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1. Don't ever use the FAQ when you mean errata. Paizo is a small company, and it great because of that flexibility. If it is something that needs errata, then go with errata rather than end runs.
I disagree - putting something in FAQ, evaluating the effects as it percolates, then updating the errata later is a common and beneficial strategy for them. Errata is printed/compiled into PDF so it's much less mutable once finalized, whereas FAQs can always be updated, rewritten or even overruled later.
Not only is "FAQ first" a good strategy, it doesn't stop them from then printing errata on the subject down the road.
But all of this requires a re-write of the firearms rules and the gunslinger....and that ain't happening right now.So far, mdt's weapon cord fix makes the most sense to me for that one issue, but doesn't address any of the underlying firearm issues.
Not mdt's fault, his suggestion is the best of a bad set up.
(And people say I never criticize the devs :))
So here we are with weapons that work against touch ac and have X4 crit and lots of weird ammo stuff...
What I saw working on my own version was that the biggest issue is you have to decide if you want firearms to be 'realistic' or do you want them to be 'playable'.
The problem right now is, every bp firearm option except pistolero is subpar at low levels, and doesn't really get dangerous until high levels, and even then a wizard can blast them out of the water. I actually tried to play a Holy Gun, couldn't make it work at any level until about 7th, and even then, it was one shot per round, and would always be one shot per round due to how long guns work.
What we have done so far makes firearms less powerful, but still keeps the flavor of them (crits x2 and x3, touch AC to 1 increment, or 2, or 3, but not 5, reduced the damage dice). Not as 'realistic' but more 'playable'.
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I gotta ask... When is it enough "balancing"?
Firearms pros:
- Target touch AC at the 1st range increment. (Huge advantage... And makes no sense. How come lead bullets go through all sorts of mythical ultra-hard materials, such as Adamantine, like a light saber goes through butter?)
- x4 Critical multiplier
Firearms con:
- Require one specific class (or Fighter archetype) to not be terrible. If you're a Gunslinger or Trench Fighter, firearms are good weapons. Not amazing, but pretty good. If you belong to any other class, they're the worst weapons in the game.
- Incredibly short range. Move 20ft away from the Gunslinger and he's not only not targeting touch AC anymore, he takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls too. Target's inside that range can usually charge and/or make AoO against the Gunslinger whenever he attacks or reloads.
- Extremely expensive weapons (about as expensive as a magical weapon)
- Extremely expensive ammo
- Impossible to use in any situation where stealth or discretion is necessary.
- Slow reload (Requires feat and gear investment to be able reload 1 type of weapon as a free action)
- Innate Fumble mechanics (which go beyond Natural 1s, BTW). The only "official" fumble in the game.
And now, if we follow that FAQ's suggestion, (and by God, I hope it's just that, a suggestion), even with all that feat & gear investment, you still can't full attack.
Apparently no disadvantage is ever bad enough to balance firearms... We could force gunslinger to make a Reflex save every time they shoot, and still, people would say they are OP, because apparently, no enemy is smart enough to stay 20~30ft away from the gunslinger or keep it within AoO range.
How much must a character have to invest before it's fair for him to full attack with a firearm? Gunslinger are not even close to being the most powerful thing in the game. Why not take the time to nerf those high level game-breaking spells instead?
I have all the respect for Paizo staff, but this FAQ seems very unnecessary and will fuel more discussions than it solves.
I think you would basically turn 90 to 95% of free actions into rapid actions.Free actions would be limited to things that have pretty much zero impact on the game or are intended to be unlimited, like drawing a bow.
Rapid actions (I kind of like that) are things you can do more than once, but that do impact the game.
At this point you have exactly what you described, with 5 free actions, a swift actions and full actions. That is what is currently happening, without any clear adjudication of how many free actions are too many and which free actions are really free and which are subject to abuse.
The alternative is either what we have (which isn't working) or making a lot of free actions into swift actions...which seems a bad idea.
Something being a free actions should be really, really rare.
And hell, maybe some swift actions would be better labeled as Rapid actions.
The problem is, that there will be more mechanics that use 'rapid action', and then you end up in the same boat again, that's what I meant.
Any rule mechanic involving what you can do in a turn will, by it's nature, become used when someone is building a new feat, new class, new spell.
