Given that Paizo was never going to let guns outperform bows or do something unique like target a different AC value, they really should have found a way to make gunslingers feel unique beyond just being the gun-using class. Gunslingers would have made sense as the called shot class or the special ammo class where they can, with a little time to aim/load their trick round, provide near caster level of debuffing and battlefield control. The choice to make them the crit fishing class but more so was always going to ensure that the class feels bland and that the best subclass to play is the one that gives the biggest bonus the most often.They have the flavour already, the reactions and secondary abilities in the class already makes them feel unique.
I find the cost they pay in mandatory action-compressing feats and how much class power is locked behind their legendary proficiency makes them feel pretty boring. The grit mechanic feels like a gutted version of the one from PF1 where Gunslinger was already a weak and linear class even compared to other "bad" classes like Fighter and Barbarian.
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They have the flavour already, the reactions and secondary abilities in the class already makes them feel unique.
The core of the issue is that "unique" doesn't mean fun or good. After all a lot of the stuff you get is just making up for the inherent downsides of guns, not actually enhancing gameplay or giving you options. It's not only that is feels like you are just getting back to zero at best, it is. This heavily dampens any excitement I can muster over the thematic side of things. For example, fully half of what you get from your Way at level 1 - the reload feature - is like that.
You just really don't [i]do[/] a lot until you are halfway through the second book of an AP. And even then the end result is still middling at best - or in case of the Drifter for example, completely superfluous for anything but the theme. The best design combines fun and flavourful with power. The current iteration does flavourful really well, but leaves the rest by the wayside.
Ok, to counterbalance my own negativity - despite how it may seem, I don't actually enjoy revving on the Gunslinger - I've also got something constructive.
Specifically, low-key piracy... is stealing for sort-of-yourself actually stealing? Anyway, as SF2 is cribbing off of PF2, I think it is fair that we do that right back ^^. They've got loads of guns, so they can share. There's not much in terms of actionable mechanics yet, but the unwieldy trait looks interesting:
"Weapons with this trait are large and awkward, can’t be fired without cooling down first, or are otherwise difficult to use with repeated attacks. You can’t use an unwieldy weapon more than once per round and can’t use it to Strike as part of a reaction, such as Punitive Strike."
With this, one could create weapons that more closely match the "1 shot per round" playstyle so many Gunslinger options enforce. It'll also be an opportunity to get those options to a more competitive level. And the best thing - it doesn't interfere with Fake Out, as it doesn't actually use your gun ;)
We'll probably need additional traits to accomplish that, as d8/fatal d12 is the limit where fatal works properly, but I'm sure someone who's actually creative (unlike me :P) can come up with something good!
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Updated analysis
After helping another two players with their Gunslinger characters in our games, I feel compelled to add to my previous thoughts. Player A is mostly a roleplayer and doesn't care too much about mechanics, as long as his character is useful in the ways he envisioned and the mechanics work with his vision. Player B is a veteran who cares about mechanics, but doesn't go as far as optimizing until the bitter end.
A is part of my TTRPG group, B I just helped and watched play for a few times (and more often listened to his retellings). The characters were played in different parties. Both in custom campaigns that were somewhat more reasonably paced and balanced than your average AP.
Player A
A wanted to be a pirate-type character, so we naturally settled on a Drifter with a shortsword and a slide pistol (adjusted to 1 bulk and reflavoured as a larger pepperbox). In the beginning he was fairly happy, but his fun dimmed considerably when he was constantly overshadowed by literally every other martial in the group. Given that he is functionally a melee character (or close enough) and there were no dedicated ranged martials, he reasonably compared himself to the other melees and came up considerably short in every aspect that wasn't Fake Out. They had better damage, better survivability and had more options and cooler options than him. In detail, the others were a Scoundrel (who didn't even go into Opportune Backstab) and an open-hand/fightended build Fighter (me).
He also didn't feel like his playstyle had sufficient support, even with ABP.
Sword and Pistol - the only feat that made the reduced melee proficiency somewhat manageable for him - has strong anti-synergy with teamplay. If you are a good teamplayer and make the effort to help your friends with flanking, your feat effectively becomes useless. Not to mention that you only get the AoO protection on the attack, not the reload. That bit was only a problem once, but he really didn't like that. We found it unfair as well, so we ruled against the RAW here.
After level 1, he didn't feel like he really had any good piratey picks, so we went with the usual Fake Out and Running Reload until level 6. Drifter's Juke fit and he liked it in play, he just whished it did a little more. That might have been the Fighter getting Shatter Defenses in particular. Not the best move on my part in hindsight, because that also meant that his Sword and Pistol was even less useful.
When he found out that normally, he would also have to spend a bunch of money on doubling rings, he was very surprised. The sword already felt bad to him without that, so he couldn't understand why anyone would pay on top of that.
Overall, he had very mixed feelings, trending towards negative. That he didn't have very good luck while rolling his pistol attacks certainly didn't help.
