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If your looking to switch hit consider the following:
Weapon: Musket Ax, Musket Hammer. These weapons act as either a warhamer or a ax, dependent on your choice of weapon. You'll pay double enchantment costs, but switch hitting is a breeze with these weapons.
Alternativly consider the feat Catch Off Guard: Now you can essentially pistol whip at will, at the cost of a feat ofcourse, for 1d10 +1 1/2 strength. The downside would be the inability to enchant your gun for melee, but on the other hand this could be really useful in local bar brawls.
Finally, your running a 3 man campaign with apparently no healer and no one with access to a divine spell list. I understand that casters may not be appropriate for the setting, but consider an alchemist. Their abilities could be consider completely scientific and acceptable in the setting, especially if the use of guns is approved. Dabble a little alchemist with your Gunslinger and you'd have someone who could potentially heal, who'd have access to UMD if the need came up, could effectively make their own ammo (+1/2 Alchemist level to craft Alchemy checks) could potentially have AOEs in either bombs or alchemical items, (mainly to deal with swarms, your current party make up would be torn apart by a simple encounter with either spiders, bats or rats.) You could also pick up the Vivisectionist Archetype to have a nice synergy with your party rogue. Gunslinger is awesome, but a little bit of Alchemist could help you a lot in the long run, plus you could actually use the name Doc Holiday and actually be the equivalent of a Doctor turned Bounty Hunter.
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I'm playing in a 3-player campaign; the other two players are running a half-orc fighter focusing on the spiked chain, tripping & grappling, and a rogue (not sure on the details of this one yet). We're starting at level 6.
I'm thinking of going half-orc gunslinger, focusing on the musket. The question is, how effective can this kind of build be in a 3-player party? Since I imagine the rogue will not necessarily be a front-liner, I figured I'd grab a one-handed melee weapon to use (I'll have a buckler, since you can use one with the musket with no penalty) for when enemies get in my face. I guess Quick Draw will be a good thing to take, for a couple of reasons, but especially since I plan to do some switching between weapons.
We're doing a bounty-hunter themed campaign, set in a fantasy-ish old west style setting, so I also wanted this guy to be a decent rider. That will mean taking Mounted Combat and at least Ride-By Attack (arguably Mounted Archery makes more sense, but I'm prioritizing RbA for coolness factor).
I get a fourth feat to pick for level 6, and I'm thinking either Keen Scent (to aid in tracking), Vital Strike (assuming this will help both my melee and musket attacks), or something else.
Looking for any feedback on the build, ideas for gear (though it will be a fairly low-magic campaign), and opinions on playing a musket gunslinger in general.
I don't think you need to run as a switch hitter at all unless you believe you really need to stand there and take hits.
All gunslingers can reduce their reload times to a free action via alchemical paper cartridges and Rapid Reload feat (which musket masters get for free). So you can get an attack every round starting at level 3 (that's when musket masters get the Fast Musket deed). You will stand provoke from reload and attacking with a ranged weapon in melee. Personally I don't care about that. I just make sure I have plenty of room to 5 foot step, reload as a free action, attack as a standard, and still have a move. Paper cartridges are somewhat expensive (12 gold per).
Gunslingers are very feat intensive, so it's hard to be able to give up feats to make your melee stronger. Power Attack is affordable, but other than that, it's hard to fit them all in.
In order to get good damage output as a gunslinger you'll need these feats:
Point-Blank Shot
Precise Shot
Rapid Shot
Deadly Aim
So it's basically impossible do good with a gun and be a really good rider. Gunslinger and mounted combat are completely different disciplines that are extremely feat intensive (both of them are).
The closest you can be is perhaps a multi-class samurai/mysterious stranger gunslinger.
