D&D 3E/3.5 Need help with 3.5 stealthy Sniper

[Ranger19k]

If you decide to go with a bow instead of a crossbow, take a few levels of ranger to get access to the 1st level Ranger Spell "Hunter's Mercy" (Spell Compendium pg 117) It gives an automatic critical to your first hit in the following round with a bowshot. While it's not useful in real combat due to the std action casting time, it's great if you are in a position to snipe someone who is unsuspecting. The x3 crit starts to add up if you can pile on some strength and enhancements that actually multiply with the crit.

If you have access to Silver Marches (Forgotten Realms) a couple levels of peerless archer will give you one of the few (the only?) power attack equivalent for archery - power shot. That a few additional modifiers that a judiciously applied "Hunter's Mercy" can help you crit with.

Also if your DM will allow you to dip into 3.0 books, a few levels of Deepwood Sniper will help increase the crit damage for the bow from x3 to x5.

The other posters on the board are absolutely correct that archery will always be a sub-optimal fighting style in 3.x, but if you can use a greatbow, pile on strength and power shot and enhancements, and automatically crit for x5 with your first shot using Hunter's Mercy, you could actually start to bring down some unsuspecting enemies with a one shot snipe. (Peerless archer also give you a ranged sneak attack, so if you are perchance within 30' when you snipe, you can add that damage as well)

It will still be extremely situational, but if you are committed to this character concept, it is something to consider. Good luck and good gaming.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Crossbow can be good for a sneak attacker, you just will be limited to 60 ft range for SA. If that's a problem, snipe with spells.

You should be a rogue//wizard, possibly with a prestige class and possibly dipping out of rogue for stuff (I'm a huge fan of dipping swordsage from Tome of Battle for Assassin's Stance). Fighter actually has some VERY nice variants that make a 1-2 level dip handy.

If you're willing to use the ridiculously inferior Hand Crossbow (rogues are proficient), there is a reason to do so: it saves you a feat. How so? Well, the only reason to even be using a crossbow is the Crossbow Sniper feat, which requires weapon focus. In Drow of the Underdark, there is a Hand Crossbow Master feat, which gives you, for hand crossbows, rapid reload AND weapon focus (both things you need) in one feat. You also need the Craven feat to keep your damage high, though it can wait till later. Darkstalker is basically mandatory in order to be sneaky, without it like half the freaking monster manual will be able to laugh off your hide / move silentl and just auto detect you. You of course want the Rapid, Precise, and Point Blank Shot any archer would. You could also dual wield w/ TWF, though you'd need a means to get a hand free to reload the crossbows and magically enhancing two weapons (and you NEED the seeking property on your crossbow(s) ) is pricy. Other feats of note: Concealed Ambush (dragon magazine) reduces the sniping penalty from -20 to -10.

For race, you want to be a Deep Halfling. Why deep? They have darkvision. A rogue that can't see in the dark is a poor rogue indeed. Why halfling? They get rogue substitution levels in Races of the Wild. At 1st level, you get +2d6 ranged SA but +0d6 melee SA. From there on, your SA advances as normal, so your ranged is always 1d6 higher than normal and melee 1d6 lower than normal. Should you still be in rogue for rogue 10th level, they also get a special ability replacement that tremendously helps with sniping.

For class, other than the aforementioned sub levels and possible swordsage dip... Fighter, either the Hit and Run or Targeteer version, is helpful. Read this guide for all sorts of helpful info. For rogue, it's also essential to use the 3rd level alt. class feature from Dungeonscape, which lets you do half SA damage against anything immune to it. This will keep you from ever being worthless with SA.

Items: Seeking is essential, as any miss chance at all screws over sneak attack. Ring of blink is normally needed, but if you're gestalted w/ caster, you have spells to cover you. Note that once the bolt leaves you, it ceases to be affected by the blink spell and thus there is no 20% chance of being on the wrong plane and missing. Magic Item Compendium has crystals you can put in a weapon to sneak attack constructs and undead, but they're a bit expensive for their limited use and require a +3 weapon in order to work.

Sniper sneak attack build is very feat and item intensive and takes a lot to pull off, but can be decent.

 

[gwyllgi]

I don't know if this is out of the question or not for you but PF ultimate combat has a gunslinger class that transfers easily into 3./0/5, it would be easy adapting feats from the book into ones for 3.5 to help aswell.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

I did go over the warlock sniper idea but i decided it was too flashy for what we were going for.

Could I make another attempt to persuade you?

Step 1- Flush from your mind the picture of the character image presented in Complete Arcane. We are not building this guy, he's funny looking:

Step 2- Consider the Chaotic requirement, not the Evil one. Think Chaotic Good, the way Corellon Larethian is CG.

Step 3- Ignore the fluff that says the Warlock powers come from Fiendish sources. That's just fluff.

Now, keep in your head all the mechanics of the Warlock.

Then, consider the image of a more Elf-like character, minus the dark and brooding:

Ok, this guy? He's an Elf Sniper. He's in tune with nature, and he's special. See, he doesn't need a bow. He can launch bolts from his hands. As a ranged TOUCH attack, ignoring armor AC.

At level 1, he was able to launch bolts from his hands at 250' away (Eldritch Spear).
At level 2, as he hunts in his woodland habitat, he develops the supernatural ability to climb trees and any other surface with graceful ease (Spiderwalk).
At level 4, as he's sniping from up a tree at 250 feet away, he's developed the supernatural ability to repel an enemies returned ranged attacks (Entropic Warding).
At level 6, his constant stealth has granted him the ability to travel undetected as he moves from location to location Invisibly (Walk Unseen).
At level 8, he's left the trees and taken to the air to find the best sniper perches, or simply hover in the sky and rain down fire (Fell Flight).
At level 10, he's learned to hit multiple targets with the same shot (Eldritch Chain).
At level 11, even those resistant to spells cannot avoid his bolts (Vitriolic Blast).
At level 13, he gains total concealment within shadows (Enervating Shadows).

...and so on. What I'm trying to describe here is a stealthy, consistent-damage-output long range combatant that gradually develops supernatural abilities to augment his sniping over time. Feel free to select your invocations to taste, but a build like this can fit a stealthy sniper design.

Since it's gestalt, put something with a full BAB on the other side, like Ranger, to make sure that all of your touch ranged shots have a really solid likelihood of connecting.

 

[-Vortex-]

Well unfortunately it would seem my team and DM did not like the idea of a sniper, they want someone more versatile and up close. But thanks for your ideas guys I'm defiantly going to use those suggestions for a later campaign or with another group. I greatly appreciate your help, I may make another discussion about my new character idea when i come up with one.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Oh well, good luck and come on back!