D&D 5E The Dual Wielding Ranger: How Aragorn, Drizzt, and Dual-Wielding Led to the Ranger's Loss of Identity

[Chaosmancer]

Exactly where is this not Aragorn and the life he led before the events of LotR? Because that's pretty much spot on Aragorn - wandering the wilds around Bree and the Shire, keeping the people safe from monsters from wilder territory. And it's definitely his comrades among the Rangers of the North.

I can't say you are wrong, but I want to refer back to the evolution of the character. Because one thing people need to remember is that classes really need to stay the same throughout, just evolving deeper into their archetype.

When the class was written as "I am Aragorn!" It involved changing from him before the events of LoTR and into a warrior-king. They shifted. Aragorn's whole point is that he is the king, and yet he does this other fighting and stuff because he doesn't want to accept that.

Sure, the Rangers of the North might fit into what I'm talking about, but Aragorn was an oddity among them. His point wasn't to do anything more with the Rangers, and in fact, he never interacts with any of them as far as I know. And where this starts mattering is in specific feats. "Well, Aragorn used a plant to heal, because he was a king and therefore rangers shouldn't have magic healing" is brought up CONSTANTLY. Seriously, every single discussion about rangers, someone wants to remove magic from the Ranger class because Aragorn didn't use magic.

Do we want to talk about the Rangers of the North and how they fit into this? Great. Let's talk about that. Let's not talk about Aragorn. He isn't a ranger at his core. Being a Ranger was his job when he was running away from his destiny.

 

[jayoungr]

Aragorn's whole point is that he is the king, and yet he does this other fighting and stuff because he doesn't want to accept that.

Movie-Aragorn, perhaps. Book-Aragorn (the original model for the D&D ranger) absolutely does accept that he's the rightful king; he just doesn't really expect that it will lead anywhere for him, as it didn't lead anywhere for generations upon generations of his ancestors.

 

[billd91]

I can't say you are wrong, but I want to refer back to the evolution of the character. Because one thing people need to remember is that classes really need to stay the same throughout, just evolving deeper into their archetype.

When the class was written as "I am Aragorn!" It involved changing from him before the events of LoTR and into a warrior-king. They shifted. Aragorn's whole point is that he is the king, and yet he does this other fighting and stuff because he doesn't want to accept that.

Sure, the Rangers of the North might fit into what I'm talking about, but Aragorn was an oddity among them. His point wasn't to do anything more with the Rangers, and in fact, he never interacts with any of them as far as I know. And where this starts mattering is in specific feats. "Well, Aragorn used a plant to heal, because he was a king and therefore rangers shouldn't have magic healing" is brought up CONSTANTLY. Seriously, every single discussion about rangers, someone wants to remove magic from the Ranger class because Aragorn didn't use magic.

Do we want to talk about the Rangers of the North and how they fit into this? Great. Let's talk about that. Let's not talk about Aragorn. He isn't a ranger at his core. Being a Ranger was his job when he was running away from his destiny.

Wow. Our interpretations go pretty counter to each other here. Aragorn isn't a ranger while he's running away from his destiny, he's a ranger while he's building toward his destiny. I'd even argue that it's an important element of achieving his destiny because it's through the hard living and service that he comes at the job with the right attitude, a distinction from his ancestors who ruled in the last days of Númenor. He doesn't approach it with arrogance born of entitlement or might, he approaches it with right, born of wisdom, and experience. And it's pretty clear he has contact with the other Rangers of the North since they look to him as leader.

The issue of using magic or not for healing is all just one of interpretation. When Joe Fischer initially wrote up the ranger class based on Aragorn, he probably include clerical spells as a way of modeling that healing ability because that's how D&D worked at the time. And it still works. Aragorn's healing skills could be modeled with skills, spells, or class abilities. Anyone who is dogmatic about not using one or the other is being excessively rigid. Either can and would work just fine in the context of D&D.

 

[Scott Christian]

Reading through all of this I am left with two main thoughts.

