my gm lt m rebuild my demolitionist but i dont know exactly how i want to buid my sniper i was thinking going assassin and big game hunter or survivalist or something to make me better outside combat but i dont know maybe do legwork

Assassin is good. Soldier in AoR is good.

Sharpshooter from AoR, blows every other guns class out of the water.

Gunner, also from AoR, is the next best is a much tougher gunslinger.

If your stuck with EotE, merc soldier (all round good) or assassin (for actual sniping/stealth)

I assume you don't want to shoot from the hip. For actual sniping purposes, there is nothing better than the True Aim talent. Get as many ranks in it as you can.

the only thing we cant use is non universal jedi careers so sensitives emergents and the one from fod is ok so ill probably go sharpshooter then go assassin then I mite go into and take scout or maybe trader

My last character was a sniper and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I feel that SciFi games work well for snipers because communicators mean you can be far away from the rest of the party and still be in contact. You aren't really splitting the party that much and if you're good at stealth you can get back to them fairly easily if you don't do anything dumb. A good sniper will be proactive to get into position to scout and observe and then hold fire until the best moment to strike for the party. Whenever we thought something was going on, my character was always running off and getting into position before the rest of the party had decided what to do. That way I could use my ability to shoot at longer ranges from advantagous positions while the rest of the group engaged the enemy when they came up with their plan to attack.

The first question I'll ask is, what kind of sniper do you want to be? Do you want to kill through large damage with a single shot or kill with a high crit roll?

If you want to kill through high damage, I'd recommend going with Sharpshooter. There are a couple Lethal Blows in there, so your crits do have a bite, but the main talents are Deadly Accuracy and True Aim. DA ramps up your damage as you buy more ranks in Ranged (Heavy). TA gives the feel of a sniper because you'll be aiming every round, it also makes you decent at guns you aren't trained at. Natural Marksman means you can shoot into combat and not hit your friendlies, rerolling the first Dispair roll you get. Quick Fix is an amazing talent that gives your character versitility once per session. Sniper Shot really isn't that useful, your gun will probably be able to go to extreme range anyway, but it'll be handy to have a rank of if you pick it up cheap. I went with the DH-X Heavy Blaster Rifle and modded it up for damage. Once you start rolling 15-20 wounds you'll be one-shotting most enemies in the books.

Assassin is great if you want to kill through crits. There are three ranks of Lethal Blows, which if you add to a Disruptor Rifle's Vicious 5, you'll be killing on a crit roll of 71. Not counting any extra crits purchased through advantages or any crits already on the target. Having access to Dodge, Quick Draw, Jump Up, and Stalker all work for a sniper as well. There is a Deadly Accuracy, but it is hidden behind a 20 xp Sniper Shot. Almost better to get it from a different tree. Precise Aim is generally considered to be a waste and can be easily avoided. Beside the disruptor weapons, good weapons for this build would be anything with Accurate, such as the Model 38 Sharpshooter rifle. The more advantages you roll the more cits you can buy.

I feel that a second tree should be taken to round out the sniper skills. The talents I was looking for was at least one rank in Forager, Outdoorsman, Expert Tracker, and Swift. These let you do the cross-country sniper thing. Head out into the wilderness and take care of yourself. Outdoorsman and Swift mean that you can head away from the party to get into position and get back to them quicker than anyone else. Survivalist and Big-Game Hunter is the way to get those.

For my build, I started with Big-Game hunter and then picked up Sharpshooter. Once I built up my sniper abilities I went into Fringer for Rapid Recovery, Jump Up, and Dodge on my way to pick up the Unmatched Mobility signature ability. This build was mostly to actually see a Signature Ability and for the skill selection. Out of our two Star Wars games, none of the players had tried to get one of those, so I just wanted to see one in play and I thought an extra maneuver would be great for a character who will always be spending at least one on aim. If I didn't care about the Signature Ability I would probably have started as Survivalist before going Sharpshooter. Big Game Hunter has some interesting stuff, but the big payoff with Hunter's Quarry just isn't worth it if no one else in the group can shoot at long range. If you want to go for the crit kills, then starting Assassin is fine.

Another great tree to take is Gadgeteer. You can Disorient and Crippling Blow with ranged attacks, use Jury Rigged to crit one easier, trick out your rifle more with Tinkerer, and get Deadly Accuracy without the 20xp Sniper Shot which Assassin forces. For me, this would be a great third tree if you play that long.

