Sneak Attacks Range

[Dandu]

Have you considered using a Ranger? You can pick up the spell Sniper's Shot that way, as well as Hunter's Eye, which grants sneak attack.

 

[TanisFrey]

Without having RC because I hate everything about the book, all I can go on is your summation. And that rule sounds hella dumb. Either each person is threatening the enemy or they're not. If they're not both threatening the enemy, they can't be flanking. If they both are threatening the enemy and in flanking position, both alies get the flanking bonus.

In the case of one w/ reach weapon and the other person not having one, the reach guy would be 10 ft away on one side and the other ally would be adjacent to the enemy on the other, and both would get flanking benefits.

They included 3 diagrams for flanking in the book. The first shows standard flanking, in included the fact that someone stunned or other wise helpless cannot provide flanking bonus even if they are in position to do so. The second shows a group flanking a large creature. The last shows Tordek being surrounded by 4 monsters. Tordek is base to base with a troll and has a ogre 5 ft behind him. It notes that both the troll and the ogre get flanking because they both have reach. On the other axis a orc is base to base with Tordek with and a Hobgoblin is 5 ft back with a 10 ft reach weapon. The hobgoblin is noted to have the flank bonus and the orc does not have it. However I just noticed the text to the side saying that the ORC should get flanking bonus.

I never said that Arrow Mind would allow you to threaten more than the squares right around you, aka a reach of 5ft for a medium creature.

If someone in engaged in melee and you circle around and shoot them in the back, why should not get sneak attack?

 

[Dandu]

Didn't we ditch facing rules in the transition?

 

[Jhyarelle]

My bad!

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Thank you for all your help, but the main question still up in the air. I plan on making a Psychic Warrior/Rogue whoes primary role is a sniper that can use his sneak attack and psionic shot feat with a bow or corss bow's maximum range between 80 to 120 feet away. Assides dipping into another class for extra range in sneak attack. Are there feats that increases the maximum distance sneak attacks can be done from equivalent to a bow or cross bow's maximum range of 80 to 120 feet away.

Those are range increments, not max ranges, first of all. A bow can shoot (incredibly inaccurately) a thousand feet away if you want.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm genuinely asking...have you considered just NOT doing the psionic thing? I know in real life snipers are all about one crucial shot and all. But in D&D, NPCs have more hp than real life people do, even if you get a headshot. And sneak attack as it is set up works MUCH better with lots of attacks if at all possible. Psionic Shot is limiting you to one attack and possibly preventing you from getting Sniper's Eye (the spell I was trying to refer to previously) from a wizard or ranger multiclass. As I think that's the only way to get unlimited SA range in 3.5 WotC books.

If you really want a sniper specifically, try to look at Deepwood Sniper in the 3.0 book Masters of the Wild. It would be very easy to convert to 3.5 and is not overpowered at all. Just really good at and geared towards long range sniping. 3.5 has the Cragtop Archer class in Races of Stone, but that's better suited to a purely "martial oriented" (Fighter, Barbarian, etc..) archer looking to use a high strength bow and not be sneaky so much as become a living artillery piece. When you can literally hit targets at the edge of the horizon with ease, there's not much need to be sneaky.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

On the other axis a orc is base to base with Tordek with and a Hobgoblin is 5 ft back with a 10 ft reach weapon. The hobgoblin is noted to have the flank bonus and the orc does not have it. However I just noticed the text to the side saying that the ORC should get flanking bonus.

Well yes, they should BOTH get flanking bonus. Otherwise they're not flanking. Sounds like the rules are just presented unclearly. Yay, RC!

 

[frankthedm]

If someone in engaged in melee and you circle around and shoot them in the back, why should not get sneak attack?

Because you are not flanking as defined by the game rules.

 

[Eman Resu]

Well wouldnt you be mad if you were in combat and everysingle time your opponent moved to your backside and attacked? Now if you want to flank 1 on 1, mono e mono, get improved fient. You know the ole "your shoes are untied" routine then you can "flank" him

 

[Celebrim]

I don't have a Ranger in my game; instead, I have a homebrew class called 'Hunter'. One of the Hunter's class abilities is the ability to do damage which requires precision (sneak attacks, point blank shot, the hunter's own damage bonus) at higher and higher ranges as he increases in level. While the class ability can't be picked up as a feat to silo the Hunter abilities, in my opinion, this is a feat equivalent ability and since you'd have no reason not to step on the Hunter's toes you could do something like.

ACCURATE SHOOTER [General, Fighter]
You can make precision attacks at longer range.
Prerequisite: Wis 13, Dex 13
Benefit: You can add the damage bonus from Point Blank Shot up to 30' further away (normally 60'). You can also make sneak attacks and other attacks requiring precision at this range. At 7th level, your skill improves so that you that you can make precision attacks up to 60' further away (normally 90'). At 14th level, the range limitation increases to 90' further away (normally 120').

I also have this feat available in my game:

SNIPER [CLASS]
You are deadly even at a distance.
Prerequisite: far shot, point blank shot, precise shot, base attack +3, sneak attack ability
Benefit: You may use your sneak attack ability at ranges beyond 30’. You must spend at least one round doing nothing but observing your target with a readied missile weapon and you must not be detected by your target before you can use this feat. Only your first attack after focusing qualifies. You may make a sneak attack at a range of up to 30’ beyond the normal limitation, plus an additional 30’ for each extra die of damage your sneak attack does beyond the first. For each additional interval of 30’ or portion of an interval beyond the first additional 30’, your sneak attack bonus damage is reduced by one die.

With both feats a 20th level rogue could do a +5d6 ranged sneak attack at a distance of 300' (60 squares).

WARNING: If you use rules of this sort or do alot of sniping in your game, you will quickly discover the that rules for Spot are BROKEN. If you normally only use a static +1 DC/10' from the target to modify Spot, then a sniper 300 feet away will have effectively +30 bonus to hide. This will effectually make them more invisible than if they were invisible even while engaging in a sniper attack.

The brokenness of this rule can be easily observed from the fact that the difficulty to spot something actually increases according to the natural log of the distance from the target and not linearly. That is, while it's reasonable that if being 10' away gives you a +1 bonus to hide, and being 20' away should give you a +2, to get a +3 bonus should require you to be 40' away and not merely 30'. A person 200' away is only 2-4 times as hard to see as one 100' away, and thats not what happens when you add large linear bonuses in the D20 system. Consider for example the spot DC of a mountain. Obviously, missing the mountain requires failing like a DC -10 (or something) Spot check. But if you add +1 DC per 10' of distance, then the mountain is invisible to most people only a bit over 300' away. By constrast, if you assume a non-linear relationship between DC and distance, the mountain remains easily visible out to the horizon and beyond which is what we'd expect.

The stock Spot/Hide rules assume that combat occurs indoors at ranges of no more than 60' or so (dungeon distances). They will not work for you in any other situations.

 

[Andras]

There's a feat in PHBII called Deadeye shot. To use it, you ready an action to fire a missile at a target that has just been struck by an ally. The target looses his dex bonus against your readied shot. There is no range limit on applying sneak attack from this feat.

Crossbow Sniper, as mentioned, lets you SA up to 60' with a crossbow and grants a damage bonus.