Xhosant
2014-04-26, 01:55 PM
Most of you have noticed by now, that 3.5e doesn't exactly support the 'sniper' gameplay. That is, a physical ranged attacker that delivers heavy damage from a very long range with a single shot per round.
That's not to say there aren't some solid builds out there. In fact, they're too solid.
A good example is a particular build of an shooter that fires an arrow imbued with an audio playback that kills everyone in hearing range.
Another is an archer whose always-critical shots scar you so bad, you go into a come through sheer ugliness.
I wanted something simpler:
A build meant to spot, and deal heavy damage, to the enemy over considerable range, all through a single shot.
I will provide both the rock-solid and DM-dependent choices for each of the above issues, because frankly the build's a little tight on resources.
What it does possess plenty of, though, is stat freedom. It's SAD, if even that: only dexterity is needed, adding to-hit. Strength is of minor use via skills, as is wisdom, skill points available are ample for the build's needs and charisma has no necessary use. Constitution, finally, shouldn't some into play: Your job is to punch holes the size of their fists onto stuff from beyond sight and, failing that, getting your behinds out of there. If (when) you get engaged a mile away from the rest of the party, what you'll need is the ability to disappear, not fight back.
Alos note the build is to benefit greatly from fractional BAB, since you'll multiclass at least between 2 3/4th classes. Also, I went for a crossbow build, because of flavor and the slightly larger range increment. Finally, and I can't stress that enough: Stay prone. It's a couple minor bonuses, no penalties, and it's fitting.
Onward to the specifics!
Incomplete:
Player's HandbookH, MIC
Damage
Player's Handbook
The big question, what source of damage will you use to power the build? I picked sneak attacks. This is simple, as optimizing your damage is already done to death, and since you can acquire it as a simple rogue. Anything that boosts sneak attack is fair game for gear and feats, plus Quick reload to let us move up to heavy crossbows and still shoot 1/round.
The catch is, we need to boost its range over the 30-feet threshold.
Which brings us to:
Range
Now, we need a way to apply sneak attack damage that doesn't have a range limit. I'll pick, to that end, a first-level arcane spell: Sniper's Shot, a swift action spell that makes your first shot in a round deal sneak attack damage regardless of range.
Now, everyone's gonna note, we either need exceedingly numerous 1st-level spells per day, or to persist it, and we gotta do that with as few resources as possible. The best way to do that, I found, was to go with a single Divine Magician Cleric.
That's gonna raise a few DM eyebrows, of course. You signed up for a physical ranged, and now you're trying to cheese a Cleric. But we're not using anything important the cleric gives for non-snipping purposes (and personally i'd decline using differently those resources i could). Try to talk your DM into letting your 'spell prayer' be crossbow maintenance, so at least we'll have that flavorful bit to justify the decision :smallbiggrin:
Now, you'll need Extend and Persist spell, as well as Divine Metamagic. Extend has no requirements, Persist has only Extend, and Divine metamagic must be taken after (or along with) the Cleric level and Persist.
Pick a single level of Cloistered Cleric, trading in the extra domain for Divine Magician (picking 'Sniper's Shot' for your 1st-lvl spell) along with the Undeath and Elf domains. This gives you 7+Cha turn attempts (Extra Turning courtesy of the Undeath domain), just enough to fuel your DMM SNiper's Shot, and Point-Blank Shot (Elf domain), a feat utterly useless to our build (even if it wasn't already), but necessary for Far Shot. It also gives 1/day Truestrike (or detect undead, I guess? :smallconfused:) plus cantrips.
Why it's ambiguous? For one, I'm not entirely sure every DM would allow trading the bonus Knowledge domain. On the second count, there's no god in print that has the 2 domains. I went for a Deathless Elf mentor for my 'hypothetical' sniper, but YMMV. The point is to cut an extra feat off the shopping list.
We'll instead go for a single level of Cleric, Divine Magician-ing one domain and picking Elf for the second. We still get Point-Blank Shot for free, we still pick Sniper's Shot for our 'arcane' spell, and are still left with cantrips and 1/day Truestrike (alas, no Detect Undead option :smallsigh::smalltongue:)
However, we need an extra 4 turn attempts per day, even if momentarily. That might be earned via the Extra Turning feat, a +4 Cha mod, or an item granting extra turn attempts (nightsticks included, if it flies by your GM and doesn't get expensive). Even if the bonus doesn't last more than a round, you're good to go, so pop on that Cloak of Elvenkind then put it away again.
That means we've spent 3 (4 if unlucky) feats to be able to SA from any distance. And since we'll be too far to be seen (I hope), all our attacks go for flat-footed, sneak-attackable targets.
Need Feedback: There's the issue of extra turn attempts from a higher Charisma, and it's both unlikely and (to me) in poor taste to use them as such. Is there some item or Divine feat you guys think could expend them to our end?
So, our targets won't be able to spot us, but how will we?
Spotting
If only all our issues were so open-and-shut. At lower levels, just keep your Spot ranks at maximum (a non-issue for a rogue). Maybe throw in an item boost now and then. Maybe one of your buddies can provide you with perception of where the ground team is.
But as soon as you can, grab a Third Eye: Sense (courtesy of Magic Item Compendium). It's a simple orange crystal, that takes a standard action to put on. It lets you see and hear a given location, for no action, any times per day. The only catch being that you need to target a non-pitch-black area that you're familiar with, or can easily specify. The second being our main mode of operation: 'That place 500 feet over there' is a perfectly valid description.
