The answer to this depends on edition (and what part of his life you're referring to); as editions change it becomes harder and harder to make a character capable of things he's canonically done during older editions when the rules were different (for one thing, dual wielding scimitars competently is harder now than it's ever been). One fly in the ointment is how radically editions change Ranger spell progression - Drizzt has bottom of the barrel ranger spell slot progression, which in 3.5 meant he could be Ranger 5, but in 5 caps him at 2 or maybe 4 (it's important canon that he has no spells of level 2 or more, not counting his racials, and the real Drizzt is a preparation caster, so it's impossible to correlate his level based on 5E spells known). He was character level 16 in both 2E and 3.5E. In 5E, as an NPC, of course the answer is "no" - unlike in prior editions, Drizzt is unbound by player physics, with no requirement it even be possible for a PC to become like him by level 20.
Approximately speaking, in 5E terms, he's a Fighter(Battle Master) 12/Ranger (Hunter) 3/Barbarian 1.
If we go by Salvatore's books he started out as a fighter and then multiclassed into ranger. Quindraco's level split is a pretty good one. You could also argue beastmaster or gloomstalker if that's more to your taste.
Why is it important canon that Drizzt has no spells of 2nd level or higher when he had 3rd level spells in 2nd edition AD&D? And several of those still exist today as 2nd level spells. He's at least a 5th level ranger, which is consistent with 3rd edition. That said, his stat line today is radically different than before. I don't see him adding his rage damage bonus to rolls with his scimitars.
When he first appears (1988) we (D&D) were just before the 1e - 2e transition (1989). As a 1e ranger he could have been quite high - spells appear at L8 and max out at L17 with 2 L3 Druid spells and 2 L2 magic user spells which may be where the L2 cap comes from. In 2e if he is limited to L2 spells he is L11 max as a ranger. In 3e he is limited to L10/11 if his max spell is L2 and to L13/14 if it is L3.
trying to stay him out isn’t going to be easy as he wasn’t designed as a game character first
When he first appears (1988) we (D&D) were just before the 1e - 2e transition (1989). As a 1e ranger he could have been quite high - spells appear at L8 and max out at L17 with 2 L3 Druid spells and 2 L2 magic user spells which may be where the L2 cap comes from. In 2e if he is limited to L2 spells he is L11 max as a ranger. In 3e he is limited to L10/11 if his max spell is L2 and to L13/14 if it is L3.
trying to stay him out isn’t going to be easy as he wasn’t designed as a game character first
I can't comment on 1st edition AD&D, beyond what the Forgotten Realms Wiki has on him, but Heroes' Lorebook (1996) includes Drizzt as a 16th-level ranger with the ability to cast 3rd-level priest spells (3/3/3).
The change to 3rd edition gave us the new Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (2001), which made him a Fighter 10/Barbarian 1/Ranger 5. You could do that with milticlassing, but multiclassing is a variant rule. I'd prefer making him a straight ranger, which is how he is in Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms. But I get how that can complicate giving him all sorts of additional favored enemies and spells. Perkins' choice to make him a champion fighter is certainly easier to bang out and play.
in 2e where the early stories occur he is a L16 ranger with the following stats: S) 13, D) 20, C) 15, I) 17, W) 17, Ch) 14
in 3.5 they changed that to a mix of fighter, barbarian and ranger
Under 2e rangers were a fighter subclass, today they are a separate classes, that is a part of why the change to a multiclass in 3.5e. Quindraco’s classes make sense although I’ve always wondered exactly why the barbarian level. Most of the stories occur after he realizes he is a ranger so I would probably lower the fighter levels and raise the ranger levels. Maybe F8/R8. I would leave his stats alone and give him feats including alert and dual wielding at the ASIs.
in 2nd ed they become a class of there own, then came the complete handbooks for classes also gave kits , some handbooks were better like the bards , rangers and psionics .
I was wondering about that... The Gloom Stalker Ranger because of the innate abilities The Drow have especially in the Underdark. Almost perfect.
Drizzt's "innate abilities The Drow have" are, perhaps not that surprisingly, covered by his racial abilities as a drow... For 5E subclass, Hunter is the best fit.
I know nothing about the books that pop culture hasn't informed me of. But I have a few thoughts, for what it's worth.
1. He certainly isn't a beast master, right? Isn't that beast companion just a magic item? If so, anyone can have that.
2. Does he use any magic at all that isn't drow in nature (ranger joke)? I don't know, but would be interested to hear from those that have read the book(s).
3. Does he do any kind of ranger survival stuff beyond general tracking, making fires, and other "normal" and "mundane" any adventurer can/could do?
4. Weren't these book originally written based on or around the 3.0/3.5 days? So is the 5E ranger even a good comparison anymore? Perhaps that is why Perkins used all fighter to represent him in a 5E game.
