I love 1e...but I have a question about the ranger.

Why do they cast Magic User spells.......?

Don't get me wrong, I like the class, but is it a flavor thing (LoTR maybe)?

I'd ask Gary in his thread to learn for sure, but I always thought it was based off of Gwydion from the Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander. In the first book in that series Gwydion, an expert outdoorsman, tracker, and warrior, takes a bunch of twigs and flings them at the evil Horned King servant of Arawn. They entangle the King and burst into flames. Seemed like a burning hands spell to me.

It's an artifact from OD&D.

Rangers were originally introduced in The Strategic Review #2 in an article by Joe Fischer. That version of the Ranger cast both m-u and cleric spells. That article roughly coincided with the release of the Greyhawk Supp. The Greyhawk Supp. had the druid as an npc "monster" that cast both magic-user and cleric spells. So I'd surmise that the ranger casting both types of spells was inspired from the druid "monster" class - as in, once the ranger got high up enough in levels, it started to gain some "druidic" powers.

With Eldritch Wizardy about a year later, the druid was made a pc class and given its own spell list and the more familiar druidic powers. I'd guess, when OD&D was revised into AD&D, they just substituted the druid spells for the cleric without really considering why the ranger originally received both m-u and cleric spells.

If it bothers you, I'd say it would be a perfectly reasonable house rule to just double the number of druid spells the ranger gets.

It's because the idea of a ranger spell list didn't exist, back then. So they plucked certain spells from the magic user spell list, and certain spells from the clerical spell list, and voila. Your ranger is part magic-user.

molonel said:

It's because the idea of a ranger spell list didn't exist, back then. So they plucked certain spells from the magic user spell list, and certain spells from the clerical spell list, and voila. Your ranger is part magic-user.

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He is not limited to what magic-user spells he can cast though.

I always thought that arcane spells made more sense for the ranger than divine. Rangers aren't really Greenpeace bunny-huggers. They're some really tough bastards who learn whatever trick they can to survive. Learned magic falls under the arcane header.

Let's not forget that AD&D rangers didn't get spell casting at all until level 8+ (Druidic at 8+, MU at 9+). Many campaigns ended before reaching that high level.

Although I remember playing Rangers from levels 1 to 10, I really don't remember casting magic user spells. (a 10th level ranger has a single 1st level MU spell).

dagger said:

He is not limited to what magic-user spells he can cast though.

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I never said it was a perfect system.

But yes, I believe you're right.

The OD&D ranger class by Joe Fischer is transparently based on Tolkien, and I've always assumed their magic-use was supposed to model something Aragorn did (like the ranger's ability to use crystal balls models A's use of the palantir) but I certainly don't have LotR memorized so I may be wrong -- in which case rogueattorney's theory about Greyhawk druids looks good. Gygax has said before that because the ranger class was so popular he didn't want or need to change much when he revised it for AD&D, which is (presumably) why it still gets magic-user spells there, even if (as RA speculates) the change from cleric to druid spells renders them somewhat redundant.

What I always found curious was that they get two hit dice at first level.

*sigh* I kinda miss 1E. You know what 3E needs? A 1E bard