What is up with the Ranger's Fluff?

[Tainted_Scholar]

In 3.5 the Fluff for the Ranger class has always confused me, they're essentially Druid Lite, and I really can't figure out why. Most Rangers in fantasy are like Aragorn, the Night's Watch, or the Ranger's Apprentice, the Ranger class even seems have some similarities with them in terms of its Weapon Mastery. In fact it would be trivially easy to refluff a Ranger into that type of character.

So where the heck did the Nature angle come from, I know Rangers need to know the wilderness but why are they literally Druid Lite in 3.5? Did someone on the designer team go, "Hey, Rangers take care of parks rights?"

[hamishspence]

I think they were always a bit like this - increasing with each edition - 3.5 just dialled it up that little bit more.

[Raxxius]

2nd Ed did this to move away from the Aragon clone, partly due to the lawsuit from the Tolkien estate.

Check out the 1st Ed ranger. It's a lot more like what you are describing.

[hamishspence]

Did the 1E ranger introduce the Animal Companion - the first big step away from Aragorn, who doesn't have one?

[Âmesang]

The last time I played a ranger I tried giving her a kind of John Rambo in First Blood mindset… albeit without the PTSD; basically just someone who had grown accustomed to living out in the rough because %*&# society.

Granted, she never got to advance past 3rd-level since the game ended early, so there was no opportunity to explain her sudden spellcasting or companion acquisition.

[Darth Ultron]

The 1E Ranger was a person who learns the ways of the Wild in order to defend civilization against it. Rangers are civilized men who forsake the comforts and safety of civilization in order to protect those they leave behind. To borrow a phrase, rangers exist in the Wild but they are not of it.

So the ''nature'' bit has always been there. For the long time the Ranger was a 'Sub-Class' of the Fighter, Wizard or Cleric and Thief (aka Rogue) Class. Just as a bard is much less powerfull than a rogue-sorcerer, the ranger is less powerful than a rogue-fighter.

[Hypersmith]

I know Rangers need to know the wilderness but why are they literally Druid Lite in 3.5? Did someone on the designer team go, "Hey, Rangers take care of parks rights?"
lmao, this is signature material.

My main problem with ranger fluff is that they suddenly get their abilities at level 3. For most classes, that isn't a problem, but for ranger, the sudden acquisition of an animal companion is. Personally I think they should start with them from level 1.
I'm new to 3.5 and may be making no sense.

[Arbane]

Did the 1E ranger introduce the Animal Companion - the first big step away from Aragorn, who doesn't have one?

I believe so, yes. At 'name' level (around level 9 or 10), while all the other PCs are building keeps or thieves' guilds or what-not and attracting a small army to their side, the rangers get less followers, but they can get bears.

[KillianHawkeye]

My main problem with ranger fluff is that they suddenly get their abilities at level 3. For most classes, that isn't a problem, but for ranger, the sudden acquisition of an animal companion is. Personally I think they should start with them from level 1.
I'm new to 3.5 and may be making no sense.

Yeah, I think the only reason they don't get the companion from first level is because they didn't want to step on the Druid's toes. They honestly thought that having a bigger Hit Die and a better BAB progression was actually equivalent to spells and other class features back in the early days, so it was probably done for balance reasons as well.

Come to think of it, it might also be a result of the Ranger's delayed access to spells. Back in 3.0, the animal companion wasn't a class feature. You got one (or more) by casting the animal friendship spell, so it made more sense that a Ranger couldn't get one until later on when they got some magic.

My real guess, though, is that they probably designed the 3E Cleric and Paladin before the Druid and Ranger, and that led to the Ranger being a "martial half-Druid" in a very similar way to how the Paladin is a "martial half-Cleric."

[Psyren]

2nd Ed did this to move away from the Aragon clone, partly due to the lawsuit from the Tolkien estate.

Check out the 1st Ed ranger. It's a lot more like what you are describing.

There was a lawsuit? What the heck did the 1e ranger look like to pull that? :smalleek:


Most Rangers in fantasy are like Aragorn, the Night's Watch, or the Ranger's Apprentice, the Ranger class even seems have some similarities with them in terms of its Weapon Mastery.

Isn't Aragorn himself "druid-lite?" He knew his way around some Athelas and weed anyway.

[KillianHawkeye]

There was a lawsuit? What the heck did the 1e ranger look like to pull that? :smalleek:

Presumably, the suit wasn't just focused on the Ranger, but also on the inclusion of Hobbits and Balrogs and Ents, and whatever else the original D&D "borrowed" from Tolkien's works without even bothering to file the serial numbers off.

