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I have recently taken some interest in the prestige class Deepwood Sniper from Masters of the Wild, a 3.0 book.

I am planning to use this class in 3.5 campaign and my DM was ok considering it doesn't really need many changes to be compatible with the revised version.
However, there is one problem: I have trouble understanding the actual mechanics and use of the Take Aim class feature such as the duration, the numbers of attacks it applies to and whether its activation includes any actual attacks.

Can anyone offer some insight on how it works and how it can be utilized in accordance to the rules?

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I did not add the actual text of the class feature as I am not sure if this would be allowed, let me know if it's ok and you would like me to do so. – Eldebryn Nov 22 '12 at 16:47
You probably can't, and in any event I have Masters of the Wild. But I would comment that the Deepwood Sniper is pretty weak. Take Aim itself is almost useless. Many of the bonuses are to criticals – which happen too rarely for those to be worth much. Poisons aren't a great tactic (very expensive, often low DCs), and you'd need Master of Poisons anyway. Concealment Reduction and Consistent Aim are good, but that's not enough. I'd honestly take a straight Fighter or Ranger (or better, a combo of the two with a dip in Barbarian) over this. And those aren't great classes. – KRyan Nov 22 '12 at 19:29
The thing is I am going to be in a low-level, low-magic campaign without magic items and many casters are banned. There is sorcerer which I could play but I don't really like the whole idea of going caster to represent a martial ranger, I would rather do it the mundane way and use bow/crossbow. Excluding barb, do you still think fighter/ranger without PRCs would be better? – Eldebryn Nov 22 '12 at 22:53
Ultimately, that's probably a separate question (which you can totally ask), but in short: yes, I do. Barbarian with Whirling Frenzy would be awesome though. Also, 3.5 handles low-magic/low-wealth extremely poorly. I hope your DM has done his homework and has really worked out how the game needs to change to accomodate it. – KRyan Nov 23 '12 at 1:00

1 Answer

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Take Aim means that you spend a Full-Round Action doing nothing, in order to gain a +2 (and later +4) bonus on all of your attacks next round, provided the target has not moved during this time.

In combat, this is never a good idea. If the bonus were a lot larger, it might have a point against high-AC targets, but if a target’s AC is so high that you’ll waste an entire turn hoping to get a piddly bonus like that, you shouldn’t be standing there watching it, you should be running away.

The only way this works is if you’re waiting in ambush, and can take all the time you like before firing the first shot. Even then, the bonus is small. It does synergize (a little bit) with an Assassin’s Death Attack, since you can study a target while Taking Aim, but it’s still just a +4 bonus at best.

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+1 yep. Also agreed with your analysis of it. Compared to other special abilities, this doesn't add up. It makes the archer from 3.x more like archers from GURPS, and that's very bad. – LitheOhm Nov 22 '12 at 18:46

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