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I recently GM'd a playtest session for a party of four level 10 characters. Party consisted of a Weapon Inventor, Drifter Gunslinger, Pistolero Gunslinger, and Champion.
Character Creation A few concerns manifested while building characters. These have largely been noted elsewhere, but the Pistolero realized pretty quickly that he could not dual wield without having to stow his second pistol frequently to reload. This wasn't super satisfying, but working with it he settled on having one primary pistol to use for attacking and damage, and bought a second one to use with feats like Redirecting Shot and Warning Shot. Both gunslingers felt like they had to take a feat to make reloading more interesting than just an action tax (both had Running Reload and the Drifter had Reloading Strike) and I believe the class should get an ability by default that makes reloading more fun.
Another concern during character creation was Rebounding Assault. None of us minded the flavor of the ability, it feels kinda cartoonish but so do our normal sessions. However, it didn't seem to interact with doubling rings. The playtest specific doubling rings only work while wielding both weapons, and the normal doubling rings point out that once a weapon is thrown it is no longer wielded. This meant having to sink money into a second weapon at full cost so one of the Drifter's core features would work. It also feels weird as the mandatory drifter deed, it seems niche and more appropriate as a feat.
The inventor didn't have any major concerns during character creation. I was slightly bothered by not getting many breakthroughs or options for innovations, and the Inventor player felt compelled to go for melee as there aren't many ranged options. Also the class has several feat chains which bothers me though not the player. I don't think I would ever take Megaton Strike or Megavolt without taking the followup feats, and the Construct Inventor has to take a feat chain to keep their companion relevant. These were all fairly minor problems.
In-Play notes: I want to say at the top that everybody had an absolute blast playing the new classes. Guns were fun despite issues noted above, the inventor's super weapon was cool and useful, overall we are all excited for the final version. Most of the feedback I have is negative, but it's important to note that despite any problems that arose the classes were fun to play. Warning Shots, Pistol Twirling, Overdrive, Tamper, these are all dripping with flavor. Misfire feels like a huge improvement over 1e now that it only happens by choice. Now some of the problems that arose:
First, both classes felt squishy. The Inventor was a glass cannon, and while it doesn't feel inappropriate for an Inventor to not be super resilient, it would be nice to have more ranged support. The Drifter and Pistolero were both similarly squishy, and this felt worse than the inventor as the class feels like it plays on tropes of tough and tenacious western protagonists. These two ways don't have long-ranged options, and Drifter actively pushes you towards melee, so it would be nice to have more HP or defensive options.
Second, back to Rebounding Assault, in play it sucks to lose a weapon in the enemy square. It happened a few times and didn't feel fun. When the setup all works well it feels really cool to throw a trident into somebody and then shoot it back into your own hand, but losing it in the enemy square means having to close into melee and burn an action recovering your weapon after specifically trying to engage at range. And that's additional punishment on top of already failing your attack.
Third, getting Grabbed as a gunslinger sucks. It happened several times in the session, and it forced them to stay in melee when they don't have a lot of health and it made reloading feel even worse than normal because it would periodically fail. And it was hard to stay far enough away from the fight to avoid monsters approaching them and grabbing them because one-handed firearms have short range, which makes me feel like this is a bigger issue for someone using one-handed firearms than for other ranged characters. It's worth noting that the party did not prioritize escaping grapples, none of them wanted to give up their first shot (and best chance at a fatal crit) to Escape, which may be a tactical blunder on their part.
Fourth, as a GM I was underwhelmed by Gigaton Strike. The weapon inventor took Megaton Strike and Gigaton Strike, and it was pretty useful for this group to knock an enemy back away from the gunslingers. The extra damage was also nice, and when a Gigaton Strike critical hit landed it felt really nice. However, for a once per fight ability (before negative consequences start building up) and a two feat investment it felt a bit underwhelming from my side of the virtual screen. I think it could use a bit more oomph somehow.
Fifth, I'm lightly concerned about environmental interactions with gunpowder and gunslingers. This playtest involved the enemies lighting the party on fire at one point, and the party fighting alongside river banks and getting wet. In 1e, that could have meant them wasting exploding or getting useless wet powder. We didn't have rules to playtest this factor so we ignored it completely, but the gunslinger may need some ways around this. Extra-dimensional storage probably can handle a lot of it, but it feels worth a mention.
Finally, I think a lot of the wow factor in Gunslinger was absorbed by fatal firearm crits, and this might be a misstep. In play the Pistolero managed to get two firearm crits while the Drifter did not score any, and the Pistolero player felt the crits were really fun while the Drifter was disappointed that they hadn't rolled any. This is due to random chance and not directly the gunslinger's fault, but I think the disappointment would have been alleviated if the gunslinger felt less focused on crit-fishing and had more steady cool powers.
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Thanks a lot for the playtest and the report :-)
Concerning environmental interactions, note that the game does not do this for arrows, even though they might burn and also lose a lot of their velocity (and thus damaging power and range) when wet.
I think it would be better to just assume gunpowder too is adequately protected against fire and water.