit as well.

A more interesting (in my opinion) route is to join the fighter's guild AND the mage's guild. Focus on invisibility and create item spells, so you can hide in the shadows while conjuring temporary arrows. You can also play around with alchemy as it kind of fits into the whole man-of-nature theme. If you want to go real crazy, you can become a werewolf to be the "ultimate hunter" and eventually use your status in the mage's guild to summon Hircine of the Hunt.

Dark Brotherhood and/or Vampirism could also work if you want to go toward the darker "hunter of humans" thing.

During character creation, taking bonus to hit Animals (or humanoids if your doing the dark brotherhood/vampire route) fits perfectly with your roleplaying (and will help you deal with any absolutely abhorrent early-game Scorpions) and expertise in missile weapons is pretty much required. Athleticism, acute hearing, and also Increased magery x3 if you go the arrow conjuring route, are perfect as well.

For pure roleplaying purposes, you could also try and soulbind a spriggan, tiger, or maybe even nymph into a bow that has fortify Running, Archery, or Climbing as well as vampiric strike (especially if you go the dark brotherhood/vampire route).

EDIT: I really wish there was a mod that added a "Huntsmen's Guild" or something along those lines, there isn't much that works super well for the classical ranger right now.

EDIT 2: I completely forgot about the temple of Kynareth. Dodging and Archery are two of their major skills, and their connection to the wind could work well with ranger roleplaying, and you can summon Hircine through their daedra summoner if you don't want to go super far into the mage's guild. Definitely a viable option.

Ommamar
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Re: Which guild(s) for a Ranger

Post by Ommamar »

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Last edited by Ommamar on Sat Apr 18, 2020 2:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Hazelnut
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Re: Which guild(s) for a Ranger

Post by Hazelnut »

Ommamar wrote: Sun Aug 04, 2019 9:50 pm it can be tediouos scouring the stores to get a decent amount of arrows.
Is this really an issue? I don't think it should be but it's a while since I did some playtesting with my archer. I found as long as you picked up arrows from corpses, there was never much need to replace many each time I visited a town. It can take a while to build up a healthy stack initially, but its easier than creating a spell and all that you are suggesting, so I'm interested in more detail about your experiences if you think there's an issue here.
See my mod code for examples of how to change various aspects of DFU: https://github.com/ajrb/dfunity-mods

Ommamar
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Re: Which guild(s) for a Ranger

Post by Ommamar »

Hazelnut wrote: Mon Aug 05, 2019 10:57 am
Ommamar wrote: Sun Aug 04, 2019 9:50 pm it can be tediouos scouring the stores to get a decent amount of arrows.
Is this really an issue? I don't think it should be but it's a while since I did some playtesting with my archer. I found as long as you picked up arrows from corpses, there was never much need to replace many each time I visited a town. It can take a while to build up a healthy stack initially, but its easier than creating a spell and all that you are suggesting, so I'm interested in more detail about your experiences if you think there's an issue here.
Last edited by Ommamar on Sat Apr 18, 2020 2:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Hazelnut
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Re: Which guild(s) for a Ranger

Post by Hazelnut »

Ommamar wrote: Mon Aug 05, 2019 3:46 pm
Hazelnut wrote: Mon Aug 05, 2019 10:57 am
Ommamar wrote: Sun Aug 04, 2019 9:50 pm it can be tediouos scouring the stores to get a decent amount of arrows.
Is this really an issue? I don't think it should be but it's a while since I did some playtesting with my archer. I found as long as you picked up arrows from corpses, there was never much need to replace many each time I visited a town. It can take a while to build up a healthy stack initially, but its easier than creating a spell and all that you are suggesting, so I'm interested in more detail about your experiences if you think there's an issue here.
a little bit it really depends on what equipment you get at start up which this particular build had a very bad roll all his starting equipment was unusable based on the stipulation it had. One thing I noticed is that the recover arrow from a corpse only seems to work if it is a bow kill. If I change to a melee weapon particularly on animals I don't get the option to recover arrows. So if I shoot 3 or 4 times but change to a melee weapon that I have higher skill in and a better material I don't get those back.
Are you sure? The plucking arrows thing was added just to save clicks, so it triggers if a corpse only contains arrows. Note that missed arrows are lost - this is standard DF behaviour. So could it be you were missing and switched to melee and that's why there were no arrows.

As I said my main playtesting char was an archer and I don't remember it being that hard to get started, but this was a year ago before the enhanced AI so that may have made a big difference to difficulty.
See my mod code for examples of how to change various aspects of DFU: https://github.com/ajrb/dfunity-mods

Ommamar
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Re: Which guild(s) for a Ranger

Post by Ommamar »

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Last edited by Ommamar on Sat Apr 18, 2020 2:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

RealTeddyRed
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Re: Which guild(s) for a Ranger

Post by RealTeddyRed »

Personally I haven't had much trouble playing with archery as my only weapon type, a good stack of 20-30 arrows can last you an entire dungeon if used correctly. Backstabbing also works with bows and can help out a bit with your damage output if you mix it with a chameleon/shadow or normal invisibility spell (true invisibility is a little cheesy for this build). And yeah the pluck arrows feature does not trigger if the enemy has other loot on them besides arrows, you will have to manually grab the arrows in that case. I usually put Mysticism as a major skill for mark/recall and create item in case I really need it.

I think having a huntsmen's guild where you can refill on arrows would help secure the playstyle. Sort of like the mage's guild refilling a sorcerer's spell points or stendarr restoring health (maybe if you have less than X amount of arrows, they will give a stack). That and I think human enemies should drop arrows much more than they do at the moment. They are all capable of using a bow but very rarely actually carry arrows on them.

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Jay_H
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Re: Which guild(s) for a Ranger

Post by Jay_H »

If blocks can be edited, I say take one of the dungeon blocks and stuff it full of wilderness adventurers. You'd have to search for them but once you know where they are, they'd be around to offer you potions, arrows, maybe sell bows, and so on.

Regnier
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Re: Which guild(s) for a Ranger

Post by Regnier »

RealTeddyRed wrote: Mon Aug 05, 2019 5:08 pm Personally I haven't had much trouble playing with archery as my only weapon type, a good stack of 20-30 arrows can last you an entire dungeon if used correctly. Backstabbing also works with bows and can help out a bit with your damage output if you mix it with a chameleon/shadow or normal invisibility spell (true invisibility is a little cheesy for this build). And yeah the pluck arrows feature does not trigger if the enemy has other loot on them besides arrows, you will have to manually grab the arrows in that case. I usually put Mysticism as a major skill for mark/recall and create item in case I really need it.

I think having a huntsmen's guild where you can refill on arrows would help secure the playstyle. Sort of like the mage's guild refilling a sorcerer's spell points or stendarr restoring health (maybe if you have less than X amount of arrows, they will give a stack). That and I think human enemies should drop arrows much more than they do at the moment. They are all capable of using a bow but very rarely actually carry arrows on them.
So sneak archer is a viable build? Is archery too slow to strike at high levels?

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