Rangers: Your Thoughts and Preferences

[Yora]

I like the skirmisher type. Light armor, archery, tracking, but also tough enough to go into close combat.

Faramir would be a better match than Aragorn. (Or at least his men, as he's a court noble who serves as officer and contact to the rest of the army for the autonomous unit.)
Iorveth from Witcher 2 also is a good example.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I voted other, as the poll seems to be missing a woodsman with magic archetype.

That'd be Aragorn, the original inspiration for the class. Because he studied with the elves and displayed a little herbalism in LotR, the Ranger class got spells in the PH.

 

[Lanefan]

Reading through here a few thoughts leap to mind:

- [MENTION=59082]Mercurius[/MENTION] - I agree that the Ranger is probably the "fifth class"; the closest thing to a core-four class that isn't one. It'd be an interesting speculation to see what others think...somebody mentioned the Paladin, which to me is way on down the list; I'd see probably Druid as the "sixth class".

- 62 votes in and I'm ecstatic that Drizz't has yet to get even one! That character ruined the class in later 2e and then into 3e. Let's hope the 5e design team got similarly decisive feedback in their research and didn't go and design Rangers as two-weapon dancers. Again.

- Stealth penalties and all, I love me some tank Ranger!

- many of the houserules mentioned here (only one attack with a second weapon, stealth penalties for heavy armour, etc.) all look like things we did/are doing also. One houserule we implemented with Ranger was that they could not start out proficient in "urban" weapons such as crossbow, rapier, polearms more complex than spear or pike, and so forth; but could pick these up after being exposed to them for a few levels of adventuring.

Lanefan

 

[CM]

A skirmisher-type warrior is really the only archetype that makes sense to me. Whether he uses archery, light weapons, or both isn't that important, but as a stealthy survivalist who defeats his enemy with cunning and knowledge of his surroundings, he fills a niche none of the other classes do. Wilderness Batman, basically.

To use an oft-repeated meme, "This"

I don't have much more to add, other than that I hope rangers get a lot of swift spells which function more like (gasp) spell-like abilities/martial exploits rather than actual stand-there-and-mumble-some-words-of-magic-while-making-funny-gestures spells.

 

[Minigiant]

This. I'm still waiting to be able to make a City Ranger.

Unarmed combat and throwing weapons since major city ban nontown-guard from walking around with normal weapons.

Another aspect of the ranger is that they are VERY VERY GOOD at killing a member of a certain enemy type. Some much so that those people are scare of them.

"It's Batman/Halfhand! I'm gonna need new pants"

One thing I want every edition of D&D from 5e on to do is untie rangers from the forest. There was tundras, deserts, mountains, seas, plains, grasslands, and swamps full of rangers too.

I can wait for the cloth wearing desert ranger. Thin scarves giving his or her face. Sand weathered skin hard as leather. Blades won in a death duel with an efreeti. Thrist quenched by magic learned from fire fey. And tough as nails.

 

[Greg K]

I always thought of Robin as more of a nature-themed rogue (or scout, to use the optional 3.5 class that I would still love to see back).

For 3e, I always thought of him as either a Rogue (with both the UA Martial and Wilderness Rogue variants) or
a Fighter/Rogue (with the UA Martial and Wilderness Rogue variants) depending upon whether using the version of having been a nobleman that fought in the Crusades.

But then, I'd also still rather the ranger not have spells, so what do I know?

Yeah. my preference was for both the non-spellcaster Ranger variant from 3.5 Complete Champion and the 4e Ranger class. Although, for a spell casting ranger, I wish they would start casting at 1st level.

 

[Jester David]

Early Drizzt was cool, where he would equally use his longbow as his swords. Being a ranger meant both archer and twin weapons.

But my favourite ranger was Tanis Half-Elven. Until I saw his stats and realized he was just a fighter and that Riverwind was the ranger in the party.

 

[evileeyore]

One thing I want every edition of D&D from 5e on to do is untie rangers from the forest.

I'd like to be able to untie them from the Wilderness.

Maybe give them Favored Environment, similar to the old Favored Enemy, just with different bonuses and abilities tied to it.

 

[Evenglare]

My favorite ranger type is one that is severely downplayed. Infact the only RPG that I know off the top of my head that offers it is Pathfinder. Basically I like what I call a "Silver Ranger". Think paladin, only ranger. Yes I know you can multiclass and all of that which is fine. But I as so happy when pathfinder put that Divine Hunter archetype in. I believe the first appearance of this class explicitly that I have come across was in lineage 2. I'm probably wrong though.

 

[Minigiant]

I'd like to be able to untie them from the Wilderness.

Maybe give them Favored Environment, similar to the old Favored Enemy, just with different bonuses and abilities tied to it.

I would have liked Favored Enemy to determine weapon style and Favored Environment determine armor.

Backhanded= Heavy
Rough terrian= Medium
Open terrain= Light
Desert= No Armor

Humanoids= DEX melee and ranged
Dragons and Giants= STR Melee and Ranged
Fey and Undead= Even more magic