Player B
When we built the character together, we immediately ran into the old problem - there is no straightforward "gun" Gunslinger. Just a dude with a rifle who does rifle stuff. As most people, we picked the Sniper as the next best thing. His Free Archetype is
The next problem - feats. The playstyle has literally nothing particularly useful before level 6. He cannot even use Fake Out effectively. Everything that would be halfway decent has even further extreme gambling in the form of misfire, which he didn't like at all. So I gave him the idea to try what I've done in the past - play a Boomslinger.
Level 1 Munitions Crafter for some nice bottled lightnings and Quick Draw at level 2 to yeet them. Also, reload shenanigans to make it work with an arquebus. It takes a bit to build up enough bombs to last the day, but ABP (and a generous GM) helps with being able to buy/get extras. FYI, they (just like my group) allow the attack potency bonus to apply to bombs, which is makes this playstyle somewhat stronger than probably intended.
He is currently level 4 - he took Running Reload, but considered Alchemical Shot (his need to throw bombs won out ^^) and is quite happy. Certainly much happier than A, despite B's party featuring a polearm bully Fighter and a polearm Magus, so a much more competitive environment in terms of damage. The occasional extra damage and off-guard from his bombs really helped the group, so they accepted the gift of backfire mantles gladly ^^. It probably helps that he doesn't have a Snagging Strike spamming Fighter to steal his thunder... *nervous chuckling*. And it certainly doesn't hurt that he often has amazing luck with his rolls.
Conclusion
Here we see good examples of what I think are the Gunslinger's two main problems - average effectiveness and lack of playstyle support.
For the first, the Gunslinger is almost entirely build around its maximum potential and gives basically no consideration to what happens if you don't roll 15+ on every single attack. Not that it's maximum potential is really exceptional, more than a few other options blow it completely out of the water (looks at Magus and Fighter in particular). Hell, we have only a single Way that is even damage-focused, despite that being the thing that new people expect from the class. That leads to a lot of people being disappointed and a few GMs who don't understand, because their Gunslinger is killing it.
As for the second, look at player A. He way trying to make the exact thing the Drifter is made for and even then he was having trouble finding exciting stuff to pick.
He also found out the hard way - with zero hints on my part - why I think the Drifter is poorly designed in general. You can't throw a ranged character into melee and then still treat them completely like a ranged character. Same with the two other melee-heavy Ways - if you do that, you have to compensate them. If you don't, you have the current dilemma of them being constantly outdone by both other melees and ranged characters.
Not that the ranged Ways don't also suffer that problem. Player B found no interesting picks in anything his Way should be good in for months, so he played something completely different. To be fair, he also wanted to play something more direct, but still. And beyond those two's experience, I don't think the Pistolero makes either of it's playstyles particularly exciting. Or even non-clunky in case of dual-wielding. Spellshot has become a lot more attractive with the RK change, but the adjustments still make it a non-starter without a nice GM and it doesn't really have anything before level 6 either.
All in all, the Gunslinger still needs stuff that make the player feel cool and effective, not just some stuff that somewhat counteracts how awful guns are. Especially feats before level 6 that aren't exacerbating the class' issues (misfire) and aren't extremely niche.
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Updated analysis Player A
A wanted to be a pirate-type character, so we naturally settled on a Drifter with a shortsword and a slide pistol (adjusted to 1 bulk and reflavoured as a larger pepperbox). In the beginning he was fairly happy, but his fun dimmed considerably when he was constantly overshadowed by literally every other martial in the group.
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Overall, he had very mixed feelings, trending towards negative. That he didn't have very good luck while rolling his pistol attacks certainly didn't help.
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He also didn't feel like his playstyle had sufficient support, even with ABP.
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He also found out the hard way - with zero hints on my part - why I think the Drifter is poorly designed in general. You can't throw a ranged character into melee and then still treat them completely like a ranged character. Same with the two other melee-heavy Ways - if you do that, you have to compensate them. If you don't, you have the current dilemma of them being constantly outdone by both other melees and ranged characters.
We had a player in my PFS group playing a Drifter, who was so frustrated at his inability to do anything meaningful that he ripped up his (Lvl 4) character and chronicles at the table. He was not poorly built, but if his dice were not on fire (and let us be clear...his dice were *never* on fire) he was completely ineffective.
The Drifter is most definitely in a bad place.
My gun-using character is a Bullet Dancer Monk. She fills, basically, the exact same niche as the Way of the Drifter Gunslinger, but is more fun and does it better. Pistol Shot plus Bayonet flurry with Stunning Fist proccing if either attack hits is better than anything the Drifter can do. And the Monk chassis gives you great saves and AC, so being in melee is not an issue. The biggest problem she *does* have is reloading, but since you can Flurry just fine with melee attachments your weak turns are still adequate while you are setting up your strong turns.
I would never argue that Bullet Dancer is good compared to a base Monk (though it is a lot of fun) but it is good compared to the Gunslinger.
I said it before and I'll say it again; all of the gunslinger's problems would be solved if Singular Expertise wasn't as bad as it is. You are literally getting your proficiencies restricted for literally 1 point of damage. Singular Expertise should start a +2, then scale to +3 when you get master proficiency with firearms, and to +4 when you get legendary.
