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1. 1st edition guns targeted touch AC. 2nd edition guns get no bonus, they don't even target flat footed or even get a +2 bonus or anything.
2. Gunslinger class gets expert proficiency in guns, which is in a sense a +2 bonus to hit. But this does nothing for classes that aren't gunslingers that use guns. I'll discuss fighters and thaumaterges down the road.
3. Guns in 1st edition gained a X4 bonus on a crit. Guns in 2nd edition have the fatal trait as a crit special. The fatal trait is more powerful than the deadly trait when a weapon has a striking rune. But the deadly trait is more powerful than the fatal trait when a weapon has a greater striking rune. In other words, guns become inferior to bows at later levels. In 1st edition bows had crit x3, so the crit for guns was always more powerful.
4. Capacity weapons in 1st edition can be fired 3 times just like that. Capacity weapons in 2nd edition require an interact action to move to the next barrel. So at all levels you can only fire a capacity weapon only twice. At levels 1-5 capacity weapons in 2e are better than capacity weapons in 1e because of the 3 action thing. At levels 6 and up, capacity weapons in 1e are equal to or greater than 2e capacity guns. Again, bows are still superior to capacity guns as you can always shoot 3 times.
5. If you count air repeaters as capacity guns they aren't that great. You can only reload them by magazines, not individually. So if you use 3 bullets in one combat, you have a choice to switch out the magazine before the next combat or keep a half-used magazine in your gun. So after dozens of combats you could have a dozen half-used magazines and since you can't combine them your air-repeater will always have 3 bullets each instead of 6 unless you buy brand new magazines. If you are using a one-handed air reaper, you have one advantage over using the bow which is also reload zero. Agile trait.
6. 1st edition pepperbox holds 6 bulllets, slide pistol in 2e holds 5 bullets. Unless you want to count air-repeaters.
7. Guns in 1e automatically have blunt and piercing for damage resistances and weaknesses. In 2e only certain guns have that option or an option for all 3.
8. Very few classes benefit using guns instead of the bow in 2e. In 1e, almost all classes benefitted using the gun instead of the bow. Gunslingers in 2e benefits using the guns instead of the bow for obvious reasons. Ranged fighters who like to use shields benefit using one handed capacity guns instead of bows. Since you can't hold a bow and a shield at the same time, there you go. Also if you take the agile manuevers feat, that one-handed air reaper will have much more accuracy than a bow on shots 2 and 3. A rangers hunted shot would not work with a capacity gun since you need an interact action to move it to the next barrel. A rangers hunted shot would work with an air repeater, but if you are using a long air reaper what is the point? You are better off using the one-handed one as it is agile and now you can hold something else in one hand. Thaumaterges benefit using one-handed guns vs bows because of their implement's empowerment requirement.
9. Okay so guns in 2e have the benefit of working as both a melee and a ranged weapon if you upgrade it, it can't do that in 1e. Not much, but you can do that.
Thoughts?
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In 1e, almost all classes benefitted using the gun instead of the bow.
This is just not right. Optimized gunslingers are really strong damage dealers in PF1, but guns were honestly atrocious for most other builds. If you wanted to use guns in PF1, you took gunslinger, or a specific archetype or set of options that made guns more attractive, otherwise you didn't bother.
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Pathfinder 2nd edition just structurally rejects a lot of these things.
- Touch AC no longer exists.
- It's rarely beneficial to make more than two attacks in a round for anybody.
- The five shots in a magazine is because if you do nothing but fire and reload your rounds go 1: fire, reload, fire; 2: reload, fire, reload; 3: fire, reload, fire. So you're out of bullets on the fourth round and need a new magazine at the start of a turn rather than the middle of one.
- Some guns lacking the concussive trait is to indicate that some firearms have a smaller muzzle bore so they pierce more than they bludgeon. This lets you design more kinds of weapons.
- Very few classes in 1e benefited from using guns, because guns were exotic weapons and required you to spend a lot of feats on things like rapid reload. Now they're simple or martial weapons and how good you are with them reflects "how good you are with reloading weapons.
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Yeah, I forgot rapid reload, when I was thinking of Pathfinder 1e guns, I was thinking of the pepperbox vs the Pathfinder 2e slide pistol mainly, our biggest capacity guns.
