More Pathfinder

[brushwolf]

Pathfinder's "Gunslinger" class is a thing of beauty and also seems ridiculously impractical. The Mysterious Stranger archetype runs off of Charisma, so that really opens up the class to halflings (who'd also have the high dexterity desired in a ranged combatant) and gnomes (who make sense as gunsmiths), although the usual wisdom requirement makes me wince. I am not going to think too hard about playing Inari-no-Teppo, kitsune gunslinger extraordinaire.

But... your character's based around something which makes crossbows look appealingly fast (maybe it's assumed you carry more than one gun, Iron Kingdoms fashion?); you'll need Rapid Reload, you need Dodge and Mobility to get any of the really good grit feats and like any other ranged combatant you'll need Point Blank shot and Precise Shot. So either your character is at least a 5th level human or a 7th level something else before you can have a chance at the two seriously cool grit feats, Deft Shootist (don't provoke AoOs when shooting at something in the next space) or Leaping Shot Deed (the gun equivalent to Shot on the Run or Spring Attack). And by that point an actual bow using archer would be dealing out more damage and faster.

Someone, please tell me that I'm wrong about this. Gunslingers are thematic and cool and I really want to play one in some hypothetical future.

Comments

[sarah_tv]

What I know about the class I learned a few minutes ago, however, this still holds true. There often are classes and Prestige Classes that are just weaker than others. It might be the order they are made, or the design didn't realize that they were weaker in the search for cool, or whatever. The Iron Kingdom's Gunmage is a good example of this, where it just inherently was weaker than playing either a straight mage or a Mage/Ranger Dual Class.

The case with the Guns is that we are looking for a balance between "This is Cool" and "This won't break random games". Hence, the damage for fire arms is pretty ludicrous. The big draw for Firearms is suppose to be leathality, and when I see firearms that start off weaker than XXVc baseline Pistols, I feel that the authors have overcompensated a little.

I agree it's a cool class, but the firearm rules might be getting in the way. Talk to your DM, and see if you can negotiate using the firearm rules and the Gunslinger base class from Deadlands d20, if you can get a hold of the rules somehow.

[brushwolf]

Naw, this is more academic curiosity in case I wind up playing Pathfinder in the future sometime. Pathfinder inherits the 3.5 thing where if you're not powergaming, you're ineffective, and I keep seeing it places like say crossbows - it's entirely possible that Gunslinger is one of those places.