Hey everyone, I am currently working on a setting where firearms will be rather advanced and pervasive as a result.
Now I know there are many complaints with firearms in pathfinder. But I don't think i have ever heard any specific arguments, either it was "Gunslingers are overpowered" or something about guns being poorly implemented, without any explanation how so.
So I wanted to ask what exactly makes guns so poorly implemented? What are the exact reasons people don't ike them the way they work in Pathfinder.
And this is purely mechanically speaking, I understand and don't care why you might not want them for flavbor reasons.
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Honestly the vast majority of arguments I have seen are based on flavor.
The few who claim mechanical are usually actually in the flavor category once you start digging past their initial statement.
The reason a lot of the remaining people don't like them is because they hit on a touch attack with in the first range increment. People feel this is an unfair advantage. Reloading and price of things is the offset and balance to this but once you can afford alchemical cartridges on a regular basis you can get your full attack and gunslinger are full BAB characters. They are concerned that it causes balance issues when all of your other characters minus casters have to hit an opponent’s full AC.
I like them though, there are ways to compensate.
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I don't feel that firearms or gunslingers are overpowered. Most of the debate, as has been stated above, seems to come down to flavor. Firearms, especially advanced firearms, can churn out a lot of damage each round and that can sometimes be unexpected to GMs. The 'problem' is easily fixed however.
My 3.5 homebrew world was steampunk with technology in some areas pushed into the WWI era. The advanced technology did make the characters more powerful, especially when the ranged based ranger could empty his entire rifle in a single round then reload a stripper clip as a free action and be ready to go again, but not dramatically so.
To mitigate the attacking touch AC rule it is easy to rule that armor is more advanced as well and designed to deflect bullets as well as melee attacks. Suddenly your firearms wielding characters are attacking normal AC and most of the 'problem' is resolved. This isn't entirely historically accurate but as long as you make the ruling at the start of the game most players won't have too much of an issue.
I used to describe armor as looking different to match the flavor of the world, such as platemail being made from thick, iron plates that could easily soak up bullets and so on. My players rolled with it and didn't seem to care.
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Threeshades, I think you'll be fine. The primary "guns are overpowered" arguments usually stem from one character implementing firearms in an a very mechanically sound way, while most or all of the rest of their group are not using firearms at all. I'm not going to weigh in on the "omg guns are OP" debate, but it most often results in these types of scenarios, where the damage output of one player is being measured vs. the rest of a non-gun group that is up against non-gun, low-touch-AC baddies.
It gets even worse and more ripe for trouble if the GM in question allows said player to use Advanced firearms in a world setting where even Simple firearms are rare.
In your case, you're building a world where firearms are going to be fairly common. Your PCs will have them. Your NPCs will have them. Your monsters, enemies, mooks and BBEGs will have them.
It's certainly going to make combat...different, but probably not too much different compared to say, running gestalt characters vs. High CR enemies, or characters with additional Mythic tiers vs. Mythic baddies.
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You're right in that there are many Fluff arguments against firearms, including mine -- it's NOT D&D! I won't consider one in my games.
However, every player I've spoken with who's played one or even just looked over the design has seen how wildly unbalanced (overpowered) they are compared to the other Classes.
A couple months ago a Player in our group built one for a Sandbox Campaign simply to prove to the DM (and other Players) just how grossly broken it was. Again, he wasn't making it to get into the game or for backstory or anything, just to prove a point -- with the expressed intention of getting rid of it and making a real PC once he proved the point beyond any reasonable doubt.
It took less than 2 or 3 levels for it to become pretty obvious the PC was crazy better than the other PCs and after another couple levels, when he was single-handedly taking out monsters several CRs above him within 2 rounds, AND even a couple levels away from being even more broken, he went ahead and retired the PC and started a real one.
Our group is HEAVY RAW, with one exception: overpowered Ability Scores. After crunching numbers, though, a 20 point buy for that PC would have been even more broken compared to other PCs with the same 20 point buy.
