Perhaps talk with the player and explain the situation? Maybe have him play a "weaker" class and pose it as a challenge of his abilities while the players with less system mastery get "stronger" ones?
Not at all. I, as a player, do it for my group. My characters for the last five years have been Rogue, Fighter, Rogue, & Inquisitor (which is seen as almost too good by my group). I just tend to put together more optimized characters than some of the people I play with who like to put together characters with less concessions to viability to maintain their vision for the characters.
Neither way is wrong, but if one person doesn't fit the mold of the rest of the group, somebody has to give in and fix it. You can ask the group to do it or the one person. Stroke his ego a bit, that should help. ;)
I think a large portion of these issues tend not to be that the character is better per se, but rather that they easily hog all the spotlight, especially if they're wizards or similar (and optimisers tend to like the big W). If that is the case, one idea might be to suggest to the player to play a more supporting role that enables teammates; a battlefield controller wizard can easily make unoptimized rogues feel useless, but a buffer wizard will instead allow said rogue to shine through invisibility and haste. Suggesring this as an alternative to playing "harder" classes might feel less like you forcing him to suck. Id suggest both (and have done so successfully previously as a DM); it might be that he'd jump at the challenge of making the best vanilla monk possible, or he might find it perfectly fine to make a superoptimized buffer bard or maybe combine the challlenges and try to make the perfect healer.
Basically, i see two kinds of optimizers:
Those that like to optimize to become as powerful as possible and have as high numbers as possible and those that like to make a specific *thing* as powerful as possible. If hes in the second group, optimizing a vanilla monk might be as exciting as optimizing a god wizard. Or it doesnt have to be class limitation it could be something else.
But talk with him. Be clear that youre not dissing his preffered playstyle, but ask something like "how can we make the campaign so that you can enjoy finding powerful mechanical options without the others feeling overshadowed?"
Be nice and honest and try to reach a concensus in goal and method rather than a harsh compromise in rules.
Theo, is it your character? Is everyone being mean to you because your PGing is killing their RPing?
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^that's uncalled for and sounds really demeaning.
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I wouldn't say your character is better then most. Yours just shines more, for now. There will be fights that the better chr will just no beable to do anything. Well he can do something but not as effective. And just because he's a metagamer, don't chew him out just yet. Get him more involved with the rp. Minus will even it out.
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^that's uncalled for and sounds really demeaning.
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I wasn't trying to be mean, just asking a question based off of a casual conversational observation. It's fine if it is his character, but if it is his, then I could offer better solutions to help balance his playing experience. If its not his character, then I can offer the appropriate amount of sympathy/ empathy for his then obvious rant.
I wasn't trying to be mean, just asking a question based off of a casual conversational observation. It's fine if it is his character, but if it is his, then I could offer better solutions to help balance his playing experience. If its not his character, then I can offer the appropriate amount of sympathy/ empathy for his then obvious rant.^that's uncalled for and sounds really demeaning.
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How is this mean????????
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I'm in that kind of situation as well. I like numbers but, the rest of the group is more roleplay based. Long run to me it's fine because, I just like hearing the story. So being asked to town down my power is no big deal. When it comes to handing out items / gold I pass up on items i may need for others to get them with the understanding that they give me a little extra gold. This lets them get good items to match my numbers but, also lets me get gold for when we get to towns. works out well.
I'm in that kind of situation as well. I like numbers but, the rest of the group is more roleplay based. Long run to me it's fine because, I just like hearing the story. So being asked to town down my power is no big deal. When it comes to handing out items / gold I pass up on items i may need for others to get them with the understanding that they give me a little extra gold. This lets them get good items to match my numbers but, also lets me get gold for when we get to towns. works out well.
Have you considered optimizing your survivability or ability to maximize the potential of your team mates. RP wise it would translate into a paternal/maternal like way of reacting to your party and those who threaten them.
How is this mean????????I wasn't trying to be mean, just asking a question based off of a casual conversational observation. It's fine if it is his character, but if it is his, then I could offer better solutions to help balance his playing experience. If its not his character, then I can offer the appropriate amount of sympathy/ empathy for his then obvious rant.^that's uncalled for and sounds really demeaning.
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I could see someone interpreting my comment as mocking and condescending. No big deal, I just don't want you to take my meaning wrong.
Sounds like the DM needs to adjust fire as it were. Are you looking for some ideas to bring him? Or is everyone fine as it stands?
