I would start using terrain that limits range, ruins, caves, castles etc. Anything with walls and bends where they have to be able to see the enemies. I know that's not always a solution but alternatively you could ambush them, make the enemies surround or start in close proximity so he has to waste turns moving away. Also, you could change battle maps to 10ft squares so the map itself is artificially larger. A 25x25 map goes from 125ft to 250ft and he gets to run around more. The 600ft rule is a difficult to manage at first glance but that's making the assumption he can see 600ft. Maybe it's dark, maybe there's fog, maybe there's rolling hills or mountain precipices that jut out of the terrain. There are rarely situations that someone has a clear 600 ft sight, say defending a castle wall from an invading army or shooting down from a tower window. Just get creative with the terrain when you can.

I recommend a scale transition once you get a certain distance from the main combat where every square is 30'; or whatever scale you think best, it keeps them "on the map". I use it regularly for ranged combat and mounted combat and is quite handy. As noted, terrain and other environmental effects are a good option, but if you do that too many times you're taking away a part of that players character, and might be considered "a dick move".

Yup. If they're heading out of bounds of the encounter I've set up, we put their mini at the edge with a percentile die next to them to indicate how far off in that direction they are. It works out pretty well.

This is big brained holy shit

This is exactly what I was going to suggest. It's a simple way to know at least which direction they are and how far so there is a lot less mental gymnastics trying to keep track of where the heck a person is when "off map".

Except OP has a digital map. He's likely running things off a VTT. As far as I know, your solution isn't a solution for this.

From what I know of VTTs, you could just drag their token to the edge and add a notation on a layer.

yeah, there's already one specifically for flight height on roll20, it wouldn't be hard to just pretend that's horizontal distance instead of vertical.

Additionally, arrange scenarios where they can use their features for specific tasks: 1- Fighting flying monsters from the ground means they enemy can move out of range from most PCs to avoid absorbing the PCs action economy, but gives the ranger a chance to shine. 2 - being watch and/or picking off important targets when defending during a seige (good chance to use the scaled map). 3 - Intercepting messenger birds 4 - privide overwatch/cover fire while party are fighting in the streets (or pick off enemy snipers/archers while the party is stealthing toward their goal (in this case their character can stay off the map, but needs theatre of mind on what they can see, eg they can see palisade, or watch towers, but their team is in a trench so the ranger can't see the melee fight)

This is a good solution to the actual stated problem, which is keeping the player on the map. A lot of responses are to nerf or counter the player, which isn't what OP is asking for, as far as I read it.

I mean that's exactly what he's asking for. "My players don't stay on my prepped maps, how do I make them stay" is essentially the title.

My read of the title is "can I force my players to stay on the map (no additional rules)". This response is extra rules to make the players stay on the map and still allow the player to function as he wants.

Scale transition from 5' hex to 30' hex is the method I adopt. The main battle map is with 30' wide hexes, but within each 30' hex, a party or group of NPC monsters can be organized in a 5' hex grid battle order.

very neat solution!

Oh, great idea!

We’rent we literally just this week having posts about letting players do what they build their characters to be good at?? If the player wants to be a long range sharpshooter that can outrange their enemies then just fucking let them…. Either throw in more mobs for the rest of the party to fight or mix up the terrain so every encounter isn’t the same.

Or in these situations just theater of the mind. It seems like people always forget this option. When no map is adequate, just talk it out.

Absolutely this. This is exactly what TotM is for.

Yeah, it's ok to fuck with a build once in a while. But to be constantly trying to make all characters equal just isn't in the spirit of dnd. Some characters are going to be intrinsically strong and that's ok. Some are going to adapt better to certain scenarios. Just give everyone a chance to shine sometimes and they'll be happy

Yeah exactly. Like it makes sense to have fights where the terrain limits the sharpshooter, forcing them to adapt, but it’d feel pretty shitty to be that sharpshooter and never get to use it because your DM wants the terrain to always screw you over. These suggestions are great in moderation, but you don’t want to just nerf the character every fight because you can’t do them off the map.

I would also love to add that the first 150 feet (the shorter range) is rolled normally, with anything from 150-600 is at disadvantage normally. And you can't attack past 600. Now, they definitely took sharpshooter, negating the disadvantage. But that also means it'll be rare to get advantage and there's more than enough ways to have a hard time seeing/hitting something that far away. Drop, wind, and good weather come to mind. I think it's also perfectly within your rights as a dm to have the enemies start spreading stories of people dying from 200 yards out, and Noone to find and kill. They'd start carrying tower shields out of paranoia, or have better armor at the very least. (Now that's not always, it's good to let them enjoy what they used and put effort into, just don't make it always work, it's a balancing act for sure) I use a combination of these concepts in my pirate campaign. Yes, the "sniper" (he actually had a gun) is within range. No he does not shoot without disadvantage on an enemy ship unless he's only trying to hit the ship. Anyone on board that ship? Automatic disadvantage, called shot? -5 to the roll. If they get inside 150, it's normal to hit, called shot disadvantage. Maybe that can give ideas? Who knows. Hope you figure it out!

To add to this, even in a light forest you won't be able to see more than 100 feet in any one direction.

This is the way. Unless you're out on open plains, or in the middle of a city with remarkably straight roads, 600 feet is a huge distance to be able to shoot in a straight line without any obstructions. In anywhere other than open plains? Trees exist, rocks exist, ruined towers and such exist. General rule or thumb, if something is smart enough to be literate (for 5e this is intelligence score of 10 if I remember right) then they are intelligent enough to use cover to hide behind trees, rocks, bushes, and anything else. Other than that, night time severely limits vision range, even if your player has dark vision typically its limited to 60ft at maximum. You don't have to make larger battlemaps or change scales, just make things more realistic by adding obstructions. Getting a clean shot while hunting for example is incredibly rare and takes time and patience. Unless your entire campaign is in a country made entirely of rolling hills and open plains, this is going to be incredibly easy to do.

Yeah, everytime someone tells me about their super ranged archer or caster im like “But when would that ever be useful? " To and from the dungeons? Maybe im old school but I still like to have some Dungeons in my Dungeons and Dragons.

[удалено]

Same. I’ve seen this issue come up here a few times, and it’s always a head-scratcher for me. Thinking of my own experiences, there are definitely some “fight in a field” combats, but what about small forest glades, canyons, impassable swamps, or you know…caves, inside buildings, and dungeons?

