Lab_Rat |
54 people marked this as FAQ candidate. Answered in the FAQ. 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The gunslingers dead shot deed states:
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.
This wording states two pieces of info that can be confusing. The statement "based on base attack bonus" implies that you only get your BAB based attacks. However, the text "as many attacks as you can" and "as if making a full attack" could imply that abilities or effects that increase your attack number, such as rapid shot and haste, would effect the number of attack rolls you make since they effect how many attacks you make on a full attack.
Do rapid shot and haste grant extra attacks when using the gunslingers dead shot deed?
Mechanically, dead shot deed falls behind a full attack on damage. When a gunslinger can target touch AC and hit with the majority if not all attacks, the additional static damage is way more then the dead shot deed can make up for. The mysterious stranger can make up for some of this but cha mod to damage is a small portion of the static damage that a gunslinger brings to a full attack. Additionally, at lvl 13, both the musket master and pistolero no longer have to worry about misfires, a key mechanic balancing a full attack. This leads to a HUGE bump in damage for these archetypes. The dead shot deed does not receive anything in return.
Mark Seifter is also in agreement that the deed is ambiguous in regards to these abilities and would probably GM it with the ability to use rapid shot and haste. Link
It seems there is at least some developer support for a more usable dead shot. So lets give this one last shot at an FAQ.
Lab_Rat |
Should be treated like Spell Combat/Flurry of Blows for rules consistency. The one thing Pathfinder truly lacks.
Disagree. Dead shot and spell combat/flurry of blows are two different mechanics with two completely different goals. Gunslingers don't need an ability that grants them more attacks when using a typical full attack. They already have enough of that and its the reason why the basic pistolero at lvl 13 pistolero crank out 250+DPR without much thought. What dead shot is, is a unique mechanic that actually allows you to play a 1 attack per round kind of character. The critical mechanism for dead shot is one of a kind, its the equivalent of critting on a scaling with lvl vital strike. It just needs to be able to take advantage of feat and spell investment like a typical full attack.
Dekalinder |
Dekalinder wrote:Should be treated like Spell Combat/Flurry of Blows for rules consistency. The one thing Pathfinder truly lacks.Disagree. Dead shot and spell combat/flurry of blows are two different mechanics with two completely different goals. Gunslingers don't need an ability that grants them more attacks when using a typical full attack. They already have enough of that and its the reason why the basic pistolero at lvl 13 pistolero crank out 250+DPR without much thought. What dead shot is, is a unique mechanic that actually allows you to play a 1 attack per round kind of character. The critical mechanism for dead shot is one of a kind, its the equivalent of critting on a scaling with lvl vital strike. It just needs to be able to take advantage of feat and spell investment like a typical full attack.
?????
You have exactly said that anything that work on a full attack should work on Dead Shot.
Whitch is exactly what I said. I think you confuse the mechanics of Spell Combat/Flurry of Bloows, with their bonuses.
The mechanics in both works by referencing directly full attack instead of calling for direct BAB dependancy like Dead Shot.
The bunuses intead are different for each of them, with Flurry granting 2wf, Spell Combat granting spell+full attack, and Dead Shot granting full attack (sort of) as a standard action.
Lab_Rat |
So I think that dead shot is pretty well written it is just that it is ambiguous regarding feats and spells that give extra attacks on a full attack. So here is my rework, assuming that rapid shot / haste are allowed.
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 as if making a full attack. She makes the attack rolls in order from highest bonus to lowest. 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.
There is no need to get fancy. All that is needed is to emphasize the fact that you are making attack roles as if making a full attack and to delete the reference to BAB which is confounding the issue.
Lab_Rat |
That would make deadshot usable instead of "never ever use" tier, like most grit abilities
Yeah. I also agree that most of the grit based abilities are not too exciting. Damage is not an issue for the gunslinger but I really wish that the gunslinger had more utility.
