Weapon Finesse

I was planning on having my ranger dual wield wakizashi's, but is there a point of having more than 2 levels of ranger? Shouldn't I start making him a fighter at level 3 for the higher BAB and ability to get weapon specialization?

At ranger level 2 I have favorite enemy and ranger dual wield... I can get more feats and higher BAB as a fighter right? There is no point to be a ranger from what I can see.

 

Not any point in any levels if all you're after is maximum AB. Ranger is more useful as a fit for Rogue/X in ToEE. It doesn't get much of a chance to show its superior outdoors skills.

 

I don't think there's a point to have ranger levels at all, unless you really want the fav. enemy. IIRC, ranger dual-wield and regular dual-wield don't stack (not sure about 5.6.1), so you won't be able to get improved dual-wield unless you go 6 ranger levels. IMO, either go full fighter or full ranger, depending on which you prefer. You can make an excellent dual-wield human fighter (with all the extra feats, you can even grab a few other useful feats on the way).

There's one problem with making a short-sword or wakizashi finessed fighter. When you're fighting the really strong enemies later on with high DR, you will deal 0 or very little damage to them. Therefore, I'd suggest katana and wakizashi for off-hand, no finesse, if that's your main fighter in the party.

 

For weap spec, you need fighter 4 of course - but rangers get the same BAB progression as fighters, barbarians, and paladins. I tend to agree with the others that as implemented in ToEE, rangers are inferior to straight fighters. You can get the TWF feats quickly and easily with fighter bonus feats, not be limited to light armors, take specialization, have more HP, all at the cost of not having a favored enemy.

OTOH, two levels of ranger work well with rogue if that character is your faceman - favored enemy human gives you +2 on several social skills out of combat. :yes:

 

I know that I've played a Ranger2/Barbarian2/FighterX and used the Imp. 2-weapon fighting feat, so it definately does stack (at least in 0.5.5). That being said, unless you have a very specific build in mind, I agree with you that a Ranger level will almost always be sub-par to a Fighter level.