At 24.000 gp, our only problem is getting it reflavored to sniper goggles.
Considerable Range
Ok, so now we can sneak attack stuff way over there. In theory. We still need to boost how far 'way over there' can be, not to mention having a chance to actually hit a mark. We have, again, a cheese-light and a cheese-heavy way to do that. And we also have the way of the cheese to end all cheese, with which I'll start.
First of all, do not try to pull this off. Not unless your game is explicitly trying to push the limit on 'cheesy' and it's been balanced as such.
Know, remember that special source'book', the Dragon Magazine? The one often bashed for its obscurity, lack of balance and poor writing, rules-wise?
We're not just using part of it. We're using the poor writing itself.
Enter the Martial Monk. A monk variant from issue 310, who's basically a monk/warrior hybrid, dropping some skill points for a selection of fighter feats at levels 1, 2 and 6. The catch is, a monk's bonus feats (to which those are included) can skip prerequisites.
Which brings us to Distant Shot. A feat that literally removes the concept of the range increment, meaning no range penalties and no maximum range. If you can see it (hint, you can) then you can shoot it like it's right in your face. It would be broken, if it didn't require being an epic level character.
Oh, wait...:smallbiggrin:
For us more sane people, there's the Cragtop Archer (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20040815b). A single level in it gets us half the range penalties, a third level boosts our total range by 1.5x, in the absence of a low ceiling. And there's an occasional +2 damage at level 2, but whatever.
However, the thorn on our side is in the prerequisites, the feat Mountain warrior. Now, it's kinda-sorta of use to us, but we can't really afford to get another so lousy feat, if we can help it. But, the article above comes to our rescue. Right in the 'adaption' category, it says that the 'cragtop' part of the archer is optional, since not all such archers actually prefer cragtops :smallbiggrin: The point is, the designers recommend we review that bit, and that's what you should ask the DM to do. If they can lose the feat, or replace it with something of more use to you, do that.
So there's your 2 ways. Get the feat, or whatever replaced it, then grab 1 or 3 levels, as you'd like.
The build so far:
Rogue 2
Feats: Extend Spell, Persist Spell (plus extra turning if necessary)
BAB 1(+ 0.5)
Rogue 2/Cleric 1
Feat: Divine Metamagic (persist) (If an additional Extra Turning is needed, delay this until available)
Stat requirements: Wis 11
BAB 1(+1.25)
Rogue X/Cleric 1(Gather the skills for Cragtop Archer)
Feats: Far Shot, Mountain Warrior (if needed), Rapid Reload (eventually).
BAB 3X/4 (as Rogue X)(+0.75)
Rogue X/Cleric 1/Cragtop Archer 1-3
BAB as above, +1 or 3, depending.
The raise rogue. Doesn't seem too complicated, right? But you'll notice we need plenty of feats already, and we're not even done yet. So, we're gonna roll with human, and whatever feat sources you can find, take them. I'm looking at you, Flaws. Ideally, we can pull off the whole build above within the first 12 levels, unless we can acquire flaws on the fly (that will cut it down to 10).
Don't worry though: we'll put those extra feats to good use regardless.
Above and Beyond
All right, congratulations everyone. We've got a high range, a decent accuracy, and a dependable amount of power. But what more could we get?
Well, for one, we could use a little sneak attack more. There's also another issue to consider: There are 3 kinds of defense a typical archer has to face. One is Armor bonuses to AC, the second is Dex bonuses, and the third is being out-ranged. We have the second pair off our list, but an enemy could still pump their armor. Wouldn't it be better if the only choice we left them to defend themselves were to curl up and cry?
Can you say with me, 'Psychic Rogue (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723b)'?
First of all, replacing a single Rogue level with Psychic Rogue (preferably the first 1) gets us an extra 1d6 sneak attack, 1 level earlier. It also banishes a .75 BAB more to the Fractional Plane, but hopefully you got that sorted. It also gets you a single power from a small list of nigh-useful choices (provided you can power it).
The best part, though, is that with a 14 in Inteligence it gets us a single power point. Measly, I know. But remember those 2 extra feats we talked about? Well, turns out we can fill those 2 with Psionic Shot, and Fell Shot, respectively. Now, that 1 point can add us a 2d6 damage on the shot, or better yet, make it a touch attack. Curling and crying achieved. Remind me to thank Forrestfire for inspiring this :smallbiggrin:
Ok, news flash: I'll go with PsyWar 2 instead. Keeps us SAD, and gets us 2 bonus feats, which we need desperately.
There's the catch of having to 'take aim' for a round if you want to use it a second time per encounter, but that'd be ok with me. If you figure a way to make it considerably faster, all the better. And make sure to look for the 3.5 versions, both have doubles. Plus we're stacking Trapfindings, so consider taking the Poison Use ACF from Drow of the Underdark (for our regular rogue). Works just like the feat, and I think theme fits too.
Ok, so we got Divine and Psionic. Think a touch of Arcane could give us a lift? Cause I do.
Let's take a look at Spellthief: first level gets us another 1d6 sneak attack, the typical BAB and trapfinding shenanigans, and the ability to steal lousy little spells. Meh.
Oh, but check this out. The 4th level has spells! Of course, we're not sky-diving all the way to 4th level, we're only dipping. But spells mean spell list, and spell list means easy wand use! How about a wand of Guided Shot then? Who can say no to a swift action to ditch range penalties and imperfect cover-concealment miss? You can get a 50-shot for 740gp, or a 2/day for 840. I'd recommend grabbing a couple of the latter. Plus, for the low-low price of 100gp (150? 300? Sources are divided) you can add a wand chamber on your crossbow and experience firing bolt-action crossbow bolts :smallbiggrin: I'd delay this level-item investment a bit, until the cost is trivial. Right along the Eye seems about right. A shoutout to WamBamSam for getting us this!
