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So two friends and I are playing in a campaign, and I as the DM have run into a rather large problem...

So my friends' party (currently at Lvl 3) consists of a Warlord and a Ranger. The issue comes up in encounters. Basically in every encounter, their general strategy is just have the ranger fire twice using Twin Strike, and then the Warlord allows him to fire a third time, all while kiting around. To add insult to injury, the ranger now has 2 powers that let him dodge out of anything which wants to attack him in melee.

Basically with the restriction of only being able to put a few enemies in each encounter because there are only two players, plus the fact that their effective range is well above every enemy's range, I can't very well make any difficult or interesting encounters.

Everything I have read about rangers so far says to gimp them a little bit by making them fight in environments which don't allow for ranged attacks very well, however this seems like advice for a party of more people, and with this two-person Striker-Enabler party, doing this will seem like a total BS thing to do, basically neutering them completely.

The best thing I can pull off is to bring down the Warlord every encounter, but all that does is make the enemies chase around the ranger like idiots (Move, Charge, Hope to hit, rinse and repeat) while he runs in a circle shooting them. Why try to cut him off? He can't run far enough that the enemies won't be able to catch him because move-charge covers way too much distance, and he never places himself in a corner obviously.

The only thing I can think of that doesn't end up being silly is if I put them against ranged enemies, but whats the fun in "I shoot" then "You shoot" then "I shoot" and so on...

I don't even know what to do at this point, it really just comes down to "can the enemies I put them up against survive the first few volleys enough to put some damage on the PCs.

Two things off the top of my head.

(1) Be more creative about terrain. Design some encounters where ranged attacks are less effective or ineffective -- like a gully in an otherwise dense forest.

(2) Use some monsters that have area control powers that help limit the PCs' mobility. The gnome arcanist from the first MM is a good example.

Such is the nature of playing with a low number of players. But really, there are a LOT of things you could do.

Break his bow. Send them on a quest into the mountains so he can't just buy or build another one, and then break it. Or steal it. Or burn it. Don't do it all the time, and don't do it when he's got a LOT of encounters to fight through, but he's already had who knows how many easy sessions/encounters - it's time to balance that ease with difficulty.

Force his hand in other ways. Send them on an assassination mission and come up with a reason for their target to NOT be riddled with arrows (or arrow wounds) when his body is found. If they're inherently good, have them assassinate an evil warlord or orc or something.

It's not really just about the combat, though that point is easy to forget sometimes. But if you want to go the combat route, terrain is a great option, as Manchu mentioned. Also, traps - he's running from kobolds and shooting them, but they're trying to guide his path into snares and pits.

Magical diseases are always fun, and Papa Nurgle loves all.

A quest in a town where weapon are prohibited: When entering the town, weapons are taken from the PC, they will be given back when they leave. All combat during that quest are fist fight.

A weak but invisible enemy.

In a marsh, where the heroes are in two feet of water/mud, they are attack by mud snake, or another animal hidden in the mud.

A quest that take place inside a small castle or tower. Corridor fighting. Narrow stairs. Impossible to have line of sight to anything further than 15 foots.

Don't forget to add come creature that the ranger will be able to use his bow against. It's really annoying to have a cool character only to have the Game master create encounter that void any power you may have.

 M_Stress wrote:

Don't forget to add come creature that the ranger will be able to use his bow against. It's really annoying to have a cool character only to have the Game master create encounter that void any power you may have.

Yeah, this is really important. I was hesitant at first to offer my "break his bow" advice for this very reason, and decided just to add the part about how you shouldn't do it a lot. But it's just realistic - if a player has taken an "all his eggs in one basket" approach, there are down sides. If you don't EVER exploit the downsides, it devalues generalists. All of a sudden, people start wondering why they would make a jack-of-all-trades character if all of the specialist characters are better within their specialty and are never in a position where they can't take advantage of it.

At the same time, smart enemies will know - this guy is good with a bow, so how can I beat him? This happens in real life combat sports, as well. If an MMA fighter has a really strong boxing background, all of his opponents will probably do whatever it takes to NOT punch with him. They'll try to kick, or take him down, or whatever. It's just smart.

But you don't want to invalidate the choices that the player has made for his character, so this is a delicate matter. He needs to be challenged and, if he's reasonable, will appreciate the challenge in other areas if he just really wants to be good in ONE area.

Well, I would just up the number of monsters and include more skirmishers to keep moving after him and pinning him down.

