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

[Bigode]

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.

So Gandalf's a ranger (not disagreeing with the stuff on controlling)?

[PhoneLobster]

OK so I'm moderately with Frank on one of his suggestions and against him on the other.

Woodsy leader is a failed direction in my opinion. If you are leading animals you are a druid. If you are leading undead you are a necromancer. If you are leading men you are something, but why we call that Ranger and associate that with anything that has ever been called Ranger before is beyond me.

Archer, well I'd have treated it like any other fighting style/weapon group specialisation and left it as part of fighter/rogue. But I can see an argument for an extended and separate set of Archery abilities handed to an archery class. It's again rather divergent from previous Ranger feel but close enough you could keep the class name without too many raised eyebrows (I feel "Archer" would be a cooler more direct name but, whatever)

Also Virgileso keeps mentioning the half a druid thing. And I can see the niche there. I worry that it is kind of small unless you push the druid itself further away from fighting and into wizard with a nature flavour territory but it could happen. It's a challenging path to walk down though and I'd prefer to see the same hybrid being some sort of multiclass or "druid who spent his feats on fighter shit" sort of thing. Heck the Paladin is on shaky enough ground and most of his class abilities actually directly contribute to attempts at filling the half caster niche.

[baduin]

Ranger in D&D is simply a clone of Aragorn. Of course, the Barbarian is a clone of Conan, but there is a difference. A Barbarian is a quite archetypal thing, but Aragorn is mostly himself. He is both a hunter and a healer, but this is not an archetype, but the fact that he is both a ranger and a priest-king.

If we get rid of Aragorn's priest-kings abilities, we are left with a hunter. This is certainly an archetypal figure, since Nimrod at least, the problem lies in making him different from the fighter. Some suggestions for the abilities of a hunter:

1. Stealth, tracking, perception, hiding and camouflaging. Could have abilities which allow him to know what enemies can be found in the dungeon etc.
2. Hunters are specialist in attacking from cover and quickly disabling dangerous opponents. A Death Attack ability similar to an Assassin would be quite proper, similarly a use of poisons.
3. Traps, including an ability to prepare traps earlier and lure an enemy to it.
4. Specialisation in hunter weapons - bows, crossbows, spears, shortswords, daggers. Fighting without armor.
5. Specialisation in fighiting big creatures - for example, an attack or damage bonus against large and greater enemies.
6. Training and using animals - dogs, horses, hawks, etc.
7. Some limited magical abilities could include limited healing , coming for example from an abilitiy to find useful plants or to gather useful parts from the bodies of slain animals.
8. At higher levels he should gain abilities allowing him to hunt planar monsters - eg Plane Shift, Dimensional Anchor, True Sight, some symbols to use as traps.

[PhoneLobster]

So this time its Hunter, which is basically exactly like a Rogue but with some handle animal ranks and favoured enemy.

[baduin]

More like an Assassin.

[Maxus]

So this time its Hunter, which is basically exactly like a Rogue but with some handle animal ranks and favoured enemy.

Have you ever played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance? There's a Hunter job in there that's pretty close to this class concept. Some more prominent abilities:

--The ability to capture weakened monsters. Possibly you could see them or something.

--An ability which does heavy damage to monsters. I'd put it as taking a standard action to take a shot--which may be a bowshot-- to inflict heavy damage to monsters. If we're doing Favored Enemy, start out with one of the types of monsters--either normally or using a simplification like the one I turned out--and gain more and more of them.

--An ability which inflicts multiple, random status effects.

--Ultima Shot.

--An "Advice" ability which ups the critical ratio of the target.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

My version of the Ranger is a combination of the following: Ranger, Bloodhound, Consecrated Harrier, Justicar, a few archer Prc's, some archery/twf epic feats, and a few homebrew abilities. This is in respect to both class abilities and thematic concerns.

