Forgotten Realms General

Forgotten Realms General

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While Drizzt, as statted here, certainly isn't bad his 5e incarnation might be better served using the NPC/monster creation rules and cribbing bits of the ranger to denote his connection to Mielikki and teachings from Montolio, barbarian to denote his primal rage and taking on the aspect of the hunter, and fighter in the form of the two-weapon fighting style.
He trained in the two-weapon fighting arts way before he became a ranger, all the way back in Menzoberranzan.

What did you use to make that?
Why are his ability scores so low (even within the context of 5e)?

Who the hell cares about Drizzt anyway?
He's not really relevant to the setting at all and after 20-something stories starring him over decades of publication exactly 2 things happened in his series that actually mattered in terms of the campaign setting.

I don't mind him, but the spotlight should definitely go to other characters, more Erevis Cale would be excellent and Artemis Entreri.
Less so on the Chosen and Elminster.

Guess Wizards is counting on his enduring popularity; developing new characters means developing a new line again.

Drizzt is best girl.

Your version of Drizzt includes things that aren't even in the books.

Lathander sees what you're doing and disapproves.

Fuck Lathander. With the barbed ovipositor of Lolth!

You don't want to give Lathander the thought of Lolth fucking him, he will rekt that.

Previous user didn't; I did.

His ability scores are so low because I was deliberately limiting myself to I think a 27 or something point buy (don't quite remember, but it was only a little above average). I didn't want accusations of mary-sueing.

>He trained in the two-weapon fighting arts way before he became a ranger

I still don't buy this. His training in Melee-Magthere taught him to value ambush and traps, and during the school's "field trips" and after graduating and going on Underdark hunts he specifically preferred to scout and skirmish ahead of the main group, hunt monsters, and do other ranger-y things.

Drizzt has been a ranger since level 1. Making him a multiclass barbarian or fighter makes sense in 3.5, where multiclassing was easier and a better idea. But in 5e he makes more sense as a single-class Ranger.

Again, my version, not that user's.

- Call Natural Allies: Consequence of the class. It was that or a spellcasting ranger. Drizzt doesn't ever cast spells besides his racials.
- Colossus Slayer: Drizzt in The Crystal Shard takes particular joy in fighting verbeegs and hill giants. Thus his giant favored enemy and Colossus Slayer
- Combat Superiority: Representing Zak's training
- Drow Magic: Representing being a drow
- Dual Wielder: Because he does
- Escape the Horde: Drizzt is very good at avoiding attacks while moving through enemies; I'm specifically thinking of his fighting the wererats in Calimport in The Halfling's Gem
- Favored Enemy: Honestly if I were making this today I'd drop goblinds and make it monstrosities instead.
- Hide in Plain Sight: Drizzt is stealthy
- Land's Stride: Drizzt is a ranger. He ranges.
- Natural Antivenom: Consequence of the class. It was that or a spellcasting ranger. Drizzt doesn't ever cast spells besides his racials.
- Natural Explorer: Drizzt is a ranger. He ranges. Most of where he ranges is either the arctic, forests, or the Underdark.
- Poultices: Consequence of the class. It was that or a spellcasting ranger. Drizzt doesn't ever cast spells besides his racials.
- Primeval Awareness: Drizzt is a ranger. He's good at tracking.
- Sunlight Sensitivity: In the last Drizzt book I read, Sea of Swords, Drizzt still had issues in direct sunlight.
- Two-Weapon Fighting: Because he does
- Uncanny Dodge: Drizzt is very good at rolling with attacks.
- Vanish: Drizzt is stealthy
- Whirlwind Attack: Drizzt often fights hordes, so whirlwind attack would help.

Did I miss anything?

>you will never witness two gods having a massive fuckfest that demolishes entire mountain ranges

So what was everyones first Forgotten Realms experience? Mine was Baldur's Gate 1. It was also my first DnD related experience. Fuck me I struggled with it as a kid

Buying the Grey Box way, way back when.

No, young children. This is not a sight for mortal eyes.
OH GODS, IT'S BLINDING!!

Reading through Steams of Silver all the way back in primary school. I think that's elementary school for Americans?
Our primary school library was fucking amazing.

Are there 5e conversions of FR characters? SCAG had nothing.

