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I've used all the same rolls as I did previously in this test whenever possible and resolved the rolls according to the new Gunslinger.
Human Gunslinger 6 “Roland”
Str 10
Dex 22 (17+2 racial+1 level+2 belt)
Con 14
Int 11
Wis 14
Cha 7
Feats
1 Dodge
1b Rapid Reload
3 Mobility
4b Deft Shootist (Grit)
5 Deadly Aim
Deeds
Deadeye
Gunslinger’s Dodge
Quick Clear
Gunslinger Initiative
Pistol Whip
Utility Shot
Gear (16,000)
+1 Mithral Chain Shirt (2,100)
+1 Pepperbox (3,800)
Spiked Gauntlet (305)
Cloak of Resistance +1 (1000)
Ioun Torch (75)
Belt of Dexterity +2 (4000)
Ring of Protection +1 (2000)
Scabbard of Vigor (1800)
100 loads of ammo (110)
100 Paper Cartridges (600)
21 Flare Cartridges (320)
Note: The pepperbox, ammo, and cartridges were made with the Gunsmithing feat, resulting in the reduced cost.
Miscellaneous Adventuring Gear
Init +8
AC 23
Touch 18
Flatfooted 15
CMB +0
CMD 23
Grit 2
58hp
Fort 8
Ref 12
Will 5 (7 vs Fear)
Pistol
+13/+8 d8+7
Deadly Aim
+11/+6 d8+11
CR 3 – Wight
Wight wins Initiative. Roland is angry as he’s worked very hard on a nice initiative score. Moves forward 30’ and attacks but misses (11).
Roland fires with Deadly Aim (7,15). Deals 19 and 14 damage killing the Wight.
YD’s Notes: Roland killed the Wight a round earlier this time because of Deadly Aim. Although this makes no functional difference as the Wight was unable to hit the old Roland, it’s still a nice thing.
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CR 4 – Phycomid (Bestiary 2)
Roland wins initiative. He shoots twice with Deadly Aim (8,2) and hits dealing 19 damage (20 remains). The second shot misfires
Phycomid moves forward 10’ and fires an acid pellet (13) missing Roland.
Roland Quick Clears the Pepperbox with a Grit point as a move action and shoots again with Deadly Aim (6) and hits for 15 damage (5 remains). He takes a 5’ step back.
Phycomid moves forward 10’ and an acid pellet hits (18) dealing 5 damage (53 remains).
Roland fires without Deadly Aim since the Phycomid is so shredded (18,4). Both are hits dealing 13 and 9 damage killing the plant.
YD’s Notes: The fight took the same amount of time, though Roland took less damage but only because I calculated a hit from the Phycomid wrong last time. Otherwise the fight went pretty much the same. When I misfired, I was worried, but Quick Clear lets you move on pretty much without pause. Pretty cool.
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Roland accepts a CLW from the sideline cleric for 11 hp bringing his total to 58.
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CR 5 – Large Lightning Elemental (Bestiary 2)
[Note: I have the option here of running flyby attacks every turn or attacking up close. Since Roland’s readied attacks to shoot the flying elemental will hit 95% of the time, better than the Elemental, and the fact that B2 describes these monsters are suicidally aggressive, I’ve opted for the latter approach.]
Lightning Elemental wins initiative. Moves forward 30’ and attacks (14) for a hit. Deals 6 damage (52 remain).
Roland fires twice (5,9) and hits once. Deals 14 damage after damage reduction (46 remains).
The Lightning Elemental full attacks (4,4) missing twice.
Roland fires twice (3,6) but misses like crazy.
Lightning Elemental full attacks again (12,17) for two hits. The hits deal 9 and 14 damage (29 remains).
Roland shoots (2,10) for another misfire and one hit despite the broken gun for 6 damage after DR (39 remains).
Lightning Elemental full attacks (20,12) and the crit confirms (10). The Lightning Elemental deals 30 damage. Roland can still not make it to the Dark Tower.
