For those interested, the gunslinger can be found here:

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ulti ... inger.html

The class itself is not broken, but the firearms rules might be.


One thing that bothers me is the reloading. There are plenty of ways to get the full reloads in the game, but the ability to apparently get off four reloads in a round is pretty shocking regardless. There's spells that do it, for instance, but I didn't want to muck with that.

Simply put, I'm going to change his pistols to revolvers. This makes it a bit rougher to play, but will be pretty similar. For instance, if Rixs attacks thrice with each pistol on the first round, and then uses his free action reload from Lighting Reload and Rapid Reload to reload his revolver (tossing the partially full six cartridge from the first gun onto the ground and reloading with a fresh full six), and then the next round he does the same attack cycle, emptying the second gun and doing his reload with the same, then we should be ok. But both revolvers will need to be tracked to be sure that no fuckups happen- for instance, he can get extra attacks from haste, so be sure the one reload happens properly each time. This frees up a feat, which I'll fill in with something else.

My reasoning here is basically what Zem said- it stretches believably to get off four reloads per round on a pistol, even with our 10 second rounds, and I'd much rather not have the spell with the tiny magical hands to do the reloads, or have the weapon straps, or however else people pull that off. I don't have a problem with him reloading his left revolver's cartridge with his right hand while still holding his right revolver, mostly because that's not an unreasonable amount of Dexterity- unlike a swordsman, it isn't as if the hand is fully occupied.

I can honestly deal with revolvers without introducing rifles and shotguns, is the other part of this. If I need to provide a bit extra of something to like, blunderbusses and muskets to keep them competitive, I can do that.

So, with that resolved...



The bigger issues is.... is the whole setup overpowered? All the enemies you fought yesterday were lower lever (except the sorcerer, who just got fucked), so the damage that Keichi and Alenka put out was in top form. They could have upped it a bit with power attack (or at least Keichi could), and it outclassed Rixs by quite a bit... however, if instead you had been fighting a much higher AC creature (say, a set of CR 12 monsters with think hides, or a few higher CR foes who were fully armored), you would have seen Rixs putting out essentially the same damage, whilst Keichi's lower attack cycle attacks would miss more often, and Alenka would have had the same thing. Now, that could be argued as where the gunslinger succeeds, but I would say that is a more common situation, and that an enemy isn't inherently going to be better at that. Granted, you have to be within 20 feet for that to work (that number is different for each weapon type):

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ulti ... earms.html

My problem is that turning the attack into a ranged touch attack seems overly generous. I was very pleased that a class exists to model the gunslinging mercenaries from Dulal (you guys have met such folk before, even before this class was released), and that got me pretty excited, but I'm not sure I'm quite comfortable with the realistic implications of fully ignoring armor straight up. At the same time, I want the class to feel good, and I want guns to feel different than arrows.

Suggestions welcome!

I find the random interjection of what is realistic and therefore broken or not broken ridiculous. So chain with spikes, totally broken because that couldn't happen in real life. A small, invisible flying man that can summon fire from a volcano 8000 miles away, totally plausible. A man holding two guns and can reload both of them in one round, oh well that's ludicrous. Oh how about a sword that in one swing can turn an elf into paste, yup that seems legitimate and totally possible. Not to mention, air ships, seeking arrows, permanent illusions, displacement cloaks, Ryan the ring, a bat wearing spats, invisibility, flying boots, souls trapped in gems, the rope trick, a handy haversack, a portable hole, your mother, transportation grapes from a pine tree, a donut shaped world (Mmmmmmmm,aghghhhhhhh), or any of the other things we encounter.

I think the guns are fine. Is it a little far fetched? Sure, but so is the entire game, it's called fantasy for a reason. If Rix can stand in one spot and shoot someone within 20 ft, awesome! If he has to move more than 5 ft it's really not very strong at all because the damage done by a single bullet is not very much. He can shoot from a distance but his chance of hitting dwindles pretty quickly, he goes up against their full AC and his attack gets pretty low on the last two attacks, I think its 12. Like you said these guys were pretty low level so up against things with a better AC he is most likely not going to hit on all 6, probably will average out to hitting on 3 of his 6 I would guess. He is stronger in a small enclosed room where he doesn't have to move to hit people but out in a wide area or a really large room he is somewhat weaker.

