Just be aware that there is likely going to be some table variation with that feat. It's not really clear if it does effect reloading time. That's the sort of thing that's so big it should be much more explicit, if it's supposed to do that.
We also have to wonder why it says it counts as magic for DR, when it is doing force damage. Does this mean that it needs to overcome DR, which force damage doesn't usually have to do?
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Urban Arcane Bloodrager... with Blooded Arcane Strike, Arcane Strike is always active during Bloodrage.
With Spell Cartridges, you now have infinite ammunition whilst Bloodraging.
Take the Vital Strike feats, as Blooded Arcane Strike multiplies Arcane Strike with Vital Strike.
Looks like a great pick for an Eldritch Knight gun build. I'd suggest either:
Mysterious Stranger 1 / Primal Elemental Sorcerer 6 / Eldritch Knight X
or
Trench Fighter 3 / Spellslinger Wizard 5 / Eldritch Knight X
The Sorcerer build basically gives up on dex-to-damage and instead gets cha-to-damage. While you will need to manage grit very carefully, you'll have Infused Spell Cartridges as an option to deliver powerful damaging spells (because you are a primal elemental sorcerer) to land killing blows and recover that grit. The biggest issue with this build is misfires, since you don't have an way of getting the quick clear ability. Fortunately there's a 1st level spell that suppresses the broken condition, while the Mending cantrip gives you an option to fix misfires out of combat. This isn't perfect, but the two spells in conjunction will make this functional until you get a reliable weapon.
The Trench Fighter is a bit of a cheeky choice, but if it's available to you then that's only 3 levels for dex-to-damage, while Spellslinger offers you a good spellcasting option for a gun user. It's not nearly as good with blasting as the Mysterious Stranger is, but it can get access to quick clear and isn't as reliant on grit so its basic firearm attack is significantly more consistent.
Sound legit?
If you have a nice GM you might get away with it, but by the book you no longer meet the prerequisites of Amateur Gunslinger feat and lose the benefits of it.
As a side note I'm going to caution against using Spellslinger. While it could be a very powerful gun based build using the Spellslingers ability to dump a spell to temporarily boost the enchantment on a firearm requires a swift action. That means for 1 round each combat you won't be able to use Arcane Strike or Spell Cartridges.
This is a bit of a problem, I'd agree, but as you point out you can get around it by keeping the barrel loaded for the first round of combat. If it's a surprise round or you need to move then you lose nothing, and it's only a serious issue if you need to full attack.
The bigger issue, now that I think about it, is that you can't use Quickened Jury Rig after a misfire and then proceed to full attack. This does make misfires much more dangerous.
Eldritch Archer Eldritch Scion Magus might work really well, IF the pseudo Bloodrage counts for Blooded Arcane Strike.
It's an interesting idea, but it doesn't work. Even setting aside the extremely lax GM ruling that would be required to allow the Eldritch Scion's mystic focus to count as bloodrage for the purpose of this feat, these two archetypes are incompatible in the first place.
I do like the idea of using Infused Spell Cartridges to get around the extended casting time of spontaneous metamagic spells (this is probably unintended, but as written the standard action of infused spell cartridges overrides the regular casting time of the spell) but I feel that if you're using Infused Spell Cartridges instead of Ranged Spellstrike that you may as well have just be a Sorcerer Eldritch Knight instead and gotten 9-level casting.
You get to count all of your rogue levels if you take Minor Magic for your CL.
SLA's don't count for fulfilling the "Ability to cast arcane spells." prereq. (You wouldn't have a CL anyway, because the talent only grants you a CL for that SLA alone.)
Eldritch Scoundrel, possibly going into Arcane Trickster, would work though.
Why are they incompatible?
No FAQ's here, just straightforward application of the archetype rules:
A character can take more than one archetype and garner additional alternate class features, but none of the alternate class features can replace or alter the same class feature from the base class as another alternate class feature.
It doesn't matter if there's a logical way you can combine the modifications, the fact that they both modify the same class feature means they are incompatible.
If it’s not for PFS, you can just ask your DM if that type of stacking is ok. I think it’s the cross-blooded/wild-blooded faq that even says to ask your DM about these sorts of things as a suggested house rule.
Basically, it’s better for the language to be more restrictive than inclusive as to prevent unforeseen overpowered combinations.
Hmmm...he can say that was his intent, but I'm not sure if that really flies. Reducing the reload time to a swift action to make multiple attacks per round is a problem IMO.
It opens up the dual wielding pistol shenanigans that the developers had tried to eliminate by making reloading a huge pain in the ass.
Now a gunslinger 5 eldritch archer magus X would really be able to do some crazy stuff with spells that allow multiple attacks per spell.
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It opens up the dual wielding pistol shenanigans that the developers had tried to eliminate by making reloading a huge pain in the ass.
There's already an archetype that solves that problem with only a two-level dip. Still need to invest all the feats in TWF, but it's a pretty solid option.
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Hmmm...he can say that was his intent, but I'm not sure if that really flies. Reducing the reload time to a swift action to make multiple attacks per round is a problem IMO.
There is no (re)load time, because the spell says the affected firearm doesn't use ammunition or black powder - there is literally nothing you have to insert into the firearm.
TWF with pistols was always possible, you just had to use some more-or-less cheesy stuff (like a prehensile tail).
Loading one gun once with a swift action (how Michelle describes it working) isn't enough to make TWF pistols work. I mean, you want to fire two pistols in that scenario and you only get one swift action per round.