A little off topic but useful as a bump to the top of threads:
The pistolero and the musket master are speed shooters for their respective weapons. The goal of those archetypes is to shoot a ridiculous number of bullets using a free action reload. However, the mysterious stranger is a different beast. I feel that it is an archetype designed more for a one shot one kill mentality, hence the charisma to dead shot. This gives you the opportunity to use more exotic bullets since you are only using 1 rather than 10+ per round. Unfortunately, there are not many of them. New magical bullets would work very well with dead shot to increase utility. Cost wouldn't be an issue either since you are only firing 1 bullet. As it is your only real choice in specialty bullet is adamantine which isn't all that needed with the deed. These bullets would also promote the use of the vital strike chain.
Heck you could even fix dead shots mechanics this way. Offer a mundane bullet with increased base damage that would work with dead shot. Something like a bullet with a double load of gunpowder. The balancing mechanic would be that a gun barrel can only fire 1 per round. If you fire a second bullet in the same barrel that round the gun gains the broken condition due to the extra stress put on the weapon.
Lab_Rat |
Lab_Rat wrote:Yeah. It should stipulate that it would be with a single weapon.What about a double-barreled weapon?
I am less worried about that and wanted to make the FAQ a singular targeted question.
As I see it, whether the final dead shot is only based on BAB or includes full attack additions, you can still double tap (@ -4 to hit on all attack rolls) a double barreled weapon by my reading. The real question is whether or not it actually fires 2 bullets or 1. My reading says that you only fire 1 since it specifically says "deadly, single shot." All the attack rolls are just to determine how good a shot it is.
Purple Dragon Knight |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
A) Agree with Imbicatus that double-barreled should be covered by FAQ
--> Reason: dead shot exists to 'catch up' two-handed firearm use with one-handed firearm use... even with Lightning Reload you can only reload two bullets per round on a two-handed firearm (one as a swift or free action, one with a move action if you have both cartridges AND Rapid Reload; then arguably a standard action to shoot one bullet (or two bullets at -4 if you use the double-barreled musket) NOTE: Lightning reload wording is somewhat messed up as there's no benefit to decrease the reloading time from "swift" to "free" action if you also then add the "once per round" wording... :P
B) FAQ should also address Far-Reaching Sight.
--> Reason: the item is thematically similar to dead shot i.e. limited to a single creature and takes a full-round action (it's the "aim carefully and shoot" item, which should have wording to include dead shot, which is the "aim carefully and shoot" ability)
C) FAQ should also address the crit confirm mechanism of dead shot.
--> Reason: for reasons outlined above, a two-handed firearm user will never benefit fully from Rapid Shot or be able to fully unload it's full iterative attack sequence (assuming early firearms, as per default Golarion world: max capacity is two chambers for two-handed firearms; shoot 1 and 2, reload as free or swift; shoot 3rd). Therefore it is impossible for a two-handed firearm user to shoot more than 3 bullets per round, and thus, crit confirm should not be penalized for such users if they want to get 'more than 3 attacks in' via the ability (i.e. level 16+ or if level 11+ with haste or rapid shot...) Instead, consider changing dead shot to treat each attack roll separately in terms of critical confirms. Since 1 grit point must be spent for this deed, I would actually also argue that the devs should also consider treating each attack roll separately period (each roll bringing their static damage and all, etc.) If the deed is kept like this, I would consider removing the grit cost entirely, as I never use the deed with my gunslinger character (even if grit cost remove, I probably wouldn't use it as is).
thejeff |
A) Agree with Imbicatus that double-barreled should be covered by FAQ
--> Reason: dead shot exists to 'catch up' two-handed firearm use with one-handed firearm use... even with Lightning Reload you can only reload two bullets per round on a two-handed firearm (one as a swift or free action, one with a move action if you have both cartridges AND Rapid Reload; then arguably a standard action to shoot one bullet (or two bullets at -4 if you use the double-barreled musket) NOTE: Lightning reload wording is somewhat messed up as there's no benefit to decrease the reloading time from "swift" to "free" action if you also then add the "once per round" wording... :PB) FAQ should also address Far-Reaching Sight.