[Username17]

Woodsy leader is a failed direction in my opinion. If you are leading animals you are a druid. If you are leading undead you are a necromancer. If you are leading men you are something, but why we call that Ranger and associate that with anything that has ever been called Ranger before is beyond me.

There is definitely room for a non-spellchucking leader. If you have a pile of undead following you around and don't have the ability to fire blasts of black death magic at people, that's a perfectly valid way to contribute to the party's endeavors.

There is no reason that the ability to lead an army of bears should have to come with the ability to tie up all enemies with vines and brambles. There is no reason that the ability to lead an army of the dead into battle should have to come with the ability to rip a man's soul from his shell.

There is room for a character who just puts figures on the board and occasionally stabs fools. And from Beastmaster to Aragorn, that's what the "rangers" in literature actually do. So whether players will accept it or not as a "ranger" it's probably the most accurate portrayal of the characters that they are theoretically supposed to be emulating with the class.

-Username17

[Talisman]

I have to say, I really like Caedrus's idea (1st page) of a ranger gaining a variety of combat tricks that are more useful against certain types of foes than others. Say, you got something vs. big foes (Trip, extra damage, AC mod), something vs. mindless ones (trick them into following you or whatever), something vs. extraplanars (banish them, dimensional anchor, etc), and so on. Thus, the ranger has the "warrior chassis" - high BAB, good hp, good weapon skillz - but the majority of his special fighting schtick comes from special effect vs. foes that meet specific qualities - representing his knowledge of their creature type.

Obviously, these would have to have fairly broad requirements to keep them useful in most situations, but I wouldn't be worried about making all of them useful in all situations, just because nothing is. They key is to arrange matters so the ranger is virtually never (assuming he's built well) stuck without a valid and useful tactical ability.

Drawing on this "know thy enemy" concept, consider a new version of favored enemy. Instead of having a set list, make an appropriate Knowledge check when encountering a critter;if you succeed, you gain half your ranger level as a damage/save bonus (maybe even an attack/AC bonus). At higher levels, you can make a Knowledge check to grant your allies bonuses (a la the archivist's dark knowledge), extend your crit range, confirm crits, etc.

I also see the ranger as maximizing every available advantage. When he flanks, he grants and gets a +4 instead of +2. He can aid another as a swift action. He counts cover and concealment as one grade better. He might get an opportunist ability to take a free swing whenever an ally hits an enemy he threatens.

Virgilso compared the ranger to a "stealth-oriented fighter-type that doesn't use sneak attack." Hell, let's give the ranger sneak attack! It fits perfectly with the rest of the archetype, both flavor-wise and mechanically. This alone buffs the ranger's combat effectiveness.

On the issue of followers/animal companions...while I don't disagree with Frank, I have mixed feelings. One the one hand, having followers is cool and useful. OTOH, I sometimes want to play a ranger who's a loner, a sneaky woodland warrior unencumbered by animals or any other people beyond the party. If followers are going to be hardwired into the ranger class, I respectfully recommend that the ranger be either given alternate abilities or split into two: "Woodland Leader" and "Woodland Assassin."

So Gandalf's a ranger (not disagreeing with the stuff on controlling)?

This is the problem with (1) using archetypal characters to define classes, and (2) defining archetypal characters through classes. I could argue that Gandalf could have some combination of fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric, druid, sorcerer and even paladin levels. Since Tolkien created him long before D&D even existed, there's no one right answer - Wizard was a title, not a class.

I think it's fair to say that Gandalf fit the role described as rangerlike, but that's not the same as saying Gandalf was a ranger.

[CatharzGodfoot]

I have to say, I really like Caedrus's idea (1st page) of a ranger gaining a variety of combat tricks that are more useful against certain types of foes than others. Say, you got something vs. big foes (Trip, extra damage, AC mod), something vs. mindless ones (trick them into following you or whatever), something vs. extraplanars (banish them, dimensional anchor, etc), and so on. Thus, the ranger has the "warrior chassis" - high BAB, good hp, good weapon skillz - but the majority of his special fighting schtick comes from special effect vs. foes that meet specific qualities - representing his knowledge of their creature type.

