[PF] Scatter Property + Rifle = 80ft cone attack?

[Slipperychicken]

I've been kicking this one around for a few months now, and I need your help figuring out how this works.

Gun Scavengers (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/gunslinger/archetypes/paizo---gunslinger-archetypes/gun-scavenger-gunslinger-archetype) (a Gunslinger archetype) get a very interesting deed at level 1:


Change Out (Ex) At 1st level, as a full-round action, a gun scavenger can remove the broken condition from a single firearm she is currently wielding, as long as that condition was gained by a firearm misfire. When she does, she can replace the broken part with a specialized, short-lived component that does one of the following: gives the firearm the scatter weapon quality; increases the damage dealt by the pistol-whip deed by one die size; or increases the firearm's range increment by 10 feet. A firearm with such a modification increases its misfire chance cumulatively by 1 each time it is fired until it misfires. When it does misfire, the effects of the temporary component are lost. A gun scavenger must have at least 1 grit point to perform this deed. Alternatively, if the gun scavenger spends 1 grit point to perform a change out, she can either perform the change out as a standard action instead of a full-round action, or perform the change out on a firearm that isn't broken.

Suppose I use this to give the Scatter quality to a Musket or a Rifle, I load it with pellets, and fire it. What happens? Does it get the cone attack out to its range increment? Because making your full-attacks hit an entire 80ft cone seems kind of ludicrous and game-breaking to me.

Thoughts?

EDIT: For reference:
http://i.imgur.com/f9JDZ.jpg



Scatter Weapon Quality (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/weapons/firearms#TOC-Firearm-Descriptions): A weapon with the scatter weapon quality can shoot two different types of ammunition. It can fire normal bullets that target one creature, or it can make a scattering shot, attacking all creatures within a cone. Cannons with the scatter weapon quality only fire grapeshot, unless their descriptions state otherwise. When a scatter weapon attacks all creatures within a cone, it makes a separate attack roll against each creature within the cone. Each attack roll takes a –2 penalty, and its attack damage cannot be modified by precision damage or damage-increasing feats such as Vital Strike. Effects that grant concealment, such as fog or smoke, or the blur, invisibility, or mirror image spells, do not foil a scatter attack. If any of the attack rolls threaten a critical, confirm the critical for that attack roll alone. A firearm that makes a scatter shot misfires only if all of the attack rolls made misfire. If a scatter weapon explodes on a misfire, it deals triple its damage to all creatures within the misfire radius.

[StreamOfTheSky]

The scatter property *is* ludicrous and game-breaking. Even more so than the normal gun stuff of full attacking touch AC from range with power attack. So, no surprise that combo is stupid broken. Good find, though. Unleash it on some people who insist PF's gun rules are balanced and have fun demolishing encounters.

[torrasque666]

Would the Distance enhancement also apply? Because if so....
"Roll initiative"
"I full attack with my pepperbox rifle"
*touch AC against 160 foot cone*
"I think I just killed them all."

[StreamOfTheSky]

For optimal use, fight in darkness, clouds, etc... since you don't care but they probably do. Also, only feat and precision bonuses to damage are nixed. All other sources still apply. I'm sure this could be exploited if given thought and a party willing to aid you...

[The Grue]

The scatter property *is* ludicrous and game-breaking. Even more so than the normal gun stuff of full attacking touch AC from range with power attack. So, no surprise that combo is stupid broken. Good find, though. Unleash it on some people who insist PF's gun rules are balanced and have fun demolishing encounters.

The tricky thing about labeling PF's gun rules as "broken", is that you have to clarify in relation to what.

As compared to archery? Yeah, totally and completely broken. Scatterguns are way better than bows in every possible way, no question.

As compared to melee? Yeah, sure. I haven't sat down and done an in-depth comparison, but I'd believe you if you said a scattergun was better than swinging a greatsword.

As compared to eidolons? Not even close.

As compared to full casting? Not even in the same solar system.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Well yeah. Compared to any other martial. Casters are still better, of course. I just don't like that in a game with guns all other weapons are obsolete. I realize that around the 1700-1800's this became true (native americans with bows were still a challenge for rifle-toting soldiers for quite a while still, thanks to better accuracy and much higher rate of fire), but I always understood D&D to take place in a pseudo-time period that's significantly earlier than that.

