Ranger (Baldur's Gate)

Rangers are very similiar to the other two warriors and can nearly every weapon and piece of armor. Unlike the fighters and paladins, rangers are devoted to protecting nature and their own survival whilst doing their duty. Because of that, they must be strong, wise, tough and agile to survive long. Because they have four primary abilities, and they have a high minimum they are the strongest class in ability points and they can get 90 or more ability points easily. They have stealth mode, racial enemy and charm animal/mammal as special abilities. Only humans, elves and half-elves can become rangers.

Charm animal/person
Rangers can charm animals and persons to prevent fights or to gain advantages. This ability becomes available at lvl 3.

Hide in Shadow
All rangers and thieves can hide in shadows if they wear leather armor or no armor. Every ranger starts with 25%+ racial bonus+ (not confirmed) dexterity bonus at level 1 to successfully hides in shadows.The chance to hide succesfully in the shadow depends on the time, at night this is much easier to than at daylight, whether the thief is standing in a shadow or not and the chance in percentage to hide in shadow from the character self.

Priest Spellbook
At lvl 8, the priest spellbook unlocks for rangers. They can use the following spells from that moment. The spells the rangers are able to use are the same as druids.

Lvl 1 spells.

 * Cure Light Wounds
 * Entangle
 * Remove Fear
 * Bless
 * Shillelagh

Racial enemy
Ranger tend to focus on a particular animal, having a +4 attack roll versus the racial enemy. But they have -4 encounter reaction against that enemy, increasing the chance of meeting their enemy. It can be applied to only of the creatures listed below:
 * Carrion eaters
 * Ettercaps
 * Ghouls
 * Gnolls
 * Hobgoblins
 * Kobolds
 * Ogres
 * Skeletons
 * Spiders

Weapon Specialization
Rangers can invest a maximum of two points into proficiency instead of only one point compared to the other classes. It also raises the starting proficiency point from two to four.

Character abilities table
Note: The primary abilities table is based on the human class, because humans don't have any bonuses to primary abilities compared to the other races and acts as a 'neutral'. The half elves have a slightly different one and elves have the minimal intellence and charisma raised to 8 and the constitution and dexterity is different.

Creative origins

 * This section uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Ranger (Dungeons & Dragons)

The ranger was primarily based on the exiled king Aragorn, and the Rangers of the North of J. R. R. Tolkien's (WP) Middle-earth mythos, as warriors who use tracking and other wilderness skills to hunt down their enemies. The AD&D second edition handbook mentions several other inspirations from myth and legend, such as Robin Hood, Jack the Giant Killer, the huntresses of Diana, and the Greek hero Orion.

Although it is commonly thought that the ranger character Drizzt Do'Urden may also have influenced the development of the class, particularly with regard to the second edition inclusion of the ability to fight with two weapons, this notion has been rejected by the lead designer of that rule set, David "Zeb" Cook, and the lack of provision for players to be able to emulate Drizzt using the ranger class as it appears in the PHB seems to support his assertion. More likely, the Drizzt character was influenced by Unearthed Arcana, which introduced the drow as a player character race and contained somewhat ambiguous wording that allowed them to use a secondary weapon not normally permitted in AD&D. Drizzt appeared as a first edition character in the 1988 release FR5 The Savage Frontier. Interestingly, few AD&D computer games based on the second edition rule set included provision for fighting with two weapons, and those that did seem to have not have included the ranger class ability (most notably, Baldur's Gate (WP) and Icewind Dale (WP), which provided rangers with an extra attack when not using a shield.)

Other notable rangers in the literature of Dungeons & Dragons include Hank from the cartoon series, King Tristan Kendrick from Forgotten Realms, and Ren from Pool of Radiance.