Trying to understand Ranger playing mechanics

[dormouse]

I am sure this question has been asked before, but I was hoping that someone here could help me figure this out. I have been playing Angband for about a year now, and have thus far really only been successful with melee based characters. This attempt I decided to go with something ranged, so I rolled a High-Elf Ranger. The play style is not at all what I expected, and I imagine that is because I am doing something wrong.

I have included my character sheet. I am much, much more effective at killing with Magic Missile than any sort of ranged combat. Like 2 missiles vs 7-8 arrows. Even with low strength my dagger does more damage than any of my arrow attacks. What am I missing here? Shouldn't a ranger rely mostly on ranged attacks and resort to melee or magic only when cornered?

[PowerDiver]

A ranger isn't really a bowman until CL 20. Also, your bow is pretty weak.

You should be selling things to get money to buy and enchant a longbow.

It's all about the launcher. If the RNG favors you with great xbows, then you use them.

Excessive DEX is mostly irrelevant to ranged attacks. Next time, if you want to emphasize only 1 stat, emphasize STR. Depending on your race, it might be worth getting starting DEX to 18/10 for a third blow with a dagger while you try to make it to CL 20.

[dormouse]

Thank you for the quick response. I figgured it was just a case of expecting something different than the intended style. Well, here is hoping he doesn't meet a tragic end before CL20.

[Derakon]

To be quite honest, all classes in Vanilla are melee-heavy, even the mage (though the mage does spend his early game casting Magic Missile at everything in sight, with the occasional Stinking Cloud). Ranged attacks do get significantly better in the mid-to-late game, to the point that there's serious discussion about nerfing its damage, but early on it's not so huge.

Missile damage is currently calculated as (missile dice roll + missile to-damage bonus + launcher to-damage bonus) * (launcher multiplier) * (missile slay bonus)

So for example, if you're firing a Bolt of Slay Evil (1d5) (+8, +9) with a Light Crossbow (x3) (+7, +9) at an evil enemy, then you'd deal (1d5 + 9 + 9) * (3 for launcher multiplier) * (2 for slay multiplier) = 115-138 damage. However, if you were firing a normal arrow (1d4) (+0, +0) from an unenchanted Short Bow (x2) (+0, +0), then you'd just be dealing (1d4) * (2) damage. Magic Missile is, if I recall correctly, 2d6 when you first get it, and it hits every time.

[tummychow]

Missiles are currently overpowered. So once you get your extra shot, a strong bow and some reasonable arrows, you should be more than capable of dealing more damage with shooting than by magic missile.

[Timo Pietilä]

Missiles are currently overpowered. So once you get your extra shot, a strong bow and some reasonable arrows, you should be more than capable of dealing more damage with shooting than by magic missile.

Magic missile is weak. Just longbow with few enchantments is better. Because longbow triples the damage done each enchant can be counted as +3 to damage. So +8 longbow is +24 damage + 3*arrow dice. Easily over 30 each shot.

With great bow and great arrows there is no spell that can do more damage. Great melee will still make more damage, but not much more.

Ranger is easiest class in entire game once you have got past the beginning stages of the game.