epithet
Explorer
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A thought occurs, and I'm just floating this one out there to see if it has any legs.
Again, holding with the idea of ranger archetypes, like Aragorn, or Robin Hood, or Tarzan even, something a lot of rangers have in common is the idea of leader of something. Aragorn's a king, Robin Hood has his merry men, Tarzan is king of the apes. And rangers have long had a "pet", whether through their followers in AD&D or straight up in 3e. What if we broadened that concept a bit and sneak up behind the Warlord and take his stuff?
Could our new "from the ground up" ranger not benefit from emphasizing the idea of "leader" (not the 4e role, but, in the dictionary sense) and have either a cohort in the case that your "pet" is intelligent or an actual pet. Warlordish powers could be repurposed to focus on the pet, with possible side beneifits for the entire party. No one seems to have an issue with a ranger having spells, so, healing could be brought in nicely as well without dredging up the whole non-magic healing bugaboo.
And people keep talking about how a ranger is supposed to fight smarter, not harder - being self reliant and all that. I think I could see the ranger taking on the warlords role in the party and becoming a more tactical/strategic style character. Maybe the three subclasses could be something like - Self Reliant Ranger who focuses on the group; Pet based ranger with animal goodies; and cohort ranger.
Does this idea have any legs?
Yeah, I really think it does.
Almost every post in this thread is talking about tweaking the familiar ranger to emphasize one thing or de-emphasize another. Your idea is an actual re-imagining of the class based on its inspirations, taking it somewhere new.
Bravo.