Rangers and Paladins

[Finarvyn]

Over on Dragonsfoot there are a couple of threads of interest in the OD&D section. One asks if the OD&D Paladin (from Supp II Greyhawk) is too powerful, and the other wants to discuss the OD&D Ragner (from the Strategic Review). As I was posting in the Ranger thread I had an interesting thought and wanted to post it here because I think not everyone visits both forums.

Currently both the Ranger and Paladin are considered to be sub-classes of the Fighting Man. This means that they get HD and combat bonuses similar to those of the FM, along with whatever additional powers are granted to the class. (The Ranger's HD progression is a little different.) This tends to de-value the FM because why play a basic fighter if you can play a fighter with cool extras?

So how about this: consider both the Ranger and the Paladin to be sub-classes of the Cleric. This gives them the special powers they get from GH or SR, but drops their HD and combat bonuses to a lower tier. (The special powers would replace spells that the Cleric gets, or perhaps they could get limited Cleric healing or some such.) This "fix" would be simple to do and would keep the Fighting Man supreme in combat.

What do you think?

[JMiskimen]

Not a terrible idea, though I have found a method that works for my game to keep the Fighting Man supreme in combat. I simply do not permit specialized Fighting Men subclasses to take advantage of multiple attacks upon 1 or less HD creatures. The subclasses of Paladin and Ranger specialize in non combat related abilities a-plenty and/or have their own combat bonuses distinctive to themselves. They still get to attack as Fighting Men, just not as often.


(But after coming to understand later posts in this thread, I may have been in error)

[bestialwarlust]

Interesting idea's. I would leave the paladin as is if using the greyhawk version. But if using a more modern (anything ager od&d is modern ) spell casting, turning undead, etc.. Then I would make it a cleric subclass. To me the GH paladin is the epitome of the virtuous knight. He serves a cause and personal belief not necessarily a god/goddess. Like the poster above said I don't allow them any of the fighters special attacks. Those belong to the fighter a sub class has it's own ability in place of the normal fighter. I also disallow the bonus experience for prime requisites for subclasses.

[cooper]

In my 0d&d write up using CHAINMAIL. I parcel out ranger and paladin powers at 4th and 8th level to match the heroes CM abilities, but reserve FM powers for the FM.

Fighter:fearless leader of men & dragon slayer
Paladin: lay on hands & undead slayer (turning)
Ranger: tracking/scrying & giant slayer

Seems like a perfect triumvirate. It even follows a chronology of sorts:

Beowulf
Lancelot
Aragorn

[Azafuse]

I think having higher requirements is a decent trade-off for their power.

IIRC the first version of the ranger levels up slower (like a MU) and is granted with both MU and Cleric spells, so he can hardly be a pure "Cleric Sub-Class".

I'd leave the Paladin as a FM Sub-Class too, because he's just a fighter with some lesser clerical kinks.

[Red Baron]

Mar 16, 2014 10:56:51 GMT -6 cooper said:

In my 0d&d write up using CHAINMAIL. I parcel out ranger and paladin powers at 4th and 8th level to match the heroes CM abilities, but reserve FM powers for the FM.

Fighter:fearless leader of men & dragon slayer
Paladin: lay on hands & undead slayer (turning)
Ranger: tracking & giant slayer

Seems like a perfect triumvirate. It even follows a chronology of sorts:

Beowulf
Lancelot
Aragorn

How does the lay on hands work?

Do the slaying bonuses also just give a +2 at hero, +4 at superhero on 2d6?

[cooper]

Heroic Abilities

Inspiring Presence add +2 to the totals of all dice rolled of all hirelings or troops being directly led in combat on the Thac0 table or +1 on MtM or mass combat tables. Including saving throws.
Dragonslayer +4 Thac0 to hit dragons in flight while armed with a bow ,+2 if using the FCT. Improved is an additional +2/+1 respectively, arrows of dragon slaying not included!
Fearsome presence all non-heroic enemies must make a morale check at the completion of a charge by a character with this abilitiy.

