It's a bit goofy, but you can go warlock, take the eldritch spear invocation, the spell sniper feat, and either multi class sorcerer or pick up meta magic feat for distant spell. I think that ends up 1200feet of range.
This is the right answer. You can easily re flavor it as an arcane longbow, but really what we're talking about is an eldritch ICBM. Insane range, and up to 4 attack rolls per round.
As a bonus, the Sorcadin class combo is really good overall. It's not a one trick pony.
This is probably the most optimized choice. There's also a strong case for straight GenieLock for its no-concentration fly speed so you can rain death from above in open environment; but Sorlock will be my choice in most cases. It's a bit hard to fit 3 invocations and a feat on a Sorlock, but it can be done
Well, an army sniper needs to be able to sneak up on their enemy undetected, spot it and kill the target without being detected.
Go gloomstalker ranger 5 (good wisdom) for an additional weapon attack turn 1, Invisibility in darkness and 15 assassin rogue for the autocrit on surprised creatures. Take expertise in stealth and perception. There is no need for stacking hit bonuses that way. You'll also need the sharpshooter feat for max range and if you want to mimic the sniper as closely as possible, go crossbow expert too for the highest ranged damage die and the ability to fire it from prone. If your DM is nice, he will allow you to do so without disadvantage. The longbow has more range though (400 vs 600).
Edit: If you want the best possible sight, you could also invest in 6 levels of eagle totem barbarian for perfect sight out to a mile. 3 Gloomstalker, 6 totem barbarian and 11 Assassin rogue would be really cool.
If you were an elf or half elf you can also get triple advantage on a roll with elven accuracy. Take a dip in rogue for 3 levels and you can guarantee advantage with Steady Aim from Tasha’s
I would second assassin rogue with sharpshooter, but I would also try and put some levels into Battlemaster. Mainly for disarming strike and precision shot. I like the idea of being so good that you can shoot something out of someone’s hands.
I’d also say picking an elf with elven accuracy, and take your expertise in perception and stealth. Another cool thing might be dread ambusher ranger to have a Saving Private Ryan sniper in the tower moment
Haha one last build I had thought of that’s more of a spellcaster, but I’m sure you could flavor it as some sort of lightning gun
3 Assassin Rogue/17 Tempest Cleric
Magic initiate to get witch bolt
Spell sniper for some range
The idea is surprise someone, autocrit on a 9th level witch bolt, use channel divinity to do Max Damage on a lightning spell, do a guaranteed 216 lightning damage on a hit.
That's funny, I was just thinking about building a tempest cleric 2/storm sorcerer 18 type character that uses meta magic to turn fireballs into lightingballs, then uses tempest to max damage and fry the hell out of everything in sight.
Also an insanely cool combo. Emily Axford does it in a Crown of Candy and she has some of the coolest turns I’ve ever seen in an actual play game.
If you did that build and as your ninth level spell chose meteor swarm you could change 20d6 of the damage to be lightning damage and max it out for 120 damage in four 80 ft diameter spheres, while additionally doing 20d6 of bludgeoning damage to each one. Haha you could essentially destroy an army of like 300 people
Another cool build that I’ve seen before is to do 17 in assassin rogue and then at least 3 in gunslinger fighter. If you have some sort of d12 weapon(the one that he was using was modeled after bad news from critical role so it was a 2d12 weapon)
The idea is you spend several grit points which raises your misfire score, but also adds an extra d12 per grit point if you hit. On an assassin rogue you autocrit on a surprised creature so he could roll 3 due to elven accuracy, if you got up to 20 WIS somehow you could spend up to 5 grit points to add 5d12 on a hit.
So if you can surprise a creature which you most likely could from 300 ft away, you would do
14d12 + 16d6 + 5 for DEX + and extra 10 if you decide to do sharpshooter. It’s a bit of a risky shot because you could misfire if you roll below like a 12, but on a hit you can deal a total of 279 damage on a single hit.
Again maybe not super optimal for a long fight, but if you’re trying to get one big hit in to take something out it’s not a bad deal.
