Sniping useless - maybe change?


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Claxon wrote:
Fedor Checherov wrote:

Greetings. Considering very short ranges of almost every scene (I remember only one scenario with thousand feet map) - sniping is useless.

We used homerule for sniping in Dead Suns: if you use aim with sniping weapon and hit target EAC\KAC - it is a critical hit (even if not natural 20). That is how snipers do their job: one hit = one target down (maybe for second shot).

Yeah, that's too much.

I agree sniper rifles are in a bad place, but I think the answer is to make more sniper rifles without the unwieldy quality and basically treat them as a normal long arm with extra range that can be used as a move action.

But allowing every shot that hits to be a critical hit is too much.

Edit: To clarify we have the coil rifle series which are a sniper rifle without the unwieldy quality.

I would agree with this. Just have more sniper rifles without the unwieldly aspect. That way people who want the flavor of being a sniper or like operative just have the skill can use it a bit more reasonably basically a speciality long arm with range upgrades if you find yourself in a situation where you can make use of that.


Making sniper rifles that are usable at normal battle ranges won't really change the fundamental problem that sniper battles only allow snipers to engage, is the thing. It would be more important to introduce additional options so that conflicts can happen at 1000+ feet without excluding the entire party.

At the very least, you'd need explicit rules that allow people to spot for snipers via perception checks. It'd probably be useful to modify the range categories for spells, so that Long encompasses a range similar to that of sniper weapons, as well.


It does occur to me that you could have fights at ranges long enough for the Sniper property to matter, but still close enough to not be outside the maximum range of most ranged weapons - it definitely makes the range increment of non-sniper weapons a lot more important than it otherwise was, though; if the target is 200 ft away, the difference between the Azimuth Laser Pistol and the Tactical Semi-Auto Pistol gets a lot more pronounced.

This also makes Sights and Scopes a lot more important.


Metaphysician wrote:

Making sniper rifles that are usable at normal battle ranges won't really change the fundamental problem that sniper battles only allow snipers to engage, is the thing. It would be more important to introduce additional options so that conflicts can happen at 1000+ feet without excluding the entire party.

At the very least, you'd need explicit rules that allow people to spot for snipers via perception checks. It'd probably be useful to modify the range categories for spells, so that Long encompasses a range similar to that of sniper weapons, as well.

True, but as long as those super long range combats are a minority of combat I think it's okay. You can give them an occasional chance to shine, while still allowing them to be effective in most combats.

Shooting at things very far away becomes more a niche activity that someone can do as a side gig to their main gig of shooting someone at more reasonable distances.


Having more mixed combats could help as well, a squad of vesk toughs engage your players with sniper support. Gives snipers a chance to shine while allowing the melee fighters to feel helpful not helpless.


A mix of environments I think also helps. Weapons that are useful in CQB in ship or room to room type fighting in an installation a sniper gun is not so useful. But on an alien world where you have long sight lines having somebody who can snipe is more useful. It also helps keep the melee and ranged users both having their strengths and weaknesses. In tight quarters avoiding melee may not be possible but if you are fighting on some alien stepe if you are not a solarian getting into melee range without getting shot to pieces may also not be something you can do.

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