Rangers - leave them be!

[I'm A Banana]

Oooooh....Favored Terrain! Consider that one *ganked!*

I do think that the Ranger doesn't really fit the image of the woodsman. As it sits, the Ranger seems to be a stealthy warrior figure -- and then is saddled with Druid spells...

Pheh. Replace the Druid spells with a few choice Wizard spells (like the Illusion spells), and you've got a nice lil' stealthy fighter dude! That's what I've done IMC, and now the ranger has...well...a focus.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think the PHB Ranger is the best character for a player who wants a full fighter-type PC with a little spellcasting ability. You get full BAB, HD d10, best weapon proficiencies and your spell list is good to support fighting (mostly because you're a divine spellcaster, i.e. armor doesn't hinder you).

It is the only class that combines full fighting abilities with spellcasting, together with the Paladin. But the Paladin is definitely the most rigid class for role-playing: always Lawful Good, with strict code of conduct and crusading attitude; the Ranger is more flexible and various from the RP point of view.

A Prestige Class can give you both (at higher level and with requisites), but Multiclassing cannot make you a full-fighter + spellcasting.

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True, you get basically 3 free Feats at 1st level, one of which is not necessarily of overpowering usefulness, and the others have limitations, but to say that you get "nothing" at higher levels it means you have salami slices on your eyes. Yes, the Ranger advancement table looks pretty "empty", but from 4th level on you always advance in spellcasting every level, you can cast Animal Friendship and therefore you get Animal Companions, and don't forget that when you get extra favored enemies you also increase former favored enemies bonuses. Definitely there is something good to get at every level, it's just levels 2 and 3 without special abilities...

Getting Ambidexterity & 2WF at the same time is a must IMO that the author has thought of: with only one of them you don't become really an effective 2Wfighter. Maybe the Track Feat could have been delayed to 2nd level to prevent taking just 1 level of Ranger for the free feats.

BTW, does anybody use XP penalties for multiclassing? Otherwise, how can so many characters take 1 level in Ranger that easily? I think it's one of the greatest advantages of Humans and Half-Elves (and the only reason to choose HElf instead of Elf ) to multiclass more easily...

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About flexibility... yes it's a rigid class, you can only choose Favored enemies, although you have a lot of class skills to choose to make it a various class (beside feats of course). Monks and Paladins are WAY LESS flexible, since they can't choose 1 single thing, except skills & feats.

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About style & literature... I really have no ideas of what's the archetype of Ranger, you seem to know much better than me , so I can't say much on this. Effectively I would have thought Rangers were great archers, while they are not better than anyone else.

 

[Dr_Rictus]

My main concern, actually, is simply with back-compatibility. I feel it would be a mistake to obsolete existing materials at this stage of the game. So, if they are going to make any changes to the ranger, I'd prefer they be ones that did not change existing ranger characters.

That still leaves a lot of lattitude. They could add to the spell list, change the free feats to bonus feats (the way Oriental Adventures did with monks), or add options to the use of favored enemy slots. They could also make the "urban ranger" variant from MotW official (though I won't claim to be 100% satisfied with it, myself). Some "new uses for old skills" additions based on the ranger's distinctive skills would help, too. That selection of class skills is one of the big under-appreciated features that ought to be setting rangers apart.

Any of these approaches would be especially good for dealing with the problem of differing perceptions of just what a ranger should be. A larger 1st level spell list would probably be the best of these options for dealing with the "front-loading" issue, since it would give most rangers more to look forward to at 4th level (ignoring for the moment the silly ranger who does not have a wisdom of at least 12).