I recently joined a campaign, with the suggestion that I try out the Gunslinger. I ended up going with Musket Master, which is now level 13 with the following stats, HP, and saves:
Str 8
Dex 26 (17 base, +2 Human, +3 levels 4/8/12, +4 Belt of Dex)
Con 14
Int 12
Wis 15
Cha 10
HP: 121
Fort save: 12
Reflex save: 18
Will save: 8
His go-to weapon is a +2 Distance Double-Barrel Musket. This can be reloaded as a free action while using an alchemical cartridge.
At a BAB of 13 his to-hit is 26/21/16 with the musket. By firing both barrels on a full attack, this becomes {22/22}/{17/17}/{12/12} with the caveat that each { } pair must be fired at the same target. The damage for each bullet is 1d12+12.
The potential damage output for the build is quite high. I bit the bullet (ha) and constructed a sample of 50,000 full-attacks against four levels of Touch AC, which you can view at this link. This accounts for auto-miss on nat 1s, critical hit threats and confirmations(and fails on nat 1s).
Even without Rapid Shot, this Musket Master can easily dish out 100+ damage per turn.
The DM has expressed his concern and I agree that the damage is quite high, but this damage is under the following assumptions:
1) The targets are within my first range increment (80 ft)
2) The targets do not get any environmental or circumstantial bonuses to AC
So my damage output in a sanitized environment is quite high. To be sure, if I get to act first against an exposed enemy I will very likely kill him. Many factors can impede the attacks however, but what are those factors? What should the DM be taking into account that would balance this gunslinger?
I can think of cover/concealment, of course. Enemies would also do well to stay out of my first range increment, which would force me to attack against normal AC or move (thus giving me only one attack via standard action). Wind Wall would be troublesome, as would magical darkness.
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You are a gunslinger. You deal a ton of damage and that's your niche. To balance this your GM can throw challenges of CR higher than your party should be capable of handling. Scale it slowly until he realizes what your party can handle. This should balance the game and also reward you and your companions for building effective characters.
Also, you hit 13th level which is when the pistolero/musket masters get a huge boost to DPR due to no more misfires. Around this level the game becomes unbalanced anyways.
On a side note, he should be happy you aren't playing a pistolero with signature deed (Up Close and Deadly) lol.
In order to balance the gunslinger out the DM has to purposefully build enemies to combat the gunslinger. Which sucks. Especially if you have to make them show up every combat to give a challenge to the party that the gunslinger would otherwise overwhelm with his damage.
There are ways to destroy a gun slinger. Fickle winds, wind wall complete stop your attacks. Deflect arrow would cause some problem. Monks (whom have high touch AC), human barbarians with superstition and ghost rager (ghost rager gives a bonus to touch AC, and superstition enhances it). Places to have total cover relative to your position. Miss chance, like blur. Stealth or invisbility (you can't hit what you don't know is there). But even with these, the gunslinger can present a very large threat.
If you're really worried about it, you could do the reasonable thing and not use a double barrel musket, have you considered that?
You can either force the GM to build encounters specifically to counter you, or you can choose to be a team player and let others have fun by not min maxing your character.
Your choice.
Edit: You should also know that "keeping enemies out of your range" isn't an option. I'm sure there are melee charactes in your party, and its also unlikely that you spread out 100 feet apart. Rather, you're probably all grouped together pretty closely. So, either the enemy shows up, just around the corner in range for melee to attack or they're far away. If they're far away (of of your 80ft range) then melee most likely cant reach them and attack on the same turn. By the time they can get full attacks so can you, and you're dealing a lot of damage). If you think the idea of balance is to somehow keep the enemy far away from you, but somehow close to the rest of the party I just don't know what kind of combat situation you are used to playing.
Attacks of opportunity can be nasty.
How do you figure you have a 80ft first range increment?I will start with that and expand as I understand more. ^.^
You know what sir, your very right and I didn't notice this before.
Muskets don't have a range of 80ft, a rifle does. And there is no double barrel rifle. A double barrel musket has a range of 10ft. Unless there is something I am missing.
Even with distance that's only 20.
Generally, speaking from reading several threads on the topic almost every 'my gunslinger has complaints about the damage' thread involves double barreled weapons.
he has a far shot double barreled musket, is been noted to be an error and should have the same range increment as a normal musket.
To the op, how did you survive to lvl 13 as a gunslinger with an 8 str? that should have been nearly crippling. Gun-stuff is heeeeaaaavy.
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Attacks of opportunity can be nasty.
How do you figure you have a 80ft first range increment?I will start with that and expand as I understand more. ^.^
You know what sir, your very right and I didn't notice this before.
