I've been very curious about the spellslinger.
I'm hesitant though, it looks kinda awesome but at the same time it seems to have nothing to make up for the 4 schools you oppose, the loss of arcane school, loss of cantrips, the loss of scribe scroll, the loss of a familiar other than to go "I shoot spells through my gun" and hope you never roll a 1 or they roll a 20 on a save.
I've been very curious about the spellslinger.
I'm hesitant though, it looks kinda awesome but at the same time it seems to have nothing to make up for the 4 schools you oppose, the loss of arcane school, loss of cantrips, the loss of scribe scroll, the loss of a familiar other than to go "I shoot spells through my gun" and hope you never roll a 1 or they roll a 20 on a save.
Dont neglect to consider its potential for non-full classed wizards. You can feed Mage Bullets with any spell, meaning 3/4 BAB guys can make decent use of it to enhance their weapons.
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Colonel, not "Cornal." Besides which, he was an Admiral.
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This isn't as much of a trap as it's a conscious decision to go a different, but weaker route. It's hard to see anybody thinking this archetype is better than the base wizard, so it's not a trap in that sense.
In the end, you are a wizard, just with a lot of spells you can learn. In return, you gain a gun, and become more of a normal DPR character. Although this is usually bad for a wizard, it's very doable since conservation of spells can be easy. Unless it's a dangerous situation, you wouldn't be using spells anyways.
Maybe he was talking about this guy.
As someone who loves to play wizards, I think you have to give up too much to play a spellslinger.
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It in it self forces you in to the damage role as a wizard. One of the worst damage dealers in the game. So yes it's a trap. Even with the bones you will never come close to the same damage as a full BAB class per day because of limited spell castings per day.
On the other side it is a interesting idea. And fun to play at lower levels. The down side your effective level range for this type of character is very low. Most likely from 1~5 past that your effectiveness drops sharp.
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It might be slightly weaker, but the main issue I have with it is an inherited issue from guns themselves: The overload. If I shoot a firestorm of epic proportions into a large crowd of weaklings, the chances of me instantly losing my gun are far too high to be reasonable.
But this goes back to the guns, which have the misfire chance. That misfire chance is kinda dumb and is there to balance out the fact that they hit touch AC in the first range increment, which is also (IMO) dumb.
I really wish that guns were made more like glorified crossbows. It would have been so much simpler and still given everyone the flavor they wanted.
The fact that you give up nearly ALL of your class abilities, take additional penalties (2 extra prohibited schools), and all you really get in return is to add as much as +5 to the DC of line spells and to the attack roll of ranged touch spells makes it totally not worth it to me.
Yeah. Totally lame. If I could add +5 to the DC of something like flesh to stone, than perhaps it would have been a cool archetype, but as is +5 to the DC of a damaging spell doesn't mean much, nor does a +5 to a touch attack that would likely already hit anyways.
The fact that you give up nearly ALL of your class abilities, take additional penalties (2 extra prohibited schools), and all you really get in return is to add as much as +5 to the DC of line spells and to the attack roll of ranged touch spells makes it totally not worth it to me.
Yeah. Totally lame. If I could add +5 to the DC of something like flesh to stone, than perhaps it would have been a cool archetype, but as is +5 to the DC of a damaging spell doesn't mean much, nor does a +5 to a touch attack that would likely already hit anyways.
Lets not forget the you can add the +5 DC to cone spells, there a bunch of great damaging cone spells. To name a few spells this class would be great for:
Ray of Enfeeblement
Ray of Exhaustion
Enervation (Imagine getting a x3 crit with this spell)
Fear (this would have to be my fav for this archetype)
Energy Drain (see Enervation)
Now this is only the non damage spells from the core rulebook. I'm looking to play a spellslinger in Skull & Shackles and I'm liking the idea of a gun wielding spellcasting pirate. I could see this archetype working really well with choice debuff and select blasting spells.
I really like the spellslinger. Haven't had the opportunity to play one as a PC, but I've drummed up a couple of NPC baddies and I dig 'em a lot.
