D&D General Which Edition Had the Best Ranger?

[Sacrosanct]

So you're agreeing with me? Rangers are pretty lightly armed, and armored in the US military. I should know, I've worked with plenty of them when I was in.

 

[cbwjm]

They look pretty lightly equipped...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The heaviest normal armour I allow anyone to sleep in is leather; if someone's rich (or lucky!) enough to have mithril chain they can also sleep in that.

This is unrealistic. The main drawback to sleeping in armor is hygeine, but that’s just as true for any armor. Sleeping in armor that fits you correctly isn’t that bad.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Keep in mind this was also incorporating the Paladin's code, as in UA Paladins were made a sub-class of Cavalier.

If our group banned Cavaliers, why would we ever play with Cavalier Paladins instead of PHB Paladins? Discarding the UA class also discards the part that says Paladins have different rules.

My guess is the writers naively expected the other party members to be treated as 'peers and equals' rather than 'beneath your station'. But, just like any other bit of 1e that try to overly restrict how one roleplays (e.g. hard-line alignment rules) it's best to just treat these as guidelines.

That's what I would say, but the class description repeatedly goes out of it's way to emphasize how strict the code of conduct is and how the DM should adjudicate it. I think the book is very clear that the code of conduct is supposed to be rigid, inflexible, and deliberately onerous.

It's the UA Barbarian and their hatred of magic, magic items, and magic-users that's more in line with a class description that only has a subtext of disruptive play. With Cavaliers, it's just text.

I've done it, and seen it done.

It needs a party run by Captain Kirk rather than Captain Picard, to be sure, as diplomacy with these guys is often pretty much off the table. But if you put the Cavvy in the lead such that his-her charge won't trample anyone else in the party, chances are you'll be OK.

Or, you could play characters that aren't so disruptive that they require the rest of the party to warp reality around your PC's obnoxious personality. There are, after all, multiple people at the table who want to play.

Yes, it's funny when B. A. Baracus has to be drugged with spiked milk every time the A-Team wants to fly, but that's because it's a throwaway gag every few episodes that takes all of 30 seconds. If you were playing in a game where characters routinely handwave away hours of air travel and now you can't because one player decides to play a character that refuses to cooperate, well, you've just forced everyone else at the table to stop playing the game and put up with your character trait whenever they want to get something done. It's hard not to label that obnoxious. It's hard not to say that you've taken your character and turned them into an obstacle. It's not really a huge leap to call a player-contrived obstacle disruptive to the game. It's certainly fine if everyone is on board with these kind of diversions, but if most of your table is expecting Henry V and someone keeps injecting Twelfth Night you shouldn't be surprised that you might upset some people.

That said, one of the best literary examples of a Cavalier I've ever seen is Mandorallen from Eddings' Belgariad series. Play a Cavalier as if it's him and you can't really go wrong. The trick is to have someone in the party that the Cavalier looks up to as a leader and whose orders s/he will follow; this gets around the 'cannot be controlled' bit.

I'm fairly certain that, on more than one occasion, the party has to distract Mandorallen and get him away from where the action is taking place so he doesn't immediately ruin the quest by attacking or killing some less savory individual because they don't look the part. Mandorallen comes across as an idiot to be endured because his battle prowess was unmatched. Indeed, I'm fairly certain Polgara or Beldin said as much. Frankly, I find him a pale shadow of the Pandion and Cyrinic Knights from Eddings' other major work.

These kinds of character traits might make for comedic moments in literature, but like Kender and Gully Dwarves it very easily makes gameplay excruciating. It means that one character gets to dominate every interaction with NPCs to the extent they their characters must be effectively taken out of play before anyone else can play the game. It means one PC has to be "dealt with" before the rest of the party can actually roleplay their characters.

 

[DnD Warlord]

Toss up 4e and 1e

but for different reasons. 4e could do everything I want a ranger too without magic.

1e doubled down on the magic making him both arcane and divine caster

 

[DnD Warlord]

If someone were to tell me, "You have a power that you can use once per day where you can shoot an arrow and knock that dragon backwards 20ft and knock it prone." and I said "Oh, like a spell would." And they laugh at me? They're pretty clearly a jerk.

Again, it's literally called a "power", and it does supernatural effects. End stop.

So a battle master fighter who uses the power of trip on his arrow is now casting a spell in 5e?

 

[Mannahnin]

Basic D&D/BECM: there was no such thing as a Ranger class in this edition. I could have sworn there was a variant rule for it somewhere, maybe in the Rules Cyclopedia? I'm including it in this poll just in case someone remembers. I don't have the energy to get up and look for myself...my books are all in storage at the moment.

It did not (maybe in one of the Gazetteer setting books), but if you look closely at the rules, it's extremely easy to re-skin the Halfling class to be a Ranger instead. It has the ability to hide in woodlands, improved ranged attacks, it has moderate HP (behind only the Fighter and Dwarf classes), and excellent saving throws, though it is restricted to not wielding two handed weapons or longbows (the latter of which is a bit of a bummer, but shortbows work fine, and are more portable).

 

[Helldritch]

So a battle master fighter who uses the power of trip on his arrow is now casting a spell in 5e?

Not to take Sancrosanct's defense, he's old enough to do that, but a trip is not a 25 feet knock back prone on a gargantuan dragon... There a whole new ball game in 4ed that is not in 5ed.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Not to take Sancrosanct's defense, he's old enough to do that, but a trip is not a 25 feet knock back prone on a gargantuan dragon... There a whole new ball game in 4ed that is not in 5ed.

Pretty much I can be tripped by a crack in the sidewalk. That crack won't also throw me back 20ft. Also, trip is large size or smaller

Although, that'd be crazy to see...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Not to take Sancrosanct's defense, he's old enough to do that, but a trip is not a 25 feet knock back prone on a gargantuan dragon... There a whole new ball game in 4ed that is not in 5ed.

It's absolutely the same thing. 25ft is just more in the territory of epic heroes than normal soldiers.

But hey, maybe Cu Chulain was casting spells when he got so mad he melted ponds full of water, and Beowulf was as well when he held his breath for longer than any real life human ever could?