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Nope, number of free actions is wholly up to GM discretion (which if I weren't on my way out I believe is outlined in the CRB). So YMMV (your mileage may vary). 3 to 5 is generally a decent guideline. Personally I'm a fan of fewer is better, but I tend not to limit players often. (In fact there is even variation in number of words you can get out as a free action). To my knowledge no further ruling has ever been made.
Also, it should be noted that unlike reloading a gun, nocking more arrows is not specified as any kind of action it is part of the attack sequence.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16
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You can still play your gunslinger, just ask the GM and have plans in case for some reason your GM is being rough with numbers, such as using Vital Strike. Also, you can go all out 2 out of 3 rounds as long as your weapon starts off loaded. Then just use Vital Strike in that off third round.
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I have a double-barrel pistol 10th level gunslinger. I have never had a problem with him regarding free actions. But it is important to note that if you are rapid shooting with a double-barrel pistol using rapid reload and alchemical cartridges, you misfire on a 3. It is very important you pay attention to that. Ignoring misfires is a good way to make sure the GM doesn't ignore the free action limits.
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Gunslinger free action use is normal enough that it shouldn't actually be a problem at the table. The real reason this rule exists is so things such as a Level 1 Haunted Cursed Oracle doesn't combine:
Any item you drop lands 10 feet away from you in a random direction.
Just as characters take damage when they fall more than 10 feet, so too do they take damage when they are hit by falling objects.
Furthermore, if one of the weapons is dropped, the wielder can retrieve it as a free action by pulling on the chain.
It's hilarious and anyone who feels like running a table (Maybe a replayable!?) where I can do this let me know... I'll be there. (Allies probably should stand away from the death tornado.)
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People were free actioning weapon cords to yo yo their guns with the shoot shoot drop left reload right shoot retreive left drop right reload left shoot drop left retrive right reload right...
Even if one accepts early firearms as part of fantasy, these function more like six shooters in practice. You can't tell me its a musket pistol and have it fire off with the ROF of an ak 47.
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They rescinded the FAQ limiting free actions. It continues to be the sole discretion of the GM.
But let's look at this logically.
Archers are required to use a free action every time the draw an arrow. Notching and drawing the bowstring back is considered part of shooting. But archers take as many free actions as they need based on how many arrows they shoot.
So, if the intention was that gunslingers could not use thier feats and iterative attacks, then they never would have allowed them to reload as a free action or allowed rapid shot to work with guns.
I would be opposed to any suggestion that gunslingers are arbitrarily limited in the number of times they can shoot, if archers are not.
That being said, I'd fully support a GM saying that a gunslinger is limited to thier max number of shots a round in free actions, as long as they get to make use of thier full BAB worth if iterative, feats like rapid shot, and spells like haste. What thus means is, double barreled guns only get a double shot in the first round.
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You can't tell me its a musket pistol and have it fire off with the ROF of an ak 47.Sure I can; whether or not you come over the table to slap the stupid out of me is another story entirely. :P
In this case, even though verisimilitude is completely broken (fireball!), we would need a complete rewrite if the class and entire firearm mechanic, to make a gunslinger viable and also realistic.
So for now, let them have the same action economy as an Archer, for more feats and money.
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Ah I see. There was another thread recently about this and I had mentioned buying multiple guns and quick drawing + dropping them rather than reloading. For some reason I got that in my head that its the norm but it really isn't.
Nope. Buying more +s on guns isn't particularly efficient compared to using the same gun repeatedly.
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They rescinded the FAQ limiting free actions. It continues to be the sole discretion of the GM.
But let's look at this logically.
Archers are required to use a free action every time the draw an arrow. Notching and drawing the bowstring back is considered part of shooting. But archers take as many free actions as they need based on how many arrows they shoot.
This is where you go wrong. Drawing an arrow is not an action of any sort. It is not mentioned anywhere at all. This makes using a bow distinct from a crossbow or a firearm.
Note that the efficient quiver doesn't even specify what action it takes to retrieve an item from it unlike a handy haversack.
Under Equipment Ammunition:
When using a bow, a character can draw ammunition as a free action; crossbows and slings require an action for reloading (as noted in their descriptions).
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Just as a note, Ultimate Combat does specify that Gunslingers are guaranteed a number of free actions equal to the number of attacks they can make during a round due to their BAB. Even the most strict GM cannot reduce that number since it is RAW.
I have a few Gunslinger PCs, and I've been at tables with GMs who limit them to bare minimum and ones who allow unlimited free actions - you can always make it work out without having to limit your choices.
