Magical Gunslinger?

[Big Papa Turnip]

I want to play a gambler/gunslinger type with an enchanted "gun" (spell focus).

Originally I was thinking rogue for d8 hit die as well as sneak attack+stealth capabilities for melee, and warlock for that sweet, sweet, Eldritch Shot Blast, as well as some good Invocations (Disguise Self at will, yes please) for roleplay purposes.

However, upon taking a closer look at the warlock spell list, it's actually pretty lacking in flashy spells that can be refluffed as magic bullets. I'm almost wondering if sorcerer would be a better choice for my "spells".

What are my options here? How can I best optimize a sleazy dude with a magic gun who's not afraid to get up close and cut some throats if need be?

[Gryndle]

have you considered the gunsmith artificer from UA? it would cover a great deal of what you are looking for. could build on that with MC and magic initiate feat

[jaappleton]

Warlock.

You create two special shells every short rest (spell slots).

Ever seen Outlaw Star? You have a 'caster'.

[Arkhios]

Arcane Trickster with Hand Crossbow sounds like your cup of tea. Hand Crossbow is as close as it gets to having a "hand gun" without asking your DM to let you have an actual gun from DMG firearms.

Perhaps with Crossbow Expert, so you can combine the "cutting throats" quite literally with waving a "gun" at your foes' faces.

[jaappleton]

Arcane Trickster with Hand Crossbow sounds like your cup of tea. Hand Crossbow is as close as it gets to having a "hand gun" without asking your DM to let you have an actual gun from DMG firearms.

Perhaps with Crossbow Expert, so you can combine the "cutting throats" quite literally with waving a "gun" at your foes' faces.

This works quite well, too.

For artwork inspiration, what's that League of Legends character with the magic crossbow device on his wrist?

[Arcangel4774]

This works quite well, too.

For artwork inspiration, what's that League of Legends character with the magic crossbow device on his wrist?

Esrael? Vayne has an actual wrist mounted crossbow though it's less magic and more silvered tip bolts. Twitch has one loaded with a poison canister and Quinn one of her own but they aren't wrist mounted. Just realized how much they like the crossbow lol

[Big Papa Turnip]

have you considered the gunsmith artificer from UA? it would cover a great deal of what you are looking for. could build on that with MC and magic initiate feat

Artificer gives me the gun, yeah, but the spell list isn't great for what I want - lots of good utility, but I'm looking for blaster spells. Same goes for Arcane Trickster. Spells are good, but not right for me.

I'm really just looking for a rogue/blaster caster multiclass, who sometimes stabs people and sometimes casts spells through his magical focus. Which just happens to look an awful lot like a pistol.

[Arkhios]

Artificer gives me the gun, yeah, but the spell list isn't great for what I want - lots of good utility, but I'm looking for blaster spells. Same goes for Arcane Trickster. Spells are good, but not right for me.

I'm really just looking for a rogue/blaster caster multiclass, who sometimes stabs people and sometimes casts spells through his magical focus. Which just happens to look an awful lot like a pistol.

Rogue/Sorcerers seem to be a thing these days. Grab a wand or rod as your Arcane Focus and depict it to look like a flintlock pistol (without the lock and/or pipe), choose your favorite blasty spells, and you're set.
A wizard could work just as well.

[Big Papa Turnip]

Rogue/Sorcerers seem to be a thing these days. Grab a wand or rod as your Arcane Focus and depict it to look like a flintlock pistol (without the lock and/or pipe), choose your favorite blasty spells, and you're set.
A wizard could work just as well.

Maybe Rogue/Sorc with a one point dip in Warlock? Eldritch Blast + invocations is super appealing, but lock dips feel pretty overdone and I'd be spreading my classes thin early...

[jaappleton]

Artificer gives me the gun, yeah, but the spell list isn't great for what I want - lots of good utility, but I'm looking for blaster spells. Same goes for Arcane Trickster. Spells are good, but not right for me.

I'm really just looking for a rogue/blaster caster multiclass, who sometimes stabs people and sometimes casts spells through his magical focus. Which just happens to look an awful lot like a pistol.

Here's the thing:

Let's say you take Arcane Trickster, but your DM lets you pick spells from Evocation. Blasty Stuff! Great! WRONG. By the time you get those spells, because your spell progression is so slow, you're better off just shooting stuff and getting your sneak attack damage.

Ok, so Rogue / Full Caster multiclass! Not bad. Better, actually. Honestly, you can stop at 5th level in a caster class. You'll have your Lightning Bolt, your Fireball. But you're not progressing Rogue at all. So while you're leveling in Caster, you've basically halted. You aren't getting better as a Rogue, and you're not getting the blasty stuff you want because your allies that ARE full casters are leaving you in the dust.

So... How do you make it work?

