As a slight bit of backstory: a friend of mine wasn't very interested in tabletops but really enjoys the cowboy/six-shooter aesthetic, so I thought I'd use the playtest to try and convert him while also testing how it feels to play myself. With that said, he (the Pistolero) has little experience with tabletops while I've been in a (mostly) weekly campaign for a bit over a year. The GM for that campaign put together a short one-shot for us to go through at level 2. Background out of the way, let's move on to the Gunslingers.
Ei (Venomtail Kobold)
Hunter Background / Way of the Sniper
STR: 10 / DEX: 18 / CON: 12 / INT: 14 / WIS: 14 / CHA: 14
Feats: Firearm Ace, Kobold Breath (Black Exemplar), Survey Wildlife, Assisting Shot, Battle Medicine
She had a Flintlock Musket and a Dagger, with Leather armor.
Jack (General Human)
Returned Background / Way of the Pistolero
STR: 10 / DEX: 16 / CON: 14 / WIS: 14 / INT: 10 / CHA: 14
Feats: Cover Fire, Firearm Ace (Natural Ambition from Generalist), Diehard, Battle Medicine, Quick Draw
He had 2 Hand Cannons, a Spiked Gauntlet, and Leather armor.
In addition, we allowed him to reload a single hand cannon as an action even when dual wielding them.
The other 2 party members were a Dwarf Ranger and a Human Witch. As a general comparison the Ranger always had a higher baseline damage, unless one of us crit (and didn't roll like crap for damage). The Witch generally played as a support role, with frequent use of Nudge Fate and Guidance. There were generally no restrictions on resting, but we never took a long rest to cheese out more recovery and spells.
Encounter 1: Plague Zombie + 3 Crawling Hands
Turn 1: Surprised by the enemies when we stumbled into a room with them. Sniper ran away, drew her musket, and then shot the hand that tried to attack her. Critical hit plus the bonus from One Shot, One kill (6 from crit, 4 from OSOK) downed the hand. Pistolero used Quickdraw twice to get both his Hand Cannons and attack the Plague Zombie. Both were normal hits (3 and 4), and his final action was to reload.
Turn 2: Sniper reloaded, and used Assisting Shot on the Zombie (1 + 2 damage from Ace). Her final action was to reload. Pistolero used Cover Fire from behind the door (2 damage + 2 from Ace), the zombie was not intelligent enough to dodge. He reloaded and used his Strike again, to the same result (2 + 2 damage).
The Witch ended up killing the zombie with a blowgun dart. Go figure.
Encounter 2: Cairn Wight
Turn 1: Surprised yet again by a zombie behind a door. Sniper drew her Musket, missed her Assisting Shot, and then reloaded. Pistolero used his free step to get closer and draw a Hand Cannon. He opened with Cover Fire, which missed due to the 10' range increment (Zombie was 20 feet away). He used Quick Draw to take a second shot, which also missed, before ending his turn with a reload.
Turn 2: Sniper opened with Assisting Shot, dealing 1 damage*, followed by a reload and a normal Strike (7 + 2 from Ace). The Pistolero reloaded his other Hand Cannon before firing (1+2), and finishing his turn with a gauntlet strike*.
Turn 3: Final combat round. Sniper reloaded, used Assisting Shot (3 + 2), and then reloaded. Pistolero reloaded his empty Hand Cannon before firing with the Ace and getting a crit (12 damage + 4 from Ace), and then ended with reloading the spent firearm.
Notable moment was Assisting Shot being the difference between a miss and a hit for the Ranger. The Hand Cannon crit was the the first time we'd seen a high roll, and it blew any other single attack from the party out of the water.
Encounter 3: Ghast + 2 Ghouls
Final encounter of the one-shot.
Turn 1: For once the kobold learned that things are not nice down here and started with her weapon drawn. She opened with a crit Assisting shot (14), followed by Tail Toxin and Reload. Pistolero opened with a shot from a drawn Hand Cannon (3), then Quickdraw (4), and finally a missed punch*.
