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Hello. Had a lot of silly questions with few answers. I'll say off the bat I don't intend this to be a complaint thread, so I'd appreciate keeping that out of the replies as well as possible. Designer insight would be swell, but not something I can really ask for; anything I missed or advice on how to make my character work well without houserules would be great...but if I have everything right, there's a fair chance I'll just switch to Fighter. (This will be a lot of text, but I'll summarize the questions at the end.)
★Background★
I'm playing a former two-pistol bandit whose wife is a classic Pistolero and whose mom took up Drifter as part of reconnecting with her. So naturally I want to play something with a gun that's fairly mechanically distinct from them, even if that isn't necessary, and on top of that she got a pickaxe her dad used before his death, so I started to gravitate towards using the pick and a gun in tandem, as a reflavored combination weapon (call it a pickstol), and leveraging both high Strength and high Dexterity for some switch-hitting. Vanguard Gunslinger sounds cool and thematically fit the character's mom but her player found it too at odds with itself, so I investigated it instead, with the idea of taking up the combination weapon that specifically bills itself as good for Strength/Dex builds like Vanguard: the gun sword.
★What Vanguard Has★
It became pretty apparent that Vanguard's exclusive stuff starts off weak and anti-synergistic, and gets better as the game progresses.
• Clear a Path essentially grants the shove trait if you have any room for bullets or desperately need it, but offers no boon whatsoever against enemies with reactions you'd want to get away, which one would think is a prime reason to shove; not bad for pure repositioning needs, but awkward and one-note in several respects, getting worse as the game goes on and enemies generally gain more reach, and easily supplanted by generic reloads overall.
• Living Fortification is also more likely to have an effect the lower your initiative is, and it's a bit strange that its very brief incentive to have the parry trait doesn't carry over to the reload at all.
• Phalanx Breaker is solid, though, a strictly better and more stylish way to make space than Clear a Path (besides the little detail of not being able to follow, which is another reason to grab Running Reload).
• Though Spinning Crush is more situational in its use, it's also pretty stylish, and probably one of the earliest martial AoEs in the game.
• Where the Way really comes into its own thematically is at Lv 14, with Blast Tackle, which offers a bunch of boons to allow and incentivize something you've probably wanted to do since you started, though the Grapple does still cause MAP.
• It's immediately followed by Siegebreaker at Lv 15, which ties the parry action/incentive back in, and acts as the apotheosis of the "stand and fight" theme of some earlier options. Just a shame that it's taken so long...and doesn't synergize with Clear a Path, if you remember that.
• The requirements for these options are a little all over the place, but become more specific in time. The niche reload requires a two-handed weapon, setting a base expectation of such; the initial deed and Spinning Crush don't care (but the optional Phalanx Breaker wants a two-handed as well), and then the last two specifically require a firearm with the kickback or scatter traits (all two-handed anyway, except the dragon mouth pistol and spoon gun). A pox on those who don't read ahead: you'll probably want to get used to one of those 8 weapons from the get-go, at least for the hope of reaching Lv 15, and there's no way to add one of those traits that I could find. (The only weapon with both is, a bit cheesily, the dwarven scattergun.)
• So, just looking at the above, we've got a very slight physically defensive throughline, and a few tactically defensive options which sometimes require good Athletics, though there's no emphasis on melee weapons, unlike Drifter. The Strength/Dexterity suggestion in gun sword's description probably comes minorly from Bulk, and mostly from the Athletics that Vanguard gives and sort of incentivizes, and much later on will greatly incentivize if Blast Tackle is your thing. And that guidance from gun sword's description is kind of important, because...
★What Vanguard Doesn't Have★
• There's no sample build. It's the only Way to lack one. Sample builds are very thin, but they're still helpful to get the base expectations across for new players, and (in this case) for an experienced player who isn't quite sure what's expected to start with, given the slightly disjointed mechanics.
• There's not much support for Athletics options or a shield. As noted above, most of the features and feats require or incentivize a two-handed gun (very preferably with scatter or kickback, or parry to mix with Defensive Armaments if you don't like Siegebreaker; the only gun with parry lacks the other two). You could stick to Living Fortification, Spinning Crush, Blast Tackle and Siegebreaker with a dragon mouth pistol or spoon gun...but though it seems like a surprisingly good option, the sheer specificity of this suggests it's not really the intention. So you'll usually be left with Strike + Shove/Reload, or just Shove/Reload, or (Athletics Action) + Regrip, until Blast Tackle also gives you a cool way to Grapple at Lv 14 (assuming you take it). There are no maneuver traits on any of the applicable weapons.
• It's not clear what the bulk of your gameplay should be. Every significant Vanguard thing except for Phalanx Breaker requires being adjacent to an enemy, but again, there's no support for melee weapons, unlike Drifter, though you can throw on a bayonet or reinforced stock if you're using a normal gun. Every option either shoves enemies away from you or kind of sticks you to them, but when you don't have those options or aren't in melee, there's no obvious thing you're incentivized to do, the way Drifters are told to throw out melee attacks with impunity but stay mobile, Pistoleros have to stay close to Demoralize or use tricks to land big shots, Snipers sneak and position for different big shots, and Spellshots Recall Knowledge and target weaknesses. You can shove people into position, or shove them away, but there's nothing else drawing you into melee. So I guess you just shoot normally?