The difference in damage is neglible, but makes those early levels before you get weapon specialization way more berable and joyable because you aren't rolling a flat dice. This also makes your damage more comparable to those of other bow-wielding martials when you are critting, which makes your higher crit rate something that actualy makes you deal more damage instead of being something you have to do if you want to be competent.
I said it before and I'll say it again; all of the gunslinger's problems would be solved if Singular Expertise wasn't as bad as it is. You are literally getting your proficiencies restricted for literally 1 point of damage. Singular Expertise should start a +2, then scale to +3 when you get master proficiency with firearms, and to +4 when you get legendary.
The difference in damage is neglible, but makes those early levels before you get weapon specialization way more berable and joyable because you aren't rolling a flat dice. This also makes your damage more comparable to those of other bow-wielding martials when you are critting, which makes your higher crit rate something that actualy makes you deal more damage instead of being something you have to do if you want to be competent.
Singular Expertise isn't meant to be a trade-off, the two parts are entirely unrelated. It presumably just wasn't worth having two features. The proficiency restriction is due to the Gunslinger having two weapon types on the fast track already, which is even more than the Fighter. And the Fighter is supposed to be the "I am good at weapons" class, so that stepped on toes. What people did in the playtest was take archetypes to get the better melee proficiency. Paizo wanted to prevent that, hence this feature. The +1 was from a completely separate feat that everybody in the playtest felt like it was a mandatory pick at 1st level. It was rolled into the chassis to ease things a little and free up that feat slot for other things.
Do I agree with the decision to restrict the Gunslinger's proficiency? Absolutely not. The reasoning doesn't make sense, because nobody actively uses both crossbows and guns. For all intents and purposes, a Gunslinger has one legendary proficiency, just like the Fighter. Stepping on the Fighter's toes via archetypes isn't a problem either - the Fighter still has more freedom anyway via feats that actually support those weapons. And if people feel like they need an archetype to make a subclass work, then that subclass should be looked at first and second, everything else a distant third.
Unfortunately, both I and likely a lot of other people didn't fully understand how this class would work out in the longer run, so our feedback was less helpful than it could have been. It's basically another APG situation.
Updated analysis
Always nice to hear about play experience. Yes I have player A and B types in my groups and one total super optimiser.
Sword and Pistol - the only feat that made the reduced melee proficiency somewhat manageable for him - has strong anti-synergy with teamplay. If you are a good teamplayer and make the effort to help your friends with flanking, your feat effectively becomes useless
Yes by default ranged attackers can't use a flanking bonus. When you have ranged attackers in the party you need to set up flatfooted in other ways. EG grapple and trip. Team work is much harder. A lot of groups don't get it. Especially if you have two martials that want to flank then a third archer/gunslinger who justs sits off to the side and looks weak.
It was really annoying when Paizo changed the rules to stop flanking at range 0 (though they will wrongly insist it was not a change).
Missing sucks.
All in all, the Gunslinger still needs stuff that make the player feel cool and effective, not just some stuff that somewhat counteracts how awful guns are.
I couldn't agree more.
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All in all, the Gunslinger still needs stuff that make the player feel cool and effective, not just some stuff that somewhat counteracts how awful guns are. Especially feats before level 6 that aren't exacerbating the class' issues (misfire) and aren't extremely niche.
Or And we could buff guns a little...and maybe combination weapons while we are at it
I personally really like the concept of the gunslinge rbut I agree its weak
(and I hate that sniper gets his bonus damage at best once per combat)
bullet dancer seems like a fun concept but I hate d4 with a passion and, independent of if it is the case or not, I would see myself always lagging behind in damage
(and I hate that sniper gets his bonus damage at best once per combat)
I don't mind it so much as its only setup is rolling stealth for initiative. No extra action like hunt prey, no need for off guard [which can be tricky], ect. After that you still have a higher proficiency for more hits/crits so it doesn't feel particularly onerous.
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I don't like it because it feels like nothing, so like nothing I don't even care if I can't roll stealth for initiative and don't really feel rewarded when I do
It also doesn't help that snipers also have a hard time to use their reload action if they don't have a deployable cover set up or have Kip Up which would require them to be at least 7th level and have master Acrobatics.
I just kinda noticed Paizo was really bad at balancing subclasses during the APG—G&G period. Some of that sadly appeared on the PC1 too.
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This is why my sniper for PFS is a sprite - cover's everywhere when you're tiny!
Player B wanted to play a halfling even before looking at the Gunslinger, so Distracting Shadow was a nice surprise for both of us ^^. The Sniper really does get far smoother to play with the right ancestry.
On the bright side, the Gang Up buff gives me a lot of hope for Sword and Pistol. Gang Up had the same problem - it was an anti-teamplay feat - so we might eventually see similar changes here as well.
At this point, I would love an unchained version of the Gunslinger. I have a lot of faith in Paizo's magic of accomplishing much with very small changes, see the focus changes, the swap "action" and the "new" cleric for example. If they manage it, great.
But the Gunslinger looks like it needs a major rework to get to the point I want it to. And that is too big an ask for a book that they don't plan on remastering. So a new paid product would be fine by me, even if it's just a dev's personal PF Infinite thing or something.
Honestly I don't know a gunslinger unchained would be sufficient.
