Ranger

The Ranger, abbreviated as Ran, is one of the roles available for a hero in NetHack. From the guidebook:

Rangers are most at home in the woods, and some say slightly out of place in a dungeon. They are, however, experts in archery as well as tracking and stealthy movement.

Rangers can be humans, elves, gnomes, or orcs, and can be either neutral or chaotic.

Starting equipment

Each Ranger starts with the following equipment, depending on their starting race:

	Human (default)	Gnome	Elf	Orc
Melee weapon	+1 dagger	+1 dagger	+1 elven dagger	+1 orcish dagger
Launcher	+1 bow	+1 crossbow	+1 elven bow	+1 orcish bow
Primary ammo	50-59 +2 arrows	50-59 +2 crossbow bolts	50-59 +2 elven arrows	50-59 +2 orcish arrows
Secondary ammo	30-39 +0 arrows	30-39 +0 crossbow bolts	30-39 +0 elven arrows	30-39 +0 orcish arrows
Cloak	+2 cloak of displacement	+2 cloak of displacement	+2 elven cloak	+2 cloak of displacement
Food	4-8 cram rations	4-8 cram rations	4-8 lembas wafers	4-8 tripe rations two stacks of 1-2 random comestibles

Chaotic Rangers have a ¹⁄₁₀₀ chance of each starting stack of ammo being poisoned.

Rangers start with knowledge of any applicable racial equipment.

The Ranger's default starting pet is a little dog named Sirius.

Intrinsics

Rangers gain the following intrinsic properties upon reaching the given experience levels:

• XL 1: searching
• XL 7: stealth
• XL 15: see invisible

Attributes

The Ranger's starting attributes are distributed as follows:

Attributes	Strength	Dexterity	Constitution	Intelligence	Wisdom	Charisma	Remaining
Minimum attributes	13	9	13	13	13	7	7
Distribution percentages	30%	20%	20%	10%	10%	10%
Mean w/ standard deviation (human)	15.22±1.32	10.45±1.17	14.44±1.14	13.75±0.93	13.75±0.93	7.68±0.91

Skills

Rangers have the following skills available to them:

Ranger skills
Max	Skills
Basic	Weapons: pick-axe, short sword, morning star, hammer, quarterstaff, trident, whip Combat: bare hands, riding Spells: healing, escape
Skilled	Weapons: knife, axe, flail, polearms, shuriken
Expert	Weapons: dagger, spear, bow, sling, crossbow, dart, boomerang Spells: divination

Rangers start with Basic skill in daggers as well as their starting launcher, i.e. crossbows for gnomes and bows otherwise. They use the intelligence stat to cast spells, and their special spell is invisibility.

Special rules

Rangers gain a +1 bonus to multishot with all projectile weapons except for daggers (applied before racial and skill bonuses).

Rangers have a bonus to untrap floor traps.

Rangers have a -2 penalty to casting emergency spells.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that the information below is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate it.

Per commit e4cb3f08, Rangers always succeed in disarming bear traps unless they are impaired.

Rangers get a +1 multishot bonus when wielding the Longbow of Diana and firing any type of arrow with it.

Rank titles

The status line displays one of the following ranks for the corresponding experience levels:

• XL 1-2: Tenderfoot
• XL 3-5: Lookout
• XL 6-9: Trailblazer
• XL 10-13: Reconnoiterer/Reconnoiteress
• XL 14-17: Scout
• XL 18-21: Arbalester
• XL 22-25: Archer
• XL 26-29: Sharpshooter
• XL 30: Marksman/Markswoman

Gods

The Ranger pantheon is based on the classical pantheon of Roman mythology, particularly deities that also lend their names to planets.

• Lawful: Mercury
• Neutral: Venus
• Chaotic: Mars

Quest

The Ranger's quest sees them fighting Scorpius for The Longbow of Diana, an artifact bow. The Longbow of Diana grants telepathy while carried, and while wielded it grants reflection and applies a +1d5 to-hit bonus to fired arrows. Invoking The Longbow of Diana creates arrows with the same beatitude as the bow and places them in the hero's inventory, with a small chance of producing poisoned arrows.

