Fighter or Ranger

hammernanvil

Looking to make a character that excels in ranged and melee combat, which class would be best longterm?

CoM_Solaufein

I would personally go with fighter because they get more powerful as they go up in level plus they can get more than two proficiencies per weapon. Rangers are good backup fighters but fighters are your front line guys and gals who can take it along with dishing it out.

Oxford_Guy

For me a "real" ranger is the Stalker kit, lightly armoured, but can stealth and backstab and gets extra (and useful) spells later on, but that kit is not so good in face-to-face melee (no heavy armour) and as @CoM_Solaufein said, cannot put more than 2 pips in a single weapon (though does start with 2 "free" pips in dual wield). I find straight fighters quite boring to play as CHARNAME, though, and prefer rangers or paladins or a multiclass figher if going for a fighter-type build (fighter/mage, figher/cleric, fighter/thief are all good, as is the slightly cheesy ranger/cleric) for CHARNAME

Chow

Even a fighter wouldn't get enough proficiencies to put on both ranged and melee weapons at once, not until BG2, so you'd have to think which one means to you more.

If ranged, archer. If melee, fighter: put starting proficiencies to bow and melee weapon, then new ones to the latter.

Pantalion

Depends if you're planning on multiclassing or not, and what you're planning to be other than a lowly peon pure physical combat class.

A Ranger/Cleric is flat out better than a Fighter/Cleric; they get extra level 1-3 druid spells, they, like the Fighter, can specialise, but the Ranger gets two free proficiency points and can use Stealth. They're great with Slings at range, and can Two-Weapon-Fight in melee with Cleric buffs to hit even harder than usual.
A Ranger cannot, unfortunately, multiclass into anything except a cleric, making it the only choice for a Fighter/Mage or Fighter/Thief, the latter of which can backstab and therefore has a potent option for entering a combat.

It's worth noting that THAC0 is is ultimately the deciding factor in your ability in melee and ranged, and stats/level have more to do with that than your proficiencies. So even if you pick an Archer, they'll be awesome at ranged combat, but still perfectly capable in melee, they'll just attack 1/2 a time less often than a standard Ranger, and 1 time less often than a dual wielding Fighter.

Oxford_Guy

Pantalion said:

Depends if you're planning on multiclassing or not, and what you're planning to be other than a lowly peon pure physical combat class.

A Ranger/Cleric is flat out better than a Fighter/Cleric; they get extra level 1-3 druid spells

Actually, they get access to *all* the Druid spells (though really they should only get level 1-3 spells), so are even more powerful, they don't get any extra spell slots, though, just to clarify.

See: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/3231/opinion-of-clericrangers/p1

Pantalion said:

, they, like the Fighter, can specialise, but the Ranger gets two free proficiency points and can use Stealth. They're great with Slings at range, and can Two-Weapon-Fight in melee with Cleric buffs to hit even harder than usual.

A dual-wiedling ranger/cleric is great in BG2 as can wield the Crom Faeyr hammer (25 Str) in the off-hand and the Flail of Ages in the main... Even in BG1 would be good - the Stupifier Mace in one had and Bassilus' Hammer (maybe later the +2 Flail) in the other

Debaser

@Oxford_Guy my Cleric / Ranger is currently using Stupifier Mace +1 in the main hand and Ashadeena (Hammer +2, +1 Electrical Damage) in the offhand. When I face a Stone Skinned mage I swap them. But it's incredibly effective. I'm clearing out Cloakwood now and he is pretty much a killer even on insane mode. I do think the spell slots should be fixed so I'm not using druid spells over Level 3 at the moment. He did however get the first Wisdom tome.

rdarken

I actually just asked pretty much the same question the other day:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/13163/archer-or-fighter#latest

Since then, I will say that I rolled a Fighter specializing in Longbows and he is a freaking beast. I can't say how he would have fared if I rolled as a Ranger or Archer instead, but I will say that he's level 3 at the moment and has only taken about 1 HP of damage so far. The rest of my party hasn't really taken much damage, either, because he kills everything in about one shot, doesn't miss that often, and hardly gets hit.

