Firearms require an incredible amount of specialization to be effective. You basically need to find ways to ignore their downsides in order to make them good; you need a way to bypass their long reload times, prevent or quickly repair misfires, raise their low damage, and you still need to invest in all the usual feats that ranged attacking builds require (precise shot, rapid shot, and deadly aim).
It can be done, but you can't just slap firearm proficiency on your character and call it a day. It's something that's going to consume basically you're entire build if it's what you want to do.
I mean, if you have gunsmithing you can craft your own ammo and repair your own guns with time and resources (read gold).
Gunslingers have it rough at lower levels but at about level 5-6 start shredding encounters.
That said I don't know how sneak attack and ranged weapons work out for you, usually they don't play nice.
The problem isn't the guns, exactly, the problem is the Sniper archetype. 1st party Pathfinder simply does not have good options for sniping of any sort, whether you care about staying stealthed or not. You need to go full dakka to have any semblance of competitive damage with ranged weapons.
Besides the sound there's a cloud of gunsmoke from a black powder weapon which says 'Aximes was here!'. A longbow was the sniper's weapon in-period IIRC.
And yes, in PF single attacks won't match multiple attacks unless you have substantial magic - the named bullet spell or similar.
The basic issue with firearms, apart from the vast anachronism (before the invention of breech-loaders, a reload time below 15 seconds when done by an expert was practically unheared of, and that was towards the end of the time of muzzle-loaders), is that they are broken. If you don't have the necessary stuff, they suck, if you do, they're borderline overpowered. Firearms have a poorly designed quantum leap kind of scaling with investment.
Firearms need free reload, period. For one-handed firearms, Rapid Reload feat plus alchemical cartridges (paper) help, but for two-handed firearms, you need either three levels in the Gunslinger archetype Musket Master plus the above, the new Spell Cartridges feat, or either a Shadowshooting or shadowcraft weapon.
TO prevent misfires, you'll want the Reliable or Greater Reliable weapon enchantments (and/or maybe a weapon crafted with the Create Enhanced Firearm feat, if the GM allows you to find/buy one.
Is it just me, or does that make that class very weak?
Well, Rogue is one of the weakest classes in the game, when using the core Rogue and not the one from Unchained possibly the weakest. That you've picked a playstyle that doesn't really match well doesn't help, obviously. That doesn't mean a Rogue can't be fun to play, or even be reasonably competent, but you need to know what you're doing when building one.
But honestly I don't even worry about the sneak attacks that much.
So you basically have no class features... and then you wonder, why the character is weak! ;-)
To be honest, Sneak Attack is probably the single most overrated class feature in all of Pathfinder. Rogues desperately need to be competitive in combat, but as a highly conditional ability, that's not always easy to accomplish - and that goes double for ranged sneak attack.
The Pathfinder early firearms were modeled after the flaws of 16th-century firearms so that no player character would want to use one. The firearm and its ammunition are expensive, no-one starts with firearm proficiency, reloading is slow, and a misfire can render the weapon useless. Early firearms were bad; for example, in Alexandre Dumas's famous novel, The Three Musketeers, written in 1844 yet set a mere 25 years after the 16th century, the musketeers relied more on their swords than their muskets.
In the same book, Ultimate Combat, Paizo introduced the Gunslinger class that overcame those disadvantages with class features. In addition, the Gunslinger's Gun Training gave Dexterity bonus to damage at 5th level. Thus, the players had a sensible way to play a character that used a firearm. Other classes gained gunslinging archetypes, such as Holy Gun for the paladin and Spellslinger for the wizard, that reduced some, but not all, of the difficulties.
Sniper is not the gunslinging archetype for rogue. Gun Smuggler is a gunslinging archetype for rogue, but it seems based on shooting from a small hidden gun rather than a sniper weapon. Your GM modified Sniper to make it better at gunslinging, adding Gunsmithing and firearm proficiency, and maybe even a battered firearm at 1st level.
Firearms need free reload, period.
