TBH I generally only play Gunslingers in campaigns where the GM will allow advanced firearms, for the very reason that I envision Roland of Gilead more than Connor Kenway. :P
A gunslinger can still get buy with multiple guns and barrels, even at high levels. it just means they can't 'go nova' with weapon cords and juggling, since if they go nova, they've fired everything they have in the first round and have to fal back to something else in later rounds.
I wouldn't mind that much if they go Nova. Going Nova means they concentrate most damage in an instant, and then "go down" for a while. That could be the equivalent of firing both 6 shooters in a round, then spend several rounds reloading.
The problem with weapon-cord-juggling is that they don't go nova. They go susatained nova.
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TBH I generally only play Gunslingers in campaigns where the GM will allow advanced firearms, for the very reason that I envision Roland of Gilead more than Connor Kenway. :P
It's a valid point that, were firearms nerfed like we envision, what's the point of being a gunslinger at all? If you can't do your DPR job as a martial, what's the point of you? Why would anyone want to play a gunslinger?
I've never read the Dark Tower novels, but Roland Deschain's type of Gunslinger seems semi-mystical to me, and a semi-mystical gunslinger PF class would work if written with this in mind.
For example, imagine that gunslingers got a signature firearm at first level, a bit like a familiar or a Black Blade (two-gun pistoleers would get two). With his signature weapon a gunslinger can automatically magically load it as a free action if it is in hand, once per round. Imagine that the number of times he could do this per round was tied to actual gunslinger levels, so that the class could be more than a level dip.
This would allow us to have realistic reload times for firearms without crippling the gunslinger class, while simultaneously making the gunslinger a very cool concept that goes beyond real world limitations in a way that is consistent with the way things work in a fantasy setting.
Any thoughts?
So basically make firearms usable once per fight?
What if someone wants to play a firearm-based characters, a "Gunslinger" of sorts...?
They can't because their main weapon sucks?
I would had liked more if the class is were not so focused on firearm. I know, I know they are called gunslinger, but I would have preferred a combination between firearm specialist and a fencer.
There are a couple of reason for this, but mainly is because stand still and full attacking every round is not that funny.
I envision a class that fight more or less like a duelist and use guns more like it special trick.
Maybe witht he advance class guide.
I think that's the idea behind the upcoming Swashbucklers, as it's said to be a mix between Gunslinger and Fighter. (It could simply be a Gunslinger archetype, actually)
Sustained nova is worse of course, but being able to nova at the start of every fight isn't a good idea. Not in a game where fights are already as short as they are in PF. There's almost no reason not to nova, unless the GM is regularly doing something tricky like bringing in main bad guys after the first round.
Nova is a two edged sword. Sure, you get a lot of damage out the first round or two. But, what if you don't hit? or worse, you waste your nova. A BBEG who's dealt with firearms a bit is going to try to trick the gunslinger into nova'ing. Sure, fire all your two barrel pistols in the first round, get off 10 shots. But what happens when that thing you were shooting is an illusion? Or is a hired hand dressed up like the bbeg, or a clone, or what have you? Now you've taken yourself out of the fight.
Much better to have 6 pistols and fire your BAB each round using multiple barrels. You can last 3 or 4 rounds that way and not be fooled into wasting all your resources.
TBH I generally only play Gunslingers in campaigns where the GM will allow advanced firearms, for the very reason that I envision Roland of Gilead more than Connor Kenway. :PIt's a valid point that, were firearms nerfed like we envision, what's the point of being a gunslinger at all? If you can't do your DPR job as a martial, what's the point of you? Why would anyone want to play a gunslinger?
I've never read the Dark Tower novels, but Roland Deschain's type of Gunslinger seems semi-mystical to me, and a semi-mystical gunslinger PF class would work if written with this in mind.
For example, imagine that gunslingers got a signature firearm at first level, a bit like a familiar or a Black Blade (two-gun pistoleers would get two). With his signature weapon a gunslinger can automatically magically load it as a free action if it is in hand, once per round. Imagine that the number of times he could do this per round was tied to actual gunslinger levels, so that the class could be more than a level dip.
This would allow us to have realistic reload times for firearms without crippling the gunslinger class, while simultaneously making the gunslinger a very cool concept that goes beyond real world limitations in a way that is consistent with the way things work in a fantasy setting.
Any thoughts?
That would be an awesome Magus archetype, actually... I really liked the Gun Mage from Iron Kingdoms.
