Rangers done wrong?

[lunasmeow]

Rangers bother me, for several reasons. I remember the 1st edition games where rangers (archers) sucked. They were *horrible*. So I agree that they needed something to give them some extra oomph to make them playable as characters. But the things they were given... Oh, and please if you have a counter point, argue one point separately from another. Invalidating one, does not invalidate the rest. Each point stands on it's own merit.

1. Arcane spells. Limited, true. But the whole theory behind arcane magic is that wizards need lots of time and effort dedicating themselves to their craft to gain them. Why should a ranger have them? They are usually hunters. If anything I could see them *maybe* gaining limited *druid* spells, considering they tend to live with nature, and so may have learned some tricks. But mage spells? There's not even remotely a connection. It feels to me that this was just something given to buff up a weak class before there were druids to make them balanced with the other, stronger classes. Then, when there were druids, they just failed to make the change because rangers were already balanced strength-wise.

2. Summon nature's ally. Even beyond the rest of the wizard spells they get that I disagree with, this one stands out as particularly wrong. Rangers are *hunters* if they aren't adventurers. You mean to tell me, that these guys who go out killing nature's animals, are suddenly nature's best friend? Then... they don't even need to hunt because why not just *summon* a deer to shoot? Or a bear? Summon one, have him walk into a cage, then close it and just pot shot him to death for his pelt and meat. This is ridiculous. Animals aren't going to come help the very thing that hunts them!

3. Favored enemy. Why is this specifically a ranger thing? If I'm a fighter, and my home village was destroyed weres, I would have spent my entire life training to fight them, and should get some kind of bonus against them because I've honed my skills *specifically* to destroy them. Why can't I? It makes no sense. A favored enemy should be a favored enemy for a *reason* not just oh you what, today I leveled up and I decided that I hate mindflayers. Even though I've never fought one, seen one, remotely interacted with one in any way, or even have three degrees of separation with one, I suddenly am awesome in all things against these guys. Why? Because I'm a ranger.

 

[was]

..I'd completely disagree with your first impressions of 3.5. I have played rangers since 1st edition and enjoyed the variability that newer editions provide them.
..You seem limited in your viewpoint of the role of the ranger. They are no longer limited to being simple stalkers or killers of animals. Any class can be a simple hunter of animals. The guardian of nature, and the wilderness guide, role is often one embraced by players and frequently shows up in the literature. These roles are not one limited to solely to druids, both rangers and even clerics can embrace it.
1. Comparing the rangers spell list to the wizards shows that very few of them are arcane spells. Certainly not the massive powerful spells that define wizards. The vast majority of ranger's spells also show up on the druid list and are divine in nature. Add on to that the fact that they don't get spells until at least third level, have limited abilities and a much slower progression than the arcane spellcasters in general.
2. Summon Nature's Ally, meshes with the idea of rangers as guardians. It is not an arcane spell. You might be confusing it with the arcane spell Summon Monster.
3. Favored enemy allows the ranger the other option of being the classic stalker/killer. It is supposed to mesh with their background, being trained to specialize in hunting a particular type of creature. The fighter gets more than enough bonus feats as a class option to quickly overpower the offensive capabilities of the ranger. Especially with their ability to specialize in weapons to increase their damage. A fighter archer type, for example, will quickly overpower a ranger archer type by properly utilizing their bonus combat feats.

 

[Spatula]

...Huh? What are you talking about? Rangers weren't archers in 1e, they were melee gods vs. giants and evil humanoids. +level to damage is huge in a system where bonuses to damage weren't that common.

1. Only 1e AD&D rangers have wizard spells. 2e AD&D and later rangers have divine nature-themed spells or no spells at all. And 1e rangers had wizard spells because the class was basically Aragon from LotR, who was trained by Gandalf.

2. What? Summon nature's ally is a 3e druid/ranger spell, not an arcane spell.

3. Favored enemy is a ranger thing because 1e rangers were awesome against evil humanoids and giants. In 2e AD&D and later implementations of the idea, the enemies have been customizable (you can pick what monsters it applies against), although always incredibly narrow (you pick one race vs. entire groups of monsters). And the later iterations have also watered down the effectiveness of it.

