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

[MasterOfHeaven]

Oops, another long rant to clutter this thread. Read at your own risk!

AD&D 2e came out in 1989, which was unlabelled in that timeline. This would mean numbers 2 and 3 should be switched in the list. I have my original 2e PHB open in front of me, turned to a forward written by David "Zeb" Cook, dated January 1989.

AD&D was still clearly in 1e at the time "Crystal Shard" was published. I also note that the Balor demon in that book was so pitifully weak that it HAD to be the 1e Balor (8d8+8 HD!); as a comparison note how well Ertuu fought later in one of the sequels!

This implies nothing about how good Rangers are now... this is just a little history lesson. I still assert that it is VERY likely the 2e Ranger inherited the 1e Drow ability of 2-weapon fighting in order to make a character like Drizzt 2e-legal (except for minor issues like him being a Drow). The primary reason for this guess is the raging popularity of the Drizzt books at the time.

As for the armor question, they didn't have to add 2-weapon fighting in to disallow heavy armor for Rangers. I suppose they may have added 2-weapon fighting to balance the loss, but even if this is so I think the "Drizzt factor" is the reason they chose THAT particular ability!

Second-hand info from Monte Cook is not enough to convince me otherwise. Even first-hand info might not be enough. At the very least, I'd need specific info like "I talked to Zeb Cook, and he said he put the 2-weapon fighting ability to Rangers because he felt they needed something like that to balance them with Paladins using the same XP table." Even then, I'd STILL suspect that the "Drizzt factor" selected that particular ability... it could been the ability to specialize with the bow!

Did you read that old preview of AD&D on Wizards site right now? According to the designers, they gave Rangers TWF to encourage them to use lighter armors.

 

[Henry]

Second-hand info from Monte Cook is not enough to convince me otherwise. Even first-hand info might not be enough. At the very least, I'd need specific info like "I talked to Zeb Cook, and he said he put the 2-weapon fighting ability to Rangers because he felt they needed something like that to balance them with Paladins using the same XP table." Even then, I'd STILL suspect that the "Drizzt factor" selected that particular ability... it could been the ability to specialize with the bow!

So what you're saying is, nothing can convince you short of notorized TSR designer's notes circa 1988?

If I were presented overwhelming evidence, I'd have to believe it, but it isn't a life-or-death question for me, so I will drop it.

I CAN say that circa 1985, Drow PC's were using 2-weapon fighting style, and Drizzt appeared on the literary scene after this point. However, where R.A. Salvatore got his spark from, I don;t know - has anyone ever asked him where in his imagination Drizzt came from - or did someone at TSR say, "I want you to write a novel about a Drow Ranger?"

 

[Caliban]

Did you read that old preview of AD&D on Wizards site right now? According to the designers, they gave Rangers TWF to encourage them to use lighter armors.

Funny, I would think that not giving them proficiency in Heavy Armor, as well as making Hide and Move Silently class skills, would encourage them to use lighter armors.

I think the two weapon fighting stuff actually encourages the rangers to be Sword and Shield fighters more than anything else.

General Archtypes as I see them:

Fighter: Primary Fighting Style = Heavy Armor + Big Two-Handed Weapons. Secondary = Anything else

Barbarian: Primary Fighting Style: Light Armor + Big Two-Handed Weapons. Secondary = That's pretty much it.

Paladin: Primary Fighting Style = Heavy Armor + Mounted Combat. Secondary = Sword and Shield.

Ranger: Primary Fighting Style = Light Armor + Sword and Shield. Secondary = Two weapon fighting

Rogue: Primary Fighting Style = Light Armor + Single weapon. Secondary = Two Weapon Fighting

By taking a level or two in another class, you can convert any of the secondary styles into a primary style. Unfortunately, that seems to be the most common reason to take a level of ranger: to get two-weapon fighting feats for a rogue or barbarian.

 

[Davelozzi]

Caliban, I'm curious, what makes you think the rules encourage rangers to use one weapon and shield over two weapons?

 

[Caliban]

Caliban, I'm curious, what makes you think the rules encourage rangers to use one weapon and shield over two weapons?

Bascially because it's a more effective two-weapon fighting style, especially now that the Shield Expert feat is available.

The shield allows you to gain back some of the AC that using only light/medium armor costs you, and a spiked shield is an effective off-hand weapon. A magical Bashing shield is the equivalent of a longsword in your off-hand.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Caliban, I'm curious, what makes you think the rules encourage rangers to use one weapon and shield over two weapons?