Problem is... "Target touch AC" causes too much confusion. I know it's too late to change that, but what if the Designers published some official "optional rules" for firearms, like they did with "Armor as DR" and "Words of Power"?
Then we can have it both ways. Those who don't mind the ability to target touch AC can keep it, and those who dislike it can use the optional rules and have official support for it. Best of all, the designers wouldn't have to change anything about free actions and cause all sorts of unexpected consequences in the process.
They could even add it in the Advanced Class Guide as an addend to the Swashbuckler.
Remove the ability to target touch AC, make firearms and their ammo cheaper and triple their range increments. They can keep the misfire chance, but reduce it to natural 1s at most, as to compensate for the x4 crit multiplier. They should be better than crossbows as they're exotic weapons and all that, so maybe make their crit threat a 19-20/x4?
Then who cares how often the guys is reloading? He doesn't target touch AC anymore, so I doubt any GM would complain.
Hah, could even make them able to be reloaded as a free action from the very start, and they'd still be fine, although I'd still require Rapid Reload for that, at least.
But, what if you don't hit? or worse, you waste your nova.
I've sort of been cured of "going nova" right away because of an event a GM threw at me years ago: The GM specifically asked how we were approaching the 'BBEG' and we all basically said we rush him.
Turns out he had damage reflection effect up that functioned against the first incoming attack; had we said we sized up the enemy while approaching we could have made checks to see if we noticed the effect, but we just rushed in full-bore.
Nuking your own character is a little humbling. :P
I really like mdt's homebrew on firearms. Blackpowder weapons as an opening volley switch hitting supplemental makes sense. Ball and cap firearms being the point where gunslinging comes in seems the more appropriate time frame. This is also very similar to the d20 Past rules on older firearms.
I once ran a d20 Modern game where the heroes were modern day characters transported to an alternate world. They had some modern firearms on them but no access to materials to replenish their ammunition. The natives of the world were still in flintlock technology. The natives always went with the opening volley of single to multiple guns and closing to melee. The PCs at the start had a huge advantage of huge firing rates that quickly became a hoarded resource for emergencies. The nova effect from the world wasn't there anywhere near as bad as it is in Pathfinder, the guns did high damage (2d4 to 2d10) but crits were just x20/x2. Laying down a lot of attacks that crit would be tons of damage dice, but no more really than a fireball. It also helps that in d20 modern most AC was from skill not armor and firearms are not touch attacks. Which is how I'd prefer it, the bigger dice pool but not touch attacks.
ETA: I think one of the problems with firearms in a D&D style game is expectations of firearms versus those for muscle powered weaponry. The huge advantage of firearms tends to be range, accuracy and ease of use. Yes, they are deadlier but not in the sense of one hit should kill you where one hit from a sword wouldn't. In reality, most weapon injuries take a while to kill you including gunshot wounds. Flat out killing someone comes from striking certain vital areas, and it really doesn't matter if it is a sword or a bullet. It takes less skill and strength to do so with a firearm, but if muscle powered weapons are not one shot kills in a game by and large firearms shouldn't be either. I think the high damage, high crit, vs touch AC is too much altogether to seamlessly blend firearms. I would just go with slightly higher damage, maybe crit, but against regular AC. While firearms have great penetrating power, if you really want to represent that I think working in bonuses to hit is better than making them touch attacks as heavier armors were still effective. I personally think it is getting too complicated to have different weapon/armor rules that touch ac firearms starts us down.
The d20 Past categories were -
Early firearms (matchlocks and wheel locks): Susceptible to weather, inaccurate so no dex mod to hit, two rounds (1 w/ Quick Reload) to reload a barrel, single shots (no multi barrels)
Flintlock firearms (similar to mdt's blackpowder): two rounds (1 w/ Quick Reload) to reload a barrel, single shot per barrel.
Percussion cap firearms (similar to mdt's ball and cap): 1 full round to load all internal chambers/barrels, 1 move with speed loader to fill cylinders, single shot per barrel or multishot with cylinders
Cartridge firearms: 1 full round to load all internal chambers/barrels/cartridges/magazines, move action to load a cartridge or magazine into the firearm, tends to be multishot.
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Out of all the ambiguous exploitable aspects of the game I find it odd that firearms and free actions are the issues addressed. I think a lot of spells would be better served by suggestions as to how the GM can make calls on what is fair to ensure they are handled in a reasonable manner.
I have experience using non modified rules of only firing a gun a few times a fight then switch hitting.