Strategy

Character creation

A Ranger has many options during character creation, with difficult tradeoffs for each one:

• Humans have the best HP growth of the available starting races, and are the only one that can reach the maximum damage bonus for strength without gauntlets of power. This becomes useful around the mid-game if the hero plans to switch to darts or otherwise finds it cumbersome to swap back and forth between melee weapon and launcher. On the downside, human Rangers have no racial multishot bonus, and the lack of infravision hurts their ranged combat capabilities until they gain extrinsic telepathy.
• Gnomes are the only race to enjoy a relatively peaceful Gnomish Mines, and Rangers in general will want to tackle the Mines early to find armor and claim the luckstone for more reliable ranged combat, making this is a strong advantage. However, the starting crossbow imposes a multishot penalty unless a gnomish hero has 16 strength, which a gnomish Ranger is not guaranteed to start with—pushing boulders in Sokoban and engaging in melee combat when it's safe to do so should eventually make up the deficit. The gnomes in the Mines and the centaurs on the Quest should supply all the bolts needed for the rest of the game, whereas orcs and elves will often need to ration their arrows.
• Orcs have the lowest-damage missiles and lose their racial multishot bonus if they switch to better ones. Orcish starting food is also generally inferior, forcing them to dive for food more quickly than other Rangers; the starting tripe rations are probably best used for training apport rather than consumption, although pets and a ranged game often do not mesh well. On the other hand, they can obtain pre-poisoned orcish arrows from hostile orcs, which can inflict instadeath on threatening monsters, and poison resistance is also a general early-game boon, e.g when untrapping dart traps for their missiles.
• Elves have the best starting missiles when accounting for the racial damage bonus, and enjoy a total +2 to-hit bonus when firing them. Elven arrows are also immune to being rusted or corroded by acidic monsters and rust monsters in the early game, although gelatinous cubes can eat them. However, since elven monsters are always peaceful for elven heroes, they rarely generate in groups, making elven arrows difficult to replace. An elven Ranger can immediately turn their elven dagger into Sting by naming it, and their starting lembas wafers alone will last thousands of turns, letting them play more slowly and methodically than other races. Elven disadvantages mostly show in the late game, when they will need gauntlets of power to reach maximum strength and carrying capacity (which in turn gives a -2 to-hit penalty when used with bows), and lower constitution penalizes HP and its regeneration.
• In terms of alignment, a neutral hero is more likely than a chaotic one to receive a useful sacrifice gift immediately, though an elf can force Stormbringer as their first gift by naming Sting and Orcrist beforehand—while they are not likely to quickly receive a second gift with three artifacts generated, Stormbringer can prove more than sufficient enough. Chaotic heroes also have the usual advantage of a more merciful mysterious force.

Early game

A Ranger's +2 projectiles are likely worth favoring over their +0 projectiles, since they deal more damage and are less likely to mulch: the breakage rate for +2 arrows or bolts is 25%, compared to 67% for +0 arrows or bolts. With this in mind, you may also opt to accumulate a decent stack of daggers to save as much on arrow usage as possible, which can be discarded if so desired after obtaining a large stack of blessed and enchanted arrows. Reserving your melee weapon for weaker monsters can also help with maintaining arrows. Blessed +2 arrows and bolts only break on roughly less than ¹⁄₂₀₀ of hits; +5 or higher blessed projectiles are ideal, and high luck substantially reduces the chances of breakable projectiles mulching, making holy water a high priority and luckstones a natural goal for long-term (cross)bow usage.

More arrows can also be acquired from untrapping arrow traps, and regardless of starting race and strategy, it is wise to amass and hold on to a small stack of elven arrows to deal with acidic and rust-inducing monsters during the early game. Though the Gnomish Mines will only be relatively safe for gnomish Rangers, the resident gnomes and dwarves will have plenty of ranged weapons and armor for other races (though gnomish Rangers can still use a pet to secure equipment), and Mines' End has a guaranteed luckstone—the dark floors of the Mines can make ranged combat more difficult, especially for heroes without infravision.

