Sell me on the Gunslinger?

[Bluenose]

Devilkiller wrote:

I think that the super fast reloading of muzzle loaders not only seems a little silly but kind of breaks the traditional theme of early guns being slow but deadly. For good or ill the decision was made to allow faster reloads so that guns could be playable. This isn't terribly different from the faster than expected reloading of crossbows, just more pronounced. I would have rather seen a mechanic for guns more like Mythic Vital Strike to let you pool a lot of damage into one big shot. The Gunslinger's Dead Shot deed seems like an attempt at that, but it is too expensive to use and not effective enough. I don't think that "but there's magic" is a great reason to throw verisimilitude out the window, but I guess that "it has to be playable" must be accepted on some level. I just wish it had been done a little differently.

Functionally, D&D is a system where at higher levels killing tough enemies with weapons is a process of attrition. If that doesn't seem silly in itself, then deciding that one category of weapons doesn't get to play that game means they need an alternative way to make them functional. The simplest would seem to involve making them functionally equivalent to spells, with saving throws based on the attack roll perhaps, with a variety of effects (SoD, SoS, damage) depending on the amount of Grit the Gunslinger chose to expend on the attack. And the base damage would need to be high, or the Gunslinger would have to have a very large pool of Grit, else they'd become steadily less and less useful at higher levels.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Darche Schneider wrote:

Yeah, and you start getting barbarians that can halo jump without a parachute and survive with minor injuries.

Shouldn't that be HANO, not HALO?

You know, since they don't have anything to open?

[Darche Schneider]

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

Darche Schneider wrote:

Yeah, and you start getting barbarians that can halo jump without a parachute and survive with minor injuries.

Shouldn't that be HANO, not HALO?

You know, since they don't have anything to open?

Mine open a Ale.

[Rhedyn]

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

Darche Schneider wrote:

Yeah, and you start getting barbarians that can halo jump without a parachute and survive with minor injuries.

Shouldn't that be HANO, not HALO?

You know, since they don't have anything to open?

I assume he was referring to the scene where 117 jumped from the atmosphere in nothing but his armor and survived the fall with no significant injuries.

[Devilkiller]

@Bluenose - I'm not sure if you're familiar with Mythic Vital Strike, but it basically allows you to pool all of the attacks you might make with a Full Attack into one powerful attack. There's a similar feat for unarmed strikes called Pummeling Style. Restricting the Gunslinger to one big shot per round instead of 4-18 little shots would be mostly a stylistic concern rather than a game balance one though I suppose it might also work to limit some corner case exploits. The ability to burst through DR without needing to take the Clustered Shots feat would be a pretty nice side benefit. I think Clustered Shots is actually a pretty powerful feat.

[chbgraphicarts]

Devilkiller wrote:

@Bluenose - I'm not sure if you're familiar with Mythic Vital Strike, but it basically allows you to pool all of the attacks you might make with a Full Attack into one powerful attack. There's a similar feat for unarmed strikes called Pummeling Style. Restricting the Gunslinger to one big shot per round instead of 4-18 little shots would be mostly a stylistic concern rather than a game balance one though I suppose it might also work to limit some corner case exploits. The ability to burst through DR without needing to take the Clustered Shots feat would be a pretty nice side benefit. I think Clustered Shots is actually a pretty powerful feat.

Clustered Shots is generally considered one of the best (if not, probably, THE best) Ranged feats available.

Pummeling Style is the unarmed-melee equivalent, though combined with Blood Crow Strike is identical to Clustered Shots and then-some.

Dead Shot (7th level Deed) is exactly Vital Strike at Range for a Gunslinger, i.e. what you were suggesting. By spending a Grit, you take a Full-Round Action and make as many Attacks as you can in that round; you roll all the damage dice together (so, say, 5d8 for a dual-pistol-wielder with BAB +7/+2, Rapid Shot, and ITWF), and then add in your modifiers and extra dice as though it were a single attack.

Not AS effective as Clustered Shots, but you can't Misfire unless you Misfire with all your shots in a round, either, and you're still probably getting through DR without having to take a Feat.

[Squiggit]

Edymnion wrote:

The game at least tries to be internally consistent. Magic does crazy things because, well, magic. Things that don't use magic still fall under the purview of reality though, more or less.

My level 9 unarmed fighter can beat an elephant to death with his fists without significant effort and take dozens of stab wounds, arrows or bullets to the chest, suffering neither serious injury nor even slowing down. Without any magical effects present whatsoever.

What "purview of reality" is that exactly?

[chbgraphicarts]

Squiggit wrote:

What "purview of reality" is that exactly?

Action Movie physics, more or less.

[Squiggit]

chbgraphicarts wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

What "purview of reality" is that exactly?

Action Movie physics, more or less.

Perfect answer actually.

Action movie physics also include "Why has he shot twenty people with a six shooter without reloading" too though, so it helps the OP's conundrum really well.

[Darche Schneider]

Now if you were a mysterious stranger heres something you could do..

Swift action to Add CHA to damage. Full round action to use the dead shot. Have someone previous enchant the bullet your using for this with Named Bullet.

The first thing is you Auto threaten a Crit. You've got up to 4 chances or so to make it a natural crit. Then you get to confirm it. Its suppose to count as a crit hit for every hit you get, making it so much easier to confirm the crit in the end.

With a musket, you've got X4 damage.

So thats (((1d12+cha)xhits+enhancement bonus+dex bonus+Misc bonus)x4)+Misc bonus +CL(x4 if natural crit)