High Level 4e

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Sure, I realise the math behind it, but we're talking about a game here where psychological elements come into play as much as pure math.

I could buff the ranger, and have a 3 out of 4 chance that he'd still miss anyway and my buff would be wasted, or buff the rogue and only have a 1 in 4 chance it'd be wasted... admittedly from a pure math POV, if the rogue rolls high enough to hit without the buff, then the buff is still wasted, but when a player hits you don't tend to think of a buff as a waste so much as when they miss. At least I don't, and I'd wager most players are similar.

And, in this case, the optimised Rogue was dealing far more damage anyway...

In a way it starts with a far-from-optimized build and then you add an apparantly suboptimal tactic, too.

If you are talking about psychology, think about how much more fun the Ranger character and the Ranger player would have if someone would buff him more - and how much more rewarding this would feel to the buffing character, too.

 

[vagabundo]

I've seens some less than optimal characters created for 4e and they can fall behind the curve. I think the issue here is whether the character is viable and I believe they are and could still contribute to combat.

I don't think we would want a situation were it was impossible to build a poor character by making poor choices, but 4e is very transparent and does give good advice - if the players read it, which, I'm afraid to say my little sis didn't and created a fairly poor warlock. She just picked things that sounded cool to her and it didn't work together very well or work well with how she wanted to play it.

So I created an archer ranger for her that suited what she wanted all the better. But - trust me - her 3e characters were much much worse. My brother had a similar issue with his Wizard character - this is someone who always played a fighter in previous editions. But I regiged a couple of things and changed out a few spells and feats, and he is chuffed now.

These two examples where for early heroic tier, but in both cases they were viable characters, they just weren't run very well; tactically.

All I believe 4e promised was that it would move away from the system mastery situation - with its hidden traps. And to my mind it does a damn fine job of it.

 

[Sobran]

In a way it starts with a far-from-optimized build and then you add an apparantly suboptimal tactic, too.

If you are talking about psychology, think about how much more fun the Ranger character and the Ranger player would have if someone would buff him more - and how much more rewarding this would feel to the buffing character, too.

I completely agree with this statement. It sort of seems like this player is having a tough time and it doesn't sound like much is being done to mitigate it. Would buffing the ranger have made the difference between failure and victory in this encounter? No, by your own admittance.

By the same token, why has the DM not addressed this shortcoming. If not rerolling, at least letting the character be tweaked a bit in hindsight would address the poor character planning. If this goes against the DMs philosophy, he could throw him a bone a couple other ways. A sweet magical bow that just screams "give it to the ranger," social and skill challenges that play to his non-combat strengths, or a cloak that allows him to assume the shape of a raven, thereby allowing him to aid the party in creative ways.

Granted, I don't have all the facts here. This player could be an obnoxious twit that no one wants to help. But this sounds like a failure on the part of more than just the one player that clearly didn't know what the hell he was doing. In a hobby like this, it takes some teamwork to ensure everyone has fun.

 

[Jack99]

How is it DMing a game with a 16th level Fighter? Is he real sticky? Does he do a lot of damage? I have read that high level fighters, while being defenders, still have the possibility to do do hoards of damage.

The lvl 17 fighter in my group is scary as hell. He does huge damage and is sticky as hell. Once he gets to a monster, it's basically SOL, unless it can stun or something like that.

 

[MrMyth]

Sure, I realise the math behind it, but we're talking about a game here where psychological elements come into play as much as pure math.

I could buff the ranger, and have a 3 out of 4 chance that he'd still miss anyway and my buff would be wasted, or buff the rogue and only have a 1 in 4 chance it'd be wasted... admittedly from a pure math POV, if the rogue rolls high enough to hit without the buff, then the buff is still wasted, but when a player hits you don't tend to think of a buff as a waste so much as when they miss. At least I don't, and I'd wager most players are similar.

