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We had a session last Thursday with one of our players trying out the Gunslinger class with a Party of 5 against martial-type enemies. I am writing this report on behalf of the player, as they aren't a forum-goer, and I felt like I should provide first-hand data since I was privy to it.
For report's sake, we have both the Free Archetype and Voluntary Flaw optional rules in place for the purposes of data (certain aspects of the build are instead acquired via custom items which are effectively replicated with these optional rules). Here's the essential build:
Unbreakable Goblin Sniper Gunslinger
Strength 12
Dexterity 20
Constitution 16
Intelligence 16
Wisdom 16
Charisma 10
AC 35
HP 178
Fortitude 22
Reflex 26 + Evasion
Will 22
Perception 23
Class DC 33
+2 Greater Striking Corrosive Musket at +29 for 3D6+4 Piercing + 1D6 Acid, Fatal D10; Gravity Bow +6 Status Bonus to Damage, Firearm Ace +2 Circumstance Bonus to Damage
*Trained Skills (value)*
Arcana (19)
Athletics (19)
Crafting (19)
Diplomacy (16)
Deception (16)
Tanning Lore (19)
Nature (19)
Religion (19)
Survival (19)
**Master Skills (value)**
Acrobatics (25)
Stealth (26)
Thievery (26)
Feats
*General*
Fleet
Toughness
Incredible Initiative
**Ancestry**
Very Sneaky
Bouncy
Roll With It
Very Very Sneaky
<Skill>
Survey Wildlife
Quick Jump
Forager
Wary Disarmament
Foil Senses
Swift Sneak
Kip Up
Pickpocket
<<Class>>
Firearm Ace
Risky Reload
Running Reload
Gravity Weapon
Far Shot
Called Shot
Penetrating Fire
Dance of Thunder
[Magic Items] (7,500 of 9,300 recommended WBL value)
+2 Resilient Shadow Leather Armor
+2 Greater Striking Corrosive Flintlock Musket
+2 Striking Blunderbuss
+2 Striking Shortsword
Boots of Bounding
Greater Hat of Disguise
The Party
-A Half-Elf Paladin Champion of Shelyn wielding a Glaive
-A Half-Orc Fighter wielding a Bastard Sword and Sturdy Shield
-A Human Bard with feats to enhance Inspire Courage effects
-A Halfling/Half-Orc Druid with Beastmaster and Mauler dedication
The Encounter
A large room (90 by 90), with the party confined to a single 30 by 30 corner, dealing with an onslaught of On-Level or Level-1 Fighters with Swords and Shields.
In Turn 1, the Gunslinger managed to hook a critical on the first shot, rolling a 17 + 29 = 46, a critical against the enemy Fighters' 35 AC. Since neither Gravity Bow nor Firearm Ace was active at this time, it only dealt 1D10+2(3D10+4+1D6) damage, the actual result being approximately 65 damage, rolling above average in this case. A powerful hit to put a dent in the approximately 250 HP Fighter enemies, but by no means extreme compared to the additional +16 damage that could have come in if both Firearm Ace and Gravity Bow were active, marking it at an impressive 81 damage.
In Turn 2, after receiving both Haste and Inspire Courage, the Gunslinger is now capable of firing Twice in a turn, and is able to navigate the area without too much hassle thanks to Running Reload. However, instead of firing twice this turn, Gravity Bow is activated, and now so is Firearm Ace, meaning even on non-criticals, the dice becoming D8s and having +8 effective damage (was calculated as 9 or 10 in-game, as we forgot that Inspire Courage and Gravity Weapon do not stack in this case) meant they were getting more for their shot each turn. Even without Gravity Bow active on a subsequent shot, an additional +3 or 4 damage isn't anything to shrug off at.
The rest of the fight goes relatively swimmingly. The Gunslinger has not had the occasion to use Dance of Thunder (though reading it, it looks to be very, very powerful if the dice is in your favor, even if it's limited to once per encounter pretty much), and only used both Penetrating Shot and Called Shot once, but to good effect with yet another critical of an almost identical result to Turn 1, except against 2 enemies for Penetrating Shot, and the last Called Shot to prevent escapees. The player wanted to optimize with the Blunderbuss and go full Sniper, but felt that the whole concept of steadying before their shot all the time overtly punished them for their playstyle, and action-economy wise equalled a Reload 2 weapon to them, which didn't feel very satisfying to play compared to the Musket, combined with the limited (even if somewhat expanded) action economy they possessed.
