dogstarrb's page

Viorian Dekanti's tactics say that she uses Power Attack and Vital Strike when not making a full attack, but she doesn't have Power Attack. Also, her attack and damage for her shield bash seem to be missing the +3 for being in the close weapon group, which she has weapon training in. Lastly, she is listed as using a Composite Longbow with a +10 Str mod, but doesn't have a 10 Str mod, even while wearing the belt of physical might, nor is she taking an attack penalty for doing so.

A concern I have that I'm surprised no one's brought up yet (though I do share just about every concern that HAS been mentioned) is how would you gain additional spells with your mark? It functions as a familiar... so I can have my markings commune with another familiar, or use a scroll and do a ritual where "the scroll is burned and its ashes used to create a special brew or powder that is consumed by the familiar"?

To repeat some thing that have already been said, though: "Scoundrel" seems an inappropriate name, the 'avatar' seems over complicated with no actual benefit, and the Fey Hex feature is obnoxiously restrictive.

I do pretty strongly associate fey and the RK (I blame Kingmaker), and the name initially got me excited, but the actual archetype itself was nothing but a let-down. The flavor was a strong inspirational theme to build a vanilla witch around, though. There's just nothing this archetype offers that makes it worth the trade-off, to me.

I'd agree on the formatting, but I've seen a perfectly formatted bad or bland magic item, next to a poorly formatted interesting item. At first I used formatting as a guide for the good design, but because of the above good formatting is no guarantee that the item is something of quality.

Aye, I'm hardly saying I'd never vote for a poorly formatted item, just that I'm harsher on them. If I'm "meh" about both (which has been the VAST majority, for me), the correctly formatted one is the one I'll give a pass.

I'm taking formatting into account as well, but it's lower on my list of checkpoints. Lowest, actually. I'll vote an item with a unique concept and good writing that barely follows the template over one perfectly formatted that is vanilla and uninspired.

The judges are looking for a superstar. Which means the item has to show promise of a creative mind. Being able to do the format well is the icing, not the cake.

We shouldn't have to pick! A true superstar would have both ;)

Frankly, I AM taking formatting into consideration-and I think everyone should. For one thing, submitters were practically handed the proper format on a silver platter. If you can't follow it, it's pretty well laziness. For another, even if the proper format required referencing other extant items from the PRD or the like, it's not that hard! Using the proper formatting shows professionalism, and since the prize is, well, a shot at being a professional, I almost don't care if someone's invented the best item in the world, if that person can't be bothered to present it correctly. If an entrant can't be bothered to put in a tiny bit of effort to match standards, frankly that entrant doesn't deserve to win the chance to write a module.

Honestly, if I see an entry that doesn't have the proper format, it has to absolutely blow my mind, or I automatically vote for the opponent.

This is accurate. We have an FAQ entry for this.

Basically by clicking that link, you're asking the judges to review the item to be disqualified and removed from the voting. Clicking it for items that are merely bad makes more work for the judges, when voting against them can serve the same purpose.

Just for clarification, "does not conform to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game" would include not following template; ie not including weight or slot at all (not just "Weight --" but there is absolutely no weight/slot/etc mentioned), not listing requirements (It's a wonderous item, it automatically requires Craft Wonderous Item, and you have to list that), and so on, correct?

I am pretty sure, but not 100% sure, that racial archetypes don't count as an "effect" for the purposes of hybrid blood abilities.

I usually use stats for a half-elf or half-orc for anything from 1/4 to 3/4 elf or orc, maybe 1/8 or 7/8 if the character got an unusually large dose of genes from the more distant part of their heritage. You can also use the Race Builder to build something with a combination of half-elf and elf traits, assuming that you are the GM or that the GM is cooperative. Or you can take half-elven alternate race traits that feel like they favour one parent, like Arcane Training or Ancestral Arms (elven weapon) or the trait Elven Reflexes for a 3/4 elf, or Integrated or Sociable for a 3/4 human.