This is where I differ from almost everyone else who offers advice on firearms. The two gunslinging characters in my Iron Gods campaign were not rapid-fire gunslingers. The dwarven gunslinger/rogue Boffin used a grappling gun for battlefield control. She started with a Grapple Launcher firearms invented with the Experimental Gunsmith archetype (for gnomes only, but I ignored that) and advanced to the high-tech autograpnel from the Technology Guide. The bloodrager Val Baine was a weirder case. She was an NPC support character, but to amuse myself I used her to playtest a homebrew gunslinging archetype for bloodrager, the Savage Spellslinger.
Val Baine fought like a buccaneer. She shot once, put her pistol away, and charged with her sword. The reload time was irrelevant. If her pistol misfired, well, she was going to put it away regardless. After combat she would cast a 10-minute Mending cantrip to fix it. At one shot per encounter, the cost of ammunition was largely irrelevant. Buccaneer style avoided most problems with early firearms--perhaps that is why the buccaneers fought that way.
All Val needed was firearm proficiency and an ability that let her add extra damage to her one shot. I let her attach a ranged touch spell to her bullet by casting the spell while loading the pistol. It worked out so well that she almost never used the bullet-less laser pistol that she claimed as a backup weapon. For convenience, I also gave her the Sword and Gun ability from the Savage Technologist archetype for barbarians, so that shooting her pistol while in melee did not provoke an attack of opportunity, in case she charged with her sword first and then shot her firearm later.
For a gunslinging Sniper rogue, an obvious source for extra damage from a firearm is the precision damage from Sneak Attack. One problem is that "Ranged attacks can count as sneak attacks only if the target is within 30 feet," though the Sniper's Deadly Range ability can increase this to 40 feet or more at higher levels. The other problem is that most combats start with the rogue in plain sight, unable to make a successful Stealth check.
Feinting for a sneak attack would be the obvious solution, but the Ranged Feint feat from Ultimate Intrigue requires wasting a shot to perform the feint. That is no good for a single-shot firearm. Thus, we would need a homebrew feat.
Hidden Aim
You can bluff about the aim of your firearm before shooting to catch opponents off guard.
Prerequisite(s): Dirty Fighting, Firearm proficiency, Bluff 3 ranks.
Benefit(s): You can feint with a firearm as a move action using the usual Bluff skill check for feints. You do not need to threaten your target. When you successfully use Hidden Aim, you deny that enemy its Dexterity bonus to AC against your ranged firearm attacks for the same duration as normal. This feint does not deny the Dexterity bonus to AC against any weapons besides your firearms, nor does it take penalties to its Bluff check when feinting against a non-humanoid or a creature of animal Intelligence. It can be used against enemies with no Intelligence score.
Normal: You can feint only with a melee weapon, and only against a creature you threaten with that weapon.
I used the Dirty Fighting feat from Ultimate Intrigue as a prerequisite because this homebrew feat is pretty powerful. A touch attack against an opponent denied a Dexterity bonus to AC is almost guaranteed to hit at high levels. I could have used Combat Expertise, the prerequisite to Improved Feint, instead; however, the penalty from using Combat Expertise does not mix with a single-shot firearm. Given only one shot, the character does not want to miss.
If your GM does not want a homebrew feat, a combination of Bullseye Shot and Deadly Aim could add damage to a single shot. Deadly Aim alone technically works, but missing would be frustrating.
Yeah, but sneak attack isn't really sneak attack tbh... I mean... For example... I can use sneak attacks, when the enemy is flanked and that is the easiest mechanic in game, since you just need 2 players to surround the enemys... And there is also a feat, that allows you to use flanking attacks with range attacks. I don't remember the name, but I have it in my bookmarks. So you basicly need 2 melees who surround the enemy, so that you can use flanking and there you have sneak attack each round.
That feat is Gang Up. Having to wait until two allies engage with the opponent will be annoying on the first round.
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The Pathfinder early firearms were modeled after the flaws of 16th-century firearms so that no player character would want to use one. The firearm and its ammunition are expensive, no-one starts with firearm proficiency, reloading is slow, and a misfire can render the weapon useless.
