Last night I ran a playtest with a few friends online via skype, and some jerry rigged map and rolling tools (mostly done with irc script).
There were 4 party members a dwarven gunslinger (using a musket), a dwarven cleric (battle cleric), an elven rogue (finesse and currently using only a single short sword) and a human fighter (2handed combat with power attack and cleave). I controlled the cleric as a dmpc, and 3 players controlled the other characters.
character creation: We rolled 4d6 drop the lowest for stats, and we rolled for starting gold. For the gunslinger we used the highest current total (5d6x10)
The gunslinger: Her stats after modifiers were as followed:
Str 12
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 19
Wis 16
Cha 7
Her first level feat was point blank shot.
For gear she rolled a 15 therefore starting with 150 gp for gear. This was a problem right from the beggining. I was not allowing crafting prior to the start of the game so after she bought armor(studded leather), a melee weapon and basica adventuring gear, she had enough money left over for 6 normal shots and 3 paper cartridges. 9 shots.
She also took survival and perception as her first level skills and a hp as favored class bonus (for a total of 13hp at first level)
Setup:
The scneario was the party had heard of a group of farms being harrassed about a days travel away from their current town being harassed by a group of goblins. The party decided to track down the goblin lair and deal with them.
Play:
To start off with the gunslinger's player was pleased. She had a good perception and suvival so she lead the party through the wilderness in search of the goblin lair.
First encounter:
On the way they encountered a group of hungry wolves that failed to ambush them due to the gunslingers keen senses. This fight was rather quick. The gunslinger went first firing a shot and wounding one of the wolves. The 2handed fighter then moved up and cleaved, killing both of them with good damage roles.
As they got closer to the area around the farmsteads, they discovered sets of tracks. The gunslinger with a good survival check the gunslinger identified them as humanoid footprints likely goblin and the party decided to follow them leading away from the farmsteads.
Second encounter: Goblin patrol (3 goblins)
On their way they encountered a group of goblins apparently out on patrol (the party was near to the cave where the goblins made their lair).
The rogue went first here, moving up and killing one of the goblins with a sneak attack. The goblins went next both attacking the rogue, trying to flank him. The fighter then went and lent support to the rogue (essentially greating a 4 person flank chain). The gunslinger went next firing and killing one of the goblins, there was a cheer as she thought she gained a grit, but as she had not used one yet this day, she was already at her maximum. On a series of bad attack rolls the cleric, rogue, remaining goblin and fighter all missed their next attacks for the next 2 turns. The gunslinger reloaded and then on the second turn fired, and the looming threat struck, a roll of a 2, a misfire. She decided to spend a grit point to quick clear the jam with her move action. The cleric then hit and killed the last goblin.
Shortly after this encounter they located the entrance to the lair, they watched another goblin patrol leave they lair, and then carefully made their way inside.
3rd encounter:
Inside they ran into a pair of goblins and their pet goblin dog playing a game of dice. Upon seeing the adventurers they grabed their weapons and attacked.
The goblins went first attacking the fighter and rogue wounding them. Then the fighter went, 5ft stepping past the goblins and cleaved attacking the goblin dog, wounding it but not killing it and killing one of the goblins. Then the dog went attacking the fighter and further injured the fighter. The gunslinger then shot at the remaining goblin but missed due to the penalty for firing into combat. The rogue went and slightly wounded the remaining goblin. The cleric went and healed the fighter with cure light wounds as he was badly injured.
He also made a heal check to determine the degree of injury of their opponents (we normally allow this as a free action to determin injured, badly injured or near death) the golbin was injured and the goblin dog was near death. What happened next infuriated me in 2 ways. First the cleric told the fighter to attack the goblin instead of the dog and leave the dog for the gunslinger to kill so she can get back a grit. This kind of metagaming didnt make me happy, but then the gunslinger player said dont bother, indicating she didnt feel it mattered. Neither of these two revelations made me happy with the existing grit mechanics.
The combat lasted 2 more rounds with the gunslinger fired another shot but failed to hit, the fighter and rogue flanked and finished off the remaining foes.
4th encounter:
Further into the lair the party ran into 2 giant spiders. In this combat the fighter decided to fire one shot and then realizing she only had 3 rounds left drew her melee weapon and used that instead. The fight took a while and was difficult, but eventually the party killed the two spiders.
At this point they took stock, they had found 2 cure light potions so they were able to heal up fairly well, but the gunslinger only had 3 rounds left 2 paper cartridges and 1 regular shot. This was obviously a concern as they had no idea how much was left between them and the presumed goblin leader. She wasnt useless with her axe (her backup melee weapon) but its not really fun to be a glorified warrior.
5th encounter: this was the final fight, against the goblin leader, a cavalier on a goblin dog mount with a goblin cleric and 2 regular goblins.
