4 elven bow rangers and a leader....ultimate party?

[Stalker0]

My group is about to start a new game, and some of the talk is about the extreme power of rangers. Personally from my look at rangers, they do seem like the most powerful overall class, tons of damage, great skills (especially perception), amazing mobility, etc.

What they are talking about is making 4 elven bow rangers, using their feats to round out their skills (like diplomacy and the like) and then having one leader for healing and buffing.

Minions....with twin strike 4 rangers would blow through minions.
Brutes....4 rangers do so much damage they could rip through hitpoints.

So here's the question, is this party actually better than the standard 4 roles?

Bow rangers have some much mobility and a decent amount of hitpoints that it doesn't seem like a defender is that needed. Death being the ultimate condition, a wizard doesn't seem as needed when you can mow through armies with twin strike and obliterate single targets.

What do you guys think?

 

[Rechan]

What, are they trying to "win"?

How very freaking boring. I mean, I found rangers far too utterly straight forward and boring to begin with, but four with the same relative build? Far, far too much overlap. Augh.

 

[Riley]

What, are they trying to "win"?

How very freaking boring.

Well, all that would mean is that the challenges will have to be a notch or two tougher.

On the other hand, it could be an interesting campaign. Who are they - a border patrol? An infiltration/strike team? The last remnant of a tribe? You might find a strong roleplaying thread in there.

(As to the original question, my limited experience with 4e makes my opinion suspect at best.)

 

[Rechan]

My only advice is to make significant use of:

Lurkers that conceal themselves and then do fat damage (Good luck against high Wis elves).
Monsters that grab and do bad things to grabbed targets.
Soldiers that slow/immobilize.

 

[Blizzardb]

It will probably be not very different than any party with 4 strikers and a leader. Even if rangers are superior to other strikers (arguable), they are not THAT superior.

They will probably have a harder time with close melee encounters with little room to maneuver and with only 1 guy on melee they will definetely be forced to provoke OA from time to time.

Ah, and they are in for a surprise when you introduce some kind of a monster with defence against ranged attacks. This may be generally against the philosophy of 4E but something like that will come sooner or later, if it hasn't been made already. Come to think of it - throw a party of battlerager NPC fighters against them and watch what happens

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

There will be no one to "tie down" opponents. The rangers will get hit alot or the leader will take alot of punishment. If the leader goes down, then the rest of the party will be in real trouble. Enemy soldiers will be harder to take down and will be more successful at pinning down the strikers.

While four rangers can potentially take down eight minions, they do so at the cost of 4 standard actions. A controller can do the same in one or two standard actions.

While I don't think the four rangers, one leader party would be any worse than a more balanced party if the party's tactics compensate for their shortcomings, I don't think it is better than a balanced party.

 

[Blizzardb]

Another thiing they might want a wizard (or other controller) around are swarms. Even with the huge damage they will deal, I think they might have trouble getting through several swarms (admittedly, I may overestimate swarms - a nasty bloodweb swarm killed a PC in my campaign recently). A cleric leader with attacks that swarms are vulnerable to may help them in such encounters.

 

[Vael]

DM counters:

Monsters with concealment.
Mobile Brutes backed up with immobilizing controllers. Lock'em down and beat them up.
Move + Charge can run up to most rangers.
Difficult terrain + monsters that avoid it. Phasing or flying, iow.

Player problems:
- Current leader classes will probably be bored. Clerics lack range, so do warlords. Bards or artificers are better bets.
- Still need to slow enemies down. Move + charge makes it much easier to close the range unless there's sufficient difficult terrain and slowing spells. I'd still swap a ranger for a wizard.

 

[Cadfan]

Toss a controller at them. Have it cast a spell that blocks line of sight.

 

[Leatherhead]

Honestly groups without defenders are very good, but only if everyone is ranged. It will greatly improve their performance if one of them is a controller however.