F/M multi class.

NightDM

I came with an idea of playing a multi class fighter, shooting a bow as main weapon and supporting himself with magic. Would this work? And be effective?

SethDavis

I dunno. Most of the benefits of being a dual seem to be getting magical protections with the offensive bonuses, but if you're at range the protections aren't so important and the offensive bonuses are a bit muted. Would probably be fun though.

abacus

No reason why not. As a multi class you can only spend 2 pips in any weapon anyway, so you'll have plenty to spread around other weapons for those times when a bow won't cut it.

FrozenDervish

It's perfectly viable and is preferred in BG1 due to arrows and free attacks per round from ranged weapons. In BG 2 you can use both melee and ranged depending on the situation.

Corvino

Melee weapons are far more powerful on a F/M multi come BG2, when ranged weapons don't really keep pace for damage output, but in BG1 this will be a highly effective character. While it almost makes more sense to combine ranged combat with ranged casting, you get a lot more mileage from defense spells if you actually wade into combat, as @SethDavis points out.

Dual-wielding Fighter/Illusionists are damn near unkillable death-dealing machines by early BG2, while ranged F/Ms are just hard to kill.

Lemernis

You certainly can have a very viable character in a multi F/M with 2 pips in bow. Casting spells and firing arrows would be an interesting departure from the usual meleeing F/M.

Aristillius

Bow + web can be nice, maybe focus more (than usual) on crowd control/rendering enemies useless before killing them? Oh, and always a spell ready to remove protection from missles? Sounds like a fun playstyle

NightDM

Yea, cuz thats what i was looking for simple archer seems kinda boring to me.

Lemernis

You might try some fun stuff also:

1) Wearing Sense of the Cat boots (+5 versus Missiles) + Elves Bane belt (+3 vs. Missiles) Blur or the blurring cloak at Ulgoth's Beard + Improved Invisibility + Haste send him into melee with the bow. He's probably not going to be hit much by melee weapons. But if needed have him dart around a bit and use the bow at a very short distance.

2) Buffed as such but also with protection from fire (scroll or potions plus the ring) and have the F/M go into melee by himself alone and fire arrows of detonation at nearly point blank range.

Demonoid_Limewire

Why not start a human fighter, get grandmastery to a ranged attack weapon, and then dual to M? Just a small proposition...

Dexter

Any F/M combo with any weapon is very viable and versatile though the whole saga. If you have an arcane archer charname in mind I say go for it

kamuizin

Well, greater malision and a spam of exploding arrows certainly can do a lot of damage from BG1 to Throne of Bhaal, but that would be part of your character only.

As a mage/fighter you could do this by focusing in grease, melf's minute meteor, teleport field, greater malision, slow, improved haste, simulacrum (to double the attacks, literally and even double your amount of exploding arrows or save the original ones) and energy blades.

Putting all the other spells in remove magic protections would give you an upper hand against most of the enemies in the whole game. Grease + Greater Malision + Teleport field is by the way an very interesting combo for any fighter/mage with ranged weapon mind of play and it's not an common tactic of the old gamers (not so effective as many others that exist).