Obviously, these would have to have fairly broad requirements to keep them useful in most situations, but I wouldn't be worried about making all of them useful in all situations, just because nothing is. They key is to arrange matters so the ranger is virtually never (assuming he's built well) stuck without a valid and useful tactical ability.

That sounds a lot like a Tome fighter that has taken Giantkiller, Ghost Hunter, Mage Slayer, and so forth. It would take a few more specialized feats, but I think it would work.

[Bigode]

This is the problem with (1) using archetypal characters to define classes, and (2) defining archetypal characters through classes.

No. That's the problem with picking a piece of text devoid of any passing reference to mechanics and trying to pass it off as a class.

[PhoneLobster]

And from Beastmaster to Aragorn, that's what the "rangers" in literature actually do.

I think the main problem really is that it is what a LOT of different dudes do, including ones not supposedly involved with the "Ranger archetype" at all, like say King Arthur, Jason and the Argonauts, and Julius Ceaser.

I mean you could CALL them "Rangers" as well, but I'd find it easier to call Aragon and CO "Kings" or "Leaders". It seems kinda... dumb to co-opt that role from its rightful name just to give Rangers something to be.

[Amra]

Franks dead right about the fact that it's hard to build a character class around the idea of fighting a limited selection of enemies and then being sub-par against everything else. How about this for a notion, then: the Ranger gets "favoured enemy" bonuses against potentially anything. For every round he's in combat against a particular creature type, he gets additional bonuses and abilities to use against them.

He could have a few specific creatures that he gets his bonuses/abilities against straight away if you really wanted to keep that feature, and - due to his massive adaptibility - he can "refocus" his pissed-offedness onto whatever he's fighting right now. Said bonuses could stick around for some time, so if he's fighting his way through a themed set of encounters he doesn't start over every battle.

At any given moment he has a subset of favoured enemies - i.e. the ones who are getting in his face and stopping him doing whatever it is he wants to do this week - but they can be changed at short notice with a little study.

Combine that with ranged controller powers, some enemy manipulating/diplomancy type effects and some situational bonuses or abilities based on whether the people in the immediate vicinity consider him a hero or a villain... and you almost have a class.

[Calibron]

I can really get into the idea of Rangers being ranged controllers with built in followers. That gives them a clearly defined semi-unique roll with neat self-synergy that you can really build on.

But seriously, if you want to be a "woodsy assassin" or whatever just be a Rogue or an Assassin and call it a day; it's been done, and there's no need to re-invent the wheel.

[Draco_Argentum]

Frank damn well beat me to it. Fighting one creature type really well is too narrow to hang a class off. Fighting a bunch of creature types in a level appropriate way is what every class does.

We do have room for an archer and rangers often arch in the fiction, I'd suggest that would be the way to go. Create a couple skill feats for the woodsy stuff and you're good to go. One for making nice with animals, one for surviving in the wild, more to taste.

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

Franks dead right about the fact that it's hard to build a character class around the idea of fighting a limited selection of enemies and then being sub-par against everything else. How about this for a notion, then: the Ranger gets "favoured enemy" bonuses against potentially anything. For every round he's in combat against a particular creature type, he gets additional bonuses and abilities to use against them.

And I'd rather it go the opposite way. I'd rather the ranger's bonuses start out huge ("OMG, it's him!") and decrease as his opponents adapt to him. This would encourage the hit-and-run tactics that I associate with the ranger archetype. Something like this:

__________________________________________________
Ambush: At level 1 during the surprise round and for a number of rounds equal to your level / 6 (minimum 1), you gain a +5 circumstance bonus to all attack rolls, damage rolls, saving throws, and opposed rolls against all creatures of one type that you successfully identify using a Knowledge check. This circumstance bonus increases by +1 per level (so at level 1 this class feature provides a +6 circumstance bonus). This circumstance bonus decreases by 3 when this duration expires; this reduced bonus extends a number of rounds equal to your level / 6 (minimum 1). This continues until no circumstance bonus remains. Further, you can identify creatures with a successful Knowledge check as a swift action. You may use this ability again on the same creature type in the same terrain after an hour has passed.

