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I did not do this because some people come in with OP characters and then limit themselves intentionally. I have had gunslingers in campaigns pull out repeating crossbows. I have had gunslingers shoot all enemies equally, hence spreading their damage out. I have had people play broken characters in ways that are not broken.
The point is that the players in question made characters that were far more powerful than the other characters. The responsibility now falls to the players of said characters to control how powerful they are when compared to other members of the party.
Hell, I am playing a broken character at my level (Warrior 1 Werewolf [natural]) and we are at the beginning of Second Darkness. I could solo the party, solo all of the encounters, and then proceed to go on without them because my DR10 and resistances from Aasimar are too powerful for the monsters to get through without critting. So what do I do? I hang near the back, whip out my short-bow and shoot at enemies from afar until someone gets incapacitated, and then, only then, do I put the bow away and tear things apart with my bite (wolf) and two claws (Aspect of the Beast). It helps that my character was raised by Astarathian in Pangolais, Nidal as a favor to his afflicted werewolf mother.
Any OP character can be played in broken ways, or in not broken ways. Imagine a Nova Magus who does not cast that 10d6 shocking grasp and hold it, then discharge the 10d6 SG out of his sword on the first hit as well as discharge his held, and then cast anotehr 10d6 and discharge that all on the same round. Imagine if he instead decides to cast one 10d6 SG on a tough enemy but use his spell with spell combat the cast cantrips to inhibit enemies.
When the DM tells you that you can play a character but that you are way too powerful that is the DM's way of telling you:
"You have a chance to be allowed to play this character.
If you play
in such a way
that you, lone, do not save the day
then part of the party you can stay."It isn't being passive aggressive, that would be tell him the game is over so he doesn't show up again. My actions were, instead, being kind and assuming that he will, in turn, be kind to the party. Instead, he decided to play a god, and as we all know the Mantis god was not amused by such assertions!
Oh
MyGod
Alright, in your home game, behave in whatever way you like...
Killing people with legal characters in a PFS or other organized play event by changing the prescribed tactics of the scenario in order to murder them and "teach them a lesson" about not...building better characters than other people?
Who do you think you are?
Who made you judge and jury of what was acceptable for people to play at a table? You, during a public event, decided you could arbitrate what was allowed at the table regardless of the rules you were there to represent and play by?
The characters these people created were legal in the system you were playing with. The only crime was they were better constructed, mechanically, than the other characters at the table. For that you determined that EVERY PLAYER DESERVED TO DIE. I am ashamed to play the same game as you. I am ashamed to represent the same company as you at events. I am disgusted you feel proud of your actions.
You can be any kind of table-nazi you want at your home game. At an event, at a public representation of the system and the rules, you are honor bound to be neutral and let no bias interfere with an accurate accounting of the events. Especially when it is:
at the game show I was hosting
where you are the responsible party for the entire show, and how Pathfinder is represented there.
You have failed in the most basic responsibility of a GM: To fairly and accurately account for the resolution of conflicts and the progression of the story. You decided it was your job to dictate to players how they should play their characters. It is not your character. The choices are not yours to make. How dare you? How dare you tell someone else that they cannot play their character, that instead their character must be played the way you want it to? Whether it is the weakest PC you have ever seen or the most mechanically exploited construct of mathematics you have no right. It is not your character to make decisions for.
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Not to be a dick, but why didn't you just go "Your builds are going to outshine the other players heavily, please play something else"I did not do this because some people come in with OP characters and then limit themselves intentionally. I have had gunslingers in campaigns pull out repeating crossbows. I have had gunslingers shoot all enemies equally, hence spreading their damage out. I have had people play broken characters in ways that are not broken.
The point is that the players in question made characters that were far more powerful than the other characters. The responsibility now falls to the players of said characters to control how powerful they are when compared to other members of the party.
Hell, I am playing a broken character at my level (Warrior 1 Werewolf [natural]) and we are at the beginning of Second Darkness. I could solo the party, solo all of the encounters, and then proceed to go on without them because my DR10 and resistances from Aasimar are too powerful for the monsters to get through without critting. So what do I do? I hang near the back, whip out my short-bow and shoot at enemies from afar until someone gets incapacitated, and then, only then, do I put the bow away and tear things apart with my bite (wolf) and two claws (Aspect of the Beast). It helps that my character was raised by Astarathian in Pangolais, Nidal as a favor to his afflicted werewolf mother.
Any OP character can be played in broken ways, or in not broken ways. Imagine a Nova Magus who does not cast that 10d6 shocking grasp and hold it, then discharge the 10d6 SG out of his sword on the first hit as well as discharge his held, and then cast anotehr 10d6 and discharge that all on the same round. Imagine if he instead decides to cast one 10d6 SG on a tough enemy but use his spell with spell combat the cast cantrips to inhibit enemies.
When the DM tells you that you can play a character but that you are way too powerful that is the DM's way of telling you:...
Now, I'm not going to get super peeved at you like ErrantPersuit because I don't really play PFS, and I have never had a DM like you.
Which is saying a lot. Now, I've been running 3.0/5/Pathfinder for over 10 years, and I have to wonder about the stuff you said. Let's take a look:
* Gunslinger using a crossbow: either the Character is totally broke, or the Player is inept. Supposing any other character in the party had seen them using a gun, and then a crossbow, and seen how much they sucked, wouldn't they inquire why the Gunslinger was using an inferior weapon? Like the Fighter watching the Wizard melee: "Aren't you smart enough not to do that, buddy?"
* Any Int 11 character should know after a fight or two that lightly wounding half the enemies is a complete waste. Any martial character knows this instinctively. A Gunslinger who shoots everything in the room for a 3rd of its health is actually prolonging the life of each individual enemy, and increasing the chances of his allies dying. You leave that character (and player) in the next town you run into, and recruit a professional.
