Okay, ideas for what a "Ranger" could or should do

[Maxus]

I'd start by simplifying the list. If it were me doing it, it'd look like...

Aberration
Animal (Contains Vermin as well)
Construct
Elemental (Outsiders with elemental subtypes)
Exemplar (Ousiders with alignment subtypes)
Humanoid (Human, dwarf, elf, gnoll, gnome, halfling, goblinoid, orc, aquatic, and reptilian).
Magical Beast (Includes Dragon)
Monstrous Humanoid (Includes Fey and Giant)
Mindless Mushy Monsters (Includes Ooze and Plant)
Undead

Which leaves you with ten types.

Narrowing down the categories seems like a good idea, but is still seems like you are going to move the game in a weird direction. With ten enemy types, you are fighting your favored enemy about one tenth of a time. Weapon specialization does 2 damage per swing, which means to keep up with a fourth level fighter you have to do an extra 20 damage every time you swing at your enemy. That's way too much.

Then we re-work Favored Enemy. Rather than just flat skill bonuses and the flat damage bonus, they could scale and possibly give a bonus to attack and maybe even AC/saves, enough so that when the party encounters the ranger's favorite enemy, the ranger can really shine. Maybe Favored Enemy even allows you to turn a monster's major ability back on itself or otherwise to your advantage-like getting a dragon to bite its own tail, or making Giant Mantises claw each other by running between them. It might be nice if you could, with reasonable certainty, coax a dragon into breathing into a group of minor baddies, and still get clear yourself.

Also, we allow the ranger to pick up some extra feats, especially those relating to his job as an outdoorsman/border patrol/protector of nature (choose whichever suits your taste), and I'm assuming we're doing a Tome Game so they give abilities people actually care about. But we're still not there yet.

The ranger could get some trapmaking/poison use/some other "tricky" abilities to give them some interesting options in battle. The Dungeonomicon Assassin's Trapmaking and Poison-synthesizing abilities sound pretty good to copy. Maybe even that herb-lore stuff that other ranger was going for...

(I like the idea of a ranger being able to 'find' the den of (read: Basically summon) some kind of terrain-appropriate creature and turn it loose on the enemies in the middle of a fight, and then run away before the creature turns its attention on the ranger and his buddies.)

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

What's wrong with choosing a creature type every level and keeping them as they are (inc. fucked up subtypes and all)? I mean, that let's you choose low-level bullshit when you're low level and high level badasses when you're high level--and it's enough of them so it matters.

Further, just make favored enemy like the barbarian's rage dice, but only against a favored enemy.

Slapity-slap. Done.

So it'd look something like this:

Favored Enemy: Choose a creature type at level 1 and each subsequent level. You gain an insight bonus to Bluff, Intimidate, and Sense Motive checks as checks made to track creatures of your chosen type equal to your class level.
Track: At level 1 you gain the Track feat as a bonus feat.
Favored Enemy Dice: At level 2 when you make a weapon attack against a creature of a type covered by one of your favored enemies, you deal an additional 1d6 damage. This extra damage is not multiplied on critical hits and applies to multiple attacks made only because of your high Base Attack Bonus. This extra damage increases by 1d6 at level 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, and 20.

Then it's just a matter of filling out levels 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, and 19 with useful stuff that you want the ranger to do.

Hell, let's make that easier.

Favored Terrain: At level 3 choose a terrain type. When in an environment covered by this terrain, you gain a competence bonus to all ranger class skills equal to half your class level. You choose an additional terrain type at levels 7, 11, 15, and 19.

Okay. Down to levels 5, 9, 13, and 17. Toss in a pet of some worth (like the aforementioned CR -2 animal or magical beast) at level 5. Toss in a movement power at level 9 (maybe dimension door every 1d4 rounds?). Huck in a planar adaptation power for himself and the party at level 13. Write up a finishing move that insta-kills a favored enemy and prevents his resurrection as the level 17 ability.

Toss in bardic spellcasting with a couple of druid and all the ranger spells and that's, like, a class and shit.

[Amra]

Getting a creature type every level was exactly what I was going to suggest. As for terrain, I'm leaning toward having just three terrain types; "Urban", "Dungeon" and "Wilderness" and leaving it at that. You could get one per third of your early career, your choice per pick. Keep the number of abilities directly tied to terrain to a lowish number so you're not floundering when you're not on home turf and it should work out OK.