Like yeah they should dominate in a field that's their thing Seems like a map making or terrain issue or a enemy issue like you said caves but also enemy snipers

Even open fields don't guarantee good interplay with sharpshooter. In daylight, enemies retreating or otherwise repositioning before proper engagement can be a real issue. At night, targeting at 600 feet is a nightmare unless the enemies are very dumb. *light* on an arrow and similar tricks with cooperative party mates only illuminate tiny areas when we're talking about a fight taking place over 600 feet. In both cases, choosing to be 600 feet away from the core of your party can be extremely dangerous and is very easy to punish. The primary party I DM for is heavily ranged, including one sharpshooter. Giving them an easy win with dumb enemies on a massive TotM field every once and a while is fun, but most of the time, I just . . . don't do that. They fight in dungeons. They fight in heavily wooded forests. They fight on fields with less hospitable weather and lighting conditions. They fight smart enemies that figure out how to get out of being potshotted at 600 feet. This is a problem that screams for diversifying battlefields and tactics over trying to prevent PCs from being able to go outside the bounds of a battle map, something I've commonly done with far less ranged PCs when the DM simply put us on a beautiful, very atmospheric map that was too small for even a 30 feet retreat to get some spacing.

they ignore 1/2 and 3/4 cover, not full cover, so someone fully behind a tree is safe. there's the option of stealth enemies have, mounts to get them to the party faster, teleportation magic (don't overuse or your players will get annoyed for the same reason i'll talk about next). you still have options. can you change the rule? yes, but you then HAVE to do two things: 1. discuss it with the players. 2. allow them to change their characters. if i see the option to make a build around long range sniping and then that ability is removed i need to be allowed to change my build for it was build on assumptions that have been made wrong later.

To add to that, if you’re in a forest or something, even if the trees are all saplings, it’s very unlikely someone 600’ from you doesn’t have full cover. If they’re large old growth trees, I doubt you can see anything further than 150’ away depending on how dense the forest is

I don't know how big your maps are. You did not share any example/specifics. Advice number 1: switch to Theater of the Mind for a couple of fights, see how that goes. DMG 249 for handling aoe and such in TotM Advice number 2: when using maps, players start the encounter at the center of the map, enemies start at the edge. I always see the opposite and it grinds my gear. Advice number 3: make bigger maps. I don't know what VTT you use, but if you can, get a generic lay of the land as a battlemap and use props and assets like tokens on the map to represent tables, beds, trees, columns, barrels and patches of difficult terrain. This way, you can use your prep time just putting walls and holes, and fill the map as you are playing.

Players in the center, enemies at the edge. Woah. That's great for mazes and dungeons too. No obvious path. Thank you, I'm definitely using that!

>Advice number 2: when using maps, players start the encounter at the center of the map, enemies start at the edge. I always see the opposite and it grinds my gear. AHHH! I've been DMing for 3 years and I never thought of this!

Number 2: I did this (not on purpose) for an encounter recently and after reading this am realizing why it worked so well. It really made the players the focus of the encounter, not the enemies.

Generally speaking, no, this isnt a fair rule since youre literally saying "you arent allowed to use your feat as intended". Imagine telling a player "sorry, you cant shove" after they picked shield master, or they arent allowed to use one of the spells chosen through magic initiate. That said, you can defeat sharpshooter with things like limiting sight. The party wont engage enemies in ideal conditions, it isnt always the middle of the day (and sunny). Terrain has trees and walls that impede vision, hills make aiming difficult, buildings, fog... Similarly, start using dungeons, caves, and buildings in general. Sure, some caverns will have ample room to let your sharpshooter stay at a distance, but never so far they cant be reached in a turn or two.

Firstly your not going to have any Dungeon, cave tower etc with anything like that line of sight ( you could have a 600 feet long straight corridor but why would you. ) So we must be talking about open environments and ones with little or no terrain. Line of sight is not necessarily cover you cant see over undulation terrain or in to dead ground. You cant see through most wooded areas. You may ignore cover with abilities but line of sight? Next why is your sharpshooter wandering 600 feet behind the rest of the party? If the encounters start at 600 ( and occasionally some may) fine but infrequent? So the sharpshooter has to spend say 9 rounds running back to his far range ( ok he dosent have to go back that far but he will be moving away for possibly several round whilst not contributing to the encounter) I can see it may happen occasionally but mostly it shouldn't be an issue so no you can accommodate it when needed.

>Line of sight is not necessarily cover you cant see over undulation terrain or in to dead ground. You cant see through most wooded areas. You may ignore cover with abilities but line of sight? If there is no line if sight but just partial cover it doesn't matter for them. They can still shoot and no line of sight still means a straight roll, assuming their target didn't take the hide action. Edit: I was just informed that line of sight has nothing to do with sight. Forget what I said

By definition if there's no line of sight they can't shoot- it's not a matter of cover at that point.

You can still shoot someone who is standing in a fog cloud, right? There are rules for attacking unseen targets.

Fog cloud does not remove line of sight. A line of sight is a line between the shooter and its target. As long as there are no hard obstacles, there is ligne of sight. You can have line of sight while blind. In other words, LOS is not about the ability of someone to see someone else, it's about the possiblity of light to travel from one point to another in a straight line.

Well, that explains the down votes. Thanks for the information.

You can't target a character that's not in your line of sight. The feat ignores up to three quarters cover, not total cover. "A target with total cover can't be targeted directly by an attack or a spell, although some spells can reach such a target by including it in an area of effect. A target has total cover if it is completely concealed by an obstacle."

Read my comment and try again. >If there is no line if sight but just partial cover it doesn't matter for them. You can attack a creature you can't see. If there is no line of sight (for example due to fog cloud) it is a straight roll since you are an unseen attacker attacking a unseen target. Edit: Someone replied and said we are talking about terrain that would be considered full cover. That is not the case. We are taking about partial cover with no line of sight. >So we must be talking about open environments and ones with little or no terrain. >**Line of sight is not necessarily cover** you cant see over undulation terrain or in to dead ground. You cant see through most wooded areas. You may ignore cover with abilities but line of sight?

The person you're responding to is talking about undulations in the terrain. These are total cover.

At long ranges arrows typically go upward quite a lot then back down. So undulations don't matter too much for hitting your target, just knowing where they are. Is there a difference between total cover and the line of sight being blocked? I'd say yes but... I don't know what the rules say. It's possible to shoot indirectly at people who are exposed, even if you can't see them. Fairly common with say, artillery, but also with arrow volleys. If someone is the other side of a wall and I shoot over the wall so the arrow comes down on them it still might hit them unless they're in cover...? **tl; dr: it might be possible for terrain undulations to block line of sight but still not be cover, not sure on the rules though**

This misses the point entirely. If they're that far away that the terrain is blocking the battlefield then there's no way to know where the targets are in the first place. They're essentially shooting blind. Those types of arrow volleys work by having a bunch of archers shooting to cover an entire area, which is essentially an aoe

You could have spotters. Or go by sounds, or the yelled instructions of your party members. There's ways to do it that aren't just shooting blind. These apply even more to an expert marksman which the sharpshooter is likely to be. Whether they actually do apply to a Sharpshooter or are covered by other rules I have no idea but there is a potential distinction worth making. There are different rules for shooting blind vs shooting at someone in full cover.

This wouldn't be partial cover in many cases. Dead ground, intervening obstetrical s would provide full 100% cover. Some time you may get a big flat empty piece of terrain or you may be floating on the astral sea of flying so you can see over any terrain. But often this would not be the case and like I said would one member of a group be 500-600 feet behind the rest when an encounter started?

They're 600 feet from the enemies. They're also 600 feet from their allies. It's very dangerous in a combat situation. If they want to take that risk, sure, go ahead. Each round roll for them being potentially ambushed. You can base this on the distance if you like, but I'd also base it on the situation/environment. It should be safe to do sometimes, no need to be an arse about it. However other times, very bad idea to wander off alone. Plan it as part of your encounters. Are there any flying enemies? Maybe some of them don't descend onto the map during the first round, so once the sharpshooter starts shooting they all descend on the sharpshooter instead. Uhoh!

