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So, my group gave me two options: change my character's class to gunslinger for the remainder of his life or not change at all. I tried to keep him mostly the same, but guess who's happily playtesting until October ^^. I'll keep posting many session reports until then. Hence the title.
This is mid-campaign in a converted and modified 1E AP. I'll keep it vague and keep as much story as possible out of it, but the AP is
The group is a Summoner(Dragon), a Witch, a Fey Sorcerer, a Wit Swashbuckler and my gunslinger. We play with the Gradual Ability Boost and Free Archetype variant rules.
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Charles William von Rohn (common translation of the Chelish variant Karl Wilhelm) is of Chelish/Molthuni descend and the only son of a minor noble family living in Korvosa for all his remembered life. He embodies the English gentleman vibe combined with a good deal of Prussian noble mixed in. Good fun.
Level: 8
Ancestry/Heritage: Human, Changeling (Night Hag)
Stats: DEX 20, CON 16, WIS 14, CHA 18, STR/INT 10
AC/HP: AC 26 (+1 resilient explorer's clothing) with 97 HP
Saves: Fort +16, Reflex +18, Will +15
Attack roll: +20 (+1 striking frost dueling pistol)
Class feats: Way of the Pistolero (single gun)
* Firearm Ace
* Hit the Dirt! (at level 6)
* Pistol Twirl
* Running Reload
* Shooter's Aim
Originally my GM and me had me with Paired Shots and dual wielding pistols. We just said that I could reload my weapons without needing a free hand this way. But I decided that that had to go for several reasons. Firstly, using two pistols and being more accurate just felt wrong. Secondly, it is heads and tails above everything else the gunslinger can do in terms of damage. Thirdly, I thought that the combination was a bit too strong and threatened to overshadow our swashbuckler. Granted, he is not the best player (in terms of effectiveness), but I still don't want to "optimize" at his expense. That is why I chose Shooter's Aim instead. I don't have a Flurry Ranger or ranged Fighter to compete against, so I can deal with it and still have a blast. It's also funny to have a 35% crit chance (or even 45% with Pistol Twirl) against a moderate AC creature at my level XD
Free Archetype feats:
* Rogue Dedication
* Mobility
* Nimble Dodge
* Skill Mastery
Priority Skills: Deception +19 (master), Medicine +17 (master +ton of skill feats) - I'm definitely getting a Greater Ventriloquist's Ring soon (that thing is hilarious)
General feats: Fleet, Fast Recovery (unchanged even during the class transition and thank the gods for that)
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To set the scene. After a very eventful day - including a (mostly) pleasant meeting with a crime boss, an "ambush" by a mini-boss Red Mantis Assassin (+ 2 mooks) and an actual ambush by 2 Red Mantis Assassins - we had just partaken in a spot of light breaking and entering into a warehouse turned government hospice. Our goal - find out what the bloody hell is going on in this mess of a city. We made kind of a mess when the first set of guards noticed us creeping around, so everyone knew we were coming. It certainly didn't help that I was firing black powder weapons by now :P
So, we went down the stairs to the first floor - we went in through a window at the top floor - to find the encounter of the day. 2 heavily armoured guards and 3 rogue types quite a ways away in the main warehouse room.
Round one. Fight!. Decent initiative roll, we get into position. Charles casually strolls into the room with a Stride and fires his gun (Shooter's Aim) at one of the rogues in the second range increment. Nat 19. He had a bit of damage on him already and thus the 47 damage did him in. Running Reload to get a bit of cover. One of the guards takes a shot at me and hits, 15 damage. When I tell you that was the only damage I took that fight, we know what we are in for :).
Second Round. Shooter's Aim and roll a nat 20. Typical, but I won't complain ^^. 51 damage wasn't quite enough for that guy, but still. Feels good man. Running Reload to get closer to the action and yell at our melees to have fun with the guy. He lasted exactly 2 actions of my buddy, who was next. We quickly realised that the rogues were absolute mooks at 23 AC. Even the guards weren't that impressive at 25 or 27 with shield raised. I was rubbing my hands at this point.
Third Round. Regular shot for 22 damage (nice), Running Reload and actually miss the last shot.
Round 4. Reload. Shoot another one of the rogues who tries to get into melee with me. Hit for 17 damage. Would have been a crit with Shooter's Aim. Feels bad man. Well, it was good enough for him, because he still died.
Round 5. By this point the melee started, if you can call it that. Shooter's Aim and this time it actually crit because of the feat. 41 damage to one of the guards, she was still standing.
