Evandar
2013-12-14, 04:52 AM
Hey guys.
I'll try to be thorough and comprehensible. (tl;dr is at the bottom if you need it anyway)
I've started running a campaign online for my friends in the UK. An old friend is joining the group tomorrow.
He is determined to run a character that:
a ) Has immense proficiency with the longbow.
b ) Can totally assassinate people.
My campaigns are generally all very low leveled. Right now the entire party is level two and everyone does their best to keep everyone involved.
The problem I've warned him about is that his damage as a ranger is going to fall off pretty quickly as we advance in levels. We typically don't care much about dps, but he wants to retain the ability to sneak up behind guards and execute them. Right now a Point Blank burst of arrows from behind will chew through an appropriately leveled humanoid, but that's going to start disappearing by the time they're level 5.
We threw out a bunch of ideas, namely playing a Rogue, a Ranger/Rogue, a Swift Hunter Ranger/Scout, a Ranger/Assassin, a million permutations of X/Assassin (trying the save-or-die route to achieve the same effect this time). None of them quite seemed to make it, either due to the fact things like Skirmish don't progress as quickly as Sneak Attack, or that his abilities aren't going to synergize well with Death Attack.
Ultimately, I just decided to make a rule up (that I haven't run by my players yet).
Basically, everyone in the game now has Sudden Strike (advancement equal to Ninja of equal character level) when attacking opponents that are unaware they are in danger.
Rangers on the archery tree also get Longbow Sniper (TM) at 2nd level in addition to their normal stuff, letting them Sudden Strike from 60 feet away.
Is giving everyone the ability to Sudden Strike a terrible, terrible idea?
If anyone knows a better way to allow people in game to put a crossbow behind someone's head, pull the trigger and not have them shrug it off because of a d12 hit die, I'd be glad to hear it.
tl;dr: Our ranger needs a way to one-shot opponents that he has taken a lot of trouble to sneak up on using mundane means. I gave everyone Sudden Strike (which isn't technically even enough to threaten an equal leveled NPC overmuch), please advise.
I'll try to be thorough and comprehensible. (tl;dr is at the bottom if you need it anyway)
I've started running a campaign online for my friends in the UK. An old friend is joining the group tomorrow.
He is determined to run a character that:
a ) Has immense proficiency with the longbow.
b ) Can totally assassinate people.
My campaigns are generally all very low leveled. Right now the entire party is level two and everyone does their best to keep everyone involved.
The problem I've warned him about is that his damage as a ranger is going to fall off pretty quickly as we advance in levels. We typically don't care much about dps, but he wants to retain the ability to sneak up behind guards and execute them. Right now a Point Blank burst of arrows from behind will chew through an appropriately leveled humanoid, but that's going to start disappearing by the time they're level 5.
We threw out a bunch of ideas, namely playing a Rogue, a Ranger/Rogue, a Swift Hunter Ranger/Scout, a Ranger/Assassin, a million permutations of X/Assassin (trying the save-or-die route to achieve the same effect this time). None of them quite seemed to make it, either due to the fact things like Skirmish don't progress as quickly as Sneak Attack, or that his abilities aren't going to synergize well with Death Attack.
Ultimately, I just decided to make a rule up (that I haven't run by my players yet).
Basically, everyone in the game now has Sudden Strike (advancement equal to Ninja of equal character level) when attacking opponents that are unaware they are in danger.
Rangers on the archery tree also get Longbow Sniper (TM) at 2nd level in addition to their normal stuff, letting them Sudden Strike from 60 feet away.
Is giving everyone the ability to Sudden Strike a terrible, terrible idea?
If anyone knows a better way to allow people in game to put a crossbow behind someone's head, pull the trigger and not have them shrug it off because of a d12 hit die, I'd be glad to hear it.
tl;dr: Our ranger needs a way to one-shot opponents that he has taken a lot of trouble to sneak up on using mundane means. I gave everyone Sudden Strike (which isn't technically even enough to threaten an equal leveled NPC overmuch), please advise.