In the group I play with I have much higher system mastery than the other people I play with. History told me they would make numerous poor decisions and I didn't want to show everyone up.
So to this end I fired once had My gal Friday load my guns. It worked great under lvl 6, okay 6-8 and by the time hit Lvl 11 and our unoptimized barbarian was hiting for d8+23 3x a round. By this time d12+12 1 per round was not cutting it even in a group with a low optimization threshold.
Part of the problem is pre lvl 11 and signiture deed dead shot + focused shot is grit intensive. Additionally Gunslingers get a number of cool abilities but the grit mechanic requires you kill people.
I always got. The impression the class was supposed. To do more with the utility stuff like called shot but the full round action is steep
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Most fights don't really last more than 3-4 rounds, usually. So fast drawing pistols with 2 or 3 barrels works pretty well. Note we also dropped the gunslinger to a 3/4 bab and boosted skill points to 6.
And I had to move away. :(
yes, but in real life a pistol didn't cost the same as 100 short swords, so it was far more practical in RL to carry a brace of pistols than it is in PF.
That is a problem in and of itself. Guns (and poisons) are priced ridiculously high because they can be incredibly powerful, and to allow everyone easy access to them would quickly cause all other weapons to be overshadowed.
I say that with certainty because, well, it happened in real life: In a real world society where firearms became readily available, they almost invariably supplanted things like swords and knives as the weapon of choice. Oh, people might still carry knives around because they can be concealed very easily and are noiseless, but if you've ever watched The Untouchables, Sean Connery tells you exactly why you never bring a knife to a gun fight.
Anyhow, I really only mentioned the "multiple guns" thing because I don't see why it couldn't have been implemented in this system. The Gunslinger could have started play with more than one battered firearm (in an 'early firearms' setting), and they still could have kept the price on guns high for everyone else.
@mojorat: Thank you for the real-world example. What you've basically described is exactly what I would expect to see if the Gunslinger were forced to rely on weapons other than his primary - he begins to be rather quickly outpaced as soon as you start getting multiple attacks per round from BAB. I just don't see that 'switch hitting' to another weapon is viable the way the class is built - yet that (or carrying a small armory's worth of guns) seems to be what is expected from the FAQ limitations.
Most fights don't really last more than 3-4 rounds, usually. So fast drawing pistols with 2 or 3 barrels works pretty well. Note we also dropped the gunslinger to a 3/4 bab and boosted skill points to 6.And I had to move away. :(
We miss you. And your better half too.
yes, but in real life a pistol didn't cost the same as 100 short swords, so it was far more practical in RL to carry a brace of pistols than it is in PF.That is a problem in and of itself. Guns (and poisons) are priced ridiculously high because they can be incredibly powerful, and to allow everyone easy access to them would quickly cause all other weapons to be overshadowed.
Oh yeah, we redid the prices on guns as well. I forgot about that. Holdout pistol is 300gp, hefty but not outrageous to give a gunslinger at 1st level. Blunderbuss/Pistol is 400gp, rifle is 500gp. Again, nothing anyone can't afford at first level with a trait or feat. Nothing anyone would level dip in just to get a lot of cash at the start (we did put in that it's beat up and sells for 50% less than normal just to be sure). But converting it to Masterwork clears that up.
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Longbows don't need to be destrung between fights [ignoring tech], are quick and easy to learn to use [ignoring a lot of things], have no recovery time when you loose the arrow, are still made of wood and can perform entire shot [against a sprinting target a thousand feet away] cycling in well under a second when built to channel 600 pounds of draw [again, ignoring physics] as though they were the tiny light affairs in every youtube video folks keep linking here. Also manyshot - which would require specially fletched arrows and probably a standard action on its own.
I have no problem with giant robots or never-unstrung bows. So why am I insisting on 'realism' for guns but not for anything else?
I agree that the game should not be limited to modelling real life (*cough* Dragons! *cough*). but we should be trying to model our fantasy in a way that has internal consistency; that makes sense even when we suspend our disbelief about the 'fantasy' part.
I'd have no problem with guns that can magically self-load, or a semi-mystical gunslinger class that had an ability to get guns to magically load. I can imagine that. I can suspend my disbelief for that.
Even a cartridge that, when pressed against the barrel of a gun, magically reloads it. I can imagine such a thing reducing reloading to a free action.
