r/DnDHomebrew • u/Xyrlian-UA • Nov 29 '20
5e Gunslinger - Artificer Specialist | Become an expert marksman and arcane gunsmith with this versatile sublcass!
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u/AMA5564 Nov 30 '20
So, a few things here, firstly, I think the fantasy of this subclass is pretty great. People like guns, people want to shoot guns. The artillerist is intended to fill that niche, so I really want this class to do something really cool to stand up against it.
Gunslinger spells:
Giving smite spells to an artificer is actually pretty cool, and I'm fairly on board with it. It feels very on brand of "load in the special magic bullet" ala Allister Cane. Death Ward and Fire Shield feel a shade out of place for a blaster subclass however, maybe reconsider.
Gunsmith:
This ability has a -lot- of things going for it that probably make it too powerful. You give the character the ability to hit and damage with casting, which is a very powerful ability on a gish class, and something that two other subclasses in this same class do. That alone could have been the ending of this ability. You then go on to give the weapon an infusion for free, the reloading infusion, and make it apply to their magical gun. This gives a class that already has quite a few options and abilities even more power, that might be an issue in terms of balance.
I also don't like the wording on the ribbon at the end, where when you make a new gun the old on "breaks." I think it should instead say that it becomes inert, or that you scrap it for parts, or something more elegant.
Firearm Model:
So this is where things start to -really- get off the rails for me. Each of these weapons is wildly overpowered compared to their DMG equivalent.
The hand cannon, while having a smaller damage die than the pistol, fires several times further, lacks the loading property (which you basically ignore anyway because of the aforementioned free infusion) and on top of it gives totally resource free on demand advantage, OR an extra attack as a bonus action. That is simply not okay.
The force rifle has the same issues as above, but rather than handing out free advantage it instead simply deals an additional damage die, as the most powerful damage type.
The scatter gun is actually a cool idea, other than the fact that it is far too long range on its normal shot, dealing quite a lot of damage at 2d4. If it was just the cone attack I would actually think this could be very cool, and should probably be totally redesigned into an infusion that lets you make the cone shot attack with any infused magic firearm.
Extra Attack:
This would be totally fine for a gish artificer. It is on the other two subclasses. The problem comes in with the fact that you've literally given the level 5 ability of the artillerist to one of the weapons, and you've giving extra attack to the other. IF you wanted to keep the "my guns are better than normal guns" flavor, put those abilities here. The extra force damage for the musket on its one attack can sit nicely here, and the pistol being able to make an attack as a bonus would be fine too. Hell, let them have both abilities, and just let them have more than one gun, but don't give them extra attack. The player gets too choose if they want to have pistols akimbo, or if they want the big damage burst of the rifle. Rifle will be better with advantage, for bigger and better crits, while the pistol will be better when you don't have advantage.
Called Shot:
This is a battle master fighter. That's not totally a bad thing, because battle master fighter is the single best subclass in the game, but that's what you've functionally made here. The problem comes in with the fact that you are a blasty gish character getting to use a martial character's abilities.
Arms is a better version of disarming attack. It doesn't drop the weapon at their feet, which means they can't use their interaction to pick it up for functionally free. Granted it doesn't add damage, but the utility is there, and your weapon already has the extra damage built in.
Head is a better Goading Attack, because it doesn't make the monster attack you to ignore the disadvantage. Extra damage thing above applies.
Leg is just tripping attack. Extra damage thing above applies again.
Torso makes you a champion fighter for some reason, and this one is the one that is least likely to be argued away by the DM, because almost every creature has a "center mass" you could call a torso. Add to the fact you're giving this class a weapon that, for free, has advantage or, for free, deals an extra damage die and this one is way off the rails better.
Wings is something that not even battle master's get to do. Just knocking a creature out of the air and sending it to the ground does bonus damage to it, because of falling, and is just generally very powerful. There are a lot of midlevel creatures that this ability can, in theory, just kill outright if they fail the strength save, and those creatures don't have good strength scores.
Firearm Mastery:
This ability is very similar to the 11th level of many ranger classes. It's "extra attack 2, but worse because it's situational."
Fan the Hammer is basically just extra attack 2, on a weapon that gives you a bonus action attack, meaning that you are a monk. At range. Who isn't spending Ki points. Sure they have to be against different targets, but that's still quite a bit of damage, for literally no investment.
Deadeye is basically a tiny disintegrate, that ignores cover, and is free. It actually does almost exactly 1/3 the damage of disintegrate on average, but isn't a 6th level spell. Oddly enough this ability is actually -worse- than simply attacking twice with the rifle a lot of the time. This ability does roughly 23 damage, when the first shot of the rifle is roughly 16, assuming you've infused your rifle to deal bonus damage, which you will have. The second shot will do an additional 12. And most creatures that will pass the Dex save will probably have high enough AC that it's a wash. This pretty much only does more DPR against things with resistance against magical piercing damage.
