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If damage is all a character can do, then that character is really weak, unless the campaign is a hack-and-slash fest with zero out-of-combat challenges that happens in a world where enemies have zero creativity.
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Wait, is someone trying to argue that martials are stronger and more overpowered than wizards? Because they can do damage?
Really?
It's like we're back in the early days of GITP optimisation board again!
*edit*
next up on the agenda: 'why all the rogue hate, they are really good'
alternatively: 'tracking material components and sundering spellbooks keeps wizards in line!'
I find that Dinotopia has the correct view of time as a spiral. It goes forward yes... but it also goes in circles. And here we are back at the start of 3.5.
I find that Dinotopia has the correct view of time as a spiral. It goes forward yes... but it also goes in circles. And here we are back at the start of 3.5.
At least in 3.0 the argument took all of 1 word to resolve:
'haste'
We have a few hard-core full caster players too, but the realisation of their concept is what floats their boat. Not just copying a build from a thread.My gut tells me your optimizer is being nice and not playing a full caster. Or doesn't know what the overpowered options are. One or the other.My issue with firearms is the touch ac mechanic. Why do NO other missile weapons have this?
Oh, and as an indicator of balance the min-maxer at our table is awfully keen to play a gunslinger. That tells me enough, I'll go with my gut - they're over-powered as well as having a badly devised mechanic.
Optimizers don't needs to copy builds.
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Wait, is someone trying to argue that martials are stronger and more overpowered than wizards? Because they can do damage?
Really?
It's like we're back in the early days of GITP optimisation board again!
*edit*
next up on the agenda: 'why all the rogue hate, they are really good'
alternatively: 'tracking material components and sundering spellbooks keeps wizards in line!'
And they dont even do that much damage as some may want to imply, this is proven. The only thing missing from my calculations are the db guns. A non db gunslinger would never beat a good pouncing barb at damage, ever.
For those that have actually played and seen people play a high level wizard, it rare that they outshine the rest of the party.
LoL, this doesnt surprise me anymore, I expected you would have that opinion
Single weapon no double barreling gunslingers was brought up because damage is often why some complain about gunslingers. However barring the tactics just mentioned it no possible for a gunslinger to do more damage. Even with them certain martial builds make it a close contest.
Single weapon no double barreling gunslingers was brought up because damage is often why some complain about gunslingers. However barring the tactics just mentioned it no possible for a gunslinger to do more damage. Even with them certain martial builds make it a close contest.
Gunslingers with revolvers are much more balanced than gunslingers using weapon code shenanigans, an invisible servant, an undead, a 4-armed race or 2-3 levels in a class that provides alchemist discoveries to dual wield double barrel pistols and still reload both guns as a free action and full attack in the same turn
all gunslingers really do, is hyperspecialize in a horribly weak ranged weapon type until it can keep up with a bow, and even then, they are highly feat starved and generally highly grit starved in encounters where there are no mooks to kill for a grit recharge and your DM doesn't let you take shots at rats in a bag to regain grit.
in fact, squeezing individual rats in a big of them was how monks regained ki and wyrwood magi had to kill rats with a wyrwood weapon to regain it. rats are practically free and you can fit a lot of them in a burlap sack. so you generally always have rats to kill for grit.
In fairness to Pouncing Barbarians, Gunslingers deal 0 damage against targets with Fickle Winds or Winds of Vengeance cast on them.
I played a Gunslinger in a high-point buy campaign, and the GM even let me have advanced firearms. I was rocking the revolvers, with a rifle backup for big maps - but let me tell you - despite the GM saying after that campaign that he won't allow gunslingers anymore because of the touch AC thing - the barbarian in that party could easily do more damage than I could, and often did.
The mechanic may seem unfair because of how other characters work, but it's really not that bad, I think it's just easy to keep reinforcing that idea because of what you see. Other stuff works in other ways (and I didn't prioritize optimizing how many shots I could take in a round with exploits, etc.). I was still in danger of being surrounded and taking AoOs, etc., I had to prioritize targets (ready action to shoot wizard instead of taking full attack on other targets, etc.). And like I said, the barbarian with the two-handed reach weapon and cleave and crazy strength and massive hit points was the real damage dude.
