The Ranger: What is his shtick?

[fuindordm]

Lots of good points in this thread.

I'd just like to say that what will make the ranger worthy of being a class, rather than a collection of feat- like abilities that any character could learn, is if the class features together create a play experience that feels different.

Any mundane class can be broken down into feat- like abilities. For the mundane classes, the driving force behind their "uniqueness" is how they participate in battles, not the fluff or even the skills.

Fighter: weapon mastery, probably has more tactical options than other classes.
Barbarian: rage, overwhelm opponent before he can kill you.
Rogue: get in a SA while opponent is flat-footed, maybe flank for dirty fighting if it doesn't look to dangerous in there...

Ranger? I see the class as a hunter and guerilla fighter. Bonus damage from some version of favored enemy or quarry, and abilities rewarding a strategy of hitting and moving on. Unlike the rogue, he doesn't get big bonuses on surprise attacks; but he can stand and fight if he has to.

I don't care too much how the favored enemy bonuses are implemented.

I really like Minigiant's suggestion that the ranger has a pool of bonuses that can be redistributed somehow without waiting for a level up.

Or what if the ranger just got bonuses after each combat in a given adventure? Fight one battle with ogres, get +2 on the next. Fight the next battle, get a +4. Then when it's time to face the ogre king, the ranger is at +8... This could be the class that gets better as the adventure progresses. Offer the player some choice in the focus, and tie the max bonus to level.

But when the adventure is over, the bonuses are lost. Time to focus on something else...

 

[Savage Wombat]

Is the Ranger an iconic D&D class?

Yes. He's the fighter in the green cloak.

Seriously, I think that's it. True "fighter" fighters are in heavy armor and a helmet of some sword. Swashbuckler-types wear flashier clothes of some kind, maybe a hat. The guy in the black cloak is the rogue, of course, and he uses daggers.

So the ranger is the grim-faced guy in the green cloak with the hood pulled over his head. He probably has a short beard, too. Unless he's an elf, of course. Oh, and he's serious business. Rangers aren't fun people. This is work, dammit.

 

[Blackwarder]

WHY THE FRACK DO YOU PEOPLE (and you know who you are) KEEP INSISTING THAT A RANGER IS A GUY WITH A BOW OR TWO WEAPONS???

Seriously, every time I see this I want to just pull my hair out in frustration, and I don't have much of it left.

I think that talking about the ranger in relation to his weapon skills is dumb, rangers aren't defined by their choice of weapons, they are defined by the fact that spend a lot of time out doors and know a lot of sheet about the wilds and stuff, they usually wear leather armor when they want to move stealthily around and they have bows because it's the iconic image of the hunter and many folks think that rangers are hunters (why can't he set traps to snare a couple of rabbits is a question that still hunts me).

The only reason why rangers became the "iconic" two weapon fighters was because of Drizzt, and he started as a fighter!

What happened to the Aragorns of D&D? The guy who fill at home away from civilization and comfortable wearing chain mail and wielding one sword?

I think that the ranger should have core abilities that reflect that he spend most of his time outdoors, and basically that he should be the skill monkey for outdoors stuff, like forest lore, ability to collect healing herbs, faster movement in the outdoors etc etc. I firmly opposed the idea that he should get pigeonholed into some sort of a combat roll.

Personally, I think that two weapon fighting and archering should be themes and they should have nothing to do with the core classes.

P.s I haven't read the all thread, I read the first page and got attacked by a wave of web rage...

Warder

 

[BobTheNob]

Lots of good points in this thread.

Kudos on your civility

I sit on the other side of the fence from you however. My concern with character design is not that the old classes are preserved, but that they can be re-produced.

As such, Im a fan of base classes that you use Background and Themes to individualize and "color in". Yes, this does make me an advocate of a small handful of "core" classes (To all reading, feel free to disagree with me. After all, this is a forum, which is a place where people are free to state there position without fear of persecution). Though I do want a primal caster type tacked onto the core list for the druids and shamans out there.

