Towards a better gunslinger (also some stuff about reload weapons on other classes)

[Squiggit]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I'm not sure that "less flexibility in action economy" is an unreasonable thing to pin to a class.

I mean it's basically Paizo's go to these days. Between the Swashbuckler, Gunslinger, Investigator, Magus (and to an extent the thaumaturge which is like a ranger without action economy boosters)... most post-core martial classes are built around the idea of having bad action economy. So it's not really like the gunslinger is pushing boundaries here. If anything it's the opposite that's the rarity here, only the Inventor really operates in normal action economy space.

The problem is the whole draw of PF2's action economy is its flexibility. Taking away from that is essentially taking away from a core conceit of the game.

The other problem is that Paizo consistently undervalues these action penalties while simultaneously still using flexible action economy as a cornerstone of the system, effectively double penalizing these classes.

I feel like there's a lot of theoretical discussion here that ignores the practical. We can talk about the high concept value of a less flexible class in terms of niche fulfilment and class fantasy...

But in an actual game my dude with a crossbow or gun is spending six actions to make three attacks over two turns, when an archer is spending four actions for four attacks which leaves them with two actions left over they can do whatever with, with no real upshot for the crossbow user.

And then the consolation prize is that you can spend a bunch of feats to almost make up for it.

IDK if that sounds as awesome as some people in here seem to want to make it sound.

[Captain Morgan]

I am going to be playing my first gunslinger soon, but I've done a bit of crossbow ranger stuff, and I kind of like the reload life style. Figuring out how to make your one shot count is more interesting to me than attacking 2-4 times.

Reload weapons tend to have slightly better damage per hit than bows, and significantly better crits with fatal. Concussive also puts in a fair amount of work. And I personally really value my range increments.

Ascalaphus wrote:

With the barricade buster I'm looking again at firearms from the lens of other martials. Instead of trying to make reloading fun, just expect to fire at most 8 shots from a repeating weapon, and then switch to a different weapon or melee.

I'm toying with the idea of a fighter taking guns as favored weapons, and martial artist archetype to add a switch hitting side to that.

It is aggravating that neither the gunslinger or the inventor is as good with the barricade buster as a fighter.

[aobst128]

The time I spent with pistolero was fun. Had another gunslinger in the party where we traded fake outs. Between that and pistol twirl, I crit fairly often. Thaumaturge archetype to grab thaumaturge ammunition to dual wield clan pistols. Was pretty effective as far as I could tell.

[Karmagator]

I'm playing around with a mix of several suggestions so far. This is the WIP version of a possible level 1 gunslinger class feature:

---

Speedloader [free action]
Frequency - Once per round
You use one action that has the reload trait. After you use Speedloader, you can't use any actions that have the attack trait for the rest of your turn.

---

The reload trait is a trait I added to all Slinger's Reloads and comparable feats like Running Reload. It's just to have that rider on there, it doesn't do anything.

The idea behind this is to push the gunslinger into using those two-action activities more, while at the same time allowing you to actually use something that isn't part of your core reload/shot economy. The second sentence is there to prevent you from using this just to get more shots on target, bows and level 20 gunslingers can have that one. That is not the goal here. But i'm not really happy with it, as this gives you functionally 5 actions per turn before Quickened, but the alternative - just a free action basic reload - would effectively eliminate Slinger's Reload for everyone but a dual-wielder. That is not something I'm willing to do, they are a core part of the Ways. But yeah, the current version is probably overpowered.

If some version of this were implemented, you'd have to rebalance some feats (Paired Shots) and probably remove Risky Reload. But I'm really not sad to see the latter one go.

Thoughts?

[Iberison]

Hmm, I'm a PF2e newb, so take my musing with a grain of salt.

When I started theory-crafting a Gunslinger character, the whole class entry gave me the "1889 Wild West" vibe. Fair enough, all of the Ways and most of the Feats evoked a Boot Hill scenario in my imagination.

When I started equipping my hypothetical Gunslinger, I found the weapons options to be firmly rooted in the "1789 Colonial" period. The only character image I could muster for the class was the cutlass and cap-gun wielding pirate with a brace of loaded muskets strapped across his chest.

Therein lies the disconnect, for me. The class exists without the gear to support it. There are a few items that come close (Blunderbuss, Air Repeaters, and the Slide Pistol). The Air Repeaters are classic, Revolutionary War-era Girandoni air guns, while the Slide Pistol is effectively a single-action revolver. The disconnect lies in the gap between the Reload, Capacity, and Repeating traits.
In my opinion Gunslingers will only come into their own when appropriate mid- to late-1880's style firearms are introduced, effectively creating a "double-action" trait. Weapons with a Capacity need to be Reload 0 for the purpose of Interacting to chamber the next round while still taking the usual amount of time to reload the empty cylinder to maintain a balance. And there needs to be appropriate Capacity trait long guns. Both the pump shotgun and the lever rifle were invented in the early- to mid-1800's and were ubiquitous by 1890.

[Alchemic_Genius]

Iberison wrote:

Hmm, I'm a PF2e newb, so take my musing with a grain of salt.

When I started theory-crafting a Gunslinger character, the whole class entry gave me the "1889 Wild West" vibe. Fair enough, all of the Ways and most of the Feats evoked a Boot Hill scenario in my imagination.

When I started equipping my hypothetical Gunslinger, I found the weapons options to be firmly rooted in the "1789 Colonial" period. The only character image I could muster for the class was the cutlass and cap-gun wielding pirate with a brace of loaded muskets strapped across his chest.

Therein lies the disconnect, for me. The class exists without the gear to support it. There are a few items that come close (Blunderbuss, Air Repeaters, and the Slide Pistol). The Air Repeaters are classic, Revolutionary War-era Girandoni air guns, while the Slide Pistol is effectively a single-action revolver. The disconnect lies in the gap between the Reload, Capacity, and Repeating traits.
In my opinion Gunslingers will only come into their own when appropriate mid- to late-1880's style firearms are introduced, effectively creating a "double-action" trait. Weapons with a Capacity need to be Reload 0 for the purpose of Interacting to chamber the next round while still taking the usual amount of time to reload the empty cylinder to maintain a balance. And there needs to be appropriate Capacity trait long guns. Both the pump shotgun and the lever rifle were invented in the early- to mid-1800's and were ubiquitous by 1890.

