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Message: <blockquote data-quote="bganon" data-source="post: 5523762" data-attributes="member: 60886">In this case it was a player with an Elf Ranger who had already multiclassed into Rogue for other reasons anyway.  Pre-essentials errata they would've had to switch to a crossbow to get the most out of it, and then take Speed Loader to be useful, which I think had just appeared.Since the end result of crossbow+Speed Loader is a 1d8 ranged "rogue" weapon with load free at the cost of a feat, I was in the middle of making a custom feat to allow a shortbow to work with Rogue powers when Treetop Sniper came along.  Treetop Sniper being objectively quite a bit better didn't quite sit well with me at first, so I cut it back a bit.  In retrospect, probably too much.  I guess part of the reason why, is that it bothers me a bit that now a vanilla Rogue/Thief's best ranged option is often the shortbow, by a pretty good margin.  Shortbows do not strike me as iconic sneaky weapons, regardless of what previous editions supported.  I think they should be available (that's what feats are for), but now almost any ranged Rogue build is stupid not to use one.  It seems odd to me that crossbows are (before feats, at least) pretty poor options for Rogues or Thieves.</blockquote>