Ranger magic...

[miyazaki]

In the recent discussions, there has been a lot of suggestions that push the classes into a place of greater symmetry. (E.g. people wanting to add a third priest-type class.) I have always found it strange that rangers only get mage magic and very few healing-type spells. And if some of the recent suggestions are adopted, the ranger will drift farther into thematic obscurity. To rectify ths, I think that rangers should be able to use magic from both mage- and priest-books. Symmetry!

Before you say that this would make them overpowered (even more so), it could be balanced so that for rangers to have the same set of spells that they have now, they would have to carry twice as many books. Detection from mage, light from priest, satisfy hunger from mage, detect traps from priest, etc. Since the addition of the quiver, rangers' inventory management has gotten way easier. Increasing the number of spellbooks would add restore some inv management pressure.

Choosing which spells they get from each side would be a challenge and best tackled by a few people (the discussion could be endless). But imagine if they had 18 usable spells in 18 different spellbooks, it would add some interesting strategic thought as well as a highly customizable character choices.

(And also knock them down to only 4 blows in melee...)

[ekolis]

Ooh, I like that idea... rangers survive by their wits and scrounge the spells they can understand out of the books!

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Inventory is already a big issue...rangers especially will have 2 slots burned for the quiver, taking you down to 21 to start with. NO WAY do I want to have to burn more for books. Yes, I agree that I have less inventory problems with my ranger...but I still have 4-5 potions (CCW, Healing, Restore Mana, RLL, Enlightenment if I have any) and 1-2 scrolls (Banishment, Mass Banishment) to worry about. I have equipment swaps I may wish to consider. I have equipment to return to use later on.

[Philip]

I think rangers are healers and actually think that rangers should be second in archery to the archer (new class) and that we should deal with it the O way, making a set of ranger (druid) books that specialize in detection, healing and maybe some sort of other utility spells. If we would even add a druid, just put some offense spells into the books and add whole books of offense spells. Let rangers only use healing spells and stuff. Druids would have all the rangers spells except branding.
If ranger=archer (which in Tolkien does not) then they should get branding magic and a few other select spells. Ranger would get many druid spells and maybe the archery book without a few spells and archers would get the archery book. There might be problems coding the archer book so rangers would get it. Archers would be hard to balance and so would druids but it would be possible.
To balance druids you could not only combine the good things about the priest and mages (healing, utility and damage) but also the penalties (gloves, pointy weapons and make an even more prohibitive armor weight penalty).
Rangers rely on nature for their spells: tracking, healing and a knowledge of many secrets of teleport. You could also give them identify instead of teleportation.
I like miyazaki's idea, but 18 books? You would carry them instead of some scrolls and some potions but still too many.
Or you could just take O's magic system completely.

[Atarlost]

What about making it so they can use both sets, but that a the sufficient set of books is less than or equal to 9?

They could take mage 1 and 3, priest 2, Mordekein, Tensor, Purifications, and Infusions for example. There might be a few spells in the other books, but if they're designed with a sufficient spell set from a subset of books there won't be a inventory problem.

In terms of balance the boost won't hurt if projectile weapons are fixed first.

[PowerDiver]

In terms of balance the boost won't hurt if projectile weapons are fixed first.

If you want to make rangers be more like druids or Tolkien rangers, surely the first step is to remove the extra bow shots. Then projectile balance is the same for them as everybody else modulo the MB8 distinction.

[miyazaki]

What about making it so they can use both sets, but that a the sufficient set of books is less than or equal to 9?

Personally, I would like to see spells available in more books, and what comprises a "sufficient set" be decided by the player who has to decide on his/her own needs or playstyle. More books forces you to make more difficult choices (and at times adopt a new playstyle) which makes the game better, IMHO.

This is my philosophy of the game, tho'. I don't believe there should be one ideal kit, either through artifacts or consumables or spellbooks. The requirements of the game should be high but there should be multiple ways to overcome obstacles.

[Derakon]

One danger I see with making rangers get a subset of both sets of books is that it makes it much harder to rebalance the books in the future. If you decide that, say, priests need access to Protection from Evil earlier and you move it to PB2, then suddenly rangers have gotten a significant boost in power too. Or if you decide that Satisfy Hunger should be a later-game spell, then rangers don't get it at all. Both of these are a bit contrived, but they still feel weird.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

If you want to make rangers be more like druids or Tolkien rangers, surely the first step is to remove the extra bow shots. Then projectile balance is the same for them as everybody else modulo the MB8 distinction.

One of the issues I've always had here is...just what exactly *is* a Tolkien Ranger? The sum total language talking about them is TINY, and the sum total of *that* which we can actually use as a basis for a class in a game is *0*. Dunedain as a race, is probably better justified than Ranger as a class.