EDIT: I meant to say... Planar adaptation power, I like that very much. Helps the Ranger play with the big boys at higher levels. As Frank has pointed out, any Ranger concept to date has essentially been low level, so thinking about how to keep the flavour whilst giving out sufficient awesome to compete when the game changes is absolutely necessary.

The "planar ranger" concept - at home wherever he goes and so intrinsically in tune with his surroundings that he can do his thing in the bizarrest terrain imaginable - is a great start.

[Cynic]

Why not just work the terrain mastery business as the horizon walker.
~

Every couple levels he gets a decent terrain ability.

He is innately gifted that he has blindsight/sense.

He has a skill mastery (climb) and a climb speed equal to land speed.

Swim speed and swim mastery.


Later on give him plane-shift.

[PhoneLobster]

Rangers should just go away. All their schticks are stolen from and tread on other classes or options that should be available to other classes.

Two Weapon fighting - Belongs to the fighter (AND the rogue, hell even the barbarian)

Archery - Belongs to the fighter (AND the rogue, and yes, heck, even the barbarian)

Being a Wild Savage - Belongs to the Barbarian, and anyone not using that class that comes from his tribe, even the wizards.

Being Nature Boy/Dr Dolittle - Belongs to the druid, or the cleric, or both. Heck even the Barbarian gets dibs on being Mogli ahead of "some robin hood guy who didn't take fighter/rogue levels"

Being a Hunter - Is a background/skill negligible option that should be available to anybody. It isn't worth a class and shouldn't be monopolized by a class.

Favoured enemy - Not only sucks but whatever reworking that might be done for it (short of putting it down like a horse with four broken legs) should be made available to everyone, because its a background thing/minor speciality thing that belongs in whatever the system's equivalent of feats are.

Being a Robin Hood clone - You should take fighter levels or rogue levels. I don't get a fucking "Sinbad" or an "Aladdin" class I'm expected to represent them with Rogue or Fighter levels, and frankly you should be doing the same when you play Robin Hood or fucking Aragon, by trying to get your own custom class for that in the core you are asking to suck/break and stealing concepts and elements from the broader classes that cannot then be combined to create OTHER character archetypes that might need to be PARTLY Robin Hood and partly the rest of all other heroic fighter rogues ever.

Now you COULD claim that the Ranger could have a Niche as a halfway point between the Rogue and the Fighter without multiclassing. But frankly. Bullshit. The FIGHTER should be that halfway point, he needs to be more like a rogue already, and once you fix that there isn't even the tiny niche left between him and the Rogue that the Ranger wasn't actually inhabiting yet anyway...

If you are making a NEW system the "Ranger" should just plain not exist.

In fact that isn't putting it strongly enough, THE RANGER SHOULD FUCKING DIE, FOREVER, RIGHT NOW.

If you want to patch say, D&D 3.5 to "fix" the Ranger then you should write rules that allow you to gain the few Ranger type abilities not already covered better by other classes as feats etc... and remove the class from the game.

[Caedrus]

I can't think of a reason for the Ranger to exist either. Seriously, I've never seen anyone want to play one in any of my games, simply because they don't seem to do anything that isn't already accomplished by other things.

[Talisman]

Being a Wild Savage - Belongs to the Barbarian, and anyone not using that class that comes from his tribe, even the wizards.

Bullshit. The BARBARIAN should be put down. It's a culture, not a profession; if you want a berserker, take a PrC or some damn feats.

Why are you fellows posting in a "how to make a good ranger" thread opining that it should go away? It's like reading a crime drama, then writing to the publisher to explain that you hate crime dramas - why read it in the first place?

[angelfromanotherpin]

The archetype deserves to be represented. One should certainly be able to make that kind of a character. But I think that the Tome Fighter is a perfectly good Ranger. All it needs to finish co-opting the role is some skill feats.

[PhoneLobster]

Because the valid positive suggestion to solve the dilemma presented is to put the Ranger down like the filthy leprous dog that it is.

I mean what kind of abilities should the ranger have? "None" is a valid (and the best) answer.

As for raging on the poor old barbarian to try and pretend it is a less valid archetype than "Guy who we describe as kinda a like robin hood somewhat belatedly after designing him, and NO robin hood isn't a rogue or fighter, shut up"

Couple of points on that.

