Sniper [d20 modern]

[Waargh!]

Sniper

Requirements: Dead Aim, Spot or Hide 6 ranks
Hit Dice:1d8
Skill Points: 5 + INT
AP:6 + one-half character level, rounded down, every level up
Class Skills: Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (electronic, mechanical) (Int), Drive (Dex), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str),
Knowledge (tactics) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex),
Profession (Wis), Spot (Wis).

{table]Level | BAB | Saves | Defense | Class Feature | Reputation
1 | +1 | +0/+1/+0 | +0 | Weak Spot I | +0
2 | +2 | +0/+2/+0 | +1 | Camouflage | +0
3 | +3 | +1/+2/+1 | +1 | Bonus Feat | +1
4 | +4 | +1/+2/+1 | +1 | Weak Spot II | +1
5 | +5 | +1/+3/+1 | +2 | Careful Shot | +1
6 | +6 | +2/+3/+2 | +2 | Bonus Feat | +2
7 | +7 | +2/+4/+2 | +2 | Weak Spot III | +2
8 | +8 | +2/+4/+2 | +3 | Deadly Shot | +2
9 | +9 | +3/+4/+3 | +3 | Bonus Feat | +3
10 | +10 | +3/+5/+3 | +3 | Weak Spot IV | +3
[/table]

Weak Spot: Beginning at first level, a Sniper can aim for critical areas, however, such areas are difficult to hit. When the Sniper takes a standard action to make a ranged attack with a sniper rifle you may choose to raise the critical threat range by one. If you do you receive a -1 penalty to that attack as well. At 4th level, the Sniper can increase use this ability twice per standard attack action made with a sniper rifle. At 7th, he can use it three times. In addition, you increase the critical hit multiplier by one. Apply first the Improved Critical feat, as any other bonus on critical hit range in advance.
Camouflage: As long as you remain hidden for one round, you gain a +2 bonus on your hiding checks as long as you don't move more than 5ft per round.
Careful Shot When you use Dead Aim, you gain +2 bonus to confirm critical hits.
Deadly Shot: Any sniper rifle you have selected Weapon Focus on increases its critical shot multiplier by one.
Bonus Feat: Advanced Firearms Proficiency, Far Shot, Precise Shot, Focused, Run, Weapon Focus, Low Profile, Stealthy.

A simple class that reflects the role of a sniper

[demidracolich]

This is a cool idea, I currently have a sniper character in D20 Modern. However, the improved dead aim features seem underpowered. Who'd want to spend three rounds just to get a +4 on one attack?

[demidracolich]

Also, it might be better to just give a flat critical multiplier bonus at certain levels. Snipers are supposed to be really accurate so losing attack bonus isn't a good idea.

[Mongoose87]

So, if I used Critical Shot with x=0, does my critical multiplier still increase by one?

[demidracolich]

Also, critical shot makes no sense fluff wise. Increasing threat range means you are better at hitting critical areas. That means the sniper has learned to hit more accurately. Scarificing accuracy may make sense for crit multiplier, but definitely not for threat range.

[ForzaFiori]

I think it would be like if you aim for the head instead of chest. It is harder to hit the head, but you have a much more certain kill shot. Therefor, attack drops, since it is a harder shot, but damage and crit goes up, since your hitting the brain rather than a lung (which takes some time to kill someone, instead of the instant kill a brain shot usually is.)

[imp_fireball]

So, if I used Critical Shot with x=0, does my critical multiplier still increase by one?

What if I made it x=20 and spent a whole lot of action points on to-hit?

[Callos_DeTerran]

This class invalidates...well...any other combat class if there's any chance to attack from hiding. With the Massive Damage Threshhold, the sniper class as written will be getting a critical on a 16-20 and do x4 damage of 2d12..which can already bypass the Massive Damage Threshold of most characters. Thats a minimum of 8 damage and a maximum of 96. And all this takes is a piddling -2 to hit if you spend a full round action lining up your shot. It only get's worse from there. That is at the very first level of this class which you can get into on level 4. At level four, you can eclipse any other character just by lining up a shot for one round, attacking with a -2, and getting slightly lucky.

It..is bad.

[Krazddndfreek]

X can only equal 3 at most.

That said, writing "X" in a homebrew isn't very good form. It should read something more like this:

Critical Shot: Beginning at first level, a Sniper can aim for critical areas, however, such areas are difficult to hit. When the Sniper takes a standard action to make a ranged attack with a sniper rifle you may choose to raise the critical threat range by one. If you do you receive a -1 penalty to that attack as well. At 4th level, the Sniper can increase use this ability twice per standard attack action made with a sniper rifle. At 7th, he can use it three times. The increase to critical threat is not multiplied by the Improved Critical feat.

Also, I'm not an expert at Modern, but I'm pretty sure that the prereqs are a bit low. This class seems really powerful for being able to get at 3rd level.

EDIT: @^: Shows me how much of a noob I am. :smalltongue:
Back to the OP, if Callos' numbers are right and sniper rifles are 2d12 at x4 crit, increasing threat isn't a very good idea. Perhaps you should focus this class on getting better at shooting without being detected? Isn't there sneak attack in Modern? You could use that, increase the sneak attack range, and reduce or null the penalty to hiding after a shot. You could possibly have a threat increase, but it really should have an actual drawback (-3 penalty isn't much).

[Callos_DeTerran]

My apologies, but that just means my example is not as dramatic. It's damage of 6-72 on a critical hit for a -1 with a 17-20 critical chance at level one of the class (level four).