The Angband ranger pretty much derives from the 1st Edition D&D ranger, to my knowledge. He's given archery because Angband doesn't support the concept of fighting with 2 weapons, and this is the only way to differentiate him in combat. He did have wizard spell access...along with some druidic spell access, but since the latter doesn't exist in V, it's not terribly relevant.

I think the archery problem is this dilemma:

--Bows need to do enough damage so that they're at *least* matching the single-target spell damage from a cleric or mage. And this has to be true for all classes...even those that get only a single shot.

--But once bows become this strong, then rangers, with 3 shots...are incredibly powerful fighting against single targets.

So the solution is probably to readjust the scales.

a) D&D 3.0 started with the bonuses from magical bows and magical arrows, being completely additive. They learned: this is too much. The 3.5 solution was: the bonus on the *bow* is To Hit, while the bonus on the *arrow* is to damage. This would probably be a great place to start.

b) Simply eliminate Holy Might arrows, or at *least* tone them down something silly.

c) Balance things so EVERY class gets 2 or maybe even 3 shots...yes, this means toning down shot damage a *great* deal...then you can give ranger 5 shots. 60% better...not 200% better. This also tones down the *massive* value of bows of extra shots for anyone but rangers.

d) This might mean that the damage multipliers have to change...perhaps to something like this:

--thrown 1/2 listed damage
--sling becomes x1,
--short bow becomes x1.5
--long bow becomes x2
--light xbow becomes x2.5
--heavy xbow becomes x3

Also, given that xbows have longer load times, you can slow down the rate at which extra shots are gained with them.

[miyazaki]

One danger I see with making rangers get a subset of both sets of books is that it makes it much harder to rebalance the books in the future. If you decide that, say, priests need access to Protection from Evil earlier and you move it to PB2, then suddenly rangers have gotten a significant boost in power too. Or if you decide that Satisfy Hunger should be a later-game spell, then rangers don't get it at all. Both of these are a bit contrived, but they still feel weird.

It may be in the same book, but it can be coded so that rangers can't learn the spell until a much higher clvl, or increase mana or fail rates to make it prohibitively expensive to use early.

I brought up the idea because it seems likely that the prayer books will be rearranged soon. (Most people are in favour of change, even if there are many ideas on how to change...) There might end up being an across-the-board re-distribution of spells/prayers.

(The reason that we don't have Tolkien Rangers is because they were inseperable from their race. If we wanted to be all Tolkien about it, we should remove classes altogether and just have races. Galdalf, as a mage, certainly didn't have any melee penalties; and Bilbo was stealthy because he was a hobbit, not because he was a rogue.)

[Nemesis]

Here's my suggestion for symmetry when it comes to casters:

Elemental magic - Mages & Rangers - INT
Divine magic - Priests & Paladins - WIS
Sorcery - Sorcerors & Rogues - CHA

Elemental magic is about controlling the elements that the world is made of, in other words "fantasy natural science", fire, water, air, earth and aether. Rangers get the spells that are closer to nature while Mages also study the more advanced forces of the world. Intelligence is required to understand how the world works.

Divine magic is probably not needing an explanation.

Sorcery is neither bound by logic or belief in a higher being, the caster just mysteriously "has it". Those who practice sorcery has to be charismatic when they produce their miracles, illusions, traps and tricks.

This is probably more of a variant solution than a vanilla solution, but it's symmetric and makes charisma useful. Besides, I just like to come up with ideas.

[bio_hazard]

I'd argue that Rangers as a class is valid within Tolkien lore, given that there were woodsy men of Gondor (e.g. Faramir and the Ithilian guard), and maybe even the some of the more outdoorsy, hunting hobbits (plus some of the elves). Also, the fact that most late third-age Dunedain were rangers was not because Dunedain = ranger, but because that just happened to be the most common job for them once they lost their major cities. The numenoreans had any number of professions available to them in the past.

[will_asher]

Here's my solution to all these people wanting to play added classes with druids, archers, nature-themed rangers, the necromancers and assassins mentioned in another thread, and less powerful archery: just play DaJAngband or FA or O or whatever other variant(s) have this stuff.

[Nick]

There is no reason why books can't be customised depending on which class is being played. In O/FA, for example, Novice's Handbook contains different spells depending on whether you're playing a priest or a paladin. V certainly used to (basically) do this with illegible spells - I guess it still does, but I haven't checked lately.

This also gives the option of concentrating the half-casters' spells into less books, but that's more of a balance question.

[Atarlost]

Actually, I'd favor removing classes. Mage, Ranger, Rogue, and Warrior are supported by the thematic source material. Priests and Paladins aren't. Healing should be folded into the arcane spell list and those classes just removed.