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Can any of you speak (with specificity) to the mechanical issues with the class?
I think there are mechanical issues with the class, but not any that make it overpowered. The reason is that gunslingers can put out a lot of damage, but that's it. Since a competent damage dealer should be able to drop most enemies in a round or two, it's good that gunslingers can do that. Otherwise, they wouldn't even be good at their own niche.
They aren't overpowered, though. They aren't good at solving any problems that cannot be solved by filling someone with bullet holes.
So if I make a meal that everybody likes but one gluten-intolerant guy, the flaw is in the meal?
So if I write a book that everyone enjoys but one guy who can't read, the problem is in my book?
If I write a series of adventures that works for every class and archetype, except for the one that is significantly mechanically different than the others, the problem is in the adventures?
That's a pretty specific way to look at things, wouldn't you say?
So you make a gluten-free dish.
You make an audiobook.You make a better AP. Frankly, the idea that different mechanics significantly change things is BS, because of all the subsystems in PF. The fighter is significantly different from the wizard, but yet the APs work for both of them.
Frankly, I think the 'The APs aren't designed to work with gunslingers' line is untrue; they were just trying to discourage them/enforce their Golarian status quo.
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Use guns in some campaigns. Not in others. Nothing wrong with them. They work fine.
Nothing else needs saying.
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So you make a gluten-free dish.
You make an audiobook.
You make a better AP. Frankly, the idea that different mechanics significantly change things is BS, because of all the subsystems in PF. The fighter is significantly different from the wizard, but yet the APs work for both of them.Frankly, I think the 'The APs aren't designed to work with gunslingers' line is untrue; they were just trying to discourage them/enforce their Golarian status quo.
The game was designed with all of those subsystems in mind though. Dragons get Spell Resistance which hles offset their low Touch AC. Fighters BAB and bonuses to-hit are integrated into the expected escalation of AC and attacks.
The Gunslinger was given access to the ability to target a defense that was intended to be backed by other defenses the Gunslinger ignores. They tried to offset this with awkward and clunky mechanical restrictions that are crippling for all but a couple builds at low levels and which can be easily ignored from about level 8 on.The fact that adventures which work well for every other class are not compatible with the Gunslinger is an issue of the class, not of the adventures; iot's an issue of making a class reliant on specific resources when those resources may or may not make any sense in a given setting, it's an issue of a class not meshing well with pages upon pages of existing material, and it's an issue and it's an issue of using "unwritten rules" to make decisions about how a class is built when the core mechanic of the class completely ignores many of those same rules. The Gunslinger and firearms in general were a really good try, but they don't work well unless you change the premises of your adventures to suit them, and that is an issue of the class, not of the adventures themselves. Most of that material came well before the Gunslinger and firearms, and those mechanics should have been designed to suit the existing material, not force the existing material to suit them.
I don't mind guns in my fantasy, though I wouldn't use them in every single setting. I also don't mind the gunslinger's class features and think they look pretty good.
However I don't like the implementation of the firearms mechanics in pathfinder. The touch AC aspect doesn't really work all that well in my opinion. I wouldn't want someone to play a gunslinger until I've had a chance to write some better house rules for firearms.
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Is it bad that I still find it funny that people think Spell Resistance is a serious defense against caster? Does anyone know if that goes away after seeing enough people try and pretend SR is valuable?
So lets clear thing up, touch AC not paired with SR to offset spells and if it is then whoever thought that was a good idea didn't realize how completely worthless SR is.
Let's be honest here, Guns have been part of D&D from the very start, along with spaceships. If you don't like guns and spaceships in your fantasy fine, but don't pretend they aren't D&D.
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I don't mind guns in my fantasy, though I wouldn't use them in every single setting. I also don't mind the gunslinger's class features and think they look pretty good.
However I don't like the implementation of the firearms mechanics in pathfinder. The touch AC aspect doesn't really work all that well in my opinion. I wouldn't want someone to play a gunslinger until I've had a chance to write some better house rules for firearms.
