Crossbow Archer

dockaboomski

Is a crossbow archer a viable option? The option intrigues me, but I don't want to waste proficiency points early on and regret it later.

atcDave

It is viable, and you will eventually find some good crossbows too. From a pure power gaming perspective a traditional bow will always be better because of its higher rate of fire (at least until you find a certain magic crossbow!). But crossbow is always an interesting twist.
Its also good, if you have multiple missile troops in your party, to use different weapons. There is a shortage of good magic ammo in IWD, and its best if you don't have all your missile troops fighting over the same limited supply.

Jarrakul

There are some seriously strong crossbows in the late-game, and an archer has enough natural rate of fire to muscle through the early-game loss. Yeah, longbow is probably better overall, but you'll still be plenty strong with a crossbow.

Lord_Tansheron

"Viable" is not a word you should be using. It doesn't mean anything.

Can you complete the game with an Archer using a crossbow? Yes. Can you do it fairly easily? Also yes. Will an Archer with a bow deal more damage? Another yes.

Not much information I'm afraid. Perhaps you have some specific questions?

ameliaboggins

DOes it not depend on the power of the ammo?

arrows of poison and piercing are the 2 strongest. I cant see a standout bolt type.

Unless someone has a favourite ?

Wilbur

Lord_Tansheron said:

"Viable" is not a word you should be using. It doesn't mean anything.

To me (a non native english speaker) viable sounds like a viable choice of vocabulary in this case
I believe he was asking if it's basically worth taking (as an archer's main weapon class) or not in other words are there any good crossbows in the game. And the answer is yes.

Abel

As the other say, Bows are just better until you find a Repeating Crossbow. But that's at the end of the game so my advice would be to Grandmaster Bows first.

Lord_Tansheron

Wilbur said:

To me (a non native english speaker) viable sounds like a viable choice of vocabulary in this case
I believe he was asking if it's basically worth taking (as an archer's main weapon class) or not in other words are there any good crossbows in the game. And the answer is yes.

To clarify, this isn't about the word, it's about its meaning in this context - which is none. "Viable", much like "good" or "worth it" is an incredibly vague term that means twelve dozen things to people. While you could just say "yes" and hope it works, the information content of that statement is painfully low, making it less than helpful in my opinion.

It's much better to come with concrete, specific questions. "If I do X, will it do more damage than if I did Y?" for example is a much more informative question than "Is X viable?".

atcDave

Funny though, I answered the question. I guess it was a viable word choice after all...

Wilbur

Lord_Tansheron said:

Wilbur said:

To me (a non native english speaker) viable sounds like a viable choice of vocabulary in this case
I believe he was asking if it's basically worth taking (as an archer's main weapon class) or not in other words are there any good crossbows in the game. And the answer is yes.

To clarify, this isn't about the word, it's about its meaning in this context - which is none. "Viable", much like "good" or "worth it" is an incredibly vague term that means twelve dozen things to people. While you could just say "yes" and hope it works, the information content of that statement is painfully low, making it less than helpful in my opinion.

It's much better to come with concrete, specific questions. "If I do X, will it do more damage than if I did Y?" for example is a much more informative question than "Is X viable?".

I understand what you're saying, but it's also possible he's not the most power gaming type or doesn't want to get spoiled with too much detail. Not everyone here wants to get maximum DPS type (or maybe damage per round) answers. I agree that if you want more specific answers then you should ask more specific questions.

elminster

If you are going to use a crossbow don't feel bad about using up bolts of lightning. They only hit as normal weapons, so their usability is going to be limited in the game. However, they do a wack of damage.

Fardragon

atcDave said:

Funny though, I answered the question. I guess it was a viable word choice after all...

It was a very easy question, since there are no classes or kits in IWD that are not viable, the answer is always "yes".

dockaboomski

Lord_Tansheron said:

"Viable" is not a word you should be using. It doesn't mean anything.

Can you complete the game with an Archer using a crossbow? Yes. Can you do it fairly easily? Also yes. Will an Archer with a bow deal more damage? Another yes.

