D&D 5E Eldritch spear + spellsniper + distant spell

[Ovinomancer]

I’ve hit targets with open sights at 400 yards, and I’m no expert marksman.

You can definitely see 1200ft away.

Nice, what were you shooting and where? It's hard to find a 400 yard+ range these days, so I assume you were out in the country? I've never shot 400 yards, but I have shot 300, but never with iron sights. That's tough, given the challenge of 300 yards (I have access to a club with a 300 yard bay, the longest in the area) with a good scope. And, I am an expert marksman -- got the ribbon to prove it. I'd say if you can hit, even 50/50, at 400 yards with iron sights, that's expert enough -- you'd have sailed through the military quals.

 

[ClaytonCross]

Does a 1200-foot EB seem broken? Sure, even just the 600-foot EB is a bit crazy. But, you are expending a lot to get a huge bump to range: in total an Eldritch Invocation, a Metamagic (and Sorcery Point per use!), and a Feat. IMO it is overkill for most encounters and the use of the Distant Spell would just be an "as-needed boost" to an already huge range (matching a longbow, but with no disadvantage for long range).

I don't think it broken unless your character has permanent flight.
1) The build increases range but it does not remove full cover obstructions for line of fire. It doesn't matter if you have target is 30ft away or 1200ft away, if the target has full cover or you are in full cover you can't attack them. This immediately makes all this build up very niche since most encounters will be within 120ft anyway and greater range should mean more opportunities for full cover.

2.) It does not increase damage or to hit. You may get a few turns of extra fire. In most cases where you are actually aware of an enemy 1200ft away and have line of fire this is going to be a deliberate setup for this player build. Its going to be extreme numbers of enemies this player needs to reduce before they engage the party or large HP bags that need to be drained down before they hit the party or the party will TPK. Your still one character do your standard damage fighting enemies intended to be a challenge. While a goblin horde would get you 20 extra attacks against it you they would not be running strait toward on perfectly clear and flat unless it was a large horde and the reduction of numbers is not a big deal. If you have 80 ft Fly speed like dragons your only getting 7 rounds of attacking by yourself before they get their with no bonus to hit or damage. In that case, the enemy is going to scale to the party so your damage should not be broken.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I don't think it broken unless your character has permanent flight.
1) The build increases range but it does not remove full cover obstructions for line of fire. It doesn't matter if you have target is 30ft away or 1200ft away, if the target has full cover or you are in full cover you can't attack them. This immediately makes all this build up very niche since most encounters will be within 120ft anyway and greater range should mean more opportunities for full cover.

2.) It does not increase damage or to hit. You may get a few turns of extra fire. In most cases where you are actually aware of an enemy 1200ft away and have line of fire this is going to be a deliberate setup for this player build. Its going to be extreme numbers of enemies this player needs to reduce before they engage the party or large HP bags that need to be drained down before they hit the party or the party will TPK. Your still one character do your standard damage fighting enemies intended to be a challenge. While a goblin horde would get you 20 extra attacks against it you they would not be running strait toward on perfectly clear and flat unless it was a large horde and the reduction of numbers is not a big deal. If you have 80 ft Fly speed like dragons your only getting 7 rounds of attacking by yourself before they get their with no bonus to hit or damage. In that case, the enemy is going to scale to the party so your damage should not be broken.

Once again someone quotes me and I have no idea if they are agreeing with me, disagreeing with me, or expounding for some other purpose...

 

[ClaytonCross]

Once again someone quotes me and I have no idea if they are agreeing with me, disagreeing with me, or expounding for some other purpose...

It's a conversation, it doesn't require agreement/disagreement. This is not game of who wins or keeping score. What said was contesting that its broken, and agreeing that its a lot of resources spent for the gain being so situational. So it doesn't matter so much how you calculate it since it will rarely matter. That being said, giving it 1200 ft is not broken so I would be fine with it at my table. The exception being that if they also have permanent flight.

 

[DND_Reborn]

It's a conversation, it doesn't require agreement/disagreement. This is not game of who wins or keeping score. What said was contesting that its broken, and agreeing that its a lot of resources spent for the gain being so situational. So it doesn't matter so much how you calculate it since it will rarely matter. That being said, giving it 1200 ft is not broken so I would be fine with it at my table. The exception being that if they also have permanent flight.

It isn't about keeping score or anything, it is about understanding why you quoted me. Most times IME if someone quotes me it is either because they agree and are reinforcing the points I made, disagree and contesting the points I made, or using my points to further the general discussion. In this case you seem to be doing both in one post--contesting one point but agreeing with another...

Since you are contesting it is broken, claiming it isn't, but then appending a condition (flight) when it could be broken, that to me implies it is broken. As for the flight issue, it doesn't really need to be permanent (Fly alone lasts 100 rounds) and 5E does have a playable race (Aarakocra) which does have permanent flight as well as Sorcerer sublcasses (Draconic Bloodline and Divine Soul) which allow permanent flight (albeit at level 14... shrug).

My point was (as was yours it seems), broken or not it requires a lot of resources to get there and is overkill since most combats don't even begin at that sort of crazy range. FWIW I said I am fine with it as well, consider it overkill, and if the player wants to expend all those resources for it, go nuts.

In our CoS game my sorlock only had Spell Sniper and that alone helped make one encounter easy when it should have been hard. Once our party took the high ground, the earth-bound foes were being picked off left and right before they could even engage us really.

Now, as to your points from before:

1. You don't need permanent flight. If targets have total cover, you Ready your Casting a Spell action for EB for when a target moves from behind total cover and blast it. It's a cantrip, so you don't even have to worry about expending a spell slot if all the targets are pinned down and remain behind total cover for a round.