Pathfinder 1e: If you take exotic weapon proficiency firearms and only use the pepperbox the other feats aren't needed that much since you have 6 shots before you run out or 12 shots if you dual wield. You may have to take rapid reload if combat last more than 3 rounds. Of course it is 3000 gold to buy, so you won't get this until about level 4 or 5. So if you aren't a gunslinger, you need one feat to make that gun work that you wouldn't otherwise need. Now if your class is proficient in neither the bow or the gun, the number of feats you need to effectively use a longbow, shortbow or pepperbox is even, unless the combat last more than 3 rounds or more than 2 rounds assuming you're level 11. Though it would be rare for an arcane class to have have a need for either weapon, one of the few classes not proficient with bows naturally. Though bows would always have the range. Though bow is better in gold cost, as the pepperbox or even having 2 of them to dual wield is expensive
Pathfinder 2e: Proficiencies if you are proficient with martial weapons, you are proficient with guns. No extra feats needed to make them work.
Also the thing about more than 2 attacks in Pathfinder 2e. Agile weapons and a fighter's agile maneuvers turns attack number 3 into a -6 penalty. You won't have power, but a ranged fighter with a one-handed air repeater will be superaccurate.
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why are people even able to post in the playtest forum still? how did these not get hidden/locked
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Thoughts?
Thank Paizo!
First Edition gunslingers ruined everything. Not just for me, but for the other players as well.
Another benefit of 2e capacity firearms vs 2e bow that seems to have been overlooked is that a capacity firearm is completely one-handed. You can roll with a slide pistol and shield for most, if not all, of an entire battle.
But yes, a lot of things got rebalanced in the transition between PF1 and PF2.
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Your analysis isn't worth looking too deeply into because PF1 and PF2 game structures are so vastly different that comparing specific mechanics between the two isn't actually meaningful.
You could make an accurate statement that guns aren't as strong as they used to be. But that statement applies to literally everything in PF2, and it was an intentional change in game design.
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In my Iron Gods campaign in 2015, Iron Gods among Scientists, my wife wanted to play a gadgeteer, so she created a gunslinger Boffin with the Experimental Gunsmith archetype so that she began with one gadget, her experimental grapple gun. In that same campaign, the three players recruited NPC Val Baine as a 4th party member. I built Val as a bloodrager with something in common with each PC, so she took a homebrew archetype that gave her firearm proficiency. Therefore, I followed the forum posts in PF1 about firearms to better understand the firearms that two party members used.
And the firearm builds were boring! Most people simply wanted to exploit that firearms hit touch AC. The build advocates took feats such as Rapid Reload so that they could ignore the balancing elements in firearms that ordinarily made them less efficient than bows. They wanted maximum damage and nothing else.
In contrast, Boffin became a battlefield controller. She grappled opponents at a distance first with her grapple gun and later with a technological autograpnel. With Targeting deed, she could shoot weapons out of opponent's hands or confuse them with a headshot. I have never seen a non-magical battlefield controller discussed in theory, but my wife had one functioning in an actual campaign. (My wife is fantastic.)
Sadly, DoubleGold's comments sound too much to me like they want the features that made PF1 firearm builds boring.
In my current PF2-converted Ironfang Invasion campaign none of the PCs are interested in firearms, because they don't fit the milieu. Nevertheless, I had a crossover with the Iron Gods campaign, so a few firearms have shown up in the hands of NPCs. I plan on porting Val Baine to PF2 to see whether I can build a gun-toting bloodrager under PF2 rules, and in my preliminary sketch it appears possible. And I already had another NPC, Amelia Rivercast, take Gunslinger Multiclass Dedication, but for use with her crossbow rather than a firearm. Thus, even in PF2 I am able to mine the firearm and gunslinger rules for flavor. I care more about adding interesting flavor to characters than adding power.
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Your analysis isn't worth looking too deeply into because PF1 and PF2 game structures are so vastly different that comparing specific mechanics between the two isn't actually meaningful.
You could make an accurate statement that guns aren't as strong as they used to be. But that statement applies to literally everything in PF2, and it was an intentional change in game design.