Imagine a metamagic feat that let's you cast a swift, now someone says I want to be able to load as a rapid. They don't want the spell to be able to be used by the caster, only to be cast on someone else. So they make it a standard action.
Now the metamagic quickening let's them cast the spell on themselves as a swift, use the rapid to relaod, and fire and we're back where we started.
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1. Don't ever use the FAQ when you mean errata. Paizo is a small company, and it great because of that flexibility. If it is something that needs errata, then go with errata rather than end runs.I disagree - putting something in FAQ, evaluating the effects as it percolates, then updating the errata later is a common and beneficial strategy for them. Errata is printed/compiled into PDF so it's much less mutable once finalized, whereas FAQs can always be updated, rewritten or even overruled later.
Not only is "FAQ first" a good strategy, it doesn't stop them from then printing errata on the subject down the road.
No, I disagree.
A blog post first, with a request for feedback, would be much better. It cuts down on the flame wars, since people are trading ideas back and forth, rather than engaging in holy war for someone daring to attack/defend the Devs wisdom/horrible mistake (depending on which side you're talking about).
It also is very very visible (people check the blogs regularly, and then you get the benefit of floating things like this, seeing the reaction, getting the feedback, and then posting the FAQ/Errata without it going off like a seismic bomb.
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Except it's NOT a rule change. The DM was always the only arbiter on maximum number of free actions per turn. Nothing they said changed that.
As far as a blog post being better - It was used for clarifications or guidelines before they had a dedicated FAQ section, but that is ultimately not it's purpose. The blog is geared at promotion/marketing.
@Lemmy: I mentioned the lack of realism in targeting touch AC but no one commented on it. ;) I say let the Gunslinger blast away, get in twice as many shots as the archer - but make him target standard AC. The damage would most likely even out when factoring in the TWF penalties on top of the already dismal chances to hit with the latter attacks in your rotation.
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As far as a blog post being better - It was used for clarifications or guidelines before they had a dedicated FAQ section, but that is ultimately not it's purpose. The blog is geared at promotion/marketing.
I think the FAQ area is a decent place for it - but if they aren't going to include a description of the 'why' behind an FAQ then perhaps linking to a relevant blog post (or even a specific forum post) would be worthwhile?
I think most of the hooraw over this comes from the fact that even though the primary purpose of the FAQ was to limit free action 'abuse' by Gunslingers, that really wasn't clearly mentioned in the FAQ.
I think what he was saying (and he can correct me if I'm wrong and I would take no offense) is that they don't want them firing that quickly without significant investment.
There is an item and a spell that gives free reload, after all.
I think the root issue of firearms was that they decided to make a goal for them to be viable primary weapons for all classes, rather than secondary weapons for all classes other than gunslingers due to issues like misfire and reload.
Advanced firearms is a whole other issue, one best left out of a high fantasy setting aside from as a near artifact level rare item, IMHO.
My suggestion then, and now, would be in the revision make guns very dangerous and difficult to use without training (accurate on both points when dealing with medieval firearms) and have the gunslinger class be based on receiving the training that makes them useful and potent.
Go that way and we aren't discussing free action reloads, since only gunslingers could do it and only after a specific level of training that is included in the class.
I think SKR is point out it isn't "just" the weapon cord issue. It is all of the various shenanigans people keep coming up with to abuse free actions, this being one of the biggest and most egregious.
Again as I said earlier, if explaining a act made up of a series of free actions requires a chart....maybe that wasn't as the devs intended.
The fix is coming up with an intermediate term for actions between free and swift.
But that ain't happening until edition/version change.
I think this is the best suggestion I've seen. Make the Gunslinger (and GS only) able to reload quickly enough to get his iteratives (and haste), and build in to rapid shot the ability to reload , and make it not possible for anyone else to do so, even if they take EWP: Early Firearms. Make GS a high training class, and be done with it.
You should be able to shoot 10 arrows in a round.
youtube.com/watch?v=2zGnxeSbb3g
There are multiple balancing factors.
Wizards have poor BAB and no armor proficiencies. It doesn't just have to be a single factor.
When the balancing factor is not being able to fire as often as bows, but doing more damage and hitting more often, being able to fire as often as bows...well, sort of hurts things.
I thought the balancing factor to firearms was suppose[d] to be the misfire chance.