Compared to the rest of the party, the Gunslinger is able to dish out a fair amount of punishment that is the equivalent of the Fighter, Champion, and Druid, but being able to do so at a safe(r) distance than a Rogue. There were times when the Fighter and Champion have outdamaged them, but the Gunslinger's damage was certainly up there in their first shots, and only a little behind on the subsequent shot. Penetrating Shot can help that somewhat, but isn't a guarantee, and Called Shot appears to have attack utility. The Gunslinger did manage to get hit a few times (same as everyone else), but the Champion managed to utilize their reaction a couple times to prevent enough damage to not warrant any in-combat healing of any sort, either from potions, Battle Medicine, and so on. While the Gunslinger does not have as much of the Skill capacity and Reaction Synergy power the Rogue character had (between Instant Opportunity and Opportune Backstab with Champion Reaction and Attack of Opportunity all going off within the same round), it definitely covered a niche the party was lacking (ranged damage) in a relatively effective way.
Personal Notes
I can understand some of the points that have been made in other topic posts in that a Gunslinger feels fairly redundant in playstyle and infringes on the Fighters' schtick, but I do disagree on them being ineffective, as well as playing identically to Fighters, both mechanically and playstyle-wise. The former disagreement stems from not properly utilizing tactics or action economy effectively, the latter stems from Sword-and-Boards needing to Raise Shield all the time for AC (instead of being able to actually just attack multiple times), or not having to reload if utilizing a Bow of sorts while still dealing decent damage with Deadly traits and such. Plus, as the Gunslinger was considered under WBL guidelines, they were still powerful to contribute, thanks to the build choices (which I helped with, advice was asked for in this case) and Legendary Firearms proficiency, and they were certainly missing a couple things in their build (such as an additional weapon rune for their musket, adding another potential 1D6 damage plus effects on a critical) that would've helped in this regard.
In regards to their combat mechanics, Abilities like Haste make the Gunslinger much more capable of providing consistent damage in combat, as the Gunslinger is able to make 2 attacks consistently with a Reload 1 weapon, but to me feels more like a crutch to shore up its inherent flaw with the action economy than an actual buff in action economy options. Compared to a Fighter which can now Raise Shield, or the Champion who can now Intimidate, both of which without losing out on "effective" attacks, the Gunslinger just gets the ability to have the same offensive capability as those classes without Haste. Whether that's the intended goal or not, I do not know, but to me it feels off. It also still doesn't let a Gunslinger perform multiple abilities like Called Shot or Penetrating Shot in the same round (at least, without already being loaded before-hand, probable to happen in Round 1 of combat, not so in future rounds). Again, another potential intention behind it, but when Haste is expressly limited to Stride or Strike, and abilities like Running Reload cannot be utilized with them, it's fairly problematic that it results in a static "Shoot->Reload->Shoot->Reload" playstyle that gets redundant relatively fast. I imagine that if the player started at 1st level, by 3rd level they'd find it extremely tedious to have to constantly reload all the time, or be in positions where they can't reload due to Attacks of Opportunity being a threat, or running out of ammunition, or...you get the idea. And they don't gain anything in exchange by having this playstyle, other than maybe doing comparable damage from a range. Is that fair? Hard to say for me.
The rest of the party seemed satisfied with the character's effectiveness, but consider that the build took typical choices from other Gunslinger playtests at the lower levels, and instead of further choosing feats from within their class choice, instead branched off to valuable feats from other classes (such as Ranger) to reach the level of character they wanted. This isn't necessarily an inherent flaw for Gunslingers, but the player did note that a lot of the feats that Gunslingers had which didn't help their schtick and offered fringe utility benefits (like Black Powder Boost, Cauterize, Hit the Dirt!, Blast Lock, etc.) did not seem appealing to them compared to feats like Gravity Weapon and Far Shot from the Ranger side of things (which, incidentally, in Far Shot's case, seems strange for a Gunslinger not to be able to have a feat choice in their listed feats).
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I would have liked to have posted at least two session's worth of data, but due to inclement weather we weren't able to play last week, and the playtest will end before the next session (or rather, I won't be able to make another post in regards to the results of that data). If I am lucky, I will bump this thread with another post on Friday night to submit the next session's worth of data, but if not, due to the playtest closing and threads/posts no longer being possible to do, then well, I tried.