Gunslingers, Firearms and critical hits

After seeing the crit-fishing nature of the Gunslinger class (and of firearms as a whole) being discussed in many places around this forum, I thought it would be a good idea to create a single place to gather all the feedback on the relationship between Gunslingers, Firearms and critical hits.

I'll give my personal thoughts on it first:

I think this is a bad idea. We have already seen a class that attempted to make critical hitting the core of its design with the playtest Magus, and it did not feel good to play as it led to a rather unfun "feast or famine" style of play where you spent a lot of time feeling miserable between the rare times you critically hit and got to roll a bucket of dice. Now Gunslinger feels like it has the exact same problem as Magus, but I feel like it is even worse in their case for one reason.

That reason is the Gunslingers have nowhere near as many options to put the odds in their favor compared to Magi: Even with their heavily diminiished spellcasting, Magi could have access to a few magical buffs and debuffs (mostly through staves or through Martial Caster), including True Strike, which is pretty much the number 1 tool for crit fishing. On top of that, most Magi fought in melee, where it is easier to get bonuses like flanking and where cover is not an issue. Gunslingers have to fight from range and have no magic, meaning they don't get all these advantages, leaving them in an even worse state than Magi were when it comes to actually tipping the odds in your favor. They do get a few improved skill actions like Pistol Twirl on top of their +2 accuracy, but does that really compensate the relative difficulty of getting enemies to be flat-footed to ranged attacks, the penalties for cover, and the lack of any natural magical support?

Besides that Gunslinger-specific point, I fear that this design for firearms will make them underpowered for every non Fighter/Gunslinger. Firearms are a class of weapons many people wish to see in the game so that they might use it as a standard weapon the same way one would use a crossbow. However, their nature as crit-fishing weapons means their wielder wants Legendary proficiency in them for them to be really worthwhile, meaning classes that might want to use a firearm (the most obvious one being Ranger, who already has support for Reload weapons) will find themselves falling behind in damage through no fault of their own simply because they wanted to use something that fit their character concept.

In other words, this makes Firearms as a whole a trap option for anyone without Legendary scaling. I thought we were supposed to be done with these 1e-style traps whose only goal seems to be arbitrarily punishing character concepts because they aren't using something the "right" way.

This issue leads into another Gunslinger-specific one: Firearm users want Legendary proficiency to be able function at a good level, which is why Gunslingers have to have that level of proficiency. However, such a level of proficiency is definitely a rather large investment for a class, meaning that a significant part of the class' power budget is spent on ensuring basic functionality for their weapon of choice instead of on interesting features.

Now, it is possible that Guns&Gears is full of non crit-fishing firearms that would function much better without critical fishing.
But so far, the only non crit-fishing firearm we have seen is the Blunderbuss, and it suffers immensely when compared to even a simple Crossbow as it trades 100 feet of range for Scatter and Versatile B, neither of which seem like they are worth the massive range trade off. Considering the Crossbow is a simple weapon while the Blunderbuss is martial, it doesn't make non crit-fishing firearms look really good.

Considering all this, I feel the same way as I did with Magus: crit-fishing is not a good core design for a class, or a group
of weapons.
Now bear in mind that I'm not saying there shouldn't be crit-fishing guns. But I think the crit-fishing guns should be an option, instead of being the only kind of gun there is. If people want to fulfill the "One shot, one kill" fantasy, they should be allowed to. But equally, people who do not care for this particular fantasy should also be allowed to have firearm-using characters.

So, what are your personal thoughts on this?

Crit-fishing should be a playstyle for Snipers gunslingers and weapons, not for all gunslingers.

It think we are facing a two-fold problem at the moment, when it should be two somewhat separate problems. Reload weapons need to be balanced against other weapons - primarily bows - not in a vacuum or just with the gunslinger in mind. And they obviously aren't unless you assume a decent number of crits, which is simply unrealistic and feels terrible in actual play. Only once this problem is solved can we look at the gunslinger, as it now isn't just "how can we get guns to compete", which it shouldn't be. Classes improve on some aspect(s), they aren't duct tape.

Weapon design

So, weapons first. While I somewhat enjoy how guns currently feel, I doubt this will last much longer. I certainly felt pretty useless in the last encounters (i.e. those that actually mattered), at least as far as my gun was concerned. The basic design makes them unique, but also really swingy on damage and functionally useless to anyone without fighter proficiency progression, as you pointed out.

Originally, my survey feedback was that we could have the distinction between guns and crossbow be the following: guns get moderate die sizes plus high fatal, while crossbows get high die sizes plus high deadly. I no longer think that is a viable solution, guns simply feel too disappointing on regular hits. Doing the same damage as a bow, but paying two or three actions for each attack just feels bad. That is even without accounting for hunted shot or other class feats, which create even further imbalance favouring the bow.

Reload weapons need to hit significantly harder on every hit and crit. That is just not the case for hits. And as long as that is the state of affairs, reload weapons will always play second fiddle. They feel like simple weapons, not martial weapons. Reload alone is such a significant drawback in both theory and actual-play experience, but it is currently not even remotely compensated for.

To that end I propose the idea to o away form the crit-focus of guns. Instead, we do the following with reload weapons: both guns and crossbows follow the "high die size, high deadly" formula. We borrow from melee weapon damage die baselines, which seems the most reasonable. One-handed weapons have a base d8/deadly d10, trading up or down one size for very significant positive or negative traits. Two-handed weapons are base d12/deadly d12, trading down one size for significant positive traits. Significant negative traits like unsteady require a trade-off that goes *above* that baseline. For a moderate increase in price, we get upgraded weapons similar to composite bows or the exquisite sword cane.

Fatal reload weapons could still stay, but be more niche weapons for players who want the crit-fishing playstyle, just like picks do currently. I wouldn't want them to be the focus or set the baseline in any way.

The separation between guns and crossbows then has to come from traits. Or it has to be sacrificed on the altar of balance, which I suppose is not the worst thing. It would certainly do away with any worries about gunslinger working in a non-firearm game. I still would prefer some differences and just have the option to re-flavour if necessary.

Legendary proficiency

As guns currently operate, this is indeed mandatory. No question about it. And even then guns under-perform unless you are very lucky. It also creates another major problem, one that is maybe worse than everything else - it has no unique mechanical core like all the other classes. It's just a fighter that uses guns, the rest is largely window dressing. While I don't agree that legendary proficiency itself justifies a class being this feature-starved, I see where Paizo are coming from.

If reload weapons themselves were brought in-line, this whole thing isn't necessary anymore. What I really want is Champion or Rogue levels of interesting class features. Preferably tied to reloading. That plus actually useable reload weapons would definitely be worth losing legendary in reload weapons. At least it would create more engaging gameplay, which is my top priority.

