What represents a Ranger's divine abilities?

[Conradine]

Clerics do not simply get their spells and skills, they meditate and pray and ( probably ) study countless theology texts.
Druids learns ceremonies and have their oral tradition.
Paladins does a training that includes "spiritual stuff".

But a ranger?
Where does he gets his divine skills? They don't seem innate, so is a ranger-specific training or what else?

[DMVerdandi]

Clerics do not simply get their spells and skills, they meditate and pray and ( probably ) study countless theology texts.
Druids learns ceremonies and have their oral tradition.
Paladins does a training that includes "spiritual stuff".

But a ranger?
Where does he gets his divine skills? They don't seem innate, so is a ranger-specific training or what else?

To be honest, they kind of just... Made it that way, Partially because they wanted to have a nature based answer to the paladin, and Aragorn is Kinda Magical [Even though that is probably because of his elven heritage].

For the sake of brevity, One could say that it is from the devotion to the hunt and the life of the wild. Spirits of nature or something.

But you are right, it's kinda trash. but at the same time, it's all kind of trash. 4e DID do it right with the sources of power. They just did it wrong in the mechanics of powers, and their organization.

3.5 [Arcane,Divine,Psionic,etc is kinda butt and basically a way to continue Ism's rather than being something practical and helpful. Classes that have multiple spell lists advance that thought process]

[gkathellar]

That's going to depend on your setting - in FR, for instance, all divine casters have religious training, rangers included. That said, for the purposes of "generic" settings, it may help to think of rangers as something more than just woodsmen. A ranger is a warrior deeply attuned to and reflexively knowledgeable about nature, and nature in D&D is intrinsically magical. A ranger picks up a smattering of nature magic because anything less would be ignorance.

[Blackhawk748]

There's also the fact that a fair few of the spells are almost not spells. Longstrider and others like it are almost Ranger Tricks that they pick up. Obviously as the edition went on they got more and more magical, but a lot are still just cool abilities

[Mars Ultor]

I always envisioned it as a Ranger being able to use the magical forces inherent in nature. The world was created by the gods and there are gods who control the seasons, etc. so there's a certain amount of magic that just exists in everything. The substance of the world is full of magic.

Through their association with the earth and nature Rangers learn how to sense the magic and then make use of it for their own purposes. They're divine casters because they're using the divine power of nature, they're not learning formulas and "scientific" casting that needs this component or that substance. Rangers are drawing upon the divine magic that resides in the natural world the gods created.

[Thurbane]

Ranger casting is basically Druid-lite. However Druids obtain their power in your campaign, Rangers generally follow a similar path...

[weckar]

Yeah, I always interpreted Paladins as Fighters with Cleric training, while Rangers are Fighters (Or Barbarians, the argument has been made) with Druid training...

[Jay R]

There's also the fact that a fair few of the spells are almost not spells. Longstrider and others like it are almost Ranger Tricks that they pick up. Obviously as the edition went on they got more and more magical, but a lot are still just cool abilities

This is a very clever guess about where it came from, but unfortunately, it just isn't true.

When Rangers were first introduced, in The Strategic Review #2, in 1975, they had the ability (at high levels) to cast any spell from the cleric and magic-user lists, up to third level spells at Ranger level 13.

That pre-dated any specific Ranger spell list by a quarter century.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Jay R
When Rangers were first introduced, in The Strategic Review #2, in 1975, they had the ability (at high levels) to cast any spell from the cleric and magic-user lists, up to third level spells at Ranger level 13.

I for one salute your knowledge of game lore. I've been playing this game since 1983 and never knew that.

I've often wished for a book that would trace the development of the classes from the game's beginning through the current editions. Do you know anything along those lines?

[Jay R]

I for one salute your knowledge of game lore. I've been playing this game since 1983 and never knew that.

Thank you. I don't have a complete knowledge of game lore. I just remember what I went through.


I've often wished for a book that would trace the development of the classes from the game's beginning through the current editions. Do you know anything along those lines?

Not that I know of. I could write a pretty good first two chapters, but somebody else would have to take over after that.

[Psyren]

But a ranger?
Where does he gets his divine skills? They don't seem innate, so is a ranger-specific training or what else?

Of course it's training :smallconfused: Paladins, Clerics, and Druids all go through training to access their magic, I don't see why Rangers would be any different.