That was, unsurprisingly, the last round of the fight. It was a low threat encounter after all and only lasted this long because of the number and position of the enemies. Our witch is also kind of a support and was fine with standing by while we were mopping up.
I took two important things away from this fight. One, mooks are obviously a gunslinger's best friend. Two, it feels kinda meh to only attack once per round, but Shooter's Aim is still very fun and useful, even on one-handed weapons. Well, several more when you count their lunch money and a bit of equipment :D.
It was well past midnight by that point and we were getting fatigued. Still, we hadn't found any information yet and the only further way was an elevator to the basement. So we went down. It was a bloody Temple of Urgathoa. 15 minutes of furious discussion in the elevator turned up our plan. And it was a good one, by our standards. We would take off our own personal disguises we usually use (don't ask) and some of us would don the plague doctor outfits of the staff. We would hide the bodies in couple of the body piles (you really don't want to know). Then we would rest in shifts, with me getting up first in the morning, so that I could fool any comers. For good measure we plastered some warning signs on the front that the place was closed. As the personnel was obviously stationed here for a longer period, we were confident we could hold up the ruse long enough to get this done. And it worked perfectly, so far. So we went down again.
Now comes the fun part. I won't say too much. Just think of a re-flavoured poisoned dart gallery hazard. No one was expert in thievery. I was the only one who could actually spot the cover plate for the mechanism. And thankfully I did. As the last action on my round. Everyone who knows why all of this is really, really bad - feel my pain. Also rolled absolute fire on my fort saves. 10 saves, 3 success, 6 crit successes and 1 critical failure. Low DC, but still. Our MVP of a sorcerer once again saved our bacon by casting Curse of Lost Time on the mechanism. We were all under 25% HP at that point, so the next round might have been it. Then the Witch was an absolute badass too and destroyed the mechanism with a nat 20 Telekinetic Projectile. 3 damage after hardness (eyy crit immunity for this hazard seems really fair) and the thing had 2 HP until the broken threshold. So that happened. After a couple of rounds of medicine treatment we ended the session.
That was a blast I tell you! Screw that trap and I know who is getting more Thievery as soon as we hit 9 :D
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Some additional thoughts I had while debating if I should actually just carry an arquebus and/or change to sniper:
The bulk limit is just barely manageable. 2 bulk gun plus 1 bulk of tripod. That's 3 out of your 5 bulk limit just for a basic weapon. Granted, I'm also carrying a Bag of Holding and healer's tools, the former of which is not strictly necessary. But take someone who isn't at +5 Dex and still has to wear 1 bulk light armour. It is not that terrible as even then I could still carry 9 light items and up to 2 bulk in a backback, but still. Starting at level 8, I would probably opt not to carry a tripod outside of my backpack and just use the gun with Shooter's Aim. Vital Shot you'll likely never get outside of turn one anyway (at least not without completely breaking your action economy) and I get that, so no real loss there.
The arquebus wouldn't actually be too terrible a weapon even for my Way of the Pistolero, when compared to a single dueling pistol. I just want to have the hand free for assisting my team with battle medicine, but I think I can swing that one action loss. While creating this post I actually realized that I can quick-draw that bloody thing with Ten Paces XD. I will have to replace Pistol Twirl, but as cool and useful as that feat is, I was never using it anyway. This is a really strange but funny combination, so I'm gonna try that next time hahaha :D.
Well, that's that. Cheers ^^
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Thank you for posting this. By actually breaking down the actions you took each round the playtest and the class became much more alive and clearer.
Thank you for posting this. By actually breaking down the actions you took each round the playtest and the class became much more alive and clearer.
Thanks, that was the idea ^^. I'll continue that trend for a couple of weeks and then I'll see. By then this will probably be pretty unnecessary except for very unusual situations.
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(aka Wall of Text 2 - Electric Boogaloo)
Character changes
So I tried the Way of the Pistolero with an arquebus (flavoured as a jezail). It was funny, but I won't be doing that again for reasons that I will go into later. Also, our swashbuckler is getting effective now, so I'll probably go back to Paired Shots shenanigans. Not the most balanced thing in the world, but with how poorly guns perform right now I have few reservations.
For reference, we used the tripod like this: It is affixed to the weapon and holding the weapon fulfils the requirement of using two hands to interact with the tripod. You can deploy and undeploy it with a single interact action each. As long as it is deployed, the gun is essentially immobilized, so to move into another square with it you need to undeploy the tripod first.
