Rangerly Thoughts
by Elamder 

Introduction
Let us start with a brief overview of what a ranger is. Playing a ranger is a state of mind. If you go according to this guide, then you will have to watch your step in the first few levels. You will be offensively weak. However, you will make up for that with pure defensive power. The trick to a ranger is simple: Quick kills, no damage taken. How s this done? Read on. 

Statistics
Lets get right into the good stuff. This is where the most important decisions of your characters life will be made. Lots of theories out there about what order to put them in. That is important, but more important is the number. You could spend the rest of the months on-line time and never get the perfect rolls. Remember you will have to live with this character for a long time, a couple hours in the character generation stage will pay off later. You must get the best you can and then press on with life. You can overcome most of your stats. I will put down an order that not only works for me, but for alot of other successful rangers. It is as follows:

Aura, Discipline, Wisdom, Reflexes, Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Logic, Charisma, Constitution

Keep rerolling until you get a 90, three scores in the 80s, 4 scores in the 50-60 range, and a couple of 40s. It is very possible to do this in fairly short time, but be patient. The first 5 scores cannot deviate from this list. You goal is to accumulate 40 physical and 41 mental training point each level. Your training points will be explained later.....

Lets now talk about the rangers best friend, ambushing. This will knock that greater orc flat on its butt quick! How do you get to this point? Training, training, training. Reflexes and dexterity, and strength are the determining factors in ambush round time (RT). A normal ambush is 9 seconds. Ouch, that is alot of time. For every 15 bonus in reflex and dexterity will decrease this by 1 second. Best you can hope for is the standard 5 seconds. If you notice the order of stat placement, dexterity is actually after strength. This is for a reason. Lets assume putting the better score into dexterity will give you a 6 second ambush. That is a great RT! However, you can t seem to actually hit the creature.... I recommend giving higher score to strength. This will increase your attack stance (AS). So, an ambush RT of 7 seconds, is acceptable. If you are extremely lucky to get two 60s when you roll, then watch out! You are gonna be a GREAT ranger. I had to suffer with a 60 strength and a 50 dexterity. My personal opinion is this: I would rather take 1 more second of RT to actually hit the creature.... Its totally up to you! That is all that I will say at this point about ambushing, more to follow later.

Race selection:
Due to the bonuses associated with the races, try to select one with at least a 10 bonus in reflex. This is added to your actual defensive stance (DS). That weeds out all but Half-elves, Elves, and Halflings. Next find one with a bonus to dexterity (for ambush RT). This leaves only the Half-elves and Elves. Lastly pick the one with no penalty for strength (adds to your AS). That removes the Elves. In my opinion, a Half-Elven Ranger is the way to go! Play around with the numbers.....

Training
This is very important to the development and survival of your newly created ranger. If you have followed the guide above dealing with stats, then you will already have the necessary training points (TPs) to adequately train. I will give the area of training and the total cost of TPs required. The ones marked with an asterisk * are vital to your survival.
Category          Description             		Times  Cost in TPs
Armor*     Used to train away RT adders 		  1  	  4/0
Edged*     For your edges weapons     			  2  	  9/3
Shield*    To use your defense against spells     	  2  	  12/0
Ambush*    Enough said....      			  1  	  3/2
Hiding*    Again, enough said..     			  1  	  2/1 
Physical*  Gains hit points (Note 1)     		  1  	  4/0 
Combat*    Adds to both AS and DS (Note 2)    		  1  	  6/3
Spells*    This is your life blood (Note 3)    		  1  	  0/32
Climbing   Self explanatory (Note 4)     		  1  	  2/0
Swimming   Self explanatory (Note 4)     		  1  	  2/1
Share	   Transfers mana to you and from you (Note 4)    1  	  0/3
First Aid  Helps in skinning and bandaging (Note 4)       1 	  0/4
Disarm	   To find and disarm traps (Note 5)   		  1 	  2/4 
Picking    Open that box (Note 5)     			  1  	  3/4
Perception Good for finding traps and keeping 
	   your silver (Note 5) 			  1  	  0/3

      	   Total for the asterisk 40/41 
Note 1 - Double train in this your first level, it will give ye a fighting chance if you do get hit by some lucky blow. Only train to your maximum hit points.
Note 2 - I am not quite sure of the formula for this but a steady increase in both AS and DS results from it.
Note 3 - Do not train in spell research at level 0. You wouldn t be able to cast anything anyway. Never quit spell research after level 0.
Note 4 - These stats are some that are nice to have. At first you will not be able to train in them unless you rolled extremely well. Get 10 ranks in each of these by level 20 and you will be all right.
Note 5 - These skills are completely out of reach for your first 15 levels. You will be to busy getting the rest of this stuff. After level 15 you should be all trained up in armor and physical. Start training in these rogue type things.