I get that PF2 and PF1 are different systems, but in timeline order of things, the years aren't that far apart. Storyline explanation for this? The difference is a couple of years, guns are suddenly not as powerful as compared to other classes.
what is the storyline answer? All those other classes became more powerful in 5 to 10 years, so guns became less powerful in comparison. Monsters found a way to block bullets.Think of it this way. Pathfinder 1e, A level 6 fighter. Levels 2, 4 and 6 you take the combat feats and don't combat feats levels 1, 3 and 5. So Level 2, exotic weapon proficiency guns, level 4 precise shot and level 6 point blank shot. Dex 18 goes to 19 at level 5. So with a gun you have a +11 to hit including point black shot vs touch. Now a bow fighter takes Point black shot, precise shot and weapon focus bows assuming he don't take combat feats at levesl 1, 3 and 5. +12 to hit regular ac with bow. Also the gun is much more likely to confirm crit since it is touch AC. Pathfinder 2e, Gun and bow have the same to hit rate.
So what is the storyline explanation? That the fighter became so awesome with the other weapons that he learned to hit harder and become more accurate with them so that guns had less power to them in comparison the other weapons used. Or that in those couple of years others weapons became more powerful that guns now in comparison had the same strength and accuracy as bows and swords?
Edit: Yes things are going to changed over time, monsters, classes races minor nerfs and upgrades, but does anyone have an explanation for a storyline major nerf?
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You want a narrative answer as to why a different system with a completely different chassis for its mechanics, uses different methods to determine damage output?
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It's like "why do smarter wizards no longer prepare more spells per day?" A purely mechanical change (in a totally rebuilt mechanical context) that doesn't need the storyline justification it doesn't have.
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Also a straight fighter with a gun is relatively better in 2e than 1e so it's not even accurate to call it a nerf.
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Why am I suddenly able to change what abilities my familiar has every morning? Why do I even need to choose which abilities he has?
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And why when you cast Mage Armor on yourself does it not affect me too?
Speaking of Mage Armor, why does it only give a +1 bonus instead of the +4 it did previously?
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Why am I suddenly able to change what abilities my familiar has every morning? Why do I even need to choose which abilities he has?
The better question is about familiars... Why did they mercilessly pummel them into the ground with nerf-hammers. Or ADHD animal companions. Or...
Really, 'dude, where's my PF1 guns' is pretty low on my list of differences.
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On the other hand, Gunslinger is a full 20-level class in second edition, and I think that's pretty neat.
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Also a straight fighter with a gun is relatively better in 2e than 1e so it's not even accurate to call it a nerf.
Explain why you believe this to be true?
I'm looking at monsters in the index. A gun can hit hit any Troll or Titan with the first two shots in Pathfinder 1e at fighter level 11 and still very likely to hit on the 3rd shot. Dex 18 to 20, Feats you likely have weapon focus, point blank shot and precise shot and exotic proficiency guns and probably a +1 weapon or better. Maybe you have rapid reload as a feat, or maybe you plan to drop your pepperbox once you are out of ammo in combat and draw a new weapon. That is a minimum of +18 and +13 to hit touch AC. And +8 on third shot or all numbers 1 higher if you have the 20 dex. Touch AC at best is 11 for Trolls in Pathfinder 1e and Titans have 5 touch AC. Just roll above a 2 to avoid misfire. Damage with +1 pepperbox, 1d8+1 dmg. Hits 90% of the time in this case and misfires 10% of the time. Crits 5% of the time, but crits really hard. 1d8+1(X4)
Now lets look at Pathfinder 2e. Lets look at Troll guard, Troll King and Jotund Troll. Highest AC is 35. Lowest AC is 28. Obviously you would take the mastery in Guns as a fighter. Your Dex is at 18, maybe 20. You have Master proficiency and your level 11. You probably have a striking or a +2 striking weapon. But not Greater Striking, you can't get that until level 12. So 4 dex+11 level+6 master+1 weapon =+22 to hit. You have to roll a 6 or 13 to hit. Now it is easier to crit, because now you can crit on a 16 instead of a nat 20 since you can do it by being 10 above its ac. And you don't have to confirm to crit, so you don't have roll above a 1 on the confirm crit.
