The Stalker is more my idea of what a ranger should be - stealthier with a backstab. Power-wise I think the Stalker is better than the vanilla ranger, giving up a few AC points for the backstab is well worth it. Late game they will be almost equal as tanks.
Um, I'm playing through BG2EE with an archer right now and I can tell you that it's somewhat rough going, since everything seems to be immune to ranged attacks. I wouldn't call archers a "great" kit for BG2, they're just ok. Now, when they can actually hit, they do massive amounts of damage. But it's not like BG1 where they were damage gods throughout the entire game.
This has been my experience as an archer in BG2 as well. As someone else here said, archers are great for disrupting spellcasters in BG1, but by BG2, many spellcasters are able to cast spells automatically through triggers and other devices. Archers can still kill a lot of enemies, but those are typically the enemies that can be killed any number of ways. In the most important battles, archers are often heavily nerfed.
I was thinking of playing as a vanilla ranger for my next full playthrough (beginning with BG1:EE) - admittedly, largely because I wanted an excuse to use this excellent portrait that Syntia13 created:
But aside from RP purposes, it seems to me that a vanilla ranger is still a very efficient class. After all, look at Kivan, who is generally considered one of, if not the best offensive machines in BG1 -
That had more to do with his stats and race (elf bonus to bows) as opposed to him being a ranger. He'd have been far deadlier than he was with an archer kit or as a fighter with 5 pips in bows.
Minsc was in the same boat. He had the best natural Str in the game paired with a good con and his one (slightly) weak stat could be offset by the Dex gloves that you have to stumble across just to complete his quest. But like Kivan he would have been more powerful as a fighter.
Someone up-thread pretty much summed it up. If you put your Ranger in plate then no matter which way you slice it you pretty much have a watered down fighter that levels slower. If you keep him in leathers to be able to sneak then you might as well kit him to archer or stalker. Really the only reason not to kit is if you plan on armor switching which isn't a bad tactic as the situation demands but it loses it's efficacy at BG2/TOB levels when you can get leather armor that is just as good as most plate.
What strikes me most about the vanilla ranger is that they can be both a skilled ranged fighter or a heavily armored, dual wielding tank with equal effectiveness.
Are there any other drawbacks that I'm missing?
If you're regularly going to be switching between ranged and dual wield fair warning it's a pain to do. Normally if you have a shield you can at least switch between 1 handed thrown weapons (and slings) and 1h melee but even that isn't allowed with DW.
So each time you want to switch you'll have to go into inventory, un-equip your bow or throwing weapon completely (can't even be in your quickslot) , and then equip your offhand weapon. Going back to your bow you have to un-equip your OH weapon and re-equip your bow. It gets pretty tedious.
An elf archer with 19-20(Tome) dex is the most lethal character possible in the game, period. They maintain themselves significantly above everyone elses' THAC0 and AC curves, allowing them to land almost all of their hits, they get an absolutely ridiculous amount of APR, AND they don't require a very high average stat to be effective. A level 1 elven archer with a shortbow has the lowest possible THAC0 of any level 1 character, can have the 2nd highest HP, and already will have 2+ APR.
An elf archer with 19-20(Tome) dex is the most lethal character possible in the game, period. They maintain themselves significantly above everyone elses' THAC0 and AC curves, allowing them to land almost all of their hits, they get an absolutely ridiculous amount of APR, AND they don't require a very high average stat to be effective. A level 1 elven archer with a shortbow has the lowest possible THAC0 of any level 1 character, can have the 2nd highest HP, and already will have 2+ APR.
In BG1, I suppose that's true. Note that there is no difference between 19 and 20 DEX though, at least for anything except thieving skills.
In BG2 things change. Archers can still be viable, but they can't compete with melee damage or caster flexibility and utility. I still like them for many reasons, but they are definitely not the top dogs.
Seems like they're a strong dual-wielder choice, nonetheless, as they get those proficiency points early (free). Power-wise, they're not the best class, but there's a part of the game that is the fun of figuring out how to use a specific class, I think. I like rangers, but find the Stalker and Archer kits 'special', while the base Ranger is not. I think what would make them really cool would be a set of Ranger spells that come from the druid and the cleric bunches, here and there, or something.
Here, 3rd Edition did something great. Skill points set rangers apart from other fighters and make them better IMO.
