They really nerfed guns from 1st edition


Rules Discussion

51 to 100 of 151 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | next > last >>

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Kasoh wrote:
DoubleGold wrote:
Ravingdork wrote:
QuidEst wrote:

Guns kinda sucked for GMs in PF1. Want to throw... say, an adult red dragon at the party? Well, hitting touch AC drops them from twenty-nine to eight. They have spell resistance so that spells resolving against touch AC isn't an issue, but guns just ignore that. I'm glad that mess is gone- it was so bad that one of the player books actually included a spell for GMs to give dragons to deal with gunslingers.

Very little in PF1's narrative reflected how guns completely ignored natural armor and worn armor- most of the AC for anything larger than medium. Gunslingers weren't described as taking down huge beasts or being sought out to deal with them in particular.

But if you want to simulate the feel of a PF1 guns, you just need to houserule that they don't roll attacks against huge or bigger creatures, and just automatically hit instead.

My 1e players cried as the gunslinger single-handedly took out the cannon golem in the first round.

Bored to tears that is.

The only good thing about 1e gunslinger is that it drove my players to 2nd edition.

A Cannon Golem has 140 HP. Even with 3 crits and a +2 pepperbox that is 4d8+8. Even with max damage that is 40 damage each shot for 120 damage. How did he do that?

In PF1, a its not hard for a Longbow Archer to deal 140 points of damage in a single round. And a Longbow Critical is x3, which isn't that much less than a Musket's x4.

Gunslingers just rarely miss.

Dude was making TOUCH ATTACKS against a GOLEM. He made like a half dozen attacks or something like that with duel-wielding. Due to the low touch AC and high base attack, he wasn't at all concerned about all the penalties. Pretty much all of them landed.

EDIT: Found a copy of the gunslinger's old character sheet.

+1 pepperbox pistol +24/+19/+14 touch (1d8+10/×4) or
+1 pepperbox pistol +20/+15/+10 touch (1d8+18/×4) with Deadly Aim, or
+1 pepperbox pistol +22/+22/+17/+12 touch (1d8+10/×4) with Rapid Shot, or
dual +1 pepperbox pistols +20/+19/+15/+10 touch (1d8+10/×4) with Two-Weapon Fighting, or
dual +1 pepperbox pistols +16/+15/+11/+6 touch (1d8+18/×4) with Two-Weapon Fighting and Deadly Aim
dual +1 pepperbox pistols +18/+18/+17/+13/+8 touch (1d8+10/×4) with Two-Weapon Fighting and Rapid Shot
dual +1 pepperbox pistols +14/+14/+13/+9/+4 touch (1d8+18/×4) with Two-Weapon Fighting, Deadly Aim, and Rapid Shot

Feats Clustered Shots, Deadly Aim (–4 attack, +8 damage), Extra Grit, Gunsmithing, Point Blank Master (pepperbox pistol), Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Reload, Rapid Shot, Swift Iron Style, Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Finesse (light or one-handed piercing weapons only), Weapon Focus (pepperbox pistol), Weapon Specialization (pepperbox pistol)

All landed and I think he even had a crit or two if I recall. Thanks to clustered shots, he basically got to ignore DR.

1d8+18 (avg 22.5) x 5 = 180. More than enough to one round the golem.

He only needed roll at least a 2, 2, 3, 7, and 12 to land all of them. Easy peesy.

Granted, I think he was a level or two lower at the time of the fight then the 14th-level stats here would indicate, but still well within the realm of likely possibility.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Ravingdork wrote:
Dude was making TOUCH ATTACKS against a GOLEM. He made like a half dozen attacks or something like that with duel-wielding. Due to the low touch AC and high base attack, he wasn't at all concerned about all the penalties. Pretty much all of them landed.

Sure. And an archer could probably one round a golem too. A melee martial character with a full round attack can one round a golem.

I guess I don't see what the big deal is. That kind of damage is why you bring a full Bab character.

Dark Archive

5 people marked this as a favorite.

Personally, I don't mind that guns had to be re-balanced for a new system as a general principle, but I don't game designers did it well. Fundamentally, the way three key gun traits interact with the 3 action economy are the biggest issues. Those key traits are reloading, repeating, and capacity.

Reloading The reload trait has not been properly balanced against the opportunity cost of the extra action. Not only that but all of the reload + 1 actions feats don't feel great and relegate the gunslinger to more of a support class than actual damage dealing martial. It also over complicates booking keeping because you have to be constantly worried about whether you have a bullet in a gun during and in-between turns to enable certain feats to work (a bad kind of 'mini-game').

The gunslinger, at least, should have had baked into their class abilities a free action reload per turn or some action economy booster that didn't define how they had to spend that action. The way special reloads attempt to do this, but force you to do things you might not want to do like move from the one safe square into a river of lava, recall knowledge for the 10th round, hide when there is no where to hide, etc. Just give the gunslinger the once per turn free action reload and still keep all those action economy boosters as well as feats. The fact that no one, even the gunslinger, can 'shoot' three times a round with one gun (e.g., fire, free action reload, fire, and risky reload) is suffocating as a design choice and means you can't compete on a DPR worksheet vs. other martials that don't have to 'reload' their weapon.

Repeating: A shortbow is a martial weapon with 1D6, propulsive, deadly d10, but a repeating crossbow is an advanced martial weapon with 1d8 AND I still have to reload the damn thing after 5 shots. They clearly aren't balanced. Even the shortbow is 1h+ so you could easily pull out a potion or w/e without have to interact with the ungrip-grip rules and waste even more actions. Can someone explain why they are so unbalanced in a game that prides itself on balance?

Capacity:: The capacity trait is another poorly designed trait that breaks immersion. Somehow it takes me an action to fully reload a musket, but a quick flick of my wrist to rotate a barrel on a pepper box, or shift my arm 1 inch to 're-aim with a new barrel' on the slide pistol also requires me to take the same reload action?

Both traits get punished further because now the 'capacity/repeating' traits also suddenly make the guns too bulky to fit into a gunner's bandoleer. Why? Just make the pockets bigger or extra dimensional! Its a high magic setting!

Even the one archetype that tries to make some ground on repeating crossbows didn't have a crossbow terror type feat added to it to boost damage.

Everything points to game designers making a focused effort to make guns and crossbows worse in how they play out in the 3 action economy. We didn't need an over correct, we needed a balanced equivalent option.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Kasoh wrote:

Sure. And an archer could probably one round a golem too. A melee martial character with a full round attack can one round a golem.

I guess I don't see what the big deal is.

It is because the firearms hit against touch AC instead of full AC.

So yes, the damage is in-line with other character types, but the accuracy and probability of doing it is much, much higher for the Gunslinger.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

I'm happy with what Michael has said on the subject of firearm balance a while back. The main issue just remains that it's tough for classes that aren't gunslinger to work with them without archetyping.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

And touch AC being so dependent on size really distorted encounter balance. A gunslinger might perform comparably to an archer against bandits, but would absolutely shatter the curve against giants. Alchemists had the same problem with bombs. You don't want classes or weapons which mean you need to throw out half the bestiary.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Red Griffyn wrote:
Reloading The reload trait has not been properly balanced against the opportunity cost of the extra action.

