Drunken "Sniper" build

[Derges]

I've been invited to a one-shot game of "Drunkards and Flagons" over the weekend. The DM has set some restrictions on classes to fit his theme (No full spell casters but he's willing for mundane flavourings of partial casters - paladin smites being weapon oils etc) and has asked for each character to fit a role (Sniper, Wingleader, Leach and Demo.

I'm playing the "Sniper" role so I've put together a simple level 10 champion/assassin build.

Wood Elf - 7 champion/3 assassin.
10,18,14,10,14,10
Archery fighting style,
ASIs going on Sharpshooter and Elven accuracy.

to steady aim for 2d8+2d6+28 a round which seems respectable for resourceless damage.

I did consider a fighter/Kensei build but felt like managing Ki might get tricker as the night progresses and the damage didn't seem much better for the extra bookkeeping.

Does anyone have any suggestions they'd like to offer for either a better build or tweaks to mine?

[Ir0ns0ul]

Honestly, I don’t think Assassin mechanics is viable and crit-fishing in D&D usually is not so effective.

You can accomplish better in the sniping area by going Battlemaster 6 / Gloomstalker 4. All Ranger spells can have a mundane feel (Goodberries are actual berries; Hunter’s Mark is your uncanny aim; Ensnaring Strike is your tricky shot with a special arrow, etc), your battlemaster maneuvers are really good and you doubled your ASIs. Keep SS and EA. Get yourself a lovely DEX 20 and maybe Resilient WIS or Alert. CBE would be the ideal choice, but I got you want to keep longbow for aesthetics. Enjoy!

[Derges]

Honestly, I don’t think Assassin mechanics is viable and crit-fishing in D&D usually is not so effective.

You can accomplish better in the sniping area by going Battlemaster 6 / Gloomstalker 4. All Ranger spells can have a mundane feel (Goodberries are actual berries; Hunter’s Mark is your uncanny aim; Ensnaring Strike is your tricky shot with a special arrow, etc), your battlemaster maneuvers are really good and you doubled your ASIs. Keep SS and EA. Get yourself a lovely DEX 20 and maybe Resilient WIS or Alert. CBE would be the ideal choice, but I got you want to keep longbow for aesthetics. Enjoy!

Honestly, it was more failing to fit the feats in than an active choice, Heavy Crossbow with CBE sounds fun to me. I double-checked and the DM is cool with those spells, only issue is going to be tracking them and BM dice while inebriated.

With the loss of steady aim I'm not going to be as reliable in hitting using SS so do I just burn manoeuvres to guarantee hits?

[Corran]

Ranger (gloomstalker) 7/ fighter (battlemaster) 3 comes to mind. It has a very strong opening round and it will hit pretty hard regularly. The maneuvers can be worth losing a feat, with precision strike, tripping attack (especially against fliers or fast movers) being the first two that come to mind. Vhuman or customer lineage for the extra feat (letting gloomstalker make up for potentially not getting darkvision, or drow for making the most of it).

Letting my bias take over for a bit, I would strongly suggest a main rogue build though. Both because I like rogues, but also because I like the one sneak attack more than extra attack for a character emanating a sniper feel. All that's missing is a way to improve your range (so SS and/or longbow proficiency), a way to position yourself quietly and quickly at an advantageous position from where you'll shoot (so stealth, athletics and acrobatics), a way to spot your target or any incoming threats if your advantageous position takes you a little further from your allies than you would be comfortable with (so perception and quite possibly observant), and a way to ignore cover which you will most likely allow plenty of if you are shooting from afar (so sharpshooter or a reliable source of advantage on top of which you could even stack EA which works nicely ith the crit potential of one attack + SA; nothing too major dpr wise, but the synergy is satisfying). That's not all of course, more like something close to what I'd look as the essential stuff, and rogue fills nicely many of those. More specifically I'd go for an arcane trickster, for the extra spell support. Probably throw one level of fighter in the mix for some equipment proficiencies and for a fighting style (blind fighting is a good contingency if you can pair it with spells from being a trickster for when enemies manage to get in your face, or for when you want to change things a bit; eg because an ally up front is having trouble and you need to step in and take some of the heat off of them). Sharpshooter and EA (if elf) are the obvious combat feats, but observant could easily take priority over the two if you think you can make good use of it (eg when scouting) or if the DM is likely to "hit you in the back". Tabaxi is good for getting into a good spot from where you can shoot and for repositioning, elf is good for EA, longbow prof as well as other stuff (wood elf makes you an excelent threat in melee and close enough to untargetable at range when the weather is on your side, elf gets you a cantrip which you cn put to geat use -between mold earth, BB, minor illusion take your pick, though there are other good cantrips too, and drow makes you a better sniper at night or when underground sometimes along with some spell support that a rogue can make good use of, at the downside of sunlight sensitivity which is not as bad as it may sound if you are willing to play around it and build for it just a bit). Small races have the only real negative of not handling well a longbow, though again, it does not have to be a dealbreaker, even if losing on range ca be pretty bad.

[Gignere]

Honestly, it was more failing to fit the feats in than an active choice, Heavy Crossbow with CBE sounds fun to me. I double-checked and the DM is cool with those spells, only issue is going to be tracking them and BM dice while inebriated.

With the loss of steady aim I'm not going to be as reliable in hitting using SS so do I just burn manoeuvres to guarantee hits?

Depends if you’re fighting a lot in darkness, gloomstalker can allow you to have “invisibility” quite easily granting you advantage. So the BM / GS build if the campaign mostly takes place at night or underground you would be getting advantage just about all the time so it’s even better than steady aim. On the other hand if the campaign is mostly taking place during the day out in the open, yeah you’ll be spending most of your BM dice on precise.

[Ir0ns0ul]

Well said. Advantage is not so hard to get, specially for Gloomstalkers and if you raise DEX with +2, you increased your To Hit in +1. DEX 20, Archery fighting style and Precision Strike are enough to clear out SS penalty.

[Hawk7915]

Lots of great suggestions for a different build; focusing on tweaking yours instead. I'd ask - what is Fighter 7/Rogue 3 doing for you that Fighter 5/Rogue 5 wouldn't? That load-out is the same ASIs, but...

+1d6 Sneak Attack Damage
+Uncanny Dodge for if you get cornered.
- Remarkable Athlete - +2 initiative is nice and all, but that's probably the only relevant boost you are getting.

I would also just add - if your DM is going to give you the optional Steady Aim, I think your build is totally fine and fun as a way to crit-fish and snipe folks from your nest 450' away. Without Steady Aim, this build is going to suffer a lot and I'd be looking at some of the suggestions to go Gloomseer, Kensei, Battle Master, or Samurai instead.

[Derges]

Thanks folks.

I went with the gloomstalker build and it did okay. It put arrows where they needed to go for the entire session, many grunts died without knowing they were getting shot.

It would have fared much better but one of my party decided to include the fact that it was a bright night, lit by a full moon in some dialogue. This led to losing out on gloomstalky invis giving advantage in the big bad's arena. Realising this but not really thinking it through (2am and lots of beers in) I dropped all my BM dice on my nova round hitting really hard but then doing very little as the fight wore on (Target had 20 ac so taking the -5 wasn't viable without adv).