The Scene
We are still in the temple. Creepy stuff all around us. Rooms are actually fairly large, often being 20x20 or even 30x30-ish. The entire session was basically two encounters back-to-back, lasting for about 5 1/2 hours. Our witch was basically rolling 2s the entire time - not kidding, every single one of his 4 Telekinetic Projectiles was a 2 and so were 2 of his 4 or so saves - so he is not a happy camper. Hell of a supporter, though.
Encounter 1
We had a short time to set up, so I was already in position and had my tripod deployed. Our swashbuckler opened the door and it was on. It was an absolute lvl 1 slapfight. Everyone was rolling almost exclusively single digits. It was probably a moderate threat encounter vs two skeletal hulks (AC23) and two cleric cultists (AC24).
On the first turn, it was shoot/reload/shoot. Mediocre rolls, but still both hit the same hulk. I barely did 25-ish damage combined. But thank the gods for versatile b (we played it as separate ammo types, but still) or that would have been 10 less. The rest of my team engages the two hulks and the clerics do their thing. That should be illegal, the enemies also get buffs/heals XD
Round 2. Reload, Shooter's Aim (short: SA). Hit, barely double digits on damage. At level 8 and for effectively 3 actions... . The rest of my team were doing some decent work, though. Also, thank the gods for small frontliners - suck it lesser cover XD
Round 3. One of the hulks is getting handsy. Luckily it doesn't have AoO, or that would have been really bad. Reload, SA. Charles angles the barrel upwards and hopes for the best. Crit for 64 damage (finally, I had a 60% crit chance on these). The hulk was at half health before. Not anymore, as his smoking skull flies into the next room. Feels good. My team killed the other hulk and downed one of the clerics - we wanted someone to interrogate.
Round 4. Picking up my rifle and tripod with an action, then stride twice into the next room to provide flanking by basically holding the smoking and hot barrel directly to the last cleric's head. The summoner's dragon finished things.
After like 30 seconds - we were busy fortifying the rooms, I was standing guard - we heard the next encounter rolling around from an adjacent room.
Encounter 2
This one was a severe encounter or close enough to it to not matter. A necromancer (mini-boss) we were looking for for a while plus 2 hulks and another cleric. As the encounters were essentially combined with no real time to heal in-between, we were facing an extreme encounter. Oh boy...
Round 1. As I was standing guard, my tripod was deployed. As I was disguised I could roll deception for initiative at a hot +22. The roll was meh, but I was still second at 31. Who needs perception? However, I was in the process of doing some other stuff, so I had to re-grip my weapon for an action. Then I readied a shot for anything coming through those doors. Hit a hulk for 18 after resistances, but ate an Enervate form the cleric. Drained 1 and 19 persistent damage. Gods dammit. At least my team was doing well. Our swashbuckler really came into his own as he engaged a cleric in melee. And he has AoO plus he got greater invisibility (4th level invisibility) cast on him :D. Also, the boss came into the room and fired a lightning bolt at 3 of our team, including our 2 casters. Thankfully not too high damage.
Round 2. Assisted recovery like a boss. Rolled an 11 on the flat check, so persistent damage can go cry in a corner.Re-grabbed my gun with my last action. What is really bad is the fact that the boss casted Black Tentacles on the entire room. I thankfully wasn't grabbed, but our witch and sorcerer weren't so lucky. What was even worse was that one of the hulks charged our sorcerer and punted him into the wall next to me. Crit, Yelenmaggi (gnome fey sorcerer) goes to dying 2. That the hulk overcame the immobilized was actually in our favour. It would have been really bad if he hadn't. In other good news, our with - who was grabbed right in front of me - gave me greater invisibility. In even better news, Loum (the swashbuckler) crit-AoO'd the cleric when he was casting aoe harm. That would have substantially healed the two hulks and really hurt us. Value for money right there.
Round 3. Release my gun, Battle Medicine on Maggi for a juicy crit, saving him from death. Probably the only real impact I had overall, but damn was that worth it. Re-grab and reload. Black Tentacles sadly didn't suck my hidden condition ^^, so I'm grabbed. Our summoner is busy with the boss. Loum AoOs the harm-casting cleric again - they were not the smartest (to be fair, he was invisible) - but sadly no crit. The hulks and our witch (dhampir comes in handy sometimes) are healed, Maggi almost does down again and I'm not looking too hot either. On his turn, Loum kills the cleric and runs behind the boss, trapping him in a doorway.