1) Barbarians are more popular and well liked than rangers. People PLAY barbarians, they even have stereotypical associated character traits. Rangers don't. I have the same problem Caedrus has. None of my players have ever ever wanted to play Rangers. I don't know players in any other groups I know who ever play Rangers. I do see lots of Barbarians though. That may change in 4th ed, but what the fuck has the 4th Ed ranger got other than bullshit legacy that gives it it's name? You could have called it "Rogue" or "Assassin" and I wouldn't have blinked.

2) Barbarians DO get a set of abilities that strongly differentiate them from fighters in the form of Rage. And I can easily conceive of further developments in Rage and wild man junk. I can also see them as being a strong basis for the potential fighter/druid border line niche.

3) Still if you wanted to you could make Barbarians go away and become part of the Fighter/Rogue classes as well. It is a harder argument, Barbarian is a far more clearly defined, broader and more interesting archetype than Ranger but it could still be usefully subsumed by Fighter under some interpretations.

Anyway.

What the heck IS the Ranger? What is it representing? The basic premise of the thread pretty much asks what should it represent instead of the currently failed attempt at representing ?Something?

The suggested solutions so far have been all about favoured enemy and favoured terrain. Both highly questionable abilities to found a class around for multiple reasons, and both abilities that if they DO exist in a game would be much more justifiable as selectable cross class options.

Have you got anything else than that for the ranger to BE?

A mission statement as to what they are supposed to do that doesn't walk all over obvious Fighter and Rogue territory?

Because if not my statement stands. You don't get a class distinct from Fighter for playing "Aragon" until I get a class distinct from Rogue for playing "Sinbad".

[JonSetanta]

Being a Wild Savage - Belongs to the Barbarian, and anyone not using that class that comes from his tribe, even the wizards.

Bullshit. The BARBARIAN should be put down. It's a culture, not a profession; if you want a berserker, take a PrC or some damn feats.

Why are you fellows posting in a "how to make a good ranger" thread opining that it should go away? It's like reading a crime drama, then writing to the publisher to explain that you hate crime dramas - why read it in the first place?

Here here! Well put. Barbarian suffers too much from Conan-ism. It really should be a template for class options or a set of skills, traditions, and background for characters, not a class.

Frank made some rant about Barbarian culture rather than archetype once. I don't know exactly where it went but it's somewhere around here.

Folks, if you want to make a dissertation about how much you don't want Rangers to exist, make a new thread. Don't shit on a thread for developing Rangers.

[PhoneLobster]

Don't shit on a thread for developing Rangers.

Developing rangers? I've already noted that they haven't actually done anything but pansy about a bit with favoured enemy.

They want to develop the Ranger character class they need to ask the question. "What are you developing?"

So far the only answer has been "OMFG, look over there, a barbarian!"

Asking you tell me what the fuck a Ranger is supposed to be that is in any way distinct from fighter, rogue and druid is a fucking positive contribution, being a turd and demanding that it be split for being mean or whatever the heck you think is wrong with it is a NON contribution, like anything you ever say.

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

What the heck IS the Ranger? What is it representing? The basic premise of the thread pretty much asks what should it represent instead of the currently failed attempt at representing ?Something?

Okay.
__________________________________________________

The Ranger
"The orcs killed my parents. They killed my little sister. The killed my fucking dog. Now it's my turn to do the killing. I'm going to hunt down every damn orc, every damn thing that's allied with orc, and then I'm gonna hunt me down some orc fucking gods because you know what? Fuck orcs. Just fuck them."

You are killing machine dedicated to a personal cause. This could be the genocide of a creature type, the restoration of your kingdom, the liberation of your city, or the overthrow of a ruler who believes himself nigh untouchable. Whatever it is, you are often misunderstood, on the outs with polite society, and forced to fight against impossible odds. That said, folks are drawn to your intensity and your cause. Everyone who has been wronged by the cause you oppose is eventually drawn to your banner.
__________________________________________________

I don't know, man, that sounds like a pretty solid concept to me. Sure, one could argue that it's all background and no real abilities, but then we end up with, like, three classes (caster, hitter, and skillmaster), and since we know that blows…

And, hell, for your enjoyment, let's look at Sinbad, whose page on Wikipedia I just read, and who I didn't know had a Poe story written about him.
__________________________________________________

The Picaro
"I travel, young man. I have seen the whims of fortune and necessity of fate firsthand, and I am here to tell you, nothing beats being in one's own bed with one's true love. Nothing. Except the open sea."

