Well, it's fine if you're taking out lone targets. Unfortunately, it's only really much use if you're taking out people unimportant enough to be alone for any sufficient amount of time, at which point you might as well just shoot him anyway. The magical sniper, in theory, is ridiculously powerful; in practicality, it's just too much of a mess to be worth it in most cases. I suppose sniping a bug spirit from a mile off, or something, might be an exception.

The rigger sniper is a pretty good choice too. Put some sniper rifles on condor drones and go to town. You can even use sensor enhanced gunnery.

Since the zoom is only neccessary to ID targets, you can get away with manaballs from the sniper very easily.

Well.....
Extreme range is 9, 5 with smartlink 2+rangefinder, for a TN 7 on called shots.
With a scope, you cant use the smartlink, so its TN 8.
Now, -1 for aim, -1 for stationary target, we can get a TN of 5 before vision and cover add in.

Flare compensation will get rid of glare penalties, and thermographic vision can ignore mist and light fog/smoke/rain, with a mere +1 for heavy fog/smoke/rain if cyber. Low light give the best modifier for partial lighting. so a mere +5 with the right cybereyes in bad conditions., bring the TN to 10
Ultrasound, while possibly usefull, would be a bad idea as it gives away your position, and may not be usefull at extreme range of a sniper rifle.
+4 for partial cover, for a TN of 14 (15 if moving), and you get only one shot.

On the other hand, a non-cyber human with a scope needs a TN of ~26 (minimal light, heavy rain, mist, glare from streetlights; or TN 19 if max +8 vision).

in both cases, it will require several stealth rolls to get in postion, as well as athletics for climbing (and a penalty for wet slippery surfaces). failure at either is lethal (fall X stories, or have a lone star helecopter shine a spotlight on). And after you get your ONE shot, even with a silencer, those bodygaurds will know someone is shooting at them from your direction. They may have a -3 or -4 to locate where the sound came from with the right cyberear enhancements.

I dont think a sniper is overpowered. Not if they have to survive lugging a gun around before AND after the shooting in 2064 seattle. Most creative concealment i can think of is to hide it in a bow that resembles a extra-large electronic keyboard.

With just the sympathetic magic in SOTA 2063, the casing from your rifle could be a material link if you leave it behind. its not a good link, but its enough to make your day unplesant.

Additional ways to annoy a sniper: Alpha+ synthetic cyberskull, damage dosent stage up for headshots (with room for 1 integrity enhancement for +1 body). Body doubles with the real target disguised as a gaurd. And figureheads where the second in command was the real leader.

Remember that in SR, as the game lacks a perception attribute, Intelligence handles that. In the case of combat pool, it's an amalgam of tactical reasoning, quick thinking, and, before any of that happens, sensory perception. Abstract and perhaps sloppy, but there is an amount of internal logic in allowing combat pool in longer term actions.

This is all great guys, but it is not dark and raining 24/7. Nor do powerful NPCs wait until it is to move about. With a mobile platform to fire from like the DC snipers had a PC can create chaos. Your ranges in a city will be limited though with that set up. Getting your kit up to the top of a modern sky scraper to increase your stand off range would be the challenge.

And, well, let's face it. Dedicated sniper role in military terms is almost a suicide mission. After you've torqued off the opposition, do you really think they aren't going to throw EVERYTHING they can short of FAE to rid themselves of a determined sniper. After 3 or 4 shots, suppressive fire, grenades and if available, mortar rounds will be inbound. there's very little to do for it.
Even the US military is moving away from the dedicated sniper role, and moving towards the Designated marksman (in the field, off base). His weapon has a longer barrel, a better scope and might have a different stock configuration, but it's not a 2+ meter anti-material rifle like we see in the movies. It's just not cost effective for the few targets they'd be able to neutralize. With the redesign, he uses the same ammo his teammates use, if he falls, anyone can pickup and use his weapon with their own ammo, or they can grab his ammo for their weapon and the configuration won't be so different that the weapon would be useless in non-longshot situations.
On base, counter snipers would be the more likely to use the huge rifles as they will have the benefit of not having to lug a 12 Kg weapon over several Km through nasty weather nor have to worry about ammo concerns and they'd have the benefit of cover and literally dozens of spotters assisting.
Chances are in a Shadowrun situation a field sniper isn't all that likely to be using a "sniper rifle", it's just not cost effective.

2) At Long and Extreme distance, yes, you can.

The best magical snipers don’t use spells to kill. They use a sniper rifle just like the mundane sniper. Spells like invisibility, stealth and levitate make getting to position with your man sized weapon almost trivial. With levitate and a fore grip and customised grip on the weapon you don’t even need to touch down to take the shot. And because all the spells are on you the only place your astral signature will be left is on you. And a rating 3 optical scope and a enhance aim spell 4 (-2 TN) works wonders. All spells on sustaining foci naturally.

As for penetrating magical targets I had a character working on a way to put a core of bio fibre or FAB 2 in large calibre rounds. He didn’t get anywhere unfortunately. And having a spirit use concealment on the bullet itself will make the anchoring focus with detect bullet linked to personal bulled barrier unreliable.