"Old Gods have returned. Mask, Lathander, and Helm are back. Helm and Lathander only have chosen, not avatars. Mystra, the original one, was apparently hanging out being a bear in a cave. Eleminster died, only not really, and somehow fixed the weave.
Those chosen by the gods are all over the place, because the gods are trying to get in positions of leverage before AO rewrites the tablets of fate tying everyone down in a new order.
Abeir is leaving. The world of Abeir had merged back with world of Toril during the events of 4e. This is being undone. That means Dragonborn are gone, but I imagine that there are still a few hiding somewhere. Probably also means that other areas are coming back (Maztica).
Spellplague ended. Fixed. Victims healed. Plaguelands gone.
War time is war! Everyone is kung-fu fighting! The drama between returned Netheril and Sembia is somewhat resolved and the world is still here.
The Underchasm has been filed.
Netheril is down. No more motes. No more flying cities. I read that Elminster knocked one of them out of the sky? The shades and Netheril are still around, but no longer a world shattering power.
Magic works like it used to."

What the colossal fuck, did all of this happen?

"Lord Ao!" Helm acknowledged, bowing his head in supplication.

"Bring me the Tablets of Fate," Ao commanded.

Helm opened the saddlebags and removed the tablets. In the god's mighty hands, the two stones looked small, almost insignificant. Helm took the tablets to Ao then kneeled on the stairway to await further commands.

Ao studied the tablets for several minutes. In a hundred places throughout the Realms, the avatars of the surviving gods fell into a deep trance as Ao summoned their attention.

"On these artifacts," the overlord said, sending his voice and image to all of his gods. "I have recorded the forces that balance Law and Chaos."

"And I have returned them to you," Cyric said, daring to meet Ao's gaze.

Ao looked at the thief without approval or disapproval. "Yes," he said, stacking the tablets together. "And here is what it amounts to!" The overlord of the gods crushed the tablets in his hands and ground them into dust.

Midnight cringed, expecting the heavens to come crashing down. Adon cried out in grief and astonishment. Cyric watched the dust fall from between Ao's fingers, an angry frown creeping down his face.

Helm jumped to his feet. "Master, what have you done?" the god asked, his voice betraying his fear.

"The tablets mean nothing," Ao said, addressing all of his gods, no matter where they were. "I kept them to remind you that I created gods to serve the Balance, not to twist it to your own ends. But this point was lost on you. You saw the tablets as a set of rules by which to play juvenile games of prestige and pomp! Then, when the rules became inconvenient you stole them..."

"But that was -," Helm began.

"I know who took the Tablets of Fate," Ao replied, silencing Helm with a curt wave of his hand. "Bane and Myrkul have paid for their offenses with their lives. But all of you were guilty, causing worshipers to build wasteful temples, to devote themselves so slavishly to your name that they could not feed their children, even to spill their own blood upon your corrupt altars - all so you could impress each other with your hold over these so-called inferior creatures. Your behavior is enough to make me wish I had never created you."

Ao paused and let his listeners consider his words. Finally, he resumed speaking. "But I did create you and not without purpose. Now, I am going to demand that you fulfill that purpose. From this day forward, your true power will depend upon the number and devotion of your followers."

From one end of the Realms to another, the gods gasped in astonishment. In far off Tsurlagoi, Talos the Raging One growled, "Depend on mortals?" The one good eye of his youthful, broad-shouldered avatar was opened with outrage and shock.

"Depend on them and more," Ao returned. "Without worshipers, you will wither, even perish entirely. And after what has passed in the Realms, it will not be easy to win the faith of mortals. You will have to earn it by serving them."

In sunny Tesiir, a beautiful woman with silky scarlet hair and fiery red-brown eyes looked as though she were going to retch. "Serve them?" Sune asked.

"I have spoken!" Ao replied.


All of the FR gods are colossal dicks.

Yes, concretely, as of Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

Basically the theme of FR in 5e seems to be "everything will be as close to 2e as possible without actually erasing stuff from history".

So they're not changing the fact that Bhaal died, but they are bringing him back.

They're not changing that Netheril came back, but they are having it collapse again, and one of its flying cities conveniently happened to fall on Myth Drannor, which in 4e was up and running as a city again but now that it had a literal mountain fall on it, is back to being a ruin.

