First I like to say I love this class idea and the feel of it. That being said, there are some issues. I want to be honest as well, I did find a few ways around these, or some of these, issues without changing the class features presented. That being said it was done with a change to the feat progression. The playtest I used this for was a one shot ran at lvl 3 a friend of mine ran. It was a custom and rather interesting dungeon crawl made by my friend the DM, all of which he said were balanced to our level, supposedly. He likes to heavy hand us some times. We saw orcs and ogres. A lot of the first, a few of the second. The orcs went down in one shot a few times. The ogres almost killed me. The rest of the group consisted of an oracle, a barbarian, a rogue, and a sorcerer. I did not except any buffs during the play test because I wanted to see how the gunslinger did on his own.
First and for most I found my gunslinger is feat starved at lower levels. We're talking a ranged class here that already requires point blank and precise shot to hit into melee. Rapid reload is a great feat to get, and then you have things like far shot and extra grit. And then of course, because its fun, quick draw. And the grit feats are great to have but then again there also hard to get.
So Feats. A suggestion, and what I ended up asking the DM to let me do after we went through playing with the gunslinger for the first battle of his one shot, was give it a fighter or Monk Bonus feat progression. The DM went with Monk feat progression, it meant pretty much the same at later levels but gave the earlier levels the feats it needs. Otherwise I could probably make a fighter and using all those extra feats take the proficiency and amateur grit for the same general style of fighting with a character that lacks the flavor I was looking for. You have other classes with a lot of options for a class feature, but with the gunslinger your main focus seems to be the deeds. It ends up lacking else where. Fighter offers Weapon Spec and Weapon focus as feats for the class. Maybe give one or two feats like that. Weapon focus isn't really needed with the touch attack, but weapon spec adds to the damage, which brings me to my next issue.
Damage. I hit 9/10 shots. I love that it hits with touch attacks. But I was a musket person. I thought about going pistol but darn it all I wanted a big musket. With Rapid reload, I made a human and was able to get that with the other two feats of precise and point blank shot, I could on average take a shot every other round. (As a side note With the Monk feat progression I went with lightning reload and Signature deed instead which fixed the issue.) With a weapon that can't get any extra damage except by leveling to 5 or getting magic, this meant that 1d12 isn't very good. This is solved by the grit Feet Lightning Reload, but that brings me back to the last issue of not having enough feats.
The next issue I ran into is the lack of grit. Okay, so I finally got the feat, but because everything about this class relies on dex for damage and to hit (which would allow me to take deadly aim as another source of damage if I had more feats) that's where my points for stats went. I had 2 grit a day. Solved by a few more feats I can't take. Asked my DM to let me instead have more grit, using other class features as a base. He let me have 3 + wisdom mod. This let Extra grit be more of an option then a necessity. Still, having my damage limited though when I run out, but then we get to regaining grit. I, personally, think the lack of more starting grit was due to the fact that we are supposed to be able to gain back grit. That is an awesome idea that is not nearly as useful the way it shows up. I would be happy with 2 grit if it meant at least once a day I could do something awesome to earn them back. But the options presented don't give me a once day chance, they give me a once a game chance. Which could encompass days.
Next is the cost, or rather a high cost and no way to circumvent it, of the weapons. I get that its supposed to be rare, hard to find, and valuable but some people do play campaigns where a person can lose a weapon and never see it again. Perhaps a rare occurrence, perhaps not. And built into the weapon is the chance to lose it. My musket user had a 10% chance of losing his gun every time he fired. Give the gunslinger an way to fix the gun. I had of course put points into Craft(firearm). To be fair it only got the broken condition once. It was when i tried it at level 3 and with my +3 from class skill All i need to roll was a 6, a 70% chance of success. But the cost is horrible.
This brings me to another issue. With 1/4 half my points invested in craft just so I could keep my weapon up and running, 1/3 not counting the human skill points, I am left with that much less to put in other skills. More skill points would be nice. Now granted the class does tell me this is an alternate class for fighter but wouldn't it make sense for a class that's described in the description and daring, how am I supposed to make those dramatic jumps, climbs, or swings with so little skill points. And shouldn't a class that uses ranged weaponry to have perception as a class skill so they could see their enemy? Suggestion, add perception to their class skills.