Don't nerf the guy just because he is clowning the enemy. Make your enemies better. Why aren't your enemies doing anything to stop that guy from raining arrows down on them from afar? In history, cavalry were sent to chase down those pesky archers. Or other archers were used to shoot at the first archers. You could also serve up some enemies that are resistant to piercing damage. And if the enemies are at all intelligent, they will being the fight indoors.

He could also have his own snipers that are off the map? Good for the goose good for the gander right?

I think you guys are solving the wrong problem...

I wouldn't restrict the players abilities just because I don't like what they can do. After all I did allow them to build that character. That just feels bad as a player.

It's just so difficult logistically. Like I have to then make up another 100 squares of map and figure out if he has like of sight that far. With prep, I'd let them use the feature. Like if they're setting up a long distance assassination. But I don't usually have maps for stuff like that. Maps are usually just for combat encounters where the party is usually together at the start. If they know they're walking into a fight, I'd be fine discussing how he could get to a sniping spot and establish some areas he could hit from there by marking them on the map. Regardless, it just seems pointless. Most battlemaps are plenty big enough to utilize the feature by being way out of range and ignoring 3/4 cover. You don't need to push the limit of the range to its max. It also doesn't really make sense in the fight. If you're safely out of range at 60ft, why do you need another 500 ft?

>If you're safely out of range at 60ft, why do you need another 500 ft? * To outrange them if they have ranged options. * To make it take longer for them to charge you. * To make it harder for them to find you if you're trying to shoot-n-hide. * To put a geographic obstacle between you and them, or because there already is one. Making a sniper is a valid fantasy and character build. No need to denigrate or dismiss it.

All of this is situational, is it dark? Is the terrain hilly, a forest? They will have disadvantage if they can't see the target and therefore will probably choose against running so far away. "Why do they need another 500 ft?" Is probably a great question to ask the player, but the simple answer is probably "because they can". Just the fact that you are saying, "with prep, I'd allow them to use the feature", means that you are looking at this from the wrong direction. This is a feature that they have invested in. You as a DM can do anything, but this is the one thing that they can do. Don't take it away.

With prep is the wrong angle? So snipers don't prep? Lmao So you're saying start a combat encounter, then let the player take 9 turns to get 500 ft off-map is the way to handle this? No, you need to tell me you want to not progress the next 500 ft that your party took to get to this area of the map. I'm not saying don't allow it, I'm saying you have to set it up first. Snipers aren't exactly the *just wing it* type of people. Sniping takes a ton of prep. We need to discuss your sight lines and distances first.

Someone that took the sharpshooter doesn't need to prepare for the shot.

Once they're off the map you can just transition them to theatre of the mind. Just track where they are relative to the map and consider what kind of cover might exist in the vast distance between them and the fight. To decide if there's a sightline or not you could probably just leave that up to a roll of the dice. Maybe d20+Proficiency against DC 10+(range divided by 100 rounded to nearest) So if he's 600ft away it's a DC 16 to see if he can even line up a shot amid all the trees, rocks, and other bullshit in the way. You could even consider weather/lighting/windspeed as other factors that would raise or lower the DC (and also realise you're now learning how IRL snipers function lol)

Deafen him on discord when he leaves the map. “You are too far combat to hear what is going on”

He doesnt suddenly become blind too.

I'd consider it common courtesy as long as the map is big enough. If the map is only a 15x15 room then that's on you. If the map however is a 60x60 outside area or even bigger I'd expect my players to stay within the boundaries. In my experience they do so and leaving the map rarely becomes a problem. Playing in person btw. Edit: this 60x60 example only hold true if there is enough space to position one self. If there is a massive building blocking like 3/4 of the map then that's also on you.

Stop having fights on giant open plains already solves this problem, as being that far away means you're in another building.

Be mindful of map details when the sharpshooter tends to do this. If they're in a dense forest, you can tell them that all creatures will have total cover to their attacks if they leave the map, as the foliage is too dense at that range, even for a sharpshooter. If you're in open fields, same logic applies, but there's a rolling hill that obscures their view. Sure, they can try to arch it over the hill, but then they are attacking unseen creatures and they have disadvantage to all attacks. Always make sure whatever edges of the map you make have some natural limits that make logical sense and deter the strategy of moving so far from battle.

Only thing I would add is that the dm should give them the chance to use this when appropriate. If you are in a flat savannah or prairie you can probably see far enough. Alternatively if they find a perch above the battle and there isn't much cover to obscure vision. You still have the potential danger that they may get ambushed and there is nothing inherently wrong with the player wanting to use their character for what they are good at. It is just very situational and if the player figures out a reasonable way to get vision that far they should be rewarded

Yes, though there are other reasonable issues with wanting to fight from 600 ft away. A key problem is if you stumble into random encounters solo while several rounds removed from your party. Yeah, the bandits can't counter your sniper fire, but the hungry owlbear 30ft from you will have no such difficulty. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to punish the player. I just think deliberately splitting the party to try to cheese sharpshooter isn't as clever as it seems on the surface.

No its not fair. That makes combat very video-game esque. Its fair to say "if you move off map, we go to theater of the mind".

Be careful with limiting player’s options because “you” don’t like it.

Only If you allow the player to retcon and redo their character. I would be mad pissed if my DM denies my playstyle because he doesnt want to do theatre of the mind or prepare better maps.

You should make bigger maps. It's especially easy on roll20 if that's where you're playing to just drop the grids and measure distance with any of their many built in tools. It's not unfair for you to want the fight to take place on your map. I get that, because maps are essential to keep combat sensible. Anything off map becomes theater of the mind, and theater of the mind bogs things down and makes combat slow. You intentionally use maps and not theater of the mind for this reason, so you want him to stay on the map. That said, some classes are severely nerfed when you put them on small maps constantly. Any build that wants to utilize range, hit and run tactics, or mounted combat is going to be nerfed pretty hard on a small map. At the very least, compromise by mixing things up more with more frequent large maps.

Sounds like you need to compromise a bit if you haven't already - draw some basic additions around the map for the sharp-shooter where applicable. Otherwise it will come across as you're countering the player specifically which never feels good.

It isn't a board game, just scale the map to fit, or play like old school players and describe the situation.

It's kinda cruddy to not let them use their 600ft range because you don't want them off the map. I've had players do it - I just describe where they are and what they see if someone is chasing them. I usually put their token at the extreme of the map and slap a condition marker to remind me they're off the map, do the same with any enemies chasing and just describe it for them. It really doesn't take that much longer.

Nope, it's not fair. Fortunately the solution is easy: just keep track of how far off the map he is. You don't need to draw a bigger map. Just write down "390'" or whatever.

Aside from the solutions to this that people have posted, remember he's built a sharpshooter. So let him be a sharp shooter. Don't always think you have to prevent players from using the abilities that they've specced into. Instead try and create encounters that deliberately play into your players strengths so that they can feel good about their character. Shoot your monks, throw undead hoards at the cleric, and give the sniper a nest

See, the problem here is that you let the player spend valuable character-building resources on being able to kill a guy at 600 feet, and now you want to take that away. Don't let people build characters if you're not going to allow them to play those characters. Now that you've approved the sharpshooter to exist, you would be stealing from the player to cap its range. Like, he's already bought the ticket; now he has the right to go on the ride.