Single weapon no double barreling gunslingers was brought up because damage is often why some complain about gunslingers. However barring the tactics just mentioned it no possible for a gunslinger to do more damage. Even with them certain martial builds make it a close contest.Gunslingers with revolvers are much more balanced than gunslingers using weapon code shenanigans, an invisible servant, an undead, a 4-armed race or 2-3 levels in a class that provides alchemist discoveries to dual wield double barrel pistols and still reload both guns as a free action and full attack in the same turn
all gunslingers really do, is hyperspecialize in a horribly weak ranged weapon type until it can keep up with a bow, and even then, they are highly feat starved and generally highly grit starved in encounters where there are no mooks to kill for a grit recharge and your DM doesn't let you take shots at rats in a bag to regain grit.
in fact, squeezing individual rats in a big of them was how monks regained ki and wyrwood magi had to kill rats with a wyrwood weapon to regain it. rats are practically free and you can fit a lot of them in a burlap sack. so you generally always have rats to kill for grit.
I don't think the rat thing would fly with most GM's. As for revolvers is there anything to stop them from being used with TWF?
In fairness to Pouncing Barbarians, Gunslingers deal 0 damage against targets with Fickle Winds or Winds of Vengeance cast on them.Its actually a 30% miss chance for bullets, the auto miss is for bows and crossbows
And that 30% miss chance can be negated by the seeking special ability and maybe the improved precise shot feat.
And that 30% miss chance can be negated by the seeking special ability and maybe the improved precise shot feat.In fairness to Pouncing Barbarians, Gunslingers deal 0 damage against targets with Fickle Winds or Winds of Vengeance cast on them.Its actually a 30% miss chance for bullets, the auto miss is for bows and crossbows
Huh, I forgot that about Fickle Winds. Good point. I'll stand by the Winds of Vengeance though!
Huh, I forgot that about Fickle Winds. Good point. I'll stand by the Winds of Vengeance though!And that 30% miss chance can be negated by the seeking special ability and maybe the improved precise shot feat.In fairness to Pouncing Barbarians, Gunslingers deal 0 damage against targets with Fickle Winds or Winds of Vengeance cast on them.Its actually a 30% miss chance for bullets, the auto miss is for bows and crossbows
Yes, that 9th level spell can stop bullets.
Here is another nice spell vs bullets (and many other weapons}.
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I've always banned gunslingers for my party because I Thougt they are OP. since a couple of months I'm no longer the GM. the new Gm did allow gunslingers. the first thing that became clear during the first combat he was GM was that gunslingers are OP.
Great example, lots of evidence, well researched.
10/10
I’d say that firing double shots with even one double barreled gun is a little over the top. If you limit the double shot to being used with a standard action that should pretty much fix that issue.
Anyhow, just be aware of what you’re getting into. Guns allow multiple touch attacks per round without SR (kind of like Bombs) and also allow some damage boosts like Deadly Aim which touch attacks can’t usually qualify for. Guns can be very strong against certain types of foes such as dragons. I also suspect that a lot of players wouldn’t like it much if their PCs started getting targeted by guns a lot since touch attacks can be very difficult for most classes to defend against. Lemmy’s solution of having firearms target regular AC would fix most of the issues I can see with them. I’d rather just limit the amount of armor they can bypass (say 10 or an amount equal to their base damage), but obviously that would require more bookkeeping.
As far as the historical stuff goes, guns and armor were used together for quite a long while. Regarding the comparison of guns and Fireball, black powder was sometimes made with bat poop. I once saw some big, wok-like vats in some caves down South where the Confederates gathered the stuff. Speaking of the Civil War, some soldiers in it bought and wore steel vests to protect themselves from bullets. Some of these vests were apparently fairly effective, but they were also heavy and uncomfortable. Apparently soldiers who were them would also suffer from teasing and worse by comrades who considered wearing armor cowardly. It would be kind of funny to see something like that in a Pathfinder game, “What’s with the full plate, Fighter? Are you afraid you’ll get scratched? Real men like us Monks run around in just robes!”
@Undone - As an aside, I consider low Will saves to be the biggest problem of the Fighter.
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Guess can only mention the golden rule when you have someone play a gunslinger or with firearms, never forget that they only get ranged touch within the 1st range increment. Beyond that, yeah the guy with the pistol cannot ranged touch someone 60 ft away. (Assuming you are using early firearms, as recommended in the books, advanced firearms can do ranged touch within 5 increments.)
There is a serious balance issues in gunslingers on one point.. World consistency with firearm tech.
There are armors and equipments made to deal with firearms in worlds where firearms are prevalent. These should be kept in mind. When six shooters are present then make sure you have knights wearing cloth type armors to deal with them.
Just as a wizard or a barbarian, the right equipment types can shut down a gunslinger.
Remember they go against touch ac, so Dex bonuses are much more important.
Just throw a mix against the party... anti-mages are a decent foil for gunslingers, as well as rogues, inquisitors, monks, and similar light armor specialists.
