Quote from: Achaerone;1003570I'm going to go way out on a limb here and nominate the ranger -- not because an agile and moderately-armored wilderness warrior feels out of place in the game, but because D&D rangers always, and to me inexplicably, gain access to druid spells and class abilities. IMO one of the great innovations in Pathfinder was the "Skirmisher" archetype, which allowed you to shitcan the makes-no-goddamn-sense spellcasting abilities in favor of various "hunter tricks" that are much more in keeping with the archetypical role the ranger class is supposed to occupy.

That archetypal role is "Aragorn" not lightly armoured skirmishing fighter.  If you base a class on the latter you're just taking stuff away from the fighter.

Quote from: TJS;1003631That archetypal role is "Aragorn" not lightly armoured skirmishing fighter.  If you base a class on the latter you're just taking stuff away from the fighter.

Aragorn didn't have spells and I don't remember much description of his armor. He was, I'll admit, Hell on Wheels in melee. The type of fighting he and the other rangers seemed to be doing prior to the opening of tLotR was hit and run.

Quote from: TJS;1003631That archetypal role is "Aragorn" not lightly armoured skirmishing fighter.  If you base a class on the latter you're just taking stuff away from the fighter.

Aragorn was not a part-druid: he did not have an animal companion, and with the debatable exception of healing Éowyn in the House of Healing he did not cast spells. He was, for the entirety of the first book and most of the second, a lightly armored skirmishing fighter who was really good at woodcraft.

1E rangers have spells largely because that was a way to model extraordinary abilities in IE.

They didn't get "animal companions" in any kind of modern sense, although they could eventually get animal followers.  They didn't get any restrictions on arms or armour.  Like Aragorn they could put on heavy armour and charge in battle mounted if the situation called for it, just like fighters could stow their plate and wear light armour if the situation called for that.  It's been awhile but I'm pretty sure Rangers got no benefits for forgoing heavy armour or shields.

They also weren't part Druid.  Rangers being required to be good* and Druids being required to be True Neutral - they weren't even necessarily on the same side.

There's been lots of discussion of the original Ranger class on the net over the years and at this point it seems pretty indisputable that it was pretty much an attempt to model Aragorn.

*the loss of the alignment restriction probably did more than anything else to make the role of the ranger class unclear - AD&D Rangers knew they were Rangers - it meant something in the game world.  From 3e onwards the class just became a template to apply to a character.

Quote from: TJS;10036611E rangers have spells largely because that was a way to model extraordinary abilities in IE.

1E rangers got access to both druid and magic-user spells. The PHB specifically characterized them as spellcasters. It said absolutely nothing about this merely being a way to model nonmagical "extraordinary abilities," and if that was the case why would they have access to spells like Barkskin, Tree Shape, and Warp Wood? I must have missed the part in LotR when Aragorn turned into a tree.

QuoteThey didn't get "animal companions" in any kind of modern sense, although they could eventually get animal followers.

To-MAY-to, to-MAH-to.

QuoteThey didn't get any restrictions on arms or armour.  Like Aragorn they could put on heavy armour and charge in battle mounted if the situation called for it, just like fighters could stow their plate and wear light armour if the situation called for that.  It's been awhile but I'm pretty sure Rangers got no benefits for forgoing heavy armour or shields.

As early as 2E rangers were incented to wear studded leather or lighter armor.

QuoteThey also weren't part Druid.  Rangers being required to be good* and Druids being required to be True Neutral - they weren't even necessarily on the same side.

Access to druid spells = part druid. The alignment restriction is yet another reason why this made no goddamn sense: druids would lose all their class abilities if they deviated from true neutral alignment, yet for some unexplained reason druidical deities were much more chill about granting spells to good rangers.

QuoteThere's been lots of discussion of the original Ranger class on the net over the years and at this point it seems pretty indisputable that it was pretty much an attempt to model Aragorn.

It fails.

Quote from: Achaerone;10036661E rangers got access to both druid and magic-user spells. The PHB specifically characterized them as spellcasters. It said absolutely nothing about this merely being a way to model nonmagical "extraordinary abilities," and if that was the case why would they have access to spells like Barkskin, Tree Shape, and Warp Wood? I must have missed the part in LotR when Aragorn turned into a tree.

He probably wasn't high enough level.  Perhaps he'll do that in the sequel.

QuoteAccess to druid spells = part druid. The alignment restriction is yet another reason why this made no goddamn sense: druids would lose all their class abilities if they deviated from true neutral alignment, yet for some unexplained reason druidical deities were much more chill about granting spells to good rangers.

I'd suggest you're over-thinking it.

Really with 5E it would have made more sense to have made Rangers and Paladins (and probably Barbarians as well) into Fighter archetypes/rather than separate classes.

But then it would also have made more sense in 3E for them to be prestige classes.

WOTC keep inventing ways to logically and smoothly reduce the number of core classes without losing key historical character options and then keep not doing that.

Quote from: TJS;10036611E rangers have spells largely because that was a way to model extraordinary abilities in IE.

This seems to be the case. If there had been non-weapon proficiencies back in 1975, rangers would likely have gotten herbalism and tracking for free instead of spells. But there weren't so they didn't.

