Named Bullet + Gunslinger = Killing Spree?

[Mrakvampire]

Hello All!

I'm curious how do other GMs handle spells like Named Bullet on late mid game (11 lvl+) and beyond?

Let's assume that we have a gunslinger in party with +1 distance pepperbox, has Rapid Shot, Haste, all that stuff (5 attacks to touch per round). Party knows that ther is a citadel of giants that should be stormed. It should be more or less difficult task. But, party Wizard crafted Wand of Named Bullet and just applied it to all his bullets.
BAM. 5 attacks per round each basically critical hit for x4 plus extra +11 damage.

I'm not sure if this is emm... balanced. :)
Whould you homerule this?

[wraithstrike]

That is still going to be an expensive wand, and most adventures have a variety of creatures even if they are themed.

Now if the GM insist on having an entire dungeon of one type of creature it could be an issue, but in that case I would swap out some of those to different creature types.

It might also be a good idea for some of the bad guys to be smart and run away to tell the higher ups what is going on. The minions might not be able to identify the spell, but maybe the boss can figure it out. He can retreat or come up with a plan such as sundering the gun.

I would assume some of these giants have class levels so wind wall and the other spell that blocks projectiles could also work.

[Mrakvampire]

Swap them on the fly? Isn't this some sort of GM cheating? Maybe it's just better to houserule spell that causes such issues?

This wand is not actually very expensive - it's just 10500 gp to craft, and this amount of money is something that is not a problem for 11th level party.

Wind Wall will give only 30% chance to avoid hit from firearms.

Problem here is (for me at least) - just one spell of 4th level just breaks a whole adventure location apart, something that is assumed to challenge a party.
I'm talking about Jorgenfist from Rise of the Runelords actually.

And only that - it can potentially break every boss encounter in game that involves someone not at least 75% protected from crits. Usually players know in advance whom they will fight (at least type, like "umm... big bad guy is giant. ummm... big bad guy is dragon... etc"

Full attack (5 hits, all crits) from average (non-optimized) gunslinger will net something around 20d8+335 damage. It kills any monster from Bestiary as far as I remember.

[Gilarius]

Having played a Spellslinger wizard using Named Bullet through RotR recently, it wasn't particularly unbalancing.

I didn't have dex to damage, or many other buffs to increase my damage. 2 shots per round was my limit and I had other uses for most of my 4th level spells. I rarely used my gun once I got 5th level spells, and it was most useful between levels 3 and 8.

Our party wrecked simple encounters using melee damage quite easily - a smiting paladin does a lot of damage, plus a cohort paladin helped.

At later levels, SR is likely to protect all important monsters since Named Bullet gets resisted and a wand won't get the caster level bonuses that a real caster can achieve.

At lower levels, letting a gunslinger have access to such a wand would be a bit of a problem, in my opinion. But not at higher levels.

[wraithstrike]

Mrakvampire wrote:

Swap them on the fly? Isn't this some sort of GM cheating? Maybe it's just better to houserule spell that causes such issues?

This wand is not actually very expensive - it's just 10500 gp to craft, and this amount of money is something that is not a problem for 11th level party.

Wind Wall will give only 30% chance to avoid hit from firearms.

Problem here is (for me at least) - just one spell of 4th level just breaks a whole adventure location apart, something that is assumed to challenge a party.
I'm talking about Jorgenfist from Rise of the Runelords actually.

And only that - it can potentially break every boss encounter in game that involves someone not at least 75% protected from crits. Usually players know in advance whom they will fight (at least type, like "umm... big bad guy is giant. ummm... big bad guy is dragon... etc"

Full attack (5 hits, all crits) from average (non-optimized) gunslinger will net something around 20d8+335 damage. It kills any monster from Bestiabullet, a,sfar as I remember.

That

No it's not cheating and I am not advocating changing every giant or even half of them.

10500 once is not too much, but doing it repeatedly is different. Each casting only affects one bullet, and passing this info up the chain helps with wind wall* and the other similar but better spell be options. Of course you dont,want to negate the entire class so having giants or some other monster ambush the party is an option.

*Dont get carried away. This gets old.

[wraithstrike]

I actually have this AP. I will see what I can come up with, with minimal changes. I will put it in spoilers for those who have not played it.

[Saldiven]

Is the OP the GM or another player?

Speaking as a GM, there are plenty of ways to deal with this Gunslinger. I have always believed that the players determine the "arms race" in the campaign. For example, I've told a player that it's fine for him to use the Explosive Runes bomb, as long as he was aware that enemy wizards would use it against the party, too. (He decided to not use it after hearing that.)