--> Reason: the item is thematically similar to dead shot i.e. limited to a single creature and takes a full-round action (it's the "aim carefully and shoot" item, which should have wording to include dead shot, which is the "aim carefully and shoot" ability)C) FAQ should also address the crit confirm mechanism of dead shot.
--> Reason: for reasons outlined above, a two-handed firearm user will never benefit fully from Rapid Shot or be able to fully unload it's full iterative attack sequence (assuming early firearms, as per default Golarion world: max capacity is two chambers for two-handed firearms; shoot 1 and 2, reload as free or swift; shoot 3rd). Therefore it is impossible for a two-handed firearm user to shoot more than 3 bullets per round, and thus, crit confirm should not be penalized for such users if they want to get 'more than 3 attacks in' via the ability (i.e. level 16+ or if level 11+ with haste or rapid shot...) Instead, consider changing dead shot to treat each attack roll separately in terms of critical confirms. Since 1 grit point must be spent for this deed, I would actually also argue that the devs should also consider treating each attack roll separately period (each roll...
A Musket Master gets Fast Musket , so with Rapid Reload and alchemical cartridges, reloading a two handed firearm is a free action.
Purple Dragon Knight |
Purple Dragon Knight wrote:A Musket Master gets Fast Musket , so with Rapid Reload and alchemical cartridges, reloading a two handed firearm is a free action.A) Agree with Imbicatus that double-barreled should be covered by FAQ
I understand that, but that doesn't help the rest of the gunslingers without that archetype. I currently play a gunslinger 9 (siege gunner) with gun training in both dragon pistol and double-barreled musket, for instance. Same applies for the 'regular' (no archetype) gunslinger...
Edit: for a musket master, dead shot is therefore even more useless you mean?
thejeff |
thejeff wrote:Purple Dragon Knight wrote:A Musket Master gets Fast Musket , so with Rapid Reload and alchemical cartridges, reloading a two handed firearm is a free action.A) Agree with Imbicatus that double-barreled should be covered by FAQ
I understand that, but that doesn't help the rest of the gunslingers without that archetype. I currently play a gunslinger 9 (siege gunner) with gun training in both dragon pistol and double-barreled musket, for instance. Same applies for the 'regular' (no archetype) gunslinger...
Edit: for a musket master, dead shot is therefore even more useless you mean?
Fair enough. You seemed to be arguing that it couldn't be done.
I'd say it's about as useless as for other gunslingers. As it is using a pistol, for example. Very situational, but not quite useless.
CWheezy |
Well, you probably picked up clustered shots before you would see that DR, so even then, not worth it.
I think the problem is if you add rapid shot and haste, then every musket master will go wombo combo with a double hackbut for 2d12 weapon damage and dead shot things to death. I think changing how it works would be better, maybe combining it with targeted shot, or something
ElementalXX |
its generally accepted that this deed was meant to suck, one of the theories is that gunslingers were not meant to full attack with guns and some slippy rules made it possible, however since that would make them suck harder than 3.5 samurais they left it as it is.
Dead shot may or may not be a vestige of that tought
Also faqd, because i want this deed to work
Lab_Rat |
Well, you probably picked up clustered shots before you would see that DR, so even then, not worth it.
I think the problem is if you add rapid shot and haste, then every musket master will go wombo combo with a double hackbut for 2d12 weapon damage and dead shot things to death. I think changing how it works would be better, maybe combining it with targeted shot, or something
My favorite idea for fixing it would be to come up with additional ammo options. Things like incendiary rnds that do damage over time, bullets that can go through the first target and hit a second in line with the first (@ say half damage), or fragmentation rnds that increase your crit multiplier by 1. All of these things would boost dead shot without having to alter the text. They could also be priced at too cost prohibitive to use in a full attack but easily affordable @ 1 bullet per rnd.