1) The Current DnD Ranger is not Aargon, so stop saying it. I think that is nowhere made more clear than in the OP where it lays out that high-level rangers are supposed to be heavily armored warrior-kings with castles and followers. None of that sounds like a DnD ranger to me. In fact, many of the ranger "classics" would rather gnaw off their own arms than do that.

Aargon is a fighter/Paladin with the Outlander background and some racial skill proficiencies for his divine birth. Yes, he shares some skills with some rangers, but he is not a ranger.


2) I think @Undrave really hit the nail on the head for me. If we are going to rethink and redesign the ranger, then I think the strongest place to start is by saying "Rangers are the people standing at the Border."

This could simply be the classic Border between the Town and the Woods, like everyone always says. It could be the border between the Underdark and the Surface World, like the Gloomstalker shows. It could be the border between the Outer Planes and the Material Plane, like the Horizon Walker. All of this works.

And, it ties a lot of the ranger's key aspects into a solid purpose that makes sense. Why do Rangers track? Because something got past them, and they need to find it. Maybe it was a child that fell through to the Fey or maybe it was an Starspawn cracking open reality, but the ranger will find them. How do they hunt? It depends on what they are doing. You could have the classic archer, you could have a slightly more heavily armored warden, you could have a fleet-footed dervish. It depends on what they are doing.

But, vigilance, watchfulness, maybe the occasional companion to aid them. Magic because magic is at these borders. It all slides together in a very coherent way, and it gives the ranger a rather unique identity. No body else is holding this role in the DnD worlds, but it makes sense to give it to Rangers and Druids as balance keepers and those on the fringes.

Redesigning any class in D&D is folly. Here is why:

• Everyone wants their classes to be unique. Stand out among other classes.
• Everyone wants their classes to be broad and able to house many different styles
• D&D, like all roleplaying games has only so many things to tinker.

Those things taken into account, you either make it too narrow, and then have everyone complain about how their ranger can't use dual wield, or you make it too broad, and then have everyone complain about how the classes bleed into one another.

The other option is to do away with classes and make it a price per item buffet. But that is not D&D, at least in spirit.

One thought is to have a lot of classes, all of them very narrowly focused. Of course, the only way to do this is to place restrictions on other classes.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Wow. Our interpretations go pretty counter to each other here. Aragorn isn't a ranger while he's running away from his destiny, he's a ranger while he's building toward his destiny. I'd even argue that it's an important element of achieving his destiny because it's through the hard living and service that he comes at the job with the right attitude, a distinction from his ancestors who ruled in the last days of Númenor. He doesn't approach it with arrogance born of entitlement or might, he approaches it with right, born of wisdom, and experience. And it's pretty clear he has contact with the other Rangers of the North since they look to him as leader.

But here is the thing. No one I know who is playing a ranger, is looking to getting the wisdom and experience to be a king. In fact, many of them are much more like Holt from the Ranger's Apprentice, actively disdainful of the idea of being a ruler.

You aren't disagreeing with me, though I may have gotten Aragorn from the movie mixed in with the book, the point of Aragorn is that he eventually became a king and a leader of men. That isn't the progression of 95% of rangers. That isn't the goal of the modern archetype.

The issue of using magic or not for healing is all just one of interpretation. When Joe Fischer initially wrote up the ranger class based on Aragorn, he probably include clerical spells as a way of modeling that healing ability because that's how D&D worked at the time. And it still works. Aragorn's healing skills could be modeled with skills, spells, or class abilities. Anyone who is dogmatic about not using one or the other is being excessively rigid. Either can and would work just fine in the context of D&D.

And there are more than a few who are that excessively rigid. Even in this thread.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Redesigning any class in D&D is folly. Here is why:

• Everyone wants their classes to be unique. Stand out among other classes.
• Everyone wants their classes to be broad and able to house many different styles
• D&D, like all roleplaying games has only so many things to tinker.

Those things taken into account, you either make it too narrow, and then have everyone complain about how their ranger can't use dual wield, or you make it too broad, and then have everyone complain about how the classes bleed into one another.

