Rogue Archetype Sniper

[suplee215]

I have recently introduced Firearms into my campaign using Matt Mercer's Gunslinger subclass class for fighters. However I felt the need to make Firearm subclasses for other classes. This is my attempt at a Rogue subclass. While it was suggested to me Ranger feels more thematic for a Sniper class I felt like the abilities of a Rogue fits better. I picture this archtype as the sniper who can walk into a crowded building unnoticed, set up a sniper nest, shoot the target and leave in 10 minutes. Let me know how the balance, clarity, and flavor is. All feedback is welcome. I am most concerned with giving Vicious Intent at level 3 and Double Tap at level 17 in terms of balance. Also I may switch the level 9 and 13 abilities.

Rogues are known to specialize in being quiet killers no one notices. They have a large toolkit and know how to use it. But Snipers specializes in a brand new weapon: The Firearm. While most rogues shake their head at such a big weapon that alerts the entire village to their location on use the sniper sees it as the most effective way to kill the enemy. They can take out their target from a thousand feet away if they need to.
Firearm Proficiency: Starting when you choose this archetype at third level you gain proficiency with firearms.
Gunsmith: Upon choosing this archetype at level 3, you gain proficiency with tinkering tools. You may use them to craft ammo, firearms, and repair them.
Lightning Reload: At third level your fingers can work a gun as easily as they can a lock. You can reload as a bonus action.
Vicious Intent: Also at third level, your firearm attacks score a critical on a roll of 19-20.
Silent Killer: Starting At 9th level you have learned how to make your big, loud weapon less noticeable. You have advantage on sleight of hand checks to conceal any weapon. When you make an attack with a firearm you may suppress the noise it makes. You may do this a number of times equal to your dex modifier (minimum of 1). You regain uses of this ability on a short rest.
Firearm Expertise: Beginning at level 13 your knowledge of firearms outmatch most others. You can repair your gun as a bonus action. Whenever you make a Tinkering Tools check you can add twice your proficiency bonus.
Double Tap: By 17th level your gunplay is most effective at delivering death. Critical hits count as sneak attacks even if you do not meet the other requirements. Whenever you score a critical hit, you may instantly reload and make another attack against the same target. If the target is unconscious when you hit with this attack the target dies.

[brian 333]

Jormengand did one for 3.5 which might help inspire your creative process. I played the sniper using those rules, and it went well until I died. (Always roll a 1 at a critical time.) My nephew got away, though, so the mission was technically successful.

[Argothair]

I think Rogue is a very reasonable base class on which to layer your Sniper subclass, and your overall idea is flavorful and worth adding.

Much of the question of balance will depend on how you stat out your firearms, and whether other (sub)classes will routinely gain access to firearms for a reasonable price. To illustrate this point, suppose you stat out a musket exactly the same way you would stat out a heavy crossbow: a two-handed, heavy 1d10 piercing weapon that reaches out to 100 feet and must be reloaded after each shot. At that power level, a "firearm" is really just a refluffed crossbow, so your 3rd level abilities of Firearm Proficiency and Gunsmith are basically also just fluff. Lightning Reload is essentially a refluffed version of Crossbow Expert, and Vicious Intent is a minor boost that gives you a +5% chance to crit. Collectively, your 3rd level is balanced, maybe even erring on the side of being modest or unimpressive.

On the other hand, suppose your idea of a firearm is a rifle that deals 2d8 fire damage out to 200 feet, and that rolls with advantage against stationary targets. Rifles either cost 500 gp each or are available only as a class feature. Now, when you give your character a rifle at Level 3, you're letting them beat everyone else at their level in range and accuracy and damage -- even before you go and improve their crit chances. So now Level 3 looks heavily overpowered.

I'm not sure about repairing a gun as a 'bonus action', even at Level 13. Maybe unjamming your gun or re-aiming your gun or something like that, but if whatever damage I do to your gun will slow you down for at most 1 round, then that has too much of a tendency to make you invulnerable. If your gun gets slagged by a Fireball, that should require either a spell on your part (Mending?) or some serious repair work performed over at least 1 minute. Even a heroic sniper with demigodly abilities can't just smack a rifle with his fist to straighten out a barrel that's been melted.

Double Tap feels needlessly 'swingy' to me -- it allows for a character who's not otherwise subject to sneak attacks to be hit with two bullets in one round and then immediately killed as a result, without any death checks. I'd rather just say that a critical hit allows you to make a second free attack, or that x times per short rest you get an extra attack with a firearm as a bonus action, or something like that.

[brian 333]

Muskets are virtually all inferior to crossbows, except for logistics. Reload time, accuracy, and reliability made muskets useful only in mass. Until the begining of the Industrial Revolution when rifling became possible, individual accuracy with a gun was restricted to knife-throwing range.