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you dont nerf him, you play his weaknesses more.
ranged characters are very very weak. obscuring mist is a first level spell that will take him out of the fight for a few rounds. ray of enfeeblement will also hurt his dps by making his composite bow less effective. create pit will hurt him due to fighters having a low reflex and force him to climb out and keep fighting wasting a round or 2 of his dps. they have MANY ways to stop a ranged character from owning everything with arrows, and doing so wont ruin his fun. it will force him to start countering the things that he never knew were a bane to his archer.
in conclusion just play smart as a gm and you can , when you find it appropriate, stop his dps and force him to spend time countering your counter measures. so dont think "hes to powerful for my npcs", think about how your npcs would fight a group like this.
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I'm in that kind of situation as well. I like numbers but, the rest of the group is more roleplay based. Long run to me it's fine because, I just like hearing the story. So being asked to town down my power is no big deal. When it comes to handing out items / gold I pass up on items i may need for others to get them with the understanding that they give me a little extra gold. This lets them get good items to match my numbers but, also lets me get gold for when we get to towns. works out well.Have you considered optimizing your survivability or ability to maximize the potential of your team mates. RP wise it would translate into a paternal/maternal like way of reacting to your party and those who threaten them.
For the character in question optimizing his survivability started up after level 5. As the Gm found ways to push my character into melee as a ranged character. I didn't think of it that way, Thank You. I will have to start playing/acting that up when RP is going on.
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you dont nerf him, you play his weaknesses more.
Yeah ofc, that is what the dm has done a few battles now. But the problem that than occurs is that its not logical for the enemies to first round target the ranger-lookalike. You take out the bomb-flinging madman or the spellcaster first. Only logical.
And it is not that easy to nerf a player. Fx a hold-spell becouse of low willsave is easy, but to take out a high-number player for (most likely) the entire duration of the fight is a bit mean if you do it every time it is supposed to be a "main-fight".
And than it is the fact that the dm cant build an encounter based on the chance that a hold-spell works or dont work. If it works than the encounter is way to hard for the rest of the party as we lose 40% of the dps, if it fails than the encounter is done in 2 rounds.
thats not true at all.
obscuring mist takes ALL ranged characters out of combat for a few rounds, hindering terrain will stop melee, any person who has a stonghold or a base of operations, and isnt a complete dumbass, would have counter mesures in place for stopping assults.
should mooks be countering him every time? no, but im not talking about mooks. if he is one hitting the BBEG then the BBEG needs to have stong defenses in place other then AC and HP.
this is my point, you dont do it every time. if he kills mooks in 2 round great, weak combats shouldnt be long, but that BBEG should have defenses in place, magic or mundane, to stop his dps. if this is the case then his gear wouldnt matter much because the gm would be playing in a realistic way that would force the archer to move or try to counter a counter-mesure, so he can actually use his dps.
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The way to solve this is the same way you solve any OOC problem:
Talk to the players and brainstorm an acceptable solution.
The solutions that readily present themselves to one PC being better than the rest of the group are: 1. Nerf the PC, and/or 2. Boost the group.
Number 1 can be as simple as asking the player to hold back. Don't always use the best tactics or killer combos. Or he could rebuild his character to a slightly less optimized build.
For number 2, the GM could help the other players rebuild their characters so they can compete with the powerful PC.
The solution I like best, though it requires the most work on the part of the GM, have the GM use his powers of GM Fiat to simply make the rest of the group better without changing their character. Give the other players boons, or bonuses to hit, special magic items, or unique abilities to bring them to the level of of the powerful PC; then adjust encounters appropriately.
I hear fickle wind is great. Blindness too. You can also charm the ranged or dominate. Have his fighter become the BBEG ;). Or have a dragon just eat him. For rp flavor.
What level is the archer in question? +21 damage is an awful lot at low levels...but not so much as you get into mid/upper levels. If it's lower, I'm curious what he's doing to get it.
That's true. Plus its a fighter archer. So in all honesty a fighter archer will be able to dish out damage pretty damn well.
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What level is the archer in question? +21 damage is an awful lot at low levels...but not so much as you get into mid/upper levels. If it's lower, I'm curious what he's doing to get it.That's true. Plus its a fighter archer. So in all honesty a fighter archer will be able to dish out damage pretty damn well.
Fighter archers can rock hard...and still have enough capability in melee for when they need it. Still...I know of ways to get that +21...but at lower levels, without magic? Hmmm. That's hard.
