Yes, there are several spellcasters in the game. Make sure you teach them the "haste" spell. It's like turning your entire party into jet fighters in combat. They outrun pretty much everything and attack blazingly quickly. Really awesome spell, just be mindful the duration isn't that long so it's hard to use as a pre-buff. Other than that, I can't think of anything that doesn't verge of full-blown spoiler.

I just did a little bit of trial-and-error with attribute placement, and if you want a decent charisma this is my recommendation for your stats:

Wood Elf
STR: 16 (6)
DEX: 16 (6)
CON: 10 (4)
INT: 10 (4)
WIS: 14 (6)
CHA: 14 (6)

My biggest reservation is that your constitution and intelligence will have to be so low to do this. To help deal with this, consider the "toughness" feat for more hit points, and just drop ignore the "move silently" and "hide" skills so you can invest in other abilities. Stealth is rarely needed in NWN2 so it's the first thing to go if your intelligence isn't high enough to select all the skills you want. Just an aside that the Sorcerer and Bard's spellcasting is based on the charisma attribute. A Ranger is automatically proficiency with melee and ranged weapons, regardless of which specialty he picks. You can choose to specialize in ranged weapons and still be fully capable of drawing a melee weapon if you so choose.

The issue is that there are a limited number of "feats" you can select as you level up. Any feat you spend giving yourself a bonus in melee combat is one that isn't spent on giving you a bonus in ranged combat. If you're fine with baseline proficiency, then there's no need to split your feats.

Thing is, Rangers get all but a couple archery-related feats for free if they choose the Archery route (They don't get Point Blank Shot, Weapon Focus:Bow, or Improved Critical:Bow for free, but that's all I can think of offhand). So they can spend their other feats on melee oriented feats.

I'd second Coelocanth's suggestion of bringing in some finesse fighter abilities to supplement your ranged attacks if you go this route (this way you'll be able to go high dex and have the attack bonus apply to both ranged and melee attacks)- just be sure to use a finessable weapon, such as a Rapier. However, rather than a couple of Fighter levels I'd recommend going with some Swashbuckler levels for your second class (requires expansions to be installed). Swashbuckler will give you Weapon Finesse for free at level 1, and some other nice feats for a dex based fighter at later levels. It'll also give you access to some social skills (Bluff and Diplomacy) as class skills, so you'll still be charismatic enough to talk your way out of many situations.

Thanks for all the recommendations. All the posts have helped me decide that my original character build requirements is resulting in watering down any possibility of being a specialist in any class.

I've mentioned it previously but I just want to emphasise that I couldn't have come to this conclusion without all the suggestions and feedback. It also means that I'm going to start the game without regretting my character build. Again, thank you to all.


edit: And the recommended feats will definitely be taken on board.

Ranger3/fighter2/sorc2 is a bad idea. They use 7 levels. Plus 10 levels AA this makes 17.
From that point on you have to split your levels between these 3 classes which will be not so good,
especially if you go above lv 20 (MotB)
I am also against using 1 level of cleric, warlock or shadowdancer (sorry, but taking levels just to max out one skill (faint) is insane powergaming and only good if you want to do PvP at max level)
Swashbuckler gives you not very much too.

For your elf archer I have 2 suggestions. Both take 1 level wizard and 10 level arcane archer.

-take all remaining levels as ranger. A simle and straight forward archer
-Split your levels between ranger and fighter. Ignore any magic you have and use your fighter feats
to improve whatever you want to do (e.g. melee)

Not really an issue in the OC, where this will only come to bite you at level 19. In MotB you would have to sink two more levels in Sorcerer, which is really not that big of a deal (sacrificing one more BAB). Shadow Dancer gives you hide in plain sight, which is just awesome. The idea behind one level of cleric is to claim the domain power. Warlock is kinda weird, but those invocations can be used as often as you like and can be pretty nice (dark one's own luck can be a huge saving throw boost if your charisma is half-decent).

If you want to max out skills, then Rogue is the class you want to multi into. A 2-4 level dip gives you evasion, sneak attack, and enough class skills to choke on.

I must admit I never used a char with hide in plain sight.
Why is this so great?

I can understand that it is extremely useful for a char with lots of sneak damage and in PvP.
I will never play PvP. Even with a perfect char I would be terrible.

In the OC, MotB and SoZ my thief (rougue or something else with sneak attacs) never used stealth.
I simply send my tank first, the enemies attac him and the thief can sneak attac whatever he wants.
OK, in MotB I did not have a thief at all (except the familar) but most enemies there are crit immun anyway.

What would an archer without sneak attacs gain from hips?
He permanently loses 1 BAB and he gets some AB bonus for 1 attac every 15 seconds.
He can run away anytime which means only the rest of the party will be killed and you avoid a game over.

Is NWN1 or 2 the same as Baldurs gate1+2 where very powerful enemies (demons, dragons) can always see through your invisibility?

Edit: Is it true that archers are not so good in MotB because you cannot enchant bows with your essences?
Is there any ranged weapon (not ammo) that gives additional elemental damage?