Paizo has recently released the playtest for two upcoming classes - the gunslinger and inventor. Both of these classes are slated for an official release in October of this year, but until then, we've been given the prototype classes to work with a bit! I wanted to try to build them out a bit so I think the next few classes I do will be using these two playtest classes.
I decided to start with the gunslinger, which seems to be catching a bit of flak, but I think this was a fun build to hammer out. As always, this build was designed in a vacuum - if it's something you want to use for a specific campaign, you'll want to make choices that work better for that campaign. The skill increases, feats, and even equipment are all based on what I think fits the character best.
GRAVES THE OUTLAW
CHARACTER Malcolm Graves
SOURCE League of Legends
GOAL Malcolm Graves is a character from League of Legends where he falls under the specialist class, being a ranged character with a unique mechanic. Hailing from Bilgewater, he used to work as a thief alongside Twisted Fate before a job went south and he ended up in prison. Originally seeking revenge, he ended up rekindling his partnership with Twisted Fate. Malcolm’s passive ability involves his firearm, which fires in a spray of bullets and needs to be reloaded. His abilities include firing a shot that leaves behind black powder that then ignites, firing a smoke screen, dashing to reload and bolster his defenses, and firing an explosive shell that pushes him backwards. He wields a double-barreled shotgun in combat.
LEVEL 1 The first thing we look at is our ABCs – our ancestry, background, and class. Graves is clearly a B and the best fit for heritage, in my opinion, is versatile. Being a human sees him getting a boost to Dexterity and Wisdom. Graves will actually receive two feats at this point – a general feat from his heritage and his ancestry feat. The former will be Toughness to represent the sturdiness that Graves acquires from his stats and abilities while the latter will be Natural Skill, which will help us become trained in some additional skills later in this process.
There were a few backgrounds I was looking at, including prisoner and criminal, but bandit felt the most appropriate for Graves. This will get us a boost to Dexterity and then a free boost that we’ll put in Constitution. We become trained in Intimidation and then a lore skill based on the type of terrain that Graves operated in as a bandit. I think the best fit for that is Coastal Lore, allowing him to identify cultures and creatures that lived along the sea. Finally, we receive the Group Coercion skill feat so that we can used Intimidation to Coerce multiple people at once.
For this particular build, because I want to explore the new stuff a little bit, we’re going to be using the playtest gunslinger. For lack of a better option, Graves is going to follow the way of the sniper, which does kinda work with his past as a bandit and thief. From being a gunslinger, we’ll receive a boost to Dexterity and then have to figure out how we want to slot the rest of our boosts. I opted for Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma (Str 12, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 12) though I think there’s a number of different ways to approach this for Graves. We automatically become trained in Crafting and Stealth then we will also pick up Acrobatics, Athletics, Deception, Society, and Thievery. Two of those come from our ancestry feat while the rest are due to our class. I’m personally not impressed with Cover Fire while Hit the Dirt and Sword and Pistol aren’t really appropriate for Graves. This leaves us with Firearm Ace as our class feat, increasing our damage slightly after we reload. I also usually don’t note this stuff up here, but just by picking up the blunderbuss weapon, we’re essentially covering Graves’s passive by shooting in a cone.
LEVEL 2 The first skill feat we’ll pick up is Alchemical Crafting, which will let us make our own ammunition and give us four formulas. Unless I’m reading this wrong, I think you need the formula for rounds so that is going to be one of the formulas we pick up. Other good ones are lesser alchemist’s fire and lesser smokestick, but the fourth is mostly up to preference – none really stick out to me as stuff that makes sense though I suppose you could do lesser elixir of life to represent the health potions you can acquire for cheap in game. For our class feat, we’ll take Risky Reload, which lets us spend a single action to reload and Strike with a firearm we’re wielding but missing means we misfire. I feel like Blast Lock could make sense for a former criminal and definitely seems like a route that Graves would take over picking it, but I just liked Risky Reload better. Risky Reload also makes it safer for us to end our turn with our weapon unloaded.
Gear: ring of discretion
LEVEL 3 To make use of our way and because Graves had to avoid notice as a criminal, our first skill increase will be going to Stealth to make us an expert in it. The Diehard general feat feels appropriate for Graves, making him even sturdier.
