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Chatting about slings and it came up that historically slings had at least as much range and stopping power as bows, but required more training. There were some requests for feat or ability options to help slings either catch up in DPR or else do other cool things in trained hands that bows can't.
Here are some ideas.
You can hurl sling bullets with a plunging arc that adds momentum to their fall.
Benefit: When firing a sling from high ground you deal an extra d6 points of damage for every 10ft of vertical distance between you and your target. This extra damage is not multiplied on a critical hit.
Pre-requisite: Weapon Focus (Sling)
Benefit: You may treat a sling as having a range increment of 100ft. If you have the sneak attack ability, you may perform a sneak attack with a sling upon a target up to 60ft away.
You can add enough force to your sling bullets to partially pierce through armour
Pre-requisite: Weapon Focus (Sling), Str 13
Benefit: When firing a sling within its first range increment, you may halve your target's armour and natural armour bonuses to AC.
Pre-requisite: Weapon Focus (Sling), Penetrating Sling, BAB +6
Benefit: When firing a sling within its first range increment, you may ignore a number of points of your target's DR or hardness equal to 1/2 your BAB.
Pre-requisite: Weapon Focus (Sling), BAB +6
Benefit: Increase the critical multiplier for any sling you wield to x3. In addition, when you confirm a critical with a sling you may push a target back 5ft.
Ammo Drop, Plunging Fire, Sling Sniper, Precise Shot, Penetrating Sling
6th level: Juggle Load, Shield Focus, Improved Penetrating Sling
10th level: Greater Shield Focus, Shot on the Run
Armour Proficiencies: The Slinger is proficient with light armour and shields (including tower shields) but not medium or heavy armour.
Practiced Sling: The slinger receives Weapon Focus (sling) and Ammo Drop as bonus feats. This replaces the fighter's normal 1st level bonus feat.
Hawkeye (Ex): At 2nd level, a slinger gains a +1 bonus onPerception checks, and the range increment for any sling he uses increases by 5 feet. These bonuses increase by +1 and 5 additional feet for every 4 levels beyond 2nd.
This ability replaces Bravery.
Nimble (Ex): At 3rd level, when wearing light or no armour, the slinger receives a +1 dodge bonus to AC and a +1 bonus to Reflex saves. This bonus increases by +1 every 4 levels thereafter (7th, 11th, 15th, 19th). This ability replaces Armour Training.
Expert Slinger (Ex): At 5th level, a slinger gains a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls with slings. This bonus increases by +1 for every four levels beyond 5th. This ability replaces Weapon Training 1.
Shielded Slinger (Ex): At 9th level, a slinger gains Shield Focus as a bonus feat, and as long as he is wearing a shield no longer provokes attacks of opportunity when making ranged attacks with a sling. If he already has Shield Focus, he gains Greater Shield Focus instead. This ability replaces Weapon Training 2.
Ricochet Shot (Ex): At 13th level, whenever a slinger makes a single attack on his turn he may attempt to ricochet the bullet such that it strikes a second target. If the initial attack hits, the slinger may make an additional attack against a secondary target at a -5 penalty. Precision damage and damage increases from Vital Strike do not apply on this secondary attack. This ability replaces Weapon Training 3.
Volley (Ex): At 17th level, as a full-round action, a slinger can make a single sling attack at his highest base attack bonus against any number of creatures in a 15-foot radius burst, making separate attack and damage rolls for each creature.
This ability replaces Weapon Training 4.
Improved Shielded Slinger (Ex): At 19th level, when using a shield a slinger gains DR 3/- and has a 25% chance to negate any critical confirmed upon him. This ability stacks with similar abilities, to a maximum 75% chance to negate a critical.
This ability replaces Armor Mastery.
Weapon Mastery (Ex): A slinger must choose a type of sling for his Weapon Mastery class feature.
Those were pretty good suggestions for slings. As I said in that other thread, the slings, as used in ancient times, were really quite nasty. If used by very well trained slingers.
I would recommend two additional feats for slings:
Prerequisite: STR 13, DEX 13 BAB +3, Weapon Focus (sling)
Benefit: Add your dexterity bonus and your strength bonus to damage done with a sling. Only works when using lead sling bullets for ammunition.
Prerequisite: STR 13, DEX 15, BAB +3, Proficiency with Halfling sling staff, Weapon Focus (Halfling sling staff), Precision Slinging
Benefit: Add your dexterity bonus and your strength bonus to damage done with a Halfling sling staff. Only works when using lead sling bullets for ammunition.
I'm just giving those a bit of a guess for the game mechanics. I also didn't have enough caffeine in my system for feat names that roll off the tongue a bit better.
As for your Slinger Fighter archetype, I would also recommend a class proficiency with the Halfling sling staff. Instead of proficiency in composite bows, to balance things a bit.
Why the same bonus for the sling staff vs the sling?
My immediate thought was that they're different styles of weapons and require different training, but then I noticed that the sling's version is a prerequisite for the sling staff's version.
