(PF) Gunslinger: What would you do?

[Avalon2099]

So I've had a chance to peruse Ultimate Combat recently and of the three classes, I find Gunslinger the most interesting... If given the opportunity how would you optimize it? Would you dip other classes or straight shoot it all the way to capstone? Also what race would you suggest for it?

I might have a character idea in mind for a game.

[DeMouse]

Pistolero or Musket master and get em up to 13 for no misfire chance.

Although if you can get your hands on 2 revolvers and TWF you are pretty much set.

If you want to use a 2-handed firearm you MUST max out your gunslinger level for free reload at level 11, Signature deed Deadly Aim at level 11 and no misfire chance at level 13.

[Silus]

I'm thinking the Armored Archetype for the Gunslinger and then some levels in the Fighter Armored Master Archetype. With a Shotgun. And a buckler.

Just stride in and blast things apart.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

It seems to me that one of the best gun users out there would unsurprisingly be the dwarves. They're nice, juicy WIS boost gets them more grit, and their CON boost is always welcome for shoring up HP and Fortitude.

Couple these strong starting scores with a good DEX, which most Gunslingers have already, and a dwarf gunslinger's going to be pretty hard to kill.

I wanna play a dwarf Gun Tank Archetype gunslinger with an axe musket. It just seems too awesome to pass up.

[Tetrasodium]

the gunslinger really looks like it would be a lot of fun to play, I kept thinking of Roland from Steven King's gunslinger books while I was reading through the class details. Rather than build your character for you, tell us what you had in mind and why along with any "but i'm not sure if.." type things are clunking about in your head

[Luckmann]

Might I bring forth Halflings as a good alternative? Take the Mysterious Stranger and you get Grit from Charisma instead of Wisdom, and Halflings has their bonus to Charisma & Dexterity.

[Dragonsoul]

It seems to me that one of the best gun users out there would unsurprisingly be the dwarves. They're nice, juicy WIS boost gets them more grit, and their CON boost is always welcome for shoring up HP and Fortitude.

Couple these strong starting scores with a good DEX, which most Gunslingers have already, and a dwarf gunslinger's going to be pretty hard to kill.

I wanna play a dwarf Gun Tank Archetype gunslinger with an axe musket. It just seems too awesome to pass up.

Required item


Cigar of +X Wisdom

[Avalon2099]

the gunslinger really looks like it would be a lot of fun to play, I kept thinking of Roland from Steven King's gunslinger books while I was reading through the class details. Rather than build your character for you, tell us what you had in mind and why along with any "but i'm not sure if.." type things are clunking about in your head

It was a character idea for a friends future game, originally I was thinking of playing an elf as elves in her world are Asian in theme/culture, her world also takes place on 3 levels as there are floating mountains / islands in the upper stratosphere and lower down in the "lower sky" as I call it are where the humans and other races live, even further down on the "Savage Deck" is what I call the actualy ground, vegetation and monstrous races run rampant down there, lawless and uncivilized to some degree at least that's how I as a player listening to her (the dm) describe her world, I was at first going the samurai route but I started drifting towards the gunslinger, an outcast from the "upper sky" not because the elves wanted him out but because his own sense of honor and code wouldn't let him stay for some slight he feels he commited, I was considering a half-elf and keeping the heavy Asian flavor and theme but mixing with guns... Not sure 100% yet. I've read up on the potential of Holy Gun / Musterious Stranger combo and that looks neat but at the same time a dwarf with full armor and a axeshotgun sounds awesome...

[Luckmann]

It seems to me that one of the best gun users out there would unsurprisingly be the dwarves. They're nice, juicy WIS boost gets them more grit, and their CON boost is always welcome for shoring up HP and Fortitude.

Couple these strong starting scores with a good DEX, which most Gunslingers have already, and a dwarf gunslinger's going to be pretty hard to kill.

I wanna play a dwarf Gun Tank Archetype gunslinger with an axe musket. It just seems too awesome to pass up.
Ask if you're allowed to make a Axe Shotgun. I somehow find that entirely more appropriate. :smallbiggrin:

[Bhaakon]

I'd probably go pistolero and use signature deed at level 11 to make up close and personal a free ability (which would mean every shot is a low-powered sneak attack that still deals half damage if you miss, as long as you have at least one grit point). I might also take 2 levels of vivisectionist alchemist, so I can get the vestigial arm discovery (you need a free hand to load a weapon, so this would allow the character to dual wield pistols without holstering one to reload every other round), an extra 1d6 sneak attack (only usable when the target is flat-footed, unfortunately), a Dex-enhancing mutagen (which will mean +2 to AC, hit, and damage, since the gunslinger gets Dex to damage at level 5; he'd lose a grit point, but it's probably a fair trade), and a few 1st level spells.