Rangers and Paladins substitute inspiring presence, dragonslaying, imp. dragonslaying, and fearsome presence for the following abilities.

ranger: 3rd; tracking, surprise, ms/hs , 4th: giant-kin slayer, 7th imp. giant-kin slayer, 8th: minor spell use. Rangers may spend 50% of wealth on special units (c.f. Dave Arneson’s First Fantasy Campaign).
paladin: 3rd: turn undead and lay on hands, 4th: +2 AC to all units under his command (mass combat fights as 1 category lower HF->AF for example), 7th: fear/disease imunity 8th: minor spell use.

[kent]

For me the Paladin and the Ranger *are* Fighting Men not a subclass of Fighting Men. Players should have to earn the right to play one through extraordinary and rare dice rolls for char creation or by demonstrating through roleplaying several Fighters that they are very good players.

[idrahil]

I have been toying with Paladins being a cleric sub-class and Rangers being a Thief sub-class. But the ranger in this case is more a woodsman than Aragorn. I think an Aragorn or Dunedain Ranger should be a Fighting-man subclass.

[talysman]

If giving paladins and rangers Cleric HD, I'd still keep Fighter XP. If not using the paladin/ranger ability minimum s, I'd probably set the prime requisite to the lowest of Strength or Charisma (for paladins) or Wisdom (for rangers.) And if using the boosts to prime requisite scores for earned experience, paladins and rangers wouldn't qualify; they use just the lowest of the two indicated abilities, unmodified.

Also, I don't use Strength attack/damage bonuses, but if I did, only the Fighter, not the paladin or ranger, would get them.

[Zenopus]

FWIW, the Greyhawk paladin is never referred to as a "sub-class" - rather it is a "status". As I pointed out recently over at DF, there's also no requirement that this status is elected at 1st level. Instead it can be elected if they have CHA 17 and are lawful "from the commencement of play for that character". Thus one could play a lawful, CHA 17 fighter until, for example, level 5 and then elect paladin status.

My guess is that Gygax worded it this way to allow previously existing lawful Fighter characters created using the LBBs to become paladins when Greyhawk was released.

So you could extend a similar "Paladin status" to Clerics or even other character classes, giving them similar powers on top of their base class.

And similar to Anti-Clerics, you could have an "Anti-Paladin status" having reversed Paladin powers.

Edit: Just saw Kent's post. His view (at least for Paladins) is similar to what I wrote above in my first paragraph.

[Porphyre]

Mar 16, 2014 12:44:25 GMT -6 idrahil said:

I have been toying with Paladins being a cleric sub-class and Rangers being a Thief sub-class. But the ranger in this case is more a woodsman than Aragorn. I think an Aragorn or Dunedain Ranger should be a Fighting-man subclass.

If we are speaking of the Strategic Review Ranger , he is  Aragorn: slayer of orcs, tracker, healer, and with a knack for divination-oriented magic items (palatir, please?). His Hobbit followers even come by pairs.

[waysoftheearth]

Mar 16, 2014 11:01:22 GMT -6 Azafuse said:

IIRC the first version of the ranger levels up slower (like a MU)

At first glance the SR2 ranger appears to require more XP than does a regular fighting man, but in the text it explains that he gains 4 XP for every 3 XP earned, so in fact the SR2 ranger requires fewer XP than does a regular fighting man.

FWIW -- a magic-user also requires fewer XP overall than does a fighting man. At early levels the m-u requires a few hundred to a few thousand more XP than a fighting man, but from 6th level the fighting man needs thousands and then tens of thousands more XP than does the magic-user.

Mar 16, 2014 12:53:23 GMT -6 talysman said:

If giving paladins and rangers Cleric HD, I'd still keep Fighter XP.

This approach would result in paladins/rangers being 1 level behind clerics ~40% of the time, and equal level to clerics ~60% of the time. Overall, these PCs would therefore have fewer HD than regular clerics. This may be the desired outcome, but for me--if using cleric HD--I'd stick to cleric XP too.

[talysman]

Mar 16, 2014 18:13:30 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

Mar 16, 2014 12:53:23 GMT -6 talysman said:

If giving paladins and rangers Cleric HD, I'd still keep Fighter XP.

