Pyro165 |
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Hello everyone, I may be bringing an old topic but as we go on I don't quite understand how can be the firearms still this strong. Usually with my group we like to do elaborate research to create strong pg, so we know the basic breaking game class or combo but firearms aren't in the same league. Even with some basic search you find that they can easily break the game (at least for use).
For example:
It's quite easy to have dexterity to the damage (trench fighter 3 or gunslinger 5, so some basic class for who want to use these weapon).
With only this you have the same damage as the meele build, dice+str vs dice+dex. They have to reload but they have many feats, class features, item to do it so it isn't a big problem, they even cause attacks of opportunity to fire or reload but as they use ranged weapon and can use the usual 5 feet step they probably won't (against normal enemy, usually we don't face only colossal monsters who would be a problem for them).
But they aren't on pair with a meele fighter because they use touch attack, even with a brilliant energy weapon you don't get on pair with them (and that's a +3). With touch AC they won't miss, they can get any penalty for deadly aim and such without problem.
But that's only the basic problem, because what I find overpowering is what you can do past this. A friend of mine really like this weapon so I've some builds, but how can be legit something like a dual wielding revolver without the disadvantage of a meele build? The damage could be on pair with a regular fighter but with touch attack and more strike. If we use the paladin build with the dual wielding is even worse.
I am exaggerating? I really can't compare them with other fighting classes, the difference is very big
Abraham spalding |
for those to lazy to follow links:
You are correct that with a standard pistol the misfire with an alchemical cartridge is only going to be a 2. However that's 10%So what you do is you take 10% on the first attack. This means 90% of the time you will get a second attack 10% of that 90% is 9 so 19% of the time you will have a misfire by your second attack. this leaves 81% of the time you will get a third attack, 10% of that is 8.1 so 27.1% of the time you will have a misfire by the end of your third attack, this leaves 72.9% of the time you will get your fourth attack, 10% off that again means 7.29 putting us up to a misfire by your fourth attack chance of 34.39%.
You remember critical fumbles? Always happen on a 1? The probabilities for this are the same, but doubled (since it starts at 2).
Now remember a misfire means you missed the attack.
So we have:
10% chance misfire first shot. No attacks land
19% chance of a misfire by the second shot. 1 attack lands at most
27.1% chance of a misfire by the third shot. 2 attacks land at most
34.39% chance of a misfire by fourth shot. 3 attacks land at most
40.951% chance of a misfire by the fifth shot. 4 attacks land at mostIF you have a misfire on the first shot you can quick clear for 1 grit to have a full attack action on the next round (since you can change to a standard action attack and then spend grit to take a move action clear).
A misfire on any other shot means you cannot full attack on the following round -- you need either a standard action to quick clear or to spend grit and take a move action. Either way you have an upwards limit of 1 shot on that round with a 10% misfire rate.
This only takes into account a normal pistol and simple paper cartridges, if they have a double pistol those numbers increase by 50% each. Same with a pepperbox (which is a nice choice for early gunslingers since it gives you time between reloads and can delay the use of rapid reload early on).
Abraham spalding |
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Well, that's a thing, but even a normal revolver can do many damage. Maybe they'll lose a round but at high level even 1 round can be enough to kill many big monster. I don't know if this really balance all the good things
Most high level fighter builds that are consider "fairly to mostly" optimized can drop a CR equivalent or higher monster in one round, so that's not much of an argument against this weapon.
swoosh |
Firearms are actually really kind of bad. There's a reason no one uses them outside of a class that's literally built from the ground up to make them work and a reason why the 'firearm archetype' is almost always one of the worst archetypes for any class that has one.
That said, yeah, Gunslingers can do a lot of damage, but not significantly more than most of their competition and Abraham is pretty much spot on on everything.
I also think you're underestimating the feat expenditure a bit. A fully fleshed out TWF pistol build is twelve feats out of the total fifteen that a gunslinger gets over their career. Yeah, they can make it work for less but that's still nothing to sneeze at.
Malwing |
I have mixed feelings about firearms. I'm currently running a scifi campaign where firearms are cheap, the norm, martial weapons, and with the exception of ballistic firearms they are devoid of misfire and come with a free stackable rapid shot. Additionally I've given away dex to damage with firearms as a combat feat.
