Assuming you thought Pathfinder wasn't the worst

[hogarth]

In play, how does the called shot mechanic play out?

I haven't played in a game with it, but it's clearly stupid. If you spend your whole round on a single attack (with a penalty) and IF that attack is a critical hit, then you get a lame extra effect. That's just awful.

As I noted on the Paizo boards, successfully shooting someone in the hand has maybe a 5%-10% chance of making them drop an item (since it has to be a critical hit, and you have to succeed at a disarm check). That's just wrong. Shooting someone in the hand to make them drop stuff is Called Shots 101.

[Ted the Flayer]

From what I read, all called shots except heart had a small effect. You are right that calling the hands only disarms on a crit, a regular hit gives -2 to hit and to your cmd to resist disarm. That is kind of lame though. You can do called shots as an attack if you set a feat on fire assuming I read it right...

[hogarth]

You can do called shots as an attack if you set a feat on fire assuming I read it right...

With the feat, called shots graduate from "something you would never ever do" to "something you might as well do once every round, even though it's almost always pointless" (e.g. with the feat, there's no net penalty for making a called shot to the arm, leg or chest, so you might as well try it even though it has little effect on a non-critical hit).

[Dean]

No one ever uses called shots and guns suck my butt dry. If you want people to use guns and not bows you have to make guns less terrible. Perhaps change their rules to be identical to using a bow. Guns are terrible, bows are awesome. Bows shoot farther, reload faster, and my mid levels hit harder. The gun rules are garbage and you will essentially be required to do serious overhauls if you want to make them usable.

[hogarth]

If you want people to use guns and not bows you have to make guns less terrible. Perhaps change their rules to be identical to using a bow. Guns are terrible, bows are awesome. Bows shoot farther, reload faster, and my mid levels hit harder. The gun rules are garbage and you will essentially be required to do serious overhauls if you want to make them usable.

I don't think that's true at all. The ability of guns to hit as a touch attack is a fairly big advantage. The only real disadvantage is the slow reload speed which can be sped up in various ways (feats, magic, equipment).

If you want to make guns common, all you really have to do is to reduce the price of guns 'n' ammo drastically.

[Ted the Flayer]

The "guns are everywhere" variant lowers the price of simple firearms to 10% if I recall correctly. I am away from my books atm and my phone decides to make each word in the SRD to be its own line of text for some reason (the assholians bow down to my phone)

[Dean]

The reload thing in particular is an enormous disadvantage and there's no feats or items you can use to get the reload speed down to anything acceptable for a mid to high level character. If you are using the advanced Firearms this might be untrue because the Revolver and.....Pepperbox Rifle I think have enough ammo capacity to make quick draw shuffling the weapons a feasible option if you're willing to drop your guns all over the field.

[Mask_De_H]

There are weapon cords or something that you can tie weapons to and retrieve them as a free or swift action. Daisy-chain a bunch of loaded dual-barrel pistols together. I think Gunslingers can buy reloads down to free actions, but don't quote me on that.

But yeah, guns are pretty bad.

[Dean]

Ooph, Weapon Cords. Are you ready for this?

Alright here's the deal basically. If you are playing with Advanced Firearms you use Revolvers loaded with Paper Cartridges and your reload time is down to a free action. Sweet. If you are using Early Firearms you use a Pistol and Paper Cartridges and the Rapid Reload Feat and your reload time is down to a free action. Ok sweet again. So what's the problem? The problem is dual wielding. Which you better bet your fucking ass people who take the "Gun-FUCKING-Slinger" class want to do. I mean for fucks sake the picture of the Gunslinger in the actual book is dual wielding pistols. Well, sadly for the lady in that picture she is in for a clusterfuck of hellish rules shenanigans and DM dicksucking to make herself work. Poor gal, and she looked so noble.

If you want to reload a firearm you have to have one free hand to reload the weapon, there is no feat or ability that reduces or affects this. Weapon Cords allow you to retrieve a dropped or disarmed weapon as a swift action which you only get one of a turn and it also prevents you from using any other weapons in the hand the weapon cord is attached to though god only knows why. So the only way to make effective use of mid to high level full attacks is you need to be using Advanced Firearms, own a Revolver, have one in each hand and have a weapon cord attached to each. You then spend each round firing your Revolvers 3 times apiece and then you drop one, reload the alternate Revolver with your newly free hand, then retrieve the dropped Revolver with your weapon cord. Do this every round reloading an alternating gun each time. Each gun will be reloaded exactly as it uses its 6th shot thusly preparing it for next round. You cannot benefit from the extra shot from Haste or Speed weaponry in this scenario but this is the closest you're gonna get so suck it.

This breaks down entirely if you lose any piece of it. If you're using early firearms there isn't shit you can do that doesn't litter the ground with weapons that cost you thousands of dollars apiece and god knows how you're getting that kinda money in Pathfinder. So I guess my point is if you plan to have guns appear at all don't bother using anything but Advanced Firearms. I went through an entire early firearm campaign with an honest to god Gunslinger at the table and two other characters who started with guns and the firearms rules sucked so hard that their use faded quickly enough that I literally don't think anyone touched one again after the 2nd session. The Gunslinger respecced as a paladin. Guns suck in Pathfinder.

