Baldur’s Gate 1 puts a very heavy emphasis on ranged weapons. The long bow in particular is a very powerful weapon and archers equipped with long bows will generally rack up far more kills than other characters.
There are a few characters who stand out for their archery skills and we’re going to have a look at them and see which is best at different stages of the game.
The Contenders
There are three companions who are head and shoulders above the competition when it comes to archery – Coran and Kivan are the obvious suspects but they will be joined by the seemingly unlikely choice of Khalid.
Some of the other characters such as Minsc, Dorn and Ajantis can make respectable archers. They’re good enough to be the main archer in your party if you put their proficiency pips into longbows as they level up however they aren’t outstanding.
Shar-Teel is a bit of an odd case. She’s got the stats to be a great archer but has no starting pips in longbows. There is a way to get her to be really good which we’ll touch upon at the end of the article but it relies upon a cheesy exploit so she doesn’t get to compete.
Let’s take a look at the three contenders in a bit more detail…
Coran
An elf fighter-thief with insanely high Dexterity of 20 and 3 pips in long bows. He’s obviously going to perform well but he has a big disadvantage that he isn’t available until the middle of the game. His Strength of 14 and Constitution of 12 are nothing to write home about.
Kivan
An elf ranger with Dexterity 17 and 2 pips in long bows. He’s got the Strength to use composite long bows and can hit hard in melee when required although he also suffers from mediocre Constitution.
Khalid
A half elf fighter with Dexterity 16 and 1 pip in long bows. At first glance there’s not much special about him but he has a lot of potential. His Strength of 15 isn’t great either but at least he has an excellent Constitution of 17 so he’s good at staying alive.
Best Early Game Archer
In Chapters 1 – 3 there are only two contenders – Kivan and Khalid. Coran, if he were available, would be head and shoulders above the competition but you’ve got to be in it to win it.
We’re going to assume that our characters go from Level 1 to Level 3 during this period. Actual performance may vary depending upon how much of the wilderness you choose to explore early on.
Equipment wise we’ll assume that they only have cheap non-magical weaponry. For Kivan this will be a composite long bow, and for Khalid a normal long bow.
Khalid will begin with a +1 THACO bonus from his Dexterity, and a +1 THACO bonus from his longbow. At level 3 however he will have an extra proficiency point to put into longbows so there’s a bit of a jump at that point.
Kivan will begin with a +2 THACO bonus from his Dexterity, a + 1 THACO bonus for being an elf, +1 THACO and +2 Damage bonuses from his composite longbow, and another +1 THACO and +2 Damage for having 2 proficiency points in longbows.
| Khalid | Kivan | |||||
| Level | THACO | Damage Bonus | APR | THACO | Damage Bonus | APR |
| 1 | 18 | 0 | 1 | 16 | +4 | 3/2 |
| 2 | 17 | 0 | 1 | 15 | +4 | 3/2 |
| 3 | 15 | +2 | 3/2 | 14 | +4 | 3/2 |
| 4 | 14 | +2 | 3/2 | 13 | +4 | 3/2 |
Khalid is lagging way behind Kivan right at the start of the game although he begins to close the gap at level 3 but Kivan is the clear winner as one might expect.
Best Mid Game Archer
Now we’ll take a look at the middle part of the game, with characters at levels 4 – 6. We’ll also assume that have decent magical equipment by now. It’s not unreasonable to assume that the main archer in the party would by now have Bracers Of Archery and the Deadshot +2 Longbow which have total bonuses of +5 THACO and +2 Damage.
Note that Coran will typically a level below the others due to being multiclassed so his stats will be for levels 3-5. He begins with a +3 THACO bonus from his Dexterity, a + 1 THACO bonus for being an elf, and +3 THACO and +3 Damage for having 3 proficiency points in longbows in addition to the bonuses mentioned above for the equipment you are likely to give him.
| Khalid | Kivan | Coran | |||||||
| Level | THACO | Damage Bonus | APR | THACO | Damage Bonus | APR | THACO | Damage Bonus | APR |
| 4 (3 for Coran) | 9 | +4 | 3/2 | 8 | +4 | 3/2 | 6 | +5 | 3/2 |
| 5 (4 for Coran) | 8 | +4 | 3/2 | 7 | +4 | 3/2 | 5 | +5 | 3/2 |
| 6 (5 for Coran) | 6 | +5 | 3/2 | 6 | +4 | 3/2 | 4 | +5 | 3/2 |
As expected, Coran is the clear winner despite his fighter level being 1 lower than Kivan and Khalid’s levels.