That is actually one of my biggest complaints with guns: they are not faithful to their real-world counterparts. Gunpowder and shot were quite cheap and easy to produce in bulk, and if anything are easier to train people in their usage than bows. The weapons themselves were far cheaper than bows.
Misfires are a bit more complicated. If you had a well-made and well-maintained gun and you cleaned the barrel between each shot there was no chance of misfire. However, in the heat of battle guns the "clean the barrel" step was often skipped in the reloading process, which could lead to residue build-up and over-heating of the barrel, which would eventually cause a misfire. If your intended use of a firearm weapon was to shoot once and then charge, misfires were a non-issue.
Other classes gained gunslinging archetypes, such as Holy Gun for the paladin and Spellslinger for the wizard, that reduced some, but not all, of the difficulties.
Most of those archetypes were outright useless, sadly. Holy Gun in particular goes down as one of the worst archetypes ever.
The Pathfinder early firearms were modeled after the flaws of 16th-century firearms so that no player character would want to use one. The firearm and its ammunition are expensive, no-one starts with firearm proficiency, reloading is slow, and a misfire can render the weapon useless.That is actually one of my biggest complaints with guns: they are not faithful to their real-world counterparts. Gunpowder and shot were quite cheap and easy to produce in bulk, and if anything are easier to train people in their usage than bows. The weapons themselves were far cheaper than bows.
Misfires are a bit more complicated. If you had a well-made and well-maintained gun and you cleaned the barrel between each shot there was no chance of misfire. However, in the heat of battle guns the "clean the barrel" step was often skipped in the reloading process, which could lead to residue build-up and over-heating of the barrel, which would eventually cause a misfire. If your intended use of a firearm weapon was to shoot once and then charge, misfires were a non-issue.
Other classes gained gunslinging archetypes, such as Holy Gun for the paladin and Spellslinger for the wizard, that reduced some, but not all, of the difficulties.Most of those archetypes were outright useless, sadly. Holy Gun in particular goes down as one of the worst archetypes ever.
I should have said, "very loosely modeled." Dungeons & Dragons/Pathfinder has warped reality for its game system every since it simplified all the protective qualities of armor into a simple +X to AC. Firearms suffered the same fate. If a loaded weapon takes a minute to reload, then the designers compress the reload time down to 2 rounds and invent a new disadvantage, such as expensive ammunition, to make up for the playable speed.
Firearms hitting touch AC is also unrealistic, but we players guess that it represents the armor-piercing quality of firearms.
I think the goal of the Paizo designers was to introduce firearms to the game, because some players wanted them, while making the firearmns naturally self-limiting, because other players did not want guns in their fantasy. Firearms fit the Iron Gods adventure path, which mixed alien technology with fantasy. That fantasy was tainted already.
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Most of this is covered in the previous posts:
Class:
- Guns are great for Gunslingers, as they get a free gun, cheaper ammo, bonus damage, and the ability to clear misfire easily.
- Guns tend to be 'okay' to 'bad' for firearm-focused archetypes of other classes.
- Guns are bad for everyone else: Expensive, slow, short-ranged, low damage, loud, and likely to misfire.
Level:
- Gunslingers below level 5 do poor damage, as they don't get a stat added and it takes a while to get all the important feats.
- Gunslingers level 5 and higher do really good to great damage (unless they roll misfires a lot): Dex to damage plus Rapid Shot plus attacks against Touch AC adds up quickly.
Guidelines:
- The Gunsmithing feat reduces the cost of your ammunition significantly. Once you have a couple of levels under your belt, ammo cost should be insignificant in most campaigns.
- Alchemical Cartridges are a little more expensive then normal ammo, but it reduces your reload time by a step. This stacks with the Rapid Reload feat, making One-Handed firearms a free action to reload.
- Getting a free action reload with a musket typically requires 3 levels in the Musket Master Gunslinger archetype.