So, 2 levels of 'flavored rogue' got us 1d6 sneak attack over what straight rogue would get us, and un-rounded out enemy defenses. Plus 3 Trapfindings. Oh well.
The Icky Part: Staying Not dead
So, as we noted, the GM will eventually grow tired of getting his monsters' heads blown clean off spontaneously. A caster will port over to wrap you up. A warband will bump into you. Your celebrations will wake up a dire bear. And since your team won't be there to save you (in fact, the better you are at your job, the further away your team will be), fighting won't often be an option. So unless you want to be your GM's favorite plot hook, you must invest in tools to stop being there, immediately. And I'm kinda beat on that field. Any ideas?
The above is all nice and dandy, but too complicated by half. During my hiatus, Fuzzy McCoy and I worked on an entirely different build (the core idea was his, and we worked to round it out:
The Sniper Crusader.
Now, we'd better go psionic, so either grab a Xeph (personal choice, any psionic race should do, but their stat modifiers are good and their special ability can help us in a bad spot, as we can outrun most anything) or human with wild/hidden talent, as appropriate. If you're playing with multiclass Xp, we'll need to use the human (by 'need' i mean, do you want to get negative Xp if any? No? Guessed so.), otherwise any psionic class works (Xeph for me). Unless you can get Crusader/wildcard to be your favored class as another psionic race, that's nice. Note also, it's feat-intensive as they come, so you'll need flaws if you can get them. Plus, as always, fractionals are good. Gets us just a +1 BaB, but still.
The build itself is crusader10/fighter1/wizard1/deepwood sniper7
Obviously we're missing a level, we'll get to that.
Now, up to level 10 we're just a crusader. One with kinda wacky feats, but a crusader nonetheless. That's also our capacity for melee combat throughout our 20 levels, more or less, so cherish it :smallbiggrin:
Also note, our Fighter is actually a Targeteer variant from Dragon (310 I believe), but fret not, it's simple and balanced. Targeteers act identically to your average fighter, but get a shorter bonus feat list with 3 special tricks that may be chosen as a feat. We're interested in the Sniper feature: making a full-round attack allows you to expend as many of your attacks as you want (except for the last one) and get an increase of the next attack's threat range on a 1:1 ratio. That's right, we're going for an all-crit build, but don't worry, we're not breaking anything. Your average ubercharger can still humiliate our results, just not from our considerable range. Side note, that trick can work with melee attacks too, strangely, so with the proper weapon we could kinda-sorta fight in melee when maneuvers don't serve us well.
Our wizard is also a variant, this time from Unearthed Arcana. Nothing fancy, just fighter bonus feats at 1st and every 5th level, in exchange for our wizard bonus feats and scribe scroll. *gasp* No bonus feats we won't level up to anyway? No scribbing of spells we lack anyway? Oh, the humanity! :smallbiggrin: Instead, we'll Martial Stance and the reason we became a crusader in the first place: Aura of Perfect Order. It allows us to treat any attack roll as a natural 11 before rolling it. The reason we got into Wizard in the first place, though, is access to a variety of wands, including Guided Shot which we'll be burning through on most all attacks. And Invisibility. A too-far-to-see sniper suddenly wiping them with invisible bolts sends a message.
Ok, so obviously we need to lower our threat range to 11. We'll start with an 18-20 weapon, naturally (couple of choices there, read on), which once keened goes to 15-20. To drop that to 11-20, we need to sacrifice 4 attacks, or a total of 5 attacks. Since we can only do that at 12, and we're full BaB till then (well, mostly), there's 3 of them. And since we'll always need an extra attack even at full +20 BaB (and we won't hit that), Rapid Shot is a solid investment. Items will get us that last attack.
Now, let's talk weapons. One solution is Great Crossbow, from Races of Stone. Hurts a little more than Heavy crossbow, and is 18-20/x2. Plus, everything affecting Heavy crossbows treats them as such, which eases some of the feat nuances. The catch is, it requires EWP, and we're feat-intensive.
Our other choice comes from Dragon Compendium, which is obviously a Compendium of Dragon material, tested to be at book level. It's called Shatter Bolt, special ammo that shatters on impact. 18-10 and x3 no less, needs no feats, so it's generally sweet. The catch, though, is that they're prone to be ruined in melee combat, and at 75gp per bolt, it's what people call too damn expensive. But that's what we're here for.
Enter the Quiver of Anariel, material once posted on a Wizards article. Now, it's been removed, but this is the internet. We have backups. That makes it a freely available, Wizard material :smallbiggrin: its function is simple: it makes arrows, that last only for the proccess of shooting them. It costs 28kgp(29 for masterwork arrows, but that's up to you), and gives special material suggestions for suggested prices (consistently at 100x the extra cost of making the arrow from that material). That would mean we can get a Glass Arrow quiver for 36.5kgp, which is pricey, but not near as much pricey as buying arrows, plus we don't care about them breaking. If you can get this quiver, get this quiver.
Good news everyone, Fuzzy pointed out that targeteer gets us 2 ranged EWPs, which means the above is not nescesary. The bolts are still a powerup, the quiver the way to go, but it's neither necessary nor something to rush.
