Talk:Sniper (3.5e Prestige Class)

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Draft

If this is a pre-first draft, you might want to move it into a user sandbox so you don't have to get it all sorted within a week. You can get some more info on our stance on incomplete and draft articles here, as well as instructions on how to move it if you're interested. - TarkisFlux 05:46, February 22, 2010 (UTC)

lol, or maybe you don't need to worry about it if you're going to be filling it in like that. Carry on :-) - TarkisFlux 05:50, February 22, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, the "Pre-first draft" thing was to avoid embarrassment if my computer crashed or something, and not to confused people who were watching as it went up. Most of the content was already written, so I was confident in everything but the formatting. Aelaris 05:59, February 22, 2010 (UTC)

Aelaris's Concerns and Interests: Balance Point

Particular areas of concern to me:

Balance point: I haven't played enough 3.5E to be confident of the balance points at all. I know it's not wizard, so I put it at Rogue - I figured that it's better to estimate high rather than low. Rogue is also my preferred balance point, but I'm not sure if this class would manage that decently.

What Balance point do you think it is? What changes might help it fit into Rogue? - Aelaris 07:09, February 22, 2010 (UTC)

Upon thinking it over, I feel that Fighter is really the best balance point for this. It's a lot like the lancer fighter, but they're screwed over if combat lasts for more than one standard action, instead of if the enemy can fly or otherwise stay far away. --Foxwarrior 03:27, October 1, 2010 (UTC)

Extraordinary Study (Now renamed to Extraordinary Precision)

I don't understand what the Extraordinary Study ability does. Does that doubling crit damage follow standard confusing 3.5 doubling rules (i.e. a x3 crit becomes a x4 crit), or is it actually "doubled" (i.e. a x3 crit becomes a x6 crit and you also double non crit bonuses like sneak attack dice)? Also, this part is weird - "The sniper may also spend a number of bonus rolls equal to the number of range increments her or she is distant from the target to ensure a critical threat." Does that mean you get extra bonus re-rolls for shooting people farther away, and you can't use those bonus rolls to confirm? Are these limited by your Sniper's Patience rating, on top of it....

I just don't know how to parse that one. Aside from that though, the class looks mechanically complete and you could probably pull the incomplete template after it gets cleaned up if you like. - TarkisFlux 06:11, February 22, 2010 (UTC)

Just fixed the name from Extraordinary Study to Extraordinary Precision. Typo there. Also need a better-sounding name - I made that one on the fly.

The mechanical purpose of the Extraordinary Precision ability is to help the sniper manage lethal damage on decently high-level characters, while avoid cliche death-attack nonsense (aside from massive damage, of course). I was unaware of 3.5E's system of non-doubling doubling when I wrote the ability, so my apologies for that. I might want to re-write this whole ability

As for how the intent of its current form:

Yes, it is supposed to be full doubling of all damage, including sneak-attack damage and anything else the player drags in from other classes. Part of the design philosophy is that the sniping prestige class should be useful to other classes, and augment their capabilities. However, this goes in contradiction to the status quo in 3.5E, so that is awkward.

Spending bonus rolls is me ignoring my own terminology in a last-minute edit. In long form: Sniper's Patience builds up a number of extra rolls: After waiting 4 rounds, and firing on the 5th round, a sniper rolls 5 d20s and uses the highest result. As intended, this ability would allow the character to substitute some of those bonus rolls to guarantee a critical threat - given that range is a factor, I decided on one extra roll per range increment. This... is a bit confusing, I'll admit.

In summary, I would like the damage of a Sniper to be able to consistently drop a squishy target of similar level, assuming she has had time to aim enough. The 8th level ability was an attempt at this, however, it became overly confusing. Suggestions for fixing the ability would be welcome, as well as suggestions for maintaining lethality in general. - Aelaris 06:44, February 22, 2010 (UTC)

Got it, will suggest something later (no worries on the doubling thing, it's bizarre and counter intuitive and sorta hidden). Right now, this stood out: "After waiting 4 rounds, and firing on the 5th round, a sniper rolls 5 d20s [...]". So, you have it written as attacks in the ability and at high level you can get several attacks in a round between iterative attacks and rapidshot / manyshot / haste / speed / whatever, but here you have it written as rounds. If you intend people to sacrifice rounds to get re-rolls, you should pop back to that ability and clarify. - TarkisFlux 06:58, February 22, 2010 (UTC)

My bad in clarification - it is indeed skipped attacks now. This class went through a great number of iterations, so I'm a bit confused myself. Will fix a bit. - Aelaris 07:09, February 22, 2010 (UTC)

Aelaris's Concerns and Interests: Entry Requirements

You may have noticed that the entry requirements are slightly funky.