Fighter Feats that will help you, this does not take into account archetypes that may also be of use, this assumes you only do fighter feats. 1st Level, point blank shot for damage. 2nd level Exacting Strike for accuracty. Level 4, doubleshot if and only if your gun is an air repeater, otherwise you take reactive shield for defense assuming your using a capacity one handed gun as there are no feats for guns, so might as well up your shield defense. Level 6, you take Reflex shield or Shield Warden, same concept as level 4. Or if you have the air repeater, triple shot. Level 8, Felling Strike, Mobile Stance and Incredible Aim are all good ones. Level 10, Agile Grace if your using the air repeater, or Debilitating shot. Or one of the other feats you haven't already picked up from Level 6 or level 8. At Level 9 you have combat flexibility, a good way to pick up another feat that you didn't receive at level 6 or 8. Now Weapons specialization gives +3 to damage. So damage is 2d6+5 slide Pistol with point blank shot and weapon specialization. Misfires 0% of the time, hits 70 to 35% of the time. Crits 5 to 25% of the time. Plus other neat tricks. Almost forgot, you can attach melee weapons to guns. And the Skill feat Underwater Marauder may be of use. Or course this means you might pick different feats for you're fighter as well.
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On the other hand, Gunslinger is a full 20-level class in second edition, and I think that's pretty neat.
I never understood why they made it the only class with just 5 levels. Very strange move on Paizo's part.
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Also a straight fighter with a gun is relatively better in 2e than 1e so it's not even accurate to call it a nerf.Explain why you believe this to be true?
I think what Squiggit is talking about is that a 2e Fighter with no additional feats targeting firearms will use a firearm more comparably to a 2e Gunslinger than a 1e Fighter with no firearm feats will when compared with a 1e Gunslinger.
What you keep doing is comparing 1e with 2e and that just doesn't work. Too much has changed in the basic math and assumptions of the game. Yes - everything got rebalanced. Firearms, spells, actions, number of melee attacks per round, scaling rate of saving throws, AC, attack bonus, perception, ...
Trying to compare them directly doesn't make sense mathematically.
On the other hand, Gunslinger is a full 20-level class in second edition, and I think that's pretty neat.I never understood why they made it the only class with just 5 levels. Very strange move on Paizo's part.
Well, the PF1 gunslinger was frontloaded to make sure you can gun pretty well right from the start. The problem with frontloading classes is that "people will just pick and choose the good stuff." All these issues are why PF2 structures multiclassing the way it does- you can frontload classes and not worry about monster chimera builds and people are going to see the fun stuff at higher levels.
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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.
The thing they did well with designing guns in PF2 is if they were reload - weapons like bows, they would absolutely be the best option for ranged combat. Pathfinder is set in a period in time/technology tree where guns and bows are supposed to both be viable options, but we can see that if we go down that tech tree a few centuries, it's going to be all different kinds of guns.
This is kind of the ideal position for guns in a fantasy game- they're clearly powerful and the use cases are obvious, but they're not always the best thing.
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.
Bit of a side note but a loaded dueling pistol in your belt is a fantastic sunder tool.
With objects typically having 5 AC, most martials or any class that's got a few levels can reliably get 3d10 ranged damage, equivalent to a pick but without the crit spec (that you might not have if it's just a secondary tool).
That's enough to reliably break materials up to rope and with just a striking rune, also thin metal (like chains).
Good reason to have your casters carry a loaded jezail, so they can cast "chandelier falls down" without wasting a spell slot.
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Bit of a side note but a loaded dueling pistol in your belt is a fantastic sunder tool.
With objects typically having 5 AC, most martials or any class that's got a few levels can reliably get 3d10 ranged damage, equivalent to a pick but without the crit spec (that you might not have if it's just a secondary tool).
That's enough to reliably break materials up to rope and with just a striking rune, also thin metal (like chains).
Good reason to have your casters carry a loaded jezail, so they can cast "chandelier falls down" without wasting a spell slot.
How do you get an average AC of 5? [Material Statistics, Source Core Rulebook pg. 577, only lists Hardness, Hit Points, Broken Threshold]. And what attack are you using that can target an object [Strike can't]? Plus this requires a fully enchanted weapon which can be a big ask for casters that don't wouldn't otherwise use them.
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Objects having a standard AC of 5 isn't a rule that I recall seeing. Enough of the rest of the system assumes Strikes targeting objects that "can't Strike objects because of the targeting line" is a fairly worthless concern. That's been gone over dozens of times before, though.
