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If I wanted to play an archer type of combatant, which class/race would you recommend me to take?

For an archer type character, I can't think of any other classes except the archer. Great ranged character.

As for race, elf seems all to appropriate. Sure, you get a penalty to your constitution score, but you get a bonus to dexterity which improves your AC but (in my opinion) more importantly, you get a bonus to bows and long swords, both of which help as bows will most likely be your main weapon (although you can always use slings, darts and crossbows as well) and the swords, well, just in case.

There is no AC bonus for a score of 19 in dexterity. But still, the score of 19 improves thac0 for ranged weapons, so yeah, a Ranger[Archer]/Elf seems like the best choice. If you want a neutral or evil character, a plain old fighter seems the only choice left.

"I can't think of any other classes except the archer."

There are so many great melee-type builds: Kensai/Thief, Kensai/Mage, Monk, Assassin, Blade... But only one noteworthy ranged weapons user? What a shame!

Actually, the Kensai bonus does not apply to ranged weapons. You can check by equipping K'logarath +4 as a melee weapon versus a ranged weapon.

As for Kensai/Mage, yes the bonus does apply to Melf's Minute Meteors and Energy Blades.

Assassin, it's good to poison or multi-poison a ranged weapon, but the THAC0 is still pretty bad.

I never thought of a Blade as a ranged character due to its' amazing tanking ability.

I'd rank them in this order:

Archer
Kensai/Mage
Assassin
Blade

The Archer can kill enemies not only through damage but through ability drain.

The Kensai/Mage, also having great tanking ability, can provide pure damage through the aforementioned spells and Tensor's.

The Assassin can render an enemy harmless due to the constant damage from the poison (not to mention the disrupting damage animation).

The Blade can increase its' attack by one AND do full damage for a short while. At best (without using bugs), when using Gesen's you can achieve seven attacks per round at about -10 THAC0 and about five attacks per round while with Firetooth you can make three attacks per round at -13 THAC0.

Also, note that "enchant weapon effects" such as Poison Weapon or Called Shot, can be applied with area of effect through items like the Arrows of Detonation.

There are a good amount of ranged builds, yes, but the archer is still the best among them (assuming you don't abuse bugs of course).

EDIT: If you start in the original with 19 Dexterity, you can achieve 22, depending on your choices.

"There are a good amount of ranged builds, yes [...]"



Well... That's actually the opposite of what I intended to point out. :laugh: What I wanted to say was that there are many interesting melee builds but only a few classes that specialize in ranged weapons.

However, thanks for your contribution. You seem to be well versed in Baldur's Gate. What's your favorite class in ToB?

My favorite class would probably end up being a Blade, or a regular Bard in the original.

I personally tend to stay away from ranged weapons as the Kensai/Mage is a melee powerhouse with the help of spells.

For the Blade, I prefer melee because, contrary to the five attacks (with Improved Haste) with Gesen's Bow, you get about four attacks when dual wielding and eight with Improved Haste active.

The assassin, while perfectly capable of disabling enemies through his poison, does have x7 backstab multiplier and it'd be a shame not to use it.

Aoshi99 wrote:What I wanted to say was that there are many interesting melee builds but only a few classes that specialize in ranged weapons.

That is because the advantages of having a ranged weapon are completely arbitrary in BG2. With boots of speed (or any type or haste) your character moves fast enough to only lose one or two attacks while charging/changing target.

Also, there are no fight positioned in such a way that ranged weapons would be necessary. You can always get enough room to pound something with a couple or melee characters.

While Ranged weapons were a gamebreaker in BG1, it's almost worthless in BG2. An archer with a good weapon can still be an asset and a fun class to play, but they have no noteworthy advantage over their melee counterparts.

I remember playing an archer in a party of 3 (with Anomen and Imoen IIRC) a while ago. She ended up getting the vast majority of kills, thanks to grand mastery and the Tuigan bow.

Advantages over a melee fighter:
- 5 attacks per round, every round, as long as there are enemies left on the battle field. Extra fun with improved haste for 10/round! I remember thinking of her as my machine gunner in those days...
- killer THAC0
- can disrupt several mages per round (just pause and choose new target after each shot)
- doesn't get hurt, doesn't usually have to drink potions
- one less character that needs good AC, can use items that focus on other things instead
- can sneak (nice for scouting ahead)
- it's much easier to select the right type of arrow than to switch to the right weapon for the situation (e.g. switch between non-magical arrows, plain magical, acid arrows for stoneskins, arrows of dispelling)

It's been a while and I don't remember my tactics clearly, but I do remember it was one of my two most memorable runs. Actually, every now and then I think I'll have to do another one like that...


Crenshinibon, how do you get 4 attacks on a dual-wielding blade? He doesn't get any extra attacks from level-ups, so that would be just 2 for two weapons. Are you using both Belm and Kundane together or is there some spell involved?

Using Haer'Dalis, I found out recently that if you dual-wield (2 attacks, no Belm/Kundane involved), cast haste (+1 attack) and then activate offensive spin (another +1) you actually end up with 5 attacks rather than 4! I didn't have improved haste at that point, it might be interesting if it can be cast on top of that, too, for 10 attacks per round. All of these spells have a decent duration, too.
This combination should be valid for bows as well, as these also have 2 attacks per round regularly. Needs 3 spells rather than just one for the archer, but on the other hand, he'll get max damage out of it as well (from the spin).

