@Noireve
Why can't you use TWF if you use a glove of storing?
Also you can get haste from boots of speed and if the DM limits the number of free actions then archer is more hurt than the gunslinger because the archer uses 2 or three free actions each time he wants to fire another arrow.
Except that drawing and shooting an arrow is much smoother and simpler than say, drawing out a cartage, turning up your pistol, shoving is down into the pistol, then re-aiming...
As for the TWF with a glove of storing, I mean that you can't just go
"Ok I shoot, reload, call my other gun, store my first gun, shoot, reload, store the second gun, call the first gun, then repeat"
Except that drawing and shooting an arrow is much smoother and simpler than say, drawing out a cartage, turning up your pistol, shoving is down into the pistol, then re-aiming...
As for the TWF with a glove of storing, I mean that you can't just go
"Ok I shoot, reload, call my other gun, store my first gun, shoot, reload, store the second gun, call the first gun, then repeat"
Remember when I said turning the barrel of a pepperbox weapon while not having any free hands is the least absurd thing about this? I do admit I was wrong in even bringing it up, though I did get the number of attacks right.
The standard reload method being discussed is, well, even more absurd. I can see a reason for it, though... In a world with magic, reloading a weapon like that in that little time is probably standard.
But as you highlighted, the two weapon fighting method is even more absurd and not even rules possible.
Except that drawing and shooting an arrow is much smoother and simpler than say, drawing out a cartage, turning up your pistol, shoving is down into the pistol, then re-aiming...
Smoother? I take it that you mean it makes more sense or doesn't appear to take so much time as reloading firearms?
If yes then:Might be true but the rules are as they are, if you limit the number of free actions then you are going to have to house rule how you shoot arrows if you want it to not be affecting by the limitation, because shooting an extra arrow takes 2 or 3 free actions.
As for the TWF with a glove of storing, I mean that you can't just go"Ok I shoot, reload, call my other gun, store my first gun, shoot, reload, store the second gun, call the first gun, then repeat"
Again, why?
EDIT: I didn't read correctly the second part of your post, the way you wrote it isn't how you twf with a glove of storing.
Where?
Where I pointed out other ways for classes besides gunslingers to add damage to guns.
I can play this game too. A monk is even better. So is a rogue, or any other class that focuses on dexterity.
Lets go with the best example for your case, a monk.
They're going to have +4 from mage armor or bracers. Even +4 to hit for a weapon is huge.
Add in a few other items, or just UMD and a wand of entropic shield, windwall, cloak of winds, any other spell that cripples ranged attacks.
And while you were buffing the party has already killed the bad guy.
Don't let them full attack. Get close so they provoke while reloading.
5 foot and shoot. Or just stand there. If you don't have combat reflexes they're a d10 hd class and aren't so mad that they dump con.
The options are as endless as you are creative.
Show, don't tell. You want to tell me I'm doing it wrong? DO better.
Or the 10th level wizard hits him with a baleful polymorph.
Good fort save.
Let me give you the argument to make. Guns are the equivalent of a +5 weapon. +1 with the brilliant weapon(+4) enchantment. Except even better because you CAN harm undead, constructs, and objects while ignoring a targets natural armor.
I already showed the +19 to hit.
Your level of condensation might be barely tolerable with a higher level of argument behind it. As it is, its not.
As for the TWF with a glove of storing, I mean that you can't just go"Ok I shoot, reload, call my other gun, store my first gun, shoot, reload, store the second gun, call the first gun, then repeat"
Again, why?
EDIT: I didn't read correctly the second part of your post, the way you wrote it isn't how you twf with a glove of storing.
I'm not her, but I can answer.
Firearms require a free hand to reload them. The double-barrel pistols only hold one shot per barrel; both pistols would have to be reloaded after every shot if you fired both barrels on both pistols every round.
I have a question for those who have actually played with gunslingers and are posting on this thread about the problems...
If guns were changed to target normal AC instead of touch AC, making them effectively like every other weapon in the game, would their power level become balanced enough to use?
I apologize if this has been addressed earlier; it probably has, but I don't remember it coming up in the discussion. If it has, please direct me there.
The power level is more or less balanced enough to use as they are right now (assuming you're not talking about advanced firearms), but as others in the thread have said, if you get rid of targeting touch AC you should wildly improve them in other ways. Dropping the ability to target touch AC from up close makes guns bad crossbows, and crossbows are already really bad.