Rangers aren't the strongest class, but I like the concept quite much. Infact my first charname was a ranger and he kicked ass. And Minsc and boo kick ass. So there is that also :P
Still i cann see that the class loses some of it's appeal on higher levels. He would be much more awesome if he could put more points into his weapon Specialization or maybe learn few more spells or something.
dueling to a cleric gets you iron skins, which makes you an absolute beast of a tank, on a par with fighter/mage. Though i do regard this as cheesy, since i don't think a ranger -> cleric should have access to druid spells above the level of ranger that he duelled at.
Also, disappointed by the lack of minsc in this this. He's a straight class ranger who spends the entire game kicking ass and taking names. Dude never slacks, not even for a moment.
Having tried this, its one of those ideas that look good on paper, but doesn't actually work ingame.
Iron skin has a 9 second cast time. Good luck with a single iron skin precast before each battle because you are never going to get them cast mid battle like you can with 1 second cast stoneskins.
Um, I'm playing through BG2EE with an archer right now and I can tell you that it's somewhat rough going, since everything seems to be immune to ranged attacks. I wouldn't call archers a "great" kit for BG2, they're just ok. Now, when they can actually hit, they do massive amounts of damage. But it's not like BG1 where they were damage gods throughout the entire game.
This has been my experience as an archer in BG2 as well. As someone else here said, archers are great for disrupting spellcasters in BG1, but by BG2, many spellcasters are able to cast spells automatically through triggers and other devices. Archers can still kill a lot of enemies, but those are typically the enemies that can be killed any number of ways. In the most important battles, archers are often heavily nerfed.
If you only look at the archer from a solo perspective and don't consider making it synergize with the rest of your group then sure it sucks.
I built a dedicated anti caster sorcerer loaded with protection removing and magic resistance lowering spells. All it takes to make an enemy caster susceptible to your archer is the level 5 spell breach, plus a true seeing so they cant go invisible right away ( I also had an inquisitor to help with this). Once the protections are removed the Archer destroys any caster in a few hit.
Another overlooked thing is ranged smite HLA. Even if enemies are immune to ranged damage, it still gives you 5 full range knock backs per round. You can pause abuse this to use each shot to knockback a different enemy, then send one other party member off after each isolated enemy to kill them easy. This works tremendously well in the dark pits 2, along witb the caster shutdown sorc.
dueling to a cleric gets you iron skins, which makes you an absolute beast of a tank, on a par with fighter/mage. Though i do regard this as cheesy, since i don't think a ranger -> cleric should have access to druid spells above the level of ranger that he duelled at.
Also, disappointed by the lack of minsc in this this. He's a straight class ranger who spends the entire game kicking ass and taking names. Dude never slacks, not even for a moment.
Having tried this, its one of those ideas that look good on paper, but doesn't actually work ingame.
Iron skin has a 9 second cast time. Good luck with a single iron skin precast before each battle because you are never going to get them cast mid battle like you can with 1 second cast stoneskins.
You don't use iron skins!? No wonder you don't appreciate the melee power of ranger/cleric.
You totally and completely took what I said and made something up entirely.
You can only cast Iron Skin once before a battle. You have zero chance of refreshing it during battle.
And no, Ranger / Clerics are nowhere near as valid for melee as Fighter / Mages are. They don't even compare to the mages defense and offense capabilities (Spirit Armor, Stoneskin, Mirror Image, Protection from magic weps, protection from energy).
The are only ever made to gain druid spells, not to play as a front line character because they cant cast anything mid battle. They archer / cleric does work a lot better actually because you can keep them away from combat to give them a much better chance of casting their spells.
Magic arrows are much more plentifully in BG:EE and BG2:EE, so ranged combat is more viable then vanilla BG2. I would say that if you are going to do the ranger/cleric the base ranger is the best choice. But since this game is single player or co-op only competing for the most powerful character rally does not matter. And a pure base ranger can take you threw the game with no trouble.
dueling to a cleric gets you iron skins, which makes you an absolute beast of a tank, on a par with fighter/mage. Though i do regard this as cheesy, since i don't think a ranger -> cleric should have access to druid spells above the level of ranger that he duelled at.
Also, disappointed by the lack of minsc in this this. He's a straight class ranger who spends the entire game kicking ass and taking names. Dude never slacks, not even for a moment.
Having tried this, its one of those ideas that look good on paper, but doesn't actually work ingame.