So in terms of the ranger, you could have sub types (these assume 3 themes. I know that under current knowledge that wouldnt be achieved until later in class life, but Im using 3 to demonstrate the point)

Classic, non magical : Outdoorsman, Dual Weilding, Archer, Fighter
The Hunter : Outdorsmans, Archer, Beastmaster, Fighter
Classic, Magical (The '2e') : Outdoorsman, Dual Weilding, Archer, Fighter/Primal (multiclass)

Then get a little funkier

The Stalker : Outdoorsman, Dual Weilding, Assassin, Fighter/Rogue
The Druid : Outdoorsman, Beastmaster, Shifter, Primal

This isnt co-herent or consistant as it stands, but hopefully it makes the point clear. Its not important that the classes are preserved, just that they can be conceptually re-produced.

Then we can, using this "Lego" approach, let players go wild (no pun intended) and come up with whatever whacky ideas they want.

p.s. Before you say it, I know this would be prone to imbalances. After 4e however, when it comes to table top gaming, I personally dont think imbalance is as much of a game killer as non-unique characters.

 

[Blackwarder]

Ranger is a tough one to define. I'm very much of the opinion that fighting styles (twf/archery) should never define a class. And lightly armored warrior isn't much to go on. I also think we should divorce the ranger from the woods, as woodsman is more like a theme.

So I would go for a ranger is a warrior who is practiced in using his knowledge and experience of his environment to his advantage. I prefer the favored terrain schtick over the favored enemy for a few reasons. The biggest one is the strange way it was treated in 3.X with a ranger slowly accumulating a list of completely unrelated 'favored enemies' throughout his career. It seemed to dilute the idea of a 'favored enemy' into very much a list of 'random enemies I have bonuses against'.

This! QFFT!

Warder

 

[Minigiant]

While I do agree with this sentiment, there isn't much game fun to be had from the wilderness skills. Kicking down a door, hitting someone, or even healing a friend is fun. Recognizing the dangers of a windthrow might be a lifesaver in real life but kind of dull in a game. Using a divining rod is an excercise in sheer tedium.

That's because all the ranger players you'd roleplayed with were lame. Just kidding.

DM: Okay. As usual, Rick hears a noise. A gobliny noise.
Me: How far is that quicksand Rick made the party avoid? This is a swamp.
DM: What quicksand? Don't tell me. Rick is going to make the goblins chase him and walk into quicksand. Why don't you just kill them?
Me: Not funny enough. Rick whispers to everyone to shut up, drinks the eagle splendor potion, and bluffs the goblins.

It went something like that.

If wilderness is going to be any fun we need to come up with some wilderness game applications that are actually interesting. I just can't see cattle driving being interesting in a game (even though it must rock in real life.)

Cattledrive? Pfft. Rangers bear and wolfdrive. Local lords pay good money to rid them of the animals you sneak onto their lawns.

Especially when you get a DM who lets you treat Wild Empathy as unlimited Charm Animals.

Oh no. A trio of orphaned baby dire bears. Rear them and teach them to be killing machines during downtime.

Another problem with survival skills is that we need to handwave them, point out that all but the ranger die of thirst, or simply establish that if it weren't for the ranger everyone would have died from thirst. I want to see the fun in it but I just can't. Win me over.

Lead the royal family through a forest fire once. Tornados are fun too.

 

[FinalSonicX]

WHY THE FRACK DO YOU PEOPLE (and you know who you are) KEEP INSISTING THAT A RANGER IS A GUY WITH A BOW OR TWO WEAPONS???

I think the Ranger using a ranged weapon is really logical - first off it's almost in the ranger's name

Rangers tend to live out in the wilderness and do a lot of stuff out there, so being skilled with a ranged weapon is pretty important for the purposes of hunting and picking off wandering foes without needing an overt direct confrontation. Whether that is a bow or a crossbow or a tomahawk or a rifle (or whatever), I think that the basic idea is tied to the class' core concept. The rangers of Ithilien and Aragorn had bows because they're very practical weapons out in the wilds and rangers are very practical people. Giving the rangers some ranged feats so that it was always a decent option for them would be nice.