Before guns and gears, and even the repeating hand crossbow; I made my own guns, and this is actually how I made them work. My revolver was 1d6, deadly d6, versatile B, one handed, range 30 ft, had 6 chambers; while you had a chamber with a bullet, it was treated as reload 0, but you had to spend an interact action to load a bullet into a chamber. It worked really well. I treated the fact that most people ran of of ammo after 3 turns of attacking as a fair balance point to having a completely open hand vs the bow's only having one hand open when not shooting, and it actually played out pretty nicely.

Ranger ended up being the "gunslinger" character; since flurry edge represented the speed shooter type well, and precision was good fornthe sharpshooter type style, and both had running reload to make reloading chamber a little more exticing

[Jacob Jett]

Iberison wrote:

Hmm, I'm a PF2e newb, so take my musing with a grain of salt.

When I started theory-crafting a Gunslinger character, the whole class entry gave me the "1889 Wild West" vibe. Fair enough, all of the Ways and most of the Feats evoked a Boot Hill scenario in my imagination.

When I started equipping my hypothetical Gunslinger, I found the weapons options to be firmly rooted in the "1789 Colonial" period. The only character image I could muster for the class was the cutlass and cap-gun wielding pirate with a brace of loaded muskets strapped across his chest.

Therein lies the disconnect, for me. The class exists without the gear to support it. There are a few items that come close (Blunderbuss, Air Repeaters, and the Slide Pistol). The Air Repeaters are classic, Revolutionary War-era Girandoni air guns, while the Slide Pistol is effectively a single-action revolver. The disconnect lies in the gap between the Reload, Capacity, and Repeating traits.
In my opinion Gunslingers will only come into their own when appropriate mid- to late-1880's style firearms are introduced, effectively creating a "double-action" trait. Weapons with a Capacity need to be Reload 0 for the purpose of Interacting to chamber the next round while still taking the usual amount of time to reload the empty cylinder to maintain a balance. And there needs to be appropriate Capacity trait long guns. Both the pump shotgun and the lever rifle were invented in the early- to mid-1800's and were ubiquitous by 1890.

Ironically, pneumatic-powered firearms in our world date all the way back to the 1500s. They maybe had magazine? Honestly a magazine isn't a difficult engineering issue (we've had springs for hundreds and hundreds of years). More interesting is that these air rifles came in calibers typical for the day (.35~.50 caliber by today's standards), indicating to me that they're probably better modeled like flintlock muskets or arquebuses... The air repeaters weirdly read as daisy air guns to me... Which I agree...disconnect...

[Jedi Maester]

I think something to consider is that if guns are made more useable themselves, then gunslinger needs a new niche. If any class can use guns, then most of the gunslinger's mechanics of making guns useful becomes much less useful themselves. Honestly, I'm all for this.

Thinking about the thematic disconnects, I see a few different gun using fantasies in media: pirate, cowboy, hunter, the matrix, and inventor. I really think these are distinct enough that if guns were more viable on their own, they could be more readily distributed between different classes, like swashbuckler, ranger, rogue, monk, and inventor.

But then what does the gunslinger do that is unique if everyone can use guns? I'd be curious what people would want to see from a gunslinger that needs to do more than just bring guns up to competent. Personally, I'd design a class around drawing weapons. So we get a unique class around quick drawing guns, katanas, anything. Essentially an inverse to panache, where you gain power by standing still and being stoic, before exploding with quick and efficient actions.

[Karmagator]

This discussion actually goes back all the way to the Guns and Gears playtest where the gunslinger was introduced. In 2e at least, I cannot tell you about 1e.

The long and short of it is that the designers decided to stop the regular weapons vaguely in the pre-Napoleonic Era with the added twist that many examples are breech-loaders instead of muzzle-loaders. Mostly because they are cooler and it doesn't stretch the imagination quite as much that they can be reloaded in 2 seconds. There are also many types of tech that only a world like Golarion could have, like beast guns, star guns or spark guns. Anything after that is functionally non-existent due to equal parts lore, aesthetics and balancing. Most of that is explained quite well in Guns and Gears starting on page 146.

I would agree, though, the clown gun (my name for the slide pistol) is close enough to a single-action revolver. You could honestly just use those stats and I don't think it would feel too weird. Also, I looked up the Girardoni air gun and hot damn!

Overall, I'd be fine to predominantly have more modern single-loaders, which despite their name many of the current weapons really are. Well, minus the rifling. The dueling pistol corresponds to something like a Werder pistol, the arquebus can be compared to a sharps rifle or a trapdoor musket. I'm also personally ok with capacity firearms just being repurposed as lever-actions, single-action revolvers and so on. In my experience, that is what a lot of people are doing anyways, so I don't see it as breaking the world's fantasy. For comparison, we have full clockwork robots, air ships, weapons that shoot souls, literal laser guns and moving castles. Yes, more modern guns are very powerful, but considering quite a few people in this world can tank cannon rounds without a problem, break castle walls with their bare hands and shoot arrows with enough power to kill a dragon, I'm sure we'll be fine with a bit of adjustment in expectations.

What I'm mostly concerned with is having interesting, fun and effective mechanics. When we eventually get there, I really don't care too much if someone is running around with a flintlock pistol or a man-portable puckle gun or something.

[Karmagator]

Jedi Maester wrote:

I think something to consider is that if guns are made more useable themselves, then gunslinger needs a new niche. If any class can use guns, then most of the gunslinger's mechanics of making guns useful becomes much less useful themselves. Honestly, I'm all for this.

Thinking about the thematic disconnects, I see a few different gun using fantasies in media: pirate, cowboy, hunter, the matrix, and inventor. I really think these are distinct enough that if guns were more viable on their own, they could be more readily distributed between different classes, like swashbuckler, ranger, rogue, monk, and inventor.

