That is not a bad sniper. For extra range longbows are king, and they free up a feat while dealing 1 extra damage at the cost of losing an attack from crossbow expert. My sister actually has a ranger that has +12 to hit with longbow attacks at level 9 after getting a manual of quickness of action at level, like, 5. She also has the sharpshooter feat. She can destroy any target from very far away without almost ever missing, but made the mistake of dumping con, resulting in less hp than the party’s wizard. A truer sniper may not exist.
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Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
An alternative is to go Warlock/Sorcerer. Take Eldritch Blast which has a 120ft range:
Take the invocation Eldritch Spear to bring your range to 300ft
Take the feat Spell Sniper to bring your range to 600ft
Take the distant spell metamagic to allow your Eldritch Blast to reach 1200ft range!
With Agonizing blast too, you can do 4(d10+CHA) from 3/4 of a mile away!
I know imperial can get confusing for people who use metric but 1200ft is actually a little under 1/5 of a mile, though still a long way to fire a bow (for comparison Olympic archery is from 70m or about 230ft and the world record to hit a target is 930ft)
When I think sniper, what comes to mind is a single hit that either kills or does a massive amount of damage, so what I have in mind is a Hexblade Warlock 5 Whispers Bard 15 character with a Heavy Crossbow.
In terms of progression I would go first 5 levels Hexblade Warlock to get Pact of the Blade, a ASI and a few useful invocations such as Improved Pact of the Blade (so you can make your Pact Weapon a Heavy Crossbow) and Eldritch Smite which gives your snipe some extra punch, then the rest of the build gets devoted to the Whispers Bard for utility spell casting, healing or support while offering more to your snipes via Psychic Blades.
Start off with 14 DEX 16 CON and 17 CHA and grab Elven Accuracy at level 4 to bump CHA to 18. At level 9 round up CHA to 20 and grab Sharpshooter at level 13. Level 15 is the big level as you get Magical Secrets letting you snap up Zephyr Strike to give your sniper on demand super advantage. The build is more or less complete at this point with the only other improvement coming at level 20 when Psychic Blades get another boost.
The build also has a free ASI to play around with so you can maybe even grab the Piercer feat for some additional damage on a crit.
Sticking to non-magical builds, I'd recommend taking a Scout Rogue, which is uniquely built for a ranged fighter build. For one, their level 3 ability, Skirmisher, lets you use your reaction to essentially Disengage and then move half your speed outside of your turn, making it much harder for enemies to pin you down, since you can keep yourself out of melee range easily. You eventually get an increase to your movement speed (making it easier to position yourself into ideal sniping positions), then you eventually get a feature where the first enemy you hit in combat becomes disoriented, giving all your allies advantage to attacking them, making it much easier for you to precisely eliminate a single target, and as your capstone you eventually gain the ability to land two sneak attacks each turn (although you have to attack two separate targets).
As far as feats go... Sharpshooter is the obvious choice. As long as you're attacking with a physical weapon, that's going to be your go-to choice especially since, as a Rogue, you can easily Hide to give yourself advantage to compensate for the -5 to-hit in order to land the attack. If you're playing an elf or half-elf, then Elven Accuracy will make this even deadlier... as someone who has DM'd a game with a Half-Elf ranger who has both sharpshooter and Elven Accuracy, I can attest that they are an absolute beast in eliminating targets.... a Rogue would be even deadlier. However, if you're not wanting to go with an Elf, then I think I might recommend Fighting Initiate to take the Archery fighting style... a flat +2 to ranged attacks adds up quickly.
An alternative, though, is to multiclass into Fighter to get a fighting style. Of all the Fighter subclasses, I would recommend Battlemaster. Keep in mind that Battlemaster Maneuvers, for the most part, are tied simply to "Weapon Attacks", and not "Melee Weapon Attacks", so you can tack on these special skills to get some pretty cool trick shots. You start with three maneuvers (and personally, I think you're still going to want to be primarily a Rogue, so you probably won't get more than that), so here's what I recommend...
Goading Attack - Shoot an enemy, add a d8 of damage to your attack, and also force them to have disadvantage on attacking anyone other than yourself. Then use a bonus action Hide so they can't even target you if they want to... a great way to massively cripple a tough opponent for one round.