Despite all this firearms aren't particularly broken, even with someone cheesing out holding four guns using four arms. I know this is mostly due to preparation based on the assumption that touch attacks were a common thing but in all reality I don't think Firearms are busted, I think Touch attacks are. The base game just does not give you many defenses against touch attacks and monsters increasingly rely on natural armor for AC more than anything else as you level.
So I really want to shift the blame to touch AC working the way it does.
Michael Sayre Design Manager |
I have mixed feelings about firearms. I'm currently running a scifi campaign where firearms are cheap, the norm, martial weapons, and with the exception of ballistic firearms they are devoid of misfire and come with a free stackable rapid shot. Additionally I've given away dex to damage with firearms as a combat feat.
Despite all this firearms aren't particularly broken, even with someone cheesing out holding four guns using four arms. I know this is mostly due to preparation based on the assumption that touch attacks were a common thing but in all reality I don't think Firearms are busted, I think Touch attacks are. The base game just does not give you many defenses against touch attacks and monsters increasingly rely on natural armor for AC more than anything else as you level.
So I really want to shift the blame to touch AC working the way it does.
There's a lot to what Malwing is saying here. Touch attacks exist to facilitate the delivery spells for low BAB classes. Oftentimes, there are secondary defenses in place that go hand in hand with touch attacks, like spell resistance, energy resistance, etc.
The fact that firearms are essentially a portal in to targeting a defense that actually gets lower on average as their attack bonus rises is definitely one of the primary concerns with firearms.
My personal issue with firearms as implemented is that there are so many variables involved they're anything from overpriced garbage to an unmatchably reliable means of delivering death. Dwarven gunslingers can quickly and easily leave misfires in the rear view mirror with an FCB that eliminates them. Meanwhile, non-Gunslinger firearm users in many instances will never be able to mitigate misfires without using advanced firearms (which aren't part of the assumed base setting). So Sven Ammobags, the dwarven gunslinger with Rich Parents, is going to be a problem. Hank Imadamusteak, the human Paladin (Holy Gun), will also be a problem, but probably in the opposite direction as he struggles to keep his weapon functioning instead of crapping out every other round.
Riuken |
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You keep mentioning revolvers. Advanced firearms are kind of their own thing, and assume a setting built around these weapons (see "Emerging Guns" setting for the standard). Also, it's 4000gp for the mundane weapon, and as others have stated, you're shooting gold, namely 15gp per shot for metal cartridges. Early firearms (pistol, musket, etc.) are far less potent and far more unreliable.
Pyro165 |
Most high level fighter builds that are consider "fairly to mostly" optimized can drop a CR equivalent or higher monster in one round, so that's not much of an argument against this weapon.
As far I know it's difficult, their attack bonus can be high but it's difficult to get every hit when the enemy AC isn't too low. Someone with firearms don't have this problem, there a few monster with high touch AC
Firearms are actually really kind of bad. There's a reason no one uses them outside of a class that's literally built from the ground up to make them work and a reason why the 'firearm archetype' is almost always one of the worst archetypes for any class that has one.
That said, yeah, Gunslingers can do a lot of damage, but not significantly more than most of their competition and Abraham is pretty much spot on on everything.
Well, every optimized build will use only a single weapon. I speak of any decent build using them. They do quite the same damage with against touch AC, so they will get every attack.
I also think you're underestimating the feat expenditure a bit. A fully fleshed out TWF pistol build is twelve feats out of the total fifteen that a gunslinger gets over their career. Yeah, they can make it work for less but that's still nothing to sneeze at.
Yeah, you have to take many many feats or you will take like 10 attacks of opportunity but when you get them you have everything you need.
Abraham spalding |
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If you care to actually look at the math and theory which has been presented plenty of times on this site (and others) you can easily see that fighters out damage gunslingers without breaking a sweat.
For a level 16 fighter (barbarian, paladin, ranger) taking out a pit fiend or balor in a single (maybe two) round(s) isn't out of line.
If you want to argue that, then go to those threads.
If you want to argue the math of firearms in pathfinder present some evidence for your claims. Otherwise I'm going to stick with what has already been hashed out multiple times.
Honestly it's like dealing with someone that just found out about bitcoin and how it's going to revolutionize finance or claims sha1 is encryption... I just don't have the energy to deal with them anymore.
