So I have been reading the posts in here about the gunslinger to try to understand the class better since I am dming a game where a player made one to "playtest" it in my game and all I have to say is what the heck? People keep trying to use real world examples to explain the over-powered abilities when they forget this is a game and classes need to be balanced, abilities need to be fair. I have found multiple parts of the class that just disturb me as a DM and overwhelm me as a player. I want to point them out and find out if I am the only one or if other DMs would agree.
First is the touch AC attacks
I don't care if in real life bullets work better against metal armor or not, I can not believe that it is just as easy to get through leather armor as it is to get through a great wyrm dragon's scales, a iron golem's body, or wounding a earth elemental. Touch ac is for spells because you are just trying to hit someone, not get through their armor and a character being able to have like 8 attacks(TWF) all touch ac from just class abilities if within 20ft(more with feats or abilities) is unbelievable. Gunslingers have the base attack bonus of a fighter, why do they need to do touch attacks in order to hit?
Deeds and grit
I can not believe people think that grit limits the amazing deeds that you can get. You can get grit from critical hits, reducing a creature to 0 hp,, weapon abilities that give extra grit every day, feat that gives extra grit, or even better the feat that reduces the grit cost of a deed by 1 to min 0. Most of the amazing deeds only cost 1 grit. Take targeting for instance, with that feat you can as a full round action do a automatic range disarm, trip, confuse, or drop a flying creature with no saves and for free. You just have to hit with a range touch attack.
Then there is the startling shot where if you miss with one of your attacks, the creature becomes flat-footed against everyone until its turn, no save and for free.
How about stunning shot, another ability that could be free, you just hit with a range touch attack and the monster is stunned for 1 round. it does not matter if you are facing goblins or great wyrm dragons, as long as you have as many attacks as opponents they are stun locked.
Guns and ammo
Some may say that the one range increment for touch ac is fair because it is short, but how many feats and weapon abilities increase that range, as well as deeds. As for loading your weapon, you can take a feat to reduce the load time, making it free actions with cartridges or use the weapon ability everloaded(+2 ability) and never have to load the weapon. Many argue that guns do little damage but at 5th level you get your full dex to damage, with bows you have to spend money to get your str and then improve it as your str increases. You can increase the damage with weapon abilities or with other class abilities like sneak attack or feats. How about being able to blind a opponent for 1 round with just a range touch attack and no save to resist, like with flare cartridges. Spellcasters can't pull that off, almost all condition effects have saves.
A lot of people in here have been comparing a gunslinger as a solo character in fights but this game is a party based game and with a gunslinger in the party, it makes it very difficult for the dm to present challenging battles without specifically tailoring them to be an anti-gunslinger opponent.
I have thought of different ways to try to make the class more balanced and leveled with other base classes.
One idea is to make the condition abilities such as blinding and stunning to have saves such as reflex or fort.
Have the targeting ability follow the rules for range disarm or tripping or will save for the confuse.
Instead of just straight touch AC, either allow it to only ignore armor and not natural armor; ignore the base armor value and not additional armor from magic or feats (like with +5 fullplate, would ignore the 9 base but not the +5); or they subtract 3 or 4 ac for opponents wearing armor; or make it like all other range weapons and just remove the range touch, that way they are just like crossbows.
I hope I have explained my issues with this class in hopes for possible suggestions or if there are others that agree. I dislike having guns in medieval fantasy but if I must, I want it fair.
DM from hell wrote:
First is the touch AC attacks
Deeds and grit
Guns and ammo
If you saw the discussions about the playtest, and believe me, I was there :
- Touch AC attacks is a non-issue. Gunslinger's DPR is comparable to a fighter archer, lower at long range, and better at low range against high-AC ennemies. The only real problem comes from boredom, when you are pretty sure to hit with any attack if you don't fall on a natural 1, but guns tend to also break on a higher natural roll, like 2-3. And fluffwise, it's not because you take on a bullet on your armor (hint : not made to stop bullets) that you feel nothing. Or even simpler : why do you believe the bullets can't pierce ? It's pathfinder guns, and they can deal high damage only with a leveled Gunslinger. It's like saying Fireball shouldn't exist because in pathfinder, wizards deal 1d6/level with them in a 20' square while a fighter can only throw a 1d6 alchemist's fire.
