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I have a lot of questions about scatter weapons (like the blunderbuss and dragon pistol), and there’s enough fuzziness here that I’m having a hard time deciding either way!
1. Firing into melee. Given that it fires in a cone rather than a single target (and is therefore an area affect), do you have the -4 penalty for enemies in melee?
2. Applicable feats. The entry mentions:
“attack damage cannot be modified by precision damage or damage-increasing feats such as Vital Strike.”
Which feats does that apply to? Does Weapon Specialization still work? Point-Blank Shot? Deadly Aim? Any I haven’t thought of?
...I guess that’s only two questions, but one of them has a lot of sub-questions.
Bumping this, anyone have any ideas? I know what answers I'd like... but there's a lot of gray here.
1. Rules as written it looks like you do still take a penalty for firing into melee. Most cone-type things require a reflex save rather than an attack roll, but scatter weapons are different. This does mean that you can still crit and that evasion does nothing, but since the description doesn't mention anything about firing into melee you have to go with the usual rules.
2. I dunno 0_o
1 is still a good trade-off in that situation anyway!
My understanding of 2 is that Vital Strike is kind of a special category of feat, so that may not apply to all feats, but maybe it does!!
There's two obvious ways of reading the line quoted in your question 2. One is that the vital strike line of feats specifically doesn't work with scatter weapons, but I think the more natural reading is that no feat which increases damage works with scatter weapons. Not deadly aim, not PBS, not weapon spec.
That’s what I’m struggling with, I guess—because Vital Strike is such a weirdly specific feat to call out if you mean “no damage increase from feats,” especially when iirc there are other weapons/abilities that call out Vital Strike specifically (maybe I’m thinking Flurry of Blows/Brawler’s Flurry? dunno).
Bumping this thread! Are there any feats that work for improving scatter weapon damage, or is Weapon Specialization (Dragon Pistol) only useful for firing single-shot?
I guess I'll say this:
Sneak Attack adds damage dice and isn't increased by critical hits.
Vital Strike adds damage dice and isn't increased by critical hits.
In don't think it wouod be unreasonable to allow feats that add static damage for scatter weapons. It doesn't look like there's much more that you'll get other than opinions.
I guess I'll say this:
Sneak Attack adds damage dice and isn't increased by critical hits.
Vital Strike adds damage dice and isn't increased by critical hits.In don't think it wouod be unreasonable to allow feats that add static damage for scatter weapons. It doesn't look like there's much more that you'll get other than opinions.
That actually makes a whole lot of sense tbh! If I don’t get a firm answer from Paizo, that seems a decent assumption to work under.