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<blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 9368823" data-attributes="member: 7026594">Exactly.&nbsp; Basically every ability and restriction the Ranger has in 1E is emulating this Tolkien-specific archetype.&nbsp; The alignment restrictions, the tracking, the damage bonus against &quot;giant-class&quot;* monsters, the armor and weapons, the traveling light and not keeping a lot of wealth, the class restrictions on not having too many able to gang up together, (etc.) are based on the Rangers of the North, all descendents of the line of Kings of Numenor, the Men of the West (as Gandalf explains to Frodo when the latter wakes up in Rivendell).&nbsp; Of whom there are few left, and who need to spread out and protect a wide area.&nbsp; And the high level abilities (use of magic and of scrying devices) are directly based on Aragorn.(The &quot;Rangers&quot; of Ithilian of course are knockoffs)*Bringing us back to an obscure rule, I had no clue why the heck orcs and kobolds were defined as &quot;giant class&quot;, and why that was the name for the category of monsters Rangers got +1 dmg/level against in melee.&nbsp; The full list is given, thankfully, so we didn't need to guess what monsters counted.&nbsp; Bugbears, ettins, giants, gnolls, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, ogres, ogre magi, orcs, and trolls.&nbsp; And I never knew why until I finally read OD&amp;D and realized this was another place where Gary was just assuming everyone had already read OD&amp;D and had the missing context.In OD&amp;D the wilderness encounter lists were d12 tables grouped into broad types which were not always accurate to the monsters listed on them.&nbsp; For example the &quot;Dragon Types&quot; list includes not just 6 entries for all the extant colors of dragons at the time, but also basilisks, cockatrices, wyverns, balrogs, chimerae and hydrae.&nbsp; And, of course you can guess, one of the encounter tables was &quot;Giant Types&quot;.&nbsp; Later they might have called it humanoids, say, but Giant Types was the title for the encounter table which had Kobolds, Goblins, Orcs, Hobgoblins, Gnolls, Ogres, Trolls, Giants, and amusingly, Gnomes, Dwarves, Elves and Ents as well!&nbsp; AD&amp;D drops the latter four &quot;monsters&quot; from the &quot;type&quot; or &quot;class&quot; since they're goodly or neutral sorts and adds three more evil ones- Bugbears, Ettins, and Ogre Magi.The original Strategic Review article introducing the Ranger class to OD&amp;D doesn't list all the monsters, but leaves us to infer that they mean the ones from that encounter table, but only the first eight entries on the table, by phrasing the ability thus:Of course, in reviewing this I note that Rangers got weakened in AD&amp;D, because despite getting three more monsters added to their list, they lost the ability to do this extra damage with missile weapons.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mannahnin, post: 9368823, member: 7026594"] Exactly. Basically every ability and restriction the Ranger has in 1E is emulating this Tolkien-specific archetype. The alignment restrictions, the tracking, the damage bonus against "giant-class"* monsters, the armor and weapons, the traveling light and not keeping a lot of wealth, the class restrictions on not having too many able to gang up together, (etc.) are based on the Rangers of the North, all descendents of the line of Kings of Numenor, the Men of the West (as Gandalf explains to Frodo when the latter wakes up in Rivendell). Of whom there are few left, and who need to spread out and protect a wide area. And the high level abilities (use of magic and of scrying devices) are directly based on Aragorn. (The "Rangers" of Ithilian of course are knockoffs) *Bringing us back to an obscure rule, I had no clue why the heck orcs and kobolds were defined as "giant class", and why that was the name for the category of monsters Rangers got +1 dmg/level against in melee. The full list is given, thankfully, so we didn't need to guess what monsters counted. Bugbears, ettins, giants, gnolls, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, ogres, ogre magi, orcs, and trolls. And I never knew why until I finally read OD&D and realized this was another place where Gary was just assuming everyone had already read OD&D and had the missing context. In OD&D the wilderness encounter lists were d12 tables grouped into broad types which were not always accurate to the monsters listed on them. For example the "Dragon Types" list includes not just 6 entries for all the extant colors of dragons at the time, but also basilisks, cockatrices, wyverns, balrogs, chimerae and hydrae. And, of course you can guess, one of the encounter tables was "Giant Types". Later they might have called it humanoids, say, but Giant Types was the title for the encounter table which had Kobolds, Goblins, Orcs, Hobgoblins, Gnolls, Ogres, Trolls, Giants, and amusingly, Gnomes, Dwarves, Elves and Ents as well! AD&D drops the latter four "monsters" from the "type" or "class" since they're goodly or neutral sorts and adds three more evil ones- Bugbears, Ettins, and Ogre Magi. The original Strategic Review article introducing the Ranger class to OD&D doesn't list all the monsters, but leaves us to infer that they mean the ones from that encounter table, but only the first eight entries on the table, by phrasing the ability thus: Of course, in reviewing this I note that Rangers got weakened in AD&D, because despite getting three more monsters added to their list, they lost the ability to do this extra damage with missile weapons. [/QUOTE]

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