I see that one differently. I see it as that the standard for a ranged attack is two actions. Nearly all of the damage dealing spells are at least that much - at least for their initial casting time. Thrown 'Reload - ' weapons take two actions; one to draw and one to Strike. Crossbows, slings, firearms, and other 'Reload 1' weapons take two actions to load and Strike.

It is just bows, a few select spells, and a small number of thrown weapons with 'Reload 0' that you can make three ranged attacks per round with.

So if anything is unbalanced it is that bows are overpowered. Not that firearms are underpowered.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
breithauptclan wrote:
Red Griffyn wrote:
Reloading The reload trait has not been properly balanced against the opportunity cost of the extra action.

I see that one differently. I see it as that the standard for a ranged attack is two actions. Nearly all of the damage dealing spells are at least that much - at least for their initial casting time. Thrown 'Reload - ' weapons take two actions; one to draw and one to Strike. Crossbows, slings, firearms, and other 'Reload 1' weapons take two actions to load and Strike.

It is just bows, a few select spells, and a small number of thrown weapons with 'Reload 0' that you can make three ranged attacks per round with.

So if anything is unbalanced it is that bows are overpowered. Not that firearms are underpowered.

Pretty much this. Bows are the exception and overtuned by design. Your point about thrown weapons is only really relevant for level 1 and 2 though. Returning makes them work like bows soon enough. The real limiting factor is their small range and -1 property runes.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Red Griffyn wrote:
Can someone explain why they are so unbalanced in a game that prides itself on balance?

We actually had a developer chime in on this a while back. The answer is that ranged weapons aren't balanced on purpose.


Yeah, the shortbow specifically is apparently intentionally overtuned.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

8 people marked this as a favorite.
Squiggit wrote:
Red Griffyn wrote:
Can someone explain why they are so unbalanced in a game that prides itself on balance?
We actually had a developer chime in on this a while back. The answer is that ranged weapons aren't balanced on purpose.

Even with composite bows being a bit overtuned, they're not actually particularly stronger than equivalent guns, they're just much easier to achieve optimal performance with.

A big thing to keep in mind with the gunslinger specifically is that accuracy is damage and an often overlooked element of the gunslinger is that they get certain things that are incredibly rare to nonexistent on the fighter- additional accuracy boosts and damage adds. Take a sniper with an arquebus vs. a fighter with a composite shortbow (stronger than or equivalent to a longbow with PBS until about 12th level), for example.

Sniper (Level 2)
To-Hit: +10 (+4 expert +2 level +4 Dex)
Avg. Damage [1st attack, success] : 10 (1d8 damage die +1 singular expertise +1 kickback +1d6 precision)
Avg. Damage [1st round, crit success] : 30.5 ([1d12+1+1+1d6]x2+1d12)
Avg. Damage [2nd attack, any round] : 4.875 (6.5 x .75)
Avg. Damage [1st attack, subsequent rounds] : 6.5 (1d8+1+1)
Avg. Damage [1st attack, subsequent rounds, crit] : 23.5 ([1d12+1+1]x2+1d12)

Fighter (Level 2)
To-Hit: +10 (+4 expert +2 level +4 Dex)
Avg. Damage [1st attack, success] : 6.5 (1d6 damage die +1 propulsive +2 PBS)
Avg. Damage [1st attack, crit success] : 18.5 ([6.5*2]+5.5)
Avg. Damage [2nd attack] : 4.875 (6.5 x .75)
Avg. Damage [3rd attack] : 3.25 (6.5 x .5)

***

So before getting into monster defenses and whatnot we can see that the base starting point here is that if the sniper crits on their opening attack (which, unlike the fighter, they get extra skills and abilities to do effectively; you can build a stealthy fighter but you're spending out-of-class resources on that so that leads down the rabbit hole of what the sniper is spending the same resources on) it will take the fighter a crit, a second attack, and two tertiary attacks to catch up on the damage front. The fighter also needs to spend an action to enter Point-Blank Shot and could need to spend an action to draw a bow. So off a single crit from the gunslinger with an arquebus (which by default is more likely to happen than the fighter critting), the composite shortbow fighter is already 5-6 actions in the hole; we'll call it 5 since bows are 1+ and he should be able to have it in hand under most circumstances.

So, then, let's look at the basic action economy of this over the course of a 3-round fight, assuming the ranged character gets to shoot all-out.

Sniper (Level 2)

Round 1) Free action draw weapon > Cover Fire + OSOK > Covered Reload > Strike
Round 2) Risky Reload > Covered Reload > Cover Fire
Round 3) Risky Reload > Covered Reload> Cover Fire

Fighter (Level 2)

Round 1) Enter PBS Stance > Strike > Assisting Shot
Round 2) Strike > Assisting Shot > Assisting Shot
Round 3) Strike > Assisting Shot > Assisting Shot

So the sniper only has a two action "deficit" compared to the fighter, where over the course of the whole combat, instead of attacking they reloaded and got either a +2 to AC and Reflex saves or imposed a -2 penalty to the target's AC against the sniper's next attack (which compounds nicely with the +1 from Cover Fire if you're targeting something capable of fighting back at range).

The fighter is unlikely to make up the damage from a single arquebus crit in this fight, unless there are enough lower level enemies that you can safely remove or shift the MAP adjustments from the secondary and tertiary attacks. He does fill in as a stronger supporter at this level thanks to Assisting Shot and may be able to make up the damage another way by flipping some of his allies' misses into hits and hits into crits.

Most of this is because of the fatal trait. Fatal consistently out-damages deadly across all levels of the game (pretty much the only weapon that would be stronger with deadly than fatal is the greatpick, which doesn't have the full two steps between base die and fatal die since it's already starting with a d10), but it's designed to trickle off slowly as greater and major striking runes come in and PCs find themselves with broader toolboxes. On a ranged weapon, a fatal crit is worth almost two full rounds of attacks from an equivalent non-fatal weapon at 1st level, which ticks its way down to one round, then one primary attack, then one secondary attack, before it finally settles at giving extra damage equal to about the MAP-adjusted average of one standard tertiary attack at the highest levels where the tools for getting the most out of reload weapons are pretty numerous and widespread, guns are getting the hard action economy denial of their crit spec instead of the softer action limitations of the bow crit spec, etc.

Non-gunslingers will have a harder time optimizing guns, and that's appropriate for a setting where guns are relatively uncommon and at a unique stage of technological development. A low-Strength spellcaster with a shield who uses true strike on the one actual weapon Strike they make in a given combat might find that one of the one-handed guns suits them better than a bow, while a flurry ranger does and should prefer a bow in most instances.


A High level gunslinger can have that bullet barrage fantasy with the right tools. A couple of double barrel pistols, two weapon fusillade, thaumaturge ammunition, and breach ejectors is making a lot of attacks. Only annoying thing is thaumaturge ammunition. Stinks that dual weapon reload must replace any other special reloads.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Red Griffyn wrote:
Personally, I don't mind that guns had to be re-balanced for a new system as a general principle, but I don't game designers did it well. Fundamentally, the way three key gun traits interact with the 3 action economy are the biggest issues. Those key traits are reloading, repeating, and capacity.

The Paizo designers did make different choices for the firearms than I would have made.

The article Loading and Firing a Brown Bess Musket in the Eighteenth Century said, "After the first volley, troops usually took from twenty to thirty seconds to reload." And the Pathfinder firearms are based on earlier technology that the 18th century. So realistically, reloading a musket would take four turns. That's turns not actions. That is not feasible for Pathfinder combat, so they had to bend reality.