Also, put them in an enclosed space like a classic dungeon. Make them fight monsters that create rough terrain, or can move freely through rough terrain (lizardfolk with swamp walk). A monster that immobilises players. Monsters that can teleport or mark him for when he shifts might also be useful. But it sounds like to challenge this group you're going to have to veer outside the guidelines for creating encounters.

Don't be afraid to put stuff against them that is higher than their level either, as long as it's not too far above.

Tangent wrote:Break his bow. Send them on a quest into the mountains so he can't just buy or build another one, and then break it. Or steal it. Or burn it. Don't do it all the time, and don't do it when he's got a LOT of encounters to fight through, but he's already had who knows how many easy sessions/encounters - it's time to balance that ease with difficulty.

Don't do this. It is no fun to not be able to play your character. Challenge them, but don't remove their character from the equation. Would you send a Mage/Cleric duo into a Anti-Magic Dungeon just because they handled encounters too easily?

Be creative. If the enemy know anything about the party, they will work against them. Smoke screens, tower shields, etc. Make him work for those hits. Challenge the players through interesting and different encounters; don't just break their toys.

 pretre wrote:

Tangent wrote:Break his bow. Send them on a quest into the mountains so he can't just buy or build another one, and then break it. Or steal it. Or burn it. Don't do it all the time, and don't do it when he's got a LOT of encounters to fight through, but he's already had who knows how many easy sessions/encounters - it's time to balance that ease with difficulty.

Don't do this. It is no fun to not be able to play your character. Challenge them, but don't remove their character from the equation. Would you send a Mage/Cleric duo into a Anti-Magic Dungeon just because they handled encounters too easily?

Be creative. If the enemy know anything about the party, they will work against them. Smoke screens, tower shields, etc. Make him work for those hits. Challenge the players through interesting and different encounters; don't just break their toys.

Would I put them in an anti-magic dungeon? No. Would I place an anti-magic room inside a normal dungeon? Yes. Would I do it specifically to shut down the magic users? No. Would I include it as part of normal dungeon making? Yes.

It's not about invalidating choice completely, it's about making a realistic dungeon that challenges ALL playstyles, and if they've chosen to be good at ONE specific playstyle then, eventually, they will (should) hit a section that all but completely shuts down that playstyle. It allows other styles to shine and asks them to get creative. If they had a more balanced party, there would be no one single section that shuts them down. Choosing to have an unbalanced party is, in many ways, a choice to be shut down in certain circumstances.

But most people miss the point, really. Players that make characters that are really good at one thing don't actually want to be challenged in that area. Their escapist fantasy is that they are the best marksman - they can out-Robin Hood even the other Robin Hoods. They dominate the battlefield, they are too fast to be caught or cornered, and that's AWESOME. They don't really want to be challenged in that area - they actively want to be the best. If they didn't want to be as good as possible, they wouldn't have a 19 dexterity, or whatever.

So "challenging" these players is not really the issue. The issue is finding out what THEY have fun with, talking to them about what YOU have fun with, and finding a way for BOTH of you to have fun. If they ONLY want to be unstoppable in combat and watching them be gods is no fun for you, then the goal is to find a way around that.

"Don't just break their toys" is not inherent, universally good advice. It has its place. Like any tool, it needs to be used correctly.

I can only speak for myself, but I know all of my most memorable gaming moments came when my character was beaten down, at the end of their resources, possibly even after suffering a major defeat, and managed to come back through wits and luck and win the day. The wizard-with-no-spells trope is fun because it forces you to think outside the box and challenges you in different ways. You don't want it every session, but once in a while it is a great thing to add into a game.

My experience (both as a player and as a DM watching other players) exactly.

 pretre wrote:

Tangent wrote:Break his bow. Send them on a quest into the mountains so he can't just buy or build another one, and then break it. Or steal it. Or burn it. Don't do it all the time, and don't do it when he's got a LOT of encounters to fight through, but he's already had who knows how many easy sessions/encounters - it's time to balance that ease with difficulty.

Don't do this. It is no fun to not be able to play your character. Challenge them, but don't remove their character from the equation. Would you send a Mage/Cleric duo into a Anti-Magic Dungeon just because they handled encounters too easily?

Be creative. If the enemy know anything about the party, they will work against them. Smoke screens, tower shields, etc. Make him work for those hits. Challenge the players through interesting and different encounters; don't just break their toys.

I tend to agree with this. It's the playere's responsability to make a character that fits within the game's framework, but it's the GM's responsibility to let them do cool stuff.