- Reloading does require a free hand, so dual-wielding pistols is difficult (but not impossible) to do.
Other:
- Sniping has never really been supported in game. It's one of those things that will probably cause more trouble than good.
- Firearms in game were designed to be mostly useless to characters who aren't heavily invested in their use: They don't want guns to replaces swords, axes, and bows on nearly every character.
Yeah, but sneak attack isn't really sneak attack tbh... I mean... For example... I can use sneak attacks, when the enemy is flanked and that is the easiest mechanic in game, since you just need 2 players to surround the enemys...
Oh god, don't get me startet on that (well, too late): I called it "Teamwork attack" more than once - Slayer's Studied Target and Investigator's Studied Combat/Studied Strike are much closer to the concept of "striking where it hurts the most" than the Rogue's 'Sneak Attack' which is triggered by teamwork 90% of the time (and if it isn't, probably by Shatter Defenses, or Circling Mongoose).
@Mathmuse: Well, I was talking about a firearm focussed character, obviously.
@Dasrak: I recently made a list for a friend when we talked about a wild west setting - many of these archetypes are severly lacking for early firearms, but work pretty well for advanced firearms (or for starting at higher levels, when one can afford or get something like a greater reliable shadowcraft musket).
@Taja the Barbarian: I think you are underselling the Gun Chemist, and overvaluing Dex-to-damage (it's just a few points of bonus damage). Cost and noise aren't really that relevant, and the damage isn't actually low (a musket has the average damage of a +2 str composite longbow).
Yeah, but sneak attack isn't really sneak attack tbh... I mean... For example... I can use sneak attacks, when the enemy is flanked and that is the easiest mechanic in game, since you just need 2 players to surround the enemys...Oh god, don't get me startet on that (well, too late): I called it "Teamwork attack" more than once - Slayer's Studied Target and Investigator's Studied Combat/Studied Strike are much closer to the concept of "striking where it hurts the most" than the Rogue's 'Sneak Attack' which is triggered by teamwork 90% of the time (and if it isn't, probably by Shatter Defenses, or Circling Mongoose).
I played back in the AD&D days when the rogue's ability was called Backstab. It required the rogue to sneak behind the opponent and stab him in the back. AD&D did not define definitive rules for when a character would face in a certain direction, so it depended on the roleplaying. When D&D 3rd Edition came out, they clearly declared that the game had no facing rules and changed Backstab into Sneak Attack that triggered during the typical circumstances where Backstab could be used. Sneak Attack claims to be precision damage, striking where it hurts most, when really it was based on a dirty fighting tactic that no longer fit the rules.
@Mathmuse: Well, I was talking about a firearm focussed character, obviously.
If "firearm focussed" means that the firearm is the primary weapon, then my Savage Spellslinger Val Baine does not qualify. However, the gunslinger/rogue Boffin still qualifies. Her battlefield control build is unique in my experience. I had never seen a non-magical battlefield control build before. I mentioned the grapple launcher at low levels. Later she made good use of the 7th-level Targeting deed to shoot weapons out of opponent's hands. At 13th level (11th level in Gunslinger) she made Targeting her Signature Deed to be able to lock down a boss with repeated shots to the head for Confusion (this required a technological sonic pistol that could shoot ten times between recharges).
Pathfinder rewards specialization, so investing in firearm proficiency yet not using it as a primary weapon weakens the build. Val Baine was an NPC, so I deliberately built her to avoid upstaging the PCs. The only justifications for a PC dabbling in firearms like Val are versatility and roleplaying flavor. Versatility is great in a support character, because when another party member comes up with a daring plan, the support character has the abilities to support the plan.
Just to be clear, you can't normally use flanking with a ranged weapon in PF. There is a feat on d20pfsrd called Ranged Flanking which allows it, but it's third party - Paizo's closest equivalent is a teamwork feat which just gives +2 to hit vs. a flanked enemy and which doesn't help with sneak attack.
& yeah, your English is good enough Aximes. I've read worse on these forums from native English speakers.