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Mmm... +4 from strength(mighty composite longbow), +2 weapon specialization, +1 bow, +6 from deadly aim, +2 from weapon training, +2 from bracers of archery, 1d8+2d6 elemental damage. That puts you at a minimum of 20 damage (maximum 37), just from class features, +3 longbow, a fairly cheap bracer item, and 2 feats. That's fairly optimal for a build, but it's not "broken" or anything. Looks like a solid build that's designed to pincushion things around level 10. The funny thing is that even a much less "optimal" build could crush those numbers with a little interparty buffing and cooperation.
looks good...but at 10, about what I'd expect.
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What level is the archer in question? +21 damage is an awful lot at low levels...but not so much as you get into mid/upper levels. If it's lower, I'm curious what he's doing to get it.The fighter is lvl 8 like the rest of the group.
I am no chr-creation master and i have not played a fighter but he has a comp longbow with 7draw and serius strength. And ofc a lot of feats like deadly aim.
He also uses a wand of gravity bow and now wants an item that makes his threatrange 19-20.
If i were to cast haste he is a slaughtermachine, while the antipaladin just stands there like a retarded bafoon :P
He also is some kind of archer fighter archtype (or prestige class). Able to have reach on AofO and trip with the bow etc.
Its not the fighter in itself that is broken tbh, its just that the other players dont madly focus on "perfection" as he does.
At 8th, +21 is very good, but hardly overpowered...still, if he doesn't mesh well, I can see where it can be a problem. That's only about the minimum of the rest of the party...of four, total? So, the average minimum for the rest of the party is +7? That's low...but it sort of depends on what classes they are, and what they're doing. When the antipaladin smites, what's his minimum damage? That should be reasonably scary...I'm hoping he at least has a magic weapon...and a Str bonus...
If the player of the antipaladin can't seem to do anything in combat, maybe you need the fighter to compensate.
Also have the DM check environment rules. I find a lot of the time when archers shine, it's because the environment is like an open plains on a bright day with no wind. If a lot of fights are that way the archer will no doubt shred things, but consider the following:
- A forest severely limits the maximum range the ranged character can spot and shoot at enemies, and allows enemies to take cover more easily.
- Even a strong wind applies a -2 penalty to all ranged attacks, and a severe wind (which are fairly common where I live, not really some kind of extreme weather) applies a -4 penalty. -4 is a LOT.
- Lower light conditions reduce how far the character can see quite severely; I don't know how you run the perception rules (RAW they're frakked up as heck so some kind of house rule you probably use) so this might be of limited usefulness.
- Rain applies a -4 penalty on ranged attacks.
- Fog basically removes ranged attacks from the game. Even a lighter mist should provide concealment.
What are the other characters and what are they doing? If some of what they're doing is buffing him to make him more effective, then it only looks as if he's doing this on his own. If he's doing this all by himself and the rest of the party is irrelevant, THEN you have a problem, and it may be a good idea to do things that reduce the archer's effectiveness.
Dungeons and other underground terrains often have limited line of sight, and limited line of fire. If he can't see them he can't shoot them.
Enemies can hunker down behind walls or trees or fortifications to gain a cover bonus.
At this level, miss chances are very effective defenses -- invisibility, displacement, blur, concealment. Enemies can hide and snipe. Stand up behind a wall (move action), shoot (attack action), drop prone (free action). Archer has to switch to taking readied actions instead of full attacking.
Someone can try to take away his bow in battle -- for instance, a wizard with a telekinesis spell, or an enemy with disarm. Or a shatter spell directed against his quiver -- if the arrows are scattered at his feet it's a move action to pick each one up, which will slow him down a lot.
A number of relatively low-level spells can block line of sight, and it's reasonable to assume that a smart enemy worried about archers will have some of them available. Wnd wall, in particular, nerfs archers badly. An enemy wizard at this level might have Improved Familiar and a dust mephit, or an apprentice casting wind wall, or throwing up a wall of fire himself (blocks vision, archer has to move through it, taking damage, and possibly expose himself to attack from a wizard's bodyguard, to take a shot).
A lot of archer power comes from multiple shots. Just making him move somehow, so he only gets off one shot a round, will reduce his damage severely. Someone casting one of the many noxious cloud spells available (stinking cloud, cloudkill) not only blocks line of sight but damages him and forces him to move.
Some swarms are completely immune to weapon damage. Try using some of them and see what happens.