Normally I feel that once it gets down to "my grandmother was an elf/human" you're going to see essentially human/elven stats respectively. For a 1/8 elf you could maybe use the human bonus feat for Racial Heritage (Elf) or trade it for Focused Study (Skill Focus Perception, Survival, Spellcraft, or Knowledge Nature), or take traits that feel elf-like. For an elf with a human grandparent I might trade Elven Magic for woodcraft if appropriate to background, or trade keen senses for Envoy (since the human heritage might make them more socially inclined). Or again, use traits.

You contradict yourself a bit there. The exact case for this character I'd like to build IS in fact "my grandfather was a human." This makes him 3/4 elf. Building a new 'mostly elf' race isn't an option, as I'm looking to run him in PFS, and I'm not entirely pleased with that idea anyway, because it DOES sound like building the 75%elf as a race, which isn't a thing (I forget where precisely I saw mentioned that semi-percentages just wouldn't be messed with, you were either "half" or not). Going the elf-statistically-with-humanesque-options might be the way to go here.

I have two questions here, both super relevant to my character idea, but from two vastly different angles.

The first being a PFS legality clarification-- the ARG racial archetypes are legal ONLY for those races, which, if I'm understanding it correctly, means a half-elf couldn't be a spelldancer, for example, because it is full elf specific? Or does "Elf Blood: Half-elves count as both elves and humans for any effect related to race." squeak them in?

From a more fluff-but-still-incredibly-important-to-me question, which would the offspring of a Half-Elf and an Elf be, mechanically? Half-Elf or Elf? I know Three-Quarters-Elf is ludicrous, but which side of the fence would he fall on? Is that enough to push him into "close enough" elf territory? Is one human in an otherwise long line of elves enough to 'taint' the rest of the bloodline to half-elfdom forever? Flipside for humans with an elven one-night-stand. Where's the cut-off point to transition from one race to the other?

After one session with our level 13, mythic 1 group, which I took hero points away from once they ascended, I've got a little more to say on the matter.

While the two points DO overlap SOME, it's not all, and not immediate. The biggest things my players lamented was the loss of the ability to take an extra standard action, spending 2 hero points to shake off massive damage at -1 and stable, and the flexibility of "other things with DM approval"-- their favorite being spending a point to force a monster to reroll a threatened critical.

The extra turn would be even better than an extra standard action, sure, but you can't do it whenever you want, it's a set alternative initiative, and you don't get that immediately, either. Also, as I understand it, Amazing Initiative is going to be significantly altered.
Mythic players are Hard To Kill, but not Immortal immediately, and a critical power attack vital strike from a worthy foe is still likely to send them to Pharasma, especially if they weren't at the greatest of health to start with.
Hero points have added a LOT of creativity to my player's gaming, and I hate that it seemed to vanish as soon as the hero points did. In many cases, the options didn't vanish, just the willingness to take those risks without that +8.

Another solution I may try is to have their Hero Points "transform" into Mythic Power, allow the heroic feats to apply to their Mythic Power, and let one resource pool cover the power of both. On the other hand, this will take away the viability of the +1d6 use of the Mythic Power, since +8 or even +4 is often better than the gamble on the dice.

Nothing says you HAVE to give him Tier 6 :)

I see your point, although the playtest doc also mentions that Mythic monsters only get mythic power use equal to their rank...not based on a stat. Even if you gave MR6 then that would only be 6 uses of Mythic Power...a lot less than your PC's.

Apply the mythic subtype: Start by determining the

creature’s mythic rank by dividing its base CR in half,
rounded down. Use this number, as well as a few other
vital statistics to apply the mythic subtype to the creature.
Make sure to add the ability score increases and select a
number of mythic feats.

Am I wrong in reading that as "add mythic rank equal to half the base CR"?

Rebuilding with the Mythic subtype would make a 14 class level character mythic 6, yielding something in the neighborhood of CR 19 unless I'm understanding this less than I think I do. That's far too high a jump for use in the AP.

More feasible to make him an actual Archmage as a player would, but that carries with it the weakness (and he's already got one). Not sure I want to stack that on him.

May wind up just putting a different template on him (Invincible, perhaps).

I was applying a few Mythic Templates to ROTRL (anniversary version) enemies for our group's play testing. I've run into a bit of confusion on the intended use for the templates. The big culprit here is the "Arcane" and "Divine" templates. At first I thought they were meant to buff up creatures who cast arcane or divine spells... yet the template GRANTS the ability to do so.

