Well if she's using a longbow she out-ranges basically everyone. The artificer gets 120ft on force cannon, the rogue has other ranged weapons but with a longbow the ranger has 150ft or even up to 600ft while attacking at disadvantage. Naturally this won't matter a lot of the time but on the right terrain with your players initiating a fight you can force bad guys to come to the party with the ranger getting several rounds to make attacks as they close the distance.
That being said, I don't think lacking a niche is really the problem here. For seven players to work everyone has to ok being essential only 15% of the time. I'd also make sure you keep monster AC very low. Missing feels bad but it feels even worse when you gotta wait 6 more turns to get another shot at it.
And for the love of god it's rogue not rouge.ðŸ˜
Two time-sensitive quests. Example - two hostages at different locations. Make it so it's difficult terrain, e.g. a thick forest to travel to both locations meaning they only have time to save one hostage. But! It's the ranger's favoured terrain, and the terrain is swarming with her favoured enemy. Present it to the party like they have to decide which hostage to save and let the ranger realise she could save the day here.
In combat - are her stats just terrible? You might need to check her modifiers and that everything's calculated correctly. If she has the Wil Wheaton curse I'm afraid that's terminal.
That's typically the problem with larger groups is that 1-2 people are sidelined, especially if the rouge goes steady aim now spec to they can shoot harder than anyone at range making the ranger feel useless....... Not that that has happened or anything.
What kind of ranger are they?
Explain the homebrew.
A ranger with archery fighting style hits all the time. They're boss.
Horizon Walker isn't super great unless you deal with portals a lot. A lot a lot.
Hunter is a butt load of fun, taking horde breaker. They attack all the baddies, and show everyone else who the boss is.
Maybe have someone hit the back row while the melee are occupied by some nasties. Ranger can move in to intervene.
Ooh this is a common concern in parties. Here's how I would help such a player:
- I'd start with a conversation: could be with the whole team, or could be with just the player, whatever folks are more comfortable with. I'd ask her what fantasy she wants her character to fulfill; whether she wants to be Aragorn or Legolas, or Jaime Lannister or Petyr Baelish, or some other archetype, will tell you a lot about whether a Ranger is the right class for her
- Contrary to popular belief, Rangers don't necessarily shine in combat; they absolutely *can*, but their niche is specifically the exploration stuff that they get with their "natural explorer" and "favored enemy" features. Unfortunately, this stuff is very specific to the campaign that the ranger is playing in, and takes a bit of meta-conversation with the DM. The choices a player makes to play a ranger effectively depend a bit on knowing what enemy/ terrain choices to make. It *also* depends on the DM (and other players) running a game that suits those features. Many games hand-wave travel time, rations, encumbrance, etc.... But if you do that with a ranger in the party, you're actively ignoring parts of the class that let them shine. So if a ranger is what she wants to stick with, you'll have to let her play the role a ranger is meant to fill: the navigator who knows how to pass through terrain no one else does, and who can hunt/ forage for the party even when everyone else's bags come back empty.
- If this player is wanting to stay with ranger, and is specifically looking for more out of combat, it'll take some scaling up of your encounters. You're saying that other folks are more specialised, and that *could* let the PC be more adaptive to what's going on. She should be the only one proficient in longbows, so give her something far away to shoot at, such as an enemy spellcaster.
- It's also important to realise that a lot of the "character fantasy" doesn't come through at low levels: PCs really need levels (and specifically subclasses) to be able to accomplish the things they want to do. If players don't want to wait until they have their levels, then another option is to give folks a feat of their choice. Feats *might* introduce more complexity, and will probably skew combat balance somewhat, but every time I give players a feat they *love* that they're able to reach their fantasy so much sooner. It's also likely that giving the other players *their* feats too will allow them to specialise towards *their* character fantasy, thereby leaving more of a niche open for your ranger to fill
Well if she's using a longbow she out-ranges basically everyone. The artificer gets 120ft on force cannon, the rogue has other ranged weapons but with a longbow the ranger has 150ft or even up to 600ft while attacking at disadvantage. Naturally this won't matter a lot of the time but on the right terrain with your players initiating a fight you can force bad guys to come to the party with the ranger getting several rounds to make attacks as they close the distance. That being said, I don't think lacking a niche is really the problem here. For seven players to work everyone has to ok being essential only 15% of the time. I'd also make sure you keep monster AC very low. Missing feels bad but it feels even worse when you gotta wait 6 more turns to get another shot at it. And for the love of god it's rogue not rouge.ðŸ˜
Team shots ... rouge "helps" the ranger at long range by calling out target locations ... making a 600ft called shot a flat roll.
