D&D General Which Edition Had the Best Ranger?

R_J_K75 · Oct 28, 2020

Zardnaar said:
Kinda the players fault for deciding to hate cities when it's not built into the class.

It's essentially demanding I want to be in my element all of the time.

I would agree with you if there was a legitimate reason for the player to be in the city but there wasn't. It was a really badly DMed game with absolutely no direction, no adventure let alone an adventure hook. The Ranger didnt start going crazy until after hours of us in real and game time wandering around the city aimlessly trying to find a quest.

Zardnaar · Oct 28, 2020

R_J_K75 said:
I would agree with you if there was a legitimate reason for the player to be in the city but there wasn't. It was a really badly DMed game with absolutely no direction, no adventure let alone an adventure hook. The Ranger didnt start going crazy until after hours of us in real and game time wandering around the city aimlessly trying to find a quest.

Crap DM then. They exist.

R_J_K75 · Oct 28, 2020

Zardnaar said:
Crap DM then. They exist.

Yes I know. Suppose my point was that the Ranger is a class that the DM needs to consider whether or not its going to fit into the campaign or not.

Vael · Oct 28, 2020

I liked the 4e Ranger. It might not fit with everyone's vision of the Ranger, but it had a clear vision of what it was and what it was supposed to do.

CleverNickName · Oct 28, 2020

R_J_K75 said:
Yes I know. Suppose my point was that the Ranger is a class that the DM needs to consider whether or not its going to fit into the campaign or not.

Based on a true story:

DM: All classes are allowed in this campaign except the Ranger
Player 1: I absolutely must play a Ranger now.
Player 2: Me too. No other class will do.
Player 3: Same. I will fight you if I have to.

DM: Fine, rangers are allowed now
Player 1: Meh, Rangers stink.
Player 2: Yeah, they're super-weak.
Player 3: I want to play a Barbarian instead.

In my true story, it was the Warlock and not the Ranger. But still, my point stands: trying to remove something from the game is a task easier said than done, and it might not work for every game table. I've found it's better to say "we will use this version instead," rather than banning something outright.

R_J_K75 · Oct 28, 2020

CleverNickName said:
Based on a true story:

DM: All classes are allowed in this campaign except the Ranger
Player 1: I absolutely must play a Ranger now.
Player 2: Me too. No other class will do.
Player 3: Same. I will fight you if I have to.

DM: Fine, rangers are allowed now
Player 1: Meh, Rangers stink.
Player 2: Yeah, they're super-weak.
Player 3: I want to play a Barbarian instead.

If I was the DM after that Id have made all the bad guys in the entire campaign all Rangers in one form or another. All specialized in hunting the PC classes.

Bacon Bits · Oct 28, 2020

I think 2e's class has defined what a ranger is. That's the iconic version of the class. Lightly armored, thief skills, TWF as a showcase ability, druid spells only, favored enemy, tracking is fairly potent, animal companions can be had through taming. This is the first version of the class that does everything we think of today as ranger-like.

5e + Tasha's is looking VERY nice. It might beat out 2e, but for now I put it in second.

4e is certainly the most powerful version of the class. Ranger was big old can of whoopin' in 4e. But that's kinda all it got. 1e was kinda the same way. If you fought a lot of "giant class" giants and humanoids, they dealt a ton of damage. Otherwise they were just fighters with weird hit dice and a treasure restriction that necessitated a bag of holding. These two are tied for third.

3.5e and 5e feel to me to be tied for coming close to 2e's flavor, but in having critical flaws holding them back. 3.5e is that edition's power balance problem, and 5e is the poorly designed first level. This is 4th place.

3e feels like the shell of the class. The first draft. Bad, and not able to compare to the other classes, and far too frontloaded for a game with a la carte multiclassing. 5th place.

As far as I'm aware, that's it.

Gladius Legis · Oct 28, 2020

The 1e Ranger, by far and away. It was effective in the system it was in, it had terrific mechanics like a massive damage bonus against "giant class" enemies (which actually encompassed A LOT of different enemy types), enhanced ability to surprise enemies and to avoid surprise, it actually did the warrior with a smattering of spellacsting thing well, and most importantly it wasn't married to any one fighting style like later editions would do with TWF and later archery.

I will say that, when taken in a vacuum, the 3.5 Ranger is well-designed. Key words, when taken in a vacuum. It's too bad that at the end of the day, it was still a martial and a half-caster in a system that was very unkind to both of those character types.

Tales and Chronicles · Oct 28, 2020

Not having played 2e pnp, but having spent three life-worth of time playing BG 1-2, I'd say 2e + kit is the closest to what I imagine a D&D ranger to be: small access to utility magic that would make sense for a wilderness survivalist to know, hunter skills, dedicated but not mandatory fighting styles etc

To me, Minsc and Kivan are the D&D rangers, Drizzt is just a fighter who rented a blind ranger's AirBnB for a while and kept his cloak as a souvenir

Twiggly the Gnome · Oct 28, 2020

CleverNickName said:
Basic D&D/BECM: there was no such thing as a Ranger class in this edition. I could have sworn there was a variant rule for it somewhere, maybe in the Rules Cyclopedia? I'm including it in this poll just in case someone remembers. I don't have the energy to get up and look for myself...my books are all in storage at the moment.

I think it was in one of the Voyage of the Princess Ark articles in Dragon. IIRC, it was sort of a druidic equivalent to the Paladin and Avenger.