If anything, I'd say he's a bit overpowered.

GoodSteve

rdarken said:

I actually just asked pretty much the same question the other day:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/13163/archer-or-fighter#latest

Since then, I will say that I rolled a Fighter specializing in Longbows and he is a freaking beast. I can't say how he would have fared if I rolled as a Ranger or Archer instead, but I will say that he's level 3 at the moment and has only taken about 1 HP of damage so far. The rest of my party hasn't really taken much damage, either, because he kills everything in about one shot, doesn't miss that often, and hardly gets hit.

If anything, I'd say he's a bit overpowered.

Fighter specialized in longbows is a solid choice for a ranged combatant. If you had gone for the Ranger you'd basically trade some survivability (they cannot wear better than studded leather armor) for a better ranged THAC0. Rangers can get stupidly high (low?) THAC0 by the end of the game. My ranger had at least a -2 THAC0 by the time I fought Sarevok.

Frosty

GoodSteve said:

rdarken said:

I actually just asked pretty much the same question the other day:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/13163/archer-or-fighter#latest

Since then, I will say that I rolled a Fighter specializing in Longbows and he is a freaking beast. I can't say how he would have fared if I rolled as a Ranger or Archer instead, but I will say that he's level 3 at the moment and has only taken about 1 HP of damage so far. The rest of my party hasn't really taken much damage, either, because he kills everything in about one shot, doesn't miss that often, and hardly gets hit.

If anything, I'd say he's a bit overpowered.

Fighter specialized in longbows is a solid choice for a ranged combatant. If you had gone for the Ranger you'd basically trade some survivability (they cannot wear better than studded leather armor) for a better ranged THAC0. Rangers can get stupidly high (low?) THAC0 by the end of the game. My ranger had at least a -2 THAC0 by the time I fought Sarevok.

A Unkited ranger can use any armer, but all 3 of the rangers KIts are limited to studded leather. But if your going to do ranged you will probbly use the archer kit. Goodsteve is not wrong,Just could of made a worng impresion on the whole class not just its Kits.

GoodSteve

Indeed, I meant Archer and not ranger.

A vanilla ranger would be a weaker choice as ranged combatant than a fighter simply because they lose the ability to get grandmastery. Also, I don't find there to be too many ranger spells that are really all that good for an archer. One that comes to mind is Entangle but if you have a druid in your group (or a wizard to cast the superior version: web) they're already casting these spells far earlier than the ranger.

hammernanvil

The only thing that turns me off about the ranger in 2e is that you are basically forced to be a 2weapon class, and must pick archer to gain more than 2 pips,

rdarken

I'm having a blast with my ranged Fighter, so I would definitely recommend it. I have mostly a party of ranged characters (Me, Garrick, Imoen, Viconia - sling, Dynaheir, and then Dorn). Stuff just explodes.

Oxford_Guy

rdarken said:

I'm having a blast with my ranged Fighter, so I would definitely recommend it. I have mostly a party of ranged characters (Me, Garrick, Imoen, Viconia - sling, Dynaheir, and then Dorn). Stuff just explodes.

@rdarken - what ranged weapon proficiency have you given Dorn? I gave him crossbow, partly for RP reasons (I can imagine half-orcs using them), but also think he'll be vicious with the Heavy Crossbow of Accuracy...

rdarken

Oxford_Guy said:

@rdarken - what ranged weapon proficiency have you given Dorn? I gave him crossbow, partly for RP reasons (I can imagine half-orcs using them), but also think he'll be vicious with the Heavy Crossbow of Accuracy...

The same, actually. I figure he'll have Heavy Crossbows, Garrick will have Light Crossbows, Imoen on Shortbow, me on Longbow, Viconia on sling, and Dynaheir also on sling (but staying out of combat more). I still have him on melee for now, though (only one who really uses melee at the moment).