The playtest doubling rings and the "Brace of Pistols" fighting style


Gunslinger Class


While trying to build a sword and gun Drifter Gunslinger, I realised (as many people have already noted) that the hand economy of Reloading just doesn't work with that fighting style, so I instead decided to try and make my character into more of an old-timey pirate with half a dozen pre loaded pistols he could draw from his coat as he dropped unloaded guns.

While that playstyle seems like it could actually work pretty well, I noticed it hits a big snag rather quickly: The playtest doubling rings require that both affected weapons be selected pre-emptively rather than just adapting to weapons on the fly like the current doubling rings do.

While this wouldn't be a problem for most characters, my character trying to fight with multiple pistols found himself at a disadvantage as early as level 3, as he became unable to transfer runes from his enchanted longsword main weapon to his pistols, resulting in both an accuracy loss, as well as a rather large damage loss from level 4 onwards due to missing both a +1 potency rune as well as a Striking rune.

This left me wondering as to the reason for the change in the functionality of the playtest doubling rings compared to the CRB doubling rings.

This seems even more confusing when it seems like the only purpose of this change is to discourage the idea of creating a character who uses pistols as disposable weapons, despite the fact that said idea is a core part of the gunslinger aesthetic, even in real-life accounts of early firearm use.

Am I missing something there?


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I think if single shot firearms are added, they should be built around the assumption of having a brace of them. The exception being rifles, of course.

This would provide an elegant transition between early and advanced firearms, a brace of pistols being analogous to the six shooter, and a muzzle loaded single musket being analogous to a breach loading single shot rifle.


WatersLethe wrote:

I think if single shot firearms are added, they should be built around the assumption of having a brace of them. The exception being rifles, of course.

This would provide an elegant transition between early and advanced firearms, a brace of pistols being analogous to the six shooter, and a muzzle loaded single musket being analogous to a breach loading single shot rifle.

I definitely agree, which is why this rule in the playtest doubling rings that seems tailor-made to prevent the brace of pistols style from working bothers me so.


You could perhaps get a pair of doubling rings for each pistol. All of the gold rings bonded to the sword and each silver to a different gun. It's strange but would be cheaper than buying a full set of runes for each pistol.


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Bardarok wrote:
You could perhaps get a pair of doubling rings for each pistol. All of the gold rings bonded to the sword and each silver to a different gun. It's strange but would be cheaper than buying a full set of runes for each pistol.

Huh, I thought doubling rings would have had something that would prevent such a thing, but they indeed do not seem to have such a limitation.

Of course, you'd still run up against the Invested item limit, but you can still fit in eight invested items after your armor and your primary weapon, so a 6 or 8 pistol brace is definitely not out of the picture.
Plus, having far more jewelry than would be practical definitely fits the whole pirate theme.


Another issue is that the much cheaper flintlock pistols can't be affected by firearm ace unless they add 'interact to draw the firearm' also solving the 1st strike issue. This is more of an issue level 2. 24g for 4 flintlock pistols, 48g for the same amount dueling pistols

On another note, does firearm ace increase the fatal die on simple weapons?


Laki7z wrote:
Another issue is that the much cheaper flintlock pistols can't be affected by firearm ace unless they add 'interact to draw the firearm'

In that case it'd probably be better to go for Sword and Pistol at first level over Firearm Ace. You could still end up with both if you're a human or the like, I suppose. And of course, if you're trying to dual-wield pistols you won't have much need for Sword and Pistol.

I suspect that the bandolier of firearms build suggested in the Welcome thread was more of a hotfix to prevent (parts of) the playtest from being completely unworkable than something the devs built the class to support.

Laki7z wrote:
On another note, does firearm ace increase the fatal die on simple weapons?

It does not.

Core Rulebook, page 279 wrote:
Increasing Die Size: When an effect calls on you to increase the size of your weapon damage dice, instead of using its normal weapon damage dice, use the next larger die, as listed below (so if you were using a d4, you’d use a d6, and so on). If you are already using a d12, the size is already at its maximum. You can’t increase your weapon damage die size more than once.

Fatal increases the die size to the listed size (rather than by one step), but it still increases it.


As I mentioned on another thread, I'd like to see a magic item similar to Handiwraps & the Doubling Ring, where the item holds the Runes for all your 1-handed ranged or thrown weapons.
Then you could use a brace of pistols or a bandolier of knives or other similar, cool, iconic weapon sets and they'd be perfectly functional and scaled in power to one's level. Since switching pistols doesn't aid much and throwing weapons gain little (since there's Returning anyway which isn't hampered by drawing) this new item seems like it'd balance fine.


I could see something like a brace of pistols that grants a set of enchantments to the last pistol you pull out until you pull another one out.

You'd probably want to limit the number though, since Blackbeard famously carried six pistols which was considered a lot even for a prominent captain (four was more normal).

The other problem with being a "Golden age of piracy" type character is that the pistol really should be a change-up, but you're better at using a gun than a sword. I half wonder if this kind of character wouldn't be better starting as a fighter and picking up gun stuff through an archetype.

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