But then what does the gunslinger do that is unique if everyone can use guns? I'd be curious what people would want to see from a gunslinger that needs to do more than just bring guns up to competent. Personally, I'd design a class around drawing weapons. So we get a unique class around quick drawing guns, katanas, anything. Essentially an inverse to panache, where you gain power by standing still and being stoic, before exploding with quick and efficient actions.

I think there is a big difference between using guns and using guns. Also other reload weapons, I'd like those in here as well. But back to the point, if "dude that uses weapon X" is good enough for the fighter, one of the most competitive and well-liked classes in the game, then that is good enough for me, really. It would be more focused than the fighter in general, but realistically not more focused than any individual fighter character or even a certain range of individual fighters. Quick-drawing is just one of the playstyles you can represent and I think the current gunslinger already delivers plenty of flavour. You honestly wouldn't need to change too much, depending on how firearms change, and that can already be delivered via new Ways and class feats.

All in all, I think the gunslinger already has a decent niche going even if guns were better. Any further thoughts are extremely dependent on how reload weapons would change mechanically.

[PossibleCabbage]

Honestly the thing I want from the Gunslinger is for the "one big shot per round" playstyle to feel more rewarding. The Swashbuckler can do this ("gain panache, finisher, your third action is whatever"), the precision ranger with a crossbow can do this (shoot, running reload, your third action is whatever), the Magus does this just normally. The sniper can kind of play like this but you only get the bonus precision damage on your first shot. I get that the Sniper's thing is "you get to be *super* accurate with a fatal weapon, and that is good" but some extra precision damage would be more appreciated than "can reload real fast."

Like I get that we need to have flintlocks and the like reload faster than they would realistically, because this is a game and games should be fun, but they absolutely should never have the same rate of fire of bows.

[Jedi Maester]

Karmagator wrote:

But back to the point, if "dude that uses weapon X" is good enough for the fighter, one of the most competitive and well-liked classes in the game, then that is good enough for me, really.

That is part of my point. We already have the class that's really good with a weapon. If we spread the reload love around, I'm not sure how much difference there would be between a fighter that uses guns and the gunslinger.

[Jacob Jett]

IRL, the reload issue was handled by simply having multiple loaded weapons on hand. There are reasons why pirates are often depicted as being festooned with weapons. Watch Last of the Mohicans sometime. A fairly realistic view of how gunslingers would really work. Also, gunslingers work best when both sides have them and thereby suffer the same penalties. (In essence this is how the line warfare used from the late 1500s to mid-1800s worked. Everyone's taking turns reloading and blasting away as they slowly advanced until they were close enough to charge in with melee weapons. In essence, miniature war games, including Warhammer 40k, work on the same principles. IRL, you'd be a fool to try to close into melee range on a modern battlefield.)

Regarding the gunslinger's role in the game, I'd add the sling group to the set of weapons they gain expert+ proficiencies in so they remain relevant as we stretch back through time to pre-gun days. Since slings also suffer the reload issue and there's every possibility that I might want a gunslinger that doesn't have access to/can't use guns (there's a reason crossbows were included after all) as a choice available to my players in a campaign. The crossbow-person is a viable option. The sling peltast would also be a good space. Both have historical antecedents.

[aobst128]

Slingslinger should definitely be a thing I agree.

[Jacob Jett]

I mean...it's directly there in the name, right?

[Karmagator]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Honestly the thing I want from the Gunslinger is for the "one big shot per round" playstyle to feel more rewarding. The Swashbuckler can do this ("gain panache, finisher, your third action is whatever"), the precision ranger with a crossbow can do this (shoot, running reload, your third action is whatever), the Magus does this just normally. The sniper can kind of play like this but you only get the bonus precision damage on your first shot. I get that the Sniper's thing is "you get to be *super* accurate with a fatal weapon, and that is good" but some extra precision damage would be more appreciated than "can reload real fast."

Like I get that we need to have flintlocks and the like reload faster than they would realistically, because this is a game and games should be fun, but they absolutely should never have the same rate of fire of bows.

I'm absolutely with you for the "one big shot per round", but it doesn't necessarily have to be a big load of damage. A bit of damage would be appreciated as well, but I'd rather see a substantial improvement in a different dimension of doing bad things to your enemies.

Just imagine - when you hit them, any enemy becomes flat-footed until the end of your next turn, no save. Obviously won't happen because it's OP as hell, but it would be very funny. The gunslinger instantly becomes everyone's best friend XD

[Pieces-Kai]

I get Gunslingers are somewhat tied to having a special reload action but would Guns be that vastly better than other ranged weapons if you removed the need to reload? Like I get that revisions would need to be made to Gunslinger if you done that

[Unicore]

Guns would be horrible in the hands of NPCs if they didn’t require reload. Shortbow are bad enough, but the crit factor on having 4 enemies fire 3 shots gets real bad if those third attacks can still crit. Even with 1 action reload guns can fire 2 times in round 1 and that is dangerous enough.

[Karmagator]

Pieces-Kai wrote:

I get Gunslingers are somewhat tied to having a special reload action but would Guns be that vastly better than other ranged weapons if you removed the need to reload? Like I get that revisions would need to be made to Gunslinger if you done that

They would pretty much be straight upgrades, yes.

Just compare the rough eqivalents, the dueling pistol and the shortbow. Both deal d6s, have 60ft range increments and are technically one-handed weapons, but need a free hand to be used. Except the gun has fatal d10 compared to the bow's deadly d10, which is always better and concussive, so it has to deal with resistances less often. Concealable is more of a nice to have, but it's there. The composite shortbow largely makes up for the damage difference, but not quite. The difference isn't too great here, but that isn't the end.

Because that would be the "fair" comparison. Now take one of the actual two-handed weapons, which bows have no equivalent for. Higher damage dice plus higher fatal and kickback. Here, the damage difference is rather substantial, especially on a crit.