Of course, this road also has its own problems.

For one, with martial crossbows coming out, Precision Ranger actually becomes relevant. More importantly, gunslinger is a strictly weapon focused class. Reload weapons are our thing. Fighters will then have a higher proficiency in our trademark weapon. It is not hard to see problems arising, moreso when the Fighter selects a gun-related archetype. But this should be more manageable than the current issues.

Crit-fishing should be a playstyle for Snipers gunslingers and weapons, not for all gunslingers.

Maybe make it at least optional for sniper? It can be appropriate to the theme, but I'd say the sniper doesn't exactly scream "high risk - high reward" to me. Not to mention that a lot of people probably like the sniper but don't like crit dependency.

Lightning Raven wrote:

Crit-fishing should be a playstyle for Snipers gunslingers and weapons, not for all gunslingers.

Maybe make it at least optional for sniper? It can be appropriate to the theme, but I'd say the sniper doesn't exactly scream "high risk - high reward" to me. Not to mention that a lot of people probably like the sniper but don't like crit dependency.

My thought was more like as a Sniper, with a well placed shot (A crit) you would be able to do massive amounts of damage. This could be implemented in the form of "aim" in other RPGS that reward the character to lose a turn for better accuracy, and this case crit chance as well. Another possible way was making sniper weapons like the Heavy Crossbow and need 2 actions to reload, but they would have a special trait (maybe a repurposed sniper trait) that allowed a critical hit on 19 (assuming the roll was a success, like existing features).

This, of course, is on top of the already good dice. The playstyle would mean very few attacks but really potent. Good feat lines for the playstyle would feature superior aim, such as Swashbuckler's high level rerolls for finishers, armor piercing shots (feats to ignore resistances, others to pierce cover and others to pierce targets). I high level feat that had a "headshot" effect similar to Vorpal would be really cool as well.

Weapon design

So, weapons first. While I somewhat enjoy how guns currently feel, I doubt this will last much longer. I certainly felt pretty useless in the last encounters (i.e. those that actually mattered), at least as far as my gun was concerned. The basic design makes them unique, but also really swingy on damage and functionally useless to anyone without fighter proficiency progression, as you pointed out.

Originally, my survey feedback was that we could have the distinction between guns and crossbow be the following: guns get moderate die sizes plus high fatal, while crossbows get high die sizes plus high deadly. I no longer think that is a viable solution, guns simply feel too disappointing on regular hits. Doing the same damage as a bow, but paying two or three actions for each attack just feels bad. That is even without accounting for hunted shot or other class feats, which create even further imbalance favouring the bow.

Reload weapons need to hit significantly harder on every hit and crit. That is just not the case for hits. And as long as that is the state of affairs, reload weapons will always play second fiddle. They feel like simple weapons, not martial weapons. Reload alone is such a significant drawback in both theory and actual-play experience, but it is currently not even remotely compensated for.

To that end I propose the idea to o away form the crit-focus of guns.

Legendary Proficiency

As guns currently operate, this is indeed mandatory.

The "Fighters outshine Monks with unarmed attacks, Rangers with bows and Champions with their deific weapon" (and completely ignoring every class feature in the aforementioned martial classes) talk is a constant in any class discussion, and at this point no amount of demonstration, graphs or math will change people's minds about it; Initially I was interested in the idea of having another legendary weapon proficiency class, but as OP put it, the class presented to us does feel like a Fighter with a few bells and whistles (and at that point you may as well play a Fighter and specialize in firearms, just as an unarmed Fighter offers a viable alternative with a more brawlery feel without invalidating the Monk).

I've also come to the conclusion (and have answered as such in the survey) that the playstest Gunslinger is stale and one-note, far too dependent on criticals and riding that proficiency train, and would rather have more interesting class features (different interactions with reload, trick shots, support for dual-weapon reloading) and capping at Master like the other martials (with a revision to firearms to make them more interesting choices across the board) if it's meant to feel like a class and not a glorified class archetype.

My thought was more like as a Sniper, with a well placed shot (A crit) you would be able to do massive amounts of damage. This could be implemented in the form of "aim" in other RPGS that reward the character to lose a turn for better accuracy, and this case crit chance as well. Another possible way was making sniper weapons like the Heavy Crossbow and need 2 actions to reload, but they would have a special trait (maybe a repurposed sniper trait) that allowed a critical hit on 19 (assuming the roll was a success, like existing features).

This, of course, is on top of the already good dice. The playstyle would mean very few attacks but really potent. Good feat lines for the playstyle would feature superior aim, such as Swashbuckler's high level rerolls for finishers, armor piercing shots (feats to ignore resistances, others to pierce cover and others to pierce targets). I high level feat that had a "headshot" effect similar to Vorpal would be really cool as well.

I would still favour a way that doesn't rely on crits - basically One Shot One Kill and Vital Shot but actually usable in a single turn - but there are a lot of good ideas in there ^^. Piercing shots and things like Arrow of Death are definitely what I would want to see.

Reload 2, not so much, even if the trade-off is extremely good. In this I agree with Sayre, it just doesn't fit in 2e's action economy. If you can make it fun, sure, but since you would have to essentially have that single shot deal damage equal to ~2 1/2 regular hits to feel worth it, I don't see that happening.

Lightning Raven wrote:

My thought was more like as a Sniper, with a well placed shot (A crit) you would be able to do massive amounts of damage. This could be implemented in the form of "aim" in other RPGS that reward the character to lose a turn for better accuracy, and this case crit chance as well. Another possible way was making sniper weapons like the Heavy Crossbow and need 2 actions to reload, but they would have a special trait (maybe a repurposed sniper trait) that allowed a critical hit on 19 (assuming the roll was a success, like existing features).

This, of course, is on top of the already good dice. The playstyle would mean very few attacks but really potent. Good feat lines for the playstyle would feature superior aim, such as Swashbuckler's high level rerolls for finishers, armor piercing shots (feats to ignore resistances, others to pierce cover and others to pierce targets). I high level feat that had a "headshot" effect similar to Vorpal would be really cool as well.

I would still favour a way that doesn't rely on crits - basically One Shot One Kill and Vital Shot but actually usable in a single turn - but there are a lot of good ideas in there ^^. Piercing shots and things like Arrow of Death are definitely what I would want to see.

Reload 2, not so much, even if the trade-off is extremely good. In this I agree with Sayre, it just doesn't fit in 2e's action economy. If you can make it fun, sure, but since you would have to essentially have that single shot deal damage equal to ~2 1/2 regular hits to feel worth it, I don't see that happening.

