I'm a RPG newbie, and I've made some very poor decisions, especially in distributing proficiencies points. Example : my archer protagonist has 4 points in long bow, 3 points in short bow and 1 in crossbow, although he only uses long bows. Obviously, those point would have been better spent in 2 handed swords or something like that. I'm currently in chapter 6, completing the remaining subquests. I'm wondering if there's some kind of hack that would allow me to re-spend my points in a wiser way, now that I know more about D&D and BG2.

There isnt one that I know of mate, if you pick skills your stuck with them, which is why distributing your skills is a massively important choice.

You have two choices IMO, either keep going and do the best you can. Or restart and play the game through again knowing what you know (also knowing a few quests :p ). My advice would be the latter.

Maybe someone else can help you out better though matey, just my view! :)

Shadowkeeper, shadowkeeper and shadowkeeper.

Did I forgot to say shadowkeeper?

Thanks a lot! :)

ShadowKeeper, of course.

But wouldn't you rather like to finish the game legitimately?

With only one proficiency slot per melee weapon you may quickly become proficient with just about everything and you aren't getting more than one slot per melee weapon anyway, so why bother so much? :) Just spend all your slots from now on melee proficiencies and you'll be fine too. From realistic point of view you never know what weapons you will find. With archer, I would go for dual-wielding and whatever weapon of which you have two good ones at the moment. Later in the game you can become proficient in new weapons every 3 levels, which isn't a long period.

You're right... I forgot about that when redistributing my point...gotta change that back... duel-welding is a bit annoying, as you have to remove the bow from the weapon slot to be able to use an off-hand weapon...

If you don't really like removing off-hand gear, single-weapon or two-handed style is for you.

Single-weapon gives you criticals on 19-20 even if you only spend one point on it. You also get +1 AC when fighting that way.

Two-handed style gives you -2 to speed and +1 to damage when you spend one point.

I think I would take both if I were playing an archer.

Dual-wielding is a better choice, however, because as a ranger you already have two free points spent on it. Give it one more and you get +1 attack per round with off-hand attacks at -2 to hit, which isn't much on higher levels. This could compensate for not getting +1/2 attack per round from weapon specialisation (two points spent on the same weapon).

Maybe from the perspective of maximising your character's fighting abilities it's not ideal to have proficiencies in all three types of bows, but it's quite good roleplaying. I can easily imagine a sharpshooter-type character who's very specialised and can shoot any kind of bow you give him, but not so hot with anything else. Not all of us build characters based on making them powerful; old pen and paper roleplayers are used to making up all sorts of eccentric characters and then enjoying the challenges their limitations pose as the game progresses. Just my two cents.

Thanks for your inputs.

Just wondering, all characters in my party have both melee and ranged weapons equipped; they all use the ranged weapon except two of them who go melee, and have boots of speed so they stop the enemy far away from the rest of the party. Does this makes any sense?

Actually yes.

While I've never used that as a strat, I can see it working. Your two melee characters keep the enemies in one spot while the ranged weapon users pummel them from afar.

I think that's probably standard. Everyone should have a range weapon, even the ones you use mainly as melee fighters, so that if a wizard is casting area effect spells you can discourage your troops from charging into the fireball blast area. It does help to give everyone a melee weapon too though, even the archers, because otherwise if someone engages them in close quarters the bad guy will get a bonus to attack. A bow is no protection when someone is trying to stab you. :)