Three actions to reload would either led to dead actions after a Strike if all three reload actions had to be performed during the same turn, or risk confusion about the number already taken if the three actions could be split between two turns. Thus, the upper limit for a practical Interact to Reload is two actions.

However, if regular firing of a firearm took three actions--two to reload and one to Strike--then a martial firearm ought to deal the same damage as Striking with a shortbow three times. Due to deadly d10 and the multiple attack penalty, that is not 3d6.

The shortbow deals 1d6 plus has deadly 1d10, so its average damage on three consecutive Strikes, assuming 55% initial hit chance, would be (0.5+0.25+0)(3.5) + (0.05+0.05+0.05)(2×3.5 + 5.5) = 4.5 damage. If a firearm's weapon dice average were A, with fatal A+2, we would want (0.5)(A)+(0.05)(3)(A+2) = 4.5, so (0.65)(A) + 0.3 = 4.5 and A = 6.46, which is 1d12 with fatal 1d16.

Paizo instead went with Reload 1. The same math is that two consecutive Strikes with a shortbow, still assuming 55% initial hit chance, would be (0.5+0.25)(3.5) + (0.05+0.05)(2×3.5 + 5.5) = 3.875 damage. If a martial Reload 1 firearm's weapon dice average were B, with fatal B+2, we would want (0.5+ (1/2)(0.25))(B)+(0.05+(1/2)(0.05))(3)BA+2) = 3.875, so (0.7)(B) + 0.45 = 3.875 and B = 4.89, which is 1d8 with fatal 1d12. That is manageable with standard dice. The arquebus and jezail use those dice sizes.

I suspect that Reload 1 is a lot more popular that Reload 2 would have been. But it is far from realistic.

Red Griffyn wrote:
Capacity:: The capacity trait is another poorly designed trait that breaks immersion. Somehow it takes me an action to fully reload a musket, but a quick flick of my wrist to rotate a barrel on a pepper box, or shift my arm 1 inch to 're-aim with a new barrel' on the slide pistol also requires me to take the same reload action?

Paizo shrunk the 20-second loading of a musket down to one Interact action to reload for playability. Capacity ran into the opposite problem. Unless the designers could justify switching the barrel as a free action, reaction, or part of another action, then the minimum number of Interact actions to switch to another barrel is one. If they made the capacity switch a free action, then it would act like repeating rather than barrel switching. The only difference between Interact to reload and Interact to switch barrels is that the second one does not require accessible ammunition and a free hand. The designers had painted themselves into a corner with an effect that really required half an Interact action.

Well, the few weapons with capacity (Archives of Nethys lists Mace Multipistol, Pepperbox, and Slide Pistol) are easy to ignore.

Another odd decision was to make muskets, arquebuses, and other long-barreled firearms require a full two hands. Yet the game already has 1+ hands for bows, where they are carried in one hand but shot with two without requiring an extra Interact action to regrip them. Why don't the muskets get the same privilege?

Red Griffyn wrote:
Not only that but all of the reload + 1 actions feats don't feel great and relegate the gunslinger to more of a support class than actual damage dealing martial.

Hey, Boffin and Val made great gunslinging support characters in my PF1 Iron Gods campaign. Boffin's battlefield control with a technological autograpnel and signature Targeting deed made the team win. And when Val needed to deal heavy damage, she bloodraged and swung her sword. She often fought like a classic 18th-century pirate: shoot at range and then tuck the pistol away and attack with her sword.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

7 people marked this as a favorite.
Mathmuse wrote:
The article Loading and Firing a Brown Bess Musket in the Eighteenth Century said, "After the first volley, troops usually took from twenty to thirty seconds to reload." And the Pathfinder firearms are based on earlier technology that the 18th century. So realistically, reloading a musket would take four turns. That's turns not actions. That is not feasible for Pathfinder combat, so they had to bend reality.

We talk about this quite a bit in Guns & Gears, but one of the assumptions we brought into firearm design for PF2 was the idea that due to apocalypses, magic, and a variety of other factors, Golarion technology tends to go much wider into techniques that were basically discarded in the real world when a more efficient technology supplanted them. In the real world, there were a finite number of unrifled black powder breech-loaders, but the tech did overlap. In Golarion, the limitations on materials and information exchange meant that a significantly longer amount of time has been spent refining particular generations of technology that never got supplanted.

So while Golarion's black powder weapons don't have rifling or double-action tech, the long guns of Dongun Hold do have cartridge-based ammunition and breech-loaders. Breech loading a cartridge into a weapon is actually fairly similar in the amount of time and effort required to hand-rotate and re-aim an old-fashioned pepperbox. So, Golarion guns are similar to the M1819 Hall rifle, which could be repeat fired at over twice the speed of a muzzle-loading rifle of the time. Knowing we'd be using breech-loaders as the baseline, that led us to locking in the three reloading styles.

Breech-loaders: your standard 1 action reload base

Capacity: 1 action reload, doesn't require a free hand as long as there's a loaded barrel

Repeating: Multiple shots with 3-action cartridge swap

Breech-loaders are the "primary shootist" weapons, capacity are the "sword and pistol" weapons, and repeating weapons are the "lower damage, smoother curve" option.

Mathmuse wrote:


Another odd decision was to make muskets, arquebuses, and other long-barreled firearms require a full two hands. Yet the game already has 1+ hands for bows, where they are carried in one hand but shot with two without requiring an extra Interact action to regrip them. Why don't the muskets get the same privilege?

Several reasons.

1) Muskets are a fatal d10 simple weapon that deals concussive damage, there's not enough light between that and martial to give back a hand.
2) Bows are relatively very light and can be raised, loaded, and aimed as part of a single, smooth set of linked movements. Black powder long guns are front-heavy, unbalanced, and take notably longer to regrip, cradle, and aim when moving from holding them in one hand to actually firing them.
3) Muzzle safety and trigger awareness. Seriously. IRL anyone with experience with any kind of long gun knows that you always keep two hands on your gun and your finger off the trigger so you have control of the weapon at all times. That's with modern guns that are significantly less likely to misfire, are generally better engineered to disperse kickback, and have built-in safeties.
4) Making it 1+, a ranged-only quality, would have significantly complicated the simple fantasy of cracking someone across the jaw two-handed with a reinforced stock.


There is one confusing thing about the tech that remains for me. The artwork for outlaws of alkenstar has a lot of firearms that look a lot more modern. Like some pump action ones and magazines and such.


I imagine all that's taking guns to totally break the game balance curve is "several leaps in technology". So the sorts of guns they have in Alkenstar that are unique or experimental pieces might have modern innovations. It's just that these aren't things you'd make available to player characters without a quest attached.

I would relish the opportunity to play a weapon Inventor whose innovation is a gun who develops things like rifling and lever action in their one-of-a-kind experimental gun that works only for them. Hopefully there are more weapon innovations coming somewhere.


PossibleCabbage wrote:

I imagine all that's taking guns to totally break the game balance curve is "several leaps in technology". So the sorts of guns they have in Alkenstar that are unique or experimental pieces might have modern innovations. It's just that these aren't things you'd make available to player characters without a quest attached.