[Elkad]

The ranger has been wandering around the wilderness hanging out with elves and druids and dryads. He's still a fighter at heart, but he picked up a bit of nature magic.

Makes perfect sense.

[Biggus]

I'm not sure that the ability of Clerics, Druids an Paladins to use divine magic is actually a result of their training: I think it may be more that it comes from the strength of their connection to their deity or principle or to nature, and that their training just speeds up the process of learning to produce specific effects.

Most divine magic is based on Wisdom, which is defined as

"a character’s willpower, common sense, perception, and intuition. While Intelligence represents one’s ability to analyze information, Wisdom represents being in tune with and aware of one’s surroundings" (SRD)

This description suggests to me that Wisdom-based casting has more in common with the instinctual magic of spontaneous arcane casters than it does with those who use spellbooks.

[Âmesang]

The campaign ended before it could come up, but I had a 3rd-level ranger in Pathfinder whom I had planned to "commune with nature," having dreams or visions of her past, present, and future — all of which would take the metaphysical form of a wolf spirit she'd have to conquer, and upon doing so would "awaken" the more divine/spiritual aspects of her class (and grant her her eventual wolf companion).

[Prime32]

This is a very clever guess about where it came from, but unfortunately, it just isn't true.

When Rangers were first introduced, in The Strategic Review #2, in 1975, they had the ability (at high levels) to cast any spell from the cleric and magic-user lists, up to third level spells at Ranger level 13.

That pre-dated any specific Ranger spell list by a quarter century.
Yeah, the original presentation was more that rangers just learn techniques that are useful - most of them don't have much devotion to nature nor care much about how the process of spellcasting works, they're just trying to defend isolated settlements from giant monsters.

In 3.x you can get sort of close to this with the Sword of the Arcane Order feat.

[Psyren]

I'm not sure that the ability of Clerics, Druids an Paladins to use divine magic is actually a result of their training: I think it may be more that it comes from the strength of their connection to their deity or principle or to nature, and that their training just speeds up the process of learning to produce specific effects.

Most divine magic is based on Wisdom, which is defined as

"a character’s willpower, common sense, perception, and intuition. While Intelligence represents one’s ability to analyze information, Wisdom represents being in tune with and aware of one’s surroundings" (SRD)

This description suggests to me that Wisdom-based casting has more in common with the instinctual magic of spontaneous arcane casters than it does with those who use spellbooks.

The training doesn't have to be to use magic specifically. It can be aimed more at strengthening one's connection to whatever divine source empowers them - memorizing rites, contemplating the source's dogma and goals, attuning oneself to their signs and wishes etc, with the increased magical power being an indirect consequence of that.

As far as divine casters being close to sorcerers in terms of spellcasting acquisition, the starting ages belie that assertion. Clerics and Druids take as long to get going as Wizards do. As for Paladins and Rangers, while they take one category less time, (a) they don't get any spellcasting right away at all, and (b) they still take longer than sorcerers do. They're on par with Bards, but again, Bards get their spells right away.

[Spore]

It is honestly one of the bigger design complaints I have with rangers. 8 out of 10 character concepts for rangers I know of don't have anything to do with divine spellcasting or druidism.

Aragorn? Not a druid, he may be part elven but that is managed differently nowadays.
Drizzt? Not a druid. His dogma towards Mielikki is part of his arc but he never casts druid spells, the most he does is use his drow SLAs.
Several (I think 4 in total) characters I've played with or played myself? Never was divine spellcasting a thing. I know a single half-orc ranger character that explained his casting.

People go at great lengths to ditch that spellcasting in favor of cooler tricks (or in Belkar's case to explain wanton murder).

Personally I would love for the ranger to go down the "martial character with a side of skill monkey". Give them traps, supernatural animal bonds (yannow growing ACs like in days of old!), heck even interplanar travel abilities are cool. But just remove the casting in favor of something more "ranger-y".

[Psyren]

There are archetypes in Pathfinder that let you go with the "castless" ranger concept if you so desire. Trapper, Skirmisher, and Divine Marksman are three of the cooler ones.

[Thurbane]

Both Complete Warrior and Complete Champion have "non-casting" Ranger variants. The CC version tends to be better.