This approach would result in paladins/rangers being 1 level behind clerics ~40% of the time, and equal level to clerics ~60% of the time. Overall, these PCs would therefore have fewer HD than regular clerics. This may be the desired outcome, but for me--if using cleric HD--I'd stick to cleric XP too.

I'm assuming here that the intention is to allow the full range of weapons available to the fighter and possibly also the extra attacks of the fighter, in which case lowering XP to cleric levels would make paladins and rangers better than a fighter with the same XP. If you dropped one weapon category -- say, polearms for rangers and missiles for paladins -- then they would be more like true cleric subclasses, replacing the cleric's powers and limitations with equivalents.

[Red Baron]

Rangers and Paladins don't have to be balanced. Its ok that they are essentially just fighting men with a few extra tricks.

The whole "why would anyone choose to be a fighting man when they could be a subclass" argument is fallacious because it rests on the assumption that you can simply choose to be one. The ability score requirements make it so that in a party of 8 with a half dozen fighting men, one might (emphasis on might, theres no guarantee) be a ranger or paladin. Which makes sense, as the majority of your 1st level characters are just thugs with a spear and some armor, not knights and rangers.

[Ynas Midgard]

Mar 17, 2014 17:24:15 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

Rangers and Paladins don't have to be balanced. Its ok that they are essentially just fighting men with a few extra tricks.

The whole "why would anyone choose to be a fighting man when they could be a subclass" argument is fallacious because it rests on the assumption that you can simply choose to be one. The ability score requirements make it so that in a party of 8 with a half dozen fighting men, one might (emphasis on might, theres no guarantee) be a ranger or paladin. Which makes sense, as the majority of your 1st level characters are just thugs with a spear and some armor, not knights and rangers.

I believe relying on high attribute requirements is wrong for two reasons. First, given high enough attributes, one will always choose to be a Ranger or Paladin over Fighting-Man; the issue may come up seldom, but it's still there. Second, high attributes enhance their power further beyond their advantageous class abilities, which makes Rangers and Paladins even more powerful compared to regular Fighting-Men.

[scottenkainen]

I'm fascinated by this experiment in balancing the classes -- such as "3E" tried to do -- while still retaining an OD&D feel. But something would be lost in trying this experiment: the thrill of the anticipation of getting to someday qualify for a ludicrously broken yet seductively inaccessible character class like the paladin, as written.

[premmy]

I just realised why the "high attribute requirements offset the inherently greater power of paladins and rangers" argument always struck me the wrong way: it castrates the same notion of player skill that old-school DandD folks like to flaunt so much.

I mean, "they're more powerful but have significant drawbacks" (like a code of conduct or somesuch) - that's fine. You need player skill to play within the constraints of your credo or whatever you have.
"They're more powerful but advance slowly" - also fine. You need player skill to make the character survive being constantly a few levels behind everyone.

But "more powerful but you only get to play them if you've rolled unlikely high"? Where the hell is the player skill in that? Where's the player skill in rolling high numbers?

[Finarvyn]

Well, what I don't like is that it really puts a strong emphasis on stat inflation. The Paladin is the first time where you had to roll absurdly high before you could pick a particular option. (Of course, it's also the same time when Supplement I Greyhawk starts to beef up combat bonuses, AC options, plusses on magic items, spell levels, and so on).

This is the slippery slope that leads to madness. :-)

If nothing else, it does shift the feel of OD&D into new territory.

[talysman]

I wonder if a reasonable solution to the ability score inflation would be to dump the minimum score requirement and instead require a reaction roll for a fighter to enter the Order of Paladins or Rangers. Only Lawful fighters who roll a Very Good reaction can become paladins, and only non-Chaotic fighters who roll a Good reaction can become rangers; those with a 17 or 18 Charisma get a +2 on the roll to become paladins. Players can try once on character creation and seek out the order again every time they gain a level.