The picaro survives. Horrible things happen to him and those around him time and again, but the picaro always comes out ahead. He acquires sacks of diamonds to trade them for a good night's rest. His ships always have names with at least 3 Roman numerals. He'll kill women for their food. Nothing is beneath him, and nothing can silence his need for adventure. He sails, he rides, he fights, he lives--more than you ever will.
_______________________________________________________

Once again, that seems like something that can hold a class: yes, it's rogue-ish, but with it's reliance on luck and charm instead of skill, you can ditch sneak attack for luck bonuses, and add a bit spellcasting to make the charming-ness more mechanical. Further, you have the idea that survival is important, not necessarily defeating your foes.

That, too, is a potential archetype.

[PhoneLobster]

I'm sorry Kid but that post just doesn't cut the required mustard.

By your own admission you described pretty much nothing in particular.

By my reckoning you rather plainly described a fighter and a rogue.

I mean the first one is "I have enemies" that isn't a class concept. EVERYONE HAS ENEMIES its an adventure game, what? Don't the other classes get protagonists?

The second one... is a rogue. And what? Luck and charisma instead of skill? You... know those are already strong elements of the roguish archetype, as in there are common expressions like "Handsome Rogue" and "Lucky Bastard".

Develop more.

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

I gave you flavor text and possible campaign roles, to which you said, "Nuh-uh, that's not enough."

You're going to have to be more specific. I mean, Jeez, I'd totally play those two archetypes were the mechanics there to back them up.

If what you want is an archetype like, "I cast spells… hurrr…," I'm good with that. But really, when you say something like, "Genocide against the gods because of a personal grudge in an insufficient campaign role," and, "Relying on charm and luck instead of stabbing people in the face is an insufficient campaign role," I begin to doubt your wisdom.

[virgil]

I've never heard of the ranger being the charm/luck character, that's been the bard's association, at least from a 3E angle.

PhoneLobster is asking for a difference in actual fighting style from the core Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Rogue. Barbarians, while having similar roles to the fighter, use Rage in a non-negligible fashion. Bards are both an attempt at omniclassing and group buffing. Druids bring in animal companions and polymorphing. Paladins are multiclassed Fighter/Clerics. Sorcerers use a different form of arcane spellcasting. Mechanical inferiority is a seperate issue, as I'm only speaking of actual intended roles.

About the closest argument from the list above is that the Ranger tries to be the Fighter/Druid multiclass. A more mobile, nature-oriented Paladin.

[PhoneLobster]

You are conflating (your own suddenly invented term) "campaign role" with individual character role AND with class role.

I mean that's the whole problem here.

But really, I said those last two attempts weren't up to mustard, and I know it was harsh, because holy heck they were really really poor excuses.

I asked what is a Ranger supposed to be and you answered "Guy With Enemies", then you offered that in a similar vein a Sinbad class would be an opportunistic cheat, but somehow not be a Rogue.

Forgive me if I remain utterly under whelmed.

I would have AT least expected some sort of "Well Sailor skills could make a class!" claim (not that Sinbad was actually good at sailing, or that it would be a good idea to base a character class of mighty yachting powers). But you didn't even jump the differentiation hurdle of class design, let alone the functionality hurdle.

[Talisman]

I mean what kind of abilities should the ranger have? "None" is a valid (and the best) answer.

Your opinion. I (and several other people here) disagree vigorously.

1) Barbarians are more popular and well liked than rangers. People PLAY barbarians, they even have stereotypical associated character traits. Rangers don't. I have the same problem Caedrus has. None of my players have ever ever wanted to play Rangers. I don't know players in any other groups I know who ever play Rangers. I do see lots of Barbarians though. That may change in 4th ed, but what the fuck has the 4th Ed ranger got other than bullshit legacy that gives it it's name? You could have called it "Rogue" or "Assassin" and I wouldn't have blinked.

2) Barbarians DO get a set of abilities that strongly differentiate them from fighters in the form of Rage. And I can easily conceive of further developments in Rage and wild man junk. I can also see them as being a strong basis for the potential fighter/druid border line niche.

3) Still if you wanted to you could make Barbarians go away and become part of the Fighter/Rogue classes as well. It is a harder argument, Barbarian is a far more clearly defined, broader and more interesting archetype than Ranger but it could still be usefully subsumed by Fighter under some interpretations.

