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

[Deset Gled]

It definitely predates 3e.

Hank, the ranger from the D&D cartoon, has a number of "woodsman" or rogue like qualities, ranging from his costume to skills with rope, climbing, his grappling hook arrows, etc.

Also, it's worth looking outside of just D&D if you want to look at the history of what it means to be a ranger. Everquest (1), for example, had a ranger class that was litterally a half-fighter half-druid hybrid.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Let me clarify what I meant by wilderness "rogue". I did not just mean having wilderness skills. Of course they have always had those.

What I primarily meant was being closer in class function/role to a fragile "striker" rogue than to a "sturdy warrior". Secondarily, I include having lots of non-magical skills versus primarily shining as a warrior.

 

[jayoungr]

There's always (IMO) been a healthy amount of Robin Hood mixed in with the Ranger archetype, and he certainly has roguish tendencies.

 

[Deset Gled]

Secondarily, I include having lots of non-magical skills versus primarily shining as a warrior.

Well, if we're going to get into the definition section of the discussion, could you expand a bit on where the "non-magical" part of your vision comes from?

I'm bringing this up specifically because I view the ranger as having a number of magical abilities that overlap with what I would consider rogue-ish abilities. For example, the ranger spell "Detect Snares and Pits" is basically a magical version of the thief's trap finding skill. So I would call it one example of the ranger being a wilderness rogue in early D&D, but it seems like your definition here may not agree.

 

[sevenbastard]

In 1e my Rangers always wore plate mail. Once 2e gave them Hide in Shadows and Move Silently they wore studded leather.

They were always wilderness but 2e implied they were stealthy as well.

 

[billd91]

In 1e my Rangers always wore plate mail. Once 2e gave them Hide in Shadows and Move Silently they wore studded leather.

They were always wilderness but 2e implied they were stealthy as well.

They were implied to be stealthy in 1e as well, hence they surprised 3 in 6 rather than the standard 2 in 6. Not quite as good as an elf or halfling, but not restricted to non-metal armors either.

2e was when the ability to inflict surprise started being funneled through the more restrictive stealth mechanic and D&D stopped merely implying they were stealthy and made it explicit.

 

[Indagare Nogitsune]

Ranger was orginally--and for quite a long time--squarely in the full warrior category. There was no hint of seeing them as in any sort of thief/rogue combat role. This was true least from 1e through 3.0e D&D.

In 3.5e rangers got their hp reduced from the warrior's d10s to d8s (but rogues and bards were still rocking d6s then) and got their number of skill points increased and armor proficiencies reduced. They did however keep the warrior level number and efficacy of atracks.

Is 3.5e where it started?

In 4e they were defined as Martial Strikers along with rogues. Is that where it started?

Did it start in a non-D&D source?

It's something I always wonder about. And even though it isn't accurate for 5e, where they have been back to their roots as full warriors since 2014, people still have the idea in their minds. WotC even made it official in the 2024 PHB by listing them as an alternate option for the rogue. There is no justification for that, and it is misleading, though perhaps irrelevant in context of 5e rogues. I can't help but see the likely reason it was listed there deriving mostly from the "ranger as wilderness rogue" concept.

So, someone please help set the record straight. When and where did this idea get started?

To go with everyone else, the following are from 1e (emphasis mine):

Rangers are a sub-class of fighter who are adept at woodcraft, tracking, scouting, infiltration, and spying.

In addition to considerable prowess as fighters, rangers have druidic and magical spell capabilities when they attain high levels. Thus, they are very formidable opponents, for they have other abilities and benefits as well.
Tracking is possible both outdoors and underground (in dungeons and similar settings). Underground, the ranger must have observed the creature to be tracked within 3 turns (30 minutes) of the commencement of tracking, and the ranger must begin tracking at a place where the creature was observed.

So, there's always been a mix of attributes. It's hard to argue that scouting, infiltration, and spying wouldn't be Roguish activities.

2e simply builds on this idea:
The ranger is a hunter and woodsman who lives by not only his sword, but also his wits. Robin Hood, Orion, Jack the giant killer, and the huntresses of Diana are examples of rangers from history and legend. The abilities of the ranger make him particularly good at tracking, woodcraft, and spying.

And, of course, future editions go from there.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It might not be where it started, but 3e is where the ranger was imminently replaceable by a rogue with woodcraft skills except for the superfluous magic powers that have consumed the entire class of late.

 

[Tonguez]

Ranger has always been Wilderness focussed fighter with theif/rogue skills - the 1e Ranger was a Fighter variant proficient in woodcraft, tracking, scouting, infiltration, and spying. ie Wilderness + Stealth

and they started at 2d8 so d8 is original too

As for Aragorn the OD&D had Strider as the Rangers first level-name

 

[bloodtide]

Ranger was orginally--and for quite a long time--squarely in the full warrior category. There was no hint of seeing them as in any sort of thief/rogue combat role. This was true least from 1e through 3.0e D&D.

The Ranger was always intented to be a Wilderness Rogue. Though this was not always supported by rules.

The before 3E "Rogue" was the Thief. They were very much primarily dungeon hunting treasure seekers. A HUGE number of Thieves would never in get into any combat much. Sure, they might fight from time to time: but they would just about never rush into front line combat to strike at foes. In before 3E games, when combat happened, very often, the player of a thief character would just....sit there and do nothing. So, yes, let that sink in : during combat they often did nothing.

Now, with the right DM, very often a Thief would do all sorts of other activities except fighting during combat. A thief might close and spike a door closed so more goblins could not get into the main room, for example. And the thief did have a "maybe once a game" ability where they could get behind a foe and Backstab!

Now the Thief did translate well into Urban Adventures. There were locked doors in dungeons and there were locked doors in cities. But they were a bit of a bad fit in the Wilderness.

So the Ranger was added as the Wilderness Warrior/Wilderness Rogue.

In 3.5e rangers got their hp reduced from the warrior's d10s to d8s (but rogues and bards were still rocking d6s then) and got their number of skill points increased and armor proficiencies reduced. They did however keep the warrior level number and efficacy of atracks.

Is 3.5e where it started?

No. It was 2E. There was a lot of variants in the 2E rules.

But 3E was the big turning point where the Rogue and Ranger both became awesome first line strikers as part of the games focus on combat only. The basic idea was for every player to be fulling playing their character in ever single combat.

3E was also the big skill shift. Before 3E, characters could just do actions in the game by role playing. 3E firmly started the idea of rolling for everything using the rules.

And.........well, 3E D&D is a combat game with some random dungeon exploring rules. There is no huge non combat rules set of hundreds of pages. This left DMs to just make up stuff on their own. Except most DMs and most players, even more so new ones, wanted a more heavy rules for everything game play. And it was not there.

So, for many games, they just dropped anything except Combat.