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The Dual Wielding Ranger: How Aragorn, Drizzt, and Dual-Wielding Led to the Ranger's Loss of Identity
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8258064" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>I don't really agree with this whole idea that the archetype is not clear and distinct. Think about that English language word, 'ranger', it evokes a concept of traveling, and of traveling in remote places. Also of hunting and scouting. US Army Rangers are guys that go in front of the rest of the army, they find the enemy, they discover the lay of the land, and employ surprise and deception specifically as tactics (partly because they are likely to be outnumbered, being scouts). A Texas Ranger was a guy who rode around in a semi-settled frontier area and hunted down criminals, etc. Park Ranger is closely related to these as well, enforcing park rules and looking out for people in a wilderness or remote setting. Even the use by JRRT of the term 'Ranger' to describe Aragorn and the other Dunedain of Arnor is built on this same idea. Then you have adjacent concepts, like Robin Hood, who's never described as a 'ranger', but is certainly a guy who wanders a wilderness seeking justice.</p><p></p><p>So, there IS an archetype. Like all archetypes it has many varied instantiations and a complex genesis, but it exists. It is also ancient, as we have many 'heroic hunters' going back into ancient myth, and in many cases, like Odysseus, they sought justice or righted wrongs (admittedly against his own family, but as a king he was also a justice enforcer). He's also a bowman, a trait he shares with Artemis, Orion, etc. who all share some of these traits.</p><p></p><p>Obviously Aragorn was the specific model of the OD&D/1e ranger class. However, stuff like dual wielding wasn't all that oddball and its addition in UA/2e was not some tectonic shift. I dragged out the character sheet for my old Ranger PC, which was created in the early 80's under 1e. His weapon proficiencies are Bastard Sword, Hand Axe, and Longbow. He lacks a shield and I guess my idea was, because he had a high DEX (why? I don't know) that he would use a bow and dual wield in melee so he didn't need to equip a shield (and can easily chuck the axe and then wield the sword two-handed I guess). UA just seems to have let me double down on those options, I guess. </p><p></p><p>The character was never fully converted to 2e. There are a number of subtleties here WRT 2e. In 2e ONLY fighters, NOT WARRIORS, can specialize or double specialize, unlike UA, so a Ranger CANNOT DO THIS AT ALL. Thus 2e rangers have no 'archer' feature of any kind at all. Instead they get the 'no penalty to dual wield', which generally is a smaller benefit if you have a high dex, but is pretty useful for most rangers. Note that dual wielding was available to any PC in 1e, but is ONLY allowed to Warriors and Thieves (or maybe all rogues) in 2e. So, 2e's ranger really is a focused dual wielder, no specific archery focus was intended, though the DEX prereq does mean they are likely to be decent archers. Technically the 2e ranger is mostly a downgrade of the 1e ranger. They lost specialization, 2d8 starting hit points, and some of their spell-casting ability, though the focus on a declared enemy was good (I did pick up that aspect for my character due to his backstory, but I think we had actually already included something similar in our game before 2e).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8258064, member: 82106"] I don't really agree with this whole idea that the archetype is not clear and distinct. Think about that English language word, 'ranger', it evokes a concept of traveling, and of traveling in remote places. Also of hunting and scouting. US Army Rangers are guys that go in front of the rest of the army, they find the enemy, they discover the lay of the land, and employ surprise and deception specifically as tactics (partly because they are likely to be outnumbered, being scouts). A Texas Ranger was a guy who rode around in a semi-settled frontier area and hunted down criminals, etc. Park Ranger is closely related to these as well, enforcing park rules and looking out for people in a wilderness or remote setting. Even the use by JRRT of the term 'Ranger' to describe Aragorn and the other Dunedain of Arnor is built on this same idea. Then you have adjacent concepts, like Robin Hood, who's never described as a 'ranger', but is certainly a guy who wanders a wilderness seeking justice. So, there IS an archetype. Like all archetypes it has many varied instantiations and a complex genesis, but it exists. It is also ancient, as we have many 'heroic hunters' going back into ancient myth, and in many cases, like Odysseus, they sought justice or righted wrongs (admittedly against his own family, but as a king he was also a justice enforcer). He's also a bowman, a trait he shares with Artemis, Orion, etc. who all share some of these traits. Obviously Aragorn was the specific model of the OD&D/1e ranger class. However, stuff like dual wielding wasn't all that oddball and its addition in UA/2e was not some tectonic shift. I dragged out the character sheet for my old Ranger PC, which was created in the early 80's under 1e. His weapon proficiencies are Bastard Sword, Hand Axe, and Longbow. He lacks a shield and I guess my idea was, because he had a high DEX (why? I don't know) that he would use a bow and dual wield in melee so he didn't need to equip a shield (and can easily chuck the axe and then wield the sword two-handed I guess). UA just seems to have let me double down on those options, I guess. The character was never fully converted to 2e. There are a number of subtleties here WRT 2e. In 2e ONLY fighters, NOT WARRIORS, can specialize or double specialize, unlike UA, so a Ranger CANNOT DO THIS AT ALL. Thus 2e rangers have no 'archer' feature of any kind at all. Instead they get the 'no penalty to dual wield', which generally is a smaller benefit if you have a high dex, but is pretty useful for most rangers. Note that dual wielding was available to any PC in 1e, but is ONLY allowed to Warriors and Thieves (or maybe all rogues) in 2e. So, 2e's ranger really is a focused dual wielder, no specific archery focus was intended, though the DEX prereq does mean they are likely to be decent archers. Technically the 2e ranger is mostly a downgrade of the 1e ranger. They lost specialization, 2d8 starting hit points, and some of their spell-casting ability, though the focus on a declared enemy was good (I did pick up that aspect for my character due to his backstory, but I think we had actually already included something similar in our game before 2e). [/QUOTE]
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