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You're insisting that the game treat flintlocks the same way as bows? Have you ever seen one loaded?
I would be opposed to any suggestion that gunslingers are arbitrarily limited in the number of times they can shoot, if archers are not.
Irrelevant to the mechanics of the game. If the designers had wanted them to work like muzzle-loading firearms IRL they would have designed them that way.
To be honest, it is probably a good thing they didn't make them function similar to real life. Otherwise everyone and their brother would carry one, fire off a volley in the first round, then drop the gun and switch to normal tactics. I can see why that might no be desirable.
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You're insisting that the game treat flintlocks the same way as bows? Have you ever seen one loaded?I would be opposed to any suggestion that gunslingers are arbitrarily limited in the number of times they can shoot, if archers are not.
I think the keyword there was "arbitrarily".
Gunslingers are already limited by the reload time. They have to spend additional feats an resources to overcome that limitation.
Once they do make that investment and achieve the same "can fire at the full rate of attacks, just like a bow" status (similar to Quick Draw and Rapid Shot/TWF), there's no reason to punish them further, just because.
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I personally would not limit a gunslinger's ability to reload their weapon with free actions.
That said, the fact that double-barrel firearms exist in the mechanical manner that they do in the first place is completely insane. Double my touch attacks per round by taking a -4 penalty to hit? Totally balanced!
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You're insisting that the game treat flintlocks the same way as bows? Have you ever seen one loaded?
I would be opposed to any suggestion that gunslingers are arbitrarily limited in the number of times they can shoot, if archers are not.
Nope. Never seen a fireball get cast either.
Stop inserting your reality into our fantasy.
Or rather just reread my entire post and stop cherry picking sigle lines out of context.
That's fine for a musketeer or a pirate. But when a good portion of your class is based around firearms abilities, your called a gunslinger, and having a brace of pistols would be something you need to be level 4-5 to even consider its not what people expect when they look at the class.
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I don't see the problem. It's how I've handled things. Open up with gun, finish with sword. The class DOES have full martial proficiency after all. It's basically how the Musketeers fought as well.
To be honest, it is probably a good thing they didn't make them function similar to real life. Otherwise everyone and their brother would carry one, fire off a volley in the first round, then drop the gun and switch to normal tactics. I can see why that might no be desirable.
Despite the introduction of gunpowder weapons, Golarion and PFS are still pretty much a Medieval fantasy setting. If they treated guns more realistically, it would not require Exotic Weapon Proficiency to use one. In fact, they would qualify as Simple Weapons (this is one of the reasons they won out over bows even though bows were actually more effective than most early firearms as bows required a lot more training. In fact, a longbow or composite bow should probably be treated as an Exotic Weapon in Pathfinder). They also would not cost thousands of gold. Which means everyone would be using them. Which would make Golarion look much more like a late Renaissance/Early Industrial Era fantasy setting. Making it difficult to use guns and pretty much requiring a specialized class to use them optimally limits the number of guns in play and thus helps maintain the Medieval fantasy setting better.
A long time ago, I played a gaming system that only had 3 Stats (Strength, Agility, and Intelligence) and you rolled 3D6 for each of them. Your strength, amongst other things, was also your HP and your stats only rarely improved. All the weapons in that system only did 1 or 2D6 of damage, except for the Heavy Crossbow, which did 3D6 (although it took 3 combat rounds to reload). The only real restriction to using a Heavy Crossbow was you had to have a 13 or higher Strength. But if you had that, there was absolutely no reason by the mechanics of the system that you wouldn't carry one into the dungeon, fire off a shot that probably outright dropped an enemy before switching to whatever tactic you normally used. If guns were more realistic in Pathfinder, then I see this as how they would be used. I don't think the designers wanted that.
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In fact, they would qualify as Simple Weapons (this is one of the reasons they won out over bows even though bows were actually more effective than most early firearms as bows required a lot more training. In fact, a longbow or composite bow should probably be treated as an Exotic Weapon in Pathfinder). They also would not cost thousands of gold.
Those would both make sense if pathfinder guns are at the wheel lock rather than the flint lock stage. Its kinda hard to aim the damn thing while waiting for an unknown amount of time to kick off and the mechanism is what amounts to a small battle hardened clock that could set you back a pretty penny.
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I don't see the problem. It's how I've handled things. Open up with gun, finish with sword. The class DOES have full martial proficiency after all. It's basically how the Musketeers fought as well.
