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

[Enforcer]

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. [/B]

Well put.

 

[Desdichado]

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

1) 1966. Enter Aragorn. Rangers are invented.

The Revised Lord of the Rings was published in 1965. The original printing on both sides of the Atlantic was 1955.

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.

And yet getting rid of it is "irrational?" Because it's "really, really cool?" No comment.

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.

Crybabies also tend to victimize themselves, and see their point of view set upon all the time. Sane people say, if you want a two-weapon wielding ranger, give him the feats normally instead of hard-wiring it into the class.

 

[Enforcer]

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.

You know, it just occurred to me that you started a couple of these threads bashing people who don't like TWF rangers in the past--because you got sick of all the alt.rangers that were being posted. Then you complain here--saying that we should just rule-zero it...

Aren't alt.rangers a product of rule-zero?

And shouldn't people be allowed to share their ideas with others? The next time you see a "fix the ranger" thread, why not just ignore it, as you obviously only like the canon ranger class.

As for me, I'll take my Wheel of Time Woodsman, bump up his Fortitude save, and be on my merry rangerly way.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Here's one Ranger who won't be doing any two-weapon fighting...not with bone spurs in his shoulder's rotator cuff...

In my campaign, one of the players is doing the Ranger thing. He specialized in Archery-type feats, and didn't start fighting with two weapons until third level. Just because you have the skill doesn't mean it has to be the focus of your character concept.

And I'm really sorry, but this who Ranger thing really is whining. Why? Because that's the way the Core Rules ended up. Period. The onus is on you to "rule-zero" what you don't like.

Use one of the MANY variant Ranger classes and kill Drizzt if you run the Realms. You could have designed 10 ranger variants with all the effort that has gone into these umpteen Ranger threads.

And why didn't I just ignore this thread? Well, it's more fun to post pictures of the only RANGERS that matter...

 

[Enforcer]

Fix that link friend

 

[Henry@home]

As others stated, Drizzt did have 1E stats, I believe in a Heroes Lorebook from early 1988, (the first release of it), and he was an 8th level ranger with 2-wpn fighting. I also know of at least one drow cleric ranger developed in our 1E gaming group that had 2-weapon fighting, independently of Drizzt.

And yes, Drow had the ability to use short sword and dagger with no penalty since the GDQ series of modules.

Y'know, I would love to be able to ask RA Salvatore this question personally (I am doing a serach on his site and message boards as I write this).

 

[Enforcer]

Here's one Ranger who won't be doing any two-weapon fighting...not with bone spurs in his shoulder's rotator cuff...

In my campaign, one of the players is doing the Ranger thing. He specialized in Archery-type feats, and didn't start fighting with two weapons until third level. Just because you have the skill doesn't mean it has to be the focus of your character concept.

And I'm really sorry, but this who Ranger thing really is whining. Why? Because that's the way the Core Rules ended up. Period. The onus is on you to "rule-zero" what you don't like.

Use one of the MANY variant Ranger classes and kill Drizzt if you run the Realms. You could have designed 10 ranger variants with all the effort that has gone into these umpteen Ranger threads.

And why didn't I just ignore this thread? Well, it's more fun to post pictures of the only RANGERS that matter...

For once, you're right: the onus is on us. But we have rule-zeroed it. You didn't address my thinly veiled accusation of hypocrisy, however. You tell us to rule-zero the ranger, and yet you've started threads in the past complaining about us rule-zeroing the ranger...(You directly responded to my suggestion to Jack Daniel that he just ignore the alt.ranger threads with some picture that doesn't show up, which gives me reason to believe that Tom Cashel and Jack Daniel are one and the same, though that's just a theory.)

And just because your one player is happy getting archery feats and waiting 'til 3rd to use a class ability he could have used at 1st, doesn't mean a thing. If he's happy, fine, what gets me is you telling me to be happy with the official class as well, and I'm not.

As for designing variants, I didn't need to. As I've already mentioned, I believe the Woodsman class is the perfect ranger class for my D&D campaign. (You'll notice how I don't tell you how it's perfect for your campaign, I'll leave you to run your successful campaign--it'd be nice if you left me to do the same.)

Edit: Before my language implied that I was unhappy that Tom Cashel's player was happy, that has been remedied.

 

[drowdude]

*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...

Just wanted to let you know that someone agrees with you on this point Tsyr

 

[MasterOfHeaven]

Storm Raven: Actually, according to that preview for AD&D on Wizards site, the designers gave TWF to Rangers because they wanted to keep them out of heavy armor. So it's no mystery why they have it.

As for the whole Ranger debate... my personal opinion is the Ranger works fine, is balanced and there's no need to change the class. The only reason I see to change the Ranger class is to give it more flavor, which it somewhat lacks, but that's not relevant to the mechanics issues.

I dislike most variant Rangers because instead of simply giving the Ranger more flavor, they increase the Rangers power, often quite significantly (Montes Munchkin Ranger is a perfect example) and make the Fighter class much less appealing. But that's usually what happens when people design a class they want to play themselves. Regardless, this seems to be an endless debate, so it's probably better to just let it lie for now.

 

[Tsyr]

Jack, is it even possible for you to participate in a ranger thread without insulting a ton of people just ouf of habbit? Because almost all the credibility you might gain from your arguments is lost when you do that, you realize.

Anyhow, as others have said, if you are going to cite facts as evidence of your position, make sure you get the facts right.

Furthermore, I don't think I would use the term "sane" for anyone who "sings praises" about the ranger class. I have no particular problem with the class itself (I keep it, renamed to something else), but it's hardly the end-all-be-all of classes, either in terms of power, flavor, or design.