- All the "no-save" abilities you are talking about will get saves in the final version. The ways to recover grit should be reduced. Also, are you implying that grit is too powerful because you can have more if you take a feat ? I don't remember any build that could even afford this feat to remain efficient. This, is also a problem of the gunslinger that I hope is resolved in Ultimate Combat, for which each gunslinger build pretty much needs to be the same (Rapid Shot/Rapid Reload...) in order to not suck at his job. Also, the ranged combat maneuvers were asked to be the core of the class (battlefield control) instead of it doing a bit of everything. We don't know how this will be handled.
- The ability to add Dex to damage was deemed too good, but only when added to other inherent abilities. We don't know about how and if this will be changed though. The reloading "as a free action" is moot, when you need a s~&!load of feats and equipment just to not feel like you use all your actions to reload (and it's only for the fastest reloading weapon, the pistol), then it's not a problem for everyone's fun. +2 enhancement on a weapon is a lot of money you pretty much can't afford until level 11, especially when you have two pistols.
Just to remember : this is a playtest version. Not the final at all.
Also, sorry to say this, but guns mechanics will not be changed, they are already set in stone. And if you dislike "guns in your fantasy" (they were already in 1st edition, Gygax even created a gunslinger GOD using a sheriff insigna as a divine symbol if I remember well), don't forget YOU are the DM at your table.
You "must" not have them. You choose to do so or not.
I sadly have to agree. The gunslinger class is overpowered, not so much at low level as at high level.
The problem is clearest with the deed "dead shot" but goes beyond that. I however will argue based on dead shot.
Lets first take a look at the weapons. I will base the calculations on the musket but as such not an important choice (but you might want to use a weapon that enable you to fire every rund with rapid reload till you get lightning reload).
I make the asumptions that ranged touch attacks have a great chance of hitting and to ease the calculations asume that they simply hit.
That any roll of 19-20 will be a hit (possible crit) regardless of the attack bonus (which will very often be the case for the gunslinger even on the last attack).
And that you do what you can to be able to fire every round in terms of feat and ability picks.
I am ignoring any power issues below level 8 and in fact any discussions of such as I do not believe there are any problem and if there are I *believe* it to be much smaller and therefor much less important than the increasing problem at higher level.
Musket: damge d12 crit 20/X4
With feat: improved crit (musket)
chance of threat using dead shot:
Level chance
8 19 %
11 27.1 %
16 34.39 %
Confirming the crit is pretty much automatic (since its based on highest attack with dead shot). So its very likely that you will crit and your damage will increase in a nonelinear way as you gain level which does not go well with the change in power attack from 3.5 to the one used in pathfinder.
Lets take a look at the damage. With point blank shot and deadly aim it will be fairly high, even without any dex bonus. presuming that every shot fired is a hit (thats streatching it a bit but not that much) and that shots are fired within point blank range, damage will be something like:
Level damage avrg dmg. avrg dmg incl crit/round avrg crit
8 2d12+5 18 28.26 72
11 3d12+5 24.5 44.4185 98
16 4d12+5 31 62.9827 124
those numbers seem alright even, perhaps a bit low but they presume that the gunslinger have a dexterity score of 10 and that the gun is not enchanted, once you start adding those numbers the values goes way too high.
The damage increse pr 2 dex/+1enchant ment bonus:
Level increse in avrg damge incl crits pr round pr +1 damage gained
8 1,57
11 1.813
16 2.0317
So a gunslinger at level 16 with a dexterity score of 24 and a +3 gun will do an average of 83.2997 damage pr round with the conditions described above and this still leaves plenty of room for powerplaying if thats your thing.
The main damage of the gunslinger is from the crits which takes any excitement out of solo badguys and solo-ish badguys. the average crit even at level 8 will easily do an insane 72 damage and for our "average Joe" with dex 16 and a +1 gun the damage will be 88.