Exactly -- if you consistently keep it, the more often the gun is fired, the greater the chance of mishap, so multiple attacks are self-correcting.
Lead Designer
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FYI for folks still paying attention to this discussion...
We mulled the idea of using a blog post for this one, but we currently have only so many blog post spots in a week and we are currently using them for Bestiary 4 previews. We thought we would test this out and see how it went. This is also why we went with the soft language of a recommendation, not a change.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
FYI for folks still paying attention to this discussion...
We mulled the idea of using a blog post for this one, but we currently have only so many blog post spots in a week and we are currently using them for Bestiary 4 previews. We thought we would test this out and see how it went. This is also why we went with the soft language of a recommendation, not a change.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Maybe we'll eventually see a return of Design Tuesday?
OTOH, if you want to limit them to not firing as often as bows, actually limit them to not firing as often.
Like I said, if misfire chances always apply, multiple attacks are self-correcting.
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Hey there folks,
Couple of thoughts that I want to add to the discussion here.
1. We are just nibbling around the edges here, trying to see if we can come up with a workable solution to some imbalances without rewriting a number of rules elements. There are some bigger ways to fix these issues, but we thought we would start out small by addressing free action abuse.
2. Yes, this is primarily about the gunslinger. I is not our intent to limit archers with this suggestion. Reloading was part of the balance of the gunslinger class, but with a combination of gear and feats, that issue is removed from the equation, allowing the gunslinger to fire at at his full bab every round for the entire combat. The thought behind this rule was to force the gunslinger to take a "time out" on occasion to get their guns fully loaded.
3. We used the FAQ system for this one just to get it out there in an easily referred to location. Posting it on the boards means that it tends to get lost in the shuffle. We knew this would cause some controversy, which is why it is worded as a suggestion at this point. Primarily so that we could get some discussion going and look for holes with the solution. Its clear that there are some.
4. We are, as always, still evaluating this issue.
5. Thanks to those of you who have remained civil in this discussion. There are a few folks that decided to pitch a fit, which is not very helpful to us or this community. I would like to remind folks that we are all here to play a game. Lets not roast each other alive.
Thanks again for commenting folks. We will be watching..
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Jason,
Thank you for the clarification and insight into what went into the decision. It is certainly easy to see how the Gunslinger class can become an unbalancing force in the game, and that it might need to be adjusted. If the design team feels it has reached that point, I encourage you to pursue ways to rein in the abuse.
A reminder to GMs that they have the ability to limit things when they get out of hand is a good thing, and if that is where the FAQ had stopped, there would be a lot less discussion going on.
I believe this FAQ as written, however, was a mistake, for a couple of reasons. While it may have been intended to target Gunslingers, the way it is phrased does not preclude it from affecting other builds. The suggested limitations on free actions, if they are followed by a GM, would greatly alter many aspects of the game. Drawing arrows, drawing shuriken, quickdraw and thrown weapons, quickdraw and quickdraw shields, and, as mentioned in the FAQ, speaking, could all be impacted. I understand that further clarification was made on the boards that it was not intended to affect archers. That statement, however, now creates a rule which applies differently to different classes or types of weapons in the game. If 3 of any one type of free action is the limit, then it should be 3 of any one type of action, not any one type of action except drawing arrows. The way around that, of course, is to change drawing an arrow (and ammunition in general) to be a non-action, and that's essentially what I'm seeing as the intention. So drawing an arrow is equivalent to drawing a paper cartridge is equivalent to drawing a shuriken, and there's no perceived unfairness. Loading a bow, however, is also a non-action, while loading a crossbow or a gun is a free action and is limited by the number of free actions that can be performed.
Otherwise, if drawing ammunition is still a free action, the bow user is limited to 3 shots a round (4 if they have one arrow drawn already). The gun user would be limited to 2 shots per round (assuming they have their gun loaded already). Fire gun, draw ammunition, load ammunition, fire gun, draw ammunition. Then in the second round load ammunition, fire gun, draw ammunition, load gun, fire gun. In the third round, they would only get one shot off. Draw ammunition, load gun, fire gun, draw ammunition. And they would alternate 2 shots, then 1 shot, in subsequent rounds.