The reload 2 was mainly a proposed huge drawback due to the ideas that I presented as positive would be pretty strong by themselves. In my mind, the Arquebus would have a d12 plus Deadly 12, sniper trait that granted crits on 19, on top of a similar "aim" feature that would make them gain +X to hit would make crits very likely. Another implementation would be treating a AC+9 as a critical hit, which would make it insanely stronger than crit on a 19 dice roll.

Lightning Raven wrote:

My thought was more like as a Sniper, with a well placed shot (A crit) you would be able to do massive amounts of damage. This could be implemented in the form of "aim" in other RPGS that reward the character to lose a turn for better accuracy, and this case crit chance as well. Another possible way was making sniper weapons like the Heavy Crossbow and need 2 actions to reload, but they would have a special trait (maybe a repurposed sniper trait) that allowed a critical hit on 19 (assuming the roll was a success, like existing features).

This, of course, is on top of the already good dice. The playstyle would mean very few attacks but really potent. Good feat lines for the playstyle would feature superior aim, such as Swashbuckler's high level rerolls for finishers, armor piercing shots (feats to ignore resistances, others to pierce cover and others to pierce targets). I high level feat that had a "headshot" effect similar to Vorpal would be really cool as well.

I would still favour a way that doesn't rely on crits - basically One Shot One Kill and Vital Shot but actually usable in a single turn - but there are a lot of good ideas in there ^^. Piercing shots and things like Arrow of Death are definitely what I would want to see.

Reload 2, not so much, even if the trade-off is extremely good. In this I agree with Sayre, it just doesn't fit in 2e's action economy. If you can make it fun, sure, but since you would have to essentially have that single shot deal damage equal to ~2 1/2 regular hits to feel worth it, I don't see that happening.

The only way Reload 2 works is if the weapon gets multiple shots per reload, imo. Reload 2 for a 3-shot clip I think works out okay? Especially with running/risky reload.

The only way Reload 2 works is if the weapon gets multiple shots per reload, imo. Reload 2 for a 3-shot clip I think works out okay? Especially with running/risky reload.

I'd say split up the interact actions. 2 bullets for one interact action or something like that. Get benefits at full capacity. That is way more organic for the system and appropriate for the level of technology. I doubt we will see actual clips or magazines.

Personally I think more of the fix needs to go into the slinger than the guns. As they are guns are underpowered. This will prevent everyone and their uncle from using them. That’s good. What I think the gunslinger should do is bring martial guns up to par with martial bows. Gunslingers don’t get heavy armor proficiency like fighters, so if they’re gonna be glass cannons they need high damage output. If reload is going to restrict their shot per round they need to hit consistently and they need to hit hard. (I’m not saying anything new here I know.)

This all leads me to my point the ways need to be game changers right from level 1. The gunslinger picks a type of firearm to focus on via the way and becomes as good with it as a fighter archer. I want to see the math fixers given to the gunslinger for free at level 1. Level the playing field at 1 and I think a lot of the problem goes away. Beyond that I think the way could add as many as 5 deeds

A pistol way should upgrade one handed firearm damage die (I’ve done some number crunching and this doesn’t appear to be over powered when balanced against reload) I think the pistol way could also allow hands holding pistols to count as free hands for the reload action. (This would greatly aid in duel wielding pistols) those two boosts at level 1 make pistols viable.

I think there needs to be a two handed firearm between the sniper and pistol. Sniper damage die with a range between sniper and pistol but without the unsteady or sniper traits. I would then suggest a way to support this rifle. Increase the damage die (from d8 to d10 with d12 fatal). Maybe minor reload boost.

Finally the sniper way. Same damage die boost to two handed firearms but the one shot one kill damage (that needs a shorter name) should apply anytime you are suffering the unsteady penalty. This is a d10 damage die with a d12 fatal with bonus damage when taking an action to aim that feels pretty sniper to me.

Boosting the base damage die makes the class less reliant on crits. Which I think is what the OP is getting at. Guns will still appeal to a few builds that want to crit fish. I think some gun focused class types could also follow this pattern. A rogue racket that allows you to use the fatal die size when dealing sneak attack, or maybe change your sneak attack dice to the fatal dice on a crit? A ranger edge that increases damage die vs hunted prey? Inventor breakthrough that increases damage die?

IMO keep guns weak and put the onus on the class features to bring it up to par. Features not feats, feats should be awesome and exciting features should be your balance and math fixes.

Lightning Raven wrote:

Crit-fishing should be a playstyle for Snipers gunslingers and weapons, not for all gunslingers.

Maybe make it at least optional for sniper? It can be appropriate to the theme, but I'd say the sniper doesn't exactly scream "high risk - high reward" to me. Not to mention that a lot of people probably like the sniper but don't like crit dependency.

it's appropriate in making it less of a chance thing by increasing accuracy.

The baseline higher accuracy of the gunslinger already plays into that as does shooting from being hidden/concealed but there's really no other ways to increase accuracy for the sniper among feats.
There has to be an alternative to dedicating into true strike.

Karmagator wrote:

Lightning Raven wrote:

Crit-fishing should be a playstyle for Snipers gunslingers and weapons, not for all gunslingers.

Maybe make it at least optional for sniper? It can be appropriate to the theme, but I'd say the sniper doesn't exactly scream "high risk - high reward" to me. Not to mention that a lot of people probably like the sniper but don't like crit dependency.

it's appropriate in making it less of a chance thing by increasing accuracy.

A sniper should be critting more than anyone else because they take additional time to prepare shots.

The baseline higher accuracy of the gunslinger already plays into that as does shooting from being hidden/concealed but there's really no other ways to increase accuracy for the sniper among feats.
There has to be an alternative to dedicating into true strike.

Shooter's aim gives a +2 circumstance, but it can't be combined with other strike feats. Crit chance with that is going to be really, really good from hiding though!

Personally I think more of the fix needs to go into the slinger than the guns. As they are guns are underpowered. This will prevent everyone and their uncle from using them. That’s good. What I think the gunslinger should do is bring martial guns up to par with martial bows. Gunslingers don’t get heavy armor proficiency like fighters, so if they’re gonna be glass cannons they need high damage output. If reload is going to restrict their shot per round they need to hit consistently and they need to hit hard. (I’m not saying anything new here I know.)

This all leads me to my point the ways need to be game changers right from level 1. The gunslinger picks a type of firearm to focus on via the way and becomes as good with it as a fighter archer. I want to see the math fixers given to the gunslinger for free at level 1. Level the playing field at 1 and I think a lot of the problem goes away. Beyond that I think the way could add as many as 5 deeds

This is PF1e's design. This doesn't fit well with this system and it is one of the main reasons why Alchemists are bad. Sure, giving them for free for the Gunslinger to make the weapons feel good in play would solve the issue... For the gunslinger class specifically. No multiclass. No alternative builds for other classes and other issues.

