Guide:Sharpshooter

Sharpshooter - a guide for a build that focuses on dealing Physical damage from a distance.

Overview

Core components for this build include:

Any kind of Hand Crossbows in each hand
Sharpshooter feat

Sharpshooter provides additional damage for a penalty to accuracy. Attacking from the distance helps to mitigate the accuracy penalty (high ground, hiding) while Hand Crossbows allow to use bonus action to make attacks. Which the bonus damage from Sharpshooter this additional attack more than compensates the fact that Hand Crossbows have less basic damage compared to the Heavy Crossbows.

This build does not require any specific Race or Class. Low mobility is also tolerated. Attacking from a distance allows to put less emphasis on the defence in this build.
As a result this build brings high damage while allowing a lot of options for utility and role-play.

Details

Having minimalistic core this build allows many approaches from the class perspective. The most notable options are:

Battle Master fighter
Assassin rogue + Gloom Stalker ranger
Hunter ranger

Attack count

This build benefits greatly from both: doing multiple attacks for each action and having multiple actions per round.
That's why Fighters, Rangers and Bards are good class choices - all of them get an Extra Attack and can attack twice for the cost of one Action.
There are several ways to get multiple Actions for each turn of the battle with the most notable:

This results in having, on average, 2-3 Actions per turn plus one Bonus action.

Ability Scores

Range weapons use Dexterity as the primary Ability Score so it should be maxed.
Secondary abilities are up to you. Constitution never hurts. For spell casting Rangers might want to improve Wisdom while Bards - Charisma.

Races

This build does not rely on any particular Race.
Halfling is a good choice because of the Lucky. Their low movement speed is less relevant - as a range striker you don't need to move much around battlefield.
Drow with Superior Darkvision is nice in the darker settings.
Dragonborn gets resistance to a damage type - especially useful for Fire damage, which is quite frequent in BG3.

Build variations comparison

Table below compares most notable features each variation brings to the core build. For explanation of numbers and percentages of specific builds see the Math section below

Battle Master version

This version of the build performs great early and mid-game, while completely outperforming other options in the late game.
Action Surge and Manoeuvers provide burst, versatility and additional damage.

Build

Put all your levels into a Fighter.

Get your starting Dex to 16 (or 17 if your are going for a +1 from the Hag).

Get yourself 2 x Hand Crossbows.

Pick an Archery Fighting Style.

At level 3 take the Battle Master subclass.
Select any Manoeuvers you like. Promising options include:

Pick Sharpshooter as your level 4 Feat and toggle the passive on.

As an extra fighter level 6 feat pick Ability Improvement to get Dexterity+2 and bring it to 18 or even 20 (depending on your game choices).

For the feats at levels 8 and 12, you can go with what you like. Some good options include:

Ability Improvement to get your Dex to 20.
Alert to win initiative reliably.
Savage Attacker which will add about 1-3 damage per attack, on average.

Make sure to drink an Elixir of Bloodlust after each long rest.
Getting someone to cast Bless and/or Haste on you will be nice as well.
Enjoy an extremely high damage spread over multiple attacks, all from a relatively safe distance.

Mid-game numbers

Check assumptions in the Math section below.

Overall Battle Master brings about 50% damage increase on top of the core Sharpshooter build.

Archery provides a +2 bonus to Attack rolls you make with ranged Weapons - 10% damage increase.

4 x Superiority Dice provide 4 x 1d8Piercing damage per short rest. This averages to 2 x 4.5Piercing damage per turn, almost 50% of an Attack - about 10% damage increase.

From an extra feat of Ability Improvement having Dexterity+2 will give +5% chance to hit and +1 damage (about +5% damage) - total of 10% damage increase.

For the turn where Action Surge is used, 2 additional Attacks will result in 40% damage increase. Per turn, for a battle, it brings around 20% damage increase.

Late-game numbers

At level 11 you are getting one more Extra Attack now making 3 Attacks for each Action.

Having on average 2.5 Actions per turn will result in 2.5 additional Attacks per turn - about 50% damage increase.

This brings damage of Battle Master version of Sharpshooter on next level, compared to all other version at level 11 and beyond.

Late Heavy Crossbow

The main argument for having Hand Crossbows in each hand is an extra attack on a Bonus action. With level 11, doing 3 Attacks on each Action, you will have on average about 9 Attacks per turn. This warrants switching to a Heavy Crossbow and using your Bonus action for non-attacking purposes.
Heavy Crossbows do, on average, 2 damage more compared to Hand Crossbows. For 9 Attacks this is additional 18 damage which comes close to doing an additional attack on a Bonus action with a Hand Crossbow setup.
For your Action Surge turn this is additional 24 damage which fully equalises with an additional Bonus action attack.

On top of this, Heavy Crossbow will give you a Brace (Ranged) ability.

Even more - now you have your Bonus action free. You can use it for repositioning, getting utility, etc. By this level you should have a lot of items granting you all sorts of additional abilities that require a Bonus action.

Assassin version

This variation is an ultimate first turn burst build but it comes into play only at level 8 and above.
Assassinate: Initiative + Assassinate: Ambush provide a ton of damage potential but require Extra Attack from another martial class.

Build

Put first 5 levels into Ranger.

Get your starting Dex to 16 (or 17 if your are going for a +1 from the Hag).

Get yourself 2 x Hand Crossbows.

Pick any Favoured Enemy.
Select any Natural Explorer.