IMO the main problem of Gunsligers are more basic. It's the firearms that have their efficiency pretty low without the gunslinger "fixing" them. So to a Gunsliger Unleashed works it also needed that designers rebalance all firearms to become competitive with other ranged weapons. But to this happen the designers need to understand that reload weapons hurts more the DPR and action economy than they usually think.
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I'm a player B here. Sniper with munitions crafter and quick draw. Singular expertise not applying to bombs is irritating. I wish I could get both crossbow crack-shot and munitions crafter at level 1 as it would make the alchemical crossbow a much more satisfying way to use my bombs, but I went kobold instead of human and I need my 2nd level feats for Quick Draw and eventually Fake Out. I've found sniper pretty darn satisfying despite those complaints, particularly with ultra big Kingmaker maps and my 200 foot range increment, but I can't say any other Way has really sparked my interest. I mostly blame Singular Expertise for that.
Honestly I don't know a gunslinger unchained would be sufficient.
IMO the main problem of Gunsligers are more basic. It's the firearms that have their efficiency pretty low without the gunslinger "fixing" them. So to a Gunsliger Unleashed works it also needed that designers rebalance all firearms to become competitive with other ranged weapons. But to this happen the designers need to understand that reload weapons hurts more the DPR and action economy than they usually think.
The problem is kind of that guns are about as strong as you can make them for single-shot weapons, which are supposed to be the "normal" level of tech. Bows are only great in comparison to reload weapons. In comparison to melee, they are pretty mid at best, needing a strong mechanical backing just like reload weapons. They rely either on some other source of damage (Magus, Precision Ranger, Eldritch Archer) or on a barrage of attacks (Fighter, Flurry Ranger). Otherwise they are more easily usable than reload weapons, but not effective either. All ranged weapons need to be heavily carried.
Back to the Gunslinger, I think an unchained version could do plenty.
1) Make an actual "brace of pistols" playstyle the standard for one-handed users. That is the fantasy for this era and the Gunner's Bandolier doesn't fulfill it even remotely. That would give flexibility and, with the right mechanical undercarriage, even allows you to treat your shots as an actual resource you can balance stuff around. I've bought AC4:Black Flag a few days ago and if they make it as cool as that, then we have no problem.
2) Split Pistolero into two Ways. The Ways are intentionally designed to support as many related loadouts as possible, but in this case I think that failed completely. Neither the single-gun setup nor the dual-wielder are properly supported. The advantage of having a free hand at range is minimal without innate caster support. Especially so when that hand being free is temporary with most weapons, as you need to reload. So the single-gun setup doesn't really do anything and pays with even lower damage to boot. Dual-wielding is probably the clunckiest officially supported playstyle in the game.
3) Take all the Way feats from level 6 and put them into level 1 or 2 at most. They are essential support for their Ways and none of them are so strong that they couldn't be at that level, when you take the weapon disadvantage into account.
4) More thematic feats in general, especially at low levels. And actually good ones for their level, not Warning Shot or Cauterize at level 6 (instead of level 1 or 2 like it should be). Like with all other ranged weapon setups in the game, you get one or maybe two cool feats at level 1/2 and then twiddle your thumbs until level 8-10, when you finally get the level of options your friends had for months.
5) Make special ammo (alchemcial/magical) actually usable. For being the dedicated reloader and actually getting native access to at least alchemical ammo, the Gunslinger really has strong anti-synergy with them.
6) Compensate the melee Ways for sending them into melee. Drifter gets legendary proficiency in a melee weapon of their choice. Vanguard gets 10HP/level, heavy armor proficiency and Trip added as an option to their reload. No idea what you could do for the Triggerbrand. My group plays with ABP, so combination weapons have never been relevant for us and the new swap option for Interact is only the final nail in that particular coffin.
7) Stop slapping misfire on feats that don't deserve it, especially not on a simple failure. None of Smoke Curtain, Alchemcial Shot and most of all Scatter Blast deserve what they got. Misfire should be reserved for extraordinarily powerful options, where the level of gambling is actually reflected in the outcome. And, please, something more interesting than Risky Reload. I'm really sick and tired of that feat by now.
8) Add feats that support the Way reloads. The class is build around reloading, so it is weird that you cannot actually enhance that part of your character if you play anything but a dual-wielder.
9) If the Gunslinger still has a problem after all that, we can consider adding a class feature at level 7 that gives additional flat damage on hits, but not crits. That's about the point where reload weapons start getting outscaled.
That's only what I can think of off of the top of my head. I'm sure the actual professionals can come up with much more and better things, so I'm not concerned.
If all else fails, I'm looking to import Starfinder 2 stuff to fulfill my ranged needs in general - I'm not a fan of the execution of any ranged martial in PF2.
But that really shouldn't be the first choice if you just want to have fun.
