So... Rangers/Archers. How do you use them?
KidCarnival
Member Posts: 3,747
I admit I never played a ranger and rarely had one in my parties. I play evil, which is one reason. Another is that I seem to have no clue how a ranger fits in a party, or what rangers contribute that makes them a better choice than other classes.
I only finished one mixed party run with Kivan and had him melee with halberd or long sword. Coran was in the same party, and I saw no need for two archers. Plus, I also don't see a real benefit in pure archers/ranged fighters, which seems to be what rangers are supposed to be good at.
In my mind, any thief can also make a good ranged fighter, regardless of weapon (i.e. Monty with sling, Skie with short bow). It's still also a thief, which brings more to the table than someone who... isn't a thief. Same for a bard with good dex, a mage, a cleric... any class with good dex. A thief makes a better scout due to Disarm Traps. The Charm Animal skill seems utterly useless. If I want to dual wield, I can as well play a Blade and have arcane spells and Bard Song. Getting divine spells on high levels doesn't seem too useful either because at that point, I likely also have a high level cleric or druid.
To make a long story short - how does a pure archer fit in a party? My ranged charnames or NPCs always also have another role and being ranged is more a side effect than a strategy. Let's say I make a Ranger - Archer charname proficient in Long Bow. How would an ideal party look?
I only finished one mixed party run with Kivan and had him melee with halberd or long sword. Coran was in the same party, and I saw no need for two archers. Plus, I also don't see a real benefit in pure archers/ranged fighters, which seems to be what rangers are supposed to be good at.
In my mind, any thief can also make a good ranged fighter, regardless of weapon (i.e. Monty with sling, Skie with short bow). It's still also a thief, which brings more to the table than someone who... isn't a thief. Same for a bard with good dex, a mage, a cleric... any class with good dex. A thief makes a better scout due to Disarm Traps. The Charm Animal skill seems utterly useless. If I want to dual wield, I can as well play a Blade and have arcane spells and Bard Song. Getting divine spells on high levels doesn't seem too useful either because at that point, I likely also have a high level cleric or druid.
To make a long story short - how does a pure archer fit in a party? My ranged charnames or NPCs always also have another role and being ranged is more a side effect than a strategy. Let's say I make a Ranger - Archer charname proficient in Long Bow. How would an ideal party look?
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Equip Bow/Crossbow and have them snipe high-priority squishy targets. Shoot casters with low protection and such, disrupt casting etc.
Hard CCs add guaranteed hits so if you can throw them on the low-AC targets they can help take them out too.
Coran being one of the best characters in the game with his massive Dex bonus allows for consistent hits and can contribute to the thief role.
Archers need dex, this makes them hit more often but also contributes to AC making them deadly and harder to kill.
Rangers/fighters that use range weapons are the most likely to hit enemies due to the wide range of +1 and +2 range weaponry available in BG:EE and do not forget the varying ammunition which can also have +2 or in some cases +4 (arrows of piercings if I am right) top that with a potion of heroism or power and you can kill sarevok and drizzt with consistent hits.
you can use other party members to drop spells like web or sleep to help the archer pick off enemies. You can use archers to target mages and clerics to interrupt spells I always tactically choose who hits who to prevent deadly hold spells hitting my characters or stopping them casting mirror image or invisibility), you can use melee characters to kite and distract enemies whilst rangers consistently bite away at them.
if you are rolling a ranger you automatically start with ** two weapons, so you can make use of that, you also get a bonus against "racial enemy", if you choose spiders, or ogres, maybe hobgoblins you get +4 thac0 against them, choosing spiders allows your ranger to be a great help through cloakwood and there are many deadly spiders which crop up throughout the chapters of BG:EE. Charm animals is not that useful we can all admit but try using it against some bears and use that bear as additional meatshield for your party if you get attacked talon bandits, I am unsure what counts as animals but spiders could count? possibly.
I suggest rolling a fighter/thief like coran, or fighter thief dual so you can take advantage of range but if you want to be useful in other sectors you can be.
My party consist of Xan with highest Charisma as party leader and resistant to all elements, CHARNAME as a druid shapeshifter with support spells and tanking, Kagain as major tank , Dorn as damage dealer, coran is the precision striker and thief (he was the only one to damage and to kill drizzt whilst kagain with boots of speed ran around drizzt in circles), tiax flings offensive spells and has some additional thief skills. you can drop kagain for *The New Sorcerer* later or you can remove tiax and have eldoth as bard/arcane caster they work really well but you must stay neutral with this party.
When I compare to a bard for taking out casters... I can have a bard cast debuffs, I can have a bard with poison darts, I can have a jester who confuses the minions and makes the mage or cleric an easy target for everything and everyone. I can have a bard use wands and scrolls. All of that seems at least equally effective and way more versatile/adaptable to the situation.