One possible reason is that you get the best of both worlds if you used a spiked shield. Bucklers look like a good hedge, too.

Dudes, I think 2e is clouding your memory of 1e.

Strictly speaking there was no "Two Weapon Fighting Style" in the sense you all mean for 1e, beacuse there were no proficiency slots or skill slots associated with TWF. You picked up two weapons and hacked away.

The reason it was the preferred Drow style is because (1) Gygax was making a viscously minmaxed opponent to spring on his vict^H^H^H^H players, and (2) the penalties for TWF were Dex based.

The penalty for TWF was -2 on the primary hand and -4 on the secondary hand where penalties are reduced by Dex bonus. Can you think of a race where every single member seemed to have a 15+ Dex, and therefore making this a practical racial tendency? Drow!

Heck! IIRC there was a table in D3 for generating random Drow you meet on the road or in the city and to generate the Dex stat you roll d6+8. Guess what? The high level Drow always had a 17 or 18, so their TWF penalities were neglibible for both hands. (Recall that 18 Dex gave a +3 bonus in 1e.)

2e formalized the TWF rules by adding in proficiency/skill slots into the bargain. So 2e Drow have this as a racial characteristic.

In summary, 1e Drow could use TWF because they were designed to have godlike Dex stats. If Drizzt was intended to be written up as a high powered D&D character, giving him a high Dex and TWF was an obvious choice (among many options). Doubly true for Drow.

IMHO:
(1) Drizzt was not based on anything from 2e rules. He clearly follows a tradition already existing in 1e. He is not consistent with 2e rules in detail (as pointed out by others). And the timing suggests that 2e rules did not affect Drizzt either.

(2) Whether Drizzt caused 2e Rangers to change is unproven. But there is still plenty of circumstantial evidence. The adding of "virtual feats" to the 2e Ranger was actually rather sloppy design. As Caliban points out, there are other obvious ways of encouraging light armor usage.

I am not going to change my mind based on some vague recollection from a TSR employee. Especially given the timing. I am having trouble imagining it would take much effort to revise the 1e PHB into the 2e version. Hardly any effort at that. The particular claim needs to be substantiated by Salvatore himself with something like "I made Drizzt that way because TSR suggested it would be more compatible with their new product."

 

[Umbran]

How effective as a class is the ranger if you don't use two weapons? It looses a lot of power if one of it's class features is ignored.

Actually, in the general case, even with the virtual feats the ranger becomes less effective when using two weapons.

When the numbers are crunched, generally speaking, a character does less damage (on average) using two-weapon fighting than he would do using a two-handed weapon. This includes the to-hit modifiers and critical hits.

There are cases when two-weapon fighting is the superior choice - usually when you can add extra dice of damage to each attack, or are using weapons with high enhancement bonuses. Things like a rogue sneak attack or a pair of flaming weapons alter things enough so two-weapon fighting may be a better choice. Unless the ranger arranges to be in one of these cases, then ignoring this class ability improves his combat effectiveness.

 

[PeterLind]

Because of the way TWF works in 3rd Edition, the bonus feats do not give an increase in power to the Ranger so much as another option that may or may not be as good as wielding a two handed weapon or a weapon and shield. But this has been gone over a hundred times and more. I think I'm going to bow out of this debate, the ground has been covered enough times already.

I agree that this has been covered too much. I think that this classic argument over-analyzes the problem. What is being suggested is a fairly even swap, virtual feat for virtual feat.

 

[PeterLind]

Please correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't Drizzt a half-drow? If this is true, then he might not have access to the Drow natural ambidexterity, just as a half-elf does not gain the elven +1 with bow and sword (under 1st/2nd edition). This may lead to the conclusion, like it or not, that Drizzt's two weapon ability was derived from his ranger class.

 

[Enforcer]

Please correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't Drizzt a half-drow? If this is true, then he might not have access to the Drow natural ambidexterity, just as a half-elf does not gain the elven +1 with bow and sword (under 1st/2nd edition). This may lead to the conclusion, like it or not, that Drizzt's two weapon ability was derived from his ranger class.

Drizzt is the son of Zaknafein and Malice Do'Urden, both are full-blooded drow, making Drizzt a full-blooded drow.