So yeah, probably not a great idea ;)

[Karmagator]

Unicore wrote:

Guns would be horrible in the hands of NPCs if they didn’t require reload. Shortbow are bad enough, but the crit factor on having 4 enemies fire 3 shots gets real bad if those third attacks can still crit. Even with 1 action reload guns can fire 2 times in round 1 and that is dangerous enough.

Things that you should only do in short-form games even without that: place several sniper NPCs in a variety of hard to reach positions.

I've done that. Once. In a one-shot and with everyone knowing that things would get very hairy. Unsurprisingly, at-level enemies with an extreme attack modifier and even just moderate-ish damage (plus fatal) are extremely deadly. To say that fight went badly would be a massive understatement. There are counters ofc, but you have to be prepared and ideally have certain classes, but still.

We managed to make it a somewhat fun "escape the ambush" scenario, but I wouldn't recommend it.

[Jacob Jett]

Wait...did I misread the fatal trait? I thought on a critical it upgrades the die size, adds an additional die of the new size, and then doubles. Whereas deadly just adds an extra damage die of arbitrary size after doubling. Did I get it wrong?

[i26c2]

breithauptclan wrote:

Not to spike the wheel of the conversation too much, but it may be that this is just a perception and expectation management problem.

Gunslinger is a non-core class. So the comparison to Fighter and Ranger is going to be a problem. Perhaps instead you should compare your expectations to the class with that of Swashbuckler, Inventor, and Investigator. Is Gunslinger any more of a fiddly, finicky, and problematic class to play than one of those?

If you want to be best in class for ranged damage, you should probably play a ranged Fighter or Ranger or maybe Rogue. Because those are core classes and are inherently easier to use for a core game mechanic like 'deal the most damage at range as possible'.

The choice of playing a Gunslinger is as much for the flavor and style of the character as it is for the game mechanics.

Since you play a lot of gunslingers, could you anwser this for me. I have a sniper and as far as I know it takes an action to covered reload and an action to shoot, so my other action can be to move or shoot a second time (and then reload a second time the next turn). I noticed that the new alchemical items in treasure vault have interact entries at top. Does this mean they take another action to use on top of the reload? I don't ahve my copy of treasure vault yet so I can't confirm if it is stated anywhere that alchemical bullets work like magical ones or not (magical bulelts need an interact action if they ahve an entry). The weird thing, is blackpowder (which I beleive is the entry for normal bullets) on Archive of Neyths (comes from gears and guns I beleive) also has that interact entry, but its not magical. So my assumption is that normal bullets do not need that extra action. If so, why is the interact entry there for normal bullets? If it can be ignored, can the interact entry for the alchemical ones also be ignored? So for archive only mentions magical ammunition requiring an extra action if it has an interact action, not normal bulelts or the new alchemical ones. I guess I can wait for them to ship my treasure vault, but I was hoping someone on here might already have it and know.

[ottdmk]

Quote:

Just imagine - when you hit them, any enemy becomes flat-footed until the end of your next turn, no save.

I do that all the time. Well, *start* of my next turn anyways. :-D

[Pieces-Kai]

Karmagator wrote:

Pieces-Kai wrote:

I get Gunslingers are somewhat tied to having a special reload action but would Guns be that vastly better than other ranged weapons if you removed the need to reload? Like I get that revisions would need to be made to Gunslinger if you done that

They would pretty much be straight upgrades, yes.

Just compare the rough eqivalents, the dueling pistol and the shortbow. Both deal d6s, have 60ft range increments and are technically one-handed weapons, but need a free hand to be used. Except the gun has fatal d10 compared to the bow's deadly d10, which is always better and concussive, so it has to deal with resistances less often. Concealable is more of a nice to have, but it's there. The composite shortbow largely makes up for the damage difference, but not quite. The difference isn't too great here, but that isn't the end.

Because that would be the "fair" comparison. Now take one of the actual two-handed weapons, which bows have no equivalent for. Higher damage dice plus higher fatal and kickback. Here, the damage difference is rather substantial, especially on a crit.

So yeah, probably not a great idea ;)

thanks for putting this in perspective. Also reading your proposed class feature idea and I feel free action reload once per round doesn't sound too bad like you'd have to change Slingers Reload to either work with it or have situations where it would be better to use Slingers Reload

[Dubious Scholar]

Jacob Jett wrote:

Wait...did I misread the fatal trait? I thought on a critical it upgrades the die size, adds an additional die of the new size, and then doubles. Whereas deadly just adds an extra damage die of arbitrary size after doubling. Did I get it wrong?

Slightly. The extra die is added after doubling like Deadly is, but unlike Deadly it doesn't add more dice with striking runes.

I still say Deadly shouldn't be forced to skip getting an extra die at the basic striking rune. It both makes it easier to explain and improves an underwhelming trait (the only time deadly is useful is if you can't get a higher die size without deadly, because increased die size is basically always more damage, especially with stuff where it's only like deadly d8)

[Karmagator]

i26c2 wrote:

Since you play a lot of gunslingers, could you anwser this for me. I have a sniper and as far as I know it takes an action to covered reload and an action to shoot, so my other action can be to move or shoot a second time (and then reload a second time the next turn). I noticed that the new alchemical items in treasure vault have interact entries at top. Does this mean they take another action to use on top of the reload? I don't ahve my copy of treasure vault yet so I can't confirm if it is stated anywhere that alchemical bullets work like magical ones or not (magical bulelts need an interact action if they ahve an entry). The weird thing, is blackpowder (which I beleive is the entry for normal bullets) on Archive of Neyths (comes from gears and guns I beleive) also has that interact entry, but its not magical. So my assumption is that normal bullets do not need that extra action. If so, why is the interact entry there for normal bullets? If it can be ignored, can the interact entry for the alchemical ones also be ignored? So for archive only mentions magical ammunition requiring an extra action if it has an interact action, not normal bulelts or the new alchemical ones. I guess I can wait for them to ship my treasure vault, but I was hoping someone on here might already have it and know.

