I don't think its a secret that ranged builds are difficult to play. Not just on Arelith, but NWN as a whole. So. Knowing this, I played a couple of ranged builds as a challenge/experiment/test of self loathing. I have -not- messed around with Arcane Archer builds yet, but here are my results thus far:
Edit: If anyone else wants to add in, feel free to do so!
Weapon Choices:
You can break weapons down into bows, crossbows, and thrown weapons. Bows come out on top and it isn't really all that close. Bows have an entire class dedicated to their usage (Arcane Archer), and require the least stat spreading and feat investment to use effectively. You'll need a minimum of 3 feats to use them effectively (point blank shot, rapid shot, weapon focus), but even without any feat investment, they can put out decent damage, making them a decent secondary weapon. There aren't any inherent penalties to using bows without any additional feats.
Crossbows have a slightly higher base damage, mighty bonuses and crit rate, but flat out require rapid reload to use as anything other than a trash meme weapon. Without it, you're limited to 1 attack per round. Serious investment requires at least 2 more feats (weapon focus and point blank shot), with rapid shot being an optional pickup if you plan on using the heavy repeating crossbow. They also require a considerable STR investment to get the most out of their mighty bonuses, resulting in some difficult stat spreading
The sole universal advantage crossbows have over bows is a slightly higher AB, with the highest being +4 or +5. Which comes out to your AB being technically 3 to 4 points higher than a bow, as bow users will almost always want rapid shot enabled with its -2 penalty.
Again, though, you'll need rapid reload to actually make use of this.
Thrown weapons are a mess. Throwing axes and darts have lower base damage, but get your full STR bonus as bonus damage. Unfortunatly, its very difficult to have high STR -and- high DEX -and- have the feats needed to invest in melee and ranged damage. This means they're usually relegated to a secondary weapon with high damage/low AB, or a main weapon with higher AB and lower damage. The crafted slings are pretty awful (+3 AB, +5 mighty, +2 dex with no inherent rune) and throwing daggers can't be crafted in bundles last I checked, which makes them inferior damage-wise no matter what stats or STR bonuses they recieve as you can't use them with a template. I have no idea if shuriken still get monk BAB so I can't really comment on those, but they did have a niche prior of being used to spam 7 or 8 ranged sneak attacks per round with some builds at the cost of having the second lowest damage in nwn.
TL;DR: If you aren't using a bow, you're going to be making things harder on yourself.
Builds
All of my ranged builds that made it to higher levels all were built similarly, with heavy investments in rogue or assassin levels. It wasn't soley because I wanted high sneak/death attack damage, but these classes had other skills/utility feats needed to not instantly die every time I got into a fight. Stealth, animal empathy, traps, assassin darkness, and rogue grenades are all necessary tools. I found that if you're playing a ranged build, you -must- have as many means to seperate or disable enemies as possible. Grenades are subjected to spell resistance and won't work against level-appropriate enemies strong saves. Traps take a lot of time and resources to prepare. Animals vary wildly from "trash" to "60 DC animal goes BRRRRRR". Stealth does not always work. Dirty fighting has a very low DC, even with heavy intimidate/bluff/etc investments, and can't reliably be used without dropping enemies saves first. Gruesome fighting will lower saves/stats, but does not work effectively as crowd control (enemies only pause for 2 to 3 seconds before charging again) and does not set up additional sneak attacks.
Sadly, this means you need a decent INT score, spreading your stats around even further between STR, DEX and CON.
Damage-wise, i can comfortably deal out 100+ damage per round even with a bit of luck without sneak attacks, but it sadly isn't enough when swarmed.
Gear:
Sidenote; the "All Things Ranged" topic in the builds section needs an update, as things like complex templates straight up don't exist anymore.
Being a ranged build is -expensive-. It helps that all classes with a ranged weapon focus can craft their own ammo using a feat, but templates and the scrolls/essences needed to power them are expensive. It might seem like templates got a nerf when complex templates were removed, but honestly, no one in their right mind was making those. Multiple adaptive gears on a non-repairable consumable? Yeah...pass.
Theres an entire topic of "mundane vs caster" costs floating around right now, but I can say ranged builds are slightly more expensive, as you need more essences/repair kits to maintain and empower your templates than you do for melee weapons.
Other
I found information on the forum that there is a -8 movement penalty to mounted ranged characters when they move. Fun fact; its -all- ranged characters. With or without a mount. This was absolutely devastating at lower levels, where your AB and AC both suck and you're only real defense is to run and try to reposition. Is this intentional?