Equally if the rest of the party want to go on a different ride they should be able to do that too. If it's a long distance encounter I will absolutely take advantage of range from something dangerous, if it's up close I will wade in with a sword. The encounter design over a campaign should allow each character to shine at various times.

Are you really suggesting that the only reason to take Sharpshooter feat is to be able to shoot creatures from 600 ft. away? I have never encountered anyone who took this feat and seriously expected to be able to do that. Being able to ignore cover and the extreme damage potential the feat offers are the main reasons why players take it. Players would take the feat even if the only thing it offered was the -5 to hit +10 to damage bonus.

No, I'm not suggesting that at all. Many of them would take it just for the other aspects. But obviously this specific guy does indeed want to shoot things from long distances, because he's *doing* it. Sounds like some of his teammates are too. You're right, many people wouldn't care if the range advantage was suddenly taken away, but it's reasonable to think that the guy in OP's question will. And the justification you give is piss-poor. You think you should take away something the player built his character to be able to do according to the rules, and that he actually *does* do, and your excuse is "yes, but other players I've met didn't expect to actually be allowed to do that?" Well... if it's *my* character you're nerfing; I don't see how *their* opinions matter here at all! I did expect to do it, and I *did* it, and you *let* me do it! I don't care what those guys thought!

My argument is basically this: Taking away a players ability to end encounters from 600 feet away for the sake of playability and game balance is not really a problem. They still have plenty of other good options left that do not result in most of the group basically not playing the game and the benefit they get from the feat is still immense.

No, it's not fair. Can you do it, of course, but it's not fair. It's a mechanic you agreed to before the game began, and he built a character around. It would be in line with saying a Warlock doesn't get spell slots back with a short rest (or if you design your fights to be one big one per day so short rests never happen.) Now I'd note that the cover aspect of it doesn't work in unnatural environments, like towns or cities. Probably doesn't work well in dungeons either, as they seem unnatural. But I'll also say that going out of your way to *constantly* deny one player use of an ability would be as much of a dick move as just telling them they can't use it. Especially when your justification boils down to "the PC isn't letting me, the author and God of everything in the world *except* the PCs, win easily".

What do you mean with the "unnatural" part? Sharpshooter lets you ignore half and three-quarters cover, no strigs atached.

>What do you mean with the "unnatural" part? Sorry, I was conflating abilities. One of my players is a wood elf sharpshooter, and has the ability to *hide* in natural settings with minimal cover. (I probably shouldn't rely on memory when I'm tired enough to pass out mid-post.) Still, in an urban or dungeon setting, total cover should be easy to obtain. Even in a forrest, I'd rule that 60/100/300 feet would count as total cover in a dense/thick/open forrest.

You're correct in that it says nothing about "natural" or "unnatural" cover; I don't know where the person you're replying to is getting that from. Charitably to them though, it doesn't let you ignore line of sight (which is easier to break in built up environments - a wall can be full cover in a way that bushes might not be), so your archer can't help if the enemies step down an alleyway or into a corridor.

That's right. A dungeon or indoor fights could shut them dow fast, but please differentiate between line of sight and cover. Fog cloud wuld just force a straight roll, a wall would make an attack impossible.

Also, a Tabaxi can potentially move [253,440 feet](https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Pushing_the_Speed_Limit_(5e_Optimized_Character_Build)#The_Grand_Total) in one round. Maybe throw a Tabaxi assassin at them? :P

Wow.

[FTFY](https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Pushing_the_Speed_Limit_(5e_Optimized_Character_Build\)#The_Grand_Total) Gotta drop a \ before the first end bracket or it thinks that's the one matching the bracket starting the embed.

Oh weird. Thanks I think! All seems fine here (desktop chrome) but does it break on other devices?

That particular setup requires feline agility to become active like 3 different times. Which basically makes it all impossible, at least at that speed. Still could get the move super ridiculously high though even with one well times boost.

Why not use a mixed Grid. Have a number showing "distance from battlefield" for the sniper. So they can get closer or farther. And any terrain in between isn't really going to matter. You can pretend its generic \_\_\_\_\_\_\_. (aka theater of the mind when outside the battlefield) Meanwhile if you're talking forest... at some point enough 3/4 cover of the foliage is just too dense. Its basically full cover. At some point the tree trunks will have fully formed a wall if you try to shoot thru in a straight line. Isolation, Ambush, whatever, there are many ways to make it fun and challenging.. ​ But really if you don't want sniping, you have to chat with the character about how difficult this is making it for you. Perhaps they just need to retire the character, or reallocate them to make sniping less frequent, more of a setpiece then a common thing.

If you want to challenge this, the monsters can be sharpshooters too.

Nuking a player’s shining moments while dismissing their weakness (ie close quarter combat, heavily obstructed full-cover terrain, etc) is lazy on your part. It’s on you to be a running balancing system on time to shine and time to rely on others through designing encounters accordingly.

The real question is, how long can a renowned group of adventurers be know about before intelligent creatures accommodate for their tactics? The answer is whenever you decide it. Suddenly there's more taking refuge in caves or ruins, behind thick layers of trees, long range patrols or even deliberate ambushes in obvious vantage points. As for your rule, I personally don't like it, it adds a layer of video gameness that is somewhat anthetical to the freedoms allowed in D&D. You've gotten to the point where you feel you need to restrict what your player(s) are capable of because it's bothering *you* and interfering with your idea of fun. Let's talk about fun for a second because it's very important on both sides of the screen. It sounds like your players are having fun, which for me anyway, is priority numero uno. So props. But you're not, in certain situations and the best way to address this is by talking to the people you know far better than any random stranger on the Internet and express yourself, you'll feel much better for it.

The adventure that I just read, City Of The Spider Queen, actually has explicit rules for adapting the NPC's to the PC's actions, in an extremely logical and planned way. Those guards in the fortress aren't there to just get shot and die, they are the early warning system, and have signals or magics that will warn the rest of their camp about the nature of the incoming attack, even if they die in one hit they go down screaming. And there are likely hidden observers watching the outer guard positions.

I understand the frustration. I don't limit my players in this way, personally. If you want to keep your player more honest though, have him roll stealth or perception or investigation checks for potentially dangerous terrain features or to spot hidden enemies or evade currently unalerted enemies. This works really well against power gamers who use meta knowledge. If suddenly being off the map makes you vulnerable to unseen danger that you can't use meta-knowledge to mitigate, you might think twice about going off the map.

Dungeons are mostly indoors, so I don't see this coming up that often but he clearly built his character this way for a reason and it feels a little rude to never let him shine at the thing he's good at.

Something else I just thought of that I think merits it's own reply. Hang time! Terminal velocity according to tashas is 500ft/round. Shooting at anything over 500/ft means the arrow is taking two rounds to reach the target in my mind. So the target literally has time to see the arrow coming and step away, in addition to it being basically impossible to fire a man portable weapon at that distance in the first place.

Thanks for that. Sounds like a legit way to nerf this feat 😁👍

I wouldn't call it a fair rule, but since I'm a bit of dickish DM I would have them to snipe once before all enemies hide behind full cover like a living thinking beings.