I am not saying that is what the rule was intended to do, but that is one interpretation of the limits that were suggested, and it is one that could be drawn by a GM who is only looking at the Core Rulebook, Ultimate Combat, and the FAQ.
The other, larger issue with the suggested limit is the suggestion that speaking should limit the number of times a character can reload (or perform multiples of any other action). This discourages role-play, and anything that discourages role-play is a bad direction for the game to go, in my opinion. Now, again, I don't think that was the intention of the FAQ, but that is an interpretation that can easily be drawn from the example given. If the concern there is that it takes some time to impart actual knowledge, like the information gained from a knowledge check to identify a creature, I can see that being a factor. But as it is written right now, the example limits shouting of battle cries or soliloquies for flavor. I would ask that a further clarification be issued that speaking for flavor should not count against the limit of free actions. I think the other reason that including speaking in those limits is problematic is because it's the only free action that is allowed out of turn (well, except possibly for drawing ammunition as part of an Attack of Opportunity, and per an earlier FAQ, loading a gun as a part of an Attack of Opportunity).
I'm unclear why performing the same free action multiple times should take any more time than performing a different free action each time. I'd suggest a more reasonable limit would be 5 free actions, no more than 3 of which are the same. So that would allow loading a gun 3 times, speaking once, and one other free action. It still limits the number of reloads, while not discouraging role-playing.
I do, in a larger sense, think that a gunslinger with Rapid Reload and paper cartridges (or a crossbow wielder with Rapid Reload) should be allowed a number of reloads at least equal to their # of attacks from BAB, and that feats such as Rapid Shot, and spell effects such as Haste, should include an additional free action reload so as not to render them ineffective, since by their nature, they make a character able to perform more actions and faster than normal. I would hope that logic would hold weight with my GM as well.
If all of this is only targeted at the Gunslinger, I would suggest removing the suggested limits and examples given in the existing FAQ and issuing a new FAQ specifically addressing the question, "How many times can a Gunslinger reload as a free action per round?" as a direct response to that question would not have the wider ranging issues of the existing FAQ.
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I'm a big fan of firearms take a long time to reload and might blow up unless you have special abilities from the gunslinger class and/or special feats and abilities.
My personal suggestion was a "Flurry of shots" type mechanic with gunslingers. Never got traction, and it is too late now.
But there was a LOT of discussion of the touch AC in the playtest. Decisions were made and for better or worse here we are.
Lemmy's post I think points out a larger problem. Then sheer number of factors involved in firearms.
I think part of the problem was trying to parallel them with crossbows. I see the comparison, but I don't think it fit well.
At this point firearms "deterrents" are:
1. Reload.
2. Misfire
3. Ammunition cost
1 and 2 I think should be addressed with specific abilities/feats/etc to get a firearm to be what the devs envision.
3 I think is a bad way to deter.
Will this make gun use feat heavy and generally narrow it to a single type of firearm. Yes.
Do I think that is a problem? No. Firearms are very powerful.
If you detach firearm feats from crossbow feats and make them follow a different chain with use limits set by the Devs, within the feat, we need not have the free action discussion in this context.
As Cheapy has pointed out in another thread, the problem with balancing with drawbacks, is that players will naturally look for ways to mitigate those drawbacks. So you either need to make sure that a drawback cannot be mitigated against, the opportunity cost for mitigating the drawback means the result is still balanced, or avoid using a drawback as a balancing mechanism.
I was honestly surprised that that was a different thread.
Firearms are very powerful.
I wonder why you think that... Unless you belong to an specific class, they are worse than crossbows.
Gunslingers do deal a lot of damage, but that's pretty much all they do. They're not as limited out of combat as Fighters in out-of-combat stuff, but you won't see any of them derailing campaigns or farming wishes...
And it's not difficult to "counter" gunslinger at all. Any creature with reach who stays in melee will not have much of a problem killing a guy who provokes AoO every time he attacks... And if they stay 20~40ft away, the poor Gunslinger lost the one advantage he had.
I agree with you, though. There are way too many odd rules for firearms. I'd rather not have separate feats, though, it would be unnecessary bloat in a game that is already bloat and is doomed to become way-too-bloated, like all other games with expanding options.
Personally, I'd just remove the "target touch AC" and "blow up in your face 5~15% of the time" stuff. I don't know why every game feels the need to give firearms a weird gimmick and then compensate for it with an even weirder gimmick.
