Archer Proficiency Slots

[kenneyHIMURA]

Im building an Elven Archer that will use a Shortbow.. Now what secondary weapon do i need ? Mace, Flail, Long/Shortsword? Also Singleweapon, 1h with shield ?

[Kaia]

Ideally you will never be in melee, as your effectiveness disappears there - any time you ARE in melee it should be your objective to get out again so you can resume shooting. To that ends having a melee weapon is more about not suffering the penalties of being 'unarmed' than actually doing anything.

There're more magic longswords in the game than any other weapon. And many sport utility bonuses like a bit of fire damage (good for troll slaying). So its never a bad choice, and elves do get a THAC0 bonus with them. Scimitars are quite rare and thus best avoided. On the other hand, bludgeoning weapons generally hit high AC's more easily and some creatures are immune to everything BUT bludgeoning, making your high piercing/missile damage worthless. So a mace or hammer is a good idea as there're several magical examples you can carry without taking away the best melee weapons from your front-liners.

As for fighting style, you're almost always going to be better off with a shield - at a minimum its a +2 to AC to protect you while you get back to missile range without even being magical and some magic shields are very powerful.

[kenneyHIMURA]

Thank you for a fast answer. I went with Shortbow, Shield and Mace. Hopefully i dont need to use melee to much in the playthrough. I went with Dragon as a racial enemy aswell.. I feel that Dragons will be really tough to deal with.. Every boost in damage will count i hope

[kaiyl_kariashi]

shields are useless. (there's a few useful ones in BG2 but only for their immunities and very situational for when they should be used)

You have a built-in bonus towards dual-wielding so if you should EVER need to melee, it WILL be via dual-wielding. Longswords are reasonably common, though really anything works since archers only get -1 thac0 for non-proficiency and you can't specialize in melee anyway, so take longswords if you can find one and use anything else if it's better/same/no better options yet.


BG does NOT favor defense, it favors stacking as many APR as possible and killing the enemy before they're a threat. (combined with buffs, debuffs, and CC for maximum effect, trying to play a tank just means you're taking longer to kill the enemy and adding up the chance for their roll high enough to hit you in the end taking more overall damage than you would have with a more offensive focus (hell in PnP they realized shields were so useless that Sword and Shield style lets you attack with the shield and functions like a Shield-only version of 2 Weapon style (buckler 1 damage, small shield 1d3, medium 1d4+1). it's kind of disappointing that BG used a +ranged AC bonus that is univerally deemed a complete waste of points even if you do use a shield).

Depending on your strength score, you'll probably do more damage with melee or thrown daggers/axes then you'll do with a ranged weapon during any point in BG1. It's not until BG2 that archers start to stack enough +damage to offset the ridiculous damage bonus 18/00+ str gives, as well as finishing your ranged weapon mastery for the remaining bonus damage.

if your strength is less than 18/00, then ranged is much more competive and will quickly out damage your melee potential.

[Kaia]

What game are you playing? Bows stronger in BG2 than 1????

Bows have an extra attack per round in BG which means they outstrip every single other ranged option in the game. Especially in the hands of an archer who can achieve grandmastery.

The purpose of the shield is to make you less likely to die or require healing should you suddenly find yourself in melee. The assumption being that you will never wield anything less than a +1 shield, while an archer cannot get more than a -1 to AC from single weapon mastery and lacks the APR, THAC0 and AC to stay in melee with two weapons.

[wendigo211]

Originally posted by Kaia:

What game are you playing? Bows stronger in BG2 than 1????

In the hands of an Archer, their damage bonus keeps growing, so a high level archer tends to be better with bows than anything else. Although bows don't have strength bonuses, so dual-wield tends to do more damage for any class other than an Archer.

Two-handed is a bit of waste, no bonus damage like in 3rd edition, and the base weapon damage is only 1 or 2 points higher on average. One-handed is interesting because of the extra critical hits (except that all the weapons with cool critical hit effects like the Vorpal sword are two-handed). But really except for a Paladin with Carsomyr, every melee character should be dual-wielding. Shields are an interesting option, they're pretty good in BG and SoD because of all the archers, but apart from Sling users and NPCs who don't have the proficiencies for dual-wielding I tend not to use them. If you need to soak damage use a Mage/Bard with Stoneskin and Mirror Image (BG) or PFMW (BG2).

Bows have an extra attack per round in BG which means they outstrip every single other ranged option in the game. Especially in the hands of an archer who can achieve grandmastery.

By no means, throwing knives also have 2 APR and darts have 3 APR. Slings, throwing knives and throwing axes add strength bonuses which can make them better for high strength characters. Actually throwing knives are probably the best ranged weapon in the game; same APR as bows, you get to add your strength bonus, you can use a shield and there are some good options. I'll give darts second place, but it can be hard to keep equipped with good darts (Durlag's Tower is full of them). An Archer really doesn't have much of a choice though, since they can only achieve Grandmastery with bows. A throwing knife Kensai does outstrip the Archer as a ranged combatant.

