Snipers?

[LokiDR]

Is it hot in here, or is it just me?

Because I plan to do this to my players tonight, here are some of my thoughts, tell me what you think.

The sniper will fire from far away (~200'). On the surprise round he will ready his weapon and stay hidden. PCs will get spot vs his hide, -1 per 10'. On his round, the sniper will fire and rehide (-20 on check). On the PC's initive, I'll give spot checks to notice the direction of fire, DC: sniper's hide check +distance modifier -20 for rehide -20 for general (cardinal) direction. If they make it by more than 10, I will give extra information (it came from a rooftop, west side of the street). Wash, rinse, repeat untill the sniper is spotted or the PCs are all dead.

There is a device in my game that will allow sneak attack at ranges greater than 30', assuming you spend time sighting your target, so this could get very deadly. The PCs should be able to zero in and elimate him if they act fast. It seems a fair trade-off in my estimation. Any thoughts?

 

[Felix]

*Rules forum mode activated*

Is this within the rules?

Suprise round:
Sniper: Fire at the PC's from however far away. (Standard Action)
Drop behind 3' high wall. (Go prone, Free action, 100% cover)

1st round:
Sniper: Delay
PC's: Where'd that come from? We can't see a thing. (ie, no line of sight to the sniper)

-Combat ends-

Sniper relocates, giving PC's a chance to Spot him vs his Move Silently and other circumstance bonuses.

Suprise Round:
Sniper: Fire at PC's. (Standard action)
Drop behind hedge (Go prone, Free action, 100% concealment)
PC's: D'oh!

Rinse, repeat.


Why would a sniper want to have an extended combat? Just do it one shot at a time, and in each situation, deny the PC's the ability to even spot you.

As for skill checks, I would have the PC's roll a pretty tough Listen check to hear the bow string to even have a chance at turning their heads and making a Spot check. If they didn't hear the arrow leave the bow, no way am I going to allow them to make a Spot check on the sniper, as when the arrow hits, he's on the ground with no line of sight.

Want to help your snipers? Have them wear the Dnd equivalent of Ghille suits (you know, Tom Berrenger in the movie Sniper). Those things give a huge + to hide in green surroundings. Have him make only one shot. Have the sniper plant decoys that the PC's will spot; they investigate those things while he gets away. Equip him with a ring of silence, or some such; the PC's will have no way to know where the hell he is if they can't hear him and he's behind cover or has concealment.

So you will say, OK, he drops prone, but he still needs to make a Hide check at -20 to compare to the PC's Spot; what kind of circumstance bonuses does he get for being behind a wall, for the PC's being unaware, for being a long ways away, for wearing a ghille suit, ... etc. Yeah, you have to suck up a hefty penalty for attacking then hiding, but you can avoid that by putting the sniper in the right position. And that's exactly what snipers do: get into the right positions to shoot their quarry.

Oh, and one more thing, if this bow guy is going to be a sniper, make sure his arrows do the job in one hit; one shot, one kill.

 

[Celebrim]

If you are a reasonably powerful deep woods sniper, you can do that from say 1000' feet away, and _by the rules_ the DC to spot you is greater than 100 and even an epic character is going to have a hard time.

Now, give same sniper manyshot.

Hmmm.

 

[Magnetic Field]

Snipers

I was not aware that dropping prone is a free action, I though it was a MEA (like standing up). However, your scenario still works with it as a MEA.

However..... Spot and Listen are passive skills. The PCs roll their Spot checks when the sniper fires; they roll their Listens the instant the string twangs.

The sniper will not drop prone until after the Spots and/or Listens have been rolled.

 

[green slime]

If you are a reasonably powerful deep woods sniper, you can do that from say 1000' feet away, and _by the rules_ the DC to spot you is greater than 100 and even an epic character is going to have a hard time.

Now, give same sniper manyshot.

Hmmm.

Manyshot only functions within 30 feet.

 

[Droogie]

Re: Snipers

I was not aware that dropping prone is a free action, I though it was a MEA (like standing up). However, your scenario still works with it as a MEA.

However..... Spot and Listen are passive skills. The PCs roll their Spot checks when the sniper fires; they roll their Listens the instant the string twangs.

The sniper will not drop prone until after the Spots and/or Listens have been rolled.

Dropping prone IS a free action, and I really like Felix's solution.

Now is a good time for common sense to override the rules.

 

[LokiDR]

*Rules forum mode activated*

Is this within the rules?

Suprise round:
Sniper: Fire at the PC's from however far away. (Standard Action)
Drop behind 3' high wall. (Go prone, Free action, 100% cover)

1st round:
Sniper: Delay
PC's: Where'd that come from? We can't see a thing. (ie, no line of sight to the sniper)

-Combat ends-

Sniper relocates, giving PC's a chance to Spot him vs his Move Silently and other circumstance bonuses.

Suprise Round:
Sniper: Fire at PC's. (Standard action)
Drop behind hedge (Go prone, Free action, 100% concealment)
PC's: D'oh!

Rinse, repeat.


Why would a sniper want to have an extended combat? Just do it one shot at a time, and in each situation, deny the PC's the ability to even spot you.

As for skill checks, I would have the PC's roll a pretty tough Listen check to hear the bow string to even have a chance at turning their heads and making a Spot check. If they didn't hear the arrow leave the bow, no way am I going to allow them to make a Spot check on the sniper, as when the arrow hits, he's on the ground with no line of sight.

