The Gunmage 3.5... Now 89.65% Done!

[desero clades]

Hello all, I just want to post this now, so I can know I'm headed in the right direction, everything isn't explained fancily its more like notes and ideas as a start, so before I continue working I would like your suggestions please
Fluff will come later once I finish out the mechanics of it all


Keep in mind, what i'm going for is a sort of gun/ranged duskblade thing

Gunmage

{table="head"]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special |0lvl|1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th|6th

1st|+0|+0|+2|+2|Armored Mage Light, Arcane Arms|4|1|—|—|—|—|—

2nd|+1|+0|+3|+3|Bonus Feat|4|2|—|—|—|—|—

3rd|+2|+1|+3|+3|Spellslinger, Rapid Reload|4|3|1|—|—|—|—

4th|+3|+1|+4|+4|Advanced Learning|4|4|2|—|—|—|—

5th|+3|+1|+4|+4|Hastened Spell 1/day|4|4|3|—|—|—|—

6th|+4|+2|+5|+5|Bonus Feat|4|4|3|1|—|—|—

7th|+5|+2|+5|+5|Shield breaker +2|4|4|4|2|—|—|—

8th|+6/+1|+2|+6|+6|Advanced Spellsling|4|4|4|3|—|—|—

9th|+6/+1|+3|+6|+6|Way of the Gunmage, Advanced Learning|4|4|4|3|1|—|—

10th|+7/+2|+3|+7|+7|Hastened Spell 2/day, Bonus Feat|4|4|4|4|2|—|—

11th|+8/+3|+3|+7|+7|Black Powder Black Magic 1|4|4|4|4|3|—|—

12th|+9/+4|+4|+8|+8|Shield Breaker +4|4|4|4|4|3|1|—

13th|+9/+4|+4|+8|+8|Arcane Barrage|5|4|4|4|4|2|—

14th|+10/+5|+4|+9|+9|Advanced Learning, Bonus Feat|5|5|4|4|4|3|—

15th|+11/+6/+1|+5|+9|+9|Hastened Spell 3/day|5|5|5|4|4|3|1

16th|+12/+7/+2|+5|+10|+10|Black Powder Black Magic 2|5|5|5|5|4|4|2

17th|+12/+7/+2|+5|+10|+10|Shield Breaker +6|5|5|5|5|5|4|3

18th|+13/+8/+3|+6|+11|+11|Bonus Feat|5|5|5|5|5|5|4

19th|+14/+9/+4|+6|+11|+11|Black Powder Black Magic 3, Advanced Learning|5|5|5|5|5|5|5

20th|+15/+10/+5|+6|+12|+12|Lord of Arms, Hastened Spell 4/day|5|5|5|5|5|5|5

[/table]


Alignment: Any
Hit Die: 1d8

Class Skills:
Bluff, Climb, Concentration, Craft, Gather Information, Hide, Jump, Knowledge (Arcana, Planes, Dungeoneering, Architecture and Engineering, and Religion), Move Silently, Open Lock, Search, Sleight of Hand, Spellcraft, Tumble, Use Magic Device
Skill Points at 1st Level: (4 + Int modifier) × 4
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 4 + Int modifier


Spells: A Gunmage begins knowing four 0 level spells and three 1st level spells and learns two more spells every level after 1st level. He can cast any spell he knows spontaneously without preparation given he hasn't used up that spell slot yet. His main casting ability score to determine bonus spells and save DC's is intelligence. His spells are derived from the Gunmage spell list.

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: Proficient with all simple weapons and with light armor and shields, but not tower shields. A Gunmage is always considered proficient with their Arcane Arms.

Armored mage light: can cast Gunmage spells in light armor without arcane spell failure.

bonus feats: can be derived from meta magic, item creation, or fighter bonus feats ( i thought it would help since ranged builds are so tight on feats)

Arcane Arms(actually its kind of long so I spoiled it )

Spoiler

Show

The Gunmage can create a gun magically linked to them. He is always considered proficient with his Arcane Arms. Anyone else that tries to wield the weapon receives the penalty for not being proficient with it (even if they are proficient with firearms themselves). Just like how wizards guard their spell books, Gunmages prize and protect their Arcane Arms.

Creating Arcane Arms requires 24 hours and costs 100gp worth of raw materials and alchemic powders. Arcane Arms are always considered masterwork. A Gunmage can create his first Arcane Arms without the cost. The standard and starter of all Arcane Arms is the revolver. A Gunmage can always choose to create another Arcane Arm if his is ever lost, stolen or destroyed using the same ritual, however the Gunmage may only have one Arcane Arms at a time (with the exception of the “Dual Pistols“ upgrade). Unless otherwise noted, all Arcane Arms take two hands to reload. Arcane Arms can be enchanted normally as any other weapon.
When upgrading Arcane Arms the Gunmage have to spend 1 hour per upgrade point spent to upgrade it. Once the Upgrade Points are spent they are only regained if the Gunmage chooses to make a brand new weapon.

The gunmage has a pool of upgrade points which he can spend on customizing his weapon. The Gunmage starts out with 3 upgrade points and gains 2 more points every odd level after 1st.

The revolver is a ranged weapon that fires bullets. You can wield it with one hand without penalties. It can hold up to four shots and takes a standard action to reload (move action with rapid reload). it deals 1d10 piercing damage with x3 crit and a range of 50'.