I've emailed the Player a link to the Thread, he's on the Boards quite a bit as a RAW expert as pertaining to Class builds; he'll likely stop by when he has time and post his build and specific examples.
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...One (PC) is being measured vs. the rest of a non-gun group that is up against non-gun (monsters). ...(Made) worse... if the GM... allows Advanced firearms in a world setting where even Simple firearms are rare.
(My Bold)
.These are two important distinctions and make a very good point.
If every PC and NPC has guns AND every monster has guns, AND everyone builds incredibly strong Touch ACs -- the playing field should be leveled.
In our Sandbox game the monsters have access to the same Advanced firearms. (We hadn't really run into any at that point (and still haven't) -- it is a pure Sandbox.)
(Edited)BUT,... Lamontius's point still falls somewhat short: If everyone is required to make the same or similar build, using guns, then what's the point of having different Classes? If one or more Player hates guns and wants to play a PC build without them, but they can't because of advanced firearms everywhere, the game's enjoyment is killed for those Players.
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So I wanted to ask what exactly makes guns so poorly implemented? What are the exact reasons people don't ike them the way they work in Pathfinder.
There's too many exceptions to common rules that you have to try to remember. Guns hit at touch AC (for some reason...) in the first range increment. They have a special misfire chance which isn't present on any other weapon. Their reload time varies depending on what ammunition you are using. Ammunition also affects the misfire chance. Gunslingers introduce even more exceptions, mostly countering the special downsides that were given to guns.
It's an overly intricate subsystem. The guns hitting touch AC was just a terrible idea. Not because the way Pathfinder implements guns is overpowered, but rather because to make up for this benefit a bunch of downsides---exceptions to the normal rules---were added. Then, to counter those downsides, equipment, feats, gunslinger class abilities add ways to lessen/overcome them. So we have complexity balancing complexity balancing complexity. It's a mess.
Another thing a lot of people don't like about how guns were implemented is the reload time. People point out that it's unrealistic to reload your musket every 1.5 seconds. This is true. (Though it is worth pointing out that swinging your adamantine greataxe every 1.5 seconds is also unrealistic.) The problem is that iterative attacks is the way to deal damage in Pathfinder. If guns couldn't fire at full base attack, then they'd be underpowered past low levels. So we end up with something a lot of people don't like in order for guns to be a more viable option than water balloons.
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Ray,
Holy Gun (Paladin)
Black Powder Inquisition (Inquisitor)
Trophy Hunter (Ranger)
Firearms Training (Rogue)
Musketeer (Cavalier)
Spellslinger (Wizard)
that's just off the top of my head, I know I'm missing some
don't make assumptions about the OP's player group or the OP's motives
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it's NOT D&D!
It's not how you choose to envision D&D/PF, you mean.
Melee mixes very poorly with guns. Really, anybody who isn't a caster doesn't mix well with guns (if they aren't using guns). If you're players know what the world is like in advance they'd be remiss to play anything other than full casters or classes that are tooled to work with guns.
everyones know that the best defence agaisnt bullets is start dodging them.
Which is why the firearms attack against touch AC. :)
I like firearms in my games, since I prefer my settings a little more Renaissance-y and advanced; more forward-thinking and such. I do tone them down a bit, though; force effects like Mage Armor, Shield, and Bracers of Armor count fully against bullets, and I'm considering medium armors/light shields getting half their AC and heavy armors and shields getting all of it.
At 30 ft you can totally bypass 30 points of natural armor, but at 35 ft you bypass nothing.
Everything in the game is like that. Darkvision stops abruptly at its specific range, you see nothing past that. You can stand just outside a fireball and not feel a thing (convection schmonvection).
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Ray,
Holy Gun (Paladin)
Black Powder Inquisition (Inquisitor)
Trophy Hunter (Ranger)
Firearms Training (Rogue)
Musketeer (Cavalier)
Spellslinger (Wizard)don't make assumptions about the OP's player group or the OP's motives
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.You're right -- though this was just my ignorance (I dunno about any of that stuff), not my assumptions -- but your point is still dead on. I'll edit my post.