So if I were to, say, add the Arcane template to a level 14 or so transmuter, would they gain additional spell slots per day? Gain some spells as SLAs? Miss out on that ability entirely? Or am I simply using the template completely wrong?

I agree with TheLoneCleric as well, from a thematic as well as crunch standpoint. Mechanically, they over lap a good deal. Thematically, once you're Mythic, you're beyond "mere" Heroism!

Ordikon is listed as having "medium fortification (75%)" in his defensive block. Should it be moderate giving him 50%, or heavy giving him 75%?

A few feats questions that came up:

Can you replace feats that Mythic feats overright with obviously better effects?

Do mythic verions of feats count towards normal prereqs?

Well since Mythic versions of feats have prereqs of the regular version of the feat, you'd have to have it anyway. So it doesn't "overwrite" or let you retrain, since if you lost it you'd no longer qualify for it.

there will probably be more feats in the end product book, this is just a playtest :)

However i do agree that it is kinda strange that there is no Mythic Spell focus, spell penetration, item creation or meta magic.(that i recall)

Well surely! But I can't give feedback on what I don't see, and it's stunting my playtest results since my cleric can't take anything, was part of my point here. So far my over all impression is that surely we'll get another pass at the playtest before the thing 'goes live' so to speak, because so many aspects are so lacking or non-functional.

The limited scope of the current mythic feats was a glaring problem when my group started gaining mythic to playtest. We're running RotRL with a group of 5, and started gaining mythic in book 5. The Paladin jumped on Mythic Power Attack, the Rogue was a no-brainer for Mythic Weapon Finesse, the Eldritch Knight took M. Arcane Strike, the Monk was at a loss for a bit before taking M. Dodge, and I... I was stuck. The only thing my cleric EVER WILL qualify for, from the currently available feats, are Mythic Paragon and Mythic Spells. I have literally no other options, other than taking feats I don't want the normal version of, just to force qualification for mythic feats. And that's a very bad thing. Especially since, realizing my problem... The others looked through... and each of them only had ONE other feat they could choose, other than the "freebie for everyone" Mythic Paragon. This is a VERY bad place for the mythic feats to be. Granted, my group has a bias against the +2 to 2 skills feats as it is, (we NEVER want both, and always wind up taking Skill Focus in the one we actually care about instead) so all of those options were immediately out the window.

Rating the feats we DID take, though... M. Weapon Finesse and M. Arcane Strike were the level of awesome we were expecting. M. Power Attack and M. Dodge were "ok, but not as strong as I'd like". M. Vital Strike was not yet chosen but seemed somewhere between M. Weapon Finesse and M. Power Attack. Mythic Spells as a feat just seemed ODD since I should be getting that from Heirophant anyway? I can see it for blend classes (Magus Marshal that takes Mythic Spells via feats makes complete sense to me) but having it be the only feat my Heirophant Cleric qualifies for? Just plain weird.

I definitely see a need for more feat options not just for clerics, but spell casters in general. Having seen how most mythic feats simply modify existing ones, I was expecting to see things such as: Quicken Channel- no longer costs 2 uses, or Metamagic feats that allow you to spend mythic power to apply the metamagic without preparing it ahead of time/increasing the casting time, or a way to split spells to affect multiple targets at once, and things along that line.

Seriphim84 wrote:

I did this off the cuff and was totally surprised when I nailed the number. But it all makes sense. I would consider this a +4 weapon for enchanting purposes.

Don't forget, it *also* does double damage against undead and negative energy creatures, which is about equivalent in power to adding a "bane" effect for both of those creature types (which would be +2 attack and +2d6 damage)

Adding those 2 bane types onto my pseudo-sunblade makes it +8. So between the extra damage and size change not functioning exactly the same, and the sunlight power, it sounds like it's +10 enhancement worth already.

