[PF] Gunslinger reload actions

[Jenn]

So one of my players is re-entering the game with a newly rolled character, and has made up a level 8 Gunslinger. However, he has some questions about reload times that I can't seem to find answers to, so I would appreciate some help.

He is playing a Musket Master, which grants him access to the following:

Rapid Reload (Muskets): Reduces reload time to a Standard Action for a two-handed firearm from a Full Round Action

Deed- Fast Musket: May reload a two-handed firearm as though it were a one-handed (which is still a SA)

Advanced Firearm: The player is using an advanced firearm, which, according to the rules, is a move action to completely reload.

Can someone give me a little help with this byzantine maze of rules which seemingly overrule one another? It looks like it's merely a move action, ignoring the feat and the deed completely.

[Kudaku]

The gunslinger (and especially the musket master) was primarily written to work with early weapons, which tend to have slow reload mechanics. Many of their mechanics alter the speed of reloads as the class increases in power.

A typical gunslinger would reload a single shot musket as a full round action, which is reduced to a standard action via rapid reload. A musket master treats a musket as a 1h firearm, which means he reloads it as a standard action or a move action if he has rapid reload (which he gets as a bonus feat).

Adding to the confusion are the different types of ammunition, which modify your attack in various ways, especially by reducing reload times - alchemical cartridges reduce the reloading speed (full round < standard < move < free) by one step. So a musket master firing alchemical cartridges can reload his weapon as a free action and make his full number of attacks each round.

UC has some additional information on world settings where advanced guns are commonplace and that alters some of the rules mechanics significantly, they discuss firearms at length from page 135.

It all kind of depends on how prevalent advanced firearms are in your campaign. For instance the musket master gets rapid reload only with muskets, which makes sense in a world with emerging guns. If everyone are toting pump action shotguns and derringers however, you might want to consider upgrading that feat to rifles and maybe change the name of the archetype from Musket Master to Rifleman.

Personally I'd rule that an advanced firearm is treated as a light crossbow - with the Rapid Reload feat I'd let a player reload an advanced firearm as a free action.

[Jenn]

That's exactly what we were looking for- I was hoping there was some errata or guides released that I could use as a baseline.

Followup question: I know early firearms are reloaded with each barrel being a separate action- does that distinction mean that advanced firearms can have multiple barrels reloaded in a single action? That sounds familiar to me, but i can't find it written anywhere.

[Kudaku]

The rules clearly delineate between single barrel and multiple barrel Simple firearms because barrels = capacity for simple weapons, there's no text on this under advanced weapons. Since advanced weapons tend to be reloaded via the use of a clip or a magazine into a central reloading mechanism instead of through separate barrels I'd probably (still) rule that advanced weapons with multiple barrels would reload in the same way as their single-barreled brethren.

However, this assumes that it is a single weapon with multiple barrels (like a minigun), if it were multiple separate weapons mounted on a platform firing simultaneously (something like this (http://ww2today.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Naval-Anti-aircraft-guns-.jpg)) I'd probably state that reloading each weapon is a separate action.

One thing of note is that well-designed gunslingers with access to advanced weapons can throw out an absolutely atrocious amount of damage very rapidly - it can be hard to challenge them (without completely neutering them through wind wall etc) since they shoot against touch AC and can take down a target in a single round of volley fire.

'Advanced firearms' are still quite dated by our standards - they're roughly similar to early 19th century firearms.

All that said, now I'm kind of curious what kind of monstrosity weapon I'm giving advice about :smallbiggrin:

[Jenn]

We are aware of that. And I'm actually just looking at the Pellet Pepperbox Rifle, found in UC.

Also, since I have you and you have excellent answers so far, how do the cartridges it uses work? Am I correct in thinking that when he goes a-smithing, he fabricates these cartridges, each with 4 bullets in them, and that's what he reloads with? If so, then reloading as a single action makes a lot more sense.

[Kudaku]

A cartridge is essentially a bullet with a housing, propellant and primer built in so he'd have to craft four cartridges for each "full reload" of a pepperbox rifle. However, guns in pathfinder are (I believe) deliberately quite vaguely described so it's really up to you and your player how his rifle is designed and operates.

For instance, since it's the same action to reload a revolver (capacity: 6) and a rifle (capacity: 1) I'd say there's probably a speed loader (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedloader) or similar mechanic involved in reloading the revolver. There's no reason the pepperbox rifle can't work on a similar principle.

Also, I misspoke earlier - I said that some advanced firearms reload via stripper clips or magazines. This is incorrect - the UC states that each weapon is breech loaded. An example of a breech loaded weapon is a break-action shotgun, or a single-shot rifle.