Even without taking the insanely powerful "signature deed (dead shot)" feat at level 11, the chance of getting your grit back from a crit is not bad and increases in a stupidly powerful way. The only good thing about dead shot is that it does not benefit from haste.
Taking a look at "average Joe" again at level 16 his dexterity has now increased to 22 and with a +3 gun he is doing a crit of around 160 damage with a 34.39 % chance. Which basicly can be boiled down to. If I fire at the main bad guy for 3 rounds I would have a 71 % chance of critting at least once and with that shot alone doing around 160 damage and in most cases end the encounter. Thats pretty boring.
As much as the problem might seem to be dead shot (and it is a problem because of the highly increased chance of a crit) the real problem is the weapons which never should have been touch attacks with a X4 crit because they take the excitement out of the game and the combination is just begging for abuse even if not intended.
The weakness of all of this is of cause the presumed automatic hit but in most cases touch attacks with a high base attack class and a weapon + whatever buff your group uses will make such attacks easy hits, even the last one). I am however convinced that even when taking misses into the calculation this class will still have a huge damage "problem".
A shortsighted fix might be to change "dead shot" deed so that any attacks using the deed are resolved normally and not with touch attacks regardless of weapon and range. I am however convinced that low average damage and high spike crits and touch attacks are a bad combination which is the mechanic of the class. Jason Bulmahn didnt do a bad job at all. The class have many exciting features and new idears. The rules for how guns work just aint well suited to build a class on. If I were designing the class I would change the gun and make an errata on the stats of it and not accept the rules for how guns work. I think its a bad move to base the class around a weapon that was given stats some years back without the intend of the weapon being the backbone of a class.
DM from hell wrote:
Gunslingers have the base attack bonus of a fighter, why do they need to do touch attacks in order to hit?
While I'm cool with having guns in my fantasy world, I don't think I would ever, ever permit this class in my game. Touch attacks *and* a fighter's attack bonus? No way! I'd really like to see something done to rein in the power of firearms; they don't need to totally ignore armour, IMO. But the designers have made it clear that that aren't open to discussion on that issue at all...
Is this class the pet project of one of the designers who wants his own personal "Mary Sue" class to own all the others or something? I just can't see how any of this is a good idea at all, and I don't understand why the designers are being so obstinate with refusing to consider revising the overpowered mechanics. Thus, it looks like they're *really* pushing to have this class enjoy a huge pile of benefits that are unavailable to other characters.
The Gunslinger just has "someone's baby" written all over it...
ArmoredSaint wrote: DM from hell wrote:
Gunslingers have the base attack bonus of a fighter, why do they need to do touch attacks in order to hit?
While I'm cool with having guns in my fantasy world, I don't think I would ever, ever permit this class in my game. Touch attacks *and* a fighter's attack bonus? No way! I'd really like to see something done to rein in the power of firearms; they don't need to totally ignore armour, IMO. But the designers have made it clear that that aren't open to discussion on that issue at all...
Is this class the pet project of one of the designers who wants his own personal "Mary Sue" class to own all the others or something? I just can't see how any of this is a good idea at all, and I don't understand why the designers are being so obstinate with refusing to consider revising the overpowered mechanics. Thus, it looks like they're *really* pushing to have this class enjoy a huge pile of benefits that are unavailable to other characters.
The Gunslinger just has "someone's baby" written all over it... Slow down now. How about you build a gunslinger at any level of your choosing and we'll show you how craptastic you really are.
and whoever is doing the numbers with the musket, you do realize the re-load time on a musket right? You have to spend a grit every round (if you took rapid and fast reload) to fire more then one shot, and if you move you don't get to shoot at all.
ArmoredSaint wrote: DM from hell wrote:
Gunslingers have the base attack bonus of a fighter, why do they need to do touch attacks in order to hit?
While I'm cool with having guns in my fantasy world, I don't think I would ever, ever permit this class in my game. Touch attacks *and* a fighter's attack bonus? No way! I'd really like to see something done to rein in the power of firearms; they don't need to totally ignore armour, IMO. But the designers have made it clear that that aren't open to discussion on that issue at all...
