New BX/LL Character Class: The "Purely BX" Ranger

So we had some quickie storms pass through yesterday afternoon, which caused a bit of a power outage in my neighborhood. That meant I couldn't do any client work (which is all on my desktop computer), so I grabbed my laptop and my sketchbook/notebook/journal thing, and decided to knock out a ranger class. The ranger has been on my mind lately not because I had intended a ranger for the Character Class Codex (I didn't), but because I happened to recently stumble across my copy of Dragon #106 (which has new skills for rangers). That got me to thinking about doing a ranger.

I've never really liked the 2 HD at first level thing from the Strategic Review, or how they tried to adjust for it in the AD&D PHB by reducing the HD for the ranger from d10 to d8, but I figured I'd see if I could come with another answer. Which is what I've done here... giving the ranger 1d6+1 at each level rather than 1d8 as a standard BX fighter. If you think about it from a mathematical POV, all it really does it average the randomness of the ranger's hp acquisition, but I feel like it still keeps the spirit of the original somehow. (BTW, don't get me wrong. I love any character that starts at first level with 2 HD. In fact, I'm currently playing a ranger in Steve Balog's group and that extra HD has come in handy at least once!)

The other thing I wanted to do was streamline the spells into a single list, and have them come solely from BX D&D (without having to rely on the LL AEC druid spells). So I culled the list to fit my conception of what a ranger's magic should do, and shifted them around a bit knowing that the original ranger got the druid spells at 1 level sooner than the MU spells, and created a list specifically for the ranger. That makes this a "purely BX" (i.e., "non-AEC") ranger! (No druid spells, no skill checks.)

Also, don't go and get all spoiled with another PDF download today. I'm just proud of the fact that I did the ranger in one page, and I wanted to show that off! Anyway, here you go...

Click here to download a free PDF of the Ranger BX/LL Character Class page from MediaFire.