Round 4. The boss casts Cone of Cold. Loum crit-AoOs again and he loses the spell. That really, really saved our asses. Massive kudos for that one. I crit my tentacle into oblivion - because ofc I roll a hard 20 against this of all things - grab my gun and high-tail it almost to the exit with Running Reload. Black Tentacles sucked my hidden condition this time, though. The hulk sadly didn't, so I'm really no looking good right now. Could have avoided the hit with Nimble Dodge, but sadly I'm an idiot and forgot I had it...
Round 5. The boss casts Enervate on Loum, the AoO didn't land. I run out of the room and SA the hulk who attacked me. 17 damage before resistances (I think it was like 13 after, as the fire damage was negated). My team was more successful, though, and KO'd the boss with non lethal attacks. We have some pointed questions for him.
Round 6 and 7 were just mopping up. I hit two more times for little damage, but my mates had it in hand, so it wasn't too terrible.
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Tripod, arquebus and unsteady
This just feels really, really bad. I had almost perfect conditions as far as you can expect pathfinder combat to go and even then it just doesn't work. Between the immobility, increased action cost on already action-starved weapons, the weight and lackluster trade-offs, I just can't find it in me to like this. It just doesn't work in any way, shape or form.
Weapon design
While I somewhat enjoy how guns currently feel, I doubt this will last much longer. I certainly felt pretty useless in both of these encounters, at least as far as my gun was concerned. It makes them unique, but also really swingy on damage and functionally useless to anyone without fighter proficiency progression.
Originally, my survey feedback was that we could have the distinction between guns and crossbow be the following: guns get moderate die sizes plus high fatal, while crossbows get high die sizes plus high deadly. I no longer think that is a viable solution, guns simply feel too disappointing on regular hits. Doing the same damage as a bow, but paying two or three actions for each attack just feels bad. That is even without accounting for hunted shot or other class feats, which create even further imbalance favouring the bow.
Reload weapons need to hit significantly harder on every hit and crit. That is just not the case for hits. And as long as that is the state of affairs, reload weapons will always play second fiddle. They feel like simple weapons, not martial weapons. Reload alone is such a significant drawback in both theory and actual-play experience, but it is currently not even remotely compensated for.
To that end I propose the following concept for martial reload weapons: both guns and crossbows follow the "high die size, high deadly" formula. We borrow from melee weapon baselines, which seems the most reasonable. One-handed weapons have a base d8/deadly d10, trading up or down one size for very significant positive or negative traits. Two-handed weapons are base d12/deadly d12, trading down one size for significant positive traits. Significant negative traits like unsteady require a trade-off that goes *above* that baseline. For a moderate increase in price, we get upgraded weapons similar to composite bows or the exquisite sword cane. Fatal reload weapons could still stay, but be more niche weapons for players who want the crit-fishing playstyle.
The separation between guns and crossbows then has to come from traits. Or it has to be sacrificed on the altar of balance, which I suppose is not the worst thing. It would certainly do away with any worries about gunslinger working in a non-firearm game. I still would prefer some differences and just have the option to re-flavour if necessary.
Legendary proficiency
As guns currently operate, this is mandatory. No question about it. And even then guns under-perform unless you are very lucky.
If reload weapons themselves were brought in-line, this isn't necessarily the case anymore. While I don't agree that legendary proficiency itself justifies a class being this feature-starved, I see where Paizo are coming from. What I really want is Champion or Rogue levels of interesting class features. Preferably tied to reloading. That plus actually useable reload weapons would definitely be worth losing legendary in reload weapons. At least it would create more engaging gameplay, which is my top priority.
Of course, this road also has its own problems.
For one, with martial crossbows coming out, Precision Ranger actually becomes relevant. More importantly, gunslinger is a strictly weapon focused class. Reload weapons are our thing. Fighters will then have a higher proficiency in our trademark weapon. It is not hard to see problems arising, moreso when the Fighter selects a gun-related archetype. But this should be more manageable than the current issues.
Ammo and versatile b
Lastly, I have a quick comment on the whole "versatile b" thing. I don't mind it, but I would prefer it to be separate ammo types rather than a trait. Sayre mentioned that it would feel too fiddly, but I don't mind it. Actually, I would like to see different ammo types for all applicable ranged weapons. Bodkin heads (for piercing) and broadheads (for slashing) are a thing in real life. Effective blunts (heh) less so, but it is not too much of a stretch. The current state of affairs with just piercing is unnecessary and not very immersive.