You are correct, shooting once (the basic Strike action), Covered Reload, regular reload (Interact to reload in game terms) and moving each take one action.

And yes, almost all "special" ammunition takes an extra action to Activate. This is true for both magical and alchemical ammunition of any type, as stated in their respective stat blocks. The only difference is that magical ammunition doesn't apply your weapon's property runes, while alchemical ammunition does. Otherwise, the rules are the same.

The black powder entry is somewhat misleading. It is purely for when you use gunpowder as an explosive, not as ammunition. The "round" entry is just a really nasty firecracker. This has no effect on other alchemical ammunition. When you use regular black powder ammunition (usually basic level 0 bullets), it does not require an action to activate, it just works like an arrow or bolt would. Other alchemical ammunition needs to be activated if the stat block states it, which I think is currently all of them.

[i26c2]

Karmagator wrote:

i26c2 wrote:

Since you play a lot of gunslingers, could you anwser this for me. I have a sniper and as far as I know it takes an action to covered reload and an action to shoot, so my other action can be to move or shoot a second time (and then reload a second time the next turn). I noticed that the new alchemical items in treasure vault have interact entries at top. Does this mean they take another action to use on top of the reload? I don't ahve my copy of treasure vault yet so I can't confirm if it is stated anywhere that alchemical bullets work like magical ones or not (magical bulelts need an interact action if they ahve an entry). The weird thing, is blackpowder (which I beleive is the entry for normal bullets) on Archive of Neyths (comes from gears and guns I beleive) also has that interact entry, but its not magical. So my assumption is that normal bullets do not need that extra action. If so, why is the interact entry there for normal bullets? If it can be ignored, can the interact entry for the alchemical ones also be ignored? So for archive only mentions magical ammunition requiring an extra action if it has an interact action, not normal bulelts or the new alchemical ones. I guess I can wait for them to ship my treasure vault, but I was hoping someone on here might already have it and know.

You are correct, shooting once (the basic Strike action), Covered Reload, regular reload (Interact to reload in game terms) and moving each take one action.

And yes, almost all "special" ammunition takes an extra action to Activate. This is true for both magical and alchemical ammunition of any type, as stated in their respective stat blocks. The only difference is that magical ammunition doesn't apply your weapon's property runes, while alchemical ammunition does. Otherwise, the rules are the same.

The black powder entry is somewhat misleading. It is purely for when you use gunpowder as an explosive, not as ammunition. The "round" entry is just a really nasty firecracker. This has no...

wow, yep, the game designers really hate gunslingers. All the good gunslinger attacks require two actions, so you can't use the special ammo with them easily. Would ahve to be like first turn shoot with regular ammo and reload with special ammo, second turn activate special ammo and fire it (and now have an emtpy gun). They really should have jsut made guns a die code higher or something. My jezail is only 1d8, the same damage as a longbow but it requires an action to reload and a longbow does not. It seems like game designers do this overcompensating thing a lot. In PF1e, gunslingers were very OP (attacking on touch AC, what were they thinking?), and in 2e, they overcompensated and nerfed them into being worse than bows.

[Jacob Jett]

IRL, during the Renaissance era (which hypothetically these guns are meant to model/represent) people using firearms are using them to close into the enemy before making a final rush into melee combat. This is why many of the combination weapons are actually based on IRL historical weapons (e.g., axe-gun, sword-pistol, etc.). My expectation for my players would be that they have a round or two of ranged combat before inevitably having to switch to melee combat. So at least from the IRL perspective, the reload times make sense and represent IRL disadvantages firearms suffered from until the late 1800s.

Feats like sword and pistol are meant to further this model of firearms combat.

[Captain Morgan]

i26c2 wrote:

Karmagator wrote:

i26c2 wrote:

Since you play a lot of gunslingers, could you anwser this for me. I have a sniper and as far as I know it takes an action to covered reload and an action to shoot, so my other action can be to move or shoot a second time (and then reload a second time the next turn). I noticed that the new alchemical items in treasure vault have interact entries at top. Does this mean they take another action to use on top of the reload? I don't ahve my copy of treasure vault yet so I can't confirm if it is stated anywhere that alchemical bullets work like magical ones or not (magical bulelts need an interact action if they ahve an entry). The weird thing, is blackpowder (which I beleive is the entry for normal bullets) on Archive of Neyths (comes from gears and guns I beleive) also has that interact entry, but its not magical. So my assumption is that normal bullets do not need that extra action. If so, why is the interact entry there for normal bullets? If it can be ignored, can the interact entry for the alchemical ones also be ignored? So for archive only mentions magical ammunition requiring an extra action if it has an interact action, not normal bulelts or the new alchemical ones. I guess I can wait for them to ship my treasure vault, but I was hoping someone on here might already have it and know.

You are correct, shooting once (the basic Strike action), Covered Reload, regular reload (Interact to reload in game terms) and moving each take one action.

And yes, almost all "special" ammunition takes an extra action to Activate. This is true for both magical and alchemical ammunition of any type, as stated in their respective stat blocks. The only difference is that magical ammunition doesn't apply your weapon's property runes, while alchemical ammunition does. Otherwise, the rules are the same.

The black powder entry is somewhat misleading. It is purely for when you use gunpowder as an explosive, not as ammunition. The "round" entry is just a really nasty

...

The longbow also does less damage on a crit and has to deal with the horrible volley trait. And deals the worst physical damage type.

It's not a 1 to 1 comparison. Most people consider the short bow the default weapon because of how bad volley is in close quarters dungeons.

[Karmagator]

Captain Morgan wrote:

The longbow also does less damage on a crit and has to deal with the horrible volley trait. And deals the worst physical damage type.

It's not a 1 to 1 comparison. Most people consider the short bow the default weapon because of how bad volley is in close quarters dungeons.

That is definitely true, but as the designated devil's advocate here - my Tyrant of Dispater just had his happy ending, but ya know, old habits :D - I feel it necessary to set things a little more into perspective. People tend to make the "longbow is not the point of comparison" argument like here and then forget to do the same for the reload weapons side of the argument.