It should be a single feat for both, or two separate feats that have nothing to do with each other.
That had less to do with game mechanics than on some of the research I did for reports on ancient battles. There was an actual version of the halfling sling staff: quite rare compared to regular slings, which were used by almost every one. It was used by the elite few slingers from either Crete or Rhodes and they had an accuracy of up to 60 yards (not feet). So there was a logical progression in ancient times, at least.
On the one hand, the real and PF versions of sling staff have a much longer accurate range and are inherently more damaging. On the other hand, it was a suggestion I threw together in under five whole minutes.
Anyway, you can only go so far trying to reconcile real-life weapons with the playability of PF rules.
Ooo... I like the historical take.
Thanks. It just made sense to me. Good enough for the sling, then you can move on to the sling staff.
It's kind of like how the Roman legionaries practised with wooden swords at least twice as heavy as they ones they'd actually fight with. The real thing is just so much easier.
Like Weirdo suggested, it would be interesting if there were a sling specialist archetype in PF. There are fighters specializing in bows, a particular type of sword, two handed weapons only, etcetera. So, why not?
I was thinking of finding a way to make a slinger work with the gunslinger class. Maybe just remove the touch AC at the first increment and the misfire chance. Since some of the class abilities don't really mesh well, maybe I'll trade them out for the feats listed here.
Feel free. Just keep in mind the feats I wrote up have not been playtested at all! They just seemed like cool ideas to me.
dot
I just suggested two feats; Weirdo, who started this thread, put a lot more thought and time into it than I did.
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Glad people are interested!
Xunal, those are cool ideas but I'm not sure about the mechanic. Adding both Str and Dex to damage is very potent, especially for a feat accessible by level 3. I'd also got the impression from the thread that the fact the sling is a bit more MAD than the crossbow or gun was one of its distinguishing features. Facilitating a more SAD build that doesn't need great Str for damage is not necessarily best for gameplay. Nothing better occurs to me at the moment, but I'll see if sleeping on it helps.
Sling staff proficiency on the fighter is a good idea.
bookrat, I'll see about a gunslinger archetype. Any other classes need one?
Hey All,
Weirdo, I'm glad you started this, and glad that article inspired you! I actually created a prestige class around what I learned from the article. I'd debated putting it up on the boards, as I still hoped to submit it as a freelancer somewhere, but my compromise was to put it up on a blog. So, I invite all to take a look and give feedback on the Expert Slinger!
Cheers,
Phil
@Weirdo: As I said in another post, I threw those two feats together in about five minutes, if that.
Here's a couple of different versions that might be a bit more in line with game mechanics and game balance:
Prerequisites: DEX 15, BAB +3, Deadly Aim, Weapon Focus (Sling)
Benefits: Ignore the Deadly Aim penalty on ranged attack rolls when using lead sling bullets with a regular sling. You can also add your dexterity modifier instead of strength to the sling's damage.
Prerequisites: DEX 15, BAB +3, Deadly Aim, Proficient with Halfling Sling Staff, Weapon Focus (Halfling Sling Staff)
Benefits: Ignore the Deadly Aim penalty on ranged attack rolls when using lead sling bullets with a Halfling sling staff. You can also add your dexterity modifier instead of strength to the sling's damage.
Those are sort of building on Deadly Aim and also using the basic ideas behind Furious Focus and Slashing Grace. And they would both specifically require lead sling bullets, which are made specifically for that purpose and do astounding amounts of damage compared to any old rock you pick up off the ground. So it wouldn't be a cart-blanche damage bonus. I hope.
These could make martially inclined Halflings a lot more formidable at ranged combat.
heres what i did for slings in my games.
@Freehold DM:
Those are interesting ideas for slings.
I also like the idea of extra feats for making them more damaging, much like other feats specific to a certain weapon or class of weapons. In the right hands, they are extremely nasty. They just lack the 'pizzaz' of a a bow or sword.
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Phil Greeley/Rochandil Calenlad, I'm not generally a fan of prestige classes, but I like it! I would suggest however making the trick ammo available for anyone to buy, just like special arrows. If you want to limit them to trained slingers, require Weapon Focus (sling) to make proper use of them. I would recommend using my Penetrating Sling feat as an alternate 2nd level ability for the Expert Slinger - it works well with the free Penetrating Strike and Greater Penetrating Strike.
Xunal, I like those revised feats! Replacing Str with Dex instead of using both is more balanced and it does work well with halfling slingers. I'm not sure requiring lead bullets is that big a restriction, since a character dedicated enough to invest feats in a sling will in most cases be well-stocked with bullets - but the revised version doesn't need bullets to be a big limiter.
Weapon and Armour Proficiency: The sling shooter is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, the halfling sling staff, light armour, and bucklers, but not with any kind of firearm. This modifies the gunslinger's normal proficiencies.