There's a conclusion to that, I suppose. Vanguard probably wants some Strength for maneuvers, when they're helpful/are eventually unlocked/are worth having to regrip and being unable to attack until then. But mostly they just shoot with big guns and retaliate if anyone struts up to them, as far as I can tell. That or they pick up Stab and Blast at Lv 8 to earn an incentive for melee. And that's only half of the story — gun swords are good for Vanguards, remember? Or at least can be leveraged well by them. This was even supported a little by Michael Sayre in pre-release chatter. And that is a whole different can of worms, it turns out.
★What Combination Weapons Offer★
There's a nice mathy notion of coolness and crit versatility potentially outweighing the low damage here, in a random Reddit comment section, but I'll mostly be speaking on the generalities.
• Easier swapping between weapons. Yes, it's an action each time, which is inferior to just having an (admittedly quite weak) attached weapon on your weapon or pulling out and dropping a backup weapon...if you use one-handed weapons and only need that backup once, anyway. No easy take-backs if you leave a dropped weapon behind, and no quicker action economy if you're using a two-handed weapon. One action to swap back and forth is more attractive in those contexts, and Vanguard does ask for two-handed weapons.
• They save some money. No, seriously. Money for runes seems trivial from a theorycrafting perspective, until you're doing something goofy like two pistols with two bayonets and suddenly you're expecting to take a whole level or two to get everything up to par. Even blazons or just investing in a backup weapon normally are a pretty penny early on.
• As previously mentioned, the melee usages have versatility in their critical specialization, essentially getting the pick (extra damage) or firearm (save for Stunned) effects as alternate options which require firing the gun. Don't need to cause someone to be flat-footed, or shove, or whatever it is your weapon group does? Just use one of those instead! The firearm effect in particular is pretty darn good.
• They have that thing where you can make a ranged Strike on an enemy after hitting them with a melee Strike, without switching. This is by default pointless, except for style — the ranged attack will usually deal less damage and trigger many types of reactions if they're around. However, one specific combination weapon has scatter if you want to give a quick boop to nearby enemies (especially swarms), you can make use of previously loaded special ammunition, and in the case of Vanguard specifically, this lets you Strike + Strike-5 + Shove-5 in the melee configuration...if your GM is generous with readings. And the previously mentioned versatility could be more flexibly replicated with the Drifter setup of two one-handed weapons and perhaps a 1st-level Gunslinger feat, both of these points being a little relevant, because...
★What Combination Weapons Don't Offer★
(And vice-versa, on the part of Vanguard.)
• Not much power. Either in traits or in damage dice. It varies by weapon, and a few have traits that are usually only for martial weapons to better replicate their inspirations, but in general, each component of a combination weapon is about on par with a simple weapon, being one die size weaker than normal or having fewer traits. Credit where credit is due, however: the gun component of the gun sword holds up better than most if you have high Strength, though it's still a die size lower than the original harmona gun. The melee component is a two-handed longsword.
• Clarity and explicit compatibility is a little lacking. At least, some people aren't sure about what exactly "usages" means in niche situations, whether you can reload when using the melee version, whether you can decide the form when you pull out or pick up the weapon, etc. Perhaps most notably, whether you need to be in any particular form to use Stab and Blast, though the requirement doesn't suggest this. A GM kind enough to fudge around requirements such as Clear a Path to allow the sequence mentioned earlier, or even say you're technically wielding a firearm in the melee configuration for other feats, make such a weapon legitimately much more versatile and useful.
• There's no particular help against reactions. Again, ranged attacks and manipulate actions such as reloading both trigger reactions that follow Attack of Opportunity's vibe, so it would be nice if a Way which encourages being in melee range helped with this. Drifter can get Sword and Pistol for at least attacks (the release version no longer being compatible with any other weapon setup), but the best Vanguard can get is spending an action to parry, and combination weapons do nothing to change this, as it's Interact to switch usages. You still want Running Reload to Step, or something.
• Perhaps most damningly, critical specialization for the melee weapon groups isn't offered by Gunslinger at all. So that whole thing about Critical Fusion being a benefit doesn't apply, as far as I can tell, since it replaces that effect — unless you finagle a way to gain access from out-of-class things like Mauler (which offers no extra proficiency, because Singular Expertise).
At a base level, the gun sword offers an okay melee weapon you can switch to and from, which uses your gun's runes, and if your GM is cool you can chain a melee Strike into a ranged Strike into a Shove into a Reload, rather than just start with the ranged Strike. But since its main other benefit is lost on Gunslingers, melee strikes will always be at a lower proficiency than ranged ones, Vanguard itself offers almost nothing to melee Strikes in particular, and it's unclear if you can use most any of Gunslinger's affairs in the melee usage, I fail to see how Vanguards can usefully leverage a gun sword compared to an attached weapon.
