Rangers & Gods

[gbbishop]

Opening up more gods for rangers would go a long way but they still are granted spells that are divine and from the druid spell list. so they would need to venerate some god, nature god at that, to get the spells. It would be cool if you did not have to switch deities to be a ranger.. it would of course deny you access to spells but for low wis and under 4th level rangers this would not be a problem.

Perhaps the best solution would be to delay the need to change deity 'til 4th level. Again this is a solid bit of DEV work. perhaps if you are a ranger that does not want one of the prescribed deities, simply getting a DM to change you deity would be the easiest and best way to accomplish this.

Oghma does not grant spells of the druid list. so i don't think that works, though I do like the spirit of it.

[Vekin]

Opening up more gods for rangers would go a long way but they still are granted spells that are divine and from the druid spell list. so they would need to venerate some god, nature god at that, to get the spells.

If you read Faiths and Pantheons there is at least a couple of gods that are not nature god as such that mention having Rangers as followers or allowing clerics to multi-class as Rangers.

Opening up more gods to allow people to be rangers and worship them is only a good thing I think.

[Bishop Cornelius]

Scripting-wise that even might be the easiest solution as well... to increase the selection of deities for a ranger.

[GodBeastX]

Here comes GBX to disagree with everyone.

First - Urban Rangers

Urban Rangers are not Rangers. Urban Ranger is a variant class. Some things of note is Urban rangers get a different spell list, no animal companion, and favored enemies can only be organizations. Not to mention their tracking skills and such only work in urban environments. Not even sure why they're called rangers.


Second - Spellcasting

Tyr isn't a nature god. He's a god of justice. It's very clear that gods have limited depth of what they can grant for power to people based on their portfolios in FR. FR especially since they wanted this distinction for their pantheons. Therefore to get access to all the "Nature" spells a Ranger uses, a Ranger must take a nature-god of some sort.

That being said, I have toyed with in the past having rangers be able to choose any god but unable to use the spells if their god isn't a nature god. Also, having ranger worshippers doesn't mean it grants ranger powers.

Third - Role

Rangers don't always protect people from nature, nor do they always protect nature. The ranger way of life is to dwell in the environment and know it well. It's a skill set, not a goal. Much like a fighter.

[Urithrand]

*looks around to make sure nobody is watching him*

I would get rid of deity restrictions for rangers instead. I remember a fighter of mine that worshiped Tyr and took a a evel as ranger to get access to the favoured enemy "undead" etc. feats. And suddenly i had to pick a new deity. wtf?

Delaying this to level 4 would improve this situation. But is it really necessary at all? The spells that rangers get are not much more than what you can make with some alchemy.

Aragorn was a ranger. Did he hug trees because of that?

*runs away before anybody sees him*

Well that's what you get for powerbuilding

The tree hugger thing came with 3rd edition, sadly.

AD&D rangers were not protectors of the wild, they protected people FROM the wild - a la Aragorn.
Same with druids: they started as sages who learnt to manipulate the power of nature, then they were turned into ecoterrorists and hippies.

Curse you, 3rd edition!

No it didn't. Rangers have been nature based classes right from the get go.

I'm with GBX entirely, this is an interesting thread, but as I'm sure you all know, we don't change rules to move away from PnP, we strive to stay as close to PnP as much as possible.

[Maevan2]

Third - Role

Rangers don't always protect people from nature, nor do they always protect nature. The ranger way of life is to dwell in the environment and know it well. It's a skill set, not a goal. Much like a fighter.

That doesn't really sound like disagreeing

Just an idea: what would it mean to copy the ranger class, removing the spells while keeping the animal companion and adding one or two bonus feats?

[GodBeastX]

That doesn't really sound like disagreeing

Just an idea: what would it mean to copy the ranger class, removing the spells while keeping the animal companion and adding one or two bonus feats?

What would it mean for you to make me more maps? ^_^

[Maevan2]

*pouts*

[Doubtful]

I'd love to see the Urban Ranger varient go in..

Mangy dog animal companions FTW!

[Vekin]

Here comes GBX to disagree with everyone.

Therefore to get access to all the "Nature" spells a Ranger uses, a Ranger must take a nature-god of some sort.

While Rangers and Druids do often share the same deities there is nothing to stop a ranger from choosing a non-nature deitiy and still receving their divine spells.

[ParadoxicalAnonymity]

Second - Spellcasting

Tyr isn't a nature god. He's a god of justice. It's very clear that gods have limited depth of what they can grant for power to people based on their portfolios in FR. FR especially since they wanted this distinction for their pantheons. Therefore to get access to all the "Nature" spells a Ranger uses, a Ranger must take a nature-god of some sort.

That being said, I have toyed with in the past having rangers be able to choose any god but unable to use the spells if their god isn't a nature god. Also, having ranger worshippers doesn't mean it grants ranger powers.

From the 3.5 Ed. Player's Handbook:

Religion:

Though a ranger gains his divine spells from the power of nature, he like anyone else may worship a chosen deity. Ehlonna (goddess of the woodlands) and Obad-Hai (god of nature) are the most common deities revered by, though some prefer more martial deities. [Emphasis Added]

[Doubtful]

Religion:

Though a ranger gains his divine spells from the power of nature, he like anyone else may worship a chosen deity. Ehlonna (goddess of the woodlands) and Obad-Hai (god of nature) are the most common deities revered by, though some prefer more martial deities. [Emphasis Added]

That's for Greyhawk.

If you play Greyhawk you can also just pick two random cleric domains and worship them as abstract concepts.

Sundren isn't in Greyhawk.

[ParadoxicalAnonymity]

As was already mentioned, there are gods actually listed in Faiths and Pantheons that are not Nature Deities, yet do have Rangers associated with them.

I posted from the 3.5 guide not for the purpose of the Oerth deities, but for the purpose of showing that the class itself is not strictly regulated unto only explicit Nature Deities.

While I loath the thought of having to drag out the Faiths and Pantheons book and the Faerun Campaign book and to go digging for those excerpts that mention Rangers associated with non-Nature Deities, I could if this is what's demanded to illustrate the point.

GBX did say that having Ranger worshippers doesn't mean it grants Ranger powers. But I'm not sure where he draws this conclusion, if we're talking PnP. While this is certainly the decision of staff when it applies to this server, naturally, it doesn't seem illustrated within the scope of Sourcebooks. Now, this is not to say it's not been said somewhere.

But, as far as I know, it hasn't.

And just to round off this, there was, far back in this topic, a post that even expressed there are a minority of Rangers that choose different deities if they have 'odd interests.' This post was actually a quote from the Faerun Campaign Guide. So, it's certainly reasonable to assume that it's a rather rare circumstance that a Ranger chooses a deity not explicitly Nature focused, but it's not nonexistant.

From my perspective, it seems pretty clear that it's not an objective thing.

[Doubtful]

No need to haul out the books - For what it's worth I like the idea of rangers being a bit like assassins - They get spells out of knowing their environment and having a wide skill set, rather than out of any particular dedication to the gods.

The trouble is that any changes take one of our most critical and important resources - DEV time, and the DEV team currently have a lot of stuff going on.

[ParadoxicalAnonymity]

Oh, on that account, I entirely understand. Hell, lately there's been an extraordinarily large influx of new content imbued into the server. I can only imagine the Devs have been laboriously crafting away fresh material.

I don't even think this particular topic is exactly all that important or high on the critical list of things to be done, personally.

Just cordial discussion, concerning such. That is all, from my part.