Because the shortbow is a one-handed weapon, except when you shoot it. While handedness is less important at range, it is still a balancing factor. Therefore, the point of comparison is not the jezail wielded in two hands, the harmona gun or the arquebus. Even with reload hand-switching shenanigans (which fatal aim guns can't even do), those are two-handed weapons. No, the actual direct equivalents - one-handed, two-handed to actually use - are the dueling pistol and the clan pistol.

And that comparison is even less flattering, taking the shortbow as the proper point of comparison. Same damage on a hit, same range (dueling pistol) or slightly longer range that rarely matters (clan pistol). The average damage difference on a crit when just comparing the weapons is as follows:

-> (shortbow vs pistol in that order)
- 4 (level 1-3, no striking; 12.5 vs 16.5)
- 8 (level 4-11, striking; 19.5 vs 27.5)
- 6.5 (level 12-18, greater striking; 32 vs 38.5)
- 5 (level 19 and 20, major striking; 44.5 vs 49.5)

That is very significant at level 1-3 and even quite good until level 11, declining in quality the further you get to the end. So about half the game. After that, HP pools are so massive that you really need several instances of this to really feel the difference.

But now we need to consider that these weapons do not exist in a vacuum. With very little effort, a bow user can put out nearly double the number of attacks that the pistol user can for the same number of actions. Triple if the pistol user ever uses a two-action activity. Quadruple the number on a turn that the pistoleer uses a two-action activity or the common Pistol Twirl/ Strike combo, the bow user doesn't have to use Hunt Prey and decides to just throw stuff at the wall and sees what sticks. The last one isn't very rare in my experience. Considering this assumes the pistoleer even manages to crit, the damage difference is less than a bow hit for most of the game and the composite shortbow will even those numbers even more, even considering the +1 from Singular Expertise. This is an incomplete analysis as well, but it roughly demonstrates what usually happens in actual play. Unless the gunslinger is incredibly lucky and crits their socks off, the bow use will almost always have a significant advantage.

And yes, concussive is cool if you have it, but resistance against piercing is only somewhat common in the early game and even then it is campaign-specific. Once you get out of the "oozes and skeletons" phase by about level 5, if your game has one, then it becomes largely irrelevant. Unless your game features a lot of those creature types, in which case it becomes really important ofc. Piercing damage being the worst physical damage type is a fact, but the importance of that fact is incredibly overstated in the current meta.

[Dubious Scholar]

I think that overall, reload 1 is enough of a cost that almost all reload 1 weapons could see their die size increased by one and bows would still be the best ranged weapons.

[PossibleCabbage]

I think the handedness of bows is something that reflects "how bows are actually used" in that there's no way to imagine a "two handed bow". But there's still no way to combine bow use with a shield, grappling, anything the Thaumaturge does, or anything for which you'd want a hand for more than an action or two. Whereas for guns and crossbows "ones you need two hands for" and "ones you can use with one hand" are actual things.

[Temperans]

Jacob Jett wrote:

IRL, during the Renaissance era (which hypothetically these guns are meant to model/represent) people using firearms are using them to close into the enemy before making a final rush into melee combat. This is why many of the combination weapons are actually based on IRL historical weapons (e.g., axe-gun, sword-pistol, etc.). My expectation for my players would be that they have a round or two of ranged combat before inevitably having to switch to melee combat. So at least from the IRL perspective, the reload times make sense and represent IRL disadvantages firearms suffered from until the late 1800s.

Feats like sword and pistol are meant to further this model of firearms combat.

The game doesn't represent this because by that time guns largely replaced bows because of how easy it was to just use a gun by literally anyone. Meanwhile, in PF2 the only ones that can actually use a gun are Fighters and Gunslingers.

It doesn't even represent the damage size correctly because the guns in that era were either big and would kill on a hit. Or tiny and meant to be hidden inside the clothes. PF2 offers neither.

That is not even taking into account that PF2 is not set in the reinassance. PF2 takes places 10 years after PF1 which already had alchemical shots that required no activation, mage shots that required no activation, Dragoon firearms (3 bullet magazine), etc.

So firearms are more difficult to use (not at all like actual guns), are harder to hit with (not at all like actual guns), deal less damage overall (if they were fatal d12 or 2d6 maybe), and all the abilities are designed with reload 0 in mind, which just make reload 1 weapons bad.

[Karmagator]

Dubious Scholar wrote:

I think that overall, reload 1 is enough of a cost that almost all reload 1 weapons could see their die size increased by one and bows would still be the best ranged weapons.

Probably, yeah. On a side note, then you also run into the problem that the regular die size and fatal die size get too close together. Currently, the difference is two die sizes for firearms, which feels very significant. If it is only one, fatal really loses a lot of its felt impact imo.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I think the handedness of bows is something that reflects "how bows are actually used" in that there's no way to imagine a "two handed bow". But there's still no way to combine bow use with a shield, grappling, anything the Thaumaturge does, or anything for which you'd want a hand for more than an action or two. Whereas for guns and crossbows "ones you need two hands for" and "ones you can use with one hand" are actual things.

I'm absolutely not saying that there isn't a good reason for bows being the way they are and that there aren't guns/crossbows that are different. It absolutely makes sense. That doesn't mean that it is of no concern when it comes to balance.

You can still use your second hand for plenty of other things. From the top of my head - manipulating objects, Activating items, Battle Medicine, Trip (theoretically), or using scrolls (possibly) and most other consumables. The only things you realistically lose are those that occupy a hand for longer periods of time, like a using shield or second weapon. Some of those can even be circumvented via feats, e.g. Nimble Shield Hand, so you can absolutely use a bow and a shield. I personally don't think that's super useful, but it is a thing. The Thaumaturge's stuff is only possibly limited in the ambiguous case of Implement's Empowerment, otherwise I don't see a reason why you cannot use a bow. Bows are one-handed weapons, so they certainly work as a weapon implement. Admittedly, I only have superficial knowledge of the class, including giving some of the rules a once-over just now, so I could very well be wrong.