Giving them a 19~20/x3 (or even x4)critical, B/P damage and the misfire stuff would be more than enough. Leave the ability to target touch AC for things like Gunslingers spending Grit points. Make it so Rapid Reload makes 2-handed firearms take 1 move action to reload, while One-handed firearms take a swift action. Then gunslingers the ability to reduce this time by 1 step for every 6 Gunslinger levels or some such.
That way we wouldn't have nearly as many people complaining about touch AC and free actions.
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FYI for folks still paying attention to this discussion...
We mulled the idea of using a blog post for this one, but we currently have only so many blog post spots in a week and we are currently using them for Bestiary 4 previews. We thought we would test this out and see how it went. This is also why we went with the soft language of a recommendation, not a change.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
I think that's a good plan (I think it's good having one place to go for rulesy stuff without having to wade through lots of blog posts), but I wonder if it might be possible to flag such "experimental" FAQs?
Blue for old, red for new and yellow for "tentative" or "feedback appreciated" or some such - updated to red once it was reworded and/or you decide it doesn't need tweaking.
That way whoever posted the FAQ could also start a thread asking "what do you guys think?" and we wouldn't have conversations spanning several threads and sub forums (it would also, hopefully reduce the "what the hell do you think you're doing" posts).
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Personally, I'd just remove the "target touch AC" and "blow up in your face 5~15% of the time" stuff. I don't know why every game feels the need to give firearms a weird gimmick and then compensate for it with an even weirder gimmick.+1 to this.
+2. Why this design trope keeps cropping up never ceases to amaze. Somehow, shoving five feet of steel through a person is "meh", but shooting an underpowered, tumbling, musket ball into someone is "OMG!!!1!".
It's almost as bad as the katana-fetish, but not quite.
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Personally, I'd just remove the "target touch AC" and "blow up in your face 5~15% of the time" stuff. I don't know why every game feels the need to give firearms a weird gimmick and then compensate for it with an even weirder gimmick.+1 to this.
I would like to point out that a trench fighter can have pont blank master at level 4 while adding his dex to damage. That would be a great multiclass for any other class interested in using guns.
The trench fighter is also modeling a firearm using character from a different era than what the Firearms are generally trying to model.
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Personally, I'd just remove the "target touch AC" and "blow up in your face 5~15% of the time" stuff. I don't know why every game feels the need to give firearms a weird gimmick and then compensate for it with an even weirder gimmick.+1 to this.
+2. Why this design trope keeps cropping up never ceases to amaze. Somehow, shoving five feet of steel through a person is "meh", but shooting an underpowered, tumbling, musket ball into someone is "OMG!!!1!".
It's almost as bad as the katana-fetish, but not quite.
I'd be on board for this. What's broken about the gunslinger is not that they can make 5, 6, 7, or more attacks a round. It's that they are hitting Touch AC, which means all they have to do to invalidate tens of thousands of gold spent on armor and amulets is to get within 20 feet.
What's broken about the gunslinger is not that they can make 5, 6, 7, or more attacks a round. It's that they are hitting Touch AC, which means all they have to do to invalidate tens of thousands of gold spent on armor and amulets is to get within 20 feet.
There's an easy fix to the gunslinger's targeting of your touch AC. Just move up next to them. Then they have a choice to make. Risk your Attacks of Opportunity by staying next to you (which would mean they could still get multiple touch attacks in, although Combat Reflexes would make it an increasingly worse idea, especially since each reload carries with it an AoO risk), risk your Attack of Opportunity by moving back from you (which would mean they would still get one touch attack in, although they'd probably want to move further back so that they would be able to keep away from you if you have only a 20' or 15' move speed -- 30' or faster move speed and they're probably not going to be able to outrun you), or take a full-round retreat action and not be able to fire off a shot at you period.
What's broken about the gunslinger is not that they can make 5, 6, 7, or more attacks a round. It's that they are hitting Touch AC, which means all they have to do to invalidate tens of thousands of gold spent on armor and amulets is to get within 20 feet.There's an easy fix to the gunslinger's targeting of your touch AC. Just move up next to them. Then they have a choice to make. Risk your Attacks of Opportunity by staying next to you (which would mean they could still get multiple touch attacks in, although Combat Reflexes would make it an increasingly worse idea, especially since each reload carries with it an AoO risk), risk your Attack of Opportunity by moving back from you (which would mean they would still get one touch attack in, although they'd probably want to move further back so that they would be able to keep away from you if you have only a 20' or 15' move speed -- 30' or faster move speed and they're probably not going to be able to outrun you), or take a full-round retreat action and not be able to fire off a shot at you period.