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it's NOT D&D!It's not how you choose to envision D&D/PF, you mean.
"BUT TOLKIEN DIDN'T GUNS!"
Why not try something different in terms of story? Yeah, Desolation of Smaug hit box offices like a megaton bomb, but if every movie had a similar setting, it probably wouldn't be seeing that sort of cash. I feel like the same argument applies with DnD/PF. The story shouldn't be tied down to someone else's idea of fantasy. And if everyone starts seeing the same fantasy, it gets old. Fast. But I dislike playing PFS games for this very reason, so take that opinion as much as it's worth.
Plus, I think that adding more guns for everyone balances this problem. Your metagaming, powergamer pulls out an optimized build for taking out a dragon or some such? As a GM, you should spread out defenses and lay down covering fore with armed goons or the like. Baddies' Touch AC is low, but so are PCs'. And remember, it takes a good deal of feats and levels to prevent attacks if opportunity. People often forget that both firing and reloading ranged weapons provoke without the proper class abilities and such. Throw in some dex-based martials and suddenly that gunslinger isn't looking so hot. Furthermore, I recall an amulet that gives a luck bonus to Touch AC for firearm attacks. If we use the Guns Everywhere or even Commonplace Guns ruleset, it could make sense to make that amulet more prevalent/affordable.
But all these are my two cents.
I personally disallow Guns in games that I run, often for the issue that it only takes one gunslinger, and the rest of the party can go pure tank and deal absolutely no damage, and they'll still crush every encounter they run into.
This primarily relies on the fact that many gunslingers will almost never have to worry about actually hitting when they fire unless they roll really really low. Most monsters, with only very few exceptions, are bound to have god-awful Touch AC. This essentially ensures that the Gunslinger is nothing but guaranteed damage.
The other issue that I run into is that with people who play gunslingers, a certain sense of entitlement always seems to pop up sooner or later. That is to say that eventually, they're going to EXPECT to hit every single round, and start b%+*+ing up a storm if they don't. And what's worse, a lot of the party will come to rely on said sustained gunslinger damage, and if they aren't killing the monster fast enough because the Gunslinger can't hit it, the GM (aka ME) is bound to hear it from all around the table about how the encounter is unbalanced and unfair.
I've stopped using guns for this reason, because combined with the fact that they are already very strong, and there's a lot of really bad player-vibe that surrounds them. Don't even get me started on when an NPC has a gun and uses it on THEM, oh how the cries of OP are heard that day...
Thankfully, you OP are going to be in a setting where everyone and anyone will have guns, so you should probably be able to avoid several of these issues, and it might not be so bad for you.
Side note: I agree whole-heartedly with what Kimera said. I refuse to play D20modern ever again, because when I run it my players b+&~@ about their gun not being as good as it should be in the real world, or the fact that missing someone only barely with a SNiper rifle doesn't scare the s+*+ out of him and cause him to run away, when he's trying to run the sniper down. Etc. Etc. Etc. It's just really bad.
This is a post of mine from a different thread about gunslingers. it was about if you had unlimited free actions how broken can you make your gunslinger this is what I can do with just (I believe) 3 free actions.
Is it guns everywhere setting? If yes you take one level of gunslinger choose pistol for "Gun Training" (or musket but pistol is better see Two-Weapon fighting) and take the rest in fighter the only problem is you go from a feat every level to 2 feats every other level.
If it's not guns everywhere you take 5 levels of gunslinger and 15 levels of fighter for "Gun Training" see above.
Now that you can add your dex damage to your pistol you spend all of those beautiful extra feats from fighter you spend them on two-weapon fighter feats and on ranged weapons feats.
I recently played in a game where at 5th level I had a +2 belt of dex, a +1 pistol and a mwk pistol with a base dex of 18 +2 Race as well. I had a 22dex.
I was doing up to 3 attacks a round (two-weapon fighting and rapid shot) doing +9/+9/+9 dealing 1d8+7/1d8+7/1d8+6 with a X4 multiplier on a crit (only a 5% chance but still). If I was in 30ft I got a +1 to all of those from point-blank shot. With weapon cords I can do the following with 3 free actions every round: full attack drop one reload (2 free actions) pick it up (swift) and still have a free action.