Grit (Ex): A sling shooter regains grit when she scores a critical hit or deals a killing blow with any kind of sling. This ability modifies the grit class feature.
Practiced Loading (Ex): A sling shooter receives Ammo Drop as a bonus feat. This replaces Gunsmith.
Deeds: A sling shooter can perform the following deeds with a sling instead of a firearm: gunslinger initiative, pistol-whip, targeting, bleeding wound, death's shot, and stunning shot. The sling shooter swaps the following deeds.
- Sharp Shoot (Ex): At 1st level, a sling shooter can resolve an attack against touch AC instead of normal AC when firing a sling at a target within its first range increment. Performing this deed costs 1 grit point. This deed replaces deadeye.
- Clever Loading (Ex): At 1st level, as long as a sling shooter has at least 1 grit point, she is treated as having the Juggle Load feat. This deed replaces quick clear.
- Pass Item Utility Shot (Ex): At 3rd level, a sling shooter can as a standard action load a small object such as an alchemical flask or potion vial into her sling and toss the object to a square or point within her sling's first range increment. If the item is passed to an ally, that ally may catch the object as an immediate action by succeeding at a Dexterity check, DC 5+1 per 10ft the item is passed. If the item is not caught, it may break. This deed replaces the stop bleeding utility shot (but not the blast lock or scoot object utility shots).
- Impact Shot (Ex): At 7th level, the sling shooter may spend 1 grit point while making a sling attack to attempt a Bull Rush maneuver as a free action as part of the attack. If the attack misses, the maneuver also fails. This deed replaces dead shot.
- Distracting Shot (Ex): At 7th level, a sling shooter can spend 1 grit point and choose to miss a target that she could normally attack within her range with a sling attack. When she does, the target loses its Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) for 1 round. This deed replaces startling shot.
- Vigilant Shooter (Ex): At 11th level, as long as a sling shooter spends 1 grit point when she does so, she does not provoke attacks of opportunity when firing a sling. This deed replaces expert loading.
- Penetrating Shot (Ex): At 11th level, the sling shooter may spend 1 grit point while making a sling attack to ignore a target's DR or hardness for that attack. This deed replaces lightning reload.
- Ricochet Shot (Ex): At 15th level, as long as the sling shooter has at least 1 grit point, she can attempt to ricochet a sling bullet such that it strikes an additional target. The sling shooter can attempt this deed whenever making a single attack on her turn. If the initial attack hits, the slinger may make an additional attack against a secondary target at a -5 penalty. If this secondary attack hits, the sling shooter may spend 1 grit point to make a tertiary attack at a -10 penalty. The sling shooter cannot apply precision damage, damage increases from Vital Strike, or additional deeds to the additional attacks. This deed replaces menacing shot.
Sling Training (Ex): Starting at 5th level, a sling shooter can select one specific type of sling, such as sling, double sling, or halfling sling staff. She gains a bonus on damage rolls equal to her Dexterity modifier with that sling. Furthermore, when she scores a critical hit with that type of sling, her critical modifier increases by 1 (a x2 becomes a x3, for example). Every 4 levels thereafter, she can pick a different type of sling, gaining the bonus damage and increased critical multiplier with that type of sling as well. This ability replaces gun training.
@Weirdo: I wanted the proviso about lead bullets because of "power gamers" who say they could get all the benefits of any feat, no matter how absurd, just because there are not restrictions written in.
Besides, lead bullets might be a bit easier to recover in the field than arrows, which often break when hitting hard things.
The sling shooter archetype looks cool.
The Buckler makes sense too. Real slingers were skirmishers who normally wore no armour. They were sharp-shooters, not front-line types. So they often had light shields. Those were probably small enough to give them the ability to reach in their front belt-bag with lead bullets using the hand from their shield arm.
Phil Greeley/Rochandil Calenlad, I'm not generally a fan of prestige classes, but I like it! I would suggest however making the trick ammo available for anyone to buy, just like special arrows. If you want to limit them to trained slingers, require Weapon Focus (sling) to make proper use of them. I would recommend using my Penetrating Sling feat as an alternate 2nd level ability for the Expert Slinger - it works well with the free Penetrating Strike and Greater Penetrating Strike.
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Glad you do! I think your ideas are spot-on about the special ammo and your Penetrating Sling feat. I might go so far as to say no special training is required for the special ammo; if you've got the skill to use the sling, you should be able to use the other ammo.
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@Weirdo: I wanted the proviso about lead bullets because of "power gamers" who say they could get all the benefits of any feat, no matter how absurd, just because there are not restrictions written in.
Fair enough. I don't have to worry about that with my group but being clear about intended restrictions is good form in game design.
@Weirdo: there's always someone out there wanting to push the rules to the limit, not matter how absurd. Better safe than sorry!
Having said that, it would be kind of cool having some sort of archetype and/or feats to make slings more dangerous than they currently are in PF. There is an Archer archetype for fighters, so why not something for slingers?