This isn't a good route and the guns can be good weapons easily because they will be uncommon and Paizo clearly laid out in the rules that Uncommon rarity and above needs GM permission. Unlike PF1e, there doesn't seems to be an intention for making reloading trivial like it happened in PF1e, thus even if guns are pretty good, they still have low fire rate, which is sufficient to bar them from becoming "The Only Choice".

Guns shouldn't rely on crits. It's that simple. In PF1e you could make crit-fishing builds because you had 15-20 critical hit chance weapons which vastly increased their reliability, also, those builds often didn't even rely on them naturally, since they also dished out decent damage normally as well.

Personally I think more of the fix needs to go into the slinger than the guns. As they are guns are underpowered. This will prevent everyone and their uncle from using them. That’s good. What I think the gunslinger should do is bring martial guns up to par with martial bows.

But gunslinger aren't meant to be the only ones using guns. That would just be purposefully making trap options.

Gunslinger MC dedication for those who want to use guns above their normal low efficiency.

Just as we have Swashbuckler MC dedication for those who want Panache, and Casters MC dedication for martials who want to cast spells.

Gunslinger MC dedication for those who want to use guns above their normal low efficiency.

Just as we have Swashbuckler MC dedication for those who want Panache, and Casters MC dedication for martials who want to cast spells.

"Okay, then lets now require Ranger MC dedication for those who want to use ranged weapons without being a detriment to their party. No characters but Rangers are allowed ranged weapons that don't suck immensely."

Also, all of the things you just mentioned are core parts of the classes themselves. Not equipment anyone can buy and use, and should be expected to be able to use when it fits with their concepts.

It's ridiculous to put forward that only gunslingers should be the ones using guns, when we know the intent of the author was that multiple classes and concepts beyond just gunslingers can use them. Sayre has said they didn't intend on gunslingers to be the only ones using guns in at least one interview, and the playtest even tells us to play them with classes that aren't gunslinger.

TBH I think the emphasis on crit fishing some people in the forums are making is misattributing the issue. The problem isn't fatal. If guns didn't have fatal but were still balanced the same they wouldn't be dramatically stronger or more functional.

If that were the case, then a gunslinger with a crossbow would feel significantly better than a gunslinger with a gun and... they don't. That's just not a thing.
The difference between a greatpick and a greatsword is 1 damage per die, 1 damage is not going to be a panacea for the issues people are having.

The problem is that the reload feature doesn't feel satisfying when it's paired with a weapon that does comparable damage to its non-reload counterparts. It just doesn't feel good to have to take every other action off when the guy next to you is doing extremely similar damage per hit and can attack four times per round if they feel like it.

There's also the secondary issue, imo, of the Gunslinger having a generally worse chassis than the Fighter but seemingly balanced around the same sets of tools that I think could use a second look and might contribute to some of the issues people are having too.

What I think the gunslinger should do is bring martial guns up to par with martial bows.

Martial guns and martial bows should be comparable to each other right out the gate. That's why they're both martial weapons. That's what the different tiers of weapons are designed to represent.

If that were the case, then a gunslinger with a crossbow would feel significantly better than a gunslinger with a gun and... they don't. That's just not a thing.

IMO, crossbow feel better and the only reason they don't feel "significantly better" is because 1/2 the abilities require a loaded firearm. Pulling out that 1d4 or 1d6 vs the boss when others are pulling out the same or bigger dice AND adding some stat mods too [and maybe with a reload 0]. When a fighter with a sling beats your damage on a normal hit, that's not a really good feel to have.

IMO, fatal just reinforces the murder mooks, papercut boss paradigm of crit-fishing by artificially lowering the base damage AND range to make up for the trait. I don't see why it couldn't have a 'normal' trait with good damage and lower range for a more, IMO, gun feel. So I don't really see it as misattributing the issue because I think the balance is what it is because of fatal.

Gunslinger MC dedication for those who want to use guns above their normal low efficiency.

Just as we have Swashbuckler MC dedication for those who want Panache, and Casters MC dedication for martials who want to cast spells.

Not only are those not comparable (Panache and spell slots are class features, not something any character can freely get), but this is terrible design.

Why would anyone use crossbows if guns are strictly better?

Why would anyone use crossbows if guns are strictly better?

That is not what people are advocating for. We are saying guns should be balanced against all other weapons, not arbitrarily worse or better. Same with every other weapon ever released. Anything else just doesn't fit in 2e.

Why would anyone use crossbows if guns are strictly better?

You don't have enough money or you don't have any available for purchase. Hell, it's very likely that you don't even know they exist in the first place.

We address this through access / rarity then. Only problem I see with this approach is how we can distinguish between guns and crossbows for the Gunslinger since, at the moment, having access to Gunslinger also gives you access to guns.

I really want the Gunslinger to be the master of ranged reload weapons, whether firearms or not. So I am in to make the class Common while keeping the guns Uncommon.

And I believe we need to have guns and crossbows bring different things to the table, in spite of their similarities. Without guns being defined by the Fatal trait, which really pigeonholes them.

I have only extensively played the sniper, but it feels incredibly different than a fighter, and is a fun, tactical build that would be much less fun without legendary weapon proficiency. It is what I wanted out of a sniper like rogue, but it is much, much truer to form.

With shooter’s aim, an arquebus is a great weapon. In the first round you are almost certainly firing from hidden with a +4 accuracy bonus over a ranged fighter. Going into any kind of stance is going to reveal a hidden character, so the ranged fighter is a terrible sniper. Strangely enough, the precision ranger isn’t really better, and the rogue isn’t accurate enough to make the fire and hide thing fun, even without a reload feature. Any sniper with runner’s reload and shooters aim is much much much more fun to play with an arquebus than a crossbow. Maybe a cross bow ace would change that, but not if you have to start with your weapon unloaded.

Sniper with a blunderbuss and alchemical shot also gets this weird ability to never fail to be able to do some specific kind of damage to a target. Or multiple targets, possibly. Splash damage is still not as clear as it needs to be. The use of splash damage in the scatter trait and in acid splash meme and that acid splash would only effect the target of the spell, which might be intended and even RAW but it makes the spell garbage.

I haven’t deep-dived into drifters or pistoleros because they look like they have problems with identity and like they would be better built as fighters. Apoint blank shot feels like it is built for pistol fighting or even pistol and thrown weapon styles. There are issues with reloading, but The thing that will make one handed reload weapons work for all classes is access to a bandolier that holds runes for ranged and thrown weapons stored in them.

Then a special feat that lets you strike with a melee weapon, reload a gun and have an enemy flat footed could be very interesting/be how a gun slinger alone is better off not draw and drop firing pistols. Rangers and rogues get quick draw, but the fighter doesn’t, so the gun fighter could still be the most interesting draw and drop pistol fighter, but wouldn’t have to be (unlike other classes that tried it).

