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Two Words: Dog Figurine.
Two more words: Minsc and Valgyar.
I am coming late to the thread and RudeDawg already pretty much covered everything, but I must add my own 2 cents. I played a Ranger in BG1, kitted him to stalker in BGII and will take him through ToB when it comes out. He was awesome! In BG1, he would stealthily explore an area and allow us to plan our battles. What I had in BGII was a fighter who could sneak about and backstab.
Sure, as a stalker I had to give up a couple of points on my AC, but not much. The best Plate armor in the game is the red dragon hide (AC –1) and I think the Gorgon Plate is a bit better on the AC side (-2 or –3). So I wore the shadow dragon armor instead (AC 1). No big deal, plus it looks cool. OK, so at LV 17 my backstab modifier was only x4 (not x5), but I had a better THACO than any thief can ever dream of. Most of my backstabs were still in the 40-50 HP range (and I even did a 100 HPer once on a critical hit) and once the backstab was delivered, he was still a first rate fighter. He and Minsc conspired to do about 90% if the kills. The key with rangers is not to blindly go into a fight, but make use of stealth and surprise. Do not forget that you have access to all fighter magic items and did I mention the little trick about casting detect traps and going into stealth mode?
Plus the Ranger has a great stronghold quest. I prefer a role-playing approach myself, but I seem to be making a power gamer argument here.
Hamsters and Rangers Everywhere!
-Cayle
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