Ranged Combat, Baldur's Gate 1 Original

Archery in Baldur's Gate 1

Baldur's Gate Archery: Ranged Combat Overview

Multiple reasons can be given for why Baldur's Gate archers lay waste to enemy mobs. Early in Baldur's Gate 1 Original, our average enemy is made from such lowly stock as 1-2 Hit Dice, so only one or two projectiles are required to drop them. We are talking here about wolves, kobolds, gibberlings, xvarts, tasloi, hobgoblins, gnolls, ghouls, half-ogres, ogrillons etc.

Against such squishy foes, percentile Strength melee warriors (e.g, 18/93) wielding two-handed swords is just overkill; moreover, by the time Minsc has shouted "Go for the eyes, Boo!" and charged in, Kivan has sniped two or three from under his nose, already!

Low level archers, who by wielding a bow (preferably a composite longbow) gain +1 ApR, also don't necessarily need a tank to hold back certain stronger, 4-8 HD foes; they can simply mow them down as they close in.

Hit Recovery Baldur's Gate

Hit recovery is interesting. Take for example a warrior charging at an archer, who begins firing arrows at the warrior. Assuming she's accurate, the archer has a pretty good chance of doing the warrior in before he gets in her face. This is because getting hit causes a brief movement delay with each impact, slowing the warrior's approach. With three accurate archers sporting high ApR, that warrior isn't going to be able to move; he's stun-locked and dead.

Cumulative poison and disease, along with Magic Missile, are also effective at reducing movement rate to the point of immobility, resulting in the demise of incoming aggro.

Best Arrows in Baldur's Gate

To increase killspeed and deal with truly formidable foes later in the campaign, archers can swap to enchanted quivers of:

• Acid Arrows (AROW04): 1d6 +1, +2d6 acid, to-hit +1
• Fire Arrows (AROW08): 1d6, +1d6 Fire, save vs. spells for none
• Ice Arrows (AROW09): 1d6, +1d6 Cold, no save
• Piercing Arrows (AROW10): 1d6, +6 piercing on failed save vs. death, to-hit +4
• Biting Arrows (AROW05): 1d6, poison: 30% of HPs in 20 secs, save vs. death for none, Strength modifier erroneously applied to dmg
• Dispelling Arrows (AROW07): on-hit Dispel Magic
• Detonation Arrows (AROW06): auto-hit (no to-hit roll), 1d6, +6d6 Fireball, save vs. spells for half
• Slaying Arrow (AROW03): 1d6, to-hit +15, on-hit slay ogre mage.

Upon reaching Sorcerous Sundries in Chapter Five, in addition to stacks and stacks of other ammo, the player can purchase:

• Twenty-one quivers (420) of Acid Arrow
• Two-and-a-half quivers (50) of Dispelling Arrow
• Three quivers (60) of Detonation Arrow

Imagine a few archers unleashing what amount to Fireballs at a max rate of four per round - that's some serious DpR! [cf. Maximum Ranged Weapon Damage]

Each item is sketched, an artistic touch

I guess the quivers are sort of balanced in that we won't find a great variety in large quantities until we haggle with Halbazzer at the start of Chapter Five, but the fact BioWare nerfed quantity and quality in the sequel point to them being OP. (In BG2, Acid Arrows inflict only 1d3 acid, Dispelling Arrows are extremely rare, and there are no Detonation Arrows at all.)

Bows Baldur's Gate

Decent bows are also quite easy to find: while only one composite longbow (THAC0 +1, dmg +2) can be bought from Winthrop in the Prologue, they're commonly sold by merchants and easily looted from that point on.

Composite Longbow +1 (THAC0 +2, dmg +3) - the "best" bow - can be bought from Feldepost's Inn as early as Chapter One; the finale of Chapter Three also yields the Longbow of Marksmanship (THAC0 +3, dmg +2); and the Eagle Bow (THAC0 +2, dmg +2) is obtainable when the player reaches Baldur's Gate city.

Being wooden, bows also have the early-game perk of being exempt from the plot-based "taint" which can cause non-magical iron weapons to break in the wielder's hands.

Companion-wise, Kivan and Coran are already lordly archers at the time of recruitment; Khalid can be specced into a sniper and out-shoot Kivan.

Coran is the undisputed king of archery, having an illegal High Mastery in bows and potentially reaching Dexterity 21 if given the Manual of Quickness of Action (Dex +1, permanent); not that he needs it. Nor does he need the Bracers of Archery (THAC0 +2) or Gauntlets of Dexterity (sets Dexterity to 18) which should be gifted to second-rate archers like Ajantis and Minsc.

One "limitation" of archery is that we can only hold twenty arrows in a quiver, of which we have three. Sixty shots might sound like more than enough, but we burn through them fast with a high RoF, and have to backtrack to town to restock. Well, just fill your backpack slots with quivers as well, and you shouldn't run out in a hurry.

Crossbows Baldur's Gate

My focus here on bows n arrows doesn't mean crossbows aren't also viable, but while the Light Crossbow of Speed is readily available in Beregost, the Heavy Crossbow of Accuracy may not be found by many players, as its acquisition depends on how you solved a previous Chapter's quest (I like cross-chapter consequences like that, incidentally. That quest is quite involved.)

Bolt variety is very limited compared to arrows, with the Bolt of Biting (1d8, poison: 30% of HPs in 20 secs, save vs. death for none) and Bolt of Lightning (1d8, +4d4 electrical, save vs. breath for half) being the most sought-after. I personally love to see Shar-Teel or bards like Garrick and Eldoth firing from crossbows; Montaron is a crack shot, too.

Darts Baldur's Gate

By virtue of darts setting attack rate to 3 ApR, even "useless" mages can contribute to the party's combined projectile hail (1d3) especially if they let loose:

• Dart of Wounding (poison: 20 dmg in 20 secs, save vs. death for none) or 
• Dart of Stunning (1d3, save vs spells or Stun for 7 rounds)

Along with druids and clerics they can also fire slings, a cheeky "halfling weapon" that allows for a shield to be equipped in the off-hand (though not by pure mages, and pure druids may only equip bucklers).

With such weapons at our disposal, there's really no excuse to have our back-row casters standing around doing nothing just because they're out of spells.

From what I've written above on ranged weapons, one might wonder if tanking and melee combat is redundant? No, they're most certainly not. Tanking is advisable to hold back non-trivial aggro, and certain monsters are simply immune (Mustard Jelly) or sport 50% resistance to missile damage (skeletal undead). So yeah, sometimes it's just better to break out a big stick and bash something with it.

Next up: Thieving BG1.

Baldur's Gate 1 Original (Index) | Baldur's Gate 1 Review (Index).