UA:Ranger Variant: Urban Ranger

This material is published under the OGL

Ranger Variant: Urban Ranger

The urban ranger stalks the treacherous streets of the city, relying on his knowledge of alleyways and underworld contacts to keep him alive.

Class Skills: Eliminate Knowledge(nature), Knowledge(dungeoneering), and Survival from the ranger's class skill list. Add Gather Information, Knowledge(local), and Sense Motive to the class skill list.

Class Features

The urban ranger has all the standard ranger class features, except as noted below.

Animal Companion: An urban ranger cannot have an animal larger than Medium as his animal companion.

Urban Tracking: An urban ranger does not gain the Track feat at 1st level. Instead, he gains the Urban Tracking feat (see the sidebar), which allows him to use Gather Information to track down a missing person, suspect, or other individual within a community.

Wild Empathy:An urban ranger adds only one-half his class level to wild empathy checks, reflecting his lmited connection with the natural world.

Favored enemy: At the DM's discretion, an urban ranger may select an organization instead of a creature type as his favored enemy. For example, a character might select a particular thieves' guild, merchant house, or even the city guard. The favored enemy bonuses would apply to all members of the chosen organization, regardless of their creature type or subtype.

Spellcasting: The urban ranger's spell list is different from the standard ranger list. The following spells are eliminated from the urban ranger's spell list: animal messenger, charm animal, detect animals or plants, speak with animals, bear's endurance, hold animal, snare, speak with plants, command plants, diminish plants, plant growth, reduce animal, tree shape, water walk, commune with nature, and tree stride.

In exchange, the urban ranger adds the following spells to his class list: 1st--- comprehend languages, detect chaos, detect good, detect evil, detect law, detect secret doors, message; 2nd---detect thoughts, knock, locate object, eagle's splendor; 3rd---discern lies, invisibility, speak with dead, tongues; 4th---dimensional anchor, locate creature, mage's faithful hound, true seeing.

Woodland Stride: An urban ranger does not gain this ability.

Swift Tracker (Ex): Beginning at 8th level, an urban ranger may make a Gather Information check for his Urban Tracking feat every half hour without taking the normal -5 penalty.

Camouflage: An urban ranger does not gain this ability.

Hide in Plain Sight (Ex): An urban ranger can use this ability in any area, whether natural terrain or not.

Urban Tracking[General]

You can track down the locations of missing persons or wanted individuals within communities.

Benefit: To find the trail of an individual or to follow it for 1 hour requires a Gather Information check. You must make another Gather Information check every hour of the search, as well as each time the trail becomes difficult to follow, such as when it moves to a different area of town.

The DC of the check, and the number of checks required to track down your quarry, depends on the community size and the conditions:

If you fail a Gather Information check, you can retry after 1 hour of questioning. The DM should roll the number of checks required secretly, so that the player doesn't know exactly how long the task will require.

Normal: A character without this feat can use Gather Information to find out information about a particular individual, but each check takes 1d4+1 hours and doesn't allow effective trailing. Special: A character with 5 ranks in Knowledge(local) gains a +2 bonus on the Gather Information check to use this feat.

Community Size	DC	Checks Required
Thorp, hamlet, or village	5	1d3
Small or large town	10	1d4+1
Small or large city	15	2d4
Metropolis	20	2d4+2

Conditions	DC Modifier
Every three creatures in the group being sought	-1
Every 24 hours the party has been missing/sought	+1
Tracked party "lies low"	+5
Tracked party matches community's primary racial demographic	+2
Tracked party does not match community's primary racial demographic	-2

You can cut the time between Gather Information checks in half (to 30 minutes per check rather than 1 hour), but you take a -5 penalty on the check.

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