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Swarms are dangerous, really really dangerous.

There are reasons why swarms have the immunities they have. lets look at that first. Why are swarms immune to any spell or effect that targets a specific number of creatures. Well thats rather simple.

"A swarm of Tiny creatures consists of 300 nonflying creatures or 1,000 flying creatures. A swarm of Diminutive creatures consists of 1,500 nonflying creatures or 5,000 flying creatures. A swarm of Fine creatures consists of 10,000 creatures, whether they are flying or not. Swarms of nonflying creatures include many more creatures than could normally fit in a 10-foot square based on their normal space, because creatures in a swarm are packed tightly together and generally crawl over each other and their prey when moving or attacking. Larger swarms are represented by multiples of single swarms. The area occupied by a large swarm is completely shapeable, though the swarm usually remains in contiguous squares."

lets say a swarm has 49 hp, it is made up of tiny creatures so EACH creature has 0.16333 repeater hp (round down rule anyone?) so we can see that even if you targeted a swarm with disintegrate it would only hit 1, so after using disintegrate 10 times you would have done 1hp worth of damage to the swarm as a whole... where an Area of effect spell might hit more then just one.

Now lets look at weapons. Weapons are not spells, nor do they seem to be effects, so they are not effected by those immunities. in fact the paragraph before deals with weapons which we will label as an 'attack'

"A swarm has no clear front or back and no discernable anatomy, so it is not subject to critical hits or flanking. A swarm made up of Tiny creatures takes half damage from slashing and piercing weapons. A swarm composed of Fine or Diminutive creatures is immune to all weapon damage. Reducing a swarm to 0 hit points or less causes it to break up, though damage taken until that point does not degrade its ability to attack or resist attack. Swarms are never staggered or reduced to a dying state by damage. Also, they cannot be tripped, grappled, or bull rushed, and they cannot grapple an opponent."

Ok so that makes sense in relation to the math we did. (49/15000 = 0.03266r)

So how do you fight swarms? With Area of effects, for the non-caster types you have splash weapons, and this is where the arguments will start.

"Throw Splash Weapon

A splash weapon is a ranged weapon that breaks on impact, splashing or scattering its contents over its target and nearby creatures or objects. To attack with a splash weapon, make a ranged touch attack against the target. Thrown splash weapons require no weapon proficiency, so you don't take the –4 nonproficiency penalty. A hit deals direct hit damage to the target, and splash damage to all creatures within 5 feet of the target. If the target is Large or larger, you choose one of its squares and the splash damage affects creatures within 5 feet of that square. Splash weapons cannot deal precision-based damage (such as sneak attack).

You can instead target a specific grid intersection. Treat this as a ranged attack against AC 5. However, if you target a grid intersection, creatures in all adjacent squares are dealt the splash damage, and the direct hit damage is not dealt to any creature. You can't target a grid intersection occupied by a creature, such as a Large or larger creature; in this case, you're aiming at the creature.

If you miss the target (whether aiming at a creature or a grid intersection), roll 1d8. This determines the misdirection of the throw, with 1 falling short (off-target in a straight line toward the thrower), and 2 through 8 rotating around the target creature or grid intersection in a clockwise direction. Then, count a number of squares in the indicated direction equal to the range increment of the throw. After you determine where the weapon landed, it deals splash damage to all creatures in that square and in all adjacent squares."

Ok so the first thing we notice is a splash weapon is a Ranged Weapon not a spell or effect, and as it doesn't deal piercing or slashing damage it should deal damage as normal except against a swarm made up of Fine or Diminutive creatures as per the wording of the text.

Splash damage now becomes the interesting thing, swarms are hard to hit. But by targeting the square or grid intersection you can deal splash damage.

"Splash damage affects creatures within 5 feet of that square / if you target a grid intersection, creatures in all adjacent squares are dealt the splash damage"

Well the targeted square is withing 5 feet of it's self... But wait what is this?