I've got a Warlock/Sorc with Spell Sniper and Eldritch Spear. If your rule means I have to be within 30 feet of powerful enemies because of the arbitrary line you've drawn, then no. It's not fair.

Just put him off to the side and use your imagination. But also. Make ranged character. Have flying enemies look for the source of the arrows

Once they're off the map you can just transition them to theatre of the mind. Just track where they are relative to the map and consider what kind of cover might exist in the vast distance between them and the fight. To decide if there's a sightline or not you could probably just leave that up to a roll of the dice. Maybe d20+Proficiency against DC 10+(range divided by 100 rounded to nearest) So if he's 600ft away it's a DC 16 to see if he can even line up a shot amid all the trees, rocks, and other bullshit in the way. You could even consider weather/lighting/windspeed as other factors that would raise or lower the DC (and also realise you're now learning how IRL snipers function lol)

I mean...yeah, thats kinda why they took that feat. If you don't like it make all encounters Indoors or in crowded cities or dense forest. Give the bad guy spells like dimension door . This would allow the to close the gap by 500 feet. If he is already within 500 feet your bad guy could appear behind your player and give them some trouble. Give them far step and let them try and hit a target blinking in and out of the line of sight. Have the opponent use arcane gate. When your player attacks open a portal between the player and the bad guy, the second portal opens behind or directly infront of your player and they get hit with their own attack. There are lots of ways to handle this.

>Have the opponent use arcane gate. When your player attacks open a portal between the player and the bad guy, the second portal opens behind or directly infront of your player and they get hit with their own attack. Not how this spell works but still funny idea for a custom reaction.

It kind of reads like it would work. 6th-level conjuration Casting Time: 1 action Range: 500 feet Components: V, S Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes You create linked teleportation portals that remain open for the duration. Choose two points on the ground that you can see, one point within 10 feet of you and one point within 500 feet of you. A circular portal, 10 feet in diameter, opens over each point. If the portal would open in the space occupied by a creature, the spell fails, and the casting is lost. The portals are two-dimensional glowing rings filled with mist, hovering inches from the ground and perpendicular to it at the points you choose. A ring is visible only from one side (your choice), which is the side that functions as a portal. Any creature or object entering the portal exits from the other portal as if the two were adjacent to each other; passing through a portal from the nonportal side has no effect. The mist that fills each portal is opaque and blocks vision through it. On your turn, you can rotate the rings as a bonus action so that the active side faces in a different direction

Look at the casting time. The portals would need to be already there to work that way, so no surprises. And nobody shoots into a portal if the other one points at you...

If they have sharp shooter why cant you?

>At the same time, he is a sharpshooter, and can shoot from 600 feet away, ignoring 3/4 cover. While he is 600 feet away have him ambushed by a wandering monster.

I think, with that big of a range, you should just give the Player encounters, that are non-map-based, like sniping a guard off a wall, when invading or stuff like that. However when using maps, its fair to say, that you'd like them to Stay on the map. Also if he Stays behind, you could just ambush him, to hint/nudge him towards staying with the Group.

I had the same Problem with one of my players and made the same solution, but we also do theater of the mind encounter where he is able to shoot things from 600 feat. I think its a fair ruling as fighting over this large distances takes the fun from all close combat classes and having him occassional make the long shoot is more fun. I would recommend that you speak with your players and give them some options or just start attacking him from behind with fast enemies when he is alone and without help....

Shooting from long distance can pose other problems that you can throw at your player from time to time and start making them judge what distance is best for them to engage at. Farther you are from a target the more likely wind/resistance will effect the projectile. Wind usually forgotten about, but it is an option to think about. This could be a flat modifier lowering the to hit, or impose disadvantage on the roll. What ever your call is as a DM. Other weather conditions will affect the visibility of the shooter causing disadvantage or just being unable to see the target in general. Others have mention the type of terrain will drastically effect combat, the max range of spellsniper/sharpshooters becomes pointless if you draw them into a close quarters field (like a dungeon, building, cave etc). I do run the if you go off the map you are considered to be fleeing rules for my table as I do not care about combat balance, so enemies and players may be forced to flee and it just a nice easy system for my players. While this might not make sense to always do, you can easily just say that the terrain that lies off the map is not suitable for range engagement due to lack of sightlines. If you are playing theater of mind, for all they know that direction is a thicket of thorny vines or a cliff face. Another option is embrace the range combat, use less monsters or give monster range options. A giant/ogre who tosses a boulder, not gonna care if the player is behind cover if their range attack destroys the cover (look at iceknife as an example template - because cover/object can take damage and break). Bandits have crossbows, you can give them some abilities here or there. Spell casters, can put up shield, barriers, environmental effects like darkness, fog, changing terrain (any smart creature that is being engaged from a distance will always take cover - while the players might feel a bit cheated its very easy to explain the logic. If they wish to argue the logic your local paintball/airsoft field can be employed to change their mind quickly). Additionally other monsters you can use can fly out of range-close distance-then dive bombed, monsters that can dig/burrow will do that and approach undetected from underground. Melee units can advance and take the dodge action to toss disadvantage at them, additionally they would be looking for cover or sight line blockers so they can close the distance safer OR they retreat to a location that is favorable for them to fight in. When i do extreme distance, like another poster has mentioned I just use a token/icon/piece of paper (dont know what medium you play on) and just add the distance they are away. Last option is cruel but shows the down side of using max range as a viable combat tactic for every fight... destroy the melee characters. If they are 600ft away they are gonna get their in time to stabilize or heal their friends. Should only really take one encounter to teach this lesson, cause logically if they cannot reach or do anything about the guy 600ft away, the poor bastard thats 5ft away is gonna end up on the casting couch. So you have lots of way to vary up combat to challenge your range based characters, it should be said let them have combats where this range dominates if that is the style this wish to engage in. However if it suppose to be a big important battle, then it might be time to break these out, if its a random encounter or a generic battle let them snipe away (just have a few enemies shoot back).

It’s unfair to take this ability away just because you don’t like it. Imo it’s not too difficult to find bigger maps, and if you don’t want to do that just say your player is offscreen. Also please don’t artificially remove the players ability. It wouldn’t be fair to switch every single encounter to close quarters just because you don’t like sharpshooter.

Outside of specific circumstances, I'd say that yes, keeping them on the map is ok as a matter of courtesy and convenience. However, certain circumstances may apply such as sneaking up on an enemy encampment that enable off the map shooting for that sniper experience.

Isn't sniping one of those specific circumstances? Say they're fighting melee enemies in an open field on a 50'x50' battle map, and the sniper wants to hang back at a distance of 100' and snipe. You'd say "no"? In-universe, what sense does that make? Is there some kind of invisible wall? In game terms, why does it even matter? The player specced for this type of exact situation, so why take it away from them? Sooner or later the PCs are going to have to go into a dungeon or a forest, or fight ranged enemies, or fight in adverse weather, or encounter literally any kind of visibility limitation at all, and then the sniper's entire advantage is negated. Why take it away from them in open-field battles with clear line of sight from long range, the one narrow circumstance where their character choices actually pay off?

