Rangers guide by Ariek Treefall

First an introduction, I've played many rangers since the beginning so many months ago, nothing in this guide is false or untested, others opinions may vary but nothing is incorrect.

Before going into stats, I'm going to tell you the basics, Rangers are more closely related to rogues than warriors, so anything you know about how to play a warrior you can forget, no 2 handers and no double weapon, it may be fun to whack a hobgoblin for 120 points with a claid but as you'll see if you go this route you can't compare to a warrior in training and yet the weakness involved will still affect you fully.
One handed edged weapons(OHE) is the way to go without a doubt due to their training cost and the sheer number of weapons out there to use. Mainly weapons of choice are the broadsword and falchion, their are others like longswords and katanas, but they are much the same as the normal OHE weapons. So if you have the chance to get one do so, but don't spend all your money, it's the arm not the weapon that kills. I'll get more into that later.

Now to armor, their are two options, double leather and brigandine, both cover all the body parts, so the addons, greaves etc aren't needed. Now the differences lie in a number of things that you have to consider to make your choice.
1. Spell hindrance: double has none,brigandine's is 8% that means on average 8% of your spells will fail, now that sounds low and it is but consider at any time this could happen, your casting 601 and 1 fails no biggie whats 1 mana but it could happen when your casting 130 trying to rescue your party and a failure at that point would no doubt put you in a grave situation.
2. Training: double adds 2 seconds to RT so 40 in armor is needed to train it away, brigandine adds 6 so 120 is needed to train away the RT adder. Now with certain DEX and REF stats you may be able to wear the armor with nothing added to your attack RT, but it's still there, your good reflexes are canceling it out, but train anyway so your reflexes can be used for you instead of making up for inadequet armor training.
3. Action Penalty: double has -8% and brigandine a -13%, this affects everything from climbing to swimming to standing, to quantitize it say you have a 50% chance on climbing this wall, with double on you have a 42% and with brigandine 37%.

Thats all the numbers but the actual armor use I will explain now, wearing no armor if you get hit depending on the damage it will have what they call a rank, a rank 1 won't do much harm a scratch. But with no armor any hit will be moved up a rank in severity, so instead of a rug burn you may get a minor without any armor. Now if you have an armor table you'll see how every AsG adds another body part protection, no armor in a sub group is any better than another they just cover different parts.
So wearing double leather will prevent this rank increase on everybody part because it covers the whole body. So with those assumptions you can see that brigandine being a step above leather, will actually reduce the rank of wounds, you won't take less damage but (well the AvDs are different so you might against most weapons) you won't crit as easily. Same goes for the chain hauberk and full plate which are the other full coverage armors.

So theirs that, choose double and train armor till 40 or choose brigandine and train till 120, of course you can also train till 120 and use brig when you need it and wear double when you need your spells. If you want the flexibility than the last method is the way to go. You can also just remove your brigandine before you hunt,cast your defensive spells then wear it and head out, most our spells are precast and defense in nature, so this is a fine work around.

As I said before rangers are similar to rogues, and very much unlike warriors, so you want to learn ambushing and hiding, we as rangers have many spells that will augment your ambushing ability and you will see it is our weapon, not spells, not huge AS's or weapons, but a neat and clean kill. Now don't get me wrong spells are the most important thing to a ranger but not as an attack in themselves your spells will help and protect you, but if you want to kill something with spells their are others professions.

Now for a few numbers, these are the skills you *must* train in...
Armor, once a year till either 40 or 120, as explained above.
Edged, double train every year without fail, period.
Shield, double train every year without fail again, period.
Ambush, once a year, for the life of your character.
Hiding, once a year also.

Double training kills training points so don't do it, its a waste and rangers cannot afford waste, none.

Physical training, once a year till maximum. (see note below)
Combat Manuevers, once a year, but if you need points elsewhere this is the one to skip.
Spell Research, once a year without fail, with the exception at 0 level, you cannot cast a spell yet so you can skip it and save mental points, but only once!