However, for all intents and purposes, one-handed non-capacity/repeating firearms are in that exact same boat, which is why they are the proper point of reference. That was all my previous wall of text was supposed to express - sorry btw, I am apparently incapable of keeping things brief :/. I'm also not sure if I read your intent right or if I was just reading into things, so if I did - sorry ^^.

Jacob Jett wrote:

IRL, during the Renaissance era (which hypothetically these guns are meant to model/represent) people using firearms are using them to close into the enemy before making a final rush into melee combat. This is why many of the combination weapons are actually based on IRL historical weapons (e.g., axe-gun, sword-pistol, etc.). My expectation for my players would be that they have a round or two of ranged combat before inevitably having to switch to melee combat. So at least from the IRL perspective, the reload times make sense and represent IRL disadvantages firearms suffered from until the late 1800s.

Feats like sword and pistol are meant to further this model of firearms combat.

The system really doesn't represent that basically at all. Ways are either melee-centric (drifter and vanguard) or absolutely focused on ranged combat (everyone else). The overlap is minimal, simply because you have exactly nothing to gain by voluntarily switching "engagement modes" or in some cases (drifter) your subclass basically doesn't function at range. The whole "shoot until you are close, then bayonet charge" idea just doesn't exist in the setting, as far as we can tell. There certainly is no Way or feat that represents it. All the existing ones like Sword and Pistol require you to already be in melee. If you squint a bit, Stab and Blast might be a candidate.

[Karmagator]

Quick sidetrack, I've also got two more feats from the ideas factory:

Favored Pair [Feat level 1]: During your daily preparations, select two one-handed crossbows or firearms. Until your next daily preparations, when wielding both weapons at the same time, you can Interact to reload them without a free hand.

[AN: To stop dual-wield jank in a way that leaves little room for exploitation for different means.]

-

Call Ammunition [Feat level 2](one action)
Traits – arcane, conjuration, gunslinger, magical;
frequency – once per round;
prerequisites – none

You conjure an ordinary level-0 bolt or bullet out of thin air and then immediately Interact to load it into your weapon. Instead of conjuring a piece of ammunition, you can call a piece of magical or alchemical that you are wearing into your hand and immediately Interact to load it into your weapon. If you do so, Interact action to reload your weapon also Activates the ammunition. This does not apply if Activating the ammunition takes two or more actions.

-

The latter one is a partial repurposing of the Spellshot dedication after I converted it into a normal Way, as it should have been in the first place. There were probably good reasons for that, such as book space and the Spellshot being a really strange and out-there Way lore-wise, but it just makes no sense from a mechanical pov.

[roquepo]

I generally like having to reload, makes turns interesting, issue is that the payoff is not there and that picking feats like running reload feel like a non-choice.

I think Running reload should be a class feature, similar to AoO being a Fighter class feature. If picking it a 4 is a non-choice, don't let me choose.

Fixing the firearms would help, for sure, but it wouldn't be enough to make reload feel less of a tax. Looking forward to reloading your weapon was one of the objectives of the post-paytest paizo post iirc, but I feel they just missed the mark in this case.

At least it looks like they have gotten better at doing non-CRB classes with time. Thaumaturge and Psychic feel pretty good.

[Karmagator]

roquepo wrote:

I generally like having to reload, makes turns interesting, issue is that the payoff is not there and that picking feats like running reload feel like a non-choice.

I think Running reload should be a class feature, similar to AoO being a Fighter class feature. If picking it a 4 is a non-choice, don't let me choose.

Fixing the firearms would help, for sure, but it wouldn't be enough to make reload feel less of a tax. Looking forward to reloading your weapon was one of the objectives of the post-paytest paizo post iirc, but I feel they just missed the mark in this case.

At least it looks like they have gotten better at doing non-CRB classes with time. Thaumaturge and Psychic feel pretty good.

Same here. It's like we are 90% of the way to the finish line, but we aren't quite there yet. There really is a lot of good stuff and flavour here. Paizo have surprised my with seemingly small or subtle solutions that solved major problems in the past - see the Psychic. So I hope they can repeat that ^^

[Jacob Jett]

I don't know. I don't think the issue is with the Gunslinger or their action economy. How often do fighters really make a 3rd attack (at -10 to hit) and actually connect? I might be inclined to say that damage dice on guns, crossbows, and slings could be bumped but I'm also inclined to say that maybe concussive should inflict slowed 1 or clumsy 1 for 1 turn instead of the trait's current effect (which does seem extremely situational). The problem for altering damage dice is the hard jump from d12 to d20. It seems like, if we had polyhedrons with 14, 16, and 18 faces, some additional design solutions might present themselves.

Re: integrating Risky Reload and Running Reload into the class. If these are indeed auto-take feats, I might also be inclined to integrate them into the class's abilities. But. This is a slippery slope. What auto-take feats exist for other classes? Shouldn't those also be integrated? (What's good for the goose is always good for the gander after all.)

If I had my druthers, the two things I would for sure change is to 1) add slings to the list of weapons for which gunslingers get expert weapon proficiency progression and 2) add an additional trait to all crossbows that makes them easily distinct from bows. We could call this latter trait "mechanical" and it needn't be beneficial. It might actually make some sense if it had rules like, "the broken threshold for this item is half normal and it costs twice as much to repair". (But frankly the rules are up for debate, I just like the info retrieval utility of a trait that groups all "mechanical bows" into one neat list. I may be an expert in some information oriented things.)

[i26c2]

One thing I think they should add is a repeating two-handed gun with fatal. I would take that in a heartbeat. Even if it was only repeating 3. Only needing to reload after every 3 shots instead of every shot would make the class feel so much mroe balanced.

[Temperans]

Jacob Jett wrote:

I don't know. I don't think the issue is with the Gunslinger or their action economy. How often do fighters really make a 3rd attack (at -10 to hit) and actually connect? I might be inclined to say that damage dice on guns, crossbows, and slings could be bumped but I'm also inclined to say that maybe concussive should inflict slowed 1 or clumsy 1 for 1 turn instead of the trait's current effect (which does seem extremely situational). The problem for altering damage dice is the hard jump from d12 to d20. It seems like, if we had polyhedrons with 14, 16, and 18 faces, some additional design solutions might present themselves.