Unless otherwise stated each upgrade can only be taken once. Only one form Upgrade can ever be take. (i.e. no dual pistol gunblade rifles!)

Hold Additional Shot,
The weapon can hold one additional round of ammunition, can be taken twice. Costs 2 points

Sight,
gives the gunmage a +1 to attack rolls. Costs 1 point

Long Barrel
This upgrade increases your weapon's range by 50%, this effect stacks with the Far Shot feat. Costs 2 points.

Impact Shots,
the Gunmage can choose to do bludgeoning damage instead of piercing with his attacks. To activate this ability, it requires a swift action on the gunmage’s behalf. To switch back to piecing damage takes another swift action. Costs 3 points

Slicing Shots,
as Impact Shots but slashing instead. Costs 3 points

Penetrating Shot,
once per round the gunmage can choose to also hit a second target with one of his attacks granted that the second target is directly behind the first (in a line from the Gunmage). The attack uses the same attack roll as to the first target. This can be taken an additional two times with each additional upgrade affecting one more target. Costs 3 points

Silver Bullets
Shots made with the Arcane Arms are treated as silver for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction. This can not be used at the same time as Cold Iron Shots, or Adamantium Shots. This effect can be turned on or off with a swift action. Costs 2 points.

Cold Iron Shots
As Silver bullets, but overcomes cold iron instead. Costs 2 points

Adamantium Shots Prerequisite: 10th Level Gunmage
As Silver Bullets, but overcomes adamantium instead. Costs 5 points.

Summon Arms
The Gunmage can conjure his Arcane Arms to himself as a move action. The weapon must be within 1 mile per gunmage level. Costs 3 points.

Rifle, Form Upgrade Prerequisite: Far Shot.
This upgrade completely changes the form of the weapon itself from a single handed weapon to a long barreled one. It is now a two handed ranged weapon with the following qualities. 100ft range, 2d8 piercing damage x3 critical. Takes a full round action to reload (standard with rapid reload) and holds 3 shots. Costs 5 points

Sniper's Eye, Prerequisite: Rifle upgrade.
The gunmage has learn how to take down foes before even being within distance of them. The Gunmage can use a swift action to aim his next attack and hit his target with deadly and careful aim. He adds his Int modifier as a bonus to hit and damage on this attack. The Gunmage can choose to also use the Spellslinger ability when using this attack. Costs 2 points.

Precision Shot Prerequisite: Sniper's Eye upgrade.
When using the Sniper's Eye ability, you deal a +1d8 percision damage to the target. You deal an additional +1d8 precision damage for ever 3 Gunmage levels after 4th. The target must be within the first range increment of your Rifle. Costs 2 points

Death Shot Prerequisite: Precision Shot upgrade.
Like the assassin's death attack but with the following changes. At the end of studying the target, the Gunmage doesn't make a sneak attack but rather an attack with the Sniper's Eye ability. The DC against this attack is 10 +int modifier +1/2 your Gunmage level. The only range limit to this is the first range increment of your rifle. Costs 2 points.

Gunblade, Form Upgrade Prerequisite: Weapon Focus with a one or two handed melee weapon.
This upgrade is designed for Gunmages who want to take the combat up close to the enemies. A Gunmage can combine a one handed or two handed melee weapon with which he has Weapon Focus with a gun. The melee part of the weapon deals damage as normal, the gun of the weapon deals 1d8 piercing damage with a x2 critical with a range of 15ft. It takes a full-round action to reload it (standard with Rapid Reload) and hold three shots.
When making a melee attack, as a free action, the wielder can choose to pull the trigger at the same time to try and hit the target with a shot as well at a -2 penalty. Each attack is rolled separately, and the gun attack does not provoke an attack of opportunity for being a ranged attack but it does count as a ranged attack for the purposes of the Spellslinger ability. Enhancement Enchantments affect both the gun and blade part of the weapon, but special abilities (like keen and flaming burst) have to be applied separately. Costs 5 points.

Careful Aim, Prerequisite: Gunblade upgrade.
The Gunmage no longer receives the -2 penalty when attacking with the blade and gun simultaneously. Costs 2 points

Dual Pistols, Form Upgrade Prerequisite: Two Weapon Fighting.
The Gunmage elects to rather than fighting with a single gun to use two. Each pistol deals 1d8 piercing damage with a x3 critical and a range of 50ft. It takes a standard action to reload each pistol (move action with rapid reload) and they each hold 3 shots. The pistols can be wielded with one hand without penalty (besides two weapon fighting penalties), and are considered light weapons when two weapon fighting. Costs 5 points.

Easy Reload, Prerequisite: Dual Pistols Upgrade
The Gunmage has learned how to better handle wielding two weapons. A gunmage can reload both his dual pistols with the same standard action when wielding both of them. (essentially he no longer need one free hand to reload them). Costs 2 points.

Attune Weapon Form Upgrade, Prerequisite: Proficiency with the weapon to be attuned.
Some Gunmages sometimes find rather than create their Arcane Arms. By using the same ritual it takes to create one, a Gunmage can link a ranged weapon to himself and be considered Arcane Arms. Costs 5 points

Spellslinger: as a standard action the gunmage cast a touch, or ranged touch spell, and deliver the spell through a ranged attack with her gun. the spell has to have a casting time of 1 standard action or less. While casting the spell in this fashion doesn't provoke attacks of oppurtunity, the ranged attack might.