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Analysis Time
OK, so some stuff is good and some not so much. The pepperbox was great and I really like the Alchemical Cartridges, though I didn't get to use them this time. I might have tried a Flare Cartridge if I'd thought of it but the extra misfire chance would have just made me misfire that much earlier.
Deft Shootist is great. It's really nice not to have to worry about AoO's all the time. I liked that.
Quick Clear works great and it's the only silver lining in the horrible misfire crapstorm. I hate misfires. I hate them so much. The Gunslinger is not so amazing that his weapon needs to suck that bad. And it sucks exactly that bad.
The Gunslinger needs to be able to make attacks without constant worry that two low rolls in a row will make his gun explode. That shouldn't happen. At all. Look above to where I rolled a 3 and a 6 on a full attack. Now pretend I had used a flare cartridge. And instead of a 6 I rolled a 4. My gun just exploded. That's ridiculous. Everyone else can miss badly without their face getting filled with shrapnel. I will not be able to bring myself to play this class with misfires as written.
"But, YD," you say, "Gunslingers must have a negative to balance the fact that their weapon goes against touch AC." No, they really don't. Maybe some schmuck using a gun does, but not the Gunslinger. People will absolutely still play bow-using classes. The Ranger has access to more skills, an animal companion, favored enemy, and spells. That's better. Fighters will have Weapon Training and enough feats to make up for the better to hit chance of the Gunslinger and the damage bonus of Gun Training. And both of these classes never run the risk of their bow exploding in their face.
Later on, when more iteratives will require more reloading even with the Pepperbox (wasn't it called a pepperpot?), the use of paper cartridges will be necessary. At that point, the Pepperbox will be missfinring on fully 15% of its attacks. It will cost more because you'll use so many paper cartridges, but it's almost worth using a pistol to shave 5% off the misfire rate. In the end, the cost in ammo will probably be markedly less than the cost of replace a +3 Pepperbox.
Which brings me to a question. If I declare that I am making a full attack and the first die comes up a misfire, can I cancel the rest of the attacks? If I only shoot once because of this change, does that make it a standard action allowing me to Quick Clear the jam or does it remain a full round action?
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Other changes:
Thank you so much for adopting the suggestion that I, among others, made and giving the Gunslinger crafting ability out of the gate. The reduction in cost is excellent.
I think that there is slightly too little Grit available to the Gunslinger. Currently, I feel I always need to keep two Grit available to Quick Clear a jam and to keep one around for Deft Shootist. Just Making it 1+Wis mod would allow me to use things like Deadeye and Dead Shot with more confidence.
I'm glad to see Utility Shot earlier in the progression. While such an ability is unlikely to see use in the Arena, I can see where I might use them in normal gameplay.
Dead shot is somewhat confusing. If I have 20 Dex and use it with a +1 flaming pistol and hit twice is it 2d8+2d6+12? The bit about "extra damage from special weapon qualities (such as flaming) are added with damage modifiers and are not increased by this deed" is confusing to me. Otherwise, this is a great ability for dealing with pesky DR.
I like Targeting and do not find it to be overpowered compared to the abilities of classes typically seen as "top tier."
Lightning Reload is good to see in the normal progression of abilities but seems useless for pistol wielders as using an Alchemical cartridge with Rapid Reload is already a free action. Perhaps they ought to be able to load two barrels with this deed?
Evasive, Menacing Shot, and Slinger's Luck (I believe it should be 'Slinger's) are all great and appropriate for 15th level abilities. I think Menacing Shot should probably use Wisdom instead of Cha, though. The DC for that will be pitifully low for most Gunslingers.
It still seems that pistols are considered one handed weapons for the purposes of TWF. This makes it very difficult to use two pistols as is so common in popular culture. That's disappointing. At the very least, the coat pistol should be treated as light.