Only thing is is that a gunslinger can take a free 5 step back and they are back in clear where they can shot at touch ac without provoking any AoOs. Every caster and range person can do this, even when taking a full round attack, and the downside is swept away. It only hurts them up in their face when they are near a wall or difficult terrain, otherwise the 5 ft step invalidates the downside of range
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Editing your response to why I think firearms are powerful to answer the question.
Gunslingers do deal a lot of damage
I think you need to have a reason everyone doesn't use guns beyond rarity.
That they can blow up is a pretty good reason to use since it was one of the the actual reasons. Same with reload speed.
If the gunslinger at first level got a single firearm that they personally had mastered so they know how to use it with no misfire chance AND could fire it and reload it as a full round action, that would in and of itself be enough for a first level class.
If they could reload it faster as they gained attack progression than otherwise would be reasonable given the nature of guns to get more attacks, that would be a class feature.
If they choose to either be able to master a longarm to the point they could reload it as a free action OR be able to fire two pistols and reload one...
You can see where I'm going with this, and I think that would be a gunslinger as we all envision it and would allow firearms in the game without them causing lots of hassles and problems with how other classes interact.
Doing lots of damage is a valuable thing to be able to do.
I'd be on board for this. What's broken about the gunslinger is not that they can make 5, 6, 7, or more attacks a round. It's that they are hitting Touch AC, which means all they have to do to invalidate tens of thousands of gold spent on armor and amulets is to get within 20 feet.Personally, I'd just remove the "target touch AC" and "blow up in your face 5~15% of the time" stuff. I don't know why every game feels the need to give firearms a weird gimmick and then compensate for it with an even weirder gimmick.+1 to this.
+2. Why this design trope keeps cropping up never ceases to amaze. Somehow, shoving five feet of steel through a person is "meh", but shooting an underpowered, tumbling, musket ball into someone is "OMG!!!1!".
It's almost as bad as the katana-fetish, but not quite.
+3. In my game, the gunslinger was outshining the group (new players who are just playing for fun) and it got bad. Thankfully the person playing came up to me to ask how to reign in the class. After some thought, I asked him how he felt about doing away with always target touched but keeping the grit if he needed to hit touch and I would do away with the misfire mechanic.
No problems whatsoever at the table. His charactere still very strong but now has chances to miss and isn't always stealing the show.|
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I'd be on board for this. What's broken about the gunslinger is not that they can make 5, 6, 7, or more attacks a round. It's that they are hitting Touch AC, which means all they have to do to invalidate tens of thousands of gold spent on armor and amulets is to get within 20 feet.Personally, I'd just remove the "target touch AC" and "blow up in your face 5~15% of the time" stuff. I don't know why every game feels the need to give firearms a weird gimmick and then compensate for it with an even weirder gimmick.+1 to this.
+2. Why this design trope keeps cropping up never ceases to amaze. Somehow, shoving five feet of steel through a person is "meh", but shooting an underpowered, tumbling, musket ball into someone is "OMG!!!1!".
It's almost as bad as the katana-fetish, but not quite.
+3. In my game, the gunslinger was outshining the group (new players who are just playing for fun) and it got bad. Thankfully the person playing came up to me to ask how to reign in the class. After some thought, I asked him how he felt about doing away with always target touched but keeping the grit if he needed to hit touch and I would do away with the misfire mechanic.
No problems whatsoever at the table. His charactere still very strong but now has chances to miss and isn't always stealing the show.
I agree with the touch AC, but that ship has sailed.
I don't agree with losing misfire without paying for it in some way (either a feat or being a gunslinger). It is a limit factor of the weapon.
The problem with the gunslinger IMHO is that in the design phase it lost sight of the simplicity of what a gunslinger is.
A person who is awesome with a gun. Period.
Clint Eastwood and Roland aren't swordsman, they aren't skill monkeys, they are the guy with the gun who removes bad guys by shooting them.