Maybe I have to clearify some things.
my character is basicly a gunslinger except for I have 8 Skillpoints and also that sneak attack... My dm decided like this because firearms aren't really viable, but she wanted me to play it too because she thought that could be a cool idea. So basicly I have a multiclass without a multiclass... Weird homebrew, but this is how it is. ^^
I view that as playing a rogue who can use a musket. I am amused that that is the opposite of what happened with Boffin in my Iron Gods campaign. The party had no rogue. Gunslinger Boffin had taken a smithing campaign trait that gave her Disable Device as a class skill and her high Wisdom (which gave her more grit) gave her the Perception to spot traps. Therefore, the gunslinger served in the trapspotting and lockpicking rogue role for the party. She eventually multiclassed to rogue to be better at the job.
We're on a ship taking hostages so we really aren't able to go somewhere and I don't know if the first book of the module even let us leave the boat on any point... So its not really possible to buy more guns etc... My dm just told me "These are ships with cannons 'n stuff... Don't bother about black powder here, lol" so yeah... ammo shouldn't be that expensive for me, but I can't craft new guns out of nowhere so atm I'm stuck with my musket and my rapier.
Btw, that also means, that I'm not enable to enchant my weapons or something like that. I can only work with my feats. :/
Being a dedicated ranged combatant usually requires Point-Blank Shot and Precise Shot to be able to shoot into melee battles. That uses up the character's first two feats. The best alternative to taking those feats is a build called the switch hitter, in which the character makes a ranged attack at the very beginning of combat against a foe not yet in melee and then switches to melee himself. Firearm maintenance requires the Gunsmithing feat, so the character needs a lot of feats at low level.
It is a matter of style. Does Aximes want his character to be a dedicated musketeer, attacking with the musket as much as possible? Or does Aximes want to play his rogue the usual way and focus on regular rogue actions such as flanking for sneak attacks with a rapier and use the musket only occasionally? Or a combination of the two for versatility, which comes at a cost of not being great at either.
A musket takes a full-round action to reload. A medium musket deals 1d12 damage against touch AC. So that is 1d12 damage every two rounds. Rapid Relaod can reduce the reload to a standard action, but the character is already overburdened on his need for feats and that is still only one shot every two rounds, but with more movement and a better chance to hide and snipe from stealth.
In contrast, a shortbow does 1d6 damage but can be shot every round as a standard action. 2d6 is slightly better damage than 1d12, but the shortbow hits regular AC. The musket is more exotic than a shortbow, but not better. When I was playing around with the Savage Spellslinger archetype for Val Baine, she had a tendency to holster her pistol and pick up a shortbow if the archetype did not give her a good reason to use the pistol instead.
One switch-hitter possibility is that a musket is solidly built and could make a great improvised club. The Pistol-Whip 3rd-level deed on the gunslinger suggests that a musket deals 1d10 damage as a club. Catch Off-Guard removes the -4 penalty for using improvised melee weapons. (The flatfooted clause on Catch Off-Guard might look tempting for a Sneak Attack, but facing an unarmed opponent never happens. Unless you disarm them yourself.)
As I said, I picked the class just because it was matching with the campaign kinda and I thought that would be cool from a narrative point of view. I knew before, that my class is very weak, but my DM is very fair about that. So we homebrew alot. For example I'm allowed to repair my weapon just due to a roll for craft (gunsmith) for DC 10... Since the basestat is also Dex I don't have to care about that one anymore. So there is just the problem left, that I do almost no damage at all at higher levels and while I don't have to be the most brutal damage dealer out there, I just don't want to be useless, so I'm completly fine, when I can manage to get average damage atleast. :)
Pirates with firearms are part of our history, so playing a pirate with a firearm is very flavorful. But since firearms are barely viable without class features that favor firearms, it is flavorful without giving any advantage.
High-level rogues do massive damage through Sneak Attack. That is how the class is designed. Ranged Sneak Attack is very difficult.
You're English is good.
Your [/nitpick]