[JoeNapalm]

If you want to snipe, shouldn't you be a mage? LOS spells have very good distance and hit very hard. Plus they are very concealable.

heh - i actually started drawing up a mage sniper when this got posted. Don't like what I have right now, but it was a fun exercise. Not least was thinking of improved invisibility and phantasm on that frigging approach the target exercise.

"Sniper approached the instructor by being a sneaky bastard, Sergeant Major!"


-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist

[Tsuzua]

My Merc, for example, has the Firearms Skill Group. Is it the most efficient use of his BP during CharGen? No...but it fit the character concept.

This gives him the ability to use Sniper Rifles without the Heavy Weapons skill that an Assault Cannon would require. He's not a sniper, per se, but he can snipe. Or pick up a shotgun. Yeah, he doesn't own those...he carries a highly modified (read: Concealable) Assault Rifle and a few pistols...but he can use them if the situation arises.

Is he as efficient as if I had spent those points on Automatics and Pistols? Firearms Skill Group cost 40BP, whereas with Automatics 4 (AR +2) and Pistols 4 (Heavy Pistol +2) I would have been better with my weapons and saved 4 BP. I can see an argument that would be the best decision...but, again, based on his backstory, he should be able to use whatever firearms are on hand. *Shrug*

You're also cutting off being able to start with Pistols or Automatics at 6 at Character Creation by going with Firearms group.  So it's -2 to whatever gun skill you'll be using 80% of the time or a 22 karma tax.

Really the problem is that you shouldn't be placed in this position between having a skill that's reasonable for you to have or costing yourself valuable resources.  And the fault there belongs to the failure of the skill groups. 

[CanRay]

On the flipside, put a "Masterkey" on one of those concealable ARs and you have a sweet entry weapon!

[Thermo]

one alternative to the sniper builds that some people seem to overlook is to go the more 'manual' route. A troll or ork with strength 12 will do 14P when firing a bow, and will do 15P when using explosive tip arrows. The range at that strength is comparable to that of a sporting rifle! Add in the fact that there are numerous ways to increase dice pool just like a firearm (adept abilities, laser sight if your GM allows it, etc), the fact that a bow is completely silent, and is totally legal, and you have a pretty nice way to be a sniper while taking an interesting and alternate route.

Just food for thought

[Critias]

Unless, of course, you're a guy that's designed around using a Sniper Rifle instead of an Assault Cannon.  Like, y'know, a sniper.

Interesting real life example of a sniper using an MG...longest distance kill ever, I believe. Some kind of record, not necessarily that one. (I know an MG's not an assault cannon, but still, a mildly ridiculous occurence.)

Only laziness prevents me from linking it.

Carlos Hathcock, "the White Feather," used a Browning M2 to great effect, yes.  He did so by converting the thing to single-shot and custom mounting a scope on it, and he did that because, at the time, he was working an MP rotation at a defensive position that happened to have the .50 sitting there and no one using it.  He had some time to kill, mounted his scope to it, and took a shot at a VC gunrunner (making the longest confirmed kill at ~2500, until a Canadian sniper team broke the record several years ago).

He did most of his work with a regular rifle, however.  A Winchester model 70, chambered in .308.

"Sniper rifle" is a task IRL, not a weapon classification.  The same .308 bolt-action (albeit with some custom work done) is used to hunt deer all across the country, and a neighbor of mine openly carries his in a rack in his pick-up truck. 

Shadowrun's "Sport rifles" are plenty dangerous, especially if you've got a respectable die pool, are shooting at someone from ambush/surprise, and take a few actions to add dice to your pool by aiming (and then call a shot for extra damage).

For 90% of what a shadowrunner should be doing, there's no need for a silly-high damage code rifle. 

[Neurosis]

Ah, thank you for naming the exact sniper I was thinking of with all of the (as I recall, accurate) details that I left out. Hathcock is definitely the guy I was thinking of.

For 90% of what a shadowrunner should be doing, there's no need for a silly-high damage code rifle.

True, but I've still gots mad love for the Barrett. (In SR, anyway. I have mad hate for its scaldingly inaccurate portrayal in certain videogame series, but that's neither here nor there.)

Edit (formatting mine for emphasis):

one alternative to the sniper builds that some people seem to overlook is to go the more 'manual' route. A troll or ork with strength 12 will do 14P when firing a bow, and will do 15P when using explosive tip arrows. The range at that strength is comparable to that of a sporting rifle! Add in the fact that there are numerous ways to increase dice pool just like a firearm (adept abilities, laser sight if your GM allows it, etc), the fact that a bow is completely silent, and is totally legal, and you have a pretty nice way to be a sniper while taking an interesting and alternate route.

XD

[JoeNapalm]

Ah, thank you for naming the exact sniper I was thinking of with all of the (as I recall, accurate) details that I left out. Hathcock is definitely the guy I was thinking of.

For 90% of what a shadowrunner should be doing, there's no need for a silly-high damage code rifle.

True, but I've still gots mad love for the Barrett. (In SR, anyway. I have mad hate for its scaldingly inaccurate portrayal in certain videogame series, but that's neither here nor there.)

Yeah. My non-Sniper mercenary really wants a modded Barret. It's a wildly expensive liability that he has no foreseeable use for...

...but he really wants one. 

You know...for a rainy day.

-Jn-
City of Brass Expatriate

[Operator]

one alternative to the sniper builds that some people seem to overlook is to go the more 'manual' route. A troll or ork with strength 12 will do 14P when firing a bow, and will do 15P when using explosive tip arrows. The range at that strength is comparable to that of a sporting rifle! Add in the fact that there are numerous ways to increase dice pool just like a firearm (adept abilities, laser sight if your GM allows it, etc), the fact that a bow is completely silent, and is totally legal, and you have a pretty nice way to be a sniper while taking an interesting and alternate route.

