CroTenday's page

Now what if I want to upgrade the 'runes' on my Spined Shield's spikes? It's a nice enough item now, but what about +2 Greater Striking spikes? Can I use the spines to recreate the gnomish snarlshield (shield with the Disarm trait) of old?
Asking for a small wild-haired friend.

I was thinking of a Gunslinger class feature that would let them reload as either a reaction (after firing, as long as it wasn't a misfire) and later on gain an extra reaction just to reload; or as a free action with the same trigger (and the flourish trait to start, but losing that trait at a certain level).
I lean toward Reaction because they really don't have a good useful reaction like the fighter's AofO or how other classes get Shield Block.

I'm not sure if this is helpful to mention. A game I DM has a new player, whose character is an alchemist (bomber) who has recently seen black powder weapons and the player wants his character to 'get into' them.
After a recent session, I had an NPC bestow a flintlock pistol upon said character. When he got a look at the stats (damage, range, etc) the player's smile visibly fell, and he decided to keep using a sling as his ranged simple weapon of choice.

His reasoning was that the weapon's base damage is crap, which it is, and no amount of "but wait til you crit" could change that perception (player is not what anyone at the table would call lucky in combat). Add to that the pistol's range of 20 compared to his sling's 50, it's a no-brainer to not waste his time on the gun.

If the game brings back the Distance enchantment for ranged weapons in some form, maybe. If the game brings in some kind of Quick-Loading Rune to cut down on re-load time, then the low damage gets mitigated somewhat by taking more shots each round.
My 5 players agree, if you're not a gunslinger there is no reason to ever touch a gun. And even then, some of the gunslinger abilities turn you into a cartoon character without really helping you be better at the fundamentals of shooting, such as aim or reload.

I agree, the entire class is built around guns, you might as well just give them a feat for +2 damage to all strikes.

An equivalent feat exists, "Crossbow Terror" at 6th level for the Archer dedication.

My main concern with Firearm Ace is that it is actually weaker than the Crossbow Ace feat it is based on, because Crossbow Ace allows two ways to get a +2 to damage and boost a simple weapon's damage die. In addition to reloading the weapon, a ranger can use Hunt Prey (at the cost of an action) to get the boost. Since Hunt Prey lasts a while, it could be presumed that it's something that a ranger would do at the start of a fight, to get the benefits of the feat and reload from then on.
As it is, I see some builds with Firearm Ace are going around with their guns unloaded, so they can 'reload' in the first turn to get the benefits of F.A. on the first turn of combat.
Maybe if a second circumstance was added to F.A.'s conditions, such as 'upon drawing a loaded weapon' then even the 'Brace of Pistols' style of play would let you benefit from F.A. without having to reload. You draw, get the benefit for that shot, the drop it and draw another to get the benefit on the next shot. The 'cost' then would be having all these extra guns, rather than that once-maybe-twice per fight action cost of Crossbow Ace (to use Hunt Prey).