I am attempting to make a viable one shot gunslinger. The idea is to use the Mysterious stranger and use deadshot when I can full attack and maybe vital strike when I need to move.
Deadshot:
As far as I can tell you take a full action, and roll all of your possible attacks according to BAB. So at lvl 12 this would be three attacks and if you had a double barrel pistol / musket it would be 6 attack rolls. However, this is just a mechanism for determining your possible damage. In reality you take a single shot. So even though you are using a double barrel weapon and act as if you double tapped all your attacks, you are only shooting a single bullet. Thus your reload time is cut down to a single reload. A mysterious stranger with rapid reload (double musket) and paper cartriges could reload after a deadshot with a move action. Not bad and it leaves space for a standard action. I could thus reload and move or reload and vital strike. Thoughts? Incorrect? Just as correct as any other interpretation?
Vital strike:
This one I am having more issues with. When you vital strike, you take a standard action and make a single attack for more damage. With a double barrel weapon, say a musket, do you get the full double tap as a vital strike (2d12/2d12), only one bullet of double tap as vital strike (2d12, 1d12), or is it only 1 bullet with no double tap (2d12 - completely useless as you might as well save a feat and double tap for more damage)?
Thanks for opinions / rules interpretations.
Vital Strike does nothing for a Dead Shot. Dead Shot is a particular full round action, Vital Strike requires that you use the Attack action.
Also, Deadshot is for those times when you want to massively sandbag. It's terrible.
Vital Strike does nothing for a Dead Shot. Dead Shot is a particular full round action, Vital Strike requires that you use the Attack action.
Never mentioned using then together. I am fully aware that one is a standard action and the other is a full.
Also, Deadshot is for those times when you want to massively sandbag. It's terrible.
Disagree on it being terrible. It is less damage per round than an optimized full attack but I feel that people on this board focus way to much on getting 300 DPR with a gunslinger. That kind of damage is wasteful of feats and enchantments. Once a creature is dead, its dead. You get no bonus points for killing it to -200 hp rather than -20.
Why its a useful option:
1) Requires almost no feat or magic investment to be maximized. No need to invest in rapid shot or deadly aim as these either don't work with dead shot or the miniscule bump in damage is not worth the to hit loss.
2) Since you can only misfire when ALL shots misfire you are practically never misfiring. You can not say that for a full attack gunslinger build without lots of investment in greater reliable. So a normal gunslinger probably wont get a double barrel full attack off completely.
3) Critical hits. A lvl 12 gunslinger with improved critical and a double barrel weapon has roughly a 45% crit chance on a dead shot.
Overall I think deadshot, while not optimal compared to other builds, is still viable. My rough DPR calculations on a Cha high lvl 12 mysterious stranger has the DPR at around 120-140 against a CR15 enemy with a touch AC of 15. However, that is really spiky damage. A non crtical may only do ~70 damage, while a critical would be doing ~280. From a combat perspective spikey damage is good as it gives you a higher chance of removing an enemy from play, preventing them from actions.