"splash damage to all creatures within 5 feet of the target"

ALL Creatures? Well! Isn't that a nice piece of info? If taken as writen it means splash weapons are instant kills vs swarms made of tiny creatures, as "A swarm composed of Fine or Diminutive creatures is immune to all weapon damage" But wait, splash damage isn't a weapon attach, it's an effect caused by one and doesn't target any one creature!

Splash vs swarm = insta-kill with rules as written. for swarms that take up more then a 5 foot square and are partially effected by a splash weapon would only loose that percentage of their hp.

But lets not get stupid here. letting splash weapons instantly kill swarms removes the challenge of the thing and thus most of the fun to be had with it. So this is where we need to lay down some house rules as Paizo (bless them) seems to have forgotten to add a section detailing ways to deal with swarms, or we just didn't find it, otherwise we wouldn't be arguing it.

First I would rule that splash weapons deal their weapon damage as splash damage vs swarms. Swarms are hard to hit at the best of times and take very little damage when they do get hit. If your casters have the right spells, they can deal some damage but leaves the rest of the party standing their unable to do anything except absorb damage and eventually die, So a bit of 1d6 damage here and there doesn't break the game.

Bludgeoning damage does 50% damage to the smaller swarms as Tiny swarm creatures takes half damage from slashing and piercing weapons but not bludgeoning, so smaller then tiny should still take some damage.

Thirdly: A creature covered by a non-airborne swarm my drop prone and roll about flailing. this deals 1d8+str damage to the swarm per round and provokes AoO (but swarms don't make AoO's).

This rule came about after the caster ran out of spells and the rogue out of acid and there was a swarm between the party and not throwing up their hands and going home. The barbarian got really angry, jumped the chasm and proceeded to belly flop and roll about on the swarm trying to deal with it. Such innovation should be rewarded!

There should be lots of ways PC's can deal with swarms, spray them with oil and ignite them. swinging a torch at them might keep them at bay. many swarm creatures are scared of bright light, daylight spell to scare them off. Heck the alchemist could invent pesticide! and spray cans!

This is a game, and thus should be fun. GM's have fun by fielding challenges for the players and watching them work it out. Players have fun by overcoming these challenges, more so when they got really creative about it.

If your not having fun, Leave. Though discuss it with your GM/Players first.

This has been Ghost6442's interpretation of the rules as written combined with his 2 cents. Thankyou for reading and have a fun game :)

I don't think you can take two Archetypes...

Musket Master states that if chosen you are only proficient in Two handed Firearms and must spend a feat to gain proficiency in the others.

and...

Pistolero says that you are only Proficient in one handed firearms.

This leads me to believe that when these rules were written the idea was to take one and only one. but anyway...

Duel pistols and a DB shot gun can do the same amount of damage, the DB actually has a chance of doing more damage then the pistols but it's more circumstantial.

Why is this?
Well at most the pistols can do 8 attacks at 1d8+modifiers per round, that's nice, how can the DB beat that? Simple, the DB is a cone effect
if you have 4 enemy's within that cone and empty both barrels at once at them your doing 4 attacks at 2d8+modifiers, yes it has half the modifiers amount of the pistols but what if it was 8 enemy's? or more?

Basically it depends on what the DM wants to throw at you. large groups of bunched up foes? Shotgun. One big ugly critter? pistols.

I honestly think your better off with straight Gunslinger Trueshots.

I think I can answer this!

As the DB Shotgun is an advanced firearm it is a move action to load them to their full capacity. This means it only takes a move action to load both barrels. but if you wanted to only load one it's still a move action.

It is not clear on the size of the cone a scatter, but yes it is a cone. It's likely only going to be as big as the weapons first range increment, so a 20 foot cone for the DB Shotgun

Wasn't quite sure what was being asked with 4, but I think the answer is all of them within the cone. You make attack rolls with a -2 penalty against each creature (that includes ally's and other friendlies) and you can't add precision damage (sneak attack) or damage-increasing feats (Vital strike). You hit the same amount of creatures regardless of how many barrels you unload in the attack. It doesn't say (as far as I can tell) what the bonus is for unloading both barrels is, but I would figure it just doubles the damage dealt. I would suggest you ask your DM for a ruling on that.