Crit fishing hate: one of PF2s most unique features is the +/- 10 crit system. Actively avoiding ever having weapons or class features that acknowledge that is wasting design space. I am fine with gunslingers getting more crossbow options and crossbow specific feats, to have that and scatter weapons be the non-crit fishing option for gunslingers, but the game doesn’t need firearms with a high base damage die if the gunslinger can be more functional with a crossbow. I for one think a spell slinging drifter with a staff of divination and dueling pistol being a cool take on the driver is awesome, especially as it is not the obviously best choice since a one handed staff is a pretty heavy trade off for a couple of true strikes a day with you gun. Even with fatal one handed martial fire arms are not so amazingly powerful that they would make other play styles bad.

Other than snipers with arquebuses, gun slingers are much less crit dependent then the magus, who needed a weapon crit to really have a chance to do much with their spells.

I have only extensively played the sniper, but it feels incredibly different than a fighter, and is a fun, tactical build that would be much less fun without legendary weapon proficiency. It is what I wanted out of a sniper like rogue, but it is much, much truer to form.

I think there are alternative solutions to having baseline legendary proficiency which would preserve the playstyle.

One idea off the top of my head would be to change the unsteady trait. The idea behind it is that a heavy barrel or something along those lines makes it difficult to keep the gun steady when unsupported. Instead of making it a purely negative trait, make it add a +2 circumstance bonus to attack rolls when the conditions are met. Essentially immobilizing yourself (and trading actions to become mobile again) or trading actions for it seems reasonable. Plus, it is very thematic because a heavier/longer barrel usually means better accuracy - mostly due to allowing for more powerful ammo, but still.

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With shooter’s aim, an arquebus is a great weapon.

Is it, though? Shooter's Aim locks basic playability behind a level 8 feat. Using Shooter's Aim is mutually exclusive with 2 of your 3 deeds and every single possible attack action in the game that is not Risky Reload. Well, until you are level 20 and even then... .

And what do you get for it? A weapon that does the same damage on a hit - which is far more likely than a crit in any situation that matters - as a longbow. Just that it costs the longbow one action and you spend essentially three, as you also have to reload the thing. Even the additional damage on a crit becomes less and less pronounced with level. Just as an example, the difference in average damage on both weapons (longbow and arquebus) with a major striking rune is a whooping 2 (!) on a crit.

I mean, Shooter's Aim is a good feat. Probably way too high level, as Ranger gets the (mostly) same thing at level 1, but still decent. But it doesn't make the arquebus a good weapon.

In the first round you are almost certainly firing from hidden with a +4 accuracy bonus over a ranged fighter. Going into any kind of stance is going to reveal a hidden character, so the ranged fighter is a terrible sniper.

Going into a stance is exactly what is meant to fall under "The GM might allow you to perform a particularly unobtrusive action without being noticed, possibly requiring another Stealth check.". Stuff like this isn't intended to reveal you. And even if it would be, you don't necessarily have to go into a stance. There is also Incredible Aim at level 8, which is basically the same feat as Shooter's Aim. So I don't see how the ranged fighter is a terrible sniper.

And the fighter also has the advantage of being able to just attack without a feat, heavy piece of equipment or additional action required. If you are using an unsteady weapon, you simply can't do that.

Unicore wrote:

I have only extensively played the sniper, but it feels incredibly different than a fighter, and is a fun, tactical build that would be much less fun without legendary weapon proficiency. It is what I wanted out of a sniper like rogue, but it is much, much truer to form.

I think there are alternative solutions to having baseline legendary proficiency which would preserve the playstyle.

One idea off the top of my head would be to change the unsteady trait. The idea behind it is that a heavy barrel or something along those lines makes it difficult to keep the gun steady when unsupported. Instead of making it a purely negative trait, make it add a +2 circumstance bonus to attack rolls when the conditions are met. Essentially immobilizing yourself (and trading actions to become mobile again) or trading actions for it seems reasonable. Plus, it is very thematic because a heavier/longer barrel usually means better accuracy - mostly due to allowing for more powerful ammo, but still.

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Unicore wrote:

With shooter’s aim, an arquebus is a great weapon.

Is it, though? Shooter's Aim locks basic playability behind a level 8 feat. Using Shooter's Aim is mutually exclusive with 2 of your 3 deeds and every single possible attack action in the game that is not Risky Reload. Well, until you are level 20 and even then... .

And what do you get for it? A weapon that does the same damage on a hit - which is far more likely than a crit in any situation that matters - as a longbow. Just that it costs the longbow one action and you spend essentially three, as you also have to reload the thing. Even the additional damage on a crit becomes less and less pronounced with level. Just as an example, the difference in average damage on both weapons (longbow and arquebus) with a major striking rune is a whooping 2 (!) on a crit.

I mean, Shooter's Aim is a good feat. Probably way too high level, as Ranger gets the (mostly) same thing at level 1, but still decent. But it...

A sniper taking a shooter's Aim shot has 3 to 4 times the critical chance of most other characters. Talking about "when it matters" is nonsense, because the sniper with legendary proficiency is going to still be in the 20%+ crit range against monsters that are even a level or two higher than them, if they fire from hiding. Against equal level and lower enemies, the crit chance is often 40% or more. In my play experience, using hero points on that first shot against boss creatures, the Arquebus is way too good to be ready to go for snipers right out of the gates at level 1.

I made a bunch of points in a different thread that were kind of off-topic for that thread, so I'll repost them here where the discussion is appropriate:

First off, I agree that crit-fishing is not a great direction for guns. I have less of a problem with it as a direction for the class, but for guns in general I don't like it. It is too PF1-ish, while at the same time not respecting the design space guns occupied in PF1, which is a weird place to have landed.

We currently have a gap in design: weapons normally do nothing on a failure, which means martials are not fully using the 4 degrees of success. Guns could have occupied that space by giving either minimal or the non-die damage on a failure as part of their baseline damage. No one would care if the die size is smaller if you're "hitting" so much more often, yanking the average damage back up to acceptable. In a way, that would also be respective of how guns worked in PF1, while at the same time not letting back in the OP silliness of those weapons.

Though if that is a bridge too far, I would rather guns raise the floor instead of the ceiling. I would favor a new trait, which I'm calling Fierce (for lack of a better term, and possibly because my boyfriend and I are watching the entirety of RuPaul's Drag Race right now), that gives a baseline damage to each damage die. For instance a Fierce 1 (bludgeoning) would give 1 point of additional bludgeoning damage for each damage die. That would allow the damage die to be lowered while safely preserving the per hit damage of every shot, not just on average. The problem is that it would be less swingy, and that might not feel right for guns, but it is at least a mechanically distinct option, and would let them drop versatile.

