D&D 5E The Ranger

[Minigiant]

I dont disagree that backgrounds offer great ways to recreate or flesh out archetypes, but I just dont see the ranger as a mysterious archetype. In fact after the big 4 class, I would say the lightly armed skirmisher would be the next major archetype/class. For me, the skirmisher is foremost, and nature skill monkey is secondary (but still important). I just see missed opportunities as to how this combination of abilities could be done. The thing is that spell using for rangers has gone from a small additional thing in pre 4e to being a key part of the class. I would like that archetype to be wholly non magical because many of the spells in the 5e note abilities that woodsy folk in our world do all the time, without casting spells. In the grand scale of things it is small point - but given that like rangers one that I wanted to mention.

One of the thingsthat made spellscasting in rangers pushed to the front was the base assumption that some thing were impossible without magic and the lack of many official & detailed checks.

goodberry, cure wounds: You could not heal quickly without magic.
detect poison & disease, protection form poison, lesser restoration: You could not detect and cure poisons and diseases quickly without magic
darkvision: You could not see in the dark without magic or being of a certain race
animal friendship/messenger, beastsense: You could not be quick friends with animal or use them for advanced uses without magic
locate X, hunter's quarry: you could not track people long distances without magic.

Without a detailed skill system which mapped out how do a lot of naturey stuff or an extensive ritual system, I knew the levels when rangers go spells were going lower. Advanced naturey stuff were locked away in magic to allow skills to be less crunchy.

 

[steeldragons]

Uh, can I give you some additional knowledge of the history of the actual game or class?

Always!

Rangers were added to to OD&D in an issue of 'The Strategic Review'. They started getting Cleric spells at about 8th and Magic User spells at the following level, but they got in a wacky progression, with a new level of cleric spell every even level and a new level of wizard spell every odd level after that! My 17th level Ranger was casting up to 4th level Cleric spells and up to 4th level Wizard spells, and was a holy terror.

I'm not saying that 1e didn't bring a bit of necessary balance to the class, because it did.

But the very first incarnation of the Ranger class got to be a massive spell caster.

Cheers

Ok cool. I am not familiar with OD&D. So that was informative. Thanks.

"Got to be a massive spell caster"...beyond 8th level. Did you gain cleric spells at 8th as an 8th level cleric? If so, then yeah, that would be massive! As a 4th level cleric? Not so much. But still useful. Or was it 1 1st level spell? In which case you would have to be 13/14th level+ to possibly be a "massive spellcaster*."

*In this instance I am defining massive spellcaster as having 3rd+ level spells.

Either way, there's another example of an edition of D&D [accepting the Strategic Review as canon for OD&D] in which the ranger didn't get spells until 8th and by 17th had suitable magics that might not be useless against "high level" threats/situations.

This seems to only further support my point.

How many campaigns -of actual play from level 1- ranged up into the mid-teens in those days? Sure, I played in some high level games. Not necessarily campaigns, but one shots or short adventures...like, "Let's make up some high level PCs and spend a few sessions playing Tomb of Horrors or QotDP". But getting from 1 to 17, I did not, personally, experience. I believe 15th was the highest I ever played straight through and from what I've seen here in threads about this topic [how high did you actually play to?], that's a fairly average experience for BECM & 1e times. Playing from 1 to over [if even to] 17, not so much.

So, again, a PC starting from level 1 had to go through 7 full levels of no casting before getting their 1 first spell at level 8. If you continued play with that PC up to 14th level, then you got to be a spellcasting ranger for half of your "career." And then, obviously, that % declined the higher the level you continued on to.

How many games did that? How many games, from OD&D-2e, were levels 1-7? or 1-10 or 4-12? You got a little sprinkling of magic for a few levels at the tail end of your campaign...it was nice. A few little tricks you had mastered. Cool beans all around. But certainly not enough to make spellcasting a default motis operandi.

Spellcasting was something the ranger received eventually. No one is disputing that.

The dispute is in taking that "base/original" and teasing it out to "rangers should have spellcasting all of the time" rather than teasing it out in the other [more sensible to my mind] direction of "rangers should not have spellcasting at all -like fighters, like rogues- with a subclass and/or feat option to add it in later -like the fighter, like the rogue- for the PCs who want their rangers to have spells."

Spellcasting for rangers, as I've always understood it [and maybe someone with access to publication from those responsible might have an actual site/quote to share], was introduced to allow the PC to emulate the "healing hands" of Aragorn (and I think there was one or two other minor magical seeming abilities, as Tolkien is decidedly sparse in the use of actual "spells")...working off the mythological concept of a king having healing powers and being directly responsible for and capable of influencing the health and well-being of the land over which they ruled.