Not much information I'm afraid. Perhaps you have some specific questions?

Well, how about this?
Should I choose crossbows over longbows or shortbows?
Do bows end up outperforming crossbows late game?
Should I give my Archer a crossbow, or should I reserve it for my thief?
I assumed the question was straightforward enough. I wasn't really looking for complicated answers.

FinneousPJ

It is straightforward. The point is everything is viable.

Fardragon

dockaboomski said:

Lord_Tansheron said:

"Viable" is not a word you should be using. It doesn't mean anything.

Can you complete the game with an Archer using a crossbow? Yes. Can you do it fairly easily? Also yes. Will an Archer with a bow deal more damage? Another yes.

Not much information I'm afraid. Perhaps you have some specific questions?

Well, how about this?

Much better.

Should I choose crossbows over longbows or shortbows?

Longbows are generally better. Only choose a crossbow if another party member is using a longbow and you don't want to fight over ammo, or you want to make the game less easy.

Do bows end up outperforming crossbows late game?

Longbows outperform crossbows for most of the game. There is one very good crossbow available late on.

Should I give my Archer a crossbow, or should I reserve it for my thief?

If you want to make the game easy, give your archer a longbow. If you want to make the game slightly less easy, give him a crossbow.

I assumed the question was straightforward enough. I wasn't really looking for complicated answers.

It's not straightforward because you asked if it was viable, not if it was more or less powerful.

dockaboomski

Okay, well, grammar and word choice aside, that answers my question and all other questions reasonably ascertained from it.

elminster

The best crossbow you can get is

Firetooth +4 from Sister Garlena outside Watcher's Keep. You can upgrade this in ToB into a +5 weapon though honestly the upgrade only provides a very minor change.

Its expensive but you can pick it up as soon as you leave Athkatla if you are willing to shell out the money for it.

Outside of Bolts of Lightning crossbows are kind of limited with regard to damaging ammunition, which is what makes this particular crossbow so good. It adds 1d8+4 missile and +2 fire damage to every shot you make (on top of your ordinary bolt damage) and gives a +6 Thac0 bonus. It also doesn't require ammunition (though this just adds to the damage if you do us it). Its probably comparable to any longbow to take as a result.

Shortbows are still the best way to go as far as any archer is concerned though.

O_Bruce

@elminster‌
All well and good but it is IWD:EE topic, not BG2:EE.

elminster

O_Bruce said:

@elminster‌
All well and good but it is IWD:EE topic, not BG2:EE.

Woops. Old age (I'll just leave my post up as a testament to how senile I am)

In that case I'd go with longbows. Crossbows seem like they more often come as random drops. So longbows are probably the safer bet.

GamingFreak

You find a decent amount of +2 crossbow bolts lying around as early as Dragon's Eye (which helps against Yxonomei (sp?)) and plenty of +1 bolts as well. That said a Longbow will do you better especially with Messenger of Sseth, but a crossbow of speed is no slouch either.

Shyn

If you take the whole bow vs crossbow part out of the equasion;

There's still the part where there's a relative abundance of special arrows vs the incredible rarity of bolt's that do anything noteworthy.

dockaboomski

Now that we've taken care of that, maybe we can all get on the topic of grandmastery of darts...

Shyn

dockaboomski said:

Now that we've taken care of that, maybe we can all get on the topic of grandmastery of darts...

Now that would just be hilarious. I never use darts, but there's a load of them with all sorts of special and powerful effects. But there sadly simply aren't enough of them to go around considering the vast amount of enemies in IWD.

Abel

I don't think Archers can Grandmaster them though...

dockaboomski

Abel said:

I don't think Archers can Grandmaster them though...

Time for a new topic, apparently...

Blades

dockaboomski said:

Now that we've taken care of that, maybe we can all get on the topic of grandmastery of darts...

Fighter with 5 pips in darts should be quite nasty.... Isn't there a returning frost dart? That would be a "viable" choice for most of the game...