Advanced Learning:
The Gunmage can select any spell from the sorcerer/wizard spell list (as long as its of no level higher than he can cast) and add it to his spells know.

Advanced Spellslinger: As spell slinger but you can also any type of spell except those with a range of personal.

Way of the Gunmage: Your ranged attacks no longer provoke attacks of opportunity.

Black Powder Black Magic: as a free action once per round you can choose to sacrifice one spell slot to make your next ranged attack deal +1d6 damage per spell level sacrificed as well as get a +1 bonus to hit per spell level sacrificed. A Gunmage can sacrifice up to 1 spell when using this ability. At the second level of this ability the Gunmage can sacrifice up to two spells at the same time, at the 3rd level of this ability, the Gunmage may sacrifice up to three spells at the same time.

Arcane Barrage: as part of a full attack action you can cast any touch or ranged touch spell you know (with a casting time of a standard action or less) and deliver the spell through each of your ranged attacks. a spell that would normally last more than 1 round ends at the end of your turn.

Quickened Cast: can cast any with a casting time of one standard action or less spell she knows as a swift action

Shield breaker: the pluses are how much damage reduction she can ignore with normal ranged attacks.

Lord of arms: The Gunmage has mastered the art of combining gunplay and magic.
The Gunmage may reallocate any or all upgrade points for their arcane arms as a swift action and without paying gp cost. For instance, the Gunmage wielding a gunblade with the "careful aim" upgrade can shift his weapon into dual pistols with impact bullets. This ability only changes the current weapon, and does not create a new one. This ability can only be used once an hour.
The Gunmage no longer needs to purchase ammunition, whenever he is reloading his weapon he can simply conjure the bullets. (The equivalent action of this is how long it takes to reload the weapon).

~~~~~~~
Gunmage Spell List (or the idea for it right now):
Any spell drawn from the sorcerer/wizard list with the [Fire], [Electricity], or [Sonic] descriptors (given that the [Sonic] spell isn't language dependent).

Any spell drawn from the sorcerer/wizard list with the range of touch or ranged touch.

0 Level Spells
All Cantrips

1st Level Spells
Arrow Mind^SpC, Guided Shot^SpC, Hawkeye^SpC, True Strike, Magic Missile, Mage Armor, Silent Image, Color Spray, Jump, Feather Fall, Grease, Benign Transposition^SpC, Repair Light Damage^CA

2nd Level Spells
Invisibility, Minor Image, Mirror Image, Shatter, Silence, Web, Detect Thoughts, Blindness/Deafness, Rope Trick, Spider Climb, Cat's Grace, Earthbind^SpC, Repair Moderate Damage^CA, Dimention Hop^PhB2, Curse of Arrow Attraction^PhB2

3rd Level Spells
Dispel Magic, Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, Hold Person, Wind Wall, Haste, Slow, Fly, Major Image, Bestow Curse, Reverse Arrows^SpC, Chain Missile^SpC, Shadow Cashe^ScP, Shadow Binding^SpC, Repair Serious Damage^CA, Prismatic Mist^PhB2, Dimension Step^PhB2, Scattering Trap^PhB2

4th Level Spells
Dimention Door, Greater Invisibility, Poison, Sending, Evard's Black Tentacles, Scrying, Phantasmal Killer, Stoneskin, Baleful Polymorph, Enervation, Fear, Wall of Sand^SpC, Arrow Storm^SpC, Shadow Well^SpC, Repair Critical Damage^SpC Explosive Rune Field^PhB2

5th Level Spells
Wall Of Stone, Wall of Force, Telekinesis, Symbol of Sleep, Hold Monster, Sending, Persistent Image, Greater Dimention Door^SpC, Wall of Dispel Magic^SpC, Vulnerability^SpC, Sniper's Shot^SpC, Wind Tunnel^SpC

6th Level Spells
Antimagic Field, Repulsion, Wall of Iron, Programmed Image, Eyebite, Cat's Grace Mass, Flesh to Stone, Wall of Gears^SpC, Illusionary Pit^SpC, Shadowy Grappler^SpC, Tactical Teleportation^CM

[Epsilon Rose]

Well, I like Kurohime, so I like the general idea.
Couple of suggestions:

• Maybe add a feature where you can see through your familiar and possibly eventually get bonuses to hit and the ability to mitigate cover. There's a low level vestige that can do the first part, and the second just seems like a natural progression for a sniper with a spotter/hawk-eye system.
• Continue to progress the types of spells allowed. Both magic missile bullets and summoning bullets would be extraordinarily entertaining and a stone wall bullet could have it's uses to.
• Eventually add the ability to play with targeting (e.g. firing a bullet over cover and having a fireball the get cast backwards from the bullet [this would require some modifications to the spells range]).
• Maybe allow them to prepare a certain number of spells at the beginning of the day by imbuing bullets with them and allow them to be used as normal attacks.
• Lord of arms could stand to be broken up and spread a cross the class and then replaced by something more substantial. That said, it's a great name for a capstone.
• This definitely can work as a base class, but it also might be better as a PrC, there are a bunch of different base classes that could have fun firing their spells through bullets (actually any caster [divine or arcane] could probably have some fun with it)

[Lappy9000]

You should change the title to "(not done yet) gunmage! 3.5, just have the gish of it right now..."

Sort of Duskblade-ish, and that's certainly not a bad thing. As it might be an issue, what sort of guns are you using? Everyone and their grandmother have homebrewed guns of some sort, or are you just sticking with the ones in the Dungeon Master's Guide?

Shield Breaker is neat; I love things like that.

Gunmage Familiar might do well with a little more clarification (they all could, for that matter) since default wizard/sorcerer familiars are geared towards being animals. Lots of constructs have that whole "mindless" thing going on, and as cool as a clockwork raven is, can it still speak with ravens of its kind? Or can it speak to constructs?

Looks pretty good, overall, but I am completely ineffectual of judging balance of 6th level casters. You should definitely polish everything up, however.