Gear: +1 blunderbuss, ring of discretion, predictable silver piece
LEVEL 4 With our training in Athletics, I like Quick Jump for Graves to help navigate, possibly even between ships and docks. With this level, I could understand taking the Pirate Dedication, but that line of feats doesn’t feel like a great fit for Graves. Instead, we take Running Reload as our class feat, allowing us to Stride, Step, or Sneak and then Interact to reload as a single action, giving us a good emulation of Graves’s Quickdraw ability. This allow sets us up for what I think is a pretty good action setup – first for Risky Reload to load and Strike, second for Running Reload to reposition and reload, and third for a second Strike. There’s plenty of other things to do, but this gives us a good basic setup for our turns.
Gear: bracelet of dashing, +1 blunderbuss, belt of good health, ring of discretion
LEVEL 5 Our four ability boosts at this level will go to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom (Str 14, Dex 19, Con 16, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 12). This skill increase will bump Athletics up to expert proficiency. For our ancestry feat, we’ll take Clever Improviser – Graves has had to fill a number of different roles to pull off his schemes and likely has picked up tricks even in skills he isn’t trained in.
Gear: +1 striking blunderbuss, bracelet of dashing, lesser rope of climbing, belt of good health, ring of discretion, predictable silver piece
LEVEL 6 Graves is an intimidating individual who can get his point across without words, so we’ll grab the Intimidating Glare skill feat to do just that. To help replicate Graves’s End of the Line, we’ll pick up the Alchemical Shot class feat, allowing us to add a bomb to our attack. While this isn’t exact, this deals an initial amount of damage and then does so again on the creature’s turn as they take persistent damage, simulating the initial effect of End of the Line as well as the igniting of the powder.
Gear: +1 leather armor, +1 striking blunderbuss, bag of holding (type I), bracelets of dashing, belt of good health, 2nd
LEVEL 7 For skill feat reasons, we’ll be pushing Stealth up to master proficiency and then taking the Feather Step general feat, making it easier for us to maneuver in difficult terrain and the like.
Gear: vaultbreaker’s harness, +1 leather armor, vanishing wayfinder, +1 striking blunderbuss, bracelets of dashing, lesser rope of climbing
LEVEL 8 With that master proficiency in Stealth, we can nab the Swift Sneak skill feat so that we can move at our full speed while we Sneak and hopefully take better advantage of our way. Grit and Tenacity is a class feat that gives us a reaction to reroll a failed Fortitude or Will save and helps emulate the second part of Quickdraw – Graves’s True Grit.
Gear: boots of bounding, vaultbreaker’s harness, insistent door knocker, +1 leather armor, +1 striking blunderbuss, bag of holding (type I)
LEVEL 9 This time we’ll take a skill increase to Intimidation, granting us expert proficiency in it. Following the last ancestry feat that we took, we take Incredible Improvisation to become better at skills that we aren’t trained in.
Gear: +1 resilient leather armor, boots of bounding, bag of holding (type II), vaultbreaker’s harness, vanishing wayfinder, +1 striking blunderbuss
LEVEL 10 Another set of ability boosts that will go to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma (Str 16, Dex 20, Con 18, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 14). To further bolsters Graves’s resilience, including against magical effects, we pick up the Terrifying Resistance skill feat. This makes it so that we have a +1 to save against the spells of creatures that we have Demoralized. While not exactly close to his Smoke Screen, Graves can take the Smoke Curtain class feat to shroud himself in smoke, helping him use some of his way of the sniper abilities.
Gear: greater shadow armor rune, +1 resilient leather armor, flaming weapon rune, boots of bounding, vaultbreaker’s harness, +1 striking blunderbuss
LEVEL 11 This skill increase will go to Crafting so that we have expert proficiency in it. The Crafting skill feat Quick Repair lets us fix things quickly – and on the fly if we become skilled enough in Crafting.
Gear: +2 striking blunderbuss, horn of blasting, greater unmemorable mantle, +1 resilient leather armor, boots of bounding, bag of holding (type II)
LEVEL 12 With the Powerful Leap skill feat, we extend the range of any jumps we make while True Grit makes our Grit and Tenacity more effective – turning any success we get on saves from this effect to a critical success and any critical failure into a regular failure.
Gear: +2 resilient leather armor, +2 striking blunderbuss, greater clandestine cloak, horn of blasting, flaming weapon rune, cordelia’s construct key
LEVEL 13 This skill increase bumps Crafting up to master proficiency, meaning we can use Quick Repair to fix something with three actions. Stubborn Persistence feels thematically appropriate for Graves, allowing him to push on even when bone tired due to sheer force of will. Gunslinging Legend is a class feature that grants us legendary proficiency with firearms as well as master proficiency in a specific weapon group – I like bombs best for Graves.
