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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 9853711" data-attributes="member: 29398">Aragorn - fighter with extras.Any swashbuckler - fighter with extras.Lancelot - pure fighter.You've got lost in the weeds, I think, in thinking fighter-with-extras classes are comparable to straight-up fighters.  They're not, and the game has to realize this (and has, to a point, now and then in the past, by giving straight-up Fighters some benefits other Fighter-adjacent classes didn't get).Completely disagree on this from a more gamist perspective.  Dexterity as a stat has always been too powerful, giving it yet more power is bad design.   Yes, this means weapon finesse is a bad design idea. Far more balanced to just say Strength = offense and Dexterity = defense, and have done with it.Rangers as a class shouldn't be spellcasters right from the start; in 1e they got spells in a minor way starting at 8th level, which is fine for a game intended to peter out around 10th.Rangers should in fact just be Fighters-with-extras; those extras being woodscraft, tracking, survival, herbalism*, and hunting. (and let's lose the animal companions, shall we; none of those examples runs around with a pet bear or panther trailing at his heels)* - there is a huge amount of unused design space around magical herbs and plants, which would logically be the Rangers' forte if ever introduced.</blockquote>