* The werewolf example: Who allowed you to play that, and why? You are talking about overpowered characters, site a number of normal builds, and then use a fricken Template as an example? Whyyyyy?
* Your argument, in a nutshell is: if your character can kill an enemy in a single round, you should instead do whatever illogical action results in that NOT happening, so everybody can eventually get kills? Do your NPCs behave so idiotically? When a bunch of Rogues ambush the party, do they each pick a different character to attack, and thus fail, or do you go 4-6 on one like the Rogue's Class Features intend? Do you use Flyby Attack on a Dragon to strafe each party member in turn so that in 4 rounds a Dragon hasn't downed anyone? This is obviously wrong.
* My argument is: you do the most effective thing. If you aren't the most effective thing, that's your problem! Look, according to your description, the Gunslinger and Zen Archer were so good that everybody else should just help them reload. That is because the other Characters are inferior they need to be fixed, not the people killing things. The Zen Archer and Gunslinger were playing correctly, and you decided to punish them by having all your NPCs focus fire, thus playing correctly. The person who learned their lesson should have been you.
. . .
Who do you think you are?
. . .
You decided it was your job to dictate to players how they should play their characters.
. . .
It is not your character to make decisions for.
I'm going to be nice and just say this to your fit of rage from this evidently happening to you once.
I do not play D&D 3.5 because imbalance became so extreme that there was no reason to play it.
I do not give a rats bum if a class is legal to play. If that class ruins the game for the other people at the table then that class has to go. I do not play PFS for the simple reason that I am not allowed to dictate these things. I have been in PFS games where it feels like the gunslinger is the only important person there, and everyone else is just a lot of hirelings following him around.
That is not fun. I do what is fun for the majority of the people at my table, and if that is that people are thinking of rerolling to feel effective, or just not coming and doing something else then we have a problem--a mighty damn big one.--
If someone brings the most broken character ever to a table, and yet then purposefully weakens themselves so they can just pull out the big guns when they need it then the character is alright. If Mr. Badass only pulls out the big-guns when he needs to or on occasion then great, he is awesome when the party needs him to be awesome while letting them shine.
Also, note, I do tell these people what my intentions are. It is their choice to do what they want. If they break the game for everyone at the table leaving them disgruntled then I break their character so everyone is happy again. I'd rather lose one power-player than lose three role-players any day.
I have been in many a group that has dissolved because of this issue, both in 3.5 and in Pathfinder, and while usually the offending player decides to limit himself or bring in something new I occasionally have to just force them to bring in something new.
It is one thing if the rest of the players are happy that the power-player is killing everything. He is all in the clear to do whatever he wants then. It is something completely different if the party is angry that they feel useless.
I've had a player just leave outright after a few days playing with a power-guy. The problem is obvious to me. I'm sorry that you do not agree.
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Now, I'm not going to get super peeved at you like ErrantPersuit because I don't really play PFS, and I have never had a DM like you.
I believe in role playing as communal storytelling. When someone makes decisions for me, it's eliminating my opportunity to participate in the story. When the story involves combat, my tactical decisions are my contribution to that portion of the tale. Players have the right to fail or succeed by making their own choices. Pigeonholing them into a single attitude is disrespectful and loses out on the entire point of sitting around a table engaging in a pursuit of communal imagination.
All of that was really a side rant to clarify my "super peeved"-edness. I really appreciate your salient points on the more practical flaws in the affair. I was too (self-righteously) angry to take that tact. I am glad you did, and with a more level head.
So let me ask you this, then, ErrantPursuit and Ninten:
What do you do when you have a heavily optimized character who is outshining the un-optimized characters to such a degree that they are thinking of leaving the table?
Well?
Should we say, "Hey, you need to optimize your character!" Some of these new players spend hours, nay days building their characters. They do not want their characters to be changed, they, instead, want to be able to play their characters.
So, what are your suggestions? Eh? Lose players so the one guy who refuses to not limit himself can feel smug?
The werewolf example: Who allowed you to play that, and why? You are talking about overpowered characters, site a number of normal builds, and then use a fricken Template as an example? Whyyyyy?
I am more or less the Co-DM there. The DM is fully informed as to how to kill me, and when the werewolf supplement comes out in October he is being rebuilt to not use the template.
It is how the character is played that is important. Shortbows do 1d6 damage. Unless the DM sends something specifically the close that gap that is pretty much all the character does until he is needed.
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I'm going to be nice and just say this to your fit of rage from this evidently happening to you once.
Has not happened to me ever. I just don't think it's your place to tell other people how to play their character, or to determine how good a character is allowed to be at one thing or another. Especially when many of the "balance" flaws come down to the GM have a poorer level of system mastery than his or her players and not being willing to learn from them.
I do not play PFS for the simple reason that I am not allowed to dictate these things.
Dictatorships are bad. Mkay?
Also, note, I do tell these people what my intentions are. It is their choice to do what they want. If they break the game for everyone at the table leaving them disgruntled then I break their character so everyone is happy again. I'd rather lose one power-player than lose three role-players any day.
So, you don't tell a player whose character you are about to murder for metagame reasons that you have a problem with how things are working out and feel that the best solution is to assassinate their character? Do I need to expand on how wrong this is? Also, maybe it is just your luck of the draw, but in 20 years of gaming in systems including AD&D2E, Talislanta, Feng Shui: Action Movie RPG, White Wolf RPG's, Palladium RPGs, Champions, Warhammer Fantasy (not the tactical warfare game), Imagine, and a few more, I have learned that role playing and effective character design are not mutually exclusive. Some of the most amazing games I have been part of were with intelligent, engaging individuals who knew the system, how their characters worked, and how to role play. I am really sorry if you haven't experienced that. It is amazing.
