Combat Role as a Ranger

I support the above whole heartedly. NPCing gives you a real sense of where your strengths lie in a system, teaches you to work within it, and really challenges, if you're throwing yourself wholly into it, your performance skills. It'll also show you how much you have to learn in terms of the combat system. Embarassing true story: I've studied weaponry, practiced martial arts, grew up around it, have made my own weapons and tools, all that jazz. I'm -leagues- from being a grandmaster or some such (I prefer the term, eternal whitebelt, because you've always a world left to learn), but I thought I'd be fine boffering my first time-fully believed I'm be fairly brilliant. After all, I was going in against mainly untrained people, right? Sure, they'd been boffering since forever, but how may had to spend hours every day repeating drills?

I. Was. Destroyed. And it wasn't just that it was the switch to boffers that did it. Experience Boffer LARPers have often told me that they suffer similar annoyances when switching to a drastically new system. So my opinion: NPC a game, then decide what you want to play.

Or be a warrior. (Kidding, kidding )

I'm with you in that I'll likely not make a game until Nov, Dec, or January at the latest, but I plan to NPC for months, if not a full year.

But, as you hit on the class I was considering, let me share my reasoning for picking Ranger as well. I may not plan to bring a PC for a while, but I've already pretty much fully developed him (well, I'm almost certain they'll be a 'him')! See my character lives in the woods, completely. To the extent I've been doing a lot of planning into how I'll Roleplay that during game, since I will absolutely refuse to step inside buildings (And that is, in and of itself, a major RP obstacle I've been wrestling with in my head, trying to make work. It'll depend heavily on being extremely sociable and likeable from the onset). It sounds much simpler than I'm making it, believe me (Incidentally, if anyone wants to know how to make snowshoes with conifer boughs and rope...)

So, given that, I looked at the professions. There are a few that can play well with a survivor out in the wilds alone, but Ranger is very much, and this is true in many systems, what I call a "buffet class;" pick a little of this and that, mix and match to your heart's content. Knight Realms actually narrows Ranger down a bit, which I like. I've played a few games where class was virtually irrelevant. But if you're thinking of combat, look at quite a few of the classes. I'd considered building a Ronin, Bounty Hunter and a Cavalier, but I decided I really didn't want to go combat heavy. That's -great- with Ranger, because while I'm looking at grabbing the Bow and bumping proficiency with that something fierce as I am extremely happy holding a bow (I used to hunt, so I can pull, nock, draw, and loose an arrow while running), as well as a One-Handed Edged and Shield Small (those later), I'm also going for Lore, Druidic, Befriend Animal, Germinate and Cure Minor Wounds. While I intend my character to be combat capable as a ranger, his first two Druid spells are going to be healing, and three more will be to temporize and possibly stop combat, and to work with animals.

I'd played with going more combat: Florentine, Florentine Master, Parry (which I may still run after), Small weapon instead of shield, Weapon Proficiency galore. I could have used the Druidic spells to really go crazy, and I could have added traps like crazy. So Ranger can be many different things, even well-focused as it is for Knight Realms.

As for armor, roll with what you'll end up doing after you get a good eye on the game. Front of the line? Tanks need armor if they're gonna be big and slow heavy-hitters. DPS needs to move fast, so they need to drop weight and be in and out. Ranged... well, as long as it doesn't effect the draw, armor is fine. But I'll be going light, if at all, simply because archers tend to be squishies, and berserkers tend to know that and enjoy the particularly delicate *crunch* our bones make O_o So I tend to skip the armor and stick to running. But if you wanna go archer with a melee backup and a lot of hit points and armor... ROCK IT. I don't see that often, it could be fun-if you can pull that off.

Because, remember, you've got Build limiting your build. Our characters rarely start out as big and bad as we imagine them being. Another good reason to do an NPC game or two! (or six, or twelve) A year of NPCing would get me most of the build for my PC's wish list, which means just dump stating after that. Admittedly, I tend to stop spending on my characters once I'm happy, as I'm not big on the numbers (Lib arts major, sue me).

So know the limits physical, mental, and system, and NPC a lot, even if you don't NPC Weekend!