As for dual-wielding, I agree with you and think that dual-wielding is way too specific of a combat style to basically be designated as the ranger's melee option. Dual-wielding should be an option available to pretty much anyone. When I think "ranger", the only thing that would make me think "dual wielding" is Drizz't and the fact that now there's precedent from prior editions. The real problem with pushing dual-wielding on rangers is that it then makes it generally less desirable to use one-handed or two-handed weapons and then traditional characters who we might associate with rangers feel somewhat out of place (or the class ends up feeling like the wrong fit for the character).

I agree with you on several of your other points, though. A ranger's wilderness skills are assets in and of themselves, and I don't think that as a result they need to have fighting skills quite on par with a specialized fighter. They really just need to be able to contribute and hold their own in a fight, at the very least in melee (they need good HP and BAB equivalent).

 

[Sunseeker]

WHY THE FRACK DO YOU PEOPLE (and you know who you are) KEEP INSISTING THAT A RANGER IS A GUY WITH A BOW OR TWO WEAPONS???

WHY ARE WE YELLING!???

I think that talking about the ranger in relation to his weapon skills is dumb, rangers aren't defined by their choice of weapons, they are defined by the fact that spend a lot of time out doors and know a lot of sheet about the wilds and stuff, they usually wear leather armor when they want to move stealthily around and they have bows because it's the iconic image of the hunter and many folks think that rangers are hunters (why can't he set traps to snare a couple of rabbits is a question that still hunts me).

So they're woods-oriented rogues? I'm not sure how that's much different than being a fighter with a bow.

The only reason why rangers became the "iconic" two weapon fighters was because of Drizzt, and he started as a fighter!

What happened to the Aragorns of D&D? The guy who fill at home away from civilization and comfortable wearing chain mail and wielding one sword?

I always thought rangers were iconic because of Aragon or Legolas. I hate Drizzt, I hope he dies, I hope Lolth personally executes him in the most horrible manner possible.

I think that the ranger should have core abilities that reflect that he spend most of his time outdoors, and basically that he should be the skill monkey for outdoors stuff, like forest lore, ability to collect healing herbs, faster movement in the outdoors etc etc. I firmly opposed the idea that he should get pigeonholed into some sort of a combat roll.

I don't think "outdoors skillmonkey" should really be a whole class. Honestly that can probably be achieved with a Theme or Background. "Theme: Skillful: you gain 4 additional class skills." There, no ANYONE can be the skillmonkey in exchange for some other Theme features.


I like the "guy with a bow" archetype, if that's a Theme, I'm OKAY with that too, but I tend to see Rangers as hunters with bows more than I see them as forest rogues. I mean, they ARE forest rogues in some regards, but they're not limited to that, they're hunters where rogues are thieves. I think that's an important difference.

 

[Minigiant]

I don't think "outdoors skillmonkey" should really be a whole class. Honestly that can probably be achieved with a Theme or Background. "Theme: Skillful: you gain 4 additional class skills." There, no ANYONE can be the skillmonkey in exchange for some other Theme features.

4 Skills? That's not enough, man.

How am I supposed to spot and sneak up to one scout to snipe him, goad the other scouts to chase me, jump over the deadly natural hazard I noticed on the way, whistle for my pet birdie to hop out the tree to claw the face off the other, pull the arrow shot at me out my shoulder, neutralize the poison, heal up, and send a bird to the rest of the party with an update message.

Y U wan nerf ranger?

 

[Savage Wombat]

Honestly, I think it was a coincidence that TSR turned rangers into dual-wielders shortly after Driznozzle came out. The intent was to put rangers into light armor, and no shield - so they wanted to give him a benefit for doing so. Two-Weapon style - which didn't really allow sword/sword in 2e, just sword/dagger unless you wanted to stink at it - was the best way to reward the ranger for forgoing a shield or heavy weapon. And it does have a sort of scottish-mercenary-badass-marine look to it.