Objects are also often immune to crits.
What tickles me about this one is that the old "shoot out the hangman rope" trope is actually my personal go-to example for when you'd set a higher AC for an inanimate object.
base AC=10 minus 5 dex bonus (immobile= no dex).
Resilient sphere has an AC of 5 as an example, though wall of force has AC 10. It's still up to the GM I think but the practice at my table has been to start with 5 and adjust depending on how small the target it.
base AC=10 minus 5 dex bonus (immobile= no dex).
Resilient sphere has an AC of 5 as an example, though wall of force has AC 10. It's still up to the GM I think but the practice at my table has been to start with 5 and adjust depending on how small the target it.
A petrified person is AC 9, which starts to get into more "object" territory than "a full square of material".
base AC=10 minus 5 dex bonus (immobile= no dex).
Resilient sphere has an AC of 5 as an example, though wall of force has AC 10. It's still up to the GM I think but the practice at my table has been to start with 5 and adjust depending on how small the target it.
When NPCs dont calculate AC like that why would objects?
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Enough of the rest of the system assumes Strikes targeting objects that "can't Strike objects because of the targeting line" is a fairly worthless concern.
That's not true though: there ARE spells and abilities that target objects, so the fact that items have material stats is moot in an analysis of Strike. The system assumes you can attack objects, NOT that Strike can do so. Now if I was asked if Strike SHOULD be able to do so, I think it should but that would require fleshing out things like we're doing here with AC: if we assume the system assumes Striking objects, it's not cool that 10 groups might come up with 10 different AC's for it.
base AC=10 minus 5 dex bonus (immobile= no dex).
Resilient sphere has an AC of 5 as an example, though wall of force has AC 10. It's still up to the GM I think but the practice at my table has been to start with 5 and adjust depending on how small the target it.
AH, you're houseruling it. Ok, no problem then. Myself, I can't see less than an AC 10 normally as the wall spells have that and that means it's literally like hitting the broad side of a barn. Like HammerJack, shooting smaller objects would increase that AC.
Yeah I realize now that I boldly declared something that was part houserule, part 1st edition logic. Didn't quite realize it until the post was made.
Size categories no longer have set AC adjustments (just giving you clumsy1 if you grow any size) and distance is usually dealt with range increments. Both of these aren't satisfactory to represent how hard it is to hit a rope at a distance so the Gm adjusts between 5 and 10 as we've been doing.
Objects are also often immune to crits.
Object immunities notably lacks crit immunity.
Your analysis isn't worth looking too deeply into because PF1 and PF2 game structures are so vastly different that comparing specific mechanics between the two isn't actually meaningful.
You could make an accurate statement that guns aren't as strong as they used to be. But that statement applies to literally everything in PF2, and it was an intentional change in game design.
I get that PF2 and PF1 are different systems, but in timeline order of things, the years aren't that far apart. Storyline explanation for this? The difference is a couple of years, guns are suddenly not as powerful as compared to other classes.
what is the storyline answer? All those other classes became more powerful in 5 to 10 years, so guns became less powerful in comparison. Monsters found a way to block bullets.Think of it this way. Pathfinder 1e, A level 6 fighter. Levels 2, 4 and 6 you take the combat feats and don't combat feats levels 1, 3 and 5. So Level 2, exotic weapon proficiency guns, level 4 precise shot and level 6 point blank shot. Dex 18 goes to 19 at level 5. So with a gun you have a +11 to hit including point black shot vs touch. Now a bow fighter takes Point black shot, precise shot and weapon focus bows assuming he don't take combat feats at levesl 1, 3 and 5. +12 to hit regular ac with bow. Also the gun is much more likely to confirm crit since it is touch AC. Pathfinder 2e, Gun and bow have the same to hit rate.
So what is the storyline explanation? That the fighter became so awesome with the other weapons that he learned to hit harder and become more accurate with them so that guns had less power to them in comparison the other weapons used. Or that in those couple of years others weapons became more powerful that guns now in comparison had the same strength and accuracy as bows and swords?
Edit: Yes things are going to changed over time, monsters, classes races minor nerfs and upgrades, but does anyone have an explanation for a storyline major nerf?
What do you mean classes got more powerful in PF2? I would say that is an inherently untrue and inaccurate statement.
