Drow rangers should either always or sometimes start with a dark elven hand crossbow and a stack of bolts for it rather than a bow and arrows.

Gently discourage Rangers from heavily using daggers by limiting them to Basic skill in dagger.

New role based on a “loup du noir” archetype, possibly called the Lycanthrope - you start with a pelt, a new sort of cloak-slot armor that polymorphs you into a specific type of monster when you wear it. You also are inflicted with some sort of delayed lycanthropy - you won’t randomly polymorph into a monster like with standard lycanthropy, but after not using a pelt for a while, you do start feeling the urge to put one on, and if you still refuse, you are eventually compelled to put one on. (It isn’t specified what happens if you get rid of your pelt(s) by the time you would be compelled to wear one; possibly you just die from insanity, or else the addiction is implemented in some other way like continuous worsening HP damage.)

The form you get from wearing a pelt has some boosted stats from the base form - in particular, your carrying capacity and damage would be better than the stat blocks for the monsters suggest.

You could start with either a “default” pelt which is not very good, but can be turned into an ideal one later, or start with a specific animal’s pelt, which you can control with the pettype option. This role never starts with a pet.

Pelts might also work as a standalone concept or one that works with a druid, ranger, or caveman role, or a hypothetical new shaman role:

• You can obtain a pelt by using a knife to skin the corpse of some monster that would reasonably have a pelt. This will probably be an occupation, and either its time or success rate will vary based on your knife skill and if you have a role-specific bonus.
• By using some sort of magic (instead of it being inherent to a role), you can transform into the animal whose pelt you are wearing.
• While polymorphed with a pet, you are a perfect imitation of the monster, to the point where monsters might behave differently because they see you as one of them.
• Pelts confer some benefit when worn as a cloak besides the ability to polymorph, which varies depending on the monster species, such as a boost to damage.

Rangers have a lower chance of triggering a trap they created themselves, since they are supposed to be pretty experienced in laying traps for creatures and not triggering them.

Rangers break wands on their knee rather than raising it high over their head, because that’s what they’re used to doing with firewood.

If you are a Ranger, your pets will specifically seek out missiles you have thrown which are lying on the floor, pick them up (perhaps even collecting multiple ones at a time) and bring them back to your side.

Rangers get an alignment penalty for destroying (cutting down, burning, etc) trees.

Rangers have a special bonus towards searching for pits.

Allow human Rangers to play as lawful. (Note: this will involve changing the Quest text a bit so that it doesn’t refer to lawful as the enemy.)

Rangers have a role bonus which decreases the overall probability a projectile will break.

A peaceful large dog named Sirius is found in the Ranger quest home level near Orion. Ranger starting dogs don’t have to be named Sirius anymore.

Rangers have a significantly better chance than other roles at untrapping beartraps (perhaps even just 100%).

Beartraps are much lighter so as to make them feasible to carry around, and Rangers start out with two or three of them.

Rangers get an alignment bonus for disarming naturally-generated bear traps, or possibly for catching a hostile monster in a player-set bear trap.

As part of artifact weapon rebalance, there should be at least one Ranger-friendly non-bladed weapon that’s available through sacrifice (and therefore available pre-Quest.) Doesn’t necessarily have to be a bow.

Allow Rangers to advance bow skill to Master.

Caltrops: a nonmagic stackable tool that when applied creates a “caltrop trap” on your space, which damages / immobilizes / slows the first monster to enter it. Rangers and rogues excel at using them and possibly get some bonuses from them. Not difficult to untrap, though it would be nice if some caltrops could gradually be lost in the process. Maybe spreading caltrops consumes five or so of them, and you won’t always get five back during an untrap.

Rangers can chat to certain animalistic monsters to calm them and make them peaceful (but not tame). Possibly generalize this into a skill that can be achieved by Cavemen, Monks and Tourists too.

Change the Ranger quest artifact to an infinite quiver that can produce an endless supply of arrows, rocks, or crossbow bolts, preferring to match to whatever the hero’s wielded weapon is. This benefits gnomes who want to use crossbows.

Rangers should start the game with all types of bows and arrows identified.