I need no archer (kit) to use the good arrows; Eldoth with Dead Shot and dex gauntlets has the same effect and there are several ranged NPCs that don't need such valuable gear. Viconia can hit with the sling and use spells to disable the target; Montaron with sling is mean, too. Dualed Shar-Teel is excellent as ranged fighter, too. (Probably also non-dualed, I haven't had her as pure fighter in EE.)
The racial enemy is another feature I don't see as useful in BG1. None of those options poses a real risk, either because you rarely encounter these monsters or because they are very very easy to kill in the first place. Racial enemy gibberling? What kind of wuss do you have to be to want an advantage against gibberlings? Just to name the most ridicolous example. Spiders and hobgoblins, okay, but I never had the slightest problem to kill them with... any other class.
In other words, I can't think of any situation where an archer would be more useful than the classes I usually take.
Also - matter of taste here - if I'd run a ranger, I'd stick to good/neutral alignment, so no Kagain, Dorn, Tiax, Eldoth and Baeloth. For that, I don't need a good aligned charname with a risk to fall and need for rep management in both directions. "Shapeshifter druid charname" is also not an option for my question "If my charname is an archer...".
Nice class/concept for a no reload game as well mowing down enemies from a relatively safe position at the rear.
However it looks like you are more interested in explaining all the reasons why you don't want to try one than in how/why to best use one LOL...
I do like stealthy and ranged classes, it's the alignment restriction why I never bothered much with rangers. The concept behind the class is appealing, I just can't figure out how to make the best use of the skills.
Of course you also have to be able to play in a manner that doesn't cause the party rep to drop X or more points at once or drop below a certain level - I can't recall the specific rules to falling rangers.
Think this only happens when you go below 6,don't quote me on that.In Nashkell whatever your rep drops to and the guards attack,for a Ranger i think that's when that would happen.
After i protect Prism at the mines and then return for the bounty.I get the experience and then murder and rob the Bounty Officer to get the gems back and an extra 2500 from his pockets.I do this at rep 10 and normally drop to 6 afterwards and am usually okay.This is for an evil playthrough of course.
The best bow in BG:EE is the deadshot (longbow +2 for total of +3 THAC0 and a +2 damage (the next best longbow is the composite longbow +1, so a +2 THAC0 and +3 damage).
A max leveled PC Archer with a 19 or 20 dex (equiped with the deadshot and normal arrows) gets you:
THAC0 1 Damage 9-14 with 3 attacks
A max leveled Coran equiped the same way gets you:
THAC0 4 Damage 6-11 with 3/2 attacks
So the PC archer is better at damage.
Armor/Stealth: Both can wear Ankheg Plate and lose their stealth bonuses or stay with studded and lose AC for their stealth abilities. The archer will have a 92 stealth while Coran is a lot more configurable, depending on when you recruit him ( he tends to focus on lockpicking and move silently on his own).
HP: PC Max HP ( 104) Coran Max HP (64)
Melee: Both equipped with longswords (+1)
PC - THAC0 10 for 5-12 damage with 3/2 attacks (str 18/26 *possibly higher)
Coran: THAC0 11 for 4-11 damage (str 14)
**The PC also gains one extra pip here that could be used fora different melee weapon or one handed weapon style
Coran gets thieving skills, which is an advantage to him. The PC would make a great scout, both are able to kill normal enemies solo before they get to them. The key advantage here is that the PC gets increases to to hit and damage every 3 levels. If you want the best archer, the PC is it... if you want a good scout with some thieving skills, then Coran and Kivan are your guys. Archers excel at killing mages and clerics, as many have said above. The only protection they can offer in BG:EE is protection from normal missiles or mirror image, but they have to get mirror image actually cast before that first arrow is driven home (at an impossibly low THAC0) before that helps them, or the archer can switch to any magical arrow and bypass the protection from normal missiles.
I am personally a big fan of archers... they do crazy damage; however they are the same from level 1 to level 30+... see it, shoot it, loot it.
Coran is OP. *** in longbow makes him almost as good as an archer as a sniper and he is a better frontline fighter and a thief too, so he rules!
@Fighting_Ferret - The breakup and direct comparison with Coran helped a lot. I think I'll really try out Archer. I usually have an assassin and am very attached to backstabs; Stalker might just throw me back into my old ways and defeat the purpose of trying something new.
main and only party tank
Charm Animal can be useful in BGI. I've stealthed to bears and charmed them to tank for me, which has worked out well. The Racial Enemy feature is a little bit of a bonus, though not a big one imo.
They're niche is primarily ranged combat and scouting, I think: both skills with which they are better than a thief with. Later they can use divine spells. I would include them in a party if you need a good ranged fighter (very useful in BGI) or a scout (if you don't have a thief for it). The main reason I can think of for having a ranger instead of a fighter/thief would be because of the slow leveling of a multiclass for the early game, and the meager divine spells you get later.
Scouting with invisibility is useful, but those potions are valuable, as are the spell slots, so having a stealth scout is a good commodity. If your charname is a ranger, then no, you wouldn't need Kivan if you have Ajantis tanking.