Gunslinger Handbook: Pathfinder Class Guide – RPGBOT (2024)

Introduction

The Gunslinger is a Striker, plain and simple. If your favorite trick is “use gun on man”, the Gunslinger is for you. With a bit of optimization the Gunslinger is easy to play and produces a reliable stream of damage against nearly any enemy.

Be sure to read my Practical Guide to Firearms for general guidance on selecting and using firearms.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Disclaimer
• Gunslinger Class Features
• Abilities
• Races
• Skills
• Feats
• Weapons
• Armor
• Magic Items
  • Weapons
  • Armor/Shields
  • Rings
  • Wondrous Items
• Permanent Spells
• Multiclassing and Prestige Classes

Disclaimer

We support a limited subset of Pathfinder’s rules content. If you would like help with Pathfinder options not covered here, please email me and I may be able to provide additional assistance.

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks. Also note that many colored items are also links to the Paizo SRD.

• Red: Bad, useless options, or options whichare extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
• Orange: OK options, or useful optionsthat only apply in rare circ*mstances. Useful sometimes.
• Green: Good options. Useful often.
• Blue: Fantastic options, often essentialto the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

Gunslinger Class Features

Hit Points: d10 hit points is plenty,especially because gunslingers are almost exclusively ranged combatants.

Base Attack Bonus: Full BAB.

Saves: Good Fortitude and Reflex saves, andwith enough Wisdom to power the Grit pool, and the Gunslinger’s saves are verygood.

Proficiencies: Only light armor, but accessto martial weapons. Oh, and firearms. Don’t forget those.

Skills: 4+ skill ranks, but theGunslinger’s skill list contains very few options that work for theGunslinger.

Gunsmith: Gunsmithing allows you tomaintain you weapon, craft new ones, and craft your own ammunition. Getting afree gun at first level saves you a whole pile of money, and being able toupgrade it for 300 gp saves you the cost of buying or crafting a new one whenyou’re ready to upgrade to masterwork.

Grit (Ex): Grit fuels the Gunglinger’sdeeds, but it’s a very limited pool. You can restore grit with critical hits(very difficult) or with killing blows (much less difficult), but you stillwant to use Grit sparingly.

Deeds: Gunslinger deeds offer numeroustactical options for the gunslinger. See myGunslinger Deeds Breakdownfor more help with Gunslinger Deeds.

Nimble (Ex): A nice dodge bonus to AC willhelp make up for limiting the Gunslinger to medium armor, and is particularlyuseful against other firearms. You can supplement this by fightingdefensively, by using Combat Expertise, and with the Halfling’s favored classbonus.

Bonus Feats: The Gunslinger gets half asmany as the Fighter, but this is till a great source of additional feats.

Gun Training (Ex): This is a huge boost indamage output.

True Grit (Ex): Many deeds cost a point ofgrit to do something awesome, and being able to perform those deeds for freeevery round can make the Gunslinger considerably more effective.

Abilities

Dexterity defines the Gunslinger, but a bit of Wisdom is important for the Gunslinger’s Grit pool.

Str: Dump to 7.

Dex: Dexterity is everything for theGunslinger.

Con: More hitpoints are always welcome, butthe Gunslinger already gets d10 hit points and good Fortitude saves.

Int: The gunslinger’s skill list is prettybad and they already get 4+ skill ranks.

Wis: Crucial for the Grit pool and theGunslinger’s poor Will saves.

Cha: Dump to 7.

Races

Dexterity bonuses are crucial, and small size is very beneficial.

Dwarf: Despite lacking a bonus toDexterity, the Dwarf has some great defensive abilities, and the Dwarf favoredclass bonus cuts down on pesky misfires.

Elf: The bonus to Dexterity is great, butthe elf is much better as a spellcaster. Alternate racial features do verylittle to improve this.

Gnome: Despite small size, the Gnome offersnothing of interest to the Gunslinger.

Half-Elf: A flexible ability bonus, and alot of options with alternate racial features. The Half-Elf favored classbonus grants extra Grit points to fuel the Guslinger’s abilities.

Half-Orc: Similar to the Half-Elf, but theHalf-Elf’s favored class bonus is miles better than anything the Half-Orc hasto offer.

Halfling: A Dexterity bonus and small sizemake the Halfling very accurate and effective. The Halfling favored classbonus provides an excellent Dodge bonus to AC, despite being limited to atotal +2 bonus.

Human: Flexible ability bonus, a bonus feat,and the Human favored class bonus adds to the Gunslinger’s Grit pool.