It seems pretty well balanced to me so far. I am coming from the gunmage from IK, which was over complicated and not well balanced. So maybe I am biased in a good way toward the spellslinger. But I do like it.
The fact that you give up nearly ALL of your class abilities, take additional penalties (2 extra prohibited schools), and all you really get in return is to add as much as +5 to the DC of line spells and to the attack roll of ranged touch spells makes it totally not worth it to me.
Yeah. Totally lame. If I could add +5 to the DC of something like flesh to stone, than perhaps it would have been a cool archetype, but as is +5 to the DC of a damaging spell doesn't mean much, nor does a +5 to a touch attack that would likely already hit anyways.
Yeah, its at a state where I totally agree. As much as I'd love to play one.. its far too penaltyish.
I mean, where other arcane schools ban 2 schools, they get some free abilities and additional level of spells.
Basically the spellslinger is like the geshia or scroll master. Started off like a nice idea, then just sucked.
If I was to redo it..
Scribe Scroll to Gunsmithing - This stays, totally makes sense and is fairly balanced.
Arcane gun - This would still eat arcane bond. You keep the x3 crit on spells fired, and can use 0 level spells without using up grit points through it.
Arcane school (Only sacs 2 schools)- Passive - You gain a grit pool like you were a gunslinger (but uses Int instead). You use grit to take advantage of arcane gun. You also have the ability to sacrifice a spell to gain a number of temporary grit points equal to the spell level.
1st level ability - Arcane Reinforcement - After bonding a weapon, you can overload int mod + 1/2 class level (min one), with out breaking or blowing up the weapon.
8th level - Mage Bullets.
That way you keep your cantrips.
Basically the spellslinger is like the geshia or scroll master.
In what world is Scroll Master not incredible post level 10?!
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Personally I think the Geisha gets more of a bad rap than it deserves.
I would consider this archetype with reach spell for a character that was focusing on debuffing and SoD sniping. The ability to increase the save throw DC is very useful with many touch range spells. Combined with reach spell you could then hit the opponent with the gun instead to raise the DC very nicely. Granted this could put the gun in danger, however if you use "cheap" guns (as opposed to magical guns) and use the greater magical weapon spell this can be kept to more of a minimum.
Remember the gun doesn't explode the first time it 'overloads' instead it gains the broken condition. I would consider taking amatuer gunslinger to get quick clear for the chance of misfiring -- overloading would require getting a wand of mending as quickly as possible, which is a minor expense in my opinion (375gp).
Cantrips would be the hardest part to lose overall in my estimation.
I would probably pick the following opposition schools:
Divination, Enchantment, Conjuration, Abjuration and then buy Abjuration back with the arcane discovery.
Ray of Enfeeblement
Ray of Exhaustion
Enervation (Imagine getting a x3 crit with this spell)
Fear (this would have to be my fav for this archetype)
Energy Drain (see Enervation)
As far as debuff spells go, ray of enfeeblement isn't that great. Among other things, it requires both a save AND a touch attack to function at its full potential. The fact that the archetype makes up for this weakness does not make it a powerful choice.
You could hit with ray of exhaustion easily enough as a normal wizard without giving up all of your class abilities and heavily penalizing your spell selection.
You can't crit with enervation or energy drain as it doesn't deal damage, so the x3 crit is meaningless (even if it wasn't meaningless, it's occurrence is rare enough as to make little difference).
Fear is a somewhat decent choice as the save increase may actually put people out of the fight for a time. The drawbacks here are the extremely short range (if you are EVER that close to an enemy, you've already screwed up) and the fact that a great many creatures are either immune, or have substantial save bonuses against it.
All in all, you are giving up FAR too much for oh so little gain. As I've shown, there is little to no synergy.
Continuing:
In order to really use this archetype I would probably look to go into eldritch knight, using the guntank gunslinger archetype to get in. Still spell would be a prime choice to me.
Spells I would suggest using are:
Color spray (at low levels)
Burning Hands
Ray of Sickening
Touch of Gracelessness (with reach spell -- a possible candidate for magical lineage)
Elemental Touch (reach)
Ghoul Touch (reach)
Shadow Conjuration/evocation for cones, lines, and ranged touch attacks.
