What ranged skills to choose (due to shops not restocking)?

Kahenraz

Because shops don't restock most of their wares, what would be the optimal choice of ranged weapon for various classes for an extended play in the first Baldur's Gate?

sarevok57

im assuming you mean magical ammo doesn't restock?

well there be a little caveat you can do to "restock" magical ammo, the only problem is, is that it costs a little bit of money, but money is relatively easy to come by in bg1 so here is what you can do to restock magical ammo:

lets say a store has arrows +2 in a pack of 10 but only has "5" packs of 10, what you can do is buy up all the arrows until you have 1 pack of 10 left, and then sell your arrows +2 back to the vendor

so using the above example, you bought 4 10 packs of arrows +2 ( which would give you 40) and now the shop has 1 10 pack of arrows +2 left

so if you go to sell those arrows +2 back you will actually increase that amount of packs the store has, so for example if you were to sell back those 40 arrows, the store will now have 41 10 packs of arrows +2, and you can do that over and over again, so then that store can in theory have infinite of that ammo

this is what I do in ToB so I can have "infinite" bullets +4 and arrows +3 since I always have 100s of 1000s of gold the time I hit ToB and the price to sell and buy that ammo is barely noticeable at that point

DrakeICN

Well, barring cheese like that, I dont think you can. I buy loads of +1 ammo for "general" encounters, once they run out, normal ammo. I save all my +2 ammo (and also things like dart of wounding and arrow of piercing) for "special" encounters.

For SoA things gets better, because

for mages you find a dagger of return and for fighters you for some reason do not want in melee there an axe (or was it hammer) of return, and for theives etc there is a shortbow of neverending arrows and there is also a longbow of neverending arrows (if I remember correctly). I dont remember whether pouches of endless bullets is BG or IWD, but if they are for BG, well, then there are those also. I think the only ranged type that you cannot find endless use items for is darts, and maybe crossbows (?) - correct me if I am wrong.

Grond0

There's the returning axe +2, but that's a long way through the story. However, there are infinite stocks of normal ammunition in some stores - although there are other stores that sell out quite quickly of things like darts and axes. If you know where to go to then shortage of ammunition shouldn't be a factor in BG1.

Grum

To be honest, I've never bothered with the magical ammunition in BG1. Did a run through with an elven archer PC (shortbow), Kivan (longbow), Khalid (longbow), Coran (longbow), Jaheira (sling), Xan (magic). Never bothered buying a single magical arrow, because everything just evaporates anyway under such firepower.

Ranged is king in BG1. Magical arrows just mean killing the foe a few seconds faster...

Fardragon

Never suffered from shortage of ammo. Shops don't restock because there is plenty.

SomeSort

Grond0 said:

There's the returning axe +2, but that's a long way through the story. However, there are infinite stocks of normal ammunition in some stores - although there are other stores that sell out quite quickly of things like darts and axes. If you know where to go to then shortage of ammunition shouldn't be a factor in BG1.

Ammo Merchant in Nashkel Carnival is a great one-stop-shop for all of your ammo needs. IIRC he has unlimited stacks of everything basic.

ThacoBell

Pick whatever sounds most fun to you. There is more than enough magical ammo no matter what you choose.