A Well Built Fighter can get a +8.
Think of it as: If by some way they lose their Firearm they lose the benefit of around 80% of their Class Features. They require the most Gold out of all Character Classes. Literally around 15% more Gold than a TWF Fighter.
I have viewed them from other angles. Having actually trained in both Medieval Weaponry and pretty well all eras of Firearms I can honestly say Pathfinder's Firearm Rules are the best representation of how effective Firearms are.
Especially since there is a reason why Firearms replaced Swords and lead to Armour being reduced to Antiques and Parade use. Though Depending on if you are going Emerging Guns/Pike-&-Shotte or Commonplace Guns/Napoleonic guns will determine what happens.
I solve the Gunslinger issue by limiting their ability to obtain/craft the Ammo & Guns.
besides DM fudging the monsters AC how am I supposed to make a creature hard to hit for the gunslinger, perhaps force him at longer ranged but then the malee people r going to be bored.
This game is planned to go to LV 20 or until party wipe whatever happens first as that's how we run most of our games.
Problem I am having is even in the case of custom NPC how am I supposed to have any attack miss them besides fudging the stats to give NPC insane touch AC's that simply don't make sence. I mean I guess I could make all future NPC Dex based fighters and Monks but that hardly seams proper lol.
I mean only Ac that counts is dodge and deflection (dex adding in as a dodge bonus) Just not finding many monsters with a touch AC that is even remotely hard to hit.
(srry if I took my thread in a different direction but already resolved that gunslingers deal the damage just fine, now just goto figure out how to challenge them as a dm even in the least)
Have them encounter other Gunslingers.
Gunslingers are one of those situations that require a lot of practice in dealing with.
You can easily make it harder on them by making them struggle to get usable GP to obtain the Ammo needed.
Main problem is most of the ways to make things hard on them punishes the rest of the party and I don't want people fealing like they are being punished because of the gunslinger being op. I also don't want others to feal like there characters are weaker then the gunslinger
If the items can be used by the Whole Party they are less likely to sell them for the GP.
Basically, Make his Revolver like the Colt in Supernatural. It is nice BUT comes with such few Rounds it isn't usable on a Regular Basis. Maybe make it an Azlanti Artifact. As he explore he can find small "Caches" of Metal Cartridges to use. Maybe make the Bullets Masterwork or even Magical in their own Right while the Revolver can't be enchanted without its "Mystery" being solved...
Well I now know one of the Weapons of Legacy Artifacts for one of my settings...
But Azaelas, later on they figured out how to make their own Colt bullets,or I think they did anyway.
Though I think that secret died with Bobby. *Sniffle*
IIRC: They basically Re-Chambered the Colt to fire Normal Bullets instead of the specially made bullets for it. And let us have a Moment of Silence for the Fallen Hero.
What I am saying is make the Ammo only available via these small caches of rounds. Until they find a book that details the Formulas, Techniques, and Such of making the Metal Cartridges.
Hmm... do you guys allow Vital Strike with double barreled pistols???
Vital Strike would technically only increase one Barrels Damage not Both.
without duel wielding 6 is the most shots a gunslinger can have with a revolver right
also whats the point of dead shot, it seams like a huge damage nerf since you only get extra damage for each shot that hit and you lose the bonus damage only gaining base damage for each that hit
"""Dead Shot (Ex): At 7th level, as a full-round action, the gunslinger can take careful aim and pool all of her attack potential into a single, deadly shot. When she does this, she shoots the firearm at a single target, but makes as many attack rolls as she can, based on her base attack bonus. She makes the attack rolls in order from highest bonus to lowest, as if she were making a full attack. If any of the attack rolls hit the target, the gunslinger’s single attack is considered to have hit. For each additional successful attack roll beyond the first, the gunslinger increases the damage of the shot by the base damage dice of the firearm. For instance, if a 7th-level gunslinger firing a musket hits with both attacks, she does 2d12 points of damage with the shot, instead of 1d12 points of damage, before adding any damage modifiers. Precision damage and extra damage from weapon special abilities (such as flaming) are added with damage modifiers and are not increased by this deed. If one or more rolls are critical threats, she confirms the critical once using her highest base attack bonus –5. For each critical threat beyond the first, she reduces this penalty by 1 (to a maximum of 0). The gunslinger only misfires on a dead shot if all the attack rolls are misfires. She cannot perform this deed with a blunderbuss or other scatter weapon when attacking creatures in a cone. The gunslinger must spend 1 grit point to perform this deed."""
