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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 2921562" data-attributes="member: 13966">The deepwood sniper is overpowered, you know, and shouldn't be used as a good measuring stick for a ranger prestige class.  I've seen a 3.5 ranger3/fighter4/deepwood sniper3-5 played in an ongoing campaign, and they're downright scary with a bow.  Appropriate-CR dragons die before ever getting in an attack, if they strike from out in the open (the dragon only survived and did a bit of damage because it managed to get a bit of cover from trees during its approach and escape; the archer's abilities reduced cover/concealment benefits for the dragon, and gave him excellent range, on top of his excellent attack and damage bonuses and his attack rate of 3-4 arrows per round).Anyway, as another poster said, Improved Critical is redundant for your prestige class, since in 3.5 Keen doesn't stack with Improved Critical.  Likewise, Close Combat Shot seems antithetical to the prestige class' focus; snipers do NOT let opponents get close enough to strike with a melee weapon, snipers run and hide and snipe.  Also, there's a typo, your PrC requirements mentions the deepwood sniper class rather than the combat sniper class.BTW, what level is the Arrow Mind spell?  I take it that it's something out of the Spell Compendium or some other non-core source?  From your class' abilities and prerequisites, I'm guessing it's some 1st-level ranger spell, though.  3.5 rangers gain Woodland Stride at 7th-level, and yet your PrC grants it early on as well, so I'm guessing your PrC is meant for 5th-level or 6th-level rangers to take.  Since snipers wouldn't get much use out of the short-ranged Multishot feat, I'm going to guess a 5th-level ranger is the 'target audience' so to speak.So, a 5th-level ranger, 10th-level combat sniper gives up....  Improved Combat Style (Manyshot), 3rd and 4th Favored Enemies, Swift Tracker, Evasion, Combat Style Mastery (Improved Precise Shot), Camouflage, 2 skill points per level, and 1 point of base Will save.  The last few ranger benefits don't matter since this PrC seems geared towards 5th-level rangers only, so they'd likely multiclass into fighter or something afterwards.  In exchange, your PrC gains an extra +2 to base Fortitude and Reflex saves, two bonus feats (likely Weapon Specialization and something else they might not qualify for otherwise), an extra spell on the spell list, True Strike 1/day with a ranged weapon, free Keen Arrows, Power Shot, and Projectile Improved Critical.....The feats work out to be a bit better and more versatile for the PrC, the minor benefits make up for the lack of Favored Enemy improvements at the very least, the Keen Arrows and Projectile Improved Critical make up for the lack of Evasion and Swift Tracker at least, and the Power Shot makes up for lack of Camouflage and the extra skill points at the very least.With full BAB and feats/abilities like Greater Magic Weapon, Precise Shot, Improved Precise Shot, Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Focus, and whatnot, the sniper will have no problem wasting 5 or 10 points on Power Shot every round.  Not to mention that at upper levels he'll probably be using the Hide skill's 'sniping' option, with the -20 Hide penalty, making his opponents flat-footed against every shot for lack of being able to see his hiding spot (a high Spot skill isn't all that common, especially with PC/NPC classed foes, since Spot is only a class skill for a few classes).  The Keen and Greater Magic Weapon capabilities mean that the sniper will likely invest in just a magic +1 composite longbow and pile on the Flaming Burst, Icy Burst, Shocking Burst, and related special abilities, amping up his arrow damage insanely since he already has great hit chances and decent critical hit chances (with x3 or x4 critical damage multipliers depending on level, making those X Burst abilities really effective).  Since he'll be getting off 3-5 arrows per round most likely, he'll have ample opportunity for a critical hit or two in every significant (i.e. not extremely brief) combat.</blockquote>

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