2. True, none of these features increase your attack roll or damage roll. Except, of course, as you pointed out when you can exploit your increased range to get in additional attacks while your targets are just moving up to their encounter range to attack back. Any of these features for boosting range alone IMO is sufficient for being able to exploit that condition often enough to make selecting one of them worth it. Personally, I chose Spell Sniper for my PC because of the other benefits, it requires no spell points, and the eldritch invocation choice for Agonizing Blast makes it more effective because it does bump the damage.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It's a famous movie quote from Star Wars that has a very similar sentence structure and subject matter as what you posted so it's funny????

It’s not especially similar, but okay.

 

[Immoralkickass]

I've never heard of arguments like that.

But FB isn't the best place to get rules advice anyway.

 

[ClaytonCross]

It isn't about keeping score or anything, it is about understanding why you quoted me. Most times IME if someone quotes me it is either because they agree and are reinforcing the points I made, disagree and contesting the points I made, or using my points to further the general discussion. In this case you seem to be doing both in one post--contesting one point but agreeing with another...

Yes. That is the nature of a conversation. There is no need for me to agree or disagree 100%.

Since you are contesting it is broken, claiming it isn't, but then appending a condition (flight) when it could be broken, that to me implies it is broken. As for the flight issue, it doesn't really need to be permanent (Fly alone lasts 100 rounds) and 5E does have a playable race (Aarakocra) which does have permanent flight as well as Sorcerer sublcasses (Draconic Bloodline and Divine Soul) which allow permanent flight (albeit at level 14... shrug).

I don't think something is broken if by its not broken by default. If there is a way to abuse something, the abuse is the problem. I know about the permanent options you listed, I actually think permanent flight is the problem here not spell targeting distance. It causes a number of problems and is easily abused. The at level 14 options are better because many characters don't make it that high anyway. However, I find Aarakocra ban at almost every game I have played unless it was a high level one shot for this reason. The flight spell is concentration. Because of this it has a draw back and it prevent the use of other abilities which makes it unreliable and restrictive in combat. I don't consider it broken because of these additional impacts.

My point was (as was yours it seems), broken or not it requires a lot of resources to get there and is overkill since most combats don't even begin at that sort of crazy range. FWIW I said I am fine with it as well, consider it overkill, and if the player wants to expend all those resources for it, go nuts.

I do agree with you here. Since I don't consider it broken, it just means I through a bone to that player for investment one in a while or it happens naturally on that rare occasion and its fine because they gave up so much for it and its going to be rare.

In our CoS game my sorlock only had Spell Sniper and that alone helped make one encounter easy when it should have been hard. Once our party took the high ground, the earth-bound foes were being picked off left and right before they could even engage us really.

Which makes for a cool, "one time I" character moment but it was not your whole campaign. I think it is nice to have these and an easy encounter once in a while is not game breaking but it is a memorable highlight. I might go so far to say that if you don't have some of these moments in your games its problematic because this is what player hang on to when they think back on D&D. The last thing you want as a player or GM to run entire campaigns that people forget about because nothing memorable stayed with them.

Now, as to your points from before:

1. You don't need permanent flight. If targets have total cover, you Ready your Casting a Spell action for EB for when a target moves from behind total cover and blast it. It's a cantrip, so you don't even have to worry about expending a spell slot if all the targets are pinned down and remain behind total cover for a round.

The party/NPCs can indefinitely ready action for "when the flying target lands or comes view", If both the Flyer and the party/NPCs plan on doing this the GM fast forwards until the fly spell times out, then it triggers party attacks and the enemy attack in response. The Flyer in now in range so the extra range doesn't matter. Since this is infinitely repeatable for the party/NPCs but limited by spell slots for the Flyer it voids the benefit. However, infinite flight result in a stale mate where one side has to abandon the fight some how. The flyer can just fly way so the party/NPCs are generally forces to have a solution or the Flyer has an "I win button". I saw this with a warlock that has aspect of the moon so they didn't have to sleep either. While gm could rule they still gain fatigue from flying non-stop they can still do it for 6 days then fly way... so very easily still broken. More so when if the win condition for the Flyer is "stale them for X amount of time".

2. True, none of these features increase your attack roll or damage roll. Except, of course, as you pointed out when you can exploit your increased range to get in additional attacks while your targets are just moving up to their encounter range to attack back. Any of these features for boosting range alone IMO is sufficient for being able to exploit that condition often enough to make selecting one of them worth it. Personally, I chose Spell Sniper for my PC because of the other benefits, it requires no spell points, and the eldritch invocation choice for Agonizing Blast makes it more effective because it does bump the damage.

I don't think it is an exploit since its working as intended. I agree one of the upgrade is worth it since the closer they are the more likely you are to pull it off but at the same time the less benefit you get from it. I think the diminishing returns for the amount of resources vs the number of opportunities your likely to have to use it makes it questionable. HOWEVER, I under stand single extremes for the sole aspect of the one epic campaign moment when you pull off 20 rounds of fire on group of enemies. I think most GMs are going to give that opportunity at least once. The other side to that is your next campaign your not likely to do that build again because it becomes less interesting each time you do it. I would not expect all my players to follow that up every game after it happens because of that so its not perpetual problem like power gaming damage chasers who fight for most damage every campaign.

 

[Hohige]

Oh! Total cover!

Distant Insect Plague that ignores cover at 620ft.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

360m is not that far...
and no one said how distant spell works... probably the sorcerer using it also zooms in like a sniper. Maybe spell sniper also gives you a magical kind of zoom when casting a spell.
Of course you can compare it with reality. But you should better not do it. Or try to imagane how a sniper rifle would be done with magic (magical augmentation of your sight).