Well, there goes the "Drizzt Clone" theory...

[Ulrick]

Call me ignorant but what is the "SCA"? I swear I've heard it before.

I really don't mind Drizzt, but I would like to see rangers altered and strengthed a bit, and ability prequisites brought back so not every body can be a ranger.

I did, however, create a few years back a figther using the Player's Option books from 2e. The DM said, "Go ahead, use any rule from any of the books."

"Okay," I said. I rolled up my stats. I got an 18/00 strength!--I have witnesses!

Then in choosing weapon proficiencies I stacked up ambidexerity, and two-weapon fighting skills---

My character could wield a bastard sword in both hands without any penalties.

That character was a power trip. He got to the point where he could attack 5 times every 2 two rounds.

I even converted him to 3e, though he now gets penalties, he's still a brute. An 18/00 = 22 str in 3e.

His name is Ulrick.

 

[Enforcer]

I guess we'll have to think of something else...

The problem is that Drizzt was still originally trained as a fighter, thus saying he's based off the ranger is a little bit silly.

 

[Tsyr]

Aye, Drizzt should (By the novels, not the FR stat block) be something akin to a Fighter12/Rogue2/Barbarian2/Wizard1*/Ranger3, assuming he has any ranger levels at all (Which I would say he does, but not many... he has never demonstrated any of the special abilities of a ranger, such as spellcasting, etc... and he dual wielded long before he picked up his first ranger level. He dual wielded from the time he was a level 0 fighter.

Drizzt is a ranger in name... not so much in class. Now, Montollio, one of Drizzt's masters, he was a ranger. Drizzt himself, however...

*It has always irked me that this little fact sort of got lost. Drizzt was actualy trained at the wizards school in Menzoberanzan for half a year, and was able to cast spells. He never actualy DID outside of the academy, but he had the ability. By DnD rules terms, this means he had at least a level of wizard... I guess maybe you could say he was a wizard0 (Apprentice rule) under 3E, but I don't think that rule allows for anything other than a multiclassed level 1 character... I don't think it's possible to "pick up" an apprentice level later in life. I might be wrong about that, though...

 

[Theron]

Call me ignorant but what is the "SCA"? I swear I've heard it before.

Society for Creative Anachronism. An historical recreation group.

 

[Temprus]

Um, Drow got dual-wield free in 1e. I still blame Nasir (from the British Robin Hood TV series) for the 2 scimitar ranger type since he is the first visible one. Um, we had stats for Drizzt in 1e.

 

[rounser]

The natural follow-up to that question is...why wasn't it fixed in the Third Edition?? The double-weapon-wielding Ranger is really, really irritating.

To be taken with a grain of salt, internet hearsay and all:

I remember reading somewhere that the majority of the playtesters for 3E didn't like the idea of the ranger losing two weapon fighting, so it got kept.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Well then that means we know what happened. The sequence of events must have looked like this:

1) 1966. Enter Aragorn. Rangers are invented.

2) 1985: Unearthed Arcana stats Drow. They fight with two weapons for no apparent reason.

3) The designers of 2e, wishing to encourage rangers to stay in lighter armors, added Hide, Move Silently, and two-weapon fighting to the class. The addition of ranger 2WF is as of yet unrelated to UA Drow, since Drizzt isn't out yet.

4) 1988. Salvatore, aware of what 2e was going to contain, created Drizzt, the Dark Elf ranger, with those thoughts in mind.

5) Drizzt is written up as a single-classed ranger by 1e stats, as that game is still the lingua franca of RPGs. Because there was no open multiclassing back then, "trained as a fighter" meant diddly for this character beyond "ranger levels," especialy since rangers WERE fighters, and because his character was only called a ranger in the Crystal Shard (remember, the Icewind Dale trillogy came out before the Dark Elf trilogy explored Drizzt's past; for all we knew at the beginning, Drizzt had been a ranger all his life).

6) 1989. 2e comes out, rangers fight with two weapons to keep them out of platemail, irrational insanity sets in despite the fact that rangers fighting with two weapons is really, really cool.

7) 2000. 3e retains the ranger two-weapon thing. Sane people sing its praises; crybabies whine about it on the internet rather than just rule-zeroing it and keeping their yammers shut.

 

[rounser]

7) 2000. 3e retains the ranger two-weapon thing. Sane people sing its praises; crybabies whine about it on the internet rather than just rule-zeroing it and keeping their yammers shut.

There's more to it than that, I think. Two weapon fighting got (justifiably) gutted in 3E when compared to how good it was in 2E. I guarantee that there would be a lot less wailing and gnashing of teeth about two weapon rangers if two weapon fighting was still seen as being as powerful as it was in 2E.

In short, my theory is that if you give the average gamer a powergaming cookie then it's easier for them to accept something illogical roleplaying-wise. Take away that cookie and they start complaining about how it doesn't make sense from a roleplaying perspective. That's probably part of what we're seeing with the ranger when the editions changed.

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

7) 2000. 3e retains the ranger two-weapon thing. Sane people sing its praises; crybabies whine about it on the internet rather than just rule-zeroing it and keeping their yammers shut.

Or, alternately:

7) 2000. 3e retains the ranger two-weapon thing. Sane people wonder why the designers hardwired the bloated 2e sacred cow ranger two weapon fighting style into the class; crybabies celebrate the fact that their playtest whining saved the sacred cow when they could have just rule-zeroed it back in and kept their yammers shut.

It's all a matter of perspective.

 

[Storm Raven]

Well then that means we know what happened. The sequence of events must have looked like this:

1) 1966. Enter Aragorn. Rangers are invented.

2) 1985: Unearthed Arcana stats Drow. They fight with two weapons for no apparent reason.

You need to work on your D&D history. UA statted Drow with two weapon fighting because it was a racial trait given to them in their original write up in the GDQ series and the Fiend Folio. For Drow, fighting with two weapons was intended to replace the "+1 with bow and sword" ability surface elves had.

It wasn't "no apparent reason", it was that was how Gygax had put the Drow together when he created them for the GDQ series.

3) The designers of 2e, wishing to encourage rangers to stay in lighter armors, added Hide, Move Silently, and two-weapon fighting to the class. The addition of ranger 2WF is as of yet unrelated to UA Drow, since Drizzt isn't out yet.

4) 1988. Salvatore, aware of what 2e was going to contain, created Drizzt, the Dark Elf ranger, with those thoughts in mind.

This is pure conjecture on your part and highly dubious. Asd a 1e character, Drizzt fought with two weapons because he was Drow, not because he was a ranger. Why this got grafted onto the ranger class remains a mystery.

5) Drizzt is written up as a single-classed ranger by 1e stats, as that game is still the lingua franca of RPGs. Because there was no open multiclassing back then, "trained as a fighter" meant diddly for this character beyond "ranger levels," especialy since rangers WERE fighters, and because his character was only called a ranger in the Crystal Shard (remember, the Icewind Dale trillogy came out before the Dark Elf trilogy explored Drizzt's past; for all we knew at the beginning, Drizzt had been a ranger all his life).

And we knew for certain that he'd been a Drow his whole life, which easily explains the two weapon fighting thing. Being a ranger or not had nothing to do with Drizzt being able to fight with two weapons under the 1e rules.

Your "D&D history" needs work. And your "evidence" is entirely unconvincing.