The shadow line of spells would be the biggest draw to me beyond necromancy. Adding in Tenebrous spell from inner sea magic you could easily be looking at a DC of 35 even at level 20, which should get pass most creature's ability to disbelieve. In fact I would if it wasn't for the fact there isn't any lower level shadow spells I would suggest dropping evocation instead of conjuration.
Basically the spellslinger is like the geshia or scroll master.In what world is Scroll Master not incredible post level 10?!
In the world where you would like to really use the first abilities. I love the concept of it(Agent Paper), but the build they did for it is terrible. Regardless of how awesome the ability is at the end, the fact the first ability sucks so much.. I'm not sure how you could improve it without making it too much.
Geshia's bad rap comes from the fact you lose a bunch of combat ability to provide a tea party that lasts for ten minutes after you spend that time in the tea party.
The tea party buff doesn't last long enough, or rather it isn't really usable when you are out adventuring. Yes yes.. Dm stuff some would say.. But there is a little secret. You can make stuff up as a DM, such as mine who made an entire tea party thing for fairies in the King Maker AP. Now that provided benefits that continued onward until we stopped doing the campaign.
Nearly all? That's a major exaggeration. Cantrips for the most part are just fluff. Pretty much the same for school abilities. What you get is an improved way of being an old school wizard.... a mage who does damage wholesale. And the incresed DC is to any spell you focus through the gun, line, cone, and burst. with the option of an X3 crit chance if you go the single gun route.The fact that you give up nearly ALL of your class abilities, take additional penalties (2 extra prohibited schools), and all you really get in return is to add as much as +5 to the DC of line spells and to the attack roll of ranged touch spells makes it totally not worth it to me.
I recognize that opinions may vary on the spellslinger, but I must at least say this: Cantrips are hardly fluff.
Detect magic at will to find everything from magical traps, to treasure, to invisible creatures is incredibly useful! Arcane Mark to mark your possessions, territroy, letter seals, or used in conjunction with enter image to spy on people or guard your castle/encampment. Ghost sound can mislead an enemy force in the wrong direction, buy you time to escape, or scare off potential threats. I could go on about how useful cantrips are. Prestidigitation and mage hand in particular are practically limited only by one's creativity.
Not at all a major exaggeration.
Cantrips - If you aren't dumb, these are actually useful. Like being able to see in the dark? Yeah, Light spell is under cantrip. Being able to detect magic at-will? Acid splash for some damage.. etc.
School abilities? Evocation increases the amount of damage you do by +10 points, with no ability to blow you the freak up.
Beside that you get the ability to have an extra spell slot. You do not get that with spell slinger.
The gun does not increase your ability to do damage unless you roll a crit. Meanwhile you are increasingly getting the chance of blowing yourself the freak up.
Its not an improvement. Its a way of making your wizard into a suicide bomber who becomes worthless after he fires off his two spells. All it takes is fire a cone and have two people nat 20 on their saves, then BOOM! your wizard is done.
Even if you live, your wizard is now weaker than other wizards.
Beyond that you have to pour 1 spell into your gun to give it abilities for a little while. So.. early on cause, you suck, you can only make your weapon a +1.
Its not an improvement. Its a way of making your wizard into a suicide bomber who becomes worthless after he fires off his two spells. All it takes is fire a cone and have two people nat 20 on their saves, then BOOM! your wizard is done.
Incorrect:
If any of the spells’ attack rolls result in a natural 1 (a misfire), or a natural 20 is rolled on any saving throw made against the spell by a target (an overload), the arcane gun gains the broken condition.
It doesn't matter how many do just if any do. It's one instance per spell.
I recognize that opinions may vary on the spellslinger, but I must at least say this: Cantrips are hardly fluff.