As to the target number. It will usually come out to 2 for a sniper. At extreme range we have 5 with the SL2 with range finder 7 for the head shot. 6 seconds to take the shot is not unlikely while he is going to his car. Based on 2 actions per combat turn witch is trivial to achieve I have 8 simple actions witch will allow me to have TN 2 with up to 2 points of penalty from other conditions.

The best counter to this being done to often is simply not to give runs that focus on killing somebody.

*stab*

Never use those damn "priceless" commercials again. Most overused crap I've ever had the displeasure of seeing sprout everywhere.

To counter Tanka's assertion:

In Soviet Russia, joke overuses you.

~J

Multiple opponents rather than just one bigshot.

After the PC snipes out one person, have one of the NPCs scream out "SNIPAAAAAA!" with a funny accent and then have all the NPCs unload 40 rounds of suppressive fire on the PCs vantage point.

And make them all be loading APDS.

And then make one of them have a grenade launcher.

EDIT: Wait, that's what Nikoli said.

So are my players the only ones where both the sam and the lookout are sporting sniper rifles with APDS (not barretts) instead of assault rifles? Aim once and fire, and you they drop someone every action they try.

That only works with low TNs. Dodging a single shot is easy unless you've got a lot of successes to dodge off or are increasing dodge TNs somehow (burst-fire/full-auto, wound mods, etc).

~J

Heavy vision mods, smartlink 2, and aiming once every time. 13 dice (6 skill + 6 cp + 1 Enhanced art). Leads to a fair number of successes, small unit tactics keeps them with plenty of combat pool, and all it takes is one net success and the target is soaking a TN 10+ serious wound. There's 2 of them firing, and occationally the Troll heavy weapons platform.

But they're soaking the same thing, give or take, with an AR burst, only with the burst they need a single 5 to dodge instead of a 4, meaning they only dodge one-third of the time with a single die instead of one-half. Not to mention that the AR gives you suppressive fire versatility.

~J

yeah, except that they don't have to deal with recoil in firing. and the amount of damage done tends to be higher.

Singel Burst from an Assault rifle 10S
with APDS against a target with 8 armor = Target soaks a 6S
+1 TN to dodge
+3 TN to hit

Single round from a sniper rifle 14S
with APDS against a target with 8 armor = Target soaks a 10S
Loss of suppression fire (which is a good point)

...
So I take it then they are the only ones.

Three points of recoil compensation are trivial to come by. If you're using sniper rifles rather than sporting rifles you do have a point with regard to base damage.

I'm not saying it's a bad choice, certainly. I would, however, argue that it isn't much of a better one. IIRC magazine size tends to be smaller (even counting total number of firing actions rather than raw bulletcount), too.

~J

What would really suck: sniper without a rangefinder trying to snipe a still target at 1,002 meters.

~J

Paying attention to security zone ratings may or may not be helpful. In the higher rated ones, I find it less likely a sniper can just setup wherever they please without major juice and high level contact kinda support. Plus drone patrols are more frequent, etc etc.

On the other spectrum, if you live in a hellzone, and don't assume you're always a target when you're out of cover, you deserve to get shot.

This is why one of the first things to do when receiving sniper fire in an urban zone is to move. Especially if you don't know where the bullet came from. If you are in a car, just hit the gas. Don't stand around like an idiot.

Hmm, been watching stand alone complex recently, I though of something even better to do. Send an anthroform drone to the meet, physically masked to look like your face. If someone shoot it, oh well. Would there be a penatly to negotiations when talking trough a rigged drone? It does save your from those pheremones...

Nerps t that, just install the AoE cranial bombs in a swarms of the cat anthro-form drones and have them swarm your target, but more amusing.

And invest in flash bangs, thermal smoke grenades and flashpaks

Hmm, a high force spell similar to fashion to reshape the exterior of the drone? Just phusical mask it to have the right features?

I guess if you are reduced to a mage/rigger in a suitcase, there are still ways to have sex with your ally spirit.

His point is that the return fire idea isn't always such a great one, though, and that's accurate. Not that you wouldn't return fire, but the whole taking-cover idea is what the focus should be on.

~J

Sure, if you want to trade mobility for stasis you can live in a hole and never come out for fear of snipers. My point is that snipers can strike from ranges without fear of being hit back, and you won't be able to see where it came from. Most street thugs carry pistols and SMGs, even assault rifles can't touch a sniper at range. Lighting an area up with grenades and 40 rounds each is of limited to useless value. It is a sure way to bring Lone Star down on you. And if they can't handle the job I am sure the boys at Fort Lewis can.

The best way to limit a sniper is to enforce realism on the sniper's movement with his gear and his set up. Have the target take precautions like not keeping a schedule, moving alot, using stealth, magic defense, etc... A cautious target can make stalking him a logistical nightmare. No sniper can stay on station forever.

If you make it easy for PCs to take the shot then expect them to.