The Ranger class makes its first appearance in Strategic Review Vol. 1 Issue 2, in an article written by Joe Fischer. It is remarkable to note that no official Ranger class exists in original D&D even though it is considered a staple. It isn't until the publication of the AD&D Players Handbook that one is published.
Who is Joe Fischer?
On another thread this was posted:Gygax says: “Joe Fischer played in my group, and he did an article in THE STRATEGIC REVIEW introducing the Ranger Class for the D&D game. From that I built the AD&D version.”
Q: "Likewise the Rangers use of magic user spells, as opposed to more nature based magic. Was the ranger originally intended as something else than the foresting, robin hood type ?"
Gygax: "Ask the originator of the class, Joe Fischer. I polished his original material for The Strategic Review, and all the readers loved it the way it was, to it remained in that general form for the AD&D game. No sense in fixing something that isn't broken as far as most players go."
Joe also wrote a series of articles in Strategic Review and early The Dragon magazines on Hints for D&D Judges: Part I - Towns, Part 2 - Wilderness, Part 3 - The Dungeon which were reprinted in Best of the Dragon I.
The original Ranger has many of the tropes that are still associated with the class: hard to surprise, a bonus against giants, some spell use at high levels, and tracking of course. This article is written a little rough; it can be a bit hard to make out how it all works, and it has one of the worst kludgy mechanics to be found in OD&D (and that's saying a lot). 4 XP for every 3 XP until 8th level. Why not just reduce the XP required per level by 25% at levels 1-7?
https://www.blogofholding.com/?p=5753
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