Note:With PT, the trick is don't get hit, if your dying from 0 HP with the exception of bleeding to death then your doing somthing wrong. All of my deaths were from: automatic crits (all necks),a few stun clouds that stun you and just don't stop,and a undead giantman with a blackened claidhmore, hit me for 150+ even if I had more HPs than that he would have critted my whole body anyway, so play smart and don't waste tps double training, you'll get to the same place everyone else does, but it will cost you less.

So far the tally is:
4/0(armor),9/3(edged), 12/0(shield), 3/2(ambush), 2/1(hiding), 4/0(PT), 6/3 (CM) and 0/32 (spell research)
Total: 40 physical training points/41 mental training points

All of this stuff is the basics every ranger needs to be able to fight at his/her level and advance without to much diffuculty and get the spells that make the ranger unique and very fun to play.

Ok now that you see the basic goal you want in stats I will now discuss what and how to go about getting these numbers.
First the equations:
Physical TPs=(Discipline+Aura+Strength+Constitution+Dexterity+Reflexes)/10
Mental TPs=(Discipline+Aura+Intelligence+Logic+Wisdom+Charisma)/10
Each has 6 attributes that have a max of 100 so the most of either TPs would be 60 with all 100's.
And you'll notice Discipline and Aura are in both equations so as far as training points go their doubly important. So if you put a 100 in both discipline and aura, with just those 2 stats you will have 20/20, already half way to the goal of 40/41.

Next important stat for rangers is wisdom. Wisdom determines mana for rangers and you will have spells, if you don't I suggest playing a rogue or warrior, the equation for ranger mana is (Wisdom-40)/20 * level so anything less than a 60 wisdom and your doomed in getting 1 or less mana every training which is not enough, 80 wisdom and you'll get 2 mana a training which is barely acceptable, you'll want more, but 80 in wisdom will be enough, try for higher if you can, also remember you will get a +10 to this stats for being a ranger. Another goodie about a high wisdom is chests disarming and picking, I'll throw these equations in and talk about it later,
Finding a trap:disarm skill+wisdom bonus+perception+d100 >100 success
Disarming traps:disarm skill+wisdom bonus+(trap lore spell) >100 success
Picking:(picking skill+wisdom bonus)*lockpick modifier+d100+(lock lore spell) -lock rating >100 success

Next, dexterity and reflexes, reflex bonus adds directly to your DS in all stances, and both of these combine to lessen RT, to my knowledge for every +15 bonus in DEX and REF 1 second will be removed from attacking, now for normal attacks it will only remove armor and encumbrance penalities but what the ranger needs it for is ambush RT, for any ambush 2 seconds is added to your normal RT so if its 5 seconds you will ambush with a 7 sec RT, now if your REF and DEX is low then it will affect ambush time negatively so your normal RT may be 5, but with bad stats ambush could be 8,9... so on. So you can see how an 8 second RT can be very cumbersome in battle, even 1 second off the normal 7 sec will help alot. And forget about rapiers and sabres, some people like em, but I'm sure they do cause they have to. I rerolled a Lord ranger because of this one thing, I simply wasn't enjoying having to wait 8 seconds between ambushes, you want to hide after an ambush and attack again and also so you won't get hit and 7-8 seconds is just too long.

The rest are based on what kinda rolls you get, Strength is important you want 60+ inless your a giantman then because of the +15 bonus you can get away with alot lower, Constitution you get a +10 for class, so a high roll isn't needed and not suggested, you still need to get 20 more mental points so you need good stats in INT,CHA,LOG. All the other stats you can play with
but keep in mind the training point goal of 40/41.

Aim for:Aura- 90 or 80 (get a 90 in one of these)
Discipline- 80 or 90
Wisdom- 80 (+10)
Dexterity- 60
Reflexes- 60
Strength- 60
Intelligence-50
Logic- 50
Charisma- 50
Constitution-40 (+10)

The above breakdown totals 620 aim for more based on time you have to spend rolling 630 is possible, I've even heard people getting 680+ rolling, if your lucky, the above will total exactly 40/40 for training points, 100 in either aura will give you 41/41 and 100 in discipline 42/42 any of the other stats will only affect one aspect of tps, ie 60 in INT will make them 40/41.