Blades, just like the archer, suffer from a lack of AC because their items will probably focus on spellcasting rather than AC and they can't wear heavier than chain anyway. Staying back from melee and gunning arrows at 5/round with max damage each sounds like an interesting option to me. You can also use them perfectly well with a cast and attack tactic, getting a spell off every round, if that's not too cheesy for you.
The main disadvantage I can see with the blade is the lack of THAC0. The archer probably has the best you'll ever see on any character, while the blade is essentially like a thief. No problem when fighting mages, which should be priority for archers, but against clerics or fighters with good AC he might have some more difficulties.


The other classes mentioned pale in comparison I think. A kensai doesn't offer any substantial ranged bonus. An assassin has the poison, but only two attacks per round and, unlike the blade, no potential for self-buffing.

Thrar: I was referring to a blade that has access to the Use Any Item ability (ToB).

The weapons that the character is wielding are Scarlet Ninja-To +3 (BGII: SoA, Special Edition) and Belm +2, this yields two attacks. Then, we add Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization (ToB), which gives us 9/2 attacks, or 4.5 attacks per round. Finally, we don the Boots of Speed, and our attacks rise to a total of five per round.

With Improved Haste, the Blade only hits nine times a round.

Blades boast a great AC through spells as well as abilities (Spirit Armor, Blur, Tensor's Transformation and Defensive Spin (and if you're using a Ring of Free Action, that means you can move around too).

The AC aside, even if you get hit, by sacrificing one (or two) of your attacks per round (leaving a total of four, seven if under the effects of Improved Haste), you are able to achieve a physical resistance of 45% (Jansen AdventureWear (25%) and Defender of Easthaven (20%)). Your AC should be about -20 or -24, depending on item choice.

Now, I'm getting ahead of myself here. In order for any of those calculations to go into place, the enemy must first hit you, meaning that they have to get past eight imagines and ten skins.

THAC0 is no problem as with Tensor's Transformation you have about -9 or -10 (-13 in the main hand if under the effects of the song), depending on weapon choice.

With Gesen's Bow, fully buffed, you attack five times per round, at -5 THAC0 (-10 if you use arrows from the Quiver of Plenty +2, -14 if you use your song, which lasts for about a round unless you choose to be cheesy and have your images sing for you (stackable)), which isn't bad at all.

Slower than an archer, yes, but not a bad trade off given all the things that this one class can do.

The Assassin can stack his poison, making hit targets take insane amounts of damage, while at the same time "paralyzing" them (due to the constant display of the damage animation).

I also played an elven archer in a party of 3 and although he was very effective upto mid levels he was not very useful in the high levels.still can't think of any other class that would be that effective. You can try the fighter archer kit in the Ease of use if you don't like rangers.

If I may, can i recommend playing a party of 6 archers? I am yet to try this and it sound s a lot of fun

Sounds like a lot of *ouch*! :speech:

You'll need a source for improved haste somewhere, 4 archers and 2 mages (wild mages for Nahal's) might be more effective I think. 4 archers with improved haste is equivalent to 8 archers without, and the mages offer other nice things too of course.

Regarding the generic archer as a fighter kit, it's part of tactics, not ease-of-use (which has been merged into the G3 tweak pack anyway). With that, you might even start with 6 archers (at least two fighter ones) and dual 2 of them to mages at level 13 or so.

You can get Improved Haste from:

Ring of Gaxx (Three times per day.)
Improved Cloak of Protection +2
Bracers of Blinding Strike
Amulet of Cheetah Speed
Darkfire Bow +5

I just finished a ToB with Mazzy as my archer and she was devastating.

If you are making your own character, consider a fighter as your archer. They have many of the benefits the archer ranger kit gets, grand mastery, for example, but can still use the heaviest armours. In ToB when range becomes less relevant, by then you should have grand mastery in another weapon, I'd recommend a two handed like spear or quarterstaff because there are some nice spears and quarterstaves. Impaler, spear of withering, Ixils spike, staff of striking/command/air/fire and staff of the ram are all really great weapons that rarely shine because no NPCs master them.

Just a suggestion.

A fighter specialized in bows would be my first choice if I hadn't already played a Kensai/Thief twice. So I've finally decided to take the Elven Archer suggested in the previous posts. So that's for the PC. But I'm still unsure about the NPCs. These are the ones I took in the other two games:

Game I (SoA only)
Minsc
Keldorn
Nalia
Imoen
Aerie (romance)
(+ Rightful evil Kensai(9)/Thief)

Game II (SoA & ToB)
Minsc
Sarevok
Haer'dalis
Edwin
Viconia (romance)
(+ Rightful evil Kensai(13)/Thief)

This time I'm going to take these NPCs:
Valygar
Anomen
Imoen
Jaheira (romance)
(+ Rightful good Elven Archer)

I want to take these NPCs because I have never had them in my party before - except for Imoen. But she is the only decent Thief in the game. Plus I haven't seen her ToB dialogs so far. What do you think of this set? There is still one slot open. Whom would you take?

Only decent thief in the game?! What about Jan? I think that he's the best thief NPC available.

You *really* want him. He has *the* best banter set in the game, and as power wise, during late game, with your current setup, he will be able to take your entire party alone.

Also, the alignment is called "lawful," not "rightful".

I would add Aerie in that party of five for her combo of divine and mage spells

A little late but one class that can make a very good archer is a swashbuckler. The only downside is only being able to place one profiency slot in any ranged weapons, but the damage and thaco bonuses they get do apply to ranged weapons and will make up for it. If you did go that route i would advise using shortbows in order to use tuigan and get decent attacks per round without being hasted or using whirlwinds.

How about a Fighter with the archer kit of Tactics dualled to a Mage at level 9 or 13???? I think he is more powerfull than the Ranger with Archer-kit even on the highest levels 30++

The Tactics Mod's Archer/Mage or Archer->Mage are quite insane. Stacking Called Shots with Energy Blades or even just MiniMets is fun