Sure, but that is your choice to do so. It may well be the better tactical choice, if the rogue's damage is significantly higher. (Though I'd be surprised if it was - if the rogue already has a decent chance to hit, then far better to multiply the ranger's chance of hitting by five, since his damage - even non-optimized - should still be fine.)

But that's the thing, in the end - D&D is a game of choices. In this case, you have one character who has made many choices that would enhance him, and a party that makes the explicit choice to further enhance him. And another character who has avoided any options that would enhance him, and is unsupported by the party.

Up against a monster that I feel, again, probably had unusually high defences. It doesn't sound like a difficult fight, but if an optimized rogue is only hitting on a 13 or 14 by default, its defenses definitely seem high. As you say - apparently intended to challenge optimized characters being enhanced by buffs. Of course it will be untouchable for the non-optimized character not receiving the buffs.

So, with all those factors - yes, there will be a gap. The only way to shorten that gap is to reduce the effect of any individual choice. Reducing the effect of different levels of weapons, reduce the effect of differences in stats, reduce the ability for feats/weapon proficiency/classes to give minor bonuses to hit.

If you go too far with that... characters become identical, and there are no choices to be made.

There is certainly a line that needs to be set. With the exception of the Expertise feats, I think 4E has done a fantastic job of it, and the problem is almost nonexistent compared to how it used to be. The Expertise feats have definitely made it worse, though, and I would be glad to see them gone or fixed in some fashion.

But even without that, it wouldn't solve the issue for the character here - someone who has a non-optimized character to start with, who doesn't have even one appropriate magic weapon of his level (cause even dual-wielding, his main-hand should at least be on par with the rest of you guys), who doesn't receive the same support from the party other characters get, and who is fighting encounters specifically geared to challenge an optimized party. His character not being effective in combat is inevitable, and you can't fix that without removing the ability to make the choices that led him there - choices he made, choices the party made, and choices the DM made.

 

[Elric]

Sure, but that is your choice to do so. It may well be the better tactical choice, if the rogue's damage is significantly higher. (Though I'd be surprised if it was - if the rogue already has a decent chance to hit, then far better to multiply the ranger's chance of hitting by five, since his damage - even non-optimized - should still be fine.)

The rogue [with a much better attack bonus]'s damage doesn't have to be "significantly higher" to justify giving the Rogue a plus to hit rather than the ranger. What the initial hit numbers are before the bonus to hit doesn't have much to do with it. There's nothing special about "multiplying chance to hit by 5." Percentage increases don't kill enemies. The rogue just needs to have a higher damage increase per point of to-hit increase, in the sense laid out below.

It doesn't matter what the initial numbers required to hit are as long as you wouldn't need "more than a 20" before the bonus or "less than a 2" after the bonus. You should just give the to-hit bonus to the character with the higher damage increase per point of to-hit bonus.

If characters have no miss damage (or additional effects besides damage on a hit), and one attack roll per action, this means giving the to-hit bonus to the character with higher damage. This will tend to be the more optimized character, everything else equal, as the character who ended up with a lower attack bonus probably also ended up with lower damage.

Decently-optimized Rangers who don't deal damage on a miss (e.g., Scimitar Dance) should tend to have a higher damage increase per point of to-hit bonus than Rogues, particularly at epic tier, but with a well-optimized Rogue versus a poorly optimized ranger, this won't necessarily be the case.

 

[Armadillo]

Is there a reason the GM hasn't awarded some magic items as treasure that would specifically address the Ranger's shortcomings?

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

I don't really have a comment on the original question, however I wish to comment on the "worst 4E character ever" issue

[sblock]I call shenanigans.

If you are playing 4th edition for the first time, you are strongly recommended to use the standard array. You are also given two "1st level build suggestions" for every class.

In short, in 4E you almost have to go out of your way to make a crappy character, whereas in 3.5 it is very easy to make a substandard character by mistake.

The real problem here is not that 4E does not reward the generalist. The problem is that building a 4E character with 3.x design guidelines doesn't always work.

This.
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