Minnie the Minimalist Ranger

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I'm playing a Elf Ranger with minimum stats (as low as they can go) thru the whole series. Of course, I'll add in Tomes when I find them in BG1.

What kit is best when I hit SoA/ToB? I don't know which one is better. I am seeking a power kit here.


Also, here are my projected parties thru the series. Any advice is welcome, bue keep in mind I plan on playing a mostly good aligned party.

BG1:

Minnie
Imoen (Thief 5-Conjuror)
Jaheira (Khalid died already)
Yeslick
Coran
Ajantis

BG2:

Minnie
Imoen/Yoshimo
Jaheira
Minsc or Valygar
Keldorn
Anomen

 

I'd take the archer kit seeing as when you have minimum stats you shouldn't be up front, and anyways the archer kit is better than the others i think

 

It looks like you'll have more than enough tanks in BG2, so I'd go with an archer, but I'm not sure that stats will support that. You'll have plenty of STR-enhancing items, but only one set of Gauntlets of DEX, which will probably go to Keldorn or Anomen. An archer might very well be quite effective with only a DEX of 14 (it's really only 2 or 3 points of THAC0 compared to a DEX of 18 or 19), but I can't say for sure since I wouldn't play a ranger with 14 DEX.

You might also consider Mazzy as an alternate Good tank due to her DEX. (I have a problem putting Keldorn and Anomen in the same party because of only one set of Gauntlets of DEX.)

 

With the possible exception of a vanilla ranger in a melee situation, the archer is by far the most powerful kit in BG2 / TOB. With BG1's Gauntlets of Dex and BG2's Girdle of Hill Giant Strength, you'll do just fine, and your low CON score won't be an issue if you stay in the back shooting arrows. You'll be wearing armor no heavier than leather, but that's an OK trade-off, since you'll also be able to walk around stealthed all the time.

Remember, if you get sick of carrying around too many bundles of arrows, you can get the Quiver of Plenty +1 from Watcher's Keep pretty early in.

Both parties look all right, though you might want to consider Branwen in BG1 for faster leveling, and have her hang back and throw sling stones while wearing plate mail, since missile weapons are king in BG1...then again, your party is a little light on tanks there to begin with. Ajantis is really your only solid tank, and Yeslick might be a better candidate to soak up some beatings. Up to you.

 

IME a tank really isn't needed often in BG1 since everything is dead from me peppering it with missile weapons first.

BTW, what will my stats be, assuming I choose all good options, use every boost from the Machine of Lum the Mad on myself, and read each Tome and Manual myself?

TIA

[ April 10, 2006, 03:25: Message edited by: Klorox ]

 

IIRC, you should have:

+2 Str (manual and MoLtM)
+2 Dex (ditto)
+2 Con (ditto)
+2 Int (ditto)
+5 Wis (tome, MoLtM, good Hell choice)
+3 Cha (tome, MoLtM, good Hell choice)

I posibly am wrong, but keep in mind that I am old.

 

Well, you lose a point of DEX at some point (Hell, I think), and another point of either STR, DEX, INT, or WIS at Spellhold (again, IIRC). Can anybody confirm/correct me?

 

Yep, that's right, with resultant scores of:
(STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA)

13, 13, 14, 8, 14, 8
||
\/
BG1
||
\/
14, 14, 15, 9, 17, 9
||
\/
BG2
||
\/
15, 15, 16, 10, 19, 11

EDIT:
Ah, and the detriments. You can choose between DEX (agility), CON (health), INT (mind & learning), & WIS (wisdom) for the demon, but there you can also try to cheat him. I'd pick WIS anyway simply because it does the least damage to your character (rangers don't need such exceptional WIS). The DEX loss in the Selfish test would be unavoidable, though. New final stats:
15, 14, 16, 10, 18, 11
.
.
.
Incidentally, there's a fifth option in the dialog that was turned off, which allowed you to just lose 50K XP ("I give of my skill") instead of taking a stat loss. Quirky.

[ April 10, 2006, 05:02: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

You have to lose either one STR, DEX, CON, INT or WIS in Spellhold in the Candlekeep dream sequence after Irenicus steals your soul.

And you lose one DEX if you take the good path in the 'Test of Selfishness' in hell.

 

Well considering what you've told me from your stats it's probably safe to say that you should take the archer kit. It's god damn powerful and you should do well just hanging back and shooting like crazy! If your stats were a little higher i would've suggested going with a vanilla ranger but you should do well enough my friend.

 

@Latro:
Check again; there's no option for sacrificing strength, just the other four.

 

Fel says:

Wow, really? How'd you find this out? Is there some mod that restores this option?

 

Ready for a long story? Well, after reading what you said about "STR, DEX, INT, or WIS at Spellhold", I knew those couldn't be the right options because in my Quayle playthrough I remembered sacrificing a point of CON that I didn't need. So I looked at the dialog for the demon (PPDEMON) using IE and found the four stat-giving dialogs (CON, DEX, INT, & WIS) that I mentioned, the option for refusing, and the option to challenge him to a fight (which doesn't ever work).

But those were options 2-7; the first option was "I give of my skill, forgetting some of what I have learned." The 'Action' listed is AddXPObject(Player1,-50000), but the 'Condition' listed is False(), which precludes it showing up. The most obvious explanation as to why they would have that in there is that it was originally planned but later rejected. They could have cut it out, but instead (presumably to save time) they just marked it with a False() condition, ensuring that it would never come into play.

You can see similar things in the BG1 NPC dialogs, as the rejoining and parting dialogs were both contained within one file, but then the parting dialogs were split off into their own file. But the parting lines are still there in the rejoining file, only marked as False().

As for mods, my bet would be on Unfinished Business if anybody. UB specializes in restoring dead code.

 

Wow, that's really cool!

I bet it was removed because of the possibility of losing your new class if you've just dual-classed or something like that. It could be a real problem in a situation like that.

 

Or possibly losing a level if you just leveled up. Then, depending on your class, you would have to unlearn spells or thieving skills, etc. Too confusing, methinks.

 

Those are both examples of "should", when in reality it woudn't do anything at all except change your XP total. You can be level 36 with 1 XP if you feel like it, and all that means is that you have to earn enough for level 37 starting from scratch. Though perhaps the choice was eliminated to avoid just these kinds of inconsistencies and the extra work that would go into preventing them.