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I am really looking forward to the Skull and Shackles AP that starts in March and have started working on a character concept. You guessed it, he's a pirate....I'm thinking either straight gunslinger or gunslinger/rogue acrobat. I'll likely go straight gunslinger (I am an optimizer and hate splitting classes as a general rule). I want him to be able to have his sward and pistol out at the same time. I see visions of close combats on ships stabbing the guy in front of me and then shooting at a guy coming over the side farther down the ship. How can I make this work? I'm not looking at getting more than one attack like TWF, I just want to have the sword in one hand and the pistol in the other so I can alternate what I'm attacking with each round. How can I make this work? Thanks for any help you can give me.
Stab one guy in the first round, shoot him in the second. At +6 BAB, swap hands for free and do it in one round. You only take TWF negs if you attack with both hands, not hold weapons in both hands.
Exactly the way you said. Main hand/ off hand only comes into play for TWF if you just want to hold both and only use one weapon per turn it works like a normal attack.
(I am an optimizer and hate splitting classes as a general rule).
Not sure that makes sense to me, but whatever makes you happy.
I want him to be able to have his sward and pistol out at the same time. I see visions of close combats on ships stabbing the guy in front of me and then shooting at a guy coming over the side farther down the ship. How can I make this work?
This is tough.
The main problem here is that you need a free hand to reload your gun. Unless you come up with a free hand somewhere (alchemist getting an extra arm, prehensile hair as a witch, etc.), it isn't really going to happen.
The people who dual wield guns are typically using weapon cords to drop one as a free action and then do the reloading then pick it back up. I guess you could do the same thing and have weapon cord on the sword and keep dropping and picking it up as you reload as a free action... but the visual is... well, not heroic IMHO. If you go this route, I would have a talk about skinning this to look like you would like (i.e. not having your character look like he is dropping it all the time, but some sort of device like the weapon cord that takes the same actions, costs the same, but just lets you reload with out dropping the sword... but you still have to take the exact same action to re-ready the sword). The goal here is to pair the rules that work with what you want it to look like without changing any mechanic at all, so it has no effect on play, just aesthetics.
Other options would be:
- Getting an advanced firearm that holds more rounds so you don't have reload as much (think six shots will get you through a fight?)
- Get a brace of pistols and toss them after they are used. This is the historical and very piratey way to go... but also very expensive. You would need some quick draw going to make this work right.
EDIT: I guess I should say that what you described above works just fine as is... I am just assuming you want more than one shot with that gun as a gunslinger. There is no handedness in the game, so as long as you aren't attacking with both in the same round you don't need to worry about two weapon fighting or main hand/off-hand stuff.
Sean Mahoney
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Sword and Pistol (Combat)
You effortlessly pair melee and ranged weaponry.
Prerequisite: Dex 13, Point-Blank Shot, Rapid Shot, Snap Shot, Two-Weapon Fighting, base attack bonus +6.
Benefit: When you use the Two-Weapon Fighting feat while wielding a melee weapon and a crossbow or firearm, your attacks with the crossbow or firearm provoke no attacks of opportunity from foes that you threaten with your melee weapon.
Normal: Making a ranged attack provokes attacks of opportunity.
Do you want to be most effective with the gun or with the sword?
For the gun I can't help you much (never played a gunslinger), but you could focus on the sword and keep the gun in the other hand just for style. I'm proposing a king of switch hitter but always having both weapon ready.
The key here is the duelist: if I'm correct there is nothing preventing you from having a weapon in you off-hand, you just can't use it in a said round if you want to keep your duelist's bonuses.
I've no build ready but going gunslinger (a full bab class after all) and going duelist as soon as you qualify (level 7 I guess) should be viable, even if not really optimized.
An alternative, marginalizing the gun even more, could be so simply spend a few feats go gain proficiency with guns and go straight fighter (maybe mobile archetype?).
The dervish dance feat could help you even more if you can convince your DM to convert the "carrying another weapon" part into "can't use another weapon"