I have been in many a group that has dissolved because of this issue
So, nobody in that group was mature enough to work that issue out? I'm sorry to hear that. I have played with 50+ gamers and under 10 gamers. I have yet to come across an issue with anyone at my table that we could not discuss and address. We have had individuals, after talking it out, realize that they wanted to play a different story than the rest of the group wanted to tell. In those cases we either compromised or moved along.
I've had a player just leave outright after a few days playing with a power-guy. The problem is obvious to me. I'm sorry that you do not agree.
Based on your earlier comments, it sounds like your table suffers from severe player attrition. Healthy games have a stable player base and low rotation. I am not convinced the problem is as obvious as you seem to believe.
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So let me ask you this, then, ErrantPursuit and Ninten:
What do you do when you have a heavily optimized character who is outshining the un-optimized characters to such a degree that they are thinking of leaving the table?Well?
Should we say, "Hey, you need to optimize your character!" Some of these new players spend hours, nay days building their characters. They do not want their characters to be changed, they, instead, want to be able to play their characters.
So, what are your suggestions? Eh? Lose players so the one guy who refuses to not limit himself can feel smug?
This is an excellent question.
In my home games, I talk over character design and builds with the player. In that way I know exactly what I'm getting and how to design my encounters. It also means I incorporate the background and story elements of story heavy characters into my game. They often thoroughly enjoy seeing their hard work come to life in the game. It also allows me to deter any truly detrimental choices away. I also am able to set expectations and discuss strategies so that the player knows how to play their character and what tactics work.
Bottom line, I talk with my players. I involve them in the process of the game and the story. Everyone knows who they are sitting down with, and what they can expect from each other. The only problems I usually have along the lines you describe are from my younger players as they work on concepts like sharing face time with NPC's and rolling big numbers more often, (or occasionally claiming they rolled big numbers because they want to win, though that behaviour doesn't persist very long.)
This is quite amusing.
Mind you these cases are the exceptions. I have had a great many games, homebrews, running PFS modules and scenarios outside of PFS and such.
I usually do not have to get rid of players, and more often than not I am able to just call a "group vote" and people go bye bye that way. Occasionally I get passive people who will leave to play something else and "inform" me after the game has already started and they are not there.
My games are successful, but there are those rare exceptions where I have to put my foot down. Note: I AM omitting talking to people to resolve the issue, but there are just some people who refuse.
Keep in mind that the majority of my games are between friends, and the occasional rare addition to our already loaded groups. The advantage of playing at a university is there are often more people who want to play than there is room. When playing at a game-store, however, things are different and everyone is a wild-card.
It is less times than I can count on a hand that I have had to change the system to kill people who were, in effect, driving the other players away. None of these have been PFS, and all of them have been in a homebrew or scenarios or modules outside of PFS.
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Honestly, if someone's being enough of a jerk that they're driving other players away, GM-assassinating his character is going to do the exact opposite of help. Speaking from experience, most people who have a character die respond by trying to make their next character stronger than the last so he won't die too.
Not to mention that one the basic rules of GMing is that you don't solve out-of-game issues in-game.
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Once their godly characters died, horribly I might add, they complained. I retorted with telling them exactly what I told them at the beginning: "If you use this character, I am going to go out of my way to try and kill you because it is too powerful and unbalanced compared to the rest of the party."
I don't know who you game with but your actions seem very spiteful and mean-spirited.
I've had a drink or so, and now my self-control has dropped to the point I'm posting on this overkill thread.
** spoiler omitted **...
RP standpoint Muskets are quite loud. When running ROW I'll have the entire building go to fight within rounds of the musket being fired.
So...if you want to use counters have you tried:
All I listed above?
Plus...
Any spells that target Will. (from Color Spray, Hold Person, Charm, Dominate, you have a lot of options here.)
Incorporeal foes.
The lowly level 1 spell Obscuring Mist?
Darkness spell (even better at night). Or does the Gunslinger have darkvision?
Wall of anything. All block line of sight.
Wind Wall. Ranged DPR shutdown spell.
Sunder.
Disarm.
Compulsions to hand over the weapon.
Lots of melee minions in the gunslinger's face. You shoot, you provoke.
Grapple, grapple, grapple.
Tried disarming..wasnt fun, because muskets are considered 2 handed weapons, he adds +8 to his CMD because of that.
I tried to trip him not once, I even took mobs with tandem trip teamwork feat, did not work.
Obscuring mist is not an option, since he will just keep running out of it, and aim for whatever comes out of it.
I had plenty of incorporeal foes, didnt account for much, it was defeated easily (it was a shadow demon, so it wasnt even a low incorporeal creature)
Yes he have dark vision, so darkness doesnt really mattered.
I even went to the extent of trying to put a guntank against him, but wasnt working out well.
Spells that target will doesnt really work, I bombarded him in 2 of the encounters with spells that focus on will, but he rolled well.
I haven't tried grapple yet, nor any Walls of anything, but knocking him into water seems to be a good idea.
Wind wall I think is only for arrows, and I don't think it works against bullets.
Not to mention the musket's range increment is pretty big so i cant start a fight out of the range increment, it is pretty hard to do so...
Breaking his weapon is not really working as well, since to repair it, it is only a swift action to do so.
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In PFS Play what should be done with obviously broken classes/builds should be:
GM: "hello everyone welcome to todays game...what are we playing today?"
Player 1: "My cleric of Pharasma"
Player 2: "Sorceror with Dragon Bloodline"
Player 3: "My Lore Warden Fighter"
Player 4: "My Tiefling Rogure/Wizard"
Player 6: "My Musket Master Gunslinger/Alchemist with the 3rd Arm Mutagen, Rapid Reload, and One level in Craft Alchemy for cheap ammo!!"
