Editing Ranger (section)

===3rd Edition===
Third edition Ranger was equally useless. Their only class features were Track as a bonus feat, some gimped spellcasting, Favored Enemy (Hating a type so much you did extra damage to them) and the basic parts of dual wielding for free, but in light armor (and one could argue that, per [[RAW]], they don't actually have these feats and can't qualify for anything further). The chassis was OK, gaining full BAB, light and medium armor, 4+int skill points and d10 HD, but if they weren't fighting the enemy they really hated, they were literally worse than [[Warrior|an NPC class]] in combat. Even then they were pretty shit since Favored Enemy granted a whole +1 bonus. At best, it was a one level dip for [[Rogue]] to gain martial weapons and be able to activate magic items that used the Ranger spell list. They ''technically'' had an animal companion, but this was a function of their spell list and not something they got till level 4. Since it was a function of a spell, anyone with a scroll of Animal Friendship and the ability to use it could technically get one.

[[Monte Cook]] apparently saw the mess coming and, as early as 2001, posted "Ranger Revisited" on his site ''gratis''. It didn't catch on although he kept tinkering with the manuscript through 2003. Around the same time [[White Wolf]] had the [[Relics_%26_Rituals|Vigilant]] as a prestige-class.

3.5 made the Rangers a bit less useless. In exchange for medium armor and downgrading their HD to a d8, they got a good reflex save, 6+int skill points and actual class features. Favored Enemy was now twice as powerful, and the progression twice as fast (though a +2 still isn't ''that'' impressive). Animal Companion was now baked into the class progression, but still operated at half power so Druids still got a ''better'' animal companion than the ranger, and ''they'' could turn that pet into an unstoppable killing machine with buffing magic. They also swapped their bizzare pseudo-dual wielding for being able to select a combat style, either archery or dual wielding, and get some feats for that (though it was slow enough you still needed to spend other feats to do it). Late in 3.5 they got the Swift Hunter feat, which let them gain '''[[Scout (D&D)|Scout]]''' progression while leveling as ranger and let them apply the scout's skirmish to otherwise immune foes. This made the two mediocre classes into a single solid one, but only if you had the system mastery and other sources to work out how to consistently be able to move and full attack in the same turn.

3.5 Ranger is a [[Tier System|Tier 4]] class, kinda doing a bit of everything but not particularly well. Pathfinder's buffs would help a lot, but they still weren't good enough at a single thing to reach tier 3. 3.0 ranger could fall even lower.

Through Malhavoc meanwhile, Monte published [[Wolfgang Baur]]'s ''[[Eldritch Might|Book of Roguish Luck]]'' which proposed (at last) a "Bandit" class, for your Robin Hood needs. He should be right up Trotter's alley, as an outdoors burglar. [[Arcana Unearthed]] for outdoors-and-eldritch gave up on rangers, simply loading up with various shamans instead (and allowing the Vigilant).

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