I haven’t read the books either but I did look him up on Wikipedia just to get a good overview of his history. The books came out from 1e thru 3.5/4e but his basic history is that he is trained by his father in the academy so he starts as a fighter. Then his helping a surface elf is discovered and his father killed and he escapes into the under dark where he stays for several years surviving alone - that is where the ranger levels start. He eventually makes it to the surface and gets trained by a ranger and discovers he has been a ranger for a while. Everything else is is unclear wether he is acting as a ranger or a fighter so I would say probably L5 fighter (probably battle master) , L5 ranger (either hunter or monster hunter) for the first 10 levels then either one or both for the last 6 levels. I know he is sometimes described as sort of raging but it seems to bore of a cold calculating “reptilian” fully aware but no “higher” concerns type of thing than the wild eyed crazy rage typical of a barbarian so I’m not sure he should have any barbarian levels at all. Think of it as the cold killer side of his Drow upbringing coming out.
I know nothing about the books that pop culture hasn't informed me of. But I have a few thoughts, for what it's worth.
1. He certainly isn't a beast master, right? Isn't that beast companion just a magic item? If so, anyone can have that.
2. Does he use any magic at all that isn't drow in nature (ranger joke)? I don't know, but would be interested to hear from those that have read the book(s).
3. Does he do any kind of ranger survival stuff beyond general tracking, making fires, and other "normal" and "mundane" any adventurer can/could do?
4. Weren't these book originally written based on or around the 3.0/3.5 days? So is the 5E ranger even a good comparison anymore? Perhaps that is why Perkins used all fighter to represent him in a 5E game.
Yes, he does. Back in the day he had very low-level access to spells through his faith in Mielikki. That faith broke later on. But his divine spellcasting was incredibly weak - too weak to be generally relevant in combat scenes. He'd use it for things like calming a wild animal down - you know, Ranger stuff.
Nothing spectacular - you need to remember that Ranger was a very different class back in the day, and Drizzt was written with the 2E rules in mind, let alone later editions. Basically, he functions like a fighter who dual wields (which used to be a Ranger trope) and is competent at wilderness skills like being stealthy and so on, which are also Ranger tropes. But he never does anything more hardcore Rangerish than spending a lot of time outdoors with reasonable competence. As in, he can survive indefinitely in the wilderness with no external resources, which is one of the most defining tropes for a low-level Ranger.
I don't know anything about how Perkins portrayed him, but he's definitely got Barbarian Rage, and he fights intelligently (especially in how he uses his racial spells in battle), so you need to not lean hard into Barbarian tropes with him. The reason I gave him Hunter 3 rather than Battlemaster 15 and hand-waving his wilderness competencies as simple skill proficiencies is that he needs to be a worse Fighter than Wulfgar at the same level, so generically speaking, he needs levels diverted away from combat competence and towards skill competence. You could do the same thing with 5E Rogue levels, of course. But it's always been canon that he's a Ranger - as in, he's identified as one for a very long time - and giving him Ranger levels means you don't need to figure out the Mielikki spellcasting thing from a Rogue perspective.
If you wanted to stat him using Rogue instead I don't even know what subclass you'd pick for him - none of them feel like a good fit, including Scout (Drizzt is not known for bouncing away when approached). Basically, he needs roughly 3-4 levels where he gets a bit better at combat, but gets a lot better at Ranger tropes (in 5E terms, he needs very good skillchecks when he rolls Perception, Animal Handling, Survival, and Stealth), so he hits a sweet spot where you can't really tell if he's a Fighter who's bizarrely good at wilderness survival or a Ranger.
Now for your consideration, in the latest books after studying after Grand Master Kane, Drizzt should have monk levels too. At least 10 because he talks multiple times about being able to push poisons out of his body so they don't effect him.
This is all if you want to play Drizzt as a Player Character. He is much better represented using a monster stat block.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Check out my Disabled & Dragons Youtube Channel for 5e Monster and Player Tactics. Helping the Disabled Community and Players and DM’s (both new and experienced) get into D&D. Plus there is a talking Dragon named Quill.
I hate to ask. It may not be important to most players. But it just might make a difference... depending on exactly who your DM is.
And what level was he in each respective class?
What level is he total?
The answer to this depends on edition (and what part of his life you're referring to); as editions change it becomes harder and harder to make a character capable of things he's canonically done during older editions when the rules were different (for one thing, dual wielding scimitars competently is harder now than it's ever been). One fly in the ointment is how radically editions change Ranger spell progression - Drizzt has bottom of the barrel ranger spell slot progression, which in 3.5 meant he could be Ranger 5, but in 5 caps him at 2 or maybe 4 (it's important canon that he has no spells of level 2 or more, not counting his racials, and the real Drizzt is a preparation caster, so it's impossible to correlate his level based on 5E spells known). He was character level 16 in both 2E and 3.5E. In 5E, as an NPC, of course the answer is "no" - unlike in prior editions, Drizzt is unbound by player physics, with no requirement it even be possible for a PC to become like him by level 20.
Approximately speaking, in 5E terms, he's a Fighter(Battle Master) 12/Ranger (Hunter) 3/Barbarian 1.
If we go by Salvatore's books he started out as a fighter and then multiclassed into ranger. Quindraco's level split is a pretty good one. You could also argue beastmaster or gloomstalker if that's more to your taste.