I mean I guess if you roll a crit in those attacks it could be nice but your losing a lot of bonus damage, Perhaps it is basicaly vital shot except with more damage and good for DR??
STARGAZER_DRAGON wrote: besides DM fudging the monsters AC how am I supposed to make a creature hard to hit for the gunslinger, perhaps force him at longer ranged but then the malee people r going to be bored.
This game is planned to go to LV 20 or until party wipe whatever happens first as that's how we run most of our games.
Problem I am having is even in the case of custom NPC how am I supposed to have any attack miss them besides fudging the stats to give NPC insane touch AC's that simply don't make sence. I mean I guess I could make all future NPC Dex based fighters and Monks but that hardly seams proper lol.
I mean only Ac that counts is dodge and deflection (dex adding in as a dodge bonus) Just not finding many monsters with a touch AC that is even remotely hard to hit.
(srry if I took my thread in a different direction but already resolved that gunslingers deal the damage just fine, now just goto figure out how to challenge them as a dm even in the least)
Positioning it what we use.
A gunslinger in AoO range of an opponent is in trouble without many feats. Deft shootist which requires mobility which requires dodge, is needed to reload without provoking. Point-blank master to avoid provoking when firing is even worse, it requires weapon specialization which requires 4 levels of fighter and weapon focus. Since gunslingers have many other demands on their feats, these tend to be low priority and wise gunslingers facing multiple AoOs chose the better part of valor, unwise gunslingers put in that spot have short careers. remmebr that an opponent with AoOs can charge to the guinslinger and force them to retreat instead of attacking. Note that even firing in AoO range there is no flanking bonus for range attacks.
At range a gunslinger using a 2H firearm isn't too different from an archer, the gunslinger gets touch AC but misses out on several boosts which are only available to archers like gravity bow (much as I have pushed for the gravity gun spell, I wouldn't use it with advanced firearms) and has the possibility of misfire. A gunslinger would hit more often for less damage than an archer who dedicated as much to their bowmanship as a gunslinger does to their gunmanship. And for all ranged characters, corners present problems (although gunslingers can use ricochets).
At range the dual wielding gunslinger takes an automatic -4 to hit (no light guns for the off-hand weapon) and multiple range penalties (unless they want to risk getting up close and personal). They also take a -2 to firing into melee in most cases without precise shot (which requires point blank shot) and -4 from firing through friendly occupied squares without improved precise shot. Yes, feats can remove these penalties but gunslingers get only 1 bonus feat every 4 levels and need so many other feats just to function that taking them comes at cost of other useful feats.
At the highest levels when gunslingers finally have bought all the feats they need to function well they break the system but other classes do as well. Gunslingers are very powerful in circumstances when they can full attack without worrying about AoOs at close range. Push them out of their comfort zone and they are weak. At level 11 a TWF pistolero will seem massively overpowered (signature deed) but this levels off with other classes by level 14. I've never used advanced firearms but I think reducing the range of touch AC so that to get it the gunslinger has to risk being charged (the same as an early firearm user) would be enough to make touch AC a trade-off which balances the class out.
good ideas, plus of course if he is penetrating the opponents defense with ease he will likely be a prime target to take down for intelligent foes.
STARGAZER_DRAGON wrote:
I love the fluff of gunslinger but there touch AC means they become notably better then a Bow based fighter or ranger.
Yet, due to gp per shot, misfire, etc Bow users are better at 20.
STARGAZER_DRAGON wrote: besides DM fudging the monsters AC how am I supposed to make a creature hard to hit for the gunslinger, perhaps force him at longer ranged but then the malee people r going to be bored.
This game is planned to go to LV 20 or until party wipe whatever happens first as that's how we run most of our games.
Why do you require players have a hard time hitting the enemy? You are supposed to challenge not make enemies nuisances
As goofy as this sounds, the best enemy to use against an overpowered Gunslinger is a Monk. Gasp!
Alot of people here on the boards hate the Monk, but it has one very important feat/class ability that no other character even thinks about: High touch AC and Deflect Arrows. The way Deflect Arrows is worded, you are able to deflect a bullet. Grab that and he's dealing significantly less damage. Partnered with the Monks naturally high Touch AC, the other players will now have to resort fighting this monster by themselves.
Overpowered? Not in the slightest! Challenging? To everyone! Interesting?