Anyways, don't try to reason out mechanics changes with in world story elements. It wont work because the mechanics changed because of out of world reasons. Namely because the underlying system mechanics changed significantly and because PF1 guns were overpowered if you could overcome their limitations, and worthless if you didn't invest to do so.
And no class became "more powerful" in my opinion. Spellcasters as a whole have been nerfed with less spells, and the degrees of success system sounds nice until you realize that you're rarely going to get a critical success when you really need it (against higher or equal level enemies). Martial characters are generally doing less damage and have less attacks. But the whole system has been rebalanced to account for these changes and impose a different play style than PF1 had.
Enough of the rest of the system assumes Strikes targeting objects that "can't Strike objects because of the targeting line" is a fairly worthless concern.That's not true though: there ARE spells and abilities that target objects, so the fact that items have material stats is moot in an analysis of Strike. The system assumes you can attack objects, NOT that Strike can do so. Now if I was asked if Strike SHOULD be able to do so, I think it should but that would require fleshing out things like we're doing here with AC: if we assume the system assumes Striking objects, it's not cool that 10 groups might come up with 10 different AC's for it.
AH, you're houseruling it. Ok, no problem then. Myself, I can't see less than an AC 10 normally as the wall spells have that and that means it's literally like hitting the broad side of a barn. Like HammerJack, shooting smaller objects would increase that AC.base AC=10 minus 5 dex bonus (immobile= no dex).
Resilient sphere has an AC of 5 as an example, though wall of force has AC 10. It's still up to the GM I think but the practice at my table has been to start with 5 and adjust depending on how small the target it.
It isn't just objects having an AC.
So, all wall spells are indestructible to many monsters at your table? And the barbarian feat to make their Melee Strikes against objects ignore a bit of hardness just does nothing?
Weird way to run a game, but your call I suppose.
Much weirder way to assume anyone else would, though.
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So, all wall spells are indestructible to many monsters at your table? And the barbarian feat to make their Melee Strikes against objects ignore a bit of hardness just does nothing? Weird way to run a game, but your call I suppose.
Much weirder way to assume anyone else would, though.
Force Open "With a high enough result, you can even smash through walls." This means anyone with an Athletic skill and a high enough check can "smash through walls". Again, the game has other ways to damage objects, so it NEEDS to specify Strike can hit objects as it can't be assumed. Now we can houserule it can, but I wouldn't call that a by the book ruling.
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And Shattering Blows, which only applies to Strikes on objects?
Because "While you are raging, your melee Strikes ignore 5 points of an object's Hardness. If you have the devastator class feature, you instead ignore 10 points of an object's Hardness." And "you can't Strike objects" don't mix.
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We have two ways to compare PF2 firearms. We can compare them the PF1 firearms and we can compare them to other PF2 weapons. Let me do both.
Sample of PF2 Firearms
Flintlock Pistol, one-handed simple ranged weapon, Concussive, Fatal d8, range increment 40 feet, Reload 1, Damage 1d4 piercing, uncommon costing 60 sp.
Flintlock Musket, two-handed simple ranged weapon, Concussive, Fatal d10, range increment 70 feet, Reload 1, Damage 1d6 piercing, uncommon costing 70 sp.
Dueling Pistol, one-handed martial ranged weapon, Concealable, Concussive, Fatal d10, range increment 60 feet, Reload 1, Damage 1d6 piercing, uncommon costing 120 sp.
Arquebus, two-handed martial ranged weapon, Concussive, Fatal d12, Kickback, range increment 150 feet, Reload 1, Damage 1d8 piercing, uncommon costing 100 sp.
Firearm Ammunition (10 rounds), uncommon costing 1 sp.
Sample of PF1 Firearms
Early Pistol, one-handed exotic ranged weapon, hits flat-footed AC, Misfire on nat 1, Critical x4, Range increment 20 feet, Reload 1 standard action, Damage 1d8 bludgeoning and piercing, rare costing 1,000 gp
Early Musket, two-handed exotic ranged weapon, hits flat-footed AC, Misfire on nat 1 or 2, Critical x4, Range increment 40 feet, Reload 1 full-round action, Damage 1d12 bludgeoning and piercing, rare costing 1,500 gp
Black powder (dose), 10 gp
Firearm bullet (1), 1 gp
Alchemical cartridge (paper, bullet or pellet), 12 gp, reduces reload time and increases misfire chance by one step.