[Veklim]

So basically it's a duskblade structured merging of arcane archer and order of the bow initiate? I think I like this quite a bit...

Firstly I'd agree with this...

Lord of arms could stand to be broken up and spread a cross the class and then replaced by something more substantial. That said, it's a great name for a capstone.

The no longer provoking attacks of opportunity whilst firing thing should be around about the 9th-12th level mark I'd say.
Also, the 1D6 per spell level sacrificed is too nice an ability to have to wait until 20th to gain...

Secondly...

bonus feats, can be derived from meta magic, item creation, or fighter bonus feats ( i thought it would help since ranged builds are so tight on feats)

Why not just give them weapon spec in one firearm of their choice at some point?

[desero clades]

Thanks for your suggestions everyone! I'll try to respond to everything.

I'll start with the familiar
I do basically want a clockwork familiar that is made by the Gunmage. That being said, I don't think I should use the standard familiars and just make up my own list with a different advancement that would probably help a Gunmage more than the standard wizard ones. It would be a construct that would understand your languages but not be able to speak. Though with advancements you'll probably be able to see what it sees through a magical link. (Thanks for that suggestion, Epsilon!)

I realized that arrow mind, is a first level spell that makes you not provoke AoO's so I suppose you guys are right. Maybe spread Lord of Arms abilities across the dead levels and make the capstone better?

Looking at it now, advanced spellslinger should be able to just use any spell at by that time. The Gunmage can dish out enough damage with its other abilities, so why not have some versatility with its other spells too!

As for the actual firearms I want to use, I'm toning it down from the DMG, they are too strong comparing them against other weapons (realistically I know the damage makes sense but I want to balance it along with other characters who may or may not use guns) so a pistol/revolver would deal 1d10 x3 crit and a musket/rifle deals 2d8 x3 crit.

Lastly I am actually making a different version of this into a PrC (for divine or any other caster... maybe manisfester? but I wanted the the ability to do this right at level 1. So I'll toy around with everything and post up what I have later on today.

[Veklim]

I do basically want a clockwork familiar that is made by the Gunmage. That being said, I don't think I should use the standard familiars and just make up my own list with a different advancement that would probably help a Gunmage more than the standard wizard ones.

Take a look at the Artificer's 'Craft Homunculus' class ability. Describes almost precisely what you're wanting I think. Just add shared senses and you're away!

[Kurtmuran]

well i think the fammiliar is usseles to a gunmage well that is my personal oppinion in that case the arcane mechanic is the best option couse he can fix the familiar and upgrade them

why you dont use the arcane bond of the wizard of pathfinder its cool couse the player can chose if want a familar or a special bonded objet or weapon

and for the last ability why you dont use a special ability like shoot whit all the weapons helt of the gunner

[desero clades]

Okay so I haven't had a lot of time to really work on this, but I did jot down some ideas for the gunmage familiar. Let me know what you guys think!

[Epsilon Rose]

I like the familiars, but a couple of notes about them:

• You should probably add some rule for converting guns into familiars (rather than having to construct them) so you can take advantage of loot.
• Might I suggest letting them pick upgrades from a menu (either a unique one for each families or/and a unified list) rather than having a fixed progression, sort of like a PF summoner.
  
  If you do this it might be worth having upgrades come more often.
  You could probably make some feats to boost this even further (I can't seem to get the picture of a clockwork hawk unloading some heat-seeking missiles out of my head.)
• I'm not sure how this would affect balance, but maybe consider having the familiar key off of caster level (like a psi crystal) or something else so if they prc it's stays useful.
• Consider letting them choose what type of animal their clockwork familiar is. I could easily see using a small mammal as a scout/spotter.
• At the moment the arcane arms option seems a little underwhelming (partially because they're likely to be using a gun anyways, whereas access to a magic bike or scout isn't as easy to come by). Maybe add in the ability to make your bullets elemental or change their damage type, or give some bonuses to spells being cast through it.
• Also, some alternate vision modes might be neat for the clockwork familiar, especially if they can do things true seeing can't (x-ray vision for example).

General notes:

• way of the gunmage should probably come before advanced spellsling.
• Hastened spell would normally be called quickened spell, but that's not much of an issue.
• I'm tempted to suggest something like Mami Tomoe's* power, but I'm not entirely sure how well it would work or useful it might be. Allowing the gunmage to fire special shots (super long range, barrage, homing, etc) or weird bullets (singularity, implosion, etc) might be interesting as well, but it seems like something that would be better as a progression, and is probably at least partially subsumed by spells.

*from Puella Magi Madoka Magica

[Ziegander]

THIS seems to do a lot of what you want this class to do, only better (in my opinion). You should take a look at it.

[Epsilon Rose]

THIS seems to do a lot of what you want this class to do, only better (in my opinion). You should take a look at it.

I disagree, the gun mage you linked is definitely worse mechanically than this gunmage and doesn't really have much in the way of interesting abilities.

[Dumbledore lives]