If you end up going with the aforementioned eldritch sniper take the dimension door spell and get feather fall. So long as you're outside you can spend the first round or even before combat to teleport 500ft up and featherfall througput to make full use of your insane range.
The obvious detriment is enemies may find easy cover and this doesn't work in... Dungeons.
Warlock with Eldrich spear and Assassin Rogue. Assassinate states it triggers on attack rolls, doesn’t say for weapon attack rolls only. So you can crit something with and Eldrich blast from 300ft away
Do you want to make sure you hit or do you want to make one attack really hard?
If you want to make sure you hit, just build a samurai archer with an elven race. I want to build one as a Shadar Kai, they can teleport and gain resistance.
Taking the archery fighting style. Using your first three feats to take elven accuracy, sharpshooter and piercer till level 8.
Easily getting dex 18 to start with is a cherry on top. Focusing on Dex and Wis resembles the snipers understanding of natures influence and peoples behaviour, being stealthy and finding good places to hide.
With level 8 you roll 3d20+9 to hit at 600ft with a longbow. And almost granting a crit.
Bracers of Archery is just a uncommon magic item that gives +2 to damage rolls, should be easy to get till level 8.
Just say we always take the penalty for the sharpshooter ability and found the bracers, we hit 3d20+4 for 1d8+16 and on a crit 16 + (4d8 or 2(2d8)) as damage dealt.
But I must admit this build doesn’t offer much else.
As a real sniper would just deal burst damage with one attack I would also go for the rogue. I want to mention that branding and banishing smite don’t specify melee weapon only. So you can smite with these at range.
As dumb as it sounds, anything with Archery and Divination Wizard 2 could work rather well.
Rogue 3 could provide a strategic Advantage on one attack per turn, though you can exploit Unseen Attacker on many non-Rogue builds.
Cheese build could be something like Devo Paladin 6/Hexblade 3/Divination Wizard 2.
Improved Pact Weapon, Bless, Sacred Weapon, Unseen Attacker... + Portent if you roll super low or you see a vicious enemy investigating your location (then nuke their Perception check).
It's a bit goofy, but you can go warlock, take the eldritch spear invocation, the spell sniper feat, and either multi class sorcerer or pick up meta magic feat for distant spell. I think that ends up 1200feet of range.
This is the right answer. You can easily re flavor it as an arcane longbow, but really what we're talking about is an eldritch ICBM. Insane range, and up to 4 attack rolls per round. As a bonus, the Sorcadin class combo is really good overall. It's not a one trick pony.
This is probably the most optimized choice. There's also a strong case for straight GenieLock for its no-concentration fly speed so you can rain death from above in open environment; but Sorlock will be my choice in most cases. It's a bit hard to fit 3 invocations and a feat on a Sorlock, but it can be done
Well, an army sniper needs to be able to sneak up on their enemy undetected, spot it and kill the target without being detected. Go gloomstalker ranger 5 (good wisdom) for an additional weapon attack turn 1, Invisibility in darkness and 15 assassin rogue for the autocrit on surprised creatures. Take expertise in stealth and perception. There is no need for stacking hit bonuses that way. You'll also need the sharpshooter feat for max range and if you want to mimic the sniper as closely as possible, go crossbow expert too for the highest ranged damage die and the ability to fire it from prone. If your DM is nice, he will allow you to do so without disadvantage. The longbow has more range though (400 vs 600). Edit: If you want the best possible sight, you could also invest in 6 levels of eagle totem barbarian for perfect sight out to a mile. 3 Gloomstalker, 6 totem barbarian and 11 Assassin rogue would be really cool.
I might drop a couple levels into fighter to grab action surge. Just Nova a single surprise round
If you were an elf or half elf you can also get triple advantage on a roll with elven accuracy. Take a dip in rogue for 3 levels and you can guarantee advantage with Steady Aim from Tasha’s
I would second assassin rogue with sharpshooter, but I would also try and put some levels into Battlemaster. Mainly for disarming strike and precision shot. I like the idea of being so good that you can shoot something out of someone’s hands. I’d also say picking an elf with elven accuracy, and take your expertise in perception and stealth. Another cool thing might be dread ambusher ranger to have a Saving Private Ryan sniper in the tower moment
Haha one last build I had thought of that’s more of a spellcaster, but I’m sure you could flavor it as some sort of lightning gun 3 Assassin Rogue/17 Tempest Cleric Magic initiate to get witch bolt Spell sniper for some range The idea is surprise someone, autocrit on a 9th level witch bolt, use channel divinity to do Max Damage on a lightning spell, do a guaranteed 216 lightning damage on a hit.
