Mok
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The other day I suddenly got an opportunity to play Plathfinder and I had just heard about the Gunslinger. With little time before the game was going to begin I downloaded the playtest document, dumped it on the iPad, printed out a character sheet and ran out the door.
I just scanned the rules, so that itself isn't going to make the playtest all that helpful. Because there was little time to get ready before the game I just quickly settled on a character to make sure I didn't interrupt play.
Race: Human, I only assumed I'd need feats galore
Stats: Str 10, Dex 18, Con 12, Int 8, Wis 17 (+2), Cha 7
So in determining what to take for feats, basically I just saw the picture of the lady with the two pistols in hand and thought, “you must be able to do two weapon fighting with these guys” and took that. The other was rapid reload, just because I assumed it was needed and was highlighted in the rules.
It was a PFS game, and we played Scenario 37: The Beggar's Pearl.
WARNING: Possible spoilers below for this module.
We had seven players so there was heaps of downtime that allowed me to look things over while we played. Combat was also VERY easy with that number of players.
The first encounter I had yet to read the rules closely, so I just assumed the TWF would work. We fought some Mites. I unloaded both pistols at once, just taking the -2 TWF penalty because I had yet to understand that this wasn't going to work.
Rnd 1: Because I rolled my initiative low other PCs were already in the way so penalties started to stack up. I don't know how much the touch AC with these Mites helped. I hit with one shot and caused 5 damage.
Rnd 2: This is where having a chance to read the rules would have helped. I didn't realize that the pistols could be reloaded as a move action, I was too busy just trying to get up to speed overall, and so out of expedience I just said I was reloading ONE pistol.
Rnd 3: At this point we were in mop up mode and I just reloaded the other pistol.
Encounter 2
More Mites, this time surprising some of the party.
Rnd 1: First round it lucked out that I had a clean shot. At this point I had realized that TWF doesn't work. So I just fired one pistol, rolled maximum damage and dropped a Mite. I would have gotten a grit point if I was low.
Rnd 2: I was firing into melee at this point. I moved to try and avoid cover, but PCs were piling in to take on the Mites. I fired the second pistol and rolled a 1, giving a misfire (Wheee!)
Encounter 3
Fighting a crazed Derro and his Orc buddy.
The Derro dumped darkness all around him and his Orc. Sigh... darkness always makes things take longer. Some players moved in, others were being very tentative, scared of the darkness and its implications.
Rnd 1: With playtest mechanics on my mind, I was being very gamist this session. I knew exactly what darkness means mechanically. I just charged into the rool at full speed. Fortunately the gunslinger comes with acrobatics, and with the high Dex I easily made my roll to go at full move. I moved up so I had a clear shot before melee began and fired... missed!
Rnd 2: Some players are going after the Orc now, the room is filling up. I moved again to now take care of someone standing in my way. I hit on the dwarf!
Rnd 3: At this point the whole reload thing is getting annoying to me. I just drop my two pistols on the ground and pull out my light crossbow. With the rapid reload I can pull it out and fire it all in one round. The Orc has gone down and now people are starting to crowd around the Dwarf. I fire and miss, not surprisingly because I'm at -8 to hit with melee and cover against my roll.
Rnd 4: Now that I've discarded my pistols I can move, load and fire in the same round and do the same damage as the pistol. I'm not seeing the draw of firearms at this point. I reposition myself to get rid of cover and fire at the Dwarf... miss!
Rnd 5: Even with seven players, too many are being tentative with the darkness, and because of miss chance, too many of the veteran players are simply missing. I finally decide to just march forward and put myself adjacent to the dwarf. If I didn't then I'd have a cover penalty with the crowd gathering around the Dwarf. Other players gravely warn me of the overblown Attack of Opportunity. I say, “bring it on!” and it is brought on me. I get hit, but being in back I was still fine. I also at this point didn't really care if I'd die because I wasn't really enjoying the Gunslinger rules as they stand.
I fired, rolled a 1... miss! But no misfire! Ahhh...
Our NPC ally then took out the Dwarf.
Encounter 5
Dancing Evil Elves
Rnd 1: I'm not really sure what was going on here. But after a surreal dancing spectacle a crazy elf woman started attacking us. I quickly move up to get my one clear shot at her before melee ensued and all those penalties started stacking up. Fired a pistol and hit for maximum damage!