I made a sort of similar class a little while ago, though we both took slightly different approaches. Mine was a combination between the warlock and the duskblade, with a bit of soulknife thrown in.

One suggestion I have is that for your arcane arm you add something like that, enchantment bonuses and pickable abilities and the like. You could also consider giving it 3/4 BAB, and maybe lowering the spells known just a bit. For a capstone I'd suggest something like hitting everyone in the area with a spell/attack, some swarm of magic bullets type thing.

[Veklim]

With regards to the arcane arms thing, had you considered using an ancestral daisho type thing with the bonuses. It would certainly give a decent amount of customisation, and cut down on the need for many different choices for progression (thusly easing the work for you!). Also, the warforged have a substitution ability for a weapon familiar already, maybe again worth checking out since it's already there in print.
Also in print already is the Effigy Master prc, which may give some VERY helpful insights into making the clockwork companion, since it does almost exactly that already.
I think perhaps a lot of what you're trying to do with the familiar abilities should probably be feats instead, and whilst on the subject of feats, the class should really get rapid reload as standard. Can you imagine a single member of this class not having it? No. Is it essentially fundamental to effective use of the character? Yes. Give it as a free feat somewhere early imo!
Otherwise sweet dude, progressing nicely.

[Knight9910]

Hmm...the only thing I can think of is that Black Powder Black Magic seems like it seriously encourages nova attacks. Most players and DMs I've met really, really dislike that. I know more than a few DMs who banned psionics in their games on the grounds they thought it made it to easy for casters to go nova. Personally I always disagreed with the psionics hate, but this one is...yeah. I might just be misinterpreting the description there but I'm picturing gunmages blowing their entire load in one round to deal +126d6 damage on an attack.

If that's not what you intended with that move than you might want to clarify it better.

[Morph Bark]

Why do 2nd and 3rd level spells get their 6th slot earlier than 1st level spells or 0-level spells?

[Ziegander]

I disagree, the gun mage you linked is definitely worse mechanically than this gunmage and doesn't really have much in the way of interesting abilities.

If by worse mechanically you mean actually has a base attack that might hit the broad side of a barn, and if by doesn't really have much in the way of interesting abilities you mean that you didn't read what his class features do...

This class has Armored Mage, a big oversight to the one I linked, yes, and it has several fancy class features thrown on top, but the core mechanics of the Gun Mage I linked, all the ones involving the Magelock Pistols and casting spells through it, are better written and more thought out, in my opinion, than this Gun Mage.

I told him to take a look at the class I linked, not stop the presses and quit brewing this class. Anyway, I guess it's time I gave a full critique...

Gunmage

{table="head"]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special |0lvl|1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th|6th

1st|+0|+0|+2|+2|Armored Mage Light|3|3|—|—|—|—|—

2nd|+1|+0|+3|+3|Bonus Feat|3|3|—|—|—|—|—

3rd|+1|+1|+3|+3|Spellslinger|4|4|—|—|—|—|—

4th|+2|+1|+4|+4|Gunmage Familiar|4|4|3|—|—|—|—

5th|+2|+1|+4|+4|Hastened Spell 1/day|4|4|3|—|—|—|—

6th|+3|+2|+5|+5|Bonus Feat|4|4|4|3|—|—|—

7th|+3|+2|+5|+5|Shield breaker +2|4|4|4|4|—|—|—

8th|+4|+2|+6|+6|Advanced Spellsling|4|4|4|4|3|—|—

9th|+4|+3|+6|+6|Way of the Gunmage|4|4|4|4|4|—|—

10th|+5|+3|+7|+7|Hastened Spell 2/day, Bonus Feat|4|4|4|4|4|4|—

11th|+5|+3|+7|+7|Black Powder Black Magic 1|4|5|4|4|4|4|—

12th|+6/+1|+4|+8|+8|Shield Breaker +4|5|5|5|5|4|5|4

13th|+6/+1|+4|+8|+8|Arcane Barrage|5|5|5|5|5|5|4

14th|+7/+2|+4|+9|+9|Bonus Feat|5|5|5|6|6|5|5

15th|+7/+2|+5|+9|+9|Hastened Spell 3/day|5|6|6|6|6|6|5

16th|+8/+3|+5|+10|+10|Black Powder Black Magic 2|5|6|6|6|6|6|5

17th|+8/+3|+5|+10|+10|Shield Breaker +6|5|6|6|6|6|6|6

18th|+9/+4|+6|+11|+11|Bonus Feat|6|6|6|6|6|6|6

19th|+9/+4|+6|+11|+11|Black Powder Black Magic 3|6|6|6|6|6|6|6

20th|+10/+5|+6|+12|+12|Lord of Arms, Hastened Spell 4/day|6|6|6|6|6|6|6

[/table]

Fix that table. This class needs at least medium BAB to be the least bit effective with ranged combat. Without it none of your fancy spellslinger abilities are going to mean a thing. The spells per day and spells known are also pretty messed up. If you're giving it 6th level spells per day just give it the Bard's spells progression. You can make up for it by giving him a cool class feature at 1st level. I like the Arcane Focus and Gunmage Familiar features here.

Spells: Derived from sorcerer/wizard list, casts with Intelligence and casts spontaneously.

Right now, as the class is designed, it needs the Sorc/Wiz list to have any chance of being relevant, because with Poor BAB all of your class features are essentially meaningless. Even so, with your spells progression, up until levels 14+ this guy is still Tier 2 and actually he's FAR superior to any Sorcerer. That's BAD design.

With the change to 3/4 BAB you need to change the spells progression and you need to write your own Gunmage spell list.

Armored mage light: can cast spells in light armor without arcane spell failure.

This is good.

bonus feats: can be derived from meta magic, item creation, or fighter bonus feats ( i thought it would help since ranged builds are so tight on feats)

This is good too.

Spellslinger: as a standard action the gunmage cast a touch, or ranged touch spell, and deliver the spell through a ranged attack with her gun. the spell has to have a casting time of 1 standard action or less. While casting the spell in this fashion doesn't provoke attacks of oppurtunity, the ranged attack might.

Fine, a ranged equivalent of Arcane Channeling. A welcome and expected feature.

Gunmage Familiar: [...]

