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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6670499" data-attributes="member: 996">In 1e, the default 'Giant class' bonus was vs actual giants, the DM could optionally expand it.  If he didn't, and you were playing through anything other than the 'Against the Giants' series of modules, chances were that feature was not at all defining.The Ranger's tracking features was a lot more unique and defining.  After 1e, it varied.  Favored Enemy was a central feature of the 3.x ranger, arguably /among/ it's defining features (along with animal companion and the twf/archery choice).  Skills were not /that/ defining, since the player could distribute ranks as he liked.   In 4e, there was no favored enemy, the Ranger chose an individual enemy to focus on in each encounter.  If you want to identify a feature or feature of the ranger that was there in all editions, Favored Enemy isn't it.   We weren't all living in caves before the internet.  It was extremely common knowledge among D&Ders that D&D borrowed heavily from Tolkien - to the extent that the Tolkien estate sued TSR.  The Aragorn-Ranger connection was painfully obvious. That is the more common case in genre, for instance, yes. On release, the 4e PH1 presented 8 classes.  Only two of them (Wizard & Warlock) technically cast spells (Paladins & Clerics using "Prayers" that included weapon attacks as well as implement powers that more closely resembled spells).  So you had, for a little while, a D&D where half the classes were martial and didn't have magic as a class feature, at all.  There were also 18 'builds' - the Warlock and Wizard had 3 each, for Six explicitly-spell-casting builds; the Cleric & Paladin each had a STR build that used weapon powers and an implement build that was more like caster, while the 4 martial classes each had two builds - so, depending on how you sliced it, there were as few as 6 spell-casting builds, or as many as 10 non-martial builds.  But, 10 weapon builds and 8 implement builds would have been just as fair, and put the former in the majority.Obviously, that state of affairs didn't last long.Very true.  The more ubiquitous magic is - the more it's available as a cheap commodity (like 3.x potions & wands), or as a renewable PC resource (like daily Vancian spells) - the less-wondrous/more-mundane it feels.  In 5e, rest-recharge spell resources are so common (~30 of 38 builds), that a martial resource like the Battlemaster's maneuvers could almost be less mundane than spells (if maneuvers weren't so lackluster, that is).</blockquote>

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