And so on.

They're not changing the fact that Eilistraee died, except they are, she was really just hiding the entire time, and also she didn't actually kill Vhaeraun, he's back too, as are Kiaransalee and Selvatarm for some reason, literally without any explanation (which might be for the best, really, since any explanation will just be contrived).

Eilistraee just gets less and less interesting the more I learn about her.

>Basically the theme of FR in 5e seems to be "everything will be as close to 2e as possible without actually erasing stuff from history".
Honestly, I really disliked the whole spellplague bullshit, but this policy is even worse. Either continue down the path you've chosen or retcon 4e.
I mean it's not like those who didn't like spellplague can't set their games before 1385DR.

Gentlemen, there is an easy solution to all the problems faerunian/greenwoodfaggia and it is called "the good things of 1e+2e and nothing else matters". I repeat: Just ignore any bullshit 3e-5e and take only the good things out of 1e+2e. Ignore the mongorians, ignore asia, irgnore ninjas, ignore each and any "realms shatting event" (TM), ignore dinosaurs (Chult), ignore flying ships, and the list goes on. But I am sure and I must say, I have confidence in any of you, being able to identify what's crap and what's not and to engage this shit and throw it out of your version of the Realms.

Personally, I don't mind most of the 3E lore, so I use some of it in my version of Faerun. Mostly I just disregard the metaplot and call it a day, since the metaplot is mind-numbingly retarded.

>mind-numbingly retarded
don't mind most of the 3E lore

choose one.

>What the colossal fuck, did all of this happen?

They realized that 4e Realms removed basically everything people who liked the Realms liked about the Realms in the name of corporate homogenization except some novel heroes who don't really sell all THAT many novels anymore so Ao's Tablets of Fate were destroyed and Faerun got hit with a semi-retcon beam that undid 20-odd years of editorial dickery while still keeping decently popular later changes.

Why is Helm such a little bitch.

>Netheril came back, but they are having it collapse again, and one of its flying cities conveniently happened to fall on Myth Drannor
Why are they doing this?
How many were destroyed in Myth Drannor's devastation?

>Eilistraee just gets less and less interesting the more I learn about her.
Why's that?

Dinosaurs in Chult was fucking great.

I feel like the only reason they haven't flat out retconned it, is because Greenwood is a fucking hippie and hates the concept of retconning someone else's work, even if their work was complete and utter bullshit.
I seem to recall the candlekeep forums going nuts about a novel featuring a Sunite using her powers to rape someone, and all greenwood's response was "Well that wouldn't happen in my Realms, but I'm sure that writer had his reasons."

He sounds like a swell guy, but he needs to take creative lead and learn to say this is fucked up and say no. Unless that decision-making-power was taken away from him and his hands are tied.
Isn't he also Canadian or some shit?

He is canadian.
And legally speaking he has almost no control of the Realms. He even used to talk about how he's technically not allowed to share most of his notes about his own Realms campaign, because a lot of his writings are under some form of NDA due to it being related to stuff that was in the initial drafts that TSR had full rights to, and hasbro now has full rights to, including stuff that TSR/WotC has thrown out for the sake of their own lore/marketing.
He still presumably has a lot of say in what happens in the Realms, but he has always said the FR is about you and your group's own stories, not to be defined by him and his own stories, which is why he lets other writers do what they want, and just offers notes/ideas if they ask.

Good for him.

Damn, apparently the story went he signed away his rights to his setting because he wasn't knowledgeable at all about the legalities of it or decided what he got was a sweet deal anyway.

He should at least be consulted on the decisions Wizards are progressing ahead with their timeline. 5e apparently does bring in consultants from time to time, so there's hope in that yet.

That's actually good advice from him, play however you choose to and not be mired in what you don't want to be mired in.

>grew up with forgotten realms
>played NwN n stuff
>its actually the most high magic anime realm in DnD
Deekin dont like

Wat.

