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Howdy!
I’m looking for some advice on my next character for PFS, an Elven Gunslinger/Wizard(Spellslinger)/Eldritch Knight from Alkenstar. Being from there, she knew that magic couldn’t always be depended on, but being an elf she just couldn’t leave it be. There had to be a way to combine magic with these contraptions called guns!
Why Spellslinger? Why elf?
I’m taking Spellslinger and Elf because of the background I’ve created for the character. I have a good idea of what her personality will be and have already named her guns. The musket is named Buster and the Pistol is Billy.
Why Gunslinger?
I’ve never played a Gunslinger before, so I’ll have to beg your pardon if I missed some obvious things.
I’m taking Gunslinger in order to gain Martial Weapons proficiency (required for Eldritch Knight), use craft (gunsmithing) in PFS, and access to the Quick Clear deed. Without that deed, my reading is that it takes an hours work to repair the firearm after it gets the broken condition via Gunsmithing feat. Even if I were to use Mending the casting time on that is 10 minutes, I don’t get cantrips from Spellslinger, and so far I haven’t figured out how many hit points a gun normally has.
I am not sure that Quickclear would take care of the broken condition caused by casting through an arcane gun. The wording on the deed makes me think it would only apply to misfires, not other things that cause the same broken condition.
It looks to be like the powder horn can be used for between combat reloads, while you want alchemical cartridges any time you are reloading in combat. One I have enough spells, reloading should be less of a problem.
The other nice thing is it would give me a second battered gun; the one from Gunslinger and a second from Spellslinger.
So, what are the longer range plans for this character?
I plan to carry a pocket full of low level pearls of power to recover spell slots.
Feats would start with Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, and then probably start looking at other things. I am not certain how valuable Rapid Reload would be given much of my primary combat would be spells. At wizard 5 (sixth level) I would go for the Opposition Research arcane discovery in order to recover either Necromancy or Transmution school.
My plan at higher levels is to go into the Eldritch Knight prestige class. It will allow me to regain some BAB and a few bonus feats. Those plans might change as I play the character.
I do look forward to getting her the Endless Bandolero and Gunslinger’s Duster eventually.
Feedback wanted:
Is there anything I’m missing on the starting character?
Is Quick Clear deed as important as I think? If not for that, I would have gone with Mysterious Stranger archetype so grit was off Charisma instead of Wisdom.
Does anyone have a resource listing all the ranged touch, ray, cone and line spells?
I would welcome any constructive criticism on the build.
Elsibet Oakleaf aka Betty Boomstick
Female elf gunslinger 1/wizard (spellslinger) 1 (Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Combat 9, 74)
CG Medium humanoid (elf)
Init +3; Senses low-light vision; Perception +8
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Defense
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AC 13, touch 13, flat-footed 10 (+3 Dex)
hp 15 (2 HD; 1d6+1d10+1)
Fort +2, Ref +5, Will +4; +2 vs. enchantments
Immune sleep
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft.
Melee cold iron dagger +2 (1d4+1/19-20) or
. . silver light mace +2 (1d6+1) or
. . spiked gauntlet +2 (1d4+1)
Ranged musket +4 (1d12/×4) or
. . pistol +4 (1d8/×4)
Special Attacks deeds (deadeye, gunslinger's dodge, quick clear), grit (2)
Wizard (Spellslinger) Spells Prepared (CL 2nd; concentration +5)
. . 1st—burning hands (2, DC 14)
. . Opposition Schools Enchantment, Illusion, Necromancy, Transmutation
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Statistics
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Str 12, Dex 16, Con 11, Int 16, Wis 14, Cha 10
Base Atk +1; CMB +2; CMD 15
Feats Gunsmithing[UC], Point-Blank Shot
Traits magical knack, suspicious
Skills Climb +5, Craft (alchemy) +7, Craft (firearms) +5, Knowledge (arcana) +7, Knowledge (local) +7, Perception +8, Sense Motive +7, Sleight of Hand +7, Spellcraft +8 (+10 to identify magic item properties), Survival +6, Swim +5; Racial Modifiers +2 Perception, +2 Spellcraft to identify magic item properties
Languages Common, Elven, Goblin, Kelish, Osiriani
SQ arcane gun, elven magic, gunsmith, mage bullets
Combat Gear wand of air bubble (50 charges), wand of cure light wounds (50 charges), antiplague[APG], antitoxin, wismuth salix[UE]; Other Gear black powder[UC] (10), bullet[UC] (14), cold iron dagger, musket[UC], paper cartridge[UC] (4), pistol[UC], silver light mace, spiked gauntlet, bedroll, belt pouch, earplugs[APG] (10), flint and steel, gunsmith's kit[UC], masterwork backpack[APG], mess kit[UE], poncho[UE], powder horn[UC], signal whistle, spell component pouch, trail rations (6), winter blanket, wizard starting spellbook, 1,299 gp, 9 sp
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Special Abilities
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Arcane Gun (Su) Imbue two firearms with magic; cast spells thru the firearms.
Deeds Use Grit to perform special abilities with your firearms.
Elven Immunities - Sleep You are immune to magic sleep effects.
Elven Magic +2 to spellcraft checks to determine the properties of a magic item.
Enchantment You must spend 2 slots to cast spells from the Enchantment school.
Grit (Ex) Gain a pool of points that are spent to fuel deeds, regained on firearm crit/killing blow.