The man bats away your shot as if it was nothing, dodging the other two shots. He then begins laughing at you.
I'd call that interesting to say the least.
Tirq wrote: As goofy as this sounds, the best enemy to use against an overpowered Gunslinger is a Monk. Gasp!
Alot of people here on the boards hate the Monk, but it has one very important feat/class ability that no other character even thinks about: High touch AC and Deflect Arrows. The way Deflect Arrows is worded, you are able to deflect a bullet. Grab that and he's dealing significantly less damage. Partnered with the Monks naturally high Touch AC, the other players will now have to resort fighting this monster by themselves.
Overpowered? Not in the slightest! Challenging? To everyone! Interesting?
The man bats away your shot as if it was nothing, dodging the other two shots. He then begins laughing at you.
I'd call that interesting to say the least. [/QUOTE Try fighting a CR 5 Djinn with a level 7 gunslinger sometime, it's not fun. A revolver wielder might have had better luck without needing as many reloads but the combination of wind stance (20% concealment if you try a firing retreat) and 4 AoOs at +11 if you stand and full attack makes it no easy task.
Dead Shot is basically a scaling Vital Strike Feat if you can reduce the Grit Price.
It also saves on Ammunition.
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Azaelas Fayth wrote: Dead Shot is basically a scaling Vital Strike Feat if you can reduce the Grit Price. Signature Deed.
Dragonchess Player wrote: Azaelas Fayth wrote: Dead Shot is basically a scaling Vital Strike Feat if you can reduce the Grit Price. Signature Deed. That was the Feat I was forgetting the name of!
My question is does Rapid Shot and such work on it or is it just your basic BAB Full-Attack? Could you use it to get a Full-Attack modified by TWF using 2 Pistols and 2 Bullets?
I feel like I missed something...
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Azaelas Fayth wrote: My question is does Rapid Shot and such work on it or is it just your basic BAB Full-Attack? Could you use it to get a Full-Attack modified by TWF using 2 Pistols and 2 Bullets?
I feel like I missed something...
Since Dead Shot is its own full round action and both Rapid Shot and Two-Weapon Fighting are modifications of a full-attack action (which is a different full round action), then by RAW no.
Dead Shot is more scalable than Vital Strike and a bit more powerful with the way it handles criticals, but Vital Strike (and the rest of the chain) only use a standard action, which can be used in a surprise round or lets you take a move action as well in a normal round.
Vital Strike is excellent but costs so many Feats.
Azaelas Fayth wrote: Dead Shot is basically a scaling Vital Strike Feat if you can reduce the Grit Price.
It also saves on Ammunition.
Vital Strike is a standard action while Dead Shot is a full-round. This is what kills Dead Shot for me. It deals dismal DPR when compared to a normal full round attack by a double-weapon wielding Gunslinger unless you land the super crit. The best part about it is avoiding misfires.
For a pistolero I feel you're better served getting Signature Deed (Up Close and Deadly). But if your goal is to play a musketeer sniper character, then Dead Shot is perfect for you.
I am just thinking in a Lower WBL game.
So finally started to use a few monsters before they where largely fighting humans and the like but they have moved deeper into the forest and away from the towns, soon as larger monsters with reach came into effects I started feeling a lot better about gunslingers as a dm as reach really messes with there ability to do anything useful. Granted he did manage to crit and damm near 1 shot one of the harder fights but over all reach monsters started to pose larger problems.
I still dislike the gunslinger basically always hitting I prefer there to be a reason to roll past is it a crit fumble/miss but least power wise they can be balanced well enough currently by melee and reach creatures which are common at higher lvl's
Next game however I might very well make there ability to target touch AC grit based or otherwise limited like every other class, perhaps have to add some other bonus to the gunslinger if I do that but all the same.
Perhaps adding in the fighters weapon familiarity and allowing fighter feats to be chosen by gunslingers for there gun but in trade make targeting touch AC a power usable a number of timer per day = to the alchemist bombs or something.
As a DM I still just can't get past the I always Hit them thought I guess. (but least for this one game I can challenge the gunslinger well enough with reach and melee creatures as well as swarms and tiny creatures that have good touch Ac and of course the rare but feared monk NPS
Do gunslingers get to add Dex to damage?
Mr Dice Guy wrote: Do gunslingers get to add Dex to damage? At level 5.
Mr Dice Guy wrote: Sonofa.... At level 1 if you are playing with "guns are common" rules.
