I have always been partial to the ranger class. Persnal preference. I made a good raner and a Dwarf fighter. My dwarf fighter is a much better tank that the ranger. No matter what skills or feats or magic items my ranger has my dwarf fighter (GUNNAR the AXE) always gets more kills. Has anyone else found after they made there favorite character that another character has stepped to the front. I really like Gunnar.

Yeah, well.... in IWD1 I was blown away by how destructive a thief with a bow could be. I think in all the 2D games (BG, BG2, IWD, ID2) bows are overpowered. I am playing a solo monk class character and not too long ago i wiped out a 20 strong crowd with only a bow.....

It takes a little while, BUT, I did not loose a single point of health since they never came close to touching me.

Anyone who has not caught on to how good bows are should try it with the rapid shot feat...it works like da bomb in skilled hands.

Yes a good bowman in your party can make all the difference a good example of this is Mazzy in Baldur's Gate II.

I noticed how inefficent my Ranger is w/ a bow which is quite distrubing. I created a Drow Ranger w/ 18, 18, 16, 10, 13, 5 (I think) and he sucks w/ a longbow. I remember in IWD, he would kill just about anything in one shot. Now, it takes like 3 shots before he even hits anything. Luckily, the Goblins are so weak that once he does hit them, they go down quickly. I gave my Ranger Rapid Shot and added another prof in Bows, but it doesn't seem to help. Any ideas as to what is going on? I'm also playing in Insane mode.

I've completed IWD2 twice, both times with 6 person parties. I tend to armed everyone in my party with ranged weapons. The tanks rarely use them, but sometimes I'll let sommoned monsterscharge the enemy and let everyone open up with their ranged weapons, just to get some cheap kills early on.

I tend to have my spell casters save their spells for nastier battles and use bows or crossbows to contribute to the battle.

My experience thus far in IWD2 is that while ranged weapons provide nice fire support from my support characters, the tanks will get most of the kills.

BTW, # of kills is a weak stat. Other characters could do 99% of the damage, but the kill goes to the PC that delivers the final HP of damage. Too bad that IE didn't keep track of the amount of actual damage that each PC is responsible for dealing out. How often has your wizard cast a fireball into the middle of a mob of bad guys, doing serious damage to all, but killing none, only to have your tanks get all the kills?

Ranged weapons are nice for keeping the pressure the enemy's own spell casters. They're also nice for finishing off nearly dead enemies.

Hmm... I find that my archer is very useful. He's a tiefling. 10, 20, 18, 20, something and 1... More or less, his main problem is his low strength. His charisma is no big deal, thats the paladin/monk job. ;) heh heh

My archer used rapid shot feat, weapon focus/specialization and has an okay bow. Hes frightfully efficient. For melee, he just uses weapon finesse, so no biggee.

Bows are nice, but throwing weapons are even better under the new rule set. You can get the same number of attacks per round with a throwing axe as a bow (even rapid shot), but you also get your damage bonus from strength so you can deal serious punishment.

And, back to the original topic, I've noticed that fighters have become a little too powerful under 3rd edition rules (or at least in IWD2). Since Int and cha don't effect a fighter, you can boost Str, Dex, and Con to the roof give them a great sword for melee, a throwing axe for range and all the extra feats and nothing lives long enough to touch them. I tried a balanced party when I first got IWD2 and it kept getting slaughtered, so I switched to a party with 3 fighters, and now the fighters are the only ones who do anything. They each have about 30% of the kills.

Ive noticed this to... MY sorcerer has become a buffer and my cleric and theif skip around holding hands and singing while my Barbarian Fighter and Monk Clean up... Sad... I AM going to solo with a sorcerer next time through though... Ah the power of a Drow Sorcerer! "Us'ta'quat!"

Dwarves rock!

STR 18
DEX 12
CON 20
INT 8
WIS 12
CHA 6

Focusing on axes and hammers.

Damn! He's superb! But I love my ranger/rogue too! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Try this, and give him a throwing axe with rapid shot:

Shield Dwarf
STR 18
DEX 18
CON 20
INT 3
WIS 16
CHA 1

True carnage