Ranger and Fighting Styles

[Tony Vargas]

From what we've seen so far, most of the feats required in 3e to make a "style" like TWF or archery viable just won't be necessary in 5e.

Then
Themes - which are a long collection of feats - would not be the way to do Styles.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

I think of the ranger as a few things.

Dexterity driven. (including hiding and nimbleness...from this maybe the two fighting styles mentioned, but only peripherally).

No. In fact, dex was originally the only stat besides charisma that didn't have a minimum requirement. Dex is for rogues.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Rangers shouldn't have fighting styles. Leave that to the fighters. They should have survival and hunting styles. Give 'em a decent HD (D10) and a decent basic fighting ability (maybe with a favored quarry), but leave all the fancy maneuvers to the Class that trains for that sort of thing. Rangers are too busy training on other things, like trapping, tracking and first aid in the wilderness.

Rangers have the capacity to be a separate class to Fighters, so long as their 'niche' is thematically and mechanically different. Rangers can have different themes and backgrounds too - anyone who travels, hunts or survives as a focus is essentially a Ranger. I would include Fisherman (background), Bounty Hunter (theme), Warden (theme), Scout (theme) and Shepherd (Background) all as being Rangers. I would make their primary Ability Constitution, incidentally, not Dexterity. A ranger can be clumsy, as long as he survives....

Curiously, though, I wouldn't include a Marksman. A specialist archer, trained in sniping in warfare situations is definitely a type of fighter, even if it's a long distance style of fighting.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Not the point I was going for, I'm afraid. I wasn't arguing that fighting styles like "specialized in longsword & shield" or "specialized in TWFing" should be built into a class either. Rather, I was arguing that such generic 'styles' weren't worthy, by themselves, of being a Theme.

That is true. A fighting style is too narrow to count as a theme. However, if there are fighting styles, they should be delivered as part of some appropriate theme, not as part of some class where the style will often be appropriate or unwanted for given characters. It should be a lot easier to find (or customize) some similar theme, than to work around hard-coded class abilities.

 

[Lanefan]

I'd like to see Rangers go back to being a Con. based class - toughness developed from years of living rough. (in 1e they got a full extra hit die at 1st level to reflect this; which made them the prototype of the Defender in low leve 1e parties - stand there and take damage while other people win the war)

From there, make 'em Fighters with extras - they don't get the weapon spec. and so forth but they can use pretty much any weapon, wear any armour, and get a package of outdoors skills (tracking, concealment, nature lore, etc.) with the proviso that heavy armour messes some of that up.

Their "fighting style" should be whatever the player wants - the class should be able to support the sword-and-board Ranger in plate, the archer in leather, the (urrgh) two-weapon cuisinart - but in all cases the fighting should probably still be left to the Fighter.

Lan-"the first character I ever played was a 'heavy Ranger'"-efan

 

[Stormonu]

The strange thing is, of late I've been thinking of the ranger in terms of the US military organization, the Rangers. With both John Rambo (his character was supposed to be a Vietnam era Ranger, correct?) and Faramir of the LotR series in mind.

When you think of a ranger, what archtypes, if any, come to mind?

 

[tlantl]

The strange thing is, of late I've been thinking of the ranger in terms of the US military organization, the Rangers. With both John Rambo (his character was supposed to be a Vietnam era Ranger, correct?) and Faramir of the LotR series in mind.

When you think of a ranger, what archtypes, if any, come to mind?

The Texas kind. The old west's hard case law enforcement organization.

Westerns have a big influence on my D&D.

Too bad the game's ranger doesn't really work well in this capacity. At least in the modern D&D. There's too much emphasis on dual wielding and choosing a particular monster type to slaughter. Not so much on hunting down miscreants to be hung by the neck until dead.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

The strange thing is, of late I've been thinking of the ranger in terms of the US military organization, the Rangers. With both John Rambo (his character was supposed to be a Vietnam era Ranger, correct?) and Faramir of the LotR series in mind.

When you think of a ranger, what archtypes, if any, come to mind?

A ranger is John Rambo, Zachary Bass, John Thornton, Davy Crocket. He's Daniel Boone, George Washington Sears, and yes, Aragorn (from the book, not the crappy movie).

 

[Blackwarder]

It always seemed weird to me that a ranger that need to spend all this time to learn all his ranger ways also had the time to become a much better archer or TWF than a fighter that dedicate all his time to learn this stuff...

I always though that Drizzt was a fighter first and ranger second (and in 3e FR campaign setting book he was) also I never thought about Legolas being a ranger, he was clearly a fighter with archer specialization.

As some said before, I would like to decouple fighting styles from class.

Warder

 

[steeldragons]

The ONLY reason Drizzt had dual wielding was because DROW were allowed to dual-wield without penalty! It had NOTHING to do with being a RANGER!

Then alla the sudden rangers HAD to be able to wield two weapons.