How far can you see...or Where the @$&# did THAT shot come from?

[Telas]

IIRC, the medieval longbow was effective past 200 meters or 660 feet. (Effective as in "has enough oomph to consistently kill/incapacitate," not as in "it can throw a lightweight arrow out there"). And that's with limited technology and no magic.

Otherwise, 20/20 vision should be able to see a man out well past a kilometer. He won't be very easy to pick out if he's not wearing contrasting colors, or if there's any concealment, but you should be able to make him out.

Telas

 

[boolean]

Combat Script:
3 rounds to study (while hidden - Sniping)
1 Round: Cast True Strike (Silent Spell Feat)
1 Round: Fire Death Attack at an opponent.

The Assassin's Death Attack ability requires a sneak attack with a melee weapon.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Until he casts the swift spell from CV that lets him Death Attack at range for 1 round.

Of course, that's still within 30', so it doesn't help him all that much ...

 

[TheEvil]

Nah - just the miss chance for concealment (e.g., Invisibility); cover is a different story.
(emphasis added)

Edits:
Now, if he was using a SEEKING Composite Logbow, they would need total cover to avoid it. Likewise, if he grabbed the Distance enchantment to go along with it (Let's see... +1 base enhancement, +1 Seeking, +1 Distance (+18,000 gp, Composite Logbow base cost: 400 gp) - longbow range increment: 110 (Base) + 110 (Distance) + 55 (Far Shot) = 275 ft; using True Strike, he can pretty much hit anything he can see, for a 18,400+ gp Item (depending on the str bonus of the composite longbow, of course)

So he also needs to purchase a Spyglass (1,000 gp, by SRD) so he can see better - perhaps Eyes of the Eagle (2,500 gp, by SRD) for the same purpose, to do the actual targeting.

Add 5 levels Craig Top Archer from Races of Stone and you get Arcing Shot - 15 range increments as long as you have 40' of clearance and Horizon Shot - one shot per round at no range penalty, and you have a range of 4125 feet as a straight up shot! Add that to the fact that the CTA takes only half the normal penality to spot checks due to range, and you have one nasty sniper.

 

[Telas]

Add 5 levels Craig Top Archer from Races of Stone and you get Arcing Shot - 15 range increments as long as you have 40' of clearance and Horizon Shot - one shot per round at no range penalty, and you have a range of 4125 feet as a straight up shot! Add that to the fact that the CTA takes only half the normal penality to spot checks due to range, and you have one nasty sniper.

Here's where it gets silly. That's over 3/4 a mile, with a longbow.

Most modern snipers can't hit that far with high-powered rifles, optics, and such. The longest confirmed kill in Iraq was at 1050 yards with a 7.62 (.308), or less range than that. World record confirmed kill was in Afghanistan by a Canadian with a .50 cal at 2430 meters, or about twice that range. The bullet was in the air for 4 seconds, and dropped about 145 feet.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't use it, but you should decide beforehand how "epic" you want the shot to be. And if you want to give the PCs access to similar feats.

Telas

 

[TheEvil]

Very true, but being as it is a game where people kill 20 some foot tall giants with a 3' long sword, I wouldn't worry overly much about physics.

 

[focallength]

One the worst convention games I ever played in involved the most of party being killed by an unseen archer. This was in AD&D days before the advent of the Spot skill, etc. The thing that pissed me of is that this smart @ss smikring "GM" wouldn't even tell us the direction the arrows were coming from.

My sense is that if you're walking in a straight line and you get hit by an arrow you generally know where it came from, if only because its sticking out of the left side of your neck. Call me cooky on that one.

If your getting hit by arrows from 5-6 hundred yards you wouldnt have a clue as to where they were coming from as the arrow is coming almost straight down onto you, about the best you could do is it came from the south. And depending on the terrain it could be even harder to determine where the shot came from, what if the shooter looses an arrow then moves, then your screwed.

 

[Bodkin]

Actually, wouldn't the trajectory of the arrow be more like an artillary shell over such a long distance? ie you aim way up into the air above the targets head. Thats if a bow CAN even shoot that far, and I think would induce a much larger penalty to hit than the standard range increment ones... Basically the way I see it, the range penalty is because to you the target looks a lot smaller at a long range, but in the case of such a long shot, not only is the target incredibly small, you have to "guess" how far away they are and aim a certain distance above the target based on that guess. This would of course be a lot harder that just aiming at a small target.

Maybe force the shooter to make a Wisdom check (a pretty tough one) to guess the distance to the target, failure means they will miss regardless of attack roll. If they make the wis check, attack as usual. Unless of course the attacker knows the distance some other way, ie a spell, or they happen to know the distance from their location to some landmark that the targets are standing near.

Longbow shooters at the York round and longer ranges for traditional bows, are usually considered proficient if they put the arrow into a four foot diameter circle at 100 yards. Even ifa person could shoot a bow five-hundred meters, it's not likely the archer would hit the desired target. Most traditional archers who hunt with recurve and longbows, don't shoot at game past thirty yards, and 15 twenty is actually reccomended. There are too many variables to consider with primitive equimpent past that range, drift, penetration, and probably past one-hundred yards the likelyhood of the arrow even hitting the game. This is DnD, so I guess none of that really matters...

 

[Storyteller01]

Actually, wouldn't the trajectory of the arrow be more like an artillary shell over such a long distance? ie you aim way up into the air above the targets head. Thats if a bow CAN even shoot that far, and I think would induce a much larger penalty to hit than the standard range increment ones... Basically the way I see it, the range penalty is because to you the target looks a lot smaller at a long range, but in the case of such a long shot, not only is the target incredibly small, you have to "guess" how far away they are and aim a certain distance above the target based on that guess. This would of course be a lot harder that just aiming at a small target.

Agreed, but my point had been that ranged fighters are trained to recognize a human (humanoid?) target from half a click away (provided there's a clear line of sight). I thought that had been what was asked.

 

[Stalker0]

Well if you want to modify the existing encounter distance figures to incorporate higher levels you can try this HOUSE rule:

At 2x the encounter distance make a spot check DC +10. If it fails, they get another spot check at the encounter distance. If the fail that, then the automatically encounter at half that distance.