I would relish the opportunity to play a weapon Inventor whose innovation is a gun who develops things like rifling and lever action in their one-of-a-kind experimental gun that works only for them. Hopefully there are more weapon innovations coming somewhere.

Yeah, probably. Weapon inventor with a long air repeater might as well make it a lever action.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Michael Sayre wrote:
Breech-loaders are the "primary shootist" weapons, capacity are the "sword and pistol" weapons, and repeating weapons are the "lower damage, smoother curve" option.

That is fascinating design.

My GMPC Val Baine was a sword and pistol fighter, a PF1 bloodrager with a homebrew adaption of the Savage Technologist barbarian archetype that was designed for sword and pistol fighting. Thus, I later joined in Paizo forum discussions about sword-and-gun style, such as January 2017 Savage Technologist? and June 2019 Savage Technologist and Gunsmithing class choice [PFS].

But in looking those up, I also found May 2016 thread Firearms too strong. I was advocating sword and pistol in comment #36, but Micheal Sayre was also there, posting comment #10, comment #15, comment #33, and comment #37.

Michael Sayre has been deep thinking about Pathfinder firearms for a long time.

In that thread of yesteryear, he said, "We've had a couple Gunslingers who went the sword and pistol route that turned out pretty well, primarily using their pistol hand for debuffing, AoE, etc. and serving as the party front-liner with great efficiency." I remember a lot more people talking about the Rapid Reload + Musket Master builds in PF1. How popular have sword-and-pistol characters become in PF2?

Paizo Employee Design Manager

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Mathmuse wrote:
How popular have sword-and-pistol characters become in PF2?

One of the interesting things about the playtest was that we had an almost perfectly even divide of feedback between the people who played the playtest ways (drifter, pistolero, and sniper). Like "each of the three was played by right around 30%+ of class playtest respondents" even. That was already kind of unusual because there's typically always a favorite subpath. Since then, what I've heard from PFS stats and seen anecdotally is still a pretty even distribution of builds and discussion around the (now 5) paths. My educated guess would be that gunslinger play across the playerbase is still pretty evenly divided between the subpaths with drifter and sniper maybe having slight popularity edges (and triggerbrand being the least played by a larger margin just because it hasn't been out very long), which would mean sword and pistol builds are probably a fair bit more popular in PF2 than in PF1.


I'm trying a triggerbrand out myself in a Kingmaker game, though I actually haven't gotten to use my triggerbrand-y features much yet given a fairly frontline-heavy party, lack of ready ammunition, and every baddy wielding a crossbow.

Dark Archive

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Michael Sayre wrote:
Squiggit wrote:
Red Griffyn wrote:
Can someone explain why they are so unbalanced in a game that prides itself on balance?
We actually had a developer chime in on this a while back. The answer is that ranged weapons aren't balanced on purpose.

...

So before getting into monster defenses and whatnot we can see that the base starting point here is that if the sniper crits on their opening attack (which, unlike the fighter, they get extra skills and abilities to do effectively; you can build a stealthy fighter but you're spending out-of-class resources on that so that leads down the rabbit hole of what the sniper is spending the same resources on) it will take the fighter a crit, a second attack, and two tertiary attacks to catch up on the damage front. The fighter also needs to spend an action to enter Point-Blank Shot and could need to spend an action to draw a bow. So off a single crit from the gunslinger with an arquebus (which by default is more likely to happen than the fighter critting), the composite shortbow fighter is already 5-6 actions in the hole; we'll call it 5 since bows are 1+ and he should be able to have it in hand under most circumstances.

So, then, let's look at the basic action economy of this over the course of a 3-round fight, assuming the ranged character gets to shoot all-out.

I don't agree with your analysis here:

1.) There is no 'accuracy' exchange between a ranged fighter and a gunslinger. Even the sniper, which gives you an take cover or hide + reload way option doesn't guarantee that you are hidden with any relative level of ease. Cover doesn't make the enemy flatfooted, so to get flatfooted you need to take cover/have cover then hide which is an additional action every turn you have to use so you can't fire twice in a round. If you have cover to them they also have cover to you, so unless you're spending two actions on incredible aim, its a wash with being flatfooted on your first no MAP attack using risky reload 'if' you were able to hide on your covered reload AND you were successful in your stealth check to hide.

2.) You're using cover fire, which is basically a free +2 bonus to the enemies AC. Unless you're having a ranged battle exclusively, I would be surprised if anyone actually uses that feat.

3.) Its extremely rare to have to draw weapons in this game. I wouldn't say drawing a weapon as a free action is anything to add into the analysis.

4.) You're using risky reload on your first attack on round 2+ as a way to get two attacks per round. But that actually carries a significant risk of misfire which is another action in the hole for the gunslinger to clear the barrel. Using the general monster stats you need a 6-8 to hit a monster with your first gunslinger no map attack. So you should expect a 25-35% chance of misfiring to make you're optimal turn work. Across a ~5 round assuming a 30% miss chance in a combat with 4 uses you're looking at roughly a ~75% chance of misfiring. Its slightly worse than a loss of one action though because it interrupts the optimal routine. That turn you would risky reload, clear the barrel, and covered reload. Which means on subsequent turns you have shifted risky reload to your second strike at MAP-5 or you burned an action doing 'something else' and lose the cover/hide you're hoping to achieve, or just use a basic hide action so you can risky reload (eliminating any benefit of the way reload). In all cases you've lost an action and a second strike so that turn is essentially 0 DPR. That puts the gunslinger farther into the DPR hole. That exchange from optimal to sub-optimal 3 action routines is a fairly subtle nuance that will frustrate many players because the immediately obvious path (i.e., clear the gun and reload to get ready for next round) is actually the wrong path and will unknowingly set you up to misfire a second time since a MAP-5 strike will be 50-65% chance of misfire.

5.) The gunslinger requires all 3 actions to get 2 strikes. The archer doesn't. So anything that disrupts your attack routine and you lose you're second strike DPR, whereas the fighter loses their third strike DPR. If they simply got a free action reload instead of tieing it to a forced action type (recall knowledge, take cover/hide, stride, etc.) they'd be in a better place. GM tactics really can ruin the math of the gunslinger. A monster that moved so you don't have cover or aren't hidden, or hid from you shuts you down. But the archer's DPR doesn't rely on any of that and the loss of a third attack vs. a second attack puts the archer ahead.

6.) What 'stealth' skill bonuses are you talking about here? A fighter can invest in stealth the exact same way. As far as I can tell gunslingers don't get extra skill proficiency bumps or circumstance bonuses to take cover/stealth checks? If you have cover you get a +2 to stealth checks to hide, but then again you're taking a second action to hide when you have cover which loses you your second attack. Theres literally nothing preventing a fighter from hiding to improve a crit on their first strike with a bow. Obviously it won't be as good as a fatal die, but you can't just assume a white room analysis where the gunslinger permanently has cover and then gets to hide.

7.) The optimal fighter wouldn't be using assisting shot. They'd use the L1 feat exacting strike which means if you're second attack missed you're third attack is still at MAP-5, not MAP-10. That increases your DPR.

8.) By L14, PBS is free to enter at the start of combat with stance savant.

9.) The fighter can also pick up the Horngali Hornbow to improve DPR, whereas the Arquebus is the top line gun right now for DPR.

10.) The fighter can also MC into ranger to improve DPR with hunted shot as on followup turns they can fire 4 times or have more flexible 3 attack routines that include moving, demoralizing, battle medicine, etc. with the bow.