Honestly, if you're worried about what effect gunslingers will have on your game, just allow them with the explicit proviso that you're a little bit nervous about them and you know that they have an uneven reputation, so you're reserving the right to reevalute. (And don't use the advanced firearms - those explicitly represent the level of technology where firearms largely do replace conventional weapons.) Most of extreme cases mentioned in this thread involve doing things like juggling a pair of guns around between both of your hands and your prehensile tail many times every round, and without niche craziness like that, gunslingers (which already can't do much besides damage) are even more completely in-band. That gunslingers with a highly specific setup are capable of making a very large number of attacks every round is not strong evidence that firearms or gunslingers are problematic for general use, even when generally optimized otherwise.
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Firearms are badwrongfun because martials can't have nice things. A martial, capable of scaling well into the lategame? Outshines a sub-par sword and board fighter? *Gasp* can't have that!
Would be nice to see some DPS calculations though. I don't remember from the DPS wars thread any gunslingers or fighters-with-guns being touted as far superior. Would be good to see how they measure up, all things considered. One can banter back and forth forever, but until builds are produced, It is all conjecture.
If guns were changed to target normal AC instead of touch AC, making them effectively like every other weapon in the game, would their power level become balanced enough to use?
Good question.
I wouldn't call guns targeting touch AC 'overpowered' necessarily, I think that its power level is wacky, sometimes it's too good, sometimes it's not good enough.
Removing the touch AC rule would even out the variations somewhat, but I worry that it would then leave guns too weak. I would want to replace it with some other sort of bonus that is less likely to disrupt the game math or make guns cheaper and easier to use.
Please keep it civil, folks.
I thought this was more about guns, and their use by all classes, not just Gunslingers?
I'd love to play a fighter that has a (double barrelled?)musket that he only pulls out when the chips are down or something similar. With all the feats a Fighter gets, it could be doable.
Early Firearms cost a freaking fortune. If you're not a Gunslinger, it'll take a while before you can even afford one.
I think we'd be better served by more damage and a multi-round reload time. Then there'd be no bypassing it except by owning a couple dozen pistols, which is going to seriously cut into your enhancement budget.
so what you are saying is to nerf them down to un-useability? nice..... very nice there... as if the cost of simply SHOOTING one isnt bad enough...
It seems like part of the problem with firearms in both mechanics and flavor is that they just don't fit well into the abstractions of a d20 world.
In a non-battle setting early firearms were terrible in pretty much every way - horribly inaccurate at any real range, slow to reload, clumsy, unreliable.... BUT at very close range, you could blow a large hole in someone pretty reliably, once. That one thing made expensive pistols incredibly useful, but how do you translate that into d20? As an expensive one-use weapon that probably insta-kills something inside 10 feet, but has a 20% / 40% / 75% / etc chance per 10 feet of distance to inherently miss? There's a reason nobody fought exclusively or even primarily with bullets for a long, long time. Trying to shoehorn a 'gunslinger' into anything but a 'gun age' seems pretty bound to fail, unless you just say 'oh well' and treat it like a common range weapon.
Okay I think i will start a new thread to post the firearm rules for my setting. Here it would just be drowned in the discussion.
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I think we'd be better served by more damage and a multi-round reload time. Then there'd be no bypassing it except by owning a couple dozen pistols, which is going to seriously cut into your enhancement budget.
Let's apply the same principle to spells as well. Level 3-5 spells take two rounds to cast, and 6-9 take three. I mean if big effect once every few rounds is acceptable.
Nobody is served by an unsatisfying system. Do you think a player of a greatsword wielding barbarian would accept rolling against touch AC if it meant he could only attack every third round? I doubt it.
Guns are complex and have "brand names". Swords are simple, unfamiliar and have no brand name beyond "Damascus Steel" (which in Pathfinder just means "masterwork"). Because swords are unfamiliar, no one complains that sword rules aren't realistic. They're not intended to be. They're supposed to be balanced and/or cinematic (preferably both).
This is perhaps the most valid assessment I have ever seen. Bravo, I wholeheartedly agree!
Okay I think i will start a new thread to post the firearm rules for my setting. Here it would just be drowned in the discussion.Make sure to post in home brew. This section is for general comments and discussions about the pathfinder system.
