Spellwarp Sniper Questions

[Fax Celestis]

If I have a Spellwarp Sniper:

*An enlarged fireball ray will have a minimum range of 1320 feet. Is there a range penalty, or do I get to do 7d6 over a quarter mile for free?
*Do spells cast through Ocular Spell count for Ray Mastery/Ray Sudden Strike?
*Would it be unreasonable to allow spells of 2*level-1 to be transmuted to rays, instead of 1*level as it is? I feel kinda gypped for not being able to turn my sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth spells into rays.
*Do spells that target a single creature (a la magic missile or melf's acid arrow) qualify for Spellwarping? This is a dumb question, mostly since I'm just AFB right now.

[Were-Sandwich]

Can't comment on the others, but the first one is correct. Rays have no range penalties.

[moikk]

No, spells like magic missle and Melf's Acid Arrow do not qualify. According to the Complete Scoundrel, the spell warp ability only affects area spells that have a range greater than touch with an instantanious duration. When warping a spell into a ray, the Area entry is replaced by an effect entry of "Ray".

Because magic missle and Melf's acid arrow do not have an area entry, they do not qualify.

[Person_Man]

If I have a Spellwarp Sniper:

*An enlarged fireball ray will have a minimum range of 1320 feet. Is there a range penalty, or do I get to do 7d6 over a quarter mile for free?

I'm not aware of any range penalties for Ray spells. But tactically speaking, once an enemy is beyond the range of a normal hex map and you can still hit them with spells, you've won. So there's really no difference between 660 feet and 1320 feet in D&D, because either way you're going to kill them with a couple of spells before they can do anything about it. So Enlarge spell is a bit of a waste to use.

*Do spells cast through Ocular Spell count for Ray Mastery/Ray Sudden Strike?

Yes, because they still count as Ray spells. But Split Ray from Complete Arcane is the superior version of Ocular spell in most cases. Ocular spell just "looks" cooler.

*Would it be unreasonable to allow spells of 2*level-1 to be transmuted to rays, instead of 1*level as it is? I feel kinda gypped for not being able to turn my sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth spells into rays.

I personally wouldn't screw with the game mechanic. It's already a pretty potent PrC.

*Do spells that target a single creature (a la magic missile or melf's acid arrow) qualify for Spellwarping? This is a dumb question, mostly since I'm just AFB right now.

No.

[JoeFredBob]

I'm not aware of any range penalties for Ray spells. But tactically speaking, once an enemy is beyond the range of a normal hex map and you can still hit them with spells, you've won. So there's really no difference between 660 feet and 1320 feet in D&D, because either way you're going to kill them with a couple of spells before they can do anything about it. So Enlarge spell is a bit of a waste to use.

That's not necessarily true. There are non-cheesy ways of being able to move up to 480 feet a round without the use of magic (assuming you can speed up fly speeds like you can run), and if you include magic there are spells like...oh...dimension door. Or Phantom Stag (a ground speed of 20 ft/lvl). Or other fun stuff like that. So there are definitely ways to close from 1300 feet before you're completely devastated by spells.

[Person_Man]

That's not necessarily true. There are non-cheesy ways of being able to move up to 480 feet a round without the use of magic (assuming you can speed up fly speeds like you can run), and if you include magic there are spells like...oh...dimension door. Or Phantom Stag (a ground speed of 20 ft/lvl). Or other fun stuff like that. So there are definitely ways to close from 1300 feet before you're completely devastated by spells.

You're technically correct. And if D&D was more like Counterstrike or any other game with a sniper rifle, you'd definitely be right. But as distance is played out in he vast majority of actual game sessions, I believe that you are wrong.

First, if your DM has decided to thwart your sniper build with a Phantom Stag or a Wizard with Teleport or Invisibility or whatever, your range has already been nullified. It doesn't matter whether your range is 500 or 1000, because your DM has decided that the enemy is going to be able to close on you very quickly, and you will get (at most) one shot off before your DM decides that your enemy has closed on you.

Second, consider that a lot of encounters will be indoors or underground. In these cases, it doesn't matter what your range is, because you can't target people through walls.

Finally, I have never played in or DM'd any tabletop game where an encounter started with precise distance measurements beyond the hex/grid map on the tabletop. If an enemy is that far away, the DM generally just approximates it, and just decides how many rounds he wants to give the PC's before the enemy closes on them. So even if the DM hasn't decided to specifically thwart your range, and the encounter is outside somewhere, in the vast majority of cases your DM just isn't keeping that close of a count beyond the game map. And if you ask your DM to keep a close count because you're playing a sniper build, the end result is that you'll probably have fewer chances to snipe, because your DM will thwart you more often to avoid having one player be a camper and dominate combat from 1000 feet away.

You have to see past the actual rules and metagame this one, but its still true in the vast majority of situations. Having a range of greater then 500ish feet is tactically meaningless, and thus its a waste for a Wizard to memorize an Enlarged spell.

[Ramza00]

If I have a Spellwarp Sniper:

*An enlarged fireball ray will have a minimum range of 1320 feet. Is there a range penalty, or do I get to do 7d6 over a quarter mile for free?
*Do spells cast through Ocular Spell count for Ray Mastery/Ray Sudden Strike?
*Would it be unreasonable to allow spells of 2*level-1 to be transmuted to rays, instead of 1*level as it is? I feel kinda gypped for not being able to turn my sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth spells into rays.
*Do spells that target a single creature (a la magic missile or melf's acid arrow) qualify for Spellwarping? This is a dumb question, mostly since I'm just AFB right now.

1) No range penalties but you do have spot penalties
2) Yes
3) I don't know for I would need to evaluate all the possibilities, I want to say yes, but I am always the taking things slowly and not advance power creep much kind of DM.
4)No

Look up wings of flurry in Races of the dragon

[Ramza00]

Note for question 1 no sneak attack/sudden strike unless you use the 1st lvl swift action spell that allows sneak attack at any range in cadventurer