There are at least 5 ways to make it work but that's not one of them.
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Her second post clarifies that the firearm automatically gets de facto reloaded by the feat.
Her second post clarifies that the firearm automatically gets de facto reloaded by the feat.
I read that, I just don't agree with it from a mechanics perspective that it should do so.
I put "Reloading" in quotes to emphasize that it's not really reloading, because the weapon isn't really loaded with anything in the first place.
1. Round start, Swift action activate Arcane Strike. All weapons in your possession are charged with arcane power (per the feat), and per the Spell Cartridges feat "While your gun is imbued with power from the Arcane Strike feat, you can fire force bullets instead of regular ammunition." and "Force bullets do not use ... ammunition". Therefor, not needing ammunition, they are not loaded or expended.
2. Fire your first shot of "Force bullets". The gun does not suddenly lose it's Arcane Strike charged energy, per the feat it lasts for 1 round.
3. Fire any further iterative "Force bullets". All of the above still applies.
I understand all of that. I simply think it's a mistake to allow this feat to adjust "reload times". I understand thematically it makes sense. But now casters can reload faster than gunslinger (unless they pick up more feats and/or use metal cartridges).
It simply doesn't sit well with me.
It's like a better version of rapid reload if you happen to be an arcane caster.
Blooded Arcane Strike eliminates the swift action of activating Arcane Strike... you have infinite ammunition whilst Bloodraging and absolutely no need to reload. You can TWF with one shot pistols and full attack all day long in Bloodrage.
One trait can make up for up to two Caster Levels lost with a dip into a firearm friendly class.
Personally, I would use a rifle and Vital Strike feats, but everyone else seems really set on the TWF with pistols because they watched too many stupid action movies.
Probably Human for the extra feat, and access to the Charisma based Gunslinger archetype. Possibly start as the Eldritch Archer Magus for a free masterwork firearm and immediate access to Arcane Strike. Then a level of Buccaneer Gunslinger for Gunsmithing and Sea Legs and Charisma based Grit and a battered backup gun.
Then you go Urban Bloodrager with the Arcane Bloodline and never look back.
If you are already have nothing useful to do with your swift, does blooded arcane strike actually make a difference here?
Swift actions are limited to one per round I'm pretty sure, so... If you wanna full round for more than two shots, probably gotta have more than one swift.
One thing I am not entirely clear on is whether one swift gets you however many shots you can take in a round, or just one. If it's the former, this is conceivably super powerful in the hands of like a hasted urban bloodrager with rapid shot. In the linked thread the author's comment seems to imply "it keeps it loaded" not "it loads it once."
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It isn't really better than Shadowshooting.
(...)
If you are just going for a dip, the Shadowshooting/shadowcraft is equivalent and costs no levels or feats.
You seem to value feats higher than gold. I'm of a different mindset - I think the feat cost is a smaller price to pay than the gold cost of shadowshooting/shadowcraft, on the grounds of that it takes too long to have good weapons that way (unless the GM allows you to buy enhanced firearms). Never-misfire-free-reload firearm are expensive; two +1 reliable shadowshooting pistols cost 38.6k (20k more than non-shadowshooting), and a shadowcraft greater reliable musket costs 45.8k (+12.5k). Having the character fully funcionable is more important to me than maybe doing a tad more base damage or something.
You seem to value feats higher than gold. I'm of a different mindset - I think the feat cost is a smaller price to pay than the gold cost of shadowshooting/shadowcraft, on the grounds of that it takes too long to have good weapons that way
The feat overhead of using firearms is quite excessive. One saved feat can make or break the entire build. I have actually statted up a few Spell Cartridges builds, and my opinion of the feat has gotten much less enthusiastic. The feat tax of Arcane Strike in addition to Spell Cartridges is really punishing when you put it into a build that's feat-starved to begin with. It's still a good feat, but not nearly as good as I thought it would be.
So at minimum a spell catridges build is going to want point blank shot, precise shot, rapid shot, arcane strike, and spell cartridges? Is anything else essential?
A human magus could have those by 5th level, while still being useful before. It seems doable.
A human magus could have those by 5th level, while still being useful before. It seems doable.
Problem is you also need to find a way to be proficient with firearms, which either costs you a feat or a caster level. I guess "guns everywhere" or "commonplace firearms" fix this, but it's an issue.
I've been thinking of an urban bloodrager who gets proficiency with an axe musket and gets arcane strike and spell cartridges before the archery suite- if you think you would need to shoot into melee, you are holding an axe.
True, one more feat required one way or another. It probably pushes out everything being online to 6th level at least.
An urban bloodrager who has used rage to add to Dex isn't going to be amazing in melee with what amounts to a battle axe. Switching to rage adding to Str would require at least one round fatigued between them which isn't ideal either. If you start with Str 14, Dex 16 taking EWP (firearms) at L1 and arcane strike at L5 (you can't get it until you can cast arcane spells), spell cartridges at L7 you've got free feats at levels 3 and 6 which you could use for power attack and something else which helps I guess, but it doesn't look as good as a ranger switch-hitter using more standard weapons unless you're up against serious DR. Even then clustered shots is probably good enough and arrives ~L9 for the ranger.
Clustered Shots isn't needed since your spell cartridges do force damage, so they bypass DR automagically. If you're fighting aether elementals, you're in some trouble though.