I really liked the idea of tossing out misfires and giving guns a "penetration rating" where a standard gun ignores 2 points of armor plus 2 per point of enhancement bonus. That way the Gunslinger still gets to target a lower AC, but you don't have a ridiculous situation where ancient wyrms with their scales that are thicker and stronger than steel may as well have tissue paper hides.
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Is it bad that I still find it funny that people think Spell Resistance is a serious defense against caster? Does anyone know if that goes away after seeing enough people try and pretend SR is valuable?
So lets clear thing up, touch AC not paired with SR to offset spells and if it is then whoever thought that was a good idea didn't realize how completely worthless SR is.
Let's be honest here, Guns have been part of D&D from the very start, along with spaceships. If you don't like guns and spaceships in your fantasy fine, but don't pretend they aren't D&D.
The game was made assuming a 15 point buy character generation method and mediocre system mastery. Wizards who live to see creatures with SR generally don't dump everything except INT, so SR still matters pretty frequently at the baseline assumption of the game. It's really only subpar as a character ability; Monks would literally be better off if they didn't get SR than if they did.
Just because the game you play doesn't match those expectations doesn't mean they weren't part of the game design, and don't work under those expectations.
Is it bad that I still find it funny that people think Spell Resistance is a serious defense against caster? Does anyone know if that goes away after seeing enough people try and pretend SR is valuable?
I'm curious, what makes it not work? (We haven't had many encounters in our pathfinder games where SR was a factor).
On paper it seems decent enough, being purely a caster level check with a few feats and similar that can help increase it. Looks like it should work about 50% of the time in CR appropriate encounters.
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The game was made assuming a 15 point buy character generation method.The game was actually made assuming 4d6 best 3 for ability scores, with an optional point buy method with 25 points, starting from 8.
Switching to the new pb method that starts from 10 and gives 15 points came many years after the system was already written.
Of course it's completely irrelevant to the question of SR, since ability scores have no effect on SR checks.
They affect your choices of feats and your designation of resources, which impacts everything about your character, including your ability to break Spell Resistance. If you have an 8 Con, you spend resources to shore it up, and those resources are delayed to later levels so you can't use them to say, take Spell Penetration. If you jump in at levels where you can ignore those stats or have a Wizard starting with a 20 INT and traits and abilities drawn from a dozen books that allow him to shore up his weak stats with huge amounts of magical boosts or stat-shifting, then you don't spend resources on things the game naturally assumes you will be. Just look at the Iconics. Many groups who frequent these forums would consider most of them nearly unplayable, but those are very much the characters that establish the baseline of stat distribution and system mastery the game anticipates. In fact, the game is designed for those characters to win most CR appropriate encounters fairly handily.
And yes, 3.0, 3.5 and Pathfinder are balanced against a party using a stat average equivalent to a 15 point buy; the average of 3d6 is 10.5. There was never an assumption of you being able to have 4d6, 18 was the highest you could go for since before 3rd, and pretty much up until PF.| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
... But its also unrealistic to transform into a bear and eat someone. ...
You obviously never met my last boss.
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Is it bad that I still find it funny that people think Spell Resistance is a serious defense against caster? Does anyone know if that goes away after seeing enough people try and pretend SR is valuable?I'm curious, what makes it not work? (We haven't had many encounters in our pathfinder games where SR was a factor).
On paper it seems decent enough, being purely a caster level check with a few feats and similar that can help increase it. Looks like it should work about 50% of the time in CR appropriate encounters.
A caster isn't supposed to be using "SR: Yes" spells unless he's a fool who just likes to hit things with lightning until they break (though sometimes they use fire).
Glitterdust, web, stinking cloud, sleet storm et. al. don't rely on SR.
Heck, if it's pure damage you want from a caster for some reason, look for conjuration spells that shoot acid or create and hurl projectiles, and stay away from enchantment and necromancy.