[premmy]

Talysman, I would go further than that, even. If paladinic and ranger orders are actual in-setting organisations, then you have a goldmine at your fingertips, which you can exploit for a LOT more than just "make a roll, if you fail, goodbye". If a PC wants to join such an order, let them first find the right place - the headquarters might be remote or hidden, and there are no convenient recruiting stations in every major city. Then let them work towards qualifying for admittance, or even consideration - you have entire quests here that you can weave into the campaign. If they're allowed to join, keep them busy. Being a paladin or a ranger shouldn't be about living the same normal adventuring life as your civiliian friends only with extra abilities - you should be expected to actively further the goals of your order, uphold your oaths and do what your commanders tell you. Once that order of paladins becomes an actual in-game faction rather than just an abstract set of abilities anyone can automatically get (if they roll right), you have an inexhaustible well of things to keep the PC busy with and adventure hooks for the entire party.

[talysman]

That's actually part of my intention with making it a reaction roll to join an order. I *would* allow players to choose paladin/ranger starting characters, if they rolled right, but the orders would be in-game, and would drive events.

But then, I take a kind of extreme view that rules should only exist to make fictional, game-world stuff happen, not to make the system more interesting or exploitable.

[Deleted]

I Know nothing about the ranger, but i love the paladin on this edition, could be op, but i dont see that way.

[Deleted]

I've had 2 player characters roll Paladins in 42 years.

And I like it that way.

There is nothing wrong with the higher requisite needed. And the argument "if you roll high STR and a CHA of 17 or 18 you have no reason to not play a Paladin" is absolute nonsense; if you roll 3d6 in order, honestly, it will happen so rarely as to not be an issue.

The "bonus classes" such as Ranger and Paladin are exactly that; bonuses. Something rare and valuable if you roll well is a fundamental part of the way D&D was originally written and played, right up there with if you roll lucky enough, you can get a gem worth 10,000 GP. Which I've had happen once in 42 years.

Or is the gem value table "unbalanced" or "leading to stat inflation?"

Not everybody can be a Paladin. Paladins are powerful.

These are features, not bugs.

[Stormcrow]

Apr 3, 2014 10:32:40 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Or is the gem value table "unbalanced" or "leading to stat inflation?"

Players should be allowed to roll for their own treasure, drop the lowest in value, and arrange it in the dungeon as they want. 

[Deleted]

Apr 3, 2014 11:20:19 GMT -6 Stormcrow said:

Players should be allowed to roll for their own treasure, drop the lowest in value, and arrange it in the dungeon as they want. 

And thanks to Rule 34, there is now a porn site dedicated to that idea.

Thanks a lot.

[Deleted]

Apr 3, 2014 11:59:04 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Apr 3, 2014 11:20:19 GMT -6 Stormcrow said:

Players should be allowed to roll for their own treasure, drop the lowest in value, and arrange it in the dungeon as they want. 

And thanks to Rule 34, there is now a porn site dedicated to that idea.

Thanks a lot.

More seriously, there is a non-zero segment of the gaming world that thinks that if their characters don't get certain magic items on a certain schedule, the referee is running the game wrong.

[ratikranger]

For what it's worth, I don't look at clerics as "bookish priests", I look at them as "fanatical holy warriors" which is to say paladins. They just come in several alignments, not just lawful. They don't need extra powers aside from the cleric spells and their fighting ability. I let them use all weapons (depending on their religion) with class-based damage of 1d6. So the cleric of a war or justice deity pretty much looks like the usual paladin image. Minus the full plate anyway since I reserve that for fighters.

[librarylass]

Apr 3, 2014 10:32:40 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

I've had 2 player characters roll Paladins in 42 years.

Two? Was the other one recent? I remember you saying you'd only ever had one.

[Deleted]

Apr 4, 2014 9:45:27 GMT -6 librarylass said:

Apr 3, 2014 10:32:40 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

I've had 2 player characters roll Paladins in 42 years.

Two? Was the other one recent? I remember you saying you'd only ever had one.

Way back in 1979 or 1980 a woman in my game rolled a Paladin. I think I'd forgotten that.

About 2008 somebody rolled a Paladin also.