So, my questions are such:
★ During development, were combination weapons once set up in such a way as to offer more synergy to a Vanguard, or more advantages in general?
★ Alternatively, was Vanguard once set up in such a way that combination weapons would be more helpful? Perhaps I'm misreading or overlooking something?
★ What exactly is the default/expected stat build and playstyle of Vanguard? Did I hit the mark that it's Strength for Clear a Path/Blast Tackle, but mostly Dexterity for shooting, and getting into the thick of things just to stand, shoot, and push people around when they get close?
★ What do you think is the best way to use a gun sword or other combination weapons, as they are? What rulings/edits would you make for their use, if any?
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★ What exactly is the default/expected stat build and playstyle of Vanguard? Did I hit the mark that it's Strength for Clear a Path/Blast Tackle, but mostly Dexterity for shooting, and getting into the thick of things just to stand, shoot, and push people around when they get close?
Regarding expected builds, here's a Vanguard Gun Sword build posted by the developer:
And here's another Vanguard build by the developer (wielding a different weapon):
So my hunch is this is the sort of thing they had in mind.
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★ What do you think is the best way to use a gun sword or other combination weapons, as they are? What rulings/edits would you make for their use, if any?
Interesting question. Here's my 2 cents.
The gun part of the Gun Sword is pretty good -- it's basically a Harmona Gun (which is roughly tied with the Arquebus for the highest expected damage firearm) with one less die-size of damage (d8 instead of d10). That's just 1-4 points of expected damage (depending on the Striking Runes), which is a pretty small decrease.
The sword part of the Gun Sword is more "meh". If the gun part of the Gun Sword is one step down from the best 2-handed firearms, the sword part of the Gun Sword is two steps down. It's a decent fallback melee option for a character with high strength (or for someone with special abilities pertaining to combination weapons) but it's definitely a fallback option.
Putting that together, I think the Gun Sword is going to be best used by:
(1) a ranged weapon specialist (since that's the best part of the Gun Sword)
(2) who is going to be near enough to their targets to make melee engagement a possibility,
(3) who also has a reason to invest in Strength as their second-highest stat,
(4) and who has the ability to take advantage of special combination weapon properties.
The Vanguard Gunslinger satisfies (1)-(4) -- they're a gun specialist, they want to stay close to the action to use their melee-range special abilities, they want a high Str to do Athletics maneuvers, and they have access to Stab and Blast, which is pretty good. So they're one optimal user.
The Fighter can also satisfy (1)-(4) -- they can specialize in guns, pick up some of the sweet melee abilities to keep melee an attractive option, and still want a high Str to use some of these nice melee abilities. They can also use the critical fusion ability of the sword without having to take an archetype or anything.
So it looks to me like those are the two prime contenders for best Gun Sword users.
Now, whether a Gun Sword is a better option than (say) a Harmona Gun with a bayonet is harder question. The latter is a slightly better ranged weapon, but (arguably) a slightly worse melee option (d4 instead of d8). That said, it's not clear the Gun Sword's melee advantage is that big - the Bayonet is finesse, which will give you a bit of a to-hit boost for half of your career, and the Bayonet allows you to switch from ranged to melee options without having to spend actions, or potentially triggering AOOs. All-things-considered, I'd probably favor the Harmona Gun+Bayonet option, but it's not an obvious call.
As far as alterations go, I'd be tempted to allow combination weapons to switch between melee and ranged uses as a free action instead of an Interact action. This would make the Gun Sword a firmly better melee option relative to the Harmona Gun+Bayonet, to balance off the fact that the Harmona Gun+Bayonet is a firmly better ranged option. But that's not to say it's clearly imbalanced as is.
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I actually think that combination firearms can be pretty decent weapons for Precision Rangers who intend to use the good ol’ switch-hit style. In addition to your subclass supporting the “one attack per round” paradigm of P2e guns, you also can get running reload from your class, which is a very good feat for someone using a reload weapon to have.
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I feel like the premiere Vanguard setup probably leans on that Dwarven Scattergun. It hits hard, kickback justifies the strength you're investing for Shove and it enables your abilities. The only downside is that you're going to ping yourself with your own scatter property.
I like the developer idea of using a mount to give you more mobility and increase the effective size of spinning crush though.
I'm surprised there isn't an option for drifters to be able to switch as a free action. Combination weapons feel tailor-made for them, until that Interact action crops up and you realize you can't use them with your slinger's reload.
TBH before the book I figured combination weapon Drifter made a ton of sense, but their mechanics really don't work together at all. You can't even use stuff like Reloading Strike with one. And as pointed out, critical fusion doesn't do anything for you anyways as a gunslinger.
IDK as written right now I feel like the Gun Sword compares pretty unfavorably to just a regular gun with a Stock. You lose a die size on your melee weapon, but an arquebus gets triple the range and fatal (harmona gun also has triple the range and a die size), the stock has finesse and you don't have to spend an action changing modes.
The only real upshot for the combination weapon there is that you don't have to buy blazons.