GM: "Sigh....."
GM: "player 6...here is your signed Chronicle Sheet...please leave my table now so the rest of the players can play the game and have fun"
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Tried disarming..wasnt fun, because muskets are considered 2 handed weapons, he adds +8 to his CMD because of that.
i dont see that +8 part anywhere
You can attempt to disarm your opponent in place of a melee attack. If you do not have the Improved Disarm feat, or a similar ability, attempting to disarm a foe provokes an attack of opportunity from the target of your maneuver. Attempting to disarm a foe while unarmed imposes a –4 penalty on the attack.
If your attack is successful, your target drops one item it is carrying of your choice (even if the item is wielded with two hands). If your attack exceeds the CMD of the target by 10 or more, the target drops the items it is carrying in both hands (maximum two items if the target has more than two hands). If your attack fails by 10 or more, you drop the weapon that you were using to attempt the disarm. If you successfully disarm your opponent without using a weapon, you may automatically pick up the item dropped.
Not to mention the musket's range increment is pretty big so i cant start a fight out of the range increment, it is pretty hard to do so...
So 40 feet is pretty big range increment these days? Sure maybe in a dungeon, but 40 feet is charge range for a dwarf and shooting in melee is potentially hazardous to your health.
Walls and create pit works well against gunslingers. Its hard to shoot things when you don't have line of sight.
I remember one tactic that works pretty well against gunslingers. dropping prone behind cover as a free action. Used it against some horse archers with my witch. Move action stand up, std action hex or spell, free action fall prone. +8 to the AC is nice.
Design Manager
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We try to have conversations about the kind of game we're going to be playing, so people can build appropriate characters. If it's high combat, then people do what they can to build a character that matches that. If it's intrigue heavy, political, or what have you, normally heavy damage optimized classes will actually find themselves in a position of being more or less useless, and all of a sudden that skill heavy Bard with the Celebrity archetype is the power-gamer.
If a single character is out-shining the rest of the party to the point where they feel like they are not contributing, that is not a failure of the player. That is a failure of you as the GM (or of the designer of whatever AP or module you're running) to account for a sufficiently large number of variables. I'm actually kind of inclined to take back the blame for the designer of the AP or module, though, because you as the GM need to know your group and be prepared to adjust accordingly.
I've had the good fortune of gaming in groups where players, instead of getting jealous or whiny when someone out-performs them, instead ask the player(s) doing the out-performing for assistance, or tips on how to make their characters better.
The game is sufficiently large enough and complex enough that characters optimized for different purposes (skills over combat or vice versa) that when run well everyone should get a chance to shine. If a character has nowhere they are able to shine and the player is beginning to feel marginalized, this is an excellent opportunity for said player to talk to the people around him and either learn a little more about the game or work to see if there is a way to better integrate him/her into the groups dynamic.
Intentionally killing off PC's and causing TPK's as a way of "teaching a lesson" is a sign of a weak GM with poor system mastery and deficient social skills.
I can easily see the GMs side of this. Basically one PC is radically more powerful than the other PCs and is blowing all the NPCs up. This amounts of ruining the campaign not only for the GM, but for the other players.
Some of the other formites have said it’s the GMs fault because he didn’t research gunslingers properly. I think this is a really s!##ty attitude to take. GMing takes a lot of time and quite frankly some of us have children and demanding jobs and don’t have the time to evaluate each and every PC option. I guess the bad law way for us to fix something like this would be to allow core rulebook classes and builds only, but is that what people really want?
If I was handling this, I would thoroughly review your PC and the gunslinger class. I would then see if you made any mistakes because quite frankly every time I’ve seen a PC imbalance, it’s because the player made a mistake or misinterpretation. If no mistake was made, instead of buffing every NPC (lots of work for me), I would do iterative re-balancing of the gunslinger (read: nerf) until both the GM and PC reach a mutually agreeable level. If the player doesn’t like that process (or the outcome) then a free rebuild to another class is always available.
For your part, you can try to justify your PC with data that shows the gunslinger DPR is around the same level as another comparable class.
The game isn’t just about one player; it’s about everyone including the GM. The GM is just trying to make it enjoyable for everyone. He has that right, and a matter of fact it’s his job.
The DPR of Archer fighters will outclass the gunslinger.
They will do it farther, faster, and cheaper.
No one worries if the Archer's Bow will explode.If you don't like guns, disallow them.
Do not allow them, then pick on the guy who uses them.
This is SO not true it borders on lying. Past level 3 talking about the cost of ammunition is a joke. Touch AC's are so much lower that a gunslinger can full attack round 1 quick clear his gun round 2 and full attack round 3 and still out DPS an archer that full attacks every round. A gunslinger will always hit with every attack (that's only a SLIGHT exaggeration). They have the same crit chance as an archer, but their damage is x4 and they will always confirm against touch AC, and at 13th level, a musket master/pistolero never misfires with a firearm.
Further range? Yeah that's a minor problem until around level 5 when you get Distance... Oh but that brings down your to hit and damage since a bow will get +1. That might be true if Touch AC's weren't an average of 5 lower the regular AC.
And why is everyone calling a gunslinger a 1 trick pony? Did you read the thread? The GM raised the touch AC so the gunslinger switched to de-buffing. There's two tricks right there. Look at the other grit options and there's crowd control in there too. Gunslingers can even stop bleeding, pick locks, have more skill points than fighters and only needs 1 stat to a fighters 2 (bows don't get the agile enhancement).
