I've just starting thinking about a possible campaign set in the 17th Century, and inspired in part by The Three Musketeers.
Which brings me to the question: would the Gunslinger class as currently constituted be a good model for the Musketeer character type?
I just started reading the class. They have guns and know how to use them, which is basically what the musketeers did. However, due to the primitive gun technology, musketeers had to rely on a lot of other skills when engaged on adventures.
(According to Wikipedia, the British Redcoats were the best trained musketeers, and could get off four shots a minute. And that is about a hundred years after I plan to set my game.)
Well i used the fighter class to make a good gunslinger, and if you want you can probably make a small modification to the ranger archetype crossbowman into a gun ranger with minimal effort. A musketeer game has multiple class potentials by giving certain classes auto-proficiency in using either pistols or rifles. Think of how Porthos from the Disney version of the 3 musketeers was very much a bard.
Oh and don't forget the cavalier, you can possibly make an archetype that uses rifles on horseback. Use some modifications to rapid reload.
These are initial ideas, i haven't read over the round 2 of the gunslinger yet.
Hope i helped.
I managed to read through the Round 2 Gunslinger, and there are some things I'd change, but it seems to be basically the concept I am looking for. I can probably offer prestige classes for musketeers who want to diversify.
One thing I'll probably do is move things around a little and give each Musketeer benefits based on which unit they've trained in. It seems like this could tie in well with the Grit abilities, where the British Redcoats might have their own special grit abilities, while the French Mousquetaires Gris would have their own special grit abilities.
From the movies I got that they sort of went out to the battlefield, fired wildly at the enemy, reloaded, and fired again. That was the full extent of gunplay in the movie. Musketeer is a profession, not so much a class. It's like how in the Revolution and Civil War, if you had a uniform, you were an officer. If you had a horse, you were cavalry.
From the movies I got that they sort of went out to the battlefield, fired wildly at the enemy, reloaded, and fired again. That was the full extent of gunplay in the movie. Musketeer is a profession, not so much a class. It's like how in the Revolution and Civil War, if you had a uniform, you were an officer. If you had a horse, you were cavalry.
Based on my internet research, the actual musketeers were probably better trained than that, especially after the reforms of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. Most musketeers would be low level of course, and might multiclass.
The Russian musketeers, on the other hand, were not paid very well, and had to supplement their income through other occupations. The French musketeers, on the other hand, gained a reputation for fighting spirit because they had to excel at their task in order to gain social advancement. The fact that there were two musketeer units also contributed to the competitive rivalry.
On the other hand, a premise of my game is that very few NPCs have Pathfinder classes. I would say that NPC members of elite musketeer units like the Mousquetaires de la garde or my fictitious Dam musketör, would all have at least one level in the Musketeer/Gunslinger class. NPCs in less well regarded units like the Russian Streltsy might not, and just be guys who have guns and are paid by their country to shoot them when asked to.
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From the movies I got that they sort of went out to the battlefield, fired wildly at the enemy, reloaded, and fired again. That was the full extent of gunplay in the movie. Musketeer is a profession, not so much a class. It's like how in the Revolution and Civil War, if you had a uniform, you were an officer. If you had a horse, you were cavalry.
You couldn't reload firearms without significant training.
Armies weren't organized then like they are now.