Anybody ever thought of Rangers w/o spells?

[Eridanis]

Welcome, Keith! (It's your first post, so even if someone else has said it before, you're more than welcome to post your thoughts!)

And add me to the list of people who didn't like 2E rangers losing MU spells.

 

[nameless]

Oriental Adventures/Rokugan has a variant rule for Rangers without spells. This is because Rokugani spellcasters are very specific, but at any rate there are no hybrid casters. They give the Ranger a bonus feat (I think it can be any feat, no list) at every level where he'd gain a new spell level.

 

[Psion]

I'm personally against any class save those that fall clearly within the arcane/divine class categories using spells. Most versions of the Assassin (core class) use spells. If Assassins can use them, why can't rogues?

Well, IMO assassins shouldn't use them (at least not the bulk of assassins, but some specific sects might), but I don't beleive the same is true of rangers.

That said, yes someone has thought of it. In Rokugan, the ranger can swap out levels of spellcasting for feats.

 

[Desdichado]

Both Sovereign Stone and Iron Kingdoms feature "rangers" without spells. The Sovereign Stone class is renamed Stalker, IIRC, however. Ken Hood also published a non-magic ranger he called the Bushfighter when the Sleeping Imperium site was still active.

Oh, and hong's alt.ranger site should feature at least a few.

 

[Voadam]

At the risk of also earning yada yadas, my feeling is that the type of character usually envisioned as a "ranger" is best created using the Fighter class, actually. Take the tracking feat, some ranged weapon ones (could a ranger live without archery? Of course not.), and you quickly find yourself with a set of skills appropriate for a dangerous woodsperson. I think the keys to playing such a character are in the description and behavior; aspects outside of the game mechanics.

This has all been said before, hasn't it? Well, I am a new arrival.

Cheers

Except for the lack of actual ranger skills like wilderness lore, hide, move silent, spot and listen.

Fighters can be great archers, but they make poor woodsmen.

 

[Tom Cashel]

These Rangers don't cast any spells...and they might even make the playoffs! GO RANGERS!

 

[Chun-tzu]

Oriental Adventures/Rokugan has a variant rule for Rangers without spells. This is because Rokugani spellcasters are very specific, but at any rate there are no hybrid casters. They give the Ranger a bonus feat (I think it can be any feat, no list) at every level where he'd gain a new spell level.

Actually, they choose feats from the Fighter's list of bonus feats (excluding Weapon Specialization).

 

[Marius Delphus]

My personal stab at the whole alt.ranger thing was slated to include both a non-magical core ranger and the prestige class "Devout Ranger" (or some such) so I could still use, and didn't need to touch, the ranger spell list.

In (my own personal) time-honored fashion, I have never truly gotten around to fully developing it, so I'm tossing the idea out into view.

 

[Plane Sailing]

While we were still waiting for 3e and subsisting on rumours, I was hoping and expecting that the ranger either would have no spells (because with the revised multiclassing he could easily multiclass with druid or whatever to gain magic using ability) or that he would be an arcane caster (as a parallel to the Paladin divine caster).

Actually, having rangers as Arcane casters would give them a great, standard rules reason for sticking to light armour without bothering with all this virtual feats nonsense. Wear light armour to avoid arcane spell failure.

In the Strategic Review where they were first introduced the ranger had better arcane casting ability than divine casting. In 1e this switched, and he got druid up to 3rd level spells and wizard up to 2nd level. Of course, in 2e he lost the arcane casting all together.

Cheers

 

[megamania]

Ranger with no spells = a fighter with specific feats.