TL:DR
1. I tried to build and play Way of the Drifter characters using a melee weapon and firearm. It was fun, but annoying to build.
2. Using an unarmed attack for Way of the Drifter felt like the most effective approach, which feels counterintuitive and undermines the flavor.
3. I struggled to build a sword-and-pistol character that felt fun and effective enough to make the action economy hindrances, low range, and low damage of one-handed firearms feel worth it.
4. Finesse weapons feel mandatory for a melee+gun build. Agile is ideal.
5. The brace-of-guns build can be really fun, but it requires a lot of money, levels, and feats to make it work. For a sword-and-pistol gunslinger, it did not feel very effective.
6. I love scatter weapons, but I wish the gunslinger got feats to increase the splash damage.
7. Tried using a shield for my melee weapon in Way of the Drifter. It felt pretty cool, but I'm not sure if it was intended or legal.
8. Firearm Ace feels mandatory and a build that cannot use it feels lackluster.
9. I found some fun roleplay uses of Black Powder Boost.
10. Not many high level feats that support melee+firearm gunslingers.
11. The scatter quality left questions whether or not I could shoot beyond the first ranged increment. It also raised questions how it interacts with the fatal trait and critical hits. Does the double damage and bonus die count towards the splash damage, which is based on damage dice?
Below reports my experience building and playing Bitey Boom Boom, my boisterous kobold gunslinger that wielded a blunderbuss and bit enemies that got too close.
I was invited to play the beginner box scenario in campaign mode.
I decided early on that I wanted to playtest Way of the Drifter. I had four major concepts in mind:
- Concept #1: Human with a sword and bandolier of guns
- Concept #2: Pirate parrot tengu with a cutlass and a gun
- Concept #3: samurai with a katana and hand cannon
- Concept #4: Catfolk with blunderbuss that he wields as an improvised weapon
- Concept #5: Catfolk with a pistol and a claw attack
- Concept #6: Kobold with a blunderbuss and a bite attack
Concept #1
I tried very hard to make bandolier of guns work. Given this character started at level 1, every build I attempted just did not look like much fun to play. Even with feats, the action economy is awkward. Pistols and hand cannons are expensive, have low range, and do less damage than a melee weapon. Very unsatisfying for a build that costs so much money and feats to make work.
I did later do this concept in a level 5 PFS scenario, which I'll post later.
Concept #2
This concept involved a tengu that resembled a parrot wielding a cutlass and a pistol.
In addition to the issues in Concept #1, this concept revealed yet another problem. **A sword and pistol gunslinger needs a finesse weapon.** Ideally an agile weapon to perform your secondary attacks. Your primary weapon is a gun and your class has Dexterity as a key ability score. So Dexterity has to be your primary ability score.
There's no cutlass in the game yet, and scimitars are *terrible* for a sword and pistol gunslinger. Unlike 1st Edition, there's no way to finesse scimitars. Their traits are useless for two-weapon fighting because forceful and sweep require you to attack using the same weapon multiple times. This made me *really* hope 2E cutlasses do not have the same statistics as scimitars. Ideally, I would love it if they were like rapiers that did slashing damage, which fits very well when many pirate films involve fencing with rapiers or cutlasses.
It also feel a little "feel-bad" in that my melee weapon proficiency does not match my
Concept #3
This concept involved a Tien ronin-type of character with a katana that mixes it up with a hand cannon. Admittedly, this concept came from the Way of the Drifter flavor text.
However, I ran into the same issues as Concept #2. Katanas are not finesse and wakizashis feel lackluster.
Concept #4
This concept involved a character wielding a gun (probably a two-hander) as an improvised weapon using the Improvised Weapon Master archetype. This sounded like a fun idea, but I decided against it due to the playtest discouraging archetypes.
Concept #5
This concept involved a catfolk wielding a pistol and claw.
After frustration with getting a sword-and-pistol build to work, I considered character concepts using an unarmed attack. However, a fist fighter is too predictable and would require an archetype. The build seemed to work really well. I'm surprised there's no pistol whip feat. A little depressing that Way of the Drifter seems to work best if you don't use a melee weapon at all.
I almost went with this concept until I came up with Concept #6.
Concept #6
This concept involved a kobold wielding a blunderbuss and biting enemies.
This concept came to light when I noticed that Way of the Drifter did not bar two-handed weapons. This instantly conjured the idea of a blunderbuss-wielding critter that used an unarmed attack that did not require a hand (kicking is too boring). I loved the idea of a little kobold with a huge shotgun, so thus Bitey Boom Boom was born.
I played this character primarily at level 1 and 2, but I'll also include the feats I planned the take.
Ancestry: Kobold (strongjaw)
Background: Alkenstar Tinker
Class: Gunslinger (Way of the Drifter)
STR 16; DEX 18; Con 10; INT 10; WIS 10; CHA 14
AC 18; Fort +5; Ref +9; Will +3
Skills Acrobatics, Crafting, Diplomacy, Intimidation, Engineering Lore, Stealth, Thievery
Class Feats:
1 Firearm Ace (mandatory, firearms feel lackluster without it)
2 Sword and Pistol (I'm not a fan of this feat because it only works in melee combat, which feels counter to switch-hitting, but my only other attractive option was Blast Lock)
4 Running Reload (So I can reload while repositioning)
6 Alchemical Shot (Reloading Strike doesn't work with two-handed weapons)
Skill feats were largely around Intimidation. I'm sad there's no "tinkerer" themed skill feats. Even something like a feat that lets you Demoralize with Crafting by presenting an item of your creation ("Gentlemen, Behold!") would have been cool.