At level 2 pick an Archery Fighting Style.

At level 3 take the Gloom Stalker subclass.

At level 4 pick Sharpshooter as your Feat and toggle the passive on.

At level 6 subclass by selecting Rogue leaving Ranger at level 5.

At level 8 ( Rogue level 3) take the Assassin subclass.

At level 9 ( Rogue level 4) get another feat. You can select whatever you like. Some good options include:

Ability Improvement to get your Dex to 20.
Savage Attacker which will add about 1-3 damage per attack, on average.

Levels 10 to 12 put into the Ranger getting one more feat.

Make sure to drink an Elixir of Bloodlust after each long rest.
Getting someone to cast Bless and/or Haste on you will be nice as well.
Enjoy an extremely high burst damage on your first turn which allows to wipe several enemies before they even have a chance to act.

Try to always surprise your enemies by attacking them from the outside of their cone of vision. Guaranteed crit on surprised enemies adds a lot of damage.

Mid-game numbers

Check assumptions in the Math section below.

Overall Assassin brings about XX% damage increase on top of the core Sharpshooter build.

Archery provides a +2 bonus to Attack rolls you make with ranged Weapons - 10% damage increase.

File:Sneak Attack Icon.png Sneak Attack (for a level 3 or 4 Rogue does additional +2d6 damage for an average of +7 damage - about 18% damage increase.

From an extra feat of Ability Improvement having Dexterity+2 will give +5% chance to hit and +1 damage (about +5% damage) - total of 10% damage increase.

For the turn where Action Surge is used, 2 additional Attacks will result in 40% damage increase. Per turn, for a battle, it brings around 20% damage increase.

Assumptions for Math

To be able to compare build variations, some assumptions have to be made on the fight length, amount actions per turn, etc.
See assumptions taken for this guide down below. These were selected based on the empiric experience with the game.

Assumptions:

Combat length: 3 turns
Actions per turn: 2
Attacks per action: 2
Damage per attack: 20
Critical multiplier: x2

Quick reference:

Once-per-battle abilities contribute only 1/3 of their damage
+1 action per turn = +40% to damage
+1 attack per action = +40% to damage
+1 damage per attack = +5% to damage
+1% critical chance = +1% to damage
+1% to accuracy = +1% to damage

Combat length: 3 turns

Combat in BG3 lasts typically for 1-4 turns.
Sharpshooter build brings a lot of damage so if you have a lot of buffs and/or strong damage party, your average combat length will be probably around 2 turns.
Still, to be on the safe side, 3 turns are assumed in this guide which will be more than enough for your to even solo kill most of encounters with this build.

Actions per turn: 2

While all characters have 1 Action per turn, Hastened, Elixir of Bloodlust and Action Surge can give up to 3 additional Actions.
Excluding Action Surge (as it's Fighter specific) we are left with 1-3 Actions per turn.
Since Elixir of Bloodlust has a condition for triggering and Hastened requires buffing, 3 Actions per turn will not be always possible.
Hence this guide goes with 2 Actions per turn.
Note that in reality, you can have 3 Actions per turn for a good percentage of your fights.

Attacks per Action: 2

All variations of the

Basic attack damage: 20
Hand Crossbows by themselves do 1d6Piercing damage, which averages at 3.5Piercing.
On top of that Dex adds 3-5 damage with an average of +4Piercing damage.
Weapon Enchantment typically adds +1Piercing damage.
Sharpshooter adds +10Piercing.
All together it totals to 18.5Piercing which is rounded to 20Piercing.
In reality you character can have multiple items adding even more damage on top of each hit so 20 damage per attack sounds like a reasonable average.

Honorable mentions

Beast Master: overall a viable alternative for the Ranger approach.
This subclass does not bring improvements to the range combat per se. Still beasts are strong and overall Beast Master version will bring both firepower as well as survivability and flexibility to the party.

Champion: an alternative option for the Fighter approach.
Main benefit of this version is an Improved Critical Hit (equivalent to about 5% overall damage increase). For a ranged build a Champion is more interesting than for a melee one - there are a lot of ways to guarantee crits for melee strikers in bg3. Still Battle Master Manoeuvers provide a comparable damage increase together with a ton of utility and flexibility.
Do note that Champion subclass makes more sense for this build if you try to minimise amount of long & short rests.

College of Valor: an option for a Bard approach.
This variation brings a full caster in addition to getting 2 attacks (as a Ranger or a Fighter), especially - ability to utilise Concentration way better since Bards get a lot of great spells like Hold Person, Glyph of Warding, etc.
Main downside - Bardic Inspiration cannot be used on yourself. In the end while using all cool spells and abilities Bard ends up not doing actual damage.
Bard variation definitely trades some damage potential for support and utility.

Thief: an option for a Rogue approach (without multiclasses).
Main selling point of this variation is that Thiefs get an extra Bonus action which can be used to make yet another attack. In addition, investing all 12 levels into Rogue makes Sneak Attack quite powerful.
The downside is that Rogue does not get an Extra Attack. While improved Sneak Attack packs a lot of damage, Sneak Attack can be used only once per turn and cannot make up for missing Extra Attacks - doing just 3 Attacks with 3 Actions instead of 6 or 9 Attacks makes the total damage of this build variation plummet.
It's just much better to invest all levels into a Fighter and instead of one Bonus action get 2 additional attacks per each Action.