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My own take on guns...
Historically, they existed. IIRC, gunpowder made it to Europe in the 1200s and I know firearms began to become used throughout Europe in the 1300s. Full plate armor was invented in the late 1400s, and only lasted 50 years before the sheer impracticality of it forced it to be phased out.
Why did it take so long? Because it took them that long to refine gunpowder up to the quality of what is now called black powder. That didn't stop people from using cannons and handheld firearms against knights on horseback, but in general did stop those weapons from being effective enough to see widespread use. On the other hand, gunpowder bombs were exceedingly effective, but required a lot of gunpowder to make.
Magic, on the other hand, produces something else: Machine-gun wizards. Take a good, long look at how many missiles per minute a wizard can launch using a wand of magic missile that launches 5 missiles each use. Magic has already met a standard that firearms will be seeking to achieve for centuries, and there's no reason to not believe that continual research by magic users won't produce spells that can unleash even more missiles per use and which can be cast even faster. The entire role of modern firearms, in that they're rapid-fire weapons you can use with relatively little training, likely would be completely supplanted by magic by the time you hit their equivalent of our era, especially since magic already is at the level that firearms were intended to be at.
So, my take is that firearms can fit, but they would be incredibly rare, hard to find, and expensive due to rarity. Why? Because magic has them beat on pretty much all levels, to the point no one is willing to give them a shot.
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Is it bad that I still find it funny that people think Spell Resistance is a serious defense against caster? Does anyone know if that goes away after seeing enough people try and pretend SR is valuable?I'm curious, what makes it not work? (We haven't had many encounters in our pathfinder games where SR was a factor).
On paper it seems decent enough, being purely a caster level check with a few feats and similar that can help increase it. Looks like it should work about 50% of the time in CR appropriate encounters.
A caster isn't supposed to be using "SR: Yes" spells unless he's a fool who just likes to hit things with lightning until they break (though sometimes they use fire).
Glitterdust, web, stinking cloud, sleet storm et. al. don't rely on SR.
Heck, if it's pure damage you want from a caster for some reason, look for conjuration spells that shoot acid or create and hurl projectiles, and stay away from enchantment and necromancy.
Basically, its very easy to boost your Spell Resistance checks since you can get abilities that boost your Caster Level to overcome SR or you can just increase your Caster Level. Since the base check is about 50% at all levels (you need to roll a 10), any increase to Caster Level or any buff to over come SR skews that dramatically.
Also, if a caster *IS* worried about failing SR, they have the option of casting SR: No spells, as Thelemic_Noun pointed out. A defense you can ignore when it is inconvenient is really much of a defense at all.
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As someone who has been in a long campaign alongside a gunslinger I can say it seemed pretty balanced to me.
The party consisted of the gunslinger, an eldritch knight (myself), a fighter, a samurai, and a magus.
In most encounters the gunslinger was definitely the heavy dps, which was expected, but not to the point where the rest of the party felt redundant or useless. This was primarily because the gunslinger was unremarkable in all other areas except direct damage. His skill checks, saves, and defenses were all average and everyone else had their own way of contributing, whether that be tanking, control, or buffing/blasting (me again).
I will add that in several encounters the gunslinger's weapon jammed, leaving him near helpless for rounds at a time. In one particular encounter his weapon jammed multiple times and he was effectively unable to contribute for the entire encounter and nearly died.
Unless you're using some critical fail house-rule no one's sword or bow ever locks up and stops them from doing their thing aside from a regular auto-miss.
I know the damage output and ability to hit touch AC can be surprising to some GMs but it's really only a problem if all your encounters rely solely on eating through the hit points of the enemy. Other than that gunslingers don't do anything out of the norm and are very feat-intensive to reach full effectiveness.
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As someone who has been in a long campaign alongside a gunslinger I can say it seemed pretty balanced to me.
The party consisted of the gunslinger, an eldritch knight (myself), a fighter, a samurai, and a magus.