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Gunslingers are difficult to deal with because of the "attack touch AC" thing. Oh, and because they can trip opponents just by hitting them and other strange stuff which doesn't allow saves and so on.
yea still ben dealing with it, he misses so rarely but then the alchemist rarely misses till he runs out of bombs.
Kinda think that Guns should auto hit flat footed AC more then touch AC, they feel the bullets should go straight threw armor with ease but to me if that heavy crossbow bolt of acidic flame bursting don't shrug off the armor as if it wasn't there then the small peice of lead fired at high speed shouldn't cut threw the 3' thick dragon scale as if it wasn't there.
I mean bullet proof vests or a thick book can stop or super slow down a bullet today (excluding high caliber and armor Peirceing) why can't the magical armor and super thick natural armors effect bullets in D&D
Because modern bullets rely on light weight/high speed. If their energy gets dissipated they can't do much. Same reason shooting a rifle into water does nothing. It also has to do with Material Strengths.
Metal can't transfer the sudden shock of a Musket Balls impact but anything slower it can.
There is a difference between the 500-1000fps of a musket and the 300-600 fps of a crossbow.
The ranges cover multiple different types of ammo they used. Ironically, in a Musket-style weapon modern bullets are worthless.
I now a bit too much of firearms...
The problem is the advanced firearms. Firearms are balanced around simple firearms, not the advanced versions.
The primary balance to the touch attacks is the short range. To shoot a pistol at touch ac, you need to be within 20 ft of the target. Most scary monsters can reach you with a five-foot step at that distance.
The other balancing feature is misfires. A pepperbox that is reloaded as a free action (cartridges + rapid reload) jams on a 1-3. This is pretty major. With all the rapid-shooting he is doing, they will jam once every few rounds.
People always complain about dual-wielded double pistols. They forget that you have about a 2% chance of the pistol just exploding each time you fire it. That is: totally destroyed. You can't make it whole, you can't repair it. GONE. Magic pistols don't matter. It just goes KABOOM.
In summary: don't allow revolvers unless you know how to balance against them.
Once Revolvers become available they should also be available to any higher level NPC and the other PCs as well.
A few NPC's do have firearms but for the most part they are pretty rare simply because of the cost plus of course there's some realm specific reasons.
Question I do have is what other DM and players think about firearms targeting Flatfooted AC instead of touch AC.
This has the one effect of becoming a rouges best friend but past that single possible issue it still allows them to target a AC that's on average 5-10 behind the normal AC but they don't target Touch Ac which can be upwards of 35 less then normal AC on a semi common basis at high lvls.
Perhaps add a power that allows them to target Touch ac X number of times per day similar to a alchemist but normally they just target flat footed. This makes fluff sense to me as I could see it being really hard to move out of the way of bullets. Still lets that super strong super thick dragon scale actually effect the bullet. Sorry I just can't see the bullet ignoring such super strong Natural armors. Blame movies where the giant bugs carapace is so thick bullets don't hurt it.
Bullets today aren't really that hard to stop and in old days it was much easier, this of course was why it was much more dangerous back then as the bullet next to never went clean threw and had to be dug out.
Flatfooted AC doesn't make sense thematically. Touch AC makes sense.
Touch AC is a good mechanic. The problem is not touch AC, the problem is you're implementing Advanced Firearms into a setting that doesn't support them and failing to evolve that setting to meet this powerful new technology.
I don't understand "Bullets today aren't really hard to stop". From firearms invention until around 1970, armor could not compete with the penetrating power of bullets. Sure suits could be made to withstand a bullet, but they were so unwieldy and impractical they never saw widespread use if any at all. It is why armies stopped wearing armor.
So if you're incorporating advanced firearms, rather than changing the rules you should change the campaign world. I don't understand why people feel compelled to incorporate advanced firearms into their campaigns then complain they are overpowered when they are intended to be overpowered...
kaisc006 wrote: I don't understand "Bullets today aren't really hard to stop". From firearms invention until around 1970, armor could not compete ... Wahey... Didn't know firearms are THAT new ;)
Deflect Arrows and extreme use of all those antifirearm spells and magic items might help.
Breastplates were still worn until the Napoleonic Era. Mainly for protection against the small number of Pikemen and Bayonets.
Breastplates still allowed for major mobility and good protection from older weapons.
and in the grand scale of things Firearms are only in their Infancy maybe, just maybe, their Toddler phase.
