that sword the old guy used was interestign as wellso it wass used in the real worl by some of the native-americans, of course with weapons more adapted to the enviromen, daggers & handaxes, do some research on the webs or you people in the U.S, you have reservations go there and learn about it, it wass a quick and deaddly guerrilla metod, when the tribes figth each other.Yes; in the American Colonial Period, fighting with knife and tomahawk (aka dagger and hand axe) was referred to by the settlers as "Indian Style." Michael Mann's take on Last of the Mohicans has some great visuals. The style was quite prevalent in people who skirmished and fought along the frontier (i.e., rangers).
Also in The Patriot w/t Mel Gibson, he used a "Indian Style" fighting as TWF ranger.
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In 1st Ed AD&D, Unearthed Arcana provided rules for PC dark elves. One of the racial abilities of dark elf PCs was the ability to fight with two weapons without penalty (pg. 10). Drizzt was originally a 1st Ed dark elf ranger (The Crystal Shard was written before 2nd Ed was released). In 2nd Ed, dark elves could no longer TWF without penalty, but rangers could. 3e made TWF a feat and gave it (and Ambidexterity) to rangers for free. 3.5 consolidated Ambidexterity and TWF and rolled it into the Combat Style ability as one of two options.
Ding, ding, ding!!! We have a winner.
I was truly mystified when 2nd ed. rolled around and gave the ranger TWF (and also why drow lost their ambidexterity).
However, since it's been with us so long, I think it would be foolish to take it away now. Still, I wish that drow would go back to being naturally ambidextrous (TWF as a bonus feat) and chaotic evil.
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It's Drizzt. It's always freaking Drizzt.
I personally don't see what is so woodsmanny about fighting with two weapons. Sure, a Ranger could learn it same as any Fighter, but I don't see why two-weapon fighting should be one of the Ranger's defining features.
Personally I'd open some more fighting styles for the Ranger: Two-handed weapon style for that "chopping wood" style, perhaps even a mounted combat style which could be used to create light cavalry Rangers. The choice of two paths, one of which is completely counter to what I see the Ranger as, doesn't sit too well with me.
that sword the old guy used was interestign as well
Apparently that was a gunstock war club.
Gunstock - Firearms introduced during the European colonization of the Americas were re-used by First Nations, first as improvised weapons, then developed into artistic, stylized gunstock war clubs.
There's one in 2.5E's combat & Tactics iirc, i think it's called a sword axe there.
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please, stop it with the dark elf reason. is just a quick & swifth batle tactic, you attack faster & more times. is usefull on an ambush, is a fact on history, the more closest thing in real life to a ranger, to me are the native-american scouts & pathfinders. so just obliterate of your minds the thing with the drow.
Since the 2e PH's treatment of the ranger makes no reference to Native American scouts, referring instead to Eurasian inspirations, I'm going to say that the Native American scout model is probably not the prime source of rangers having two-weapon fighting.
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It's Drizzt. It's always freaking Drizzt.
Isn't it, though? :D
Personally I'd open some more fighting styles for the Ranger: Two-handed weapon style for that "chopping wood" style, perhaps even a mounted combat style which could be used to create light cavalry Rangers. The choice of two paths, one of which is completely counter to what I see the Ranger as, doesn't sit too well with me.
I like the idea of a light cavalry path, very fitting for some rangery-types.
please, stop it with the dark elf reason. is just a quick & swifth batle tactic, you attack faster & more times. is usefull on an ambush, is a fact on history, the more closest thing in real life to a ranger, to me are the native-american scouts & pathfinders. so just obliterate of your minds the thing with the drow.
the question is why the 2-handed fighting thing, and the answer is clearly drizzt
please, stop it with the dark elf reason. is just a quick & swifth batle tactic, you attack faster & more times. is usefull on an ambush, is a fact on history, the more closest thing in real life to a ranger, to me are the native-american scouts & pathfinders. so just obliterate of your minds the thing with the drow.
actually the reason for fighting with two weapons generally is to control the enemy's weapon while still hitting back hard. (a guy with one sword can only parry one sword at a time, and thus is disadvantaged if he suddenly has to stand against someone with two of them)
And Drizzt really has nothing to do with it. If someone wanted a drizzt-style ranger they could still whip up some feats (also, seriously Drizzt learned TWF-ing from fighter training, the first day on, because he was ambidextrous anyhow, not from becoming a ranger, which happened a lot later)
please, stop it with the dark elf reason. is just a quick & swifth batle tactic, you attack faster & more times. is usefull on an ambush, is a fact on history, the more closest thing in real life to a ranger, to me are the native-american scouts & pathfinders. so just obliterate of your minds the thing with the drow.actually the reason for fighting with two weapons generally is to control the enemy's weapon while still hitting back hard. (a guy with one sword can only parry one sword at a time, and thus is disadvantaged if he suddenly has to stand against someone with two of them)
And Drizzt really has nothing to do with it. If someone wanted a drizzt-style ranger they could still whip up some feats (also, seriously Drizzt learned TWF-ing from fighter training, the first day on, because he was ambidextrous anyhow, not from becoming a ranger, which happened a lot later)
Drizzt has everything to do with the decision by TSR to tie the ranger class to 2-handed fighting
Drizzt has everything to do with the decision by TSR to tie the ranger class to 2-handed fightingplease, stop it with the dark elf reason. is just a quick & swifth batle tactic, you attack faster & more times. is usefull on an ambush, is a fact on history, the more closest thing in real life to a ranger, to me are the native-american scouts & pathfinders. so just obliterate of your minds the thing with the drow.actually the reason for fighting with two weapons generally is to control the enemy's weapon while still hitting back hard. (a guy with one sword can only parry one sword at a time, and thus is disadvantaged if he suddenly has to stand against someone with two of them)
And Drizzt really has nothing to do with it. If someone wanted a drizzt-style ranger they could still whip up some feats (also, seriously Drizzt learned TWF-ing from fighter training, the first day on, because he was ambidextrous anyhow, not from becoming a ranger, which happened a lot later)
it stopped being funny with the second post of this thread, merrik -_-
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Drizzt has everything to do with the decision by TSR to tie the ranger class to 2-handed fightingit stopped being funny with the second post of this thread, merrik -_-
It's not supposed to be funny, it's the fact. No amount of "nuh-uh" is going to change that. Go look at the ranger in the 1e PHB, the drow in UA, then look at the ranger in the 2e PHB. The Icewind Dale trilogy was published squarely between UA and 2e. There is no other credible explanation for the huge change in abilities that the ranger got in 2e.
