Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Ranger with bow and dual weapons

I don't want to mention you all but thank you very much for your willingness to everyone, a community should always be like this.

As many have said, BG3 is first a role-playing game (maybe one of the greatest) , that's why my initial goal was this:

Ranger with: animal companion, talking to animals, and skilful in both bow and two weapons.

Only for the latter I think I will have to make precise choices, and choose one, right?

I really like the beast master - ever tried the raven? Blinds the opponent on a hit without a save, can get almost everywhere flying.
I had the "air force" in play: warlock's imp + ranger's raven - great!
Combined with the spell Aid (especially cast at spell level 3 for +10 hp all day) it was kinda ridiculous having only these small flyers in melee (great for the rogue, too), and the rest just attacking ranged.
BUT there are limits to this... sometimes you need a heavy hitter in front (the Grym).

Do you guys think they will put the gloom stalker?

That would be fun, but probably not. At least that seems unlikely for the regular release. From what we've seen in the EA, it looks like they're going to focus on the Player's Handbook options (+ Oathbreaker Paladin from the Dungeon Master's Guide).

That being said, subclasses released after the core rulebooks tend to be very popular. Hexblade Warlock and Gloom Stalker Ranger having been mentioned ad nauseam in regards to BG3 since early access began, so maybe we get lucky. Could be a nice selling point for a DLC to include opular subclasses.

No idea if anyone pointed this out ...
But in your builds, remember that AC from shield is counted even if you have Bow equipped ... so while Dual Wield Scimitars look cool and certainly are a bit more effective for damage output ... if you would wear shield, you will be +2AC tougher, even from the distance and as far as i know you can wield Rapier (to have 1d8, rather than 1d6 from Scimitar) and Shield.

Good point, that's a big flaw IMO, in general how easy you can switch ranged / melee.

I actually haven't even noticed that. Guess I'll stop worrying about making sure I have the shield at the ready for end of turn.

Good point!

I’m asking this (maybe) dumb questions because as I pre ordered the collector’s edition I did not play the game yet.

I’m sorry if I sound noob 😂

I’m gonna be a wood elf/half wood elf , animals speaker whit a beast pet and really good with bow and Pretty good with double weapons.

Sounds good? Ahah

Sounds like a pretty decent build. With some clever play, you shouldn't have many problems in BG3 early access, at least.

I’m not gonna play until total release, what’s are your doubts about my “future pg”? Always ready to hear some advices from people that knows more then me

I think that taking dual wield specialization is strong even if you plan to use the bow a lot. Its just about the only way that you can get +dex mod to damage on your off hand.

Edit: To be clear, I am talking about the fighting style that you get as a class choice, not a feat. I don't remember what they are actually called, so my comment might have been more confusing than intended.

For the full release, you're probably going to be fine with a pure dex ranger. It might not be the strongest character possible, but it should be plenty strong enough. Another game based on 5e D&D is Solasta and goes all the way to lvl 12 with some really brutal combat and a dex ranger is a good character there.

For my own part, I'm going to be looking to multiclassing.

You will probably be able to play the game with any class however you want. So far in the EA people have solo'd it with each class. A number of Larian's D&D system changes have made the game a lot easier than it might have been. They seem to be trying to avoid the exact thing you mention...worry that people will gimp themselves if they play how they want.

I was playing around with this earlier. You actually get consistently better damage (along with the increased AC) running a rapier and shield than you do with duel scimitars. The main reason is hunters mark. You get big additional damage from that thing, but it consumes a bonus action to use. Because of that you won't get to make an offhand attack if you use it in the same turn. Makes the additional +2 on your off hand from two weapon style basically worthless as most enemies you encounter beside a few bosses will not last to a second round (also a chance you will lose concentration and need to recast) for you to actually use an offhand attack on them. Meanwhile if you pick dueling you get a +2 on all your main hand attack rolls. Dueling also applies when wielding a shield for a valuable +2 to AC. More AC means it's less likely hits will break your hunters mark as well. As you pointed out rapiers also have higher base damage than scimitars too so a constant +2 on a main hand rapier majorly outperforms an occasional +2 on an offhand attack from a scimitar. Even without dueling the mainland rapier will still do better assuming you are striking a target under your hunters mark.

If hunters mark worked differently or rangers had an additional bonus action like a thief and you could consistently get in an off-hand attack to proc an additional hunters mark hit dual scims would then outperform rapiers. They don't though so if you make a ranger rapiers are the way to go. Roving rapier ranger knights.

That might be true some of the time, but we have items that give extra bonus actions and such, making dual wielding scale very well.