The interesting thing is that Kivan is better than Khalid at levels 4 and 5 but at level 6 Khalid will get a 3rd pip in longbows and he’ll jump ahead of Kivan.
Best Late Game Archer
We’re going to assume that our archers are still using the same equipment as above – there really isn’t anything better than Deadshot.
| Khalid | Kivan | Coran | |||||||
| Level | THACO | Damage Bonus | APR | THACO | Damage Bonus | APR | THACO | Damage Bonus | APR |
| 7 (6 for Coran) | 5 | +5 | 2 | 5 | +4 | 2 | 3 | +5 | 3/2 |
| 8 (7 for Coran) | 4 | +5 | 2 | 4 | +4 | 2 | 2 | +5 | 2 |
As expected, Coran maintains his advantage in terms of THACO. Khalid’s damage bonus now matches Coran’s. Kivan is in 3rd place now.
The most interesting point here however is Attacks Per Round. Level 7 is critical as it grants an additional 0.5 APR. Khalid hits level 7 at 64,000 Experience. For Kivan it is slightly later at 75,000. Due to being multiclassed however, Coran needs 128,000 Experience. Eventually he will catch up but that is a significant chunk of the game where Khalid and Kivan are both more effective than Coran due to that extra 0.5 APR.
Most players will finish BG1 at above 128,000 Experience so Coran will be the better archer for the final battles but it is not inconceivable that some players may finish the game below that threshold, particularly if they are impatient to play the sequel. In that case, Coran is actually the worst of the three archers at the end of the game and Khalid claims the number one spot.
Best Overall Archer
We’ve seen that these characters all shine at different stages of the game but which one of them claims the title of Best Overall Archer?
This is actually a really difficult question. You can make a convincing argument for any of them. What do you value most? Strong early game performance where Kivan’s massive advantage over Khalid may well keep your low level characters alive? Or is Khalid better because he soon catches up and ends up very slightly ahead for the mid to late game? Or Coran’s late game superiority despite him being a no-show for the early stages of the game, and being eclipsed by both Kivan and Khalid in the middle of the game?
On balance I’m going to give the award to Kivan. Personally I value Kivan’s strong abilities early in the game more than the slight edge that Coran and Khalid have over him if I’m getting towards the experience cap at the end of the game by which point a good archer is just one of many tools I have to slay my enemies. Also, and I can’t stress this last point enough – Kivan is a lot less annoying than the other two.
Oher Points Of Interest
The main things to judge the archers on is going to be their THACO, Damage and APR with a longbow but there are some other factors to consider.
Coran’s thieving skills are an obvious bonus if you need a thief in your party, perhaps because you’ve just dual classed Imoen. This point doesn’t apply so much if you are playing the original version of BG. Enhanced Edition gives you more freedom to allocate Coran’s starting thief skills but he was a very poorly optimised thief in the original game.
Khalid and Kivan are both a lot more use in melee than Coran.
Kivan’s strength allows him to use the Composite Longbow +1. I’d always go with Deadshot over the composite bow but if you want to have multiple archers using longbows then it’s good to be able to equip one with Deadshot and other with the Composite Longbow +1.
Khalid can boost his THACO by 1 if you give him Potions Of Agility. Not a huge bonus by any means but it is a bonus that Coran and Kivan can not benefit from.
Shar-Teel’s Cheesy Exploit
Shar-Teel has been excluded from the analysis but as was mentioned at the start of the article, there is a way to make her into a really powerful archer. She needs to reach level 7 as a Fighter at which point she can have 2 pips in longbows, and has gained the extra 0.5 APR. She’s good but not quite as good as Khalid at this point – her Dexterity gives her a better bonus than Khalid gets but Khalid gets better bonuses from having one more pip in longbows than Shar-Teel has.
Now she can dual class to Thief. The exploit here is how the game handles her proficiency points. You’ll have to spend 2 points on weapons usable by a thief as soon as you dual class her. Thieves gain extra proficiency points at levels 4 and 8 so once she has reached level 3, you do not level her up again until she has 70K experience points which will take her straight to level 8. You’ve now got 2 points to spend but because you’ve waited for her Fighter abilities to reactivate, you can spend those 2 points on longbows giving her High Mastery in longbows.
For the first part of the game before you dual class her she is worse than Khalid. Then for much of the rest of the game she is going to be a terrible archer as she’s lost her fighter THACO and proficiency points, and a terrible thief as she can’t go past level 3. If you persevere you’ll end up with an archer who is marginally better than Khalid. Not really worth the effort if you ask me.
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