Well, I just started thinking about an old idea mentioned before, about rangers getting different terrain paths, and elaborated on that, so hey, here it is.

Everything would work affinity-like, aaa bit like invokers, or thieves I guess. You'd still get all the standard crap like weapons and ambush etc, with some exceptions.

ranger affinities
-----------------
terrain lore
hunting lore
animal lore
nature lore
herbal lore
weather lore?

You'd get to pick terrain lore first, at say lev 10, and that would pretty much shape the entire class from that point. Terrain types would be: coast/sea, desert, snow, forest, mountain. Terrain lore/knowledge would affects: fast camo, creep, find water, track, snare and wilderness fam. You could camo faster in your known terrain, and slower in others, of course for terrains like snow/desert the penalties would be less severe because there aren't enough of those areas around.

Just like with thief paths, you can only go to a certain point in one 'affinity' to still hope and get something in another. Or just go all the way in one, and a little bit of the others. Except the terrain lore, which you could pick one of. Whatever. If it doesn't sound overly coherent, it's because I woke up a few mins ago.

Hunting lore would have the following skills: Butcher, find water, snare, plus fish, hunt, filter water, skin. Butcher and find water will work more or less as before, just as snare, lag and success depending a bit on terrain, and they'll be within reach whatever terrain you choose. The rest depend on your terrain. Fish is for coast/water, which lets you fish if you have a 'net' item, and are near a water square. Some lag comes with it. Hunt is the same for forest squares. The rest don't get any. Filter water is find water for sea squares, only for coast rangers. Skin works like this: forest rangers only, if you don't sac the corpse of an animal, you can skin it (you need a dagger). Skin can be made into - headgear, about wear or boots. Skin can either give the armor hp, starting with 5, maxing at 20-35 at hero, or a dam or hit bonus. Choosable by the ranger of course.

If you want more for hunt, think of it yourself.

Animal lore gives tame, animal sense, sniff and animal friendship. Everyone gets tame, but again, it works the best in your own terrain. Animal sense when used lags you for a bit, and lets you roughly sense how many of a certain animal are in the area, or if some of that type have been killed recently. Sniff is a bit like track, but lets you tell if a hunted player is hurt, how hurt, something about their affects and so on. Animal friendship is a bit like familiar. Except you get a random animal depending on your surroundings. Eagle, bear, fox etc. These do not help you fight. Eagle can scan the next area, and only the adjoining area, bear can move heavy objects (dunno why yet), and fox can do something too. I'm sure someone can think of something.

Nature lore comes with the following skills: replant, put out fire and ashes. Replant is obvious I guess, you can make a ashed area into a wilderness square again. Put out fire is like emptying a canteen, without using water, with some lag. Ashes lets you gather ashes to use them instead of dirt kick in areas where you can't dirt kick. Needs maybe one hand free? Again, not that many skills, but think up some yourself.

Herbal lore gives the following skills: herbs, concoct herb cure. Herbs is the old herbs, which works better if you're in your own terrain. Herb cure is given to everyone, but, only a ranger that specializes in herbs will ever know just what a herb he gathers does, anyone else might get randomly poisoned, famished etc. Herb cure examples - cure poison, cure disease, cure malaria, satiation (like food).

As for weather lore, I'm not sure about that one. But, it would obviously affect call lightning, and also find water. It could also give the skills: gather water (requires a large piece of leather and some sticks), improved scan and mud. Mud would cover you in mud and give a camo effect that lasts even if you don't creep. Would only work in certain areas though.


Circ, not whining for a change. One entire note without using the word ####? Oops.