1) This is your experience; it certainly isn't mine. I've played rangers several times; I've never played a barb. I've seen both rangers and barbs played several times.

Your experiences =/= all gamers' experiences.

2) True. That's part of what we're trying to fix here: giving the ranger his own clearly-defined, useful, flavorful schtick.

3) I disagree with your analysis. This is your opinion.

Have you got anything else than that for the ranger to BE?

A mission statement as to what they are supposed to do that doesn't walk all over obvious Fighter and Rogue territory?

Here you go (although I suspect you'll diss it just like you did Hey_I_Can_Chan's because you've decided to hate rangers).

The Ranger
"...when dark things come from the houseless hills, or creep from sunless woods, they fly from us."
~Aragorn

The ranger is a warrior of the wilderness, a skilled and deadly combatant who brings down his foes through a mixture of weapons skill and trickery. He has the knowledge and skill to survive - even thrive - in regions where normal people dare not go. Forest, mountains, swamp, desert - the ranger calls them all home. A skilled ranger can even make his way in such bizarre environments as the depths of the Abyss of the Elemental Planes.

He speaks with the beasts and they obey him; he argues with dragons and they listen. His knowledge of the creatures of the wild, while it may not be as broad as that of a scholar, is far more practical - for the ranger lives his knowledge.

This serves him well in combat, for where the fighter relies on transcendant weapon skill and the barbarian embraces the fires of rage, the ranger does neither. Instead, he uses every dirty trick available - knowledge of his enemies' weaknesses, the terrain, his allies, even the weather - to bring his foes down hard and fast. He marries stealth and martial skill, but his true strength is knowledge and the ability to employ it as a weapon.

---

There you go. Dissect away.

[Maxus]

The Ranger
"...when dark things come from the houseless hills, or creep from sunless woods, they fly from us."
~Aragorn

The ranger is a warrior of the wilderness, a skilled and deadly combatant who brings down his foes through a mixture of weapons skill and trickery. He has the knowledge and skill to survive - even thrive - in regions where normal people dare not go. Forest, mountains, swamp, desert - the ranger calls them all home. A skilled ranger can even make his way in such bizarre environments as the depths of the Abyss of the Elemental Planes.

He speaks with the beasts and they obey him; he argues with dragons and they listen. His knowledge of the creatures of the wild, while it may not be as broad as that of a scholar, is far more practical - for the ranger lives his knowledge.

This serves him well in combat, for where the fighter relies on transcendant weapon skill and the barbarian embraces the fires of rage, the ranger does neither. Instead, he uses every dirty trick available - knowledge of his enemies' weaknesses, the terrain, his allies, even the weather - to bring his foes down hard and fast. He marries stealth and martial skill, but his true strength is knowledge and the ability to employ it as a weapon.

---

There you go. Dissect away.

So we're looking at "Speaks with animals, knowledge of monsters, survives anywhere, and a student of the anatomy and psychology of several types of creatures, while with Full BAB."

I'm still voting for a Manipulate ability where the ranger, by taunting or some knowledge of the enemy psychology, tricks the enemy into shooting himself or a buddy in the foot. Possibly similar to a suggestion spell, with the rider that it can, in fact, be persuaded to accidentally hurt its buddies.

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

I've never heard of the ranger being the charm/luck character, that's been the bard's association, at least from a 3E angle.

Uh huh. And there's no Tome bard so there's no role that's being usurped. But that's beside the point, really…

PhoneLobster is asking for a difference in actual fighting style from the core Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Rogue. Barbarians, while having similar roles to the fighter, use Rage in a non-negligible fashion. Bards are both an attempt at omniclassing and group buffing. Druids bring in animal companions and polymorphing. Paladins are multiclassed Fighter/Clerics. Sorcerers use a different form of arcane spellcasting. Mechanical inferiority is a seperate issue, as I'm only speaking of actual intended roles.

Better against that monster over this monster isn't a different fighting style? Yet that, too, is beside the point…

You are conflating (your own suddenly invented term) "campaign role" with individual character role AND with class role. I mean that's the whole problem here.

…As this is the real issue.

So I've confused campaign role with character role and class role. Just so I don't do it in the future, what's the difference between each and what's being aimed for?

