Dagger Ranger?

[mweaver123]

Thinking about making a return to the game and was considering an ambushing-type ranger. Is there anything that would preclude them from using daggers (i.e. like a rogue)? Perhaps not in the beginning, of course, but eventually? Most posts I see talk about rangers using a sword or handaxe or something to do the ambushing. I'm not certain why that's the case, other than preference.

I ask because I want this guy to be a skinner and in a sense, I'm lazy and I don't want to weapon swap to do the skinning. :D Plus, I think ambushing in the eyes is fun!

Thanks for any tips!

[droit]

Dagger ambushing is definitely viable for rangers at high levels. It's easy versus most armor types, but if you want to have a chance against plate, you're gonna have to really pump up the ambush and CM skills to achieve the incredibly high endrolls and phantom weighting you'll need, which is extremely TP intensive. Alternatively, you could buy some really nice enhancives and gear.

[Jeril]

Droit had been ambushing with a dagger before he had switched over to ranged, so it is doable. Probably a bit against the grain here but I'd suggest 1x in hiding and 1.5-2x in ambush, along with the usual training, 1x armor, 1x shield, 1x dodge, 1x PF, 1x perception, 1x spells, 1x HP, 1x cman, 1x climb/swim, and of course 1x surival/FA for your skinning. When you get more points you'll want to put those into combat maneuvers.

[droit]

I disagree. I think CM is a bigger priority than ambush. The big factor with dagger ambushing is achieving that rank 1 crit to activate the ambush crit weighting, which requires a high enough AS to overcome the dagger's low DF. Besides, ambush sees diminishing returns on phantom weighting past 1x.

[Jeril]

This is probably one of those things where you push the ambush early then leave it alone and work on cman. You need the ambush for the aiming, the phantom weighting, and depending on how much one over hunts you need it to actually get the benefits of ambush from hiding. With like level hunting 1x is fine, but even over hunting a little bit people have had some issues with not seeing any benefit from ambush training.

[Rhovan]

Hunting a critter 3 levels above me, I've failed to get any pushdown at all a decent number of times and that is with 2x ambush. The level and the perception of what you're hunting can make a difference. Missing the pushdown is a good reason to stick with TWC though. Each hand gets a seperate roll.

[mweaver123]

Dagger ambushing is definitely viable for rangers at high levels.

When you say "high levels", what are we talking about exactly? 50's? 60's? Something higher?

If I have to wait that long to start using a dagger, then I'm back to square one (in terms of weapon swapping to skin), so I could just go back to the drawing board and pick another weapon style (perhaps a 2hander, where I'd have one hand free for skinning quickly).

[Jeril]

As you plan on skinning most of what you hunt will have little to no armor, which plays a big roll in whether or not you can get away with using a dagger. With that in mind, you'd likely be able to start using one in your 20s or 30s I would guess.