Don't worry, I was going to.
First, you're not adding the strength bonus on the bow, and it's disingenuous to ignore magic weapons when a base pistol's the price of a +1 magic weapon. Even back at level 5 you're easily looking at a +3 or +4 to damage from strength alone if the player went in there knowing he'd be using a bow for combat.I will assume a dex of 18 for both. You can get higher but that applies to both characters. I am also ignoring magic weapons and point blank shot for the same reason.
At 5th level you get:BAB of 5 + dex bonus of 4 = to hit of 9. Rapid shot allows a 2nd attack, both at +7. Deadly Aim drops accuracy again for a damage boost, yielding 2 attacks each at +5.
So the archer gets +5, +5 doing 1d8+4 with each shot. And a decent chance of missing.
The gunslinger also has +5, +5 but doing 1d12+8 with each shot and with a decent chance of hitting with both
Is it really disingenuous of me? When you seem to be awarding the archer a strength stat of 16-18 (18 to get the same damage addition as the gunslinger) along with a bow which allows that strength bonus to be useful (cost 500gp; the double musket costs 2500gp. But you can add that extra +1 to hit and damage for a +1 bow, if you wish - it's still less than the +8 with a bigger dice and better actual chance of hitting).
How many high stats does the archer need vs the gunslinger? Two 18s are a lot harder to get than one; increasing more than one stat by magical means or level-ups is not easy either.Second, the gunslinger had to spend a feat on rapid reload, and unless he's got alchemical cartridges, he can't actually make use of rapid shot just yet. If we're using alchemical cartridges for the gun there's no reason the archer can't be throwing in flaming arrows or the like either. Later on the archer may hit on a 2-3 with his bow in the first few shots, but a gunslinger will still foul up his gun on those numbers from a misfire.
Feel free to use flaming arrows, if you wish. Can your archer make them himself? The gunslinger can automatically make alchemical cartridges without even a crafting check. For the feat 'cost' see next remark.
Thirdly, if you redo these for SIXTH level, the archer's now using manyshot, and will be, assuming no other changes whatsoever, firing three times at highest BAB before firing his iterative shot.
So now the archer has caught up with the rapid reload feat the gunslinger has - which musket master gets for free at 1st level, and the pistol user doesn't need. Meanwhile, the gunslinger also gets his iterative attack and can fire 6 shots (3 shots, doubled) each with a lower to hit, yet higher chance of actually hitting than the archer along with higher damage for each one. Even a +0 attack has a decent chance of hitting touch AC for most enemies, compared with an archer trying to hit full AC.
Rather than complaining about my simple comparison, try statting up your 6th level archer vs a 6th level gunslinger, or any level after the gunslinger gets to add his dex bonus to damage. My point still stands: the gunslinger will do a lot more damage, due to being able to take a bigger penalty to his attack to boost his damage AND being able to add more damage per shot more easily. Take away double-barrelled guns and they get significantly weaker.
The areas where gunslingers are much weaker than archers have already been mentioned by others: misfires (which can be removed entirely eventually, but are significant earlier on); they tend to have lower ACs; they need to be closer to the enemy (again, this can be improved by using a magical gun 'of distance'); and versatility in combat - if they have no gun/ammo, they are pretty poor even if someone lends them a longbow.
I think we'd be better served by more damage and a multi-round reload time. Then there'd be no bypassing it except by owning a couple dozen pistols, which is going to seriously cut into your enhancement budget.Let's apply the same principle to spells as well. Level 3-5 spells take two rounds to cast, and 6-9 take three. I mean if big effect once every few rounds is acceptable.
I know that you're not being serious, but... I actually quite like that idea. Although personally I'd divide it up 1-3 (normal), 4-6 (2 rounds), 7-9 (3 rounds) and make cantrips a swift action to cast. Though for the delay rounds I'd only make it take a move equivalent action and they could still cast lower level spells in the meantime as long as they're only a standard action.
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I know that you're not being serious, but... I actually quite like that idea. Although personally I'd divide it up 1-3 (normal), 4-6 (2 rounds), 7-9 (3 rounds) and make cantrips a swift action to cast. Though for the delay rounds I'd only make it take a move equivalent action and they could still cast lower level spells in the meantime as long as they're only a standard action.I think we'd be better served by more damage and a multi-round reload time. Then there'd be no bypassing it except by owning a couple dozen pistols, which is going to seriously cut into your enhancement budget.Let's apply the same principle to spells as well. Level 3-5 spells take two rounds to cast, and 6-9 take three. I mean if big effect once every few rounds is acceptable.