The other catch with this ammo is that it can't be Magic Weapon'd and Keen Edge'd. But Deepwood Sniper 1 gets us our ammo considered keen, which is a go, and his Magic Weapon affects the crossbow. Might be worth getting into it at 12 instead of 13, delaying wizard to 13, and getting stance with our regular feat.
Now, whatever way you go, let's talk enchants. Whatever you do, grab Distance, the essence of our build. It stacks with the flat Deepwood range increase, so it's great. Quick Loading is also nice, saving us Quick Reload, though how it operates with the Quiver above is up to debate (do the arrows expire while stored in the crossbow's pocket dimension?). Collision is great too, with a flat +5 damage (to be multiplied) but we'll have another main damage source, so consider it but it's not mandatory. That gives us a +1 Distance Quick Loading crossbow (+4 total) for you to slap more tricks on, as you see fit. Psychokinetic burst is an untyped burst-type enchant, also viable. And though not technically an enchantment, if you can get away with a Dragonbone Crossbow, do it for another +50% range (along with distance and far shot, that's a total twice the increment size of our crossbow+DS: 380ft. at 20).
Also add a wand chamber in, for the aforementioned wands. And Gnome Crossbow Sight (or how was it), everyone likes scopes.
You won't need much in the way of armor, probably. You don't plan to get yourself into combat once you can snipe, so grab something cheap, probably even light armor to help with climbing, sneaking, and getting away.
On the matter of of other notable equipment:
24k gp gets us Third Eye Sense, a free-action-scry-location. That's our eye when sniping, to cover our sub-par spotting (where 'par' is our ludicrous range).
12k gp gets us Boots of Speed, our extra attack needed for 10 shots a day. Or, a wand of Extended haste, getting us 16 rounds of sniping. That means they will cover you for 50 encounters, at which point their cost is near-negligible. Or 9k gp gets you 2 eternal wands, 5 rounds each. That's 20 rounds a day (breaks even with boots due to the reloading round), no running out. Finnaly, for an indeterminate bonus price (likely less than boots still) you could find someone who can Extend haste at +0SL, you could get 4 uses of 10 rounds each.
36.5k gp gets you the aforementioned quiver. (You can get it eventually, just not needed yet)
Now, to the trickiest part of the build: Feats.
Feats whose prerequisites mean you can grab them at 1st level (or any time):
Point Blank Shot
Weapon Focus(heavy Crossbow) ~Note, this affects Great Crossbow as well, but you couldn't pick it up as Great yet.
Hidden Talent (Or Wild Talent, or a psionic race if you prefer it over human-likes and have no multiclass xp penalty)
Rapid reload (best replaced by Quickloading weapon. As above, you'll pick it for Heavy and affect Great Crossbow as well)
Feats that you can take anytime, but have feat prerequisites:
You can get those at level 1 if you like, if you also took the prerequisites. Great if you got flaws, which hopefully you do.
PBS->
Rapid Shot
Far Shot (Why mastery of long-distance shooting demands mastery of short-distance shooting is beyond me)
WF->
Crossbow Sniper (As weapon focus, if it affects Heavies, it affects Greats)
Feats with higher prerequisites:
Psionic Meditation (How we'll fuel a trick further down. Requires 7 ranks in concentration, so that's level 6 at best)
Wounding Attack (The reason we got the above and a psionic character. That's 1 point of Con damage on attack by extending focus (you'll always have one), multiplied by our crits up to 4 or 5, dealing x(Enemy's HD) damage to the enemy. At 20, that's a minimum of 40-50 hp, usually more. At BaB +8, level 9 is when you'd get this)
Martial Stance (could be taken early, but to give us what we need, Aura of Perfect Order, you'll need level 12. Perfect for our Bonus Fighter Wizard Feat)
Extra feats to consider:
So far you got 11 (at worst) and 9 (at best) feats taken, one of which is a bonus feat (or we have an open bonus one, anyway), so there's a couple more to burn. Plus we got a free level. Let's see if we can play with that.
The SA way: If you grab 1 level of rogue (or any sneak-attacker), plus Craven and Telling Blow, all your criticals (a.k.a. all your shots) will inflict your HD plus minor SA damage extra. not sure if the fixed damage gets multiplied (as fixed damage) or not (as sneak attack), but even 20 damage is pretty.
The Psionic way: Grab Psionic Shot, then Fell Shot. The first is basically prerequisites for the second. Target's plating giving you trouble? Give up on your Con damage to make your shot a touch attack! target Con-immune but easy to hit? Add 2d6 damage!...ok, that last one is disappointing, but we're taking it as a prerequisite, might as well use it instead of nothing.
The Warblade way: Not so much a feat path, as an alternate build. Simply put, apart from the crucial AoPO, crusader is useless. Warblade, on the other hand, gives us some very minor bonuses based on Int (best being an int bonus on crit confirmation rolls, which you make all the time), access to some useful-ish fighter-only feats, the ability to use some of our crossbow-oriented feats on our melee weapons (as you can freely retrain them later), plus a better flavor (to me anyway). The price is that we must pay 2 Martial Studies before level 12, so we have the 2 devoted spirit maneuvers needed to get AoPO as a Warblade. Plus your yet-unused psionic focus could get some synergy with the Concentration checks of Diamond Mind.
Then there's the option of spending that extra level we mentioned to a single Crusader level (at 11th or 12th at wizard's expense, perhaps?). Grabbing 2 of your 'starting' crusader maneuvers from the Devoted Spirit school means you can pick the stance with martial Stance, no Studies needed. Sadly, we can't pick the stance via crusader too, because our Crusader initiator level won't be high enough.
