Ranger Build Question

[VengeanceBringer]

What ends up being more effective ranged or dual wielding? Also is the animal companion worth taking? Finally, if dual wielding is viable should one go for a dex based ranger with the "Dual Wielder" feat so they can use rapiers instead of something like a shortsword?

[Dragon Master]

The animal companion in BG3 is absolutely worth taking.

Rangers can be great at either ranged or melee, depending on your build.

I would personally have them be ranged with their animal doing melee, but keep a rapier or short sword as their melee weapon so they can still make use of their dexterity for melee.

[VengeanceBringer]

Messaggio originale di Dragon Master:

The animal companion in BG3 is absolutely worth taking.

Rangers can be great at either ranged or melee, depending on your build.

I would personally have them be ranged with their animal doing melee, but keep a rapier or short sword as their melee weapon so they can still make use of their dexterity for melee.

In terms of min-maxing would there be much difference between running something like colossus slayer in terms of raw damage? At this point I have done a play through with a ranged ranger and now am running a playthrough with dual wielding

[BW022]

In BG3 EA, ranged is probably more powerful than melee, simply as there are so many ranged encounters, height rules, lack of good armor, and large size of the battlefield do make ranged easier. This said, you can do both -- go archery and use a pair of shortswords when in melee. This said, TWF isn't that great in 5e (and especially BG3) as TWF uses a bonus action for your extra attack and a ranger often need bonus actions for jumping, hiding, shoving, hunter's mark, etc. Rapier and shield in melee might just be easier.

[hyperion]

I'm a human Ranger. Just using a bow and a rapier for melee.

How do you get an animal companion? Do you have to reach a certain level? Maybe I missed that.

[Dragon Master]

Messaggio originale di VengeanceBringer:

Messaggio originale di Dragon Master:

The animal companion in BG3 is absolutely worth taking.

Rangers can be great at either ranged or melee, depending on your build.

I would personally have them be ranged with their animal doing melee, but keep a rapier or short sword as their melee weapon so they can still make use of their dexterity for melee.

In terms of min-maxing would there be much difference between running something like colossus slayer in terms of raw damage? At this point I have done a play through with a ranged ranger and now am running a playthrough with dual wielding

I honestly couldn't tell you. I usually don't play rangers since they kind of suck in the tabletop and the version in BG3 is much better.

I'm currently doing a run as a warlock with a pact with Great Old One to see how that build works.

[Dragon Master]

Messaggio originale di hyperion:

I'm a human Ranger. Just using a bow and a rapier for melee.

How do you get an animal companion? Do you have to reach a certain level? Maybe I missed that.

Subclass at level 3.

[Methos]

if you don't want the dual wielding feat for anything heavier, then scimitars are a good option... they're a finesse weapon so you can keep your dex bonus for damage, and you can use 2 without going further to a rapier

they're easily found in game as well... the smith at the grove has +1 scimitars for sale some days... just have to do a few camp rests to get them shown lol

[VengeanceBringer]

Messaggio originale di BW022:

In BG3 EA, ranged is probably more powerful than melee, simply as there are so many ranged encounters, height rules, lack of good armor, and large size of the battlefield do make ranged easier. This said, you can do both -- go archery and use a pair of shortswords when in melee. This said, TWF isn't that great in 5e (and especially BG3) as TWF uses a bonus action for your extra attack and a ranger often need bonus actions for jumping, hiding, shoving, hunter's mark, etc. Rapier and shield in melee might just be easier.

I think I am at the point of agreeing with this. I feel however that in situations where you are suprising the enemy that TWF will have it's limited but very powerful impact. In the bulk of combat I don't see as much use as it is hard to utilize things like sneaking and hunter's marks. Again, not to say that it is bad to do TWF as a backstab can go a long ways towards increasing your damage output.

[Ratsplat]

Yep, ranged is very powerful right now. Along with everyone else has said, ranged allows you to avoid the immense amount of aoe and surface spam.

[Dragon Master]

Ranged is also the king of damage in Baldur's Gate 1, so that's one tradition followed. ^_^

[VengeanceBringer]

Messaggio originale di Dragon Master:

Ranged is also the king of damage in Baldur's Gate 1, so that's one tradition followed. ^_^

Ah in the good ole days of BG. I mean you can still play BGEE and it is the same case there. I guess it begs the question of if the animal companion is better than colossus slayer.

[Stray952]

Dual wielding only gives your stat bonus to your offhand weapon so STR / DEX doesn’t matter but I’m still pretty sure one or both weapons has to be ‘light.’ My point even with the dual wielding option at lvl 2 you’re still going to be using ‘something like short swords.’ You’re not going to be able to stack rapiers or long swords.

I haven’t tried archery yet, and I’m not sure the dual wielding perk actually works. My hit chance is still worse with the off-hand weapon. That being said, just the way the party is setup, I think you’re going to want a another melee character. You only have the fighter lizard-elf other than yourself. The rest of the chars (so far) will get insta-downed if they get hit with an arrow... because their constitution is ♥♥♥♥ and most enemy groups have several casters/archers.

I’m usually using my ranger to get on enemies and put them down as fast as possible. There are A LOT of situations where staying in the open and trading ranged for ranged is not viable.

I’ve heard the archer ranger is basically a machine gun though, so, just play however you want. I’d be more worried about constitution than DEX or STR.

People really seem to hate the dice rolls in this game. Keep in mind having more HP means being able to take more rolls from the enemy and being able to deal out many more rolls in damage. Meanwhile maxing DEX is just going to give you a slightly better hit chance. You also need STR for jumps, dialogue dice rolls and looting, because once again... no one else has any. Not saying STR is better, you just can’t dump either one.

[Stray952]

Uh... just to correct some misinformation here.. you can dual wield and use your bonus when needed. Just toggle off the double strike.

I just keep it off. It’s still a huge advantage to be able to kill off a nearly dead enemy, even if you’ve just got a dagger in the off-hand, before they hit you.

This is especially true when 2 or 3 enemies get up on you. And yes sabers are pretty good for dual wield.

[VengeanceBringer]

Also for anyone that is wondering I found out that the animal companion is only sorta meh. The damage output on the bear and wolf are 1d8 and 2d4 respectively. While the aftermentioned 2d4 is better than the 1d8 from colossus slayer the kicker is on their attack roll. At level 3 the default is +0 to attack which doesn't lend for the most consistent performance. In regards to TWF versus archery at level 2 I can say with certainty that if you are sneaking around and want to have a bit of a hard punch then the TWF is going to be at least alright. The archery on the other hand might end up being more useful as you can more readily use things like hunters mark (thus adding 1d6) in conjunction with a +2 bonus to hit will allow for more consistent damage. Ultimately, I think that between the two either is fine and works well for any intended purpose.

[VengeanceBringer]

Messaggio originale di Stray952:

Uh... just to correct some misinformation here.. you can dual wield and use your bonus when needed. Just toggle off the double strike.

I just keep it off. It’s still a huge advantage to be able to kill off a nearly dead enemy, even if you’ve just got a dagger in the off-hand, before they hit you.

This is especially true when 2 or 3 enemies get up on you. And yes sabers are pretty good for dual wield.

Right, but what's the real point of that? I mean you can do stuff like fire an arrow at an enemy and then run up to them and use your off hand attack to use up your bonus action. The point that was being made was that you have to sacrifice the off hand attack to do stuff like hide or use hunter's mark (there are other issues using hunter's mark in melee as well but lets not get into that). Ideally, if you want to optimize damage output then you want to have hunter's mark applied to the target but it makes it difficult if you have to use your bonus action on other things instead of using an offhand attack