>EL salvator de mucho cingo
>Elminster black dong has sex with magic itself
>edge wizzard of tai
name a setting filled with more angst i DARE YOU

I'm sorry brah, but please word that using actual English.

ok
for the fedoras
forgotten realms is DnD made up by 12 year old manga loving, Mary Sue junkies.
>Drizzed slaughtering 200 giants on his own is a good and worthy to play in setting
i kinda am ok with some of the lore but hell. why must every one be a super sayan cry baby

You're still not making a compelling case.

Most of Greenwood's super NPCs came from TSR mandate though.
The old elminster was a guy who got lucky with portals, but mostly bumbled around with scrolls and shit.
Salvatore wanted to write about !Conan, but nerds liked the edgy drow a lot more, so that became a flagship character.

i just am not ok with settings where you cant throw a rock without hitting a spellcaster.
i get your point tho.
but hear my wisdom. creating content that fans dictated you. and you being cuck enough to do it for the $ will NEVER end in a good product

TSR had weird shit happening for the Realms. Evil could never win for one.

>creating content that fans dictated you. and you being cuck enough to do it for the $ will NEVER end in a good product
Come again please.

Obviously. But I'm some kind of hipster who prefers playing with only old school realmslore, and I even get picky with the 2e stuff.

TSR mandated, not the fans.

i think the common term is "selling out"

i do have to say i like the pantheon of FR.
DnD has like zeus and shit wich im not cool with being in a fantasy setting. FR has no deity thats copied from some existing culture.
or atleast thats what i think

I think it was toe theTSR company line or gtfo.
Ed sold the rights to the FR early on in its inception as an official product.

Are you cereal, kid?
Unther, Chessenta, Mulhourand.
The interloper gods like Mielikki, Loviatar, Oghma, Silvanus. These are all based on real world gods.
Not to mention a lot of the FR gods are amalgamations of existed/existing deities.

Try to actually start thinking.

ye ofc they are based on something that exists. rarely has there been a work of fiction completly devoted of anything that exists. but its not like
"thor appears in the dressing room and is offenced. roll for init"
shit man ofc ppl had thought about all sorts of deitrys befor nerds in basements startet rolling dice. but the names are not so clearly ripped from something that can be found in a disney film.
>plz tell me chernabog doesnt exist in FR

The Untheric and Mulhorandi pantheons are literally the Sumeric and Eqyptian pantheons.

Mielikki and Loviatar are Finnish gods, Silvanus is Roman, Oghma is Celtic, Tyr is Asgardian.

>How many were destroyed in Myth Drannor's devastation?

What a colossal effort in futility. Why bring it back only for it to fall again so quickly?

Everything must suffer.

Didn't they devote an entire book series to retaking and reconstructing Myth Drannor?

i remember dropping a potion of Re in NwN2
fuckity fuck
well fuck FR then

Yes The Last Mythal trilogy, and they were surprisingly good for a elf focus series, making this even worse.

Speaking about books Forgotten Realms books series. Which get the Veeky Forums seal of approval? The aforementioned The Last Mythal, Twilight War, War of the Spider Queen and The Lady Penitent are pretty good in my option.

The FR pantheon is still great. It's very Greek.

What don't you like about it now?

Actually, it's not that those gods are copied but that they are supposed to be OUR versions of those gods.
Like, Mulhorndi and Untheric deities are very much like Earth ones because both of those cultures were basically Stargated from Earth by wizard assholes to be slaves, with the differences in myths in Faerun effectively being changes caused by distance and time from the original versions of these gods and the belief of the native Faerunian cultures changing their Faerunian incarnations.

What's Twilight War and the Lady Penitent?

The first three books of the War of the Spider Queen were amazing, the rest of the series turned to complete shit unfortunately.

I've always liked the novels involving Sekolah.

Ed is better worldbuilding than novel writing.

Fuck, not Sekolah, Iakhovas.

Wait, what? A normal IRL person can be teleported into Forgotten Realms in canon?

Holy shit, please tell me there are novels about this that I can read!

I don't know any novels, but in the older FR lore, it was canon that some kind of ancient catastrophe separated several worlds from being able to communicate with each other, and our stories of magic and shit ended up going with them since our world is magically weak without those portals connecting us.

It was also canon that the vast majority of FR lore that we read in our world is stuff vetted by Elminster himself, which is why Volo several times hints at the fact that Elminster is full of shit and the novels are also full of embellishments to a ludicrous degree.
As I recall, Volo even disses the novel series about himself.