Rnd 2: She didn't care for getting shot, so she came over and wacked me. I also got some sickened effect dumped on me. In the end I was at 1 hit point. With acrobatics, so far the best part of the gunslinger, I rolled away from her and then took a clear shot at her, but rolled poorly and missed.
After this it was a pile on with so many PCs and she was taken out.
After game thoughts:
I've been offering up various suggestions already in the discussion forum, but in terms of my actual playtest experience one of the key things that stood out to me was the the grit and deeds just didn't really amount to anything for me.
Ultimately, I found the current ruleset kinda... boring. The slow rate of fire, the misfire that just slows you down even further, the lack of interesting deeds to perform at low level. It added up to not either feeling powerful and effective, or flexible and adaptable.
POWER GAMING PERSPECTIVE
In terms of power and effectiveness, I kept comparing it to just playing a standard archer using a fighter. At level one I could get point blank shot, precise shot and rapid shot and then just plink away. I was looking over the Gunslinger and it would take till 11th level or so before I could gather together all of the necessary feats you normally need to overcome the hurdles of ranged attacks. While the deeds help here and there, your pool is so anemic that you just can't keep up with a fighter archer who just keeps building up his machinegun nest of full attack power.
I could have had better feat selection. If I had more time to look over the rules then I'd probably have taken rapid reload and lighting reload. At least at that point I would have been able to use my grit for something, though it would have quickly been tapped out, so it wouldn't have really solved the problem.
And even if I had taken that set of feats, I'd still have had the problem of often finding myself with a -8 penalty to hit due to intervening cover and shooting into melee. So you're stuck with either starting out as a human and being able to reload quickly, or taking point blank shot and precise shot and upping up your chance to hit.
Meanwhile the archer gets it all, quick reload, precise shot, and able to fire quickly with rapid reload. Plus he could get a composite bow and do even more damage than pistols, and maybe muskets.
PERCEPTION
Another element that kept getting noticed was the lack of perception as a class skill. The gunslinger really does need to be able to get off a good opening shot, because with the huge jumble of feats required to make the character work, you really need to make that opening round work for you. So perception is a must to at least avoid surprise rounds. Plus, thematically, someone who is trained at ranged attacks ought to be hyper sensitive to their surroundings. I made plenty of perception checks in the game, and while my wisdom helped, I didn't bother putting a rank in perception because it wasn't a class skill.
GRIT and DEEDS
I like the idea of deeds and grit. But right now they just don't do anything exciting. Other posters have done a great job breaking all of that down, so I won't get into it, but having interesting and fun things to do right from level 1 is something I'd like to see. There were many deeds that I thought didn't really need to be unlocked at such high levels. Having them at lower levels, or even level one, wouldn't have done anything to upset the balance of the game.
CONCLUSION
I really like the idea of guns as a option in a fantasy game, so I do appreciate the Gunslinger as a way to anchor their option in campaigns. However there are a lot of work that needs to be done for the pieces to fit together well and have a vision of how guns ought to be distinguishable.
I personally like the touch AC approach. It takes the existing rules and uses them to give a thematic effect that distinguishes firearms from other. However I'm not seeing that ability as being so much better to justify misfires. Misfires simply aren't a fun or heroic experience to have. It just slows you down, drags things out and only seems to satisfy some historical desire for simulation, or to just have a bunch of chaos happen.
If those elements are set in stone, then where the change can occur is with the Gunslinger itself and how it uses firearms. If he can pick up a gun and it just works effectively without a huge number of resources getting poured into each overcoming each hurdle, then I think the class will be much better.
I'd applaud having the gunslinger function differently from the fighter archer. I don't want another character who's primary optimized way of fighting is to stand still and full attack as much as possible. I'd love to see the class be very mobile. Embedding the Shot on the Run feat into the class, and making pistols light weapons, would really help make the class be able to dance around the battlefield and deliver short burst of high damage potential. That would make them stand out from other classes mechanically.
I would want to see a good mix of “always on” abilities and limited resources abilities. If everything costs grit then it just becomes too much like a spellcaster. Some stuff just needs to make him be awesome, simply because he is awesome.
| Stephen Radney-MacFarland Senior Designer |
Nice write up and summary of what you like about the class and what you don't like about the class.
And like I said before, the commentary on deeds are well taken. We will be taking a look at the deeds and inject them with more fun.
That's why we do playtests.
Thanks again!