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any tips for a solo cleric/ranger?

is there any need for charm animal at all? squirrels dont seem to be all that powerful...

Charm a bear. Haste da bear. Sic 'im on da squirrel. Yeah!

heh , bears dont seem to be all that common.

Not? In BG, most of the things you fight are animals. So, being able to make some of them your allies really isn't something to be turned down. Unless you want to. Doesn't make all that difference, but it's very usefull, just so you know.

The cleric/ranger is arguably the most powerful pc. He covers almost all the bases: he can fight, cast, heal and sneak. I soloed a c/r once and it was not very difficult-and therefore not very interesting either.

Since he's soloing, I think a F/M/C is better than a C/R, but only in BGI. In BGII, the druid spell "Ironskins" just rocks the casbah.

Also a cleric/ranger is able to cast spells both from the cleric spell book and the ranger spell book. i.e He can cast insect plague, summon skellies, and then santuary himself.

surely a f/m/c has too much level restriction.. could only get to about level 6 i guess in each class which would give you level 3 spells??

A F/M/C will have 8 total Cleric spells (3rd level being the highest).
A C/R will have 9 total Priest spells (the one extra being a 4th level spell).

The real difference is this: Wisdom affects this number of spells, and the F/M/C will have an additional 8 Mage spells to mess around with.

That's just my personal preference, though. Apologies for hijacking this thread.

C/R is much better if soloing.. you can wear armor while casting and with the 3wisdom manuals in the game you get your wis to 21 which gives nice bonus spellslots..

whereas F/M/C has to spend points in intelligence also, can't cast mage spells while wearing armor and has to divide exp to 3 different classes.. yes there are many ways to gather as much as exp you want but still it's easier to concentrate simply on two classes. plus the only restriction are blade weapons, and you can do just fine without them in BG1/ToSC and BG2/ToB

Good points Locke. However, one caveat: in BG1 longbows are by far the most effective weapons and Clerics cannot use them. It is possible to take out most enemies before they even close to melee range, thus minimizing the need for armor. This is somewhat less true for a solo character, but the lack of an upper limit on summoned creatures balances this as well. On the whole I think either a FMC or RC can be equally effective in BG1.

The situation changes in BG2 with higher level monsters and greater magic resistance, making melee ability pretty much a necessity.

I like Slings more than longbows. The ability to add your strength bonus to the damage of slings just makes them superior IMHO. You can also use a shield.

longbows do have a faster firing rate and many different types of arrows though, bullets are pretty limited.

i wasnt aware that a f/m/c could use a longbow...

A f/m/c can not use a longbow.

Righto, can a ranger/cleric use a longbow then?

I prefer darts anyway they are kicka$$ soloing a mage with them now

Cleric/Ranger can't use them either. Anything with "Cleric" in there is restricted to blunt weapons.

[QUOTE=dagonet]Righto, can a ranger/cleric use a longbow then?[/QUOTE]
Cleric/Rangers cannot use longbows, as unfortunate as that is. It's an awesome weapon for rangers overall. Sneaking within range of a few enemies and then pummeling them is always fun. You can do the same with slings, but they normally close to melee range before you can do too much damage. Cleric melee weapons just never seemed to fit rangers in my opinion anyway. Why would someone sneaking around the woods use a massive war hammer or a mace? Some sort of sword or spear would seem to fit better in that environment.