So yes, Gunslinger are MUCH better than any archer could ever hope to be. Their "limitation" are extremely minor and quickly overcome, does this make them overpowered? Well that for you to decide, in my opinion HELL YES.
So 40 feet is pretty big range increment these days? Sure maybe in a dungeon, but 40 feet is charge range for a dwarf and shooting in melee is potentially hazardous to your health.
Walls and create pit works well against gunslingers. Its hard to shoot things when you don't have line of sight.
I remember one tactic that works pretty well against gunslingers. dropping prone behind cover as a free action. Used it against some horse archers with my witch. Move action stand up, std action hex or spell, free action fall prone. +8 to the AC is nice.
actually it is 50 feet(Because of Steady Aim musket master lvl 1) and 100 when using Deadeye
IDK what a guntank is sorry, could you clarify?
Guntank is a Gunslinger archetype that excells at combat against gunslingers, and gain half the bonus from his armor as a deflection bonus
"Startingat 2nd level, a gun tank wearing medium or heavy
armor gains half the armor’s bonus plus the armor’s
enhancement bonus (if any) as a def lection bonus
against any non-siege f irearm or splash weapon attack"
He is basically using Quick Clear,Gunslinger Initiative,Pistol Whip,Dead eye,Deadly Aim...he is being backed up by a Cleric with the Luck domain (bit of luck, Cat's grace from normal cleric spells and some other supportive cleric spells to top that)
and thank you for the suggestions so far,(btw the +8 from disarm came from basically he forgot to add +4 base attack bonus to his CMD and his attackers were unarmed so it gave them -4 on the attempt , sorry for the confusion on that)..i might be able to use some of these advices to balance out some of the fights, thank you very much
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Design Manager
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***Guntank is a Gunslinger archetype that excells at combat against gunslingers, ***
Not really, no. He just isn't quite as vulnerable to getting his armor completely ignored when he's shot at. He's actually a pretty sub-par archetype, with crap mobility, shield proficiencies which are actually a trap, because you can't reload a firearm while holding a heavy shield or tower shield, and trades all of his bonus feats from 4th level on for Armor Training.
You've basically traded away everything good about the Gunslinger, other than firearm proficiency, for a bonus to your touch AC that caps at about +8.Thinking this class excels against other Gunslingers is kind of indicative of a lack of system mastery.
Nimble gets you up to a +5 bonus to AC that applies against everything not just firearm attacks (when used with Gunslinger's Dodge, which the Gun Tank gives up, this actually completely levels the playing field between the standard class and the GT archetype), 5 extra feats means the standard Gunslinger is going to be way better at doing what he does (or at least have more options), and then you know.... He can actually reload his gun.
Don't touch attacks bypass DR? So not having silver bullets doesn't mean anything as long as the target is in the first range increment you do full damage vs anything even DR/epic. It is kinda like a paladin smiting evil and ignoring DR.
Touch attacks and DR penetration are what make the gunslinger cool.
Sorry but No touch attack do not by-pass DR.
They just hit real offen due to full BaB for gunslinger and touch AC being normaly 5 to 10 lower.
Gunslingers are not one trick ponies. That is a player choice.
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He is basically using Quick Clear,Gunslinger Initiative,Pistol Whip,Dead eye,Deadly Aim...he is being backed up by a Cleric with the Luck domain (bit of luck, Cat's grace from normal cleric spells and some other supportive cleric spells to top that)
Btw please clerify me on this, do you get an attack of opportunity if you move out of threat range with tactical movement?
To answer your last question first: All movement in combat is tactical. You provoke whenever you move out of a threatened square. Exeptions: 5-foot step does not provoke. Withdrawal action does not provoke the first square you leave. Skill based challenges like acrobatics can prevent AoO. There are other situational exceptions and feats/abilities that can influence AoO's.
For reference: The Gunslinger.
I'm just not sure why targeting his CMD is not working for you. Perhaps some of those buffs from the cleric you mentioned? However, despite his full BAB, his CMD is only buffed by his Dex (unless for some reason your player has a good Strength, too). Incorporating reach metamagic and summoned monsters you should be able to drop nasty grappling monsters right on top of the gunslinger.
Does the Gunslinger have the necessary reload feats? A musket is a slow to load piece of equipment. It is possible the character is receiving too many iterative attacks. Looking at the Firearms Rules:
You need at least one hand free to load one-handed and two-handed firearms. In the case of two-handed firearms, you hold the weapon in one hand and load it with the other—you only need to hold it in two hands to aim and shoot the firearm. Loading siege firearms requires both hands, and one hand usually manipulates a large ramrod (which can be wielded as a club in combat). The Rapid Reload feat reduces the time required to load one-handed and two-handed firearms, but this feat does not reduce the time it takes to load siege firearms.
Loading any firearm provokes attacks of opportunity. Other rules for loading a firearm depend on whether the firearm is an early firearm or an advanced firearm.
Early Firearms: Early firearms are muzzle-loaded, requiring bullets or pellets and black powder to be rammed down the muzzle. If an early firearm has multiple barrels, each barrel must be loaded separately. It is a standard action to load each barrel of a one-handed early firearm and a full-round action to load each barrel of a two-handed early firearm. It takes three full-round actions by one person to load a siege firearm. This can be reduced to two full-round actions if more than one person is loading the cannon.
Every time he reloads he provokes an AoO until level 11 when he can acquire:
At 11th level, as long as the gunslinger has at least 1 grit point, she can reload a single barrel of a one-handed or two-handed firearm as a swift action once per round. If she has the Rapid Reload feat or is using an alchemical cartridge (or both), she can reload a single barrel of the weapon as a free action each round instead. Furthermore, using this deed does not provoke attacks of opportunity.