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The session started as normal. Looting and inventory management. We couldn't really leave, but our Witch's familiar can shapeshift into a person, so we had that covered. Got me some neat Slippers of Spider Climbing for future shenanigans. We interrogated our necromancer friend a bit. Turns out he is a pretty cool dude and if he wasn't a necromancer, our party would actually like him. He requested to speak alone with one of our number. We went along with it as we trust our party member, but obviously held an ear to the door. We all failed our checks, but that just meant we could get some quality character interaction in, while the GM and the Witch's player went into a separate channel. Now what our characters don't know - apart from one who is now internally repeating the "concern" meme - is the fun fact that our Witch is also a necromancer and a cultist of Urgathoa to boot. Leaving that guy alone with a necro seems like a great idea :D
Anyway, we are called back into the room. The necromancer is gone, which should concern us a great bit more than it did, but right then we were more interested in the info he had. And boy did he have info. So far everything has been true and spared us one or maybe two extremely bad situations. Our party is more on the practical and pragmatic track, so we are mostly happy with the situation. Not gonna give the necromancer the body of the high priestess he wants, though (Larian, our witch apparently has him on magical speed-dial). Some people are just weird.
The rest was encounter time. Mostly mooks, who we dispatched with great fervour and alacrity. It certainly helps that we were rolling absolute fire for the most time. I, for one, double-crit both skeletal hulks, one on round one and the second on round two. The first one was undamaged so he didn't die outright. The second got blasted into oblivion. I didn't miss a single shot, but the last two were sadly just hits :)
After we cleared the room, we stacked up on the doors. We weren't exactly subtle about it, but after firing several spells and 6 shots from a flintlock, stealth was not exactly an option. There was a cultist in the room and he warned us not to come in or else. We obviously heeded his warning and left. Heh. After kicking down the door, it was time for initiative. I can tell you one thing, wearing the stuff of your enemies to be able to roll deception on initiative is really fun. With +19 on deception vs +16 on perception, that is a bit on an upgrade. Anyway, I was going first and the only one of our party before the cultist. Two shots, two hits. Which is a bit of a bummer, as there was a bit of a problem. The guy had a sealed
After 6 hours of Pathfinder it was getting close to one in the morning, so we went to bed after one of the best sessions we ever had.
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This is the last session report post for the playtest for me, as we play on Fridays. But it has been fun, so I'll probably continue them without this second section. I think I have gotten everything I can out of it by now. Maybe not the higher level feats, but eh.
In terms of effectiveness and straight-up fun, dual pistols plus Paired Shots is by far my favourite thing. With a house-rule that allows for reloading while holding two weapons of course. Even with us using the Free Archetype rule, I wouldn't spec into Dual-Weapon Warrior for Dual-Weapon Reload. For one, it kills any amount of mobility you have, so it is not actually very effective. You are essentially doing the tripod thing and we know how "fun and good" that is. For two, it would prevent me from using any other reload+action feats that could ever exist. I would rather just take one gun in the current state of this class than subject myself to that torture. I would actually prefer using only a single gun and nothing else with the final class, but sadly this is not very viable atm. I want my revolver and feat support for it dammit :D
So yeah, Pared Shots. The balance on this feels a bit questionable, but then again it is basically Double Slice at level 8 instead of level 1, just ranged. And picks are a thing, though I would touch them with a ten-foot pole. I also question how firing two guns makes you more accurate, but again, Double Slice makes the same amount of sense with melee weapons. All in all, seems kinda OP in the current state, but is somewhat compensated for by how terrible guns are on a hit.
The best thing about all of this is that I rarely ever miss shots. Hits are disappointing but better than nothing. We were also mostly fighting enemies with less than stellar AC, so it worked out. Next week is boss time, so that should be fun :P
Every third round (or second round when using one gun) is still a massive thorn in my side. Spending an entire round doing basically nothing is just not fun. Sometimes it works out and you have to reposition anyway, but more often than not you just.. stand there. I used Create a Distraction (nat 20 ofc :D) and Sneak via Running Reload for shits and giggles. Basically shooting myself in the foot because I had to waste an action to get back into position the round after, but still funny.