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While I don't have any more suggestions to add, nor enough experience with the Gunslinger to determine whether the suggestions are the best course of action, I do think there are a few additional things at play:
If there is a conclusion to be drawn from this, I think it's that part of the Gunslinger's problems don't specifically come from the Gunslinger themselves (though given the OP's experience with the class, I can readily believe that they could use a tune-up in some areas), but rather from the fact that enemy defense scaling shuts down crit-dependent damage builds. The Gunslinger is the greatest sufferer of this due to the class generally being the game's biggest crit-fisher, but as we all know, many other classes also tend to suffer against enemies with very high defenses too. Given Paizo's history of stuffing earlier APs with combat encounters featuring single, high-level monsters, and that those APs tend to be the ones the playerbase generally has the most experience with, it's unsurprising to me that many players would perceive the class's damage output as lacking, as the Gunslinger does genuinely suffer under those circumstances.
But is a niche of 'someone that's good against low-level opponents but 1 by 1' a functional thing? So the issue with Gunslingers is bone-deep design where guns are meant for crit-fishing but the class can't crit fish effectively either--with only 1 Way giving any form of accuracy boost.
In a game that has a roughly equal variety of combat encounters with low-level monsters and encounters with high-level monsters, it'd work just fine I think; the issue is that it creates an additional balance consideration when designing an AP that hasn't always been respected. I would also be wary of requesting more accuracy boosts, because those are liable to increase the Gunslinger's damage output against enemies with low defenses, against whom they're already strong, and not just against high-level opponents. The problem here isn't with the Gunslinger, so much as the variance in accuracy ranges based on enemy level and the way that influences certain builds more than others.
Reload weapons being bad isn't deliberate afaik, only them being hard to use is. Both because bows were designated as the "easy to use" ranged weapon and to make the Gunslinger's niche possible. Because that is the Gunslingers entire niche - being good with guns and crossbows. I don't exactly remember if it was the post-playtest blogpost for GnG or somewhere related to it, but I'm certain this was the official reasoning.
But yeah, what Teridax said is pretty much how it works out, intended or not. However, that isn't supposed to be the Gunslinger's niche. It is not even a niche in the first place, but something every halfway combat-capable build is good at. Plenty of classes are even great at it, including the Gunslinger's direct competition. The Flurry Ranger might hate chaff mobs because he constantly has to get Hunt Prey back up, but he is strong against them all the same.
Even if it was a niche, it would be the worst idea any designer ever had. Telling a player that they are only there for the enemies that don't matter, basically making them a second class citizen, is nobodies' idea of fun.
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I do feel there is something to unpack around classes being considered "second class citizens" if they're better against crowds of weak enemies than individual strong ones, as I feel that also tends to feed into other discussions like casters versus martials. I don't think the Gunslinger is by any means designed to only work against chaff enemies, but I also think that, in an ideal world, there is nothing inherently better or worse about a class being made to excel more against armies of weak opponents than against solo bosses. That we consider the former "second-class citizens" to me indicates a perception skew where being able to take on a lone boss is considered more important than being able to handle an equally difficult encounter against lots of opponents, a skew that I think is worth challenging.
With that said, however, I do think that in practice, there does tend to be an in-game skew towards fewer but stronger opponents than the opposite. You could, in theory, run a PL+3 encounter with nothing but PL-4 enemies, but no GM in their right mind would want to handle 12 enemies and 36 actions per round on a regular basis, so more difficult encounters inevitably tend to feature enemies above the party's level. As also mentioned above, many of Paizo's earlier APs skew even harder this way by having lots of solo boss encounters, before they realized that this wasn't a great idea and changed tack. For all of the positive innovations PF2e has brought to d20 tabletop gaming, I don't think Paizo has yet fully cracked how to smoothly run encounters with lots of enemies, which is why the solo boss, or the miniboss with only a handful of henchmen, is still generally considered the archetypal difficult encounter. This in turn affects classes whose specialty is meant to include AoE, as the reduced number of horde-style encounters needs to be factored in, and in my opinion hasn't always been in practice.
Going back to the Gunslinger, though, I do feel that the class's flavor should lend itself to being able to take on lone enemies particularly well, as duels at high noon tend to be the crux of many iconic western movies. The main issue is that the Gunslinger is especially reliant on crits for damage by design, and lone, tougher enemies tend to be especially resistant to crits. In a different world of encounter design where enemies scaled in HP and actions rather than sheer defenses and to-hit bonuses, the Gunslinger would likely feel a lot better at what they're meant to do.
I do feel there is something to unpack around classes being considered "second class citizens" if they're better against crowds of weak enemies than individual strong ones, as I feel that also tends to feed into other discussions like casters versus martials. I don't think the Gunslinger is by any means designed to only work against chaff enemies, but I also think that, in an ideal world, there is nothing inherently better or worse about a class being made to excel more against armies of weak opponents than against solo bosses. That we consider the former "second-class citizens" to me indicates a perception skew where being able to take on a lone boss is considered more important than being able to handle an equally difficult encounter against lots of opponents, a skew that I think is worth challenging.
My previous comment was only meant to be in the context of being good against individuals, not groups. Because, lacking meaningful aoe abilities, that's all the Gunslinger can do. Compared to many extreme melee damage dealers, most Gunslinger builds cannot even reduce a larger number of weak enemies quickly (after about level 3-4), simply due to a lack of damage and actions. Their sweet spot is having a few PL-1 enemies, in my experience.