To be honest, it is probably a good thing they didn't make them function similar to real life. Otherwise everyone and their brother would carry one, fire off a volley in the first round, then drop the gun and switch to normal tactics. I can see why that might no be desirable.
My opinion is that double barrelled pistoleros just want to Uzi the encounter and move on.
While I think it is great for role playing, the feat selection makes Clustered Shot less desirable and Weapon Finesse a requirement. Guns are Dex based, swords Strength based, so you tend to not be very good at one or the other. However it is a reasonable interpretation of RAW in that you are not limited in the number of free actions (GM discretion of course), but it doesn't say that you can use the same free action twice. Not that anyone has ever adjudicated it that way.
Same free action twice? 6th level full BAB class, using a bow with Rapid Shot and iterative.
Shoot first shot from bow, full attack, rapid shotFree action: Draw arrow
No action: reload bow
Shoot second shot form Rapid Shot
Free action: Draw arrow
No action: reload bow
Third shot, first iterative.
Free action: Draw arrow
No action: reload bow
Ready to take AoOs from Snap Shot, if taken.
And you can add even one more shot from Haste, along with the free action draw arrow.
Edited for clarity.
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That's fine for a musketeer or a pirate. But when a good portion of your class is based around firearms abilities, your called a gunslinger, and having a brace of pistols would be something you need to be level 4-5 to even consider its not what people expect when they look at the class.Then they need to rewrite their expectations. The base gunslinger using Golarion defaults, isn't Roland, he's not Billy the Kid, he's a 17th century musketeer using a much more primitive weapon than a Colt Revolver.
No, he's not. He's flavored as a 17th century musketeer but he functions like billy the kid on a caffine bender. That disparity is a big chunk of the problem.
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take a dwarf and use your favored class bonus to reduce misfires. Reliable and Greater Reliable also help knock that misfire chance out. Maybe it should be errata'ed that gunslingers can not reduce the misfire chance below 1, period.
It's already not possible.
Reduce the misfire chance for one type of firearm by 1/4. You cannot reduce the misfire chance of a firearm below 1.
If the misfire on your firearm was a 3, then an 8th level Dwarf Gunslinger would misfire on a 1.
And an 8th level Dwarf Gunslinger with a Reliable firearm would misfire on a... 1.
The Dwarf FCB isn't all that good for that reason. You can never go below 1. The moment you purchase that Reliable enchantment you lose the effects of 4 levels' worth of FCB.
And if you go with Reliable, Greater, you may as well have never used your FCB.
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The real problem isn't the free actions, it's that the entire game system isn't built to handle a full BAB class that always targets touch AC without expending limited resources to do so. However, that's a whole different can of worms.
*snip*
but they are expending resources, bullets/powder/academical cartridges are far from cheap, particularly when your throwing multiple down range every round. that along with the large feat/item requirements to achieve this dose form a sort of balance.
Limiting free actions to anything less then the maximum number of attacks that a player can make in a round (and I would include using both barrels of a double barreled weapon in that) is falling foul of the don't be a jerk rule.
Just because you don't agree with the character the person is playing and what the mechanics of the game allow them to do it no reason to place a limit on them that you would not place on another character in the party.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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take a dwarf and use your favored class bonus to reduce misfires. Reliable and Greater Reliable also help knock that misfire chance out. Maybe it should be errata'ed that gunslingers can not reduce the misfire chance below 1, period.It's already not possible.
Reduce the misfire chance for one type of firearm by 1/4. You cannot reduce the misfire chance of a firearm below 1.If the misfire on your firearm was a 3, then an 8th level Dwarf Gunslinger would misfire on a 1.
And an 8th level Dwarf Gunslinger with a Reliable firearm would misfire on a... 1.
The Dwarf FCB isn't all that good for that reason. You can never go below 1. The moment you purchase that Reliable enchantment you lose the effects of 4 levels' worth of FCB.
And if you go with Reliable, Greater, you may as well have never used your FCB.
Well, the other way to look at that don't take reliable and your dwarven FCB just saved you 30,000+ gp (assuming all you had on your gun was +1 enhancement.)
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Drawing an arrow is a free action. He was just using short hand instead if fully explaining the process.I believe there is a recent FAQ or some such:
Reload bow is a "not an action" not a free action.
I'm pretty sure drawing ammo is included in loading a bow as a not an action. But my forum foo is failing me. So if anyone cares they can go find the documentation.
It was a big part of the whole discussion about how the FAQ limiting repeated free actions to 3 a turn reigned in duel wielding double barrel gun slingers but didn't cripple zen archers.