Spellslinger - is there a way?

[Akutabe Azazel]

Is there a way to make this archtype.. actually worth wild? Or is it doomed to forever be a trap?

[MC Templar]

I crunched the numbers a couple times and got discouraged every time...
.. the most fun version I came up with was a one level dip then jumping ship to myrmadarch with "reach spell" to fire spell-enchanted bullets at people. (changing force hook charge to longbow range sounds hilarious to me, btw)

I suppose a straight spellslinger could cherry-pick ray and line spells to maximize their bonus, and use absurdly high DCs for their spells.

A +5 gun applying it's bonus to necromantic rays and lightning bolts could be fun. (maybe elemental spell so your lightning bolt could be whatever element you need at the moment.)

high end disintegration gets even scarier when the fortitude save is obscenely boosted by an enchanted gun.

[Espy Kismet]

Yeah. Losing 4 different schools of magic.. AND all your cantrips.. I just don't know what to do with it. Its like manythings I've seen before where It looks oh so fun at first glance, only to find in practice that the fun is quickly eliminated from everything you could have held dear.

Honestly, how fun would it have been to be this class, with the ability to cast message. You and your party could have been running around happily talking over magical walkie talkies. But.. meh.

[soupturtle]

There are basically two ways to make this archetype worth playing:

1. Get out of it after level 1 and into another full casting class (I recommend sorcerer). You get all the benefits of the class, for the price of delaying your casting by one level.

2. Change your mindset. You're not a wizard, you're a gun blaster. You're not as powerful as a wizard, you're not as versatile as a wizard, but you can still be a fun and worthwhile character. Keep the schools with the best ray and line spells and terrorize the enemies with them. Leave the fancy battlefield control, summons and utility magic to someone else.

edit: I forgot the third way: multiclass it with gunslinger into eldritch knight to create a versatile gunslinging damage dealer who can shoot save-or-sucks from his gun with a solid DC.

[Espy Kismet]

Holy cow Soup.. you're a bloody genius! I didn't even think about option 1 being viable.

[Dekalinder]

You can also just stick with it and make a necro/trasmuter with a +5 bonus to all his DC. It's quite a nasty one-shotter.

[soupturtle]

Espy Kismet wrote:

Holy cow Soup.. you're a bloody genius! I didn't even think about option 1 being viable.

I cannot claim credit for that idea I'm afraid. I read it somewhere as well.

Thinking about it some more, it might work pretty well with a cleric as well. Especially since you can make all the touch attack spells into ranged touch attack spells with the reach spell metamagic feat.

[Blueluck]

"A spellslinger can cast any ranged touch attack, cone, line, or ray spells through his arcane gun. When he casts through the arcane gun, the gun’s enhancement bonus (if any) is a bonus to the spell’s attack rolls or to the spell’s saving throw DCs."

Ranged touch attacks are pretty easy to make without this benefit, so it will be the saving throw DC you usually want to adjust. Not many spells qualify, but you don't need all that many different spells to make the character effective.

Here's a first draft of candidates from the Wizard list:

1 Burning Hands (evocation)
1 Color Spray (illusion)
1 Ray of Enfeeblement (necromancy)

2 Fire Breath (evocation)
2 Shatter (evocation)

3 Pellet Blast (conjuration)
3 Battering Blast (evocation)
3 Heatstroke (evocation)
3 Lightning Bolt (evocation)
3 Ray of Exhaustion (necromancy)

4 Crushing Despair (enchantment)
4 Dragon's Breath (evocation)
4 River of Wind (evocation)
4 Shout (evocation)
4 Fear (necromancy)

5 Cone of Cold (evocation)

6 Cold Ice Strike (evocation)
6 Disintegrate (transmutation)

7 Waves of Ecstasy (enchantment)
7 Prismatic Spray (evocation)
7 Firebrand (transmutation)

8 Wall of Lava (conjuration)
8 Shout, Greater (evocation)

9 Clashing Rocks (conjuration)
9 Meteor Swarm (evocation)

[Espy Kismet]

Why is Acid Arrow not on the list there?

