I'm surprised my searches haven't seemed to yield (in the first several Google pages) amnanswer to a thought I had - and the ability entry doesn't really cover it.
Slinger lets you fire the gun OR cast a spell THROUGH the gun. Pretty straight forward.
Spell gains weapon's enhance to hit. Cool.
Spell gets weapon's enhance to Save DC. Cool.
Mage Bullets let's you burn a spell to boost that enhancement, or add special qualities.
This is where my question enters.
If you give the gun a special property, say, Shock... Would the spell cast/fired _through_ the gun gain that +1d6 Electric?
The firearm boosts your crit multiplier (if one gun), and uses it's +hit for this to-hit. Stands to reason the spell would gain it too, right?
At least, I believe the spell would IF the spell cast through it requires an attack roll, considering a ranged weapon imparts its bonus on anything fired out of it.
I don't think it would apply to burning hands or fireball (no attack roll), but Scorching Ray perhaps?
I find it odd that the text does not specifically cover this as an absolute yes or no. I as a long-time GM have been bouncing this idea in my head all day. I feel it's reasonable and plausible, but it bugs me to not have an official yes or no.
Thoughts?
If you give the gun a special property, say, Shock... Would the spell cast/fired _through_ the gun gain that +1d6 Electric?
Nope. The ability only does only what it says it does--it applies the gun's enhancement bonus to the spell's attack roll, increases the spell's critical hit range to x3 if only one arcane gun is chosen, and adds a danger mechanic similar to the early firearm misfire mechanic.
The firearm boosts your crit multiplier (if one gun), and uses it's +hit for this to-hit. Stands to reason the spell would gain it too, right?
At least, I believe the spell would IF the spell cast through it requires an attack roll, considering a ranged weapon imparts its bonus on anything fired out of it.
I don't think it would apply to burning hands or fireball (no attack roll), but Scorching Ray perhaps?
Spells cast through the arcane gun that require an attack roll would get the gun's enhancement bonus to the attack roll; and if only a single arcane gun is chosen, the critical hit modifier for the spell is improved to x3, per the text of arcane gun (Su).
I find it odd that the text does not specifically cover this as an absolute yes or no. I as a long-time GM have been bouncing this idea in my head all day. I feel it's reasonable and plausible, but it bugs me to not have an official yes or no.
Thoughts?
While it looks pretty clear to me, you're far from the only person to ask this question, so clearly (ha!) it could use some revision.
The simplest way I've found to keep this ability straight in my head is to realize that when you cast a spell through an arcane gun, you're casting a spell, not firing a gun. I think of the gun as more like an additional focus component. Some of the properties of the gun affect the spell, but ultimately it's still a spell, not a firearms attack. That makes it easy to remember that things like weapon special properties, feats like weapon focus or weapon specialization, ammunition, reloading, and deeds that affect firearm attacks don't matter when casting a spell through an arcane gun. Stuff that applies to casting spells, though, does matter.
Righty right right.
The part that made me think it works, us that you add the enhancement bonus to the attack roll, and the other things are enhancement equivalent, hence the "If you'd add one, why not the other?"
(Shame too - the idea of a having an acid spell drop a die of fire for a burn, or d6 cold on a ray of enfeeblement are thematically great, and don't seem to break anything)
Parallel thought...
Would you instead add the full enhancement equivalent? Because, you know, equivalent? Like if it was +3 Flaming Burst, would you add +5 to your hit roll because Flaming Burst is invalid?