Greywander
2021-06-20, 01:22 AM
This was a character concept I had a while back (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?613151-Eldritch-sniper-build), and I thought I'd revisit the idea to see if we can do better now.
The background is a commoner who was conscripted into an army, taught to shoot magical bolts from a "mage rifle" (staff), and spent most of the war shooting in the general direction of the enemy while trying not to get killed. Now, he's an adventurer who makes his living as a crack shot with his mage rifle.
Ideally, what we're looking for is:
Range, and lots of it. As long range as we can get.
Damage, preferably something along the lines of Sneak Attack, but I'm not aware of any such feature that works with spells.
Anything that works well with a ranged sniper concept, e.g. the ability to hide as a BA, increased crit range or crit effects, or being resistant to enemy ranged attacks.
Eldritch Blast has a base range of 120 feet, generally the furthest you'll get on a cantrip. Eldritch Spear extends this to 300 feet, and Spell Sniper doubles that to 600 feet. The Distant Spell metamagic can double that again for a total range of 1200 feet. There's also an optional rule on page 114 of the Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron that allows you to get a 50% range boost on your cantrips if you two-hand your spell focus, which, if permitted by the DM, would boost us up to 900/1800 feet, depending on if we're using Distant Spell. Honestly, I'd like to try to find a way to boost it even further, but I think this is the max we can get RAW.
As for damage, EB with Agonizing Blast has a base damage of 1d10 + 5 per beam (assuming a CHA of 20). With four beams, the average damage is 42, which is pretty respectable, but doesn't quite have the impact of a single big hit like Sneak Attack. Hex adds a 1d6 of damage to each hit, but has a measly 90 foot range; it's useful in close quarters, but less helpful with the "sniper" concept. For EB optimization, Hexblade is probably the strongest subclass, but Hexblade's Curse has the same issue as Hex, but with an even shorter 30 foot range.
If, instead of Hexblade, we go Genie patron, Genie's Wrath adds our proficiency bonus to one attack, and lets us choose between fire, cold, thunder, or bludgeoning for the damage type. It's unfortunate that it only adds to one attack and not all of them, but it's better than splitting the damage evenly between your attacks. Instead of comparing it to Agonizing Blast, compare it to the Dueling fighting style. In tier 1, they're basically the same (both get +2), while at 20th level the fighter is getting +8 damage split across four attacks to the warlock's +6 to a single attack. Each attack the fighter misses sees a loss in the amount of bonus damage, while the warlock gets to apply the full bonus so long as at least one beam hits. I heard somewhere that the average expected hit rate for attack rolls was about 65%, which would make the warlock pull ahead. It's also nice to get most of our damage from our first hit, so a few missed beams don't hurt quite as much.
Genie's Wrath can also synergize with Draconic sorcerer. If we take either fire or cold for our Genie and our Draconic Ancestry, then Elemental Affinity will add our CHA mod to one of our beams again. Again, it sadly only adds to one beam, but it's still a decent boost. Genie's Wrath + Elemental Affinity adds a total of +11 damage, which basically amounts to an extra beam's worth, and it auto-hits as long as we can hit with one attack. So basically our first beam does double damage, which is great for reliability, and also helps to simulate a Sneak Attack-like effect.
There's also a potential synergy with the Alchemist artificer, who's 5th level feature Alchemical Savant can add our INT mod to a spell that deals fire damage, much like Elemental Affinity. The catch is that the spell has to be cast using our alchemy supplies as our spellcasting focus (which, IMO, is dumb). The Artificer Initiate feat would allow us to use a tool as a spellcasting focus for non-artificer spells, but the spell needs to use INT as a casting stat for this to work. Even if your DM is lenient and waives the tool requirement to apply Alchemical Savant, you would still end up needing to boost both INT and CHA (unless the DM is super lenient and lets you play an INT based warlock and sorcerer).