Gunsmith Gain free starting firearm that only you can use properly.
Gunsmithing You can use a gunsmithing kit to craft/repair firearms and ammo.
Illusion You must spend 2 slots to cast spells from the Illusion school.
Low-Light Vision See twice as far as a human in dim light, distinguishing color and detail.
Mage Bullets (Su) Sacrifice a spell to grant an enhancement bonus or special ability to arcane gun.
Necromancy You must spend 2 slots to cast spells from the Necromancy school.
Point-Blank Shot +1 to attack and damage rolls with ranged weapons at up to 30 feet.
Transmutation You must spend 2 slots to cast spells from the Transmutation school.
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Musket is named Buster.
Pistol is named Billy.
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Quick clear is very useful. Possibly not as much at first considering you have a second gun, but more so later on when it becomes difficult to keep them both enchanted to a similar degree. BTW, I think mending is still on your spell list even though you don't get the cantrip class feature, it might be worth picking up a scroll or two to clear up magic-generated misfires for occasions where 10 minutes is meaningfully different from an hour.
There's a guide to the spellslinger by Gilarius here which includes a list of spells. It's not completely up to date but it should do.
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Thanks for the link to the guide, avr! It gives me a few things to think about including if I even want a musket.
I was looking at picking up a scroll of Make Whole x5 for 2 prestige instead of Mending, but either could be a possibility. Good question as to if Mending can even be cast by a Spellslinger. I try to avoid those sort of edge cases.
I will also be picking up a wand of Mage Armor for defense. Too bad the archetype doesn’t allow casting in armor, but I guess that would be asking for too much. I suspect this character will have a huge selection of wands at higher levels.
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As someone who played a spellslinger for a good two levels, with the same intentions to go into eldritch knight...
If you're looking for a different direction, you can actually eschew any gunslinger levels at all if you want to keep quick clear, via the amateur gunslinger feat, just as an option to keep in mind. That'd free up your martial class if you wanted to go a more fighter/paladin/etc. route (though, gunslinger does come with some fringe first level benefits, you already get gunsmithing and proficiency from spellslinger, so examining your options might be worthwhile). In my opinion having one magic gun is far superior to splitting them up, considering that it's the only way to get a x3 modifier on spell criticals that I know of - just imagine those scorching rays! It's a fringe benefit, but the amount of stuff you give up for that magic gun, I'd take all the benefits you can find. The only real reason to have two guns would be if you lost one, anyway.
As an aside, misfires don't come up incredibly often - if you want to dump wisdom, you can. One grit minimum is still 1 grit, and if you gain some good stats in other areas, it can be worth it (Plus, the extra grit feat if you find yourself really hurting down the line). At the end of the day, unlike a gunslinger, you'll always have other options - you don't have to fire spells through your gun, and if you have a web or two in your back pocket, they can cover you for a round until you get the chance to fix your gun as a standard action.
I still think it's important if you don't want your pals to get annoyed while you spend an hour fixing your gun after a combat, but overall I think you don't have to focus on using the move action version all the time.
A side-note on necromancy - good choice to bring that back. Rays of exhaustion and enfeeblement I've always felt are undervalued at early levels especially, and can completely shut down martial enemies. With the bonus to DCs from magic weapons, they can deliver some serious debuffs. It's a bit against what your character is going for, I think, but something to keep in mind for if a monster has a bunch of fire resist.
If you want to focus on blasting, keep spell specialization in mind. It's still just as good for you as it is for the crossblooded sorcerer, but you'll look way cooler when you're using it.
Hope any of that helped!
If you're looking for a different direction, you can actually eschew any gunslinger levels at all if you want to keep quick clear, via the amateur gunslinger feat, just as an option to keep in mind. That'd free up your martial class if you wanted to go a more fighter/paladin/etc. route (though, gunslinger does come with some fringe first level benefits, you already get gunsmithing and proficiency from spellslinger, so examining your options might be worthwhile).
Interesting idea. It would be fighter so that I'm not down a feat, but worth considering. I hesitate though, since Gunslinger is the one with the note about allowing Craft (Gunsmithing) in it for PFS.
In my opinion having one magic gun is far superior to splitting them up, considering that it's the only way to get a x3 modifier on spell criticals that I know of - just imagine those scorching rays! It's a fringe benefit, but the amount of stuff you give up for that magic gun, I'd take all the benefits you can find. The only real reason to have two guns would be if you lost one, anyway.
...or have miserable dice luck and expect to misfire more frequently than normally expected. My reason for taking two guns is so that I have a backup after the first breaks.
A side-note on necromancy - good choice to bring that back. Rays of exhaustion and enfeeblement I've always felt are undervalued at early levels especially, and can completely shut down martial enemies.
Yeah, I was really debating keeping necromancy in my initial picks. There are a surprising number of necromancy spells that are rays.
If you want to focus on blasting, keep spell specialization in mind. It's still just as good for you as it is for the crossblooded sorcerer, but you'll look way cooler when you're using it.
Thanks for the suggestion.
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I'm thinking that I have been reading the Arcane Gun ability wrong, which is disappointing.
For whatever reason, I thought you started the spell within the first range increment of your gun. If you fired off a Burning Hands, the spell started anywhere in the first range increment and went from there. Sort of an automatic reach spell, but based on the weapon. Would have been cool, but rereading it that isn't what it does.
Guess I will be using more snowballs than I thought.