[The Artaxerxes]

It should be, he simply missed it.

I had a crazy idea, and I know it won't work, but here I go: A gun wielding wizard/cleric/mystic theurge. With the ability to bypass armor with the gun, the lower BAB won't matter as much. With the ability to be decent in combat, he can make up for the lack of high level spells. The main problem I'm seeing is he won't be durable, but that could be remedied by healing/buffs/summoned or raised distractions. Sorry to jack the thread, but could that work?

[Darth Grall]

Imo cleric x/ spellslinger 1 is quite nice in theory. My one player playing one has some trouble with it though, I recommend treating it as a cleric with a gun rather than an MT hybrid caster, since you can just wear heavy armor if you're not as arguably focused on the arcane.

[Imbicatus]

Hmmm... You could also go Sorcerer x / Spellslinger 1. Choose an Elemental Bloodline, pick ray attacks, and use your arcane gun to crank out really high DCs. You only need an 11 int to cast level 1 wizard spells, so the wizard level is just for the free feats and Arcane Gun / Mage Bullet features. You would still have full arcane casting from Sorcerer levels, and the benefits of the arcane gun, for a 1 caster level penalty.

[Alchemy Studios]

1 Caster level pen? A trait can get rid of that.

Firetream

This works with guns?

[Javaed]

Another option is to see if your GM will let you use the Word Casting rule system. While it's a bad option for most spell casters it is actually pretty powerful for an evoker. In your case it'll grant extra versatility.

If your game has a lot of down time you can also use the spell-crafting rules to create your own spells.

[Arisette]

You could still use Int and go Sage bloodline from the Sorcerer. You get a +2 to all DCs of a spell school of your choice, which sits nice and pretty on top of the Spell Focus feats and the abilities of the Spellslinger.

My one qualm-- are the first level spells you learn at the start for your one-level spellslinger dip considered "spells known" for your sorcerer? Dual casting classes always mess me up with their separate lists. I mean, knowing 3+int mod level 1 spells at first level is pretty sick for a sorcerer, but something tells me that's not right.

[Sunaj Janus]

You could just put a few levels in so that you could be the only character in the game that can get vicious on a ranged weapon.

[Kazaan]

Arisette wrote:

My one qualm-- are the first level spells you learn at the start for your one-level spellslinger dip considered "spells known" for your sorcerer? Dual casting classes always mess me up with their separate lists. I mean, knowing 3+int mod level 1 spells at first level is pretty sick for a sorcerer, but something tells me that's not right.

No. The spells you gain from your Wizard level are Wizard spells and can only be cast if prepared using Wizard spell slots by the normal method. To illustrate, say you're a Spellslinger 1/Sorc 5. The wizard level gives you 3 first level spells and 1+Int first level spells per day. We'll say, for example, he has 14 Int so he gets 3 spells per day. As a Sorc 5, he has 6+cha first level spells and 3+cha second level spells per day. We'll say he has 18 Cha. He also knows 6 Cantrips, 4 lvl 1 spells, and 2 lvl 2 spells. These spells can be cast per the MO of the Sorcerer, spontaneously, but he can't cast the wizard spells spontaneously, they must be prepared. So the profile is as follows:

3 lvl 1 spells in spell book; 3 prepared lvl 1 spells
6 cantrips known; unlimited spontaneous castings
4 lvl 1 spells known; 10 spontaneous castings
2 lvl 2 spells known; 7 spontaneous castings

[Dirge Of Hubris]

I am going the Spell Sniper route of Spellslinger 3/Flame Oracle 4/ Mystic Theurge X for the sheer number of spells I will have access to. Paired with Mithral Shirt, I am looking at only 10% failure chance on Arcane utility spells with half of my blaster spells coming from Oracle.

With the Cinderdance revelation, I should be able to stay back and let the Samurai, Cleric and Paladin handle most of the damage soak with my double barrel musket.

I guess the mentality changes no matter how you slice it though. Over the pure murder striking that a full spellslinger will get, I went the battle of attrition. I WILL always have spells left over after a fight with healing magic on the back burner.