In most encounters the gunslinger was definitely the heavy dps, which was expected, but not to the point where the rest of the party felt redundant or useless. This was primarily because the gunslinger was unremarkable in all other areas except direct damage. His skill checks, saves, and defenses were all average and everyone else had their own way of contributing, whether that be tanking, control, or buffing/blasting (me again).
I will add that in several encounters the gunslinger's weapon jammed, leaving him near helpless for rounds at a time. In one particular encounter his weapon jammed multiple times and he was effectively unable to contribute for the entire encounter and nearly died.
Unless you're using some critical fail house-rule no one's sword or bow ever locks up and stops them from doing their thing aside from a regular auto-miss.
I know the damage output and ability to hit touch AC can be surprising to some GMs but it's really only a problem if all your encounters rely solely on eating through the hit points of the enemy. Other than that gunslingers don't do anything out of the norm and are very feat-intensive to reach full effectiveness.
My first though on reading this is that what we clearly need is an Eldritch Gun Samurai. Make it happen Paizo!
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Gunslingers still have twice as many skills as a Fighter, the other guy who is supposedly limited to only being able to do dps, in addition to deeds that give them things like "lockpicking", no save confusion, no save knock prone, no save ability bleed, instant death, stunning, and a few other things.
They are far more versatile and useful than a Fighter can hope to be, and their high Dex and Nimble ability make their AC more than sufficient to do what they need to do.
That being said, the bigger issues with the Gunslinger class in general are not with the core class, which is actually a pseudo skill-monkey debuffer who's competent in a fight, but with the Musket Master and Pistolero archetypes that are each vastly more powerful than the core class.
Be wary of putting advanced firearms in your campaign. Advanced firearms basically eliminate all of the downsides to using gun. There's no reason every character shouldn't have a gun if advanced firearms are commonplace.
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My first though on reading this is that what we clearly need is an Eldritch Gun Samurai. Make it happen Paizo!
Speaking of overpowered classes. XD
I don't know what our gunslinger's build was, but I'm going to assume he was either vanilla or a musket master since he was using a two-handed gun through most of the campaign. I know he had Deadly Aim and seemed to have a solid build.
The Fighter and Samurai both had Lunge and would basically set up a teamwork-choke-point thing in a lot of rooms to blockade enemies while still being able to whack them every turn.
I mostly just slapped Haste on everyone and assisted with ranged attacking. The Magus just did whatever he wanted and laid down a lot of grease, black tentacles, etc.
Maybe I've just got my Friend Goggles on but I didn't really notice major discrepancies in power level between the party members.
Magic, on the other hand, produces something else: Machine-gun wizards. Take a good, long look at how many missiles per minute a wizard can launch using a wand of magic missile that launches 5 missiles each use. Magic has already met a standard that firearms will be seeking to achieve for centuries, and there's no reason to not believe that continual research by magic users won't produce spells that can unleash even more missiles per use and which can be cast even faster. The entire role of modern firearms, in that they're rapid-fire weapons you can use with relatively little training, likely would be completely supplanted by magic by the time you hit their equivalent of our era, especially since magic already is at the level that firearms were intended to be at.
So, my take is that firearms can fit, but they would be incredibly rare, hard to find, and expensive due to rarity. Why? Because magic has them beat on pretty much all levels, to the point no one is willing to give them a shot.
Gosh, magic out-performs early firearms by as much as the turko-tartar composite bow does.
And yet firearms became dominant. That's mostly because anyone could use them while it took a lot of training to use a bow effectively. Not as much as it takes to use a wand of magic missile effectively, though. You need, what, level 13 and the staff-like-wand wizard discovery to get that kind of damage output at an affordable price?
Okay, my example was bad. But your response is based on a flawed analogy as well.
One-shot pistols and muskets are not early firearms; those were specifically adopted because of how easily they outperformed bows and crossbows with less training.
