I did not work in magic weapons, but the disadvantage for the Gunslinger is that you'll be farther behind on your gold due to the high cost of just getting his weapon into a masterwork, along with having to pay for expensive ammunition.
It also has to be noted that the rate of fire of the gunslinger is incredibly limited. The average combat lasts about 5 rounds. Rapid shotting characters can potentially put out 10 shots per combat for most of their low level career. The Gunslinger however is limited in being able to just fire a single shot per round by his grit pool. If the Gunslinger has a Wisdom of 14 then he can get two shots of successively with his musket in one combat during the whole day and then he's tapped unless he can generate more grit. So in a grit fueled combat he could get off 4 shots. Without grit it goes down to 3 shots in a five round combat.
So you're looking at the Archer and Crossbowman outputting 10 shots per combat, and the Gunslinger outputting 3 or 4 shots per combat. Those numbers do assume that the Archer and Crossbowman are standing still or just 5-foot stepping, whereas the Gunslinger does have some more mobility due to not performing full attacks. So the Gunslinger does have more mobility in the comparison.
The Gunslinger is also getting touch attacks with his gun within 40 feet, so there is a variable amount of bonus to hit. However, the Gunslinger, starved for feats, does not have in this comparison Precise Shot, and with most of the party in melee it's very likely that he will be suffering from -4 due to firing into melee. Due to the wide range of AC bonuses, it is hard to pin down how much the touch attack is worth on average, but a good point of that advantage might be lost due to the lack of Precise Shot.
CalebTGordan
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
I need to look at this more before I make any real comment on if I agree/disagree and how to fix the issue.
I wanted to post that this reminds me of a few paragraphs in a book about the Mayflower that spoke about guns vs. bows. In just about every way the bow out performed the guns of the time. I need to find that book and the passage that discussed this and gave the reason why the Native Americans picked the gun over the bow.
Needless to say, I am not surprised that archers do better.
So as we cannot count on deadly aim being allowed for purposes of this play-test the rifleman gets an average 11.5 (before crit)damage per shot and maybe 3 shots in 5 rounds (with a grit expenditure) to the 15 ish shots of the archer or crossbowman who average 11.5 or more average damage per shot. And the archer/bowmans ammunition cost per 5 rounds of combat is a fraction of what it costs the gunner?
They basically need to scrap the whole guns part, and make this a specialized crossbow wielding class. I love the Grit system and the fact it encourages you to be a swashbuckler with an actual in game mechanic that will make you do awesome cool matrix-moves, but the economic system guns will create and the firing per round situation just KILLS this class's functionality.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
