Snipers?

[Felix]

By LokiDR
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.

True. But why does the function of a sniper have to be to kill? In RL, it is to kill because we don't have the protection or the healing, and the sniper has the edge in technology. 50 caliber silenced sniper rifle anyone?

So what has the role of the sniper become? To harry. To confuse. In a tense confrontation with NPCs where diplomacy on the party's part is needed a shot from the sniper attacking the other NPCs would create havoc; likely the NPC group would distrust the party and possibly attack, thinking the shot to have come from them.

The sniper doesn't have to kill. He just makes life tough. If the party is traveling, he can singlehandedly prevent any of the casters from regaining their spells. All he has to do is wait. An arrow in the back of a sleeping wizard (-4 to hit for being prone, but a loss of DEX and probably spells like mage armor) is easily done. And that arrow means the wiz needs to restart the 8 hour resting cycle. Sucks to be him.

Of course, that changes once Mord's Mansion comes into play, but the party can still be harried by a sniper.

Rules question: can a sniper perform a ranged touch attack on a target? All he wants to do his hit him somewhere, and not necessairly do damage.

If he can, would the target be considered to be in combat? Would that disturb a caster enough to stop spell memorization?

If it does, when I am an evil overlord, I will have my Leigons of Terror include a special branch of service tailored to distrubing the rest of casters.

Another idea for snipers! Have them carry arrows tipped with the pyrotechnics spell. Either the smoke or the flash effect would greatly hinder the party if combat ensued, or even if combat didn't. Then the party would stop using fires to light their campsite.

If the party used magical means of lighting: arrows tipped with vials of alchemist's fire; follow up with a pyrotechnics arrow. Snipers work in teams, right? Have the pyro-arrow sniper ready an action to shoot at the alchemist's fire. They both go in the suprise round, and both are able to duck out of sight. He he he.

 

[LokiDR]

True. But why does the function of a sniper have to be to kill? In RL, it is to kill because we don't have the protection or the healing, and the sniper has the edge in technology. 50 caliber silenced sniper rifle anyone?

You were the one that said "One shot, one kill."

So what has the role of the sniper become? To harry. To confuse. In a tense confrontation with NPCs where diplomacy on the party's part is needed a shot from the sniper attacking the other NPCs would create havoc; likely the NPC group would distrust the party and possibly attack, thinking the shot to have come from them.

So snipers only exist to annoy and piss off the party? An illusionist could be a lot more interesting for that.

The sniper doesn't have to kill. He just makes life tough. If the party is traveling, he can singlehandedly prevent any of the casters from regaining their spells. All he has to do is wait. An arrow in the back of a sleeping wizard (-4 to hit for being prone, but a loss of DEX and probably spells like mage armor) is easily done. And that arrow means the wiz needs to restart the 8 hour resting cycle. Sucks to be him.

You fire, the PC search for you. With cheese like blindsight, they can find you, especially if they know what directirection the shot came from.

Of course, that changes once Mord's Mansion comes into play, but the party can still be harried by a sniper.

Rules question: can a sniper perform a ranged touch attack on a target? All he wants to do his hit him somewhere, and not necessairly do damage.

If he can, would the target be considered to be in combat? Would that disturb a caster enough to stop spell memorization?

If it does, when I am an evil overlord, I will have my Leigons of Terror include a special branch of service tailored to distrubing the rest of casters.

You could throw a stone, as a ranged touch. At most, 1 point of damage. Yes, this is a combat situation, if the target feels at all threatened.

Any DM can piss off the players. That doesn't mean they are good encounters.

Another idea for snipers! Have them carry arrows tipped with the pyrotechnics spell. Either the smoke or the flash effect would greatly hinder the party if combat ensued, or even if combat didn't. Then the party would stop using fires to light their campsite.

A good tatic to start. But if you have spell storing arrows, you might as well use fireballs.

If the party used magical means of lighting: arrows tipped with vials of alchemist's fire; follow up with a pyrotechnics arrow. Snipers work in teams, right? Have the pyro-arrow sniper ready an action to shoot at the alchemist's fire. They both go in the suprise round, and both are able to duck out of sight. He he he.

The party will still go after the sniper.

 

[Stalker0]

A sniper in dnd cannot be like a sniper in real life. When you fight against magic, you need to use magic. Which means the sniper should have a ring of improved invis, ring of silence or the like, keen arrows, poison. A shmuck with a crossbow can't real hurt a party that has magic, it just doesn't work.

But once you have a party that has to make fort saves against poison every round, or are taking nasty sneak attack damage, then your talking about a sniper.

 

[Felix]

By LokiDR
You were the one that said "One shot, one kill."

Heh. So I did, so I did... gee, sorry about that.

LokiDR
So snipers only exist to annoy and piss off the party? An illusionist could be a lot more interesting for that.

Well, that is one thing a sniper could do. I'd hope I could come up with some more jobs for them to do. It was the first thing I thougt of. And I'd think that an Evil Overlord would have an easier time keeping a sniping corps in line than a bunch of tricksy illusionists. With their penchant for decieving and all.

LokiDR
You fire, the PC search for you. With cheese like blindsight, they can find you, especially if they know what directirection the shot came from.

That's why it'd help to be far away and out of the range of such spells. Let them come search, they know a cardinal direction; that turns into a large search area very quickly. And the sniper? With his silenced, invisible, hiding self? He's sneaking out, setting up the next ambush from the other direction.

LokiDR
Any DM can piss off the players. That doesn't mean they are good encounters.

Indeed. That's why I don't DM.

LokiDR
The party will still go after the sniper.

In the words of Theoden King: Let them come!

 

[Darklone]

Show me one wizard or rogue who is not afraid of a good old arrow of slaying.