Did your GM explain to you from the onset that this would be a difficult thing to play? That new weapons/ammo would be scarce?
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Your GM has basically screwed you over. Saying that he's going to allow tech crafting and then taking that away when your entire character requires you to be able to craft the ammo is just a dick move. If he can't be swayed then you're better off just rolling a new character.
I'm playing as a techslinger in an Iron Gods AP, but I'm really regretting it. My biggest issue is with the replacement of Technic Training for Gun Training. My GM doesn't allow me to take this feat for gun types I have not yet encountered, which makes sense.
So, I used the first iteration (at level 5) for the +1 inferno pistol. However, my GM does not allow me to craft any technology ammo, even with the Technologist Feat (was hoping that would allow gun-smithing to help me 'craft' ammo/batteries, etc). As such, I am out of ammo for the 1 weapon that class feature applied to. (GM stated that we would not be able to purchase batteries or nanite canisters.
I am level 7, only 2 levels away from having to pick another firearm class, but most everything else I have found is timeworn. With only 2 grit, I can't effectively full-round attack without the risk of quickly making those weapons useless.
The GM has recently decided to disallow the possibility of crafting tech weapons (even if I have a timeworn version to reverse engineer), and quite honestly, even batteries are now scarce at the beginning of book 3. I have a pistol, which I can use, but I can't use Tech Training on. What are my options?
The only way I can reckon on playing a Techslinger in the Iron Gods AP as written is to rely heavily on the Covet Charge deed from the Techslinger changes:
Covet Charge (Ex): At 1st level, a techslinger can spend 1 grit point to use 1 charge fewer than normal when firing a technological weapon (minimum 0), as long as the weapon has enough charges remaining to be fired at least once. This deed replaces deadeye.
Both the Technology Guide and the Iron Gods AP put a tight clamp on technology. The Guide makes it expensive and craftable only under very difficult circumstances. Lord Fyre and I have discussed the problems in Technology: The Wires Behind the Magic. Iron Gods tries to follow wealth by level, so most technology is timeworm until the wealth is appropriate. The overpricing of technological items delays that. A GM simply has to play Iron Gods with no modifications, such as not providing a black market that sells batteries, to choke off use of technology.
Iron Gods suggests two dozen places where the GM could tuck some spare silverdisk batteries or a nanite canister or a fully-functional weapon or an operational tech lab, but the GM has to add them. I did.
Ard of El's gunslinger traded away the useful Deadeye and Quick Clear deeds and the powerful Gun Training, but other than that, the gunslinger can rely on an early firearm just fine. The gunslinger/rogue in my party traded away Gun Training, too, with the Experimental Gunsmith archetype, but she utterly controls the battlefield with her blunderbuss, autograpnel, and Targeting deed with Signature Deed feat. (Seriously, the party was defeating Unity's CR 23 final-boss divine avatar in our last two game sessions, because the gunslinger keeps shooting it in the head to confuse it or in the hands to disarm it. And the party is only level 15.) The gunslinging bloodrager gets around her lack of Quick Clear by carrying three pistols and her lack of Deadeye by shooting from close range.
I recommend showing the power of early firearms until Ard of El's GM decides that all firearms are overpowered in the hands of a gunslinger and gives up on restricting technological ammunition.
But, the GM feels that tech weapons are OP, and so changed his mind. (which is a little frustrating since the other PC's can out damage me on a round/round attack/attack basis)
The advantages of technological firearms over early firearms are:
1) Technological firearms typically hold 10 shots between reloading.2) Technological firearms have longer range, similar to the range of bows.
3) Technological firearms do energy damage, which hits touch AC at any range increment and bypasses DR.
4) Technological firearms don't misfire. At worst, i.e., timeworn, they glitch instead.
5) Technological heavy weaponry does more damage, such as 4d6.
The advantage of early firearms over bows and arrows is:
6) Firearms can hit touch AC.
All other advantages are class abilities of the gunslinger. For the Bolt Ace archetype, those special abilities don't even need a firearm.
Advantage (6), hitting touch AC, can break encounters. For example, a CR 13 Ice Devil has regular AC 32 and touch AC 14 (difference due to +18 natural armor). The 12th-level fighter with +20 to hit will hit the Ice Devil with 45% of his first attacks, 20% of his second attacks, and 5% of his third attacks, but the 12th-level gunslinger with +17 to hit will hit with 95% of his first attacks, followed by reloading. Natural armor was designed to slow down martial characters and give touch-attack wizards a chance to compete, but alchemists and gunslingers crush creatures that rely on natural armor.