Am I forgetting anything?
That's not to say there aren't some solid builds out there. In fact, they're too solid.
A good example is a particular build of an shooter that fires an arrow imbued with an audio playback that kills everyone in hearing range.
Another is an archer whose always-critical shots scar you so bad, you go into a come through sheer ugliness.
I wanted something simpler:
A build meant to spot, and deal heavy damage, to the enemy over considerable range, all through a single shot.
I will provide both the rock-solid and DM-dependent choices for each of the above issues, because frankly the build's a little tight on resources.
What it does possess plenty of, though, is stat freedom. It's SAD, if even that: only dexterity is needed, adding to-hit. Strength is of minor use via skills, as is wisdom, skill points available are ample for the build's needs and charisma has no necessary use. Constitution, finally, shouldn't some into play: Your job is to punch holes the size of their fists onto stuff from beyond sight and, failing that, getting your behinds out of there. If (when) you get engaged a mile away from the rest of the party, what you'll need is the ability to disappear, not fight back.
Alos note the build is to benefit greatly from fractional BAB, since you'll multiclass at least between 2 3/4th classes. Also, I went for a crossbow build, because of flavor and the slightly larger range increment. Finally, and I can't stress that enough: Stay prone. It's a couple minor bonuses, no penalties, and it's fitting.
Onward to the specifics!
Incomplete:
Player's HandbookH, MIC
Damage
Player's Handbook
The big question, what source of damage will you use to power the build? I picked sneak attacks. This is simple, as optimizing your damage is already done to death, and since you can acquire it as a simple rogue. Anything that boosts sneak attack is fair game for gear and feats, plus Quick reload to let us move up to heavy crossbows and still shoot 1/round.
The catch is, we need to boost its range over the 30-feet threshold.
Which brings us to:
Range
Now, we need a way to apply sneak attack damage that doesn't have a range limit. I'll pick, to that end, a first-level arcane spell: Sniper's Shot, a swift action spell that makes your first shot in a round deal sneak attack damage regardless of range.
Now, everyone's gonna note, we either need exceedingly numerous 1st-level spells per day, or to persist it, and we gotta do that with as few resources as possible. The best way to do that, I found, was to go with a single Divine Magician Cleric.
That's gonna raise a few DM eyebrows, of course. You signed up for a physical ranged, and now you're trying to cheese a Cleric. But we're not using anything important the cleric gives for non-snipping purposes (and personally i'd decline using differently those resources i could). Try to talk your DM into letting your 'spell prayer' be crossbow maintenance, so at least we'll have that flavorful bit to justify the decision :smallbiggrin:
Now, you'll need Extend and Persist spell, as well as Divine Metamagic. Extend has no requirements, Persist has only Extend, and Divine metamagic must be taken after (or along with) the Cleric level and Persist.
Pick a single level of Cloistered Cleric, trading in the extra domain for Divine Magician (picking 'Sniper's Shot' for your 1st-lvl spell) along with the Undeath and Elf domains. This gives you 7+Cha turn attempts (Extra Turning courtesy of the Undeath domain), just enough to fuel your DMM SNiper's Shot, and Point-Blank Shot (Elf domain), a feat utterly useless to our build (even if it wasn't already), but necessary for Far Shot. It also gives 1/day Truestrike (or detect undead, I guess? :smallconfused:) plus cantrips.
Why it's ambiguous? For one, I'm not entirely sure every DM would allow trading the bonus Knowledge domain. On the second count, there's no god in print that has the 2 domains. I went for a Deathless Elf mentor for my 'hypothetical' sniper, but YMMV. The point is to cut an extra feat off the shopping list.
We'll instead go for a single level of Cleric, Divine Magician-ing one domain and picking Elf for the second. We still get Point-Blank Shot for free, we still pick Sniper's Shot for our 'arcane' spell, and are still left with cantrips and 1/day Truestrike (alas, no Detect Undead option :smallsigh::smalltongue:)
However, we need an extra 4 turn attempts per day, even if momentarily. That might be earned via the Extra Turning feat, a +4 Cha mod, or an item granting extra turn attempts (nightsticks included, if it flies by your GM and doesn't get expensive). Even if the bonus doesn't last more than a round, you're good to go, so pop on that Cloak of Elvenkind then put it away again.
That means we've spent 3 (4 if unlucky) feats to be able to SA from any distance. And since we'll be too far to be seen (I hope), all our attacks go for flat-footed, sneak-attackable targets.
Need Feedback: There's the issue of extra turn attempts from a higher Charisma, and it's both unlikely and (to me) in poor taste to use them as such. Is there some item or Divine feat you guys think could expend them to our end?
So, our targets won't be able to spot us, but how will we?
Spotting
If only all our issues were so open-and-shut. At lower levels, just keep your Spot ranks at maximum (a non-issue for a rogue). Maybe throw in an item boost now and then. Maybe one of your buddies can provide you with perception of where the ground team is.
But as soon as you can, grab a Third Eye: Sense (courtesy of Magic Item Compendium). It's a simple orange crystal, that takes a standard action to put on. It lets you see and hear a given location, for no action, any times per day. The only catch being that you need to target a non-pitch-black area that you're familiar with, or can easily specify. The second being our main mode of operation: 'That place 500 feet over there' is a perfectly valid description.
At 24.000 gp, our only problem is getting it reflavored to sniper goggles.
