Life as a Greenwood Ranger in 2nd Ed AD&D

Elijah's character John in JADE's Arachnophobia Campaign, is probably one of the coolest character kits I have come across. As we mentioned before in John's blog post, a Greenwood Ranger is a Ranger who has devoted his life to becoming a plant.

You must choose this kit as soon as you become a ranger, and in order to maintain the kit you must spend at least 3 hours a week in game praying for the gods to transform you into a Greenwood Ranger: which is similar to that 3 armed fellow above.

Their prayers must be maintained until the player reaches level 4; at which point the god's will answer the ranger's prayer. But you don't get to become and awesome tree monster right away, first you must complete a quest given to you by the god's themselves.

You have 1 month to complete this quest. if you fail, You must spend 1d4 months in prayer until the god's grant you another quest. If you are successful however, you must find an isolated area of the forest and cover yourself in leaves and branches. You then fall asleep for a full day and awaken a true Greenwood Ranger.

So it does take some time to get up to level 4 in 2nd ed, requiring 9000 Experience, but that isn't to difficult to reach - with an average of 800-1000xp a game for a low level adventure. However, before Level 4, Greenwood Rangers don't do any thing differently than a normally Ranger so it is a wait until you get to see the benefits of your kit. That being said, while level 1-3 a Greenwood Ranger should show a stronger affinity for plants than animals. Sure, like a normal Ranger you get the Animal Empathy ability, but a Greenwood Ranger wants to become part of the plant kingdom and should respect and almost revere them.

Once you actually are a Greenwood Ranger you get a ton of pretty awesome Kit Benefits. First you can Speak with Plants at will. No casting time, or limitations to number of uses. You no longer need to eat but use your feet that root into the ground as you move, and photosynthesis to survive. Though you can drown, your body is buoyant so you float on water. At level 8 you can ro0t to the ground more firmly to increase your healing. As well, Like in the picture at the top of this article, you can grow a third limb and you get a natural bonus to your AC for having bark-like skin.

Now the Downsides are that you are effected by extreme temperatures (fire is a major concern), and you can only cast plant based spells when you reach level 8, so it is something you need to carefully consider.

For John after he fled the army, and discovered a Greenwood Ranger for himself, it was the only life he ever wanted. I think that he did a good job integrating with the party last game, and I look forward to seeing him continue his quest to become a true Greenwood Ranger in future games.


Written by: Andrew Gregory