Two handed ranger?

[Chaosolous]

I unlocked Minsc in one of my playthroughs. I'm going through leveling him but he's a ranger. I made him a beastmaster but from everything I understand of DnD (albeit I'm pretty new) rangers use dexterity which affects finesse weapons. Minsc starts off with a two handed weapon though, which he does have proficiency in.

Doesn't him using a two handed weapon mean that his modifier is going to be strength? Is there a way to build a strength ranger? I was under the impression that you'd want to use a finesse weapons since his primary skill is dexterity. Minsc only has (raw) 12 strength but has 17 dex.

Am I missing something?

[Hobocop]

His recruit ability scores are based on the default allocation for Rangers, which assumes light/medium armor and using a bow, so if you want to play more into the character, feel free to respec.

Rangers can also use Strength perfectly fine, especially in BG3 where they can choose to be proficient in heavy armor.

If you don't want to do that, there's also a nice finesse polearm on one of the vendors.

[jonnin]

did you miss that you can respec these guys, and not only change their class but their stat allocations (which is a big deal because more than half your available companions have messed up stats, with shadowheart being the worst)?

2h is generally better suited for fighter or barbarian so you can get 3 attacks per round (barbarian gets + 1 in frenzy, and fighter gets a second bonus attack at high levels, so the barbarian gets it at level 5!). The 2h ranger can't get a third 2h attack as-is (warlock pact of blade or barbarian frenzy multiclass ideas could fix this). If you lack a bonus attack, a single level of monk lets you kick stuff and with tavern brawler feat, kick them pretty hard as a str based build.

[A Disembodied Intelligence]

Yeah, I think if you want to do a roleplay build, then Minsc is a strength based, melee Ranger-Berserker multi-class. As Hobocop says, the default stats on him aren't for roleplaying but rather just assuming default dexterity Ranger stuff.

Respec is king.

[Mojo]

Also you have to consider Minsc is kinda damaged in the head. He does refer to himself as a fighter, while Jahera calls him Ranger (I think to try to remind him of that) lol

[Millstone85]

Respec is awesome but I still wish they gave the companions stats that make sense, for optimization and/or the story.

[Metallicus]

Halsin having a 10 strength despite having the buff body type is super annoying. Minsc was strength based in the original games. I am unsure why they needed to change this in BG3.

[OnlyOffensive]

they never were "dexterety" str ranger iis pretty much canon

[The HR Department]

It's a sub class thing. You can have different attack modifiers based on the sub classes of some classes.