Gunslinger has no level based bonuses


Gunslinger Discussion: Round 2

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This might be a bit of a problem. Any other class with a combat focus has some sort of bonus on attacks and damage.
They have, of course, the ability to target Touch Ac and add their dexterity bonus to damage, but once they have these abilities they remain unchanged.
So, I'm a bit afraid that a gunslinger10 could be easily outperformed by a gunslinger5/fighter5 or gunslinger5/ranger5, although I haven't confirmed that yet.

Is this a problem? And if yes, what would be a good way to address it?


Guntraining should scale like weapon training does, not add extra guns no one is ever going to use


Pendagast wrote:
Guntraining should scale like weapon training does, not add extra guns no one is ever going to use

I agree with Pendagast here. Most Gunslingers are going to be single gun specialists. Leave the extra gun for those that like to mix it up.


They should follow the same process as weapon training. The firearm chosen at 1st level is their primary firearm. At 5th level you receive a +1 attack bonus and a damage bonus to damage = Dex modifier. Every 4 levels thereafter, the gunslinger picks a new firearm type. At 9th level they gain a +1 attack/damage with the new firearm, and an increase of +1 attack/damage to their 1st level chosen firearm.

Yes, I know, subsequent firearms that aren't their primary 1st level firearm do not get the Dex modifier bonus to damage. It hink that's OK, because I think whatever a player choses at 1dt level is likely to be the weapon they use all through their career. Of couse similar weapons get the same bonuses, such as musket and axe musket are the same, blunderbuss and shot gun (for advanced users), pistol and and double barrel pistol, etc.


I for one like the ability to master several weapons, it's useful to be good (not optimal just good) with several weapons right?

Some sort of +x to damage every y level would be motivated only IF we start seeing playtest and number crunching that shows that a fighter/gunslinger would blow a pure gunslinger out of the damage barrel.

If a damage boosting class feature is needed, then what about an ability that let's the gunslinger improve his gunpowder. It could boost the damage of all the gunslingers guns. I guess that the main advantage of this would be a way to differ this fluff from a Fighter.


I agree with the OP and was in fact about to start a similar thread. Literally *every* other class in PF that isn't a primary caster has some kind of damage bump as they level. Since guns don't do more damage than comparable weapons and everyone else gets to add an ability modifier to their damage without needing a class feature for it, it seems academic that the gunslinger will inevitably fall behind in damage output.


I disagree I feel we gunslingers have a great advantage over class's like rangers. With at lv 12 a grand total of 7-8 shots at min 21-max28 a crit max is 112 dmg with exploding dice your 1 shotting dragons. I was planning on getting a +1 thundering riffle of distance and speed. That's 5 shots with dead shot. My only concern is getting bonus dmg at 5 but it's to stop single dips like 1 gunslinger 9 rogue.

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bluewaterz wrote:
I disagree I feel we gunslingers have a great advantage over class's like rangers. With at lv 12 a grand total of 7-8 shots at min 21-max28 a crit max is 112 dmg with exploding dice your 1 shotting dragons. I was planning on getting a +1 thundering riffle of distance and speed. That's 5 shots with dead shot. My only concern is getting bonus dmg at 5 but it's to stop single dips like 1 gunslinger 9 rogue.

The average damage of Dead Shot is lower. Much lower. Speed doesn't apply to Dead Shot and dice bonuses like thundering are only applied once.

I built a 12th level fighter that did about 200 points of damage on average.
As written, Dead Shot is extremely underpowered, but since there are already several threads on that topic, it shouldn't be the topic of this one.
I have to reconsider the usefulness of fighter levels, since the lack of a weapon training for guns makes the 5th fighter level rather useless. Weapon Specialization is still nice, though. Rangers are probably the best choice, being a full BAB class with a Wisdom focus.


bluewaterz wrote:
I disagree I feel we gunslingers have a great advantage over class's like rangers. With at lv 12 a grand total of 7-8 shots at min 21-max28 a crit max is 112 dmg with exploding dice your 1 shotting dragons. I was planning on getting a +1 thundering riffle of distance and speed. That's 5 shots with dead shot. My only concern is getting bonus dmg at 5 but it's to stop single dips like 1 gunslinger 9 rogue.

No, it's not. Dead shot is based off of BAB, not total number of attacks. That's 3 attacks at 12. With a RIFLE, you could do it with rapid reload taking it to a free action. With a musket, which is what most people will be using if they want a longer range 2 handed firearm, Rapid shot/Haste/etc does no good for you because you can't use it. I started a thread on musket love

EDIT: why does that keep happening...


my post was about the lv 5 advancement and it working just fin do avoid single dips. first being pistols at 5 and the riffle at lv9 then i went on to my furture plans on a riffle that was thrown out the window but was relivent to the topic.
but obviously it was the opinion of one person.


Pendagast wrote:
Guntraining should scale like weapon training does, not add extra guns no one is ever going to use

+1


Here's my thing, though. If it's similar to weapon training, the bonuses to attack are going to be redundant when a gunslinger tries to make mostly touch attacks. With full BAB and Dex dependent attacks, you probably won't need the extra damage. It's true that they haven't got any level dependent bonuses, and maybe they should. But (except feat starvation) wouldn't the allowance to take W. Specialization feats mostly solve the problem? Hmmm.

Of course, if you got Greater weapon spec AND a level dependent damage bonus, then it would go from underpowered to overpowered, neh? As then it's damage would be much more respectable (though with early firearms still a pain to reload) and would hit way more often.

This is an interesting design problem that has been dug into. I believe in you, Paizo!

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