Trip Attack - Knocking an enemy prone is a good way to give all your melee-focused allies advantage against them. You have to pay attention to initiative order, though... if their turn is fairly soon after yours they'll be able to just get up and be back to normal. However, aside from helping your allies, this is also a good way to slow someone down if they're trying to escape. Also, of course... you add a d8 of damage to your attack.
Maneuvering Attack - This is a great way to save an ally or pin down a fleeing opponent. You get the usual d8 of damage, but you can also give an ally the ability to use their reaction to move half their speed without provoking opportunity attacks. This could give the magic user surrounded by enemies the chance to get away, or the melee combatant the chance to catch up to a fleeing opponent, or get past a wall of defensive fighters to get at the magic user in the back.
Menacing attack might be better than goading. Prevents the opponent from approaching instead of encouraging it, and if they have a ranged weapon they still get disadvantage.
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Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Menacing attack might be better than goading. Prevents the opponent from approaching instead of encouraging it, and if they have a ranged weapon they still get disadvantage.
I had considered that, but my advice is specifically for multiclassing as a sniper Rogue, who can Hide as a Bonus Action. The Frightened Condition has the caveat that you need to remain in line of sight of the Frightened Creature for the disadvantage to persist. However, under ideal conditions a Rogue will end every possible turn Hiding. I think for a Range-focused Battlemaster, however, I think you're right that Menacing Attack is better... Frightened not only gives them disadvantage on attacks, but on ability checks and it hampers their movement.
For that Last of the Mohicans/Long Rifle Sniper what about Fighter/Gunslinger with Bad News, its got upto 800ft range and deals 2d12 damage although you have a chance to misfire with it and the sub class gives a bunch of trick shots designed to go with it.
Yeah, combining it with a Rogue is kind of taking advantage of an exploit to use an ability in a way that it's not intended to work. It's like combining a Gloomstalker Ranger with an Echo Knight Fighter to get way too many attacks really early in the game.
I know imperial can get confusing for people who use metric but 1200ft is actually a little under 1/5 of a mile, though still a long way to fire a bow (for comparison Olympic archery is from 70m or about 230ft and the world record to hit a target is 930ft)
Sorry, thank you. In my haste, I mixed up 1600m and 1600ft. Either way you can pew-pew from afar via Warlock
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Hi all,
I want to build Daniel Day Lewis' character Longrifle from Last of the Mohicans for an upcoming game.
Any tips on how to achieve this, specifically in terms of class/multiclass choice?
I know about Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert, was thinking Rogue (for extra sneak damage)/Fighter (for multiple attacks) multiclass.
We're starting at 2nd level.
Any help appreciated.
That is not a bad sniper. For extra range longbows are king, and they free up a feat while dealing 1 extra damage at the cost of losing an attack from crossbow expert.
My sister actually has a ranger that has +12 to hit with longbow attacks at level 9 after getting a manual of quickness of action at level, like, 5. She also has the sharpshooter feat. She can destroy any target from very far away without almost ever missing, but made the mistake of dumping con, resulting in less hp than the party’s wizard. A truer sniper may not exist.
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Quest offer! Enter the deep dungeon here
Ctg’s blood is on the spam filter’s hands
An alternative is to go Warlock/Sorcerer. Take Eldritch Blast which has a 120ft range:
With Agonizing blast too, you can do 4(d10+CHA) from 3/4 of a mile away!
I know imperial can get confusing for people who use metric but 1200ft is actually a little under 1/5 of a mile, though still a long way to fire a bow (for comparison Olympic archery is from 70m or about 230ft and the world record to hit a target is 930ft)
When I think sniper, what comes to mind is a single hit that either kills or does a massive amount of damage, so what I have in mind is a Hexblade Warlock 5 Whispers Bard 15 character with a Heavy Crossbow.
In terms of progression I would go first 5 levels Hexblade Warlock to get Pact of the Blade, a ASI and a few useful invocations such as Improved Pact of the Blade (so you can make your Pact Weapon a Heavy Crossbow) and Eldritch Smite which gives your snipe some extra punch, then the rest of the build gets devoted to the Whispers Bard for utility spell casting, healing or support while offering more to your snipes via Psychic Blades.
Start off with 14 DEX 16 CON and 17 CHA and grab Elven Accuracy at level 4 to bump CHA to 18. At level 9 round up CHA to 20 and grab Sharpshooter at level 13. Level 15 is the big level as you get Magical Secrets letting you snap up Zephyr Strike to give your sniper on demand super advantage. The build is more or less complete at this point with the only other improvement coming at level 20 when Psychic Blades get another boost.