Why is it important canon that Drizzt has no spells of 2nd level or higher when he had 3rd level spells in 2nd edition AD&D? And several of those still exist today as 2nd level spells. He's at least a 5th level ranger, which is consistent with 3rd edition. That said, his stat line today is radically different than before. I don't see him adding his rage damage bonus to rolls with his scimitars.
When he first appears (1988) we (D&D) were just before the 1e - 2e transition (1989). As a 1e ranger he could have been quite high - spells appear at L8 and max out at L17 with 2 L3 Druid spells and 2 L2 magic user spells which may be where the L2 cap comes from. In 2e if he is limited to L2 spells he is L11 max as a ranger. In 3e he is limited to L10/11 if his max spell is L2 and to L13/14 if it is L3.
trying to stay him out isn’t going to be easy as he wasn’t designed as a game character first
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I can't comment on 1st edition AD&D, beyond what the Forgotten Realms Wiki has on him, but Heroes' Lorebook (1996) includes Drizzt as a 16th-level ranger with the ability to cast 3rd-level priest spells (3/3/3).
The change to 3rd edition gave us the new Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (2001), which made him a Fighter 10/Barbarian 1/Ranger 5. You could do that with milticlassing, but multiclassing is a variant rule. I'd prefer making him a straight ranger, which is how he is in Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms. But I get how that can complicate giving him all sorts of additional favored enemies and spells. Perkins' choice to make him a champion fighter is certainly easier to bang out and play.
1e ranger: Ranger 1 e
2e ranger: 2e Ranger
3e Ranger: 3e Ranger
in 2e where the early stories occur he is a L16 ranger with the following stats: S) 13, D) 20, C) 15, I) 17, W) 17, Ch) 14
in 3.5 they changed that to a mix of fighter, barbarian and ranger
Under 2e rangers were a fighter subclass, today they are a separate classes, that is a part of why the change to a multiclass in 3.5e. Quindraco’s classes make sense although I’ve always wondered exactly why the barbarian level. Most of the stories occur after he realizes he is a ranger so I would probably lower the fighter levels and raise the ranger levels. Maybe F8/R8. I would leave his stats alone and give him feats including alert and dual wielding at the ASIs.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
nope
in 1st ed they were a subclass
in 2nd ed they become a class of there own, then came the complete handbooks for classes also gave kits , some handbooks were better like the bards , rangers and psionics .
I was wondering about that... The Gloom Stalker Ranger because of the innate abilities The Drow have especially in the Underdark. Almost perfect.
Drizzt's "innate abilities The Drow have" are, perhaps not that surprisingly, covered by his racial abilities as a drow... For 5E subclass, Hunter is the best fit.
I know nothing about the books that pop culture hasn't informed me of. But I have a few thoughts, for what it's worth.
1. He certainly isn't a beast master, right? Isn't that beast companion just a magic item? If so, anyone can have that.
2. Does he use any magic at all that isn't drow in nature (ranger joke)? I don't know, but would be interested to hear from those that have read the book(s).
3. Does he do any kind of ranger survival stuff beyond general tracking, making fires, and other "normal" and "mundane" any adventurer can/could do?
4. Weren't these book originally written based on or around the 3.0/3.5 days? So is the 5E ranger even a good comparison anymore? Perhaps that is why Perkins used all fighter to represent him in a 5E game.
I haven’t read the books either but I did look him up on Wikipedia just to get a good overview of his history. The books came out from 1e thru 3.5/4e but his basic history is that he is trained by his father in the academy so he starts as a fighter. Then his helping a surface elf is discovered and his father killed and he escapes into the under dark where he stays for several years surviving alone - that is where the ranger levels start. He eventually makes it to the surface and gets trained by a ranger and discovers he has been a ranger for a while. Everything else is is unclear wether he is acting as a ranger or a fighter so I would say probably L5 fighter (probably battle master) , L5 ranger (either hunter or monster hunter) for the first 10 levels then either one or both for the last 6 levels. I know he is sometimes described as sort of raging but it seems to bore of a cold calculating “reptilian” fully aware but no “higher” concerns type of thing than the wild eyed crazy rage typical of a barbarian so I’m not sure he should have any barbarian levels at all. Think of it as the cold killer side of his Drow upbringing coming out.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
If you wanted to stat him using Rogue instead I don't even know what subclass you'd pick for him - none of them feel like a good fit, including Scout (Drizzt is not known for bouncing away when approached). Basically, he needs roughly 3-4 levels where he gets a bit better at combat, but gets a lot better at Ranger tropes (in 5E terms, he needs very good skillchecks when he rolls Perception, Animal Handling, Survival, and Stealth), so he hits a sweet spot where you can't really tell if he's a Fighter who's bizarrely good at wilderness survival or a Ranger.
Now for your consideration, in the latest books after studying after Grand Master Kane, Drizzt should have monk levels too. At least 10 because he talks multiple times about being able to push poisons out of his body so they don't effect him.
This is all if you want to play Drizzt as a Player Character. He is much better represented using a monster stat block.
Check out my Disabled & Dragons Youtube Channel for 5e Monster and Player Tactics. Helping the Disabled Community and Players and DM’s (both new and experienced) get into D&D. Plus there is a talking Dragon named Quill.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPPmyTI0tZ6nM-bzY0IG3ww