[Tetrasodium]

It was a character idea for a friends future game, originally I was thinking of playing an elf as elves in her world are Asian in theme/culture, her world also takes place on 3 levels as there are floating mountains / islands in the upper stratosphere and lower down in the "lower sky" as I call it are where the humans and other races live, even further down on the "Savage Deck" is what I call the actualy ground, vegetation and monstrous races run rampant down there, lawless and uncivilized to some degree at least that's how I as a player listening to her (the dm) describe her world, I was at first going the samurai route but I started drifting towards the gunslinger, an outcast from the "upper sky" not because the elves wanted him out but because his own sense of honor and code wouldn't let him stay for some slight he feels he commited, I was considering a half-elf and keeping the heavy Asian flavor and theme but mixing with guns... Not sure 100% yet. I've read up on the potential of Holy Gun / Musterious Stranger combo and that looks neat but at the same time a dwarf with full armor and a axeshotgun sounds awesome...
there is a decent anime series on hulu called blue exorcist with a character that uses guns to exorcise evil spirits & such as one of the characters in it that I originally thought of when I rread the holy gun blurb. From what I understand, gun rules in japan are to the point that possession of even a single bullet is enough to be arrested, guns kind of seem to get elevated to near magical status in their entertainment leading to inspire things like the sort of gun-fu you see in movies like Equilibrium (apparently that sort of thing is more common in japanese movies/anime). If you ever watched any of the shows power rangers stole & dubbed over clips from, the guns were treated more seriously, with that whole little dance with it being the equivalent of naruto doing the hand gestures in naruto (for example). Guns fit in just fine with asian themed stuff.

Also, if you ever read the gunslinger series from steven king, there are bits about his childhood where he lived in a castle and went through some kind of uber difficult knight-like training with wizardy undertones to the training. As part of his final test he had to have a duel with someone where he gets to pick aweapon (not guns I think was a rule or something). He picks something his mentor couldn't understand
which was the name of his pet hunting bid of some kind whice tore the guys face off before he could possibly close the distance with his knife
giving a very non-tech solution to the duel with a more skilled opponent in order to earn his guns. It also talks about how he had to be able to do things like shoot leaves off of trees while running down a rocky hill full speed with a blindfold on and how much different(better) 1980's bullets are compared to even the best crafted ones he's ever seen leading him to suspect there might be magic involved in them when temporal distortions come into play at some point.
Just because it's tech, doesn't mean it's scifi-type tech. If you want to say/believe that your gunpowder works because of the pseudo magical ritual you perform while making it... go for it!

yea I mention a lot of gunslinger stuff outside the spoiler tags, it's mostly unimportant off the cuff styledetails rather than important plot points though.

[Unseenmal]

which was the name of his pet hunting bid of some kind whice tore the guys face off before he could possibly close the distance with his knife


Sorry but your info is a bit off on the story:smallbiggrin:

I love this series of books, the teacher's name was Cort. Roland's choice of weapon was a bird though. His pet hawk, David. And If I am not mistaken, Cort used a staff/club in the fight.

Sorry for nitpicking

[Tetrasodium]

Sorry but your info is a bit off on the story:smallbiggrin:

I love this series of books, the teacher's name was Cort. Roland's choice of weapon was a bird though. His pet hawk, David. And If I am not mistaken, Cort used a staff/club in the fight.

Sorry for nitpicking

yea I couldn't remember what cort used other tan it being a melee weapon & roland using the bird, too much time & cobwebs for such a minor detail

[Cieyrin]

Might I bring forth Halflings as a good alternative? Take the Mysterious Stranger and you get Grit from Charisma instead of Wisdom, and Halflings has their bonus to Charisma & Dexterity.

Kenku have Dex and Wis and free proficiency with swords, so you could totally do a pirate type build with the default class.

[Luckmann]

Kenku have Dex and Wis and free proficiency with swords, so you could totally do a pirate type build with the default class.Kenku is non-standard, but this is actually a pretty awesome idea.

We clearly need a pirate ship of Kenkus.

[Prime32]

I've read up on the potential of Holy Gun / Musterious Stranger combo and that looks neatReally, it's only potential compared to a straight Holy Gun. Their smiting deed is far worse than normal Smite Evil, so a ranged paladin is better off going Divine Hunter. (a Mysterious Stranger dip can benefit that just as much)

I haven't read how the combo gun-weapons work, but there was a weapon in Ravenloft called a Parthican rapier. Basically it was a rapier with a single-shot pistol in it and could be used as either, but if you had EWP (Parthican rapier) then whenever you hit someone with the rapier you could fire the pistol as a free action and auto-hit. Talk to your DM about porting it.