[Ted the Flayer]

So making advanced firearms available and reducing the prices of guns and ammo to 10% helps? I would agree that paying 3k for revolver is a shitload of fuck.

Is there less treasure than 3.5? I was planning on using slow advancement, but doubling the treasure. I didnt listen to WLB back in 3.5 and unless given a compelling reason I don't intend on starting.

[Dean]

Yeah that would help. You could even say you can reload a gun without a free hand. The only problem you have at that point is guns hitting on touch AC is foolish and also boring. People find it genuinely dull that they have to roll hundreds of dice that they virtually never ever fail to succeed on.

And it's not that there's less treasure it's just that Wish can't generate virtually unlimited funds anymore. All the methods of getting money I've found in Pathfinder require DM approval in some form and I'm not crazy about that. Basically there's no Wish Economy

[hogarth]

Is there less treasure than 3.5?

Here's the wealth by level table. It's a bit higher than the 3.5 table, for what that's worth:

PC Level* Wealth
2 1,000 gp
3 3,000 gp
4 6,000 gp
5 10,500 gp
6 16,000 gp
7 23,500 gp
8 33,000 gp
9 46,000 gp
10 62,000 gp
11 82,000 gp
12 108,000 gp
13 140,000 gp
14 185,000 gp
15 240,000 gp
16 315,000 gp
17 410,000 gp
18 530,000 gp
19 685,000 gp
20 880,000 gp

[Krusk]

In my brief PF experience the gunslinger spent the entire game trying various methods of growing a third arm. He had some magic item that essentially did it, and then eventually got a graft.

So you can do that I guess?

http://afrosamurai.wikia.com/wiki/Justice

[virgil]

An equivalent to Abundant Ammunition cast on a gun would be even better.

[Dean]

In my brief PF experience the gunslinger spent the entire game trying various methods of growing a third arm.

Holy Goddamn I never thought of that! That's actually a thing! Now......I'm not saying this is -good- but you could take two levels of Alchemist and get a Discovery, one of which is "Vestigial Arm" which can totally reload shit. Holy Fuck Krusk you figured out how to do something I tried a wrap my mind around for like a month. Sonofabitch.

[Meikle641]

There's a magic item from Eberron that acts as a third arm, as well. I can't remember whether it can reload things, but it can definitely reduce a lot of things to a free action by being there ready for you to grab shit. It explicitly cannot attack, though. It's in Magic of Eberron (I think) and MIC.

[MfA]

The one in Magic of Eberron is better.

[Krusk]

I don't know if its worth the effort though. Your character needs to grow a third arm, which I'd argue most DMs (especially PF DMs) aren't going to be keen on because it looks like optimization/cheesy. Plus a third arm doesn't really fit with most character concepts.

So to play a dual pistol dude out of the box, you have to trawl through a bunch of obscure books and find weird combinations of things. That doesn't seem like design as intended.

Working rules would be something like "Your revolver can hold 6 shots and fires like a bow. To reload those 6 shots, you spend a minor action. Free action if you have rapid reload". Not "You need to find a way to grow a third arm, and then spend a few other feats, and you can do an awkward shuffle routine. Not fire 3 guns though". That's clearly not very intuitive.

[Mask_De_H]

But that implies Paizo can write intuitive rules in the first place.

[CatharzGodfoot]

The three-armed gunman is a pretty cool concept, and when you combine it with being a vivisectionist you get this whole evil Deadlands mad doctor vibe.

I'm more annoyed that Gunslinger is so shitty. As a level 1 Gunslinger/level 2 alchemist, it's hard to bite the bullet and take those next few gunslinger levels (which net you shit until class levels 4 or 5) when you could be getting more sneak attack, extracts, and discoveries.

[Ted the Flayer]

I wonder if there's a (non-stupid) reason that the feat that lets you reload any crossbow doesn't let you do the same with guns? Mechanically they're just big crossbows.

[CatharzGodfoot]

I wonder if there's a (non-stupid) reason that the feat that lets you reload any crossbow doesn't let you do the same with guns? Mechanically they're just big crossbows.

It totally does. Rapid reload is how you use that third arm to reload your pistols.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

If trying to use a Gunslinger in PF, you should try your best to convince your DM to adopt these House Rules instead

[tussock]

Gunslinger medieval fantasy is stupid and badwrongfun. The medieval world had perfectly serviceable guns that everyone rightly ignores because they suck. You mix your components, load the very big gun, and fire it, which takes an age and is vastly more likely to kill you than the dragon you're pointing it at.

Fortunately, you can just load a small keg with the mixed components and feed it to the dragon by hiding it inside a (fake) princess, neatly turning him into a horrid rain of gore. Or he'll breathe fire and make everyone holding gunpowder explode.


@Topic: no one knows what the pathfinder rules are, and neither will you. It's, like, 500 pages. It'd be easier to memorise the bible, and more useful. But hey, unlike 4e, you can run a game of D&D with people using Pathfinder characters, and their modules are generally well rated. Like 1979 all over again.

[Krusk]

Rapid reload totally works just like a crossbow for a pistol. And like a crossbow, you need a free hand to reload a pistol. So while you can hold a crossbow in one hand and reload with the other, you can't hold two pistols in one hand. So you grow a third hand devoted solely to reloading.