Detect magic at will to find everything from magical traps, to treasure, to invisible creatures is incredibly useful! Arcane Mark to mark your possessions, territroy, letter seals, or used in conjunction with enter image to spy on people or guard your castle/encampment. Ghost sound can mislead an enemy force in the wrong direction, buy you time to escape, or scare off potential threats. I could go on about how useful cantrips are. Prestidigitation and mage hand in particular are practically limited only by one's creativity.
Totally Agree. My bard is picking up message in order to provide secret messages to people. All I have to do is point at someone, then mouth words. The nature of the spell would imply this could be done discreetly as I plan on doing. And the range is awesome, You can communicate with people up to 100 feet +10 feet per level.
Perfectly awesome to coordinate tactics and the like, especially if the team is using swat like tactics.
Its not an improvement. Its a way of making your wizard into a suicide bomber who becomes worthless after he fires off his two spells. All it takes is fire a cone and have two people nat 20 on their saves, then BOOM! your wizard is done.
Incorrect:
If any of the spells’ attack rolls result in a natural 1 (a misfire), or a natural 20 is rolled on any saving throw made against the spell by a target (an overload), the arcane gun gains the broken condition.It doesn't matter how many do just if any do. It's one instance per spell.
I still read it as multiple saves still explode the gun.
Besides, you probably won't use that gun. And what this??
Mending is a cantrip that totally would have fixed that for you.. Aww. Now you have to waste a first level spell to remove the broken condition for a few rounds.
Covering a musket in duct tape would take 1h (Read repairing a broken firearm). Mending only takes 10 minutes.
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I really want to try this archetype. I'm generally pretty good at casters and this looks like a challenge to keep relevant at high levels, but I think there are ways.
Disintegrate seems solid with the gun ability, you get the boost to both the attack roll and save DC.
You can use Reach Spell to make melee touches into ranged touches, which opens up a whole host of SoS debuffs.
Cold ice strike is a swift action line spell.
Waves of ecstasy seems like a good spell to get a +5 DC on.
Loss of cantrips is harsh...but they are still on your spell list, as your are still a wizard, so you could buy cheap wands of the crucial ones. 375 gp for 50 charges is chump change. The only real problem is no spamming of detect magic; I wouldn't play this in a party that had no other casters just because having someone with detect magic is so important.
The tricky part for me is picking 4 opposition schools - Divination and abjuration seem sadly obvious as they don't work well with the archetype's abilities; after that it gets trickier to exclude. Keeping conjuration and evocation also seem like no-brainers, so it comes down to the other four - which effects I want and which I don't.
In Skulls & Shackles, I knew there'd be new players at the table, so I took Spellslinger to gimp myself.
at first glance i gotta ask: why not just dip 1 in gunslinger (or 3 in trench fighter if available) and play a myrmidarch magus from there? ranged spellstrike specifies ranged weapon, so it works with guns.
IMOP what Spell casting is left in the spellslinger is enough to make the same impact on the campaign as a normal wizard. And te gun stuff is flavorfull. But it is not a (teleport) conjurer, a (forsigth) diviner or an (admixture) evoker.
Anyone else not see the easy 1 level dip this class provides?
Spellslinger 1 gets you everything you need from this Archtype.
Spellslinger 1/Sorc 19 or...
Spellslinger 1/Witch 19
You get the cool arcane gun and a +5 DC and you loose out on none of your casting other than the 1 level dip.
I'm wondering about a one-level dip for my witch in Reign of Winter. I have a suspicion we're going to be playing with guns a little later, and access to the Sor/Wiz spell list isn't a bad thing. The problem, of course, is losing a level on hexes. And that I don't have THAT many ranged-touch or ray spells.
Opinions welcomed.
I'm wondering about a one-level dip for my witch in Reign of Winter. I have a suspicion we're going to be playing with guns a little later, and access to the Sor/Wiz spell list isn't a bad thing. The problem, of course, is losing a level on hexes. And that I don't have THAT many ranged-touch or ray spells.
Opinions welcomed.
Depends on your Patron. For instance Cold (I think its cold) get some very nice spells to mix with Spellslinger.
Edit: Its Winter. They get Cone of Cold and Polar Ray.
