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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dr_Ruminahui" data-source="post: 4640694" data-attributes="member: 81104">Part of the reason the archer may feel overpowered is that he isn't relieving the preasure on the defenders except by killing things - instead, he's sitting back and letting the defenders take all the hits, which both a) makes the defenders seem weaker, and b) makes the ranger seem stronger. This seems to me a case of strength being measured not in how much the ranger helps the party, but how well the ranger seems to do compaired to the rest of the party.  So, the apparent strength is actual an example of a party playing less well overall (as I imagine the defenders are running out of surges before the ranger), which in turn makes the character who is excelling at the expense of everyone else appear far better in comparison. Not that the apparent strength complaint isn't valid - its just that a view of the actual effectiveness of each of the characters is somewhat beside the point as I imagine the complaint is more a result of party disfunction where that an analysis of the ideally functioning party is somewhat of a tangent. As a related note, apparent strength may also depend on the personalities of the players.  If the ranger is a loud and enthusiastic player who shoots "boooyah!" whenever he kills something, or if he puts down other players for never killing anything/not contributing, then that will obviously increase the apparent imbalance.  Likewise, a highly effective character may not appear as such if the player is modest and doesn't take credit, or if the advantages he is giving are less obvious than pure damage. My only suggestion is charge your tactics/encounter composition to encourage party cooperation.  Have the ranger be the target of artillery monsters, particularly those with status effects such as slow or immobilize.  Have him attacked by flanking brutes and melee skirmishers, such that the rest of the party gets to feel useful by coming to rescue him.  Try to arrange it so that the ranged attackers shooting the ranger are better dealt with in melee (put them in superior cover, for example), so that the ranger has an incentive to shoot the melee ones tieing up his defenders/melee strikers rather than those that are doing damage to him. Actually, I do have one other suggestion - if part of the problem is player dinamics, then may need to deal with that again.  Play up the contributions of the less vocal members, and make sure everyone gets the praise they deserve for good ideas and tactics.  Conversely, you may need to talk to the ranger about being a better team player.  Inquisitor Psychologis Ruminahui</blockquote>

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