Key Takeaways
- The Baldur’s Gate 3 community is sceptical of Larian’s choice to adapt Arcane Archer.
- Arcane Archer is one of the dullest subclasses in Dungeons & Dragons.
- Some are optimistic about what Larian could potentially do with the subclass.
Larian Studios is the gift that keeps on giving, as a recent Baldur’s Gate 3 community update announced new features and twelve new subclasses coming to the game during the game’s “final major update,” Patch 8.
The prospect of new builds and consequently, new characters, has predictably generated a lot of excitement in the community. A lot of the new subclasses are beloved adaptations from tabletop Dungeons & Dragons, like Death Domain Cleric and Hexblade Warlock. However, this isn’t the case for every one of the announced subclasses.
In the opinion of the tabletop community, Arcane Archer, the upcoming Fighter subclass, is among the very worst in Dungeons & Dragons. This isn’t a universal opinion, but you’d be hard-pressed to find many people who believe Arcane Archer is superior to the likes of Echo Knight and Rune Knight. For those who haven’t played the class in Baldur’s Gate 3, the currently available Fighter subclasses are Battle Master, Eldritch Knight and Champion.
An Underwhelming Choice
A Reddit thread by voin947 makes light of this topic, showing how excited people are for some of the other subclasses and contrasting it with the community’s indifference towards the Arcane Archer.
Arcane Archer is a range-focused subclass that combines “the dual arts of magic and marksmanship.” It’s technically the only ranged subclass, but the ever-powerful Battlemaster also offers the player a solid ranged experience, should they choose to pursue that route. The problem with Arcane Archer isn’t necessarily that it’s underpowered, but rather that it’s underwhelming.
Arcane Archer has a resource problem until you hit the game’s latter levels, as well as not feeling very magical and having little utility outside of combat. The gameplay of this subclass boils down to… you’re an Archer who’s decent at shooting things, but you’re not particularly powerful either.
It’s not all doom and gloom either, though. Larian has shown in the past that it’s willing to deviate from tabletop Dungeons & Dragons when it makes sense to do so. This sentiment is expressed by fllora22 in the comments, who says “Honestly hyped for Arcane Archer. I was really let down by it in Dungeons & Dragons, but Baldur’s Gate 3 has improved/fixed some other subclasses. So I have hope.”
This is echoed (but not Echo Knighted) by onyxthedark, who adds “OK but they cooked with a lot of the other subclasses and made them better/more fun, so I’m curious to see how they’ll fix Arcane Archer.” Others are speculating that Larian is going to give Arcane Archers more of their resource, eliminating a major problem of the subclass.
Only time will tell how the Arcane Archer ends up playing in Baldur’s Gate 3. Larian intends to hold a stress test with the community in January, with an eye towards releasing Patch 8 later in the year.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is the long-awaited next chapter in the Dungeons & Dragons-based series of RPGs. Developed by Divinity creator Larian Studios, it puts you in the middle of a mind flayer invasion of Faerûn, over a century after the events of its predecessor.