Considerable Range
Ok, so now we can sneak attack stuff way over there. In theory. We still need to boost how far 'way over there' can be, not to mention having a chance to actually hit a mark. We have, again, a cheese-light and a cheese-heavy way to do that. And we also have the way of the cheese to end all cheese, with which I'll start.
First of all, do not try to pull this off. Not unless your game is explicitly trying to push the limit on 'cheesy' and it's been balanced as such.
Know, remember that special source'book', the Dragon Magazine? The one often bashed for its obscurity, lack of balance and poor writing, rules-wise?
We're not just using part of it. We're using the poor writing itself.
Enter the Martial Monk. A monk variant from issue 310, who's basically a monk/warrior hybrid, dropping some skill points for a selection of fighter feats at levels 1, 2 and 6. The catch is, a monk's bonus feats (to which those are included) can skip prerequisites.
Which brings us to Distant Shot. A feat that literally removes the concept of the range increment, meaning no range penalties and no maximum range. If you can see it (hint, you can) then you can shoot it like it's right in your face. It would be broken, if it didn't require being an epic level character.
Oh, wait...:smallbiggrin:
For us more sane people, there's the Cragtop Archer (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20040815b). A single level in it gets us half the range penalties, a third level boosts our total range by 1.5x, in the absence of a low ceiling. And there's an occasional +2 damage at level 2, but whatever.
However, the thorn on our side is in the prerequisites, the feat Mountain warrior. Now, it's kinda-sorta of use to us, but we can't really afford to get another so lousy feat, if we can help it. But, the article above comes to our rescue. Right in the 'adaption' category, it says that the 'cragtop' part of the archer is optional, since not all such archers actually prefer cragtops :smallbiggrin: The point is, the designers recommend we review that bit, and that's what you should ask the DM to do. If they can lose the feat, or replace it with something of more use to you, do that.
So there's your 2 ways. Get the feat, or whatever replaced it, then grab 1 or 3 levels, as you'd like.
The build so far:
Rogue 2
Feats: Extend Spell, Persist Spell (plus extra turning if necessary)
BAB 1(+ 0.5)
Rogue 2/Cleric 1
Feat: Divine Metamagic (persist) (If an additional Extra Turning is needed, delay this until available)
Stat requirements: Wis 11
BAB 1(+1.25)
Rogue X/Cleric 1(Gather the skills for Cragtop Archer)
Feats: Far Shot, Mountain Warrior (if needed), Rapid Reload (eventually).
BAB 3X/4 (as Rogue X)(+0.75)
Rogue X/Cleric 1/Cragtop Archer 1-3
BAB as above, +1 or 3, depending.
The raise rogue. Doesn't seem too complicated, right? But you'll notice we need plenty of feats already, and we're not even done yet. So, we're gonna roll with human, and whatever feat sources you can find, take them. I'm looking at you, Flaws. Ideally, we can pull off the whole build above within the first 12 levels, unless we can acquire flaws on the fly (that will cut it down to 10).
Don't worry though: we'll put those extra feats to good use regardless.
Above and Beyond
All right, congratulations everyone. We've got a high range, a decent accuracy, and a dependable amount of power. But what more could we get?
Well, for one, we could use a little sneak attack more. There's also another issue to consider: There are 3 kinds of defense a typical archer has to face. One is Armor bonuses to AC, the second is Dex bonuses, and the third is being out-ranged. We have the second pair off our list, but an enemy could still pump their armor. Wouldn't it be better if the only choice we left them to defend themselves were to curl up and cry?
Can you say with me, 'Psychic Rogue (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723b)'?
First of all, replacing a single Rogue level with Psychic Rogue (preferably the first 1) gets us an extra 1d6 sneak attack, 1 level earlier. It also banishes a .75 BAB more to the Fractional Plane, but hopefully you got that sorted. It also gets you a single power from a small list of nigh-useful choices (provided you can power it).
The best part, though, is that with a 14 in Inteligence it gets us a single power point. Measly, I know. But remember those 2 extra feats we talked about? Well, turns out we can fill those 2 with Psionic Shot, and Fell Shot, respectively. Now, that 1 point can add us a 2d6 damage on the shot, or better yet, make it a touch attack. Curling and crying achieved. Remind me to thank Forrestfire for inspiring this :smallbiggrin:
Ok, news flash: I'll go with PsyWar 2 instead. Keeps us SAD, and gets us 2 bonus feats, which we need desperately.
There's the catch of having to 'take aim' for a round if you want to use it a second time per encounter, but that'd be ok with me. If you figure a way to make it considerably faster, all the better. And make sure to look for the 3.5 versions, both have doubles. Plus we're stacking Trapfindings, so consider taking the Poison Use ACF from Drow of the Underdark (for our regular rogue). Works just like the feat, and I think theme fits too.
Ok, so we got Divine and Psionic. Think a touch of Arcane could give us a lift? Cause I do.
Let's take a look at Spellthief: first level gets us another 1d6 sneak attack, the typical BAB and trapfinding shenanigans, and the ability to steal lousy little spells. Meh.
Oh, but check this out. The 4th level has spells! Of course, we're not sky-diving all the way to 4th level, we're only dipping. But spells mean spell list, and spell list means easy wand use! How about a wand of Guided Shot then? Who can say no to a swift action to ditch range penalties and imperfect cover-concealment miss? You can get a 50-shot for 740gp, or a 2/day for 840. I'd recommend grabbing a couple of the latter. Plus, for the low-low price of 100gp (150? 300? Sources are divided) you can add a wand chamber on your crossbow and experience firing bolt-action crossbow bolts :smallbiggrin: I'd delay this level-item investment a bit, until the cost is trivial. Right along the Eye seems about right. A shoutout to WamBamSam for getting us this!
