Rangers - leave them be!

[EarthsShadow]

I have an opinion if I may write it...

I like the Ranger for when I want to min/max and take ranger at level 1 for the track, two-weapon fighting, ambidexterity, favored enemy combo, then take two levels of fighter to get three more feats, since i would be third level, then take a level of barbarian for the evercool rage that totally pumps you up and the fast movement, then take rogue for the sneak attack and cool evasion, so even though I didn't stick with one class the whole time, this mixture of classes presents a combo the likes of which a straight fighter would get annihilated by. I asked a friend to make a 8th level fighter and I made a ranger, ftr, ftr, brb, rog, rog, rog, monk combo class, and that fighter got shredded.

The reason it got shredded was because at first level I had five feats/abilities to his two because of the ranger, and this is because the ranger is frontloaded and needs to be changed. It took him three levels to overcome what my character had at first level.

Basically, all rangers are drizzt clones the way I see it, and because Drizzt is such a famous character that was always a ranger, they designed their ranger to fit the mold of Drizzt, hence the abilities the ranger gets at first level. It's a broken class.

That's not to say we don't have fun with it because we do and its always nice to get three feats for free, so when I say its broken doesn't mean its horrible or bad to play. It's totally fun, but it is totally broken and needs to be redesigned.

 

[Alzrius]

Personally, I like the ranger the way its written. It seems to be balanced just fine IMHO. Admittedly, you get several benefits at 1st level, and then nothing for a while, but there's more to playing the character than the gluttonous acquisition of new powers every single level. Is it really that bad that after that first level he gains nothing special until 4th? If so, then just space the stuff out a bit, it isn't that hard. Move the free Two-Weapon Fighting Feat to 2nd level as a bonus, and Track to 3rd level. Now the Ranger earns a small bonus power at each level.

The other option is to just add new powers to the Ranger, but I don't know if I'd want my characters playing as "power Rangers."

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

I dislike Rangers as written. I don't really care about their power level or the front-loadedness of the class. The game-balance issue doesn't really bother me. (Even though I've seen a lot of fellow RPers take one level just for the goodies.)

My main beef is the flavor of the ranger. Personally, I think DnD should have had one "fighter-outdoors-person" and one "spellcasting-outdoors-person". IMHO, both the barbarian and the ranger fill the same role. I think that the barbarian is more of a ranger than the PHB ranger is. (Anyone who wants to sneak and scout as a barbarian will generally take a couple levels of rogue.)

If I were going to rewrite the PHB (a pipe dream, I know... *grin*), I would have just had a druid and a ranger. The druid would have no weapon restrictions, and the old PHB ranger and barbarian would be combined into one class that gained some of the abilities of both.


I really feel that they tried to eke out two character classes where there should have been only one. Afterall: in my mind, a barbarian is just a dumb ranger.

 

[Aldymnor]

I like the ranger. With the barbarian it's a bit of a question of the two being too close - I mean barbarian could be a PrC of ranger or vice versa, fairly close to the original meaning.

But yeah I like em. I also like bards, but not as much.

 

[Steverooo]

Rearranging the Ranger; Part III

Is there no way to cut and paste a post, here?

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

Re: Rearranging the Ranger; Part III

Is there no way to cut and paste a post, here?

Select what you want then Ctrl-C?

 

[Aaron L]

Re: Re: Rangers - leave them be!

Long live the original Ranger!!!

Original ranger? The original ranger could wear heavy armor, track, cast druid and magic-user spells, and got a massive damage bonus against giant class creatures. Thats the kind of ranger I want, toned down to balance with the other classes.

 

[Zarthon]

I like the Ranger class the way it is, one thing I did do though is rule that my players could only take the ranger class at 1st level and then only if their character has a suitable background.

 

[mmadsen]

The Ranger Archetype and the Rogue Class

(If I may trot out an old post...)

The word "Ranger" obviously conjures up an image of a woodsman, particularly a soldier or law enforcement agent out in the wilderness. To any Tolkien fan, "Ranger" conjures up an image of Strider and his men, dusty, dressed in green and brown, or of Faramir and his men, in green cloaks, faces covered, waiting in ambush with bows and arrows. The elves guarding Lothlorien fit the same description. So do Robin Hood and his merry men. It's a strong archetype -- and one that's not specific to one fictional source.

How is it then that the D&D Ranger, the class that purports to be just such a woodsman class, has roughly zero to do with this famous archetype? Yeah, it has Tracking, and, yeah, the skill list looks good, but what the heck do Favored Enemies, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting and spellcasting(!) have to do with this archetype? The D&D Ranger simply isn't the archetypal hunter, scout, tracker, whatever. It's an odd agglomeration of "neat" abilities.

Do I hate Favored Enemies? No, I think that Favored Enemies are a great idea, but I don't see how they're Ranger-specific. Realistically, we'd see a bunch of Rangers with Favored Enemy: Deer -- and lots of Fighters with Favored Enemy: Knights of the Next Kingdom Over.

Do I hate Improved Two-Weapon Fighting? Not particularly. It can fit in a fantasy setting, and there are a few historical examples (main gauche & rapier, double sticks or blades in Filipino martial arts, Musashi using two swords in feudal Japan), but it's certainly not a hunter's fighting style; hunter's use a bow and arrow or perhaps a spear.

Do I hate spellcasting? No, but it's hardly typical of all woodsmen, and it's much easier to just let Rangers multiclass into Druid at no penalty.

I don't object too terribly to having a "neat" class that combines Tracking, Favored Enemies, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, and spellcasting -- you can even write up a cool backstory to explain it -- but I do object to the fact that there's no good class for all those generic scouts, hunters, and outlaws in the woods.

After all, something's wrong with your class-based game when Robin Hood isn't enough of an archetype to deserve a class. You can call this "Ranger" class something else if you'd like. "Scout" works fine. (That's what they use in the Star Wars game.)

I tend to think of these woodsmen, particularly outlaws like Robin Hood, as Rogues, and it seems simple enough to open up the Rogue class a bit, following the pattern of the 3rd-edition Fighter, i.e. give the Rogue a list of bonus feats (available every other level like the fighter's) rather than a carved-in-stone ability progression: Alertness, Endurance, Improved Critical, Point Blank Shot (Far Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Shot on the Run), Quickdraw, Run, Skill Focus (Class Skill), Track, Weapon Focus; Nature Sense, Animal Companion, Woodland Stride, Trackless Step; Sneak Attack, Evasion, Uncanny Dodge. With a few Ranger skills (esp. Wilderness Lore) added to the Rogue's skill list, a Rogue would have the option of being a Robin Hood type of outlaw. This would also be the perfect class for elven "warriors" or goblin scouts.

 

[Sixchan]

I've always been of the opinion that Rangers were archers or single weapon fighters. I personally liked Drizzt because he was an interesting and unusual kind of Ranger. Aragon has really been my idea of the regular Ranger (although I'd think Legolas' archery skills should come into it too), and Drizzt was cool because he wasn't regular. I like unusual characters, like Elven Barbarians, Dwarven Wizards, and Intelligent, Weakling Fighters. They ruined both the Ranger and Drizzt with 3E.

NOTE: IMHO, of course.