11.) There are other ancestry feats that open up increased static damage which will favour more strikes from a bow vs. fewer strikes from a gun. These are the L9/L13 +1 damage feats from versatile heritages or the skeleton bone missiles feat.

We can run this all through the community damage calculator to show the following key takeaways:

- In general there is an low level advantage for gunslingers wielding kickback weapons because they get +1-+2 static damage from L1-L5 over a bow wielder due to singular expertise, kickback, and the large bore modification. Interestingly that makes the gunslinger ahead at L4-L7 when the first striking rune comes online at L4, and large bore modification at L5. This is only true if we look at single turn outcomes until L8 when damage property runes come online. After L8 the bows pull away from the pack and are generally better. Until L8 the difference in DPR ranges from 1-4 between a comp shortbow and arquebus. The difference in DPR disappears if you use the horngali bow for single rounds in isolation from the total combat.

- After L8 the only time an Arquebus is ahead of the standard composite shortbow is if you assume the enemy is flatfooted for your first shot. That advantage disappears entirely as effective enemy AC goes down so any buffs to your 'to hit' or debuffs to enemy AC favours the bow. Conversely against higher AC targets the gun will perform relatively better. Keep in mind though that its highly suspect that you'll have an enemy flatfooted from 'hiding' so I would not consider this a reliable assumption that there is significant DPR to make up from the bow side.

- Under pretty much all other typical conditions the strike, certain strike, strike composite shortbow will be better than the arquebus even when you include fatal vs. deadly crit deviations.

- For a 5 round fight before L14 the fighter might lose a 3rd action DPR strike for PBS, but the gunslinger is likely to lose a second attack from a risky reload misfire and likely to another miss a second attack from any number of battlefield conditions that interrupt their optimal attack sequence. 1 third attack vs. 2xsecond attacks pulls the fighter ahead even for L1-L8 where they might appear to have less DPR in one round in isolation. The fighter can even mitigate that by MCing into ranger for off turn 4 attack turns to 'catch back up'. Another way to put this is there is a 75% chance of a misfire turn which would mean a lost 1st attack and second attack. If we just approximate the DPR loss as that outcome for all gunslinger issues (i.e., if multiple turns are interrupted) then that equates to roughly ~18-27 DPR from levels 4-7 where it is ahead. So for ~5 rounds at a DPR difference of 1-4 the shortbow is ~5-20 loss in DPR + another ~4 DPR loss from the PBS 3rd strike (so ~9-24). So from L4-7 once we throw in the first round D6 on the sniper you get pretty equivalent 5 round DPR. I'll admit that is a cool result I didn't expect.

- However, the arquebus is 'the best gun' in the hands of a sniper, 'the best gunslinger subclass for DPR'. If we look at any of the repeating weapons or capacity weapons the story gets way worse. The repeating weapons are 1D4/1D6/1D8 weapons with no deadly, propulsive, kickback, fatal, etc. traits. The capacity weapons are 1d4/fatal d8 or 1D6/fatal d10 which will be worse than 1d8/fatal d12/kickback from the arquebus. Its pretty clear these these are under tuned. In particular the repeating weapons have to shoot 3x per round to try and keep up, but every 5 shots you have to spend 3 actions to reload your clip and lose an entire turn of DPR.

-Folks keep saying the comp shortbow is 'overtuned' but I don't get that. I put in the greatsword fighter (the lines are only right for L10+), but they're doing close to double the DPR. Even if they spend 1-2 actions running into place the archer isn't going to catch them on DPR.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Comparing ranged and melee damage in a vaccum probably is not going to shine a light on the strength of a ranged build.

Ranged characters can engage fights on their own terms (a Ranger can start a fight 200 ft away without penalties with a longbow and 300ft away with an Arquebus), forcing enemies to close the distance to them.

They're also safer and less likely to take action penalties to Stand and pick up their weapon.

Ranged characters can also engage in kiting strategies much easier to completely shut down something with low speed (and many things have pretty low speed compared to a horse), or even attack from positions where they can't be targeted. Combining ranged damage with a spell like repulsion can be devastating.

They're also able to target enemies that melee characters are unable to, a flying dragon can be completely impossible to handle without having good range, flying speed of most characters rarely go even close to a good flying enemy.

But if you are playing mostly in tiny rooms where enemies engage 20ft away from you a ranged character is going to be less useful than they could be.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Something that always gets kind of ignored but is very relevant: Firearms have always been easier to use than bows (ignoring the chance to jam/explode).

People bash touch AC as being "super broken" but it perfectly encapsulates how easy they are to use. In PF1 a half BAB class that is not proficient in firearms can grab 1 and still have a decent chance to hit vs anything that isn't too agile. But in PF2 it is straight up worse than a bow.

Speaking of bows, they are historically known to require a lot of training and dedication. The training and dedication part is perfectly replicated with PF1 Str rating and how feat hungry archery was. But PF2 only represents the training with propulsive, you otherwise need 0 investment to make archery work.

****************

* P.S. Yeah guns are going to hit gargantuan+ creatures better than diminuative/tiny. Its pretty hard to miss hitting the side of a house, why should a dragon or golem be any different?


5 people marked this as a favorite.
Temperans wrote:

Something that always gets kind of ignored but is very relevant: Firearms have always been easier to use than bows (ignoring the chance to jam/explode).

People bash touch AC as being "super broken" but it perfectly encapsulates how easy they are to use. In PF1 a half BAB class that is not proficient in firearms can grab 1 and still have a decent chance to hit vs anything that isn't too agile. But in PF2 it is straight up worse than a bow.

Speaking of bows, they are historically known to require a lot of training and dedication. The training and dedication part is perfectly replicated with PF1 Str rating and how feat hungry archery was. But PF2 only represents the training with propulsive, you otherwise need 0 investment to make archery work.

****************

* P.S. Yeah guns are going to hit gargantuan+ creatures better than diminuative/tiny. Its pretty hard to miss hitting the side of a house, why should a dragon or golem be any different?

\

You don't have much of an idea how pre 1830 firearms work, do you? Operating a flintlock pistol or musket was an arcane ritual compared to "pull/winch/fire" of the crossbow.

Silver Crusade

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:
Temperans wrote:

Something that always gets kind of ignored but is very relevant: Firearms have always been easier to use than bows (ignoring the chance to jam/explode).

People bash touch AC as being "super broken" but it perfectly encapsulates how easy they are to use. In PF1 a half BAB class that is not proficient in firearms can grab 1 and still have a decent chance to hit vs anything that isn't too agile. But in PF2 it is straight up worse than a bow.

Speaking of bows, they are historically known to require a lot of training and dedication. The training and dedication part is perfectly replicated with PF1 Str rating and how feat hungry archery was. But PF2 only represents the training with propulsive, you otherwise need 0 investment to make archery work.

****************

* P.S. Yeah guns are going to hit gargantuan+ creatures better than diminuative/tiny. Its pretty hard to miss hitting the side of a house, why should a dragon or golem be any different?

\

You don't have much of an idea how pre 1830 firearms work, do you? Operating a flintlock pistol or musket was an arcane ritual compared to "pull/winch/fire" of the crossbow.

Something something give them lead


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Training and dedication is mostly captured by weapon proficiency I reckon, much like other weapons.