And again, while I don't know of any novels off hand about an earther going to the FR, I think greenwood has written a couple of "totally definitely not Forgotten Realms" stories along that vein.

Sorta. That was the premise of an apocalyptic event in Faerun's ancient past when the Imaskari (wizards with no concept of right and wrong and enough hubris to rival Netheril) decided to cast open gates to our ancient Egypt and Sumeria/Babylon and gate in thousands of slaves.

Then the Imaskari fuckers barred all travel back, either spiritual or planar. Only through Ao could the deities of their pantheons only send through manifestations and aspects, not enough avatars.

After a period of time passed, orcs were also gated in with the limited manifestations of their gods; the orcish gods subsequently then rekt'd most of the Untheric pantheon.

>two sets of dubs

Nice. Very nice.

Also, that is fucking mind blowing. Why hasn't anyone used this potential goldmine?

>Hey, Dwarf, come here.
>You know those nice giant cannons on that ship over there?
>What if I told you that you could make a cannon that could fit in the palm of your hand,
>AND, it can fire multiple rounds before having to reload it?

...

forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Imaskar

...

27 point-buy, nothing above 15 before racial mods, are the point buy rules in 5e.

I don't understand the mass appeal of Drizzt either.

Pharaun Mizzrym best Drow Male.
Gromph Baenre next in the list.
Liriel Baenre probably most interesting Drow female, but Halisstra Melarn was alright in Lady Penitent.

But Realms as a whole?

I'd prefer more Jack Ravenwild, and more Khelben Blackstaff.

Why wouldn't you just the NPC creation rules?

Because TSR already started panicking when Greenwood wrote that guns were not only a part of Faerun, but they would become commonplace in a few (in game) years. 3e decided to retcon that entirely, and suddenly the Printing Press, which had been in use in AD&D2e's Realms at the least, possibly older, was a new invention again, and a lot of the tech that existed in the realms got reverted.

Though it did used to get silly in places, Drow with cyberpunk style prosthesis, Spelljammer ships, a giant laser cannon that could shoot the moon, Steam Engines in their experimental stages, etc.

City of Splendors.
City of Ravens
Counselors and Kings
Twilight and Shadows

No idea. Dude seemed to be building him deliberately as close to PC rules as he could manage.

I was just pointing out where those numbers come from.

Thanks dude. Was quite helpful.

Who is the artist

>Why's that?

Eilistraee just doesn't feel like a natural "good" antithesis to Lolth. Her priesthood is still very matriarchal (to the point where the few male priests can't participate in some of the more important rites unless they magically transform into females for the duration); her priests don't seem to make any special effort into proselytizing in drow cities (instead relying on outcasts making their way to Eilistraeen priests); and most importantly of all she seems to be defined entirely and solely by her opposition to Lolth rather than existing meaningfully in her own right.

Vhaeraun feels like a more "natural" antithesis to Lolth, since in addition to the whole male-oriented thing he seems to have his own reason for existing and objectives beyond merely opposing Lolth (the Jaelre and Auzkovyn drow in Cormanthor, for exaple, especially the latter). Of course, he's evil. I was really hoping that Eilistraee's slaying of Vhaeraun and absorbing his portfolio would result in Eilistraee becoming more interesting and getting more definition beyond opposition to Lolth...

...but then Eilistraee died. But then she wasn't really dead, for no reason. And also Vhaeraun is back - equally for no reason.

Worse according to Greenwood, it's not even that Ao brought Eilistraee and Vhaeraun back. It's that neither were ever actually dead to begin with, despite both very concretely dying at the end of the Lady Penitent.

forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=19841&whichpage=22#476639
forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=19841&whichpage=22#476688

With 5e, I was hoping that if the drow got a "good" deity, it would be a new one. Maybe an ascended drow mortal - I personally on that front favored Liriel Baenre. But, that didn't happen, and Eilistraee's just back apropos nothing.

I prefer building NPCs using class levels where possible.

This doesn't work out if the PCs actually fight this NPC in 5e.

You get that, right?

5e PCs do a lot of damage and have very little HP. 5e Monsters/NPCs do a bit less damage, and have a lot more HP.