It's apparent nothing can be done until you define these terms that are solely in your head, so how about doing that for us peons who are telepathy-incapable?

I mean, shit, you've said…

• Killing absolutely motherfucking everything that's fucked up your past isn't a valid campaign role;
• doing more damage to this dude than that dude because I hate his ass isn't a valid character role; and…
• hunting down specific shit on their own turf and doing them in isn't a valid class

[Amra]

I hear and understand the arguments that Ranger doesn't bring anything to the table that isn't covered by another class but I'd like to turn that thesis around a bit for your collective consideration.

The main gist seems to be that the Ranger is just a Fighter with some background flavour and a couple of specific feat-level abilities. Fair enough. But... just what on earth would you say a Fighter brings to the table?

There is no "Fighter" class in fantasy, because most everything in fantasy can fight. Pretty much everything in D&D can fight, which makes pretty much anything a "fighter". As has often been pointed out here, Gandalf was perfectly capable of striding (or riding) onto a battlefield and killing fools in the face with a stick. There's never even a suggestion that he'd lose out in a one-to-one with Aragorn because Aragorn somehow had "more fightiness".

You can argue - most convincingly, I might add - that a Ranger is just a Fighter with some add-ons... but you can say the same for every single class. Everyone gets better at fighting, everyone (with some very rare and mostly useless exceptions) can take any ability that a fighter gets.

That has always been the trouble. You're only a Wizard if you cast arcane spells, but you also become a better Fighter when you get better at being a Wizard. You're only a Rogue if you can sneak attack things and nick stuff but you also become a better Fighter when you get better at being a Rogue.

Being a "Fighter" is meaningless. You're just a system feature; the product of scaling BAB mechanics, which is something everyone else in whole world gets to a greater or lesser degree. As a Fighter, you're actually defined by the things you don't do, which is "anything other than fight".

The Tome Fighter is the first attempt I've seen to redress this balance by making a Fighter a professional warrior with some actual class features; and that's great. However, it still doesn't really give you enough of a flavour by itself to really turn your character into most of the favoured fantasy archetypes.

Arguing that the Barbarian is a cultural thing rather than a class is something I absolutely agree with, but it's very difficult to fit that into the context of D&D because you've then got to come up with a load of other cultures that confer similar benefits. If you wanted to go down that route, you could make the Ranger a similar thing: at the end of the day they're both just "Fighters with templates".

Perhaps, as angelfromanotherpin said, the Tome fighter is a perfectly good Ranger, but is it enough by itself to make what Judging_Eagle is looking for? I think not.

What I'm coming to here is this: I love Talisman's approach but I think there's one minor flaw.

...for where the fighter relies on transcendant weapon skill and the barbarian embraces the fires of rage, the ranger does neither.

And there it is. Actually, the Barbarian embraces the fires of rage and has to have transcendent weapon skill. The Ranger speaks to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field and has transcendent weapon skill... Otherwise they're just no bloody use. Is anyone suggesting that Conan, Silk, Gandalf, Batman or the Gray Mouser didn't have l33t fightan' skillz? It's the extras that make them actual character classes rather than just a product of a tranche of combat feats (which mostly anyone can take) along with rapidly-scaling BAB and big hit-points.

"Ranger" is a template that goes over the "Fighter". So is "Barbarian". So is "Paladin" for that matter. "Fighter" is the non-concept here - it isn't a class at all but a basis for a class that has fighting as its main thing. I accept that the "professional warrior" trope has merit, but it's still not enough; every D&D class is to a greater or lesser extent a professional warrior.

They might not all be able to go into melee against level-appropriate opponents without using additional class features, but they can mostly hold their own against the same things the Fighter was dealing with five or six levels ago, which in my book means they're still Fighters.

It's the guy who can't do anything else that needs to go; not the Ranger or the Barbarian.

[Bigode]

You are killing machine dedicated to a personal cause. This could be the genocide of a creature type, the restoration of your kingdom, the liberation of your city, or the overthrow of a ruler who believes himself nigh untouchable. Whatever it is, you are often misunderstood, on the outs with polite society, and forced to fight against impossible odds. That said, folks are drawn to your intensity and your cause. Everyone who has been wronged by the cause you oppose is eventually drawn to your banner.

Any adventurer.