40 physical/41 mental. That is the minimum you will want to train in. As you gain levels your stats will increase and thus your training points will increase. Here is the formula for determining how many training point you receive.

Mental TPs=(DI+AU+ST+CO+DX+RE)/10
Physical TPs=(DI+AU+IN+LO+WI+CH)/10

Did you notice what stats are repeated in both types? Aura and Discipline! Now you know why those should be your highest two scores....

Spells
This category has quite a few different ways of handling it. I will give you the one that I have found to be the most beneficial. You have the choice of training in the Ranger Circle or the Minor Spirit Circle. Begin your life in the Ranger Circle. Train up to spell 613. This is the best ranger spell. It adds a +25 to DS and +25 TD (against spells). Then switch to the minor spirit circle. Gain up to 107. That is 20 full spell levels. You will have gained the Lord or Lady status now. After that point train back in ranger circle until spell 620 (nothing above that is implemented yet). Your choice.

Armor
This category is, again, only an opinion. The most armor a ranger will ever wear is brigandine. However, the penalties are high for this type of armor. It adds 6 seconds to your RT! Ouch! You can train it away to nothing with a mere 120 ranks in armor training. (An eternity). Brigandine also adds a spell failure rate! Eight (8) percent of your spells will fail while wearing brigandine armor. That may not sound like much, but 1% is too much for my tastes. Double leather armor is the armor of choice for most lower to mid level rangers. It has no spell failure percentage and it only adds 2 seconds to RT. If you train 40 ranks in armor that will be gone! So, at 7th level a ranger can wear double leather with no RT adder. Some rangers can wear it alot earlier due to dexterity and reflex bonuses. This is a false reading. Train your armor RT adders away. Let those bonuses be used for other things..... Bottom line: either train to 120 ranks for brigandine or 40 ranks for double leather. I chose the double leather option and used the TPs toward something else after 7th level.

Weapons
Get a broadsword or a falchion. Do not mess around with custom made weapons from the weapon store until you are high enough level to use mithril. These custom weapons are no better than ordinary ones. Save your silver, you will need it if you choose my path on weapon wielding.

Here is a list of weapons up to 10th level. With an approximate costs.
Level   Material           Cost New    Cost at Pawn     Cost from PC
0-2      Normal*             150           N/A             75-100
3-4      Mithril (+5 AS)     10000      5000-7000         7000-9000
5 	 Ora (+10 AS)        20000     15000-17000       17000-19000
6-7      Imflass (+12 AS)    30000     22000-24000       24000-28000
8-9      Mein (+15 AS)       33000     25000-29000       29000-31000
10+      Vultite (+20 AS)    65000      Never Seen       50000-55000

* If you can find a Drake weapon (preferably falchion) then by all means get one. It will flare and add fire damage every 10 swings or so.
**NOTE** - the use of mein broadsword and shield will be at a cost....Mein weighs a ton! My broad and shield weighed 36 pounds between them. Compared to the vultite or imflass which weigh about 9 pounds. Be careful when ambushing with mein weapons, your RT will likely go up. One suggestion is to put that backpack into your locker for those 2 levels and hunt with just a large sack and the bare necessities. The other suggestion would be to keep an imflass broadsword and get a mein shield. Still another, would be to skip mein altogether and use imflass until you reach 10th level.

Shields
The same guide lines are the same as weapons. By a re-inforced shield at first and then buy mithril at 3rd. The same costs apply to shields as they do toward weapons. As you can tell you will need alot of silver! Sell your old weapons to other players. You can get a decent price for them. Last resort is to pawn them. This will get you about half of what it is actually worth, but if you need money then.....