We currently have a gap in design: weapons normally do nothing on a failure, which means martials are not fully using the 4 degrees of success. Guns could have occupied that space by giving either minimal or the non-die damage on a failure as part of their baseline damage. No one would care if the die size is smaller if you're "hitting" so much more often, yanking the average damage back up to acceptable. In a way, that would also be respective of how guns worked in PF1, while at the same time not letting back in the OP silliness of those weapons.

Though if that is a bridge too far, I would rather guns raise the floor instead of the ceiling. I would favor a new trait, which I'm calling Fierce (for lack of a better term, and possibly because my boyfriend and I are watching the entirety of RuPaul's Drag Race right now), that gives a baseline damage to each damage die. For instance a Fierce 1 (bludgeoning) would give 1 point of additional bludgeoning damage for each damage die. That would allow the damage die to be lowered while safely preserving the per hit damage of every shot, not just on average. The problem is that it would be less swingy, and that might not feel right for guns, but it is at least a mechanically distinct option, and would let them drop versatile.

I like both of these ideas a lot. The first might be too good, stepping on casters' toes a bit (I still like it and think that it should at least be given a test run, but I digress). However, the second option is great as is. Just replacing Versatile B with that on the current guns would be a huge improvement to where they are now.

AnimatedPaper wrote:

We currently have a gap in design: weapons normally do nothing on a failure, which means martials are not fully using the 4 degrees of success. Guns could have occupied that space by giving either minimal or the non-die damage on a failure as part of their baseline damage. No one would care if the die size is smaller if you're "hitting" so much more often, yanking the average damage back up to acceptable. In a way, that would also be respective of how guns worked in PF1, while at the same time not letting back in the OP silliness of those weapons.

The first might be too good, stepping on casters' toes a bit (I still like it and think that it should at least be given a test run, but I digress).

I'll probably try to math it out against a boss level creature, since that would be the place they'd be strongest. If I can figure out a good recommended damage on a failure that averages out to an equivalent crossbow, I'll update.

As to stepping on caster toes, I think they can afford a bit of step. The reason I thought of it is that both spells and guns made use of touch AC; this would give that feeling back IF they can be balanced.

A sniper taking a shooter's Aim shot has 3 to 4 times the critical chance of most other characters. Talking about "when it matters" is nonsense, because the sniper with legendary proficiency is going to still be in the 20%+ crit range against monsters that are even a level or two higher than them, if they fire from hiding. Against equal level and lower enemies, the crit chance is often 40% or more. In my play experience, using hero points on that first shot against boss creatures, the Arquebus is way too good to be ready to go for snipers right out of the gates at level 1.

Talking about "when it matters" is absolutely not nonsense. Any enemy that is an actual threat to you and your party - so anything that is at least 1 level higher than you - will have significant enough armour class to drop your crit chance to 30% or below in the best case scenario. That means 70% or more of your shots - and you get only one - are doing basically nothing. Congratulations, you have done in three actions what everyone else could have done in one or two at worst. And after the first round, hiding doesn't fit into your action economy anymore until level 15. So when your party is counting on you, you are rolling the dice even more heavily than anyone else.

Sure, you are devastating to absolute mooks, but every class except maybe the Investigator and Cleric is. And even then half or almost half your shots accomplish little, while a Flurry Ranger, Rogue or Fighter will just mow through them regardless of crits. Being mookslayer 3000 simply isn't especially helpful, as they are rarely what kills you.

And if your sentence includes any variant of "when using hero points", you are just making my point for me.

The blunderbuss already exists as a gun that is just automatically going to damage to everything in a small area, even on a critical miss. That is pretty wild, especially with the ability to combine it will alchemical shot to target weaknesses. From the description in the scatter blast feat, it seems like there will be scatter weapons with a 30ft cone. Guaranteed damage is already something that the gunslinger gets access to that even works on a critical failure, unlike alchemists and casters.

Outside of scattershot style weapons (which I do think would have been a cooler direction for the hand cannon), firearms that miss don't really make a lot of sense to me as doing damage anyway. Short of weapons with clips or scatter, the concept of spray and pray doesn't feel like it should really be the gun's thing. I get the impetus to want to make guns wounding in some fashion, like adding the bleed, but that is just a little too complicated (more to remember every round) and not player friendly enough (once you hit a creature, there is really no benefit to hitting them again) to be a good solution.

At first I had a very strong reaction to even trying to include crossbows in the class, but as I dug deeper, I saw that a whole lot of what people want from firearms, who are complaining about the crit fishiness of firearms, is just using this class (and gaining access to all the feats that are firearm only) but with a crossbow they can call a firearm.

For example, a hand crossbow does 1d6 as a default but would do 1d8 after being reloaded. Maybe we even get a feat that works like firearm ace but on the weapon draw so that a gunslinger can be pulling a 1d8 one-handed weapon out from the combat get go. A first level sniper with an unloaded heavy crossbow can spend 2 actions loading the weapon on the first round, and then fire a 1d12+2+1d6 ranged weapon up to 120ft, with incredible enough accuracy to have a strong chance of critting and doing just as much damage as a arquebus. Then they can switch to hand crossbows and do all the hide, running reload sneak, fire hi-jinx they want with incredible accuracy.

Demanding guns work more like crossbows instead of just doing a better job of folding crossbows into the class doesn't make sense to me.

An arquebus still does as much damage as a longbow on a hit. It is not a useless shot. And I found that I was able to fold hide in to the action routine to get 2 decent shots at the start of combat with the arquebuss before switching to a dueling pistol, getting 2 decent shots off with a sniper rifle here is an example of encounter in which I got 1 crit with the arquebus and 1 more with a dueling pistol and really felt like a hero:
A 15th level adult Umbral dragon has an AC of 37

My 13th level sniper had a +28 to hit with an +2 greater striking arquebus with a Corrosive rune and a flaming rune.
From a sniping position at the start of combat, (terrain stalker is your friend), the first shooter’s aim shot of the combat (no firearm ace), was a +30 shot vs an AC of 35.
That is 30% chance of critting for 3d12+4d6+1d6 acid damage (no extra benefit from corrosive against monsters/brutal against NPCs)+1d6 fire+1d10 persistent fire damage,
With a 30% chance to critically and a 50% chance to hit (for 3d8+2d6+1d6 acid+1d6 fire) it is definitely worth spending the action point on the 20% of the time you miss, bringing your odds of missing down to about 4% and giving you about a 50% chance of critting on that first shot in total. I did get the crit, but even if you don’t the damage wouldn’t have been a wasted turn.

Then the character hides. The dragon does a fly by and breath attack to avoid concealment. Snipers are pretty much rogues with their reflex saves.
The second round, running reload sneak and then fire with the same accuracy, losing +2d6 from one shot one kill. But gaining a +2 base damage for firearm ace that doubles to a +4 on a critical.