The holy grail would be finding a way to get Eldritch Blast as a cleric spell so that we can apply Potent Spellcasting to it. However, no such way currently exists that I'm aware of, and besides, you'd have the same problem as with the artificer where you needed to max both CHA and another stat (WIS, in this case). However, Tasha's lets us replace Divine Strike and Potent Spellcasting with Blessed Strikes, which adds 1d8 radiant damage to any attack or spell (once on each of our turns). So we could get another 1d8 damage on that first beam, and radiant is a good damage type that can help thwart certain enemies, like vampires, and it doesn't care about our WIS. Unfortunately, it's an 8th level feature, so you basically have to commit to a warlock/cleric multiclass.
It's not much, but a 3 level dip into Assassin rogue insures that we crit against surprised enemies. Though to take advantage of this we'd need to have more damage dice, and so far we've added almost nothing but flat bonuses. And on that note...
This was all I could find on the class side of things, though I'm sure I missed a few things (especially temporary/limited use bonuses). However, in the realm of racial traits, the bugbear has Surprise Attack, which adds 2d6 damage to their first attack against a surprised creature. While this won't help much in protracted fights, it's perfect for eliminating sentries and patrols, or any other kind of short skirmish or ambush against one or a few enemies (and it synergizes well with Assassinate). There's also the goblin's Fury of the Small and the aasimar's subrace trait, both of which allow you to do additional damage equal to your level. However, they recharge on a rest, so while they're a bit stronger, they can't be used as reliably. They would work better if you're only fighting one or two fights between rests.
With Genie's Wrath + Elemental Affinity + Surprise Attack (which seems like a realistic loadout), we'd be dealing 1d10 + 2d6 + 16 damage with our initial bolt, or an average of 28.5 (21.5 after the first round). Keep in mind that with just Agonizing Blast, our average damage is 42 if all four beams hit. With a hit rate of 65%, our expected damage would drop to 29.1 (according to LudicSavant's calculator), meaning that with the previously mentioned traits we are doing nearly the same damage from just one beam as what we would expect from all four without those traits. Also according to the calculator, if our chance to hit is 65%, then we have a 98.5% chance that we hit with at least one attack. This gives us very reliable damage.
For actual builds, I'm considering either warlock 11/sorcerer 9 or sorcerer 11/warlock 9. (Chain Pact for long distance spotter familiar.) The benefit of taking warlock to 11 is getting that 10th level patron feature and a 3rd pact magic slot. The benefit of taking sorcerer to 11 is getting another metamagic and a few more sorcery points. Either way gives me 5 invocations, which would likely be spent on Agonizing Blast, Eldritch Spear, Repelling Blast, Voice of the Chain Master, and one other (Grasp of Hadar or Lance of Lethargy, maybe?). For metamagic, probably Distant and Quickened. I could try to jam 3 levels of rogue in there somewhere, but I'm not sure it would be worth it.
This might be a good place to use a simple custom race (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?629700-Simple-custom-races). This is homebrew, so it would be DM dependent, but hopefully it would be apparent that this isn't the most overpowered combo. Our three racial traits could be the bugbear's Surprise Attack, the goblin's Nimble Escape, and then perhaps the wood elf's Mask of the Wild. A simple custom race allows us to choose any racial feats, but limits us to two, so Elven Accuracy is the optimal choice. Not sure what I'd take for a second racial feat, or if I'd take one at all, maybe Infernal Constitution (since we'd get fire resistance via genielock), but I might rather have something like Alert or Skulker. Spell Sniper is also a mandatory feat, leaving us with one last ASI to max out CHA.
There's also one magic item that would be crucial for us: the Eyes of the Eagle. They allow us to see out to extreme distances things that are as small as 2 feet across, which is perfect for sniping from far away. Alternatively, we could perhaps mount a spyglass onto our staff like a scope, though I don't know if that would have the effect we're looking for (spyglass is only 2x zoom).
Do you think it's worth it to take the Genie patron and Draconic bloodline, or would different subclasses work better for this concept, despite the loss in damage? Should I try to fit three levels of rogue in there for Stealth expertise, Cunning Action, and Assassinate? Is there a different class combo you'd recommend? What other ways can this concept be improved upon?