They're not designed on the same number scales at all.

>What does this mean?
If means if your PCs fight someone built using PC rules in 5e, there is a very good chance that the first person to land a hit will score a kill.

>They're not designed on the same number scales at all.

That sounds like a problem for my players, not me.

Let me rephrase, then.

It means that as soon as they hit Drizzt, he dies. No epic battle, no gradually wearing him down.

He likely doesn't even make it a single round, unless he's a significantly higher level than them.

Ssh, this is what he clearly wants.

Well, first, I can't think of why my players would want to fight Drizzt, nor a reason why Drizzt would want to fight my players.

Second, assuming a reason could be found, I don't see why Drizzt would fight my players alone, particularly not when we just had a whole novel devoted to him getting his band back together. Cattie-Brie is apparently a Mage/Druid (or maybe Mage/Cleric) now for reasons that are frankly beyond me; what was wrong with her as an archer? Not every adventuring party needs a spellcaster. This is why I stopped reading the books at Sea of Swords.

Fourthly, when I statted out Drizzt, it wasn't with the intention of making him an NPC for any player characters to fight. Rather, I was objecting to the tweet from...Mearls, I think? Whoever...that Drizzt is officially an 8th level Fighter; that his accomplishments warrant mid-high levels and that a character who is stated over and over and OVER again to be a ranger in D&D products (i.e., it's not like we're trying to translate a non-D&D character into D&D; Drizzt was conceived of from the get-go as a D&D-style ranger for his D&D tie-in novels), is even the iconic ranger shown in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, should be rolled up with at least the vast majority of his levels in ranger.

Oh, there was supposed to be a thirdly in there, but apparently I forgot it or changed my mind about it. Mea culpa. Imagine I said "thirdly" instead of "fourthly".

Unfortunately the problem you run into with named chars is the authors may take liberties with what class features the char might take.
They're there to tell a story, not to strictly adhere to games rules.
What you might find is you're left with superfluous rules that are just there and clutter up the overall build.

As an aside, Drizzt learned his two-weapon fighting craft specifically from Zaknafein, who was a master in that blade-style.

Should he not at least be a fighter-ranger, for the simple reason that his father (who trained him in TWF) was a House Weapon Master (Fighter)?

Drizzt's masters at Sorcere and Melee Magthere learned early on because he was extremely intelligent and ambidextrous.
He was either going to down the route of wizard or fighter.

His ambidexterity should also be a trait or gain free access to the feat.

>They're there to tell a story, not to strictly adhere to games rules.

Yeah, but the moment of his creation was a conversation between Bob Salvatore and his agent that basically boiled down to:

"Bob, I need Wulfgar's sidekick."
"Okay, I'll get back to you - "
"No, Bob, I'm on my way to the meeting. I need the sidekick right now."
"Fine. Um...a drow."
"...a dark elf?"
"Yup. A dark elf ranger."
"What's his name?"
"Drizzt Do'Urden of Daermon Na'a'schezbaernon, Ninth House of Menzoberranzan."
"...can you spell that?"
"Not a chance."
"Drizzit?"
"Drizzt."
"Got it."

>As an aside, Drizzt learned his two-weapon fighting craft specifically from Zaknafein, who was a master in that blade-style.

In no edition, but particularly not 5th Edition, is D&D granular enough to care about where you learned two-weapon fighting from, only whether or not you have the relevant feats/features/whatever.

That Zaknafein was a Fighter does nothing to inhibit Drizzt being a Ranger, particularly not since Zak solely trained Drizzt in combat but Drizzt also spent 10 years in Melee-Magthere learning scouting, skirmishing, trap-setting, ambushing, and the weaknesses of monsters. Zak is the background detail that justifies Drizzt's combat prowess, but he by no means requires Drizzt to have even a single level in Fighter.

Always in the context of squads and being part of a unit.

His scouting, skirmishing, trap-setting, ambusing, and learning the weaknesses of monsters can all be mechanically represented using the fighter or actually fluff.
He did become a ranger later on in his adventuring life though.

He should also be a barbarian, to represent his rage and Hunter persona.

He didn't start out as a ranger. But he did become a ranger, and heard the call of Mielikki on the surface world.