A gunslinger gains advantage (1) from Rapid Reload feat, advantage (3) from Deadeye deed, advantage (4) from Quick Clear deed, and advantage (5) from Gun Training. Bypassing DR from advantage (3) does not matter against robots that have hardness instead of DR. In my experience with my Iron Gods party, it is the non-gunslingers who benefit most from technological weapons, because they lack the gunslinger's built-in specialization to make early firearms work well.
In my game one of the PCs is a Gunslinger; at the start of the AP he asked about Techslinger and I said that if he wanted to retrain from regular Gunslinger I'd let him do it any time after Book 1. The party just started Book 5 and he's long given up on the idea of retraining; he's done just fine using Tech Firearms with regular Gunslinging and the Technologist Feat (I do allow Gun Training with Tech Firearms the character is familiar with).
3) Technological firearms do energy damage, which hits touch AC at any range increment and bypasses DR.
I have to disagree slightly on this point. I think it is not necessarily always an advantage to cause energy damage, as there are a ton of enemies that have some sort of energy resistance or outright immunity. The afromentioned Ice devil is immune to lasers and zero weapons. Better have sonic or arc weapons on hand. It is far easier to get Resist Fire 30 than DR 30. Beware of League mages with Communal Protection From Energy and enought time on their hands...
Best (non-heavy) weapons for techslinger are probably sonic weapons as there are not many enemies that have sonic resistance.
3) Technological firearms do energy damage, which hits touch AC at any range increment and bypasses DR.
I have to disagree slightly on this point. I think it is not necessarily always an advantage to cause energy damage, as there are a ton of enemies that have some sort of energy resistance or outright immunity. The afromentioned Ice devil is immune to lasers and zero weapons.
... It is far easier to get Resist Fire 30 than DR 30. Beware of League mages with Communal Protection From Energy and enought time on their hands.
Yes, some of the advantages are mixed blessings. As another example, the same technological firearms that hold 10 charges for 10 shots without reloading cannot benefit from the Reloading Hands spell, because they use charges instead of ammunition. And adamantine bullets are great against robots, but no technological firearm uses bullets.
I should have clarified that I was listing advantages that could make technological firearms seem overpowered, not arguing that those advantages do make them overpowered.
Better have sonic or arc weapons on hand. ... Best (non-heavy) weapons for techslinger are probably sonic weapons as there are not many enemies that have sonic resistance.
The Experimental Gunsmith gunslinger in my party carries four firearms, not counting a weapons stash hidden in a portable hole: her experimental blunderbuss, a +1 autograpnel, and two sonic pistols. Those pistols were originally timeworn, but I allow the PCs to repair timeworn with a combination of magic and engineering. As DM_aka_Dudemeister said above, a big part of the appeal of Iron Gods is a chance to play with technology. Once the PCs could afford intact technology if anyone sold it, restricting them to only timeworm becames a ridiculous handicap.
Those pistols also illustrate the bias in the AP to keep technology in the hands of the enemies and out of the hands of the PCs:
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Technic Pistols (Su) Nemgedder’s pistols are [spoiler omitted]
sonic pistols, they function slightly differently
in his hands than those normally carried by [spoiler omitted].
While these pistols are timeworn, while carried by
Nemgedder they function normally and do not glitch. The
pistols supernaturally recharge the instant they are used, and
both function as +1 sonic pistols. He doesn’t provoke attacks of
opportunity when he fires a pistol in melee, and treats pistols
as light weapons for the purposes of determining penalties
from two-weapon fighting. If Nemgedder is destroyed or
disarmed, the sonic pistol reverts to its normal timeworn
nonmagical (but fully charged) condition.
At least they remain fully charged when they revert to timeworn.
However, my GM does not allow me to craft any technology ammo, even with the Technologist Feat (was hoping that would allow gun-smithing to help me 'craft' ammo/batteries, etc). As such, I am out of ammo for the 1 weapon that class feature applied to.
Would your GM allow you to craft technological ammunition or batteries if you take the feat Craft Technological Item? It doesn't sound like you have that feat.
Or, is your GM not allowing people to take that feat at all?