So, 2 levels of 'flavored rogue' got us 1d6 sneak attack over what straight rogue would get us, and un-rounded out enemy defenses. Plus 3 Trapfindings. Oh well.
The Icky Part: Staying Not dead
So, as we noted, the GM will eventually grow tired of getting his monsters' heads blown clean off spontaneously. A caster will port over to wrap you up. A warband will bump into you. Your celebrations will wake up a dire bear. And since your team won't be there to save you (in fact, the better you are at your job, the further away your team will be), fighting won't often be an option. So unless you want to be your GM's favorite plot hook, you must invest in tools to stop being there, immediately. And I'm kinda beat on that field. Any ideas?
The above is all nice and dandy, but too complicated by half. During my hiatus, Fuzzy McCoy and I worked on an entirely different build (the core idea was his, and we worked to round it out:
The Sniper Crusader.
Now, we'd better go psionic, so either grab a Xeph (personal choice, any psionic race should do, but their stat modifiers are good and their special ability can help us in a bad spot, as we can outrun most anything) or human with wild/hidden talent, as appropriate. If you're playing with multiclass Xp, we'll need to use the human (by 'need' i mean, do you want to get negative Xp if any? No? Guessed so.), otherwise any psionic class works (Xeph for me). Unless you can get Crusader/wildcard to be your favored class as another psionic race, that's nice. Note also, it's feat-intensive as they come, so you'll need flaws if you can get them. Plus, as always, fractionals are good. Gets us just a +1 BaB, but still.
The build itself is crusader10/fighter1/wizard1/deepwood sniper7
Obviously we're missing a level, we'll get to that.
Now, up to level 10 we're just a crusader. One with kinda wacky feats, but a crusader nonetheless. That's also our capacity for melee combat throughout our 20 levels, more or less, so cherish it :smallbiggrin:
Also note, our Fighter is actually a Targeteer variant from Dragon (310 I believe), but fret not, it's simple and balanced. Targeteers act identically to your average fighter, but get a shorter bonus feat list with 3 special tricks that may be chosen as a feat. We're interested in the Sniper feature: making a full-round attack allows you to expend as many of your attacks as you want (except for the last one) and get an increase of the next attack's threat range on a 1:1 ratio. That's right, we're going for an all-crit build, but don't worry, we're not breaking anything. Your average ubercharger can still humiliate our results, just not from our considerable range. Side note, that trick can work with melee attacks too, strangely, so with the proper weapon we could kinda-sorta fight in melee when maneuvers don't serve us well.
Our wizard is also a variant, this time from Unearthed Arcana. Nothing fancy, just fighter bonus feats at 1st and every 5th level, in exchange for our wizard bonus feats and scribe scroll. *gasp* No bonus feats we won't level up to anyway? No scribbing of spells we lack anyway? Oh, the humanity! :smallbiggrin: Instead, we'll Martial Stance and the reason we became a crusader in the first place: Aura of Perfect Order. It allows us to treat any attack roll as a natural 11 before rolling it. The reason we got into Wizard in the first place, though, is access to a variety of wands, including Guided Shot which we'll be burning through on most all attacks. And Invisibility. A too-far-to-see sniper suddenly wiping them with invisible bolts sends a message.
Ok, so obviously we need to lower our threat range to 11. We'll start with an 18-20 weapon, naturally (couple of choices there, read on), which once keened goes to 15-20. To drop that to 11-20, we need to sacrifice 4 attacks, or a total of 5 attacks. Since we can only do that at 12, and we're full BaB till then (well, mostly), there's 3 of them. And since we'll always need an extra attack even at full +20 BaB (and we won't hit that), Rapid Shot is a solid investment. Items will get us that last attack.
Now, let's talk weapons. One solution is Great Crossbow, from Races of Stone. Hurts a little more than Heavy crossbow, and is 18-20/x2. Plus, everything affecting Heavy crossbows treats them as such, which eases some of the feat nuances. The catch is, it requires EWP, and we're feat-intensive.
Our other choice comes from Dragon Compendium, which is obviously a Compendium of Dragon material, tested to be at book level. It's called Shatter Bolt, special ammo that shatters on impact. 18-10 and x3 no less, needs no feats, so it's generally sweet. The catch, though, is that they're prone to be ruined in melee combat, and at 75gp per bolt, it's what people call too damn expensive. But that's what we're here for.
Enter the Quiver of Anariel, material once posted on a Wizards article. Now, it's been removed, but this is the internet. We have backups. That makes it a freely available, Wizard material :smallbiggrin: its function is simple: it makes arrows, that last only for the proccess of shooting them. It costs 28kgp(29 for masterwork arrows, but that's up to you), and gives special material suggestions for suggested prices (consistently at 100x the extra cost of making the arrow from that material). That would mean we can get a Glass Arrow quiver for 36.5kgp, which is pricey, but not near as much pricey as buying arrows, plus we don't care about them breaking. If you can get this quiver, get this quiver.
Good news everyone, Fuzzy pointed out that targeteer gets us 2 ranged EWPs, which means the above is not nescesary. The bolts are still a powerup, the quiver the way to go, but it's neither necessary nor something to rush.
The other catch with this ammo is that it can't be Magic Weapon'd and Keen Edge'd. But Deepwood Sniper 1 gets us our ammo considered keen, which is a go, and his Magic Weapon affects the crossbow. Might be worth getting into it at 12 instead of 13, delaying wizard to 13, and getting stance with our regular feat.