I'm doing an average (not including my point blank) of 33dmg a turn attacking touch AC within 100 feat (at 100ft I get a minus 8). When I would crit I would do about 42 damage between the three attacks (that was only with one crit).
I can add the two-weapon rend ability to my attacks in two level with two more attacks. At 7th level (1 gunslinger 6 fighter) I get improved two-weapon fighting and two-weapon rend. I can probably have both my pistols be +1 at this point.
I now will be doing +11/+11/+11/+11/+11 dealing 1d8+7 with each of them. That's 57dmg a round when I do a full round attack and hit (you usually hit with your attacks since you hit touch AC). If I hit with both my weapons I do an extra 1d10 +1.5 my Str modifier (Two-weapon rend doesn't specify you have to hit with a melee weapon).
At 9th level (1 gunslinger 8 fighter) I take the feat that lets me attack with my postol adjacent to you w/o provoking AOOs (I don't remember what it's called) and snap shot so I can use AOOs on you when you try to run from me. Did I mention I'm taking the two-weapon fighting Arch-Type? Because i can attack with both my weapons for that AOO.
The best part about a gunslinger is that the only stat I need is my dex. I don't need Str for damage, I'm long range so my Con isn't that important, Grit isn't that important so I only need a 14 or so Wis. Cha and Int can be sacked. I'll still get 2 skill points a level.
The Gunslinger's biggest problem is misfire. At low level when you don't have magic items you have a caster know mending so that you can fix it for a 0lv spell. The next thing I put on my gun is reliable I no longer have to worry about misfire.
I was asked to not run a gunslinger(because I was the only one doing something in the fights.) and made my DM admit that they are in fact broken about a week ago. I was attempting to break it in the first place to prove a point so I didn't have a problem dropping the PC.
That is why a gunslinger is broken you gets the extra attacks of a two-weapon fighter and a ranged fighter, you only need one ability score to be great and a few to be average like a wizard (not to mention that one ability has to do with your AC), and your attacks are all touch AC within 100ft (200ft at the cost of a feat).
If you're not in guns everywhere it may take a little longer to get both your guns but it's still very doable by 7th level.
It just gets more disgusting as you level up more. If you want I can show you what I'll be like around 15th level.
TL;DR I get to be a two-weapon fighting ranged attacker (all the feats form both to get an amazing amount of attacks) as well as getting agile for free on both of my weapons.
Personality its the reload times for guns that do it for me
In history firing 3 rounds a minute was considered a good rate of fire
Personality its the reload times for guns that do it for me
In history firing 3 rounds a minute was considered a good rate of fire
Good thing this isn't a historical simulation.
One-handed weapon + Rapid Reload feat + cartridges = Free reload. Reload times, not a problem.
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With the primitive weapons, yes.
I still remember 2e's arquebus, which was one of those 'take this and pay' weapons (along with all the polearms). Ridiculous loading time, horrible init penalty (for some inexplicable reason), chance of catastrophic failure, all in exchange for exploding d10s.
Advanced firearms are, advanced. A revolver is a big deal. The arrival of repeating rifles changed the course of the civil war and helped with the American taming of the West (there were reports of groups Indians attacking lone individuals, these indians were used to waiting to hear the rifle shot, then charging. In several cases, they heard the single rifle shot, left cover and then were blasted by their lone target who had a repeater).
I admittedly use firearms frequently, limited them to one nation on my planet. They have an advantage in terms of ranged weaponry, but still fall apart if their melee focused opponents get to blows with them.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but at higher levels, your AC is functionally meaningless in most cases anyway.
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The problem with the gun rules in ultimate isnt that they are overpowered, or that they are underpowered. They are actually if you took a large statistical sample set, balanced. The problem is they are balanced by massive strokes on both sides of the scale weak vs strong instead of by small rational movements near the middle. Its kind of like trying ot steer a ferrari moving at high speeds by alternately yanking one of two levers that turns the car suddenly to one side or the other. Sure you could do it, but they experience of driving a ferrari is going to be somewhat soured.
