5e's obsession with making every class magical is kind of annoying. I know there's a lot of "get off my lawn" aspects to this, as someone who started back when D&D had more grounded roots (thus making magic feel even more spectacular), but it sucks to see them doubling down like this.
D&D 5E No Spell-less Ranger in the Near Future
Tony Vargas
Legend
Back in the day (for me, this would have been 1e AD&D) most classes also had magic in some form or another. Fighters had none, of course. Clerics, Druids, Wizards, & Illusionists were primary casters. The Paladin got lay on hands and, eventually, casting as did the Ranger, the Thief (& Assassin, IIRC) could read & use spell scrolls, the Monk got a variety of supernatural abilities, some of which mimicked spells, and the Bard, once he became a Bard, was also a caster. On top of that, magic items often carried a restriction by class, so even if your fighter got no magic of his own, there were magic items that only fighters could use.
Alexemplar
First Post
That's more of a general D&D thing than a 5e thing.
Even back when the only classes were Fighting-man, Ranger, Paladin, Magic-user, Illusionist, Cleric, Druid, Monk, Thief, and Bard, you were still only looking at 3x classes that couldn't cast spells and only 2x explicitly non-magical classes.
A non-spellcasting outdoorsman class specializing in the wilderness, however, would be familiar pre-4e.
In 1e, it took years for your Ranger to get spells if playing as expected. The guys that played with Gygax stated that after years of playing they never got above levels 9-11 (or thereabout) and were shocked to hear about other players bragging about being in the mid to high teens. So, unlike 5e it really wasn't expected that a player would get to the point of having spells and, if you did, it would take years. Also, for players that wanted a non-magical outdoorsy specialist that received ranger outdoor skills and additional bonuses in certain terrain, there was the barbarian class which was not a rager (Unfortunately, Barbarian players did have to deal with the whole thing about spellcasters and magic items)
Additionally, although not published in a TSR book, Gygax had a 1e Hunter Class that he published in the magazine Realms of Adventure (1988). He also suggested using the Archer or Bandit NPC classes as another optoin.
So, yes, officially, no non-spellcasting rangers, but the concept of a similar non-spellcasting wilderness specialist class did exist and would be familiar to many 1e players.
2e. Second Edition did have a non-spellcasting ranger in The Mighty Fortress book.
3e. Third also had a non-spellcasting ranger. In fact, there were actually had two. First, there was crappy one in Complete Warrior (2003). The second was in the Complete Complete (2007) and gave up spells for Fighter bonus feats.
I'd call it a do-over of 3E, 'knowing what we know now, let's not to THAT again', with as many good ideas from 4E that they could get away with, and a bunch of fan service tacked on top.
Yep, but it also did it in a way that's growing the fan base again. Which I would have never believed in 2012.
Rofel Wodring
Explorer
All indications showed that Gygax rather sucked as a DM, though, so I wouldn't use an example of his experiences as anything but 'here's how you DON'T do it'. We are talking about someone who recommended repeatedly TPKing the party for wanting to play a race more powerful than a dwarf until they got the hint.
Tony Vargas
Legend
Every edition has attracted new gamers to the hobby (or, rather, retained some fraction of the potential new gamers attracted to the hobby on its watch). 5e hasn't sacrificed existing fans to do that, in fact it's brought back a lot of returning fans, some of whom were lost back in the TSR era - because it's been designed to be familiar to them.
It's also, incidentally, benefited from the renaissance in boardgames bringing more potential new players into the game's orbit, of course.
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