The inspiration of this subclass is the archetypal archer. Laying waste to the dragon with a single well-placed arrow. The original archer class for dungeons and dragons is like a spellcaster without utilities and AOE that deals staggering amounts of damage to a single target, not letting a single arrow go to waste. Basically a 1 arrow 1 hit philosophy and making that one arrow truly significant. I have used class and subclass features from the barbarian, fighter, monk, and rogue classes and modified them to be used for ranged combat focused on delivering incredible damage output but also make them balanced and not overpowered.
I am DMing a game for friends, and one of my players wanted a class or subclass that plays like a true archer. low hp, big damage to 1 target, does not engage melee. We both came up with the ideas for this subclass. I really think that they should have released a base archer class for the game. D6 hit die, light armor only, 2 attacks at level 1. No spells, no skills.
We chose the rogue base class because it already includes useful features for life preservation of a character with low hit points, especially the cunning action feature, also because i'm a big rogue fanman. The sneak attack feature being very crucial. And the focus on the wisdom ability is because we think that archers rely heavily on their perception, always looking for weak points, observing a target thoroughly and making sure to hit that vital point even from afar. So we came up with a main feature with other features that revolve around that in which thematically the ranger waits for the right moment to shoot, being that arrows are such a precious resource for them.
This is vastly different to the scout rogue or the hunter ranger, because we think those class and subclass combinations are still well rounded for combat and exploration. This is just pure damage potential to a single target.
Let me introduce to you our homebrew SHARPSHOOTER SUBCLASS for the Rogue.
At the end of every feature, I will provide an explanation on how we came about choosing or making it
You can check it out here, but I apologize if you can’t use it in your character sheet because this is the first time I made a subclass and I’m still not familiar the tools here in dndbeyond.
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with Hand Crossbow, Heavy Crossbow, and Longbow.
What kind of sharpshooter would not be proficient with the use of a large array of ranged weapons?
Second-Story Work
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain the ability to climb faster than normal; climbing no longer costs you extra movement.
In addition, when you make a running jump, the distance you cover increases by a number of feet equal to your Dexterity modifier.
This one is directly from the rogue ability and we included this because a true sharpshooter would always look for a good vantage point to have a good coverage of the battlefield for ranged attacks
Sharpshooting
At 3rd level your ranged attacks have the precision to bypass a creature's defenses. As an action, you make a Wisdom (Perception) check against a creature you can see, contested by the target’s Armor Class +5. If you succeed, you gain advantage on your attack to that creature before the end of your next turn. If the attack hits, you can treat it as a critical. When you succeed using this feature, you can't use a reaction on the same turn you attacked. You lose advantage on the attack if you move or an effect causes you to move (i.e falling from a tree, Gust spell) from your position.
The creature does not benefit from half cover, three quarters cover, or effects that increase AC (i.e Shield) after you succeed your Wisdom (Perception) check until after you make your sharpshooting attack.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (a minimum of once). You regain any expended uses when you finish a long rest.
Now this ability is the most distinguishing ability of our sharpshooter, the inspiration from this is the barbarians reckless attack, the assassin subclass’ assassinate, the inquisitive subclass’ insightful fighting, and most especially the true strike cantrip. They say the true strike cantrip is useless, maybe so, but not for sorcerers. What we did here is a revamp of the true strike cantrip to make it more challenging as well as rewarding to use. Like the reckless attack, there should be a drawback to using this ability, you gain advantage at the cost of a turn and not being able to use reactions on the 2nd round and losing advantage on a certain condition. a challenge to make it satisfying to use, this is where the insightful fighting comes in with the contested perception check against the AC. We chose perception for reasons I already mentioned above and AC because the point of this subclass is to overcome defenses. And to make it more rewarding than just advantage, we incorporated the assassinate ability’s auto critical. I honestly have seen so many homebrew subclasses that use the true strike cantrip as a bonus action mechanic granted by the cunning action ability and I just think that's broken and not fun to play. We are very happy with this ability because we think its balanced and more grounded to the rules of the game, we even carefully used the words to make it sound like its playtest content. Lol if you want the single turn bonus action version of this I included it below because we also toyed around with the idea to start with.
