D&D General When and where did the idea of Ranger as "wilderness rogue" start?

[Minigiant]

The question was when it started.

on the armor side:

0e-2e: "medium" armor was strictly inferior to heavy armor. 0e and 1e rangers wore heavy armor though.

3e: Medium armor tops at 18 AC. Heavy at 19. But the best medium armor required 15 DEX to top AC and had a -4 ACP. So Braces/Gloxes/Gauntlet of DEX, light armor, and go full DEX.

4e There were no medium armors. Ranger capped at Hide.

5e: Medium armor was 1 AC behind Heavy naturally and didn't have a DR feat.

Rangers stopped being tanky in 2e. It was still a warrior and could do every other role. In fact it was better at dual roles than fighters.

But Rangers stopped being tank options in AD&D.

 

[GreyLord]

Someone probably addressed this but the 1e Ranger had a D8 hit die, starting with 2 at 1st level.

Now in 2e the sneaky skills from the Thief were added to the ranger along with 2 weapon fighting, essentially giving them massive damage output very early with 2 attacks per round. The 1e Ranger was also sneaky, they surprised opponents about 50% of the time (1-3 on a d6). That's a much higher success rate than a low-mid level thief.

As a skirmisher it is also very inherent in the 1e Ranger, with their combat ability against "giant class" humanoids (which was A LOT of 1e monsters) where they got a +1 to damage for EVERY level they have attained as a ranger.

I seem to be one of the few that prefers 1e rangers. I feel like they had more flavor then instead of trying to pigeon hole into a role. I generally feel that way about 1-2e and BX/BECMI in general anyway. I even prefer the old school Half-orc where they aren't so much a brawler/barbarian but more thuggish type.

I addressed that. D8 started at 1st level...HOWEVER...They got 2d8 HP at first level. That means an average of 9 HP...vs. the Fighters and Paladin's 5.5 HP.

They got an average of 4.5 HP each level after that while the fighters got 5.5 HP.

Fighters didn't catch up on average till at least 4th or 5th level.

Rangers, unlike Fighters or Paladins (who needed a min of 9) needed a 14 or more in the Constitution score. This means by default, there were going to be many Rangers who had a 15 in the Cons or better in general comparatively, and thus would get a +1 HP per level more (making up that difference already) right there.

Rangers were NOT skirmishers in 1e unless you think someone who has as many HP as a fighter, can wear full plate, and does MORE damage against giant type foes than a Fighter is less of a warrior than a Paladin (who does not do more damage). IN addition, after the UA, if you incorporate Weapon specialization, only the Ranger gets weapon specialization besides the fighter.

Aragorn was a great fighter and the Ranger sort of copies that idea.

Still doable in 2e, even if the push was for a more lightly armored 2 weapon fighting type individual.

As I said before, seeing Rangers more as a Skirmisher like the Rogue is now, was more due to them changing WHAT the Rogue was and what it did vs. many of the things that happened to the Ranger. Give the Rogue a d6 (or worse, that d4 from BECMI!) with no sneak attack bonus damage like they have now and you'd see the Ranger still as more of a warrior than a Rogue (or other lightly armored martial type characters which are also skill monkeys).

 

[GreyLord]

The question was when it started.

on the armor side:

0e-2e: "medium" armor was strictly inferior to heavy armor. 0e and 1e rangers wore heavy armor though.

3e: Medium armor tops at 18 AC. Heavy at 19. But the best medium armor required 15 DEX to top AC and had a -4 ACP. So Braces/Gloxes/Gauntlet of DEX, light armor, and go full DEX.

4e There were no medium armors. Ranger capped at Hide.

5e: Medium armor was 1 AC behind Heavy naturally and didn't have a DR feat.

Rangers stopped being tanky in 2e. It was still a warrior and could do every other role. In fact it was better at dual roles than fighters.

But Rangers stopped being tank options in AD&D.

Naw, it depends on HOW you played them. They would lose abilities, but they still could be played like tanks, especially if you used C&T.

I had a couple PC's in my groups that were Rangers and were TANKS. Part of that was the high Cons requirement that meant that their two highest rolls went to fulfilling the class minimums, and many times at least one if not both would be a 15 or greater. It was HARD qualifying for a Ranger on your rolls to begin with (a lot of higher rolls were needed to be one) and with Constitution being one of the required ability scores. Wis was normally more a of a debate of whether you use the higher rolls in than Constitution. This meant that the Ranger would, in general, have a higher Cons (due to lucky rolls to begin with for high ability scores to even qualify) than many fighters or other classes (especially more than the poor paladins).

Even without the stealth options being used (and they could always remove armor if they wished to go stealthy, I had some that would wear armor and then remove armor if scouting ahead or using MS and HS...but in average party movement, wear the heaviest armor they could), if they chose NOT to go the 2wf route, rangers still got the favored enemy (+4 to hit on chosen creatures), empathy with animals, and tracking. They weren't that bad off in 2e without 2wf. There were just many who chose that route (and even then, I had at least two rangers that still used 2wf, but chose to do it the hard way using C&T and weapon proficiencies just so they could ALSO wear heavy armor. Heavy armor was no laughing matter in AD&D.

(PS: It's also one of my pet peeves that 3e and beyond added penalties to DEX modifiers for wearing armor. Having worn both what would be considered heavy armor and Leather armor...as in leather that actually WOULD BE armored as opposed to leather that is basically just light clothing that wouldn't stop a dime much less a dagger...the heavy armor actually had more mobility than that leather stuff. I think they just added the DEX limitations to armor to replicate the hollywood thing of the agile rogue who can dodge better than the heavily bulked up warriors trope).