Being able to stop or at least massively hinder entire groups in a single turn is entirely different. Because that is vital. Not only against masses of chaff, but even just debuffing the hell out of a couple of stronger enemies swings fights. So does a good heal or buff at the right moment, for that matter. Especially at higher levels, where having more enemies is often actually more difficult than a single beefy one.
For all of the positive innovations PF2e has brought to d20 tabletop gaming, I don't think Paizo has yet fully cracked how to smoothly run encounters with lots of enemies, which is why the solo boss, or the miniboss with only a handful of henchmen, is still generally considered the archetypal difficult encounter. This in turn affects classes whose specialty is meant to include AoE, as the reduced number of horde-style encounters needs to be factored in, and in my opinion hasn't always been in practice.
There is also the more reasonable perception in play that weaker enemies aren't all that dangerous, while higher difficulty enemies inherently are. So, when you inevitably meet the latter you want to be effective against them. Any class that cannot really handle more difficult enemies is therefore correctly viewed unfavourably. Not that casters actually fall into that category, even if they should be a bit better in that scenario.
As for the "encounters with lots of enemies" issue, I think they are getting pretty close. At least for the size of fights that we are actually intended to face. The only issue with more reasonable encounters my group has found is time. In our experience, a PL+1/+2 boss plus a bunch of weaker enemies works really well for important fights that aren't the "big" fight. But they take quite a bit of time, just like more normal fights with more enemies.
I think the only thing we are lacking is something like a minion rule. Troops kinda work for big groups, but not perfectly. They only target Reflex, so the beefier frontliners are all groaning while the backline and the DEX crowd become mostly immune to them by the mid levels.
Going back to the Gunslinger, though, I do feel that the class's flavor should lend itself to being able to take on lone enemies particularly well, as duels at high noon tend to be the crux of many iconic western movies. The main issue is that the Gunslinger is especially reliant on crits for damage by design, and lone, tougher enemies tend to be especially resistant to crits. In a different world of encounter design where enemies scaled in HP and actions rather than sheer defenses and to-hit bonuses, the Gunslinger would likely feel a lot better at what they're meant to do.
That's my thought as well. Fighting single targets and blowing big holes into them is the quintessential Gunslinger fantasy, so that should be the focus. I think the main takeaway here is that completely relying on crits was the wrong direction from the get-go.
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I mean, doesn't "good against individuals, struggles against groups because of no AoE options" also describe the Fighter, a class most people agree might be too good?
To me, the Gunslinger as it is seems to exist in order to make a version of the fighter that fixes that "+2 to hit is an overwhelming advantage on other classes" issue.
Huh, Like a lot of things we talk about on this forum, Gunslingers and even Guns themselves seem pretty strong to me and that makes intuitive sense, even if you were to raw dog the reload the third action isn't generally a very large contributor to effectiveness (and obviously, you can end up with risky reload from Gunslinger or Unexpected Sharpshooter or something, or the Ways all have relatively useful reloads) and depending on the Gun that isn't even a problem (I'm partial to taking Double Barrels so I can have two rounds of a two shot firing routine without even having to Risky Reload, which is often the meat of an encounter.)
Even a Drifter's reload melee strike is never worse a full martial's strike, and fits into the same niche as the Monk in terms of overall damage. I know people swear by Flurry of Blows as a damage increase, and its a good class feature, but MAP makes it more of a utility feature or maybe a defensive feature (if you can outspeed your target) than a damage increase-- we have a drifter with a whip, and if they ever have trouble it generally seems to be juggling the action econ of their Marshal Stances causing them to actually shoot less.
Otherwise Gunslingers function like Fighters, with all the excellence implied by a +2 to their main weapon group and good access to fatal and deadly. Someone mentioned them being balanced around rolling 15+ but that's not how damage is calculated, it's the frequency of the results that matters, and 15+ on a d20 is 1/4th of the time (taking for granted that's the fulcrum point) and the average damage numbers are based on that statistical curve.
I've seen pre-salvo Triggerbrands in play and they seem pretty good as well, which again, makes sense, they hit like a Monk or Champion often do even when they're just in melee, and do even better when they're ranging which they want to do a bunch because they're the "favors guns class--" on the flipside a fighter using a Gunsword to beat people up in melee and pop the crit spec for extra damage is also pretty good.
Part of it may be encounter design. I mean, a moderate encounter has a XP Budget of 80. So, a solo boss moderate encounter would be PL+2.
That's supposed to be a moderate-severe threat against a party of four. This is not something that you're going to have your lone Gunslinger face off with at High Noon... they're gonna get killed.
To simulate that sort of fight, at the very least you'd have to divide the XP budget by 4. So, 20 XP.
A 20 XP solo creature is PL-2.
I can see a Gunslinger doing quite well solo against a PL-2 critter.
So I don't think it's really a case of "this class is better against mooks." It's more a case of "solo bosses have to be fought by a whole party."
I mean, doesn't "good against individuals, struggles against groups because of no AoE options" also describe the Fighter, a class most people agree might be too good?
To me, the Gunslinger as it is seems to exist in order to make a version of the fighter that fixes that "+2 to hit is an overwhelming advantage on other classes" issue.