Also, up until that time, the Gunslinger must have Rapid Reload to reduce load times from a Full Round Action to a Standard Action. Magic and special equipment are required to reduce it any further. I do not recall the exact progression of reduction to free action (which is required to use all iterative attacks) but I think it is three steps.
Quick Clear (Ex): At 1st level, as a standard action, the gunslinger can remove the broken condition from a single firearm she is currently wielding, as long as that condition was gained by a firearm misfire. The gunslinger must have at least 1 grit point to perform this deed. Alternatively, if the gunslinger spends 1 grit point to perform this deed, she can perform quick clear as a move-equivalent action instead of a standard action.
If he is using ammo to correct his reload times, that ammo has a greater misfire chance. Even with Quick Clear he cannot clear the broken condition as a swift action. He can only fix broken if the firearm received that from a misfire.
Having another Gunslinger Sunder the character's weapon would be hilarious. Especially with adamantine bullets. However, an Archer could do it, and Mages could use a number of CMD targeting spells to keep him spending his actions to stand up or otherwise overcome adverse effects. A reach weapon control fighter would be good, and a Monk should be able to close and then whip tail using AoO from the reloads as well as CMD to trip, disarm, grapple, etc. Rogues should be able to move into ambush position and force the character to drastically change focus in order to survive the sneak attack blender.
I think that the Gunslinger is more than a little over the top for many DMs and groups. It could take a really long time to go through a tit for tat comparison of why Gunslingers do or don't seem overpowered to certain people. However, it seems to be a fact that many DMs find the class troublesome. Dismissing the concerns of those DMs doesn't seem helpful to me.
I think issues with potentially unbalanced classes, spells, and other abilities is one reason many DMs resort to "Core Rules Only". It can be easier to make broad limitations like that than case by case decisions on lots of potentially debatable stuff like a Pistolero with double barreled pistols squeezing off 14 shots per round for hundreds of damage. If the DM says "that's too much" the player can feel targeted, and I think it is unreasonable to expect that most DMs will know every potential power of every class and archetype, especially when new material is coming out all the time.
Ultimately players should use self control and build characters within the paradigm of their play group.
That's your opinion, and you're certainly entitled to it, but some folks would like to see better game balance in the rules. Even if the current rules are unlikely to be changed there might eventually be "Pathfinder 2" one day, and I'd like to see it as free as possible from divisively powerful options which cause disharmony in gaming groups. There will always be players who crave power and DMs who crave control, but I think better balanced rules help lead to a better game.
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Design Manager
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No, Jamie, you can't play a soulknife, I can't be bothered to read a few pages or at the least look what folks say about optimizing the class online *** so you should be a DRUID
No joke, I actually had a GM tell me almost exactly this once back in the 3.5 days. He was worried my Totemist from Magic of Incarnum was going to be too powerful and he didn't understand the Incarnum system, so he suggested I play a druid in its place.
Needless to say, the Druid was orders of magnitude greater in power than the Totemist.
There's actually an easy way around this. Fog Cloud and related spells. Diminish the visibility of the gunslinger so he or she can't shoot as much. Or pile on the bodies - a swarm of combatants will likewise eat up bullets.
So...if you want to use counters have you tried:
All I listed above?
Plus...
Any spells that target Will. (from Color Spray, Hold Person, Charm, Dominate, you have a lot of options here.)
Incorporeal foes.
The lowly level 1 spell Obscuring Mist?
Darkness spell (even better at night). Or does the Gunslinger have darkvision?
Wall of anything. All block line of sight.
Wind Wall. Ranged DPR shutdown spell.
Sunder.
Disarm.
Compulsions to hand over the weapon.
Lots of melee minions in the gunslinger's face. You shoot, you provoke.
Grapple, grapple, grapple.Tried disarming..wasnt fun, because muskets are considered 2 handed weapons, he adds +8 to his CMD because of that.
I tried to trip him not once, I even took mobs with tandem trip teamwork feat, did not work.
Obscuring mist is not an option, since he will just keep running out of it, and aim for whatever comes out of it.
I had plenty of incorporeal foes, didnt account for much, it was defeated easily (it was a shadow demon, so it wasnt even a low incorporeal creature)
Yes he have dark vision, so darkness doesnt really mattered.
I even went to the extent of trying to put a guntank against him, but wasnt working out well.
Spells that target will doesnt really work, I bombarded him in 2 of the encounters with spells that focus on will, but he rolled well.
I haven't tried grapple yet, nor any Walls of anything, but knocking him into water seems to be a good idea.
Wind wall I think is only for arrows, and I don't think it works against bullets.
Not to mention the musket's range increment is pretty big so i cant start a fight out of the range increment, it is pretty hard to do so...
Breaking his weapon is not really working as well, since to repair it, it is only a swift action to do so.
wind wall, just like deflect arrows, works against arrows, bullets, and bolts.
if wind wall is too much a hinderance
give your foes 2 free levels in monk and deflect arrows as one of their feats.
muskets, only have a 40 foot range increment, and only target touch AC in the first increment
so use pouncing superstitutious invulnerable rager barbarians with reckless abandon to wound him pretty badly. he likely prepared to hit touch AC, but prove how nasty DR is against his damage output.
I don't know who you game with but your actions seem very spiteful and mean-spirited.
More than you know, but I am also a loving person. I tend to pick up the overall goal of the group being happy and healthy, get to know everyone in the group, accept them for the facade they want to portray, and love them for who they really are.
So, while yes, I am a VERY mean person in a handful of situations I am also a very kind and supportive person in the majority of other situations. My viciousness knows no bottom, yet at the same time neither does my love for people.
I want everyone to feel useful, I want everyone to be able to do what they are there to do, I want everyone to feel like they have a reason to be at the table, and most of all I want everyone to enjoy the game so they come back.