Muskets don't have a range of 80ft, a rifle does. And there is no double barrel rifle. A double barrel musket has a range of 10ft. Unless there is something I am missing.
Even with distance that's only 20.
Yeap and that means to me as a GM close the gap. A mob with step up will make you fire while in melee to keep that touch attack and if said mob is around your level each shot will give you a nasty return attack.
If you're really worried about it, you could do the reasonable thing and not use a double barrel musket, have you considered that?
This is an option, but why are DB muskets and pistols a thing if they arent meant to be used by anyone who calls themselves a gunslinger?
EDIT: Median damage on Dead Shot with a single-barrel is 33. Snore, congrats Mr. Gunslinger. A full attack has a median damage of 57; add maybe 15 damage for the use of rapid shot.
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Muskets have a 40ft range increment (check the errata), and Distance doubles that to 80ft.
We generally don't track weight limits, but an 8 str character has a 26 pound light load. My combat load with an Endless Bandolier would be about 16 pounds. If weight with any other stuff would have been an encumbering problem Id ditch the 10 pound mithral chain shirt.
There recently was a Suggestion from the Devs about DMs limiting the number of free actiont pr turn. Tell your DM about that and all will be fine;)
Also if Firearms is in the world the baddies must know and take precautions. If you play adventures that is concived before Ultimate combat the DM need to make adjustments to encounters.
Or sunder your gun:)
There recently was a Suggestion from the Devs about DMs limiting the number of free actiont pr turn. Tell your DM about that and all will be fine;)
A suggestion which was redacted after scathing criticism.
Many would argue that a Musket Master's "Rapid Reload: Muskets" (I argue this too) applies only to plain muskets, not axe-muskets, not double-barrelled muskets. So you shouldn't be able to reload your Double-Barrelled musket as two free actions; it should be two move actions.
Which is a common argument with an unclear answer, easily circumvented by retraining or, in the worst case, burning a feat.
There recently was a Suggestion from the Devs about DMs limiting the number of free actiont pr turn. Tell your DM about that and all will be fine;)A suggestion which was redacted after scathing criticism.
That may be, it was a messy solution anywaw.
But by my calculations your DPR should be around 200 witout crits if you have deadly aim and a +2 gun yes?Generally i find that the problem with gunslingers and very high DPR is that the game was partly made without the machanic that allow them to exel( the touch AC thing) and partly same problem that every other Optimisation is namely that some one go to a friendly game to WIN.
Does your GM have a problem with your characther? if you ask if you can change to doublebarreled musket for a normal one and all will be good.
If he dosent have a problem then there is no problem.
There recently was a Suggestion from the Devs about DMs limiting the number of free actiont pr turn. Tell your DM about that and all will be fine;)A suggestion which was redacted after scathing criticism.That may be, it was a messy solution anywaw.
But by my calculations your DPR should be around 200 witout crits if you have deadly aim and a +2 gun yes?
Generally i find that the problem with gunslingers and very high DPR is that the game was partly made without the machanic that allow them to exel( the touch AC thing) and partly same problem that every other Optimisation is namely that some one go to a friendly game to WIN.
Does your GM have a problem with your characther? if you ask if you can change to doublebarreled musket for a normal one and all will be good.
If he dosent have a problem then there is no problem.
Check the link in the OP. Median DPR would be around 120 damage which does include the chance to critical hit. Adding rapid shot increases the DPR, probably by 20-25 damage. I do not have deadly aim though, so that would boost the DPR a bit, but again I don't have it and havent planned on taking it.
Changing the DB musket out for a single doesn't make everything good. It makes Dead Shot completely worthless for one, and the DPR on a full attack isnt that great either.
I'm thinking a decent intermediary would be to treat a single-barrel musket as large, dealing a 3d6 instead of 1d12, in place of a double barrel musket.
If you are dealing around 135 vs touck AC 15 i dont undestand the problem. You are a dedicatet damage dealer. How do you get to +26 to hit? +13 for bab +8 for dex +2 for magic and weapon focus +1? then i am missing 2.
But no matter do your GM have a problem with the damage output?
And if yes does he remember that the baddies know that firearms exist?
Your PC looks fine to me even if i would have gone for a normal musket with rapid shot and deadly aim:)
One thing you might want to look at is re defining "good damage". If yoir doing an advrnture path getting deadly aim and rapid shot will put you easily with the games expected damage range.
On my mysterious stranger gunslinger I mostly use deadshot works out to 5d12+30 then use the classes utility shot cslled shots or other abilitied. The trick is don't use some of the highest damage possible in the game as a basis for normal expected damage.
The barbarian I play with does 1d8+23 he has no idea what he's doing and is a good basis for how much damage pre built adventures expext.
In that enviroment 5d12+90? Really isn't horrible.