Just as Aragorn's use of the palantir was translated into D&D as rangers being allowed to use crystal balls (and other scrying magics). It was something, originally, only "magic-users" could do. So a lil' sprinkle of MU was added to the class.

Going from those roots to "the point of the ranger is to be a spellcasting fighter"is a huge leap/gap.

It simply wasn't...and, as I've been asserting, "should not be." I never heard of anyone choosing to be a ranger because they'd have a few low level spells around level 10. No one said "I want a spellcasting fighter. Ah! Ranger. That's the stuff!"

So, as my original and previous posts state and support, 5e missed the mark by defaulting the base ranger to spell use from level 1. [HA! Ranger..."missed the mark." hahaha. hahhhI appreciate unintended wordplay.]

I'm not going to loose sleep over it. The Ranger as presented in 5e is certainly playable. It is simply not "the ranger" that I would have expected or preferred, given how well they did with some of the other original classes.

Happy Sunday all.

 

[Plane Sailing]

So I've been able to track down my SR copy, and

at 13th level he had
3x1st, 2x2nd, 1x3rd cleric spells
3x1st, 2x2nd, 1x3rd wizard spells

IIRC we continued the pattern on from there (which in retrospect was a mistake but hey, we were young and experimental, and it seemed obvious at the time)

In addition,
from 8th (Ranger-Knights) are able to employ magic items which heal or cure disease, including scrolls.
from 9th (Ranger-Lords) are able to employ all devices which deal with Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, ESP, Telepathy, Telekenesis, and Tele- portation, including scrolls.

It doesn't expressly say that it is to emulate Aragorn, but you hardly need it - the healing and clairvoyance use of the ranger lord, even level names like 'strider'!

FWIW I agree with you - I prefer the original design where spell casting is something that rangers accrue at 'paragon level' or equivalent. Heck, from 3e onwards I always thought that multiclassing into druid would be the most appropriate and thematic way for rangers to get some magic ability!

It looks to me as though 5e didn't want to have any classes where spell casting arrived later on in the life of the class. Given that starting point, I guess that rangers were bound to end up as spell casters. It has never sat very well with me though

Like you, I was hoping for something a bit more distinctive with the 5e ranger.

Cheers

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The ranger is very inflexible. He is very powerful. And he has nice spells. But if he takes combat spells, his utility suffers and otherwise combat effectiveness suffers.
He also has access to a number of ritual spells, but no way to cast them as rituals.

Maybe I will just give the ranger access to all ritual spells... or a number of utility spells... we´ll see.

 

[Minigiant]

FWIW I agree with you - I prefer the original design where spell casting is something that rangers accrue at 'paragon level' or equivalent. Heck, from 3e onwards I always thought that multiclassing into druid would be the most appropriate and thematic way for rangers to get some magic ability!

It looks to me as though 5e didn't want to have any classes where spell casting arrived later on in the life of the class. Given that starting point, I guess that rangers were bound to end up as spell casters. It has never sat very well with me though

Like you, I was hoping for something a bit more distinctive with the 5e ranger.

Cheers

I think they did it this way because "low level spells are weak at high levels" in 5th edition. Or more correctly, since spell power is tied to spell level and not class/character level in 5e a ranger who only received spells after the 10th level or so would have to gain spells at an accelerated rate to get them at an accelerated rate. And that sort of ranger would need a lot of "ranger only" spells to make its scrunched spell per day work. Then you have to get multiclassing to work.

That was the issue with ranger spells form 1st-3rd. Rangers received spells so late that it was either worthless or niche per splat books. And 1st-3rd edition rangers just used their spellcasting and magic to get magic items to work. Crystal balls, healing wands, scrolls to summon fodder animals, and scrolls of psychic stuff.

The 5th edition ranger actually gets spells that are good at the level they get them and have decent durations on their few buffs. The issue now is they can't know many spells total so they struggle to have their combat spells while knowing meaningful utility spells.

 

[txshusker]

Always!




Either way, there's another example of an edition of D&D [accepting the Strategic Review as canon for OD&D] in which the ranger didn't get spells until 8th and by 17th had suitable magics that might not be useless against "high level" threats/situations.

This seems to only further support my point.


The dispute is in taking that "base/original" and teasing it out to "rangers should have spellcasting all of the time" rather than teasing it out in the other [more sensible to my mind] direction of "rangers should not have spellcasting at all -like fighters, like rogues- with a subclass and/or feat option to add it in later -like the fighter, like the rogue- for the PCs who want their rangers to have spells."