Even with fantasy, it has to make sense within its own parameters, and manually, mundanely reloading 32 times faster than you should with no explanation or justification how is a problem. There is no explanation of how this could be achieved, even when so many fantastical explanations are available in our fantasy world.
If a creature can cast fireball in the game then there is an explanation as to how. The explanation can be completely fantastical, but there is still an explanation:-
• prepared spell
• spontaneous spell
• spell-like ability
• psionics power?
• word of power?
• magic item?
• alchemy?
• etc.
But to have no explanation is not good enough. My fighter can cast fireballs at will. How? Just cos! Not good enough.
How are you reloading 16 barrels a round? Magic? Alchemy? Technology? No. Its because I've taken a feat.
Okay, but what does that feat allow you to do? Reload as a free action.
That's not what I meant; how does the feat allow your character to reload 16 barrels in six seconds? Don't know, don't care, I just can.
Not good enough.
How are you reloading 16 barrels a round? Magic? Alchemy? Technology? No. Its because I've taken a feat.
Well, to be perfectly fair, he took one feat to reload as a free action, he took another to dual wield without penalty, and another for every iterative with his off hand, and he may have taken another feat to fire another shot, and he may be magically enhanced for both his dexterity, his weapon, his ammo, the way he reloads, and his firing speed. He also has far more than a normal human's dexterity at this point probably. He did a lot more than just take a feat to fire 16 barrels a round.
Thank you Caedwyr - I like most of that.
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How are you reloading 16 barrels a round? Magic? Alchemy? Technology? No. Its because I've taken a feat.Well, to be perfectly fair, he took one feat to reload as a free action, he took another to dual wield without penalty, and another for every iterative with his off hand, and he may have taken another feat to fire another shot, and he may be magically enhanced for both his dexterity, his weapon, his ammo, the way he reloads, and his firing speed. He also has far more than a normal human's dexterity at this point probably. He did a lot more than just take a feat to fire 16 barrels a round.
That doesn't explain it!
I could take a similar amount of TWF etc. feats, have a Dex of 30+, magic speed weapons and class-based special abilities, but I couldn't go so fast as to take 24 significant compex actions in a round like that! Allowing a ridiculously complex action like reloading a muzzle-loading firearm 16 times in six seconds as well as aiming and firing 8 times, not to mention retrieving a gun dangling from your wrist as you do it....! If feats and special abilities allowed our characters to consistently act that fast then a TWF short sword wielder could attack 24 times in a round easy!
This free action reload for these weapons means that our characters are moving 5 times faster when reloading them than for any other action allowed by the same ruleset. It's not a question of 'it's fantasy', all of our characters are in the same fantasy, but only reloading gets to be this fast, and with no in-game explanation as to how!
I could take a similar amount of TWF etc. feats, have a Dex of 30+, magic speed weapons and class-based special abilities, but I couldn't go so fast as to take 24 significant compex actions in a round like that!
Erm... They sell that in a store near you? Can you mail me a +2 con belt if they do? I don't have an interest in magical guns, but having some extra fort to fight the flu might be nice.
Really thought, I'm pretty sure that isn't something you can do irl.
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I could take a similar amount of TWF etc. feats, have a Dex of 30+, magic speed weapons and class-based special abilities, but I couldn't go so fast as to take 24 significant compex actions in a round like that!Erm... They sell that in a store near you? Can you mail me a +2 con belt if they do? I don't have an interest in magical guns, but having some extra fort to fight the flu might be nice.
Really thought, I'm pretty sure that isn't something you can do irl.
I'd rather have a +6 int head band with Japanese, Mandarin, and Russian languages, and max ranks in Profession (Daytrader), Knowledge (Engineering) and Performance (Electric Guitar).
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And there's no in-games explanations for barbarians dusting themselves off and joining the fight after 100' falls either. Or a normal sized shield blocking a club bigger than you are. Being quick enough to dodge an explosion in an enclosed space. 10 points of acrobatics and you can beat the world record jump, you don't even need to be high level. A unarmed fighter with the right feats can beat a rhino to death with his fists by mid-levels. Or any of another dozen game mechanics oddities. Yet this one is a step too far for you. Everyone has their limits.
PF characters are superhuman, regardless of how some try to pretend martials aren't. It's a game. Suspend your disbelief and enjoy it.Or play a game that keeps it's characters to human limits. That's fun too. But it's not Pathfinder.
I did kind of like how Earthdawn did it. All the PC classes used magic. Some cast spells or used overt powers. Some just channeled into physical skills and abilities. Poof! Instant explanation for why PCs can do things normal people can't and how they get so good so fast.
