Trolls can be killed with fire. Displacer beasts just need good aim. Fey have few or no physical resistances and while they are magical, they can be tricked with just wits.
Did you just not read the rest of what you quoted, here, or are you just ignoring it?
Why wouldn't they? Because you think that every combat should last for less than a minute?
Ah yes. There is only a minute, and most of a day. Definitely nothing in between.
It literally makes more sense for a ranger--especially one who's working alone or in a small group--to inflict a bit of damage and then hide until they can get another good shot at the target. This is only a bad plan if the creature can fly/teleport away or heal itself.
Anything that is very dangerous needs to be taken down quickly, or at least hobbled so it can't follow you easily. Choosing not to learn how to do so would be blatant stupidity.
Do you also think that every ranger is going to only fight CR-appropriate creatures?
Feel free to explain what on earth led you to this conclusion. Or better yet, why most of your post is just you asking rhetorical questions that attribute to me things I never said?
If they are working alone (as you say)
did I say that? Nope.
, then it would be suicide for them to go against a too-powerful creature in a 1v1 battle.
Okay?
But if the ranger has sworn to protect an area or to fight all monsters of a particular type, then they're less likely to just shrug and say "not my level." They'll either get help or use clever tactics. And 1v1 is not clever tactics.
Magic is full of tools to use in clever tactics, though, and is available to them to learn. They aren't going to hunt boars with knives just because it sounds cooler or they prefer fighting with knives over spears, either.
OK then: who (or what) would they learn magic from?
Druids, other rangers, dryads, hags who owe them a favor, wizards in exchange for keeping the area near their tower free of distactions and dangers, nature priests, bards in exchange for allowing them to join a pair of rangers while traversing a wilderness, etc. Like, if rangers are magical, then they learn their magic the same way as every other spellcaster. There are traditions of rangers, and their training includes magic. It's very simple.
If rangers are so solitary, then there's no reason why there would be ranger organizations.
I have never said they're especially solitary, outside of when they are patrolling the wilds, and even then I've explicitly described them being solo
or in very small groups, and have repeatedly mentioned ranger orders.
I'm not saying there can't be ranger organizations, but they don't need to be the default either. So do rangers spontaneously develop magical skills, like they're sorcerers? Then why is their magic all nature/hunting related instead of mostly blaster magic? Does the earth give them magic, like druids? If so, then why does it give the magic to "bounty hunter"-style rangers as well as wilderness protector rangers? Do they learn magical tricks from from each other? But then there's that thing about ranger organizations.
There is no reason for them not to have organizations. This is a thing you're inventing of whole cloth and then acting like I said it.
This is why I prefer ranger magic as a subclass thing, as a warlock-style invocations thing, or as magical traits rather than as being half-casters as default.
None of that works, because it
only allows your preference. It does not allow everyone who prefers a spellcasting ranger to actually play that without making it their whole damn archetype. There are better solutions, several of which I've suggested in this thread.
Out of curiosity, have you seen the Level Up ranger? Sadly, the playtest was removed now that the book's in kickstarter, but it's nonmagical yet still has lots of traits--some of which are pseudomagical--that make it worthy. An innate nonmagical hunter's mark (instead of relying on the spell), the ability to increase accuracy and damage with attacks, a nonmagical self-only pass without trace that defies nonmagical tracking, and more.
I don't especially like Level Up, from what I've read so far. Why should they be limited to defying nonmagical tracking? The wilds have spellcasting monsters in them. Why would the ranger never learn how to counter them?
Things like that are great, and nonmagical to boot. All it should really require is proficiency in the Herbalism kit or the Poisoner's kit. (Or knowing someone who has those proficiencies.)
Okay. I didn't say they couldn't be? They make more sense being somewhat magical with some being overtly magical, but you can stretch the idea pretty far if you squint. Nothing that is a core ranger competency conceptually should ever rely on knowing someone with a proficiency, though. If they get banes, they need to be making them themselves.
So basically all PC rangers aren't really rangers, because they're relying on help?
What. This is pretty blatantly a mischaracterization of what I said,seemingly desinged to try to win internet points rather than have a discussion.
And if a ranger is going to learn druid skills... that makes them multiclassed. Or means they took the Magic Initiate feat and grabbed druid skills that way.
If rangers tend to learn those skills, then they're part of ranger training.
I'd disagree. Or rather, I'd say that it can be seen as magical, or it can be seen as being highly, but mundanely, skilled. A ranger can be just that good at bypassing difficult terrain that magical terrain isn't that much worse, and a monk can be well-trained at the meditations needed to break mind control.
Oh? And the other examples I gave?
I think one of the reasons why many people want the ranger to be primarily nonmagical is because magic is so omnipresent in D&D as to be kind of boring. Making the ranger be able to be able to do things because of their own training and talents makes them cooler, IMO.
I have no sympathy for the "magic is too common amongst PCs and so it's boring" mindset, when discussing game design. DnD has magic. There are options to playdnd without a lot of magic. If the scout rogue doesn't scratch the wilderness explorer itch for someone, I'm all for variant features that let them ditch thespellcasting trait and reflavor the magical class features beyond that.