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Since you are planning to dual-wield you likely won't be casting many spells in combat. There's a couple of full BAB options if that's interesting to you.
Fighter (Child of Acavna and Amaznen) has full BAB and full caster level, and some good armor training. Spell selection isn't as good as a magus.
Bloodrager is another full BAB class that has arcane spells. Urban is a good archetype as it lets you increase your Dex. And if using a swift action every turn is a concern, Blooded Arcane Strike means you automatically get Arcane Strike while bloodraging without spending an action. Caster level is a bit lower but Magical Knack can make up most of that.
Bloodrager actually gets full caster level. It's weird like that.
Tiefling (Prehensile Tail alternate racial trait) swashbuckler (picaroon) 2/magus (myrmidarch) X to fight with both rapier and pistol and use either Spellstrike or Ranged Spellstrike as needed (using the prehensile tail to hold the other weapon to free up a hand for casting/Spell Combat, as well as reloading the pistol). Plus, get both Weapon Training and Armor Training.
For a two-pistol arcane shootist, you might consider magus (eldritch archer) with a one level dip in wizard (spellslinger). Use the Mage Bullets ability with the wizard spell slots and the character can still wear armor for casting magus spells. Tiefling or vanara for the prehensile tail to reload both pistols.
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Bloodrager actually gets full caster level. It's weird like that.
Huh, you're right. Wish they had been more consistent with their verbiage. I looked up Child of Acavna and Amaznen first and it specifically states that your caster level is equal to your class level. Since bloodrager does not say anything at all I assumed it was the same as Paladins and Rangers (-3). But nope; looking back at Designer posts from around ACG playtest/release, the bloodrager was always intended to have Caster Level = Character Level.
Yeah. Bloodrager was the start of a new paradigm. The lower caster level on Paladin and Ranger weren’t really interesting and just gave you extra math to track.
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I see that fighter dose seem to be more what im looking for at first glance
so I am curious....What all typical range feats would work here
Point Blank, Rapid shot (I dont think Deadly Aim works)I guess for a level 10 Build what feats would you suggest ?
Deadly Aim does work with firearms. Being a fighter opens up more feat options, though the Child of Acavna and Amaznen does give up a few of his bonus feats. It does mean you don't get easy access to static damage bonuses (like a gunslinger's dex-to-damage or a magus's arcane pool).
For your build, you are going to want a LOT of feats.
Exotic Weapon Proficiency (firearms)
Gunsmithing (If your campaign setting is "emerging guns" this is a requirement to even use a gun. See Ultimate Combat page 135.)
Point-Blank Shot
Rapid Shot
Precise Shot
Arcane Strike
Spell Cartridges
Two-Weapon Fighting
Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
Deadly Aim
Weapon Focus
Weapon Specialization
Improved Critical
Point Blank Master
Greater Weapon Focus (maybe)
Clustered Shots (maybe)
At 11th level two more options open up with BAB +11:
Greater Two-Weapon Fighting
Improved Precise Shot
As you can see, there are a lot of useful feats. More than you have feat choices! If your campaign is going to require Gunsmithing, you might want to consider a one-level dip into a full BAB class that gives you proficiency and the Gunsmithing feat. Gunslinger, swashbuckler (Musketeer), paladin (Holy Gun), Slayer (Toxic Sniper). Gunslinger and Musketeer also give you the quick clear deed with that one level. Which is very useful. Even though Spell Cartridges don't use ammunition your gun can still misfire!
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Ya...thats a lot
Well, you aren't going to get them all. No one who uses ranged weapons is ever really happy with the number of feats they have available :) Any class is going to struggle with the numbers, bonus feats help a lot.
But you can prioritize them. First are the feats you MUST have for your character idea:
1. Exotic Weapon Proficiency (firearms)
2. Gunsmithing
3. Arcane Strike
4. Spell Cartridges
Then the feats every ranged attacker wants:
5. Point-Blank Shot (prereq for a lot of others)
6. Deadly Aim
7. Rapid Shot
8. Precise Shot
Next the ones that are REALLY nice for your build
9. Two-Weapon Fighting
10. Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
11. Improved Critical
12. Greater Two-Weapon Fighting (at BAB +11)
Finally the feats that would be nice to have but are a lower priority
13. Weapon Focus
14. Weapon Specialization (requires weapon focus and 4 fighter levels)
15. Point-Blank Master (requires weapon specialization)
16. Greater Weapon Focus (requires weapon focus and 8 fighter levels)
17. Greater Weapon Specialization (requires greater weapon focus and 12 fighter levels)
18. Improved Precise Shot (requires BAB +11)
That is a lot, but here's a sample build
1. Gunslinger - Weapon Proficiency (firearms), Gunsmithing, and deeds.
- Precise Shot
Human - Point-Blank Shot
2. Fighter 1
3. Fighter 2
- Arcane Strike
4. Fighter 3
5. Fighter 4 - Spell Cartridges
- Deadly Aim
6. Fighter 5
7. Fighter 6 - Rapid Shot
- Two-Weapon Fighting
8. Fighter 7
9. Fighter 8
- Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
10. Fighter 9
11. Fighter 10 - Improved Critical
- Greater Two-Weapon Fighting
So we've got all of the first 12 feats by level 11. After that you can start taking the "nice to have" feats in your preferred order.