This was a rather difficult fight for the party, by the end of it both the rogue and the fighter were unconcious, and the gunslinger was completely out of ammo, it was actually the cleric that finished off the goblin cleric (who was the last remaining enemy). The cleric revived their allies, gathered up what they could find including the head of the goblin leader and set the rest to fire, hoping to drive off any additional goblins in the area they hadnt dealth with.
Impressions: It sucks to play a low level gunslinger, particularly from level 1. If you are not permitted to craft prior to the start of the adventure (which many dms do not allow) you will be VERY short of ammunition. The gunslinger player was still not pleased with attacking every other round. There are options to improve this but they dont come into play until later levels when you can afford more alchemical cartridges and have the feats to take rapid reload (as well as the lightning reload deed). This is a major problem and in no way worth it. The standard firearms (pistol and musket) are just plain poor at low levels.
I dont like grit and deeds as they stand. The mechanic is poor. Low starting value makes players want to hoard it, and thus miss out on recovering it, it also encourages the WORST kind of metagaming (hence the example where the cleric thought to have the fighter not finish off an opponent but let the gunslinger do it to gain back the grit). But whats worse is the player didnt even care to do it. At low levels the only worthwhile thing to do with grit most of the time is to clear jams. It is not until level 3 that grit is even remotely interesting. For the defining feature of the class (cuz it certainly isnt using crummy guns) that is a major problem in my opinion.
I dont like guns as they stand. Seriously, I REALLY dont like the gun rules, particularly at low levels. There is a huge investment required for them to just be slightly worse then crossbows. Misfires counter the good crit multiplier and untill you invest a feat, get deeds and get expensive alchemical cartridges, you are still firing every other turn. There is nothing more depressing then a player stating their turn is, 'i load my gun' and moving on. Does it get better at around level 7? Yes, but that doesnt help 1-6. Also, at low levels, touch AC doesnt make much of a difference, the main 'advantage' of firearms means very very little at low levels. All but the final boss had touch ACs within 1 or 2 of their normal AC. For all the trouble, it just isnt worth it at low levels.
About the meta gaming, thats not the mechanics fault, its your fault for letting your players know how much health the enemies had.
Reloading, its as simple as you need to choose whether or not you want to reload faster, or do more damage at level 1, your player choosing point bland shot over rapid reload means they would rather do more damage every other turn than attack each turn.
I do agree their isn't much special to do with grit at first level other than increase touch ac range (which is similar to normal ac at low levels as you mentioned.) or clear your gun, its kind of lame that you need to use your first level ability to fix your weapon.
The added skills seemed to give your player some more stuff to do, which is why I feel gunslingers should get more Skill points at first level.
Also, I agree that gun ammo is to expensive, and the crafting at first level thing changes from DM to DM so the only logical thing is to make ammo cheaper for gunslingers, But other than expensive ammo I like the gun rules they are unique options compared to crossbows and Bows.
Im glad that you decided to run a Test with a level one gunslinger, I think we do need some other playtests with low level gunslingers in actual play to have a good idea of what needs changed.
About the meta gaming, thats not the mechanics fault, its your fault for letting your players know how much health the enemies had.
I disagree, it is not outrageous to allow your players to have some means of determining how wounded an enemy is. I have seen it across several groups. And the mechanic that rewards delivering the kill shot (as opposed to simply doing damage) encourages players to try to 'kill steal' or set up kills. It brings the mechanic to the forfront of thinking. A gunslinger could simply attack easy to kill mooks instead of the big bad for the hope of getting kills. I dont like that grit encourages this kind of behavior.
Reloading, its as simple as you need to choose whether or not you want to reload faster, or do more damage at level 1, your player choosing point bland shot over rapid reload means they would rather do more damage every other turn than attack each turn.
Actually she thought about it, but she wanted to use a musket instead of a pistol, and rapid reload wouldn't have done alot of good, it still would have been a standard action with rapid reload, which doesnt help very much.
I do agree their isn't much special to do with grit at first level other than increase touch ac range (which is similar to normal ac at low levels as you mentioned.) or clear your gun, its kind of lame that you need to use your first level ability to fix your weapon.
Indeed, I feel like alot of the gunslinger 'class abilities' are simply there to help overcome the inherent problems with firearms, and there is very little that actually adds to what the gunslinger can do in the first few levels.
The added skills seemed to give your player some more stuff to do, which is why I feel gunslingers should get more Skill points at first level.
More skill points and the utility deeds at first level should be a given. There isnt anything unbalanced about having blast lock or scoot at level 1, give the gunslinger some interesting things to do if they arent going to be able to do significant damage. Perhaps scaled down versions of targeting (daze is a cantrip, why cant the gunslinger have a 1st level deed that does something similar for a save?).