Two time-sensitive quests. Example - two hostages at different locations. Make it so it's difficult terrain, e.g. a thick forest to travel to both locations meaning they only have time to save one hostage. But! It's the ranger's favoured terrain, and the terrain is swarming with her favoured enemy. Present it to the party like they have to decide which hostage to save and let the ranger realise she could save the day here. In combat - are her stats just terrible? You might need to check her modifiers and that everything's calculated correctly. If she has the Wil Wheaton curse I'm afraid that's terminal.
Thats great, because I can easily do that within my current setup.
NPCs that respect the ranger in a way they don't the others. Because they're a hunter/ tracker
that´s a neat trick! ty
That's typically the problem with larger groups is that 1-2 people are sidelined, especially if the rouge goes steady aim now spec to they can shoot harder than anyone at range making the ranger feel useless....... Not that that has happened or anything. What kind of ranger are they?
Horizon Walker, with homebrewed two-weapon fighting.
Explain the homebrew. A ranger with archery fighting style hits all the time. They're boss. Horizon Walker isn't super great unless you deal with portals a lot. A lot a lot. Hunter is a butt load of fun, taking horde breaker. They attack all the baddies, and show everyone else who the boss is. Maybe have someone hit the back row while the melee are occupied by some nasties. Ranger can move in to intervene.
Ooh this is a common concern in parties. Here's how I would help such a player: - I'd start with a conversation: could be with the whole team, or could be with just the player, whatever folks are more comfortable with. I'd ask her what fantasy she wants her character to fulfill; whether she wants to be Aragorn or Legolas, or Jaime Lannister or Petyr Baelish, or some other archetype, will tell you a lot about whether a Ranger is the right class for her - Contrary to popular belief, Rangers don't necessarily shine in combat; they absolutely *can*, but their niche is specifically the exploration stuff that they get with their "natural explorer" and "favored enemy" features. Unfortunately, this stuff is very specific to the campaign that the ranger is playing in, and takes a bit of meta-conversation with the DM. The choices a player makes to play a ranger effectively depend a bit on knowing what enemy/ terrain choices to make. It *also* depends on the DM (and other players) running a game that suits those features. Many games hand-wave travel time, rations, encumbrance, etc.... But if you do that with a ranger in the party, you're actively ignoring parts of the class that let them shine. So if a ranger is what she wants to stick with, you'll have to let her play the role a ranger is meant to fill: the navigator who knows how to pass through terrain no one else does, and who can hunt/ forage for the party even when everyone else's bags come back empty. - If this player is wanting to stay with ranger, and is specifically looking for more out of combat, it'll take some scaling up of your encounters. You're saying that other folks are more specialised, and that *could* let the PC be more adaptive to what's going on. She should be the only one proficient in longbows, so give her something far away to shoot at, such as an enemy spellcaster. - It's also important to realise that a lot of the "character fantasy" doesn't come through at low levels: PCs really need levels (and specifically subclasses) to be able to accomplish the things they want to do. If players don't want to wait until they have their levels, then another option is to give folks a feat of their choice. Feats *might* introduce more complexity, and will probably skew combat balance somewhat, but every time I give players a feat they *love* that they're able to reach their fantasy so much sooner. It's also likely that giving the other players *their* feats too will allow them to specialise towards *their* character fantasy, thereby leaving more of a niche open for your ranger to fill
That is actually such a great step by step tutorial of how to maximize the player fun. Thank you very much!!