Enemies with DR/blunt or DR/slashing will subtly reduce the archer's damage output. Or bigger elementals with DR/-. A troll archer stalking him through the forest with regeneration (running away each time he gets injured, healing up, then returning to the fight) can be nasty.
Put up a mirror image build -- a couple of enemy archers just below the PCs level. See what the party does about them, and use those tactics yourself a few encounters later.
Again, don't do this all the time. The player built Robin Hood, who OUGHT to be very effective with a bow. Give him a chance to shine. But give enemies a chance to react to the legend of this mighty archer and his deadly arrows too.
Ok, that was from the DM's perspective.
But I see that the OP is another player who's worried about being rendered irrelevant by the archer, in that case...
Option 1: roll with the flow. Do things that make the archer even more effective (haste gives him an extra attack, every time he does 21 extra damage because of your attack, that's damage you did). Dispel magic to get rid of enemy defenses (like all the concealment spells), various spells to reduce enemy AC and make it more likely for the archer's second and third attacks to hit. Cast flame arrow on his ammo and watch each of his attacks do even more damage -- which is really your contribution. Any time the archer shines, reflect that it's partly 'cause you made him shine.
Then look for ways to be more effective in other situations. Archery isn't always the preferred solution to all problems -- what about social skills, information-gathering spells, utility spells to help out in other situations? Let the fighter handle fighting, and work on being useful elsewhere.
Or think about what kind of foes aren't very vulnerable to archery, and develop spells and tactics to work against them.
Option 2: work on spells and tactics to boost the other players. For instance, d-door the anti-paladin next to his target, and let him full attack. Very few spells you have will result in as much damage to the enemy as smiting hasted full attack. Or use telekinesis (in a couple of levels) or hydraulic push to bull rush enemies into a clump so the alchemist can bomb them all at once.
Talk with the other players and see what they think they need, then work out ways to provide it. Sounds like your party has the damage side of things covered.
Option 3: share my previous post with the DM.
...Yeah this is exactly what i think the dm wants. Becouse a spell in battle or focusfire from enemies is a bit to extreme from the dm. But enviromental things just adds a better feeling for the game.
Any more?
That's the more obvious ones I can think of at the moment that are in the rules. You can of course make a lot of stuff up too, that was just examples. But of course, any kind of rugged environment where enemies can move from cover to cover until they're in your face will render the archer less effective.
EDIT: Also, is the DM applying the cover and shooting into melee penalties appropriately? An archer fireing into melee combat take -4 on all attacks, and fireing on someone when there's another person inbetween gives the target +4 AC from soft cover.
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Ok, here is my opinion. If a character created their character to be an optimized character in combat that is his choice. If the rest of the players decided to spend their resources elsewhere. That is their choice. Basically by telling one player that his way is crap and that he has to play down his character so the other players who chose to build their in a manner that is not as streamlined is a bit unfair. Your letting the group have their cake and eating it too, all the while taking the piece of cake from the optimizer and splitting it between the other players. The Dm's job is to build encounters that make use of the resources the players used to build their characters. If the Dm is not meeting that need, then I think that it is important that he makes adjustments before asking any of the players. If at that point the other players are still not enjoying the aspect of the game that they used their resources for, then allow them a change. Making one player change instead of the greater number isn't always the best idea.
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Ok, here is my opinion. If a character created their character to be an optimized character in combat that is his choice. If the rest of the players decided to spend their resources elsewhere. That is their choice. Basically by telling one player that his way is crap and that he has to play down his character so the other players who chose to build their in a manner that is not as streamlined is a bit unfair.
Huh? No-one's talked about his way being "crap". If his playstyle meshes badly with the others of course that's an issue.
Your letting the group have their cake and eating it too, all the while taking the piece of cake from the optimizer and splitting it between the other players. The Dm's job is to build encounters that make use of the resources the players used to build their characters. If the Dm is not meeting that need, then I think that it is important that he makes adjustments before asking any of the players. If at that point the other players are still not enjoying the aspect of the game that they used their resources for, then allow them a change. Making one player change instead of the greater number isn't always the best idea.
This sounds a lot like "if the other players don't optimize as well, make them do it". Which is a lot like forcing a playstyle on the others.
This is not about a character optimized for combat vs characters optimized for social encounters, rather it's a character optimized for combat vs character that aren't optimized at all. Not everyone enjoys optimizing and forcing the others to optimize or die (or just have the party steamroll everything) is forcing the everyone else, including the DM, to change playstyle (and the DM to redesign the adventure) for the sake of a single player liking to optimize and not accepting the compromise of optimizing for a support role or of a harder class.