I don't have a problem with the superpower part! But it should be applied realistically, given the rules for those superpowers, across the board.
And given the speeds allowed by the 16 barrel reloading, 8 trigger squeezing precedent, then a TWF melee guy should be attacking 24 times a round.
The problem is not that our characters can act unrealistically fast, but that the single act of reloading becomes 32 times faster than RL, but melee attacks are only 2 or 3 times faster than RL, with no explanation or justification in the game reality.
The problem is that they assigned a disproportionally incredibly fast reload time. Whatever the speeds achievable by our characters, each RL act should remain in proportion to each other RL act. If, in RL, drawing and shooting an arrow takes one second and reloading and firing a muzzle loader takes 12 seconds, then no matter how fast our heroes can act then the gun should take twelve times longer than the bow! But the rules allow the gun to be twice as fast as the bow. So, no matter how fast our heroes can move, there is an 'unreality' to the reload speed of a factor of 24!
I don't have a problem with the superpower part! But it should be applied realistically, given the rules for those superpowers, across the board.
OH! I see, your saying it needs to be proportionally the same. All your talk about having to be applies realistically and superpowers doesn't have much to do with it really. The games not proportional in any respect. To be fair though you really shouldn't be able to fire the pistol that fast. You have to use TWF and weapon cords to do it. Without weapon cords your limited to what, sixish with one gun?
Maybe it would make more sense if we had a different way of doing full attacks that way they're crazy awesome maneuvers instead of a sequence of swings/shots done over six seconds.
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If realism is the concern, just fluff the attack as a single bullet...
I'm not using Wikipedia, I'm using VIDEO.
look at this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o9RGnujlkI
Granted, she's using a shortbow. But still, she's doing 1/3 seconds.
This one was a head turner. watch Lars at work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zGnxeSbb3g
Also an awesome reason to use a shortbow. Due to the draw length, you couldn't do this with a longbow. Just an Awesome Ten Arrows technique.
You can get to some good videos by Googling 'speed archery'.
Granted, longbow technique, and especially with volley fire, is going to take longer. But you can certainly fire faster if you want to.
And there is definitely a difference between composite long and short bows.
The daikyu is a composite bow, and seven feet long on average. That's definitely a longbow.
A Mongol's bow is three, maybe four feet long, tops, and is definitely a short bow, as well as the world's first composite bows.
==Aelryinth
you are using video about medieval longbow warfare? or about people doing sports in modern times? because i feel we may be talking about different things here.
like, people doing this for fun versus people actually using it in combat situations versus a target that actively tries not to get hit? and as you said, those were mostly shortbows.
As for speed archery: Again: Quickly shooting against an immobile target is one thing. Against a armored person with a shield charging towards you, different thing.I know the Daikyu, but i do hope you agree it's quite a unique variant of bow(and was, in the used form, developed before the advent of horse archery in japan) that is NOT generally represented by what a typical "Longbow" in the pathfinder setting should be, same as a typical "Longsword" would not be a Katana or Nodachi. The medieval Longbows used alongside Full Plates, Lances, Morning Stars and all the other fancy stuff were generally speaking of the british origin-variant, for foot archers.
As for the mongol's bows, even earlier steppe...
Except that in the Pathfinder system, they tend to group similar but not exactly the same weapon together as one weapon statblock to make sure there aren't a million different weapons to choose from. This has been happening ever since the beginning of the D&D/Pathfinder evolution, for example the Broad Sword getting folded into the Longsword when it went from 2nd edition to 3rd edition.
They include the ability for the Composite Longbow to be used on horseback so that it can be both "Composite Longbow" and "Daikyu." As this isn't the Pathfinder Society forum, I'd say if you're concerned about it, just don't let characters that don't have Japanese style flavor (or having bought the composite longbow in a Japanese flavored area of your campaign world) use the bow on horseback. The image of a European rider wielding a (composite or not) longbow doesn't work in my head either, so I'd never make or play one, even though the shortbow is an inferior weapon.
I'd rather have a +6 int head band with Japanese, Mandarin, and Russian languages, and max ranks in Profession (Daytrader), Knowledge (Engineering) and Performance (Electric Guitar).I could take a similar amount of TWF etc. feats, have a Dex of 30+, magic speed weapons and class-based special abilities, but I couldn't go so fast as to take 24 significant compex actions in a round like that!Erm... They sell that in a store near you? Can you mail me a +2 con belt if they do? I don't have an interest in magical guns, but having some extra fort to fight the flu might be nice.