It may similarly be worth poisoning your arrows by dipping them in a potion of sickness: poisoned projectiles deal +d6 damage with a ¹⁄₁₀ chance of instantly killing monsters without poison resistance; however, this will gradually create a separate stack of arrows as the poison wears off, making arrow management slightly more tedious. The unpoisoned arrows should be reserved for poison-resistant targets, and when either most of the arrows lose their poison or you are preparing to enchant your arrows further, you can use another potion of sickness to re-poison them and adjust the stacks to merge them. Obtaining potions of sickness is not necessarily difficult—performing alchemy with two potion types that lack a recipe will produce potions of sickness ¹⁄₄ of the time.

For armor, Rangers are extremely unlikely to cast spells in the early game, so any non-cumbersome metallic armor is fine. The starting cloak of displacement for humans, gnomes and orcs is a great aid in maintaining firing distance: many monsters lack a ranged attack outside of picking up projectiles or wands, and they are more easily shot down while attacking your displaced image. Additionally, Rangers using any projectiles throwable weapon other than daggers can deal up to 2.5 times more damage on average, due to their multishot bonuses allowing them to fire up to 4 missiles at once. This means that levitation is not very compatible with a Ranger's preferred style of combat, since a levitating hero can only fire one missile and will be briefly immobilized while they hurtle in the opposite direction of their shot, making it highly impractical to maintain distance this way.

Skill slot management

Rangers may find themselves short on skill slots: A starting Ranger will likely want to advance skill with their starting bow, then advance skill in dagger and their melee weapon, and may want to advance skills in any of spellcasting, darts and/or shuriken. To save skill slots, be sure you are committing to use of a particular weapon before investing time and skill points in it.

Darts may be worth switching to as the primary ranged weapon: they are as lightweight and plentiful as arrows and can be thrown without a launcher, and their benefits from high Strength offset their low base damage—at 18 strength, thrown darts are on par with elven arrows, and deal roughly +4 more damage with 25 Strength from gauntlets of power. The primary downsides are foregoing racial multishot bonuses, a higher spellcasting penalty if opting to wear GoP, and the inability to inflict silver damage (as with silver arrows).

Mid-game

A Ranger in the mid-game should have their projectiles and melee weapon narrowed down, since scrolls of enchant weapon are likely to be at a premium for both enchanting projectiles and erosion-proofing them—enchanting a bow only increases its to-hit when firing from it, and is usually unnecessary due to the impact of high luck and arrow enchantment. A solid cache of arrows or bolts can usually be obtained from the centaurs and arrow traps on the Ranger quest home level alone, and magic markers and wands of polymorph may be worth seeking or polypiling for to write additional scrolls of enchant weapon. When shooting, be careful that your valuable projectiles don't end up in any moats!

While Rangers can deal a ton of damage from firing arrows or bolts at point-blank range, a melee weapon is still useful to have: Rangers may consider spears, tridents and crysknives, or else obtain an adequate artifact like Magicbane or Frost Brand as a sacrifice gift. Rangers cannot two-weapon, and though they can reach Skilled in axes and polearms, most Rangers are highly unlikely to be maining a two-handed weapon on a long term basis, and so can safely use a shield to complement their (cross)bow. The small shield is the lightest shield and has the lowest spellcasting penalty for more magically-inclined Ranger builds, while the shield of reflection provides a useful property and frees up the amulet slot for choices such as ESP or life saving (though the former can also be superseded by the quest artifact).

The Ranger quest is quite tough for the reward offered, with fast-moving centaurs that are likely to have dangerous wands as offensive items, and may itself warrant reflection when entering; crowning can safeguard against elemental wands, though the chance of a wand of death still warrants an answer in reflection or magic resistance. Poisoned projectiles are a Ranger's most efficient way of fighting back at long range, and they can reserve their melee weapon for less dire threats such as scorpions or giant bats. Scorpius has weak AC, but is capable of inducing sickness with his sting, making it vital to have at minimum a blessed unicorn horn and/or more reliable cures on hand—a Ranger can awaken and/or damage Scorpius at a distance, then either camp the up stair or position themselves far enough from it to finish him quickly with a volley of enchanted arrows.