The other option is to do away with classes and make it a price per item buffet. But that is not D&D, at least in spirit.

One thought is to have a lot of classes, all of them very narrowly focused. Of course, the only way to do this is to place restrictions on other classes.

And yet, classes get redesigned every edition. So, clearly there must be something.

 

[Scott Christian]

And yet, classes get redesigned every edition. So, clearly there must be something.

I agree, there is something. Sometimes, people are masochists.

No, in seriousness, I just wanted to point out the bipolar need of the audience when it comes to character classes.

 

[billd91]

But here is the thing. No one I know who is playing a ranger, is looking to getting the wisdom and experience to be a king. In fact, many of them are much more like Holt from the Ranger's Apprentice, actively disdainful of the idea of being a ruler.

You aren't disagreeing with me, though I may have gotten Aragorn from the movie mixed in with the book, the point of Aragorn is that he eventually became a king and a leader of men. That isn't the progression of 95% of rangers. That isn't the goal of the modern archetype.

So Aragorn had more than one agenda based on his birthright. That doesn’t mean he can‘t serve as a primary ranger archetype. Same with the sons of Elrond. Or the Rangers of the North. They’re all similar in a lot of ways that you can base a character class around even if they all have individual differences.

 

[Xetheral]

The issue isn't one of subjective opinion versus objective critique; that particular debate ultimately leads to Descartes-level solipsism and "nothing beyond 'I think, therefore I am' is objectively true!"

Rather, the issue, as I see it, is one of talking about you (in the general sense of "you") versus talking about the material under discussion.

I'm of the opinion that critiquing something involves an attempt to understand what goals the thing in question has set for itself, and then explaining why you think it did or did not achieve those goals, following up with how artfully it did so (if it achieved them) or why it failed (if it didn't achieve them). It's ultimately still your opinion, but with regard to insights that you've had regarding the thing in question.

By contrast, "I didn't like it" tells us little about said thing, and more about you, i.e. what you like/don't like and why you feel that way. That's usually not as helpful for most people, since they're going to have their own opinions (and reasons for having those opinions) and so doesn't give them much in the way of useful information with regards to said thing.

I agree with much of this, but I emphatically disagree that a design critique necessarily involves comparing something to its own design goals. I think it's perfectly valid to critique something based on the purposes of the end users.

So while a bare "I don't like it" isn't a useful design critique (although still useful information for a marketing analysis), "I don't find it useful" is indeed a useful design critique when accompanied with an analysis of why that user doesn't find it useful. Sure, different end users will have different purposes for the product-- meaning that different design critiques by different end users can reach wildly different conclusions--but that variation from end user to end user simply accurately captures real disagreement amongst the users regarding the design of the product.

 

[Chaosmancer]

So Aragorn had more than one agenda based on his birthright. That doesn’t mean he can‘t serve as a primary ranger archetype. Same with the sons of Elrond. Or the Rangers of the North. They’re all similar in a lot of ways that you can base a character class around even if they all have individual differences.

Similar at level 1 perhaps, but they diverge. As you would expect from someone whose primary purpose in the story isn't to be a Ranger. Look, I'm not saying Aragorn is as different from the Ranger as Harry Potter is, clearly there are occassional moments and things he does to show he was once a Ranger. But, the argument is put forth CONSTANTLY that he is the end-all, be-all, Alpha and Omega of all Rangers. All Rangers must be able to do X, Y and Z and they must do them in this specific way because that is how Aragorn did it.

And I can think of no more fitting way to show that that is no longer the case and shouldn't be the case, than this information that the Ranger did used to be Aragorn, and that class had as many similarities with the paladin as it did the Ranger. That the end goal of that class does not apply to modern rangers. And to take the modern ideas of the Ranger and explore those, not rehash Aragorn. Because clearly the ranger moved on. Was he a Ranger at least in part and shared some skills and visuals? Sure. But he isn't THE Ranger.