Are guns uniquely proficient in targetting large creatures? AC also does happen to represent armor rather than their dodging ability alone which seems to be the same for a bow as it would be for a gun or a sword.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:
Temperans wrote:

Something that always gets kind of ignored but is very relevant: Firearms have always been easier to use than bows (ignoring the chance to jam/explode).

People bash touch AC as being "super broken" but it perfectly encapsulates how easy they are to use. In PF1 a half BAB class that is not proficient in firearms can grab 1 and still have a decent chance to hit vs anything that isn't too agile. But in PF2 it is straight up worse than a bow.

Speaking of bows, they are historically known to require a lot of training and dedication. The training and dedication part is perfectly replicated with PF1 Str rating and how feat hungry archery was. But PF2 only represents the training with propulsive, you otherwise need 0 investment to make archery work.

****************

* P.S. Yeah guns are going to hit gargantuan+ creatures better than diminuative/tiny. Its pretty hard to miss hitting the side of a house, why should a dragon or golem be any different?

\

You don't have much of an idea how pre 1830 firearms work, do you? Operating a flintlock pistol or musket was an arcane ritual compared to "pull/winch/fire" of the crossbow.

You do realize that crossbows are also underpowered in PF2 right? They suffer from a lot of the same issues as firearms where they were made to be specifically worse than bows just because.

Please give me stronger crossbows they used to have a large base damage and higher crit rate compared to bows but now the only thing they have is 20ft more range at the cost of needing to reload and having almost no support.

Heck even things like Hornbows where nerfed from 2d6 crit x3 80ft range composite to 1d8 deadly d6 propulsive 40ft range. Tell me how does the "bow that is larger than even a longbow" deals less overall damage at a shorter range than a Shortbow?

I heavily hate the shortbow and longbow favoritism since it straight up undermines the whole point of having options and "balance". You cannot argue "oh its for the sake of balance" and "oh its for the sake of realism" while simultaneously making shortbow/longbow considerably better than all other ranged weapons and even some magic spells.


6 people marked this as a favorite.

The reason bow > crossbow is because bow = martial, crossbow = simple. It's been like that in D&Disms for a long time, Paizo kept that, and rallying against it in 2022 tells me that you lost the argument on another front (guns=simple) and are now desperately trying to stir the pot elsewhere.

Dark Archive

Onkonk wrote:

Comparing ranged and melee damage in a vaccum probably is not going to shine a light on the strength of a ranged build.

Ranged characters can engage fights on their own terms (a Ranger can start a fight 200 ft away without penalties with a longbow and 300ft away with an Arquebus), forcing enemies to close the distance to them.

They're also safer and less likely to take action penalties to Stand and pick up their weapon.

Ranged characters can also engage in kiting strategies much easier to completely shut down something with low speed (and many things have pretty low speed compared to a horse), or even attack from positions where they can't be targeted. Combining ranged damage with a spell like repulsion can be devastating.

They're also able to target enemies that melee characters are unable to, a flying dragon can be completely impossible to handle without having good range, flying speed of most characters rarely go even close to a good flying enemy.

But if you are playing mostly in tiny rooms where enemies engage 20ft away from you a ranged character is going to be less useful than they could be.

Right and melee martials have tons of feat support to take multiple move actions and boost their effective action economy:

- Sudden Charge (L1 feat) - move twice and strike for fighter/barbarian.
- Monks increased move speed and focus spells, flurry of blows, and later feats.
- Champion Athletic Rush or Advanced Travel Domain spell (they are in the worst position though)
- Skirmish Strike for rogue/ranger.
- Trick Magic Item feat for Nature and a L2 wand of longstrider

However, I'd argue a kiting fight effects the gunslinger way more because they don't have a spare action in their three action routine. If their reload was a once per round free action, they'd have that hide/recall knowledge/etc. action to reposition if need be and still get a second strike. That is especially true if they don't take the running reload feat, which is essentially a 'must have feat tax' at the expense of a cool archetype feat or something else you might want. I think the more common thing to happen for a ranged character isn't kiting (typically enemies move towards one another), its actually their own party members making a b-line to an enemy and providing lesser cover or cover. That -1 to -2 is a significant damage reduction but so is the 1 move action it takes to reposition for a no cover shot (again its a 3rd strike for the fighter and a 2nd strike for the gunslinger).

The other thing to keep in mind is that most martials have some kind of reaction. If you play strategically you can often get ~1 a combat from an AoO, Stand Still, Champion Reaction, Riposte, opportune backstab, etc. Those are all 0MAP strikes which often make up the DPR lost from 2-3 3rd action strikes lost by having to move around across many rounds.

I'll absolutely agree that there are fields of combat where ranged weapons will dominate. In practice there are very few combats I've ever had were we approached a known enemy with clear sight lines at extended distances. Those include ship to ship combat and flying enemies. Otherwise most combats are in that tight alleyway, the underground cave, the 5-10ft dungeon co-oridoor, or simply start after a failed attempt at diplomacy which meant getting within 30-40 ft of each other to 'talk'.

It may just be me, but as a GM after watching you're party's melee PCs struggle with these fights and probably not have a 'great time' trying to climb the cliff or ready to throw their returning hatchet I tend to reserve some of the more detrimental environmental effects or enemy tactics for more rare occasions. Ask yourself "Do you play all dragons as hyper intelligent flying kiting breath weapons or do your dragons tend to land after a few rounds so the martial PCs can engage and have more fun?" For me there is definitely an unconscious bias to do the latter in most combats (i.e., Don't focus fire on a dropped PC until they're dead, don't immediately focus fire the healer, etc.) because it nets the most fun for the most number of people. I have a similar bias in encounter building. I'd rather make a fight tougher by adding few CR-1 or CR-2 monsters so there is some cannon fodder for everyone to enjoy critting/fireballing vs. putting a tougher/nastier CR+1 monster that will necessarily mean more misses from PCs and more crits on PCs.

The overall point here is that a DPR difference between ranged and melee martials of x2 can easily be compensated for in most fights so its a big stretch to keep calling comp shortbows 'overtuned'.


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I'm really very happy with where guns landed. Now I need to start my campaign to make futuristic weapons also fall in-line with the rest of the weapon list math.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

Red Griffyn Comp Shortbows are acknowledge as being overtuned by Paizo the reasoning being "that it helps the fantasy". Same way that they overtuned Sturdy Shields because "that is the limit". You can see that deaign philosophy in every single book after core where they are all clearly weaker to niche protect the core classes.

Totally Not Gorbacz that is not true given how PF1 was. The reason bows were more popular than crossbows in that edition has more to do with minmaxers focusing on full attack than crossbows being weaker. Here in PF2 there is no full attack and 3-action economy in theory could have made crossbows great, but the stats for them are blah even with even less support than before.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Red Griffyn wrote:
Ask yourself "Do you play all dragons as hyper intelligent flying kiting breath weapons or do your dragons tend to land after a few rounds so the martial PCs can engage and have more fun?"

I for one generally try to play intelligent creatures intelligently. Knowing the strengths and limitations of their own abilities is part of that.

That being said, I won't often target a downed PC while there are still active hostile PCs in the area, or focus fire a healer or dangerous spellcaster prior to it becoming absolutely obvious that they are a healer or a danger, respectively.


