Developing ideas for firearms

[ferris.valyn]

So, I had an idea a while ago for trying to create a firearms/gunslinger who could also heal (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2tabw?Working-on-a-new-character-Holy-Gunsling er for the idea). If you have any ideas/suggestions on it, please let me know (I still don’t think the primary power is overpowered). I want to do some work on it again, to try and finish it, (because like the 1 shot adventure I created, it’s only partially done).

However, I had a few other ideas develop, and I am trying to tease out how best to use them

1) If you are going to have a divine caster who uses firearms, shouldn’t you have an arcane caster who uses firearms? My idea was to incorporate the firearm into using/gaining the arcane skill (ie something like “reveal a weapon with the firearm trait to gain the skill arcane....”
2) I like the idea of using a firearm to “shoot” a spell to someone. Most likely it could be some form of when playing a spell, reveal a firearm to replace “at your location” with “at any location.” But should this be built around a weapon, or built as a power feat for a character?

[cartmanbeck]

I really love these ideas! An arcane caster that uses guns to shoot spell effects... loving it.

1) I like the idea that you need to have a firearm in hand to cast, but it might end up being too restrictive. I'm thinking instead, you give the character Arcane: Intelligence +0, but have a power that says something like "Reveal a card with the Firearm trait to add 2 ([ ] 4) to your Arcane skill."

2) I would have this be a power feat, something like "[ ] When you play a spell, you may recharge ([ ] reveal) a weapon with the Firearm trait to treat the words "at your location" on the spell's powers as "at any location"."

So this gives you 3 of the 4 power feats on the base character card. Add a hand size feat and some other power that is short and sweet and you'll have that part done... maybe something like "When you encounter a card, recharge a card to gain the Ranged skill equal to your Arcane skill during that encounter."

[Yewstance]

Just as an aside; arcane gunslingers somewhat exist already. The best example is one of the roles of S&S Seltyiel (I think the Marauder role, from memory) allows him to use firearms effectively; which combined with his inherent power allows him to use a one-handed weapon (pistols included) with an arcane attack spell together, in some sense.

I'm not the biggest fan of replacing "at this location" with "any location", because it raises some weird corner cases or odd rules interactions, which I like to avoid. An example that could occur would be;

"This spell says 'Discard this card to move; characters at your location may move with you'; does this mean I can use this firearm-spell to move people from any location to my new location?"

Or alternatively, if a spell lasts for some time (say, Divine Fortune, which adds 1d6 to all checks at a location where it's displayed until the start of your next turn), does it 'remember' that it's actually affecting somewhere different to where it's displayed until it's recharged? Presumably the intent is that you'd be able to display it at any location, rather than at your location; but if you change the wording of the power to be able to move displayed spells then you wouldn't necessarily be able to change the target of normal spells, like Fly, under the same wording. Then there's weirdness like a spell that has to be cast at a closed location (like Safe Harbor) and whether you can cast it there then treat its effect somewhere else.

It's all very specific questions that might come up based on the precise wording of the power, but it's a highly complex one in my perspective.

I have some other points I'd like to bring up in terms of the original design, but I'll make a post on the original forum thread if I'm able.

I'm not familiar with the Pathfinder RPG, but a person who uses guns and mixes them with Arcane sorcery... is that actually a Gunslinger or a Magus, more or less? Perhaps look at the 5 printed Magus characters, as well as the 4 printed Gunslinger characters, for ideas in that regard.

[cartmanbeck]

Weird corner cases don't bother me on homebrew characters as much, honestly, but Yewstance has a good point. I don't really see an issue with the specific example he gave (letting other characters move to your location shouldn't be game-breaking), but let's see, how can we word this in such a way that it works without breaking things too badly...

"[ ] When you play an Arcane spell, you may recharge ([ ] reveal) a Firearm weapon to replace the words 'at this location' with 'at any location' in that spell's powers until the end of the turn."

So now, let's take the example of the Augury spell. Its powers say

Augury:

"Discard this card to choose a type of card and examine the top 3 cards of your location deck. If there are any cards of the chosen type, set them aside. Return the remaining cards to the deck, shuffle it, then put the cards you set aside together in any order at either the top or bottom of the deck. After playing this card, if you do not have either the Arcane or Divine skill, banish it; otherwise, you may succeed at an Arcane or Divine 8 check to recharge this card instead of discarding it."

Since it only has the words "your location deck", you can't apply the power as written, which is probably good, since we would essentially be duplicating a much higher-level spell, Scrying.

What about Elemental Mastery?

Elemental Mastery:

"Discard to add 1d10 to a check by a character at your location to defeat a monster that invokes the Acid, Cold, Electricity, Elemental, Fire, or Poison trait. Discard this card to add 3 dice to a check that invokes the Acid, Cold, Electricity, Fire, or Poison trait by a character at your location to acquire an ally. After playing this card, if you do not have either the Arcane or Divine skill, banish it; otherwise, you may succeed at an Arcane or Divine 13 check to recharge this card instead of discarding it."

So this one would work. You would be able to "shoot" the power to add 1d10 to a combat or 3 dice to acquire an ally over to a character at another location. Seems great.

What about the all-powerful Safety Bubble?

Safety Bubble:

"Display this card at your location. When a character at this location is dealt damage, reduce it by 1d4. When the location is closed, discard this card. If you do not have either the Arcane or Divine skill, banish this card; otherwise, you may succeed at an Arcane or Divine 13 check to recharge this card instead of discarding it."