I have to agree with Rudy2 about it being +4 but for different reasons. Here is a break down on the costs

Bastard Sword: 35gp
Masterwork: 300gp

+2 effect
holy:+2 its good aligned and deals extra damage so this is by far the closest +2 hit and damage is easily worth the same as +2d6 damage
Daylight: 54,000 but since it only last while in use I would divide by 3 or or so lets say 18000.
There is nothing like the short sword thing so lets just say they gave that for free or rolled it into the daylight.

+4 effect is 32,000 and the Daylight is 18,000 so with the weapon and masterwork we come out at 50,335. Which happens to be the cost of the weapon.

I did this off the cuff and was totally surprised when I nailed the number. But it all makes sense. I would consider this a +4 weapon for enchanting purposes.

Well there's sort of an ability to do the shortsword-bastard sword thing.

IMPACT
PRICE +2 BONUS
AURA moderate transmutation CL 9th WEIGHT —
This special ability can only be placed on melee weapons that are
not light weapons. An impact weapon delivers a potent kinetic
jolt when it strikes, dealing damage as if the weapon were one
size category larger. In addition, any bull rush combat maneuver
the wielder attempts while wielding the weapon gains a bonus
equal to the weapon’s enhancement bonus; this includes all bull
rush attempts, not only those in which a weapon is used, such
as Bull Rush Strike, Shield Slam, or Unseat.

The kicker here is that a short sword is light, and that a bastard sword isn't exactly one size larger. Basically if I were GMing I'd tell the player to just make an 'imitation' by using the weapon and material of choice, and then adding +2 enhancement, Holy, and Impact. Sure, it's 2d6 instead of +2 attack and damage, and you lose the ability to cast sunlight, but specific weapons are just that- specific. If you want something different, you're going to get something different.

The party is asking me to reprise a character I've played before, due to the party build and theme that are going on. He's been a cavalier, a paladin, and a multiclass of the two. Key point being- the horse is an integral part of the character(if I run him paladin, he'll be taking Boon Companion at level 5 when the mount shows up).

Other than the heat issues, is it a stupid idea to bring a horse to this AP? Will there be a lot of underground areas, etc? For example, I know if I had a mount in RotRL he'd be just about worthless, between the haunted house, the clock towers, and all the underground areas.

Should I lean toward the cavalier version, or the paladin version? Party comp so far is looking like Inquisitor of Sarenrae, Cleric of Sarenrae or Oracle, and a Wishcrafter Sorcerer.

DMFTodd wrote:

I ran two full APs on 86 and a good 20 games of PFS on 87 without any real trouble; both with the Lindsay framework. I think the reports of Maptools wonkiness are overrated.

I know first-hand they are not overstated. b85 was very crashy for me, to the point where my second group switched to d20pro (which is also somewhat crashy).

Still, thanks very much DMFTodd for the report, I'm thinking I'll do b86 because of compatibility with the framework.

Is your framework still in the works, Evil Lincoln? I'm currently trying to work on things to ease play with my brother and our Runelords game. Having started the campaign by using a shared drawing in google drive where we each used a picture to represent ourselves moved around on the maps as yanked from the PDF, I'm excited to be working with a system that's actually designed for this. However, coding makes my think pan hurt. I've managed to make good use of things with the Fort Rannick maps on an LCD TV hooked up to the laptop, so I've got the vision blocking/mapping parts more or less down, it's the macros that make my brain explode, so I was looking for ways to automate my monster attacks.

That was probably really ramble-y. I appologize D:

Aelryinth wrote:

Sure, the Astral Deva might kill it faster...but then it's merely a DPR race to the bottom. The devil will OCCUPY it, and tie it up while you deal with everything else and then get to focus attention on it.

Unless of course your demon views something that can't bypass it's DR and can't effect it with most of it's abilities as less of a threat than the rest of the party, and just ignores the devil in favor of attacking you.

Seriously, if a wizard summons a devil to handle a demon, the demon might just shrug it's shoulders, eat a paltry attack from an AoO and go attack the wizard. If the wizard instead summons a legitimate threat, then the demon will be less likely to ignore it.

My thoughts exactly... I don't understand the kind of logic that thinks trading paltry damage is a better strategy than smiting the demon with the creature that penetrates its defenses and being done with it. It's not about DEFENDING, that is not what DR is for. It's about vulnerability. The holy righteousness of a being of pure good penetrating the evil's core and purifying it... or the vile corruption twisting the life force of the good creature.

