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Chainsaw Hobbit
2010-11-10, 01:57 PM
In my ongoing D&D (4th edition) game, the party ranger is played by a new-ish player. The ranger is incredibly un-optimized and is about half as powerful as the rest of the party, therefor more of a burden than a help the other players.
What should I do?

Person_Man
2010-11-10, 02:03 PM
Half as powerful? I don't really think that's possible for 4E. Is his damage output really that bad compared to the other strikers?

bloodtide
2010-11-10, 02:05 PM
The easy bump is to just give him a useful magic item. Maybe even one a 'bit too powerful'. This is a nice way to even things out.

You can do the same thing if you give him a special (homebrew) power.

Or you can do the sneaky DM trick: When he is attacked by a monster, it's 'randomly' a low hit point monster, with low scores for everything. Same with anything he encounters.

Lysander
2010-11-10, 02:05 PM
You could explain the problem to the player, and offer to retcon their abilities to something more useful. It's in their own interest to be effective. And if they really like their character as is, and don't care about effectiveness, I guess just make encounters a little easier to even things out.

Fallbot
2010-11-10, 02:11 PM
Tactfully offer suggestions as to how to improve his character - If he's new he's probably not deliberately making suboptimal choices. Allow him to retrain more than one thing when he levels, maybe even allow him to adjust his point buy if it's that serious.

Link him to the WOTC optimization thread (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19649074/The_Complete_Collection_of_Character_Build_Links)

If he continues to ignore your advice (and I've played with someone that did), simply scale back the encounters to be appropriate for the rest of the party, as though he's not there, and let him ineffectually flail away in the background.

mikau013
2010-11-10, 06:40 PM
What part of him is underpowered?

Is he not playing his weight rping?
With his non combat skills?
Feats that don't make sense?
Not using his powers ?
Choosing ineffective powers and not retraining?
weird stats?
Subpar magic items?

First thing I'd do though is check if his math is correct. Mistakes are easy to make if you are new

Jack_Simth
2010-11-10, 06:54 PM
There's multiple different approaches, most of which have already been mentioned.

1) Talk it out. Two simple questions: Is it interfering with his fun? Is it interfering with anyone elses' fun? Under most circumstances, 'Fun' is the point - if you've got a 'no' on both counts, it's... really not worth dealing with. If you've got a 'yes' on one or both, then it is. The simple solution is to help him (or ask someone else to help him) rebuild his character to be more in line with the rest of the party. Hands-down the most effective method.

2) Custom items / powers. Make a 'cool' ranger-only item/power that helps. Maybe it's a weapon that deals double-damage on all attacks, or gives him +X to hit, or whatever seems to be the problem. But make it cool, so that it looks like you went with item concept first, power second, and just accidentally didn't balance it well. This runs the danger of getting accused of 'playing favorites', however.

3) Mixed opponents. Your mixed melees have both elite and ... not mook, they got rid of 'mook'... what's the 4e term? no matter, I'll call 'em mooks for now... mooks. They're of the same type of critter, and are not readily distinguishable. The one he attacks just happens to be the mook. This runs the danger of getting accused of 'playing favorites', however.

4) Find a different player. Not usually a preferred solution at all.

nedz
2010-11-10, 07:05 PM
There is quite a lot to learn for newbies, however:
Don't pull your punches - He'll learn faster that way, even if it costs him a few characters.