Vital Precision
At 9th level when you land a critical hit, you can roll an additional number of sneak attack die equal to your wisdom modifier +1 to the total damage of the critical hit.
And this one is from the brutal critical of the barbarian that we tweaked with better level scaling
True Aim
At 13th level, your ranged weapon attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20.
Obviously from the champion subclass but only when using ranged weapons
Sharpshooting Specialist
At 17th level, when you roll initiative and have no uses of Sharpshooting left, you regain one use.
From the perfect self ability of the monk, you regain expended uses of your defining ability whenever you go into battle
Target Locked
At 17th level, if you succeed on the Wisdom (Perception) check on the target of your Sharpshooting ability, your Blindsense applies to that creature if it is within 150 feet of you.
We just threw this in to counter targets who hide between your turns, still needs tweaking i think.
PS. We purposefully did not include a feature that lets you roll without disadvantage at long range because this is not a sniper, this is a sharpshooter. Its different.
Sharpshooting (Bonus Action version)
At 3rd level your ranged attacks have the precision to bypass a creature's defenses. As a bonus action at the start of your turn, you make a Wisdom (Perception) check against a creature you can see, contested by the target’s Armor Class +1. If you succeed, you gain advantage on your attack to that creature before the end of your turn. If the target is behind half cover, three-quarters cover, or an effect that increases AC, you add the appropriate AC for the DC. If the attack hits, you add a number of sneak attack die equal to your proficiency bonus to the damage. When you succeed using this feature, you can't use a reaction until the beginning of your next turn.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (a minimum of once). You regain any expended uses when you finish a long rest.
This does not include the Target Locked feature for 17th Level
I feel the Sharpshooting is a little overloaded. Consider removing part of its feature and using "Cunning Action: Aim" from the UA.
Also, try to estimate the damage output. It should not be more than Arcane Archer, Battle Master archer or Champion archer. Those are Fighter archer class that don't have spells. The Homebrew Rogue archer shouldn't do more damage than the official rule archer. (Somehow I have the feeling that your homebrew has much more damage than the Fighter)
THB, I would just add "Cunning Action: Aim", give him/her proficiency with all range weapons and combine with Inquisitive or Scout rogue and call it a day. Also let him/her have access to Fighting Initiate feat
The main obstacle to creating a homebrew subclass is balance. If its too powerful it will make other members of the party feel weak and useless, whereas if the homebrew is too weak then the player playing it will most likely regret not playing something else instead. My advice is to run a few mock combats with the homebrew and compare it to other rogue subclasses in terms of damage output, then make the necessary tweaks to balance it.
OHMY GOODNESS THIS IS EMBARASSING! I did not know there was a UA feat for the rogue for the cunning action. I guess the criticals are overpowered and maybe i should just focus. This build makes so much more sense. And with regards to the base rogue abilities i realize its already overpowered, which is exactly what we were avoiding.
The main obstacle to creating a homebrew subclass is balance. If its too powerful it will make other members of the party feel weak and useless, whereas if the homebrew is too weak then the player playing it will most likely regret not playing something else instead. My advice is to run a few mock combats with the homebrew and compare it to other rogue subclasses in terms of damage output, then make the necessary tweaks to balance it.
Well, we tried playing it today at level 10. One word. Broken. Picks off minions in encounters like cookies from a jar. Back to the drawing board. And now I know there is a UA feature for Cunning Action Aim thanks to a fellow in this thread. We will just use that. lol
How is that even remotely complicated lol. The first feature is slightly overloaded if anything, but far from being complicated.