As an aside, one thing a lot of people are forgetting in this argument when it comes down to combat with good/evil outsiders like this, is that celestials, many of them, tend to have something in their favor that no fiend does- the ability to heal themselves.

Any chance of form-fillable versions? It doesn't need to do math for me, but we have a group that plays online, so having a print out seems a little silly since I'm going to be sitting at my computer anyway. I'd also like to be able to put it on a tablet or similar and save erasing holes in my paper, and so on. I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd find this very useful.

If I could get the font sent to

All that is complicated.

Why not just give gun a normal attack roll, and give the guns a + to hit.

Pistol +2 to hit
Musket +4 to hit

Revolver +6 to hit
Rifle +8 to hit

.................

Then you just add that +2 to hit, to your normal attack roll.
This would reflex as better change to penetrate armor.

................

Might not be a realistic example of how firearms worked, but then again, this is a game, and i prefer simple or realistic any day. This would solve both the Armor problem and High level large creature problem with Touch attacks.

I'm much more in favor of this than yet another AC-- personally I count CMD as a form of AC, too. At that point we might as well go 4e D&D and attack your reflex defense!

I can see Abraham's point about wanting it to be broad, but I think that if you are allowing the features of firearms to be widely available to all, then the versatile types aren't the gunslinger class.

Much like Rangers are generally focuses on one area of Combat Mastery, gunslingers by definition are masters of guns, with other skills being secondary.

The Musketeer and the Corsair are by their nature more multi-class kind of concepts, in that they do two things well, but perhaps should not do either as well as a specialist in each specific ability.

A Gunslinger should be a class that masters guns. If you want to master guns and other things, you will need to also take some levels in other things to achieve that.

I can understand why the Musketeer fans are trying to make gunslinger be it- the whole "I never miss" gun specialist when melee and bows are still the dominant combat style. I can see why they would like the ability to use grit to still hit touch AC beyond their first range increment for Musketeers.

Corsairs... eh, I understand your point of the multi-class concept there, but then again, if they focus on making Gunslinger the "wild west" feel they inundated it with, in my opinion, they should be building off a rogue framework, rather than a fighter, anyway, so the corsair could be easily an alternate build off of that framework.

Personally, despite being the one who suggested the "Sharp Shooter" rebuild in the first place, I'm against it. I'm much more in favor of getting them to drop those alternate things and focus on making a rogue for the wild west.

ciretose wrote:

I'm not worried about waves of 1st levels. I'm worried about weird interactions new mechanics tend to bring to systems, particularly since it was a gunslinger, not a firearm, playtest.

(bolded emphasis mine)

Yes, they dropped two things on our lap: the gunslinger and Touch AC guns. Then they immediately go on to say: 'Touch AC are not part of this playtest and are here to stay, but go ahead and playtest the gunslinger using that new Touch AC gun thing... yeah, you'll see... it's cool!'

So the premise of the playtest felt flawed from the get go, as far as I'm concerned. There's a few things the playtest helped improve, but for the love of everything that's PRPG Core, dropping a Touch AC gun rule and saying "hands off that rule!" is not completely ingenuous...

The role of a playtest is to see what works and what doesn't. It's fine to define a scope for a playtest, be it class, a feat, or even a weapon! but when you design a whole class based on a new weapon and say "test the class, not the weapon," that's crap. Come on.

Biggest problem of course being that one of the biggest problems of the class is that the part we're not allowed to test isn't working...

dogstarrb wrote:

Alas. Nipped in the bud.

Alas, reading the rules tends to do that.

Eh, it's a play test, the rules are subject to change. But I was never saying the poisoning of bullets was a good idea.

After thinking, I think I recind my idea to allow the gunslinger to convert early firearms into advanced ones. Instead, lets keep early firearms as status quo, but make it possible for gunslngers to use their full attacks. Here's my ideas for the new "Gunsmith" feature, called Gun Affinity, and my adjustment to 'Gun Training".