The gun rules and the gunslinger break common conventions for and against them.
For:
They hit touch AC - this screws up all sorts of levels of balance, in particular with big stompy monsters that are generally overloaded with natural armor. It means by mid levels, gun users (especially gunslingers with their full bab) only miss on a 1 against targets that are by their design supposed to be hard to hit.
Gunslingers get dex to damage: This isnt a massive problem, but it does break certain conventions of ranged fighting. And it means gunslingers can be more focused on dex then bow based ranged combatant.
Against:
Guns are stupid expensive and so is their ammunition: This is a setting thing more then anything else. Golarion fans dont want guns to pervade into their setting so the people of alkenstar arbitrarily keep prices high for some reason. One round of ammunition costs more then most basic weapons. And guns cost as much as magic weapons, which they arent.
Misfire - this is just plain stupid. Yes, blackpowder and even modern weapons misfire. But swords break, bows snap, crossbows jam, lances break. We dont have these things in the rules because your weapon breaking itself with a poor rule makes for a lack of fun (baring those who like the critical failure charts/decks and such but again thats an alternate rule, not the base rule). Gunslingers end up having to save most of their grit to fix a mechanical flaw in their primary weapon. Its really dumb to have this in the mechanics.
Reload times - Yes, its unrealistic to reload a firearm as fast as a bow, or even a crossbow. But its also unrealistic to transform into a bear and eat someone. This is a fantasy game in which monks can jump 30 feet into the air, wizards warp space and time, and barbarians can take a spear to the face and only be slightly annoyed, do we really need the one thing we get sticky about be that someone cant slip a cartridge into a barrel quickly? The game is built around full attacks. Making it hard to full attack with this one brand of weapon makes players jump through all sorts of hoops just to function. And once you get the players jumping through hoops, they are usually on the path to jump through a few more to minmax their character to be more powerful then you'd like for your game.
I dont mind guns in my fantasy, I dont want paizo's guns from ultimate combat in my fantasy.
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They hit touch AC - this screws up all sorts of levels of balance, in particular with big stompy monsters that are generally overloaded with natural armor. It means by mid levels, gun users (especially gunslingers with their full bab) only miss on a 1 against targets that are by their design supposed to be hard to hit.
I would feel bad about this if every offensive spell in the game didn't either target touch AC, or require no attack roll at all.
two-weapon fighting and rapid shotIs that a legal combo? I'm sure you get asked that a lot :)
Personality its the reload times for guns that do it for me
In history firing 3 rounds a minute was considered a good rate of fireGood thing this isn't a historical simulation.
One-handed weapon + Rapid Reload feat + cartridges = Free reload. Reload times, not a problem.
You would think it's a historical sim, given the way many gun fans act.
From what I gather, reload times were used to "balance" gunslingers, but you've just posted an easy-to-figure-out combo that undoes that.
Yeah. There's a gunslinger in the group I'm playing in right now, and he seems to have made every possible bad choice in building the character, and thus thinks Gunslingers outright suck. Small character, two handed weapon, not crafting his own ammo/cartridges, no Rapid Reload ...
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Saving throws aren't comparable there. More like spell resistance. The saving throws for the aforementioned offensive spells still do damage. A blind mage can still hit someone with Lightning Bolt if they happen to be in the proper square and it will likely do damage (barring Evasion). A gunshot won't do anything but cost you a gp if you miss. Touch AC doesn't scale greatly (according to some sources), but DR does.
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I don't really get the whole debate when it comes to the mechanical aspects. Cover, concealment, miscellaneous penalties all add up for ranged combat. Sure you get touch AC for first increment... but that is so short and it costs grit to extend it. A good full BAB is hitting on 2+ most if not all CR appropriate encounters anyways, is it really that big a deal when the Gunslinger does it? Perhaps you guys are playing with fighters who use sword and board TWF or tower shield and fight defensively or something. Heck the 3/4 BAB guys hit 2/3 of the time.