Mind you this: If I try to kill a character that everyone supposedly hates and they fight to protect said character then they have obviously made of their minds. I don't kill characters with "Rocks fall, Bob dies." It is always something the other heroes could save him from. 16 weak monsters tends to end with players being able to kill them easy since it means they are (APL - 8). 16 grapplers is even easier since they tend to have to focus to achieve much.
Even if a character dies if the party pointedly takes his corpse to a church and has him revived I'm not going to charge them a fee to do it. Hell, I wont even include negative levels since the other players have made up their mind as to if they want or don't want the character in our game.
Perhaps I gazed too long into the abyss.
Eh?
Anyway, love you all. <3
They're called one-trick ponies not because they literally can only do one thing - even a Fighter has 2+INT skill points per level there.
Right and a Gunslinger has 4+INT and since a Gunslinger needs DEX only, as opposed to a fighter that needs DEX and STR, the Gunslinger can raise his INT higher.
They're called that because killing things with the gun is the only thing they do well. That debuff is a very minor thing, a sorry consolation prize, really. Like a dread necromancer discovering the entire bloody kingdom is under some peaceful-repose holy ground deal, but hey he's still got enfeebling ray.
Ya think so? Having a no save Confusion spell, automatic trip attack at range, and an automatic disarm at range are minor debuffs? That's not counting the automatic Flat-Footed effect. I think we have very different defintions of "minor".
Which does kind of leave you "one-trick"-y compared to a frickin CLERIC.
Assuming the Gunsligner hasn't disarmed the Cleric's holy symbol from 80' away.
They're called one-trick ponies not because they literally can only do one thing - even a Fighter has 2+INT skill points per level there.Right and a Gunslinger has 4+INT and since a Gunslinger needs DEX only, as opposed to a fighter that needs DEX and STR, the Gunslinger can raise his INT higher.
They're called that because killing things with the gun is the only thing they do well. That debuff is a very minor thing, a sorry consolation prize, really. Like a dread necromancer discovering the entire bloody kingdom is under some peaceful-repose holy ground deal, but hey he's still got enfeebling ray.Ya think so? Having a no save Confusion spell, automatic trip attack at range, and an automatic disarm at range are minor debuffs? That's not counting the automatic Flat-Footed effect. I think we have very different defintions of "minor".
Which does kind of leave you "one-trick"-y compared to a frickin CLERIC.Assuming the Gunsligner hasn't disarmed the Cleric's holy symbol from 80' away.
Compared to what spell-casters do, yes minor. That being said 9/10 times when you look at one of the crazy things that gunslingers can do its just better to do the damage and kill the thing than mess around with debuffs that wouldn't matter if you had just done damage.
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You want to know why a gunslinger may take these abilities? Because they might have to conserve their ammunition. Maybe they're in the middle of the wilderness and the GM is forcing the player to keep track of everything. They realize they can't just head to town and resupply. So rather than blow three or four shots on something to kill it, they make each shot count so they're effective... rather than when they reach the big bad at the end of the adventure, go *click click* "oh hell..."
I'm more inclined to believe that the gunslingers has those abilities basically for when they are outshining the group, they have abilities and options of actually playing BUT making a group effort in keeping everyone interested.
The confusion, trip, etc I don't believe are there for the gunslinger per se except maybe to get outta very hairy situations, but more there so they can actually play nice and let others get into ideal situations to where they the other party members can shine.
To the OP, u basically made an OP gunslinger BUT u are in a group that sounds like everyone's optimizing. So u are imo good and the DM just needs to throw exp table out t he window and just give yal more mobs to waste actions on.
To the discussion of gunslingers in a party outshining everybody else....well it is a group game. I'm sad to see so often on this board when an OP character comes in and starts making the game less fun for the dm AND the other party members...that it so often gets automatically blamed on the dm for restricting how a player wants to play their character.
To me it seems to fall into either 2 categories. And this is not about op characters in a group that's everyone optimizing, but in a group where 1 person is basically making it a lot less fun for players and the dm. Because believe it or not, the other players and "gasp" the dm should be having fun as well :-)
1. Its a player who is stating this and they are someone who looms and plays the most powerful build and either doesn't care they are stealing the show and making it into a 1 character show with others being sidekicks because they crave the power, or have either never dm'd and know what MORE pressure and work they are putting onto the dm to figure out even more ways to challenge the player but to also figure out ways to make the less op characters shine that the op player couldn't steal that thunder as well.
2. Difference in style which I believe it is mostly. Some players/dms want the characters to always succeed with little to no chance of failure, while other players/dms want that sense of failure is very possible and that with knowing failure is possible, the rewards fo success are much more rewarding. One plays as if the characters are destined/legendary/chosen ones from the get go and thru encounters they suceeed to reinfoce that the character is "special", and one plays that the players are normal adventurers that earn their legendary status thru surviving and overcoming difficult odds. Different strokes for different folks and it boils me to see people state that one way is the correct way of playing. Its not. Its dictated by the playersand the dm of each and every group and it will be different with each group as far as the style and if tthere's a difference of opionions, then imo the dm has the final word. Its a group decision with the dm having the final word.
Like for example, me and a good friend of mine are both dms. He starts off giving his players insanely good weapons and gear and the players cannot fail in what they are wanting to do for important stuff. If they want to overthrow a town or take on an army, then they can. Theres very very little chance of failure. I on the otherhand have the group start off as normal people and there's high chance of failure. They can try to overthrow a city but unless they are prepared etc then there's a good possibility that they will fail. They start off feeling weak and unimportant but as they progress and start overcoming odds, they start feeling that they are great adventurers. I had a player of my group try on of his games and he told me it was insanely different as far as tone. He was shocked that in my friends game that unlike mine, when he rolled a natural 1 he didn't automatically fail and that he almost always suceeded at everything he did. I simply told him me and him have different styles, different strokes for different folks. I explained that while he enjoyed certain aspects of the friends game, he didn't like other parts and that it felt wrong to always suceed, and I told him that he's not playing wrong, that's just how he plays his games. We play the same gane but with different styles and that neither of us are playing it wrong, its just a different style.