Turn 2: Sniper opens with her poisoned bullet on an Assisting Shot (2 + 2), unfortunately everything in this combat was immune to poison so Tail Toxin never came into play. Her final action was Kobold Breath, dealing 2 acid damage to the Ghast. This would unfortunately be her last turn, as the Ghast would later attack back and she failed her save against Paralysis. Unfortunately my records for the Pistolero's turn were wiped. All I can remember after the fact was they used a Battle Medicine as an action.
Turn 3: Sniper is too busy being frozen. She makes her save at the end of the turn. Pistolero uses reload, and then crits the reloaded Hand Cannon (14+4), and finishes the last Ghoul.
Assisting Shot again turned a miss into a hit, as did Nudge Fate. I wasn't paralyzed for 3 turns like in the campaign, which was nice. Ranger and Pistolero did most of the damage to finish the encounter.
*We did make a few mistakes in this session. I forgot to apply an Ace to damage. Due to various circumstances the session was delayed for a few weeks, and by then I forgot that the gauntlet can't be used to strike if you have something in that hand, only remembering it counts as a free hand you can use to hold things.
Post Session Thoughts:
I suppose we should start from the most basic place, Firearms felt very swingy and generally unsatisfying on their own. Because of the lack of any outside modifiers, low rolls on damage feel really bad, even on a crit. This was generally offset for me by the flat bonus from Firearm Ace. Getting a 1 for damage doesn't sting as much with that bonus 2 in there, and it really helped normalize the damage. Naturally a good damage roll on a Fatal crit at this level and you feel like a god.
I didn't really mind the swing when Firearm Ace was in play because of that flat bonus keeping the damage floor a little bit higher. However, I'd be totally fine with the ceiling coming down if it meant the floor was always higher. One Shot, One Kill was fun the first time and then quickly dropped off the face of the earth for the rest of combat. Especially if you miss your opening shot. It might be interesting for each of the Ways to have their own built in firearm damage bonus to keep the damage floor up, especially if it can be a persistent bonus.
Then comes Reload. I was honestly not ready for this to be as big of a drag as it was. Especially at low levels your turns just melt into intermittent actions surrounded by reloads, which makes the class feel really bad to to play. In the worst case of Reload - Fire - Reload, you've essentially spent most of the turn doing nothing without a strike hack. Going into this session I didn't think Risky Reload would so needed but I definitely felt not having it. Reload 1 might be alright if there are very low level (or baked into the Way as 1/turn) reload hacks, but as is I can't imagine playing a low level Gunslinger for any length of time with Reload 1. It just sucks all the fun and options out of your turns. This got even more amplified by the Pistolero, who would have had to spend even more actions Stowing a Hand Cannon first or dropping it and having to pick it up later. I know its just fluff but the Pistolero does mention Dual-Wielding gunslingers, so it would be nice to see that getting some support as well.
As for the Gunslinger Feats themselves, I think I got my thoughts on Firearm Ace back in the firearms section. I did generally like Assisting Shot for the fun little bit of supporting power it brought. Managed to turn a couple misses into hits, and I imagine with enough combat rounds would have turned some hits into crits. Cover Fire was taken by the other Gunslinger and never really contributed anything to the encounter. It just seems way too niche to be able to get a lot of value out of. I really wanted to see if Running Reload would help with the action economy problem, but never got a chance. The other Gunslinger took Quick Draw and it seemed mostly fine, but precludes the ability to use any of the Gunslingers neat utility like Assisting Shot or Warning Shot.
Something at entry level needs to be adjusted, either Firearms or the bonus from the Gunslinger class. A lot of things come together at low level to make the turns a slog to get through. Higher level play still seems interesting, but as is I wouldn't really ever want to start a campaign as a Gunslinger. Hopefully a lot will be addressed in the final release, because the fun parts are quite nice... just surrounded by a lot of things that drag the experience down.