Really thought, I'm pretty sure that isn't something you can do irl.
Dude, a ring of sustenance is where it's at. (One for each member of the family!)
But if you only have one, yeah, that's pretty good. I'd probably go with Profession (tutor), Knowledge (science) - and/or religion -, and Perform (sing). That way I get to choose my own hours while actively helping others learn, and don't need any sort of equipment, and can do things whenever I like.
Either way, I make the same amount of money, due to profession rules.
Or, if we must go by our rules, I'd go with one of the highest paying jobs.
Oh! If I could make my own, it'd be a 20th CL at will (free action) Divination-like effect plus [url]http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/m-p/pecto ral-prophet-s]9% increase in probability[/url] (maximized and empowered; or, if that's "ruled against", I'll still take the 1d6%). Stock trading (each week), lotto tickets, and public disasters. (Commune, Augury, and Commune with Nature are pretty amazingly awesome, too.)
I'd totally add that to the Ring of Sustenance, if I could. :)
No, you can stack Manyshot and Rapid Shot. They both are feats that add to the full-attack action. There's nothing in them that limits them to one or the other, like there was in 3.5.
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No, you can stack Manyshot and Rapid Shot. They both are feats that add to the full-attack action. There's nothing in them that limits them to one or the other, like there was in 3.5.
Correct.
The reason that you couldn't use both in 3.5 was because Manyshot was a special standard action, so could not be folded into a full attack.
PF changed Manyshot to be usable, and only usable, during a full attack. This was a bad thing, as the stated purpose of Manyshot was to allow attacking and moving while still shooting several arrows. This option has now been taken away, and the only result is to make archers even more static and immobile, since they can now shoot even more arrows in a full attack than they could in 3.5, precisely because Manyshot now stacks with Rapid Shot and the multi-arrow standard attack no longer exists.
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I imagine humans of Golarion to be a bit different, than humans of the real world.
With humans all being descendants of the Azlanti, it is not illogical to suggest that they are limited to the capabilities of the real world human.
This means that, using examples of the limits of what real world human can do, makes no sense.
So, no matter what you are an expert on, the expertise does not translate as well to Golarion.
When dealing with idea of realism, in an unreal world, you should keep this in mind.
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I imagine humans of Golarion to be a bit different, than humans of the real world.
With humans all being descendants of the Azlanti, it is not illogical to suggest that they are limited to the capabilities of the real world human.
This means that, using examples of the limits of what real world human can do, makes no sense.
So, no matter what you are an expert on, the expertise does not translate as well to Golarion.
When dealing with idea of realism, in an unreal world, you should keep this in mind.
That series of statements is all predicated on what you "imagine" to be the case. Not exactly firm ground to debate from, BBT.
Quoting SKR:
The game accurately models what humans can do, for at least some levels of the game. That's so you can understand what your character is capable of, because it's what a real human should be capable of.
So the game spends some of its rules text defining how far you can jump, how easily you can swim, how far you can recognize details, how likely you are to hit something, and how quickly you heal. Because if a 1st-level character couldn't jump 5 feet with a running start, that would break suspension of disbelief. As would a 1st-level character who could swim 20 feet in 1 second. Or hitting a stationary target 100 feet away 100% of the time. Or recovering from near-mortal wounds in a day.
So you accept that the rules model those things.
But at some point, you want human characters to start to bend, and even break, the limits of what a real human could do in real life. And you want them to do it without magic.
So, for example, the monk has an extraordinary ability to fall farther, safely, and you accept that the ability starts at level 4, and improves over time, until the monk is eventually able to fall any distance (so long as he's able to make contact with the wall occasionally, meaning he's catching on ledges, crashing through clotheslines, and so on, slowing his fall).
And that's why a fighter eventually gets armor mastery, the extraordinary ability to ignore damage when wearing armor, so that a hit that penetrates the armor (hits the armor's AC) does less or no damage (presumably because the fighter knows just how to turn his body so the armor catches the attack on the strongest part).
But you're still accepting that there are certain limits to what a human can do in the game without magic. You accept that a ftr20 can make 4 effective attacks in 6 seconds, or perhaps 7 attacks in 6 seconds if using TWF, ITWF, and GTWF, and you accept that as a limit.
