Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
I'm futzing around with building out a Grenadier Alchemist with Explosive Missile. As I read it, one of it's perks is that it includes loading the weapon in the standard action of imbuing it with a bomb and shooting it, which makes it possible to do things like firing a Heavy Crossbow every round without expending more feats on stuff like Rapid Reload, and turning Bombs into long range implements. What's interesting to me, is that this also explicitly works with firearms, allowing for instant reloads of, for example, a musket, which essentially doubles the range at which bombs can hit touch AC, and is also just insanely flavorful for what I'm looking to build.
The question is, what's the best way to get Firearms proficiency to do this. The way I see it, there are 3, maybe 4 main options:
1) Half Elf racial, take the weapon proficiency.
2) Burn the feat on it; probably best to go Human if I do this.
3) (Maybe) Gnome, with the Master Tinker racial option, and enough crafting skill to make his own guns - since he's automatically proficient with any weapon he creates, that would do the trick, assuming Gunsmithing isn't required and you're willing to roll up the very difficult craft checks during some long downtime.
4) Dip Gunslinger.
Honestly, my ideal race for this character concept is a Half-Orc, and a Gnome would be least favored, but I'm perfectly open to arguments for any of the 4 races mentioned.
The main question though. is, what methods exist to extend the range increment on a gun, and thus, the range at which it's going to hit Touch AC?
The main one that I can see is just going Gunslinger as a dip and only using Grit on Deadeye - which works great, except for the whole not having great Wisdom or Charisma, which means it's not usable all that often. The Siege Gunner archetype gets Grit from Int, which is amazing for an Alchemist dip... but gives up Deadeye, which *mostly* misses the point. (There are other good uses for Grit though...)
So, what other means (Feats, traits, magic items, whatever) are there to boost that increment that I'm missing? Longshot buys 10 feet, but I don't know of anything else, since most of the other effects I can find, reduce the attack penalty, rather than raising the increment.
I'm currently leaning towards a 1 level dip of Siege Gunner to get the gun proficiency itself, and just using the grit for dodge and gun repairs, but I'm open to being convinced that just grabbing the feat is the best way to do this. (Or, I suppose, going Gunslinger without Siege Gunner and maxing out Grit without pumping Wis/Cha some other way). Regardless, the basic idea of building towards using Explosive Missile with a gun is very much the objective, and ideally, I'd like to get there by somewhere in the level 5-7 range.
Huh.... RAW, the Explosive Missle workaround actually works. You can only get one attack per round this way, but still.
The Distance enhancement doubles the range increment for a given ranged weapon. With a musket that would be 80, 40 for a Pistol.
Personally, I would dip the level for Gunslinger if for no other reason than to have access to Quick Clear. The last thing you need is blowing up your firearm or at least being unable to use it for the rest of the fight due to one bad die roll.
Also remember, without the Gunsmithing feat, you cannot repair your own broken firearm nor can craft ammunition at the reduced cost. So that's two feats you'd have to burn just to realistically use a Firearm, the proficiency feat and Gunsmithing. I'd wager nine out of ten players who want to use a firearm without the Gunslinger dip completely overlook that fact.
Yeah, seems like you're going to have to bite the bullet (PUN!) and go Gunslinger one, bonus points for getting them to declare the setting Guns Everywhere so you start of with Gun Training. I'd say go Musket Master too for the free Rapid Reload feet too, since a musket/rifle is your best weapon, and the move action reload time doesn't hurt too much unless you're using that move action for Accelerated Drinker.
So Explosive Missile is poorly written and really needs an Eratta, but note that it specifies "one-handed firearm bullet". There is no such thing as separate bullets for one-handed or two-handed firearms in PF, so you could probably RAW your way into using a Musket with the ability. RAI, you're stuck with pistol of some sort.
LessPopMoreFizz, the first thing you should do is establish how common guns are (according to the rules scale) as that will determine your course of action. For instance, under the Common Place Guns rules firearms are Martial weapons and you could be proficient with one using the Martial Weapon Proficiency you gain at your first level of Grenadier. I'm going to assume you're working under Emerging Guns rules as that seems to be the most commonly used rule set.