The Fighter is great against individuals of all difficulties, not just weaker ones. That is a critical difference. It is also much stronger even against groups, simply because its damage output is higher than the Gunslinger's and it has better CC abilities. I don't know about "most people" agreeing it's too good.
The Gunslinger exists because some people want to use guns and reload weapons are bad. That's literally all there is to it. We know that providing a fix to the perceived Fighter issue cannot be a reason, simply because to Paizo the Fighter is not an issue in the first place. And I'm with them on that one.
Part of it may be encounter design. I mean, a moderate encounter has a XP Budget of 80. So, a solo boss moderate encounter would be PL+2.
That's supposed to be a moderate-severe threat against a party of four. This is not something that you're going to have your lone Gunslinger face off with at High Noon... they're gonna get killed.
To simulate that sort of fight, at the very least you'd have to divide the XP budget by 4. So, 20 XP.
A 20 XP solo creature is PL-2.
I can see a Gunslinger doing quite well solo against a PL-2 critter.
So I don't think it's really a case of "this class is better against mooks." It's more a case of "solo bosses have to be fought by a whole party."
Which, gunslingers are better at being part of a group that fights bosses, +2 to Hit is that good, Fake Out is that good, the Sniper precision damage strengthening the full attack bonus attack is that good.
I mean, doesn't "good against individuals, struggles against groups because of no AoE options" also describe the Fighter, a class most people agree might be too good?
To me, the Gunslinger as it is seems to exist in order to make a version of the fighter that fixes that "+2 to hit is an overwhelming advantage on other classes" issue.
The Fighter is great against individuals of all difficulties, not just weaker ones. That is a critical difference. It is also much stronger even against groups, simply because its damage output is higher than the Gunslinger's and it has better CC abilities. I don't know about "most people" agreeing it's too good.
The Gunslinger exists because some people want to use guns and reload weapons are bad. That's literally all there is to it. We know that providing a fix to the perceived Fighter issue cannot be a reason, simply because to Paizo the Fighter is not an issue in the first place. And I'm with them on that one.
The Gunslinger exists because people like the flavor of having a dedicated Gunslinger, that's it, The Investigator, The Fighter, the Ranger can all use a wide variety of guns well enough that the perceived superiority of bows is largely academic.
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I don't agree that reload weapons are bad. Even with the best weapons in the game, I rarely see characters making more than 2 attacks per round which someone with a reload weapon can do half the time (more with risky reload).
Like the crossbow precision ranger seems fine to me.
If anything needs to be addressed about reload weapons it's the use-cases for the lower damage ones. Like it's not clear to me what the purpose of the flintlock pistol or the air repeater is. The Sniper Gunslinger with the Arquebus can actually be hellaciously effective in my experience.
Huh, Like a lot of things we talk about on this forum, Gunslingers and even Guns themselves seem pretty strong to me and that makes intuitive sense, even if you were to raw dog the reload the third action isn't generally a very large contributor to effectiveness (and obviously, you can end up with risky reload from Gunslinger or Unexpected Sharpshooter or something, or the Ways all have relatively useful reloads) and depending on the Gun that isn't even a problem (I'm partial to taking Double Barrels so I can have two rounds of a two shot firing routine without even having to Risky Reload, which is often the meat of an encounter.)
Even a Drifter's reload melee strike is never worse a full martial's strike, and fits into the same niche as the Monk in terms of overall damage. I know people swear by Flurry of Blows as a damage increase, and its a good class feature, but MAP makes it more of a utility feature or maybe a defensive feature (if you can outspeed your target) than a damage increase-- we have a drifter with a whip, and if they ever have trouble it generally seems to be juggling the action econ of their Marshal Stances causing them to actually shoot less.
I've seen pre-salvo Triggerbrands in play and they seem pretty good as well, which again, makes sense, they hit like a Monk or Champion often do even when they're just in melee, and do even better when they're ranging which they want to do a bunch because they're the "favors guns class--" on the flipside a fighter using a Gunsword to beat people up in melee and pop the crit spec for extra damage is also pretty good.
That is kind of the problem. The Monk has one of the lowest damage outputs of any martial, but it also has tons of mobility, great defenses and a great action economy. You might not be the greatest damage dealer, but you'll do that damage all the time and your team doesn't have to worry about you, which frees up their actions. That raises the team's effectiveness in a way that you cannot directly see on the character sheet. The Champion achieves the same thing, but in different ways.
The Drifter has the same lacklustre damage, but nothing to make up for it. Same with the Triggerbrand. Replace it with a different class that fills the same role and you almost always have a more capable party afterwards.
I really hate that kind of innate replacability, hence my dissatisfaction. (Sub-)Classes aren't supposed to be straight downgrades, but sidegrades.
Otherwise Gunslingers function like Fighters, with all the excellence implied by a +2 to their main weapon group and good access to fatal and deadly. Someone mentioned them being balanced around rolling 15+ but that's not how damage is calculated, it's the frequency of the results that matters, and 15+ on a d20 is 1/4th of the time (taking for granted that's the fulcrum point) and the average damage numbers are based on that statistical curve.