It's also that I am sick of guns *having* to be better than other weapons when included in pretty much any RPG. It's "unrealistic" otherwise. Even though in actual real life it took several centuries for guns to be outright better and they only got used in bulk before then b/c they didn't require a life-time of training to use decently.

And that full attack touch attacks is seriously overpowered. There's a reason wraithstrike gets banned so much. Casters can do many other things besides auto-kill any monster you throw at them, but that doesn't change the fact that auto-killing any monster you throw at the party is pretty unbalanced in its own right. (Yes, I also dislike uber-charge lance builds)

[Slipperychicken]

Would the Distance enhancement also apply? Because if so....
"Roll initiative"
"I full attack with my pepperbox rifle"
*touch AC against 160 foot cone*
"I think I just killed them all."

Now we just try to get buffed with Alter Range (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/3rd-party-spells/rite-publishing---3rd-party-spells/a/alter-range), and annihilate everything in a 320ft or 240ft cone, depending on how the doublings stack.

And you don't even need the rifle to be pepperbox. A vanilla rifle already loads as a free action with metal cartridges.

EDIT:

The tricky thing about labeling PF's gun rules as "broken", is that you have to clarify in relation to what.

I call them broken because their optimization range goes from "exploding 20ft range crossbow which you can only fire every other round" to "touch AC full attacks which ignore most defenses, add Dex to damage twice, get two shots per attack, and can kill whole troop formations with a single shot".

[The Grue]

Well yeah. Compared to any other martial. Casters are still better, of course. I just don't like that in a game with guns all other weapons are obsolete. I realize that around the 1700-1800's this became true (native americans with bows were still a challenge for rifle-toting soldiers for quite a while still, thanks to better accuracy and much higher rate of fire), but I always understood D&D to take place in a pseudo-time period that's significantly earlier than that.

It's also that I am sick of guns *having* to be better than other weapons when included in pretty much any RPG. It's "unrealistic" otherwise. Even though in actual real life it took several centuries for guns to be outright better and they only got used in bulk before then b/c they didn't require a life-time of training to use decently.

Excellent points. I think the modern opinion of guns as better than swords by default is coloured by the capabilities of modern firearms. It says a lot about the effectiveness of earlier firearms that for centuries the dominant tactic in warfare was to have your soldiers bunch up and charge the other army before shooting with their guns.

[Psyren]

"Broken?" Give me a break.

For starters, Rifles (the source of your 80ft. cone) are advanced firearms. The game specifically warns GMs about the impact such weapons can have on balance, so if you are allowing them and you have a problem with how they function, you have only yourself to blame.


More advanced firearms are also presented for those brave enough to mix their fantasy with a technology much closer to that of the Old West than the slow and unstable weapons that gave musketeers their name. If you are interested in letting such weapons in your game, do so with the following warning:Advanced guns can substantially change the assumptions of your game world, in the same way that they changed the face of warfare in the real world. If you like your fantasy to be of the more traditional variety, stand clear. Or, better yet, run for cover.

Also, at low levels this is good but I don't see any scaling, especially since it doesn't allow precision damage and you still have to hit their (touch) AC. It's also pretty hard to position an 80' cone in such a way that it doesn't hit allies. You also have to start with a broken gun (or burn grit) and burn a whole round doing nothing but swapping in the scatter component. So I have to ask - what exactly is the big deal?

[StreamOfTheSky]

New weapon! Light Sabre! This kewl futuristic blade costs 4000 gp (to balance its benefits, 'natch) and instantly slays any creature it strikes, because seriously...if you let a guy with a light sabre reach melee with you, you don't deserve to live.


Futuristic light sabres are also presented for those brave enough to mix their fantasy with a technology much closer to that of kickass futuristic jedi than the heavy and restrictive weapons that gave swordsmen their name. If you are interested in letting such weapons in your game, do so with the following warning:Light Sabres can substantially change the assumptions of your game world, in the same way that they changed the face of warfare in the Star Wars world. If you like your fantasy to be of the more traditional variety, stand clear. Or, better yet, run as far away and fast as you can!