I was tepted to go Heavy for Burly to carry large guns without having to buy up my Brawn, but I don't think it's quite worth it. For a sniper, Barrage is decent but there are just too many talents that won't be used that much if you buy your way through the tree for Heavy Hitter. Heavy really is just limited to characters who want to use large auto-fire weapons.

I hope this helps.

Sharpshooter is really good (lethal, and True Aim helps no matter what you're attacking with) but a friend of mine is finding it a little brittle. By which I mean he's getting the crap kicked out of him. Commando as a second spec would give you a lot more survivability.

Sharpshooter is really good (lethal, and True Aim helps no matter what you're attacking with) but a friend of mine is finding it a little brittle. By which I mean he's getting the crap kicked out of him. Commando as a second spec would give you a lot more survivability.

Good point. I found my sniper to be brittle as well. My solution was to never be at the front of the party. Always engage at long or extreme range. For my group, this meant that the Wookie Marauder was eating up their attention, not the guy who's picking them off one by one from range. It was hard to train the rest of the group that even though I was the best at stealth, I was not going to lead them through a building or starship. The outdoors was where I shined. If you do find the enemy engaging with you often then I agree with Col. Orange. Find some way to get Toughened, Dodge, or some other way to add survivability.

Depending on your build, a Heavy (DC) could make a good sniper, other than that, Assassin (CRB), Survivalist (CRB), Marksman (AoR), Big-game Hunter (EtU) also make good snipers.

One non-traditional sniper I've seen is the Bounty Hunter Gadgetter. This helped her up her rifle (juryrig, and tinker) but also helped her armor (armor master). She plans on investing in Assassin next to help with crits, but she currently uses one nasty rifle with reduced crit requirements (juryrig), and bantha sights. (two advantage to crit, and gets for one free) She wanted to play a Bounty Hunter at home in the city and space but didn't like the wilds.

Scout and sharpshooter.

Especially with the explorer's signature talent to string together a lot of manouvers... In that way you can move to extreme distance within one round of action starting and start aiming and firing in the next.

Our sharpshooter went sharpshooter/gunner.

Gunner has a surprising amount of tankyness in there and there is never enough ture aim.

I would start out as a Big-Game Hunter, then take Mercenary Soldier. Assuming you're not rebel or imperial soldier.

As an Explorer you start out with Cool (for ambush initiative), Perception (to spot the enemy sniper), Survival (Sencondary usefullness as a tracker). And you can move about in a Spaceship aswell.

Big-Game Hunter is what gets you in position. The career gives Stealth( Essential) and lots of talents for superior mobility, tracking and stealth.

Mercenary Soldier gives you the punch that you need to regularly hit (True Aim) and down (Deadly Acc) most enemies. It also improves your alternate usefullness as a gunner on the spaceship

And with a little thing called Multi-Band Comlink (A long range comlink integrated into helmet.) you can actually take command and improve your overall group efficiency from your perch.

I would recomend against a Crit-build, cause if your GM is evil (most are) he/she will give enemies lots of Durability, and/or start critting back. Crit game is no fun, as it dumbs down to "Win initiative or crawl back to Camp Bacta."

*Edit*

But do note that at this point you are a glass cannon. You are the prime target, and can be killed by a minion throwing rocks at you. As a third career, if you live that long, I would look for something with defensive talents and/or wounds + Soak talents.

*Edit*

Below I have listed my street legal, cheap and easily modded rifle. There might be better ones, but this is mine.

Blaster Rifle; Yajn (Pronounced as Jayne)

• Encumbrance: 4
• Hard Points: 4
• Rarity: 5
• Price: 3000
• Damage: 9
• Range: Extreme
• Critical: * * *
• Skill: Ranged - Heavy
• Qualities: Stun Setting, Cumbersome 2, Accurate 3

Attachments:

Marksman Barrel: (1 Increases range by one Range Band, 2 Quality (Cumbersome 1), 2 Quality (Accurate 1 Mods),

Telescopic Optical Sight: (1 Decrease the difficulty of combat checks at long and extreme range by 1),

Forearm Grip: (1 Quality (Accurate 1),

I totally disagree with the (in-game) need for stealth.

Edit: I will be more thorough later but my job doesn't allow it now.

I totally disagree with the (in-game) need for stealth.

Edit: I will be more thorough later but my job doesn't allow it now.

And here I was just getting the hairblower ready and name you the cutest lill Troll ever..

Well, as I stated.... "In-game" need. Not being true to life...

The rest of the party moves towards the enemy, the sniper moves away from it and goes prone while shooting at extreme range. Stealth hardly seems to factor into it.

Well, as I stated.... "In-game" need. Not being true to life...