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To round this out, both the class and the weapons have major problems, but with my current build I still see me enjoying myself until October. I took the survey way too early, though, so I'm gonna have to do that again. Sorry :/
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Well, who would have though, you can't take the survey again. God I am an idiot for not waiting longer. First impressions are good and all, but having played it quite a bit more changes things. So to any dev reading this I'm just gonna leave my final opinions here. This space is not used much anyway, so it's not that bad. Really sorry for the slightly spammy nature, but I feel this is necessary and important :/. Novel time ^^
What do I want from the Gunslinger?
I want a medium to close range class that uses reloading weapons to hit hard but not as often. Up to two attacks per round that individually hit substantially harder than bows, but without the potential to fire three or four times. Similar to the Precision Ranger just, you know, actually competitive and with interesting feat support. To that end I want to see interesting reload mechanics. And most of all I want a mechanical class identity in general.
When it comes to my ideal, I want my revolver-wielding Gentleman. Maybe a Sharps rifle for kicks on a different character. I personally don't really care about mixed gun/melee builds as far as the pure gunslinger is concerned. That is more of a Monk or Gun Kata Archetype thing for me. That is why I won#t comment on that part a whole lot.
What is the Gunslinger to me right now?
Right now, Gunslinger feels to me like a Fighter Class Archetype with a mediocre kit. That is why I mentioned the "class identity" before. Because I don't feel that the Gunslinger really does anything that would qualify it as a unique class. Drifter and Sniper go a bit in the right direction, but even they are a long way off.
Purely looking at the class, there is just not much here but legendary proficiency. That works for the Fighter, because he gets a lot of versatility to make use of it, more pure power (Attack of Opportunity, just to name one thing) and it fits the class fantasy. For the Fighter, it doesn't feel like you are missing out. For the gunslinger it definitely doesn't feel like it. Some things sound really cool and are great thematically, but somewhat fall off in practice. One example I have is my Initial Deed, Ten Paces. In the 6 or so encounters we had, I used the 10ft Step exactly once and the quick draw aspect never. For all intents and purposes, I just have Incredible Initiative. I will definitely be glad to have the other aspects some day - starting the encounter next to an enemy is not that rare. But that is essentially the only "extra" my class features provide me so far. After that I get ranged Duelling Parry, which is on average triggered less often than even the melee version already is. I also have to reload my weapon, so I don't get that much from it. Finish the Job I'll probably not get to before October and would be almost useless to me so far, as it is mutually exclusive with Paired Shots, which is just better. Apart from that I don't get anything special until 17 and even then it is somewhat situational and a discount Ranger Class feature.
Right now, we hit often-ish and sometimes crit for cool damage. That is the entirety of what we do. No interesting interactions/choices with Press and Flourish that the Fighter has, no really unique and fun mechanics to play around. I don't think Press actions make much sense in the first place for a class that uses reload weapons, but still.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still having fun. But that is carried by a somewhat OP build, the pure theme of the class and lack of competition. The rest of my party is melee or casters. Also, I like my character. But what mechanics are behind it are dull and not too effective (not counting Paired Shots ofc). And at least some amount of optimization in the framework of my character concept is a lot of fun to me. I need to be effective in combat to get what I want out of the game.
Feat-wise, we already have 2 mandatory feats in Running Reload and Firearm Ace. Not good. A lot of feats are also not particularly effective - looking at you Dance of Thunder (still gonna take it, because it is so cool) - or clash with reloading, such as Pistol Twirl and Pistolero's Challenge. Still, there are a lot of cool things in here, such as Hit the Dirt!/Return Fire.
On another positive side, Misfire - disregarding obviously not intended interactions with the clock striking midnight - is an absolute success. I very much like the optional risk/reward thing it has going on. Good stuff.
Lastly, I really like the direction of integrating both firearms and crossbows. The class should play well with both. It shouldn't just be a question of the table allowing firearms or not, but an actual choice.
What do I think about guns?
This isn't going to surprise anyone, I think. Too reliant on crits to keep up with bows, who are obviously the main competition on the meta side of things. Don't have enough to compensate for using an additional action for everything. They simply do not feel balanced in the grand scheme of existing weapons. Better than the Daikyu, but then again so is everything.
The arquebus and the tripod are incredibly clunky, heavy and generally meh. Unsteady is one hell of a drawback and a pain in the butt currently, so that needs some major work either on the equipment side or trait side.
Scatter weapons have potential, but the basically guaranteed friendly fire atm is a problem.