Example: Esme is a Rgr4 who suprises a group of ogres. She successfully identifies them as giants. During the surprise round and her first round of combat, she gains a +9 circumstance bonus to all attack rolls, damage rolls, saving throws against ogres' attacks, and opposed rolls ogres. In the 2nd round of combat, her circumstance bonus is only +3. On the 3rd round of combat her circumstance bonus is +0.

At level 6 you can use this class feature on the same creature type in the same terrain type after 30 minutes have passed. This is reduced to 10 minutes at level 11, and 1 minute at level 16.
__________________________________________________
That sounds different enough and versatile enough to be cool. The bookkeeping's a slight pain in the ass, but the duration is short enough that it shouldn't matter. At level 15, everything's only lasting 2 rounds anyway, so you'd have +20 on surprise and rounds 1 and 2, +17 on rounds 3 and 4, +14 on rounds 5 and 6, +11 on rounds 7 and 8, and the fight shouldn't take much longer than that.

It encourages Two-weapon Fighting and archery. And it's different enough from sneak attack and rage dice to be cool (as the ranger can use it to disarm a bunch of foes, for instance, instead of just stabbing them in the face, or go toe-to-toe with the goblin high cleric for a couple of rounds without being imploded).

The Track feat'd get tossed in at level 1, also.

So let's build an army.
__________________________________________________

Vanguard: At level 3 you gain one CR 1 follower of your creature type (not including subtype). At level 5 double your CR 1 followers and gain a CR 3 follower. At level 7 double your CR 1 and CR 3 followers and gain a CR 5 follower. At level 9 double your CR 1, CR 3, and CR 5 followers and gain a CR 7 follower. Continue this doubling of the previous levels' followers and this gaining of a follower of CR equal to your level -2 at every other level.

Code: Select all

        CR (Followers of Your Creature Type)
Level    1   3   5   7   9  11  13  15  17
   3     1  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --
   5     2   1  --  --  --  --  --  --  --
   7     4   2   1  --  --  --  --  --  --
   9     8   4   2   1  --  --  --  --  --
  11    16   8   4   2   1  --  --  --  --
  13    32  16   8   4   2   1  --  --  --
  15    64  32  16   8   4   2   1  --  --
  17   128  64  32  16   8   4   2   1  --
  19   256 128  64  32  16   8   4   2   1

If any of these followers are lost, you may replace them at any settlement wherein creatures of the appropriate type live by spending one week in that settlement.

Further, at levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 you gain a follower of any creature type equal to your CR -2. You may dismiss these creatures at any time and recruit new creatures by spending one day per creature in the appropriate terrain type.

Finally, at level 7 you are considered the Power Center (see DMG 137-8) for a thorp. At level 13 you are considered the Power Center for a small town. At level 19 you are considered the Power Center for a large city.
__________________________________________________
Then it's just random shit.

Great Leader: At level 2 you may aid another as an immediate action. At level 10 you may aid any number of allies no two of which may be more than 30 ft. apart as an immediate action. At level 18 when you aid another the bonuses are doubled.

Hatred: At level 6 when you inflict damage on a foe during the surprise round and during a number of rounds equal to your level / 6 (minimum 1), you also inflict 1 point of Dexterity, Constitution, or Wisdom ability damage. At level 14, you inflict 1 point of Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom damage instead.
__________________________________________________

Yeah, this probably needs some spellcasting to make it go for real, but with the right selection of spells, this should work okay.

[Kaelik]

For me I think you could make him a ranged stun type, but add in the getting better/figuring him out thing by making his Status effects scale up as combat continues.