A lot of the Fighter's power is in press actions and being able to somewhat reliably hit twice per round, so in practice I have found they function very differently. Crits are a bonus on most Fighter builds.
For the Gunslinger on the other hand, crits are vital. If you don't crit several times per fight, then you being a different dedicated ranged class/option instead would have been an objective upgrade for your team. The Gunslinger's hits are only marginally better than the rest's and you make fewer attacks. Having 1/4 of your attacks crit is not what you are looking for with this kind of pressure and 15+ was me being generous. Only 1 reliable crit is more accurate to what people will face, trending towards none when things actually get hairy.
What the theoretical damage statistic says doesn't really help you when you know this and haven't crit in three turns. I can tell from a lot of experience, it is really demoralizing and really common.
It's not that the Gunslinger is terrible and can't be fun, but again, replacability.
I don't agree that reload weapons are bad. Even with the best weapons in the game, I rarely see characters making more than 2 attacks per round which someone with a reload weapon can do half the time (more with risky reload).
Like the crossbow precision ranger seems fine to me.
If anything needs to be addressed about reload weapons it's the use-cases for the lower damage ones. Like it's not clear to me what the purpose of the flintlock pistol or the air repeater is. The Sniper Gunslinger with the Arquebus can actually be hellaciously effective in my experience.
You only have the option to make a second attack every other round at the best of times and that's literally all your actions, half of them completely dead. Then you need to pay feats so that you can actually do anything with those dead actions, including vital things like moving. Even then you only get one action yo can do while reloading, which often will not be useful. If that isn't bad, I don't know what is.
So yes, after you have paid the feat taxes, the crossbow Precision Ranger is "fine". But it doesn't ever get beyond "fine" and that is on a class that has actual support for reload weapons.
As for the flintlock pistol, no idea. You are right, there are quite a few of those around. The air repeater I've occasionally seen on characters that want a one-handed ranged weapon they don't need to reload and that don't want to pay for the repeating hand crossbow. Magi and Thaumaturges for example.
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I don't agree that reload weapons are bad.
Is it really a matter of agreement or disagreement though? We're just talking about numbers, after all. Their damage profiles just aren't very good for the action cost. That's not really an opinion or a matter of taste, it's just a fact that you lose a lot of both damage and versatility when it takes two actions for you to attack, and most reload weapons don't have enough extra to really cover that gap. Developers have even talked about this being intentional, so there's no sense denying it.
Now it might be reasonable to argue that discrepancy isn't a dealbreaker, or is counterbalanced in other ways, but it is what it is.
I mean, the Gunslinger is built around "you get to combine something else with your reload action" whether it's moving or your special way ability. It's possible there should be more options to multitask like that, but it's not like the reload action is supposed to be a complete tax on those classes.
It's a pretty strong disincentive to picking up a reload weapon on a class that doesn't get something like that though.
I mean, the Gunslinger is built around "you get to combine something else with your reload action" whether it's moving or your special way ability. It's possible there should be more options to multitask like that, but it's not like the reload action is supposed to be a complete tax on those classes.
It's a pretty strong disincentive to picking up a reload weapon on a class that doesn't get something like that though.
Exactly. Reload weapons don't work like that, the Gunslinger does. The class specifically designed to get around the limitations of reload weapons. That doesn't mean anything for reload weapons themselves.
Huh, Like a lot of things we talk about on this forum, Gunslingers and even Guns themselves seem pretty strong to me and that makes intuitive sense, even if you were to raw dog the reload the third action isn't generally a very large contributor to effectiveness (and obviously, you can end up with risky reload from Gunslinger or Unexpected Sharpshooter or something, or the Ways all have relatively useful reloads) and depending on the Gun that isn't even a problem (I'm partial to taking Double Barrels so I can have two rounds of a two shot firing routine without even having to Risky Reload, which is often the meat of an encounter.)
Even a Drifter's reload melee strike is never worse a full martial's strike, and fits into the same niche as the Monk in terms of overall damage. I know people swear by Flurry of Blows as a damage increase, and its a good class feature, but MAP makes it more of a utility feature or maybe a defensive feature (if you can outspeed your target) than a damage increase-- we have a drifter with a whip, and if they ever have trouble it generally seems to be juggling the action econ of their Marshal Stances causing them to actually shoot less.
I've seen pre-salvo Triggerbrands in play and they seem pretty good as well, which again, makes sense, they hit like a Monk or Champion often do even when they're just in melee, and do even better when they're ranging which they want to do a bunch because they're the "favors guns class--" on the flipside a fighter using a Gunsword to beat people up in melee and pop the crit spec for extra damage is also pretty good.That is kind of the problem. The Monk has one of the lowest damage outputs of any martial, but it also has tons of mobility, great defenses and a great action economy. You might not be the greatest damage dealer, but you'll do that damage all the time and your team doesn't have to worry about you, which frees up their actions. That raises the team's effectiveness in a way that...
The Drifter and Triggerbrand both still benefit from +2 to attack rolls when using their actual gun vs. the martial standard, so their damage is objectively north of the Monk's. They both can also get benefits putting their melee attack above the standard Monk one depending on how their ranged attacks go.
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I also wish you could activate ammo with the same actions as reload.