Aren't bows less useful in 'built up environments' like, well, dungeons? Have caverns where that range advantage is minimized.

Are there standard rules in the 4th Edition DMG for weather effects on archery? heavy rains/winds would make a bow near-useless, I'd guess.

 Tangent wrote:

 pretre wrote:

Tangent wrote:Break his bow. Send them on a quest into the mountains so he can't just buy or build another one, and then break it. Or steal it. Or burn it. Don't do it all the time, and don't do it when he's got a LOT of encounters to fight through, but he's already had who knows how many easy sessions/encounters - it's time to balance that ease with difficulty.

Don't do this. It is no fun to not be able to play your character. Challenge them, but don't remove their character from the equation. Would you send a Mage/Cleric duo into a Anti-Magic Dungeon just because they handled encounters too easily?

Be creative. If the enemy know anything about the party, they will work against them. Smoke screens, tower shields, etc. Make him work for those hits. Challenge the players through interesting and different encounters; don't just break their toys.

Would I put them in an anti-magic dungeon? No. Would I place an anti-magic room inside a normal dungeon? Yes. Would I do it specifically to shut down the magic users? No. Would I include it as part of normal dungeon making? Yes.

One anti-magic room is significantly different from breaking their bow and sending them on a bow-less quest. One room? Part of one session. Bow-less quest? Most of a session or longer.

Bow-less room? Bow-less encounter? Bow-less town? Sure. Break their toys because you can't come up with a different way to approach it? Not so much.

 Balance wrote:

 pretre wrote:

Tangent wrote:Break his bow. Send them on a quest into the mountains so he can't just buy or build another one, and then break it. Or steal it. Or burn it. Don't do it all the time, and don't do it when he's got a LOT of encounters to fight through, but he's already had who knows how many easy sessions/encounters - it's time to balance that ease with difficulty.

Don't do this. It is no fun to not be able to play your character. Challenge them, but don't remove their character from the equation. Would you send a Mage/Cleric duo into a Anti-Magic Dungeon just because they handled encounters too easily?

Be creative. If the enemy know anything about the party, they will work against them. Smoke screens, tower shields, etc. Make him work for those hits. Challenge the players through interesting and different encounters; don't just break their toys.

I tend to agree with this. It's the playere's responsability to make a character that fits within the game's framework, but it's the GM's responsibility to let them do cool stuff.

Aren't bows less useful in 'built up environments' like, well, dungeons? Have caverns where that range advantage is minimized.

Are there standard rules in the 4th Edition DMG for weather effects on archery? heavy rains/winds would make a bow near-useless, I'd guess.

ALL the time? They should have free reign literally 100% of the time?

This is just the age-old argument about stealing the Wizard's spellbook. The Wizard "needs" his spellbook in order to play his character (which is ridiculous anyway - it's a roleplaying game, not a spellcasting game) because the concept is so tightly tied to the book. But it's not like the Wizard's enemies don't know this - they know he needs his spellbook to be effective in combat, they want to kill him, and they can't seem to beat his effectiveness. The most obvious answer to their problem is to target the spellbook. But if the DM does this, he's not allowing the player to play his character.

But this is silly. A character, like a person, is multi-faceted. The Ranger is not a bow. He *should* have some sort of personality and other skills, including creativity and problem solving skills. Taking the bow should not prevent him from displaying his other facets.

I said "should," though. There's a chance that this player didn't really want to make a ranger - he wanted to make a bow. If that's the case, and that's NOT the kind of game that you want to run (ie, it's not fun for you to watch him continuously succeed at being a bow), then this should be a conversation about how to talk to him about that so that you can both have fun, and not about how to further challenge his efficiency as a war machine.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 pretre wrote:

 Tangent wrote:

 pretre wrote:

Tangent wrote:Break his bow. Send them on a quest into the mountains so he can't just buy or build another one, and then break it. Or steal it. Or burn it. Don't do it all the time, and don't do it when he's got a LOT of encounters to fight through, but he's already had who knows how many easy sessions/encounters - it's time to balance that ease with difficulty.

Don't do this. It is no fun to not be able to play your character. Challenge them, but don't remove their character from the equation. Would you send a Mage/Cleric duo into a Anti-Magic Dungeon just because they handled encounters too easily?

Be creative. If the enemy know anything about the party, they will work against them. Smoke screens, tower shields, etc. Make him work for those hits. Challenge the players through interesting and different encounters; don't just break their toys.

