Ranger class: philosophy behind it is the image of someone completely at home in the woods and able to make their way with minimal wasted effort and not dependent upon civilization to meet their needs. Weapons were changed to reflect that and if anyone actually makes a usable bow skill, this is where it'd go.

I left a bunch out I know, but I spent a good 5 minutes thinking all this up.

Weapons : Spear (fashionspear)
Staff (fashionstaff)
Axe
Dagger (fashiondagger)

Defenses: dodge
Parry (bonus to ranger spear/staff)
Or parries all weapontypes in wilds)
Wilderness familiarity (increased dodge in wilds not impacted by entwine and chance to dodge spells/disarms, etc..)
Shield block

General: acute vision (detect camouflaged and infravision)
Acute smell (detect hidden and invis in the wilds but weather affected)
Camouflage
Pathfinding
Creep (affected by load/size)
Butcher (makes heavy short-lived steaks)
Jerk meat (makes light, long-lived jerky but longer lag)
Camp
Herbs (heals and cure disease)
Poultice (cures poison/blindness)
Totem (fashions a limited time totem of the wilds that allows some portion of wilderness familiarity/acute smell to carry into civilized, also affects morale)

Offense: ambush
Waylay
Snare
Hunt (increased effectiveness in combat in the wilds - something akin to the 'shadows footsteps' legacy but with wilderness restrictions)
Rangerpugil (double hit - chance to stun)
Spearthrow (starts combat – replaces charge with very small chance of instant kill)
Spearthrust (replaces serpent strike for spear - chance to bleed)
Serpentstrike (dagger only - chance to poison)
Chop (axe only – blow to legs with damage/dex/moves)
Bearcharge (actually lags someone regardless of size)

Miscellaneous:
Bark skin – actually toughens skin to reduce damage from some sources (ala the treants) but not all (i.e. fire)
Protection heat/cold
Survival

Rangers who kill 'wild' creatures (acute would detect this)would suffer a penalty to their wilderness time. Too much of it and you'd lose percentages of a wilderness skill. Nothing annoys me more than rangers who mow through the very things they are supposed to be protecting, there ought to be some consequences. Like when an elf goes and kills too many paladins.

Oh yeah, fashionweapon would include the imbue weapon part. With the same bonuses for wood-elves.

>Nothing annoys me more than rangers who mow through the very things they are supposed to be protecting, there ought to be some consequences.

Rangers don't have to be protectors of the wilds or wardens of the wild. I always thought of rangers a survivalists, explorers, people who've spent long enough in the wilderness to understand it. That role might be the general stereotyped thing for a goodie or neutral ranger, but man, an evil ranger would probably be amused by killing the very thing his cabalmates were protecting. Rangers are just normal people - they aren't automatically obligated to protect that which they use.

I'm sure a lot of evil outlanders have it in their role that they couldn't care less about what happens in the wilds, they just want to use the refuge for their own ends, similar to the Empire and the Scions.

However, I do agree that rangers need a revamp. camo;ambush enemy;c entangle;serp;serp;serp;serp;serp can make for some of the most boring fights in the game, especially against, say, a defensive warrior which can't pull out much damage to a ranger in the wilds but can take a lot of blows.

And make bearcharge lag for someone other than an enlarged cloud giant carrying a dozen rafts =P

http://www.carrionfields.com/Help/Classes/Ranger.html

Saying rangers don't protect the wild is like saying paladins don't give a crap about good and evil and it should have the same consequences IMHO.

What rangers *might* not do is care about good or evil. There are good, neutral and evil things that are 'wild' and natural.

It also says that rangers can call bears to them, so that is clearly, CLEARLY, out of date =P

I prefer playing something which breaks the norm and adds a little more spice to the game. I personally believe that a touch to a ranger who cares little about the woods in general but will still use them for his own purposes is perfectly valid RP and adds a little spice to CF.

Paladins aren't anything near the same thing as rangers, its basically like apples and oranges. Paladins have a strict code and guild, and they are only allowed to be one align/ethos in addition to the other restrictions their god imposes on them. Even AFTER all that the room for interpreting the code is pretty big, a hardcore maran paladin will have no trouble breaking the law in order to impose a higher order and safeguard more innocents from a duergar A-P, whereas a steadfast Tribunal paladin would believe in the law above all things and try to save that duergar A-P from the other.

But all that aside, there is a LOT of wriggle room for role variation, even when playing a paladin, one of the most restricted classes in the game. I do not believe rangers should be restricted in any way by their "duty to protect the wild" or crap like that.

You are free to disagree with me, even though I'm perfect, but when your house catches fire, your boss fires you, and your kitty dies, remember you brought it on yourself. =)

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that there isn't wiggle room, I'm saying that far too many rangers don't pay any attention whatsoever to what's natural and what isn't and *that* should have some consequences just like there are druids who get turned evil and orcs who get redeemed.

The way I look at it is this: if I were a forest ranger hired to protect an area and taught the special skills to do so, I could certainly wander around alone and poach a few deer or shoot a coyote or 10. But if I got caught doing it, I'd get fired from being a ranger. And certainly the extra noise and damage I was doing would detract from my ability to do the job.

And I'm a tenured professor with dogs and insurance

Your tenured professorship doesn't change the fact he's politely telling you that your idea about 'too many rangers running around doing too much damage to the wilds recklessly' is dead wrong.

The vast MAJORITY of rangers are good/neutral because the ranger you described tends to be the easiest to play and the most likely character to be caballed. Outlander gives more room for evil rangers to be CABALLED but Outlander doesn't dictate standard ranger behavior anymore than the imms intended Sylvan to.