[Rodimal]

I'm playing a Inquisitor/Gunslinger in our current PF campaign (only the second one we have ever played). He just got his first level of Gunslinger at 7th and picked up two revolvers. I was already playing a twf light repeating crossbow ranged character, so my DM is allowing all the crossbow type feats I get to apply to the revolvers.


out

[Blisstake]

Really, it's only potential compared to a straight Holy Gun. Their smiting deed is far worse than normal Smite Evil, so a ranged paladin is better off going Divine Hunter. (a Mysterious Stranger dip can benefit that just as much)

Yeah, but if you've got enough levels in gunslinger, you can take the signature deed feat to use the smiting shot for 0 grit each turn. Granted, that combo takes a while to set up, but it seems like it would be fairly interesting to try out.

Also, I'm pretty sure smiting shot was intended to be worse than standard smite evil. That's because the holy gun essentially gets three feats right off the bat (Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Firearms, Amateur Gunsligner, and Gunsmithing) at the cost of not being able to detect evil or wear heavy armor (which you wouldn't likely wear anyway with high dex). Still, on its own, the holy gun isn't a very great option.

Edit: Divine Hunter actually looks like an even worse option.

[Luckmann]

Really, it's only potential compared to a straight Holy Gun. Their smiting deed is far worse than normal Smite Evil, so a ranged paladin is better off going Divine Hunter. (a Mysterious Stranger dip can benefit that just as much)

I haven't read how the combo gun-weapons work, but there was a weapon in Ravenloft called a Parthican rapier. Basically it was a rapier with a single-shot pistol in it and could be used as either, but if you had EWP (Parthican rapier) then whenever you hit someone with the rapier you could fire the pistol as a free action and auto-hit. Talk to your DM about porting it.As much as I prefer the idea of a dual-wielding Holy Gun, it seems to be created with two-handed firearms in mind.
Paizo, why do you hate dual-wielding Paladins?
With that in mind, you might consider simply foregoing the idea of the pistol-wielding Paladin entirely (:smallfrown:), in favor of one with a Shotgun.

Smiting Deed + the Scatter firearm Special. Allows you to smite in a 15'' Cone. :smallamused:

[DeMouse]

As much as I prefer the idea of a dual-wielding Holy Gun, it seems to be created with two-handed firearms in mind.
Paizo, why do you hate dual-wielding Paladins?
With that in mind, you might consider simply foregoing the idea of the pistol-wielding Paladin entirely (:smallfrown:), in favor of one with a Shotgun.

Smiting Deed + the Scatter firearm Special. Allows you to smite in a 15'' Cone. :smallamused:


I'm glad i'm not the only one who thought they had scatter weapons in mind when the designed the holy gun.

[Luckmann]

I'm glad i'm not the only one who thought they had scatter weapons in mind when the designed the holy gun.
Actually, all credit for this idea from me goes to Starbuck_II (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11621966&postcount=292). It didn't occur to me at all, until he mentioned it. :smalltongue:

[Starbuck_II]

Thanks, I appreciate the mention.

I have to admit Shotgun Paladins are a cool image. :smallbiggrin:

[glennfrogknight]

I'm in a game where I'm playing a Spellslinger, and another PC is playing a Divine Hunter/Holy Gun, and I can say from personal experience the Smiting Shot is pretty boss. Remember you get a Grit point back when you down a foe/crit, so as long as your smiting shot downs a guy, you get it back right away, and if it doesn't, just down a different foe, and there you go, it's back. You actually can do it a lot more than you'd think, and that's with just 1 Grit point.

My Spellslinger, on the other hand, isn't so hot. I DID manage to kill a moderate-importance boss with a misfire explosion from my gun, though. That was pretty funny.

[Frosty]

I'm toying with the idea of purposely using an oversized (Large size) musket with my human Gunslinger. Medium muskets deal 1d12 damage per shot. Larhe muskets deal 3d6. That's an average increase of 4 damage a shot in return for a -2 to hit, and Gunslingers tend to hit touch AC instead of regular AC.

It also means, that even at 8th level, with a dex of 20, she can do 9d6+5 as a Full Round Action with Dead Shot, and if she crits, that suddenly becomes 36d6+20.

[Psyren]

A Guslinger dip, then into Marksman from Psionics Expanded would be right up my alley :smallbiggrin:

[Cieyrin]

For those interested, I finally got my new Gunslinger Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=11719683#post11719683) started and should hopefully be done over this weekend or so.