The purpose of the shield is to make you less likely to die or require healing should you suddenly find yourself in melee. The assumption being that you will never wield anything less than a +1 shield, while an archer cannot get more than a -1 to AC from single weapon mastery and lacks the APR, THAC0 and AC to stay in melee with two weapons.

They have the THAC0, with only two-pips in two-weapon style you have no main-hand penalties, and with 3 pips it drops to just -2 with the off-hand. Assuming your Archer has a decent strength score (I just spent 5 minutes rolling and got one with a 18:95 Strength, 19 Dex, 17 Con, 11 Int, 18 Wisdom and 10 Cha) you'll at least get a strength bonus to hit. They won't get the specialization or grand mastery APR bonuses, but they still get the bonus 1/2 APR at 7 and 13. As a meleer they're 1/2 and APR behind a Ranger/Paladin/multiclassed Fighter and 1 APR behind a Fighter. They could make up that APR by using Belm or Kundane? (the short sword that gives +1 APR) in the off-hand which would make their melee APR the same as their ranged APR.

AC can be an issue, but they'll eventually get Shadow and White Dragon Scale armor, which makes them competitive. However because of the AC issue they should be dual-wielding instead of using a shield. If they get caught in melee want to be out of melee as soon as possible, it's generally better for a low AC character to focus on killing their opponent before they can do a lot of damage rather than trying to reduce that damage by using a shield.

For example, say a Level 7 Elf Archer (with the stats posted above) is wearing the Helm and Cloak of Balduran and the Shadow Thief Armor (+3 Studded Leather), That's an AC of -2 (-4 vs. slashing, -3 vs. piercing and ranged). He is proficient in Longswords and has Mastery in Two-Weapon Style. Dual-wielding Varscona (+2) and Harrower (+1, +3 vs. undead) he has a main hand THAC0 of 9 and an off hand THAC0 of 12. His average damage per hit is 12.5 with his main hand and 10.5 with his offhand. He's fighting Gorf (the Ogre in the Blushing Mermaid) with 3 APR, a THAC0 of 2, an AC of 3, who hits for 12 points of damage on average.

Dual-wielding he'll deal on average 14.0625 points of damage with his main hand and 6.3 with his off-hand for a total of 20.3625 points of damage a round. On average he'll recieve 30.6 points of damage a round.

If he uses a +1 Large Shield instead of Harrower, on average he'll deal 14.0625 points of damage and recieve 27 points of damage a round.

Gorf has 108 hitpoints, Dual-wielding our Archer will take about 5.3 rounds to kill Gorf, during this time he'll take about 162 points of damage. Using a shield, our Archer will take about 7.7 rounds to kill Gorf, during this time he'll take about 207 points of damage. Okay, in either case Gorf is going to splatter our Archer unless he has a Priest or Druid constantly healing him, but he'll take 22% less damage Dual-Wielding than using a shield. The example was also against a tough opponent, but unless you can get your AC low enough that the relative decrease in damage recieved (12% in our example) is greater than the relative decrease in damage inflicted (31% in our example). You're going to better off dual wielding than using a shield. Most of the time (and probably all of the time on Insane and LoB difficulties) you're going to be better off dual wielding than using a shield, particularly on an AC challenged character.

Having typed all of that:

For an Archer I'd go with two-weapon fighting, just pick a weapon that doesn't do piercing damage, since you're really looking for a weapon to use when your bow isn't working e.g. Slimes and Jellies. For an Elf, I'd go with longswords since they get the bonus to hit, and there are a couple good ones. Oddly enough the longswords are lackluster in BG2 (Daystar is probably the best one) although there are good ones in BG, SoD and ToB.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

First max out the skill for your favorite type of bow. That's all you need for BGEE. Melee skills are wasted points for an Archer.

And in BG2EE, reconsider your choice of shortbows and possibly skill longbows, too.

[Kaia]

Guy comes in asking how to build their archer, gets told to roll a kensai (which is an illegal dual-class anyway).

This 'community' man.

Its wild.

[wendigo211]

Originally posted by Kaia:

Guy comes in asking how to build their archer, gets told to roll a kensai (which is an illegal dual-class anyway).

This 'community' man.

Its wild.

What's illegal about the Kensai? No one even suggested a dual-classed character. I suppose, according to the kit description, Kensai aren't supposed to be able to use throwing knives and axes, but they have been able to use them since the original versions of the game. All I did was point out that a throwing knife Kensai is a better ranged combatant than a bow using Archer and correct your erroneous statement that:

Bows have an extra attack per round in BG which means they outstrip every single other ranged option in the game

If you're going to make statements like that make sure they're factual.