Pyro165 |
I've seen the math you've posted for firearms, that's more reasonable and I admit that the misfire was heavily underestimated in our play (and always seen revolver with low misfire), we can say that the misfire is their miss chance rather than the attack...
For the fighter build that can finish something like that I've yet too seen, maybe in that thread I can see something
Michael Sayre Design Manager |
Of note, and it's been mentioned before but bears repeating, revolvers are not part of the base assumption of the game. Advanced firearms in general aren't really designed to play nice with daggers and crossbows. Not only do advanced firearms like revolvers have lower misfire rates and better range, they also help drastically reduce the hoops you need to jump through for reloading, which means you acquire damage/accuracy focused feats earlier, so you're essentially accelerating and exacerbating any issues you may find with firearms by allowing them.
Of course, for raw damage numbers, early firearms used to be far more abusable than advanced; with the changes to double-barreled weapons I don't know if that's still true though.
swoosh |
Revolvers and Pistols have basically the same stats, with the exception that Revolvers can resolve at touch beyond the first range increment and they don't explode if they break twice.
Revolvers technically load faster, but you need rapid reload and you can't not use cartridges, so the difference is pretty much negligible.
Advanced two handed firearms do reload easier, but I'd argue that that's a necessity, as it's literally impossible to full attack with a two handed earlier firearm unless you take one specific gunslinger archetype. Which basically makes them mandatory if you want to use a two handed firearm as anything other than a musket master.
If you are a musket master... rifles trade one die step for extra range and a reduced misfire chance. If you have some way to mitigate the latter, again there isn't much reason to upgrade.
Shotguns are strictly superior to blunderbusses, but for the rest advanced firearms aren't that much of a gamechanger except that they're the only way to make two handed firearms work for most people.
Snowblind |
Of note, and it's been mentioned before but bears repeating, revolvers are not part of the base assumption of the game. Advanced firearms in general aren't really designed to play nice with daggers and crossbows. Not only do advanced firearms like revolvers have lower misfire rates and better range, they also help drastically reduce the hoops you need to jump through for reloading, which means you acquire damage/accuracy focused feats earlier, so you're essentially accelerating and exacerbating any issues you may find with firearms by allowing them.
Of course, for raw damage numbers, early firearms used to be far more abusable than advanced; with the changes to double-barreled weapons I don't know if that's still true though.
I can't think of a single meaningful advantage early firearms have over advanced ones now that double-barreled cheese has been errata'd away. If a character can afford them and acquire them, then advanced guns seem like an auto-pick over early ones.
EDIT:
Revolvers and Pistols have basically the same stats, with the exception that Revolvers can resolve at touch beyond the first range increment and they don't explode if they break twice.
Revolvers technically load faster, but you need rapid reload and you can't not use cartridges, so the difference is pretty much negligible.
Advanced two handed firearms do reload easier, but I'd argue that that's a necessity, as it's literally impossible to full attack with a two handed earlier firearm unless you take one specific gunslinger archetype. Which basically makes them mandatory if you want to use a two handed firearm as anything other than a musket master.
If you are a musket master... rifles trade one die step for extra range and a reduced misfire chance. If you have some way to mitigate the latter, again there isn't much reason to upgrade.
Shotguns are strictly superior to blunderbusses, but for the rest advanced firearms aren't that much of a gamechanger except that they're the only way to make two handed firearms work for most people.
The whole "touch attacks out to well beyond dungeon combat distances" thing is pretty big. So is being able to use a gun and not need rapid reload for a fair while.
Nodrog |
Considering the power guns had in history, it would be odd to not have them be powerful, along with unreliable and/or difficult to use.
Muskets, flintlocks and percussion caps did have problems, but when they worked, they worked rather effectively at the time they were available. It takes more metal to stop a musket ball than a sword or arrow.
Really they just give non magic users the range of magic users, though the magic will out power them quickly at higher levels.
swoosh |
The whole "touch attacks out to well beyond dungeon combat distances" thing is pretty big.
It's theoretically nice. In practice dungeon combat distances are standard for a reason. It's just not going to come up often enough in most campaigns for it to be meaningful.
So is being able to use a gun and not need rapid reload for a fair while.
You definitely need rapid reload, otherwise you can't full attack and it's fairly difficult for a character to acquire an advanced firearm at a low enough level to not care about iteratives. You can get one at 5, but if you don't take rapid reload at 5 you lose full attacks at 6 and I don't think that's really compelling.