So ill end my rant with saying, just because u like playing a certain way and wouldn't play as others would in their style, in no way means they are playing wrong and should not be critized for it. That's for both sides. :-)
The idea that the Gunslinger's special attacks are balanced because he can't use them when making a full attack and his full attack is balanced because he can't use his special attacks during it is kind of tough for me to work with. Pointing out defensive options which some enemy NPC could potentially use to gain a little protection from the Gunslinger doesn't help the vast majority of monsters to stand up against the class. Anyhow, if the DM needs to deploy special defenses against something that makes me think that whatever is inspiring those defenses might be overpowered. I mean, sure, you can add fog to every encounter, but doesn't that seem a little weird?
@FanaticRat - Grit points are indeed a limited resource, but taking Signature Deed can solve that problem for many builds. For instance, we have a Pistolero with Signature Deed (Up Close and Deadly). This means that he gets +4d6 damage per shot without spending any Grit. It also means that he does 2d6 damage even if he misses. Even with a fairly vanilla build this quickly adds up to fairly serious damage even for a foe which can somehow manage to get missed. I can't think of a lot of other feats which would give a PC +14 average damage per attack even on attacks which need to hit full AC.
I've ruled for our group that it requires a standard action to fire both barrels of a double barreled pistol and you only get precision damage on one bullet in each double attack anyhow. Without those rulings we would potentially have a PC doing up to 32d6 damage per round even if the player somehow missed every attack. On the contrary, his chance to hit per attack against most monsters in the various Bestiaries is 95%. The damage range for an optimized Pistolero prior to my rulings would range from around 112 (all misses) to around 616 (all hits). With my rulings we would expect to see more like 56 (all misses) to 308(all hits). That's still crazy damage in my opinion, and since these are touch attacks most of that damage is likely to actually get applied (unlike a pouncing Barbarian's iteratve attacks, for instance)
I know that some folks might laugh off 300 or even 600 damage as trivial compared to the much lauded powers of full casters, but I did receive complaints from other players that their PCs suddenly seemed pointless. If the pouncing Barbarian, pouncing Beastmorph Alchemist, and Synthesist Summoner feel like they can't play a meaningful part in damage dealing I think something is amiss.
Before anything else: Bushwhackers and mechanists do not get these abilities, as they're all part of the Targeting deed. Not common archetypes for sure, but still worth noting.
Confusion: One round, Full Action [why didn't you just kill it?], costs 1 grit point. Still mind-affecting so plenty of things immune.
Trip Attack: One round, Full Action [why didn't you just KILL it?], costs 1 grit point. Four legs or immune to trips is immune to this as well.
Torso: You're trying to kill it. With a full round action. When you could've Dead Shot, Vital Strike, actually Full-Attacked...
Wings: If level 5+ flyers can't make DC 20, and if falling up to 20 feet even matters to them [by this level would it even matter to a con 8 wizard with no buffs?], you're wasting chickadees again.
Arms is actually probably the best debuff here, with an auto-weapon-drop, though only if they're vulnerable to it. Even if confusion or trip take hold, there's no guarantee they'll actually screw the other guy's next turn, but if you don't see a weapon cord/locked-gauntlet, and they're using a weapon?
The Auto Flat-footed effect is kinda nice if there's rogues in the party, but you know what really flat-foots people? Being dead.
Even though they're as near-auto-hitting as anything else a gunslinger tends to do, those moves are just like other combat maneuvers. Your fighter could have full attacked but wasted his turn doing this? Gunslinger's got even less of an excuse, he doesn't need to move as much to blast'em.
You have truly missed the entire point of my post. I honestly have no idea what points you're trying to argue. The point I was trying to make is that just because the Gunslinger can out DPS the entire party combined round for round, that doesn't mean that' the only thing they can do. By that logic Wizards are one trick ponies too since killing the mobs are always a better idea. Just because a Wizard can kill mobs doesn't mean that's all they can do.
Where does it say 4-legs are immune to trip attacks?
As far as Grit points being limited? How does a Gunslinger replenish Grit? Well they need to kill a baddie. What does a Gunslinger do better than anyone else in a party? Kill baddies. How limited are their grit points really? They aren't.
So far as I've seen, for targeting, there are a lot of enemies that can't be tripped. Disarming and confusion are nice, but only for one around and again you trade doing lots of damage for spending a grit to support your party member. There are other classes who can do these things reliably and far more often.
Again, that's my point: If for some REALLY odd reason a Gunslinger can't do damage, they have other options. They are FAR from 1-trick ponies. And no there really aren't any other classes that can trip or disarm as reliably or as often as a Gunslinger (see above for the "limited grit" argument).
Four-legged critters are harder to trip, but obviously not immune. Just a +4 CMD.
There is a chance that yuor DM has an asthetic problem with the gunslinger and he trying to find excuses to make you play another class. There are a lot of people who don't like firearms (myself included) but if that's the case with him then he should have said so in the beggining.
This is not specifically being directed at you but here goes:
Cannons, primitive guns, rockets, flamethrowers, grenades and grenade launchers all started to see use in the 13th century. People need to get the f over themselves and accept that medieval people could have had guns and in a world with plentiful glass, vast trade and travel networks, plate armor and giant freaking flying lizards that firearms seeing use is not unrealistic or even unusual.