Would I put them in an anti-magic dungeon? No. Would I place an anti-magic room inside a normal dungeon? Yes. Would I do it specifically to shut down the magic users? No. Would I include it as part of normal dungeon making? Yes.

One anti-magic room is significantly different from breaking their bow and sending them on a bow-less quest. One room? Part of one session. Bow-less quest? Most of a session or longer.

Bow-less room? Bow-less encounter? Bow-less town? Sure. Break their toys because you can't come up with a different way to approach it? Not so much.

I feel like you're reading posts that I didn't write.

 Tangent wrote:

ALL the time? They should have free reign literally 100% of the time?

Nobody said that except you. We said you should be challenging them and making things difficult by occasionally taking away their bow. You said you were going to take it away for an entire quest. We disagreed.

This is just the age-old argument about stealing the Wizard's spellbook. The Wizard "needs" his spellbook in order to play his character (which is ridiculous anyway - it's a roleplaying game, not a spellcasting game) because the concept is so tightly tied to the book. But it's not like the Wizard's enemies don't know this - they know he needs his spellbook to be effective in combat, they want to kill him, and they can't seem to beat his effectiveness. The most obvious answer to their problem is to target the spellbook. But if the DM does this, he's not allowing the player to play his character.

This is a game. The most obvious answer is not the most fun. If the DM always does the most obvious thing and monsters/NPCs always kill down PCs, etc so on, then you're gonna have a bad time. We don't play D&D (for the most part) for gritty realism. We play it to create a collaborative story and have fun. If one side removes the other side's ability to participate, then it is not going to be a good experience.

But this is silly. A character, like a person, is multi-faceted. The Ranger is not a bow. He *should* have some sort of personality and other skills, including creativity and problem solving skills. Taking the bow should not prevent him from displaying his other facets.

I'm sure he does. But his central characteristic is the work he put into his bow. Challenge him to use his other skills? Sure. Take away that which defines him for long periods of time? Ouch.

I said "should," though. There's a chance that this player didn't really want to make a ranger - he wanted to make a bow. If that's the case, and that's NOT the kind of game that you want to run (ie, it's not fun for you to watch him continuously succeed at being a bow), then this should be a conversation about how to talk to him about that so that you can both have fun, and not about how to further challenge his efficiency as a war machine.

Sure. This is exactly true. If you don't have the same desires for a game, then you are never going to have a good time because you will constantly be at odds.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tangent wrote:

I feel like you're reading posts that I didn't write.

 Tangent wrote:
Break his bow. Send them on a quest into the mountains so he can't just buy or build another one, and then break it. Or steal it. Or burn it. Don't do it all the time, and don't do it when he's got a LOT of encounters to fight through, but he's already had who knows how many easy sessions/encounters - it's time to balance that ease with difficulty.

Is that something you didn't write? Because Dakka seems to think you wrote it.

 pretre wrote:

 Tangent wrote:
Break his bow. Send them on a quest into the mountains so he can't just buy or build another one, and then break it. Or steal it. Or burn it. Don't do it all the time, and don't do it when he's got a LOT of encounters to fight through, but he's already had who knows how many easy sessions/encounters - it's time to balance that ease with difficulty.

Is that something you didn't write? Because Dakka seems to think you wrote it.

Which part was that, again?

I'm clearly advocating sending them on a quest into the mountains, letting him use his bow for the majority, and then removing it for a small portion. Clearly. Every other post I've made supports this as well. Dakka may know what I wrote, but it's definitely you that's misinterpreting.

 Tangent wrote:

 pretre wrote:

 Tangent wrote:
Break his bow. Send them on a quest into the mountains so he can't just buy or build another one, and then break it. Or steal it. Or burn it. Don't do it all the time, and don't do it when he's got a LOT of encounters to fight through, but he's already had who knows how many easy sessions/encounters - it's time to balance that ease with difficulty.

Is that something you didn't write? Because Dakka seems to think you wrote it.

Which part was that, again?

Let's break it down:

Break his bow. (You are advocating just breaking it in general.)

Send them on a quest into the mountains so he can't just buy or build another one, and then break it. (you are advocating isolating the player so he cannot resolve the issue and then breaking his bow. For an entire quest. This is fundamentally what I disagree with. Quest for me would equal most of a session or multiple sessions. That is no fun for the player.)