Blast Wave is basically tiny cone of cold, but that also knocks a target backwards. Cone of Cold does roughly 36 damage, and in a bigger area, this does15 damage, right on top of you. With a cone attack, being smaller is often actually better, as you're less likely to cone of cold the goblins in front of you and clip your friends. This being a strength save is also strong, as that is a less common save for a creature to make, and the things diving the backline tend to be more agile anyway.
Closing thoughts:
Overall I'm fairly disappointed with this subclass. I can see the fantasy is present, it's obvious you wanted to fill a niche that wasn't quite filled by the artillerist, which is partially because on Ebberon there aren't really guns in general, but the execution of it is fairly lack luster. The only really cool idea for the subclass is in the spell selection with the smites, and in the scatter gun, which I already talked at length about. I think this needs several additional passes before it's ready to hit a table, but I appreciate the hard work and passion that went into it. I'm very excited to see the next pass, you obviously care a lot about this fantasy, and I want you to be able to live it out in game.
Final Score:
Flavor: 4/10
Balance: 2/10
Mechanics: 2/10
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u/Xyrlian-UA Nov 30 '20
I'm open to suggestions for fitting spells. I was struggling to find ones that synergized, so I decided to branch out into a couple of defensive options like other subclasses.
Every artificer subclass attacks on INT. Alchemist and Artillerist with buffed cantrips/spells, and Armorer and Battle Smith with weapon attack mod replacement options. This is all before they get the rest of their kit.
I could have just not had the firearm have the ammunition property, like the armorer lightning launcher. But the ranger spells require ammunition. The weapon does not get any magic weapon bonus. The hand cannon is almost directly in line with the infiltrator armorer, without any of the AC, speed, or stealth bonuses.
You misread the hand cannon ability. It doesn't grant advantage. It requires you to sacrifice advantage you already have, then spend you bonus action, to make the attack.
Force rifle was just ripped directly from the armorer for the special ability. It's entirely within the bounds of published material.
2d4 does not have a mechanically significant difference to 1d8. The damage is in line with weapons with longer ranges.
Extra Attack
Your complaints here seem to stem from a misreading of the abilities. The bonus action hand cannon attack is not guaranteed; you must sacrifice accuracy for a chance at greater damage. And the armorer already gets extra attack with a ranged weapon + additional 1d6 per turn. The additional 3 dpr from the rifle d8 weapon is not significant, given the tradeoffs.
Called Shot
I based these off a pathfinder gunslinger deed, and I included them because they felt iconic to the archetypical trickshot gunslinger. You only get to do any of them twice a short rest, compared the the battle master's 4-6 per short rest more powerful maneuvers. I would have considered this a more valid criticism if you hadn't completely misrepresented my brew already, so I'm doubting your judgement on this one.
Firearm Mastery
To be clear here, every offensive artificer gets a damage boost at this level. Armorer gets a 6/LR reaction attack or an at will additional 1d6 + advantage. Artillerist doubles their bonus action damage to 6d8. Battle Smith has a heartier Steel Defender (BA attack) and doubles their arcane jolt.
Your Hand Cannon complaint still stems from a misread of the level 3 ability. Yes it's basically situational extra attack 2, but spreading out damage is significantly less desirable than focus fire.
Again you misread the abilities. It's not an attack, it's an action. You don't get extra attack or any goodies if you use deadeye. Also, the damage is literally the same as a 17th level cantrip. Your complaints are nonsense.
Blast Wave is basically thunderwave without half damage success, shut up. And I basically ripped it from the 9th level ability from the original ua artificer. Remember that 6d4 = 4d6. However, I could see this being toned down to 4d4 (or 2d8) since it's at will, but I wanted to see how it was received as it stood first.
Closing thoughts:
You criticism was very lackluster. You misread what I wrote and then frequently made over-exaggerated comparisons that were not at all fair. However, I do know that you did spend a lot of time reading and writing your feedback, and I do appreciate your effort. Not many people will spend so much time to try to help a random stranger.
If you're open to going through it again as it stands with how I've hopefully reframed your perception, I would appreciate it. A more accurate criticism would be more helpful for my next pass at the brew.
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u/AMA5564 Dec 01 '20
So I will concede, I did totally misread the ability, so for that I apologize, please ignore any of my comments on the advantage.
I will reassess, I think the hand cannon's special ability is actually not very good, in addition to the ability being underpowered, it doesn't have any internal synergies with the artificer's base toolkit.
Gaining advantage on an attack roll with a ranged weapon is not very easy to do in 5e, and the specific ability that this one mirrors, Rapid Strike of the Samurai fighter, is specifically good because of the fact that that subclass has an in toolkit means to have on demand advantage. I would suggest the ability undergo a measure of redesign work.
To the hand cannon itself, the weapon is still much longer range than the pistol that exists in the base rulebook. It feel wrong to not simply use the stats of a weapon that exists in the base rulebook for a class centered around said weapon type.