Let's just have fun and yup some things are going to be over powered and some things under and that's what is fun. When you try to mitigate everything so it's even you end up with NASCAR and nobody wants that.

YOU SHUT YOUR DAMN MOUTH! You just made Monty cry. He's crying salty bat tears. I hope you're happy.

EDIT: I'd like to go on record as saying that I agree with Bat-Hater. Of course Mark has a point, but holy shit, for all of the reasons that Mike listed, we're going to worry about how he reloads? I don't care if the explanation is that there are invisible tiny immortal indestructible reloading gnomes that live in the guns and reload for him. I'll absolutely buy that. There's so much absurdity in this game, both in the magical realms (spells/items/etc.) and the supposed "real" realm, that I'm A-OK with a guy reloading his pistols like lightning. No consideration whatsoever needed on this guy's part.

Now, a damn dirty elf hating on a precious squeaky bat....THAT I'm having a hard time with.

See, there's a difference.

Magic, and non-magic. What makes sense can be thrown out the window when we're discussing magic. Teleporting to other planes, lighting the air on fire, whatever... no problem. It's magic, and magic need not be explained. It only needs to be balanced and somewhat reasonable.

There are, however, things within D&D that do not require magic. The game could be played without magic, afterall. Imagine that you're playing in Forgotten Realms and suddenly the Weave is destroyed... no magic. Ok, now what happens? The functions of swords should remain unchanged, for example. The interaction of a peasant and a wolf should be unchanged. These are the things we can model with dice based on our knowledge of the real world. We make it a compromise between realism and ease of use, and THEN we add magic to the mix.

So we're talking about these guns because they are non-magical. And here's one of the many reasons it's important... If this guy gets himself an anti-magic field, fuck alls ya'lls. If you have something broken that doesn't require magic, then when you remove magic, this guy will be wildly powerful. There are all sorts of ways of reducing magical effects, but there's nothing out there for reducing non-magical effects.

When we model things that don't require magic, don't compare them to things that do require magic. Compare them to swords, rocks, and wolves. As for character abilities that don't require magic, you can stop comparing them to real-world heroes (or even most fantasy heroes) up to about level 5 or 6. After that, meh.


Magic is the frosting on the cake of realistic modeling. If the realistic modeling cake sucks, it doesn't matter how good the frosting is. Unless it's cream cheese frosting, and then you just need a spoon.



So yeah, using your left hand to load 3 shots/10 seconds into a gun held in the right hand, I'd buy that. Doing it while simultaneously loading the gun in your left hand with your right hand, not so much. A revolver strikes me as a little absurd as well, but at least it's mildly plausible.

This is the one point I feel is valid, and can actually happen in any of our campaigns...well, mostly if we're higher-up. I can't see us encountering an anti-magic field at lower levels, but stranger things have happened.

I can suspend disbelief for just about anything in these games. It's fantasy. It's role-playing. If I'm trying to pick nits for a bunch of gameplay mechanics, I'm likely not having fun anymore. I've done a few "real life" campaigns where magic/fantasy is on a back burner, or not even there at all. Those are no fun. I mean, Christ, we have a goddamn monk who can move at 3x the speed of "normal" characters, can paralyze or even kill an enemy with a single punch, gets more resistant to poisons/plagues/etc....if I believe that, I'll believe a guy gets to be ridiculously good with a gun.

Hrm, I think I wasn't clear about something.


First, I'm with Zem on the "real things are supposed to be realistic". In fact, if you guys don't feel like you are super powerful characters in a world that feels LIKE the real world, but the magical addition, then I'm kind of screwing stuff up. The big things- the active gods, the fireballs, the toroidal world- are accomplished because there's some different laws of physics, that involve magic. Monks aren't just dudes who punch things, they've unlocked their chakras, they channel their own ki, they have that power via dedication, practice... and magic. Without magic, the monk isn't going to be able to kill someone with a single punch, or dimension door. Keichi in an anti-magic zone can't use his Suri and Isai ki.