At the levels you are fighting at 100-200 ft touch attacks, your fighting in many monster's charge range (some fast flying monsters out there). Its single target damage at that, so as long as there are multiple monsters in combat its not an issue at all.
In a 4 member party you are supposed to have a main attack character, a crowd controller, a buffer, and somebody to be the skills and face. All party members should be able to contribute legitimate damage if called upon, but if you are meant to be main damage, you need to put down a LOT of damage. A Gunslinger is meant to do damage, and nothing else. His damage is on par with paladins, fighters, barbarians, and rangers if built for this role. It only over shadows other classes if there are too many people trying to be main damage and one person not building their character as competently. A main damage character should be able to 1-2 round mooks and 2-3 round bosses. This is taking misses and not getting full attacks into account.
When I see threads like this I wonder if people are even playing the same game. At all levels of the game encounters last 2-3 rounds if there isn't major environmental effects in play. The monsters are built that way, the PC baseline abilities are built that way (even the crappy pregens). Anything longer brings in the possibility of character deaths, looking at the damage by CR for monsters its pretty evident this is the case.
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When I see threads like this I wonder if people are even playing the same game.
Every game is going to be different, simply because of the different personalities and skill levels of the players and GM. Plus, most groups I've met don't care about what we're 'supposed to have'; we prefer that our players play what they want to, not some needlessly restrictive 'should have'. The GM should adjust the encounters to the capabilities of the PCs, not the other way around.
i trow out there that if a player want to use guns then bad guys have them rarely do i see a gun we have the same rule for some spells if the player don't cast them i want have the bad guys cast them.
that being said i have had a few with guns
a pc with a gun seem to be ok as long as the pc is not playing a gun based class like a cleric we has with a gun it was a lot of cool role play i even gave a five shot clip.
had a wiz, ranger, and a pirate. with a gun that was fine
but gunslinger with a gun is just wow sorry dragon you ac mean noting ad the best touch ac in the bestiary 1 is like ac 21 on a cr 20 demon i do think some of the latter book fix this
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I admit again, I'm odd and have never had a gunslinger (or firearm) problem.
A lot of so called problems in Pathfinder dissolve when you start messing with basic assumptions.
The pistolier stops being Mr. Combat god when you expand the engagement area from about 60X60 feet to something like 320x320ft, it also increases mounted combat, fly feasibility and a slew of other stuff.
And you can counter it hte opposite way by forcing the pistoliero to fight in what's essentially a giant closet in a 20X20 battlespace.
Everyone seems to assume a featureless, weatherless room with a checkerboard 5 foot pattern on the ground and everyone wheeling around on it. Also, people seem to assume more monsters at higher level.
Ironically, its the NPC enemies who can be better equipped against the threat of firearms (and they are more vulnerable to the CMD targetting attacks of the so-called 'useless' manuever builds).
Guns only cause a problem when you get into a specific rut.
I don't want to start a spellcaster, or class argument, but I want to use something from my past. I had a wizard player in 3.5, who concluded with the aid of the internet that past a certain level the 'only really challenging opponent' was wizards. He then proceded to tell me how bad my encounter design was because his dedicated anti-wizard tactica was proving useless against fiends, psionics, high fort save creatures, and things capable of bypassing his attempts at battlefield control.
Did I single him out for it? No. I made my encounters differentiated.
So is the same with the gunslinger. Most APs, by Paizo's own admission, aren't built for gunslingers.This is why Society play doesn't allow them. Therefore, the APs don't account for that tactic as much.
Gunslingers don't do as well up close because of the ranged invoking aoos thing, have trouble with intangible opponents, or fast opponents.
They get screwed over by cover and concealment just as much as any other ranged class does.
Monks can catch, and/or fling their bullets back at them.
Their ability to hit touch AC justifies the huge cost for their weapons, as opposed to the olden days when the gun's primary benefit was exploding die. "Guys, I hit the dragon for 10 damage, and 10 damage, and 10 damage and...wow!!" (Don't laugh, those are the days when having 120hp was a lot. We have a lot more hp then our 1 and 2e brethern).