If a character can afford them and acquire them, then advanced guns seem like an auto-pick over early ones.
Given that they're dramatically more expensive that seems WAI. Though as said, revolvers aren't usually meaningfully stronger than pistols and if you can reduce your misfire chance sticking with a musket over a rifle is free damage. Not much damage, but still.
Pyro165 |
Dear op,
If you think gunslingers are broken i cant wait until you get to wizards!
Well, I always played D&D 3.5 and here I was quite disappointed by them, probably you can show me some good build or something like that but as far as I saw here they are quite nerfed, almost every spell have save DC with no secondary effect, usually at high level monster have good saves, true vision everywhere...
I played a game where guns over two barrels, had negative to hit mods, over ten ft. And it took 2 turns to reload a barrel. I did not feel significantly more powerful than anyone else in the party.
Maybe only the revolver can do this but with them you can dual wield and recharge as a free action, so until the misfire you can almost shot anything
ProfPotts |
Muskets, flintlocks and percussion caps did have problems, but when they worked, they worked rather effectively at the time they were available. It takes more metal to stop a musket ball than a sword or arrow.
That's really a 'yes and no' sort of a situation - firearms worked well against armour, but didn't make it pointless: the Pathfinder rules on firearms essentially do make armour pointless against them. This relates to what Malwing mentions up-thread about touch attacks: as it is the only real armour worth spit against firearms is Adamantine, for the DR. It'd be nice to see the 'mundane armour modifications' rules from the Faction Guide updated to include some sort of 'armour of proof' modification which allow that particular suit's armour bonus to work (or maybe at least partially work) against firearms touch attacks.
Pyro165 |
Nodrog wrote:Muskets, flintlocks and percussion caps did have problems, but when they worked, they worked rather effectively at the time they were available. It takes more metal to stop a musket ball than a sword or arrow.That's really a 'yes and no' sort of a situation - firearms worked well against armour, but didn't make it pointless: the Pathfinder rules on firearms essentially do make armour pointless against them. This relates to what Malwing mentions up-thread about touch attacks: as it is the only real armour worth spit against firearms is Adamantine, for the DR. It'd be nice to see the 'mundane armour modifications' rules from the Faction Guide updated to include some sort of 'armour of proof' modification which allow that particular suit's armour bonus to work (or maybe at least partially work) against firearms touch attacks.
Yeah, I can't quite understand the logic behind the firearms of bypassing all the natural and armor bonus, if someone hit a golem of iron with a gun or with a sword they won't do nothing, I know that the mechanic of the game doesn't follow the reality but usually you can see some logic
Bob Bob Bob |
The logic is simple, bullets cause damage by blunt force trauma, they don't need to penetrate armor since they hit hard enough. ...they still make them B and P though, for some reason. Oh, and that's only true in the first range increment, and doesn't apply to normal bludgeoning weapons, and a whole bunch of other issues with it. I can see reasons they might have done it but most of them fall apart taken with everything else. Doesn't mean those aren't probably the reasons.
As for how broken they are, eh, not so much (at least not since double-barreled was changed). The touch AC problem is unrelated and traces back to the transition from 2e to 3e, where they introduced "natural armor" to cover for the fact that every high level dragon was actually easier to hit under 3e rules without it. It's basically a big patch slapped on higher level monsters so they need level-appropriate numbers to be hit. Seriously, look at any high level monsters and just how much of its AC is "natural armor". It's a metagame construct, that's all. That guns bypass this would be a problem if you couldn't already surpass those numbers really easy, without any of the drawbacks of guns.
Let's go through the problems of guns, based solely on hoops I've seen people jump through to avoid them.
- Ammo costs suck. It's painful at low levels and, well, not much better at higher levels. I've never seen a gunslinger not try to bypass their ammo in some way.
- Reloading is annoying. It's either a feat tax or a required build. Without advanced firearms it's also more misfires and way more gold.
- Ranges suck. Advanced firearms somewhat fix this but the regular ones have ranges measured in single move actions. A ranged character one move action away from the enemy is probably too close. Only the musket can get reasonably far away, a Distance pistol is still only 40 feet.
- Misfires suck. They're not just an automatic failure, they're more akin to critical fumble rules in how bad they hit players. The more attacks the gunslinger makes the worse this gets. Full TWF and two revolvers (absolute best case scenario) still has a 30% chance of at least one misfire. Pistols with alchemical cartridges? Slightly more than half.