I'm a competent RPG game designer who purports to write balanced rules. Since I gave a brief warning that these new weapons are super cool and awesome, I'm absolved of all responsibility for breaking the established game balance. Even if most of the "warning" text was actually me trumpeting how great the new weapons are or making fun of those poor suckers who don't like them trapped in a campaign with them more than it was actually you know...warning about them.

Totally.

Probably not accurate to how they work in the movies, considering I've never seen them. But it's damn hard to find well known sources where melee is scary and overpowered.

[Thiyr]

You also have to start with a broken gun (or burn grit) and burn a whole round doing nothing but swapping in the scatter component.

I'm not gonna comment on the rest, but that's actually something I can see at least a way around. Either you spend time intentionally breaking it pre-combat, because there isn't a duration on the swap in, just the "eventually it breaks" limit, near as I can tell. And once you can do that, when you get to the point that you have multiple firearms (either by being high level and not caring about the gold you're spending for whatever reason, or if its a "guns everywhere" campaign setting or you have some other source of a larger quantity of guns). At that point, assuming you can get your damage up, that's a pretty notably sized cone. Even if its only for an opener, it's certainly got potential. If nothing else, you're gonna be causing some hilarious collateral damage.

[Anlashok]

It's also that I am sick of guns *having* to be better than other weapons when included in pretty much any RPG
I'm not sure where this is coming from. My general experience has been the opposite. The obnoxious "I block the bullet with my sword" drivel seems to be way more prevalent than the opposite.

Even in Pathfinder, gunslingers are one of the worst classes in the entire game and don't have any significant advantages over -any- class in terms of raw power (and no one else can really afford to use guns except summoners. Rangers are better off using bows and having comparable DPR and more versatility. Fighters are better off using swords or bows and having better DPR, etc).

This trick is particularly silly, but in general this thread is drifting into "nerf monk" territory.

[Psyren]

New weapon! Light Sabre! This kewl futuristic blade costs 4000 gp (to balance its benefits, 'natch) and instantly slays any creature it strikes, because seriously...if you let a guy with a light sabre reach melee with you, you don't deserve to live.

"Oh noes, I did 1d10 damage to a whole bunch of squares! And large enemies are still only hit once! Clearly this is equivalent to a sword that can kill anything in one hit and my analogy makes perfect sense!"

Unless squirrels and commoners are the height of your game's difficulty curve, who exactly is a rifle one-shotting that matters? Your usual brand of hyperbole is just getting tiresome Stream.

And even if it were the massive balance-changer you believe it to be, advanced guns did change the face of warfare. As a simulation it is not unreasonable to expect the same thing to happen here. (Though again, it certainly doesn't.)

[squiggit]

To be fair. You could musket master with it to get AoE full attacks. And remember that for your misfire chance reduces for each new target you have with a scatter gun. So even the cumulative misfire chance should give you at least one or two good full attacks before you need to worry about fixing it again.

[The Grue]

And even if it were the massive balance-changer you believe it to be, advanced guns did change the face of warfare. As a simulation it is not unreasonable to expect the same thing to happen here. (Though again, it certainly doesn't.)

Crossbows were arguably more revolutionary than guns, and yet crossbows in D20 are awful.

Crossbows allowed you to cheaply equip an army for fighting at range with relatively little training as compared to bows or melee weapons. At short range, a heavy crossbow could puncture plate armour which was otherwise difficult for an unskilled soldier to penetrate.

Guns entered the battlefield basically as better crossbows.

[Slipperychicken]

[Took me a while to get this post through]


"Broken?" Give me a break.

For starters, Rifles (the source of your 80ft. cone) are advanced firearms. The game specifically warns GMs about the impact such weapons can have on balance, so if you are allowing them and you have a problem with how they function, you have only yourself to blame.



Also, at low levels this is good but I don't see any scaling, especially since it doesn't allow precision damage and you still have to hit their (touch) AC. It's also pretty hard to position an 80' cone in such a way that it doesn't hit allies. You also have to start with a broken gun (or burn grit) and burn a whole round doing nothing but swapping in the scatter component. So I have to ask - what exactly is the big deal?