A note to weapons and shields - I have found that if you must choose between that new shield or that new broadsword....By the weapon. Your spells can help protect you until you can afford the shield. If you can find a player that is selling matching sets (i.e. a dark mithril broadsword and shield) you may be able to get a good deal. Shop around.

Combat Tactics
Another subject of speculation. I personally love the famous right leg ambush....It tends to get the creatures attention as well as getting em limping around. For those of you who play GS3 alot, you know not to attack a limping creature! A good rule - hunt about 2 levels above you if you can! Not only will this give you more experience points, but it will usually yield more treasure. More silver, better weapons. They key to hunting above your level is your defensive capability. You may not be able to hit the attacking creature very hard at first, but he will not be able to hit you either! It may take you a while chasing limping gnomes around, but you will eventually prevail. Here is my usual attack sequence for a typical battle against a cave gnome (reason I picked cave gnome is, you are probably low level and need to have a reference point).

1) Before the battle - always keep spell 601 going! This adds +10 to your DS. Try not to get caught with your spell running out when you are hunting above your level. This could mean instant death.
2) Hide and ambush the gnomes right leg (type AMB GNO RIGHT LEG). Get em limping or with a good roll, stunned! If you miss go to step 3
3)Attack the gnome normally. You may have to chase him a while, but you will eventually stun him. After the creature is stunned, go to step 4.
4)Ambush the stunned gnomes neck or head. This will have a good chance of a critical hit. (Death!) If you miss this death blow or if he is still alive, repeat step 3. This is a good combat sequence for your first 8 or 9 levels. After that you will be able to ambush a leg and then head. Quick, clean kill. Collect your booty and move on.

You may hide and ambush from the hidden. No bonus is given to ambushing from the hidden position, but it may make the creature use his turn looking for you! When you have alot of training in hide, you can ambush then hide before the creature even knows what hit em. After they sniff for ya, ambush again! Ambush from the hidden position is only good when out on solo adventure. If you are hunting with a group then stay out in the open.

Stances
Stances are extremely important when hunting above your level. Always travel in stance defensive. This will prevent the lucky roll when you are stuck in game lag! I prefer to hunt in stance advanced. This gives about 20 less AS and applies it to DS! This is the difference between getting hit or not getting hit. Use the ambushing technique to get the creature either stunned or down enough in hit points to decrease its AS. After this happens go to stance offensive and finish em off. Make sure when you pick up booty or whatever that you go to stance defensive. This is called stance dancing! You can sometimes stance dance a really slow creature to death. This is how. Be in stance neutral, let is swing at you. Then go to stance offensive and swing. Again, if the creature is slow you will be able to go back to stance neutral before it can get a whack at ya! Be careful with this though, one wrong key stroke and its curtains in some cases. Combat has many ways of approaching it, it is totally up to you! The key to your success it not getting hit! You will have only a few hit points in the beginning. (About 50 at 6th level). In comparison a warrior will have about 70 at 1st level! 

Closing
Be patient. You will have to fight rats and run jobs until you reach level 3. This is when that patients will finally start reaping rewards. Get your new weapon and head out into the world. Make sure you don t stray too far from town at first. Learn the land and what is in it! Search out companions, and hunt with em. A lasting friendship/hunting partner will pay off in the long run. That person may get you out of a jam or you may have to do the same for them! Try not to make to many enemies. I know, there are alot of idiots playing the game only to kill other players. Avoid these jerks! If one would happen to get ya young, they will be deep trouble when you get older. (Experience talking!) My only death is to another player character. He thought he was cool by just randomly attacking other players. Got a lucky roll on me and *bang* I just used 2 deeds! He fell at my broadsword about 4 levels later, but this is not encouraged! It really was fun ambushing his right leg from the hidden. Then watching him writhe on the ground bleeding.....

Anyway, hope this will help ya out there.... If you disagree with what I have written here, then by all means, don t use it! I will live well into my 60s following this advice....you may too. Feel free to eMail me at WQZG70B@PRODIGY.COM for suggestions or anything else ye want to say. If you like what you read and would like more GemStone III info please visit my GSIII webpage.

The URL is http://members.aol.com/axemur/index.html 

Please, let me know if you are having the same success I am......Farewell for now.

-Elamder Darkthorne-
-Half-Elven Ranger-