And, presumably, a gunslinger20 with two fully-loaded revolvers could fire 4 shots with one and 3 with the other, for a total of 7 attacks in 6 seconds. You accept that as a limit.
But if someone suggests that reloading multiple shells (in addition to taking all 7 of those attacks in 6 seconds) is exceeding the limit of what a person should be able to do in 1 round, you start bringing up the idea that the character is "superhuman."
So how come the gunslinger gets surplus actions (more actions than the attacks from BAB and GTWF) from being "superhuman," and the fighter doesn't? If the gunslinger also gets all those reload actions, what other cool (and damage-aiding) free actions should the fighter get on his turn?
Part of the problem with "he can do this because he's superhuman" is because you aren't defining where the line is between "human" and "superhuman." Is it 6th level? 10th level? 15th? 20th? The line seems to be "wherever is convenient that I my character gets all the actions I want so long as I can justify it in the rules."
There are a lot of ways to cheese the game rules. A lot of those ways arise because of the game's action economy, which is rickety and needs an overhaul. But just because there are ways to exploit the action economy doesn't change that it's cheese to do so.
* Weapon cords were written before the firearm rules.
* As were the free action rules.
* The intent of weapon cords was to prevent you from losing a weapon, not to allow you to free-action-drop and quick-draw a second set of weapons for more attacks.
* The reload time for firearms was a deliberate brake to slow down firearm damage compared to bows (because firearms attack touch AC and therefor hit more often), so that bows would remain a viable character option in the game (i.e., game balance).
* The limitations to the action economy setup means that once you improve a reload time to a swift action, the only way you can improve it again is to make it a free action.
* Which means you're in the "you can take any number of free actions on your turn" zone, which bypasses the damage brake for firearms.
* Which means you theoretically could quick-draw 100 firearms per round, reload all of them, and drop them in your square, because of that word "any."
* Which you have to agree is total cheese.
* So the problem is that you don't agree with what is a "reasonable" number of free action reloads per turn.
* But when a gunslinger11 with GTWF and two revolvers is able to shoot 6 times in one round, and the archer7 is only getting 5, and the gunslinger is attacking touch AC, that's a real problem. If it were just the 1st round, that wouldn't be so bad, but unlimited reloads means the gunslinger can do this every round.
* So it's a combo that not only obliterates the archer's damage, but has the gunslinger making a full set of attacks and a bunch of reload actions, which means her hands are like lightning compared to the sword-swinging fighter—and the fighter actually has to be in melee range of his opponents, so the gunslinger is clearly better.
So... problems.
When dealing with idea of realism, in an unreal world, you should keep this in mind.
Also... Most real people would be 2nd~3rd level expert/warriors/commoners. Those who are among the best at what they do are 4th level and those once-in-a-generations geniuses are 5th level characters.
6th level is Batman or Captain America.
A 6th level character is no realistic because there is no one as skilled as her in our reality. A 20th level Fighter is not a Warrior+, it's a guy who is one step short of beating Ares.
The biggest issue I tend to see with whole realism argument is that more often than not the dividing line between what needs to be realistic and what's an acceptable break from reality for a high fantasy game boils down to personal preference.
Personally, I think Manyshot is pretty ridiculous from a realism point of view. Certainly no crazier than some of the other things that have been ripped on because they were unrealistic. For me, that's the biggest problem with the realism argument; it's rarely applied consistently. It's okay for the longbow to be unrealistic, but not the gun or the crossbow.
I personally don't mind things being unrealistic though; frankly, I like High Fantasy stories and settings that let the heroes do crazy larger-than-life things. If nothing else, one of Malachi's earlier posts brought up a very good point on the realism angle; magic makes it easy to hand-wave most of those issues anyway. The instant the explanation for rapid reloading goes from "Charles Atlas Superpower" to "Magic" the objections disappear. Enchanted auto-reloading guns and/or crossbows would have a definite market, and would put the free action issues to rest.
I guess at the end of the day, the line on what forms of realism have to be enforced on fantasy vs. what breaks from reality are acceptable has to be a somewhat arbitrary distinction. That's fine as long as everyone in the game has fun, but we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the dividing lines are ultimately arbitrary.
When dealing with idea of realism, in an unreal world, you should keep this in mind.Also... Most real people would be 2nd~3rd level expert/warriors/commoners. Those who are among the best at what they do are 4th level and those once-in-a-generations geniuses are 5th level characters.
6th level is Batman or Captain America.