Or steal it. Or burn it. Don't do it all the time, and don't do it when he's got a LOT of encounters to fight through, but he's already had who knows how many easy sessions/encounters - it's time to balance that ease with difficulty. (This is the only time you are providing any mitigation for that and from context it looks like you are just saying don't make every quest a no-bow one, but an occasional entire quest where the character can't do his thing is okay. I disagree with that.

I'm clearly advocating sending them on a quest into the mountains, letting him use his bow for the majority, and then removing it for a small portion. Clearly. Every other post I've made supports this as well. Dakka may know what I wrote, but it's definitely you that's misinterpreting.

But that's not what you wrote or what I was objecting to when I objected to your post originally. As I have shown.

Tangent wrote:

 M_Stress wrote:

Don't forget to add come creature that the ranger will be able to use his bow against. It's really annoying to have a cool character only to have the Game master create encounter that void any power you may have.

Yeah, this is really important. I was hesitant at first to offer my "break his bow" advice for this very reason, and decided just to add the part about how you shouldn't do it a lot... But you don't want to invalidate the choices that the player has made for his character, so this is a delicate matter...

I posted all of that before the first post that you made.

pretre wrote:Send them on a quest into the mountains so he can't just buy or build another one, and then break it. (you are advocating isolating the player so he cannot resolve the issue and then breaking his bow. For an entire quest. This is fundamentally what I disagree with. Quest for me would equal most of a session or multiple sessions. That is no fun for the player.)

I just didn't say entire quest, man. You're reading words that aren't there. That's not what I meant, and that should be clear by now, no? I also clarified, as I quoted above, in another post made before you posted even once.

pretre wrote:

I'm clearly advocating sending them on a quest into the mountains, letting him use his bow for the majority, and then removing it for a small portion. Clearly. Every other post I've made supports this as well. Dakka may know what I wrote, but it's definitely you that's misinterpreting.

But that's not what you wrote or what I was objecting to when I objected to your post originally. As I have shown.

I mean, you read a single post (which already contained some clarification), ignored another clarifying post(s), and misinterpreted my advice. We don't even disagree on the substance, so I'm not sure what you're on about.

Here's how this conversation has felt like to me:

Tangent: Break his bow but if you do it too much you'll invalidate his character, and you don't want to do that.
Pretre: No way, man! If you break his bow THAT much you'll totally invalidate his character!
Tangent: I didn't say to break his bow that much - I even specifically said NOT to.
Pretre: Orly? *quotes context-less post*
Tangent: ...Really.

Even with your later clarifications, it was clear that you were pro-break his bow. I am not pro-break his bow. That is the difference.

That's about as basic as I can break it down for you.

pretre wrote:We said you should be challenging them and making things difficult by occasionally taking away their bow.

Assuming you already know that I'm using the word "break" as a synonym for "make the bow unavailable", why would you post the above? This seems to clearly state your position, and it is in line with my position. You are also pro break-the-bow.

 Tangent wrote:

pretre wrote:We said you should be challenging them and making things difficult by occasionally taking away their bow.

Assuming you already know that I'm using the word "break" as a synonym for "make the bow unavailable", why would you post the above? This seems to clearly state your position, and it is in line with my position. You are also pro break-the-bow.

Break is not synonymous with make the bow unavailable. I did not assume that because that is not an obvious or usual synonym. Break is synonyms with fracture, splinter, shiver, crush, shatter, smash, etc. A much better word to use would have been 'Take'. With that clearer language, I would agree with you.

For example, I said 'Taking away their bow'. Taking away implies that you get it back. Break implies that you have to get a new one because yours is broken/smashed/reduced to pieces. Taking something away can last for a short time (one fight). Breaking is going to last a bit longer since they now have to get a new bow. (go to the bow store, recraft one, etc.)

TLDR? If you meant Break to be synonymous with 'Make the bow unavailable', then that is the crux of our misunderstanding.

That is definitely what I meant. I tried to get this point across in my first post:

 Tangent wrote:
Break his bow... Or steal it. Or burn it.

I meant for all of those options to illustrate that it doesn't matter how the bow is made unavailable. I almost added "or whatever" to the end but didn't for some reason. Also, where I mentioned being in the mountains so he can't just make a new one was supposed to illustrate the temporary nature of being bow-less - there will come a point where he's no longer in the mountains and may have access to wood. Or whatever. But even breaking the bow is temporary (too temporary) if you do it in a forest, for example, and ends up being akin to simply taking it away and then giving it back.

Basically, I just didn't think I would have to spell it out like this in such a detailed manner (that's not meant to be a jab at you).