So, your party has come up with a method for one player to average 350-400 or so points of damage in a round, after accounting for to hit rolls. That's pretty significant, and well beyond what would be considered average for level 11.

So, it's time to bring out the obnoxious "guns" for the opponents. Gunslingers hate things that can sunder, for obvious reasons, and ranged sunder is even worse. It wouldn't be odd for giants to be good at sundering; in fact, several giants come with Improved Sunder standard. Intelligent giants would know that magical weaponry is one of the things that "little people" bring to fight against the giants, so it's completely reasonable for giants to sunder the weapons of the "little folk" if those weapons seem effective.

Another tactic to use that is appropriate in response to this level of damage output is Stealing the Gunslinger's ammunition pouch. He would have to have some sort of ammunition container in order to have the bullets enchanted by the spell.

Grappling and pinning is another option.

There are plenty of magical options to mitigate the situation that are less obnoxious. First level spells like Fog Cloud and Obscuring mist make targeting much more difficult and provide a miss chance (Deeper Darkness does the same). A spell like Silent Image can create a "wall" that blocks sight to the target. If the party has melee types that advance while the Gunslinger hangs back, spells like Wall of Force, Wall of Stone, and Wall of Ice can be used to separate the Gunslinger from the fight, probably for the entire duration of the fight. Same with Resilient Sphere. Martial types also love to be targeted by Blindness/Deafness, especially when cast by someone specializing in Necromancy to have high save DCs.

{And, FYI, these aren't things that a caster would take only because the Gunslinger existed. Every one of these spells would be worthwhile regardless of the Gunslinger's presence.}

Anyway, I could go on. The point is that for every measure in Pathfinder, there is a counter-measure, even if that counter-measure might be seen as "obnoxious" if the GM uses it. But, again, the player has established that this is the power level they want the campaign's combats to be.

Ask, and they shall receive.

Edit:

And, by the way, I pretty much always make changes to the AP's I run. Paizo, even in their "hard" APs, makes some particularly absurd choices for Feats and spells known/prepared for the encounters. There are almost always Feats that serve no real purpose and utility type spells that a prepared caster would only memorize if there were a specific purpose they had in mind, or are of incredibly niche usefulness. For anything with levels, I tweak their Feats, Spells, and sometimes Equipment with the idea in mind that these enemies have a similar mindset towards confrontation that an adventurer would have.

[wraithstrike]

Don't read this if you plan to play RotRL:

Galenmir should be smart enough to not fight when he is outnumbered and outgunned after seeing or hearing of his troops decimated. I have no problem having my bad guys retreat if they can if it is logical for them to think they are outmatched. He sends 4, not 8 of his men plus the 3 ogre fighters to harrass the PC's. He is sure they will die, but he is hoping to slow them down while he continues on to warn Mokmurian. When Galenmir gets to the headless zombie he tries to pass the message of what happened to Mokmurian. This is also where he makes his last stand since Mokmurian seems to be too paranoid to trust anyone with the ability to get to him directly, even if they work for him. Mokmurian being a wizard might be able to figure out how these "mighty bullets" came to be. Mokmurian doesn't seem to have any teleporation spells unless I missed them so when he ambushes the PC's per the books strategy he sunders the guns, and whatever is holding those bullets if he can. From there he used the fog to his advantage as best he can.

PS: Those other 4 make their stand with him in the room that has the headless zombie

[Saldiven]

Oh, just caught that this was RotRL.

In that case, I'd feel even less bothered about making changes if the party is running a Gunslinger. RotRL was the first Pathfinder published AP. If the current party is using all the published Paizo material, then the stuff in the AP needs to be updated to reflect the new paradigm.

[Mrakvampire]

Wraithstrike, thank you for your advice.
Saldiven, thank you too.

Still, regretfully, I, seeing your answers think even more about nerfing this spell.
Your solutions are at best situational and do not take into account other party members.

I don't want to start arguing, but only ranged sunder looks more or less viable option right now, and even this one, I must admit, will look shoehorned if all giants suddenly learned how to sunder things from afar.

Other options are easily mitigated by seeking bullets, staying out of reach behind party fighter, potion of darkvision, inquisitor's judgement light, cloak of dimension door... (these are their old tactics, I'm not trying to find new one)

So, basically all options listed are ordinary options to counter any other fighter type in game, and sometimes they of course work, but still - I admit, that need to take so many actions just to mitigate one (!) spell of just 4th level... I find this odd.

I'll just nerf this spell, thanks guys!