Now I'd like to say what I liked about this class. The deeds, almost all of them, I loved. I didn't get to use much of them but just reading them I couldn't wait to see them in use in a game someday. I do think the class is a little too focused on them. The deed feats are awesome, if hard to get presently. I love the feel of the class and with the fixes the DM let me have would play this class often. I hope to see an official version of this from you guys, cause only 1 of my DM's lets any kind of homebrew in, even if its fixing a playtesting class.
I didn't actually realize the signature grits prerequisites were level 11, and I guess my DM didn't either. Which then raises the issue of reloading time. For a weapon that's doing less damage per hit thanks to lack of modifiers bonuses till level 5 that's pretty bad, and even then its not the best. In all, taking that into account, I don't think this class is a viable damage class. 1 shot every other round until you can take the feat. I would still love to play it, but changing a feat prerequisite would probably be to far even for that one DM I played this class with, and otherwise I can't do any kind of real damage. It doesn't matter that I can hit with touch attacks from 40 feet away if all I'm doing is a 1d12+4 (maybe 5 if I'm lucky enough when rolling). I could take another feat to add more damage. Deadly Aim would be great, but then we get to the lack of feats issue.
And I still can't find where it lets you fix the weapon by spending a grit, but then your left with the lack of grit issue again, though I do like that option.
Also, fighters are given weapon specialization and weapon focus. Even zen archer's get them. And Zen archer also gets point blank mastery. Do you know how awesome pointblank mastery would be for someone dual wielding pistols? The zen archer can also make AoO's with a bow at higher levels.
That is very helpful. Perhaps If could edit the post, which I can't for some reason, I could correct the spelling mistakes.
I already went over that in the main post. If your lucky, you'll restore 1 grit a day. And if your unlucky you'll die trying to do something awesome and failing.
I am not so sure that extra feats is a good idea. One of the things that grants balace to a touch attack/high damage ranged attack is that it does have that every other round loading time. If you want to be faster, then burn your feats to do it. It is also realistic; muskets were slow weapons.
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I am not so sure that extra feats is a good idea. One of the things that grants balace to a touch attack/high damage ranged attack is that it does have that every other round loading time. If you want to be faster, then burn your feats to do it. It is also realistic; muskets were slow weapons.
First and for most I found my gunslinger is feat starved at lower levels.
To be honest, from what I can see, the proper statement should be: First and for most I found my gunslinger is feat starved.
Compared to a Fighter/Archer, the Gunslinger doesn't hit any better, since he is going to be taking -4 to -8 to hit after the first round, and only having a small chance in the first round of not having to take those penalties, anyhow.
1d12 is not "high damage", except, possibly, at very low level.
Gunslnger, 20 Dex, Point Blank Shot, Rapid Reload: +7 touch, 1d12+1 within 30', 1 shot/2 rounds (7-8 points average damage per hit, rare spikes to 24-28 points, maxed crit of 52 points)
Fighter/Archer, 18 Dex, 16 Str, MW composite Str longbow, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Deadly Aim: +5 AC, 1d8+6 within 30', 1 shot per round (10-11 points average damage per hit, rare spikes to 30-33 points, maxed crit of 42 points)
Barbarian, 18 Str, MW Greataxe, Power Attack, Cleave, Rage: +7 AC, 1d12+12, 1-2 attacks per round (18-19 points average damage per hit, rare spikes to 54-57 points, maxed crit of 72 points)
Even if the Gunslinger has a better chance of hitting, which is arguable, he is not going to be getting as many attacks as standard (not as fully optimized!) builds that can do more average damage per hit.
A 50% chance of success doesn't mean a 50% chance of dying. Be more creative.
Why don't you give an example of when you get grit without danger by that type of task.
I am not so sure that extra feats is a good idea. One of the things that grants balace to a touch attack/high damage ranged attack is that it does have that every other round loading time. If you want to be faster, then burn your feats to do it. It is also realistic; muskets were slow weapons.First and for most I found my gunslinger is feat starved at lower levels.To be honest, from what I can see, the proper statement should be: First and for most I found my gunslinger is feat starved.
Compared to a Fighter/Archer, the Gunslinger doesn't hit any better, since he is going to be taking -4 to -8 to hit after the first round, and only having a small chance in the first round of not having to take those penalties, anyhow.
