Dead Shot

[blahpers]

Greetings,

Was there ever any official response as to how this deed works with

• feats/abilities that grant extra attacks, such as Rapid Shot,
  
• haste,
  
• a double-barreled firearm, or
  
• two-weapon fighting?

As it is, I'm not certain how to run this deed, and it makes a rather large difference. I have my own interpretation based on the text, but it's on pretty shaky ground, and it's unclear whether the text took things like the above into account. On top of that, there's the "full-round attack action = basically a full-attack" ruling a while back that complicates things a bit.

Thanks in advance!

Dead Shot:

Dead Shot (Ex): At 7th level, as a full-round action, the gunslinger can take careful aim and pool all of her attack potential into a single, deadly shot. When she does this, she shoots the firearm at a single target, but makes as many attack rolls as she can, based on her base attack bonus. She makes the attack rolls in order from highest bonus to lowest, as if she were making a full attack. If any of the attack rolls hit the target, the gunslinger’s single attack is considered to have hit. For each additional successful attack roll beyond the first, the gunslinger increases the damage of the shot by the base damage dice of the firearm. For instance, if a 7th-level gunslinger firing a musket hits with both attacks, she does 2d12 points of damage with the shot, instead of 1d12 points of damage, before adding any damage modifiers. Precision damage and extra damage from weapon special abilities (such as flaming) are added with damage modifiers and are not increased by this deed. If one or more rolls are critical threats, she confirms the critical once using her highest base attack bonus –5. For each critical threat beyond the first, she reduces this penalty by 1 (to a maximum of 0). The gunslinger only misfires on a dead shot if all the attack rolls are misfires. She cannot perform this deed with a blunderbuss or other scatter weapon when attacking creatures in a cone. The gunslinger must spend 1 grit point to perform this deed.

[Pupsocket]

Nope.

The original intent was for Dead Shot to replace full attack for Gunslingers. But seeing as how they managed to publish enough options to let Gunslingers pile them together into a (vastly superior) full attack, Dead Shot became an obvious "water balloon", and the designers apparently didn't feel like dignifying it with errata.

[Gilarius]

RAW deadshot isn't worth using. If it counted as a standard action it would be overpowered; if it included all the extra damage per shot it would be a good way of avoiding misfires, even without allowing the extra attacks from the ways you listed.

[solitary_solidarity]

So, what I'm hearing is that after all the discussion, Dead Shot is still a crappy deed that should generally be avoided? It seems like such a linchpin of the class for it to be generally ignored because of poor design.

[Purple Dragon Knight]

We need a new feat that combines dead shot with:

1. Vital Strike feats;
2. Gun Training damage bonus added for every iterative attack;
3. Multiple sneak attacks;
4. Far-reaching Sight;
5. Deadly Aim.

Essentially, a feat that lets you pile anything you can normally do either as a standard, full-round, full attack action into this ability.

This feat would be extremely hard to word out, yes.

I *want* dead shot to work. Dammit.

Anyone up to the challenge to come up with draft wording? :)

[Barachiel Shina]

I am confused by some wording in Dead Shot.

When she does this, she shoots the firearm at a single target, but makes as many attack rolls as she can, based on her base attack bonus. She makes the attack rolls in order from highest bonus to lowest, as if she were making a full attack.

The wording makes it sound like it only allows BAB attacks, not Haste and other effects, is this correct?

If any of the attack rolls hit the target, the gunslinger’s single attack is considered to have hit. For each additional successful attack roll beyond the first, the gunslinger increases the damage of the shot by the base damage dice of the firearm. For instance, if a 7th-level gunslinger firing a musket hits with both attacks, she does 2d12 points of damage with the shot, instead of 1d12 points of damage, before adding any damage modifiers.

So damage modifiers only get added once...which is what I think makes this deed rather sucky. But I can see they are going with the "one bullet" description. Now this deed is fine for those unable to reload as a free action, but worthless almost to those who can.

Precision damage and extra damage from weapon special abilities (such as flaming) are added with damage modifiers and are not increased by this deed.

Makes sense, it's one bullet.

If one or more rolls are critical threats, she confirms the critical once using her highest base attack bonus –5. For each critical threat beyond the first, she reduces this penalty by 1 (to a maximum of 0).

So say 2 of 4 attacks are critical threats. It says you only roll ONE confirmation roll, with a decreased penalty per additional critical threat.

But what is the number of dice that receives the crit? Say you make 4 successdful attacks, and 3 of them are crits with a musket. Would the damage be:

12d12+damage mod+precision mod? (the 4d12 total x4)

or

13d12+damage mod+precision mod? (each attack with the crit at 4d12, so 12d12, and then add the final 1d12 from the 4th attack that was not a crit)

The gunslinger only misfires on a dead shot if all the attack rolls are misfires.

Other than saving ammo, this is the only other minor benefit from using this.

[Purple Dragon Knight]

Barachiel Shina wrote:

If one or more rolls are critical threats, she confirms the critical once using her highest base attack bonus –5. For each critical threat beyond the first, she reduces this penalty by 1 (to a maximum of 0).

This sentence should be completely deleted from the gunslinger class. Makes no sense whatsoever. Guns are crit 20/x4. How often are you going to roll "critical threats"? This sentence prevents you from confirming an (already very seldom) critical threat... this sentence also results in the following nonsense: you can do more damage if you crit using a regular attack action (20/x4... that's x4 to EVERYTHING... deadly aim, dex to damage, etc.) than you would by making four successful attack rolls via the deadshot ability (assuming you're 11th level with rapid shot)

So, thanks but no thanks. I'll take my chances making four separate iterative attacks, each with their own damage modifiers and their own chance to crit. This ability is just for musket wielders and pretty much useless to pistol wielders. If they could at least change the wording on the Far-Reaching Sight so that it can be used with Dead Shot, that would be an improvement.