Purple Dragon Knight |
tangent: how can my gunslinger get a hold of Rapid Shot without wasting a feat on Point Blank Shot? I'm thinking Rapid Shot would stack with Boots of Speed hmm? I just fell in love with the idea of dead shotting people with double hackbutt for 8d12 damage before enemy ship closes in for close combat... :)
Lab_Rat |
tangent: how can my gunslinger get a hold of Rapid Shot without wasting a feat on Point Blank Shot? I'm thinking Rapid Shot would stack with Boots of Speed hmm? I just fell in love with the idea of dead shotting people with double hackbutt for 8d12 damage before enemy ship closes in for close combat... :)
A dip in divine hunter will net you point blank shot and get you to rapid shot earlier.
Yeah.....double hackbutt should never have been a normal firearm. Anything that comes with a cart is a siege weapon.
Lab_Rat |
OK...the double barrel firearm question is moot now. The great errata god in the sky has change it. It is now an attack action (standard action) to double tap. No more full attacks with a double barrel firearm and thus no more dead shot with one either. Seems that Paizo developers really want the double barrel firearms to be a vital strike weapon.
FLite |
OK...the double barrel firearm question is moot now. The great errata god in the sky has change it. It is now an attack action (standard action) to double tap. No more full attacks with a double barrel firearm and thus no more dead shot with one either. Seems that Paizo developers really want the double barrel firearms to be a vital strike weapon.
It is still a pretty nice weapon, especially for a move and shoot build.
But yes, no longer relevant to this discussion
Lab_Rat |
I think they dropped the ball on this one. If they had allowed you to double tap with a double barrel firearm with dead shot..... all would be fixed. No need to change the BAB text or allow rapid shot and haste. The dpi would have been close enough to compete with a tfw pistolero or a full attacking musket master.
Purple Dragon Knight |
OK...the double barrel firearm question is moot now. The great errata god in the sky has change it. It is now an attack action (standard action) to double tap. No more full attacks with a double barrel firearm and thus no more dead shot with one either. Seems that Paizo developers really want the double barrel firearms to be a vital strike weapon.
linky? :)
ElementalXX |
First of all im incredibly pissed that they have adressed double barreled weapons but havent adressed many of the deed which suck, namely deadshot, while simultaneously nerfing level5+ gunslinger and getting nothing in return... sigh
On the other hand
errata p4:
“each barrel can be shot independently
as separate attacks, or both can be fired at once as a
standard action (the attack action).”
well the text says when you use the attack action, and you are using the attack action to use vital strike, wether if the "attack action" qualifies as one attack guess its gonna depend on your dm. I would allow it
ElementalXX |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
i have come to accept the double firearm changes since they were a little over the top and many dms banned them anyway, im however concerned its a "nerf with no returns" even if this is the way it has been played for a very long time, just look at the double musket, they corrected the range and never addressed the db barreled mechanics. shrug.
on the other hand, the nerfs on signature deed and level 13 misfire removal make it so that nobody will want to go gunslinger 5+, the deeds are hardly appealing (targeting and bleeding are nice) however with the signature deed nerf the only deed worth a thing is targeting, given how things have changed im expecting someone in pfs say targeting is broken and that will be almost the end of this class... at least they wont be nerfing guntraining, hopefully.
Lab_Rat |
Look. You won't find any sympathy from me. Even though the errata hit my idea hard, I am all for the changes. The gunslinger was completely broken. With very little thought a lvl 13 pistolero could kill ANY creature in the game in a full attack. No class should be pumping out 500+ damage in a round against a touch attack without any drawback. Period. The misfire ability was completely broken. It overrode any need for the lucky or reliable enchantments and removed the one mechanism besides ammunition cost that kept the gunslinger in check.