I have 3 ranks in Concentration and Spot to ease the requirements for classes which have those skills as cross-class skills. Thinking Fighter here. 3 is a bit of an odd number though, so any thoughts on that?

I was looking for feats that a character with an interest in this skill set would probably acquire. However most skills had to do with shooting more, or had requirements that made them difficult to acquire early in the game. What other early game feats are there? Or is this probably enough?

The special requirements are... non-standard. I could not think of what requirements would prove the psychology necessary to be an effective sniper. Perhaps delete?

Thanks. - Aelaris 07:01, February 22, 2010 (UTC)

I'd delete the special prereq. Perhaps add in a BAB requirement of +6 or so, unless you want people getting into the class after level 3? --Ghostwheel 07:12, February 22, 2010 (UTC)

Probably going to remove the special. I was originally aiming for fighters entering the class at level 3. It's set in the wiki at level one due to flaw shenanigans. I have no particular reason to restrict it to a high BAB / high level - it isn't a class you seek to qualify for because it is better than gaining base class levels, but one you acquire to augment your character's abilities whatever their level.

Do you think it is badly balanced for low-level characters or high-level characters? - Aelaris 07:35, February 22, 2010 (UTC)

If you feel that it's fine for characters to get in even after first level (which they could, even without flaws), why not just make it a base class that's 10 levels long? --Ghostwheel 07:47, February 22, 2010 (UTC)

As I understand the system, making it a base class would entail a experience penalty for splashers. Additionally, it is far too specialized to be generally useful by itself (I think). If the player wanted to play only a sniper, he or she could simply start it at level 2, or find a class purely built for that purpose.

And of course all the proficiencies and other stuff like that is a lot of work - base classes are hard! - Aelaris 07:50, February 22, 2010 (UTC)

Questions

Sniper's patience--if you "give up" 10 attacks, you can roll the attack roll 11 times and take the best one? Does this count iterative attacks? Do you do this as a full action? Standard action? Etc? Also, how does Intent Study work? Do you give up just one attack to make it a touch attack? That seems slightly off :-/ --Ghostwheel 07:17, February 22, 2010 (UTC)

I believe you are correctly describing the mechanics as they currently exist: Each skipped attack contributes a bonus roll, and those are added to the actual attack you make in the end (or just used directly via Instinct).

As for actions used, you would be taking whatever actions you choose during those turns - full attacks are useful for building up aiming, and those are full actions. If you want to keep moving, you can do that (minding the concentration problem). If you want to do a standard attack, that could work too. Sniper's patience doesn't actually take an action of its own. - Aelaris 07:46, February 22, 2010 (UTC)

Intent Study works about as you said - you convert one bonus roll from your sniper's patience pool into turning your ranged attack into a ranged touch attack. Is that over-powered? (It's the same system I had for all of the specialized shots, but I decided that those should be able to be attempted in normal attacks. Giving up a to-hit bonus to gain a bigger to-hit bonus is a bit odd, of course, so I retained the separate roll for that particular called shot.) - Aelaris 07:46, February 22, 2010 (UTC)

A Perfect Match

This class looks like a lot of fun on top of the Sharpshooter ^_^ --Ghostwheel 07:17, February 22, 2010 (UTC)

Oh gee, looking at that class I feel like archery for the kiddie pool. Does dove-tail nicely. - Aelaris 07:31, February 22, 2010 (UTC)

Sneak attack

Now that I think about it damage isn't improved at all. A sniper should be able to aim at the arteries and do extra damage like a sneak attack. Sneak attack wouldn't add to much power, and could really make this class more fun. Why not add at least minor sneak attack damage (from farther that 30ft of course), to add some flavor and make it more fun to play?----Parakee 21:18, 31 December 2010 (UTC)