Last night. First encounter of first session with first enemy requiring a spell shot out of my gun for the first time and i'm going first.
Fire burning hands into his face at point blank range with my magical axe musket. Proceed to roll nat 1's to hit and to save myself from the ensuing explosion that blows back and ko's my up-until-that-moment-badass Drow-assumed-leader of our party.
So... I really want to keep from shooting myself in the face with my own spells. I'm running spellslinger 1 then moving into gunslinger for quick clear and riding the train till I can take Eldrich Knight.
My question is, what do I do to keep things like that from happening as much as possible? Weapons/items/feats etetc whatever I can do to make this guy better at what he's supposed to be doing. Shooting spells out of a gun ala Gene Starwind from Outlaw Star.
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Well, for one thing, your gun never should have blown up. Burning Hands is an Area of Effect spell and doesn't require an attack roll, so the only way you could misfire with it as a Spellslinger is if one of your targets rolled a nat 20 on his save. Even in that event, the gun would only gain the broken condition and wouldn't blow up unless you fired it and the exact same thing happened again.
Invest in a +1 Reliable gun.
You are playing a spellslinger? You should be embarrassed.
Well, for one thing, your gun never should have blown up. Burning Hands is an Area of Effect spell and doesn't require an attack roll, so the only way you could misfire with it as a Spellslinger is if one of your targets rolled a nat 20 on his save. Even in that event, the gun would only gain the broken condition and wouldn't blow up unless you fired it and the exact same thing happened again.
I'll bring this up with my Gm. He just had me rolling twice for what I assumed at the time was some ward the enemy had active.
@Abraham: Me too :(
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Well, for one thing, your gun never should have blown up. Burning Hands is an Area of Effect spell and doesn't require an attack roll, so the only way you could misfire with it as a Spellslinger is if one of your targets rolled a nat 20 on his save. Even in that event, the gun would only gain the broken condition and wouldn't blow up unless you fired it and the exact same thing happened again.I'll bring this up with my Gm. He just had me rolling twice for what I assumed at the time was some ward the enemy had active.
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Yeah, it sounds to me like there may have been some misunderstandings about the functionality of the class. When casting AoE spells through your Arcane Gun, they generally won't require an attack roll unless the spell description actually says they should. Primarily it's only your ranged touch spells that will. So, when casting a Lightning Bolt, Burning Hands, Color Spray, etc. you don't have to make attack rolls, you just cast them exactly like any other wizard would, but you get to add the weapon's enhancement bonus to the spell's attack rolls or saving throw DC's. If you roll a one on a touch attack, or if your enemy rolls a nat 20 on his saving throw, it counts as a misfire. The first misfire gives your gun the broken condition, the second will actually trigger the explosion. In the scenario you described, you should have just declared that you were casting Burning Hands, and then your GM should have rolled saves for everyone in the area of the attack. Only if 2 or more rolled nat 20's on their saves should your weapon have overloaded.
That clears it up alot actually. It probably was a misunderstanding.
Opens up a question I've been having with him for a mite... When the spell comes out of the gun, does it activate at the point of the barrel and then spread out from there, or is it at the point of impact assuming the spell is being fired along with a bullet. Also, Does the cone if it activates at the point of impact continue in the direction of the firing, or is it controllable? (Like hitting the first in a line of enemies coming around a corner and the cone blasting into the unseen line instead of straight back.)
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That clears it up alot actually. It probably was a misunderstanding.
Opens up a question I've been having with him for a mite... When the spell comes out of the gun, does it activate at the point of the barrel and then spread out from there, or is it at the point of impact assuming the spell is being fired along with a bullet. Also, Does the cone if it activates at the point of impact continue in the direction of the firing, or is it controllable? (Like hitting the first in a line of enemies coming around a corner and the cone blasting into the unseen line instead of straight back.)
Think of your Arcane Gun as a wand that can also shoot bullets. None of the normal effects of the spells are changed, they're just coming out of your gun instead of your hands.
The biggest advantage to the Spellslinger (other than being proficient in firearms) is that you can boost your spells by using your other spells to boost your Enhancement to your weapon via the Mage Bullets ability.So, if you're casting a spell, it casts basically just like normal, except you can apply your enhancement bonus from your weapon to the DC or Attack roll.
Again, thank you infinitely for the assistance... I understood all but this part.
The biggest advantage to the Spellslinger (other than being proficient in firearms) is that you can boost your spells by using your other spells to boost your Enhancement to your weapon via the Mage Bullets ability.
How is it boosting the spells by using other spells to boost the enhancement bonus?
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Again, thank you infinitely for the assistance... I understood all but this part.
The biggest advantage to the Spellslinger (other than being proficient in firearms) is that you can boost your spells by using your other spells to boost your Enhancement to your weapon via the Mage Bullets ability.
How is it boosting the spells by using other spells to boost the enhancement bonus?
Say you've chosen a spell that is useless in the situation you've found yourself in (for example, you're fighting Fire creatures and you thought Web might come in handy). You can burn Web to add a +2 Enhancement bonus to your gun, and you may now add a +2 to all of the save DC's or attack rolls for your more useful spells for the next 2 minutes. This can mean that creatures that had close to a 50% chance of making their saves are now more likely to fail and suffer the full effects of your magic. It can make lower level spells more likely to connect and do something, etc.
Since it is a swift action to use Mage Bullets, it won't interfere with most of your other actions until you pick up Quicken, so you can immediately drop whatever spell is least useful to the situation in exchange for making the rest of your spells more effective.There's been some back and forth in regards to whether or not the properties you can add with Mage Bullets can be added to spells cast through the gun, I'm unsure if there has been official clarification on this.