Any tips for building great sniper? I was thinking about Sharphooter as main and combine it later with maybe some Stealth specialization or with some tough one to boost defense.

Any good, tested sniper builds out there?

Look at Assassin too.

I'd go for Sharpshooter, then Assassin, then maybe Trailblazer. The ability to disorient enemies and then do bonus damage is pretty okay, but this is pretty optional.

The more interesting part is equipment. If you go for the DC-15, you start out with a very powerful weapon with 4 HP and it doesn't have Slow-Firing. I'd suggest getting a Telescopic Optical Sight, a Marksman Barrel, and for the last HP, there are a couple options. If you want to start with a 242322 build, obviously you need something like a bi-pod or weapon sling (though bi-pod makes more sense) but if you put some into Brawn, I'd suggest getting a Custom Grip, which removes a Setback and can be modded to add another rank in Accurate.

For starting XP (basic starting point of human), I'd suggest going for 242322 (100 XP) and picking Ranged (Heavy) and Perception for your specialization skills. For your career skills, I'd suggest Ranged (Heavy), Survival, Athletics, and then take your pick of the rest, none of them really stand out. For the Human species perks, I'd suggest going with Stealth and then take your pick of the rest. With the remaining 10 XP, I'd suggest picking up Sniper Shot so that you can still fire from extreme range with a long-ranged weapon (without the expensive mod) and then pick up a rank in Cool with the remaining 5 XP.

For credits, if you take 10 Obligation or spend 10 Duty, you can get 2,500 credits, putting your total to 3,000. With that, you can pick up a DC-15, a TOS, and a Bi-pod/Weapons Sling. That leaves you with 450 credits.

Here is an interesting alternative build with a Chadra-Fan: 143312 leaves you with 20 XP, which can be spent on upgrading Willpower or just saved. Then, you get the same skills outlined above, but you can't get Stealth, instead you get Mechanics, which allows you to repair/modify your weapons yourself. With the Remaining 20 XP (if it remains) get 1 rank in Cool, then get Sniper Shot for 5 XP, then get True Aim for 10 XP.

For credits, you spend it basically the same way (bi-pod is now an absolute must).

Then for future credits, get the other attachments you missed out on. For XP ongoing, I'd suggest focusing on the Sharpshooter tree and then, much later, go into Assassin. Since you'd be focusing on Ranged (Heavy), you have to plan ahead a little bit for you progression. Although you can get Deadly Accuracy earlier on, if you get the one that is on the second row, it doesn't lead to anything else and ends up being 25 wasted XP (15 for Sniper Shot, 10 for Deadly Accuracy). If you wait, you can get the one on the fourth row, which leads to Natural Marksman, Quick Fix, Dedication, and Toughened. Once you've pretty much finished off the three columns on the right* (minus Deadly Accuracy on row 2 and Sniper Shot on Row 3), then you should go for Assassin (unless you just really need the new spec skills).

*The column all the way over on the left is okay, but it isn't great. I'd suggest just sticking to the right 3 unless you just really need the ones in that column.

Hope this helps!

Note: As a sniper, your bread and butter is going to be picking off targets from range, preferably never getting into their range. This is all contingent on the style of the campaign and what the GM throws at you, but you probably don't have to go too heavily into defense. A decent set of armor is fairly important though, especially if you go low-Brawn, but not so important that it made it into my starting credit recommendations. If the style of campaign frequently puts you into danger, you might want to consider going for Commando as a second spec rather than Assassin as it gives Armor Master/Improved Armor Master as well as several ranks in Toughened and a couple in Durable. Assassin isn't particularly powerful for just sniper, but it isn't useless. Just don't get Sniper Shot, you'll already have one rank (which is enough) and it doesn't lead to anything interesting.

It’s been my experience that snipers are hard to utilize in most settings as the require setup, and often combat starts in buildings, where you can’t get to long range. They also go off on their own and split the party.

As a player, look to get those Verpine Shatter rifles.

As a GM, DEAR GOD DO NOT GIVE THE VERPINE HEAVY SHATTER RIFLE EASILY, WORST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE FOR OUR SNIPER PC! If you do, if they're even just ok with snipers, they can and will decimate any sort of Nemesis you throw at them.