Gear: +2 greater striking blunderbuss, +2 resilient leather armor, greater goggles of night, greater clandestine cloak, horn of blasting, flame weapon rune
LEVEL 14 This would definitely make sense to take earlier, but Streetwise makes sense for a crook like Graves. The Dance of Thunder class feat is a three-action activity that allows us to Step, Strike, and Interact to reload in any order. As long as our Strike hits, we can keep doing this, which helps to replicate another part of Quickdraw – the fact that its cooldown is reduced with each attack. This allows Graves to maneuver quickly, taking out foes while always moving.
Gear: hellfire boots, +2 greater striking blunderbuss, greater cordelia’s construct key, +2 resilient leather armor, greater clandestine cloak, greater invisibility armor rune
LEVEL 15 These ability boosts will go to Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Wisdom (Str 18, Dex 21, Con 18, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 14). This increase to Intelligence makes us trained in Survival and would also net us another language. We’ll put this skill increase into Intimidation to achieve master proficiency in it. The Incredible Scout makes it so that we provide a +2 bonus to initiative checks when we use the Scout exploration activity, which gives us something to do when trying to Avoid Notice won’t work.
Gear: +2 greater resilient leather armor, hellfire boots, bag of holding (type IV), +2 greater striking blunderbuss, greater goggles of night, greater insistent door knocker
LEVEL 16 Graves made it pretty far as a thief and criminal before he got caught, so the Subtle Theft skill feat makes sense to me though the argument that it could be taken early can absolutely be made. At this level, I initially looked at taking Fatal Bullet, but that felt a little weak to me, so I instead looked back a bit to take Scatter Blast to give us an attack that greatly expands our range, almost working like Graves’s Collateral Damage.
Gear: greater flaming weapon rune, +2 greater resilient leather armor, major ring of fire resistance, hellfire boots, +2 greater striking blunderbuss, greater cordelia’s construct key
LEVEL 17 We’ll push Stealth up to legendary proficiency using this skill increase so that we can try to capitalize on our way. Bounce Back is another ancestry feat that just feels like a good fit for Graves, letting us come back from dying without increasing our wounded value once per day.
Gears: +3 greater striking blunderbuss, greater flaming weapon rune, dragonscale amulet, +2 greater resilient leather armor, hellfire boots, bag of holding (type IV)
LEVEL 18 Graves feels like he would have the appropriate craftiness to have the Foil Senses skill feat to counteract the extraordinary senses of other creatures. While Graves isn’t usually built for crit, at least back when I played him Piercing Critical as a class feat makes more sense to me than Unerring Shot and helps us take better advantage of the fatal trait that most firearms carry.
Gear: anklets of alacrity, +3 greater striking blunderbuss, speed weapon rune, greater flaming weapon rune, +2 greater resilient leather armor, greater boots of bounding
LEVEL 19 The final skill increase of this build goes to Intimidation to put it at master proficiency. Since gunslinger is one of the classes that gets up to legendary proficiency and because it makes sense for the character, envision it almost as him using an oracle lens, I took True Perception as our final general feat.
Gear: +3 greater resilient leather armor, anklets of alacrity, greater cloak of the bat, +3 greater striking blunderbuss, greater flaming weapon rune, dragonscale amulet
LEVEL 20 This last set of ability boosts will be going to Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 18, Dex 22, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 18, Cha 16). We have managed to raise Stealth to Legendary, so we’ll use that to pick up Legendary Sneak, which will hopefully help a bit with our way. Our final class feat is Perfect Readiness, making us permanently quickened though this extra action can only be used to Step or Reload. This is still handy and will probably be of more use to us than the other currently available 20th-level option, Slinger’s Reflexes.
Gear: +3 major striking blunderbuss, +3 greater resilient leather armor, major goggles of night, major shadow armor rune, greater talisman cord, greater flaming weapon rune
CONCLUSION There he is, our burly, surly shooty-boy who wields his blunderbuss to devastating effect. Even early on, we’re set up for a fairly good set of actions with Risky Reload and Running Reload though we aren’t going to be taking of advantage of crits as much as other firearms since we don’t have the fatal trait. I looked to make Graves decently tanky since he’s somewhat hardy in comparison to LoL’s other gunslingers and while he’s definitely more fragile than other martial classes, he ended up being durable enough to appease me. This build managed to replicate most of Graves’s abilities with only his End of the Line and Collateral Damage feeling as though they’re somewhat lacking.
Thanks for taking the time to check out this build and please let me know what you think. Does this build work? Does it represent the character? What would you change about it? Is it something you’d like to play?
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Have a Fantastic Friday!
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