The real power of the gun in its early years was to scare the crap out of the other guys. You would get massed formations firing simultaneously at the enemy from rediculously close ranges and devastate anyone not in plate armor, but 90% or more of shots fired went off the mark. Blunderbusses loaded with shot or gravel were more effective, but had no effective range.

This was changed by the first rifled barrels and machine-ground gunpowder. With powder that burned reliably and evenly, as opposed to hand-ground and mixed gunpowder, one could obtain more uniform loads which fired consistently on every shot. Rifled barrels evened out imperfections in the balls through spinning them on the barrel's axis.

For those of you familiar with American Football, look at the ball in a forward pass, and compare it to a football kicked slightly off center. The American football arcs in one plane, but you can curve a football in two planes by the spin your kick gives it. Pros learn to use this curve, but it's too random in a smoothbore with poor quality powder..

The American Revolutionary War, and arguably the Indian wars that preceeded it, was the first real use of guns as sniper weapons in war, a tactic which evolved out of skirmish warfare almost unknown in Europe. Hunting was the primary use for guns by Americans of all nations, and hunting with guns required the accuracy of the rifle.

Your world may have different ideas, such as rifled projectiles fired from a smooth bore, or fletchette projectiles loaded with discarding sabot, (modern tanks use these as kinetic penetrators,) or some other such mechanism. Your world may have magical accuracy enhancers of some kind.

But otherwise, sniping with a musket should be restricted to elephants, barns, and other rediculously large targets.

[Vogie]

I like the concept. I do think that you could broaden the concept out so it could just as easily be used for any heavy ranged weapons with the loading property - so if a potential player wanted to use a longbow or heavy crossbow, they can.

That would require you to reword the 9th level ability, but would make the class as a whole less of a one-trick. I would suggest give the rogue the ability to choose between Pass Without Trace or Silence cast on your weapon.

I would also expect that you'd want to remove the "clearly crossbow expert feat" abilities to make the archetype more crunchy. Perhaps adapting the called shots from pathfinder (-X to hit to give conditions), or the Trick Shots from Mercer's Gunslinger for longer fights.

I agree that Double Tap seems more like a triple tap - either make crits generate another attack, OR crits are augmented with sneak attack damage, but not both.

Another option for the high level ability - the effect of the swift quiver spell, giving you unlimited ammunition and a pair of attacks as a bonus action for 1 continuous minute per long rest.

[suplee215]

I think Rogue is a very reasonable base class on which to layer your Sniper subclass, and your overall idea is flavorful and worth adding.

Much of the question of balance will depend on how you stat out your firearms, and whether other (sub)classes will routinely gain access to firearms for a reasonable price. To illustrate this point, suppose you stat out a musket exactly the same way you would stat out a heavy crossbow: a two-handed, heavy 1d10 piercing weapon that reaches out to 100 feet and must be reloaded after each shot. At that power level, a "firearm" is really just a refluffed crossbow, so your 3rd level abilities of Firearm Proficiency and Gunsmith are basically also just fluff. Lightning Reload is essentially a refluffed version of Crossbow Expert, and Vicious Intent is a minor boost that gives you a +5% chance to crit. Collectively, your 3rd level is balanced, maybe even erring on the side of being modest or unimpressive.

On the other hand, suppose your idea of a firearm is a rifle that deals 2d8 fire damage out to 200 feet, and that rolls with advantage against stationary targets. Rifles either cost 500 gp each or are available only as a class feature. Now, when you give your character a rifle at Level 3, you're letting them beat everyone else at their level in range and accuracy and damage -- even before you go and improve their crit chances. So now Level 3 looks heavily overpowered.

I'm not sure about repairing a gun as a 'bonus action', even at Level 13. Maybe unjamming your gun or re-aiming your gun or something like that, but if whatever damage I do to your gun will slow you down for at most 1 round, then that has too much of a tendency to make you invulnerable. If your gun gets slagged by a Fireball, that should require either a spell on your part (Mending?) or some serious repair work performed over at least 1 minute. Even a heroic sniper with demigodly abilities can't just smack a rifle with his fist to straighten out a barrel that's been melted.

Double Tap feels needlessly 'swingy' to me -- it allows for a character who's not otherwise subject to sneak attacks to be hit with two bullets in one round and then immediately killed as a result, without any death checks. I'd rather just say that a critical hit allows you to make a second free attack, or that x times per short rest you get an extra attack with a firearm as a bonus action, or something like that.