Bard is one way. "Oh, but singing is-" Stop right there. Play it how YOU want to play it. I've seen them played with zero singing, zero music. I've seen Bards are prop stage magicians, con men trying to pass as an Adventurer. As a Bard, you'd skill get all the skills and expertise. You'd have full spellcasting. Valor Bards get two attacks (3 with Crossbow Expert), access to Swift Quiver before Rangers, etc.

Warlock also works. Let me guess, you fell in love with the Sneak Attack damage dice? Go run the math on Eldritch Blast compared to it. It's not as different as you think. Look at their spells, you can be incredibly sneaky as a Warlock. Especially Archfey, or even Raven Queen (Be a Raven and scout inconspicuously).

[CaptainSarathai]

You'd need a 2-level Warlock dip for Invocations. But no joke, that's your best bet on getting a solid Blaster.
What kind of blasty spells are you looking for, that you aren't getting with the other mentioned classes? EKs are picking off the Wizard list, ATs are as well, albeit a bit more limited in selection.

Personally, I'd go VHuman for the Crossbow Expert feat at L1, then go Warlock 3 with Tome, pick up Shillelagh. Agonizing Blast and Armor of Shadows for Invocations.
Then, take the next 17 levels as a Shadow Sorcerer.
You get the most stupid Blaster in the game, as you can Quicken your Eldritch Blast and fire off up to 8d10+8*Cha damage. With Crossbow Expert, you can do this at Point-blank without any negatives.
Shillelagh gets you a weapon that uses Charisma for Attack and Damage, and again, you can Quicken/Twin the SCAG melee cantrips.

A more solid build would be to swap Shadow Sorcerer (losing your cunning sneakiness though) for Draconic Sorcerer, and take Repelling Blast in place of Armor of Shadow (since Draconic gives you the same base AC). If you feel really sick, go Undying Light for your Warlock Patron, and Red for your Draconic Ancestry, and add double your Cha to all Fire spells' damage. Including GFB. Which you can Quicken. And use with Shillelagh for a total of Cha to attack and +3x Cha for damage.

[Joe the Rat]

I see two directions here: actual gunslinger with magic tricks, and pistol-grip wand wielder.

If you want to have an actual shooter, hand crossbow and crossbow expert are your core needs. How you dress that from there depends on what you like. Bard - Lore Bard is probably your best for the full gamut of effects - you want to steal heavily from the ranger's list for shot enhancers, and charisma goes a long ways as a card sharp. Everything else (warlock, sorcerer... cleric) is "bullet spells" cast "around" the handbow. The more you focus magic, the less you may want to actually shoot things. And when blast cantrips are in play...

Wild Magic is in itself a gamble, which makes it a tempting mix with for your spells.

Another angle would be to go Ranger for your primary, Hunter archetype, focusing on the shot-enhancers. yes, you will need Charisma and Wisdom (or grab that level of rogue and dump expertise in Deception), but you've got the effects, can fan a room, and take "Riparian" (coast, essentially) for favored terrain. Be Brett (or Bart) Maverick and Mark Twain. If you feel light on spells, ranger plays nicely with druid (vine whip shot!) and Cleric (Light gets you back into boomtown).


Going pure magic shooter, Warlock is hands down the best core. Eldritch Blast (backed up with Agonizing) has you hitting like a Winchester Heavy Crossbow, and makes up for the lack of multiattack by having built-in multiattack. Fan that hog leg! Two levels gets you the invocations (agonizing blast; you are thinking mask of many faces), a third gets second level slots and a pact. You could take tome for more "flavors" of bullets (cantrips - like sacred flame to skip the AC issue, or Ray of Frost for a little secondary effect action), but I'd recommend chain. Who can say no to an invisible imp/sprite spying on the other hands?. You could also forgo agonizing (I am a heathen) for repelling blast - you don't hit as hard, but you can throw people across the room when you hit them. Hex mitigates some of the damage limits; using an actual crossbow can give you more reliable single-shot damage. More levels of warlock let you put it all together.

Trick bullets (spells) - anything with range can be a bullet. Hellish rebuke (it's shooting from the hip). Ray of sickness. Faerie Fire. Shatter. Fireball. Banish. Finger of Death. Hunger of Hadar for the "rip a hole in reality and unleash the utterdark hellscape" shot. Take invocations for a Polymorph bullet. Get high enough as a fiendlock (the luckiest of warlocks, truly), and you can do a Hurl Through Hell bullet. If you aren't finding what you like on the list, cutting with sorcerer can get you some essentials. Most folks like to throw two warlock and move out. I like 1-4ish sorcerer (I'm an unholy heretic) for some choice basic and scalable spells, magic missile because come on, a little metamagic and warlock short rest recharge shenanigans, then go nuts with the patronage.

Featwise I highly recommend warcaster. Not for the save advantage, or the reaction-casting, but so you can have all those V,S spells come from your shooting hand. If you have the room, spell sniper is nice, especially if you go Chain instead of Tome, as it gets you another attack cantrip. I often grab shocking grasp (it's a valid choice!) from sorcerer, so I have a good no-range, no weapon cantrip.