And before Drizzt, Legolas. I realize he was never called a ranger in the books, but clearly his fighting style is prototypical for what D&D rangers have become over the years.Drizzt.That's it? I always thought of him as being special; an exception to the rule in most every way. I still don't see what it has to do with being a ranger... why would you learn to use two scimitars because you're a guy who fights in the woods? Guess it's just me.
In the books, Legolas fights with an elven long-knife (call it a kukri or short sword) when not shooting his bow. He does not fight with two weapons.
In 2e, sword and board got the short shrift, because really effective TWF was easy to achieve, you could even do it with a pair of longswords for the cheap cost of two weapon proficiencies. Two hander got a major boost from the style feat and a few other tweaks here and there. Sword and board - heck, it got so little that I cannot recall what it got. and I remember an awful lot from 2e. I spent probably 200 hours or so creating a homebrew PC creation system based on every rule from the PHB to the Handbooks to Darksun and the "Players Option" series near the end. With all that time, energy and expertise, I cannot tell you what the bonus was for sword and shield style, because nobody EVER used it.
Weapon and Shield Style Specialization (The Complete Fighter's Handbook pg. 63): "If you devote a weapon proficiency slot to specialization in Weapon and Shield Style, you receive one extra attack per round...only when using a shield on the shield-hand, that is. You can use that extra attack only for the Shield-Punch and Parry maneuvers..." Pretty underwhelming when compared to the other styles. Then again, shields were pretty underwhelming in 2nd Ed. AD&D in general (compared to all the attention given to other options). Shields got a slight boost in Player's Option: Combat & Tactics with Shield Proficiency, which increased the AC bonus for small (from +1 to +2) and medium (from +1 to +3) shields, but not increasing the number of different attackers it could be used against (small 2 and medium 3).
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My son wanted to play a battle ax wielding ranger, I didn't have a good enough reason to turn him down on the overhand chop feat in place of a 2-weapon style feat. I used up my monthly parental allotment of "because I said so" chits and preferred not to use more on a game. A House rule that probably shouldn't have needed to be.
Make several styles, based on "things" found in nature, for example.
Bear Ranger = Grappling and unarmed attack feat tree.
Wolf Ranger = Combat expertise tree
Rabbit Ranger = movement feats like dodge, mobility, etc.
Forest Ranger = Brachiation, etc.
I am not proposing anything too big, something like the Rogue tricks or fighter feats... offering a greater selection of "styles" to your ranger. It was cool when they were the only ones but now... lost some touch w/ the original purpose to equalize the fighter and ranger a little bit.
PC Options = Happy Players = Good DM
parental allotments of "Because I said so", how many do we get? I must exceed my allotment by the 12th or 13th or each month. Does the "because I love you" count against this?
I use the "because you like your butt to not be sore" Chits. I find I don't run out of those.
Only if you don't provide refresher courses! ;D
Yep, its drizzt.
Its also the reason drow started popping out of evil and wanting to do good and love the world and all other shiny things they wouldnt have thought of before.
Drizzt was great when I first read about him. Its funny to see how too much publicity can make you loathe a character.
Yeah.. Rangers having TWF is quite silly. They can benefit from it (Favored Enemy bonus multiplied by extra attacks), but it's just weird... not naturey at all.
As for Drizzt... I've read the Dark Elf Trilogy. I would attribute his TWF from Fighter levels (he got it during his warrior training while growing up, not from Mooshie the blind Ranger).
The reason the Ranger had to be given TWF was because in 2e you couldn't "get levels of X" as easily as you can in 3e, so they had to make the ranger have everything Drizzt would have, being the straight classed ranger that he had to be.
Humans could dual class, and no one had multiclass with ranger. There was only fighter/mage, thief/mage, fighter/thief, fighter/thief/mage, fighter/cleric (the non-human paladin), I *think* mage/cleric for some races, and for the gnomes: thief/cleric (hell yeah!).
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So you can thank the "man" caving in to the cashable Drizzt fanboyism, and absurdly esoteric and restrictive AD&D multiclassing rules, for creating this particular sacred cow.
I saw this thread and this is exactly what I was going to get on here and say. It seems pointless to me, but I know that my players often use this feature, and many would feel cheated if it was removed now. I can already hear the screams of "blashphemy" and "un-D&D" coming from the fanboys.
It's not going anywhere, that I'm sure of. But no, it really does not make sense.
Sure there were. DMG 1st edition, page 70. I used them all the time back in the day. Primary at -2, secondary at -4, reduce the penalties by 1 per point of Reaction/Attacking bonus (so no penalties at 19 Dex).Wait a minute. I thought 1st Edition just had the three original books; Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure and Underworld & Wilderness. I think the 4th book (Greyhawk) introduced the Ranger. I thought AD&D had the first PHB and DMG.
Ad&D IS 1e....what you are talking about is called BASIC DnD