Is this class the pet project of one of the designers who wants his own personal "Mary Sue" class to own all the others or something? I just can't see how any of this is a good idea at all, and I don't understand why the designers are being so obstinate with refusing to consider revising the overpowered mechanics. Thus, it looks like they're *really* pushing to have this class enjoy a huge pile of benefits that are unavailable to other characters.
The Gunslinger just has "someone's baby" written all over it... You have no idea what you are talking about. The gunslinger at close range just barely eecks out better than a archery fighter and is just a little worse at long range. Maybe we should also remove all +to hit abilities of the archery fighter so that we can go back to no one playing anything but casters!
You are basing your statements on what you have read while comparing it to what you know, This is not what you know. This is something different and until you try it you won't know. Stop trying to think of it as a fighter with touch attacks, Gunslingers do NOT get all the other class abilities that fighters get.
Most posters on here opposing the gunslinger have not played one and have either
A) Played in a group with one with different levels of min/maxing.
This is a player issue and is a flaw with play testing. Until others are on the same level as you with making the most of your toon then it is not a good comparison. On top of that if you play with out min maxing then anyone complaining about over powered vs under powered are tools and should be ignored. Its like a non-min/maxed specialist wizard complaining that a fighter that took the perfect build being over powered.
B) DM'd with one and had no idea what to do or how the class worked so they are mad.
If your DMing and have no idea what the class does or how it works then that is your problem. Learn a class before playing with it OR deal with the people abusing the rules or possibly learning it while they play it.
C) played one, twinked it out and their fellow players were mad because they were better.
Again, a "Deal with it!" type situation. When all players are properly geared to their max potential the gunslinger is no more or less underpowered/overpowered than a crossbow or archery fighter or any caster. Infact MOST casters are better off then gunslingers and beyond 20 feet any well geared/spec'd xbow/bow fighter are better off. The fact that people are mad that at close range you are good or that you did more damage than they are are just compensating for their lack of real life ability and made you stomped on their epeen(so to speak)
D) Dislike the fluff and how it fits in with their prime idea of fantasy gaming.
Thats fine! Then say it, don't allow it and stop stomping on others likes and tastes. Others opinions are just as correct as yours and there is no reason why you should force yours down someone elses throat. Just play with out them, either make your feelings about guns know to your DM and that you would like to avoid them OR if you are DMing then DISALLOW them!
"But but they're in a book and my players..." Stop. Your world, if you can't put your foot down and say "No." Then you are a terrible DM.
Shadow_of_death wrote: ArmoredSaint wrote: DM from hell wrote:
Gunslingers have the base attack bonus of a fighter, why do they need to do touch attacks in order to hit?
While I'm cool with having guns in my fantasy world, I don't think I would ever, ever permit this class in my game. Touch attacks *and* a fighter's attack bonus? No way! I'd really like to see something done to rein in the power of firearms; they don't need to totally ignore armour, IMO. But the designers have made it clear that that aren't open to discussion on that issue at all...
Is this class the pet project of one of the designers who wants his own personal "Mary Sue" class to own all the others or something? I just can't see how any of this is a good idea at all, and I don't understand why the designers are being so obstinate with refusing to consider revising the overpowered mechanics. Thus, it looks like they're *really* pushing to have this class enjoy a huge pile of benefits that are unavailable to other characters.
The Gunslinger just has "someone's baby" written all over it... Slow down now. How about you build a gunslinger at any level of your choosing and we'll show you how craptastic you really are.
and whoever is doing the numbers with the musket, you do realize the re-load time on a musket right? You have to spend a grit every round (if you took rapid and fast reload) to fire more then one shot, and if you move you don't get to shoot at all. The person you are replying to is having a knee jerk reaction because they don't know how things work. When they realize that a musket gunslinger VS a archery or xbow fighter usually has the gunslinger on the losing end then they will chill out. Either that or look at a fighter with a greataxe VS a musket gunslinger has, again, the gunslinger coming out on bottom for that matter.
Recent threads in Gunslinger Discussion: Round 2
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