- Damage and crit profile aren't really good on guns. Without dex-to-damage, only available to gunslinger and an archetype meant to represent soldiers in WWI Russia, only available from an adventure path the only options are to enchant the weapon or Deadly Aim, and that's pretty much it. There are class specific things (favored enemy, smite, etc.) but those tend to scale with levels of that class and don't mix well with the levels needed to use guns. Every time I've seen someone go down this rabbit hole they end up wondering why they're using guns.
Then the other side. Archery is simple, has lots of feat and spell support, and is freely available and easy to reequip pretty much anywhere. Instead of dex-to-damage you can get str-to-damage... pretty much for free (only costs gold). Ranges compared to guns start at "bigger" and go up to "much, much bigger". A revolver can't hit touch AC in all of a composite longbow's first range increment. By the second increment the gun just can't hit some things. I'm sure someone can throw out a quick archer for comparison but it's been done. The gunslinger needed to double all their attacks with double-barreled guns to even compare, and that doesn't work anymore.
Cyrad RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16 |
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Article: "The Problem with Gunslingers"
Misfires and ammo costs are significant drawbacks. However, as I explain in my above article, they're largely unfun attempts at "balancing" the broken game mechanics behind firearms.
Pyro165 |
Well ammo cost, but you can create them at a lower price, you can just begin with a good number of them at low cost, at high level they won't be so expensive.
Reloading and damage make them specific for some classes, a random class won't do anything with a weapon like that yeah.
The range of the touch depends, with early firearms someone with reach will stop you but if you can use advanced firearm then you don't have problem. Let alone modern firearms.
The damage may be similar to other fighter but I always saw them having an advantage because at high level not every hit strike, unless you go with the firearm.
In my opinion what really is a problem is their touch attack, quite always they will use an high bab class and don't have to much MAD so I don't see why they need something like that
Azih |
My first PF character is a gunslinger and I really really like her. I don't find her either unfun or OP and I'm really sad that the PBP game she was in died. It's a really good flavour for a class and grit is a great mechanic.
Let's remove Advanced Firearms from the discussion first off as the game explicitly states that Emerging Firearms is the base assumption.
The first thing is that the only way to use Firearms is to either go gunslinger or a weak archetype of your favored class. That limits the utility of the weapon drastically.
Gunslingers and emerging firearms in general are *only good at one thing* and that's mid range damage. I didn't realize how limited my character was until I made other characters who are rolling and doing things out of combat while my 'slinger got by just on her personality roleplay. The harsh feat requirements needed to make firearms work makes any gunslinger character either really weak or really samey. There's only a few 'correct' ways to build slingers. They're very limited.
The only thing that firearms really shine against are heavily armored and slow opponents and that's not nothing, but it's not really all that much.
Anything that can get in a gunslinger's face will cause them problems.
DR will cause them problems.
Spellcasters will cause them problems.
Heck a half optimized vanilla monk can take a gunslinger out and that's just <Donald Trump>Sad![/Donald Trump>
ProfPotts |
Let's be fair, the Gunslinger has five more class skills than a vanilla Fighter, two extra skill points per level, two good saves Vs the Fighter's one, gains a scaling dodge bonus to AC, gains five bonus Feats (vs the Fighter's ten) are still proficient in all martial weapons and gets all their gun and grit shenanigans too... so they're hardly burdened with crippling overspecialization or anything - if a Gunslinger never picked up a gun they'd still be a pretty solid class.
Azih |
Fair enough ProfPotts Slingers do get a decent amount of skills especially for a martial character. And good saves too.
But they're close to front line fighters in light armor, and the base feats needed to make Gunslingers, or any firearm wielders, combat effective are:
Point Blank Shot
Precise Shot
Rapid Reload
Deadly Aim
That uses up a lot of the extra feats they get.
A gunslinger without a gun would be a terrible character to play. Every class feature they've got is geared towards alleviating the shortcomings of firearms. A weapon that is only really good against slow armored targets.
Edit: This is why the Swashbuckler exists.
ProfPotts |
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Over the course of their career a Gunslinger gets an extra +5 dodge bonus to AC - which exactly cancels the +5 extra they'd otherwise get from wearing heavy armour instead of light armour... plus it boosts touch AC too, so ultimately the armour thing isn't really a huge deal for them.
