How successful have you been in dual wielding a one-handed melée weapon and a one-handed ranged weapon?  I think Ronan of the Wild could do it pretty well, but I've never tried it.  Could it also be useful to have a shield and just re-equip every turn?  I'm interested in how such tactics have worked out in single quests and in campaigns.

It works ok in a vanilla game. Depending on the rest of the party. I advise against it though. Ronin is better off used as a runner since he has 4f 5s unless someone has drawn Astara.

I'd like to report that Ronan of the Wild was quite effective at swapping between the crossbow and the sword.  My friends and I played "The Chase," the downloadable bonus quest with three heroes: Laughin Buldar, Battlemage Jaes, and Ronan of the Wild.  Ronan's skills were Alertness, Battle Cry, and Skilled.  I spent the first 300 gold on a sword, a crossbow, leather armor, and an iron shield.  By the end of the quest, Ronan edged out the other two heroes on kill total with 13 monsters.  He was the only hero to die and he only died once.  In a RtL or SoB campaign I agree it would be best to specialize, but Pico enabled Ronan to deal a good amount of damage with both ranged and melée attacks in a shorter quest.

Monsterberger said:

I never thought of using him like that.  I tried that tactic with other heroes, but it didn't work out as planned.  I would normally get a super great weapon and stick to that for the end game.