[Nifft]

The 1e Ranger was a veritable Special Ops woodland hard-case, who used any and every tool at his or her disposal to accomplish his or her goal: exterminate the brutes.

The 1e Ranger could cast Wizard* and Druid spells. They had some rather explicit winks towards Aragorn, like their overly-specific ability to use all scrying devices, but that could be argued as part of the whole scout-the-territory package. Really, the 1e Ranger was the class that could say By Any Means Necessary and then proceed to actually use a wide variety of different means.

It's 2e that "simplified" the Ranger to be a Druid-lite by removing the non-Druid features (and then added in new un-Druid features from Drizzt novels).

Then 3e tried to systematize the Ranger, and it didn't quite work out. 3.5e helped, especially the expanded spell list and more caster-oriented re-works like the Mystic Ranger.

4e threw away a lot of sacred cows (and token wolves), and made a hard-hitting iconic Striker which felt very much how I'd always wished the 3e Ranger would feel.

5e seems to be trying to keep the best parts of 4e and 3e, but I don't see much 1e nor 2e. That's fine. 4e and 3e were pretty great.


*) Yes yes, Magic-User spells, we know.

[johnbragg]

There was a lawsuit? What the heck did the 1e ranger look like to pull that? :smalleek:

It looked like you tried to make a class to play Aragorn. Which they totally did.

Hobbits could become halflings and balrogs could become balors with a simple name change, but the "ranger" name was common enough (students of American REvolutionary War may remember George Rogers Clark) that changing the name would make it MORE copyright-infringy.

[Psyren]

What I mean is. that could apply to lots of classes (e.g. I could make a Fighting Man that's basically Boromir.) What abilities did it have that made someone look at it and instantly say "this is Aragorn with a name change, call the lawyers!!"?

[Bavarian itP]

They honestly thought that having a bigger Hit Die and a better BAB progression was actually equivalent to spells and other class features back in the early days, so it was probably done for balance reasons as well.



The Ranger doesn't even have a bigger hit die than the Druid.
But don't worry, it has something that totally balances that:

As opposed to the Druid, Ranger can be of any alignment.

[Zaq]

I've always thought that the Ranger's fluff makes zero sense when compared with its actual class abilities. I'm kind of okay with "vaguely naturey guy who's [in the opinion of the original devs, who didn't know how to balance spells and BAB] better at weapon-based fighting than the Druid" being the starting point for a class, but what does that have to do with ineffectually waving two weapons around, or getting ridiculously specific bonuses against certain enemies but not others (okay, you're a "hunter," but most fantasy hunters don't only hunt one thing, right?), or . . . yeah. I'm not saying anything new or offering any crazy insight.

I like the Scout a lot better than the PHB Ranger. The Scout has flaws (as do most mundane classes), but it actually feels like a class that's built around a specific theme (without being completely nailed down into a single batch of fluff), and I like that. The Scout is clearly a vaguely naturey class that's good at skills and that fights by being more mobile than everyone else. Awesome. Being a book-fluff Scout implies more about a character than being a book-fluff Ranger (not that ANY class should feel limited to only using the fluff in the book), partly because it also implies a party niche that the Ranger doesn't ("tracker" isn't enough on its own when, for one, anyone can track with a feat, and for two, the fact that you need a feat to use Survival to follow tracks is kind of BS anyway).

The Ranger seems more defined by what it's not (it's got spells, but they're not as good as any real caster's spells; it's got a pet, but it's not as good as a Druid's pet; it's got skills, but it's not as good at skillmonkeying as the Rogue is; it's got feats that are allegedly weapon-based, but it doesn't have any class-native ways of making them matter . . .) than by what it really is. Yes, yes, Swift Hunter; if the PHB Ranger were basically a Swift Hunter without needing to juggle the feats and the early game level layout, I'd have a lot more respect for the class.

[Keltest]

What I mean is. that could apply to lots of classes (e.g. I could make a Fighting Man that's basically Boromir.) What abilities did it have that made someone look at it and instantly say "this is Aragorn with a name change, call the lawyers!!"?

The ranger basically took everything that Aragorn did well at, and made it a class feature. They could track, they were good at killing specific kinds of monsters (mostly orcs and goblin types), they could scry well, they handled ambushes well from either direction...

[Remuko]

The Ranger doesn't even have a bigger hit die than the Druid.
But don't worry, it has something that totally balances that:

As opposed to the Druid, Ranger can be of any alignment.

In 3.0 they had D10. They got nerfed in the 3.5 update because someone thought they were too strong or something.

[Nifft]

In 3.0 they had D10. They got nerfed in the 3.5 update because someone thought they were too strong or something.