The new rules bring the gunslinger back down to earth. With the current rules a lvl 13 pistolero can still pump over 200+ damage per round and kill A LOT of things. That can be bumped up even more if they want to use more than 1 grit point in the round.
Lab_Rat |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I do however agree with you that the class as a whole gets pretty lackluster after lvl 5. As it is now I have no reason yo go past lvl 5. I would love to see that targeting deeds become attack actions rather than full attacks. Once you get up at lvl 15 you get a bunch of stuff. However, I would much rather get stuff during the previous 10 lvls than trudge it out. You could easily grab alot of the bonuses at 15 earlier just by multiclassing after 5.
ElementalXX |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
No class should be pumping out 500+ damage in a round against a touch attack without any drawback.
Are we talking about the same game?
The misfire ability was completely broken. It overrode any need for the lucky or reliable enchantments and removed the one mechanism besides ammunition cost that kept the gunslinger in check.
So its level class 13 ability which is better than an enchantment, i see
The new rules bring the gunslinger back down to earth. With the current rules a lvl 13 pistolero can still pump over 200+ damage per round and kill A LOT of things. That can be bumped up even more if they want to use more than 1 grit point in the round.
Look, the only place where i would see this a problem is on pfs, but pfs doesnt go till 13, changes just reafirms what njolly said that boltaces are better than gunslingers.Grit has no use in damage, except on high level mysterious stranger which can still pump damage trough grit, the pistolero can add +3d6 once at the level(after errata), which is pretty much pointless
I would love to see that the deeds were better and a better focus on having the class beign stronger rather than the focus beign on the weapons mechanics(for example i could see double pumping as a scaling class feature), but its gonna be a long time untill we see a class rework.
For the meantime the best way to be a gunslinger is to be a Trench Fighter
Lab_Rat |
So in the Errata FAQ thread I did a little back of napkin DPR calculations for a pistolero using a normal pistol. Now for fair comparison I bumped that build to lvl 7.
Lvl 7 Pistolero (Dex 22) FA / rapid / Haste / 1xCaD (4 attacks) with +1 pistol vs touch AC 12: DPR = 67.9 (misfire 1-2)
Lvl 7 Myst Stranger (Dex 14, Cha 22) Dead Shot / Rapid / Haste (4 attacks) with +1 pistol vs touch AC 12: DPR = 58.89 (no misfire)
Both builds utilize the same stat array, feats, and weapon.
So if we were able to use rapid and haste with a SB firearm we should have slightly less DPR but not by much. Not sure if this holds true through a higher lvl build that maximizes the static damage for the pistolero.
Purple Dragon Knight |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
also, I really don't get why they didn't look at Manyshot when they designed the double tap wording. That language could be very easily adapted to gunslingers... see below:
Benefit: When making a full-attack action with a bow, your first attack fires two arrows. If the attack hits, both arrows hit. Apply precision-based damage (such as sneak attack) and critical hit damage only once for this attack. Damage bonuses from using a composite bow with a high Strength bonus apply to each arrow, as do other damage bonuses, such as a ranger's favored enemy bonus. Damage reduction and resistances apply separately to each arrow.
Torbyne |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Lab_Rat wrote:Lvl 7 Pistolero (Dex 22) FA / rapid / Haste / 1xCaD (4 attacks) with +1 pistol vs touch AC 12: DPR = 67.9 (misfire 1-2)on vacation camping right now... FA and CaD? drawing a blank... nature is making me lose it... :P
Full Attack with Rapid Shot, Haste and Up Close and Deadly i believe.
Lab_Rat |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Purple Dragon Knight wrote:Full Attack with Rapid Shot, Haste and Up Close and Deadly i believe.Lab_Rat wrote:Lvl 7 Pistolero (Dex 22) FA / rapid / Haste / 1xCaD (4 attacks) with +1 pistol vs touch AC 12: DPR = 67.9 (misfire 1-2)on vacation camping right now... FA and CaD? drawing a blank... nature is making me lose it... :P
Yes.