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Well, I have 2 archers in my party (ranger and thief/fighter)! I gave'em both
19 DEX and 15 Strength ( Yep I passed 2 hours to create my party, at least 40 mnt re roll )
I was wondering when enemies are close rag to them are they still effective with their Bows/crossbows or I should I have them switch to Swords? if it's so, will be 15 STR enough for the Job?
Thanks for helping me
IIRC there's a penalty for using ranged weapons at melee distance. Switching to a melee weapon would be a wise choice .
19 dex is good, 15 str is adequate (but not great). The more strength your pc has, the more damage he'll do with a melee weapon. There are also a few strength requirements (well above 15)for some magical bows and you won't be able to use those with only 15 strength. Fortunately, there are a quite a few items in the game that improve strength.
She says: Lou, it's the Beginning of a Great Adventure
You won't find any strength increasing items until very late in the game, the only useful raise is the strength spell.
You can get by with 15 str, but since int,wis and cha are totally useless for your archers a character with maxed out str, dex and con can be rolled in a few minutes.
Crossbows are even worse than slings unless you're lucky and find one which grants both extra attacks and extra damage.
If you enable the to hit roll display you can see when you get a penalty and when not.
Rangers get an extra melee attack (even with 2-handed swords) if they don't wear a shield, for shooting fighters are better.
I'm a little stubborn so I try always to use a varied party :
*Fighter human 2h-sword
*Fighter dwarf Axe
*Ranger elf Archer
* Thief halfling (if I entend to dual fighter I use half elf ) ! Crossbow n daggers for backstabbing *** I said a little stubborn about variety so yes i'll stick with crossbows ***
*Mage Human Sling/daggers
*Cleric Half Elf Mace/hammers
What about that? not that terrible? ^^
This party would do fine. You might want to use a gnome for your mage instead of a human because gnomes can get 19 in INT, but that's not a must.
Only humans can dual, so if you want to dual your thief you won't be able to use a half-elf.
Kmonster is right about strength augmenting items! I was thinking of BG2 in my previous post - sorry.
She says: Lou, it's the Beginning of a Great Adventure
Pure class thieves are weak in AD&D games, I recommend to make the halfling a fighter/thief multiclass for more offensive and defensive power without a real disadvantage.
I think there isn't a penalty for ranged weapons in melee, in IWD1. Also, 15 STR is as good or bad as 10. It gets you no bonuses, nor any penalties. Blame AD&D for its ridiculous stat-tables. So, you're better off to keep using your bows.
Even with an enemy adjacent you can still shoot at *other* enemies without penalty.
The Strength spell is an excellent strategic spell in IWD, since it's duration is one hour per level of the caster. So a couple of Strength spells can significantly increase the power of your party and is well worth memorizing if the targets have at least 15 Str.
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