The background is a commoner who was conscripted into an army, taught to shoot magical bolts from a "mage rifle" (staff), and spent most of the war shooting in the general direction of the enemy while trying not to get killed. Now, he's an adventurer who makes his living as a crack shot with his mage rifle.
Ideally, what we're looking for is:
Range, and lots of it. As long range as we can get.
Damage, preferably something along the lines of Sneak Attack, but I'm not aware of any such feature that works with spells.
Anything that works well with a ranged sniper concept, e.g. the ability to hide as a BA, increased crit range or crit effects, or being resistant to enemy ranged attacks.
Eldritch Blast has a base range of 120 feet, generally the furthest you'll get on a cantrip. Eldritch Spear extends this to 300 feet, and Spell Sniper doubles that to 600 feet. The Distant Spell metamagic can double that again for a total range of 1200 feet. There's also an optional rule on page 114 of the Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron that allows you to get a 50% range boost on your cantrips if you two-hand your spell focus, which, if permitted by the DM, would boost us up to 900/1800 feet, depending on if we're using Distant Spell. Honestly, I'd like to try to find a way to boost it even further, but I think this is the max we can get RAW.
As for damage, EB with Agonizing Blast has a base damage of 1d10 + 5 per beam (assuming a CHA of 20). With four beams, the average damage is 42, which is pretty respectable, but doesn't quite have the impact of a single big hit like Sneak Attack. Hex adds a 1d6 of damage to each hit, but has a measly 90 foot range; it's useful in close quarters, but less helpful with the "sniper" concept. For EB optimization, Hexblade is probably the strongest subclass, but Hexblade's Curse has the same issue as Hex, but with an even shorter 30 foot range.
If, instead of Hexblade, we go Genie patron, Genie's Wrath adds our proficiency bonus to one attack, and lets us choose between fire, cold, thunder, or bludgeoning for the damage type. It's unfortunate that it only adds to one attack and not all of them, but it's better than splitting the damage evenly between your attacks. Instead of comparing it to Agonizing Blast, compare it to the Dueling fighting style. In tier 1, they're basically the same (both get +2), while at 20th level the fighter is getting +8 damage split across four attacks to the warlock's +6 to a single attack. Each attack the fighter misses sees a loss in the amount of bonus damage, while the warlock gets to apply the full bonus so long as at least one beam hits. I heard somewhere that the average expected hit rate for attack rolls was about 65%, which would make the warlock pull ahead. It's also nice to get most of our damage from our first hit, so a few missed beams don't hurt quite as much.
Genie's Wrath can also synergize with Draconic sorcerer. If we take either fire or cold for our Genie and our Draconic Ancestry, then Elemental Affinity will add our CHA mod to one of our beams again. Again, it sadly only adds to one beam, but it's still a decent boost. Genie's Wrath + Elemental Affinity adds a total of +11 damage, which basically amounts to an extra beam's worth, and it auto-hits as long as we can hit with one attack. So basically our first beam does double damage, which is great for reliability, and also helps to simulate a Sneak Attack-like effect.
There's also a potential synergy with the Alchemist artificer, who's 5th level feature Alchemical Savant can add our INT mod to a spell that deals fire damage, much like Elemental Affinity. The catch is that the spell has to be cast using our alchemy supplies as our spellcasting focus (which, IMO, is dumb). The Artificer Initiate feat would allow us to use a tool as a spellcasting focus for non-artificer spells, but the spell needs to use INT as a casting stat for this to work. Even if your DM is lenient and waives the tool requirement to apply Alchemical Savant, you would still end up needing to boost both INT and CHA (unless the DM is super lenient and lets you play an INT based warlock and sorcerer).