I'd rather not see Rangers or any other classes get *any* semblance of the monitoring goodies and empowerment classes need, thanks. If they got this monitoring they would undoubtedly be given something in the way of more raw power and/or survivability to warrant your idea of having to give two ####s about the woods or being punished if they don't. Rangers can be companions to druids but they don't have to be by any wild means, your conceptions need to remain squarely with the druid POV and even then there can be evil druids.

The comment about my job was to poke fun at him telling me I was going to get fired (basically can't) and lose my kittie (have dogs)...etc. if I risked disagreeing with him. I'm surprised you didn't get that.

I think the miscommunication we are apparently having is this: rangers were not meant to be warriors. Warriors can be of any stripe and kill anything they feel like. I don't have an argument with that. Rangers were initially meant to be specialized towards fighting in the woods and learning the special skills needed to be guardians of the woods (please refer to the helpfile again).

Rangers have changed since their inception, but the basic premise hasn't. These are woodsmen. Except for relatively rare roles, why on earth would a regular warrior decide to train in woodcraft? What would draw them to learn about the paths and the inhabitants and learn enough to find food, water and herbs? Obviously for most (not all, but most) that would be an attraction to the woods and inhabitants.

It would be the rarity for someone to learn how to get around in the woods so they can wipe it out. Frankly that person would probably not care enough to learn about it, they would just run rampant through it.

Do I think that killing natural things be 'banned' for all rangers? Hell no! Do I think there should be some consequences to ranger characters for doing a lot of killing of natural things? Yes. And it could be something as simple as every kill of a natural things eats an hour or 2 off the rangers wilderness timer so if they do a lot of it, they would eventually suffer some loss of utility.

Now, have I run across rangers, particularly neutrals who kill everything in sight in the woods? Yes. All too often without any real thought (at least when I question them on it) other than: "Because I can" That is the type of RP that I think should be discouraged to an extent by consequences. This doesn't have to Imm monitoring, it could be as automatic as the wilderness timer is.

There can be evil druids but they suffer for it. A lot. By all means if you wish to, try to play an evil druid. Or a good one for that matter, same difference. My impression of druids is that they are largely indifferent to good and evil but care more about natural/unnatural. Rangers have more room for the good and evil part but that doesn't obviate a concern for the natural unnatural.

Now, do I have any credentials for my opinion about rangers? Yes, I think so; I played the very first ranger in CF and helped shape some of the early direction of rangers. I was a level 59 Imm for a good while focusing on RP. And I played a ranger not all that long ago with a combination that hasn't had very many hero's. (None of this is intended as bragging, just to inform you that I've got some experience in the area of rangers and RP)

We may disagree about exactly what rangers should be but my opinion about rangers is at least as valid as yours or the next persons. And ultimately it will be up to the current Imp/Imm gang to decide where things go. Me, if I ever play another ranger (or any character for that matter) again, I will play it with the race/class context in mind and not go for a combination just for power or perks.

(I'm pretty sure Straklaw played an evil druid. A very good one, btw. I think it was him, anyway.)

What if a ranger took up his profession because he didn't fit into cities? Liked wandering more than training in the warrior guild? What if he was born a woodcutter/lumberjack/trapper, somebody that directly uses the resources of the wilds in an 'unnatural' way.

It doesn't seem to me that CF rangers have any 'spiritual' connection to the wilds. Just a deep and powerful FAMILIARITY. Perhaps like an assassin becomes familiar with their mark. Like a warrior is familiar with their weapon. Like a mage is familiar with the rush of eldritch energy. Limiting a player's options for different relationships to their environment would take away many very interesting, viable roleplay options.

Unless the ranger is going about burning the forests down, and the animals aren't repopping anymore, since he hunted them all to extinction, his environment will still be intact and populated. (That's the problem with MUDS, right? Nothing's dead forever.) The ranger MUST use the wilderness however they see the need, since the ranger is rather limited to acting out their role/ranking/LIVING in the woods by their structure.

And, even if they're killing lots of natural things, it's less like an orcish army coming in, fouling and mucking things up, and chopping down the forest, because with a ranger's familiarity, knowledge, and savvy, their streak of killing and using their prey is more akin to a big bear eating lots and lots of animals and plants and such. Arguably, the woods are still as balanced and strong, since it's resources are now supporting such a scary, powerful predator

(for the record, I also agree that they ought to be more conscientous than Joe Imperial, but what can you do? They're rangers, they're arguably the lords of the wilds.)

I never once said or suggested that CF should limit the roleplaying options of rangers. But like an evil druid, there should be some consequence for going against the core idea of the class.

There have been some very good druids that were turned evil (Baltherias for instance), but they initially (and maybe permanently, not sure) lost a good bit of their prayers. I could easily see a ranger going the same path and more power to them (in a figurative sense that is).

The problem is as you've stated that you can't hunt anything to extinction, save other players. I could make a ranger, even a supposedly neutral wood-elf one that did nothing but kill dryads, nymphs and brownies, forest guardians, etc.. in the low-middle ranks with no consequences whatsoever. That just strikes me as wrong from a class role perspective. And make no bones about it, classes do have role-playing perspectives, some are just more or less restrictive about it.

How long would an anti-paladin last if he/she kept helping the elves? (Assuming at some point an Imm noticed).

An evil ranger caring what he kills? Naw. dryads, nymphs, brownies and forest guardians- I'd think an evil ranger might even go out of his way to kill these things.

Not everybody has to play a ranger the same way you do .

A side note, I like the ideas in the main post. Especially totem. Rangers out of the wilds stank.