I did have a few things to say about the homebrew, but seeing how OP abandoned the concept already due to Cunning Action: Aim existing, I won't put them into written form after all.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
To be perfectly honest I don't like it for the simple fact that all of the features are either a) just lifted from existing features or b) frankly broken as hell. I also don't feel like it being a rogue subclass makes sense for a number of reasons not least of which being that adding a subclass that is not a ranger that makes ANOTHER class a better archer than the ranger is frustrating.
To be perfectly honest I don't like it for the simple fact that all of the features are either a) just lifted from existing features or b) frankly broken as hell. I also don't feel like it being a rogue subclass makes sense for a number of reasons not least of which being that adding a subclass that is not a ranger that makes ANOTHER class a better archer than the ranger is frustrating.
I honestly don't mind other classes being better archers at all. "Ranger" doesn't come from ranged combat. It comes from "to range" as in "to travel or wander over a wide area". To me the Ranger is mostly about survival in the wilderness and tracking stuff. Now of course due to common stereotypes being an archer is not exactly uncommon for Rangers and there are some spells to reflect that (Flame Arrow and Swift Quiver mainly as the others can also be used with thrown weapons) but it's not their exclusive identity.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
The inspiration of this subclass is the archetypal archer. Laying waste to the dragon with a single well-placed arrow. The original archer class for dungeons and dragons is like a spellcaster without utilities and AOE that deals staggering amounts of damage to a single target, not letting a single arrow go to waste. Basically a 1 arrow 1 hit philosophy and making that one arrow truly significant. I have used class and subclass features from the barbarian, fighter, monk, and rogue classes and modified them to be used for ranged combat focused on delivering incredible damage output but also make them balanced and not overpowered.
I am DMing a game for friends, and one of my players wanted a class or subclass that plays like a true archer. low hp, big damage to 1 target, does not engage melee. We both came up with the ideas for this subclass. I really think that they should have released a base archer class for the game. D6 hit die, light armor only, 2 attacks at level 1. No spells, no skills.
We chose the rogue base class because it already includes useful features for life preservation of a character with low hit points, especially the cunning action feature, also because i'm a big rogue fanman. The sneak attack feature being very crucial. And the focus on the wisdom ability is because we think that archers rely heavily on their perception, always looking for weak points, observing a target thoroughly and making sure to hit that vital point even from afar. So we came up with a main feature with other features that revolve around that in which thematically the ranger waits for the right moment to shoot, being that arrows are such a precious resource for them.
This is vastly different to the scout rogue or the hunter ranger, because we think those class and subclass combinations are still well rounded for combat and exploration. This is just pure damage potential to a single target.
Let me introduce to you our homebrew SHARPSHOOTER SUBCLASS for the Rogue.
At the end of every feature, I will provide an explanation on how we came about choosing or making it
You can check it out here, but I apologize if you can’t use it in your character sheet because this is the first time I made a subclass and I’m still not familiar the tools here in dndbeyond.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/608015-sharp-shooter
Bonus Proficiency
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with Hand Crossbow, Heavy Crossbow, and Longbow.
Second-Story Work
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain the ability to climb faster than normal; climbing no longer costs you extra movement.
In addition, when you make a running jump, the distance you cover increases by a number of feet equal to your Dexterity modifier.
Sharpshooting
At 3rd level your ranged attacks have the precision to bypass a creature's defenses. As an action, you make a Wisdom (Perception) check against a creature you can see, contested by the target’s Armor Class +5. If you succeed, you gain advantage on your attack to that creature before the end of your next turn. If the attack hits, you can treat it as a critical. When you succeed using this feature, you can't use a reaction on the same turn you attacked. You lose advantage on the attack if you move or an effect causes you to move (i.e falling from a tree, Gust spell) from your position.
The creature does not benefit from half cover, three quarters cover, or effects that increase AC (i.e Shield) after you succeed your Wisdom (Perception) check until after you make your sharpshooting attack.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (a minimum of once). You regain any expended uses when you finish a long rest.
Vital Precision
At 9th level when you land a critical hit, you can roll an additional number of sneak attack die equal to your wisdom modifier +1 to the total damage of the critical hit.
