Initial Mage/Sorcerer Ranged Weapon Proficiency

wampa

I've played plenty of BG2 but until recently had actually never played the original BG. Since melee is a dangerous route until I have a few levels in me, I'm looking at the three ranged options for my initial weapon proficiency slot.

Slings, (Throwing) Daggers, and Darts. Daggers would be nice since I could switch to a melee one in a REAL pinch, but I'll probably be taking Quarterstaffs with the second proficiency.

Are there any good (returning) Throwing Daggers / Darts in BGEE? I know there are a bunch of good elemental Damage darts at High Hedge, but these tend to be quite expensive - and with 3 APR, you burn through them rather quickly.

What about good Slings? Ideally these weapons would be obtainable early - once I hit level 5 or so I'm not nearly as worried about proficiency choices.

nano

Are you going solo? If you have other characters to pick up the slack then I would just pick Slings to keep your mage out of trouble, even though it does the least damage. The sling+1 is very cheap and available early.

Throwing daggers in BGEE get the strength bonus, but are more expensive and heavy. Darts do slightly less damage overall but are cheaper and don't weigh anything. Darts of stunning are nice, too. I like darts better in this comparison.

I don't believe there are any returning darts/daggers.

The elemental damage darts aren't necessary since you're a sorceror, not an archer. If you manage to sleep or blind your enemies you can pelt away for as long as you have ammo, and there's no need for the extra elemental damage. Might be worth hanging onto the ones you find in case you run into something immune to normal weapons but as a sorceror you have many options.

sarevok57

since you are going to be a sorcerer sling might be best, because unless you have 19 dex, your thac0 is going to be garbage, and the sling +1 and bullets +1 ( when you need magic ammo) are relatively cheap, stack with strength ( if you have some) and their to hits will stack giving you the best to hit option, but if your dex isn't 19, then it really doesn't matter because basically you won't be hitting squat, at level 1 with 19 dex and a sling +1 with bullets +1 you will have 15 thac0 until level 4, then it will be 14, and that is with bullets+1, a sorcerer with 18 dex and any none magical weapons/ammo will have a whopping 18 thac0 until level 4 then it goes down to an unimpressive 17, so really its more of a preference choice than anything, although in bg2 you can get a returning throwing dagger quite quickly, so having dagger in there somewhere should be good

meagloth

When I make a Mage I usually put my first proficiency in dagger because it covers both Melee and ranged, and you can get a +1 dagger in candelkeep if you have 18 cha. Sorcerers don't have a prime req stat, so you can get 18 dex and str to. 19, if your an elf, because they are better.

recklessheart

I would gravitate towards darts, to be honest. As has already been mentioned, in High Hedge there are a selection of elemental darts available that never become obsolete, as well as the dart of stunning. In addition, you can't trust your mage to hit very often, so they might as well get 3 opportunities a round to attempt the action. Daggers, I imagine, is as legitimate, but if something was really closing in on my mage I would either try to halt them with a Chromatic Orb, a Command spell from a cleric, or just relocating the mage elsewhere. Plus if you're going to give a mage a melee weapon, there are very few character concepts for spellcasters that suit a dagger more than a classy quarterstaff.

meagloth

The ee should have added either a returning throwing dagger or poison throwing daggers.

wampa

meagloth said:

The ee should have added either a returning throwing dagger or poison throwing daggers.

Agree 100%. Even a +1 returning throwing dagger with no other special qualities would be nice, thematically. I personally don't have a lot of high-STR mage characters (at least, not high enough to get a damage bonus), but it would be cool even so.

recklessheart said:

I would gravitate towards darts, to be honest. As has already been mentioned, in High Hedge there are a selection of elemental darts available that never become obsolete, as well as the dart of stunning. In addition, you can't trust your mage to hit very often, so they might as well get 3 opportunities a round to attempt the action. Daggers, I imagine, is as legitimate, but if something was really closing in on my mage I would either try to halt them with a Chromatic Orb, a Command spell from a cleric, or just relocating the mage elsewhere. Plus if you're going to give a mage a melee weapon, there are very few character concepts for spellcasters that suit a dagger more than a classy quarterstaff.

Darts are probably the power option ranged-wise - the 3 APR combined with the special properties available in that weapons category just gives you a lot of options. The concern, I guess, is primarily for my pocketbook. At 19 rep and 20 cha a stack of 80 elemental darts is 480 gp. While that 3 APR is a blessing, it also makes it quite easy to blow through a few hundred darts in a short period of time, especially when encountering large numbers of low-power enemies, which is what really concerns me. At that rate it's fairly easy to burn through 1k+ gp in a dungeon like Naskel mines - even taking an optimal route that avoids non-necessary enemy encounters. While like in any RPG I know gold becomes fairly plentiful as the game goes on, early on that is rather a lot of money - and that's for high CHA/REP character. An evil character would have to spend even more money to keep themselves well-stocked.