Just food for thought

Bows and arrows are limited to a maximum strength rating of 8.

Still, that 10P/11P with explosive tips is nothing to scoff at.

[Thermo]

one alternative to the sniper builds that some people seem to overlook is to go the more 'manual' route. A troll or ork with strength 12 will do 14P when firing a bow, and will do 15P when using explosive tip arrows. The range at that strength is comparable to that of a sporting rifle! Add in the fact that there are numerous ways to increase dice pool just like a firearm (adept abilities, laser sight if your GM allows it, etc), the fact that a bow is completely silent, and is totally legal, and you have a pretty nice way to be a sniper while taking an interesting and alternate route.

Just food for thought

Bows and arrows are limited to a maximum strength rating of 8.

Still, that 10P/11P with explosive tips is nothing to scoff at.

that, sir, is incorrect.. core book pg. 316 "Material science limits high-tech bows to a maximum Strength rating of 12"

As for the noise associated with explosive tip arrows, this is something that we've actually debated in our group. One thought is that it's a mini-grenade, and therefore makes a "boom" when it hits something. Seems a little off, considering it only adds 1 damage. The other thought is that it's a micro-charge that makes the wound expand like a hollow-point bullet. Either way, it wouldn't affect anyone being able to locate the shooter's position, which as a comparison is half the point of a gun's silencer anyways.

[Thermo]

Edit (formatting mine for emphasis):

one alternative to the sniper builds that some people seem to overlook is to go the more 'manual' route. A troll or ork with strength 12 will do 14P when firing a bow, and will do 15P when using explosive tip arrows. The range at that strength is comparable to that of a sporting rifle! Add in the fact that there are numerous ways to increase dice pool just like a firearm (adept abilities, laser sight if your GM allows it, etc), the fact that a bow is completely silent, and is totally legal, and you have a pretty nice way to be a sniper while taking an interesting and alternate route.

XD

Don't you think that a character set up to be a bow-using sniper would have multiple kinds of arrows? And the bow itself doesn't make any noise when fired, that's what I was getting at.

It's a legal, high-damage, silent, cheap weapon.

[Critias]

Bows and arrows are limited to a maximum strength rating of 8.

Still, that 10P/11P with explosive tips is nothing to scoff at.

that, sir, is incorrect.. core book pg. 316 "Material science limits high-tech bows to a maximum Strength rating of 12"

Different printings have different numbers.  Same page, same paragraph, same sentence, in other printings says "Material science limits high-tech bows to a maximum Strength rating of 8."

[Thermo]

Bows and arrows are limited to a maximum strength rating of 8.

Still, that 10P/11P with explosive tips is nothing to scoff at.

that, sir, is incorrect.. core book pg. 316 "Material science limits high-tech bows to a maximum Strength rating of 12"

Different printings have different numbers.  Same page, same paragraph, same sentence, in other printings says "Material science limits high-tech bows to a maximum Strength rating of 8."

no kidding? huh.

Any idea which version is the most recent?

[CanRay]

To bring this back to sniping:  Wasn't Carlos Hathcock the fellow that had a sniper duel and actually put his round through his opponent's scope and into his eye, like we see in movies all the time now?

[Critias]

To bring this back to sniping:  Wasn't Carlos Hathcock the fellow that had a sniper duel and actually put his round through his opponent's scope and into his eye, like we see in movies all the time now?

Yes.  He also had an actual bounty placed on his head by the Viet Cong ($25k, I want to say?).  Two awesome things came of it:  (1) he stalked and killed every VC sniper sent after him, in true badass fashion.  (2)  Quite a few of the Marines he served with began wearing white feathers in their caps, his signature look (and why the VC gave him the name "White Feather"), in a real-life I Am Spartacus, No I Am moment. 

What impresses me more about Gunnery Sergeant Hatcock isn''t even his sniping, though (the United States has three men that I can think of with higher confirmed kill counts, in fact)...it was everything else about him.  He stopped actively sniping in the field because he burned the hell out of himself (while on leave!) rushing to pull seven injured Marines out of a burning vehicle.  He insisted on continuing to serve despite being more than qualified for a medical discharge, and dedicated himself to instructing at the USMC Scout Sniper school (often while visibly weeping blood through his cracking, peeling, burn scars).  When his health declined later in life due to the burn damage and multiple sclerosis ganging up on him, he only reluctantly left the service (and even then he took up shark fishing as a casual hobby, because everyone knows shark fishing isn't physically demanding or anything, right?).  He was just a real life man whose story reads like fiction.

He's an undeniable hero in my book, and not for his shooting.  "I like shooting, and I love hunting. But I never did enjoy killing anybody," he once said.  It was the rest of the man that impresses the hell out of me, not his ability to pull a trigger.

...and...uhh...*shuffles feet a little*...yeah.  So, anyways.  Sorry for rambling a bit -- but learning remarkable individual stories like this is how I got into doing what I do, in real life.  History's awesome (in the classic sense of the word, awe-inspiring) when you give it a chance.

[PMC Scholar]

This is a pretty good thread; Not least because it doesn't go into "sniperwank" territory and people actually discuss the parts of a snipers job besides shooting people in the head.  It is a specialist role for a shadowrunner team, but if your game is heavy in the wetwork territory or has the shadowrunners working more as military contractors in some guerrilla war zone a sniper can be very helpful.