The build also has a free ASI to play around with so you can maybe even grab the Piercer feat for some additional damage on a crit.
Sticking to non-magical builds, I'd recommend taking a Scout Rogue, which is uniquely built for a ranged fighter build. For one, their level 3 ability, Skirmisher, lets you use your reaction to essentially Disengage and then move half your speed outside of your turn, making it much harder for enemies to pin you down, since you can keep yourself out of melee range easily. You eventually get an increase to your movement speed (making it easier to position yourself into ideal sniping positions), then you eventually get a feature where the first enemy you hit in combat becomes disoriented, giving all your allies advantage to attacking them, making it much easier for you to precisely eliminate a single target, and as your capstone you eventually gain the ability to land two sneak attacks each turn (although you have to attack two separate targets).
As far as feats go... Sharpshooter is the obvious choice. As long as you're attacking with a physical weapon, that's going to be your go-to choice especially since, as a Rogue, you can easily Hide to give yourself advantage to compensate for the -5 to-hit in order to land the attack. If you're playing an elf or half-elf, then Elven Accuracy will make this even deadlier... as someone who has DM'd a game with a Half-Elf ranger who has both sharpshooter and Elven Accuracy, I can attest that they are an absolute beast in eliminating targets.... a Rogue would be even deadlier. However, if you're not wanting to go with an Elf, then I think I might recommend Fighting Initiate to take the Archery fighting style... a flat +2 to ranged attacks adds up quickly.
An alternative, though, is to multiclass into Fighter to get a fighting style. Of all the Fighter subclasses, I would recommend Battlemaster. Keep in mind that Battlemaster Maneuvers, for the most part, are tied simply to "Weapon Attacks", and not "Melee Weapon Attacks", so you can tack on these special skills to get some pretty cool trick shots. You start with three maneuvers (and personally, I think you're still going to want to be primarily a Rogue, so you probably won't get more than that), so here's what I recommend...
Goading Attack - Shoot an enemy, add a d8 of damage to your attack, and also force them to have disadvantage on attacking anyone other than yourself. Then use a bonus action Hide so they can't even target you if they want to... a great way to massively cripple a tough opponent for one round.
Trip Attack - Knocking an enemy prone is a good way to give all your melee-focused allies advantage against them. You have to pay attention to initiative order, though... if their turn is fairly soon after yours they'll be able to just get up and be back to normal. However, aside from helping your allies, this is also a good way to slow someone down if they're trying to escape. Also, of course... you add a d8 of damage to your attack.
Maneuvering Attack - This is a great way to save an ally or pin down a fleeing opponent. You get the usual d8 of damage, but you can also give an ally the ability to use their reaction to move half their speed without provoking opportunity attacks. This could give the magic user surrounded by enemies the chance to get away, or the melee combatant the chance to catch up to a fleeing opponent, or get past a wall of defensive fighters to get at the magic user in the back.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Menacing attack might be better than goading. Prevents the opponent from approaching instead of encouraging it, and if they have a ranged weapon they still get disadvantage.
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Quest offer! Enter the deep dungeon here
Ctg’s blood is on the spam filter’s hands
I had considered that, but my advice is specifically for multiclassing as a sniper Rogue, who can Hide as a Bonus Action. The Frightened Condition has the caveat that you need to remain in line of sight of the Frightened Creature for the disadvantage to persist. However, under ideal conditions a Rogue will end every possible turn Hiding. I think for a Range-focused Battlemaster, however, I think you're right that Menacing Attack is better... Frightened not only gives them disadvantage on attacks, but on ability checks and it hampers their movement.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
True. That does make sense
Goading is mostly for tanks
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Quest offer! Enter the deep dungeon here
Ctg’s blood is on the spam filter’s hands
For that Last of the Mohicans/Long Rifle Sniper what about Fighter/Gunslinger with Bad News, its got upto 800ft range and deals 2d12 damage although you have a chance to misfire with it and the sub class gives a bunch of trick shots designed to go with it.
Yeah, combining it with a Rogue is kind of taking advantage of an exploit to use an ability in a way that it's not intended to work. It's like combining a Gloomstalker Ranger with an Echo Knight Fighter to get way too many attacks really early in the game.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Sorry, thank you. In my haste, I mixed up 1600m and 1600ft. Either way you can pew-pew from afar via Warlock