The stuff with the swords, and the picking locks, the martial skill- that's supposed to be realistic with a few exceptions. Past about 10th level, we expect to see some things happen that would be impossible to do, even by the best human who has ever lived, because our world "doesn't go that high". Those levels don't model Earth. Much like Caligo doesn't model what Kylon did- level 35 player characters.

But it should still be possible. Rixs dual wields pistols, and I'll bend the rules such that this works correctly (in this case I decided to simply change him over to revolvers, a tech level I was trying to avoid, but it's ultimately still ok). By the rules, you can reload super fast, but you are limited by the other hand being occupied. So the rules have two ways around this that I found real fast- the first is a spell called like "reloading hands", and there's some way to make it permanent. The second is a "weapon strap", where you drop the weapon, but it's strapped to your wrist. I decided (and went back on) the idea that it's ok just to reload with your second hand kind of busy. That doesn't strike me as totally out there, but in the span of 10 seconds it might be. So instead of the Off Hand Reload feat, which is a custom feat, he'll just fucking have revolvers, and the Extra Grit feat (his grit pool will then be four, allowing you to spend some grit on some stuff). The only downside is that running him becomes a bit complex, but nothing absurd.

At the start of the fight, he's got 6 bullets in each revolver, left and right. Say he's hasted, and uses rapid shot.

He gets two extra attacks, and all attacks take -4 because of rapid shot (-2) and dual wield (-2). So his first would be at Max-4 (rapid, either haand) then Max-4 (haste, either hand) then Max-4 (his right hand) then Max -4 (his left hand), then Max-9 (right hand second shot) then Max-9 (left hand second shot) then Max-13 (right hand third shot) then Max-13 (left hand third shot), for a total of 8 shots. Lets assume four out of each gun.
Now, still on the first round, he reloads the right revolver with a fresh six cartridge.

On the second round, he first reloads the left revolver with a fresh six cartridge.
Then he starts his cycle again, getting 8 shots off. This time Rixs takes his hasted and rapid attacks both with his right gun, so he fires that one six times (it's empty) and his attacks that he "has to" with his left gun (the three allowed).

On that third round, he reloads the right revolver with a fresh six cartridge.
Then he starts his cycle again, again favoring the right hand with his extra attacks, firing off all six shots with it. At the end of the round, both revolvers are empty.

On the fourth round, he reloads a revolver. This round he can only take four shots, because he can't dual wield (unless he invests in another revolver). He can also just reload the second one with a move action, but then he only gets a standard action instead of his full round pew pew.

So if you get to stand and fire for four rounds straight, on that fourth round, yea, you'll deal less damage.


I do feel that this is a good nod to realism. I would have been ok with the permanent reloading hands spell if I liked the flavor better, but honestly, it was skipping over what is the actual limit of the pistol.




Ok, SECONDLY- is the class tuned too high for this game? The ranged touch attacks are quite potent, because they'll pretty much hit everything except monks and rogues, and even then they'll do a pretty good job. This question isn't really related to realism- I'm just worried about having a dragon with AC 46 get totally fucking wasted by the gunslinger because his touch AC is like 8- Keichi and Alenka have to work very hard to hit high ACs, and it seems like Rixs would just get every shot correct forever. Should the armor apply in part, or something? It definitely seems odd that it ignores it entirely. Perhaps this "problem" is caused by the ability to dual wield pistols (which takes some doing in the feat department), but that's a pretty iconic kind of concept for such a character, so I'd prefer to balance around that assumption (even to the point of offering other buffs to the two-handed guns).

The touch AC is the only point of concern balance-wise, but a gunslinger versus low AC opponents isn't nearly as potent as a more traditional melee build, so maybe it all works out.

