D&D 5E Mercer's Gunslinger Martial Archetype: Good, Bad, or Ugly?

[InfinityCircuit]

Looking for opinions on Matt Mercer's Gunslinger archetype homebrew, found here: http://www.dmsguild.com/product/170778/Gunslinger-Martial-Archetype-for-Fighters

It was updated last year, and looks like it went through a couple iterations of tuning. It looks pretty awesome, and I like the fact that it's not a separate class, and embedded in the Fighter class as an archetype.

Given how broken PF Gunslingers were, has anyone played or DMed for a Gunslinger in 5e, and would it be a good option for players? I don't want to add an overpowered combat class to my table, but by the same token I don't want to offer something that is horribly gimped compared to crossbow experts, tomelocks with beefed-up eldritch blasts, or other ranged damage dealers. Any thoughts?

 

[Saeviomagy]

Basically? It's a battlemaster, but slightly worse. You have to prioritise wisdom to get your superiority dice, but in exchange, they recharge if you crit or kill someone.

You have access to less manuevers than a battlemaster, you don't get access to grit until 7th level, and don't get maneuvers until 10th. When you use a manuever it doesn't benefit the attack's damage by default - you have to spend MORE grit to do that.

You CAN choose to burn all your grit on dealing extra damage, something a battlemaster can't do... but the times when that's going to be better than just buying one maneuver for each of 4 attacks probably won't be significant. Also your gun will be (much) more likely to blow up - whereas if you just did the same thing as a battlemaster, there wouldn't be any increased chance of that.

The biggest benefit they have is (eventually) a better crit range, and the ability to shoot through people. To be honest, I don't see those as being a big deal compared to the benefits of the battlemaster (bigger superiority die, more superiority dice, infinite superiority dice).

As written, firearms are extremely poor damage, with the exception of the pepperbox, which is about as good as a hand crossbow (well, it's got much better range, but how often does that matter?), and the scattergun and hand mortar which have unusual mechanics. Every other weapon is far worse than comparable conventional weapons, even ignoring the misfire chance. So that's another downside of being a gunslinger: most of your archetype features only work with guns, which are generally bad.

And that's assuming you don't allow crossbow expert. Once you have that, firearms are blown out of the water.

 

[Ganymede81]

It looks like a Weapon Master, but limited to a single esoteric group of weapons.

Maybe I don't get it.

 

[InfinityCircuit]

So I'd be better served looking at a 5e fighter with sharpshooter or crossbow expert then?

Also, I'm not sure about your damage comparison between firearms and crossbows. Pistols do 1d10 with a range of 100/400, exactly equal to a heavy crossbow. The heavy also has the highest damage and range as well, and muskets outrange them by double (200/800). So I think your points regarding the class structure are valid, in terms of burning Grit being the only class feature worth a damn until lvl 18 (crit range and bleed).

I see firearms, combined with the Sharpshooter feat, to be very strong. I just don't see the rest of the class being that great. That said, I think it's a viable option for people who aren't out to min-max the heck out of the game. It's not particularly game-breaking, now that I've seen some opinions on the matter.

 

[Savage Wombat]

It probably works best as what it was built for: "I have a player in my Pathfinder game who is using a gunslinger, but we're converting to D&D 5e. Let me write something up."

 

[Ancalagon]

Given how broken PF Gunslingers were,

If someone could briefly expand on that, I would be thankful

 

[Saeviomagy]

So I'd be better served looking at a 5e fighter with sharpshooter or crossbow expert then?

Also, I'm not sure about your damage comparison between firearms and crossbows. Pistols do 1d10 with a range of 100/400, exactly equal to a heavy crossbow.

You are right - I've screwed up my comparison when I added the line "more if you add crossbow expert". Mentally I was actually using it's ability to ignore 'loading' when doing the sums, so there's a bit more complexity to things.

Basically, pistols do d10 plus modifiers, and they only do it 4 times out of every 5 attacks you use with them. Other ranged weapons do dX + modifiers 5 times out of every 5 attacks.

To be honest, that does mean that pistols and the pepperbox have a niche - if you're dead set on using a ranged weapon in one hand for some reason AND you are unwilling to get crossbow expert, they're the weapon for you.

As soon as you're happy using two handed weapons, you'll lose to the longbow. If you're small and you can't use a longbow, then a shortbow will beat them IF you max out your dex.

The musket and bad news are awful, because they lose half their attacks reloading. If you've got better than +2 damage from any source, the longbow does more damage than bad news, and nearly twice as much damage as the musket. And again, that's before either gun blows up in your face, which is not exactly a rare occurrence.

The heavy also has the highest damage and range as well, and muskets outrange them by double (200/800). So I think your points regarding the class structure are valid, in terms of burning Grit being the only class feature worth a damn until lvl 18 (crit range and bleed).

I see firearms, combined with the Sharpshooter feat, to be very strong.

IF your combats regularly take place on an empty plain between 600-800 feet out (because at 600 feet, the longbow is king), sure. But most party members and foes won't just let you engage them at that sort of range, and the frequency of combats occurring with zero terrain has never been particularly high.

I just don't see the rest of the class being that great. That said, I think it's a viable option for people who aren't out to min-max the heck out of the game. It's not particularly game-breaking, now that I've seen some opinions on the matter.

No, it's not game breaking. Just unnecessary, weaker and a bit boring compared with the battlemaster.

 

[TwoSix]

If someone could briefly expand on that, I would be thankful

Struck me as weird too. Gunslingers are Tier 4, at best a low Tier 3. They have a fairly high amount of variability, and some good nova capability, but that's it.

 

[Tormyr]

You may also want to look at the Gunsmith theme and Firearms rules in the Zeitgeist player's guide for an alternate implementation of firearms that fits fairly nicely with existing PHB classes.

EDIT: There are also several firearms articles that are in the EN5ider patreon.

 

[thethain]

The biggest issues with Gunslinger is:


Guns themselves:

Carrying multiple weapons negates the reload penalty and misfire properties, and 250g isn't much compared to say, full plate.

None of the weapons are Heavy, despite 4 of them weighing 10+ lbs. (a greatsword is heavy at 6 lbs)

Scattergun allows AoE damage for martial build. And deals DOUBLE damage on adjacent hit, not an extra d8, but Double ability mod as well.

Range of guns outshines all existing weapons by a wide margin.

Abilities:

Wisdom for grit, A bit unintuitive, probably better to just set a number at level 3 to say 4.

Scattergun also disallows use of shot features, which is understandable from a perspective of limiting power, but means you literally cannot use your class features with this weapon.

Piercing Shot allows more AoE for martials.

Other:

Sharpshooter. Combine this with Piercing Shot, or the Scattergun and you have a recipe for trouble. How would you like to shoot someone for (1d8+5+10)x2=39 on a hit and 4 other targets for 19.5 damage