Aside from Rapid Reload, the Feats you list are universally helpful for ranged martial types - how terrible would this character be if they just picked up a bow instead?
Yes, they're designed to make firearms usable, but to suggest that they're 'only good at one thing' is somewhat misleading. They're only the best at one thing... but that's the design goal for nearly every class, isn't it? They're a full BAB class with all the martial weapons proficiencies, a good skill selections and two good saves... they're good at a lot of things...
MeanMutton |
CWheezy wrote:Well, I always played D&D 3.5 and here I was quite disappointed by them, probably you can show me some good build or something like that but as far as I saw here they are quite nerfed, almost every spell have save DC with no secondary effect, usually at high level monster have good saves, true vision everywhere...Dear op,
If you think gunslingers are broken i cant wait until you get to wizards!
What Pathfinder has going for it, though, is the ability to stack up huge piles of bonuses and specializations. I was playing a sorcerer in Iron Gods which is a series of adventures where you're fighting constructs. I took the Impossible bloodline (so I can use enchantment spells on constructs), boosted my Charisma to ridiculous levels, hung out with a wizard with all the knowledge skills, and had a save-or-lose spell at each level for each save that basically was an "I win" button.
That wizard I talked about was a specialized blaster wizard. First level, he takes a level of cross-blooded sorcerer (orc, dragon), Spell Specialization (Fireball), Magical Lineage (Fireball), Varisian Tattoo and at level 5 he was throwing around fireballs doing 7d6+14 points of damage.
Michael Sayre Design Manager |
Over the course of their career a Gunslinger gets an extra +5 dodge bonus to AC - which exactly cancels the +5 extra they'd otherwise get from wearing heavy armour instead of light armour... plus it boosts touch AC too, so ultimately the armour thing isn't really a huge deal for them.
Aside from Rapid Reload, the Feats you list are universally helpful for ranged martial types - how terrible would this character be if they just picked up a bow instead?
Yes, they're designed to make firearms usable, but to suggest that they're 'only good at one thing' is somewhat misleading. They're only the best at one thing... but that's the design goal for nearly every class, isn't it? They're a full BAB class with all the martial weapons proficiencies, a good skill selections and two good saves... they're good at a lot of things...
Very true. Also of some note, not all Deeds actually even require a firearm, so you can't even completely ignore Grit and Deeds when evaluating them in the absence of firearms. Gunslinger's Dodge, Gunslinger's Initiative, Evasive, Slinger's Luck, and Cheat Death all provide some benefit even without using a firearm. Use the Daring Act option, and they even have a way to recharge their Grit pool. That's a lot of solid defensive options on a class with two good saves, great AC and mobility, a d10 hit die, and full BAB. Slinger's Luck is in some ways better than having all three Improved save feats, Evasive is Evasion, Uncanny Dodge, and Improved Uncanny Dodge, all worth a feat, Gunslinger's Initiative is essentially 1/2 a feat (or an extra trait) without the firearm portion, and Cheat Death is easily feat worthy.
We've had a couple Gunslingers who went the sword and pistol route that turned out pretty well, primarily using their pistol hand for debuffing, AoE, etc. and serving as the party front-liner with great efficiency.
Azih |
I think I've kinda mixed up two different topics here. Talking about firearms vs talking about the gunslinger. It's an easy mistake to make as it's almost necessary to play a gunslinger to use guns but still, my bad.
For firearms:
Emerging Firearms are crossbows. Except
BENEFIT:
* They get to hit touch AC on the first range increment
* x4 crit!
That's great but:
DRAWBACKS:
* Generally lower range
* They're incredibly expensive
* Their ammo is incredibly expensive
* On fumbles (misfire) they become unusable, and their misfire range can get very high very easily
Crossbows aren't exactly the ranged damage weapon of choice in the first place and the list of drawbacks on emerging firearms is large to make the weapons unusable for any character not very specifically built to alleviate or mollify those drawbacks.
So to the OP I'd say Emerging Firearms in and of themselves are *not* too strong. They're novelties for a very rich martial character who has nothing better to do but play with a exploding toy.
Now as for the gunslinger. First off like I said, I play one, and I enjoy it, and I'd like to play the character again. When I say they do only one thing well then I'm putting them solidly in Tier 4 of the tier list. They're there to do damage and specifically damage with a very specific weapon.