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I though I Saw some where Deadly aim dose not work with fire arms, I take it that was wrong ?
Deadly Aim normally doesn't apply to touch attacks, but there's a specific exemption allowing you to use Deadly Aim with firearms.
Early Firearms: When firing an early firearm, the attack resolves against the target’s touch AC when the target is within the first range increment of the weapon, but this type of attack is not considered a touch attack for the purposes of feats and abilities such as Deadly Aim.
...
Advanced Firearms: Advanced firearms resolve their attacks against touch AC when the target is within the first five range increments, but this type of attack is not considered a touch attack for the purposes of feats such as Deadly Aim.
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How would spell cartridges and vital strike interact if at all?
It works, but it isn’t particularly effective. Vital Strike is a standard action, so you don’t get to take a Rapid Shot, TWF, or even iteratives. And it only doubles the actual weapon damage - which isn’t very much to start with. Let’s assume that at 10th level your Spell Cartridge attack is doing 2d4+10. A Vital Strike would do 4d4+10. Rapid shot and the iterative attack are almost always a better choice for more damage.
Vital Strike really shines for a melee build with a really high damage-dice weapon. Because the melee often has to move and can’t use a full-attack anyway. Ranged attackers can almost always full-attack.
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... and you can use Wealthy Dabbler trait to fuel Arcane Strike...
Huh. That looks like it might work. I'm going to say it would be a GM decision (see below). The other downsides are that the medium is not full BAB (delaying iteratives and feat prereqs) and doesn't get bonus feats (the build requires a lot).
You study magic at one of Taldor’s many social clubs, wowing your friends with your expertise in the simplest of magical exploits. Select two non-harmful arcane cantrips. You can cast these two cantrips once per day each (caster level 1st). If you have levels in a class that can cast these cantrips, your caster level for these cantrips is equal to that class level.
There are two reasons not to allow this. The pedantic, "RAW" reason is that the medium is not a class that can cast cantrips, it casts knacks.
I find that argument to be a bit forced, it requires assuming assuming the designers meant for "these cantrips" to cut off a whole lot of other options instead of just being a reference to "the two cantrips selected." But I personally would not allow it to work because I was around for the whole "spell-like abilities as prestige class qualification" back and forth, where the designers changed their minds several times. The final outcome was that they decided they didn't want people using tricks to circumvent stated prerequisites.
So even though this trait does give you actual spellcasting (instead of spell-like abilities) this use does seem to be against the spirit of that decision. Any class could count as "being able to cast arcane spells", and any class that has two zero-level sorcerer/wizard spells on their spell list could qualify as "being able to cast arcane spells at CL=class CL." Even a paladin can cast detect poison and read magic (as 1st level spells).
It's worth noting that the two books this trait was printed in (Taldor, Echoes of Glory and Inner Sea Primer) were released well before the "early entry tricks" kerfluffle. I don't think there are any traits released after that which grant actual spells.
ya I know I want to play a spell cartridge using bounty hunter style character so this will help . My problem was the fact that range characters tend to take a lot of feats
The two major issues with a firearm character are range and reload times.
For a "spell cartridge using bounty hunter," it might make sense to not try to maximize the number of attacks and instead go with a "one shot, one kill [or disable]" concept. You give up some native casting, but a musket master gunslinger 3/eldritch archer magus x (or possibly trophy hunter ranger 2/eldritch archer magus x if you want to emphasize the "hunter" aspect more) leaning into Vital Strike (rather than TWF) could be an option.
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ya I know I want to play a spell cartridge using bounty hunter style character so this will help . My problem was the fact that range characters tend to take a lot of featsThe two major issues with a firearm character are range and reload times.
For a "spell cartridge using bounty hunter," it might make sense to not try to maximize the number of attacks and instead go with a "one shot, one kill [or disable]" concept. You give up some native casting, but a musket master gunslinger 3/eldritch archer magus x (or possibly trophy hunter ranger 2/eldritch archer magus x if you want to emphasize the "hunter" aspect more) leaning into Vital Strike (rather than TWF) could be an option.
A huge selling point of the "spell cartridge using" part is that you don't have to reload and therefore can take a ton of attacks per round.
I mentioned it in the spoiler above; a Vital Strike gunslinger is a reasonable strategy if you can't get your reload time down to a free action. But when you can take more than one attack a round it's hard to make the argument that Vital Strike is a good choice. For an eldritch archer, it's an even worse choice because you can't Vital Strike with Spell Combat/Spellstrike.