Sample of Other PF2 Ranged Weapons
Crossbow, two-handed simple ranged weapon, range increment 120 feet, Reload 1, Damage 1d8 piercing, common costing 30 sp.
Shortbow, one-hand-plus martial ranged weapon, Deadly d10, range increment 60 feet, Reload 0, Damage 1d6 piercing, common costing 30 sp.
Composite Longbow, one-hand-plus martial ranged weapon, Deadly d10, Propulsive, Volley 30 feet, range increment 100 feet, Reload 0, Damage 1d8 piercing, common costing 200 sp.
Halfling Sling Staff, two-handed martial ranged weapon, Halfling, Propulsive, range increment 80 feet, Reload 1, Damage 1d10 bludgeoning, uncommon costing 50 sp.
Arrows or Bolts (10), common costing 1 sp.
Sling Bullets (10), common costing 0.1 sp.
For the PF1 firearms, the price jumps out. The weapon costs 1,000 gp and each shot costs 11 gp, beyond the budget of a 1st- or 2nd-level character. Thus, to start with a gun a gunslinger gains a so-called battered firearm at 1st level.
Also a PF1 firearm has a misfire chance and a lengthy reload time. The misfire is bad, giving the firearm the broken condition which means a -2 penalty to hit and destroying the firearm on another misfire, but a gunslinger can gain Quick Clear to remove the broken condition. A reload time of 1 standard action means that the firearm can be fired only every other turn. Alchemical paper cartridges can reduce that to one standard action, but that increases the chance of misfire. Instead, most gunslinging characters take the Rapid Reload faet, an additional feat cost on top of Exotic Weapon Proficiency(Firearm). My gun-toting bloodrager Val Baine was an exception, because she needed her feats for bloodrager tactics. She instead carried two pistols and reloaded between battles.
Thus, PF1 firearms are locked behind disadvantages correctable by gunslinger features or feats, to discourage non-gunslinger characters from using them.
For damage, a PF1 early musket deals 1d12 damage that is both bludgeoning and piercing. That is almost twice the 1d6 damage of the PF2 musket. Yet the PF2 musket, with a shorter reload time of only one action, can be shot once per turn while the PF1 musket can be shot only once every two turns. That is comparible. The PF2 arquebus is better with 1d8 damage, though its use requires martial weapon proficieny and Strength 14 due to kickback. The martial weapon proficieny is also comparible, because only a full-BAB martial PF1 character would use a firearm anyway. The true damage advantages to the PF1 musket is that it hits touch AC, so it hits more often, and 5th-level gunslingers get Dex to damage.
DoubleGold's point #3 in the original post compares the x4 critial on the PF1 firearms to the fatal trait on the PF2 firearms. PF2 lacks higher multipliers on its weapon crits, so fatal is as close as it can come to a x4 crit. For a PF2 musket, Fatal d10 replaces the 1d6 damage, average 3.5 damage, of an unenchanted musket with 2 x 1d10 on a crit and adds another 1d10, average 16.5 damage. 16.5/3.5 = 4.7, more that x4. For a striking musket, that would be (5x5.5)/(2x3.5) = 3.9 and for a greater striking musket that would be (7x5.5)/(3x3.5) = 3.7. That is close enough to x4 for me. That the deadly and fatal weapon traits do not scale perfectly with striking runes is not a nerf on firearms themselves.
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.
And since PF2 lacks natural armor, the workaround that hitting touch AC against natural armor is gone from PF2. Thus, PF2 firearms hitting regular AC is not as much a nerf as presented. Only the opponents who wear heavy ormor would be especially vulnerable to touch-AC attacks. Dragons would do fine.
And the spell QuidEst mentioned might have been Bullet Shield, introduced in the same rulebook Ultimate Combat as firearms. My bloodrager Val Baine took that spell, since many of her opponents in Iron Gods had firearms, too.
For comparing PF2 firearms to other PF2 ranged weapons, let's start with the simple weapons, musket versus crossbow. The crossbow has greater range, 120-foot increment versus 70-foot increment, and greater damage, 1d8 versus 1d6. The musket has concussive (bludgeoning and piercing) and fatal 1d10. It is a standard balance, more traits in exchange of one step lower damage, but I think that the 1d8 damage on the crossbow is better.
