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

[Mannahnin]

Originally all the oddball himanoids were giant kin. So yeah it was a nice buff

"Giant kin" in what sense?

There was no fluff or in-world fiction saying that orcs or kobolds were related to Giants. They just all happened to be on the same random wilderness encounter sub-table on pages 18-19 of The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. Along with Gnomes, Dwarves, Elves and Ents. Or are you saying that in OD&D dwarves and elves were meant to be related to giants?

The original Joe Fisher Ranger class in The Strategic Review #2 said "All Rangers gain a special advantage when fighting against monsters of the Giant Class (Kobolds - Giants). For each level they have gained they add +1 to their damage die against these creatures, so a 1st Level Ranger adds +1, a 2nd Level +2, and so on." By noting "Kobolds-Giants" he meant for us to ignore the last four entries on the table (Gnomes, Dwarves, Elves and Ents).

In AD&D Gary expanded the list of monsters and listed it directly in the class rules (as follows), and retained the "giant class" language, but that term had no meaning except "the monsters a Ranger gets a bonus against".

When fighting humanoid-type creatures of the "giant class", listed hereafter, rangers add 1 hit point for each level of experience they have attained to the points of damage scored when they hit in melee combat. Giant class creatures are:bugbears, ettins, giants, gnolls, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds,ogres, ogre magi, orcs, and trolls.

It refers to nothing in the AD&D rules. Which is why he had to give the complete list of monsters Rangers got the bonus against. The only other thing "Giant class" meant was to tell OD&D players that this was the updated version of the same rule. If you look at the outdoor encounter tables on DMG 183-189, there is a "Giant Type" subtable, but it only has actual giants on it. There is a separate "Humanoids" subtable, but it's only got 5 of the other eligible monsters on it.

 

[Voadam]

how they were played in practice was as tanky warriors who had some bonus abilities.

Variant paladins.

In 1e both fighter subclasses could use plate as could multiclass fighters and still cast spells so elven fighter magic users were like B/X elves and casting in armor. Gnome illusionist fighters too. So all could tank.

It was only multiclassed fighter thieves in 1e and human switch class fighter magic users who had an incentive to wear light or no armor or be prevented from using their thief abilities or spells. Light armor or less means not a tank and so the more striker thief combat role.

 

[Mannahnin]

I think the original concept was kind of unclear and often contradictory (i.e. if they're supposed to be scouts, why do they not have penalties for wearing the heaviest armour possible?), and how they were played in practice was as tanky warriors who had some bonus abilities.

I'm not contesting that they were most frequently played as "Fighters plus extra awesome" (hooray for rolling stats which qualified!). Certainly that's true.

But I'm pointing out that the 1e text explicitly says they're adept at "scouting, and infiltration and spying", and the 1E rules give them a bonus to surprise, so mechanically they're extra stealthy too. I think the premise that the class only gained these aspects in later editions is false. It just got more mechanically emphasized.

Giving them penalties for wearing heavy armor would be inconsistent with the way OD&D and 1E were designed. The Surprise rules didn't care what armor you wore. Only the Thief's Move Silently rule did. In 2E they added an incentive to go lightly armored, as they both phased out the Aragorn aspects and tried to differentiate the Ranger as something other than "a Fighter, but AWESOMER".