As said in the title, which fictional characters do you think would be great Rangers in DnD? My top two choices would be Aragorn and Asirpa. What about you?
As you spend more time with the game you'll want to expand a bit further than this. Rather than looking for something that fits easily, look for something that could work. A character can become a whole lot more interesting if it's less straight forward. Almost any class in the game can be mimicked with another class and still be effective. And, since that's true, you really can make pretty much any fictitious character work as pretty much any class. It's a game about imagination, so worry less about a "perfect fit".
Here are some that would fit fairly easily -
Rambo
Legolas
Gimley
Aragorn
Boba Fett
Drizzt
Jack Reacher
John Wick
Wolverine
Bullseye
Hawkeye
Geralt
Thor
Darth Vader
Guts
Link
Wonder Woman
Gambit
Katniss
Zorro
Beastmaster (character's name was Dar)
John Snow
Hagrid
Sherlock Holmes
The core ranger traits you're looking at are ... magic, skill monkey, martial weapons, tanky, stealthy. I imagine you can think of a hundred fictional characters that excel in one or more of those areas. Ranger is an exceptionally versatile class. Don't forget you can usually freely change the descriptions for spells (keep the effects and the aspects that interact with rules the same). So, you could take hail of thorns and describe it like a jedi using force lightning (still need to have a ranged weapon equipped, still do piercing damage ... yada yada ... but, it can be described as lightning shocking people and reaching out to electrocute others nearby), and once you get the hang of this you can DRAMATICALLY change the flavor of spells (or whatever) to suit your needs and not break the balance of the game.
Rangers are significantly stronger as melee fighters than ranged fighters just because you can get so many more attacks with melee options and hunter's mark really adds up (potentially 5 hunter's mark attacks in a round with melee options once you reach level 5 compared to .... 2 with a bow .... even at level 1 a melee weapon character can do 2 attacks per turn while a ranged weapon character can only do 1 ... you can cheese that a little bit by throwing melee weapons which will let you throw a dagger with nick mastery and then throw another melee weapon which are ranged attacks with melee weapons).
Role playing Hagrid sounds like a blast. Give the character another name. No one needs to know that's the basis for the character (goliath can still work). He's deeply flawed. There's more than enough content to get a feel for how he would react to different kinds of situations. He's honest and loyal. He probably has INT as a dump stat. His blindness to how incredibly dangerous animals are has a lot of potential. And, as you gain levels you get more abilities to (temporarily) summon animals (other non animal focused spells could be described as being animals ... like summon fey or summon elemental). Focus on the hyper fixation with animals and I imagine it'll be a really memorable character.
As said in the title, which fictional characters do you think would be great Rangers in DnD? My top two choices would be Aragorn and Asirpa. What about you?
Aragorn is certainly the original inspiration for the class.
The other day I was describing Aloy from Horizon: Zero Dawn as a ranger who suddenly and unexpectedly took a level in warlock.
pronouns: he/she/they
I'd probably say most hunters from the Monster Hunter series, with MH:Stories being Drakewardens and Beastmasters.
"You're not chaotic evil! You're just chaotic SHIT!"
As you spend more time with the game you'll want to expand a bit further than this. Rather than looking for something that fits easily, look for something that could work. A character can become a whole lot more interesting if it's less straight forward. Almost any class in the game can be mimicked with another class and still be effective. And, since that's true, you really can make pretty much any fictitious character work as pretty much any class. It's a game about imagination, so worry less about a "perfect fit".
Here are some that would fit fairly easily -
The core ranger traits you're looking at are ... magic, skill monkey, martial weapons, tanky, stealthy. I imagine you can think of a hundred fictional characters that excel in one or more of those areas. Ranger is an exceptionally versatile class. Don't forget you can usually freely change the descriptions for spells (keep the effects and the aspects that interact with rules the same). So, you could take hail of thorns and describe it like a jedi using force lightning (still need to have a ranged weapon equipped, still do piercing damage ... yada yada ... but, it can be described as lightning shocking people and reaching out to electrocute others nearby), and once you get the hang of this you can DRAMATICALLY change the flavor of spells (or whatever) to suit your needs and not break the balance of the game.
Rangers are significantly stronger as melee fighters than ranged fighters just because you can get so many more attacks with melee options and hunter's mark really adds up (potentially 5 hunter's mark attacks in a round with melee options once you reach level 5 compared to .... 2 with a bow .... even at level 1 a melee weapon character can do 2 attacks per turn while a ranged weapon character can only do 1 ... you can cheese that a little bit by throwing melee weapons which will let you throw a dagger with nick mastery and then throw another melee weapon which are ranged attacks with melee weapons).
Role playing Hagrid sounds like a blast. Give the character another name. No one needs to know that's the basis for the character (goliath can still work). He's deeply flawed. There's more than enough content to get a feel for how he would react to different kinds of situations. He's honest and loyal. He probably has INT as a dump stat. His blindness to how incredibly dangerous animals are has a lot of potential. And, as you gain levels you get more abilities to (temporarily) summon animals (other non animal focused spells could be described as being animals ... like summon fey or summon elemental). Focus on the hyper fixation with animals and I imagine it'll be a really memorable character.
Turner & Hooch.
Axel Foley.
Rick Grimes.
Enkidu.
Tallahassee.
Turil.
Ronin.
Alice. (Both Wonderland and Resident Evil).
Michael Knight.