IMHO at low level (until Arnika) ranger is one of the best damage makers (at least expert mode when competence level really counts), especially if you're planning for a dual-weapon fighter

Scouting / allways searching and no "surprise attack" (no need to put points in scouting after level 4 - they can fo to alchemy and/or sword)

Perhaps the easiest hybrid for magic building : alchemy level 15 + potion making + high dexterity = no difficulty to reach alchemy 60 and portal by level 15, alchemy 90 and earthquake / tsunami by level 22.

Combat magic is not so strong (allmost impossible imho to try for powercast) - but one more character able to cast cure poison (bitter wings) - cure paralysis (ensnaring spiders) or body of stone (when you see a bishop level 22 with about 100 hp, light shield and AC 32 killed in one round by a berserker rapax ...)

At high level, access to infinity helm means infinite knock without "using" spellcasters with powercast.

Train sword with choice or giant sword (extended range - mook only) or Estoc de Olivia and good shield.

I think ranger is not "just an archer"

Just my two cents

Yes, it has been know that if you leave the area before completing all the steps to activate access to a "retro dungeon" that it can break, so best to do everything in one go. Once activated, you can enter / exit as many times as you want.

For step-by-step instructions (with diagrams) on activating access to all three dungeons, visit this link, just click on the dungeon map to get the instructions for that dungeon.

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and priest can be multi-classed as fighters about level 21-22 without losing too much (only effective damage spell in most high-level spots is falling stars) and gaining armor /infinty helm etc. Who said "staff of doom" ?

A bishop covering magic / psionic (and alchemy through potion making) can be a very decent fighter training mace / flail and using mauler or vampiric chain. Of course, better to "cheese" for light shield and prohibiting him/her to swap weapon.

Bards and gadgeteers can't make use of powercast because they aren't actually casting spells. This is annoying of course since intelligence is a supporting statistic for both music and engineering. I think bards and gadgeteers might get some kind of automatic powercast like effect though since their spells sometimes seem to have more effect than you'd expect given a monsters resistances.

lil yamir makes some good points about the ranger, particularly regarding their ability to hit. ranged weapons seem to require less skill to use accurately anyway, but a ranger who focuses on bow early, building dex and senses, can single handedly take out the don at level 10 or 11. i've done it - no one else in the party could hit him, but the ranger just peck-peck-pecked away until the don was a human pincushion.

regarding spells, i would say that a monk is by far the easiest hybrid to build magic skills with. have them do all the party identifying, and even without putting points into either int or sen, you'll still have 60+ in psionic and 60+ in mental before leaving arnika. a ranger with 90 alchemy is nearly worthless with only 20 in earth or air.

also, regarding multi-classing priests, you might consider doing it even sooner, say level 11 (after you get teleport). they get all the needed buffs by then (level 5 heal all is the last), and you dont need to worry about caster level to use those effectively. dual them over to lord or valk, so you can keep learning spells after the 4 level delay, and get the added benefit of using armour. and if you used mace/shield as a priest, a lord can go dual mace for added punching power.

holywhippet - i always understood the relationship of bards and powercast as you describe, but it's interesting that the bard still learns powercast skill - they really shouldnt if they're not using it...

In my view, ranger is never a powercaster so air is used for portal and cure poison, so level is not very relevant (Expert mode Death cloud looks almost worthless casted by an alchemist lvl 25 with alchemy 125 and powercast 90). Water is more interessant and can be trained the cheesy/boring way by casting ad nauseam dracon breath in "fake" combat.

To have earth only level 20 needs some serious bad work. Just casting chameleon before replenishing at some fountain and whipping rocks / body of stone / earthquake in combat. I hate wasting ammo against missile shielded warlocks/samourais.

about multi-classing priest, I agree doing it for a Lord at level 11 is an alternative. But ...
although banish is rarely cast, they are some encounters I definitively want to use it
and they are some occasions when it's better to cast restauration on a poisoned fighter low in stamina than be forced to make the fighter not fight and drinking a potion (for example mixed groupe bitter wings / sulfurous or molten scorchers)

About dual weapons, depends on the overall fighting configuration of the party, in other words who uses DE ? With a fighter dualing sword/mace, priest gets successively Quarterstaff, Holy Basher and Staff of Doom with extended range and its fair share of instant kills. In this case Fighter is definitively better than Lord (just the xp). Of course, especially if changing late, no berserking !!