Crossbows will get a redemption arc in treasure vault.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Crossbows aren't entirely without a niche in pf2e. Paired shots repeating hand crossbows is still the best gunslinger setup for all combats that last 5 rounds or shorter. Though if they regularly go much longer than that at your usual tables you should avoid gunslinger entirely because you just build up more and more dead actions from reload and missed risky reloads.


I still think the precision ranger with a crossbow is a perfectly fine character.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

The thing that bugs me about the current crossbow support is the circumstantial nature of crossbow ace and crackshot. It should have just been a die increase and call it a day. Less of an issue for rangers than gunslingers since they have 2 options to gain their bonuses and they don't have a preexisting circumstance bonus that won't stack. It's just awkward. Crossbow terror should have been the standard.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
WatersLethe wrote:

I'm really very happy with where guns landed. Now I need to start my campaign to make futuristic weapons also fall in-line with the rest of the weapon list math.

Futuristic guns feel like they'd benefit from being higher level weaponry. Characters can't start the game with them, but it would mean you could give them more traits and a higher cost so other weapons could be similarly costed with their add-ons when high-tech becomes available.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Perpdepog wrote:


Futuristic guns feel like they'd benefit from being higher level weaponry. Characters can't start the game with them, but it would mean you could give them more traits and a higher cost so other weapons could be similarly costed with their add-ons when high-tech becomes available.

You'd want to do them as specific magic items, possibly with a "tech" trait that replaces magical and prevents them being used with runes.

You can't actually balance a more powerful non-magical weapon or armor by raising its level above 1, because the +1 version of all non-specific weapons or armors are the same price and level by default.

But yeah, that'd be a cool place to take inspiration from Starfinder and have some tech weapons that progress based on level instead of runes.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Ah, the smell of people arguing that game mechanics should match reality as they understand it. Smells like munchkinry.

Dark Archive

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Temperans wrote:
Red Griffyn Comp Shortbows are acknowledge as being overtuned by Paizo the reasoning being "that it helps the fantasy". Same way that they overtuned Sturdy Shields because "that is the limit". You can see that deaign philosophy in every single book after core where they are all clearly weaker to niche protect the core classes.

The statement that shortbows are 'overtuned' can be restated as other ranged options are under tuned. Its a relative comment within the context of 'ranged options'. But the game exists with non-ranged options that I think are doing significantly more DPR when you consider a typical encounter. So for me, in the context of the entire game, all ranged options are undertuned. Thus whether or not comp shortbows are the big fish in the small pond is immaterial when they are smaller fish with respect to the broader weapon ocean. It just becomes harder to stomach when you have especially weak options like repeating weapons that are essentially flat dice damage with no static bonus damage, but that carry a massive action economy taxes.

The fundamental difference is I don't think the tradeoffs in DPR are fairly compensated by having X ft range. I also dislike how most class features are denied to ranged attack options (e.g., arcane cascade stance, the possible exclusion of 1H+ weapons on Thaumaturge, rage bonus, dex based ranged armor inventor, etc.), which I suspect is a result of the belief that they are overtuned or the weighting being assigned in design space for having a ranged attack. But just because people keep repeating they think ranged is balanced vs. melee is not evidence that they are balanced. I get that is an unpopular opinion on these boards and may diverge from the game designer's thoughts as well. But I haven't seen adequate evidence to the contrary sufficient to change my mind. On the contrary DPR for a standard 2H 1D12 melee vs. standard comp shortbow ranged is significantly higher in all but a few corner case encounters that rarely happen (i.e., low level flying encounters or massive open field encounters like in ship to ship combat).

For the sake of argument if I temporarily agree that the designers have appropriately budgeted range vs. melee DPR, then I would have rather seen ranged options more powerful with the option for melee combatants to get easier cost free ways to get a ranged alternative. That could be limited throwing/returning features at shorter ranges that don't cost a rune slot, or things like the extending rune, etc. But they didn't do that AND I don't agree the design budget is appropriately balanced.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Temperans wrote:


Totally Not Gorbacz that is not true given how PF1 was. The reason bows were more popular than crossbows in that edition has more to do with minmaxers focusing on full attack than crossbows being weaker. Here in PF2 there is no full attack and 3-action economy in theory could have made crossbows great, but the stats for them are blah even with even less support than before.

So what changed exactly? Because it seems like you're saying people didn't like crossbows in PF1 was because minmaxers didn't like that reloading led to less attacks per round, which is exactly what people are complaining about here. The 3 action economy already plays better with crossbows before you factor in feats (being able to move, reload, and shoot a normal crossbow in one round, and being able to fully load and fire a heavy crossbow in one round) and it isn't like the base stats changed for crossbows like they did with guns.

Also doesn't really negate anything the bag said: crossbows have always been simple while bows have always been martial. Their power budget reflects that in both editions and their attack frequency factors into it.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Red Griffyn wrote:
The statement that shortbows are 'overtuned' can be restated as other ranged options are under tuned. Its a relative comment within the context of 'ranged options'. But the game exists with non-ranged options that I think are doing significantly more DPR when you consider a typical encounter. So for me, in the context of the entire game, all ranged options are undertuned. Thus whether or not comp shortbows are the big fish in the small pond is immaterial when they are smaller fish with respect to the broader weapon ocean.

If everyone could do exactly the same amount of DPR with a ranged weapon - from the relative safety of being out of melee range - why would anyone play a melee character? Especially the enemies?

If ranged options weren't the smaller fish, then everyone would be using ranged weapons instead of anything else.


Ranged weapons do fall off a tiny bit going into the upper levels when everyone has access to flight and can sudden charge for 90+ feet to engage opponents, but that doesn't mean there's no value in not needing to waste actions on flight or movement in order to contribute.

Besides, the value of melee is less in their damage potential vs ranged and more in their ability to inflict prone via trip, knockdown, flail/hammer spec, etc.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:
The reason bow > crossbow is because bow = martial, crossbow = simple.
Captain Morgan wrote:
crossbows have always been simple while bows have always been martial. Their power budget reflects that in both editions and their attack frequency factors into it.

Even by that standard crossbows are more behind than they ought to be. The difference between a tier is largely one die size or equivalent trait (sometimes less). A warhammer does exactly one point of damage more than a mace. The difference between them (and other similarly comparable options) is as close to inconsequential as the game permits, while the gap between crossbows and bows is much larger and has a significantly bigger gameplay impact.

Temperans wrote:
The reason bows were more popular than crossbows in that edition has more to do with minmaxers focusing on full attack than crossbows being weaker.

That's not true either, crossbows were pretty damn bad in PF1. They were designed to be bad on purpose, as stated by at-the-time developers who openly ridiculed players who suggested ways to make crossbow builds more functional.

breithauptclan wrote:
If everyone could do exactly the same amount of DPR with a ranged weapon - from the relative safety of being out of melee range - why would anyone play a melee character? Especially the enemies?

That implies that archers invalidate melee characters as is, which I really don't think is true (excepting for maybe the Magus).

Dark Archive

1 person marked this as a favorite.
breithauptclan wrote:
Red Griffyn wrote:
The statement that shortbows are 'overtuned' can be restated as other ranged options are under tuned. Its a relative comment within the context of 'ranged options'. But the game exists with non-ranged options that I think are doing significantly more DPR when you consider a typical encounter. So for me, in the context of the entire game, all ranged options are undertuned. Thus whether or not comp shortbows are the big fish in the small pond is immaterial when they are smaller fish with respect to the broader weapon ocean.