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I think that the problem pathfinder has with ranged build in general is that ranged attacks require really good map design. The addition of effective cover (fallen pillars, low walls, wagons, etc) is often forgotten, or only put in sparingly enough that you can just move once and ignore it (or cause the enemy start a chase scene...preferably with suitable old fashioned slapstick music and speed ups).
Unfortunately, making every map an effective combat arena for ranged builds both takes a lot of time, putting a strain on the GM, and interferes with the actions of other characters (the barbarian will hate it)
Otherwise, you are just looking at spell casters that always have bullet proofing spells on and monk, or worse, over powered enemies that TPK. But for those kinds of shortcuts, I might as well mention grappling. Since muskets are two handed weapons, and you dumped strength, a grapple may be effective against you. Various kinds of build can provide variety (monks, monsters with the grab ability [heck, alchemists can get it by second level with the tentacle, and the attack is actually good if they don't have any other natural attacks so it becomes primary], spell casters with black tentacles, etc), so throwing some of those in might not be too bad.
If you're really worried about it, you could do the reasonable thing and not use a double barrel musket, have you considered that?
This is an option, but why are DB muskets and pistols a thing if they arent meant to be used by anyone who calls themselves a gunslinger?
EDIT: Median damage on Dead Shot with a single-barrel is 33. Snore, congrats Mr. Gunslinger. A full attack has a median damage of 57; add maybe 15 damage for the use of rapid shot.
Decide if you want to annoy everyone you play with or not. If you want to win the game yourself use your double barrel musket. If you want to win as a team use a regular musket.
There recently was a Suggestion from the Devs about DMs limiting the number of free actiont pr turn. Tell your DM about that and all will be fine;)
Also if Firearms is in the world the baddies must know and take precautions. If you play adventures that is concived before Ultimate combat the DM need to make adjustments to encounters.
Or sunder your gun:)
Or put up some Gunslinger bad guys up against the party.
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Honestly, you're an optimised gunslinger - that's the issue.
Gunslingers need to balance themselves or end up overpowered. Either use a single barrelled gun to halve the attacks, wear a belt of anything else, or both. Rapid Shot can make up for the lessened attacks if it's too much of a nerf.
Redo your sample after that and watch what happens; you'll still be a good gunslinger without breaking the game.
Hahaha, overpowered.
Anyway maybe the gm should make you do a will save everyone once in a while?
+8 will is terrible at that level, I guess pray you don't fight a vampire?
There are a lot of things that stop you, so I don't think this is much of an issue
Agreed on +8 will being terrible--a few of the group's chars, mine included, are 70,000gp below WBL but that should be getting balanced soon. A +6 headband of wis and a +5 cloak of res are on the to-buy list.
-----In any case a single-barrel musket is poor, but I imagine my GM and I will agree to an alternative damage calculation.
At this level I deal 1d12+13 with a single barrel, so 2*(1d12+13) for double barrel. A decent intermediary would be 2d6+19 (where 19 is 1.5* my normal bonus) or 3d8+12.
My goal isn't to "win" as some have suggested, and the entire point of this thread was to see what is supposed to be going on to counteract the near-certainty that I will always hit within my first range increment, which targets almost always will be. I came here knowing my damage was too high. I stated so in the OP. I did not come here asking for people to help me shut down the DM and declare victory over a fantasy world. This said, I appreciate those who did respond with valuable insight.
The problem I see is that many environmental factors should be coming into play, but it is too cumbersome to do so in a casual setting. Another factor is the limited space on a battle mat which makes it far more likely that I will be in my first range increment and, thus, hit touch. When I first built this char my intent was to be far from the actual battle. I even bought the Far-Reaching Sight under the assumption that I would need to make 300-400 foot shots, and I never actually had an opportunity to use the thing. Our battle mat isn't 80x80 squares.
With these issues, it does seem reasonable to give up the DB Musket, but dropping all the way down to a single barrel musket is unreasonable. Middle ground can and probably will be found.
You could also treat the db musket like the manyshot fet. To be honest? Outside of concealment at lvl 12 I found cover not a big deal using deadshot even with co er 4 out of 5 rolls with desdshot hit. Without. o er all 5 hit.
Hahaha, overpowered.
Anyway maybe the gm should make you do a will save everyone once in a while?
+8 will is terrible at that level, I guess pray you don't fight a vampire?
There are a lot of things that stop you, so I don't think this is much of an issue
Agreed on +8 will being terrible--a few of the group's chars, mine included, are 70,000gp below WBL but that should be getting balanced soon. A +6 headband of wis and a +5 cloak of res are on the to-buy list.
-----In any case a single-barrel musket is poor, but I imagine my GM and I will agree to an alternative damage calculation.