Re: integrating Risky Reload and Running Reload into the class. If these are indeed auto-take feats, I might also be inclined to integrate them into the class's abilities. But. This is a slippery slope. What auto-take feats exist for other classes? Shouldn't those also be integrated? (What's good for the goose is always good for the gander after all.)

If I had my druthers, the two things I would for sure change is to 1) add slings to the list of weapons for which gunslingers get expert weapon proficiency progression and 2) add an additional trait to all crossbows that makes them easily distinct from bows. We could call this latter trait "mechanical" and it needn't be beneficial. It might actually make some sense if it had rules like, "the broken threshold for this item is half normal and it costs twice as much to repair". (But frankly the rules are up for debate, I just like the info retrieval utility of a trait that groups all "mechanical bows" into one neat list. I may be an expert in some information oriented things.)

Using multiple dice works fine, all it really does is increase the minimum damage and make the overall damage more consistent. 1d3, 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12, 2d6 (12 but consistent), 2d8 (16), 2d10 (20), 2d12 (24).

Regarding auto-take feats, the whole point was to remove taxes and trap feats. So either make the auto-take feats part of the class, or make all the other feats better. Clearly they wont do the latter which just reinforces my believe that designing a game around hard mode and pro-players is bad.

[Squiggit]

Jacob Jett wrote:

But. This is a slippery slope. What auto-take feats exist for other classes? Shouldn't those also be integrated? (What's good for the goose is always good for the gander after all.)

I mean this was literally one of the design bullet points for PF2, so yeah. If there's a feat that nearly everyone takes and you are making a mechanical mistake not taking it, it shouldn't be a feat.

[PossibleCabbage]

It would be interesting to curate a list of "which feats for each class are borderline auto-pick" to figure out if it would be possible to hand each class a selection of those feats in a way that's balanced.

[aobst128]

Yeah, running reload is borderline a tax. Can only get away not taking it on a drifter that can't use it anyways if you aren't using a capacity gun. Everyone else needs it.

[Pixel Popper]

aobst128 wrote:

Yeah, running reload is borderline a tax. Can only get away not taking it on a drifter that can't use it anyways if you aren't using a capacity gun...

Dual Weapon Reload should not be an action, but, rather, a blanket removal of the free-hand requirement to reload...

[aobst128]

Pixel Popper wrote:

aobst128 wrote:

Yeah, running reload is borderline a tax. Can only get away not taking it on a drifter that can't use it anyways if you aren't using a capacity gun...

Dual Weapon Reload should not be an action, but, rather, a blanket removal of the free-hand requirement to reload...

That's why thaumaturge is a popular choice for an archetype because thaumaturge ammunition does exactly that with a pistol implement.

[roquepo]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

It would be interesting to curate a list of "which feats for each class are borderline auto-pick" to figure out if it would be possible to hand each class a selection of those feats in a way that's balanced.

From the top of my head, Stunning Fist for Monk, Running Reload for Gunslinger, Sympathetic Weakness for Thaumaturge and Suspect of Opportunity for Investigator. Probably I'm missing one or two.

[Thunderdiglett]

Combat reflexes for fighter. Really anything that gives more reactions. Opportune Backstab/Preparation, Divine Reflexes, etc.

[Karmagator]

Auto-pick feats (or close enough):

- Fake-out (if not at level 2, later)
- Running Reload (not necessarily on the gunslinger, but on literally anyone else who wants to use reload weapons)
- +1 for stunning fist
- Diverse Lore for Thaum (sometimes later, but still)
- Debilitating Strike feats and Sneak Savant for Rogue
- 1st level Champion's Reaction feats (Iron Repercussions lol)
- Shared Stratagem/Didactic Strike and Suspect of Opportunity on Investigator

Borderline auto-picks (auto-picks for subclasses and variations, usually based on weapon loadout):

- Munitions Crafter (every Way other than Drifter)
- Sword and Pistol (Drifter)
- Risky Reload (debatable)
- Paired Shots for dual-wield gunslinger
- Sniper's Aim for Sniper
- Pistol Twirl (for Pistoleros who don't go dual-wield)
- Hunted Shot or Twin Takedown on a Flurry Ranger (often both)
- Hunted Shot on the ranged Fighter
- like a half-dozen feats for any given Alchemist
- Wildshape Druid is like 90% borderline autopicks
- Ammunition Thaumaturgy for ranged weapon (not thrown) Thaum

At least that's the ones I can think of off the top of my head. However, I'd say a great deal of those have good reason to be feats.

----

Quick correction for my saying that Thaumaturge can use a bow. I somehow forgot that all the other implements are also held items and Ammunition Thaumaturgy only lets you reload, not shoot. Not sure if that's RAI, but I was definitely wrong as far as RAW goes. Whoops!

[Dubious Scholar]

Risky Reload is... very strong, but I don't know if it's an auto-pick. Especially if you take Running Reload. It also conflicts with Fake Out since it really, really wants to be your first shot of the turn (and thus starting turn unloaded). It's also of course good with activated ammo because of the whole action economy issues with the stuff.

Gunslinger has a number of strong level 2 options.

Level 1 also does have some interesting options. Cover Fire is very good with the right GM - if unintelligent creatures don't duck (which is pretty reasonable), it's just a constant +1 to hit on them with your first shot.

Running Reload is the one I wish wasn't competing with other feats.

Something fun that occurs to me though is Risky Reload with a Gunner's Bandolier. You can carry backup weapons for misfires that way - the action to draw an already loaded weapon is the same as clearing the jam.

[Karmagator]

Yeah, the Gunner's Bandolier has some decent uses, even if it is extremely niche even for the gunslinger. Basically what you described and being able to use pistols without capacity because you want that extra range. Usually on a non-gunslinger, though.