More powerful spells taking multiple rounds to cast actually was the rule in Exalted. The practical effect was that you rarely saw any spells from the two higher levels cast in combat, unless it was a climatic boss battle or large scale fight where allies could form a shield wall.
Also, allowing other spells to be cast while casting a more powerful spell kind of defeats the purpose.
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For my group, outlawing gunslingers and guns was an obvious necessity. The existence of gunpowder in a game world is a 100% certain guarantee that the players will start devising:
grenades, bombs, land mines, rocket launchers,
All of those can be done via the alchemist's bomb class feature, permitting you have the appropriate discoveries.
Explosive Runes is also essentially a magical landmine that triggers simply by reading it.
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For my group, outlawing gunslingers and guns was an obvious necessity. The existence of gunpowder in a game world is a 100% certain guarantee that the players will start devising grenades, bombs, land mines, rocket launchers, orbital death rays, etc. etc. There's no way to avoid it.
Grenades= Alchemist Bombs/Alchemist Fire
Bombs= Alchemists bombs
Land Mines= Symbol of X spell
Rocket Launchers= Wand of Fireball
Star Wars Laser Pistol= Wand of Magic Missile strapped to a modified hand crossbow (pretty much a hand crossbow with the bow part removed).
More hardcore laser rifle= Wand of Searing Ray strapped to a heavy crossbow (for cooler cinematics)
Death Ray laser is a bit more complicated but still doable xD.
For my group, outlawing gunslingers and guns was an obvious necessity. The existence of gunpowder in a game world is a 100% certain guarantee that the players will start devising:grenades, bombs, land mines, rocket launchers,All of those can be done via the alchemist's bomb class feature, permitting you have the appropriate discoveries.
Explosive Runes is also essentially a magical landmine that triggers simply by reading it.
Alchemist bombs and spells have a limited number of uses per day. Gunpowder, a nonmagical material substance, can be piled up in any quantity and used an infinite number of times per day. It's a huge difference, and a potentially game-wrecking one. I don't need the headaches.
\
Fine, just take 10000 gallons of alchemist fire and call it day...
Or just make a million rocks with explosive runes....
Its not that hard to put gunpowder to shame...
I really liked the idea of tossing out misfires and giving guns a "penetration rating" where a standard gun ignores 2 points of armor plus 2 per point of enhancement bonus. That way the Gunslinger still gets to target a lower AC, but you don't have a ridiculous situation where ancient wyrms with their scales that are thicker and stronger than steel may as well have tissue paper hides.I don't mind guns in my fantasy, though I wouldn't use them in every single setting. I also don't mind the gunslinger's class features and think they look pretty good.
However I don't like the implementation of the firearms mechanics in pathfinder. The touch AC aspect doesn't really work all that well in my opinion. I wouldn't want someone to play a gunslinger until I've had a chance to write some better house rules for firearms.
) 2 penetration is very low. Even worse they have to wait till level 5 to get 4 penetration.
2) Now I could get behind 4 penetration with 2 per enhancement. Remember in your original idea, studded leather/Hide is bullet proof.
Advanced firearms can be pretty interesting.
That said, gun arguments are sort of like alignment arguments.
^^^ Pretty much this.
I played a halfling pistolero/mysterious stranger for kingmaker. I had access to all the money and we were on 20 point buy, I was on cloud nine. Anything that got in my way I would throw bullets and money at and usually it would die. I used one double barrel pistol because I didn't want to deal with twf rules and grabbing extra feats and I was op out the wazoo. Alchemical cartridges plus rapid reload made my life easy as pie since I could reload at breakneck speeds I could output more damage. Even with my puny d6 people feared the halfling with the big iron on his hip. I went out of my way NOT to get clustered shots and I was still outdamaging the entire party. I knew I was overpowered but I consistently used abilities that would nerf my damage like headshots and shots to the legs, let the other pc's have their time in the sun, but when the chips were down the lead would fly and it got really bad.