I find this feature to be far too unnecessarily complicated. Wizards don't have a different set of abilities gained by their different possible familiars they have one table for their familiar and whether it's a toad or a raven their familiar always gets the same stuff. I see no reason why the Gunmage needs to be any different.

Either just give them a normal Wiz/Sorc familiar, or like the Gun Mage I linked you, give it an actual gun as a familiar, but keep the abilities consistent.

Advanced Spellslinger: As spell slinger but you can also any type of spell

Not good. This allows you to Polymorph and other incredibly potent Personal range buff spells to your allies by shooting them, and offers no rules for how exactly area spells or multiple target spells work after being channeled in this way. I would scrap this ability entirely if I were you because the potential benefits are not worth the sure headaches you will face trying to stamp out all rules abuses.

Way of the Gunmage: Your ranged attacks no longer provoke attacks of opportunity.

This is more personal opinion than anything else, but to me this seems like a Badass Normal class feature, not one that a character splitting his focus between ranged attacks and arcane spellcasting should get. No non-spellcasting ranged class to date gets anything like this, why should the Gunmage?

Black Powder Black Magic: as a free action you can choose to sacrifice one spell slot to make your next ranged attacks deal +1d6 damage per spell level sacrificed as well as get a +1 bonus to hit per spell level sacrificed. A Gunmage can sacrifice up to 3 spells per round when using this ability. At the second level of this ability the Gunmage can sacrifice up to 6, at the 3rd level of this ability, the Gunmage may sacrifice as many spells as they want.

I prefer the way the Gun Mage I linked you handled this with the Rune-Cast Bullets. They're flavorful, the only limit per round is your number of attacks, and how many bullets you made beforehand, and with the Bond With Magelock pistol abilities they automatically channel spells. But with the direction you've gone with Spellslinger and such the Rune-Cast Bullet mechanics don't seem to jive with the rest of this class.

Anyway, I find this class feature to be somewhat unnecessary and quite a bit too late in level. The Arcane Strike feat in Complete Warrior can be good for Duskblades because they have so damn many spell slots per day, but the Gunmage has many fewer and will already be dealing decent damage from range with his Spellslinger ability.

Arcane Barrage: as part of a full attack action you can cast any touch or ranged touch spell you know (with a casting time of a standard action or less) and deliver the spell through each of your ranged attacks. a spell that would normally last more than 1 round ends at the end of your turn.

This is fine.

Hastened cast: can cast any with a casting time of one standard action or less spell she knows as a swift action

This is fine, but the Duskblade calls it Quick Cast. Since it's the same feature I see no reason to change the name of it.

Shield breaker: the pluses are how much damage reduction she can ignore with normal ranged attacks.

Maybe only on Spellslinger attacks? Again, you're giving it solid generic ranged attacker ability better than any non-spellcasting class as well as giving it spellcasting on top. It's just not how I'd design it, personally.

[YouLostMe]

I'm going to go ahead and mostly agree with Ziegander here. Medium BAB is a must, and the Gun Mage definitely needs its own spell list (or at the very least, needs to narrow down its list). I don't really see the need for a Gun Mage familiar, and Black Powder Black Magic a) needs punctuation somewhere, and b) is a drain on precious resources for not a lot of damage. I mean, it's an ranged attack (not an RTA) for up to 6d6 damage, whereas fireball or something is an AoE reflex save for up to 10d6 damage, and those 10d6 are far less expensive than the 6d6.

However, Way of the Gunmage and Shield Breaker are totally cool with me. Their absence in mundane classes is more of an oversight on WotC's part than you overstocking your class.

In addition to Ziegander's suggestion, which I do like for its spell list and concept (though I dislike its number of dead levels), I'm also a fan of Koumei's Gun Mage. It's on par with the sorcerer and wizard in its power, but every level is full, and its fun to play. I'd recommend looking at both of those classes to formulate your own Gun Mage spell list (you NEED one) and getting some less "meh" class abilities.

Oh, there are some weapons in the second post as well--four guns and four bullets I think. Check those out too!

[desero clades]

Thanks for the in put everyone, I'll try to address everything!

The I'll start with the simple issues, the base attack bonus was supposed to be medium, that was a mistake I was having trouble with the character generator I was using, as with the spells per day problem, I'll fix that.

As for the actual power behind the spells... I don't like the way the beguiler or dread necromancer are set where they simply know them all, I like the ability to choose. Should I just select a few schools to choose from, kind of like the Spell Thief? One idea a friend and I came up with to limit the list was to (upon character creation) have the player choose which 4 school (from the wiz/sor list of course) he can learn spells from. Reasoning behind this it would still allow some customization with spells and you're not are tightly bound a small list.

As for the familiar I think I will stream line it a little bit more and instead choose from certain abilities depending on caster level. I'd rather have the gunmage familiar ability than the standard. I think it has more flavor than, "I have a lizard, his name is John and he helps me climb." Which is how I feel about the standard familiar (without improved of course). I'm really liking the idea for different shots with the Arcane Arms, like slashing or bludgeoning. Maybe even elemental shots too as well as "Special shots" like long range or something. Maybe the clockwork companion will just have a land speed and one of the upgrades for it will be flight/swim/climb/burrow and other nifty ideas for a scout... camouflage mechanism perhaps?

