Actually rangers can cast armor as well. At any rate, there is no extra half attack at five proficiencies. At least the manual does not report it.

Sure it does. Page 101.

No it doesn't. Grand master: 5 points spent, +2 to hit, +3 damage, 3/2 attacks per round. (Compare with specialized: +1 to hit, +2 damage, 3/2 attacks per round; and IWD's grand master: +3, +5, 2 attacks per round)

Eh? Isn't that cumulative? I'm sure you're supposed to get more attacks per round for advanced specialisation.

No, it's not cumulative. That would be ridiculous. +7 to hit, +9 damage? Anyway, the proof is comparing Korgan to my PC who only is specialized. Korgan has 1 better thaco not counting the strength bonuses. He also has no more attacks per round. They made having five proficiencies in a weapon in BG II worse than someone with three proficiencies in Icewind Dale. A good balancing act.

No, I wasn't saying the to hit and damage were cumulative, I was only assuming you got an extra half an attack per round for each proficiency point. Balancing act? It's ludicrous. What set of rules were Bioware following when they thought this up? Certainly not those from the P&P. It sounds as if fighters have been just about nerfed down to paladins without the spells, and they don't even level up any faster!

Yep, it's true (though you never did get additional half attacks per extra proficiency in BGI or IWD). There's a hack out there that restores the AD&D rule that you get two attacks per round as a grand master. Who knows, maybe this nerf on grand masters was unintentional (though it is true both in game when you pump in the points, and in manual). The change making masters (3 slots) no longer overwhelmingly better than specialized was the right decision, though. I think it's a bit of a waste to put more than three slots in a proficiency (like speed faction did anything).

Nonetheless, you should have the choice to master a weapon, and there should be reason to consider it. If they were going to make advanced specialisation so worthless, they should have made fighters level up at a faster rate than paladins, rangers and barbarians. If you still got the +3 and +5 bonuses to hit and damage, perhaps not, but +2 and +3 over +1 and +2 isn't worthwhile at all.

They do level up faster (barbarians are the same as fighters apparently), by about 10-20% faster. A fighter needs only 3 million exp to be level 20, and the paladin needs 3.6 mill.

Well, with cheating and exp. cap remover, that would be easy : P