For martial ranged weapons, the Composite Longbow is the best of them, so everything else, including firearms, falls short. The Arquebus and the Longbow do have some similarities, such as a long range increment, 1d8 damage, and Kickback has an situational -2 penalty to attack rolls like Volley, but the Reload 0 on the longbow is twice as good as the Reload 1 on the arguebus.
For martial weapons with Reload 1, we can use the Halfling Sling Staff as a standard. The sling staff deals more damage than the arquebus, 1d10 versus 1d8 with slightly shorter range. Its propulsive trait can deal even more damage, so let's presume the wielder has Strength 14 for +1 damage. That would match the +1 damage from Kickback while Strength 14 prevents the -2 penalty to attack rolls. That balances. Once again, the firearm has a weapon die one size smaller to balance its fatal trait.
Firearms are balanced PF2 weapons that fall short of the Reload 0 privilege given to bows. The PF1 firearms had some niches involving natural armor and heavy armor where they were supreme, but other than that touch AC issue, the PF2 firearms are as good as them and required fewer feats to use properly.
And Shattering Blows, which only applies to Strikes on objects?
Because "While you are raging, your melee Strikes ignore 5 points of an object's Hardness. If you have the devastator class feature, you instead ignore 10 points of an object's Hardness." And "you can't Strike objects" don't mix.
Things like inanimate familiars and Animated Objects: you can even break Animated Objects as you can normal objects. This makes sense as it overlaps with the Devastator class ability that overcomes a creature’s resistance to their physical damage. The feature makes more sense if Strikes could actually target objects but that doesn't mean it doesn't work without that. Even if there IS an example doesn't mix, it is still an undefined ability as it doesn't tells HOW to target an object.
For instance, Trick Shot DOES allow for a Strike vs an object but then has to tell you how to do so: "Make a Strike with your firearm against an AC equal to an easy DC for your level." This just isn't there for normal Strikes.
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Don't have an object targeting argument here, please. Not that this thread's super valuable either.
The fatal trait is more powerful than the deadly trait when a weapon has a striking rune. But the deadly trait is more powerful than the fatal trait when a weapon has a greater striking rune. In other words, guns become inferior to bows at later levels.
Aside from your whole post being 'Cloud could instantly kill Crono his damage numbers are higher!!', this isn't even true as far as I've seen. Deadly sizes relative to the weapon vary, but in general Fatal starts out drastically more impactful than Deadly and Deadly only *starts* to catch up with Greater Striking (which is over halfway into the level curve where people don't often reach). Depending on situation, Deadly sometimes doesn't *quite* catch up even with its final upgrade point at Major Striking.
It's a bit laughable to suggest this one trait difference determines the effectiveness of entire weapon classes, on top of getting the traits wrong. The broad-strokes evaluation of usefulness and power (these are often different things) looks at action economy, hand requirements, and related feats and features.
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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?
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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?
I haven't played a lot of 1e. But I am pretty sure that there would be more damage from those attacks than just what is listed from the weapon. There is probably a large pile of static damage being added to those rolled values. The +2 from the magic item enchantment is only one of them.
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Of course. For one thing, 4d8+8 doesn't even account for guns getting a special rules exception to be able to use Deadly Aim while targeting Touch AC. Much less for gunslinger adding dex to damage at level 5.
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my guy, i have had a non-minmaxed gunslinger do 310 damage with a single attack
Serious answer: you'd be hard pressed to find a gunslinger who doesn't use Deadly Aim. That feat alone would likely add +8 damage to each attack (or +32 for each crit). And characters high enough level to fight cannon golems (even as bosses) will have other damage boosts available to them. Dex to damage adds at least another +5 or +6 damage per attack (or +20 to +24 damage per crit).
Don't have an object targeting argument here, please. Not that this thread's super valuable either.
It's relevant when someone makes an argument that targeting objects is a valuable use of a PF2 gun. As such, it's on point as someone did just that. Pf1 vs PF2 guns is a large umbrella with a lot of possible directions you can take it: how combat works in PF1 vs PF2 is an integral part of a lot of them, like touch AC vs normal or what you can target.