What? Why?
1d12 is not "high damage", except, possibly, at very low level.
Gunslnger, 20 Dex, Point Blank Shot, Rapid Reload: +7 touch, 1d12+1 within 30', 1 shot/2 rounds (7-8 points average damage per hit, rare spikes to 24-28 points, maxed crit of 52 points)
Fighter/Archer, 18 Dex, 16 Str, MW composite Str longbow, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Deadly Aim: +5 AC, 1d8+6 within 30', 1 shot per round (10-11 points average damage per hit, rare spikes to 30-33 points, maxed crit of 42 points)
Barbarian, 18 Str, MW Greataxe, Power Attack, Cleave, Rage: +7 AC, 1d12+12, 1-2 attacks per round (18-19 points average damage per hit, rare spikes to 54-57 points, maxed crit of 72 points)
Even if the Gunslinger has a better chance of hitting, which is arguable, he is not going to be getting as many attacks as standard (not as fully optimized!) builds that can do more average damage per hit.
If your looking at optimized damage builds for an Archer then your missing Rapid shot. Impossible to do with gunslinger, extremely useful for archers.
Also, Deadly Aim cannot be taken for use on guns. Deadly Aim cannot be used on touch attacks, and the devs have specifically called out that firearms are unusable with Deadly Aim.
Also, yes, a few other classes are given Weapon Spec for free. However, no other class other than a fighter will qualify Greater Weapon Spec/Focus. That means that a gunslinger has that over a Zen Archer (but almost nothing else).
For the first part, its ridiculous. Ranged damage is damage starved. Its why the feat exists.
Second part, I read this and thought, you know what we be better? A Zen Archer build, get rid of all the crappy deeds, leave some of the cooler ones to make up for losing flurry of blows, lose the basic monk features like wisdom to AC and fast movement, replace ki with grit and Perfect Strike with rapid reload and you have a Gunslinger that works. Not only works well, but works well enough for me to think about simply ignoring the gunslinger they have here and trying to propose that to the DM. Oh, with deadly aim as an option, since damage will suck horribly. As for great weapon Spec, woop de do. It can be useful, but its usually just another feat. Which brings you back to being feat starved.
I am not so sure that extra feats is a good idea. One of the things that grants balace to a touch attack/high damage ranged attack is that it does have that every other round loading time. If you want to be faster, then burn your feats to do it. It is also realistic; muskets were slow weapons.
Yeah, I can understand that. But Paizo has shown themselves willing to give up a little realism for balance. The way it is, the gunslinger is an awesome idea that mechanically not only falls short but falls so far down that its considered lacking in every since of the word.
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What? Why?I am not so sure that extra feats is a good idea. One of the things that grants balace to a touch attack/high damage ranged attack is that it does have that every other round loading time. If you want to be faster, then burn your feats to do it. It is also realistic; muskets were slow weapons.First and for most I found my gunslinger is feat starved at lower levels.To be honest, from what I can see, the proper statement should be: First and for most I found my gunslinger is feat starved.
Compared to a Fighter/Archer, the Gunslinger doesn't hit any better, since he is going to be taking -4 to -8 to hit after the first round, and only having a small chance in the first round of not having to take those penalties, anyhow.
Well, as feat-starved as the Gunslinger is, especially at low levels, he is probably NOT going to be able to afford the Point Blank Shot/Precise Shot feat tree right away, so -4 for firing into melee, and/or another -4 for firing through cover. In the first round, he has a chance, if he can act early enough, not to have the to-hit penalty, but in later rounds, his allies are likely to include at least one melee build getting up close and personal.
And then, at level 11, teh Gunslinger has to make a choice between Signature Deed (pretty much essential) or Improved Precise Shot (if he has the feat prerequisites), so one of them will be delayed, if he even qualifies for IPS.
I have a Gunslinger build, human, and, in order to have him able to attack as often as (I think) he should, I had to spend his first two feats on Rapid Reload and Lightning Reload Deed. Even with that, he is only going to be able to fire every round for a limited amount of time, since he only has 3 grit, and, at low level, there is a significant chance that he won't have used any grit before he makes his first attack, so if he gets a good damage roll, that wastes one of his grit-regaining options for the day. :(