You apparently took my "they had spell casting all the time" to mean that I meant it to be from 1st lvl? That wasn't my point at all. My point was spellcasting was always a core part of their class. And to take that away means they lose part of what made them a Ranger. It doesn't matter when they got the spells... that ability was at the core of the class creation. Saying they didn't get them until they reached 8th lvl so it isn't a core part of the class is kinda like saying since something was not given to a character at 1st lvl it's not a core part of the class. I mean, what percentage of their leveling does a class have to be able to use a feature before it's considered a core part of their class?

Rangers were not created to be solely outdoorsmen... Rangers were originally jacks-of-all trades. They had stealth nearly as good as thieves and their dungeoneering skills were the best of the choices. They could use any magical implement like a thief AND they could cast spells - not only druid spells, but MU spells as well. Playing the Ranger without the spellcasting simply made them a low HP fighter/thief. Still could fun, no doubt, but not the Ranger. If that's what someone is looking for, I think the new rules make it pretty easy to multi-class a character into something very specific with a broad range of abilities. (As a player, that's one of my favorite ideas, thus far, actually. It can hinder the power levels, but create a cool character).

Eventually, the powers-that-be took away the extra indoor thieving skills and morphed it further into the outdoorsman - but kept their ability to cast spells.... hm... so it seems to be the creators think that spellcasting is a core part of their class. If you don't think people chose to play a ranger because they eventually got spells, then you apparently never played with anyone who played a ranger - or a paladin, for that matter, for that was one of the extra fun things thrown in there for that class as well.

I hope Uberlich is wrong about the classes inflexibility. I haven't sat for a player session yet, so I hope not. And I wouldn't argue with PSailing's preference for gaining spellcasting at higher levels... but they'd need to bring back some of the extras from 1e to satisfy the flip out.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

The ranger was just 'meh' though. Favoured enemy has become essentially worthless, and favoured terrain even more so. If those had been abilities that rangers get in every terrain, it would be great, but as it is - so circumstantial.

I agree. In my opinion, favored enemy and favored terrain have never made any sense and they still don't work. ("We're not in the forest anymore, so don't ask me where we are or where we should go: your guess is as good as mine", said Aragorn.) When I came up with a Fighter archetype which is basically a Ranger without magic, I replaced "favored terrain" with an ability that works anywhere.

 

[Celtavian]

I agree. In my opinion, favored enemy and favored terrain have never made any sense and they still don't work. ("We're not in the forest anymore, so don't ask me where we are or where we should go: your guess is as good as mine", said Aragorn.) When I came up with a Fighter archetype which is basically a Ranger without magic, I replaced "favored terrain" with an ability that works anywhere.

True. Aragorn could operate effectively anywhere. He had general survival training and a lot of experience. I've always wondered where the Ranger archetype came from. It doesn't seem inspired by Aragorn.

 

[steeldragons]

True. Aragorn could operate effectively anywhere. He had general survival training and a lot of experience. I've always wondered where the Ranger archetype came from. It doesn't seem inspired by Aragorn.

Yet it explicitly was. I wish I could remember where in the old publications it was said and give you a quote. But it was.

[EDIT] Maybe it was the original Strategic Review, an early Dragon magazine or just a quote from Gary. I really don't remember. [/EDIT]

Remember, prior to 3e and the concepts of "favored terrain" or "favored enemies", the AD&D (and I'm going to presume the OD&D) ranger had: Tracking, Stealth (and remember that prior to "Stealth", Hiding in Shadows and Moving Silently were two separate skills! ), a "low grade animal empathy" with domestic and wild animals (which would nowadays be defined by the Animal Handling skill), two-weapon fighting, in 1e a high chance of "Surprise" attack, and the "giant races" [in 1e] and a single humanoid species or giants [in 2e] attack bonuses.

None of that stuff was dependent on where the ranger was. He could use that stuff/be effective/the "skilled warrior" everywhere.

I always consider them as having Survival [an official "NWP" in 2e, separate from things like Direction Sense, Weather Sense and Hunting], Herbalism [now Nature or Herb Lore], and Hunting and Direction Sense [which have kinda disappeared/taken as a given/wrapped into Survival nowadays] also, but looks like that was some homebrewing as I don't see that in my official 1/2e PHBs.

THEN, after all of that which they had from level 1, there was the acquisition of spell use.

 

[GSHamster]

As Minigiant has noted above, I think Rangers were the biggest victims of the backlash against extraordinary, almost-supernatural, powers given to non-magic classes.

A lot of their spells would have been regular class abilities in previous editions. But everyone insists that non-magic classes must be "realistic", so in order to keep the Ranger at a decent power level, it had to become a magic class.