What your nor incorporating is magic and creatures Nat AC, Again lets take one of the more extreme creatures the ancient red dragon. Do you honestly think a western age revolver could effectively pierce a red dragons Thick scales as if it was soft leathery skin? Advanced firearms refer to the revolvers and guns use in western movies and junk. In a number of those movies the bullets where deflected by iron armor. This would instinctively mean to me that technically Bullets would only attack touch AC if the armor it targeted had a hardness of less then say a iron wall.
Since Besides specially made armor piercing round bullets from early to modern do not pierce a iron wall as if it was paper we could safely rule that the bullets would not pierce armor with a hardness above 10, realistically though we can use hardness 8 since western bullets didn't even pierce stone effectively and barely went threw wood often being stopped by mere wood walls.
So then we come to a basic ruling that anything with a hardness of 8 isn't simply ignored.
Though perhaps we need to consider thickness since super thin stone and iron could be punctured. Thus since a iron wall 3" thick could very realistically stop a western age bullet but a 1" thick might not we might rule that to not be effected by the bullets touch AC the armor would need hardness of 8+ and HP of 45+
With what a bullet would not simply puncture figure out realistically you can also figure out what armor the bullet could not puncture with ease.
Armor Hardness = materiel used HP= armor bonus × 5
So Breast plate is steal/iron so 10 hardness and has 6x5 HP = 35
Thus the bullet would barely puncture a breast plate, however now add +1 to that breast plate and it now has
Hardness 12 and HP 45 meaning the bullet would not longer for sure puncture it.
-=---------------------
So again once you add in magic and magical creatures you are no longer so cut and dry about a firearms ability to always hit touch AC, your in essence saying that a bullet could easily ignore a 2" thick iron wall.
I would go as far as saying bullets hit touch AC for all non magical things but as soon as magic is put in the mix they become less effective at easily Piercing it.
This response it to all the people using real life to justify the events in a game involving magic, things don't stack the same once magic is involved.
just realized how hard that last post could be to follow.
In short it simply says that advanced firearms which are basically western movie type guns, would not shoot threw a metal wall.
Thus any armor with hardness and HP even to about that of a metal or even a stone wall would realistically prevent the gun from targeting touch AC, since fluff wise it targets touch AC because it goes right threw the armor.
_______
Further though since hits don't mean that the character is littered with wholes, largely stating that most wounds besides crits are mere flesh wound glancing blows ect. So realistically armor would still make such things happen more often as they would increase the chance of the bullet not causing severe damage. Mainly in the case of heavier Armor but even chainmail could dramatically slow or even potentially stop a bullet.
Suggestion for flat footed AC was that besides those few specially trained people it is simply just to hard to react to bullet once it was fired, though I know technically you are reacting to the gun before the trigger is pulled not the bullet afterwords.
Perhaps a flat bonus to attack rolls when using a firearm would work better something like a +5 attack representing both it's ability to punch threw armor and the speed at which the bullet moves making it harder to dodge. This is still ruffly a 25% increased chance to hit. This would grant a significant attack bonus making the gun effective against even creatures with high touch AC but preventing it from always hitting heavily armored creatures. Basically a well rounded attack bonus that should stand up to the fighters weapon familiarity. Fighters slowly get there bonus but guns cost more off setting the bonus at low lvls and about on par at higher lvl where gold means a lot less
In real life you have to follow literally 15+ Equations to get the Bullets ability to puncture Metal.
Chainmail is designed to negate Slashing Weapons not Bludgeoning and Piercing. Hence why early arrows didn't use Broadhead arrows like you see now or in fantasy artwork.
Heck, No armour could stop a Bludgeoning Weapon completely. If you were to be realistic any Bludgeoning damage would still be Half-Damage if they hit on Touch AC but not AC and Full-Damage if they hit on Both.
Armour would absorb most of the energy and the Bullet would only go around 1/2 inch to 1 inch deep. but it couldn't absorb all of it do to it being designed to resist buckling from the force from a "traditional" weapon. That made it less resistant to the sudden and precise force of the Bullet. Some Heavy Crossbows could pierce through armour if they could hit specific areas of the armour. The thing is those areas were usually so small that it would only be the equivalent to rolling three Natural 20s in a row.
Going to let this thread end and make a new thread addressing the specific issue of Firearms targeting touch AC. Since this thread was actually opened for a different reason and has so many posts on it that I am unlikely to get fresh feedback on the specific issue at hand. the original topic was resolve pretty well already.
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