Iron skin has a 9 second cast time. Good luck with a single iron skin precast before each battle because you are never going to get them cast mid battle like you can with 1 second cast stoneskins.
And the draw-back is that Ranger/Clerics can wear *armor* so they have a high armor class to help them with their casting defense. Not that you should ever need more than one Iron Skin in any given fight, and Iron Skin is more of a trophy added to the plate-mail a R/C can wear.
Spirit armor can be cast on party members. It single handedly invalidates the need for actual armor and stays active for 2 hours, just so you know.
The ranger / cleric combination is meant to be used for more spells, I don't think the purpose was ever to make a front line character with it, otherwise a paladin would always be better.
The ranger / cleric combination is meant to be used for more spells, I don't think the purpose was ever to make a front line character with it, otherwise a paladin would always be better.
Okay, you're gonna have to explain this. It's a cleric/warrior. How is that not a good front line character? Even paladins don't get iron skin.
Ranger/Cleric isn't just "more spells". Ranger/Cleric is the biggest Jack-of-all-trades in the game, moreso than bards. They can do practically anything needed to play in a party. Hell, they're the easy mode for Solo runs.
The class combination is only made to get druid spells added to the clerics spell book. If you want to make a front line melee then there's absolutely no need to make a ranger / cleric as most other builds are far better for melee.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that a Ranger / Cleric is as capable as a Kensai / Mage or a blade, it isn't.
Armor isn't what makes these classes suitable as front line tanks, spells like stoneskin, protection from magical weapons, improved invisibility and protection from magical energy are what make them so much better.
Ranger / Clerics that want to melee give all of that up for a 9 second cast iron skin. Oh yay, so useful. What's more useful is casting insect plagues and greater commands.
Also the ranger spell slots stack with the cleric spell slots, that allows a 16 ranger/17 cleric to cast 3 more 1st 2nd and 3rd level spells, and you get your bonus spell slot for high wisdom for both your ranger and your cleric class. if like most character come out of BG1 with 21 wisdom that give you 3rd and 5th level spells so if you dual at L16 or multi from the start you will end up with 5 extra L3 spell, That is Animate Dead, dispel Magic, Glyph of Warding, Rigid thinking, Summon Insects, zone of sweet air, and Call Lighting if you out side
You don't make a ranger cleric just because you want a melee character. Ranger/cleric is powerful because not only is the best divine caster, it also has the fighting abilities of a warrior. If you need to cast, then cast. If you need to fight then a vanilla ranger will fight better than an archer.
The ranger / cleric combination is meant to be used for more spells, I don't think the purpose was ever to make a front line character with it, otherwise a paladin would always be better.
I'll have to tell my wife, who took her ranger/cleric through SoA/ToB as a front-line PC, that her character wasn't meant to be played that way.
The usefulness of a class or character depends entirely upon how you are using that class or character.
[quote]Minsc[/quote] Would be a more efficient if he hadn't wasted two pips on dualwielding when his signature weapon is two-handed swords (or, if you are going to make him dualwield, if he hadn't wasted two pips on two-handed swords)
He didn't waste two pips on Two Weapon Fighting; Rangers get that by default. That's one of the things they're well known for. He's geared to be flexible for the sake of the party. He's a fairly average bowman (can wield longbows, so that's nice), he can wield two-handed swords, and if no one else is using them, he can dual-wield maces. Now, if you want to maximize on two-weapon fighting, you can put any more proficiency points in flails or anything else, really (preferably flails for Defender of Easthaven and Flail of Ages), or Two-Handed Fighting to maximize on his two-handed sword fighting.
Minsc is one of the more flexible characters available to you in the game, which is one of the reasons people who play Good aligned parties want him in their game... besides the great banter and lines.
I consider the pips wasted because Minsc didn't have to be a ranger (as I understand it this was due to lore reasons - only rangers can have animal companions).
I consider the pips wasted because Minsc didn't have to be a ranger (as I understand it this was due to lore reasons - only rangers can have animal companions).
He's a ranger because he says he is, and he's a berserker in training, which is why he has the berserk ability, despite his class restrictions. You can always mod him to *BE* a berserker, but he's fine as he is as a ranger.
Vanilla Rangers are inferior to fighters, because of lack of grandmastery and gain useless features like charm animal and minor druidic spells.
Because they have slower xp advancement maybe it should be better to gain them grandmastery, and thats should be the reason why they need more xp to lvl up than a fighter.