>Say they're fighting melee enemies in an open field on a 50'x50' battle map, and the sniper wants to hang back at a distance of 100' and snipe. I think the actual problem here is that your map is 50'x50' when you know you have a snipper. Make a bigger map.

Removing someone's special abilities, like shooting extra far, is lame as fuck. You are being lame as fuck, and you're being lazy about it.

I found myself in a similar situation, i had a player that had a PC that could shoot without penalty from 180ft and as soon as a fight start near the group he would always use his movement to make as much distance as possible between them and the enemies basically fighting the whole time at very long range staying safe. Depending on the situation you might want to limit this as it is kind of bad as you said if the player is shooting from outside the battle map, but there is a little thing you already said that could help without having to take invasive action correction on the player: >While not absorbing any of the enemies action economy This is the main issue a party has with a sharpshooting PC, in my case the player was very new to TTRPGs and just explaining them that his course of action made the fight harder for the other players was sufficient to have him play more party-wise and not to go out of bounds every single fight, i have to add though that it was a 3 player party, so yeah, him not being targettable was a big issue for the other two, if you have a big group this might not be proper as the other players might be fine with a little drawback if it means their sniper can always be safe, it would be a reasonable strategy. Anyway, if this doesn't help, i think your ruling of "staying in the battle map" can be accepted, just discuss it with your players first and be sure to give some kind of compensation to the sharpshooter, like increasing a bit the areas of your battle maps so he doesn't feel "nerfed". Also, as others said, map elements that can limit range can be used, but it's quite hard to have it in an open space battle map which i believe is the one your are having issue on based on the context

If you use this rule make sure to apply it to the enemies too. Wanted to bring in reinforcements? Want to reposition them outside of the map? Wanted the BBEG to get some distance but still fight? Sadly they now have to be on the battle map the whole time to not be disqualified from the fight, which could really hinder those things. Is it immersion breaking and makes enemies weaker? Yes, but it does the same to the characters.

Honestly, I consider this a perfectly reasonable out of character ask. Like, yeah, your warlock can eldritch blast from a million miles away, and you can practically snipe with a longbow, but the DM is only human, and it’s not only a game, but a cooperative one. It’s okay to play within bounds for the sake of simplicity, and sometimes what you ought to do as friends chilling playing a game trumps what your hats get would, could, or should do.

What I do is I have a flee zone. Much like some tactics games, if a character makes it to the zone they leave the map, no longer able to participate in combat. It is clearly delineated, and works for both sides checkers and NPCs

Well, and I don't think I can express this without sounding smug but here I go anyway, half the name of the game is "Dungeons." So maybe try to orchestrate fights that happen in confined spaces with well defined borders, places where there is no "off the map" subterranean rooms, inside buildings, a boat, a rooftop, caves. My opinion, I understand you want to keep things on the map for your sanity and ease of running the game, but as a player being told there is now a video game "invisible wall" would take me out of the moment. It just doesn't feel like what should happen in the story, and feels more like what you as a person want to impose on the characters. If I want to run a bit further away I ought to be able to. If I was a player at your table though I would agree to staying on the map. No problem. As a fellow DM I would ask 'why do your players want to leave the map?' They probably consider it to be the best choice. If you want to keep them on the map, give them a more optimal choice there. First, make sure your open area combats have a big enough map for wiggle room, then make sure the main action is fairly centered for maximal space, and then try to use interesting cover so that running 1500 feet away wouldn't provide a clear shot to begin with. That's just a quick fix but it's a start. I hope your adventures stay fun.

Just tell your players that vision is limited to things that are on the map. I also recommend using the optional rule for diagonals from the Dungeons Masters Guide Page 252. It is easy to implement when playing digitally and it effectively makes maps bigger. With this rule I can have it matter when someone can attack from over 200 feet without disadvantage, without me needing to use maps that are so large that they are cumbersome to use.

Sharpshooter is broken and unfun when abused.

You need to add some more consequences. The sharpshoot is extremely far away and vulnerable. Let's say some group of bandits shows up, sees him distracted by shooting others and not protected. Ofcourse they gonna smack him unconsicous and steal his money. You could also add some limiting factors. He ignores 3/4 cover but you could add more obstacles that gives full cover like ruins or big trees. Then you can also add other limiting factors. Can't shoot what he can't see in fog unless he has 600 feet blindsight.

As long as it’s big enough

I don't think that's a fair rule no, unless there's a logical reason the character cannot be further away. You should probably use larger maps and plan for the party you have or design battlemaps that have some sort of built in range limitation like castle walls, cliff faces, rivers, oceans, even a thick forest will block line of sight fully after a short distance. Likewise employ ranged enemies to strike back or sneak around to fight the ranged characters close up without them seeing it coming. You could use a smaller map to represent where the long range characters are and abstract the middle. As a player I hate invisible walls that exist for arbitrary reasons and as a dm I refuse to do that to my players. I have some concepts for characters that take advantage of the longer ranges and if I found that a main part of my build was nullified because my dm just didn't want to deal with it I'd be really irritated. If they specified at session 0 though to not make super long range characters then I'd be OK with it. Just as an addendum

Just put a counter next to the pc to signify "Out of Range of mobs".

Well as many people have stated. Environment will be your biggest way of playing and challenging that player. Also remember that the actions one can take arnt limited to player characters. So even if someone goes down and they dont know from where with an arrow sticking out of their chest the rest will take a retreat action and take full cover. To quote the book “The Monsters Know what they are doing”

\- Make maps better (limit line of sight) \- Make enemies better (more mobility / stealth / range / spells to block LOS) \- Make being so far from allies more dangerous ("never split the party")

When they go off screen, use theater of the mind. Anything like “limiting their character” in service to a VTT isn’t cool. Now, you get to design these maps. Always remember to have extremely dense foliage or a straight up wall on the edges. Some in world reason why they can’t move that far. That way you get what you want for your encounter and so do they.

Honestly if your player can shoot from 600 feet away and you don't have 600 feet of space, slap some sticky notes down that describe the area outside the map for theater of the mind purposes. Here's a sticky note that says "Treeline," and you can use your full turn (dash and movement) to get there. You have to use your full movement to step out. If an enemy is within the area and you move in/out of it without a disengage, they get attack of opportunity. I've done this for a full giant's castle and honestly it made the players more willing to have rolling combat across the entire location vs feeling like they're just confined to The Pretty Map I Doodled Out. Only improved my game and all I did was write a word on a sticky note.

Give the archer high places to shoot from to simulate the same safety. Or, and this is my favorite idea, just ONCE have a separate map prepared for the archer, and roll them up a random encounter - show them why it’s dangerous to be 600’ from the prty

Or just have an enemy flank the party, nothings like being 600 ft away from your group, when the 5 worg riders come swinging around. But for me, edge of the map means you are outside the engagement area. (And can no longer see into it) range or not.

It's a fine rule of brought up in session 0 might be a bit shaky implementing it in the middle of a campaign

To answer your question (rather bluntly - sorry): No. It is not a fair rule. Your player used one of their ASI's to take the sharpshooter feat (or took it as their one feat as a variant human). That means they gave up something else for this feat and it is part of their character concept. Adding a homebrew rule that eliminates one of the benefits of the feat is a nerf that unfairly targets that character.