In 1e they had d8, but they were extra-tough so they got 2d8 at level 1.

A level 1 Ranger was a level 2 character.

[Psyren]

The ranger basically took everything that Aragorn did well at, and made it a class feature. They could track, they were good at killing specific kinds of monsters (mostly orcs and goblin types), they could scry well, they handled ambushes well from either direction...

Wait, run the bolded one by me again?


In 3.0 they had D10. They got nerfed in the 3.5 update because someone thought they were too strong or something.

PF gave them back their d10 as part of standardizing HD to BAB.

[Uckleverry]

Wait, run the bolded one by me again?

Related to the palantir scrying orb thing from Tolkien's work.

[tomandtish]

Wait, run the bolded one by me again?


Rangers were able to use scrying devices (esp. crystal balls) as a nod to Aragorn's ancestoral legacy with the palantiri.

Interestingly, based on what i can find, it was not one of the things that was the subject of below...



There was a lawsuit? What the heck did the 1e ranger look like to pull that? :smalleek:


Technically a suit was never filed, only the threat of one (papers were never actually filed with the court). TSR was still pretty poor at the time (this was in the mid-70s) and wouldn't have been able to afford the battle, even if they thought they would win. They got rid of the terms hobbits, ents, and balrogs (becoming halflings, treants, and Type 6 Demon respectively, later a Balor).

Note that the 1st edition AD&D ranger came out after that with the scrying ability.

[Eldariel]

Ranger as a hunter works pretty well - they particularly excel at hunting a particular kind of quarry (everything from Track, Favored Enemy, Woodland Stride and company to Camouflage and Hide in Plain Sight works around this) and they have magicks and blood hound that aid hunting. Of course, two-weapon fighting combat style only exists because Drizzt TWFs and is a "Ranger" with one level in the class or something (Drizzt was basically just a "munchkinized" martial back in the day). Otherwise archery makes sense for a hunter. But yeah, there are the Aragorn/Drizzt legacy effects still around to some degree (Endurance, for example, is Because Aragorn). But yeah, Ranger at its core is logical - there's just a lot of design/legacy nonsense around it that kinda confounds the point. But it's still the most rewarding martial aside from perhaps Barbarian to play in Core since getting both skills and combat prowess (and even some spells) is way better than only getting some combat prowess. And HiPS + Camouflage is actually strong, even if it comes way too late and without the Darkstalker-support it needs.

That said, the background of most things D&D was basically in just Tolkien: The Game. Classes were Magic-User (Gandalf), Ranger (Aragorn), Dwarf (Gimli), Elf (Legolas with a drop of Galadriel/Elrond in the magic use), Fighter (Boromir), Thief (Bilbo/Frodo) with rest of the Hobbits Halflings being Fighters and Thieves. And all the monsters and races and everything were from LotR and the Hobbit. The only addition was the Priest-category in order to facilitate faster-than-natural healing so the adventure could continue. That's where it all started and slowly the classes (and the races) evolved their separate ways.

[Tainted_Scholar]

lmao, this is signature material.

Thanks.


Isn't Aragorn himself "druid-lite?" He knew his way around some Athelas and weed anyway.

Not to same extent as the 3.5 Ranger. Aragorn didn't have an animal companion, protecting forests wasn't his job, and he couldn't cast magic from venerating nature. Knowing medicine doesn't really compare.



That said, the background of most things D&D was basically in just Tolkien: The Game. Classes were Magic-User (Gandalf), Ranger (Aragorn), Dwarf (Gimli), Elf (Legolas with a drop of Galadriel/Elrond in the magic use), Fighter (Boromir), Thief (Bilbo/Frodo) with rest of the Hobbits Halflings being Fighters and Thieves. And all the monsters and races and everything were from LotR and the Hobbit. The only addition was the Priest-category in order to facilitate faster-than-natural healing so the adventure could continue. That's where it all started and slowly the classes (and the races) evolved their separate ways.

Ironically, Gygax hated Tolkien's work from what I've heard.

[SirNibbles]

I don't think calling the Ranger 'Druid Lite' is accurate.

The Ranger is a nature-y guy who trains hard to be good with weapons and can cast a few spells due to his attunement with nature/natural energies.

The Druid is a magical hobo who lives in the wilderness.

[jk7275]

I believe so, yes. At 'name' level (around level 9 or 10), while all the other PCs are building keeps or thieves' guilds or what-not and attracting a small army to their side, the rangers get less followers, but they can get bears.

At level 10. they get 2 to 24 followers each one determined by d100
<51 human 51-70 demi human 71-80 animal 81-90 mount 91-95 creature 96-100 special creature