Want to help your snipers? Have them wear the Dnd equivalent of Ghille suits (you know, Tom Berrenger in the movie Sniper). Those things give a huge + to hide in green surroundings. Have him make only one shot. Have the sniper plant decoys that the PC's will spot; they investigate those things while he gets away. Equip him with a ring of silence, or some such; the PC's will have no way to know where the hell he is if they can't hear him and he's behind cover or has concealment.

So you will say, OK, he drops prone, but he still needs to make a Hide check at -20 to compare to the PC's Spot; what kind of circumstance bonuses does he get for being behind a wall, for the PC's being unaware, for being a long ways away, for wearing a ghille suit, ... etc. Yeah, you have to suck up a hefty penalty for attacking then hiding, but you can avoid that by putting the sniper in the right position. And that's exactly what snipers do: get into the right positions to shoot their quarry.

Oh, and one more thing, if this bow guy is going to be a sniper, make sure his arrows do the job in one hit; one shot, one kill.

The PCs should have an idea, with out too much work, which direction the arrow came from. They are kinda directional. When the sniper stops firing, the PCs will search by air, or any other jiggy ability they have.

Next, the rules always assume you know the direction of the attack. Excluding darkness, if you can see me, I can see you. You reveal yourself, I start throwing fireballs there next round. The repeat hide at -20 is to prevent this. They may not see you now, but they saw you fire that arrow.

Finally, there is little chance of one shot-one kill at mid to high levels. Unless you have lots of sneak attack and can do it at long range. Magical healing being what it is, and how much HPs stack up. Even wizards HP are helped out by endurance & false life, AC by mage armor & items.

So, stopping combat once joined is not a good solution, unless there is no way for them to reach you in that time and you can hide well in the mean time.

 

[Darklone]

Nice idea. Two snipers. One aims, the other casts darkness at the arrow right before that other guy shoots.

At the PCs: Suddenly it's dark.
"Uhm, where did that come from?"
- "No idea. Everyone all right? Hellow?"

 

[isoChron]

What sniper worth it's salt won't have a ring of impr. invis. ? Ok, wiz and sor as well as cleric can detect him IF they have see invis. or invis. purge on.
If not target the spellcaster with a readied action if he casts, shoot and he may loose his spell. Then move max. distance (mostly 30 ft) and be ready for a second try.

Darklone's idea with the darkness spell is also great.
Pay a little beggar to stay at a point where the ambush will happen (a city ambush), then if the things go wrong for the sniper he gives a sign and the beggar leaves ... no longer sitting on the little stone with darkness on it. (and maybe a silence on one or more arrows will make it even more difficult to coordinate the defense and cast spells.

Or take two snipers with a ghostsound item (didn't assassins have ghostsound ? Can't remember.). Only one shoots in a round and spend the next round moving, hiding, using ghostsound to pretend he is moving. From another direction the second sniper shoots the second round.......

Ghostsound worked very well IMC. This is a very valuable and cheap spell.

If the PC's can see the arrow sticking in the wizards breast they could guess from which quadrant the shot came, not more.
As one is hit, he will first draw the attention towards himself and I would grant a bonus to hide because of this distraction.

However, give the party a chance to do something. Nothing is more disturbing than entering an ally and not being able to leave it again without a hint what happend.

Just my 2 cents.

BYE

 

[aliensex]

But what are the bonuses for extreme cover? Say we have a sniper hiding in some very thick brush waiting by a road for the party to walk by. He scouts out a perfect spot to snipe from. He has an opening in some thick brush that he can just peer through and point his crossbow out of while laying prone. Assuming he has 2 or 3 crossbows loaded and ready (to avoid re-loading noise), what is his hiding DC? The only think the players could possibly spot to avoid surprise would the tip of the arrow pointing out of some brush. He pretty much has 99% cover.

So, assuming the party travels down the road, and doesn't spot the sniper, he's getting a surprise round to fire off a bolt. It hits someone (let's say). Now the party is looking around frantically to find the sniper. I think you can assume they know which general direction (out of 4 main compass directions) the arrow came from. But what's the DC? The sniper hasn't moved, he is completely concealed, switching to his next loaded crossbow.

In this situation, I think you can assume he took a 20 to hide (lots of time to find the spot and settle in), plus his hide skill (lets say +10). So that's a base of 30. What bonus does massive cover give him? Since he is completely hidden (essentially 100% cover), something like a +20? Sounds pretty reasonable I guess (any thoughts?). So, after firing, the PC's have to Spot his location at a -20. Since he didn't move, I'd let him just keep is Hide score, so that would be a DC 30 for the PC's to spot him. That's pretty difficult.

I'll assume they don't spot him, and he is able to fire his second crossbow, probably hitting someone else. Now the party was looking in the area. I would probably cut the +20 cover bonus in half, so it will become a DC 20 spot check, much easier now, and quite likely someone will spot where the bolt came from.

So to sum up, the ability to snipe is all in the cover. Until they can spot the sniper, I don't think he would actually need to move. Why bother? He might as well just move to the same spot (so just stay there), and continue firing. This is an extreme case, but shows why the crossbow is a deadly sniper weapon. Using a bow would indeed be much more difficult, requiring the sniper to actually leave his cover at some point to fire, making it harder to hide compared to the prone crossbow firer.