[wraithstrike]

Giants already have reach and they can already sunder without provoking unless of course the player is large also.

However if nerfing is easier I would suggest going that route since they can do the same thing with other themed AP's also.

[thistledown]

Don't forget to have the wizard cast Locate Weakness right before the fight as well. That way the gunslinger can roll twice on the autocrit. Everyone at the table had a blast when my musket master/Inquisitor had time to prep, then went in and one-rounded the boss fights.

[Saldiven]

I think you're selling Sunder short.

On average, it'll take a single combat maneuver check by ones of those giants to destroy the Gunslinger's pepperbox, maybe two if it's a +4 or +5 pepperbox. The giants can easily do this with 10' or 15' reach (if they have their own reach weapon) without provoking an AoO, but like I mentioned, many giants already have Improved Sunder standard.

Darkvision is ineffectual against Deeper Darkness, as per the spell description. Also, drinking such a potion or using movement to get around intervening obstacles or things that block line of sight also serve to prevent a full attack, meaning only a single shot.

Now, granted, nerfing is easier. However, expect push-back from the players.

[Slithery D]

thistledown wrote:

Don't forget to have the wizard cast Locate Weakness right before the fight as well. That way the gunslinger can roll twice on the autocrit. Everyone at the table had a blast when my musket master/Inquisitor had time to prep, then went in and one-rounded the boss fights.

Locate Weakness is a personal range spell.

[The Golux]

So you have ten rounds worth of named bullets that last a little more than an hour, here, right? For that 10,500 gold? This seems like something that could be overcome pretty easily by an obstacle that takes a significant amount of TIME to overcome, so that the named bullet can't be precast on the entire ammo supply. The technique is a lot less useful when you're trying to get it done with a monster bearing down on you and you can only enchant one bullet per round.

[Philo Pharynx]

Named Bullet wrote:

Components V, S, M/DF (an item from the selected creature or creature type)

Because of this requirement a wand of named bullet would only be usable for one type of creature or one named creature. This doesn't help you when you know you're fighting giants or drow, but it does keep the carnage down in a generic dungeon.

Gilarius wrote:

Having played a Spellslinger wizard using Named Bullet through RotR recently, it wasn't particularly unbalancing.

I didn't have dex to damage, or many other buffs to increase my damage. 2 shots per round was my limit and I had other uses for most of my 4th level spells. I rarely used my gun once I got 5th level spells, and it was most useful between levels 3 and 8.

Our party wrecked simple encounters using melee damage quite easily - a smiting paladin does a lot of damage, plus a cohort paladin helped.

At later levels, SR is likely to protect all important monsters since Named Bullet gets resisted and a wand won't get the caster level bonuses that a real caster can achieve.

At lower levels, letting a gunslinger have access to such a wand would be a bit of a problem, in my opinion. But not at higher levels.

So you were playing a 1/2 BAB character that's not particularly optimized at using guns and only had a limited number of 4th level spells in a party that seems to be pretty optimized. I don't think this would let us know if it would help the original poster's scenario where he is using a dedicated gunslinger.

thistledown wrote:

Don't forget to have the wizard cast Locate Weakness right before the fight as well. That way the gunslinger can roll twice on the autocrit. Everyone at the table had a blast when my musket master/Inquisitor had time to prep, then went in and one-rounded the boss fights.

This is great when everybody at the table enjoys this. When it's not fun for everybody then it's bad to do this a lot.

[Ferious Thune]

thistledown wrote:

Don't forget to have the wizard cast Locate Weakness right before the fight as well. That way the gunslinger can roll twice on the autocrit. Everyone at the table had a blast when my musket master/Inquisitor had time to prep, then went in and one-rounded the boss fights.

I played a pistolero/inquisitor through ROtRL. Just 2 levels of pistolero stacked with all of the buffs from Inquisitor was enough. I saved Named Bullet for the big bosses, and even then used it sparingly. I chose the class combination for roleplaying reasons (I wanted a Halfling hard boiled detective in a fantasy setting, and Investigator didn't exist yet). I really had no idea how Inquisitor worked. I jumped into the group partway through, at 8th level, and spent the first couple of sessions doing 1d6+1. Then I figured out Judgments, and Bane, Divine Favor (later Divine Power), and Deadly Aim. It got pretty ridiculous, so I didn't feel the need to go overboard and use Named Bullet all the time. The group had plenty of damage dealers before I got there, so I started just spending the first round of combat buffing and moving into position. If anything was still standing by the time it got to me, then I'd unload on it.