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Ok, here is my opinion. If a character created their character to be an optimized character in combat that is his choice. If the rest of the players decided to spend their resources elsewhere. That is their choice. Basically by telling one player that his way is crap and that he has to play down his character so the other players who chose to build their in a manner that is not as streamlined is a bit unfair.Huh? No-one's talked about his way being "crap". If his playstyle meshes badly with the others of course that's an issue.
Your letting the group have their cake and eating it too, all the while taking the piece of cake from the optimizer and splitting it between the other players. The Dm's job is to build encounters that make use of the resources the players used to build their characters. If the Dm is not meeting that need, then I think that it is important that he makes adjustments before asking any of the players. If at that point the other players are still not enjoying the aspect of the game that they used their resources for, then allow them a change. Making one player change instead of the greater number isn't always the best idea.This sounds a lot like "if the other players don't optimize as well, make them do it". Which is a lot like forcing a playstyle on the others.
This is not about a character optimized for combat vs characters optimized for social encounters, rather it's a character optimized for combat vs character that aren't optimized at all. Not everyone enjoys optimizing and forcing the others to optimize or die (or just have the party steamroll everything) is forcing the everyone else, including the DM, to change playstyle (and the DM to redesign the adventure) for the sake of a single player liking to optimize and not accepting the compromise of optimizing for a support role or of a harder class.
Not at all, this is more about a DM stretching his creative muscles and making all encounters play to the strengths and weakness of the characters within his campaign. Those characters that are not optimized still have abilities and such they used their resources for. The DM needs to provide an outlet for those abilities. Again this game is about Heroic characters. Heroic Characters are meant to be optimized. It is why they are heroes. Just because a character isn't optimized in a single thing, doesn't make him less optimized. it makes him optimized in versatility. That is a draw back of versatility. Throw the characters in situations where the singularly optimized character is useless, and has to rely on the others more balanced characters to save the day. I as a DM make sure to tell my characters at the beginning of a campaign that, you design your characters on how you want to play the game. Optimizing is ok, versatility is ok. Don't complain if one character is better than you because he built his character to be that way. Again, as players play more and more, they will learn what works and what doesn't. If they continue to build their characters a certain way that is their choice.
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Not at all, this is more about a DM stretching his creative muscles and making all encounters...
In other words, about forcing the DM to put MUCH more time and energy into a part of the DMing that ze might not enjoy at all, because a single player wants that playstyle. Since most DM's also aren't liches with infinite time and energy, they need to prioritize and so it stands between - the time it takes to make encounters perfectly designed around that single character an
- the time it takes to create interesting stories, characters and a living dynamic world.DMs already put down loads and loads of energy to get and keep a campaign running, and if a single character disrupts the balance severely the DM is fully within his right to say "hey, this campaign isn't designed for the kind of character you're playing, could you play something else or tone it down a bit?".
Think of it like this: You and a half-dozen friends have a cooking group where you meet biweekly and try to get better at cooking and enjoy spending time together. The last three months and for the next five months it's led by one of your friends who's an expert indian culinary and you're cooking indian food, which is also a favorite with you and all your friends except one. That person prefers french food and when you cook always put a lot of french flavoring in the food which makes it taste bad, because it's indian food with loads of basil and rosemary on.
Now, there's nothing wrong with rosemary and basil or french food in general, but the cooking group is working with indian food and the french spices don't mix well with it.
Now, can you really expect the one leading the group to put tons of time and energy into trying to experiment to find a good way to integrate basil and rosemary into tikka masala and rogan josh? If she can, that's great and kudos, but it's unreasonable to expect that. The first and most simple solution to the issue is to talk with the person always putting rosemary into the rogan josh and tell her to stop, or ask that they themself find out a way to make it work outside of the group first.
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This is not two different styles of cooking. This is comparing cooking to crochet. The fighter is the cook, and a pretty competent one at that, and the others are the ones who want to do crochet. But apparently they also want to add their input during cooking time and they are very bad cooks at that.
Are you saying that optimizing is the way the game _should_ be played and that the GM and the other players are wrong for playing differently?
Honestly, your post screams of BADWRONGFUN.
It does not take that much more effort. To add an increased CR to an encounter.
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It does not take that much more effort. To add an increased CR to an encounter.
