Ranger

About

• Genre: Fighter
• Races: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Pixie, Half-Elf.
• HP Gain: 15 - 19 per level
  • Prestige: 16 - 21
• 'MN Gain: 2 - 7 per level
  • Prestige: 3 - 9

Stats

• Primary: Strength
• Secondary: Wisdom (Dexterity*)
• Deficient: Charisma

(*Ranger skill 'mercuria' raises max dex to 22, acting as an additional secondary stat when applied.

Max Warrior Stats

CLASS	Str	Int	Wis	Dex	Con	Cha	Lck
Ranger	25	20	22	22	20	18	20

Note: Shown as if Rangers skill 'mercuria' is applied, granting dex max 22 (normally 20).

Fighting

• Weapons:
  • Talonous Arms - "Clawing"
  • Missile Weapons - (Bows)

Rangers get "Two-Handed" and "Dual Wield" weapon skills

• Tactics:
  • Gash
    • Your primary alpha attack. Costs Mana. Damage is based on Str+Wis. Requires a Talonous Arms weapon.
    • Causes mobs mobs to 'bleed' once they reach 50% health, doing additional damage per round.
    • Gash inflicts neither 'weapon type damage' (based on your weapon) nor 'magical damage' and therefore mobs do not have any immunity/resistance to it. It tends to hit things that are otherwise immune magic/non-magic weapons.
  • Two-Handed Weapons
    • Similar to Warriors, Rangers can wield the two-handed long sword "Nasr, Claymore of Sovereignty".
    • Nasr is a magic weapon that also casts a spell along with each melee hit, dealing high melee damage, affording the warrior time to focus on healing.
  • Missile Weapons
    • Rangers can use a bow to fire arrows at a mob from 1 or 2 rooms away (depending on bow). This can outright kill a specific subset of mobs, without any active combat at all. Limited application however.
  • Rescue
    • Similar to Warriors, Rangers can use the 'rescue' skill in combat, which makes the rescuer the tank (primary target of the mob). Two warriors rescuing each other can share tanking a difficult mob by simply healing to full, rescuing the other, and repeating back and forth. (Note that Rangers can also be used for this)

Skill & Gameplay

Rangers get similar skills to warriors, getting things like dodge, parry, scan, track, disarm, and good second-fifth attack adeptness.

The additional get some basic magic spells, and utilities like detrap, kindle fire, fashion torce, etc.

Rangers get a small set of self-buffs and utilities that are rather handy:

Spell Name	Affects	Duration Rounds
Camoflage	Hide & Sneak	700
Falcon Sight	Detect Hidden/Traps	170
Heighten Defense	-18 AC	900
Granite Skin	-33 AC	850
Forest Prayer	-5 SaveVsRod, -5 SaveVsSpell, +5 HR	850
Mercuria	Increase Max Dex to 22	250
Feline Grace	+1 Dex	238
Ursine Brawn	+1 Str, +1 DR	305
Lucidity	Pass Door	170

• Notes:
  • Feline Grace & Ursine Brawn do not stack with standard spells Slink & Ogre Might, they simply override each other.
  • Forest Prayer does not stack with bless, they simply override each other.

Equipment & Align

Ranger's 'gash' is based on Str+Wis, so dress to max those first and foremost. Then, typically dressed for high HP and high Mana. Usual suspects DR/AC/Luck after that.

   Devout: Easy to equip, the defacto standard alignment for Rangers.
   Neut: No real 'need' to be neut with a Ranger that I know of.
   Evil: More difficult to equip, but just as nice as devout if you can do it.

Equipment Info & Examples: Ranger EQ

Summary

Within the Fighter genre, Rangers function very similar to Warriors, and offer a bit more in terms of magical spells, buffs, and spelldowns. Overall, they kinda seem to just be warriors with 'more'. I am not exactly sure why someone would NEED a warrior over a ranger ever. Note that because of 'mercuria' Rangers can have 22 dex, exactly like warriors, and get their intrinsic 22 wis as well. So.... in my mind rangers > warriors, but maybe that's just me. You don't get 'stun' but otherwise, not much difference in terms of usage as a fighter genre character.

Rangers can tank as well as hit, and do just fine in both roles. Having rescue, they can rescue-tank just like warriors, and the fact that gash lands on almost everything is super useful. The prestige upgrade to Hunter shows a massive increase in Gash damage, plus gets some useful new skills. Overall, Rangers probably the most well-rounded Fighter genre character and are great for tanking, hitting, exploring, and get the missile-weapon gimmick which can drop a few mobs with very useful gear.

Full Skills List and other info: Rodpedia Page

Quests:

• Rangers can do the Danger in the Woods quest.
  • This yields the defacto ear equipment for Rangers, which is a staple for stock ranger gear. Fun quest.

Prestige

• Hunter:
  • Max Str raised to 26.
    • Max carry weight 1100.
    • Stronger 'Gash' (since it is Str+Wis based)
  • Gash is also faster, and less mana cost.
  • Can fletch arrows faster
  • New Skills:
    • Cascade: melee rounds hit EVERY mob in the fight. Nice for whacking lots of small stuff that gangs up on you.
    • Indomitable: immune to stun/bash
    • Pursue: Similar to hunt, auto-track-move-track-move... to mob.