With Advanced Spellslinger, that thought never occurred to me about the personal ranged spells. I'll edit that to not allow such spells.

Way of the Gunmage: I honestly think it's silly that no ranged class gets this automatically. I also want the gunmage to be able to at least shoot people when he runs out of spells, which is the reasoning behind many abilities. I want to be good at doing the casting and shooting together, but when he runs out of spells he should still be able to do something. If its that big of a deal I can always change this allow him to be able to cast arrowmind once per day or something.

with black power black magic, I was hoping to provide some alternative to dealing damage to things with spell resistance, fighting something high SR can prove to be trouble if all you can do if shoot at they resist your spells. I do want to put a cap on the end part of it though I don't want people to just hit the tarrasque for +126d6 either. So I'll look at that.

Hastened Cast was supposed to be Quickened Cast, I don't own phb2 so I did my best with what I could from memory, I'll change that.

Same with Shield Breaker as with Way of the Gunmage. I wanted to give some benefits to the just gun part of the gunmage. I don't want him to always have to use spells to do something.

I'll work on this and fix what on here right now.

[Epsilon Rose]

You know, if you have a progression of special shots and bullets going throughout the class than Lord of Arms could let you apply more at once than you'd normally be able to.

[YouLostMe]

Picking 4 schools, or even 3 schools, is still really too much. You could give it a list of spells, and then say "you know 3 spells at level 1, and +2 spells/gun mage level"... which would work out to 41 spells at level 20. You can change that however you'd like (quadratic would be best in my opinion, but that's a lot more work and complication than its worth).

Even if you limited stuff to three schools, I feel like the gun mage will still be batman in combat.

And I can see why you'd like your clockwork familiar and arcane arms or what have you, but the principle behind us wanting it to be a standard familiar is that the standard familiar is wayyy simpler. I mean, you need to absord 2 or so paragraphs per different familiar with your design, as opposed to copying down a statblock with the wizard/sorc familiar. If you like the cool ideas that you've got going, I recommend creating a statblock that would universally apply to all your gun mage familiar's, and then tagging on 1-3 cool abilities to each of them. That way I don't feel overloaded looking at hardness of a gun bike v. arcane arms, and I don't need to sift through what comes out to be literally more than 800 words (and the stuff isn't even finished yet!) to decide between only three different types of familiars. 800 words should describe your class between levels 1-10, not one item of your class at level 4.

[Veklim]

No non-spellcasting ranged class to date gets anything like this, why should the Gunmage?

As far as PC goes, maybe not but there's order of the bow initiate PrC, gets close combat shot at 2nd level, accessible before 10th easily. Way I see it, he's already provoking potential AoO for casting spells with the gun, why provoke further with the attack itself?

[Epsilon Rose]

Picking 4 schools, or even 3 schools, is still really too much. You could give it a list of spells, and then say "you know 3 spells at level 1, and +2 spells/gun mage level"... which would work out to 41 spells at level 20. You can change that however you'd like (quadratic would be best in my opinion, but that's a lot more work and complication than its worth).

Even if you limited stuff to three schools, I feel like the gun mage will still be batman in combat.

And I can see why you'd like your clockwork familiar and arcane arms or what have you, but the principle behind us wanting it to be a standard familiar is that the standard familiar is wayyy simpler. I mean, you need to absord 2 or so paragraphs per different familiar with your design, as opposed to copying down a statblock with the wizard/sorc familiar. If you like the cool ideas that you've got going, I recommend creating a statblock that would universally apply to all your gun mage familiar's, and then tagging on 1-3 cool abilities to each of them. That way I don't feel overloaded looking at hardness of a gun bike v. arcane arms, and I don't need to sift through what comes out to be literally more than 800 words (and the stuff isn't even finished yet!) to decide between only three different types of familiars. 800 words should describe your class between levels 1-10, not one item of your class at level 4.

I disagree about limiting spells, I think letting the gunmage choose from two to four schools allows for more interesting characters, and while some types of gunmages might make do with just blast (or directly offensive spells) there's also allot of fun things you can do with other spells. For example a gunmage that focuses on summons could be interesting (they made a manga about that), as could be one focused on throwing up walls or teleportation bullets.

I also don't think the familiar needs to be simplified all that much, personally I hate how bare bones the normal familiar is. That said there might be some merit to handling it like the PF summoner's eidolon, that is have a large menu of options and point values (or just a certain number from each level) to spend on them and your starting option is just a selection from the same menus that you get for free.

[Veklim]

I also don't think the familiar needs to be simplified all that much, personally I hate how bare bones the normal familiar is. That said there might be some merit to handling it like the PF summoner's eidolon, that is have a large menu of options and point values (or just a certain number from each level) to spend on them and your starting option is just a selection from the same menus that you get for free.

