Question about precision damage (sneak and skirmish)

[Ninane]

I found a build on the forums here that detailed a character that used skirmish damage as its main feature. It made a lot of suggestions to using spells like sniper's shot. I was all for that when the time came to choose that spell for my character, but I noticed that the Spell Compendium states that it affects sneak attacks, not skirmish damage. My question is if there was anything in the Rules Compendium or any other obscure material that allows this spell to work with skirmish damage, or was the original build creator perhaps mistaken?

E: post in question (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=10579902&postcount=6)

[The Viscount]

I cant find text with the exact statement that spells affect them the same, but there is certainly support to treat them the same. Complete adventurer has a sidebar on page 8 that says to treat sudden strike as the same as sneak attack. In rules compendium, it discusses sneak attack, skirmish, and sudden strike, lumping them all together as the same under "precision damage." As such I can see no reason not to treat them all as the same, unless you have the strictest of DMs.

[Darrin]

Whoops. Sorry about that, I should have put a note in there about whether sniper's shot works with skirmish. By strict RAW, sniper's shot only works with sneak attack. I thought we might get lucky with publication dates if the Spell Compendium predated Complete Adventurer, but unfortunately the Spell Compendium came out 11 months later, so we can't say the Spell Compendium editors didn't know about skirmish damage. I think most DMs would handwave this if you ask nicely.

If the DM says no, some other divination spells to consider:

guided shot
master's touch
targeting ray

[Ninane]

I want to assure you I'm not knockin' your build. It's been fantastic and an absolute blast to play. Thank you for posting it! Yeah, I went with guided shot at that time. I might give a shot in asking my dm, yeah, thank you guys for the suggestions.

[Renen]

so we can't say the Spell Compendium editors didn't know about skirmish damage.

Well... to be totally honest, we probably can... cuz WotC