** spoiler omitted **...

I think this is a better direction than where they were originally going, but still not quite perfect. Personally, I favor the idea of giving guns a base higher miss fire chance, that with gun training with a SPECIFIC fire arm is reduced over time. Like say, a base 5 miss fire, and then gun training reduces it by an additional one per rank, resulting in only a pure fumble possibly affecting you at 20. Because fumbles should still suck. Even modern guns miss fire when you REALLY screw up. This better reflects the danger inherent in early guns, and the expertise that separates gunslingers from any fighter with a gun.

dogstarrb wrote:

Abraham spalding wrote:

Yeah in the firearms section of the PDF it specifically states that you can't poison firearms.

Now I could see an alchemical cartridge that could be poisoned -- but considering it's breaking the rules hard on this subject I imagine it would be very expensive.

But poisoning a bullet wouldn't be poisoning a FIREARM... unless it also specifically says "or ammunition" or something along that line...

Actual line from playtest document:

"Firearm ammunition cannot be treated with poison."

Alas. Nipped in the bud.

When I grab a class I expect it's flavor to be over all generic. If I grab a fighter I expect that I can play a savage fighter (not the archetype) from a conan like setting, or a rapier using finesse fighter from a renaissance setting. I also expect the fighter to be able to be a robin hood type of character. Same with barbarian, ranger, paladin, rogue, cavalier and most other classes. Some do come with a bit more flavor than others -- a cleric is going to have something faith based, and a druid is going to be called to nature in some form or fashion -- and I'm ok with that, since it is as much the mechanics of the class as it is the flavor of it.

I do not feel that the gunslinger, despite its name, should have to be only this one type of character -- I feel the mechanics of the class should be such that if you want to play someone that is good with guns you choose the gunslinger class and then fill in the options (feats, skills, some class abilities) according to the character flavor you are playing instead of the class telling you what it is.

I fear I'm not explaining myself well -- I'm not trying to simply be contrary -- I feel the gunslinger as currently displayed and as people are pushing it only really fits one type of flavor -- and I'm against that.

Which is right along the lines of what I said. They need to fall back and punt on this class, right down to the name, because the name is forcing flavor. As it stands right now, no, a musketeer is not this class. And imo, that's fine, just make musketeer a build option or prestige class for fighter, and let the gunslinger do its thing, rather than trying to make it be what it isn't. OR, make the new class "sharp shooter" which can encompass everything from the wild west gunslinger to the musketeer to the corsair with a pistol and blade to the sniper who never gets in melee.

A lot of the dissension is coming from people trying to build two different classes. Some are building sharp shooters that can be gunslingers or musketeers or what have you, while some are building gunslingers that they're forcing on options that don't work just to get "two hander" alternative builds.

Purple Dragon Knight wrote:

Yep. We haven't seen the end of this. I find it not only game breaking / system breaking / inconsistent with existing rules. I find it somewhat depressing. What's the fun in playing a guy that always hit except on a 1? What's next? character classes summed up with one column: DPR (damage per round) per level? no rolls necessary! when it's your turn, just apply the listed damage for your level!

Exactly why I don't like it either. I mean a wizard can do it but he uses magic and is heavily limited in his ability to do it.

Personally, I've always prefered just making firearms a reskinned crossbow with big advantages. (Increased crit ability, range and damage.) instead of doing those rules where they try to simulate realworld physics in a game where people can be strong enough to throw houses at people.

Serious if a bullet is suppose to do something like this, then why isn't there something similar for a guy with over 40 str?

Heck, I've made a character before who could travel 200 feet in 6 second just hustling (double move) with a run feat he could move at 500 feet per 6 seconds. And I haven't even given him haste yet.

Now imagine if this same man was given haste and was capable of using a sling while running with his 40 str. How fast would that...

I think what it comes down to at the moment is that right now, they're double dipping armor piercing modeling. It has high damage and a huge crit multiplier-higher than any other PF weapon- Because when it DOES hit, the armor's not reducing its damage by much (high damage) and when it hits somewhere the armor's not affecting, you take the full force of the blow (high crit multiplier). Why do we have to be able to bypass armor to apply our damage that reflects the results of hitting an armored body? Just give it a nice crit range and forget that whole touch AC attack crap. That would reflect that it's easier to get through the armor, and just make your hits count for more rather than making you hit ALL THE TIME.