The Class
As I said previously, I want an actual unique class mechanic. Tied to reloading, because that is what will make or brake this class in actual play. If reloading feels like a chore and something that is holding me back, this class will never work. Something like this would be right up my alley:
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Quick Reload (level 1 class feature, free action)
Requirement: You interact to reload or your next action is to interact to reload
You are so experienced at reloading your weapon that it no longer requires your conscious attention. Immediately before or immediately after you interact to reload, you may use an action that is not a Strike (or any action that includes a Strike as a subordinate action), a somatic component or an Interact action to reload.
~~~
In addition (or as a component?) to that I want some form of interaction with my enemies that isn't just shooting. With that I mean something like Sneak Attack that relies on making the enemy flat-footed or the panache state of the Swashbuckler. Not necessarily with a damage component, just something interesting to do that has a noticeable effect and isn't just me fiddling with myself. This gives a class a more active feel I like.
All of this including some sort of bonus damage class feature. Then we can finally get rid of legendary proficiency and get some higher level features in here. That depends on how the weapons are getting balanced, though, which leads me to the second point in a bit.
I wouldn't mind the class having access to focus points either. Those are a great feature that is not used nearly enough ^^.
Finally, I would like to see to scope of proficiency and feat support widened to include every reload weapon. I doubt I would use anything but a firearm or crossbow, but there is no reason not to have the options. Where else but here?
The weapons
As a baseline I'd say increase the die size by one and switch fatal for deadly d10/12. Some weapons with major drawbacks would even need two damage dice higher, but that should obviously be handled with care. Fatal reload weapons can stay but should be a niche pick like picks (heh) are, not the default. For reference, I think guns and crossbows need to hit vaguely 1.5 times as hard as a non-reload weapon to feel like the reload is worth losing the additional attacks for. The goal should be to balance them in context like weapons are usually in 2e. The uncommon tag shouldn't impact things too much. Advanced and almost certainly rare weapons like revolvers are going to be a hell of a time to balance, though. I wish you the best of luck :)
What worries me in this regard is the separation between firearms and crossbows. I'd say the differences should be in the traits. No idea on the specifics.
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That's what I got that has changed from my survey (the rest should still be correct). If you read this, thanks for taking the time. I hope this was useful :D
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Quick Reload (level 1 class feature, free action)
Requirement: You interact to reload or your next action is to interact to reloadYou are so experienced at reloading your weapon that it no longer requires your conscious attention. Immediately before or immediately after you interact to reload, you may use an action that is not a Strike (or any action that includes a Strike as a subordinate action), a somatic component or an Interact action to reload
I am intrigued by this. Isn't it easier to make it a free action to reload with similar requirements as you listed in the end?
I feel it can be very good, but I do not precisely understand what situations you want to allow and which you are trying to avoid.
I would love if you could elaborate on this point.
Quick Reload (level 1 class feature, free action)
Requirement: You interact to reload or your next action is to interact to reloadYou are so experienced at reloading your weapon that it no longer requires your conscious attention. Immediately before or immediately after you interact to reload, you may use an action that is not a Strike (or any action that includes a Strike as a subordinate action), a somatic component or an Interact action to reload
I am intrigued by this. Isn't it easier to make it a free action to reload with similar requirements as you listed in the end?
I feel it can be very good, but I do not precisely understand what situations you want to allow and which you are trying to avoid.
I would love if you could elaborate on this point.
Gladly ^^
The basic idea is to attach something to your reload, rather than the other way around. The mechanical effect is the exact same, but the intent and flavour suits the class much better. After all, reloading is the thing the gunslinger does and should specialize in. To be fair, it could do with better wording either way :)
What I want to include is all the single action stuff you currently just don't have the actions for, unless you literally have no other choice. Pistol Twirl, Demoralize, Battle Medicine, Cauterize, Seek and many more. I also wanted to make it so that we can eliminate Running Reload as a mandatory feat, which you should just as the reload specialist.
The thing I wanted to avoid is making this basically free Haste. This is supposed to be a utility and mobility tool, not just free damage. I haven't entirely succeeded on that front, but it is a start.
To that end, everything that causes direct damage is absolutely out - hence no strikes and no action with subordinate strike actions. The part about the spell components is to avoid one-action damage spells - which I'm somewhat sure are almost all somatic - but allow for utility spells via verbal components, should you have them. The inability to just double-stack reloads on top of each other is to avoid making dual-wield build too prevalent and powerful.
Just straight-up ruling out all interact actions and restricting non-movement actions to 1/round is probably a better way to go, but this is just a rough idea anyway.