So we now have a gun user who has a weapon that does damage consistantly, is dangerous at range (as he should be, and as a bow user is), and proves why human beings invented and improved on projectile weapons.
Crossing the line of death where you get hit for touch AC is rough, but by that point the gunslinger probably shouldn't be full attacking you if he wants to stay out of melee range. Also on the advanced firearms issue.they're advanced. When was the last time you heard of someone charging someone armed with a modern shotgun with a flail and being considered wise for doing so?
However, despite being a full BAB class, the gunslinger's still no tougher at close range, typically wears lighter armor for mobility, and his AC is almsot entirely composed of 'soft' bonuses, meaning if he's made flat footed, or denied his dex to AC, he suddenly becomes very, very vulnerable. And non-gunslingers don't get the tricks that make the vagaries of the firearm more survivable.
Design Manager
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Hey everyone, I am currently working on a setting where firearms will be rather advanced and pervasive as a result.
Now I know there are many complaints with firearms in pathfinder. But I don't think i have ever heard any specific arguments, either it was "Gunslingers are overpowered" or something about guns being poorly implemented, without any explanation how so.
So I wanted to ask what exactly makes guns so poorly implemented? What are the exact reasons people don't ike them the way they work in Pathfinder.
And this is purely mechanically speaking, I understand and don't care why you might not want them for flavbor reasons.
Touch AC is the only defense in the game to scale down as levels increase instead of up. This means that as a Gunslinger or gun-wielding characters BAB is going up, the enemies (by and large) are also getting easier to hit. This allows gun-wielding characters to take absolutely retarded amounts of penalties (Two-Weapon Fighting, Double-Barreled Pistol wielding, Rapid Shotting, Deadly Aiming Pistolero, I'm looking at you), and still be pretty much guaranteed to hit. They've done some things to reel this in a bit, but only at low levels; misfires are incredibly easy to negate by 8th level (sooner for some) and the limitation on weapon cords only matters until you get a Glove of Storing (or not at all if you have an extra limb available).
The biggest problem is that a basic premise of the game, the idea that the only people targeting touch AC will have lower BAB and still have to deal with things like SR or being a squishy type who is now standing way too close to a ferocious monster, is tossed out the window with firearms, and suddenly the vast majority of CR 9+ monsters are left with a huge vulnerability that the system didn't take into account when they were created. If you don't use monsters and instead focus on NPC characters with class levels, this isn't quite as big a deal, but it's still there.
All that being said, I do allow guns in some of my campaigns, but generally only in games where guns are an assumption of the setting; this allows me to control encounters and ensure that the party isn't getting overloaded on xp because monster CR's aren't properly reflecting the challenge the monster actually presents to the group, and it helps me take care of the gun-wielding characters as well by providing appropriate loot and resources; if you run an AP like Rise of the Runelords or The Jade Regent there's virtually no support for gun-wielding characters and that can create it's own issues, like having to re-write loot drops and reconfigure encounters to include the assumption of firearms in the story, or having the person who decided to play a gun-wielding character feel like they're getting left out because they aren't getting the support the other characters are from the setting.
I don't have a problem with guns, but I either want a strong guns setting or none at all. I can't stand early firearms.
I do use some house rules, guns are Martial Weapons not Simple Weapons. Masterwork are adds half its armor bonus to AC against guns. I also had to build the guns I wanted as most of the official guns aren't advanced enough for my tastes, while the guns in Rasputin Must Die represent a technological advance I never really liked. I prefer Wild West in my gun fantasy. Though, with my setting I went Civil War as it represents a step up from official guns and transitions into Wild West and bridges the gap to the WWI weapons of Rasputin Must Die.
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Also guns don't belong in fantasy
Unless of course your playing shadowrun
I'm curious as to the reasoning behind this. Why are guns verboten for fantasy? Look for example at how Wikipedia defines the genre of fantasy:
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary plot element, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic and magical creatures are common. Fantasy is generally distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror by the expectation that it steers clear of scientific and macabre themes, respectively, though there is a great deal of overlap between the three, all of which are subgenres of speculative fiction.