Doing a cartridge reload on a revolver once per round (10 seconds) should NOT strike you as absurd. I'm pretty sure this happens in the real world with practiced gun guys. Maybe they aren't holding a second gun with their other hand, but maybe they aren't 13th level either. 11th level is when you get Lightning Reload, so it's not like low levels get that trick. An 11th level fighter can get through plate armor half the time with a sword, which in the real world would require luck like whut whut whut

Upon further reflection, he can do this when hasted and rapid shotting:
Round 1: Both guns have 6 shots in them. Shoot 5 out of right gun, 3 out of left gun. Reload Right Gun back to 6.
Round 2: R: 6, L: 3 Shoot 5 out of right gun, 3 out of left gun. Reload Left Gun back to 6.
Round 3: R: 1, L: 6 Reload Right Gun back to 6. Shoot five out of right gun, three out of left gun.
Round 4: R: 1, L: 3 Reload Right Gun back to 6. Shoot five out of right gun, three out of left gun.
Round 5: R: 1, L: 0 From here on out, you can reload the gun with 0 bullets in it, shoot five of them, and then the last bullet in the other revolver is good for one shot.

So after four rounds of 8 shots per round (this assumes haste and rapid shot), he's stuck shooting six bullets a round (six... round/round CANCELLATION NOOO).

And he'll be back at max should he spend one of his actual actions reloading, possibly as part of him re-positioning.

Oh, no, reloading a revolver in ten seconds is fine. Of course, it involves a specially made preloading cartridge, but whatever.

The "absurd" was to someone having a revolver in a world where I have a sword and a bow. It wasn't just smallpox that killed the native Americans. Guns and steel had something to do with it as well.


I think here's your basic problem with the dual wield pistol... no one would do that except in a bad movie or video game. We take a minus to hit dual wielding melee weapons. It's not an option to dual wield crossbows, longbows, or throwing knives. Have you ever tried to use two guns at once? You can't hit a fucking thing. It should be possible to do, but the penalty to hit should be much worse than for melee. I can pick up two swords and twirl them around and feel the one in my left hand is definitely a bit awkward... but with guns... I suppose I could hit a dragon from 20 feet away, but that's about it.

Dulal is the only nation that knows how to make gunpowder, and it is their national secret. They are also the nation the least able to field mages for their defense, which I would argue has a lot more to go on.

Note that Caligan gunpowder is flat out different than ours (you've probably gathered that Caligan physics was designed to be incompatible with most technology), and that even with the desire, magical means, and access to decent amounts of it, the Zemnians, Voriphans, and Umbrans haven't been able to duplicate it- and it's been generations.


In other words, it's not quite the same equalizer it is on Earth. A revolver is a bit over engineered, I agree, but it's ultimately a clockwork mechanism added to the pistol, so probably ok.

While not as common as depicted in media, cowboys and gunslingers in the west did dual wield revolvers at times. Using a case of rapiers, or wielding the long and the short with skill, is also both uncommon historically and, er, "overdepicted" in games and media. But there's historical precedent for the use of two revolvers in life and death situations. We accept dual wielded swords because it happened in Europe (but not often) and happened in Japan (but also not often, though http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niten_Ichi-ry%C5%AB Miyamoto's sword school still exists), so why is Wild Bill Hickok, who dual wielded in the light of modern history, not a valid source?

You actually CAN dual wield hand crossbows by the way. Reloading them sucks, but even in 3.0 you could do that, and maybe in 2ed?

And it IS an option to dual wield throwing weapons, though the rules are odd. I'm not a fan of this and don't promote it, as I can't find much evidence that this has any historical or realistic precedence. Thrown weapons in general could use a bit of work in the game.



CHALLENGE ACCEPTED :P



Well, maybe. The thing that I'm concerned with is that you basically can't miss with your final attacks, not that the dual wield is so beneficial.

If he used, say, a musket, he'd be able to do iterative attacks as well I think, but instead of 6 base and 8 buffed he'd be limited to 3 based and 5 buffed. He wouldn't get 1.5 times Dex as a two handed fighter gets, and going from 1d8 to 1d12 isn't huge, but he'd also have a bigger range to shoot from and still get his good +hit. Getting your shooting on from 40 is a lot better than 20, by about the same measure that 80 is better than 40, in terms of not being a guaranteed charge away from getting your peehole violated.

I might do a thing where a gunslinger ignores some amount of armor based AC based on his level instead of it being a ranged touch (say, 2/3rds your level, so Rixs would ignore 8 points of armor based AC, meaning a guy in full plate +5 would still get some of his +15 armor bonus).