This one works exactly as you would expect it to as well... you get to "shoot" the spell's effects over to another location, allowing you to display Safety Bubble at another location. Since the other phrase used is "at this location" (italicized) you wouldn't be able to use Safety Bubble to reduce damage at a different location from where it's displayed, so I think this is another perfect example.

How about Channel the Gift?

Channel the Gift:

"Discard this card to allow a character at your location to search their deck for a spell and draw it. After playing this card, if you do not have either the Arcane or Divine skill, banish it; otherwise, you may succeed at an Arcane or Divine 14 check to recharge this card instead of discarding it."

Also seems to work perfectly well.

Here's Cape of Wasps, which is a BIT less straightforward on hether it breaks things:

Cape of Wasps:

"Display this card. While displayed, reduce Combat damage dealt to you by 1d4; add 1d6 and the Poison trait to combat checks by characters at your location. At the end of your turn, you may move. Then if you do not have either the Arcane or Divine skill, banish this card; otherwise, you may attempt an Arcane or Divine 12 check. If you succeed, recharge this card; if you fail, discard it."

So this one would let you add 1d6 and the Poison trait to combat checks at any location for the rest of the current turn... seems fine. Think of it as a spell that creates multiple poison bullets (maybe shaped like wasps) that you can shoot over to help out your friends for a limited time. Still doesn't seem to be broken.

Here's Caustic Fog:

Caustic Fog:

"Display this card. While displayed, you may be dealt 1 Combat damage to add 1d8 and the Acid trait to a combat check by a character at your location. You may play another spell on your check.
At the end of your turn, if you do not have the Divine skill, banish this card; otherwise, you may attempt a Divine 13 check. If you succeed, recharge this card; if you fail, discard it."

Still doesn't seem to break things to me.

Here's an interesting one, Cauterize:

Cauterize:

"For your combat check, discard this card to use your Arcane or Divine skill + 2d8; a character at your location is dealt 1 Fire damage.
Discard this card and choose a character at your location. That character discards a card, then shuffles 1d4+1 cards from his discard pile into his deck.
After playing this card, if you do not have either the Arcane or Divine skill, banish it; otherwise, you may succeed at an Arcane or Divine 11 check to recharge this card instead of discarding it."

So this one would let you sort of ricochet the damage you would normally take for using Cauterize for combat over to someone at another location, and would let you use it to heal someone at range. Still seems fine to me...

Here's Confusion:

Confusion:

"Discard this card to evade a monster. If there is another character at your location, that character may encounter the monster.
After playing this card, if you do not have the Arcane or Divine skill, banish it; otherwise, you may succeed at an Arcane or Divine 8 check to recharge this card instead of discarding it."

So you're sending a monster over to another location to fight someone else... shouldn't really break anything, and you might even be able to use it in a super strategic way on a villain to close a rough location.

Here's Resist Energy:

Resist Energy:

"Display this card and choose one of the following damage types: Acid, Cold, Electricity, or Fire. Damage of that type dealt to characters at your location is reduced by 4. At the end of your turn, if you do not have either the Arcane or Divine skill, banish this card; otherwise, attempt an Arcane or Divine 12 check. If you succeed, recharge this card; if you fail, discard it."

This one could be played SUPER strategically if you know that some card is about to deal Fire damage to every character, but still doesn't seem broken to me.

I'm just not seeing any cases of an Arcane spell, anywhere in our card database that we use for online play, that is super broken. Challenge: Find me a spell that breaks the game when the above power is applied to it. :)

[Yewstance]

cartmanbeck wrote:

I'm just not seeing any cases of an Arcane spell, anywhere in our card database that we use for online play, that is super broken. Challenge: Find me a spell that breaks the game when the above power is applied to it. :)

I love these kinds of posts! In depth, plenty of sources and analyses, all of the card texts right there. If I come up with anything, I'll let you know; but your assessment seems pretty comprehensive to me so I admit defeat for the time being.

It still feels like an odd power in some ways, but it clearly functionally works at least well enough for homebrew.

[ferris.valyn]

Here is my other question with regard to this power

Is the power better as a character power, OR would it be better to have this as an added option for a particular weapon (like how some weapons can be used for diplomacy or other feats)?

[Yewstance]

I'd prefer to see it as a weapon power; could be a Veteran weapon that's owned by this particular character (like The Melted Blade for Salim, or The Missing Eye for Mavaro), so it would get more powerful with the scenario's adventure deck number and maintain relevance. This also frees up space for him to have a different power, and allows a potential for other classes to desire the weapon for corner-case situations.

Something like "If proficient with weapons, recharge this card to (treat 'at this location' with 'at another location' text); if you are this card's owner, you may reveal this instead."

[cartmanbeck]

I think that would be fine, with the caveat that you also make that card the character's favored card, so that he/she always starts with it.

[Yewstance]

The issue with making it the player's favorite card is then he no longer gets a choice as to whether to play with it or not. Also, probably best to make that card a Loot Weapon; it's not like other players could use the weapon if the arcane gunslinger needs it to have a legal deck.

Although, right, now I get it; it's a character, not a class deck so it would need to be a special boon to clarify how or when to add it in. You could probably get away with just calling it a P-deck weapon, but a Loot Weapon is probably slightly more elegant, a'la Honaire for Estra.