Paizo Pathfinder Second Edition Guns & Gears Playtest Gunslinger & Inventor
Guns & Gears Playtest
On January 5th Paizo released the Guns & Gears playtest with the Gunslinger, and the Inventor. Recently I did a stream discussing these over on my Master The Game YouTube Channel. Overall I was pretty impressed with what they came up with. The Gunslinger has some over powered combinations but with some minor adjustments I think they will be a ton of fun without being OP. The Inventor seems a little under powered but looks like a lot of fun. I did not realize how bad I wanted Guns & Gears until really diving into each of these classes. Now here I am anxiously anticipating this release in the Fall of 2021.
Gunslinger: Way of the Pistolero
The new Gunslinger Iconic for Pathfinder Second Edition. Doesn’t she look badass?
When it comes to the Gunslinger my favorite is the Way of the Pistolero. To me the Pistolero is your typical wild west style gunslinger and it fits into fantasy games really well. Pepper in some of the feats like the pistol twirl and you might as well be shaking down robbers and helping local sheriffs lock up bandits. If you want to play a wild west game a group of these gunslingers is to good to pass up!
Gunslinger: Way of the Sniper
While I like the Way of the Sniper I just think it is really OP! You get extra damage while using stealth for initiative, and tons of persistent damage from doing so. You also get extra damage just for using the stealth during your initiative. Then at higher levels firing this shot doesn’t give up your position. Many feats combined with this only make it far more powerful. This one is awesome and thematic but will be a headache for most gamemasters I think. Players will probably love this though.
Gunslinger: Way of the Drifter
The Way of the Drifter looks like fun and is a lot like your anime style character. Known for using a melee weapon in one hand and a single handed gun or crossbow in the other hand. These gunslingers will be fun to play in a variety of situations. You can run around the battlefield doing ranged and melee damage effectively. A lot of feats compliment this style of play very well.
Community Complaints About The Gunslinger
While the internet is not a fan of the feats that are less realistic than normal those things are not the more powerful choices. For instance the drifter can throw a melee weapon, and shoot it for extra damage while forcing that melee weapon to return to the character. I think it is fun thematically but I can see why a lot of people won’t like this. Also the old Quake and Call of Duty Black Ops trick of shooting while jumping to gain extra distance has really bothered some people but when it comes down to it I think these are very minor. They aren’t game breaking and are just some fun flavor if you ask me. If it ruins immersion it wouldn’t be hard to remove these from the game or in the case of shooting the weapon you could reskin that to make it work for your games.
Inventor: Innovation Armor
The new class an Orc Inventor with a Goblin looking construct. I love this so much!
With all of the innovations they are meant to be gadgets that are pieced together for function over appearance. They might not look to be of high quality and for the most part they have some flaws but ultimately do some cool things. The armors give resistance to specific damage types. Later you can add more things to your armor by choosing specific feats. My favorite option is the Harmonic Oscillator (force, sonic resistances) due to the inaudible thrum to it. I imagine the most subtle hum of the armor even though the flavor text says it is inaudible. Obviously the character should not be given a sound penalty for it but for flavor I want to imagine being able to hear it slightly.
Inventor: Innovation Construct
These little clockwork constructs/robots are awesome! I have already seen some fun fan art that takes inspiration from the Mandolorian for this. I believe I saw it on Instagram. If I find it again I will add it to this blog post while giving proper credit to the artist. Some of the most fun aspects are that you can cause it to explode while surrounded by enemies. Also with a specific feat later on you can actually have it explode surrounded by friendlies to heal for 1d4 hit points. You can do so much more with it that I like and I can’t wait to see the final version of this class. It seems on par with most classes that get a companion but it still feels underpowered.
Inventor: Innovation Weapon
You can modify simple weapons to change damage types, damage amounts, and so on. Someone else can’t use your weapons proficiently because of the modifications made even if they are proficient with that type of weapon. While you can make your weapons more effective the Inventor is not a good combat character. I would probably not be drawn to this specific type of Inventor for that reason. This is probably the least survivable type of Inventor.
Community Complaints About The Inventor
The Inventor also has the Quake/Call of Duty Black Ops rocket jump built in except your construct can do it too. The people I have talked to think the Inventor would be a lot of fun but it is a suboptimal class. Some of the limitations on numbers of construct companions being one is a bit of a put off. We hope there are some rules for “crafting” inventing things in the Guns & Gears book. It would be nice to have the Innovation Weapon type while being able to craft some gadget armor still but not quite as effective as the Innovation Armor. It would also be cool if you could change what your Innovation actually is.
Overall Opinions
Like I mentioned before I love what they have done with this playtest. The Inventor having the modular option is really cool. I am excited to see players using both of these classes in a variety of ways. I see a ton of cool inspirations for the feats and class options. One thing I really want to see make it into the Guns & Gears book is Gun Blades like in Final Fantasy VIII among other things. It could even be its own class and could be so amazing. If I don’t see that in the book it might end up being something I homebrew myself. If Secrets of Magic has stone magic I could recreate some Final Fantasy video games even. Who wouldn’t want to play a one shot or campaign inspired by that? My fingers are crossed for those things.
At the end of the day I am very impressed with the playtest. What will make the final cut? What will be added? What will be tweaked? Let me know what you want in the comments below.
If you want to support us please subscribe to Master The Game on YouTube, share our content with your friends on social media, or monetarily by becoming a Patron. We create random roll tables for our Patrons and run one shots monthly for them.
Disclosure: As an Amazon affiliate we do earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. When you purchase the product via the links here it will benefit me at no additional cost to you. Thank you for all of your support.