I have never seen a ranged fighter take incredible aim. The only one I have seen in play just wanted to triple shot all the time, which was really not that effective against more powerful monsters.

A similarly built precision ranger with a crossbow is going to be looking at a +28 vs AC 35 (using a hunted shot, which might be tricky on the first round if they also have declare their target. At the very least, they are not going to be hiding at the end of their turn, so they can’t reload and sneak for the second shot. Their damage is going to be 3d10+1d8+1d6+1d6 with just a flat doubling on a critical, which they will do half as often.
I like that the three characters all feel different, and that there is not just one obvious best choice. Except that the sniper with the crossbow’s first shot with a crossbow would be very comparable damage to the ranger’s but also much more accurate.

I'll probably try to math it out against a boss level creature, since that would be the place they'd be strongest. If I can figure out a good recommended damage on a failure that averages out to an equivalent crossbow, I'll update.

Best option seems to be "On a Failure (but not critical failure), you deal 1 point of damage per weapon die".

This is surprisingly balanced on a gunslinger against a boss. Hitting on a 12 seems to be the sweet spot; at that point you have 8 successes and 1 crit success, so lowering the damage die by 1 and adding 10 "failure" states averages out to the exact same. Lowering the success chance of course increases the value of this trait; raising the crit chance lowers it. Which would mean this is least valuable on a gunslinger, but there's ways around that, the simplest being that this is a trait of all firearms, but martial firearms continue to use the fatal trait to make them still work best with a gunslinger or fighter.

An arquebus still does as much damage as a longbow on a hit. It is not a useless shot. And I found that I was able to fold hide in to the action routine to get 2 decent shots at the start of combat with the arquebuss before switching to a dueling pistol, getting 2 decent shots off with a sniper rifle here is an example of encounter in which I got 1 crit with the arquebus and 1 more with a dueling pistol and really felt like a hero:

A 15th level adult Umbral dragon has an AC of 37 [...]

If this whole thing works for you, I really hope that this sort of thing will work for you with the finished class.

Just to be clear, I don't want to discourage you from liking it, I just don't see the appeal or the mechanical effectiveness in the current design. There is no way around it as-is, the gunslinger in general and sniper and particular are really, really swingy. Either you are borderline useless and the bloody god of the battlefield. Yes, you get the same damage on hit as a longbow, but even every attempted shot costs you 2 or 3 actions. A flurry ranger easily gets 2 to 3 shots for every single one you take, meaning you have to crit to even keep up. And it gets worse and worse the higher level you get, as fatal gets less and less effective.

So yeah, sorry, I don't think you can convince me on this. But I wish you fun and good luck, especially if you continue to play the class ^^

AnimatedPaper wrote:

I'll probably try to math it out against a boss level creature, since that would be the place they'd be strongest. If I can figure out a good recommended damage on a failure that averages out to an equivalent crossbow, I'll update.

Best option seems to be "On a Failure (but not critical failure), you deal 1 point of damage per weapon die".

This is surprisingly balanced on a gunslinger against a boss. Hitting on a 12 seems to be the sweet spot; at that point you have 8 successes and 1 crit success, so lowering the damage die by 1 and adding 10 "failure" states averages out to the exact same. Lowering the success chance of course increases the value of this trait; raising the crit chance lowers it. Which would mean this is least valuable on a gunslinger, but there's ways around that, the simplest being that this is a trait of all firearms, but martial firearms continue to use the fatal trait to make them still work best with a gunslinger or fighter.

Dealing damage on a miss to compensate for class flaws the Alchemist's thing and it feels really terrible in combat. This kind of feature for guns would only be interesting if the main class designed to work with them has their issues fixed.

So I don't really see it as misattributing the issue because I think the balance is what it is because of fatal.

I just don't see it. We can already look at other fatal weapons and make that comparison.

A greatpick vs a greatsword is one die step and versatile(p) which is basically as close to no trait as you can get.

So a non-fatal arquebus would go from d8 to d10 and pick up some largely insignificant extra feature. You've basically turned it into a crossbow with the crossbow ace feat at that point.

Reading all the complaints about damage and playability and reloading, just doing one extra point of damage on average doesn't really address any of that. Otherwise, again, the forums would be loaded with people talking about how great crossbow gunslingers are... because that's what people are asking for, crossbows.

But the thing is, crossbows also suck, so turning guns into crossbows just puts us back where we started.

We address this through access / rarity then.

Nope, you don't balance power with rarity. Rarity is very specifically not meant to be a balancing factor in PF2 and it'd be unhealthy to start treating it as such.

The Raven Black wrote:

We address this through access / rarity then.

Nope, you don't balance power with rarity. Rarity is very specifically not meant to be a balancing factor in PF2 and it'd be unhealthy to start treating it as such.

I do not wish for it either. But there must be a good reason why not everybody uses guns. More precisely there must be a good reason why people use crossbows rather than guns.

So a non-fatal arquebus would go from d8 to d10 and pick up some largely insignificant extra feature. You've basically turned it into a crossbow with the crossbow ace feat at that point.

Reading all the complaints about damage and playability and reloading, just doing one extra point of damage on average doesn't really address any of that. Otherwise, again, the forums would be loaded with people talking about how great crossbow gunslingers are... because that's what people are asking for, crossbows.

But the thing is, crossbows also suck, so turning guns into crossbows just puts us back where we started.

What you didn't account for is the drop in range from a crossbow so it's NOT just a drop in die. Either they are counting fatal differently for the gun or versatile B is worth a LOT as a -80' range is quite the hit along with the die drop. So I'm not sure I can agree with your 'it's just a die drop'.

Secondly, I agree crossbows suck which makes wanting to use a crossbow instead of guns REALLY say something. Right now, the only real reason to not just ignore guns altogether is the huge number of 'requires loaded firearm' feats in the class. IMO, the 'fatal' version is an interior crossbow [less overall damage, less range] with little to make them good unless you just happen to need B damage.

What you didn't account for is the drop in range from a crossbow so it's NOT just a drop in die. Either they are counting fatal differently for the gun or versatile B is worth a LOT as a -80' range is quite the hit along with the die drop. So I'm not sure I can agree with your 'it's just a die drop'.

I would guess they don't highly value range past a certain point. The first 60 feet or so is critical; most of the rest after that is not valueless exactly, but not as valuable, given the normal constraints of dungeons and buff spells. It would make more of a difference than versatile, to be sure, but going from 120 to 60 is less impactful than going from 60 to 20.

The first 60 feet or so is critical; most of the rest after that is not valueless exactly, but not as valuable, given the normal constraints of dungeons and buff spells

There are lots of different games and buffs: add to that that we ARE dealing with the first 60' since guns are 10'-40' for simple ones to 120': even if we limit it to 60', it's dropping 33% to 83% of that critical range JUST counting from 60'.