The picaro survives. Horrible things happen to him and those around him time and again, but the picaro always comes out ahead. He acquires sacks of diamonds to trade them for a good night's rest. His ships always have names with at least 3 Roman numerals. He'll kill women for their food. Nothing is beneath him, and nothing can silence his need for adventure. He sails, he rides, he fights, he lives--more than you ever will.

Any adventurer.

[virgil]

I've never heard of the ranger being the charm/luck character, that's been the bard's association, at least from a 3E angle.

Uh huh. And there's no Tome bard so there's no role that's being usurped. But that's beside the point, really…

I was not talking mechanical effectiveness, and mentioned that. Flavour-wise, the role of being a charmer and a luck-oriented character is NOT you see out of what people associate with being a ranger.

As for the fighting style of fighting one monster over another, have you not noticed the other posts here? Having your class role be "kill all orcs" is a piss-poor design choice, because fantasy-land has a plethora of different things to fight, meaning your abilities can easily mean jack for a session (or more). Expanding it to hate a swathe of different monsters (dragons, oozes, demons, orcs) makes for a crappy design too, because that's basically "I fight monsters".

Going off the flavour the mechanics seem to direct it, the Ranger seems to be to the Druid what the Paladin is to the Cleric. Going off the flavour of character archetypes (Aragorn, Drizz't, Robin Hood), he's stealth-oriented fighter-type that doesn't use sneak attack.

[Calibron]

Uh huh. And there's no Tome bard so there's no role that's being usurped. But that's beside the point, really…

Link

[Username17]

Problematic parts of even having Rangers is of course that "guy who fights with specific weapons" and "guy who fights specific enemies" are not valid character class concepts. Sorry, they just aren't. Combat Style is a Fighter Feat, that's literally all it is, a Fighter can have it at first level and there is absolutely no way in hell that you can make that in any way sensible as a 20 level class. Furthermore, D&D is an inherently villain driven game, where it is that antagonists and not the protagonists that determine what it is that will be fought, so every character fights whatever enemies and no one can define their character by what enemies oppose them.

So "Favored Enemy" and "Combat Style" are just not even appropriate character class seeds. They can't be. And yet, if you look at the first couple of levels of the 3rd and 4th edition Ranger, that's pretty much everything there. So if you want a Ranger, it's drawing board time.

Now that being said, there are places you could fit one in. The game has room for arbitrarily large numbers of classes. All they really need to do is have a unique way of contributing to combats and adventures in a level appropriate manner. Here are some:

Woodsy Leader: And I don't mean a fucking 4e leader. I mean an actual leader who damn well leads things. Beastmaster is like 3rd level and leads a pile of animals. Robin Hood is like 6th level and leads a pile ofmerry men. Aragorn is a 9th level ranger and leads a pile of undead warriors. Playing this class makes a rightful king or something out of you and you put more crap on the field than a summoner druid or a dread necromancer. You literally lead the party by having diplomantic focus and tracking and shit.

Ranged Martial Controller: There is a world of possible fighting styles, and relatively few of them work at much range. The Fighter's deal pretty much requires him to get up in your face, as does the Rogue. Now the Assassin has a similar set to the Rogue, but a much longer range. One could imagine a character whose deal was something like that of a Fighter or a Monk but who did it at super long range. Pull some Green Arrow chicanery and trick arrow people into status effects and distance stunlocks. That would be different from other characters, and could be given either a gadgetry or magical feel depending on whether you were templating Oliver Queen or a more Tolkienesque feel.

And so on. But you can't just say "I fight with a bow" or "I fight against orcs" that's just not a game relevant distinction

-Username17

[Amra]

For me, if Rangers have a thing, it's that they're heroes to some and villains to others. Robin Hood and Aragorn - hell, even Batman - have that in common; they're virtuous (for a given value of) but they giveth not one shit about the law of the land and they also don't care what anyone thinks of them. Whether the people consider them saviours or criminal scum, they keep doing what they perceive as their jobs.

When they've got a large population of people who believe in them, like Robin Hood did for much of his career, they'll get help from unexpected quarters. When everyone thinks they're evil bastards they'll have every man's hand turned against them, but neither circumstance will make any difference to what they try to do.

I'm down with the Ranged Controller idea; in other threads I've posited Ranger moves that pin people to the floor and cost them a standard action to stand, or inflict a special status effect - harried - that essentially causes an opponent within a single range increment to count as flanked. I'd imagine that sort of stuff could be successfully extended for at least a few levels.