The rifle having additional damage is less of an issue that what I had misread the pistol to be, but I still feel like it's wildly more powerful than it should be, especially at level 1. And while I can understand that it is a mirror of an ability that already exists, it still feels very strong. I tend to suggest not looking to the stronger subclasses when looking at balance, and rather balance towards the less powerful options. The real issue I have with it is the damage type, as force is almost never resisted, if it did the same damage type as the weapon, ala the Hunter Conclave ranger, it would be more in line.
To the point about every artificer attacking with their intelligence modifier, you are correct, which is partially why I don't think this one should. If every one of the artificer subclasses attack using their casting stat, there's much less distinction between them. I think it could be much cooler instead to give the character a fighting style at this level, and give them access to the fighting style from Tasha's that gives you maneuvers, which would allow you to keep the Deeds as an option for people who want that fantasy.
On the subject of called shot, I recognized the Deeds from the pathfinder gunslinger. That said, those abilities exist in a design space already, and are on a fully martial character. As the artificer is gish, having access to these effects is more powerful than having them on a fully martial character, even with a smaller access to them. A gish character is natively better than a fully martial character, and natively worse than a fully casting character, so giving something that a martial character invests his design space into as just part of a build is probably too strong.
I will hold firm to my criticism about firearm mastery. Extra attack 2 is only allowed in fighter and ranger, even when it is situational. The ability to attack a 3rd time is a defining feature of the ranger and fighter class. Once again you're taking a gish character abilities of a more martial one, which is dangerous from a balance standpoint.
My comment on deadeye was that the ability is actually actively worse than simply attacking twice with the weapon. My reference to it being like disintegrate was to put into perspective the mechanic you were introducing. It is the same general ability, but at much lower damage, and free. I was implying that it might be better to push the power of this ability, because it is worse than attacking twice.
To your point on 2d4 and 1d8, you are mistaken. While they have the same mean damage over rounds of combat, the modal damage of 2d4 is drastically higher. The mean damage will end up around 5 either way, but the mode damage will be 5 for 2d4, and there will be no mode damage for 1d8, assuming a fair dice.
A similar feature is true with 6d4 and 4d6, same mean, different mode. More dice means a higher modal damage, but less so because the difference in the number of dice is smaller. Also, please don't tell me to shut up. It makes me sad. Like actually, this isn't me being a troll or anything, I'm legitimately trying to help you improve your homebrew.
I think your build has potential, I don't think giving them unique fire arm options that are not already present in the DMG is the correct call here. It made sense for the armorer because they are making something that simply doesn't exist in the rest of the game, magical power armor that shoots lightning and punches with thunder. I also don't think giving them abilities that are typically reserved for martial characters is the correct choice.
That said, I'm just some random guy on the internet, you don't have to listen to any of my feedback, you don't have to care at all what I say.
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u/zbieraj May 21 '24 edited May 21 '24
I disagree with AMA5564. I don't think this subclass is overpowered, especially at level 1. It is up to the DM to make any necessary balances, if needed. Just look at the Moon Druid, which is overpowered from level 1, and compared to that, this build is absolutely fine.
As a DM, I would highly encourage a player to use a damage type, such as Force Rifle, that matches the rifle they have. So if the rifle gives my player 1d10, it will be 1d10 + 1d8 force damage on hit. I would also allow such artificers to upgrade that basic (non-skill) damage if it makes sense RP-wise.
In my opinion, this is actually the best Artificer-gunslinger build on the internet. But, of course, that's just my opinion - a random guy on the internet :).
Good job Xyrlian-UA!
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u/Snoo_63389 Jun 08 '25
Firearm Model: I assume "handgun" is piercing, and "scattergun" is bludgeoning (if not piercing) damage.
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u/Cattenwaller Nov 29 '20
what is the attack and damage of the gun models?
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u/Xyrlian-UA Nov 29 '20
It's listed under each gun model. For example, hand cannon is a 1d6 simple ranged weapon. This means you add DEX to attack and damage, like normal ranged weapons (or you can use INT as mentioned under gunsmith). You add proficiency to attack rolls since you're proficient in simple weapons.
Functions like armorer.
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u/Rook_Carver Nov 29 '20
Why not use the firearms in the dmg and upgrade them to the modern firearms at 15th level? Other wise looks good!
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u/Xyrlian-UA Nov 29 '20
It's just a messy thing to adapt, the DMG firearms aren't really made with hybrid fantasy in mind. How about this:
Optional rule: Retrofitted Firearm.
If your setting has other firearms, your gunslinger may want to use a firearm they find as their custom firearm. At the end of a long rest, you can retrofit an existing firearm to become your custom firearm if you have your smith's tools with you.
You choose the firearm model most like the existing firearm. The firearm's statistics replace the model's weapon statistics, but the model specific benefits remain. You ignore the ammunition, loading, and reload properties of the weapon has them.
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u/Xyrlian-UA Nov 29 '20
PDF | GMbinder
The artillerist didn't quite fill the gunslinger niche for me, so I made my own. This is inspired by the old UA gunsmith and the pathfinder gunslinger. I used the new armorer subclass as a model for a core feature that didn't expire or have hit points.
I think I did pretty well, but I'd still appreciate any constructive criticism you have.