True Aim
At 13th level, your ranged weapon attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20.
Sharpshooting Specialist
At 17th level, when you roll initiative and have no uses of Sharpshooting left, you regain one use.
Target Locked
At 17th level, if you succeed on the Wisdom (Perception) check on the target of your Sharpshooting ability, your Blindsense applies to that creature if it is within 150 feet of you.
PS. We purposefully did not include a feature that lets you roll without disadvantage at long range because this is not a sniper, this is a sharpshooter. Its different.
Sharpshooting (Bonus Action version)
At 3rd level your ranged attacks have the precision to bypass a creature's defenses. As a bonus action at the start of your turn, you make a Wisdom (Perception) check against a creature you can see, contested by the target’s Armor Class +1. If you succeed, you gain advantage on your attack to that creature before the end of your turn. If the target is behind half cover, three-quarters cover, or an effect that increases AC, you add the appropriate AC for the DC. If the attack hits, you add a number of sneak attack die equal to your proficiency bonus to the damage. When you succeed using this feature, you can't use a reaction until the beginning of your next turn.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (a minimum of once). You regain any expended uses when you finish a long rest.
This does not include the Target Locked feature for 17th Level
I feel the Sharpshooting is a little overloaded. Consider removing part of its feature and using "Cunning Action: Aim" from the UA.
Also, try to estimate the damage output. It should not be more than Arcane Archer, Battle Master archer or Champion archer. Those are Fighter archer class that don't have spells. The Homebrew Rogue archer shouldn't do more damage than the official rule archer. (Somehow I have the feeling that your homebrew has much more damage than the Fighter)
THB, I would just add "Cunning Action: Aim", give him/her proficiency with all range weapons and combine with Inquisitive or Scout rogue and call it a day. Also let him/her have access to Fighting Initiate feat
Also, keep in mind that Halfling has a disadvantage when using a longbow or a heavy crossbow due to Small size and Heavy Properties.
The main obstacle to creating a homebrew subclass is balance. If its too powerful it will make other members of the party feel weak and useless, whereas if the homebrew is too weak then the player playing it will most likely regret not playing something else instead. My advice is to run a few mock combats with the homebrew and compare it to other rogue subclasses in terms of damage output, then make the necessary tweaks to balance it.
OHMY GOODNESS THIS IS EMBARASSING! I did not know there was a UA feat for the rogue for the cunning action. I guess the criticals are overpowered and maybe i should just focus. This build makes so much more sense. And with regards to the base rogue abilities i realize its already overpowered, which is exactly what we were avoiding.
Thanks, I honestly forgot about the smolfolk while making this subclass.
Well, we tried playing it today at level 10. One word. Broken. Picks off minions in encounters like cookies from a jar. Back to the drawing board. And now I know there is a UA feature for Cunning Action Aim thanks to a fellow in this thread. We will just use that. lol
Looks fun at tier 1 gameplay. Maybe just tweak the damage output scaling.
Honestly this is straight up 3.5e complicated.
How is that even remotely complicated lol. The first feature is slightly overloaded if anything, but far from being complicated.
I did have a few things to say about the homebrew, but seeing how OP abandoned the concept already due to Cunning Action: Aim existing, I won't put them into written form after all.
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
To be perfectly honest I don't like it for the simple fact that all of the features are either a) just lifted from existing features or b) frankly broken as hell. I also don't feel like it being a rogue subclass makes sense for a number of reasons not least of which being that adding a subclass that is not a ranger that makes ANOTHER class a better archer than the ranger is frustrating.
I honestly don't mind other classes being better archers at all. "Ranger" doesn't come from ranged combat. It comes from "to range" as in "to travel or wander over a wide area". To me the Ranger is mostly about survival in the wilderness and tracking stuff. Now of course due to common stereotypes being an archer is not exactly uncommon for Rangers and there are some spells to reflect that (Flame Arrow and Swift Quiver mainly as the others can also be used with thrown weapons) but it's not their exclusive identity.
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...