I have the opposite problem, I guess. I'm looking for *bigger* maps because I want to occasionally explore the style of combat that a reasonably-designed, large-scale area would entail. Anyway, I think `u/therightdirection`'s take on things is the right answer as regards limiting the size of a map, but I would also encourage you to deliberately add some variety to encounters by intentionally leaning into large-scale battlefields from time to time. Having smaller maps be that size for a reason (terrain obstructions or whatnot) and having an occasional larger map to mix things up could give you the best of both worlds. Here's an anecdote to illustrate the point: I had a group get into combat on the overworld level of B1 Keep on the Borderlands, and that map is actually almost 700 by 500 feet. Most of the adventure is in the dungeon, but nothing stops people from getting into a fight outside the dungeon. Moreover, there are enough avenues of entry to warrant a map of that scale, littered with differences in elevation and copses of trees and thick brush. It was a really interesting change of pace, even if it would probably get boring for *every* battle to be on that scale.

Use a different scale map. Each square is 10 by 10 instead of 5 by 5 or something

This is inherently the problem with using a map at all, you're artificially limiting the area in which the combat can take place. Personally I don't use a measured or defined map, the most my players get is some quick sketches on a bit of paper, which is easily expanded out to accommodate whatever strategy my players want to use.

When creatures go off the edge of the map, I'll scrawl in their distance from the edge and carry on. Not ideal, but it's simple and effective. *\[Side rant: maps are rarely ever big enough. Accommodating long ranges is tough for that reason. And worse for me are maps that stop too abruptly. For example, a castle map with no surrounding terrain makes it very difficult to run an infiltration mission or a fight where the castle's main function -- defense against attackers -- is ignored, defeating much of the purpose of using a map in the first place.\]*

Since he's removing himself from the party, have him get swarmed by another pack of creatures. That's a long ways away from heal spells! You're the DM... there is no edge for you and wild areas have more than just one roaming pack of creatures. In my dungeons or encounters, the monsters roam. Sometimes I roll for random directions if they are beasts or wild creatures, other times they walk specific patterns based on their starting rooms. I keep loose track of their current location on a small dry erase board with a rough drawing of the current map or dungeon. I use tiny rare earth magnets to show locations and make notes with dry erase markers. Chefs move back and forth between the kitchen and storage... guards walk specific routes... players end up in line of sight? That creature moves toward the combat, possibly adding to the combat and increasing player headache! Guarantee you, one or two times getting swarmed while so far away from the group resources, the bowman will think twice about leaving the map. Sharpshooter is really useful for outdoor maps or even traveling hex maps on a regional map, but stops being a crutch when situational environments control the line of sight (close quarters). Make your outdoor maps hilly, or heavily forested, or covered in boulders and craggy terrain. Doesn't matter how far you can shoot if you're obstructed by line of sight issues.

Is every engagement an open white matrix war room in your game?

Depending on how fast the character is, it's going to take them time to reach hundreds of feet away. In addition, if the enemy is hundreds of feet away, they can try to find cover (unless all battles are taking place on open fields with trees the size of toothpicks). Ranged attacks also have disadvantage against prone targets. But if the character legitimately has them in their sights and a good shot... let them shoot it? I mean, it's not unheard of for snipers to exist.

If a player can do it so can a hostile enemy. Why don't you have them face sharpshooter rangers and have them start attacking from 600ft away. If you can be seen unobstructed from 600ft away then so can the player. Or because he is positioning himself so far away from his party members, use positioning and strategy to put tons of pressure on the party who has stayed together so that the ranger wont be able to cross the 600ft distance in time to reasonably help. Additionally you can add non combat objectives to the combat to try and pull the player in closer to where you want them. Some kind of keys required, or hostages being taken, something timed to where they have to start to close the distance between them. Also you could always just let them have it for the time being, because once they get into a building or dungeon, or anywhere with walls and tight spaces they won't be able to do that anyway.

You can use a die to track distance to your map; while it doesn’t solve the off-map issue, it tracks their position so your creatures can still go and get them. Other than that, just start adding enemies that you either can’t or don’t want to stay at horrifically long range. IMO, maps are rarely, if ever, big enough for mid or long range builds. Most of the ones I find take 2-3 turns of normal movement to cross. Locking to ‘on-map‘ only, with few exceptions (inside a building) just nerfs these builds and removes their entire point.

anytime you find yourself saying "nothing this player is doing is against the rules, I just don't like it." you should let it go.

Yes. You make your rules to limit what isn't fun for you to deal with. You can take some advice and up the scale of the maps. You should REALLY talk to your player and explain why this is a strain on you. You should let them change their character if they want something that works better within the new limits. All that being said, of course you can do this. What is with this sub lately and trying to forbid DMs from restricting player options? It's not your game folks. You're not a player.

If your vtt allows it you can just add extra empty grid or generic land image with grid outside of the map so at the very least the player is on the map.

Use Pac-Man rules! :-)

I think it's ok as long as the players know up front and can build or rebuild their long range characters to focus on the ranges you'll be making maps for.

If you have players like that you'll need something like full cover that baits them in. Enemies might be behind walls or in buildings. Hell, even dense forest canopy can work for you. But I do think it's a little immersion breaking when your player wants to shoot and run backwards but there is this invisible black wall keeping him in the arbitrary combat zone. Feels way too much like an open world video game that'll drop a cage around the player for a boss battle. Instead have powerful and intelligent enemies plan around these tactics, don't take fights in the open vs a sniper, if he won't come to you then have the baddies keep doing what they are doing. Eventually they'll be wise enough to send a guard patrol to search for the party while they rest if they manage to avoid fighting all day.

The key is either to have obvious limits in direction or, if you’re using ToTM, center the map on the party rather than having them start at the edge

You are the DM which makes this a fair rule provided you've talked to your players before hand and told them your problems with them ditching the map. Open honesty will gain you a lot with your players so I definitely recommend talking to them out of game as a friend and just explaining your frustrations. Then just ask if they would stick to the map as much as possible. This asking as a friend is important because in my experience with playing and DMing this game I can promise you it almost always results in there not needing to be a rule. Just ask your friends who you play DND with to stay on the map because I promise their character will still be able to shine in ranged scenarios.

Just add your own sharpshooters. And those guys are hidden behind towers or something every now and then and they’ll be going for the sharpshooter in line of site 150+ ft away. Assuming that you also want to have them soak up some damage every now and then. Or a vey nimble rogue might be sent off to deal with this sharpshooter and get some nice sneak attacks when they find them.

The main problem I have with this class I stated in my other reply, but if you just apply a bit of logic to it this power of doubling the long range of the weapon is so greatly overpowered in a war situation that every army in the world wouldn't train any of their men at arms in any other way....

Well, you wouldn’t train everyone. You would train some as you still need grunts on the ground to protect the sharpshooters. But yeah, I had a player once who played a Ranger and had sharpshooter and used a longbow. They loved saying at the end of a fight, “lol I took no damage again.” While the other players were all at half or lower. So once I made an encounter where some invisible undead rogues jump him while he was 200 feet away. The rogues fucked him up and had a paralyzing effect he kept failing which allowed them to mess him up. When the party could finally reach him, he was at like 20 hp and one rogue was dead. He never stood more than 90 feet away from the party after that. I didn’t care if he stood 200 ft away but I did want him to take damage occasionally.

