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I'm frustrated. I get a lot of cool ideas for gunslinging characters in Alkenstar, and almost every time I try to build them, I find that they require one thing to be remotely functional in 2e's action economy: the air repeater. Almost any optimization guide I see that involves firearms in the game somehow states that the air repeater is honestly the only gun worth considering because you can shoot multiple times before reloading.
That's all fine and dandy, I guess. I'd LIKE combination weapons to suck less, but I'm willing to pay extra for double runes on an air repeater with a bayonet. But if I'm playing such a character in Alkenstar, there's a problem: air repeaters are explicitly stated in the text to be exclusive to Arcadia. This means a character using them in Alkenstar somehow knows about Arcadia and has the likely massive amounts of money to import one and get it all the way across the world without getting lost or stolen on the way, or they're from Arcadia themselves, somehow know about Alkenstar, and have the likely massive amounts of money to travel all the way across the world for SOME reason, and then they have no ties to Alkenstar that would make them want to adventure there and get involved in its problems rather than just moving on to some other place. And either way, the ammunition air repeaters require simply wouldn't be manufactured there, so they'd have to spend even MORE money finding a means to produce it themselves to keep themselves armed throughout their adventuring career! For an AP like Outlaws of Alkenstar that assumes the characters are locals forced into poverty and desperation by scheming power-brokers in the city, this is obviously a non-starter.
Air repeaters are not the only gun worth using, although they definitely have their advantages.
Additionally, they're only uncommon. Which means harder to get than normal, but not impossible. Spend some downtime looking for one. Talk to your GM. Unless your GM just doesn't want you to have one but that'd be more on them than anything else.
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You're not that far from Absalom, whose markets absolutely boast Arcadian goods and weapons - Grand Bazaar had some, I believe!
I also wouldn't put too much stock in what the obsessive optimization crowd says; many of them act like anything that isn't a Human Flickmace Fighter is unplayable.
There's a reason why the strongest gunslinger is paired shots with repeating crossbows man. Even beyond the obvious action economy improvements, always having fake out available is great for team support and the damage is higher than trying to crit fish.
As for access to the basic air repeater, the gunslinger class by itself grants access. The paragraph about being from Arcadia is just for non-gunslingers as far as I know. If you aren't playing one but still want one as a side arm, just let a gunslinger buy one for you.
As far as I know, the best way to use a regular gun is to grab a gunners bandolier and use risky reload until you jam your gun. Then, instead of clearing the jam and reloading, you just drop it and pull another from the bandolier.
As for access to the basic air repeater, the gunslinger class by itself grants access. The paragraph about being from Arcadia is just for non-gunslingers as far as I know. If you aren't playing one but still want one as a side arm, just let a gunslinger buy one for you.
I believe the question is about the lore, not mechanical Access.
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As for access to the basic air repeater, the gunslinger class by itself grants access. The paragraph about being from Arcadia is just for non-gunslingers as far as I know. If you aren't playing one but still want one as a side arm, just let a gunslinger buy one for you.I believe the question is about the lore, not mechanical Access.
Yep, that's correct. The tension between what's the most efficient way to build the character to survive and be useful to the party and roleplaying in the world the game's creators and GM have established while still getting to fulfill the vision I had for the character is the biggest source of frustration I have with 2e!
A significant portion of the gunslingers power budget is in their special reloads. Grab a fatal gun and go to town with it, you'll have more fun than just being an air repeater turret. The double barrel pistol with breach ejectors is a nice compromise if you really just don't like reloading.
The problem there is that a lot of the concepts I'm interested in aren't built from a Gunslinger chassis. They're things like Bullet Dancer Monks or Starlit Span Magi or Thaumaturges with maybe a Gunslinger dedication on the side.
I am currently playing a Starlit Magus with a gun (also picked up psychic powers through the mana wastes =^)) that is now level 7!
The character is using one hand for a Double-Barrled Pistol and one hand for a Staff of Divination, if you don't want to use a 1h weapon the Double-Barrled Musket is also fine.
The way it plays is that you open up with a powerful turn (my fav is true strike + focus spell), then next turn you can recharge + spellstrike again without reloading. Drop the staff when you need to reload and pick it up at the end of the fight.
You can also not use true strike and then you get an extra turn of spellstriking (t1 recharge, t2 reload, t3 recharge).
If the fight is taking a long time I like to weave in actions like recharging with a spell or a cantrip or I can just take a single down turn to get my stuff back up again.
It is a bit janky but works decently well in my opinion and I am having a lot of fun with it.