D&D 5E The Dual Wielding Ranger: How Aragorn, Drizzt, and Dual-Wielding Led to the Ranger's Loss of Identity

[Paul Farquhar]

Most of those alchemists are not in Medieval, Renaissance, or Classical Era fantasy.

That's a big "so what". D&D has never been tied to pseudomedieval. And several of the rangers I mentioned aren't from Clichéland either.

 

[Umbran]

Which rangers never had.

For you, perhaps. I find it works just fine.

I'm arguing the the Ranger was first designed to mimic an unique member of a special organizations that represents a heroic theme by snagging features of 4 different classes that looked closed to it.

Folks seem to keep adding value judgements based on the "how". This really is still a aestheics of purity point. I don't care where the bits came from. Repeating this again and again does not make the point more persuasive.

And, really, you're speaking to a group that generally embraces and supports taking elements from already published works, and hacking them together into something they find useful.

 

[Mind of tempest]

okay so if the ranger has no core concept do we need a ranger at all?

 

[Minigiant]

That's a big "so what". D&D has never been tied to pseudomedieval. And several of the rangers I mentioned aren't from Clichéland either.

Tell that to half the fanbase. The whole dual wielding ranger that is just a fighter in a green hood is thier idea.

For you, perhaps. I find it works just fine.

What's the mechanical parent of the ranger?

Folks seem to keep adding value judgements based on the "how". This really is still a aestheics of purity point. I don't care where the bits came from. Repeating this again and again does not make the point more persuasive.

And, really, you're speaking to a group that generally embraces and supports taking elements from already published works, and hacking them together into something they find useful.

Everyone agrees on the aethestics. Nearly every fantasy artist can draw a D&D ranger.

The issue is mechanics.

The parts many agree with no one wants to put the work in for. 5e has been around for years and rangers still lack features related to extreme heat and cold.

So the parts everyone doesn't agree on gets emphasizes and arguments start. This the dual wielding conversation.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Tell that to half the fanbase. The whole dual wielding ranger that is just a fighter in a green hood is thier idea.




What's the mechanical parent of the ranger?




Everyone agrees on the aethestics. Nearly every fantasy artist can draw a D&D ranger.

The issue is mechanics.

The parts many agree with no one wants to put the work in for. 5e has been around for years and rangers still lack features related to extreme heat and cold.

So the parts everyone doesn't agree on gets emphasizes and arguments start. This the dual wielding conversation.

hence my question do we need ranger to exist at all or is it just blind tradition at this point?

 

[Alzrius]

Only rangers, druids,and sometimes bards can do these things as is. D&D just has them be druid spells and gives them to rangers and bards. They were the only ones with the spells to track, heal, fade, and talk to plants, rocks, animals, or nature spirits

The question was with regard to an explicitly non-magical set of wilderness-themed abilities. I'm saying that tying those to specific character classes, rather than a separate system which characters of any class can take, has a conceptual awkwardness to it. The same way that fighters aren't the only ones capable of engaging in melee combat, it can be hard to justify why learning certain non-magical abilities is tied to a particular character class. That's why I mentioned thieves, since I recall a lot of people pointing to the idea that no one besides them could detect traps, hide in shadows, etc. as something that they had a hard time with.

Now, if a non-magical function is particularly niche, then tying it to a class - where a "class" is defined as a profession, i.e. something you do rather than something you are (and if that seems like an odd distinction to make, sorcerers always struck me as the latter rather than the former) - isn't that big of a deal. In that case, taking levels in the class is representative of engaging in niche training, i.e. multiclassing for a level or two if you just want to dabble in something. But broader non-magical abilities are difficult to conceptually hard-code into a class in a plausible manner. Tripping someone in combat shouldn't be something only a fighter can do, and learning how to make a poultice of notable efficacy shouldn't be something only a ranger can do.

Magic, I'll note, gets something of a pass; being entirely fantastic in nature, it requires a degree of suspension of disbelief that mundane abilities typically don't get. So if you say that a particular type of magic is limited to a specific class, it's often taken as fait accompli that some aspect of the class relates to training in how to learn that style of magic (though I'll point to sorcerers as mild exceptions, again). In that case, questions of "how" and "why" are less important than making sure it's consistent in presentation, balanced under the system, etc. (Though it's worth noting that even for this, exceptions abound; I can't tell you the number of magic systems I've seen that use skills or feats to measure a user's progression, rather than tying it to levels in a particular class.)

That's why designing a system of non-magical woodland-themed abilities that only rangers can use strikes me as a bad idea. Though as I noted before, the best way to square that particular circle (i.e. try and tie the ranger class to such a system while not making it exclusive to them) is to simply bake a lot of bonuses into the class that makes it easier for them to make use of that system.

 

[smetzger]

I don't think Drizzt was the reason we have dual weapon rangers. As mentioned by Bacon Bits, the ranger originally was also meant to capture mountain men, Dacy Crockett, and indigenous native american archetypes as well (setting aside the cultural appropriation aspect, this was the early 80s after all). And those archetypes had tomahawk and knife pairing as a common style of melee combat. Looking at the timelines of when we saw dual weapon fighting with rangers in the 1e books, and knowing the appendix N as you will for rangers, it's eems clear dual weapons predates Drizzt

Dragon #68 (1982) has an article Two-Fisted Fighter which expands on the 1e rules for what we now call dual weilding...
"Weapons usable in primary hand: battle axe, hand axe, club, dagger, horseman’s flail, hammer, footman’s mace, horseman’s mace, footman’s pick, horseman’s pick, scimitar, broadsword, longsword, shortsword.
Usable in secondary hand: hand axe, dagger, hammer, horseman’s mace, horseman’s pick, shortsword."

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

@smetzger
kinja'd!

D&D General - Dual-Wielding and The Ranger, Part 2: On the Unappreciated Genius of Zeb

Last week, I began to research a topic that I had not looked into before- while I had previously looked into the history of the Ranger class, I had never before thought about the issue of the evolution of the Ranger from OSR/AD&D into 2e. More specifically, the question of whether of not Drizzt...

www.enworld.org

 

[Sacrosanct]

Dragon #68 (1982) has an article Two-Fisted Fighter which expands on the 1e rules for what we now call dual weilding...
"Weapons usable in primary hand: battle axe, hand axe, club, dagger, horseman’s flail, hammer, footman’s mace, horseman’s mace, footman’s pick, horseman’s pick, scimitar, broadsword, longsword, shortsword.
Usable in secondary hand: hand axe, dagger, hammer, horseman’s mace, horseman’s pick, shortsword."

I was certain there was a Dragon article about it, but couldn't find it last night. Most things that appeared in later editions appeared in Dragon first. So I am not surprised at all that 2 weapon fighting has rules drawn out before 2e came out. Thanks for finding the specifics.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I was certain there was a Dragon article about it, but couldn't find it last night. Most things that appeared in later editions appeared in Dragon first. So I am not surprised at all that 2 weapon fighting has rules drawn out before 2e came out. Thanks for finding the specifics.

It's also in the DMG ('79).