Not to point out the obvious but archers can get grand mastery in ranged weapons whilst fighter/thieves can't on top of the +1 to hit and dmg per three levels archers get over a pure fighter- basically, the ranged counterpart to the Kensai [and BGEE at least does not allow archers to equip heavy armour at all].
Honestly, your best bet might be a straight Ranger. Get three pips in dual-wielding and maybe a couple in Flail and Hammer, then use awesome combinations like DUHM, Righteous Might and Ironskins while wielding Crom Faeyr and the Flail of Ages. Pretty effective stuff.
Rangers max out at 3x third tier spells I.e. no iron skins. Plus, cleric/ranger also gets you divine spells. human rangerX/cleric full spells from cleric and druid duhm iron skin righteous magic armor of faith bug swarm summon of nature call lightnight
@ambrennan Archers can wear ankheg plate mail in BG:EE, which is considered heavy. Other than that 1 particular armor they are limited to studded leather (+2 being the best they can find) in BG:EE. In BG2 they can equip shadow dragon armor which has the AC of plate mail and is a leather armor.
Bears. Not were-bears. Rangers can charm animal which, given the abundance of bears in BG1 is a nice benefit. You can grab a bear and throw them at the enemy or hide behind them and fire your little arrows.
But how can anything be good if it's not involving werebears?!
No, seriously. Could someone clarify what is a charmable animal and what not? Spiders are listed with the racial enemies, so I assume they count as "monster" rather than animal? How about winter/vampiric wolves?
I'm not sure. I *think* Winter Wolves should count, vampiric wolves I kinda doubt. Someone would have to use nearinfinity or something to verify if they are classified as animal, vegetable or mineral.
Using a level 4 Kivan, the vampiric wolves of the temple area saved vs charm animal every time. On a separate note, Kivan had a 44 damage crit on one of them using the Chelsey Crusher ...though it was still merely "badly injured" O.o...does SCS buff them or something?
Bears. Not were-bears. Rangers can charm animal which, given the abundance of bears in BG1 is a nice benefit. You can grab a bear and throw them at the enemy or hide behind them and fire your little arrows.
But how can anything be good if it's not involving werebears?!
No, seriously. Could someone clarify what is a charmable animal and what not? Spiders are listed with the racial enemies, so I assume they count as "monster" rather than animal? How about winter/vampiric wolves?
I'm not sure. I *think* Winter Wolves should count, vampiric wolves I kinda doubt. Someone would have to use nearinfinity or something to verify if they are classified as animal, vegetable or mineral.
Winter Wolves are a good question. I know anything magical does NOT count. So to me, I would draw a tentative line and say, if it exists in real life, it can be charmed; if it doesn't, it can't. I think there are a few exceptions here - for example, IIRC Dread Wolves can be charmed? But for the most part it holds true.
Unfortunately this rules out most of the really powerful animals (i.e. Wyverns) making the ability kind of questionable, but bears make good tanks (plus there's something so delicious about turning Ursa the Cave Bear against the Xvart village...)
Archers spacifically, up to 5 pips in a ranged weapon, with a shortbow, at level 1 has 3 to 7/2 apr. APR is the true denominator of damage in dnd because it increases your range of damage a turn by simple virtue of attacking more over the same period of time. other variables can be accounted for as you level and the difference is minute when you hit lvl 4-7+, but until then its like the fighter vs mage chart. coran starts out stronger but by the time you get him an archer would be equal in power because of kit abilities, called shot and general attacks per round. in THIS case the Army Scythe would be preferable because of its increased APR keeping up with bows and the higher damage of thaco crossbows have. you miss out on a dmg point over each shot of stuff like deadeye but you'll keep about 1d8+1 in dmg every round on top. I suppose its more risk/reward vs consistancy and control. but I'd take a 5 apr archer over a fighter/thief that happens to use ranged weapons and has an extraordinary dex, if damage was the point, unless your short a thieving member. where yeslick is just behind in the mines and i simply fail to ultimatly see the use of a party fighter/thf vs cleric/thf debate for overall GROUP efficiency.
Well, Yeslick isn't a cleric/thief. That would be Tiax, though you could get him not much later than Tiax. Montaron as fighter/thief is a very versatile NPC, which Coran is - at least in my experience - not, due to getting him much later and his stats clearly saying "ranged fighter/scout". It's not the class or multiclass, it's just the stats and early joining making Montaron more versatile.
I actually find that in BG:EE, the best archer is a fighter->theif dual class, since they can actually hit GM in their weapon of choice, and get that sweet extra APR over a ranger(archer). Archer will take over again however, if you lift the exp cap, or transfer to bg2.
my mistake, see i dont use many of the npcs because most of them suck due to being as tough or useful as a wet paper bag on trash day xD late gained npcs ftl. yes montaron and others fill the void better earlier sometimes.
Comments
paladins nerfed cleric
human rangerX/cleric
full spells from cleric and druid
duhm iron skin righteous magic armor of faith bug swarm summon of nature call lightnight
yeah pretty ok
Unfortunately this rules out most of the really powerful animals (i.e. Wyverns) making the ability kind of questionable, but bears make good tanks (plus there's something so delicious about turning Ursa the Cave Bear against the Xvart village...)
coran starts out stronger but by the time you get him an archer would be equal in power because of kit abilities, called shot and general attacks per round. in THIS case the Army Scythe would be preferable because of its increased APR keeping up with bows and the higher damage of thaco crossbows have. you miss out on a dmg point over each shot of stuff like deadeye but you'll keep about 1d8+1 in dmg every round on top.
I suppose its more risk/reward vs consistancy and control. but I'd take a 5 apr archer over a fighter/thief that happens to use ranged weapons and has an extraordinary dex, if damage was the point, unless your short a thieving member. where yeslick is just behind in the mines and i simply fail to ultimatly see the use of a party fighter/thf vs cleric/thf debate for overall GROUP efficiency.