Magic requires absolutely no training at all. Even modern firearms can't beat that deal, and magic has the benefit of having had a much longer history of refinement behind it. Some people do train in it, and end up much better for it, but even an untrained person relying purely on innate skill can toss around fireballs with the best of them. And as time passes, they can only discover even more, and easier, ways to access it and only refine spells to be even more powerful and cast even faster.
That's why guns don't stand a chance; easier to make, faster to use, and more powerful with each shot as time passed was their historical niche and why they ultimately won out. Except, right now, something a lot more powerful is already occupying that niche.
Magic requires absolutely no training at all.Only true of (very rare) sorcerers. Look up CRB table 7-1. Sorcerer is the only caster in the first column where you'd find the warriors, experts, and commoners who would make up the bulk of an army. Bard, the least trained potentially trainable caster, have no spells that can perform the firearm role until Deafening Song Bolt at level 13. Your wizards and druids and clerics take twice as long average seven years of training before they can go out as a level one nobody adventurer.
Which leaves out oracles, paladins, rangers, summoners, and witches. And doesn't address what they're actually being taught... Are clerics being taught how to cast spells, or are most of those years devoted to religious study? Are druids being taught how to cast spells, or is most of their education nature lore, survival, and other nature-related items? Magi and wizards are the only classes I know of that count as actually being trained that have their training being specifically related to magic; the others that have magic could easily have picked up the magic quickly and spent the rest of their training devoted to other aspects of the class.
And what's to stop them from giving magic items to a commoner? Even cheap ones could make a commoner an unexpected threat. As long as the magic items provide an effect when worn or used, there is no reason why a commoner cannot utilize them other than the fact commoners normally don't have access to them. But if you're going to waste the money putting commoners in an army, you might as well waste enough of it to give them cheap magical trinkets that can turn the tide of battle in their favor.
As for ages, I was using this document to figure out what the general ages are. Notice most of the actual magic users are self-taught.
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Advice:
If firearms seem to regularity be too powerful keep a close eye on misfires and ammo, those are the firearms rules which slow gunslingers down - ammo is expensive and a gunslinger can spend more in 30 seconds of combat than a noble's wastrel son does in a week of carousing.
Restricting mechanics with gold is a terrible way to balance anything, and can actually lead to party strife.
Gunslinger: "So, since I killed 5 of the bad guys pretty much by myself, I'm going to take 5/7 of the loot; gotta buy more bullets you know!"
The best counter to a gunslinger is high dex reach opponents with combat reflexes, being hit twice by AOOs for each attack made (once for the reload, once for firing) means it is a very bad idea for a gunslinger to full attack in threat range of an opponent, and a reach opponent who moves next to the gunslinger forces him to eat the AOOs or move out of range.
Good thing they didn't give Gunslingers a way to counter this weakness as early as level 3.
And misfires only serve as a balancing point until about level 8; after that you can eliminate them with magic items, favored class bonuses, Deeds, etc.
None of which would be a problem if guns didn't target Touch AC and absolutely wreck the whole mathematical framework behind monster CRs and encounter balance.
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;)it's NOT D&D!.
It's not how you choose to envision D&D/PF, you mean..
It is NOT how I choose to envision swords-n-sorcery, high fantasy D&D.
And for your game, I'd make Iron Man. My Wizard/Fighter/Ek or some such who goes around in a folding adamatine platemail suit of spiked armor and fires lasers from his palms.
Seriously. I could do most of that in the core rulebook.
And this is purely mechanically speaking, I understand and don't care why you might not want them for flavbor reasons.
Mechanically they target touch attacks, making them nearly unmissable as you level. Between increasing BAB, increasing dex, enhancement, specializations, buffs etc the only way a gunslinger can miss is if they roll a natural 1.
The attacks scale far, far faster than touch AC.
A gun can be reloaded fast enough to act like a six shooter, even if its supposed to be a blunderbuss.
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***
The attacks scale far, far faster than touch AC.