Thank you for the feedback. Especially on DOuble Tap I was unsure what to do. The rules of guns I am using are borrowed from Matt Mercer's Gunslinger (which was a port from Patherfinders). A pistol does 1d10 (250 gold), a musket does 1d12 (500) and something called Bad News does 2d12 but must be crafted (with cost up to the DM). Firearms in these rules also have the properly reload that is different than crossbows. They can only hold a limited amount of bullets (4 for a bullet, 1 for a musket) and requires to use an attack to reload (a fighter could easily ignore this at high levels due to how many attacks and getting Lightning Reload at level 15 and a quick draw ability to switch guns). GUns also have a misfire chance depending on the type. If you roll below the misfire (1 on a pistol, 2 on a musket, 3 on the bigger guns) the gun jams or breaks until you take an action to repair it (with a chance of breaking it further). Sorry for not explaining the rules I was using further and it was an error on my part to assume the Matt Mercer subclass was widely known.

[suplee215]

I like the concept. I do think that you could broaden the concept out so it could just as easily be used for any heavy ranged weapons with the loading property - so if a potential player wanted to use a longbow or heavy crossbow, they can.

That would require you to reword the 9th level ability, but would make the class as a whole less of a one-trick. I would suggest give the rogue the ability to choose between Pass Without Trace or Silence cast on your weapon.

I would also expect that you'd want to remove the "clearly crossbow expert feat" abilities to make the archetype more crunchy. Perhaps adapting the called shots from pathfinder (-X to hit to give conditions), or the Trick Shots from Mercer's Gunslinger for longer fights.

I agree that Double Tap seems more like a triple tap - either make crits generate another attack, OR crits are augmented with sneak attack damage, but not both.

Another option for the high level ability - the effect of the swift quiver spell, giving you unlimited ammunition and a pair of attacks as a bonus action for 1 continuous minute per long rest.

This is interesting. While I made this due to story specific ideas for the campaign I am running and therefore gun specific class made sense I do see what you are saying. Perhaps instead of a spell putting in something like "attacks you make do not give away your position, including suppressing any noise you may make". Perhaps keep the same limit because that can be abused easily but it essentially gives the benefits to all weapons while still benefits firearms as intended. I tried to stay away from the trick shots of the Gunslinger to make the class stand out but I might add something. I do think Lightning Reload is needed as otherwise the Rogue will have to waste entire turns to reload as reloading a firearm takes either an action or an attack. I tried to make the crunch be the critical increase but I'll look at ways to improve both that and the level 17 ability. Also I am trying to think of how to make the level 13 ability benefit other weapons.

[Vogie]

This is interesting. While I made this due to story specific ideas for the campaign I am running and therefore gun specific class made sense I do see what you are saying. Perhaps instead of a spell putting in something like "attacks you make do not give away your position, including suppressing any noise you may make". Perhaps keep the same limit because that can be abused easily but it essentially gives the benefits to all weapons while still benefits firearms as intended. I tried to stay away from the trick shots of the Gunslinger to make the class stand out but I might add something. I do think Lightning Reload is needed as otherwise the Rogue will have to waste entire turns to reload as reloading a firearm takes either an action or an attack. I tried to make the crunch be the critical increase but I'll look at ways to improve both that and the level 17 ability. Also I am trying to think of how to make the level 13 ability benefit other weapons.

No, I certainly agree. I'm aware of the Mercer gunslinger, and the one-sidedness thereof.

However, it may be easier to just have a line somewhere in the earlier aspects that "If you have the crossbow expert feat, your longbows and firearms benefit from that feat as though they were crossbows." That gives agency (maybe if this is a multiclass, they won't care) as well as a nod in the direction of how to play (Similar to how the Swashbuckling archetype specifically has a note concerning 2-weapon fighting).

Perhaps your 13th level ability can just be more broad:

Eagle Eyed Expertise
By 13th level, you have completely mastered the art & science of heavy ranged weapons, and can handle your weapon with incredible precision:

• You can take the Search action as a bonus action.
• You can repair or reload your weapon as a bonus action.
• Once per short rest, you can choose to trade accuracy for an additional shot. If you have advantage on a weapon attack against a target on your turn, you can forgo that advantage to immediately reload, if needed, and make an additional weapon attack against the same target as a bonus action.

In addition, when you create ammunition, you can unerringly mimic the properties & style of ammunition from a specific city, country or other location after studying their ammunition for at least 1 minute.

[suplee215]

No, I certainly agree. I'm aware of the Mercer gunslinger, and the one-sidedness thereof.

However, it may be easier to just have a line somewhere in the earlier aspects that "If you have the crossbow expert feat, your longbows and firearms benefit from that feat as though they were crossbows." That gives agency (maybe if this is a multiclass, they won't care) as well as a nod in the direction of how to play (Similar to how the Swashbuckling archetype specifically has a note concerning 2-weapon fighting).

Not sure if that will work or not because crossbow expert as written does not work on the firearms in question. They do not have "the loading property". They have "reloading" that works completely different. Crossbow expert does not remove that property. Not trying to argue, I just don't see how lightning reload is just crossbow expert. I may add more to 3rd ability though.