 

[Horwath]

i don't know why they decided to split medium/heavy armours by being DEX/STR based, rather than the upper/lower tier of each, if the selection for medium was instead hide, chain shirt, spiked armour, ring mail and chain mail and heavy was scale mail, breastplate, halfplate, splint and fullplate.

medium armours covering ACs 12-16, heavy covering 14-18.

honestly there was no need to split armor into categories or have proficiency in them. Just have every armor MIN STR for usage and MAX DEX, yes even fullplate of +0, so dumping dex will cost you AC in fullplate.

AC: +1, min STR 8, max DEX +6
AC: +2, min STR 10, max DEX +5
AC: +3, min STR 10, max DEX +5, stealth disadvantage
AC: +3, min STR 12, max DEX +4
AC; +4 min STR 12, max DEX +4, stealth disadvantage
AC: +4 min STR 14, max DEX +3
AC: +5 min STR 14, max DEX +3, stealth disadvantage
AC: +5 min STR 16, max DEX +2,
AC: +6 min STR 16, max DEX +2, steath disadvantage
AC: +6, min STR 18, max DEX +1
AC: +7, min STR 18, max DEX +1, stealth disadvantage
AC: +8, min STR 20, max DEX +0
AC: +9,min STR 20, max DEX +0, stealth disadvantage

 

[CreamCloud0]

honestly there was no need to split armor into categories or have proficiency in them. Just have every armor MIN STR for usage and MAX DEX, yes even fullplate of +0, so dumping dex will cost you AC in fullplate.

AC: +1, min STR 8, max DEX +6
AC: +2, min STR 10, max DEX +5
AC: +3, min STR 10, max DEX +5, stealth disadvantage
AC: +3, min STR 12, max DEX +4
AC; +4 min STR 12, max DEX +4, stealth disadvantage
AC: +4 min STR 14, max DEX +3
AC: +5 min STR 14, max DEX +3, stealth disadvantage
AC: +5 min STR 16, max DEX +2,
AC: +6 min STR 16, max DEX +2, steath disadvantage
AC: +6, min STR 18, max DEX +1
AC: +7, min STR 18, max DEX +1, stealth disadvantage
AC: +8, min STR 20, max DEX +0
AC: +9,min STR 20, max DEX +0, stealth disadvantage

personally, this looks terrible to me, there's barely any variance in the max AC provided, i think it's important and good for the game that there are different tiers of armour that only some classes can wear, that some classes simply have better tools for letting them perform certain roles,

 

[Horwath]

personally, this looks terrible to me, there's barely any variance in the max AC provided, i think it's important and good for the game that there are different tiers of armour that only some classes can wear, that some classes simply have better tools for letting them perform certain roles,

there is increase of sum of AC bonus and max DEX from 7 to 9.
sure, maybe STR 8-12 armors could be a point lower, 12 is still not a big investment is STR.
you can give martial classes ability to treat their STR as 2 pts higher for using armor, or martial classes that now have heavy armor proficiency.

 

[Kaiyanwang]

honestly there was no need to split armor into categories or have proficiency in them. Just have every armor MIN STR for usage and MAX DEX, yes even fullplate of +0, so dumping dex will cost you AC in fullplate.

AC: +1, min STR 8, max DEX +6
AC: +2, min STR 10, max DEX +5
AC: +3, min STR 10, max DEX +5, stealth disadvantage
AC: +3, min STR 12, max DEX +4
AC; +4 min STR 12, max DEX +4, stealth disadvantage
AC: +4 min STR 14, max DEX +3
AC: +5 min STR 14, max DEX +3, stealth disadvantage
AC: +5 min STR 16, max DEX +2,
AC: +6 min STR 16, max DEX +2, steath disadvantage
AC: +6, min STR 18, max DEX +1
AC: +7, min STR 18, max DEX +1, stealth disadvantage
AC: +8, min STR 20, max DEX +0
AC: +9,min STR 20, max DEX +0, stealth disadvantage

Full plate needs STR 20? So almost no soldier wears it?

 

[jmartkdr2]

Full plate needs STR 20? So almost no soldier wears it?

depends on the penalty for not having enough strength. If it's just a movement penalty, then every cavalier who can afford it wears it - but only the strongest adventurers wear it while caving.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Full plate needs STR 20? So almost no soldier wears it?

Considering how 10 is average and 20 is apparent human maximum, there are so few people who can use it that it simply isn't manufactured and likely was never invented in this world.

 

[Willie the Duck]

personally, this looks terrible to me, there's barely any variance in the max AC provided, i think it's important and good for the game that there are different tiers of armour that only some classes can wear, that some classes simply have better tools for letting them perform certain roles,

I'm not 100% behind it either, but for different reasons. I think like it looks like a lot of complexity just to make sure that all armor types are represented, and even then I don't know that it will work. Str20/Dex10 and Str8/Dex20 builds are going to exist among martials, as are low-investment caster builds like Str12/Dex12 or similar; but I don't see the character who wears the "AC: +4 min STR 14, max DEX +3" armor*.
*unless we're in a D&D 3e situation where that's a Str10/Dex12 caster with two +4 items, in which case choose something farther up the scale.

As for variance, I think that's definitely a different knob that could be turned. D&D 3e-5e have all had ways for the nimble guy in 'light' armor to be within a hair's breadth of the burley guy covered completely in metal. That's a choice, and we could do this same basic thing, but with the total armor+dex bonus on one end equalling ~5-6 and the other end be 10-12.