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Gunslinger for 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons

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CREDITS GIVEN WHERE DUE:
(I used art from the following in the creation of this pdf)
:icondanielwachter:'s very lovely Wild Western Town danielwachter.deviantart.com/a…
:iconadamwithers:'s mean hombre Gunslinger King adamwithers.deviantart.com/art…
:iconloztvampir3:'s delightful steampunk gunslinger loztvampir3.deviantart.com/art…
:iconignusdei:'s ingenious Steampunk gun 01 ignusdei.deviantart.com/art/St…
:iconpervandr:'s chilling The hell saloon (I only used his as a border, which is almost criminal because you're missing out on the best part--so go look at his deviation right now, you won't be sorry!) pervandr.deviantart.com/art/Th…

I found all these artists while googling for images of steampunkian gunslingers, which is wonderful in of itself, but their galleries are chock FULL of amazing awesomesauce, and I encourage anyone viewing this to go and check them out as soon as you can. These folks have wicked talents--go take a look!
Hey, maybe you're looking to commission an artist and one of these fine artist-types has the style you're looking for.
GO SPREAD THE LOVE!!!! :dalove:

To any of the aforementioned artists:
I'm posting this while still waiting on a couple of your replies--terribly sorry for "jumping the gun" as it were--but if your answer to my query abut using your art in this pdf is a negative, I shall remove this posthaste, and replace it with a pdf that doesn't use your art.

I wanted a Gunslinger class for my homebrew D&D campaign and this is what I came up with over the last year...
It's based off of the Pathfinder Gunslinger class from Paizo's Ultimate Combat, and Mr. Matthew Mercer's homebrew Gunslinger archetype for the D&D 5E Fighter class.
Feel free to use or tweak as you desire.
I believe Mr. Mercer's Gunslinger Archetype can be found here: www.dmsguild.com/product/17077…
Give THAT a quick glom as well, and maybe check out Critical Role while you're at it. ;) criticalrolesource.tumblr.com/…

...I honestly have no idea what to categorize this as.
Deviant Art still lacks a category for RPG elements??
Oh, well. :shrug:
© 2016 - 2024 3Fangs
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TwistedScarecrow's avatar

First of all, I love your class! Your layout especially is phenomenal. It doesn't even look third party! As a fellow 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons player, I had a few thoughts from a design perspective for you.

The first critique I would have is with one of your fighting styles. All of them worked very well except for pistolero. Pistolero is underwhelming an underpowered in every way. The fact that the majority of the art shown on your class is a badass Gunslinger wielding twin pistols means this should never be the case. As I understand it, you gain an offhand attack with a pistol as a bonus action. This makes sense and gives the player the opportunity to fight with Two Pistols that aren't just coat pistols. The two big problems, in my opinion, are as follows.


 First, 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons has gone out of its way to simplify the math of the system. No other class receives an accuracy penalty when attacking with the offhand. Half your proficiency bonus rounded down means that you will not have a + 2 until you are level 9. Statistically, this shot will go wild almost every time. The common penalty 5th edition applies to wielding a weapon in the off-hand, is that you don't get to add your modifier to the damage, which you addressed still applies, even when taking this fighting style. So far, this is a fighting style that gives you two heavy penalties instead of lessening the penalty for the fighting style that they are supposedly so practiced in.

The coat pistol deals 1D6 damage versus the pistol which deals 1D10 damage. The coat pistol is a light weapon and therefore does not need this fighting style to make an offhand attack. It will do an average of 3 damage versus the pistols average of 5 damage. That means you are wasting a fighting style and incurring all of these penalties to get an extra two average damage per shot. Unless I'm missing something, you might as well dual wield coat pistols and take the crack shot fighting style to gain a plus 2 to accuracy. You will not receive half your proficiency bonus to your off hand attack this way. In fact, you will gain a + 2 to it as well as the rest of your attacks. This will substantially increase your DPS as one of your shots is not going to go wild most of the time.


 The second critique I have with this fighting style is that you need a free hand to reload or rotate the pepper-box. This severely limits what I believe is the intent of this fighting style. Two weapon fighting in 5th edition, in my opinion, is designed to give you an extra attack. You can't take your bonus action to attack with your off hand if you're using your bonus action to reload. This would be fine if pepper boxes did not require a free hand to turn or if the fighting style allowed you to reload without a free hand and without needing to spend an action. Unfortunately, as it is right now, you will only get two attacks with 2 pre-loaded Guns until you reach level 14 and get lightning reload.


 Consider allowing this fighting style to give the user an offhand attack with no penalties and even gaining dexterity damage to the offhand attack. I know you might be worried about realism but my suggestion is to allow those who play this class to be Roland Deschain or Solomon Kane or other such fantasy based gunslingers that are just as good with their right hand as they are with their left. If you're worried about balance, don't be. A fighter with the two weapon fighting style and the Dual wielder feat can wield 2 longswords and Gain strength modifier damage to every attack. If they must take a penalty, I recommend decreasing the damage die by one step when wielding pistols that are not light weapons. So the pistol deals 1D8 instead of 1D10.


 The next issue is at 5th level when you get an extra attack and it's similar to the pistolero issue. Most of your guns on your table only get one shot. Since you must use your bonus action to reload, you will still receive only one shot on most of your turns, unless you were pre-loaded. That means you can only have two shots on your very first turn. Consider giving lightning reload to this class earlier. I would do it either before or shortly after the extra attack is gained. Action surge suffers the same issue. At level five, you should be able to take 4 Shots with an action surge but will still be relegated to one, maybe two because of reloading.

So I can tell you're a fan of Pathfinder which is great! I love Pathfinder as well. Unfortunately, touch AC is not a valid 5th edition mechanic. I think that I would work much better if the Gunslinger spent a grit point to gain advantage on a single shot instead.


 The last thing is just your verbiage with signature deed. I would specify that it decreases the cost of a deed by one point rather than saying you can do it without spending a Grit point.

Other than that, your class is incredible. Gunslingers have always been my favorite to play!


 I was wondering if you would be willing to take a look at my third party 5th edition class. it's not anywhere near as finalized as yours or as pretty. It's also loaded with grammatical errors, but the abilities are well explained and I'm excited to get the feedback. Let me know if you're interested. I hope you found my feedback constructive and I'm sorry about and I'm sorry about being so long-winded.