D&D General Which Edition Had the Best Ranger?

[doctorbadwolf]

The 4e ranger was a skirmisher with tracking skills and mostly mobility utility powers, IIRC. Add in exploration rituals with a feat and you’ve got a solid ranger thematically, but it doesn’t really come together until you can do nature magic with utility powers form the Essentials ranger options.

 

[Horwath]

How can you even put 3.0E ranger together with 3.5E/PF1 ranger as an option to vote?

In 3.0E you took more than 1 level of ranger only if you are on a quest to make the worst PC ever(in terms of game mechanics).

I would vote for 3.5E/PF1, but I can't as it is glued to the worst version of ranger.

 

[Cyan Wisp]

Based on a true story:

DM: All classes are allowed in this campaign except the Ranger
Player 1: I absolutely must play a Ranger now.
Player 2: Me too. No other class will do.
Player 3: Same. I will fight you if I have to.

I just remembered a weird rule about 1e rangers: no more than 3 can work together!

I voted 1e, but I'm not sure I can back it up. They played quite different to fighters. I remember it could track, cast druid and mage spells, and boy could it smash "giant class" creatures - but, like favoured enemy, this could be very campaign-dependent.

 

[Lanefan]

I just remembered a weird rule about 1e rangers: no more than 3 can work together!

Yes - one of the very first rules I threw out when I started DMing in 1984.

Ranger alignment restrictions were, I think, next.

I voted 1e, but I'm not sure I can back it up. They played quite different to fighters. I remember it could track, cast druid and mage spells, and boy could it smash "giant class" creatures - but, like favoured enemy, this could be very campaign-dependent.

1e Rangers could fight just fine, to the point where you could easily enough play one as nothing more than a Fighter-with-extras for at least the first half dozen levels. The only thing that did them in a bit at higher levels was their hit points were on a d8 rather than d10 (though they did get an extra d8 at 1st level) and thus they tended to lack starch later on.

Full disclosure: the very first character I ever played was a 'heavy Ranger' - a plate-clad crazy-strong (beginner's luck on the dice!) tank who could, when he took his armour off, also track and do some other useful things. Thus, the heavy-Ranger character concept is one I will defend against anything; and also thus my utter disdain for the polar-opposite Drizz't-style Ranger.

In 3e I tried to replicate the heavy-Ranger idea, to rather dubious results even though the character managed to last a good long time.

 

[Aldarc]

I prefer spell-less rangers, so I would cast my vote for the editions where the ranger lacked spells.

 

[ccs]

1e.
Past that it's just been a never ending train wreck of trying to re-make/improve upon the 1e class everyone loved for some reason.

But then I am biased as 1e is still my favorite edition.

 

[jasper]

other US. Army.
Which is funny, because when I hear ranger, that is what I think of first. Not a knock off of Toldkin.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The best rangers I've seen were entirely about the person playing it, not the class itself.

Even the best game mechanics in the world don't result in good characters if the person playing it isn't a very good player. This is why white-room analysis to me is absolutely pointless. Because no player plays their character in a white room.

 

[billd91]

I voted 1e, but I'm not sure I can back it up. They played quite different to fighters. I remember it could track, cast druid and mage spells, and boy could it smash "giant class" creatures - but, like favoured enemy, this could be very campaign-dependent.

Since "giant class" creatures were most of the humanoids and giants, it would be a fairly unusual campaign to not feature them once in a while. That's the benefit of having broad definitions of what's a favored enemy rather than overly narrow ones.
And, of course, the broadest definition would be "what the ranger chooses to be his current favored enemy" - then it isn't campaign dependent at all. It allows the ranger to adjust to the current situation in a campaign.

 

[Aaron L]

1st Edition AD&D:
Rangers are a sub-class of fighter who are adept at woodcraft, tracking,
scouting, and infiltration and spying.
Heavily armed and armored magical commandos.
1E Rangers didn't get Druid spells because they worshiped nature, they learned them as a practical matter because they worked in nature, along with magic-user spells for utility and some offense. They're job was patrolling the wilderness slaying monsters.