The gunslinger might have a +15 to hit, but his oppenent might be geared specifically to fight him, with high dex and wis as a monk (+10) and magic items that buff ac(Bracers of armor for example)
Just get a feat swap set for certain class types.
Another good foil for gunslingers is DR and moisture.
Then there is visibility. Remember that missing with a ranged weapon in darkness can actually result in hitting an unintended target.
Also remember that the touch ac is usually in only the first range increment. And most gunslingers tend to use shotguns or pistols. Don't forget that intelligent enemies would know about the dangers of guns, and would probably outfit their teams/squads/ect with anti-firearm measures.. Notably a longbow, other guns, casters or even a double crossbow.
There's also the forgotten Pavise Crossbowmen of the medieval eras, putting up deflection tower shields on some sort of brace (Not much house ruling there honestly) and shooting crossbows from behind the shield.
These things can all be overcome with feats, but at that point the gunslinger isn't just maximizing damage so He wont be that exploding doom blaster...
My favorite enemy of a gunslinger is an alchemist with a launching crossbow and a tower shield, using alchemist fire grenades and slowly advancing with a deflection bonus.
The base gunslinger class isn't very good after level 7, they get dex to damage but they also have to pay out the butt for ammo and pack low armor. They need dex bonuses to armor so stealthy enemies are actually quite potent, and they need to find other ways to make money if they want to gear appropriately.
Then there is the all mighty broken condition. Make them fear it..
make them fear fire attacks because of the powder keg they have on their hip.
make the fear water due to ruining expensive ammunition.
Make them feat having to not kill people, Creatures that non-lethal damage is beneficial for are the best case scenario.. because gunslingers will require different ammo types.
Even on an archer I find the priciest bit of my gear is actually my ammunition type, to the point where I feel a need to take feats, buy wands, and use ranks to reduce the time and price of ammo creation...
A gunslinger is fully dependent on his weapons, Generally he will carry a sword to boot, but it wont generally be anything more than a +1 or masterwork weapon, and he wont have a lot of strength. So try enemies who will disarm him... Check out the Flindbar.
there are perceived issues though, I mean a few level five gunslingers with the right terrain can take out some CR20 creatures... but remember that those creatures are dependent on natural armor bonuses and usually colossal. At the same time a group of barbarians or wizards can do the same against other cr20's in the right circumstances.
Yet for some reason armor all but disappeared from battlefields when firearms began taking hold.
not really til a century or 2 later actually when guns started getting crazy, you know people figured out that having like 30 people shoot at once was way more effective with the guns accuracy, and misfires started becoming less of a problem.
the term bullet proof comes from armor smiths, which would have a dent in their armor along the breast usually to show that the armor can withstand a direct shot.
however, full plate is costly and not given to everyone, and so instead of giving everyone light armor they just stopped giving armor out and focused more on the guns.
also, now that we have armor that can reliably and cheaply stop bullets we suddenly have armor on the battlefield again.
@Dustyboy
You need to re-read some rules, quite a few of the things you mention are either house rules or huge overstatements.
@Eltacolibre
It's quite easy to increase the range in which gunslingers target touch AC.
Maybe I'm crazy - because I wasn't gun twirling and using weapon cords and etc. (I was also trying not to upset the party balance, just be effective)... I like to "optimize" enough to be effective, but after a certain point, enough is enough.
But, for instance, I was always worried I wouldn't have the right ammo for DR. Having to reload, or carrying back-up pistols with different shots loaded. I had a sword (actually a really awesome sword beyond my level that was evil and slowly eating my soul, which was fun), but even with the GM gift, that was just a holding-pattern weapon, something to wield if I absolutely had to stand still and couldn't go for my guns.
Wizards with mirror image! Yikes, let's blow some expensive ammo softening up that spell! Miss chance spells! Losing line of sight on a complex battlefield, environmental factors that reduce vision...
But most of all - and I can't stress this enough - how OP a character is in (theoretical) straight up damage numbers matters less and less the more interesting the encounter design is, especially if those options are tailored to what characters can do "storywise". If characters have strategic choices to make that aren't always "stand still, hit hard", then how you make that number huge all the time matters a lot less.
Example: a great fight put together by my GM kept me from targeting the bigbad since it was strategically smarter for me to use my rifle to do trick shots that set off "traps" in the environment (shooting out a wall support to make that rubble fall on the troublesome spellslingers under cover below). That let my character do something awesome and yet gave the "mainstage" of that battle to another character (whose backstory that bigbad came from). He managed to make it so that I, as a player, discovered that possibility, rather than feeling shoe-horned into it. The other character got to face that bigbad without me shooting it in the back continually... We all remember that encounter...