Jessica
First Post
Such as? I don't recall Strider ever ensnaring an orc with vines that sprout from his weapon, or turning his skin to tree bark, or breathing underwater.
How about the instances of Rangers in fiction that came about since the Lord of the Rings where said Rangers summon animals or ensnare people with arrows or using magical traps? Original sources don't just refer to Lord of the Rings but may include fiction that has developed since that has in turn influenced our current idea of what Rangers are. I don't imagine that the Peers of Charlemagne cast magic spells, but magic spells are tied heavily to most modern interpretations of what a Paladin is.
The same argument could be made for any nonmagical class. In Pirates of the Caribbean, Jack Sparrow uses an overturned boat to walk underwater in flagrant defiance of the laws of buoyancy. Does that mean he's effectively cast the underwater breathing spell? And should all rogues thus get spellcasting and put that spell on their list?
If it's something that becomes standard in our perception of Rogues then yes. D&D keeps a lot of non-magical classes(with the primary exception of the Monk) tightly restricted to "realism" while giving carte blanche to magical classes to break realism. If our concept of Rogues was less shady person who stole things and stabbed people in the back and more like fictional ninjas/shadowdancers/MMO rogues then we would probably have a similar issue where you either give Rogues a class features list a mile long or give them a list of spells and spellcasting ability to mimic what supernatural abilities fiction clearly has them doing. D&D culture seems to have decided that (non-EK) Fighters and (non-AT) Rogues are heavily restricted by the rules of realism, so for now we don't have Rogues doing what some Rogues are capable of doing in fiction. Until we have a major revolution in the game/culture that allows for all "non-magical" classes to be supernatural to some extent either via popular interpretation or rules, then we are stuck in this rut of having to shoehorn in spellcasting(or some other magical resource system like ki) into most classes that we determine surpass the bounds of "realism". Because of the hidebound nature of our community, I don't expect any major changes to occur in either regards to D&D rules or D&D culture until many of the old school players are dead and buried.