As for daggers as a melee weapon option, I have to mention the Dagger of venom for BG1, which is arguably one of the single best melee weapons in the game. Also, Gorion used a dagger! Yeah, Staves do take the cake in BG2 - but you probably won't get a really good one until you've hit level 12 (and your third weapon proficiency.)

nano

For the mines, regular darts will work fine. The elemental darts aren't really meant for cleaning up trash and are better used on hard fights, not kobolds. Besides, you're a mage! Clearing groups of enemies is your specialty. No need to do it the hard way like some common fighter.

[Deleted User]

Slings are the ease of use option; You can give someone a sling and three stacks of bullets and forget about them for a while. Throwing daggers are good base weapons, but it's heavy to carry around a decent stack of them with the 2 APR. Darts are great, probably the best unless you have a really good strength, but inconvenient as you have to manually reload after each stack is exhausted (and they run out fast with 3 APR). The High Hedge darts seem expensive, but between discounts for good rep and all the gold the game showers you with, it's not hard to keep stocked; I usually end up worrying about High Hedge running out before I worry about running out of gold.

wampa

nano said:

For the mines, regular darts will work fine. The elemental darts aren't really meant for cleaning up trash and are better used on hard fights, not kobolds. Besides, you're a mage! Clearing groups of enemies is your specialty. No need to do it the hard way like some common fighter.

Agree, but as a Sorcerer I don't get level 3 spells (and thus the joy of AoE damage spells) until level 5 - On low levels, groups of mooks are actually far more challenging than a single difficult target when I can't isolate individual members of the group. In my current position it's actually much easier to fight a single difficult enemy (blind them, run away, pelt with darts) than to fight a group of low level goons.

Kaigen said:

Slings are the ease of use option; You can give someone a sling and three stacks of bullets and forget about them for a while. Throwing daggers are good base weapons, but it's heavy to carry around a decent stack of them with the 2 APR. Darts are great, probably the best unless you have a really good strength, but inconvenient as you have to manually reload after each stack is exhausted (and they run out fast with 3 APR). The High Hedge darts seem expensive, but between discounts for good rep and all the gold the game showers you with, it's not hard to keep stocked; I usually end up worrying about High Hedge running out before I worry about running out of gold.

Also, I happen to like some of the evil NPCs quite a bit, so I can't really push reputation over 16-17 without starting to get worried.

nano

Ah, you're a BG2 player. Well, let me introduce you to low level magic. More specifically, the wonders of... Sleep! Useless at high levels, but singlehandedly wins fights for you in BG1. Ambushed by bandits? Sleep. Kobold blockade? Sleep. Ogre berserker got you running scared? Sleep. It won't work on harder opponents, but you've got other options for those.

I get it even on my sorcerers (let's be honest, how many level 1 spells do you really need?) but if you don't wish to spend a slot you can pick up the wand from High Hedge. And if you miss blasting stuff and can't wait for fireball, there are readily available devices like wands of fire and necklaces of missiles.

AoE damage is always nice, but your real power lies in these more devious spells. Stinking cloud and web makes your poor THAC0 irrelevant because every dart will land true on an unconscious, webbed enemy. Blindness and glitterdust means enemies can't hit back and you can take free shots for as long as it lasts. Your familiar can run circles around any melee threat. And invisibility lets you bypass all of this and head straight for the boss. Kobolds are hardly worth any experience after all, so unless you really need short bows they're rarely worth the fight. It's a very wizardly solution in my mind, as wizards are all about subtlety and less about frontal assaults.

By the time you get to level 5, you might find you don't even want AoE damage anymore.

wampa

Thanks @nano. I'll take a look at that wand at high hedge - I really try to avoid picking spells that don't retain any utility at high levels with a Sorcerer. And yeah, being a BG2 player I'm somewhat hesitant to let my familiar out of my backpack... ever.

nano

Yeah, the familiar loses effectiveness fairly quickly so you may be past the point where it's useful in combat. But you can cast invisibility on it and use it as a scout, and things like that. It's always nice to have an invisible spotter so you can fire off a spell from outside of the enemy's vision range.

The wand casts faster than you do so it's helpful all around, even if you have a mage with Sleep. And it's usable by anyone, which is a godsend for solos!

Mungri

For a pure solo arcane, always go elf for the +1 dexterity. This not only boosts your sling and dart thaco, but also melfs meteors and energy blades if you take those spells, which you should.

Tyranus

wampa said:

Thanks @nano. I'll take a look at that wand at high hedge - I really try to avoid picking spells that don't retain any utility at high levels with a Sorcerer. And yeah, being a BG2 player I'm somewhat hesitant to let my familiar out of my backpack... ever.

When soloing a Sorcerer in BG1, remember to pick up the Potion of Invisibility from Jaheria and use it to raid the Ankheg Nest on the map North of the Friendly Arm Inn. That will get you a Wand of Fire, helping to carry you through most of the game.

nano

@Tyranus Don't you need a second potion of invisibility? From what I remember looting the stash breaks invis and then the ankhegs eat you.

Tyranus

@nano You use Imoen's Oil of Speed to run past the Ankhegs, loot the treasure pile, then drink the Invisibility potion in order to run outside.

nano

Ah, I see.

wampa

Considering that I don't really enjoy low-level mage play, I'm not soloing BG1 for long. Occasionally I'll do it in BG2 when a properly designed sorcerer really comes into his/her birthright.