Something that I don't particularly fancy in the FR, the overabundance of Chosen.

>Always in the context of squads and being part of a unit.

Rangers are not required to be loners, and in fact are tied with Rogues as the best scouts in the game, usually.

>His scouting, skirmishing, trap-setting, ambusing, and learning the weaknesses of monsters can all be mechanically represented using the fighter or actually fluff.

And all of Elminster's abilities can be represented by the Sorcerer class. That doesn't change the fact that he's a wizard and should be statted out as such.

>He should also be a barbarian, to represent his rage and Hunter persona.

Just because you get angry/go into survival mode doesn't mean you need to have a barbarian rage. His "hunter" personal was the result of him living alone in the Underdark for 10 years. It's less a class features and more a form of indefinite madness, one that disappeared once he started hanging out with people on a regular basis again.

>He didn't start out as a ranger.

I argue that he did, or at the least that it's extremely clumsy to stat his first few levels as that of a Fighter trying to ape the Ranger's shtick, and then level him into Ranger anyway, when there is no reason why you can't just stat him out as a Ranger from the get-go.

You seem to be someone who only favors those arguments that favors your already entrenched views and ignores other arguments that do not side with your restricted representation.

3e actually did quite well with the Ftr10/Ranger5/Barb1.

Arguments have been put forth he should be a scout rather than a ranger.

See, now I'm fairly good with that.

Though in 5e you'd want to go Fighter 11 Ranger 4 Barb 1, for that third attack.

Just make sure your first level is in Ranger for the skill proficiencies.

That can be blamed on the overabundance of deities.

I don't think I've ignored any argument, but rather have each time taken the time to raise a viable counter.

My argument is, in sum:

1) He is stated in the lore as being a Ranger;
2) Virtually everything he does can be represented by the Ranger class; exceptions (RE: summoning Errtu in The Crystal Shard) are not common enough to deviate from this;
3) Therefore it is viable to stat him out as a Ranger.
4) While it is *possible* to justify statting him out in another class, SEE points (1) and (2), but particularly (1), which is of paramount importance.

That is to say, if Drizzt can be represented by both the Fighter class and the Ranger class, but is stated in the lore over and over again to be a Ranger, then it makes more logical sense to stat him as a Ranger and not a Fighter. This is also why advancing the argument that "class is just a name" doesn't hold up; class may be just a name, but if the lore assigns importance to Drizzt being a Ranger, and if the Ranger class can accurately represent him, then there is no reason to even consider Fighter.

In 3e the Ranger was a notably worse warrior than the Fighter, without the benefit of spells. This isn't the case in 5e, where the Ranger's talents (particularly the spell-less Ranger variant) allow it to equal a Fighter in combat.

The 3e Drizzt was also endeavoring to benefit from as many feats as possible to support a Two-Weapon Fighting build; this is unnecessary in 5e.

>Just make sure your first level is in Ranger for the skill proficiencies.

Which he would have picked up while still living in Menzoberranzan, which is my point: he can be statted as a Ranger from level 1.

Plus on a personal level the idea of a Fighter 11/Ranger 4 being considered an iconic ranger bothers me. Would you be okay with a Fighter 11/Wizard 4 representing an iconic wizard?

Finally, rushing headlong down the Fighter path simply to grab a third attack seems unnecessary. Fighting with two weapons already gives Drizzt three attacks per round; the Two-weapon Fighting feature lets him add his Dexterity bonus to damage with his off-hand attack; and Whirlwind Attack (in the Hunter kit) would let him attack any number of adjacent foes anyway.

>Drizzt as Iconic Ranger
He's a terrible iconic ranger anyways

>No spellcasting.
>Not a real animal companion.
>No particularly obvious favored enemy he goes out of his way to fight.

>No particularly obvious favored enemy he goes out of his way to fight.

Giants, dude. Re-read The Crystal Shard. He fucking loves fighting giants. This shows up in later books, too.

>No spellcasting.

Hence, spell-less ranger. Having said that, this has been a problem with D&D in general. The Ranger class can cast spells. The Rangers that show up in their novels almost never can.

>Not a real animal companion.

5e. Rangers don't necessarily have animal companions anymore. Drizzt obviously took the Hunter kit, not the Beast Master kit.