I hope that answers your questions ^^
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Thank you for the explanation. I think I get it better now.
I get what you mean about the intent and flavour, but I really thinks it feels more natural (and maybe easier to understand) to make reload the free action. And this way you cover all multi-actions activities. I am not sure if you intended your version to cover these, but I read it as currently allowing it but seemingly changing 2 or 3 actions activities into free actions, which sounds pretty weird.
I was looking for a starting feature that would ease the reload price for all Gunslingers and your proposal really feels like it.
I would just restrict it to activities using a INT, WIS, CHA skill, or Perception.
I think reload while moving is something that belongs to the playstyles (currently known as ways) and thus belongs to a feat. While reloading while casting IMO belongs to a feat or ability tailor-made for gun-mages.
Great idea there. I hope we will end up with something like this :-)
Just to note, I think the wording you want for that quick reload is "An action without the Attack or Manipulate traits". That covers the idea of "no attacking anyone and your hands are occupied".
I didn't do that so far to allow for combat maneuvers. But it does seem like straying too far into Fighter territory, so your version would be better, yes.
Thank you for the explanation. I think I get it better now.
I get what you mean about the intent and flavour, but I really thinks it feels more natural (and maybe easier to understand) to make reload the free action. And this way you cover all multi-actions activities. I am not sure if you intended your version to cover these, but I read it as currently allowing it but seemingly changing 2 or 3 actions activities into free actions, which sounds pretty weird.
The base feature says "you may use an action", which does not allow for things that take two or three actions, as those are activities. I considered make the "upgraded" version at late levels allow activities, but that seems a tad bit op.
I would just restrict it to activities using a INT, WIS, CHA skill, or Perception.
I think reload while moving is something that belongs to the playstyles (currently known as ways) and thus belongs to a feat. While reloading while casting IMO belongs to a feat or ability tailor-made for gun-mages.
Good call on the action/activity restriction. But having Running Reload is just too essential to every single playstyle to not make it universal or require a feat for it. Reload weapons are simply too situational without it.
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I definitely agree that something like Running Reload ought to be a core class feature. The only thing worse than not having cool toys is having cool toys but not having the actions to really use them.
However, I think modeling this feature on Running Reload might allow for a more straightforward feat, while also avoiding potentially problematic corner cases. What if this proposed "Quick Reload" ability was an action like Running Reload, but had a small list of subordinate actions that it could be used with, which could be expanded by Ways and feats?
Something like this:
Quick Reload (1 action)
You reload your guns effortlessly, even while you do something else. You take one of the following actions: Seek, Stride, Step, Sneak.
Then you Interact to reload.
Special Class feats or Features might expand the list of initial actions you can take with Quick Reload
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Then feats like Pistol Twirl could include text like "Add Feint and Pistol Twirl to the list of actions which can be used with Quick Reload".
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Thanks for the feedback and ideas everyone. Taking all that and stewing a bit over it, I give you version 2.0. As always, stuff that is written in square brackets is not part of the regular text, only explanation.
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Tactical Reload (free action, still base class feature - the new name was so dumb I just had to use it :D)
Trigger: You interact to reload or your next action is to interact to reload.
You are so experienced at reloading your weapon that it no longer requires your conscious attention. You Step, Stride, Sneak or Seek.
You gain different actions you can use with Tactical Reload from your Way and feats. You may only use Tactical Reload once per round with an action that is not Step, Stride, Sneak or Seek.
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Ways (only the stuff relevant to this feature)
Way of the Pistolero - Choose one of Diplomacy, Intimidation and Deception. You become trained in that skill. You may use Tactical Reload with any skill action of your chosen skill or action provided to you by a skill feat of that skill. You gain a skill feat: Twirl [Pistol Twirl as a skill feat for any reload 1+ ranged weapon] if you chose Deception, Bon Mot if you chose Diplomacy and Intimidating Glare if you chose Intimidation. [Deception will likely be the default, as Feint can be repeated every round against the same target. Still, the other skills also offer a lot of potential to people looking for other flavours or builds, so I wanted top include that.]
Way of the Sniper - You become Trained in Stealth. You gain the Experienced Smuggler skill feat [This is so you might carry a concealable pistol or something like that in situations where you can't be seen lugging around a massive rifle]. In addition, you may use Tactical Reload with Hide and Take Cover.
Way of the Drifter - You become trained in Acrobatics. You gain the Cat Fall skill feat. In addition, you may use Tumble Trough as an action for your Tactical Reload.