Comments
Minsc was in the same boat. He had the best natural Str in the game paired with a good con and his one (slightly) weak stat could be offset by the Dex gloves that you have to stumble across just to complete his quest. But like Kivan he would have been more powerful as a fighter.
Someone up-thread pretty much summed it up. If you put your Ranger in plate then no matter which way you slice it you pretty much have a watered down fighter that levels slower. If you keep him in leathers to be able to sneak then you might as well kit him to archer or stalker. Really the only reason not to kit is if you plan on armor switching which isn't a bad tactic as the situation demands but it loses it's efficacy at BG2/TOB levels when you can get leather armor that is just as good as most plate. If you're regularly going to be switching between ranged and dual wield fair warning it's a pain to do. Normally if you have a shield you can at least switch between 1 handed thrown weapons (and slings) and 1h melee but even that isn't allowed with DW.
So each time you want to switch you'll have to go into inventory, un-equip your bow or throwing weapon completely (can't even be in your quickslot) , and then equip your offhand weapon. Going back to your bow you have to un-equip your OH weapon and re-equip your bow. It gets pretty tedious.
In BG2 things change. Archers can still be viable, but they can't compete with melee damage or caster flexibility and utility. I still like them for many reasons, but they are definitely not the top dogs.
Here, 3rd Edition did something great. Skill points set rangers apart from other fighters and make them better IMO.
Still i cann see that the class loses some of it's appeal on higher levels. He would be much more awesome if he could put more points into his weapon Specialization or maybe learn few more spells or something.
Having tried this, its one of those ideas that look good on paper, but doesn't actually work ingame.
Iron skin has a 9 second cast time. Good luck with a single iron skin precast before each battle because you are never going to get them cast mid battle like you can with 1 second cast stoneskins.
If you only look at the archer from a solo perspective and don't consider making it synergize with the rest of your group then sure it sucks.
I built a dedicated anti caster sorcerer loaded with protection removing and magic resistance lowering spells. All it takes to make an enemy caster susceptible to your archer is the level 5 spell breach, plus a true seeing so they cant go invisible right away ( I also had an inquisitor to help with this). Once the protections are removed the Archer destroys any caster in a few hit.
Another overlooked thing is ranged smite HLA. Even if enemies are immune to ranged damage, it still gives you 5 full range knock backs per round. You can pause abuse this to use each shot to knockback a different enemy, then send one other party member off after each isolated enemy to kill them easy. This works tremendously well in the dark pits 2, along witb the caster shutdown sorc.
You can only cast Iron Skin once before a battle. You have zero chance of refreshing it during battle.
And no, Ranger / Clerics are nowhere near as valid for melee as Fighter / Mages are. They don't even compare to the mages defense and offense capabilities (Spirit Armor, Stoneskin, Mirror Image, Protection from magic weps, protection from energy).
The are only ever made to gain druid spells, not to play as a front line character because they cant cast anything mid battle. They archer / cleric does work a lot better actually because you can keep them away from combat to give them a much better chance of casting their spells.
Still with the archer/cleric, huh?
The ranger / cleric combination is meant to be used for more spells, I don't think the purpose was ever to make a front line character with it, otherwise a paladin would always be better.
Armor isn't what makes these classes suitable as front line tanks, spells like stoneskin, protection from magical weapons, improved invisibility and protection from magical energy are what make them so much better.
Ranger / Clerics that want to melee give all of that up for a 9 second cast iron skin. Oh yay, so useful. What's more useful is casting insect plagues and greater commands.
That is Animate Dead, dispel Magic, Glyph of Warding, Rigid thinking, Summon Insects, zone of sweet air, and Call Lighting if you out side
Why are we talking about Kensai/Mage?
The usefulness of a class or character depends entirely upon how you are using that class or character.
Would be a more efficient if he hadn't wasted two pips on dualwielding when his signature weapon is two-handed swords (or, if you are going to make him dualwield, if he hadn't wasted two pips on two-handed swords)
Minsc is one of the more flexible characters available to you in the game, which is one of the reasons people who play Good aligned parties want him in their game... besides the great banter and lines.
Get shadow dragon scales armor (same AC as full plate +1 iirc) and go be a tank if you want...
Because they have slower xp advancement maybe it should be better to gain them grandmastery, and thats should be the reason why they need more xp to lvl up than a fighter.