Help with creating a Nemesis

[Master of Doink]

This is my first game as a Dm and my party has just pissed off one of the more powerful houses in the land.
I want to do some kind of silent assassin/Sniper who stalks them, but have no ideas on how to do that.
He should be around 10th level, everything except psionics is allowed. for roleplaying reasons, he should be non-spell-using.

[Azoth]

Simple straight class build would be a Mystic wildshape Ranger with Sword of the Arcane order. Full BAB, 5th level wiz/sorc + Ranger spells, limited wildshape for small innocuos forms. He can snipe with either ray spells out Hunter's Mercy+Bow.

[Master of Doink]

While nice, I was looking for something less spelly. (rp reasons) sorry I didn't say that.

[Jormengand]

3.5 or PF? In PF (or if you can steal PF stuff) take the sniper archetype for rogue or take Sniper's Goggles. In 3.5, it's a bit harder to do.

[VoxRationis]

Well, the actual assassin prestige class gets Sniper's Shot (Complete Adventurer) as a 1st level spell, which allows full sneak attack damage at whatever range you can still hit the target at. Add a poisoned repeating heavy crossbow, maybe with some magical gimmicks or something, and you've got a character that can be a reasonable threat to a low-op party. Remember to enforce distance penalties for Spot checks; at 200 feet, the penalty to Hide for sniping gets outweighed by the sheer distance to the sniper.
Such a sniper would be methodical, calculated. He would take care to examine the whole party to see what targets are best for the initial strike, and would probably do research on their more well-known abilities before even attempting to strike at them. The party should get (difficult) Spot checks to see him tailing them in-game days or weeks before the encounter actually begins.
Actually, what level is the party?

[Thealtruistorc]

Ranged Swordsage works well.

[Master of Doink]

We are playing Pf.

[Master of Doink]

Well, the actual assassin prestige class gets Sniper's Shot (Complete Adventurer) as a 1st level spell, which allows full sneak attack damage at whatever range you can still hit the target at. Add a poisoned repeating heavy crossbow, maybe with some magical gimmicks or something, and you've got a character that can be a reasonable threat to a low-op party. Remember to enforce distance penalties for Spot checks; at 200 feet, the penalty to Hide for sniping gets outweighed by the sheer distance to the sniper.
Such a sniper would be methodical, calculated. He would take care to examine the whole party to see what targets are best for the initial strike, and would probably do research on their more well-known abilities before even attempting to strike at them. The party should get (difficult) Spot checks to see him tailing them in-game days or weeks before the encounter actually begins.
Actually, what level is the party?

1. isn't poison (as far as I can see) really not worth it at all? all the poisons in the rulebook seem pointless to me.
2. level 10.

[weckar]

I think more thought should be put into modus operandi than straight class build. If this is a character that works from the shadows, he should have some sneaking ability or even shadowstepping to his name. Even then, there are many ways to be the sniping assassin, especially if you plan to get away with it cleanly. I personally prefer slow-acting poison that feels as no more than a mosquito bite when delivered. You might want to give the character a type of calling card, though, so players associate them with their earlier actions. Also, it may be more interesting for the assassin to target characters the PCs interact with rather than the PCs themselves, almost like a mundane 'bad omen' curse. Nothing kills quicker and more effectively than a superstitious mob. And again, never have to leave the shadows.

[Master of Doink]

I guess I should expand a bit. The party just came from the kingdom of the Jellevi, high elves whose society is extremely power-based. their queen can murder an ancient dragon alone. usually someone would just go and murder the party in the open for shaming them, but the human alchemist is a noble as well, and they dont want a war if they can avoid it. so they send a person to (nice idea with the omen, by the way) shame, then murder the party.

[weckar]

Yeah, I think riling up the people against the party (secretly of course) would be their best weapon then. Also gives players a nice sense of unease about the situation when they have no idea what is going on.

[Master of Doink]

Yeah, I think riling up the people against the party (secretly of course) would be their best weapon then. Also gives players a nice sense of unease about the situation when they have no idea what is going on.

for example, heavily implicating that the alchemist killed the mayor's daughter?
that would rile up the town for sure-and give them a way to stop it by finding clues on who actually did it. (although him being trained for this, finding clues will be hard.)

[weckar]

For example. Even better if it is the assassin who decides to basically do two jobs in one go by framing them for the death of another of his targets. That would at least give a credible yet sensible lead.

[VoxRationis]

1. isn't poison (as far as I can see) really not worth it at all? all the poisons in the rulebook seem pointless to me.
2. level 10.

Poison isn't worth it for the average player, because it's expensive but not very effective (mind you, I'm describing 3.5 poisons; I don't know how they were changed for Pathfinder), thanks to low Fortitude saves and often poisons that don't incapacitate with their damage, as well as a 10-round delay until you get secondary damage. In order to make it work, you have to use lots of poison, hoping the enemy will fail their saves at least once, and that's a lot of expense for one encounter's worth of enemies.
But this is a state-sponsored NPC assassin; he doesn't have to worry about equipment costs. He can buy a high DC, Con damage poison, slather it over every bolt, and let loose. Since he's already a sniper, he can rely on hiding to prevent the party from retaliating during the period between secondary and initial damage. He can even focus on wizards and rogues to maximize the odds of killing or incapacitating with the first strike (this has the side effect of reducing their ability to retaliate even further, since those are the characters with the means to spot and counterattack a sniper).

[cricricri13]

well I haven't used PF but from my 3.5 experience I can tell you one of the most effective snipers out there is, suprisingly enough, the classic Elven Rogue.

Give him a long composite bow and a cloack to be more covert and most of the times you can use snipe to sneak attack them from the distance, if you add some nice feats it can end up as a real pain in their asses, and if you want more dammage multiclass him 4 levels in warrior for those special feats into weapon training and voila, seriously, people try to get super classes with a lot of spells and effects and stuff and forget the 'ol classy rogue with a long composite bow.

[Master of Doink]

ok. I went with a crossbow build, he got a 1 on his sneak, the rouge crit him with full sneak attack damage, and he died.
YAAAY.

[VoxRationis]

How'd that happen? Where did they encounter him that they could so easily kill him?