The Revolver also being an advanced firearm has the same reload speed as the DB Shotgun, a move to reload all chambers, since the Revolver has 6 chambers to the DB Shotgun's 2 this could be considered a more efficient weapon, though the DB Shotgun makes up with that cone attack.

Firearms do benefit from Two-Weapon Fighting, be it two one-handed or a two-handed that has multiple barrels. this allows you to make one extra attack per round from the off-hand weapon at a -10 penalty (with a penalty of -6 to the primary hand). As it is not stated if one-handed guns are considered Light weapons, but says they are treated as such when concealing them, I would get a ruling from your DM if they are or not as if they are it lessens the Duel-wielding penalties, more so if you take the Two-weapon Fighting feat (-2 to both attacks, worth it)

Reloading is gonna hurt your action economy big time. both your hands are full, first you need to free up one hand, you can, as a move action holster one of your guns, reload the other as a move, then holster it as a move then draw the other as a move and reload it before finally redrawing the second. That's 6 move actions, ouch... Ok that's worse case scenario, we can do better then that. Instead of holstering the weapon we can drop it as a free action, that saves us 2 move actions, as it is still a move to pick it up. then take the rapid reload feat (revolver) and it improves the reload time by one step, being an advanced firearm and already a move action, it becomes a free action, saving another two moves. This leaves us with being able to reload our guns as a double move/full-round action or as two separate moves. such as you start your turn with a standard attack and run out of ammo, you can then drop, reload, drop, pick up as a move, then next turn, pick up, reload, and gun down some peeps. Now some people are likely going to say it doesn't work like that as the rapid reload feat doesn't mention advanced firearms and thus can't be applied to them... This is something your going to want to get a DM or Paizo ruling on.

I have a Gunslinger too, level 9, BaB +9/+4 with TWF, Imp.TWF and 22 in dex. So on a full attack my attack bonus' are +13/+13/+10/+8. (Primary/offhand/primary/offhand {my DM ruled that revolvers are light weapons}) I'm going to pick up rapid shot... which adds an additional attack at my highest bonus -2, as well as a -2 to all other attacks in that round. So +11/+11/+11/+6/+6 (rapid/primary/offhand/primary/offhand) as the TWF penalty adds to it too.

At level 11 I will have an additional primary attack to gain another secondary I have to pick up Greater Two-weapon Fighting. So +13/+13/+13/+8/+8/+3/+3 (rapid/prim/off/prim/off/prim/off)

Then at 16th level I get another attack, however this time, there isn't a Imp.GTWF that I know of so I can't add a 9th attack. You'll notice each time I write out my attack bonus' I also note if they are primary or offhand, this is how we determine ammo usage. each gun has 6 shots, and at 11 level I will be making 7 attacks, 4 of which are primary and 3 which are offhand, (rapid is primary) this means after one full attack from fully loaded I will have 2 shots left in my primary gun, and 3 in the secondary.

Every time you roll a dice to hit you're expending a bullet, even if you miss, knowing if your attacking with your primary or offhand weapon will tell you where to mark off the ammo as used.

Now not only do we gunslingers attach Touch AC, but with TWF we can make allot of attacks that don't miss often, with gun training we add our dex to damage and I as a Mysterious Stranger can also spend a grit point to add my charisma bonus as well...

So at lvl 9 I do +12/+12/+12/+7/+7 (+1 weapons) to hit touch dealing 1d8+12 damage per hit (+1 enchantment, 6 dex mod, 5 cha mod). I don't know what we are fighting, but it's dead... and I get my grit point back! Oh I forgot to take Point blank into account... nvm... it's still dead. ^_^

The Pro's of being a TWF Gunslinger

The con's?

Having to reload, and the expense of having two weapons to enchant.

But is it worth it? Yes, yes it is.

*insert old western gun-slinging music here*

I hope I have helped and you aren't staring blankly at your screen, cos of "Wall of text" Sorry about that... I ramble.