Note:Training points are from the actual numbers and nothing to do with race so forget about race as far as the actual numbers go, remember 40/41 is what you want to aim for, higher is better.
Racial Bonuses: These will affect you after tps are figured out, decide what you want to be, look at the various bonuses and juggle some stats from the above list and try to maintain the goal tps and still have a workable character.

Ok now to the skills that will make *you* unique, this is the reason for skipping spell research at the 0 level training 32 mental points to spread over the first few years till your stats improve and you get more tps.
Theres a number of options, some aren't options at all, like swimming and climbing 2/0 and 2/1 pretty cheap, you want a 50 in each of these by year 20 so train when ya can. If you get 42+ physical tps to start that no problem you can start at year 0 and train every other year in each of them, or wait till your older and have more points to spare, thats all up to you.
Lots of people say mana share is important, but with spell training rangers are hard fought to spare the 3 mental is costs, aim for 50% by year 20, higher if you choose and are able.
First aid, very helpful, can save your hide, can also save others hide and even used to save critters hides.(skinning) I trained in some just out of old habits, you can decide if *you* want it.
And the other 3 popular ones, disarming,picking and perception, if you want to be a chest opening ranger,(their are some) then these are what you need to train in, the fact that you will already have an excellent wisdom bonus will add greatly to your skill, but these skills are expensive, disarm is 2/4,picking 3/4 and perception 0/3, you simply won't be able to train every year or even double train like a rogue without sacrificing something else, theres good experience gain in later years when their isn't much to hunt, but with the advent of Teras Isle, that may not be a problem for you when you get to that point (40's+) and theres many trainings between then and now.
Their are other skills like brawling, trading and stealing etc, if you want to get these, go ahead, but make sure you don't sacrifice the basic stuff, their is flexibility for rangers but it'll cost you for these. And some like trading just aren't worth the points you spend on them.

And, finally the *spells*! Like I said before, skip level 0 spell research, you need those 32 points for other things in the early years, their are a few viable routes in spell training, and you'll have to decide which is right. First spell you want to get is natural colors 601, it adds +10 DS, later in life you'll never go without it, but early on it takes 10 seconds to prep and lasts a little less than 2 minutes, so you want it but its not as practical when young, at 6th year the prep time will be 0 so you can cast it in rapid succession to build the duration, then it becomes useful.
After you have 601 there's 2 routes, either continue upto 606 Phoen's Strength or switch to Minor Spirit upto 103, 606 adds 10 to AS and also allows you to carry more, and 103 adds 10 DS, 606 is just a great spell, and 103 is really nice because its duration is real long, it can't be built up though.
If you got 601 and then went to 103, move back and get 606 next. If you went to 606, you have a choice either go back and get 103 or just continue upto *THE* best ranger spell, 613 adds 25 DS *and* 25 TD and a good duration also.
After you have 613, regardless if you have 103 already, go back to Minor spirit and get upto 107.
So at 20th year assuming you only skipped 0 level, you will have upto 613 and upto 107.
So with 601 +10 DS
103 +10 DS
613 +25 DS +25 TD
101 +10 TD -10 Elem Def
107 +25 TD -25 Elem Def
602 +20 Elem Def
Plus 608 which adds +30 AS for one attack
610 tangleweed which drags opponents down for easier kills
607 sounds -20 DS on an opponent no failure
611 mass colors, 601 for you and all your friends and longer duration
612 breeze a great spell for those cloud casting critters
Theres some other limited use spells read the spell lists and see.

Also after you have 613 and 107, study the lists and see what spells you want for your style, many opinions vary. All I'll say is once you have what I said the rest aren't as nice, 150 is really nice but thats a looonng way away and its your decision on how to go about getting there, Mobility 618 is another great spell to keep in mind. Nothing above 620 on the ranger list is implemented so a waste to train in as is 605 but you have to train that one, the minor spirit list is full implemented so all those spells work.

Hope this was helpful, and adds to your enjoyment of Gemstone.
Please feel free to send any comments, complaints and corrections to:
Eric148503