What an Archer wants for his birthday is...

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Ammo.

If you're an Archer;

You get THACO bonuses From your dex, weapon, ammo and kit. Best of all you're working from a warriors base THACO, so pretty much all the way through the game you're going to make the roll for about 90% of the shots you take.

The damage bonus makes up for the fact that you don't get a STR or DEX damage bounus with bows. On top of which Long and shortbows have a base APR of 2,and tuigan gives you 3, so while you may not have the best damage per round, you're up there with the best of them. (this is a family web site, so I shan't go on about kensais with the firetooth dagger)

Called shot is brilliant. 10 seconds is 5/3 rounds. At level 13 or higher any long or short bow gives you 7/2 APR, the tuigan bow gives you 9/2, with improved haste thats 7 and 9 APR respectively.
So, in 10 seconds you get
5.83/11.66 shots (standard bow/with imp haste)
7.5/15 shots (tuigan bow/with imp haste)
each one of which does the following;
4th level: -1 to THACO of target
8th level: -1 to save vs magic of target
12th: -1 to strength of target
16th: +2 bonus to damage
and each new effect is added to those already present so that at L12 you're doing THACO,save and strength damage. Plus whatever damage the arrows themselves do. If you've never tried it before, I strongly recommend using and imp hastened tuigan called shot against a dragon.

The armour restriction isn't that big a deal because you don't want to get close and theres plenty of good armour you can use. It also means you're never going to have your stealth icon grayed out.

So far so good.
There are three problems I have with Archers.
1. Cost:
When you get, for example, Carsomyr then you've got that weapon, at full effectiveness, for as long as you want, with no ongoing costs.
If An Archer wants to use Arrows of dispelling then, each time he does, he's never going to get that arrow back. Now I know there are enough of every type of arrow to last you through the game, and that the ability to mix and match arrows and bows goes a good part of the way to compensating for the expense, but it still costs and it still annoys me. (personally I don't mind the micromanagemaent needed to make best use of the arrows you've got)
2.No Specialization in Melee weapons:
I don't care about the damage or THACO bonuses, but I sorely miss the extra half attack. This wouldn't matter were it not for my third complaint.
3. Only ONE weapon or type or arrow that counts as +4 with regard to what it can hit, (and only two, unmodded, that count as +3).
If you're playing as an Archer its because you want to shoot stuff. So when the chips are down and the fate of the world is hanging in the balance. You want to use all your skill, draw upon all your experience, and make the next few shots count.
As it stands you stock up on GWW's and use the ravager. For a kit that is defined by its expertise with a bow, that sucks.

So what a Archer needs is either
Arrows of piercing to be +4 with regard to what they can hit.
And/or
Arrows of +6ness. No damage bonus, no THACO bonus, no special/elemental/vorpal damage. Just something that lets me shove a called shot down Mellisians throat.

Sorry for such a long rant, hope theres not too many typos and thank you for reading.

 

I never realised that the called shot bonuses stack, I always thought they replaced each other. So, if nothing else, you've taught me something new about BGII!

I agree that something more needed to be done with the arrows at higher level- as TOB continued, I found my archer to be less and less useful when firing arrows. Oh, he was good against drow and the usual bad guys, but as soon as the bigger fights began, his usefulness shrank in comparison to what my other party members were doing with their swords as he was unable to hurt what really needed to be hurt due to their protections. The price of ruling throughout SoA I guess.

 

Could not agree more.

Up until the end of SOA the archer is really useful. Devastating against humanoids, spellcasters etc, and useful in many areas.

Come TOB and you can just see their power melt away. During the Draconis fight I was was basically protecting my archer in the same way you do a low level mage.

He still had his moments but in more and more fights he became a perifery figure.

More high + arrows needed, a few HLA's needed and a few more archery items in the shops.

 

If you upgrade the crossbow in Watcher's Keep, It'll hit as a +5 weapon. The short bow of Gesen hits at +4.....but, yeh, I know what you mean. I've always thought that the upgradeable arrow/bolt/bullet items should actually be considered +6 with no bonus to hit or damage. (I've modded my own game to do that for years.)

 

Then there is the crazy-option to use a sling with an archer. Sure, you don't get as many attacks, you can't have Grand Mastery with it, but you can have +6 bullets.

Anyway a sling with an archer is definitely an option against clay-golems and other critters an arrow can't hurt.

Of course there's better options for a PC, but sometimes when you want to shoot 'em up, you want to shoot 'em up good and you want to have a big arsenal as well. So it's bows, crossbows, slings and darts. After all the archer's bonuses apply to any missile weapon.

 

The first recommendation I would make is to do level one of Watcher's Keep early and get the quiver of plenty - immediately you can get +1 arrows, and you can get Cromwell or Cespanar to upgrade it to give you unlimited +2 arrows.

The other thing I recommend is what T2Bruno said. By the time you get to ToB, Gesen is pretty much required, as it hits as a +4 weapon provided you don't have any arrows in the quiver. It should be noted that unless you're attacking something that has a requirement of more than +2 to hit it, you're better off using arrows, as the arrow damage is added onto the base weapon damage. It's really useful for things like fire and ice arrows, which add significantly to the amount of damage you can do. The only problem is if you use arrows, the enchantment on the arrows overrides to enchantment on the bow. So against a golem, you're better off using it without arrows, but against something like vampires, you're much better off with arrows.

 

It could be due to the combination of mods I use, but Cromwell won't upgrade the quiver/case/bag of plenty in my game. I still go and raid the top level of WK though, the ammo belt is to good to leave lying around any longer than you have to.
I've also always favored acid arrows over fire or Ice as they do 1d3 rather than 1d2 elemental damage.

It been a while since I checked but IIRC, the upgraded crossbow from WK is described as a +5 weapon that fires unlimited +2 bolts. Mind you, I should know better by now than to set too much store by in game descriptions.

 

On the one hand, thats disappointing but on the other hand, I'm really glad to know that the called shot bonuses stack. I'd never used it because my thinking was pretty much "who the hell cares about +2 damage?" Now I've really got to test and find out if that crossbow hits as +2 or +5.