It DOES, when that increase in CR has to be tailored to require more from the optimizing player than the non-optimizing. Increasing the CR of the encounter in no way guarantees that the other players will feel less redundant; while it will challenge the optimizer, it might likely kill the other players.
Think of it like this: If you ran RotRL first book and one player started at level 3 while the other started at level 1, and thus was much more powerful - how would you go about to challenge the 3rd level player without having the other players be at constant high risk of dying for everything that's close to a threat to the level 3? You can't just switch the goblins for gnolls, because the other players would die like flies. You could add a bugbear to each goblin encounter and have it chase just the level 3 character, but that would be hurtful to the suspension of disbelief.
Of course there are some things the DM can do to lower the power of the character - especially when it's an archer (like the list I made upthread) but requiring the DM to redesign the campaign is no small requirement, especially if the DM in question isn't good at, or at all enjoys, creating fine-tuned combat scenarios (or maybe even runs a premade adventure!).
DMing is often a heavy load and I've seen more than one DM lose interest because of too requiring players that aren't cooperative and see the DM as someone who's just there to provide them and only them with exactly the kind of enjoyment they prefer most, regardless of what other players and the DM enjoys.
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This is not two different styles of cooking. This is comparing cooking to crochet. The fighter is the cook, and a pretty competent one at that, and the others are the ones who want to do crochet. But apparently they also want to add their input during cooking time and they are very bad cooks at that.Are you saying that optimizing is the way the game _should_ be played and that the GM and the other players are wrong for playing differently?
Honestly, your post screams of BADWRONGFUN.
No, it seems like the opposite. When the party is in a fight, he's ready to throwdown for the party...that's bad? He's a fighter. I have yet to hear that he's saying that they need to change their playstyle...or even that they can't help in a fight. It's simply his forte...as it should be.
...at least that's what I'm seeing.
Now...if that's making the other party members feel insignificant...there are constructive things that can be done...but trust me, the player who won't engage in combat (like I understand the antipaladin to be played) has no right to expect to shine.
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Looks like a decent Fighter (archer)build to me. Its a straight class with what seems normal feat choices. It seems the player didnt do anything cheesy. He just made a solid archer. On top of that the poster has mentioned several times that he buffs the archer.
A reasonably well build fighter archer with a pocket buffer is going to wreck things. Whats the issue? The DM should hit his weaknesses more and throw things at the party that work well for the other characters strengths. The OP needs to realize he is buffing an archer which does really good damage if the DM doesn't understand how to combat against archers.
If anything the DM should give the other characters a chance to retool their characters if they want... or throw more RP encounters if they don't want to combat such things. All I hear so far is "We built our characters for RP and not combat... its not fair he is better then us at combat!"
Let him shine at combat. If you built your character for RP then you should shine there. Simple as that. Buff him and let him go crazy. Let the DM figure out how to make the combat last more then 2 rounds (Toughness, More flunkies, terrain, concealment, or just get up in his grill more often and make him move)
I understood it as the anti-paladin being incompetent, not unwilling. In that case there is a problem yes, and not much to be done for that player (unless of course it's the fighter that regularly brings the game into fights where there isn't supposed to be fights, but that hasn't been mentioned in this thread so I'm assuming he isn't).
I get the impression though that this is the case of a single character outperforming the whole party, in which case it turns a bit into angel summoner and BMX bandit - the rest of the party wants to play BMX Bandit the RPG while the Fighter wants to play Angel Summoner the RPG.
It's obvious that angel summoner is (and should be) good at summoning angels, the issue is that the playstyles crash.
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Looks like a decent Fighter (archer)build to me. Its a straight class with what seems normal feat choices. It seems the player didnt do anything cheesy. He just made a solid archer. On top of that the poster has mentioned several times that he buffs the archer.
A reasonably well build fighter archer with a pocket buffer is going to wreck things. Whats the issue? The DM should hit his weaknesses more and throw things at the party that work well for the other characters strengths. The OP needs to realize he is buffing an archer which does really good damage if the DM doesn't understand how to combat against archers.
If anything the DM should give the other characters a chance to retool their characters if they want... or throw more RP encounters if they don't want to combat such things. All I hear so far is "We built our characters for RP and not combat... its not fair he is better then us at combat!"
Let him shine at combat. If you built your character for RP then you should shine there. Simple as that. Buff him and let him go crazy. Let the DM figure out how to make the combat last more then 2 rounds (Toughness, More flunkies, terrain, concealment, or just get up in his grill more often and make him move)
This is how I see it. In spades.