The Longbow of Diana is a passable artifact, but an underwhelming reward for getting through the entire quest: it must be wielded to grant reflection, which may end up redundant in a Ranger's build, and non-human Rangers will not get a multishot bonus from it; the invoke for arrows can be of situational use, but a Ranger with maximum luck that has their arrows enchanted and blessed will rarely need any more. The telepathy from carrying it is still quite useful for detecting targets and shooting them down at a comfortable distance.

Spellcasting

Below is a table of all possible spells a Ranger can get at least Basic skill in:

Skill	Spells
Basic	healing, cure blindness, cure sickness, extra healing, stone to flesh, restore ability, jumping, haste self, invisibility, levitation, teleport away
Expert	detect monsters, light, detect food, detect unseen, clairvoyance, identify, detect treasure, magic mapping

The divination spell school has some of the best spells in the game, such as, magic mapping, identify, detect monsters, and detect unseen; healing can be useful for pets and restoring health during downtime between encounters; and jumping can be quite useful in general to maintain distance and traverse certain areas. For spellcasting Rangers, a robe and small shield will likely be most helpful, and shields in general can be taken off fairly quickly in order to boost success rates outside of combat. Once you have blessed your projectiles and have holy water to spare, you can consider blessing spellbooks and learning divination spells (especially low-energy spells such as light). However, Rangers often have poor energy growth, so you may spend some time waiting before being able to cast again.

Late game

A Ranger should have a well-enchanted artifact or a silver weapon (e.g. a silver dagger or silver spear) for fighting demons in Gehennom and fighting monsters in general while levitating, which at minimum will occur during the Elemental Planes and the Astral Plane. Silver arrows are precious and hard to obtain stacks of without wishing, and should generally be reserved for especially nasty monsters, but a Ranger should also have the luck and enchantment required to make them last a long time. Taking full advantage of monster behavior at certain distances (e.g. on the up stair) is vital to maximizing damage and minimizing hassle, especially with the covetous foes that await in this stage of the game.

Raising your experience level past 15 is usually not necessary outside of lowering failure rates for spellcasting, since HP can be raised through alchemy and nurse-dancing. A small shield, elven shield or shield of reflection is most likely to be part of a Ranger's ascension kit, since most spells available to them are not likely to be cast in the heat of battle, particularly with the role's penalty for emergency spells.

History

The Ranger first appears in NetHack 3.3.0 as a spiritual successor to the Elf role, which is playable from NetHack 1.3d to NetHack 3.2.3, and is similarly focused on archery as its main source of damage—NetHack 3.3.0 replaces it with the Ranger and adds the elf as a playable race.

Origin

The Ranger as a role is based on the Ranger class from Dungeons & Dragons, where it debuted in the second-ever issue of The Strategic Review and is included as a standard class in the 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook.

The class (and the role in NetHack) is primarily based on Aragorn and the Rangers of the North from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth mythos - this is the basis for its predecessor role in the Elf as well. Handbooks through various editions also mention Robin Hood, Jack the Giant Killer, the huntress and deity Diana, and the Greek hero Orion as inspirations.

Variants

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, Rangers are restricted to skilled in spear.

SlashTHEM

In addition to SLASH'EM details, Rangers can be giants, incantifiers, or kobolds.

Encyclopedia entry

"Lonely men are we, Rangers of the wild, hunters -- but hunters
ever of the servants of the Enemy; for they are found in many
places, not in Mordor only.
If Gondor, Boromir, has been a stalwart tower, we have played
another part. Many evil things there are that your strong walls
and bright swords do not stay. You know little of the lands
beyond your bounds. Peace and freedom, do you say? The North
would have known them little but for us. Fear would have
destroyed them. But when dark things come from the houseless
hills, or creep from sunless woods, they fly from us. What
roads would any dare to tread, what safety would there be in
quiet lands, or in the homes of simple men at night, if the
Dunedain were asleep, or were all gone into the grave?"

[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]