I have recently made an archer. I am worried i piced a good dmge class. At lvl 9 he is only doing 13 points of dmg. My archers stats are. He is an elf

strenght-18\57
dex - 19
Con - 17
int -10
wis -16
char -10

I also planed on being evil with him so i changed his alignment to neutral evil. Than i was screwing around and i killed a commaner and it said i had fallen( i had an earlier save). earlier i read that he doesnt get any of a rangers speacial ablities. What is your opinion on the archer

First, becoming evil is good!:D:evil:

Second, don't worry you'd be very mighty later on, just go and seek a strong tank buddy like Korgan.

[This message has been edited by Laksol (edited October 16, 2001).]

Becoming evil is NOT good; if you are a Fallen Ranger or Paladin, you lose your class's special abilities (called shots, priest spells, etc, in this case). Arrows, and therefore archers, do not do much damage; however, the archer gets an amazingly quick and accurate rate of fire. I've played an Archer myself; you've made a good choice. His damage potential is immense. Keep playing.

Tiamat is right. I don't believe that you can't have an evil ranger. So my question is how did you change your alignment without being in hell?

Sorry i forgot to say that i changed it with shadow keeper

In my opinion none of the ranger kits are any good. I prefer "normal" ranger, because they can wear full plate mail and with a kit you are restricted to studded leather and leather. The archer can place a maximum of two slots in melee weapons, what also explains why you are doing not much damage. The archer is only good when you plan on using only a bow and no melee weapons.

Why not?! Why would you want to come in for toe to toe battle if you can slaughter them from afar? The archer may place 5 proficiency points in missile weapons (more than three is obsolete, though) but only one in melee weapons. Aside from this, they fight just as well as a ranger.

And why would you want to put a Ranger in full plate mail? His stealth ability is useless then; you might as well not even use a Ranger if you're going to put metallic armor on your character...

[This message has been edited by Blackthorne TA (edited October 18, 2001).]

good evening :)
I'm playing an archer as my main char at the moment and he has now, at lvl-13, started to step the shadow of his so-planned support char mc fighter-mage. He is really awesome - stealth is essential for him (actually he did the whole planar sphere demon dungeon mostly alone, sniping mephits and killing demons - pretty amazing. His melee ability is indeed impressive despite his just * ablity.

All in all a great class, you only need to get used to ranged weapon fight - boods of speed and the shadowdragon scale are very helpful.

The only drawback is that I play an elf - with the unavoidably rather mediocre saving throws so I have to care about protection from beeing charmed again ... good old halfling cavalier days *sigh* ;)

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited October 18, 2001).]

Helm of charm protection?

oh yes - that came even to my mind :p but I had more robust things in mind like chaotic commands and some neat potions or items to reduce saving throws (ring of gaax, ring of protection, potion of heroism etc .... )

The archer's strong points are the insanely low THAC0 (similar to a Kensai, you are virtually guaranteed to hit anything) and number of attacks. With Grand Mastery you should eventually have 4 & 1/2 attacks per round, get a mage to cast Improved Haste on you and that becomes 9 attacks per round - you are a machine gun!

thats right, you will disrupt mages, clean out entire hordes of summoned creatures and turn firkraag into a pincushion - stoneskins? well thats all gone in half a round

I played an archer and my arrows didn't affect mages because they had a shield. Very stupid and underpowered class imho. The special arrows cost too much...

Is there any class in the game that is strong enough to get through the game easily? I really hate saving, loading, retrying, loading, retrying, loading, retrying loading, quitting, loading tomorrow, retrying, loading, succeeding, saving, continuing.
I want trying, succeeding, continuing... I have tried cavalier but it sucked because he couldn't hit anything(bad weapon?). Thieves weren't strong enough. My kensai/mage was too weak to fight and didn't know enough good spells and good spells cost money in the shop. Fighter/cleric was fairly good but boring and I couldn't get a good weapon. My sorcerer was too weak because he only had a few spells. I played with a monk but he kinda sucked.

I'm going to retry monk and archer. I just need some better weapons and more money. Sometimes I wish I could tell them the secret of gunpowder=sulfur, coal and nitre.. or something like that. I would use my castle for labor and tell them how to build high firerate machineguns such as MG42. I would use steam engines to create electric power so I could build a huge factory and equip a small group of 50 people with mg42 machneguns firing 7.92mm with a rate of fire of 1200 RPM. That would be hella cool. Ireniqus qould be dead in no time. I would use an ironclad to conquer the spellhold. Soon, the whole of AMN would be on my knees. Begging for mercy. Industrial revolution would begin...... lol :) :)
Maybe I should get Arcanum. :)

You should retry the monk class, Lukki(sp?),
It's one of the best prestige class there is and he gets ridiculously powerful when he levels up a bit, he's even stronger than the archer IMHO.