That being said I'm sympathetic to the opinion that gunslingers are Tier 5 and I'm really not seeing why you would ever play a gunslinger without a gun.
Ssalaran: It would take a long time for a gunslinger to spend the feats necessary on going down the TWF route as well as the required 4 feats. When did those front line gunslinger builds come online?
Abraham spalding |
For firearms:
Emerging Firearms are crossbows. Except
BENEFIT:
* They get to hit touch AC on the first range increment
* x4 crit!That's great but:
DRAWBACKS:
* Generally lower range
* They're incredibly expensive
* Their ammo is incredibly expensive
* On fumbles (misfire) they become unusable, and their misfire range can get very high very easily
* Same number of range increments as thrown weapons (5 instead of 10 for regular projectile weapons)
Just a slight fix. Great points.
Mathmuse |
We've had a couple Gunslingers who went the sword and pistol route that turned out pretty well, primarily using their pistol hand for debuffing, AoE, etc. and serving as the party front-liner with great efficiency.
Ssalaran: It would take a long time for a gunslinger to spend the feats necessary on going down the TWF route as well as the required 4 feats. When did those front line gunslinger builds come online?
I can't speak for Ssalarn's examples, but I play an NPC party member as a variant Savage Technologist archetype (I applied it to a bloodrager rather than a barbarian and reverted its bloodrage ability back to normal because boosting both Strength and Dexterity during bloodrage was too good). She fights on the front line just fine.
Two-Weapon Fighting is not necessary. The fighting style is what Treantmonk's Guide to the Ranger called "switch hitter," which uses a ranged attack while approaching the enemy and then draws a sword to switch to melee. However, with the savage technologist's Sword and Gun extraordinary ability, "At 2nd level, when a raging savage technologist wields a one-handed firearm in one hand and a light or one-handed melee weapon in the other, she can make ranged attacks with the firearm without provoking attacks of opportunity," the savage technologist can shoot in the middle of melee instead, such as with the second attack of the +6/+1 BAB iterative attacks. Reloading in the middle of melee is a problem, so I am going to see about acquiring a second pistol instead of learning Rapid Reload. This is a historical style once used by buccaneers.
Switch hitters don't need Precise Shot. However, since the Sword and Gun style favors shooting against an opponent that the savage technologist has already engaged in melee, she learned Precise Shot anyway.
Holding the gun in hand (too expensive to drop) prevents the highly effective two-handed weapon attacks for which barbarians are notorious. But I like the versatility.
Michael Sayre Design Manager |
Ssalarn: It would take a long time for a gunslinger to spend the feats necessary on going down the TWF route as well as the required 4 feats. When did those front line gunslinger builds come online?
The thing is, the necessity of the "required 4" is less necessary on a switch-hitter build, particularly depending on your choice of weapons.
The actual Sword and Pistol feat comes together for the Gunslinger at around 7th level, but even before you're actually TWF with sword and pistol, you can easily open with your pistol and swap to melee when enemies actually close. By 3rd level, this is a great time to use the unloaded pistol you fired in the first round to make a melee attack that can knock your target prone, then shishkabob them while they're prone or when they stand with a longsword or rapier, depending on how you distribute your stats. By 2nd level, the Gunslinger can easily accomodate the same AC as a Fighter in full plate while wearing a chain shirt and buckler (a MW buckler has no ACP, so you don't need to spend a feat, and just like bows and crossbows, bucklers apply no penalty to firearms), and can add an extra +2 vs. ranged attacks with Gunslinger's Dodge. For the early levels, your pistol is a tool for debuffing and opening up the fight with a sure hit; you'll delay Rapid Reload for later. When you can afford it, you shift to a dragon pistol for added AoE support, or a musket-axe if you want to look at pumping up Strength. You avoid compounding misfire chances by supplementing your damage with melee attacks, typically not difficult given the short range increments of pistols anyway.
The big thing is, you can take a buckler, chain shirt and nimble for great AC, and you rotate between opening and closing with your firearm and fighting sword and shield style with your buckler and primary melee weapon.
Since dwarves get a boost to Wis and Con, and gain an FCB to eliminate misfire, they're a great choice for tanky gunslingers, and of course you can never discount the value of an extra feat for a human.
Cuthel |
One thing I have done to shut down bad guy Gunslinger is cast spark( O level spell) on their Cartridge bag.