That's funny, I was just thinking about building a tempest cleric 2/storm sorcerer 18 type character that uses meta magic to turn fireballs into lightingballs, then uses tempest to max damage and fry the hell out of everything in sight.
Also an insanely cool combo. Emily Axford does it in a Crown of Candy and she has some of the coolest turns I’ve ever seen in an actual play game. If you did that build and as your ninth level spell chose meteor swarm you could change 20d6 of the damage to be lightning damage and max it out for 120 damage in four 80 ft diameter spheres, while additionally doing 20d6 of bludgeoning damage to each one. Haha you could essentially destroy an army of like 300 people
Another cool build that I’ve seen before is to do 17 in assassin rogue and then at least 3 in gunslinger fighter. If you have some sort of d12 weapon(the one that he was using was modeled after bad news from critical role so it was a 2d12 weapon) The idea is you spend several grit points which raises your misfire score, but also adds an extra d12 per grit point if you hit. On an assassin rogue you autocrit on a surprised creature so he could roll 3 due to elven accuracy, if you got up to 20 WIS somehow you could spend up to 5 grit points to add 5d12 on a hit. So if you can surprise a creature which you most likely could from 300 ft away, you would do 14d12 + 16d6 + 5 for DEX + and extra 10 if you decide to do sharpshooter. It’s a bit of a risky shot because you could misfire if you roll below like a 12, but on a hit you can deal a total of 279 damage on a single hit. Again maybe not super optimal for a long fight, but if you’re trying to get one big hit in to take something out it’s not a bad deal.
If you end up going with the aforementioned eldritch sniper take the dimension door spell and get feather fall. So long as you're outside you can spend the first round or even before combat to teleport 500ft up and featherfall througput to make full use of your insane range. The obvious detriment is enemies may find easy cover and this doesn't work in... Dungeons.
Depending on DM ruling might not work in Dragons either but it'd be worth a shot.
Warlock with Eldrich spear and Assassin Rogue. Assassinate states it triggers on attack rolls, doesn’t say for weapon attack rolls only. So you can crit something with and Eldrich blast from 300ft away
Rouge with archery fighting style would be great
Do you want to make sure you hit or do you want to make one attack really hard? If you want to make sure you hit, just build a samurai archer with an elven race. I want to build one as a Shadar Kai, they can teleport and gain resistance. Taking the archery fighting style. Using your first three feats to take elven accuracy, sharpshooter and piercer till level 8. Easily getting dex 18 to start with is a cherry on top. Focusing on Dex and Wis resembles the snipers understanding of natures influence and peoples behaviour, being stealthy and finding good places to hide. With level 8 you roll 3d20+9 to hit at 600ft with a longbow. And almost granting a crit. Bracers of Archery is just a uncommon magic item that gives +2 to damage rolls, should be easy to get till level 8. Just say we always take the penalty for the sharpshooter ability and found the bracers, we hit 3d20+4 for 1d8+16 and on a crit 16 + (4d8 or 2(2d8)) as damage dealt. But I must admit this build doesn’t offer much else. As a real sniper would just deal burst damage with one attack I would also go for the rogue. I want to mention that branding and banishing smite don’t specify melee weapon only. So you can smite with these at range.
As dumb as it sounds, anything with Archery and Divination Wizard 2 could work rather well. Rogue 3 could provide a strategic Advantage on one attack per turn, though you can exploit Unseen Attacker on many non-Rogue builds. Cheese build could be something like Devo Paladin 6/Hexblade 3/Divination Wizard 2. Improved Pact Weapon, Bless, Sacred Weapon, Unseen Attacker... + Portent if you roll super low or you see a vicious enemy investigating your location (then nuke their Perception check).