Gear: blunderbuss, leather armor, adventurer's pack, and lots of ammo
I couldn't afford a side-arm, and I'm not sure if I can buy one after character creation or a schematic for building my own.
- The scenario so far was mostly group combats and traps. There wasn't really much to say about most of them other than a distant enemy that was hard to get to because of difficult terrain.
- I simply skirted around the battlefield to get into position to blast. I found it surprisingly easy to ensure my allies weren't getting the blunderbuss's splash damage due to not all enemies having reactions
- My attack rotation was Shoot, Bite, Reload to take advantage of Sword and Pistol and Firearm Ace.
- The scatter quality ended up becoming quite fun chipping at lots of enemy health at once. However, I'm not sure how effective it would be at later levels.
- The scatter quality left questions whether or not I could shoot beyond the first ranged increment. It also raised questions how it interacts with the fatal trait and critical hits. Does the double damage and bonus die count towards the splash damage, which is based on damage dice?
- Using a two-handed weapon with a low range made it difficult to deal with enemies at range.
- The versatile B trait with the scatter trait proved quite useful against a group of skeletons
After creating my previous character, I got a chance to play a level 5 character in a PFS game. I decided to give brace-of-guns a shot with this character: Captain Powder Keg!
Some of my comments about playing this character are in the above post. Here are a few more that came to mind when I wrote this report.
TLDR:
1. The brace-of-guns build is really fun, but very expensive and annoying to get it to work.
2. Many feats just do not work well with a brace-of-guns build either because of action economy, requiring a free hand, or requiring a loaded gun. Quick Draw is so necessary to make this build work, but it means you will end your turns with an empty gun. I was never able to use my Black Powder Boost feat in combat because of it.
3. I had the expectation this would be a switch-hit play style. However, actually playing it made me feel like it's best as a dedicated melee combatant. Not necessarily bad, but it did not match my expectations.
4. As I said in the above post, I tried out using a shield. It was fun, but I'm not sure if it counts as a melee weapon for Into the Fray.
I pictured this character as a pirate kobold with a big hat wielding many pistols and a sword. This character would start at level 5, which should be the ideal level to test the effectiveness of this concept. It's at a level where the character could afford many guns, but before they would have access to Reloading Strike. I also wanted to give shields a try as well, if I could afford it -- a piece of the captain's old ship.
I had to use a shortsword in place of a cutlass. It's agile and finesse -- the perfect choice.
I spent almost all my wealth and free permanent items on dueling pistols, a +1 striking shortsword, and doubling rings. I had so much gun that I was bordering on becoming encumbered.
Ancestry: Kobold (dragonscale)
Background: Sailor
Class: Gunslinger (Way of the Drifter)
STR 18; Dex 19; Con 12; Int 10; Wis 10; Cha 16
AC 22; 51 HP
Perception +9; Fort +10; Ref +13; Will +9
Skill Feats: Underwater Marauder, Quick Jump, Powerful Leap (all for exploiting Black Powder Boost)
General Feat: Shield Block
Class Feats:
1 Sword and Pistol (I would have taken Firearm Ace, but it does not work with pre-loaded guns)
2 Quick Draw (enables the build)
4 Black Powder Boost (no other feats worked well, decided to go all in for it with skill feats to support it)
Gear: playtest doubling rings, adventurers pack, leather armor, everyneed pack, repair kit
Weapons: +1 striking shortsword, 4 dueling pistols, 2 hand cannons, dagger, steel shield with shield boss
- I played the scenario #PFS2 2-10: In Burning Dawn on high tier with a level 5 character. I was underleveled compared to other party members.
- Most of the combats involved long distant spaces with some ledges and difficult terrain. Many of the enemies had Attack of Opportunity.
- Most of my tactics involved engaging as close as possible and then do three Strikes. I tried switch-hitting, but I felt like I was doing the most damage in melee range.
- My attack rotation typically consisted of: drop empty gun, Quick Draw pistol to shoot at melee range, and follow up with shortsword Strikes to utilize its agile trait. This was actually quite fun.
- The short range proved a major hindrance, though my extra mobility at the start of each round did help a little.
- I tried the steel shield on the first combat. It was fun, but I forgot that my runes were on my shortsword (doh!) so my pistol was weak.
- Even with a dueling pistol, I feel my firearm damage was unsatisfying unless I got lucky with a crit. Most of the enemies had so much health due to playing up that I felt it made little difference.
- Despite building my skill feats for leaping, I never got to use Black Powder Boost in combat, because Quick Draw meant I ended every turn with an empty gun. This robs me of the opportunity to use any feat/action that requires a loaded gun.
- I did use Black Powder Boost during the skill challenges in the scenario, so yay. It also helped inspire a funny tall tale I used to impress the orc lady. Captain Powder Keg claimed he evaded an enemy ship by rapidly firing from a pile of guns to propel his ship away.
- Ran out of loaded guns for two of the combats. Almost ran out for one or two more.
- The final battle surprised me by having explosives. I stole two of the explosive charges before the fight. When the battle started, I tossed them at the boss and used Quick Draw to denotate them. Was very fun! Felt like Gangplank from League of Legends!