I'm wondering about a one-level dip for my witch in Reign of Winter. I have a suspicion we're going to be playing with guns a little later, and access to the Sor/Wiz spell list isn't a bad thing. The problem, of course, is losing a level on hexes. And that I don't have THAT many ranged-touch or ray spells.
Opinions welcomed.
Depends on your Patron. For instance Cold (I think its cold) get some very nice spells to mix with Spellslinger.
Edit: Its Winter. They get Cone of Cold and Polar Ray.
I didn't take the Winter patron; in an AP designed around a theme of cold, one in which every other creature has cold immunity, the idea of a witch focused on cold damage seemed about as useful as a bag of dehydrated water. My patron is shadow, which doesn't include a lot of ray options -- but of course, there's a few rays and whatnot scattered in the general witch spell list.
I think that's what makes the spellslinger feel very weak to me; the spell DC bonus is relatively narrow. I could argue that mage bullets are actually more powerful, as they give the character a very good option for ranged attacks.
I've been very curious about the spellslinger.
I'm hesitant though, it looks kinda awesome but at the same time it seems to have nothing to make up for the 4 schools you oppose, the loss of arcane school, loss of cantrips, the loss of scribe scroll, the loss of a familiar other than to go "I shoot spells through my gun" and hope you never roll a 1 or they roll a 20 on a save.
It's cool and looks awesome. But it's two main abilities come with drawbacks.
1st it's significantly weaker than a normal wizard of any type.2nd to use one of those main abilities well (enhancing your gun with extra effects) you could do with having a better BAB (and feats for ranged weapons) and getting those, even with eldritch knight make you even weaker as a wizard.
But it is cool and fun to play.
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Oil of mending could be applied as a standard action. That would probably be the way to go for in-combat repairs.Only spells with a casting time of less than a minute can be made into potions or oils.
Huh. You're right. Learn something new every day.
Edit: Looks like taking Amateur Gunslinger for Quick Clear is the way to go then.
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hmmm... i think the next campaign i play in (that allows firearms) i might try one of these...
i'm thinking of building towards: wiz[spellslinger] 2/magus[myrmidarch] 8/eldritch knight 10
or maybe wiz 1/mag 9, but that costs you a point of BAB...
you'd end up with +17 BAB, magus CL 17 (19ish with magical knack), and can stack mage bullets with arcane pool... you can also (i think) combine ranged spellstrike and arcane gun to add bullet damage to a spell gaining the benefits of arcane gun (and use spell combat to follow it up with a full iteration of bullets, if you have the feats/firearm to pull that off; and spell critical to add another ranged spellstrike/arcane gun shot if you were lucky enough to crit at all...)
could be worthwhile?
necro!
how common are the guild/fame rules from inner sea magic?
i've never used them (and don't personally know anyone that has), but one of them could really open up the build i posted above...
with that esoteric training thing you could go:
wizard[spellslinger] 4/magus[myrmidarch] 6/eldritch knight 10
start wiz 1/magus 6, use eclectic training to raise magus to 7 (to qualify for EK)
when you get esoteric training keep +1 in magus and use +3 for wizard
end up with +16 BAB, CL 17 Wiz, CL 7 Magus
you have to deal with more of the issues that come up with spellslinger, but with the broad study arcana you can do all the craziness the other build could but now with 9th level spells...
hmmm... i think the next campaign i play in (that allows firearms) i might try one of these...
i'm thinking of building towards: wiz[spellslinger] 2/magus[myrmidarch] 8/eldritch knight 10
or maybe wiz 1/mag 9, but that costs you a point of BAB...you'd end up with +17 BAB, magus CL 17 (19ish with magical knack), and can stack mage bullets with arcane pool... you can also (i think) combine ranged spellstrike and arcane gun to add bullet damage to a spell gaining the benefits of arcane gun (and use spell combat to follow it up with a full iteration of bullets, if you have the feats/firearm to pull that off; and spell critical to add another ranged spellstrike/arcane gun shot if you were lucky enough to crit at all...)
could be worthwhile?
I dunno about worthwhile, but it looks funner than all get-out.