The rest of the party moves towards the enemy, the sniper moves away from it and goes prone while shooting at extreme range. Stealth hardly seems to factor into it.

Certain point of view.

Without context your interpretation isn't exactly incorrect, but additional context, scenario details, character build and equipment, player and gm play style, and so on could easily change that.

Um, I hardly think someone with 1,200 posts should be considered a troll. I would suggest we give Dante the benefit of the doubt and hear him out.

I really don't get why I am accused of trolling here... And I don't think my posts in this topic need "hearing me out" to establish I am not trolling. But apparently stating you disagree with the statement that "stealth is essential" is reason enough for someone to use 2 of his 11 posts to call you a troll. This is just getting weird.

I still say Assassin. You got your ranks of Lethal Blows so when that tricked out sniper weapon lands a crit you make it count. You got your Stalker for those that feel they need Stealth, and honestly if you want Stealth, Assassin has Master of Shadows which is a must have for any super sneaky type imo. You got your Deadly Accuracy to go with your Rank 5 skill, and you got your Targeted Blow to go with your min 4 Agility, and a rank of Quick Strike for that first, dude don't see it comin, shot.

I guess my scout preference came from the scene in The Hurt Locker where they were driving around Baghdad and encountered the British mercenaries whom then got shot in front of them. They went into cover climbed out and lay prone singeling out targets and having the spotter call out whether or not the shot hit.

Actually, I just realize that would be realy awesome to add to the game and I would allow a second character with elektrobinoculars assist the sniper and add boost die to the shot!

I totally disagree with the (in-game) need for stealth.

Anybody that totally disagrees with the need for ANY skill in the game, obviously has not played the game, or has played a game where the GM allows players to bypass somewhat essensial bits of the game.

If you have low soak, and low wounds threshold, and is the most dangerous player on the field, you better have means to avoid getting primaried, or ways to avoid death if you are.

Stealth is one of those means, aswell as numerous talents that this character did not have access to, thereby making Stealth essential, and if you totally dissagree because you feel like disagreeing and hardly submitting a reason whatsoever, I feel that calling you out for trolling is quite appropriate.

1200 posts is a good number of posts,but if they are nonsensical (I didnt bother to check) it has little relevance.

I totally disagree with the (in-game) need for stealth.

Edit: I will be more thorough later but my job doesn't allow it now.

Normally I agree with you. In my experiences stealth in a RPG is never worth the trouble. Running off on your own means you don't have backup and can die easily if you fail a stealth roll. Also, splitting the party is never good because the GM needs to focus one on one for the character who is off on his own. It is disrespectful to the rest of the players who are left just sitting around the table watching the stealth player play the game. Another issue is communication between the stealth character and the party. Granted, this is Star Wars not D&D, but how free from Imperial ears are your comlinks?

Well, as I stated.... "In-game" need. Not being true to life...

The rest of the party moves towards the enemy, the sniper moves away from it and goes prone while shooting at extreme range. Stealth hardly seems to factor into it.

I feel that stealth factors in everything you describe for the sniper to get into position, dropping prone in position, and leaving the position without being seen and killed.

Although, we might be having a difference of concept. When you picture the sniper moving away from the party, do you envision it during combat or before combat starts? I see it as setup time before shooting starts, where stealth is important for the sniper to not tip off the enemy the party is coming. I'd agree that if the sniper sticks with the party then wanders off when the shooting starts that stealth wouldn't be needed. Also, a sniper will probably have a pretty good Agility, so any needed stealth rolls won't be terrible anyway.

It probably just comes down to concept. A modern military sniper will be good at stealth to get into position and extract without being seen and killed. A hunter will be riding around in jeeps or waiting in tree stands and shooting big game from range as game comes across them. (I could see arguments both ways that a deer hunter in a tree stand should or should not need to roll stealth.) Both the sniper and hunter have the same shooting skills, they would just differ in how they got their target in their sights.

I totally disagree with the (in-game) need for stealth.

Anybody that totally disagrees with the need for ANY skill in the game, obviously has not played the game, or has played a game where the GM allows players to bypass somewhat essensial bits of the game.

Did I say I fellt no need for stealth or that I felt no (in-game) need for it in the sniper?

I am not the end all authority on what constitutes a good game though and would never impose it unto others ever, feel free to disagree (as Jamwes does for instance) but no need for snarky comments, posting of troll pictures or whatever. It is unbecoming, totally unnecessary and quite rude.

Edit: Plus, if stating something is superfluous is trolling then so is stating it is essential. Apparently you only appreciate absolutes when you get to state them.