***
Largely because Touch AC actually decreases for most threats as you go up in levels, rather than scaling up like most other defenses. Which is totally aside from the fact that attack bonuses scale faster than defense bonuses anyways.
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How?A gun can be reloaded fast enough to act like a six shooter, even if its supposed to be a blunderbuss.
Rapid Reload and alchemical cartridges generally. That gets one-handed firearms down to a free action, and for Musket Masters it'll get two-handed firearms to the same place
To be fair, the misfire chance goes away at 13th level for a pistolero, the cost is only an issue until you get a steady source of the abundant ammunition spell or hit the low-mid levels when ammo expenditure starts to become a drop in the bucket, paper cartridges are good for almost all encounters (and nothing prevents you from crafting them out of special materials to bypass DR), and the free action limitation goes out the window as soon as you get the gold to craft a pistol of the infinite sky (or two), which happens far sooner than you might think.
The class is the firearm as far as most folks are concerned. Most mechanical arguments against firearms come from the gunslinger and its archetypes. They're terrible in the hands of almost anyone else, including other class's archetypes that are supposed to specialize in firearms use.
@cnet
AMEN!
I feel like so many people hate on the Gunslinger from sheer ignorance and "Well I heard from this guy who heard from this guy who read on some messageboard that gunslingers are hoard OP!"
They can end up OP if you are a horrible GM and don't know your rules. The gun rules are new, and therefore require study. But it is no different than say the Summoner, who has the largest section in the APG AND is the most FAQ'd class on this site. The summoner requires the G to be exceptionally proficient in the rules, to stop someone from making a incorrect interpretation or straight up trying to cheat with their Eidolon.
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I would hate to think any player cheats in a game. I am playing a gunslinger now, level 11. In comparison to other classes in the group (monk, summoner, Druid, ranger) he's on par. He excelled at around level 5-8 or 9. The ranger and monk dish out as much damage on a regular basis, the summoner bests most by a long way. The main complaints come from the Druid who feels I have too much system knowledge and design better characters. He does comparable damage in wildshape and still has his spells. There is no real disparity in the play and power between the slinger and others. The inquisitor I played previously, and the fighter before that could easily be seen as far more "unbalanced" and easily matched, more often exceeded, the gunslinger. In fact I think my gunslinger has died and been on The verge of death more often than anyone else - large damage output, poor AC and very close range are not a good combination.
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Okay a lot more discussion has cropped up here than i expected it to.
So I think at least concernign the first couple of posts I should have most of the issues covered.
In my setting an overpresence of magical energy has triggered an age of magic based technology and accordingly magic items, constructs and alchemy have become a common sight. This has also lead to more complex mechanisms becoming possible.
One side effect of it is that guns have advanced to a state around real world 1940s to 1970s level, meaning there will be fully automatic guns.
But at the same time alchemical treatment of armor material has resulted in armor being able to stop bullets. Also magically enhanced natural armor works against firearms, and even some natural creatures due to magical radiation are able to stop bullets with their skin.
So the touch AC thing is adressed. Instead guns are able to fire several shots before having to reload.
I will use mdt's firearms rewrite as a basis for my firearm rules with some changes here and there. For example for burst and rapid fire i will probably take some inspiration from Shadowrun 4. Because i dont want that to get too powerful, as i still want to have melee as a viable character option.
As for the thing about real world guns and their many nuances, that won't be a problem since the setting doesnt have any real world gun manufacturers. Guns will be mainly produced by and for in-world militaries, and as such, nobody can tell me how they should have more or less range/damage/rounds per magazines, since i made the guns up. And im pretty sure i will make fully automatic guns expensive enough that no one can expect to have one before level 3.
So in the end there will be gunslingers who can full attack without having to spend a couple of feats and buy specialized ammunition, but also dont get to shoot at touch ac. Putting them in line more or less with archers.
I'm considering making pre-firearm weapons cheaper to enchant, or firearms more expensive to ecnhacht should the above not be enough.