I'd agree with that, good way to go. However...

If you like the cool ideas that you've got going, I recommend creating a statblock that would universally apply to all your gun mage familiar's, and then tagging on 1-3 cool abilities to each of them.

That makes just as much sense, there's likely a happy middle between these 2.

With regards to the limited spell list ideas, you can basically guarantee the first 2 schools to be chosen would be evocation and transmutation if there were to be a limited school choice, so why not give them access to one of those schools completely, then have a limited number of other spells. Remove the spells known table and give them maybe 2 spells/level which they choose?

[Epsilon Rose]

With regards to the limited spell list ideas, you can basically guarantee the first 2 schools to be chosen would be evocation and transmutation if there were to be a limited school choice, so why not give them access to one of those schools completely, then have a limited number of other spells. Remove the spells known table and give them maybe 2 spells/level which they choose?

Because congeration (summon and teleport bullets), divination(less bullets more finding targets/choosing ammo), and necromancy(level drain and similar unfortunate spells) are all useful too, you could probably make a gunmage that focused on illusions if you really wanted to.

[Ziegander]

Giving them free reign over the Wiz/Sorc spell list will make them overpowered. It's as simple as that. Giving them free choice in 4 schools from the Wiz/Sorc list will make them no less overpowered.

In fact, in trying to come up with a list of 4 schools to force the Gunmage to pick spells from, I can't think of a single combination of schools that both fits the flavor of a Gunmage that isn't also going to make the class overpowered.

The only single list of schools that I can come up with that wouldn't be overpowered is this, "Abjuration, Divination, Evocation, and Illusion." and that doesn't really fit the Gunmage flavor at all.

So, since giving them 4 schools, or even just two schools (Oh, I'll just pick Conjuration and Transmutation, lololol!!!) would be overpowered and wouldn't capture the flavor properly the alternative is to tailor-make the Gunmage spell list.

It doesn't have to be a small spell list and the Gunmage doesn't have to spontaneously cast from the whole list like a Beguiler/Warmage. The Gunmage spell list can be exhorbitantly huge if you want. Who cares? But it needs to have a unique spell list and the spells in it need to be carefully limited not only mechanically, but flavorfully as well.

[desero clades]

I've been reading over everyone's comment's and I can see where there could some abuse in terms of having the sorc/wiz list... even if its a few schools. So I'm thinking limiting to maybe 2 or 3 tops for now, but will probably just end up making a large spell list that won't have the broken spells (like polymorph). I do want "gunmage spells" that fit the flavor of a gun toting caster, but I also want spells that fit the bill of just the "mage" part of gunmage, so I will probably have quite a few uitility spells. It'll probably be a list similar to the size of a bard's so it will take awhile.If anyone has suggestions about which spells to add or even ideas for new spells let me know!

Onto the familiar, honestly I've never looked at the PF summoner till 10 minutes ago and all I can say is that I'm loving the idea of different types of guns being upgraded to suit what you want. The only thing is I'm afraid of going this route all falling prey to the soulknife issue where your weapon is your class... should it be magically enhanced automatically, or should it just be masterwork and it still fall on you to enchant it? This too will take a lot more work than what I previously had in mind. I might also have to tone down the actual class itself if I power-up the weapon too much.

[Kurtmuran]

I've been reading over everyone's comment's and I can see where there could some abuse in terms of having the sorc/wiz list... even if its a few schools. So I'm thinking limiting to maybe 2 or 3 tops for now, but will probably just end up making a large spell list that won't have the broken spells (like polymorph). I do want "gunmage spells" that fit the flavor of a gun toting caster, but I also want spells that fit the bill of just the "mage" part of gunmage, so I will probably have quite a few uitility spells. It'll probably be a list similar to the size of a bard's so it will take awhile.If anyone has suggestions about which spells to add or even ideas for new spells let me know!

Onto the familiar, honestly I've never looked at the PF summoner till 10 minutes ago and all I can say is that I'm loving the idea of different types of guns being upgraded to suit what you want. The only thing is I'm afraid of going this route all falling prey to the soulknife issue where your weapon is your class... should it be magically enhanced automatically, or should it just be masterwork and it still fall on you to enchant it? This too will take a lot more work than what I previously had in mind. I might also have to tone down the actual class itself if I power-up the weapon too much.

the war mage have good selection of ofensive spells

[Morph Bark]

Give them:
- All [Fire] spells
- All [Sonic] spells that aren't also language-dependant
- All spells requiring a ranged touch attack
- A number of personal range buff spells
- A few divination spells
- Some sort of construct-summoning if there is any (target dummies, anyone?)

[desero clades]

Would advanced learning be too much? Also withe the element choice I figured maybe letting them choose an element type? Some people might enjoy cold spells rather than fire?

[Morph Bark]

Would advanced learning be too much? Also withe the element choice I figured maybe letting them choose an element type? Some people might enjoy cold spells rather than fire?

Never. And you could do that, I simply suggested fire because it fits the theme best. I could make reasoning for electricity as well, but not for cold or acid.