The only alternative that works with the Touch AC idea is if the gun would NEVER crit- you're already doing your full damage potential on any hit, because armor's doing nothing.

Yeah in the firearms section of the PDF it specifically states that you can't poison firearms.

Now I could see an alchemical cartridge that could be poisoned -- but considering it's breaking the rules hard on this subject I imagine it would be very expensive.

But poisoning a bullet wouldn't be poisoning a FIREARM... unless it also specifically says "or ammunition" or something along that line...

I think one of the big problems with the "flavor" issues of the gunslinger is the connotations some people (including the designers!) are carrying along with the WORD gunslinger. To that end, I point out:

A musketeer is NOT a gunslinger.

There, I said it. And I'm not taking it back, and you can't convince me otherwise. What they ARE, however, is a SHARP SHOOTER.

And so's a pistol-wielding, high-noon-showdown gunslinger. And a sniper. And maybe even that pirate with the blunderbuss people are talking about. Maybe if we could change the NAME (to Sharp Shooter), and make the "grit" things (a) have a better name (maybe Focus?), (b) work for all builds rather than just the "gunslinger" and "oh yeah I guess some of these work for rifle-ish things too" and (c) lose more of that "old west" flavor that's trapping everyone, we could actually make some better progress on a class.

Or don't. Just quit trying to make it a "fighter", and including musketeer, and whatnot, make musketeer a class option (like the Urban Ranger build or Swarm Druid, and so on) and just make it the rogue it should be. Wild West gunslingers are mostly bandits, and the ones that aren't are still "Good rogues". They're agile, quick on the draw, and all those other things that typically go with rogue. Make grit more like rogue talents. The touch AC thing wouldn't be such a huge deal if they didn't ALSO get a full fighter's BAB.

In short, quit trying to make it the wrong class archetype. The BEST thing would be to strip down to the bare skeleton of the 3/4 BAB "build", and construct the class more or less from scratch, rather than making it a variant depending on "swap x for y" which is trapping us in some weird places.

I found the whole Touch AC thing REALLY odd. I get to attack a lower AC like a mage but have a fighter's attack bonus?? This is stupid. Why "invent" piercing for guns, when no other weapon has any special mechanic to bypass armor? Just give it a higher crit range and be done with it already! No other projectile (which WOULD be able to pierce armors!) gets to attack touch, why should guns be any different?

Unless you're going to introduce "armor piercing" ranges to all weapons, or reflect it in some way for ALL attacks, don't single out one. Any weapon can find a chink in armor somewhere, or break through it, or cause damage anyway. You know what that is? We call it a HIT in my group!

Agreed on fairly well all points of both Elghinn and Purple Dragon Knight. The suggested "Gun Affinity" sounds much more true to the "feel" of the class, as well as making more sense from a "min/max" point of view- However, I don't know how much sense improving the weapon to the point of an advanced weapon would make. I can turn my pistol into a revolver?

Ignoring the questions in other threads of whether it is too powerful or not, what it does doesn't make sense for how often we get it, especially given the "feel" the rules are supposed to be based on- guns are rare but emerging.

Looking at the progression table... at level 17 I'm bad ass with any fire arm I happen to pick up. WHY?! Shouldn't a person devoted to being amazing at a particular kind of weapon be devoted to ONE of that type of weapon? That feel is reflected in the "battered" condition of the starting weapon, but in 4 levels I can start slinging whatever gun I choose. At level 9, I can now do this with 2 weapon types... so since I spent so long being awesome with my particular pistol, I can pick up a rifle and do extra damage?? I shouldn't necessarily even know how to aim the thing! I haven't even ENCOUNTERED another gun until level 7. So two levels ago I saw one, so now I'm amazing at using it.

If anything, it should be changed to a stacking bonus with one specialized weapon (possibly with an option to apply it to other types rather than stacking) benefit, such as reducing the miss fire chance, or extending the range increment, perhaps. The adding adding Dex damage should be changed to a one-off feat, that requires the Grit feature.