A 6th level character is no realistic because there is no one as skilled as her in our reality. A 20th level Fighter is not a Warrior+, it's a guy who is one step short of beating Ares.
Don't forget Aristocrats! There are whole classes of people that fit that description when you start applying classes to reality.
Don't forget Aristocrats! There are whole classes of people that fit that description when you start applying classes to reality.
I never understood the purpose of the Aristocrat class. Aren't they basically experts with a specific set of skills?
The biggest issue I tend to see with whole realism argument is that more often than not the dividing line between what needs to be realistic and what's an acceptable break from reality for a high fantasy game boils down to personal preference.
Personally, I think Manyshot is pretty ridiculous from a realism point of view. Certainly no crazier than some of the other things that have been ripped on because they were unrealistic. For me, that's the biggest problem with the realism argument; it's rarely applied consistently. It's okay for the longbow to be unrealistic, but not the gun or the crossbow.
I personally don't mind things being unrealistic though; frankly, I like High Fantasy stories and settings that let the heroes do crazy larger-than-life things. If nothing else, one of Malachi's earlier posts brought up a very good point on the realism angle; magic makes it easy to hand-wave most of those issues anyway. The instant the explanation for rapid reloading goes from "Charles Atlas Superpower" to "Magic" the objections disappear. Enchanted auto-reloading guns and/or crossbows would have a definite market, and would put the free action issues to rest.
I guess at the end of the day, the line on what forms of realism have to be enforced on fantasy vs. what breaks from reality are acceptable has to be a somewhat arbitrary distinction. That's fine as long as everyone in the game has fun, but we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the dividing lines are ultimately arbitrary.
And that's just it. For under 80k gold pieces, a fairly low level magic weapon crafter can set you up with two pistols that never need to be reloaded. All the free action adjudication in the world won't get you past that. You're back in 8-attack-versus-touch-AC-land again, and you have damn good enchantments on those guns to boot.
Yet the design team clearly thought that the touch AC business, and possibly Up Close and Deadly, were bad enough to suggest hard-capping gunslinger at 3 shots a round. If you can overcome that limitation so easily, it's not a vey effective limitation.
And in a sheer DPR contest, a pistolero with two pistols of the infinite sky will crush an archer any day of the week, especially at level 11 after getting Signature Deed. There's no competing with what is essentially a no-miss, SAD build, while the archer has very few options for hitting touch AC before 16th level and requires both Strength and Dexterity to be tip-top to remain effective. The only advantage the archer has at that point is range, which, outside of a DPR contest, is considerable.
I have no problem with any of this. My goblin pistolero is sure as shoeshine picking up these guns as soon as I can afford them. The pistolero is a one-trick pony, but it's a very good trick. But class balance doesn't really concern me much; if it did, I'd ban casters first.
I'm not using Wikipedia, I'm using VIDEO.
look at this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o9RGnujlkI
Granted, she's using a shortbow. But still, she's doing 1/3 seconds.
This one was a head turner. watch Lars at work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zGnxeSbb3g
Also an awesome reason to use a shortbow. Due to the draw length, you couldn't do this with a longbow. Just an Awesome Ten Arrows technique.
You can get to some good videos by Googling 'speed archery'.
Granted, longbow technique, and especially with volley fire, is going to take longer. But you can certainly fire faster if you want to.
And there is definitely a difference between composite long and short bows.
The daikyu is a composite bow, and seven feet long on average. That's definitely a longbow.
A Mongol's bow is three, maybe four feet long, tops, and is definitely a short bow, as well as the world's first composite bows.
==Aelryinth
Maybe a little late, but there are a few problems with the videos. The girl is somewhat impressive, but is shooting at extremely short ranges (15-18'), and there is no sense of how powerful the bow is.
For the guy, how much time does he spend putting the arrows in his hand before he fires? The girl was at least drawing and firing each arrow. You can't really run around adventuring with arrows filling one hand and your bow in the other.
As an example, qualifying with a rifle in the Army, you have from 3 to 5 seconds per target to knock down each popup target, ranges varied from 50 to 300 meters. 50, 100, 150, 200, 250 and 300. The number of targets that popped up varied (1-3), for a total of 40 targets. Sure this was with a semi-automatic rifle, but if gives an idea for "surprise" target sighting and targeting.
It's not that difficult to get good at hitting a target that is the same range always.
I'd like to see these people shoot that fast at targets 100' away where the arrow is dropping 4 to 16' depending on the bow. They are firing at point and shoot ranges.