Mysterious Strange uses CHA for it's prime stat, and you can use the level 1 deed to boost damage from guns (it loses gun training at level 5, so it's all CHA based using grit). You'll want to pick the order of the star or order of the lion. I don't know if that'll meet your character idea, but both of those orders uses CHA as an important stat. Later on as a samurai, you can get the Mounted Archery feat. If you go this combo of classes, the feats are going to change a lot since you can be a full melee character as well. I would actually make a melee character that happens to use a gun as well (I won't take ranged feats at all, and just rely on challenges and Focused Aim deed take care of my damage for my gun).
I'd go something like 14 STR, 14 DEX, 14 CON, 10 INT, 10 WIS, and 14 CHA (20 point buy). I'd place the +2 into STR or CHA, but that's up to you.
I was going to do something like this in the future based on Afro Samurai, except that he uses a gun as well as a katana.
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Another feat suggestion for a switch hitter - Opening volley.
You gain a +4 to melee attacks on the target on the round after you hit it with a ranged attack.
The Musket Ax and Musket Hammer are combo weapons that are available as long as you have the appropriate weapon proficiencies - Fire arms for the gun portion and Martial for the Battle Ax or War Hammer portion.
Since your more focused on the gunslinger, I could see that alchemist levels really might deter you early on. However, consider dipping 1 level into it with the Vivisectionist Archetype and you'd be surprised at how helpful it can be. At minimum, you'll get access to 1d6 sneak attack and mutegen. You'll also have 2 free feats with Throw anything and Brew Potion. This may not be too tremendously useful, but they never hurt. Brew Potion can be used to stock up on low level cure lights wounds from your extract list as well as potions of enlarge person for your spike chain slinging ally.
Truthfully, I'd run it differently. 1 lvl Gunslinger - Gun Tank, rest go with Vivisectionist/Preservationist Alchemist. Minimum Intelligence, just what you need to get your extracts, and 1st 3 feats would be Power Attack, Deadly Aim & Opening Volley. Shoot and close, use preservationist summon nature's ally as a standard action for those occassions your severely outnumbered. Plus, with Gun Tank you get Medium & Heavy Armor Profieciency. Eventually take Master Craftsman and Craft Weapons & Armor so you can load your own enchanted ammunition.
Another idea is to take switch hitter the traditional way, by going big game hunter ranger.
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Another idea is to take switch hitter the traditional way, by going big game hunter ranger.
That ranger archetype does not get ANY gun related feats. No proficiencies, no Gunsmithing, no Amateur Gunslinger. I'm sure it's a mistake, but there's no errata yet, so nobody knows what it should be.
I'd be okay with it otherwise, because I was thinking of playing the Team Fortress 2 sniper as a character, and that archetype makes a lot of sense.
I know the gunslinger wants a lot of feats, but you could Dervish Dance if you want to switch-hit. It'll just cost you...2 feats.
Catch off guard might work for switch hitting with the musket itself.
I looked briefly at the axe musket et al., but I didn't like losing out on ranged damage or distance.
Opening Volley does sound promising... although it seems to work against earning back your grit points. On the other hand, so does the whole concept of a gunslinger switch-hitter, arguably.
In other news, I just now noticed gunslingers don't get shield proficiency. More of a glass cannon than I thought!
A question about Vital Strike. Does that seem like it would be worth it? I figured it would be good for either my musket or a melee weapon, but I was sort of imagining using it as part of a Ride-By-Attack... and now I'm not sure whether that would count as an "attack action".
Thoughts?
I don't think you can vital strike on a charge action.
Weird idea: Sensei Monk dip.
Two levels gives you:
Wisdom to melee attack rolls
Unarmed strike
Dodge
Stunning Fist
A small buff ability
Wisdom to AC when unarmored
It synergizes well since you want wisdom for a gunslinger anyways and you can use a regular musket. Wearing light armor isn't a huge deal since you don't have fast movement or flurry of blows to lose anyways and you get +3 to all your save throws, as well as evasion. This all means you can 'dump' strength -- even the bonus feat at level 1 is nice because it gets you that much closer to deft shootist (take dodge for the bonus feat).