No other class should be even close to a gunslinger with a gun. The class features should be focused on gun mastery.
You are a person who slings a gun.
Now that we have the firearms with touch AC, Pandora's box has been opened.
I am fine with touch AC if the weapon is very difficult to use safely and effectively without a lot of resource allocation.
Which is why I'm saying it probably needs it's own chain rather than just adapting the crossbow chains.
This will allow the Devs to set the attacks and such exactly where they want them, as firearms aren't really like crossbows at this point.
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Base the number of reloads available on how many attacks the Gunslinger is granted by his BAB, perhaps modified by his DEX mod. A Gunslinger at 1st level with a DEX of 15 could reload up to 3 times during a round (1 attack from BAB +2 from DEX mod); 6th level with an updated DEX of 17 could reload 5 times; and so on.
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Rapid Reload could, instead of reducing action type, grant the Gunslinger additional reloads per round.
I'd say you're giving too many. At least for what the devs are looking for.
You're pretty much going to have to be cheesing with 2 double pistols or something to need 5 reloads by level 6. If it's supposed to be a limitation, it needs to be less than the number of attacks you can get.
But the more I think about it, the less I like reloads as a limit. All it does is encourage multiple high capacity guns (pepperboxes) and push towards burst damage in the first rounds -- rocket tag.
If you want to limit attacks, limit attacks. Do gunslinger attacks really have to based off of BAB-5 like everything else?
And don't cap them, have them go up slower.
Well, at 6th level an archer will be able to fire 4 arrows; a Gunslinger can fire 4 bullets. Archer gets 2 from BAB, 1 from Rapid Shot, and 1 extra from Manyshot (which doesn't require a roll, assuming the first shot hits); Gunslinger gets 2 from BAB, 1 from his off-hand pistol, and 1 from ITWF.
The weapons do the same base damage (1d8); the bow is more expensive (Compound, or Adaptive enchant) but can grant STR to your damage as well, while the gun gets DEX damage for free as you level .The gun does better on a crit, but only by one magnitude (which is important but...).
The disparity does increase at higher levels, since the TWF Gunslinger has one more extra attack he can get, whereas the archer is mostly capped at that point outside of BAB increases. So maybe add a note to GTWF that it does not grant an extra attack for firearms?
The big difference, and what I keep coming back to, is that one targets standard AC and the other targets touch. The crit difference makes guns more 'bursty' but it's really the touch AC that makes the gun more overpowered (IMO).
I hesitate to make suggestions for the class based on realism because, well - the average black powder pistol takes more than one turn to load (greater than 6 seconds), even with paper cartridges.
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Well, at 6th level an archer will be able to fire 4 arrows; a Gunslinger can fire 4 bullets. Archer gets 2 from BAB, 1 from Rapid Shot, and 1 extra from Manyshot (which doesn't require a roll, assuming the first shot hits); Gunslinger gets 2 from BAB, 1 from his off-hand pistol, and 1 from ITWF.
The weapons do the same base damage (1d8); the bow is more expensive (Compound, or Adaptive enchant) but can grant STR to your damage as well, while the gun gets DEX damage for free as you level .The gun does better on a crit, but only by one magnitude (which is important but...).
The disparity does increase at higher levels, since the TWF Gunslinger has one more extra attack he can get, whereas the archer is mostly capped at that point outside of BAB increases. So maybe add a note to GTWF that it does not grant an extra attack for firearms?
The big difference, and what I keep coming back to, is that one targets standard AC and the other targets touch. The crit difference makes guns more 'bursty' but it's really the touch AC that makes the gun more overpowered (IMO).
I hesitate to make suggestions for the class based on realism because, well - the average black powder pistol takes more than one turn to load (greater than 6 seconds), even with paper cartridges.
Now compare the feat investment. The TWF Gunslinger is following 2 extremely long feat chains: TWF & Archery. He also needs Rapid Reload, which is not necessary for bows.
If he's dealing more damage. Good. He should be. He spent twice as many feat!
And again, how difficult is it to say in melee with a Gunslinger or more than 20~40ft away from him? How much more gold do Gunslingers spend compared to archers?
People look at the benefits of firearms and forget or ignore their disadvantages. Gunslingers and Trench Fighters are the only classes who can make firearms better than completely terrible...