Nothing in there prohibits guns. Also, considering than gunpowder has been used in the real world since the 9th century CE (much earlier than, say, the rapier), it seems weird to disallow it on "historical" grounds.
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N.B. that things like Dresden Files and Buffy are also fantasy genre. And hey, look, guns.
I never really saw guns in Pathfinder enough in action to really build an opinion. I've avoided making a gunslinger or using guns because they seem like the most expensive means to do damage and high prices discourages me each time.
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I don't have a problem with guns, but I either want a strong guns setting or none at all. I can't stand early firearms.
I do use some house rules, guns are Martial Weapons not Simple Weapons. Masterwork are adds half its armor bonus to AC against guns. I also had to build the guns I wanted as most of the official guns aren't advanced enough for my tastes, while the guns in Rasputin Must Die represent a technological advance I never really liked. I prefer Wild West in my gun fantasy. Though, with my setting I went Civil War as it represents a step up from official guns and transitions into Wild West and bridges the gap to the WWI weapons of Rasputin Must Die.
I may need to pick up Rasputin Must Die now. I can already see my android fighter player describing his character atop a tank shouting "GET CLOSER, I WANT TO HIT THEM WITH MY SWORD!"
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Most APs, by Paizo's own admission, aren't built for gunslingers.
Then the flaw lies with the gunslinger.
If an adventure/AP works (i.e. is "built for") almost every other class, then the problem lies in the badly-designed class.
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The reason it's built that way is that the only place gunslingers are found that readily is in Alkenstar. Far as I know, there aren't many APs that take you there.
Most APs, by Paizo's own admission, aren't built for gunslingers.Then the flaw lies with the gunslinger.
If an adventure/AP works (i.e. is "built for") almost every other class, then the problem lies in the badly-designed class.
I read that the other way. The APs should be built to work for any class or combination of classes.
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So if I make a meal that everybody likes but one gluten-intolerant guy, the flaw is in the meal?
So if I write a book that everyone enjoys but one guy who can't read, the problem is in my book?
If I write a series of adventures that works for every class and archetype, except for the one that is significantly mechanically different than the others, the problem is in the adventures?
That's a pretty specific way to look at things, wouldn't you say?
Most of the arguments against gunslingers have listed pretty specific mechanical issues. The arguments in favor (which initially decried anti-flavor arguments) fixate on the flavor argument. Can any of you speak (with specificity) to the mechanical issues with the class?
Most of the arguments against gunslingers have listed pretty specific mechanical issues. The arguments in favor (which initially decried anti-flavor arguments) fixate on the flavor argument. Can any of you speak (with specificity) to the mechanical issues with the class?
that's easy... Damage is all Gunslingers have going for them...
Dealing damage is not overpowered. Or even that powerful.
Gunslingers do nothing but deal damage. That's all they have. And even then, their damage only reaches absurd levels when they are TWFing (which takes lots of feats and fighting on their terms (enemies that are less than 30ft away from the gunslinger but for some reason are not in melee). Why would a ranged enemy stay within 30ft or why a melee character would stay outside of melee range, I have no idea...
Can the problem be solved by shooting it? No? Too bad, that's all Gunslingers can do (and firearms are the absolutely worst weapons in the whole game for anyone who is not a Trench Fighter or Gunslinger).
Gunslingers are pretty easy to "counter". I GMed for a TWF Gunslinger for quite a while and never had any problem... They do require some extra thought form the GM, but that's all.
Gunslingers are okay.
That said...
I HATE firearms mechanics. Targeting touch AC makes no sense whatsoever and goes against a basic assumption of the game. It's a weird gimmick that has to be compensated by a dozen drawbacks, making firearms completely useless to anyone who is not a Gunslinger (or Trench Fighter).
If a mechanic is so powerful that it has to be "balanced" by all sorts of contrived drawbacks, chances are it's not a good mechanic, and should not be in the game.