The drastic effect of misfires on gunslinger DPR


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So one thing I have noticed on the advice board in regards to the gunslinger is that people love to talk about how gunslingers are OP because they can get huge DPR. We tend to use the known and loved DPR formula h(d+s)+ft(cd+cb+r). This formula is great because it allows us to estimate average damage vs an theoretical enemy and compare builds.

However, the gunslinger has slightly different mechanics. In addition to the hit vs miss and critical calculations we also have to take into consideration a misfire. Misfires can be a big deal as they basically make you stop in the middle of a full attack to fix your gun. This can end your damage prematurely and possibly set you back the next round as well. If you decided to shoot an enemy and misfired on the first shot, then you could spend your move action quick clearing and be back up[ and running nex round. However your damage for this round was 0. If you misfired in the middle of a full attack you would have to stop mid attack and quick clear next round. You have a lower damage for this round and must spend a move action next round to quick clear, limiting yourself to a standard. This all puts a drastic negative on a gunslingers actual DPR.

I think I have come up with a formula to take into consideration the loss of damage during a full attack due not following through after a misfire. This assumes that you stop after the first misfire and don't attempt to push on with a broken weapon.

Misfire (-DPR) = -m(d1+d2+d3+d4+...dn) -(1-m)*m(d2+d3+d4+...dn) -(1-m)^2*m(d3+d4+...dn) -(1-m)^3*m(d4+...dn)... -(1-m)^(n-1)*m*(...+dn)

m = misfire chance expressed as decimal. A misfire on a 1 or 2 = 10% = 0.1
d1->dn = Your damage calculated by typical DPR calc (see above in bold) for attack 1 (d1) through to your last attack (dn)
n = number of attacks you make

feel free to point out any errors in the formula

So a couple of things that this formula tells me when you plug in real numbers.

1) The loss of DPR from misfires can be very very large. If you have a 15% misfire chance (double pistol with cartridges as an example). Your DPR can take a hit of close to half from misfires. With a lvl 12 basic pistolero with a double pistol (rapid shot, deadly aim, haste, double tapping every shot for 10 attacks total) I had a DPR of 199 and change. Adding in the effect of a misfire on a dice roll of 1-3 cut my dpr down to around 100. Feel free to put the formula to use with your own calculations.

2) Reliable is by far the best enchantment. Why? It scales with your increase in damage. The more damage that you do the more a misfire will take away and vice versa with reliable.

Side note: I am making the assumption that people stop a full attack after a misfire rather than risk blowing up their gun. I am also not taking into consideration the loss of actions during the next round that may occur following a misfire.


So reading through this post I realized that I didn't explain what some of the pieces of the formula are.

Basically the formula calculates your chance of a misfire for each shot you take. Each section is the chance of a misfire during that attack in the full attack times the damage that you would loose. The first attack is easiest. Its you chance of a misfire times all your positive dpr since a misfire on shot 1 leaves you with no damage that round. The second part is the chance that you have not misfired on shot 1, (1-m), times your chance of a misfire times your potential loss of dpr. This continues down the line with each consecutive shot.

A few pieces change with each consecutive shot.

1) the chance that you have not misfired on previous shot. Following through from the example above, the third shots chance of not misfiring on the first two shots is (1-m)*(1-m) or (1-m)^2. This continues on with (1-m)^3 for the forth shot, (1-m)^4 for the fifth, etc.

2) the potential damage loss from a misfire on a given shot. As you progress through your full attack successfully without a misfire the potential loss of damage decreases. If you misfired on the first shot you loose all damage, on the second shot everything but the damage from the first, etc, etc. This is why in each misfire calculation for a shot does not include the dpr associated with previous shots.

Hope this helps you decide how to get to lvl 13 (pistolero, musket master) when you can just ignore all this.

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