Patient Shot

Where the battlefield brawler reads a firefight as chaos to survive, the Patient Shot reads it as geometry to solve. Range, angle, breath, trigger — correctly solved is worth more than a dozen shots fired in panic. A Patient Shor doesn't fight fair, and doesn't fight for show. They pick their moment, take the one shot the moment allows, and are gone before anyone knows they were there

This subclass assumes your table uses the firearms found in the Dungeon Master's Guide (or an equivalent renaissance-era weapons table). If you're using flintlock-style weapons with the Loading property, that interacts directly with the features below — a Deadeye is built around one shot mattering, not many.

Level 3: Signature Rifle

When you choose this archetype, you forge a permanent bond with a single ranged firearm, called your Signature Rifle. You gain proficiency with Muskets.

Your Signature Rifle can't be disarmed, and if it's ever lost, stolen, or destroyed, you can spend 8 hours of work and 25 gp in parts to restore or replace it, reforging the bond.

Long Range. Your Signature Rifle's normal and long range both double, and you have no disadvantage on attack rolls made at long range with it.

Vantage Point. While you are hidden from a creature, attacking it with your Signature Rifle doesn't automatically reveal your position the way other attacks do. Instead, at the end of your turn, each creature that could otherwise have detected you must make a Wisdom (Perception) check contested by your Dexterity (Stealth) check to pinpoint you. Each round after the first, those making perception checks gain a +3 bonus. 

 

 

Level 3: Field Expedient

A Musket is just a tool, and a Patient Shot has never met a problem that has required more than that tool. 

Breaching Round. As an action, you can fire your Signature Rifle at a mundane lock, chain, or similar fastening within normal range instead of at a creature. Treat the object as AC 15; on a hit, it's destroyed, however many hit points it might otherwise have. This isn't subtle — the shot is as loud as you'd expect, and reveals your position to anyone within earshot.

Choke Out. Your Signature Rifle can be used as an improvised bludgeoning melee weapon without penalty. When you hit a creature with a melee attack using it while you have advantage on the attack roll, you can forgo the attack's damage to instead force the target to make a Constitution saving throw (DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Dexterity modifier). On a failed save, the creature falls unconscious for 1 minute, or until it takes damage or another creature uses an action to wake it.

 

Level 9: Vanishing Shot

You've learned to be gone before the smoke clears. When you hit a creature with a Sneak Attack using your Signature Rifle, you can immediately move up to half your speed without provoking opportunity attacks. If you end this movement by taking the hide action from that creature, you don't need to make a new Stealth check against it.

Level 13: Vital Point

Years of study have taught you exactly where the seams are — in armor, in scales, in skin.

Your Signature Rifle attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20. Additionally, when you score a critical hit with your Signature Rifle, the attack ignores resistance to piercing damage.

Level 17: Perfect Precision

A single shot, made precisely, can alter the course of any battle.

Once per short or long rest, you can declare an attack with your Signature Rifle a Killing Shot before you roll to attack, provided you don't have disadvantage on the attack roll from any source, and at least one of the following is true:

• The target is unaware of your presence.
• The target hasn't yet taken a turn in this combat.
• You have advantage on the attack roll because you're hidden from the target.

When you hit the target with a Killing Shot, it must make a Constitution saving throw (DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Dexterity modifier). On a failed save, all applicable damage dice deal their maximum possible result, and instead of adding your ability modifier to the damage, you add half your Rogue level, rounded down.