It would make more of a difference than versatile, to be sure, but going from 120 to 60 is less impactful than going from 60 to 20.

Sure, but it's going from 120' to 10'-40', which IMO [and seeming yours as you mention 60'-20'] is a pretty big impact when you're moving from a potential single move from the foe to multiple moves.

AnimatedPaper wrote:

The first 60 feet or so is critical; most of the rest after that is not valueless exactly, but not as valuable, given the normal constraints of dungeons and buff spells

There are lots of different games and buffs: add to that that we ARE dealing with the first 60' since guns are 10'-40' for simple ones to 120': even if we limit it to 60', it's dropping 33% to 83% of that critical range JUST counting from 60'.

AnimatedPaper wrote:

It would make more of a difference than versatile, to be sure, but going from 120 to 60 is less impactful than going from 60 to 20.

Sure, but it's going from 120' to 10'-40', which IMO [and seeming yours as you mention 60'-20'] is a pretty big impact when you're moving from a potential single move from the foe to multiple moves.

My point was that 60 is probably the break point where distance actually starts becoming valuable. So 120-60 is more flavor than anything else, but 60-40 is where the actual value is calculated.

Edit: To be even more clear, I think you are overreacting to the 80 foot drop, when it is for most practical purposes a 20' drop.

Edit: To be even more clear, I think you are overreacting to the 80 foot drop, when it is for most practical purposes a 20' drop.

As I said, that 20' loss still translates into a 33% drop in range and has a good chance of meaning the ability to move out of the 1st move of a monster and fire normally vs not being able to. As to over 60', it may be overall less impactful overall but it's something to factor in especially when you're dropping the range by 2/3rds compared compared to versatile B. I'm sure the 80' range was a factor for the Arquebus ability budget.

Hey, you know where that extra massive range really helps?

Underwater combat. Your range increment is halved. And now guns are melee weapons while bows and crossbows get to keep a healthy distance still (longbow and crossbow in particular).

As you can see in spells, there are 2 ranges that really matter in PF2 : 30ft and 60 ft.

The first is the range just beyond what most PCs can reach with a Stride (25 ft). The second is the one beyond what most PCs can reach with 2 Strides (50 ft). Anything beyond that is just gravy.

If you are 25ft away or less, the average PC can reach you and Strike twice in their round.

If you are 30 to 50ft away, they can reach you and Strike once in their round.

55 to 75ft away, they can reach you by spending all their actions Striding.

Beyond 75ft, they cannot even reach you.

Hey, you know where that extra massive range really helps?

Underwater combat. Your range increment is halved. And now guns are melee weapons while bows and crossbows get to keep a healthy distance still (longbow and crossbow in particular).

Right, it's not nothing, but the circumstances it comes up are not as frequent as other traits.

Also guns are going to be melee weapons at least some of the time anyways. Snipers are going to avoid melee as much as possible, but Pistoleros won't be useless there and Drifters will actively court it. So it's not surprising to me that their range is so much shorter, with the Arquebus excepted.

Well, except hand cannons. That should have just been a martial weapon with at least 30' range. 10' is just silly.

I don't think "underwater operability" is a very logical consideration for firearm design. Its not like any earth versions of these firearms have any underwater functionality at all. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't be upset if the firearm trait included a limitation that the weapon couldn't be used in water at all. I'd even find it entertaining if getting hit by an attack with the water trait prevented you from using a firearm for the whole next combat round, but that feels like an unnecessarily complicated rule to implement and enforce.

If there is one place on Golarion were crossbows should always be the superior weapon choice to a firearm, it is underwater.

crossbows are not that bad of weapons. Reloading them is not always worthwhile in combat and many cantrips float right around the same damage ranges, and their bulk makes them tricky to cary, even though they are very useful for low strength characters with simple weapon proficiency, so they have real trade offs already. However, a heavy crossbow can function very similarly to a focus power as a once a combat shot and be much better than many other first turn third actions. Rushing ahead into combat is almost always worse that taking cover, firing from range and getting your enemies to come to you.Even without deadly simplicity, for a character that is looking for a back up ranged weapon and is not a STR based character, a crossbow is a decent back up weapon, even for characters with access to martial ranged weapons.

It will be interesting to see if they make martial crossbows in guns and gears, and if they do, my bet is that they will just be weapons with comparable damage to simple crossbows that feature limited magazines before requiring a 2 action reload. I could be totally wrong about that though because a magazine will very much complicate the "reload" mechanic of PF2 and how feats that interact with it would handled a weapon that has a variable reload value.

It is also going to be a guns and gears book, so we might not get any additional crossbows.

Crossbows already occupy the decent back up ranged weapon for most characters. I am much more in favor of simple firearms having somewhat of a niche in being the fatal ranged weapon for making that one shot really count, rather than just have them eclipse crossbows as the best dungeon delving back up ranged weapon. The developers are not going to reduce their ranges any more than they already have been reduced, and it makes no sense to have simple one handed firearms to do 1d6 base damage or more, and get cool features.

It will be interesting to see if they make martial crossbows in guns and gears, and if they do, my bet is that they will just be weapons with comparable damage to simple crossbows that feature limited magazines before requiring a 2 action reload. I could be totally wrong about that though because a magazine will very much complicate the "reload" mechanic of PF2 and how feats that interact with it would handled a weapon that has a variable reload value.

It is also going to be a guns and gears book, so we might not get any...

I certainly hope we do. I just made a point similar to yours in a different thread, but it does make a lot of sense that slings, crossbows, and firearms all occupy different mechanical niches, with slings/crossbows being very consistent in damage each hit and firearms having their big spikes. But in order to continue that, I want crossbows, slings, and firearms to all have valid martial options as well. Your reload suggestion seems pretty promising off the cuff; another might be just getting 2 shots for 1 reload action. It would lower the value of Ace feats, but that might be alright.

I still like my idea about a bullet burn mechanic that does some damage on a failure, but I'm starting to see what you mean about people wanting firearms to be more like crossbows.

I think we'd be complaining less about the flintlocks if we had better martial guns.

The arquebus has an unreasonable number of drawbacks compared to a longbow.

The blunderbuss has better damage, but seems like it can't be fired at all beyond 15'.

The dueling pistol is... well, it's 1d6 reload 1. It has nice traits, it's 1h, but it doesn't feel like it's quite there?

I'm comfortable saying you could bump all the martial ones in the playtest a die size and none of them would be close to OP from it. Scatter I might say does double dice instead of bumping blunderbuss a size, and then just say you can shoot the thing past 15' without scatter or something?

And yeah, Hand Cannon is a joke of a gun.