For the cone hitting allies, I'd imagine our Gunslinger would go on the front of the marching order, or perhaps have melee guys simply wait in a line beside him, so he can get some cone attacks off without harming alllies (presumably the melees would delay initiative until the gunslinger makes his opening volley, and then they rush in). Also, the Scatter property allows the user to fire normal ammunition when a cone isn't desirable.

For the Advanced firearm thing, I will concede that access to a Rifle is campaign-dependent. I've been thinking about ways to get Gun Scavenger while also reliably free-action reloading muskets and not worrying about misfires as much, though it seems considerably harder than with a Rifle.

For the broken gun thing, that really isn't a big deal, since it only penalizes people who aren't the gunslinger (and who usually won't use his gun anyway), and 300gp and a day of work fixes it up to Masterwork just fine. Besides, it only applies to the starter-weapon: he can get a shiny new one later.

For misfiring, there are a few things. You only misfire a scatter-shot when every attack involved misfires, getting you more scatter-shots before you have to do the change-out action again. Otherwise, Change-Out can be used for an effect identical to Quick-Clear (though it does take a Full-Round action rather than a Standard), if the gunslinger decides not to use any of the special-modification-component options. To be eligible for the change-out prior to combat, you can easily achieve misfires by having a nonproficient ally load and fire the weapon ("a nonproficient character who loads a firearm increases all misfire values by 4 for the shots he loads").

For damage scaling, I didn't notice until you pointed it out that Deadly Aim wouldn't apply to a scatter-attack. That does hurt cone attacks' damage output, although class features such as the dex-to-damage ones from Trench Fighter and Gunslinger (these are not precision damage) would still apply, as would some other bonus damage sources like Smite or Judgement.

[TheIronGolem]

I think this is probably not as scary as it sounds on paper. How often do you fight: 1) a huge number of opponents 2) that aren't weak mooks meant to die in droves anyway 3) on such a large battlefield that will actually let you hit something that a 60' cone (from a cone of cold, which does way more damage) wouldn't have?

Admittedly, resolving a separate attack roll for each target could get to be a pain and slow down gameplay, but that's a different issue.

[Panakian D.]

Well I must also point out that you need a standard action to remove a brocken condition from your firearm wich cannot be reduced to a move action like in the quick clear deed. In addition you cannot make a full attack when the fighter has reached the enemy or when he is aproaching him. Also, A firearm with such a modification increases its misfire chance cumulatively by 1 each time it is fired which hurts a lot. That means that a third level human gunslinger on the second round after a full attack with a musket with paper bullets misfires at 5 and 6 which sucks!!:smallannoyed:

[Slipperychicken]

I was looking over alchemical cartridges again, and noticed two things which could pair well with a modified musket: Salt Shot cartridges (which deal nonlethal damage, perhaps making it more friendly to friendly melee characters), and Entangling Shot (which would allow the gunslinger to entangle a potentially large number of foes in addition to the damage).

Also, it doesn't just have to be hordes of mooks. It could also be spaced-out enemies, such as a group of melee guys in front of a group of casters, archers and/or other support. It might also be devastating against swarms, depending on whether a Scatter shot counts as an area attack (if it does, it also doesn't give a save, letting it deal double damage against a swarm). It also should work well against opponents which use miss-chances for defense.


Well I must also point out that you need a standard action to remove a brocken condition from your firearm wich cannot be reduced to a move action like in the quick clear deed. In addition you cannot make a full attack when the fighter has reached the enemy or when he is aproaching him. Also, A firearm with such a modification increases its misfire chance cumulatively by 1 each time it is fired which hurts a lot. That means that a third level human gunslinger on the second round after a full attack with a musket with paper bullets misfires at 5 and 6 which sucks!!:smallannoyed:

1. You can totally make attacks after the fighter reaches an enemy. You just load normal shots once you don't want the cone anymore.

2. If we're using a Rifle, like I said in the OP, that misfire chance isn't such a big deal. Advanced firearms don't explode, so the worst that could happen is the Broken condition (that is, a -2 to hit and +2 over the default misfire chance), which you can take an action to remove if you like.

3. The "Change Out" deed only gives the cumulative misfire increase if you use a modification. You can choose not to use a modification, and then it works much like Quick Clear.