Also, I agree that gun ammo is to expensive, and the crafting at first level thing changes from DM to DM so the only logical thing is to make ammo cheaper for gunslingers, But other than expensive ammo I like the gun rules they are unique options compared to crossbows and Bows.
Guns are too far outside the norm to be managable. Unlike any other weapon guns are not plug and play. Even if you dont care about firearms in a fantasy setting, you cant just say, ok you have firearms, you have to provide amunition as treasure or make them commonplace to even make the gunslinger playable at low levels. I am really disappointed that firearms in general were never playtested. The fact that the class is now handcuffed to sub par firearms rules is more then half of its problem.
Im glad that you decided to run a Test with a level one gunslinger, I think we do need some other playtests with low level gunslingers in actual play to have a good idea of what needs changed.
I think at around level 7 the gunslinger starts to work, he has the wealth (and hopefully crafting time) to only use alchemical cartridges and will have a few feats under his belt to make shooting descent. And ofcourse the targeted shots are quite interesting (though with the heavy limits on grit who knows how that will actually play out at the table once saves are added to them). It may not be optimal by any means, but it least it has the chance of being fun to play. Prior to level 7(maybe 5) I feel like the class isn't even worth looking at without heavy revision.
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The gunslinger: Her stats after modifiers were as followed:
Str 12
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 19
Wis 16
Cha 7
First off, how'd a Dwarf get Int 19? And why isn't that stat in Dex? Or do you mean a 10? In which case the player rolled rather poorly, which is almost certainly part of the problem. Would you be suprised if a Rogue with those stats failed to do well? Because Gunslinger is almost as Dex focused as being a Rogue.
Her first level feat was point blank shot.
A mistake, and a bad one. Rapid Reload isn't needed for a pistol user (if they get alchemical cartridges), but is kinda necessary for a musket-user...much like it is for someone who uses a Heavy Crossbow.
For gear she rolled a 15 therefore starting with 150 gp for gear. This was a problem right from the beggining. I was not allowing crafting prior to the start of the game so after she bought armor(studded leather), a melee weapon and basica adventuring gear, she had enough money left over for 6 normal shots and 3 paper cartridges. 9 shots.
Okay, this is kinda mean to the gunslinger, but an understandable rule in general. Maybe they should specify gunslingers starting with 10 or 20 shots to go with their free gun. Only a problem for their very first adventure, though. And not even that if the PCs take a day or so off for them to do some crafting.
She also took survival and perception as her first level skills and a hp as favored class bonus (for a total of 13hp at first level)
Workable, but every Gunslinger should get 1 rank of Craft (Alchemy) as quick as they can, so as to make cartridges. Which are really cool. I'd definitely skip the HP at 1st level for it.
Impressions: It sucks to play a low level gunslinger, particularly from level 1. If you are not permitted to craft prior to the start of the adventure (which many dms do not allow) you will be VERY short of ammunition. The gunslinger player was still not pleased with attacking every other round. There are options to improve this but they dont come into play until later levels when you can afford more alchemical cartridges and have the feats to take rapid reload (as well as the lightning reload deed). This is a major problem and in no way worth it. The standard firearms (pistol and musket) are just plain poor at low levels.
Get Rapid Reload. Alchemical carridges reduce reloading by an action category, so Rapid Reload + Alchemical Cartridge = a Move Action to reload a musket. Or a free action for a pistol.
I dont like grit and deeds as they stand. The mechanic is poor. Low starting value makes players want to hoard it, and thus miss out on recovering it, it also encourages the WORST kind of metagaming (hence the example where the cleric thought to have the fighter not finish off an opponent but let the gunslinger do it to gain back the grit). But whats worse is the player didnt even care to do it. At low levels the only worthwhile thing to do with grit most of the time is to clear jams. It is not until level 3 that grit is even remotely interesting. For the defining feature of the class (cuz it certainly isnt using crummy guns) that is a major problem in my opinion.
I can see that being a potential problem, but how else would you suggest they regain it? I mean, like you say, at very low levels it's not a big deal, but it most definitely gets better.
I dont like guns as they stand. Seriously, I REALLY dont like the gun rules, particularly at low levels. There is a huge investment required for them to just be slightly worse then crossbows. Misfires counter the good crit multiplier and untill you invest a feat, get deeds and get expensive alchemical cartridges, you are still firing every other turn. There is nothing more depressing then a player stating their turn is, 'i load my gun' and moving on. Does it get better at around level 7? Yes, but that doesnt help 1-6. Also, at low levels, touch AC doesnt make much of a difference, the main 'advantage' of firearms means very very little at low levels. All but the final boss had touch ACs within 1 or 2 of their normal AC. For all the trouble, it just isnt worth it at low levels.
Uh...paper cartridges cost 1 GP more than normal shots (okay, significantly more, at 6 GP, if you make them yourself). How are they that expensive?