Something like: Hit for Trip attempt, or something, then Fort save or Stun, ect, scaling up with each consecutive round you hit them.

[JonSetanta]

Screw favored enemy. The concept has never worked.

A Ranger could go the way of 4e design and "mark" targets, or they could fall between the classic Fighter and Rogue stereotypes and specialize in ranged damage output, mobility, and stall tactics.

[zeruslord]

I can really get into the idea of Rangers being ranged controllers with built in followers. That gives them a clearly defined semi-unique roll with neat self-synergy that you can really build on.

The problem with this is that Robin Hood and Aragorn are not ranged controllers. As cool an idea as it is, it is an idea for a character class that has nothing to do with any literary ranger I am aware of.

I think the main problem really is that it is what a LOT of different dudes do, including ones not supposedly involved with the "Ranger archetype" at all, like say King Arthur, Jason and the Argonauts, and Julius Ceaser.

I mean you could CALL them "Rangers" as well, but I'd find it easier to call Aragon and CO "Kings" or "Leaders". It seems kinda... dumb to co-opt that role from its rightful name just to give Rangers something to be.

This Leader role covers Aragorn and Robin Hood, although it still might be covered by a fighter with the right feat selection.

Ambush: At level 1 during the surprise round and for a number of rounds equal to your level / 6 (minimum 1), you gain a +5 circumstance bonus to all attack rolls, damage rolls, saving throws, and opposed rolls against all creatures of one type that you successfully identify using a Knowledge check. This circumstance bonus increases by +1 per level (so at level 1 this class feature provides a +6 circumstance bonus).

This pushes rangers straight off the RNG. Noone gets flat bonuses that large. Ever.

[Judging__Eagle]

My original idea was something like a class level check instead of knowledge checks (or you make any PHB core knowledge check as if you had max ranks; you still need to have actual ranks for purposes of pre-reqisites), and if you ID the monster you are fighting, you get bonuses against them. If you fail to ID a monster, you can do so again in your next round of combat, or when you next encounter them out of combat.

Less "favoured enemy" and more "now I know how to own these guys."

[Amra]

The problem with this is that Robin Hood and Aragorn are not ranged controllers. As cool an idea as it is, it is an idea for a character class that has nothing to do with any literary ranger I am aware of.

You're right about Aragorn; he never did squat worth mentioning with a bow. On the other hand, the more modern mythology associated with Robin Hood - which is, let's face it, the bulk of the Robin Hood corpus - has him tripping fleeing soldiers, disarming opponents, forcing people into traps and sundering objects with arrows.

On the back of the TV series, I have in the past considered making a Ranger class that's supernaturally associated with the god of the hunt; not so much the usual D&D-style association with a deity, but a more tenebrous relationship with a powerful nature spirit that is sometimes worshipped as a god.

In this version, the Ranger is more of a doomed hero. His purpose is to serve the best interests of the common folk regardless of personal cost, but he's destined to die in the service of [Herne/the Horned One/whatever] the nature spirit and he knows it: it was part of whatever deal set him on his path. He and his ilk are aided not only by the nature spirit, but also by the spirits of those Rangers who have gone before, giving them - and to a lesser extent, those who follow them - a number of supernatural powers that they can call upon.

Of course, he'd still have the aforementioned useful stunts he can pull using just his longbow, and his deep connection with the hunter spirit could plausibly net him any kind of bonuses you cared to mention against whatever type of creature took your fancy.

The notion of being able at higher levels to - for instance - summon phantom bowmen that shoot from the shadows to cause chaos and distraction on the battlefield is one that appeals to me. Calling forth the Wild Hunt (hounds of Annwyn, whatever) would also be pretty freakin' cool.

I never did get around to writing that up, but on revisiting the idea I rather like it. I don't actually care that it isn't Aragorn (although for some reason I do feel it fits the flavour of the character if not the abilities) because it's still a better concept than the standard D&D nonentity.