Last word about ranger. Do not sell Demonsting. There is just one place you'll use it but you'll really appreciate it !

lil yam - there's a lot of people who draw the cheese line before the type of training you described, for better or worse (it's a personal choice).

the point being that many people dont train their characters. add this with the fact that the spellcasting strength of hybrids is seriously behind the entire game because there are only so many battles and so many rounds in which to do things, so learning during combat is spread across a lot more skills. (if you're spellcasting, you're not shooting, and if you're shooting, you're not melee'ing. etc.)

therefore the types of situations i described are actually quite common. for the ranger, that means high spellbook skill (due to mixing), but relatively low realm skills. whether that's 20 or 40 is irrelevant - they dont have enough skill to cast at lvl4 or higher spells at high power levels (eg 5 green), nor do they have enough points to sustain a magical offensive (or even magical support) without rest and/or mana regen.

this is true of all the alchemy/mage-based hybrids (ie ranger, ninja, samurai) in my experience, primarily because their spellbooks are built around offensive magic. (i know there have been frequent posters here in the past who would swear otherwise, but i have yet to see that kind of development without training.)

monks are a little better because a) they only have two realms worth anything (fire and mental), b) their best offensive spells show up before level 5, and c) they learn mental and their spellbook quite quickly through identifying that they can cast those lvl4&5 spells at 6 green by mid-game.

the priest-based hybrids (ie valk and lord) dont suffer similarly because their book is not designed for offense; all those great buffs don't require powercast or even high power levels to be effective. and like the monk, most of their best spells show up by level 5, so they dont require very high realm skills to get those higher casting levels to green either.

so if you dual over a priest to a lord or valk, you can still get restoration by level 22 and actually have enough skill (because you spent significant time as a priest) to use it often and at higher casting levels. (of course if you really want unlimited healing potential, get a bard and equip the heal all and restoration instruments - they can even restore their own stamina!)

regarding diamond eyes, i believe it's quite possibly the most over-rated weapon in the game. the dual weaponing penalties are large enough (in terms of total swings and chances to hit) that you can often get equivalent results (in terms of total damage yield) by using just your primary hand weapon. the only character that can make DE in the off-hand work consistently for positive yields is a lord with a high dual weapon skill.

even further, the strength multiplier on damage in the offhand means is only half that of the primary hand - so the differences in damage between weapons in the offhand, in absolute terms, isnt nearly so great as in the primary hand. so, by comparison, a stilleto, really isnt that far behind in terms of absolute damage, but delivers major IKs. AND, the stilleto is a smaller/lighter weapon, so it gives you more swings and higher initiative when dual-equipped with comparable skill levels (ie mace vs. dagger), meaning the dual weapon disadvantage described above is mitigated to some extent.

even so, you can get two DE, and really shouldnt sweat who they go on. but, personally, i'm learning to love shields more and more.

Sultan,

I mostly agree, just some side comments

Magical offensive or support, speaking from ranger, is at best occasional/situationnal (english is not my mothertongue so please forgive my mistakes). Typical example is a bunch of mixed rapax with warlocks /berserkers under missile shield when a fire bomb or the lasting effect of an acid bomb does more damage than arrows/quarrels.

The only monk I ever played is RFS-81, so difficult to comment. I'll perhaps add mind fly (lvl 7) and eye for an eye (rapax hexed by their priestess, self-quicksanded sprite self-deathed clouded chaos demon). Expert mode, instant death looks like all "killer" spells, or even worse. And fire spells are not effective everywhere. And still no powercasting, but on the whole I agree on "a little better", at least on the offensive side.

Except soul shield if casted by the priest. And don't know about sane mind - allways cast at the maximum green level, especially on a berserker fighter or a faerie ninja.

Just "quite possibly" ? Well, sometimes I think it's the Cane of Corpus, which is, parhaps, the best weapon after the light sword, but no more.

.
I'll add the fighter, trained like a lord from the first level (putting points like 3 sword 2 mace 3 dual and 1 close combat). Misses a lot until level 10, but berserking with diamond eyes off-hand and dual and mace at about 75 is effective.

I too love shields, if only for magic resistance (just away when you badly need it as character is firing missile), but I like extended range weapons even more.

On this one no need to comment, just to appreciate

OK ! Time to get some sleep it's about 6 am here

(Mostly @ Sultan)
Diamond Eyes overrated? it's the highest damage "off"hand weapon, highest initiative factor for a mace, and the highest incapacitance (15% Paralyse) "off"hand weapon. Especially in smaller parties where everyone needs to do as much damage as possible, you can't waste a hand on a shield. If you kill everything faster, then you don't need to worry about hiding behind shields. My current Solo, a Fighter who had 16 Bard levels (total level 24), has a Light and a DE, and gets 2X2 shots per round with both in normal combat (not Berserk or Hasted). If she holds a shield, she only gets 2X3 shots with Light--and we all know how seldom you actually get the whole 3. So i much prefer a guarantee of 4 swings and a possibility of 8 even if half of them may be doing half as much damage.
Of course, i don't mind allowing my characters the benefit of a little duck-and-dodge (Stealth) training, so maybe i'm not getting hit as much because of that, and my life would be miserable without a shield otherwise...
But in all my Wizardry experience (starting with Wiz-5) i've found that dual wielding, if done frome the start, generates more damage.
I also disagree with your speaking for others by saying "many people don't train their characters" I suppose 'many' is safe, but i don't believe there's a majority. Even you speak of mixing potions, and that's training. To put some kind of moral or situational value on where you draw your "cheese" line is silly.

Spamming to add a bit of an update: now, a couple levels later, i'm getting 2X3 swings with Light REGARDLESS whether i also get 2X2 with DE, so now DE is providing a couple hundred extra HP damage every round.