Firearm traits


Gunslinger Class


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I'd like to discuss the new traits built around firearms. This would also be a good place to suggest alternative traits.

Existing Traits.

Scatter. I like the scatter trait, and I especially like that the primary target also takes the splash damage, it makes the blunderbuss an especially effective option against swarms, and it may be worthwhile carrying around in the same way that carrying bombs around is useful at low levels for them (Although swarms are much less punishing in 2e). While I'm not sure if I would want to make a scatter weapon my primary firearm due to the low range, I think this trait is good.

Sniper. This one already has a full post (https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43a1p?The-Sniper-trait-boring-and-bad), but I'll add my thoughts since they still fit. I'm not actually sure why this trait needs to exist, given as far as I can tell backstabber doesn't have a requirement for melee. Sniper seems redundant. That said, I think my bigger issue is the weapon its on more then the trait. Backstabber is a decent trait on the low damage weapons its found on, and can make a decent difference, but is much less interesting as the weapons base damage dice increase. It feels mediocre on the Arquebus. I think that Arquebus should either just have the backstabber trait, or sniper should be changed to something more thematic. Perhaps instead of mimicking sneak attack like backstabber, it could grant bonus precision damage on the first damage roll per turn (like the ranger's precision edge). That seems much more in line with what a sniper should do.

Unsteady. I overall like the idea behind the unsteady trait, I certainly like its design more then Volley as far as negative traits go, however, I feel it could be made just slightly less punishing, or more manageable. An easy way to do this is to also allow it to be ignored whole prone. Its less action intensive to drop prone then setup a tripod, but it has all of the penalties that prone brings. However, acrobatics offers a fairly large number of feats to make that less an issue. In particular with nimble crawl at legendary acrobatics you ignore the majority of them.

Potential Traits:

"Recoil: Attacks with this weapon count as 2 attacks when calculating your multi attack penalty unless the weapon is attached to a deployed tripod, the wielder is prone, or the wielder takes an Interact action to stabilize before firing"
This is just another take on unsteady. Its less punishing for really slow firing weapons, but more punishing if you plan to shoot more often.

"Magazine: A weapon with this trait can hold multiple pieces of ammunition and may be treated as though it has Reload 0 until it has made a number of attacks equal to its magazine value."
I'm sure this has already been discussed a fair bit so I won't say much, but guns that can hold multiple rounds would be great!

"Sniper: on the first damage roll per turn, the weapon adds a weapon damage die of the listed size. This increase to two dice if the weapon has a greater striking rune and three dice if the weapon has a major striking rune."


3 people marked this as a favorite.

I like Recoil a LOT as a variant for Unsteady.

While both are action drains, unsteady forces you to spend the action beforehand to ensure effectiveness, while recoil enables you to just take the first attack and then do other things with your turn like reposition and hide.

Community / Forums / Archive / Pathfinder / Guns and Gears Playtest / Gunslinger Class / Firearm traits All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.