With my little story out of the way I think that guns were brought about in a bit of a bad way. With a class designed to take out the negatives and make them viable would have been good, instead we get a class that negates all the bad stuff and makes them more than viable. At lvl 13 with one double barreled pistol my little halfling of death could throw more bullets than an archer fighter could put arrows in the air.
I played a halfling pistolero/mysterious stranger for kingmaker. I had access to all the money and we were on 20 point buy, I was on cloud nine. Anything that got in my way I would throw bullets and money at and usually it would die. I used one double barrel pistol because I didn't want to deal with twf rules and grabbing extra feats and I was op out the wazoo. Alchemical cartridges plus rapid reload made my life easy as pie since I could reload at breakneck speeds I could output more damage. Even with my puny d6 people feared the halfling with the big iron on his hip. I went out of my way NOT to get clustered shots and I was still outdamaging the entire party. I knew I was overpowered but I consistently used abilities that would nerf my damage like headshots and shots to the legs, let the other pc's have their time in the sun, but when the chips were down the lead would fly and it got really bad.
With my little story out of the way I think that guns were brought about in a bit of a bad way. With a class designed to take out the negatives and make them viable would have been good, instead we get a class that negates all the bad stuff and makes them more than viable. At lvl 13 with one double barreled pistol my little halfling of death could throw more bullets than an archer fighter could put arrows in the air.
But that is just it. You had near infinite money. That is not quite fair because one of the balancing factors of the gunslinger is that ammo is not cheap and guns are not cheap.
If you tread down this path, do you know how horridly broken a wizard is? Or a Dhampir Cleric necromancer (with kingmaker there is no shortage of bodies to make into an army)
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Money is a major issue period. Hell, just getting more cash liquid at a certain time can make a difference (Even if within WBL).
Also, the gunslinger suffers from what I'd describe as the 'need a target' problem.
Gunslingers are pretty good at shooting stuff, but if too much little gribbly crap gets up to them they start to have trouble.
I managed to cause a gunslinger in my campaign trouble by virtue of having a bunch of lemures get up in his grill. They were too tiny and too gribbly to 'blow grit' on, and their DR also cut through his bullet damage.
And when they got close enough, he was incurring (albeit pedantic and small) AoOs everytime he tried to shoot, getting nibbled for 1d3 damage, or having to keep trying to reposition and avoid getting flanked /while/ dealing with the larger threat.
In the lemure's case, the gunslinger's easy access to flametype template weapons and effects also didn't serve him too well.
The mistake a lot of people make is thinking the problem with gunslingers is either firearms or the gunslingers. The base firearm rules are balances and gunslingers are an interestimg versatile class.
The problem lies in when archettpes or other things change or make exceptions to the base rules. Every thread involving omfg gunslingers are overpowered involves the pisrolero musket master twf and or double barreled guns.
The actual gunslinger class is versatile and fun with a lot of great utility options. I'm sure lots of people make perfectly balanced gunslingers but we won't hear about them because no one will make posts about how over powered the mysterious stranger that uses muskets with deadshot is.
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The mistake a lot of people make is thinking the problem with gunslingers is either firearms or the gunslingers. The base firearm rules are balances and gunslingers are an interestimg versatile class.
The problem lies in when archettpes or other things change or make exceptions to the base rules. Every thread involving omfg gunslingers are overpowered involves the pisrolero musket master twf and or double barreled guns.
The actual gunslinger class is versatile and fun with a lot of great utility options. I'm sure lots of people make perfectly balanced gunslingers but we won't hear about them because no one will make posts about how over powered the mysterious stranger that uses muskets with deadshot is.
While I think that the core design of the firearm susbsystem was poorly executed, there is a lot of truth here. The vast majority of issues with firearm-related mechanics being truly OP are directly tied to the Pistolero, Musket Master, and double-barreled weapons.
If you remove those options it still isn't a fantastic system, but it works and things progress more or less at a balanced state. While it doesn't resolve the basic issues with targeting touch AC with basic attacks, it limits the wild damage scaling and helps mitigate the fact that full BAB classes hit a point where they literally cannot miss against the vast majority of level appropriate encounters except for on a 1. It also puts the damage scaling and utility of the Gunslinger where it should be; Pistolero and Musket Master applying their Gun Training and other abilities to all one-handed or two-handed firearms is ridiculous compared to the standard Gunslingers ability to apply his bonuses to firearms.