 

[lunasmeow]

Someone's been cheating then. I'll have to double for myself, but you guys wouldn't have any reason to lie unlike a certain player. I was asked to be a DM for a group of people who wanted an outside judge on fairness and such. So I said sure. They made their characters on the spot, then started. Whenever something came up, I'd have them read from the PG to provide backing for what they were trying to do. Since I didn't have a 3.5 version myself, I was trusting them not to just blatantly make things up. Especially since I said I'd allow them to do things against the rules if they could provide a good argument for it. Apparently this player couldn't provide a good argument for what they wanted to so they just made up. Thanks.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

IMO, rangers aren't even a class. Of course, this is opinion. IMO, a class is a mechanical frame that forms part but not all of a character, primarily focusing on its combat role. A class should also be fairly narrow, to avoid giving a PC abilities they don't want or need (eg those that have nothing to do with the character concept).

The ranger is a skillset.

The ranger is not even a personality. I didn't like how in some older editions rangers had to be good-aligned and "close to nature". An arrogant big game hunter who travels to exotic lands, slaughters the wildlife, takes their heads home and leaves the rest of the body to rot on the plains is not "close to nature" and probably isn't good-aligned either... but they have the skillset needed to track their prey. Why are the spirits of nature giving this guy magic? That makes no sense. Just because they're a hunter doesn't mean their personality and alignment need to match Aragorn's.

The ranger also runs into a problem of being too-heavily based on specific characters. One of them is Aragorn. Rangers weren't particularly common in the Middle-earth setting, but Aragorn was not the only ranger of the North. Indeed, Aragorn was special by ranger standards, being trained as a captain and having "healing hands" and other gifts. He did kill a fair amount of orcs/goblins (I suspect this is where favored enemy came from) but frankly so did Gimli (dwarven bonus against such foes) and Legolas (also called a ranger, but never in LotR). Indeed, the latter two probably killed far more goblins than their commander.

Aragorn once dual-wielded flaming brands (more of a psychological technique to freak out his pursuers), so apparently "all" rangers need to dual-wield. Aragorn's Dunedain heritage enabled him to use some magic, such as the Palantiri, so apparently this means "all" rangers need to be able to cast spells. And since Aragorn was good-aligned, this meant "all" rangers had to be good-aligned.

Aragorn is something like a ranger/warlord or ranger/warblade specializing in White Raven or ranger/paladin, which would help distinguish him from other rangers mechanically, in addition to elements of personality and background that his player would roleplay (had LotR had been a game and not a book series). For the same reason, if an encounter involved a group of knights challenging the PCs, I would do something to distinguish the lead knight beyond "giving her more levels", as the ability to kick more butt does not somehow make you a better leader of men. The captain would probably multiclass with something. (For 3e purposes, I'm thinking warblade. Or aristocrat if I only care about her skills, not her fighting ability.)

I'm recalling a trio of bounty hunters I read about in an adventure. One bounty hunter used nets and bolas (to ensnare the target), another used bows with mildly poisoned arrows (I think they slowed the target) and the third was a big tough guy who would try to encircle the target, so if the target tried to flee, they'd run into the big buy... who could hit their legs to slow them. The three were "martial" characters with no magic at all, but the three fought in very different ways. In theory you could have built a class around this, but only by either not giving it any combat abilities (forcing the player to spend feats) or giving very narrow combat styles (like the 3.x ranger). Certainly all three bounty hunters have the same (non-combat) skillset and can all call themselves bounty hunters, even if one is some oddball class (or maybe rogue using a sap, if a netted creature loses its Dex bonus you could dish out lots of nonlethal sneak attack damage), one a fighter specializing in archery and one a melee fighter or warblade with the Urban Tracking feat.

Rangers bother me, for several reasons. I remember the 1st edition games where rangers (archers) sucked. They were *horrible*. So I agree that they needed something to give them some extra oomph to make them playable as characters. But the things they were given... Oh, and please if you have a counter point, argue one point separately from another. Invalidating one, does not invalidate the rest. Each point stands on it's own merit.