Now, whatever way you go, let's talk enchants. Whatever you do, grab Distance, the essence of our build. It stacks with the flat Deepwood range increase, so it's great. Quick Loading is also nice, saving us Quick Reload, though how it operates with the Quiver above is up to debate (do the arrows expire while stored in the crossbow's pocket dimension?). Collision is great too, with a flat +5 damage (to be multiplied) but we'll have another main damage source, so consider it but it's not mandatory. That gives us a +1 Distance Quick Loading crossbow (+4 total) for you to slap more tricks on, as you see fit. Psychokinetic burst is an untyped burst-type enchant, also viable. And though not technically an enchantment, if you can get away with a Dragonbone Crossbow, do it for another +50% range (along with distance and far shot, that's a total twice the increment size of our crossbow+DS: 380ft. at 20).
Also add a wand chamber in, for the aforementioned wands. And Gnome Crossbow Sight (or how was it), everyone likes scopes.
You won't need much in the way of armor, probably. You don't plan to get yourself into combat once you can snipe, so grab something cheap, probably even light armor to help with climbing, sneaking, and getting away.
On the matter of of other notable equipment:
24k gp gets us Third Eye Sense, a free-action-scry-location. That's our eye when sniping, to cover our sub-par spotting (where 'par' is our ludicrous range).
12k gp gets us Boots of Speed, our extra attack needed for 10 shots a day. Or, a wand of Extended haste, getting us 16 rounds of sniping. That means they will cover you for 50 encounters, at which point their cost is near-negligible. Or 9k gp gets you 2 eternal wands, 5 rounds each. That's 20 rounds a day (breaks even with boots due to the reloading round), no running out. Finnaly, for an indeterminate bonus price (likely less than boots still) you could find someone who can Extend haste at +0SL, you could get 4 uses of 10 rounds each.
36.5k gp gets you the aforementioned quiver. (You can get it eventually, just not needed yet)
Now, to the trickiest part of the build: Feats.
Feats whose prerequisites mean you can grab them at 1st level (or any time):
Point Blank Shot
Weapon Focus(heavy Crossbow) ~Note, this affects Great Crossbow as well, but you couldn't pick it up as Great yet.
Hidden Talent (Or Wild Talent, or a psionic race if you prefer it over human-likes and have no multiclass xp penalty)
Rapid reload (best replaced by Quickloading weapon. As above, you'll pick it for Heavy and affect Great Crossbow as well)
Feats that you can take anytime, but have feat prerequisites:
You can get those at level 1 if you like, if you also took the prerequisites. Great if you got flaws, which hopefully you do.
PBS->
Rapid Shot
Far Shot (Why mastery of long-distance shooting demands mastery of short-distance shooting is beyond me)
WF->
Crossbow Sniper (As weapon focus, if it affects Heavies, it affects Greats)
Feats with higher prerequisites:
Psionic Meditation (How we'll fuel a trick further down. Requires 7 ranks in concentration, so that's level 6 at best)
Wounding Attack (The reason we got the above and a psionic character. That's 1 point of Con damage on attack by extending focus (you'll always have one), multiplied by our crits up to 4 or 5, dealing x(Enemy's HD) damage to the enemy. At 20, that's a minimum of 40-50 hp, usually more. At BaB +8, level 9 is when you'd get this)
Martial Stance (could be taken early, but to give us what we need, Aura of Perfect Order, you'll need level 12. Perfect for our Bonus Fighter Wizard Feat)
Extra feats to consider:
So far you got 11 (at worst) and 9 (at best) feats taken, one of which is a bonus feat (or we have an open bonus one, anyway), so there's a couple more to burn. Plus we got a free level. Let's see if we can play with that.
The SA way: If you grab 1 level of rogue (or any sneak-attacker), plus Craven and Telling Blow, all your criticals (a.k.a. all your shots) will inflict your HD plus minor SA damage extra. not sure if the fixed damage gets multiplied (as fixed damage) or not (as sneak attack), but even 20 damage is pretty.
The Psionic way: Grab Psionic Shot, then Fell Shot. The first is basically prerequisites for the second. Target's plating giving you trouble? Give up on your Con damage to make your shot a touch attack! target Con-immune but easy to hit? Add 2d6 damage!...ok, that last one is disappointing, but we're taking it as a prerequisite, might as well use it instead of nothing.
The Warblade way: Not so much a feat path, as an alternate build. Simply put, apart from the crucial AoPO, crusader is useless. Warblade, on the other hand, gives us some very minor bonuses based on Int (best being an int bonus on crit confirmation rolls, which you make all the time), access to some useful-ish fighter-only feats, the ability to use some of our crossbow-oriented feats on our melee weapons (as you can freely retrain them later), plus a better flavor (to me anyway). The price is that we must pay 2 Martial Studies before level 12, so we have the 2 devoted spirit maneuvers needed to get AoPO as a Warblade. Plus your yet-unused psionic focus could get some synergy with the Concentration checks of Diamond Mind.
Then there's the option of spending that extra level we mentioned to a single Crusader level (at 11th or 12th at wizard's expense, perhaps?). Grabbing 2 of your 'starting' crusader maneuvers from the Devoted Spirit school means you can pick the stance with martial Stance, no Studies needed. Sadly, we can't pick the stance via crusader too, because our Crusader initiator level won't be high enough.
Am I forgetting anything?