Quote from: Achaerone;10036661E rangers got access to both druid and magic-user spells. The PHB specifically characterized them as spellcasters. It said absolutely nothing about this merely being a way to model nonmagical "extraordinary abilities," and if that was the case why would they have access to spells like Barkskin, Tree Shape, and Warp Wood? I must have missed the part in LotR when Aragorn turned into a tree.

It said absolutely nothing about it merely being a way to model nonmagical extraordinary abilities, but it also said absolutely nothing about it being anything one way or another. Have the designers ever been all that good at communicating their 'why's? We have to guess at the whys because that's all we can do.

As to rangers getting Tree Shape when Aragorn never did in LotR, there are multiple potential explanations

• druidic spellcasting was simply a overly broad-net solution that doesn't match precisely the more narrow list of reqs.
• being able to hide by appearing as a tree seemed like a general 'good tactical woodman combatant' ability that ever-so-vaguely sounded like something that Aragorn (or an Aragorn analogue) 'would do,' even if he never did do so in the books, and that the spell actually makes you become a tree is just reading too much into it being a spell.
• By then, rangers had deviated from their origins enough that they had become their own thing, and no longer had to be 1:1 analogues to Aragorn.
• plenty more I'm not thinking of

QuoteAs early as 2E rangers were incented to wear studded leather or lighter armor.

For the most part only if they wanted to use the fighting two-handed thing. And that seems, by all accounts, to be a completely made-from-whole-cloth contamination of the ranger idea by a drow special feature through the vector of a single D&D-novel character.

Regardless, while it is easy to think of them as closely related temporally, the introduction of rangers and the introduction of 2e rangers were 14 years apart, or a then-15 year history of the published game.  

QuoteIt fails.

Then it fails.

Ranger may have started as being inspired by Aragorn, but it very quickly became its own thing. Already in 1e, they're picking up druidic & arcane magic as they level up. It seems to me to make perfect sense that a loner wilderness-warrior type would pick up druidic magic. The multiverse is practically humming with the stuff in D&D, surely if the hippie tree-huggers of the game are picking up how to cure wounds and summon up brambles, an enterprising fellow with a knack for it might pick up a few tricks along the way.

2e rangers needed to wear light armor to use Hide In Shadows, IIRC.

Paladin & Ranger are just fine not being subclasses of Fighter.

Monks are my favorite, but they always confused me as to their place, until d&d became a lot more obviously kitchen sink.

Shadowrun had that one tribal archetype with no cyberwear. Always seemed graphically out of place. Pretty sure this was in the 1e days.

I only posted in this thread to defend the honor of Cyberpunk, and because someone literally asked for an argument, and I'm always up for a friendly duel!

Mostly because the entire topic is one big exercise in 'You're playing it wrong.'


Up next, a new and exciting thread on how rolling the dice sucks all the Role out of Playing. Seriously, you guys, you've never heard such a brilliant topic!

Quote from: TJS;1003668Really with 5E it would have made more sense to have made Rangers and Paladins (and probably Barbarians as well) into Fighter archetypes/rather than separate classes.

But then it would also have made more sense in 3E for them to be prestige classes.

WOTC keep inventing ways to logically and smoothly reduce the number of core classes without losing key historical character options and then keep not doing that.

Yes, especially that last sentence.  The reason that all these guys have spells in the first place is because when the class was first invented, that was the easy way to model them. It's the game equivalent of the old tale about the lady who always shaved the end off of the roast.  When asked why, she says that's how she was taught to cook it.  They go ask her mom.  She says the same thing.  They ask the grandmother why she did it that way.  "Because the roast was too long to fit in the pan."

Quote from: TJS;1003668Really with 5E it would have made more sense to have made Rangers and Paladins (and probably Barbarians as well) into Fighter archetypes/rather than separate classes.

But then it would also have made more sense in 3E for them to be prestige classes.

WOTC keep inventing ways to logically and smoothly reduce the number of core classes without losing key historical character options and then keep not doing that.

If we are going to be logical, I think there should be a slot for someone who had fighter training, in a militia, as a conscript, in a bandit gang, etc. but whose life had room for a way to make a living or even for another minor set of useful adventuring skills and a different slot for those who trained from their youth to be a knight, samurai, Lakota or Cheyenne Dog soldier, longbowman or whatever fits the scenario and that the latter would have no other career but would have an advantage in combat.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1004019If we are going to be logical, I think there should be a slot for someone who had fighter training, in a militia, as a conscript, in a bandit gang, etc. but whose life had room for a way to make a living or even for another minor set of useful adventuring skills and a different slot for those who trained from their youth to be a knight, samurai, Lakota or Cheyenne Dog soldier, longbowman or whatever fits the scenario and that the latter would have no other career but would have an advantage in combat.

Or... and this is a CRAZY IDEA... we could just design a game that didn't define every character as some restrictive, all encompassing class!

Ha, I kid. That would NEVER work.

Quote from: Spike;1004021Or... and this is a CRAZY IDEA... we could just design a game that didn't define every character as some restrictive, all encompassing class!

Ha, I kid. That would NEVER work.

And now we see why I have difficulty playing d&d nowadays