The holy grail would be finding a way to get Eldritch Blast as a cleric spell so that we can apply Potent Spellcasting to it. However, no such way currently exists that I'm aware of, and besides, you'd have the same problem as with the artificer where you needed to max both CHA and another stat (WIS, in this case). However, Tasha's lets us replace Divine Strike and Potent Spellcasting with Blessed Strikes, which adds 1d8 radiant damage to any attack or spell (once on each of our turns). So we could get another 1d8 damage on that first beam, and radiant is a good damage type that can help thwart certain enemies, like vampires, and it doesn't care about our WIS. Unfortunately, it's an 8th level feature, so you basically have to commit to a warlock/cleric multiclass.
It's not much, but a 3 level dip into Assassin rogue insures that we crit against surprised enemies. Though to take advantage of this we'd need to have more damage dice, and so far we've added almost nothing but flat bonuses. And on that note...
This was all I could find on the class side of things, though I'm sure I missed a few things (especially temporary/limited use bonuses). However, in the realm of racial traits, the bugbear has Surprise Attack, which adds 2d6 damage to their first attack against a surprised creature. While this won't help much in protracted fights, it's perfect for eliminating sentries and patrols, or any other kind of short skirmish or ambush against one or a few enemies (and it synergizes well with Assassinate). There's also the goblin's Fury of the Small and the aasimar's subrace trait, both of which allow you to do additional damage equal to your level. However, they recharge on a rest, so while they're a bit stronger, they can't be used as reliably. They would work better if you're only fighting one or two fights between rests.
With Genie's Wrath + Elemental Affinity + Surprise Attack (which seems like a realistic loadout), we'd be dealing 1d10 + 2d6 + 16 damage with our initial bolt, or an average of 28.5 (21.5 after the first round). Keep in mind that with just Agonizing Blast, our average damage is 42 if all four beams hit. With a hit rate of 65%, our expected damage would drop to 29.1 (according to LudicSavant's calculator), meaning that with the previously mentioned traits we are doing nearly the same damage from just one beam as what we would expect from all four without those traits. Also according to the calculator, if our chance to hit is 65%, then we have a 98.5% chance that we hit with at least one attack. This gives us very reliable damage.
For actual builds, I'm considering either warlock 11/sorcerer 9 or sorcerer 11/warlock 9. (Chain Pact for long distance spotter familiar.) The benefit of taking warlock to 11 is getting that 10th level patron feature and a 3rd pact magic slot. The benefit of taking sorcerer to 11 is getting another metamagic and a few more sorcery points. Either way gives me 5 invocations, which would likely be spent on Agonizing Blast, Eldritch Spear, Repelling Blast, Voice of the Chain Master, and one other (Grasp of Hadar or Lance of Lethargy, maybe?). For metamagic, probably Distant and Quickened. I could try to jam 3 levels of rogue in there somewhere, but I'm not sure it would be worth it.
This might be a good place to use a simple custom race (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?629700-Simple-custom-races). This is homebrew, so it would be DM dependent, but hopefully it would be apparent that this isn't the most overpowered combo. Our three racial traits could be the bugbear's Surprise Attack, the goblin's Nimble Escape, and then perhaps the wood elf's Mask of the Wild. A simple custom race allows us to choose any racial feats, but limits us to two, so Elven Accuracy is the optimal choice. Not sure what I'd take for a second racial feat, or if I'd take one at all, maybe Infernal Constitution (since we'd get fire resistance via genielock), but I might rather have something like Alert or Skulker. Spell Sniper is also a mandatory feat, leaving us with one last ASI to max out CHA.
There's also one magic item that would be crucial for us: the Eyes of the Eagle. They allow us to see out to extreme distances things that are as small as 2 feet across, which is perfect for sniping from far away. Alternatively, we could perhaps mount a spyglass onto our staff like a scope, though I don't know if that would have the effect we're looking for (spyglass is only 2x zoom).
Do you think it's worth it to take the Genie patron and Draconic bloodline, or would different subclasses work better for this concept, despite the loss in damage? Should I try to fit three levels of rogue in there for Stealth expertise, Cunning Action, and Assassinate? Is there a different class combo you'd recommend? What other ways can this concept be improved upon?