If I reduce the ranged touch to 2/3 armor ignore, I'd have no qualms making muskets and other two handed guns get 1.5x Dex instead of 1x Dex. I'm a lot more open to houserules with this than I normally am, because it originates from a system that's simply aimed at a higher point than the one we started with.

I guess my issue is that a dragon with an armor bonus of 22 simply shouldn't be trivial to pierce with a bullet. That armor is harder than steel, you know?

This world would have of course created the dragon piercing bullet. Especially in your world where you apparently can't swing around a spiked chain without hitting one.

...yeah, that's actually a pretty fair point.


How about, just to keep it simple, after X level the Western Wrangler ignores half of an armor bonus with 20ft? Math involving 2/3rd of something that changes every level does not mix with alcohol.

Or... just leave it alone?

~goes back to his corner~

I like Zem's idea where it lets you only get half of your shield, armor, and natural armor bonus (the three that are ignored when you do ranged touch).

Lets give that a shot.

So a great wyrm red dragon, who has AC 41 and a touch AC of 2, will have a "gun AC" of 21. That at least makes the -15 hit possible to miss with. If he has shield and mage armor, along with a proring +5, his AC will be 54, and his touch AC 7, and his gun AC will be 30.

That sounds MUCH more reasonable.

EDIT: And since a decent number of your classes are humans with class levels:

A 14th level fighter with dodge, full plate +4, and a Dex of 20 (but no shield), and a ring of protection +5, will have an AC of:
35 =10(base)+10(armor)+4(armor-enhancement)+5(dodge-dex)+1(dodge-feat)+5(deflection)
If he had something that gave him natural armor (barkskin, an amulet) or something that gave him a shield bonus (shield spell somehow), or just a little bit more enhancement bonus, he could easily break 40.
But his touch AC here is:
21 =10(base)+5(dodge-dex)+1(dodge-feat)+5(deflection)
And his new "gun AC" is:
28 =10(base)+11(dodge, deflection)+(0.5)*(14)

Again, this sounds like it should turn out pretty ok.

Remember that stuff straight out of Pathfinder is designed to be a bit too good for our game- and that some of it can be really wacky given the assumptions I made when I designed the world. In those cases, I'm simply going to nerf the new thing instead of pretending that my world is somehow awkward or wrong. Guns never aimed at touch AC before Pathfinder, for instance- that's a pretty clever mechanic which rewards the damage-per-round on the gunslingers without letting them have access to the top-end burst that a fighter has, but I'm just fucking scared of a guy that pelts that damage out every round. When something is tough and has heavy armor, I want that to have an effect.

In fact- I would consider that houserule, or a different one, in the next game, which is going to be Pathfinder baseline, because I think the touch AC is just a little bit too good.

But just comparing the fighter...
3.5 fighter: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/fighter.htm
Caligo fighter: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=120
Pathfinder fighter: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/classes/fighter.html

At 13th level, the 3.5 fighter has gained 7 feats.
At 13th level, the Caligo fighter has gained 7 feats, reduces the armor check penalty by 3, and can apply 3 more points of his Dex in armor. One of his feats is a flexible feat that he can change each day.
At 13th level, the Pathfinder fighter has gained 7 feats, has a +3 to his save against fear, reduces the armor check penalty by 3, can apply 3 more points of his Dex in armor. He also has a +3/+3 with one selected group of weapons (say, heavy blades, or polearms), has a +2/+2 with a different group of weapons, and a +1/+1 with a final group of weapons.

As should be pointed out, the +3/+3 is fairly fucking huge, and a pretty big boost. The fighter is the best at fucking fighting in Pathfinder, mostly because of these weapon group tricks (you'll recognize them as an idea from second edition made large).

Anyway, I couldn't just bring him in straight up, but I did borrow the armor boost, because I figured someone who wanted to wear heavy armor might gravitate to the fighter, and that's something I could use. I have the flexible feat, which is interesting, but the +3/+3, as boring as it looks, is pretty damned incredible, coming into play on three out of every twenty rolls, and boosting damage by quite a bit.


So just bringing in a raw pathfinder class is risky!