At this level I deal 1d12+13 with a single barrel, so 2*(1d12+13) for double barrel. A decent intermediary would be 2d6+19 (where 19 is 1.5* my normal bonus) or 3d8+12.
My goal isn't to "win" as some have suggested, and the entire point of this thread was to see what is supposed to be going on to counteract the near-certainty that I will always hit within my first range increment, which targets almost always will be. I came here knowing my damage was too high. I stated so in the OP. I did not come here asking for people to help me shut down the DM and declare victory over a fantasy world. This said, I appreciate those who did respond with valuable insight.
The problem I see is that many environmental factors should be coming into play, but it is too cumbersome to do so in a casual setting. Another factor is the limited space on a battle mat which makes it far more likely that I will be in my first range increment and, thus, hit touch. When I first built this char my intent was to be far from the actual battle. I even bought the Far-Reaching Sight under the assumption that I would need to make 300-400 foot shots, and I never actually had an opportunity to use the thing. Our battle mat isn't 80x80 squares.
With these issues, it does seem reasonable to give up the DB Musket, but dropping all the way down to a single barrel musket is unreasonable. Middle ground can and...
I dont think your damage is to high but i fail to see why you need a "special treadment" musket. Just take deadly aim and rapid shot.
The gunslinger dosent need extra stuff to be in the game.And again if your GM dont like that you can take on a charging tyrannusaurus in one round with 50% chance of succes then remind him that you are toast on the other 50% :) and that is a CR 9 monster.
I still need to know what kind of problem you have and if your GM also have it.
Honestly, you're an optimised gunslinger - that's the issue.
Gunslingers need to balance themselves or end up overpowered. Either use a single barrelled gun to halve the attacks, wear a belt of anything else, or both. Rapid Shot can make up for the lessened attacks if it's too much of a nerf.
Redo your sample after that and watch what happens; you'll still be a good gunslinger without breaking the game.
I dont think he looks that Optimised.
I'm not too familiar with the gunslinger class, but something doesn't smell right with the claim of being able to load both barrels of a double musket for each iterative shot.
That is how alot of folks read it. But when i GM it is a no go:)
Not because of the books but because i find it better that way.
I don't get it, if you feel that the damage is too much, why tank strength and will save to pump it so high?
Edit: Ok sorry probably an exaggeration to say you tanked your will save, but still it's an example of another useful area you could invest in to round out the character if you feel the damage he does is a problem. Maybe put one of those points from leveling in Wis to get will save and grit?
My current (level 14) Barbarian is churning out roughly 114 DPR according to a DPR calculator Excel thingy, and I'm pretty sure it's failing to add some stuff, and he's not wholly focused on damage (he's also the trap guy!), and he's probably a fair bit sturdier than your guy (DR 6/- and 250 HP Raging, and saves at 30/17/22). Unbuffed and without any of the bonuses from Witch Hunter he gets versus people with spells or spell-likes (that puts him up to 121)
Haste shoots him up to 169. The usual Greater Heroism/Good Hope combo on top of that puts him at 190-ish. 201 with Witch Hunter.
You're fine.
How are you dealing with misfires? With cartrages you misfire on a 1-4. With 6 attacks per round, that gives you a misfire chance of 73% per full attack. (And this is assuming that your DM is nice and lets you stop shooting in the middle of a double shot). You probobly want to trade one of those pluses for a luck enchantment. That way at least you will be able to burn grit to not blow your gun up.
Why would his Dm need to be 'nice' to let him stop shooting in the middle of doubleshot? The built in game rules let him do it. actually, the Misfire thing is something i think gets overlooked alot when they are talking about the 14 shots around gunslinger builts they should misfire about every round.
No, Witch Hunter adds damage against creatures with spells or spell-likes. That was another DPR calculation.
My Will save vs Spells and SLAs is +22 (+27 vs Fear).
Why would his Dm need to be 'nice' to let him stop shooting in the middle of doubleshot?
I think that's questionable. You are firing both barrels with a single pull of the trigger. How could you stop if one of them misfired?
How are you dealing with misfires? With cartrages you misfire on a 1-4. With 6 attacks per round, that gives you a misfire chance of 73% per full attack. (And this is assuming that your DM is nice and lets you stop shooting in the middle of a double shot). You probobly want to trade one of those pluses for a luck enchantment. That way at least you will be able to burn grit to not blow your gun up.
Why would his Dm need to be 'nice' to let him stop shooting in the middle of doubleshot? The built in game rules let him do it. actually, the Misfire thing is something i think gets overlooked alot when they are talking about the 14 shots around gunslinger builts they should misfire about every round.
He is a level 13 musket master he dosent missfire.