3d6 + 15 + 3d6 round 1
4d6 + 20 + 4d6 round 2

Only two items so far I can recall, both of which are conditional about how they grant that extra BA. One you have to be at 50% health and the other you have to use a fire spell so not ideal for a ranger anyway. I guess if you have a high elf cantrip? But then you are sacrificing your main hand for a firebolt that scales off of what's likely your dump stat (int). So the situations you would get these extra bonus actions are rare. Not really ideal items to build a ranger around. Meanwhile at level 5 without them, you will ideally be making 2 main hand weapon attacks to every one off hand attack (assuming you didn't have to hunters mark and can even use it). Seems better to add the +2 from dueling to that main hand that you consistently hit with instead of the +2 going to the offhand with two weapon fighting which isn't attacking consistently because of hunters mark application/jump/shove/etc. Plus being able to carry a shield boosts AC. You can also use a weapon that isn't light for a 1d8 (rapier) instead of a 1d6 (scimitar) Add in a potion of speed or a haste spell, both of which are easily acquired, and you can get four main hand attacks to only one off-hand (haste grants an additional action no bonus actions).

Personally, I think because of how reliant on bonus actions dual wielding is, it's best left to rogues, thieves especially. They might not get the fighting style like martial classes, but they can consistently get in an off hand attack every turn while still being able to do something else (potion/shove/jump/etc), or make two off-hand attacks for every one main hand attack. Certainly not saying dual wielding ranger isn't viable if you want to do it for fun, but it's a poor fighting style choice compared to the others mechanically speaking. Hopefully they adjust this a bit before release. If you could consistently land the off-hand it would probably be the dominant fighting style for rangers (assuming hunters mark) and more viable on other marital classes. Till then I would advise people to pick dueling, archery, or defense over it.

Funnily enough, a Hunter Ranger with Colossus Slayer and dual wielding is capable of meeting Blastlock Baseline for lvl 2, 3 and 5 without spells, even beating it with a good margin. So the damage is high enough to justify the additonal ranged abilities and spellcasting, though it tends to fall off at higher levels and with specific feats. BG3 seems to be including a lot of additional accuracy boosting things to make Great Weapon Master absolutely broken, so that won't be fun to deal with the fallout off, balance wise.

Larian also completely screwed the pooch on their handling of bonus actions. Shove and hide for everyone on BA? That is horrible. Shove is supposed to be an attack action and only Rogues should be able to hide on BA.

Then again, it's not like tabletop isn't problematic with its balance. There are basically 3 martial builds that work for optimalization.
Polearm Master + Sentinel + Great Weapon Master with a halberd / glaive for a strength based frontliner, can be put on any class with medium or heavy armor, martial weapon proficiecny and extra attack. Paladin 6 -> Sorcerer is probably the overall strongest option here. Other good options are Totem Warriors, Hexblades, Gloom Stalkers and even Valor Bards for their additional spellcasting.
Archery Style + Crossbow Expert + Sharpshooter for a ranged build. Gloom Stalker 5 - Arcane Trickster version of this is one of the most BS characters I've had to DM for.
And Ranger or Fighter 5 -> Rogue for a two weapon fighting dex build that balances ranged and melee combat. Why twf instead of dueling? Increased effective Sneak Attack accuracy, which you need to scale the damage to higher levels. It doesn't have the extreme highs of GWM or Sharpshooter when party support kicks in, but it is a bit more independent, making it less dependent on casters, who often have more important things to do than keep Bless up at all times.

If we're getting multiclassing for BG3 I can imagine that a Hunter 5 -> Thief will be quite insane as a dual wielder, with 2 BAs and two weapon style. Add the helmet for an additional BA, then add the Sneak Attack dmg and it should be pretty insane.

And I like the bow and rapiers! But most of the time I choose onions!

What about using archery and then choose dual wielding?

They don’t synergise well for your traditional ranger. If you’re mainly going to be using a bow, the dual wielding feat isn’t going to help with that at all.

And if you’re going to mainly be using two weapons, then dual wielding doesn’t replace the benefits of two weapon fighting. It gives a bonus to AC when holding two weapons and lets you dual wield non-light weapons, but doesn’t allow you to apply your stat bonus to damage with your second weapon unlike two weapon fighting, so you’re not going to be able to do full damage with your off hand.

I’d say that, if you’re a dexterity based ranger, the dual wielding feat in BG3 isn’t particularly helpful, as most finesse weapons are light and so can be dual wielded anyway. So, unlike for a strength based warrior, the only real benefits of the dual wielding feat are the +1 to AC and the ability to dual wield rapiers, and in my view just boosting dexterity by 2 is likely to be competitive with that. Plus the latter helps with your bows as well!