1. Arcane spells. Limited, true. But the whole theory behind arcane magic is that wizards need lots of time and effort dedicating themselves to their craft to gain them. Why should a ranger have them? They are usually hunters. If anything I could see them *maybe* gaining limited *druid* spells, considering they tend to live with nature, and so may have learned some tricks. But mage spells? There's not even remotely a connection. It feels to me that this was just something given to buff up a weak class before there were druids to make them balanced with the other, stronger classes. Then, when there were druids, they just failed to make the change because rangers were already balanced strength-wise.

See comments about Aragorn. The type of spells they receive is edition-dependent, of course (and in early 4e, no spells) but even druid spells are only mildly flavor-appropriate.

2. Summon nature's ally. Even beyond the rest of the wizard spells they get that I disagree with, this one stands out as particularly wrong. Rangers are *hunters* if they aren't adventurers. You mean to tell me, that these guys who go out killing nature's animals, are suddenly nature's best friend? Then... they don't even need to hunt because why not just *summon* a deer to shoot? Or a bear? Summon one, have him walk into a cage, then close it and just pot shot him to death for his pelt and meat. This is ridiculous. Animals aren't going to come help the very thing that hunts them!

See the comment about the "arrogant" big game hunter. A responsible ranger who could cast that spell makes sense, actually... because he's taken levels of druid, not because he's a ranger

3. Favored enemy. Why is this specifically a ranger thing? If I'm a fighter, and my home village was destroyed weres, I would have spent my entire life training to fight them, and should get some kind of bonus against them because I've honed my skills *specifically* to destroy them. Why can't I? It makes no sense. A favored enemy should be a favored enemy for a *reason* not just oh you what, today I leveled up and I decided that I hate mindflayers. Even though I've never fought one, seen one, remotely interacted with one in any way, or even have three degrees of separation with one, I suddenly am awesome in all things against these guys. Why? Because I'm a ranger.

This one actually made a little more sense to me, with my main beef about them being how weak favored enemy is (since you don't control it, the DM does), and in 2e, how you didn't get to choose which creatures you might hate. It made more sense to me to pick creatures that live in my favored haunts, and frankly if I build a goblin ranger I expect his favored enemy to be elves or something similar! The last 3.x ranger I played actually took favored enemy (animal) because, well, he was a hunter, so it made sense! (The second one he took was much more useful to the campaign, but yes he did kill a rampaging beastie or two.)

For the fighter example, that almost sounds like a prestige class. "Hate-Filled Warrior". Maybe something that a barbarian could take too. It's too bad WotC was allergic to good feats in 3.x, because "Hunter of Werebeasts" is a fantastic-sounding feat. Spend something (a feat) and get something that actually supports your character concept. Alas, said feat would be fairly weak, because it's still too DM-dependent.

 

[Greenfield]

In 3.5, the Ranger isn't a "Skillset", at least not if you're using the word "skill" in the normal manner for D&D.

They, like every other class, are a set of Class Features, some of which emulate Feats and some of which emulate spells, and some of which are unique to the class.

Just like every other class.

Now if you want to say "A Ranger is a Fighter with a particular *Mindset* or focus" you might be more correct. They were originally a Fighter sub-class, just like the Paladin used to be.

But these days you'd be hard pressed to do a Fighter build that filled the role of the Ranger.

Okay the Bonus Feats of the Fighter could be used for Tracking and Rapid Shot or Improved Two Weapon Fighting. You might even try to use Fighter specific Feats like Weapon Specialization to emulate (in flavor at least) what Favored Enemy does.

But Rangers get two good Saves to the Fighter's one, and have a skill base that's four times larger than the Fighter's. Then there are things like Woodland Stride, Animal Empathy and, well I could go on for a while on that line. Abilities that aren't Feats and can't be emulated through them without having to invent them for the occasion.

And that isn't even mentioning the "mini-Druid" spell list.