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A ray shooting wizard wrecks the whole mathematical framework behind monster CRs and encounter balance by targeting touch AC at a considerably greater distance than a gunslinger does.
I think this is one of the many times where the rules assume that wizards always have low BABs/MAD in combat and required some sort of way of being likely to hit with their attack-like magical spells.
As this assumption is untrue, these mechanics frequently distort game-balance. However you're less likely to find this being a problem with Wizards specifically and more with the newer Gish classes or multi-class builds (who are generally more limited with their damage output). For your stereotypical low BAB wizard the CR system appears calibrated reasonably well for ranged-touch.
Once touch AC existed in the game, I think it spread to other subsystems to avoid doubling up on systems even though these other subsystems have even less guarantee of a low BAB.
I don't think the problem is with the gunslinger, I think it's with touch ACs (and the frequently ad hoc Natural AC bonuses of monsters). However it's easier to ban a single class from a splatbook that doesn't really match the flavour of the rest of the game than it is to tackle the entire AC system. This doesn't necessarily mean that it's the right move, but I can see why it would tempt people.
On their own, Pathfinders firearms are *under*powered. Terrible, even. They face all the issues of a crossbow--impossibility of making a full attack, no ability modifier to damage--and add on an incredible amount of noise, horrendously expensive ammunition, and the likelihood that they will blow up in your face. Gunslinger makes firearms usable with Gunsmithing making guns and their ammunitions *somewhat* affordable--still far more expensive than the more-powerful-out-the-gate bow--the Quick Clear deed mitigates misfires, and Gun Training les them add Dexterity to damage. You need at least 5 levels of Gunslinger to make guns functional, and ranged attacks are always feat intensive.
I'd say the problem is making guns target touch AC. Not necessarily because its overpowered, given other limitations. But it certainly vastly overcomplicated the design, at the very least. Bottom line: I think, if you want to use firearms in your game, you should use this version of guns and gunslingers: http://heroesofalvena.wikidot.com/gunslinger
I'm playing a gun-toting Archaeologist in my current game, and my DM (brother) and I both felt that guns were a little... annoying in implementation in the current system.
My character is not from alkenstar (I think that's where guns come from), so he's basically trying to build his own from scratch. Which gave us leave to make up whatever we wanted (since it wouldn't affect normal Golarion firearms).
So I built myself a revolver, with decent damage and great crit, but can misfire (no blow up, just larger auto-fail range). I [b]don't[b] target touch AC, just normal AC.
Honestly, I prefer making firearms just "stronger crossbows". Pistol = handcrossbow, but with higher damage and misfire chance, that sort of thing.
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A ray shooting wizard wrecks the whole mathematical framework behind monster CRs and encounter balance by targeting touch AC at a considerably greater distance than a gunslinger does.
Yeah, way to not read anything else in this thread. Touch AC exists to give wizards focused on rays and spells like Shocking Grasp a way to actually deliver their attacks with their non-existant BAB. That's also why so many creatures with low touch ACs have high SR. They don't break the system, they are an assumption of the system. Ditto for bad touch clerics. And any assertion that a rogue who multi-classed horizon walker breaks the system is just a statement dripping with ignorance.
Ultimately the problem isn't with guns or even the Gunslinger themselves; it's with the fact that they don't fit into the basic design of the entire game like all the other materials do. Every other example you listed was just wrong. Pounce still works within the basic mechanical framework of BAB / AC, and those additional attacks have to actually hit what he's swinging at; Dimensional Dervish lets a Rogue overcome some of his innate weaknesses by giving up three levels of class progression and becoming even more MAD. Guns and Gunslingers are the only base class in Pathfinder proper that straight up breaks game design, uses ridiculous and poorly thought out balancing points, etc. The entire class is designed to ensure that someone at the table is not having fun, whether it's the Fighter who can't compare to the Gunslinger at doing the only thing he does best, or the Gunslinger played by the character with weak system mastery and poor dice rolls whose gun blows up every encounter.