If everyone could do exactly the same amount of DPR with a ranged weapon - from the relative safety of being out of melee range - why would anyone play a melee character? Especially the enemies?

If ranged options weren't the smaller fish, then everyone would be using ranged weapons instead of anything else.

I didn't say same DPR, thats a strawman. I just don't accept that the current power budget is balanced. I posted a graph earlier in this thread. At L10 DPR is roughly 40 vs. 60 and scales up to ~75 vs. 110 by L20 for comp. shorbow to a greatsword. Thats before considering reactions that give additional no MAP strikes for melee combatants or numerous damage increase options not baked in (e.g., telluric power, spirit strikes, etc.).

Also you didn't read the part where I say what I'd prefer which is to give some kind of ranged options to martials to use their melee weapons as such. For example the extending rune, a returning rune/thrown weapon feat that doesn't remove a rune slot, inventor type options for doing ranged attacks through shooting electricity beams (i.e., typical high fantasy things).

If someone likes the flavour of a longbow why should they be be disengaged from many class features for the sake of an arbitrary xft = y DPR loss equation a designer decided on.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
breithauptclan wrote:
Ah, the smell of people arguing that game mechanics should match reality as they understand it. Smells like munchkinry.

I am too diabetic to indulge in munchkinry, though Dunkin' Donuts' Munchkin treats do smell delicious.

In a roleplaying game, the game mechanics have to be based on reality; otherwise, the mechanics are too abstract for the players to use intuitively. Chess can get away with the knight on horse always moving one step left or right of its initial charge, but if Pathfinder did that, players would ask, "What's up with that ridiculous rule?" Nonat1s recently put up a video, The Idea That Could've RUINED Pathfinder 2e, looking at the proposed Resonance Points in the PF2 playtest. Resonance had too much complication without enough justification. Reality is a marvelous source of justification.

Firearms in PF1 had a tactical niche: they let a martial character deal reliable damage to a creature with high AC yet low touch AC. PF2 abandoned many rules that created the niche in PF1, such as touch AC and 1/2 BAB on spellcasters. Instead, Michael Sayre described roleplaying niches and a high-precision ranged tactical niche.

And those roleplaying niches are based in historical roles for gunfighters, snipers, and buccaneers so that players have cinematic examples of them. Reality makes the game more flavorful and more understandable. That use of reality is great.

Of course, some people prefer the PF1 firearms. They had found a good use for them. And they present some arguments based on real weapons, because every argument helps the cause. That use of reality is fine, too, but playability is more important. Furthermore, the cause ended when Paizo published Guns & Gears, because that established how firearms work in PF2.

To me this thread is a friendly and enlightening design discussion of why Paizo made their decisions about firearms. Nothing we say will change the rules to allow more powergaming.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
breithauptclan wrote:
Red Griffyn wrote:
The statement that shortbows are 'overtuned' can be restated as other ranged options are under tuned. Its a relative comment within the context of 'ranged options'. But the game exists with non-ranged options that I think are doing significantly more DPR when you consider a typical encounter. So for me, in the context of the entire game, all ranged options are undertuned. Thus whether or not comp shortbows are the big fish in the small pond is immaterial when they are smaller fish with respect to the broader weapon ocean.

If everyone could do exactly the same amount of DPR with a ranged weapon - from the relative safety of being out of melee range - why would anyone play a melee character? Especially the enemies?

If ranged options weren't the smaller fish, then everyone would be using ranged weapons instead of anything else.

My party in my campaign loves ranged attacks. The Ironfang Invasion adventure path is set in Nirmathas, a nation based on the tales of Robin Hood and Sherwood Forest, so the setting is friendly to archery.

They began in Trail of the Hunted (converted to PF2 rules) where they were hiding in the forest from patrols of the Ironfang Legion. Since their opponents were a superior force, they liked to attack from concealment in the forest, leaving retreat as a quick option. That meant ranged attacks: archery from the ranger and rogue and spells from the druid and rogue/sorcerer. When they entered a dungeon with small rooms, they still turned the tables on the melee enemies by retreating up a ladder to an overlook and shooting anyone who tried to climb up after them.

Ranged weapons are not undertuned. Instead, they require more tactical thought to reach their full power. Paizo gives melee more feat-based options for the players who also want melee to be tactical, too. My party gained some tactical melee characters later.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Squiggit wrote:
Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:
The reason bow > crossbow is because bow = martial, crossbow = simple.
Captain Morgan wrote:
crossbows have always been simple while bows have always been martial. Their power budget reflects that in both editions and their attack frequency factors into it.
Even by that standard crossbows are more behind than they ought to be. The difference between a tier is largely one die size or equivalent trait (sometimes less). A warhammer does exactly one point of damage more than a mace. The difference between them (and other similarly comparable options) is as close to inconsequential as the game permits, while the gap between crossbows and bows is much larger and has a significantly bigger gameplay impact.

I think that one die size rule only applies to one handed melee weapons. I don't think weapon budgets are as simple as we like to pretend they are. Two handed simple weapons don't go above d8. Reach weapons don't go more than one die size above a long spear, but they also get additional traits. Even your warhammer/mace comparison isn't just a die size-- warhammer also gets the supererior crit spec.

Ranged and thrown weapons feel even harder to draw comparisons with. A marital shuriken has less range and damage than a simple javelin, but also doesn't cost actions to draw. Similarly, the crossbow has better range and damage dice than the shortbow but costs more actions to use. In the CRB, the divide between simple and martial ranged weapons really does seem to be about actions to reload or draw. Maybe because a ranged attack without reload is a really great third action for spellcasters, so they wanted to make that something you could achieve with an investment cost so it didn't just become the meta strategy.

Guns and Gears broke that pattern, but gave martial reload weapons tons of traits and power to try and make up for it. (Whether they succeeded or not is clearly a matter of debate.) They also gave us a repeating simple weapon, so.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Michael Sayre wrote:
Perpdepog wrote:


Futuristic guns feel like they'd benefit from being higher level weaponry. Characters can't start the game with them, but it would mean you could give them more traits and a higher cost so other weapons could be similarly costed with their add-ons when high-tech becomes available.

You'd want to do them as specific magic items, possibly with a "tech" trait that replaces magical and prevents them being used with runes.

You can't actually balance a more powerful non-magical weapon or armor by raising its level above 1, because the +1 version of all non-specific weapons or armors are the same price and level by default.

But yeah, that'd be a cool place to take inspiration from Starfinder and have some tech weapons that progress based on level instead of runes.

Just as a caution: the huge list of specific leveled guns from Starfinder is one of the reasons all of our Starfinder groups gave up on the system. It's tedious and annoying, and I have to help players sort through everything to get an upgrade that's similar enough to the gun they already have and like.

Definitely not a lesson PF2 should be learning from SF.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Mathmuse wrote:
In a roleplaying game, the game mechanics have to be based on reality; otherwise, the mechanics are too abstract for the players to use intuitively.

Well, sure. But when someone starts a discussion about the rules with, "This rule isn't right and needs to be changed because in real life people can do ..."

Nope.

That's not how good game rules are created and balanced.

51 to 100 of 151 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Second Edition / Rules Discussion / They really nerfed guns from 1st edition All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.