In this case, I highly recommend a single level of gunslinger followed by pure Alchemist. This nets you a bit of bonus HP, a boost to your saves, a boost to your BAB and the ability to use guns with relative ease. You'll gain Explosive Missile at level 5.
You are restricted to a one-handed gun, so start off with a Pistol. Plan to craft a Revolver as soon as you can (2 day process, 2k gold cost) as you'll resolve touch attacks within 100 feet at that point.
Range Increments can be increased as follows:
1) Longshot Infusion - +10 Range Increment (untyped), lasts for 1 min / caster level.
2) Distance Weapon - Doubled Range Increment.
3) Experimental Gunsmith Archetype - You can maintain 1 experimental gun with a single innovation (increased range increment). Requires you play a gnome or get a GM exemption.
4) Gun Scavenger Archetype - Every time your fire your gun your Misfire Chance goes up by 1. You can fix a broken gun as a Standard Action, and when you do you add a bonus of your choice (+10 Range Increment).
Since you don't want to play a Gnome, I suggest you go Half-Orc with your first level in Gun Scavenger. Unless you have a generous Point Buy I wouldn't bother with a high Wisdom score. Instead plan on having just 1 Grit point until you reach level 5-7 at which point the Extra Grit feat is a decent option.
Gun Scavenger can be pretty fun, as you have the option of swapping between your Pistol having extra range or having the Scatter property. That can be pretty nice at early levels.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Javaed wrote:
Range Increments can be increased as follows:
1) Longshot Infusion - +10 Range Increment (untyped), lasts for 1 min / caster level.
2) Distance Weapon - Doubled Range Increment.
3) Experimental Gunsmith Archetype - You can maintain 1 experimental gun with a single innovation (increased range increment). Requires you play a gnome or get a GM exemption.
4) Gun Scavenger Archetype - Every time your fire your gun your Misfire Chance goes up by 1. You can fix a broken gun as a Standard Action, and when you do you add a bonus of your choice (+10 Range Increment).
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's Early Firearms only, so no Revolver sadly, as that fixes most issues.
Do you happen to know the order of stacking for Distance with the other three? Is it double the base, and then add +10's? Or vice versa? Is it different for the modifications from archetypes vs. Longshot?
Aaaand...thoughts on Siege Gunner to get a massive grit pool and be able to spam Gunslinger Dodge all day long at the expense of Deadeye? (It's obviously a pretty lousy archetype for anything other than a 1 level dip from a char with high Int... But that's what I'm doing anyway!)
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
...aaaaaaaaaand oh god, I'm an idiot, the best solution was right in front of me all along.
One level of Wizard with the Spellslinger archetype - spend a first level spell slot as a swift action to give any gun Distance, gets Gunsmithing and Proficiency for free.
You could also do some really abusive things depending on how a GM interprets this:
Quote: A spellslinger can cast any ranged touch attack, cone, line, or ray spells through his arcane gun. When he casts through the arcane gun, the gun’s enhancement bonus (if any) is a bonus to the spell’s attack rolls or to the spell’s saving throw DCs. With respect to other classes. But even if that's not ruled to be useful, a one level wizard dip essentially doubles the range of your bombs with pistols right out of the gate. (And, taken at low level, with a little planning, can also save you a ton of gold on alchemist formulas, since nothing says you can't copy stuff between your spellbooks!)
Quick Clear is a little less important for this build than most - worst case scenario, can always just drop the gun, move a little closer and throw bombs as normal - you're still not left without a weapon by that.
I believe the Distance property only doubles the base range. Distance + Long Shot nets you a 50ft range, not a 60ft Range. Some of those archetype bonuses actually increase the base range though, so a doubled pistol would be 60ft with one of those.
A dip into Spellslinger would get you Distance at early levels, though with the Alchemist being a fairly tough class I think you may be over emphasizing staying far back. Just remember that it's 1 min per spell slot, so you'll want to pick up some Pearls of Power to feed this.
Siege Gunner for a few uses of Gunslinger's Dodge is ok but not great. Personally, I'd go Gun Scavenger.
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