Like I said earlier, guns shouldn't have that ridiculous misfire mechanic, and they shouldn't target Touch AC. They'd have been much better with a penetration mechanic that allowed them to ignore a small amount of AC based on the firearm used (something at the rate of roughly base 2 + 2 per enhancement bonus). The whole subsystem was built with piss-poor consideration to the mechanical framework it was being introduced to, and then used even less consideration when it grafted in arbitrary and inconsistent "balancing" points. Misfires aren't fair to the character trying to fulfill his mental image of playing a daring gunslinger but whose bad luck has his weapon blowing up every round, basic reloading being stacked against WBL isn't fair to the GM trying to adjudicate a game, and creating a full BAB class who's closer to SAD than any other martial class with more than twice the utility of a fighter and who targets a downward-scaling defense isn't fair to the other martial characters. The very fact that groups have such wildly varying experiences with Gunslingers and firearms is a pretty solid indicator of just how poorly designed the whole firearm subsystem is.
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So you increase your misfire chance using any alchemical cartridge by a minimum of 1
Spend a grit, its cleared. Get a reliable gun.
one of them even misfires if you roll a 1 on the damage dice, you increase the cost of ammunition by ten times per shot as a minimum
1 rank in alchemy. Make your own. Even if you don't the cost stays chump change as you level up. I've had 5th level characters drop 50 gold pieces on dog sitting, werewolf kibble, and 100gp on roc chow.
some being forty times, most of them are restricted to scatter weapons, and free actions are limited by your GM.
The same thing would stop an archer.
No GM should be letting you get away with this as a 6 shooter blunderbuss.
If you play by the rules that's exactly what they do. They don't do two six guns a blazin' anymore by the FAQ and the changes to weapon cords, but you can still "Fan the hammer" to fill the air full of lead.
I also find it funny that metal cartridges call out that they're sturdier versions of alchemical cartridges but are restricted to advanced firearms. I thought all cartridges were restricted to advanced firearms, but apparently not.
Think more "pre measured powder and ball in a paper or pig intestine" than metal bullet.
Also the musket master makes for a bad argument as that's the class and not firearms granting the bonus.
Pistelro also comes with the ability, so whether its pisols or long arms you can do it. There's also rapid reload + alchemical cartridge, which will let anyone do it.
That's also why so many creatures with low touch ACs have high SR.
Is this true? Glancing through the Bestiary, no such pattern is immediately apparent to me. Low touch AC is common on large and low Dex monsters, many of which (aberrations, animals, giants, magical beasts, oozes) don't have any SR. A kraken (CR 18), for example, has 6 touch AC but no SR. Planeshifting a kraken is a pretty easy affair. Dragons and a lot of outsiders are both large and have high SR and golems tend to be large, but those appear to be the main exception. Further, there are a lot of monsters with SR who don't have low touch AC. A rakshasa (CR 10) has touch AC 16 (not great, but not terrible) and SR 25.
Monsters tend to get bigger as CR increases and higher CR monsters are more likely to have SR. There doesn't appear to be any connection beyond this. It looks like having SR and having low touch AC are mostly independent. Some have one, some have both, some have neither, but there isn't a strong correspondence.
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Design Manager
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Monsters tend to get bigger as CR increases and higher CR monsters are more likely to have SR.
This is a standard design correlation. It is an incredibly complex system with numerous checks and balances;
Dragons and Golems are some of the most classic examples of size weaknesses being offset by Spell Resistance or Immunity. For Kraken, their own environment provides them with potential Concealment, they have huge reach, making it far less likely that someone can get within touching range, etc. They don't need SR because it would be overkill when stacked with the natural advantages granted by their anticipated terrain and combat styles, not to mention immunities to mind-affecting affects and multiple ways to resist energy types. Other larger creatures, like dinosaurs, who lack protection from magical attacks, have lower CRs than similarly sized creatures to reflect the fact that they are so easy to deal with.