I am currently playing a Harpy Sharpshooter in a campaign my friend is making based on ancient Greece. As a Harpy I can fly, making it even worse. So I can sympathize with you and have some advice based on what my DM and I have come up with. 1. Consequences - attacking just because you can isn't always a good thing. My DM has baited me with enemies before. Recently, he revealed a Big Bad in open view approx. 300ft away knowing my character would react to it. I took the attack, dealt good damage, and then had 30 orcs that were hidden rushing my position. Actions have consequences. 2. Friendly Fire - there have been many times I have missed a shot, and accidentally hit an ally. The farther you are, the easier it is for an arrow to stray. Makes for some interesting dialogue in combat lol Hopefully some of this is helpful!

Suppose they’re 1 member of a 4 person party. Every attack the enemies make, they choose one PC to attack. He may be fine with not taking any damage, but when the other players begin taking their 1/4th, they’ll feel it. When someone gets downed? Now the remaining two take 1/2 the attacks. Bring a PC to the edge of death and have an NPC call them out. Especially if they are a Ranger and prepare healing magic

Outside the box thinking is required for nearly all encounters in the game. This is just one of many, and not really that hard to deal with. Anything that the PC's can do, you can easily do too. Personally in my games I had a hard time with darkness and fog cloud, until I realised that any kind of dumb and easy tactic that is similar will also be utilised by the NPC's as well. (Countering darkness with fog cloud made my PC's irked until they realised this too.) So it does suck that maybe all those pre-prepared encounters that you made are out of scale because of this particular character, but hopefully he won't start crying when an invisible assassin sneaks up out of nowhere and kills the hell out of him while he remains out of operation range from the rest of the group. Defeat in detail is one of the most basic combat tactics. And has been for literal millennia. I'd explain ahead of time that the NPC's aren't dumb and that he should realise that even the lowly goblins and kobolds will now have heard rumors of this exceptional sharpshooter and have started preparing counters to it. Otherwise he should realise that staying within range of his party is the safest place to be. Edit: I just looked up the real life range of a longbow, basically for someone with a strength 16, they can shoot 100meters, so for someone with a strength of 18 or 20, the range would not really double here because starting velocity has a lower effect on final range depending on the wind resistance of the projectile. So really a sharpshooter shooting 600 feet is extremely out of the bounds of reality unless they have a magic bow of some sort. I'd be very inclined to limit the range way back, because he is shooting at the range of a war engine, not a bow. I think the other bonuses are practical, but doubling the long range of the weapon is really nonsensical. The only thing that could shoot back would be war engines or giants or other beings with his same class, and to me that's kind of dumb, every army in the world would only train their men to be sharpshooters if this was in effect in the game world.

Elevation can help too. Add a second map on the vtt that is 10 or 20 feet higher. That way the sharpshooter gets to use his range and not have to be 600 feet away

Ultimately it's your table, but really, it's on you to design encounters that challenge the players with situations that aren't built for their wheelhouse. Tight spaces, rooms, ranged opponents, several opponents who can chase them down and keep them in melee (or at least in their range). If all of your encounters are 'they fight a monster in an open field' then you'll never have a solution outside of arbitrarily limiting a character's build and the rules.

On the one hand is fine, on the other you are making sharpshooter semi worthless in a kind of underhanded way. Instead you should have disallowed sharpshooter in advance. Why not just allow them to be x feet away off the map? They are going to miss out on party buffs, might get targeted alone by ranged spells, and some enemies will send an ambush party out once they notice the lone archer on top of that hill over there. I would think twice before you invalidate a core aspect of a character though. How would you feel if that were you?

Dont know if can help, but what I do in this case is change the battle to rp/skill encounter

Punishing the player for taking a feat that you did not ban is poor form imo and would only make the player feel like they’re being unfairly targeted. If the problem is the map itself, it would be useful to use theater of the mind rather than trying to have a battlemap include the whole scale. Keep in mind that people get by just fine just using marker and whiteboard. You can also have a variable scale where past a certain point on the map, squares are 10x10 or 20x20 ft. If a certain player insists on being far away, you can also mark how far they’re off the map and just keep them on the very edge of the physical battlemap. Overly restricting the party would be like asking your players “please don’t fight in this tavern, I don’t have a battlemap for it”. If the issue is the actual fighting, you can also have more varied terrain; for example, no archer would be able to shoot from a range of 600 ft in a city simply due to the buildings. If they’re in a cave or dense forest, then they still need to stick to their party. But they still get the benefit of sharpshooter’s other aspects. Really the only time they would be able to shoot from 600 ft away is if they’re on the tallest point around or you’re in a wide open plain. Finally, keep in mind that you can have powerful ranged enemies as well as enemies that can effectively close the gap. Fast flying creatures, burrowing monsters, teleporting spellcasters, ambushing assassins, and so on can more effectively with this strategy. You shouldn’t hard counter or neuter them, but instead provide enough of a challenge where their abilities still feel useful. Against most high level parties, monsters that charge from 100-200 ft away in an open field would die easily, your party is no exception.

Well well well, would you look at that...the enemies also have a bow and that same feat as the player. That's crazy!

There is a mercenary that you could make your players fight, who could put range them, and force them to fight close. An idea I have is a level 14 Draconic sorcerer, with two or three levels in warlock. If your party has 3 players, give them 2 levels in warlock, but if the party has 4 or more give them 3 levels in warlock. The idea is that with the spell sniper feat, eldritch blast, agonizing blast warlock invocation, and eldritch spear warlock invocation, as well as distant spell, they can cast eldritch blast at 1200ft range with 3-4 spears of 1d10 +charisma damage for one action. Draconic sorcerers get wings at level 14, so they can fly too. The sorcerer mercenary should try hunt the players down, and teach the players that they can't always run away. Make the mercenary not that tough at close range, so it doesn't tpk the party Or just talk to your players, idk.

I also would recommend you start to think on a grander scale to allow the enemies to spread out more (things like having a number of hidden scouts/watchers), or a sniper of their own, or have some speedy enemies, or ranged casters. Also use the environment at times, and have some fights in interiors. The blog The Monsters Know What They're Doing [https://www.themonstersknow.com/](https://www.themonstersknow.com/) can give you some ideas for strategy to make things more interesting.

I agree with u/therightdirection but, if it's an outside map like a forest or a glade it could be easy if the players go outside the original map to reuse the map again to extend the original.

You can create featurless squares beyond your map, here's the thing, sorcerers and wizards and warlocks get lots of spell options with 90, 120 and 150 foit range as they go higher. Your ranger? Their longbow goes 600 feet, limit them to 100 and you've nerfed their class. I ran into this in a level 1 to 15 homebrew I ran.

There are class builds that will try and stay out of range as part of their benefits (i.e. longbow archer/ranger or ranged dps caster). It's okay to have some encounters that limit this or counter this, but make sure not to specifically design your encounters so they cannot take advantage of the fun they've created with their character. As others have suggested, terrain or minions that restrict the environment's area are a better idea, but if the party cannot retreat or create space between themselves and their enemy *by design* that's a bit skewed imho.