Halfling Shadowdancer ranged weapon?

mrdeluxe

Slings, Darts, Daggers, Short Bow or Crossbow. What do you think is the best ranged choice for a halfling shadowdancer?

The halfling has +1 THAC0 in slings, but these only have 1 APR and not a lot of variety in ammo. Darts hit a lot but for not much damage. While Short Bow might be the best compromise, there's a couple of very good crossbows in the games. So, which would you choose?

Quartz

Pretty much anything but daggers is a solid choice. You've made the observations.

Slings are capable of the best THAC0, but the worst APR.
Short Bows are capable of 2 APR, but a bit less THAC0 potential. (Compare Sling +3 to Eagle Bow +2 … that's 2, or 10% higher THAC0)
Darts suck, but yes, their APR is godly. Darts are accordingly a solid pick for Assassins but as a Shadowdancer, I wouldn't bother with them.
Go for Daggers only if you want to use that as your melee as well, then you can do Dagger and Single Weapon Style from game start for great justice Only good reason to do it though, otherwise, again, don't bother.

Definitely between Short Bows and Slings if you ask me. Again, it's if you prefer accuracy or attacks per round. Personally, I tend to prefer Short Bows, because 1 higher APR is a lot, and if you're 5%-10% less accurate, you're really making up for it with double the number of rolls/chances to hit.

I'm sure you've considered all these things, but I hope it helps!

mrdeluxe

Thanks @Quartz. That's pretty much my dilemma.

Slings seem to fit halflings a little better, while short bows might be a better choice, overall.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Quartz

@mrdeluxe It might be pretty cool to go for Slings. You could equip Kiel's Buckler, and let's see, if your halfling has a 19 Dex out of the gate, plus the tome, you'd be sitting at 21 Dex with Kiel's Buckler equipped. That's yet another THAC0 point, so you'd have a -3 better THAC0 overall with the right equipment. Plus your thieving abilities would be very nice.

Gotural

On the contrary I think Daggers are really good as they start with 2 APR when thrown and they receive the Strength bonus to damage. Sure Halflings start with a maximum of 17 Strength but there are many way to increase it.

You could also use the Dagger of Venom in melee which is very good.

That said, I would still favor Darts for the Darts of Stunning and the elemental darts like Darts of Acid (which deal quite a lot of damage!)

magisensei

Daggers are pretty good. if you use them as two-handed fighting - then you can pick up some very good daggers. And you can use the throwing dagger as well - although there is only one type - it is sad that there are not some poisoned ones out there - how hard can it be to poison a throwing knife after all.

darts - I am trying them out and they work quite well - lots of APR and there is quite a variety of them - from stunning to poison to fire darts. Plus you are an assassin - and assassins use darts as a noiseless way to kill - no twang from a bow string or swish from a spinning sling.

But of course darts do less damage and you have to be much closer than a short bow in terms of distance.

A crossbow for an assassin also sounds good but it has a horrible APR but if you get crossbow of speed it will give you 2 APR and there are some good magical bolts (they must be bought). Oddly enough most monsters don't use crossbows so no picking up leftover bolts unlike the ton of arrows you can get for free.

If you start with a high CHA you can even leave Candlekeep with a magic dagger.

Aerakar

My Halfling assassin used daggers/darts plus a buckler. As noted, darts are just ridiculous with their ROF, even for non-Assassin given the secondary effects. The new dart in SoD also sounds nice.

I love using buckers with shorty thieves.

Aerakar

I think slings make more sense on Halfling fighter/thieves than thieves due to the higher fighter APR, although they are cool for RP reasons for all Halflings.

I miss the old days before one of the patches when Halflings received the same bonus as the sling bonus for darts. I always thought that made sense (e.g. give Halflings that +1 with slings/thrown weapons), but then they took it out, thus making my weaponry choices for Halflings more complicated yet again!

DevardKrown

Gotural said:

On the contrary I think Daggers are really good as they start with 2 APR when thrown and they receive the Strength bonus to damage. Sure Halflings start with a maximum of 17 Strength but there are many way to increase it.

You could also use the Dagger of Venom in melee which is very good.

That said, I would still favor Darts for the Darts of Stunning and the elemental darts like Darts of Acid (which deal quite a lot of damage!)

aside 2 APR magical BG2 Throwing dagger also come with 2d4(double damage) can be used in Melee and still have 2 APR (2-8x5 backstabs instead of 1-4x5) and in this still can be dual wielded with Kudane/Belm netting 4 APR.

But since you go for a Pure halfing thief i would go Crossbows (army scythe) 2 apr , and for BG2 Firetooth+4(faster to get! but one less apr)
or shortbows ... (2 apr all the time but gesengs is quite late to get)