Ranger Archive

For a long time the Scout profession and consequently the Ranger profession have languished under the disservice of an identity crisis. Having been a ranger for the better part of two years I have seen and even taken part in some of the debates to have taken place on that forum regarding our focus as a profession ranging between army ranger to big game hunters. This is an argument which I believe to have fundamental foundations in the similar crisis of the scout profession. The two professions match each other tree for tree and if rangers are asking the question then one must also in turn ask: What is Scout? What is the benefit of the profession in the Star Wars galaxy, and what are the comparisons to the galaxy that we know?

I think that most people labor under the assumption that scouts are hunters, largely derived from the name of a single tree of the scout line. They see hunting and think hunting. When Bounty Hunters used to have master scout as a prerequisite they might say that it made sense for them to have Hunting, but not any of the others because they are themselves hunters. (Exploration was a much better choice as we can see now, though at the time the statements were made). I think that many people would be able to make an easy comparison to say that scouts are like hunters. The problem with this line of thinking, besides having the obvious problem of only describing one tree of scout, is that anyone with a gun, a knife, or a staff can go out and kill a creature. Even if they can do nothing with the subsequent corpse, they are for that moment, a hunter. This only adds to the general confusion as to what scout really is and what it should be as a contributor towards the galaxy.

So, we circle around to the question once more, what is Scout? Here is my opinion and one that I hope is not too convoluted to follow. Scout is the reference to military training that we would experience in our own galaxy. When you join up with the army or marines etc, you would assuredly undergo a lot of rigorous training when it comes to using your weapons, learning how to shoot, learning how to fight, etc. This is an exact correlation to the combat professions as they exist in SWG. Sniper training? Riflemen. Unarmed combat? Teras Kasi. Surely however, those armed servicemen both past and present will attest to the fact that there is a lot of training that is non-weapon related. This might even be considered mundane to a lot of them, but probably highly necessary to the overall background of a soldier. This of course refers to the many long hours spent running, jogging, marching, etc, the learning about terrain, the engineering of establishing camps, the necessity of sometimes using what nature has provided to use as a weapon in itself, the many obstacle courses, and on and on. There is a direct link to this type of training and the trees as they exist in Scout.

EXPLORATION: Probably best renamed to something along the lines of terrain negotiation, this is the tree that deals with all the marching, the drilling, the obstacle courses, being able to assure that you can run long distances and still be able to engage in a fight. This makes it the ideal choice for Bounty Hunters who must constantly rely on their own stamina to win out against an opponent. They must have the creativity to overcome obstacles as well as the focus of mind to shake off weariness to always be ready for the battle to come. The same can be said of Creature Handlers, who must always be able to run down their prey or pets and still be ready to either tame or attack.

SURVIVAL: This is the camp tree, though probably best described in terms of organization. One simply does not give an order for a single soldier to establish a camp (in RL), rather it takes a group of them time and energy to accomplish it. The ability to lead men in a task, whether it be battle or entrenchment is a quality that is also searched out in training camps. Once the latent abilities are discovered they are then fostered for maximum effectiveness. This tree is ideally suited to Squad Leaders as it showcases the depth of organizational thinking that a squad leader must always have.

HUNTING: Of all the trees I feel this one is misnamed the most. This one should be called Creature Knowledge, the skill hidden in it. For this tree not only represents killing creatures, but using them as well. Creature behaviour and anatomy are the staple of such learning, and as such, Creature Handlers are best suited to this tree. Being able to understand the strengths and weaknesses of creatures can be a boon when trying to gain the trust of a creature probably unused to sentient contact.

TRAPPING: Probably the most specialized militarily I would guess, this tree represents the level of training necessary to begin using unconventional weapons against an opponent. Most of the time this involves nature itself, something as simple as setting up a pit trap in the known travel paths of an enemy, or a net trap involving a dead animal that an unsuspecting wookkiee will lead his friends into a trap for, to something more complex as a landmine field or a mesh restricting ones movement for a short period.

You put all that together and advance the training substantially and you are left with Ranger, the ultimate survivalist. This is the guy who can do all that plus some. He is a guy like (I grimmace even making the comparison) John Rambo. You set him loose in your backyard jungle with a knife in his hands and he is going to mess you up. He is comfortable living off the land, setting traps to waylay your soldiers, watching you from afar, ambushing you when its to his advantage and then disappearing back into the wilderness. Granted this is not the way it works right now, but this is the way that it should be if you follow the exact derivation from Scout.

I hope you all can see the strengths of some of these arguments, even though some of you may not agree with the final conclusion. Military ranger vs hunter ranger has been an argument in existence a long time, but I hope you can agree that in an age where a scout with some hunting can collect a full 100k stack in his days' playing time the ranger domination over the organic resource market has come to an end, and we need to find a new and definitive role to fill. I hope you will also follow the point in that Ranger needs to have a master Scout prerequisite even if none of the other professions do. For all the troubling rumors Ive been hearing that the devs are actually considering making Ranger have a two tree prerequisite we need to stand together to show why we need to be the ultimate scouts still. Perhaps Ill post a second thread over what I feel would be worth spending 140 skill points to have. In the meantime, RANGER FOR LIFE, Bal Rozguul signing out.