34 minutes ago, GameboyAK said:

As a player, look to get those Verpine Shatter rifles.

As a GM, DEAR GOD DO NOT GIVE THE VERPINE HEAVY SHATTER RIFLE EASILY, WORST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE FOR OUR SNIPER PC! If you do, if they're even just ok with snipers, they can and will decimate any sort of Nemesis you throw at them.

It's costs more than some spaceships, is rarer than a 2-headed unicorn, and breaks if you fart too loudly when holding it...

5 hours ago, Eoen said:

It’s been my experience snipers are hard to utilize in most settings as the require setup, and often combat starts in buildings, where you can’t get to long range.

That is also my fear coming from other RPGs. It's very rare party as a whole is in open areas enough to fully utilize sniper or any sort long combat. Also most GMs are always little mean and don't want to deal with super far sniper so they make combat in places so enemies can still reach sniper.

My other option is Heavy/Gunnery for Auto-Fire. Or maybe Heavy/Merc Soldier for more of "Leader" type.

Add one more to the 'this is probably not going to work well' pile, as your classic Sniper is a 'does not play well with others' type of character.

When snipers appear in movies, they typical either

• Are the focus of the film, and anyone not directly supporting them are minor characters at best, or
• Are part of a team where they disappear for large parts of the film while they find a decent position.

Neither option works particularly well in most games.

13 minutes ago, Ominovin said:

Add one more to the 'this is probably not going to work well' pile, as your classic Sniper is a 'does not play well with others' type of character.

When snipers appear in movies, they typical either

• Are the focus of the film, and anyone not directly supporting them are minor characters at best, or
• Are part of a team where they disappear for large parts of the film while they find a decent position.

Neither option works particularly well in most games.

Yeah, guess I will go with Heavy with Auto-Fire. Is Heavy best for Auto-Fire? I would like to combo it with Gunnery (For Jurry Rigged) and later maybe for Merc Soldier.

On the other hand- would Merc Soldier work well instead of Heavy for Heavy Auto-Fire build? Mixed with Gunnery.

1 hour ago, Benny89 said:

Yeah, guess I will go with Heavy with Auto-Fire. Is Heavy best for Auto-Fire? I would like to combo it with Gunnery (For Jurry Rigged) and later maybe for Merc Soldier.

On the other hand- would Merc Soldier work well instead of Heavy for Heavy Auto-Fire build? Mixed with Gunnery.

Please, for the love of all that is holy, DO NOT Jury-Rig Auto-Fire!

If you want to build around Auto-Fire, I'd suggest going for Heavy and then into Sharpshooter, because it gives you True Aim and Deadly Accuracy (and a bunch of other useful talents).

2 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Please, for the love of all that is holy, DO NOT Jury-Rig Auto-Fire!

If you want to build around Auto-Fire, I'd suggest going for Heavy and then into Sharpshooter, because it gives you True Aim and Deadly Accuracy (and a bunch of other useful talents).

I can also go Heavy/Gunner and get both True Aim and Jury-Rig and extra 2 soak and 4 wounds!

2 minutes ago, Benny89 said:

I can also go Heavy/Gunner and get both True Aim and Jury-Rig and extra 2 soak and 4 wounds!

Gunner is a really useful spec both on the ground and behind a turret.

On 11/15/2019 at 4:00 PM, GameboyAK said:

As a player, look to get those Verpine Shatter rifles.

As a GM, DEAR GOD DO NOT GIVE THE VERPINE HEAVY SHATTER RIFLE EASILY, WORST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE FOR OUR SNIPER PC! If you do, if they're even just ok with snipers, they can and will decimate any sort of Nemesis you throw at them.

There's a reason they're called shatter rifles. If it gets out of hand, break it.

In this game it is hard to stay at long range if the target doesn't want to be there. I had a player build a sniper and he didn't like it, since most combats happen in medium or short range and spur of the moment. When you have attacks planned out they enemy moves forward to advance or moves out of line of site. So if you do Sniper make sure to also focus on on short range attacks since that will be needed as well. True Aim from Sharpshooter helps a lot in booth scenarios.

Look at gunner + sharpshooter