Grant for the legalistic there no exact rules on what would happen if you lit a small fire in a cartridge bag , but for those of use who know how black powder works know it would be very unpleasant.
Mathmuse |
One thing I have done to shut down bad guy Gunslinger is cast spark( O level spell) on their Cartridge bag.
Grant for the legalistic there no exact rules on what would happen if you lit a small fire in a cartridge bag , but for those of use who know how black powder works know it would be very unpleasant.
Spark works only on unattended objects.
legoguy4492 |
Cuthel wrote:Spark works only on unattended objects.One thing I have done to shut down bad guy Gunslinger is cast spark( O level spell) on their Cartridge bag.
Grant for the legalistic there no exact rules on what would happen if you lit a small fire in a cartridge bag , but for those of use who know how black powder works know it would be very unpleasant.
Step 1: Put a match on the ground.
Step 2: Cast spark on it.Step 3: Use mage hand to fling it at the enemy gunslinger/throw it at them
Step 4: Enjoy your succ-KABOOM!
Rysky |
Cuthel wrote:Spark works only on unattended objects.One thing I have done to shut down bad guy Gunslinger is cast spark( O level spell) on their Cartridge bag.
Grant for the legalistic there no exact rules on what would happen if you lit a small fire in a cartridge bag , but for those of use who know how black powder works know it would be very unpleasant.
create water on the other hand...
Lord Fyre RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32 |
Mathmuse wrote:Cuthel wrote:Spark works only on unattended objects.One thing I have done to shut down bad guy Gunslinger is cast spark( O level spell) on their Cartridge bag.
Grant for the legalistic there no exact rules on what would happen if you lit a small fire in a cartridge bag , but for those of use who know how black powder works know it would be very unpleasant.Step 1: Put a match on the ground.
Step 2: Cast spark on it.
Step 3: Use mage hand to fling it at the enemy gunslinger/throw it at them
Step 4: Enjoy your succ-KABOOM!
Too complicated. Scorching Ray is much safer.
So is Shatter
Lord Fyre RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32 |
Purple Dragon Knight |
I have a gunslinger in a local Skulls and Shackles campaign. Tons of damage. My main problem right now is that I'm absolutely bored with the character. I see it as a similar problem clerics have: you're a slave to your function. Clerics have that healing bit they're expected to do. Gunslingers, well... it's even worse, as they can't wake up after a weird dream and memorize a bunch of different spells to change their approach that day. They're stuck... doing.... the same thing.... over and over and over again.
Even some 'flavor' feats thrown in (siege engineer, etc.) are not enough to help in my case.
Anyone came up with this before? I'm trying the roleplay angle all I want to ease the pain by geez, what an uphill battle...
Starbuck_II |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I use Pentration instead of Touch AC/misfire.
Guns: Penetration
Replace misfire and Touch AC mechanic;
Penetration bypasses the combination of armor, natural armor, and/or shields within 2nd increment (however, keep reading). One-handed firearms have a PR of 3, two handed firearms have a PR of 6, but this is ½ outside of 1st increment. Also PR automatically increases based on enhancementx2, so a character with a +5 musket bypasses 16 points of AC from armor, natural armor, and/or shields within 1st increment, but only 8 in 2nd increment.
Broken Condition: Penetration lowered by 4 (minimum 0).
Gunslinger:
Deadeye Deed: Same method by extends penetration
Quick Clear: If Firearm gains broken condition, can ignore for 1 minute.
Gun Training: Raises Penetration by 1 every 5 levels.
Alchemy cartridge: Lowers Penetration by 1 or more when used (use misfire value)
MeanMutton |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I have a gunslinger in a local Skulls and Shackles campaign. Tons of damage. My main problem right now is that I'm absolutely bored with the character. I see it as a similar problem clerics have: you're a slave to your function. Clerics have that healing bit they're expected to do. Gunslingers, well... it's even worse, as they can't wake up after a weird dream and memorize a bunch of different spells to change their approach that day. They're stuck... doing.... the same thing.... over and over and over again.
Even some 'flavor' feats thrown in (siege engineer, etc.) are not enough to help in my case.
Anyone came up with this before? I'm trying the roleplay angle all I want to ease the pain by geez, what an uphill battle...
Obligatory "That's not how you play a cleric" quote.