Lukki:
Get yourself a cavalier or a pure fighter (maybe dwarven), that should enable you to get through the game without too many problems.
The cavaliers special abilities are pretty good and the ** weapon proficiencies ensure that your char will be pretty flexible in terms of weapon choices.
The fighter's THACO and punch are even better, though fighters lack some of the nicer features of the cavalier.

However, I disagree with you about the archer, I played mine through BG-2 SoA now and I was amazed about the good melee qualities despite * weapon proficiency and silly AC. The archers ranged weapon qualities are absolutely outstanding.

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited November 03, 2001).]

There should be a military archer kit for the fighter. He could wear splint mail but he wouldn't have called shot.

Why? I think it's stupid that you have to be GOOD to play an archer. It's unfair and stupid. What if someone want's to be a bad archer?

AD&D rules suck. I think someone should make a new CRPG with better rules. I think mages can use a sword. Maybe not so efficiently as fighters but they can use it. Everyone can use anything...

The game is not meant to be easy, but funny. I think the balance is ok in the game. You can play with any class, and be successful. If you want a machine gun, or a Rambo character, play another game. I don’t know, but I believe that you just had started various games, and not finish one, may be that is one reason why you don’t trust any class at all. Good spells are expensive, sure, but in BGII you don’t lack of money, there is plenty; good spells are expensive, that is right, but at the beginning of the game you don’t have to much money, also you can’t use high level spells, so there is not need to spend on those spells. When you advance on the game, collect enough money to buy almost everything (if you choose wise, of course, but that is part of the fun, you buying strategies), I personally, not sure but think that by chap 6 had more than 100000 gp, and plenty of cool weapons and spells. BTW, playing with a paladin and a kensai/mage, that means double planning my shopping. My now 12/13 kensei/mage is an incredible fighter, with aerie, I don’t use him too much as mage, just with some particular creatures.

And of course, I have to reload several times my game. But if don’t believe, I wouldn’t be playing a so easy game that can be beat on one round, that is boring. Each time I reload change my strategy, and laugh about my mistakes, once I know how to win a fight.

So, if you want to enjoy BGII, just be patience and wait until what ever class you choose advances to a high level, in order to have an strong character. I’ve tried monk, very interesting; archer, long range power; f/m/t, to slow to advance, but pretty cool. I just played to o three chaps with this classes together, just to see how they behave, and choose which one like more, and let me tell you, the five classes I’ve tried (completing the game with a paladin and a kensei/mage) all are strong enough to finish the game. About the other classes and kits, I still don’t know. Make your choice.

You should really give them more chance, of course nobody can really walk every battle but then if they could maybe it would be too easy. Or maybe you just suck??

Let me tell you a secret Spells and magic arrows are FREE!. you just get jan and drink a couple of potions of master thievery. and you go to waukeegan and steall spells and arrows. I had ton load of spells and arrows by the time the potion wore off and nice items too. like the strong arm+2 for vicona so it raises here str to 18 and now she an wear fullplate.

I had to have 36 stacks of arrows by the time i was done stealing.

To the topic:
Remember that arrows are 1d6 and crossbow bolts are 1d8. Crossbow has more power and with the archer abilities it would be a very good weapon since you hit almost everytime.

In general crossbows do more damage but remember that rate of fire of bows is 2 compared to 1 for crossbows, so the 1d6 of the bow is actually 2d6 taking no. of attacks into account.

Yea, but with Tugian +1 bow my archer has 4 attacks, and only after doing few quests, she has highest numbers of kills: 77 compared to my Undead hunter: 33

It's wicked but I think I'm falling in love with her :p

I prefer the gesenbow. 1st of all you don't have to worry about your ammo running out. When tuigan bow my archer was a damn machine gun!
2nd gesenbow hits almost anything. I can't remember reading that annoying little line weapon ineffective

Gesen Bow is a short bow. That already has some penalties, You'd better just fight with a long bow. Then you have many attacks per round too.

As BTA already said, Rangers shouldn't wear plate mails. It's rediculous that in BG2 wearing metal with a ranger doesn't give you penalties, however it is not very useful for an archer, it should at least give penalties on two weapon fighting.

Crossbow's are better then Long Bows in this game but they are slower and there are better arrows then bolts. So I should say, play with bow instead of crossbow.

Ah and one last thing: Never say that Archers suck... for then you really pissed BTA off :)

Yeah but there is no longbow with unlimited ammo right?
That's why I chose shortbow. I get tired of stacking up my inventory with arrows

IIRC the only two bows with unlimited ammo are Tansheron's Bow and Gesen Bow. And they are both shortbows. And a good shortbow to hold you over until you get those is the Tugian Bow on the beastmaster in the Copper Coronet.