Though I am not a dev, I like how these work, you may try to map some of these out and add a little cover and different terrain types. See how this works in a more tactical environment.
I love the fact that you are using actual play-testing to come to your conclusions when so many others are making snap judgments based off of arm chair game designing.
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Though I am not a dev, I like how these work, you may try to map some of these out and add a little cover and different terrain types. See how this works in a more tactical environment.
For the more complicated fights I have used MapTools to give myself a bit more clarity but I'm not so interested in adding terrain and cover and whatnot. The arena style doesn't truly show gameplay and can't unless I spend more time controlling classes that are already core. What it does do is show potential in a vacuum, kind of a baseline. All things being equal, this is an approximation of what occurs. That's also why I disregard flatfooted for the whoever goes second. It throws off results too much in my estimation.
That said, if the Devs can't derive any value from these unless I throw in some terrain and cover, I'll give it a whirl.
I love the fact that you are using actual play-testing to come to your conclusions when so many others are making snap judgments based off of arm chair game designing.
Arm chair has its place. I'm vocal over in the Discussion board, too. But I agree, some hands on play really shows what's what.
I wonder if you could do something involving a revolver, which does not misfire. Change up your feats to Rapid Shot, Point Blank, Precise Shot, and Deadly Aim and see what the results are. Or if your are feeling even sprier, trade out Precise shot for Two Weapon Fighting and use two revolvers.
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I wonder if you could do something involving a revolver, which does not misfire. Change up your feats to Rapid Shot, Point Blank, Precise Shot, and Deadly Aim and see what the results are. Or if your are feeling even sprier, trade out Precise shot for Two Weapon Fighting and use two revolvers.
As a matter of fact when I get around to the level 11 I'll be looking at the difference between a Pepperbox and a Revolver. Stay tuned.
I don't know if I'll be doing TWF, though. I feel like the -4 penalty is too high. I'd rather be using Deadly Aim and Rapid Shot.
As you level the touch ac arc actually lowers, if i remember correctly the average touch ac of a cr 7 creature is 14 and the touch ac of a cr 14 creature is 13, while you have picked up countless to hit, hence why rays and orbs where so popular for damage dealing sorcerers in 3.5. example:
Level 11 Gunslinger, with just bab increases, twf/itwf/gtwf
pistol
+18/+13/8 d8+7
Deadly Aim
+15/+10/5 d8+13
TWF/DA/RS
9/4/-1/9 9/4/-1
this does not include any improvements to +hit on your posting, like point blank, weapon focus, item enchantment etc etc. A barbed Devil has touch ac 16, A black Dragon 10, a Cloud Giant 9. All have 10 or less in the first round if you beat them in initiative. Give yourself a measly +4 more to hit (+1 more weapon, point blank, +2 more dex, weapon focus) and you are hitting a barbed devil on rolls of 2/7/12/2 2/7/12, hardly terrifying numbers. Of course the next round you're getting into reload land territory, just change gun hands and only fire twice with your offhand and don't use rapid shot, 3rd round reload some (if your target survives)
Thats just how I see it, to hit decreases in usefulness in later levels when making touch attacks, fiddle around see how it turns out. :)
since no one else has brought it up quite yet, when you attack, it only becomes a full-attack action after the first attack, you can make your first attack and then decide to stop attacking to do something else (like 5 foot step back and pull out a potion).
so yes, if you misfire your first attack and you can fix it instead of risking an explode-o-gun flavoured breath mint.
Also:
Dev's are you able to derive any value from these Arena style playtests? Is there anything I could change to increase their value? Any feedback would be useful to me.
In a word, yes. Please keep on keeping on.
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In a word, yes. Please keep on keeping on.Also:
Dev's are you able to derive any value from these Arena style playtests? Is there anything I could change to increase their value? Any feedback would be useful to me.
Great. Just what I like to hear. Level 11 will be posted tonight and will include some pepperpot vs revolver analysis.