I'll admit that the Touch AC effect isn't worth too much at low levels, but they also do some solid damage. Is it better than, say, an Archery focused Fighter? Probably not. Is it as good? It looks like it.
I disagree, it is not outrageous to allow your players to have some means of determining how wounded an enemy is. I have seen it across several groups. And the mechanic that rewards delivering the kill shot (as opposed to simply doing damage) encourages players to try to 'kill steal' or set up kills. It brings the mechanic to the forfront of thinking. A gunslinger could simply attack easy to kill mooks instead of the big bad for the hope of getting kills. I dont like that grit encourages this kind of behavior.
Again, what do you suggest as an alternative? I'm not sold on the killing = grit mechanic either, but I'm not coming up with a good replacement.
Actually she thought about it, but she wanted to use a musket instead of a pistol, and rapid reload wouldn't have done alot of good, it still would have been a standard action with rapid reload, which doesnt help very much.See above regarding alchemical cartridges.
Indeed, I feel like alot of the gunslinger 'class abilities' are simply there to help overcome the inherent problems with firearms, and there is very little that actually adds to what the gunslinger can do in the first few levels.Well, yeah, to some extent. But on the other hand, with the right support the weapons in question are really cool and effective.
More skill points and the utility deeds at first level should be a given. There isnt anything unbalanced about having blast lock or scoot at level 1, give the gunslinger some interesting things to do if they arent going to be able to do significant damage. Perhaps scaled down versions of targeting (daze is a cantrip, why cant the gunslinger have a 1st level deed that does something similar for a save?).The utility deeds at 1st would kinda put the Gunslinger a few steps up on, say, a 1st level Fighter, don't you think? They already get a bonus feat (pre-chosen, but still), grit, and better saves. Plus a much better skill list. They lose out on armor, but with an almost completely Dex and Wis focused class that's not as bad as it could be.
Guns are too far outside the norm to be managable. Unlike any other weapon guns are not plug and play. Even if you dont care about firearms in a fantasy setting, you cant just say, ok you have firearms, you have to provide amunition as treasure or make them commonplace to even make the gunslinger playable at low levels. I am really disappointed that firearms in general were never playtested. The fact that the class is now handcuffed to sub par firearms rules is more then half of its problem.Uh...they can make their own ammunition? Casually? Hence the Gunsmithing class feature.
I think at around level 7 the gunslinger starts to work, he has the wealth (and hopefully crafting time) to only use alchemical cartridges and will have a few feats under his belt to make shooting descent. And ofcourse the targeted shots are quite interesting (though with the heavy limits on grit who knows how that will actually play out at the table once saves are added to them). It may not be optimal by any means, but it least it has the chance of being fun to play. Prior to level 7(maybe 5) I feel like the class isn't even worth looking at without heavy revision.What crafting time? At 12 gp a piece base price, a Gunslinger can make 83 alchemical cartridges in a day for a little under 500 GP or 90 normal shots at under 100 gp. That's more expensive than arrows I'll grant you, but it's not notably bad.
The gunslinger: Her stats after modifiers were as followed:
Str 12
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 19
Wis 16
Cha 7First off, how'd a Dwarf get Int 19? And why isn't that stat in Dex? Or do you mean a 10? In which case the player rolled rather poorly, which is almost certainly part of the problem. Would you be suprised if a Rogue with those stats failed to do well? Because Gunslinger is almost as Dex focused as being a Rogue.
Her first level feat was point blank shot.A mistake, and a bad one. Rapid Reload isn't needed for a pistol user (if they get alchemical cartridges), but is kinda necessary for a musket-user...much like it is for someone who uses a Heavy Crossbow.
For gear she rolled a 15 therefore starting with 150 gp for gear. This was a problem right from the beggining. I was not allowing crafting prior to the start of the game so after she bought armor(studded leather), a melee weapon and basica adventuring gear, she had enough money left over for 6 normal shots and 3 paper cartridges. 9 shots.Okay, this is kinda mean to the gunslinger, but an understandable rule in general. Maybe they should specify gunslingers starting with 10 or 20 shots to go with their free gun. Only a problem for their very first adventure, though. And not even that if the PCs take a day or so off for them to do some crafting.
She also took survival and perception as her first level skills and a hp as favored class bonus (for a total of 13hp at first level)Workable, but every Gunslinger should get 1 rank of Craft (Alchemy) as quick as they can, so as to make cartridges. Which are really cool. I'd definitely skip the HP at 1st level for it.
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Impressions: It sucks to play a low level gunslinger, particularly from level 1. If you are not permitted to craft prior to the start of the adventure (which many dms do not allow) you will be VERY short of ammunition. The
That and believe it or not Goblins are not a good monster to test them out on high dex equals high touch ac. A monster with a lower dex bonus to armor class would make a very different play test. Try mixing it up a bit more you will see a big difference I sure did.