[D.U.P.A.]

Alternatively, you can go Sun soul monk, firing radiant bolts from your pistol implement.

[jaappleton]

Alternatively, you can go Sun soul monk, firing radiant bolts from your pistol implement.

With Burning Hands being a flaming shotgun blast!

[Brawnspear]

Fiend Warlock is where it's at. You get Dark One's own luck, temp hp so you won't be as afraid to mix it up in melee and Fireball. Biggest problem with warlock is you only have the 2 spells per short rest for the bulk of your career, so you may not have many trick bullets.

But, if you want the mother of all whammy bullets, let me introduce you to the Kiss of Mephistopheles from Unearthed Arcana. It requires you to be a fiend warlock and allows you to use a bonus action to channel a fireball down your Eldritch Blast, centering it on one of the Blast targets. If that's not a special bullet I don't know what is. Try out burning hands for a flaming shotgun shell, or stinking cloud for a gas grenade!

Want to mix it up in melee too? Looks like someone sprinkled some magic gunpowder on his knife! Pick up the green flame blade cantrip, and whether or not you go bladelock, you have a pretty good go to melee attack.

Odds not in your favor? Win that dice game with Dark One's own luck! Superior card players got you down? Pick up Visions of Distant Realms and use that Arcane Eye to get a look at their hand, wouldn't want them to be cheating after all!

[D.U.P.A.]

With Burning Hands being a flaming shotgun blast!

And Searing sunburst being a dynamite!

[Brawnspear]

With Burning Hands being a flaming shotgun blast!

Dang it, shotgun shadow-monked by a Sun Soul, is that even allowed? :smallbiggrin:

[Zene]

Warlock 2 / Sorcerer X. Use maks of many faces to make your arcane focus staff look like a gun; your eldritch blasts and other spells are special types of shots/bullets. See my post in the "arcane archer" thread for a more thorough explanation.

[Joe the Rat]

Dang it, shotgun shadow-monked by a Sun Soul, is that even allowed? :smallbiggrin:

The irony of it is truly rich.

Sun Soul is a bit one-trick pony on this one (radiant derringer, flaming shotgun, spirit bomb dynamite), but I'm tempted to put together a sun soul charlatan. Maybe trade out disguise kit for playing cards.

[Big Papa Turnip]

Whew, you folks were busy overnight. You've given me a lot of great ideas to work with. Thanks a bunch! I really appreciate it.

[Daion515]

From a quick look. Have you tried looking at the UA Fighter archetype Arcane Archer? With some flavor of the Eldritch Knight in the mix. Like possibly replacing the Arcane Archer's 3rd lvl class feature with something like spellcasting + magical bullets? "You have enough magic to create 'empty spell shells'(spell slots) and you can infuse magic in an empty shell as part of spell casting or an action and fire the spell from the gun. Possibly even changing how the spell interacts by using the 'Arcane Shot' feature Arcane Archer gets. Just a passing thought if that helps.

[sightlessrealit]

Artificer Gunsmith, Wu Jin Mystic. Boom, you can blast to your hearts content and have so many options it boggles the mind.

[MeeposFire]

If you end up choosing to go with using blasting spells for most of your attacks (such as EB) then I would reccomend fewer rogue levels. Rogue is great if you skills and boosting weapon damage but if you really building to be a blaster caster you pobably only want to take rogue levels if you want skills and only enough to do that.

The exception would be if you are willing to put in 7 levels into EK fighter for the ability cast a cantrip and make a weapon attack. In that case going with higher rogue levels really help. With that you could go with
fighter(EK)7or 8/warlock2/rogue10or11. You will not have a lot of high level blasting but what you will have is some nasty at will blasting.

I would take crossbow expert early on in the fighter levels and use your crossbow as your gun. After you take all your fighter levels you tke your two warlock levels. Then you finish with rogue. When you get EB you flavor the gun as shooting a magic blast that is EB and then you take another shot using the basic gun shot. Your damage will be fairly nice since you get full EB damage and the ability to make a weapon attack with a fair amount of sneak attack dice to its name. THe rogue will also supply some nice skills and special defenses for the late game while the fighter levels make you quite good at the early game.

One of the big nice things about this combo is that unlie some multiclasses this one is builds smoothly with no dead levels or times where you feel behind the curve (first levels are pure fighter and the two warlock levels give you a boost in damage as well when fighter levels normally do not and then rogue keeps your advancement coming with no problems and even your ASIs are fine).

Only thing you do not get that you personally may want is that you do not get higher level spells that deal AOE (even if you go EK, warlock, and AT I don't think you get much AOE slots to work with) outside of perhaps items a wand of fireball could work and you can call that your blunderbuss or some such. I also do not remember if warlock gets any decent AOE cantrips to use so that might be a thing otherwise you could go with magic initiate or something similar to pick up one from the sorcerer list if you really need that.