Another easy way is to reverse the situation. Make it where he is free to shoot at everything but whether by volume of fire or accuracy, it would not be healthy for him to sit back and fire.. Something like approaching a bridge - (example only) with 2 to 4 melee creatures blocking their way but backed up by 10 or 20 goblin archers.. crappy sure but sheer weight of fire it is not good to be the one threat to them. A good one is a magic user with area effect spells... he is more than happy to pot shot an archer but he is going to put his meat shield at risk if he blasts too near to them...

maybe this was a leftover from 3e, but I don't think my group ever did much 'bow' work in 4e. Our only ranger was a dual-weapon close-ranged blender. We tended to rely on the spell-casters for long-range offensive power.

Definitely your group. A bow ranger (especially an Elf bow ranger) is probably one of the more damaging (and annoying for a GM) builds to deal with. Iconic though, so it's hard to blame the player.

You can also make ammunition an issue. Actually track his arrows. Make sure he knows his quiver only holds 20-40 arrows, and he'll have to re-supply back in a town. If he regularly shoots three arrows in a round, they are going to disappear quickly. Start making him think "Perhaps it might be better to stab this sucker in the face with a hunting knife and conserve my ammunition" or make him start going for single-shot, multiple damage die powers, which are generally less powerful than multi-shot powers but won't eat away your arrows so fast. Obviously, he still gets to be an archer. He still gets to shoot things with regularity. But, he may find that every now and then, it may be smarter to stick his enemy in the face and save up his arrows so that he won't find, three-fourths of the way through the adventure, he has no shots left, and has to whip out the hunting knife for the rest of the time. If he's smart, he will have arrows throughout the adventure, but occasionally he will have to resort to a melee weapon that he is less skilled at. He's bow is still there, he can still use it, but he will find that it is better to occasionally resort to something he isn't good at.

Also, quivers of plenty do not exist. At all.

zeekill wrote:
So two friends and I are playing in a campaign, and I as the DM have run into a rather large problem...

So my friends' party (currently at Lvl 3) consists of a Warlord and a Ranger. The issue comes up in encounters. Basically in every encounter, their general strategy is just have the ranger fire twice using Twin Strike, and then the Warlord allows him to fire a third time, all while kiting around. To add insult to injury, the ranger now has 2 powers that let him dodge out of anything which wants to attack him in melee.

Basically with the restriction of only being able to put a few enemies in each encounter because there are only two players, plus the fact that their effective range is well above every enemy's range, I can't very well make any difficult or interesting encounters.

Everything I have read about rangers so far says to gimp them a little bit by making them fight in environments which don't allow for ranged attacks very well, however this seems like advice for a party of more people, and with this two-person Striker-Enabler party, doing this will seem like a total BS thing to do, basically neutering them completely.

The best thing I can pull off is to bring down the Warlord every encounter, but all that does is make the enemies chase around the ranger like idiots (Move, Charge, Hope to hit, rinse and repeat) while he runs in a circle shooting them. Why try to cut him off? He can't run far enough that the enemies won't be able to catch him because move-charge covers way too much distance, and he never places himself in a corner obviously.

The only thing I can think of that doesn't end up being silly is if I put them against ranged enemies, but whats the fun in "I shoot" then "You shoot" then "I shoot" and so on...

I don't even know what to do at this point, it really just comes down to "can the enemies I put them up against survive the first few volleys enough to put some damage on the PCs.

Not to ignore the earlier advice in this thread (some of which is of use), but... that's a terrible party.

A few things; 1) How is the Warlord allowing a second Ranged Basic Attack? If he is using Direct the Strike (which allows RBA's), they enemy has to be in 10 squares of the Warlord. Any enemy can close that distance in 1 round, and DtS is a ranged action (and therefore would invite an attack of opportunity if the warlord gets based).

2) I don't understand " their effective range is well above every enemy's range"; don't Orcs use longbows in your setting?

But to be honest, it really comes down to a terrible party composition. A striker and a lazylord means pretty anemic damage and... well, that's it.

That's the biggest problem I have with the advice people are giving above: this "party" is so dependent on the ranger's DPR that anything you do that impacts that basically cripples the entire party. They are basically just a glass cannon and a loader.

My advice? Make them run an additional character each, with the stipulation that it has to be a different role then the original. (In fairness, getting more people is far and away the best option, but quite possible not one available.) Do it sooner rather then later, because it's just going to get more and more frustrating for you as you go higher in level and you try and use monsters that can't be kited, casters of any sort, or basically... anything.