As for being able to get into it early, your actually SUPPOSED to be able to get into an advanced class at level four if you had the right base class so that's not really a problem. This class' strength is though.

[Krazddndfreek]

Is a -1 penalty to attack really a viable mitigating factor for an increase in threat range though? Certainly wouldn't in D&D but I'm not sure about D20 Modern...:smallconfused:

[Ashtagon]

What if I made it x=20 and spent a whole lot of action points on to-hit?

by RAW, you can only spend a single action point on any one roll. At mid-high levels, that gives you multiple AP dice, but you still only get to pick the best one.

Subtracting from attack roll to gain critical threat range and +1 on critical multiplier is essentially zero-sum though. Assuming you are using a firearm (crit 20/x2) and need an 11+ to hit normally...

Baseline: (0.05 (threat) x 0.5 (confirmed) x 1 (extra damage from critical)) + 0.5 (base damage) = 0.525

X=1: (0.1 (threat) x 0.45 (confirmed) x 2 (extra damage from critical)) + 0.45 (base damage) = 0.54

X=2: (0.15 (threat) x 0.4 (confirmed) x 2 (extra damage from critical)) + 0.4 (base damage) = 0.52

X=3: (0.2 (threat) x 0.35 (confirmed) x 2 (extra damage from critical)) + 0.35 (base damage) = 0.49


It'd be more effective to treat this "headshot" thing as a kind of ranged sneak attack instead.

[Surrealistik]

Fixing Critical Shot:

I like the premise and idea; it makes sense, a shot to a vital is more likely to cause serious harm, but also generally requires more finesse to land. However, as Ashtagon has noted, mathematically it does not. I suggest the following fix:

Have Critical Shot increase the critical confirmation roll by 2X as well, besides making sense (get shot in the brain, chances are good that wound is serious). This results in an expected return that grows at an recursive rate as X increases:

X Threat Conf Crit Base E.Ret
0 0.05 0.5 1 0.5 0.525
1 0.1 0.55 2 0.45 0.56
2 0.15 0.6 2 0.4 0.58
3 0.2 0.65 2 0.35 0.61
4 0.25 0.7 2 0.3 0.65
5 0.3 0.75 2 0.25 0.7
6 0.35 0.8 2 0.2 0.76

You may consider limiting X to a maximum of the user's class level.

[Mulletmanalive]

Blood and Guts by Green Ronin had an excellent Sniper class in it, but it assumed, as does d20 modern infact, that such elite troopers are at least 8th level to be on the bottom of the rungs. To be GS Billybob Thornton from Shooter, you'd be around 16th.

This flies because sniper requires a lot of levels in Soldier to get into and is a Prestige class. These show up so rarely that a lot of folks ignore them in Modern, but they're there, with entries at around 7-8th level and are generally pretty powerful [aside from the Muskateer, which is pants.]

[DaTedinator]

Wizards actually released a sniper prestige class, along with a bunch of others. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20modern/we/20030529a)

[demidracolich]

I know, my dm was planning on converting it to an advance class and letting me take it but he hasn't finished yet.

[Waargh!]

Thanx for the replies.
I changed a bit the critical shot text.

The sniper gets a high BAB so he will hit more easily than the rest. He gets a low defense bonus and one good save in order for him to be more the attacker type.

The Dead Aim is generally balanced in the sense that you might be hiding and just aiming for the target so the extra attack bonus is free.

The idea of critical shot is that instead of hitting at "10" for example as well, you will miss at "10", but at "19" you will perform a critical hit and do triple the damage. So in the end the sum is balanced. So you get a risk in order to deal massive damage. So the overall dmg staying around 0.5 is OK. That was the intention.
I forgot Imporoved Critical feat. But I guess, leaving critical shot as it is, more or less it will be balanced using the numbers below, since the overall damage goes a bit down.
I could add a +1 on critical hit confirmation, if such a feat doesn't exist. Maybe adding that on Improved Aim as well. Or changing master aim so it gives you a +4 bonus on critical confirmation rolls.

Its intent is to be used as quickly as you can become a gunslinger.

[edit: changed master aim to give a +5 attack bonus on confirming critical hits. This way you don't get a high free attack bonus by just waiting, but you get more chances delivering a good critical shot.
I will also look the other Sniper classes and compare]

[Waargh!]

I like the Urban's Arcana Sniper. I guess my class is not really needed on that sense.
I was thinking of a way to use both classes. Will change critical shot to "Weak spot". I will take off my improved dead aim feature. Instead I added the "Careful aim" feature which will do what Master Aim does, but give a +2 bonus instead.
With the two classes combined, you can use Weak Spot to improve your chances for a critical hit. You can use Dead Aim and gain all the bonuses from the UA's version and the added Careful Aim bonus. UA's critical shot can become a bit more devastating by adding Weak Spot. You will get a -9 bonus, but if you succeed you get a +1 on the critical shot's multiplier. Taking under consideration the +4 bonus from Dead Aim, you have spent two rounds, get a -5 penalty on attack rolls to deal x3 damage if you hit. Seems fair.

EDIT: Made Weak Spot up to IV. Also in the above calculations for the average overall damage, the Deadly Shot bonus is missing. I believe with Deadly Shot and Improved Critical hit the average damage will be above normal.
With both classes you will have at lvl 16 a x4 multiplier, which is high. So with Critical Shot (auto crit hit) you will indeed do a lot of damage. But I guess the -5 penalty and the 2 full-rounds make it still reasonable, considering that you will lose 2 full-attack actions to do so.