On Skills: Spot, Listen, Hide and Move Silent are all in class for the Ranger, unlike the Fighter. He's modeled on Robin Hood, as a stealthy forest scout and hunter, as opposed to the front line combatant ne "meat shield" that the typical fighter is.

 

[trancejeremy]

Rangers were originally a 0D&D class in The Strategic Review meant to mimic Aragorn (and his followers) from LOTR. They lived on the edges of civilization, protecting places from monsters and such.

They were added to 1e almost as is (from the 0e version), with basically just the cleric spells being changed to druid. But the giant class mentioned in 1e actually referred to a specific table in 0D&D (a wandering monster table) and so is vaguer than it should be.

(And in either case, Rangers in 0e/1e were awesome.)

Dual wielding was not added in 2e because of Aragorn, but because of Drizzt. In 1e, Drow could dual wield without penalty. In 2e, this got transferred to Rangers (Drizzt being a Ranger). I think the archer aspect came from Dragon article from Len Lakofka about Archers and Archer-Rangers (a new class).

 

[Celebrim]

1e Ranger: A 'prestige' class generally stronger than other classes, available to play if you rolled all around good stats but no 16+ that would otherwise be necessary to make a good character. You started with 2HD at 1st level, had a massive bonus to damage against a selection of very common foes, got a variety of minor abilities, and a mixture of minor wizard and druid spells at high level (eventually 10 spells at 17th level). As 'balance' you had a variety of RP restrictions, but overall it was one of the strongest 'builds' you could take in 1e. I have no idea why you think that they suck. The opposite is the case.

The class was loosely based on the idea of 'rangers' from the LotR, particularly Aragorn, the short scene where Aragorn is joined by his followers, and the Rangers of Ithilien led by their captain Faramir. The person doing the translation wasn't very good at it IMO, and gets overly hung up on the idea of woodsy. The 'ranger' is allowed to use crystal balls, because - Palantir, and has track, but the fact is that Aragorn is far better seen as a Paladin in D&D terms than as a what has now been called the D&D ranger and his ranger henchmen as an order of Cavaliers. The D&D ranger has become a thing unto itself, an archetype that is divorced from anything but self-reference. Somewhere along the way, Rangers became archers. Maybe that was the D&D cartoon and Eric the Ranger. In any event, Robin Hood the ranger was born, and that idea has taken off since.

3.X: The ranger is now a hybrid assassin druid. Pretty much any relationship even the tenuous between The Lord of the Rings and the D&D ranger is gone. The self-referential archetype is now being more influenced by video games that have used Ranger as an archer archetype, which in turn comes from D&D itself, than from any other external source. The idea of a wilderness dwelling paragon of virtue is fading, and instead we have a combination hunter that utilizes nature and a shaman caretaker that protects it. Also, along the way we've picked up the idea of fighting with two hands, because Drizzt. The initial class is noted mostly for being a frontloaded single dip class, but otherwise pretty weak compared to the spellcasters, but what isn't?

4e: The ranger is a full on archer specialist. World of Warcraft adds itself to the mix of self-referential sources.

 

[gamerprinter]

I've always loved rangers, and they have been one of my favorite classes from 1e up to Pathfinder RPG (the current game I play). In fact, being half Japanese, myself (I notice you're from Misawa-shi, Japan), I've published the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG) and have 2 kinds of rangers designed for that setting - yojimbo and the henge matagi. Note "Kaidan" refers to the archaic version of that term as it applies to Koizumi Yagumo, and not "stairs".

Matagi are basically Japanese rangers, so if you understand what a matagi is, then you might have a better idea where rangers fit in the game and how they are supposed to be played. Here is the Pathfinder ranger, note the yojimbo and henge matagi are archetypes meaning some of the ranger abilities are replaced with different abilities for each specific version.

 

[lunasmeow]

Well, it's literally been *years* since I've touched D&D, (two decades) so I did remember a few things wrong, but now that my PG has come in the mail I can see where the guy told the truth, and where he just blatantly lied to make up. The other points you guys have brought up are interesting though. Thanks!