Skills

• Acrobatics (Dex): Occasionally useful formoving out of melee combat. Because firearms resolve as touch attacks muchof the time, it can often be easy to Fight Defensively, and 5 ranks inAcrobatics will get you and extra +1 to AC.
• Bluff (Cha): Charisma is a dump stat forthe Gunslinger, and they don’t get all of the social skills to justifytrying to be a Face.
• Climb (Str): Too situational.
• Craft (Alchemy) (Str): You need at leaston rank to create ammunition, and it’s a good idea to craft your ownammunition because it costs a considerably amount of money to purchase.
• Handle Animal (Cha): The Gunslinger doesn’tcare about animals.
• Heal (Wis): Heal is an excellentsupplement to magical healing, and with a bit of Wisdom to fuel theGunslinger’s Grit pool Heal can be very helpful.
• Intimidate (Cha): Charisma is a dump statfor the Gunslinger, and they don’t get all of the social skills to justifytrying to be a Face.
• Knowledge (engineering) (Int): Verysituational.
• Knowledge (local) (Int): Great foridentifying humanoids and for plot points in many campaigns.
• Perception (Wis): The most rolled skill inthe game.
• Ride (Dex): The Gunslinger doesn’t careabout animals.
• Sleight of Hand (Dex): Too situational.
• Survival (Wis): Situational.
• Swim (Str): Too situational.

Feats

• Deadly Aim: Trading some attack bonus fordamage is great since hitting is so easy for a gunslinger. This normallydoesn’t work with touch attacks, but Ultimate Equipments rules for earlyfirearms state “this type of attack is not considered a touch attack for thepurposes of feats and abilities such as Deadly Aim”.
• Deft Shootist: The prerequisites arestupid, and this is only helpful for weird melee gunglingers.
• Extra Grit: You will get a better returnby using a favored class bonus which grants additional Grit, but if that’snot an option two points of Grit will go a long way.
• Leaping Shot: Basically shot on therun.
• No Name: Buy a Hat of Disguise
• Ricochet Shot Deed: Situational, butspending a grit point to ignore cover and concealment can be veryhelpful.
• Secret Stash Deed: This can be helpful ifyou like to use special types of ammunition, but the grit cost hugelyoutweighs the cost of buying a few extra pieces of ammunition that you mightnot need.
• Signature Deed: Absolutely amazing.Targeting and Bleeding Wound are both excellent choices.
• Two-Weapon Fighting: Two-Weapon Fightingis difficult for the Gunslinger without a class dip into Alchemist or Witchbecause you can’t reload with out a free hand. You can probably get awaywith two-weapon fighting without the feat because it’s so easy to hit with apistol.
• Point-Blank Shot: Not much fun, but aprerequisite for some very important feats.
  • Far Shot: Decreasing the rangepenalty is nice, but you still can’t make touch attacks beyond the firstrange increment.
  • Precise Shot: Absolutely essential ifyou have allies who go into melee combat.
    • Clustered Shots: A fantastic wayto handle DR.
    • Improved Precise Shot: Makes itmuch easier to hit enemies, especially those with concealment or inmelee with your allies.
      • Pinpoint Targeting: You can dothis just by using a gun.
  • Shot on the Run: Very rarelyhelpful.
  • Rapid Shot: More bullets means moredamage.
    • Manyshot: Doesn’t work withguns.

Weapons

See my Practical Guide to Firearms for help selecting firearms.

Armor

Armor is presented in the order in which you should acquire it, rather than alphabetical order.

• Studded Leather: Your starting point.This should last through early levels. Don’t bother enhancing because you’regoing to get a Mithral Shirt pretty quickly.
• Buckler: I don’t know why more peopledon’t use bucklers. A masterwork buckler is 165gp, has no armor checkpenalty, and doesn’t prevent you from using your off hand. Your off hand isgoing to be empty anyway (unless your using two pistols, in which case the-1 to attacks is almost certainly worth the AC bonus), and you need all theAC you can get. When you start having enough gold to enhance your armor,enhance your buckler first because it has no maximum dexterity bonus, andyou won’t need to trade up.
• Mithral Shirt: Mithral Shirt will be yourbest bet for AC until your Dexterity bonus hits +10, which will be extremelyhigh level.
• Haramaki: If you want to invest enoughgold to get a suit of haramaki to +4, it can improve your AC more than theGunman’s Duster. However, if you need AC that much there are morecost-effective ways to do so like ioun stones or rings of protection.Instead, enhance it to +1 and start adding secondary enhancements likeenergy resistance.

Magic Items

Weapons

• Distance (+1): Firearms are most effectivewithin their first range increment, so doubling their range incrementdoubles the distance at which you’re most effective. This is especiallycrucial for pistol users.
• Lucky (+1): 1 extra point of grit perday. Nice, but I don’t know if it’s worth the cost.
• Lucky, Greater (+3): By the time you canafford this you should be good enough at recharging your grit that a +3enhancement bonus for a larger pool doesn’t sound appealing.
• Nimble Shot (+4): Absolutely not worth the+4 bonus.
• Pistol of the Infinite Sky (73,300):Expensive, but it’s hard to complain about infinite ammunition with no needto reload and no misfire chance.
• Reliable (+1): If misfires are really aproblem for you this might be worth it, but you’ll probably be fine withoutit.
• Reliable, Greater (+3): If you’re reallyhaving this much trouble with misfires you need to look for a less-expensivesolution.

Armor/Shields

• Celestial Armor (22,400 gp): Unless youhave heavy armor proficiency and a Dexterity modifier of at most+5, Celestial Armor is the best armor in the game if all you need from yourarmor is AC. For more, check out myPractical Guide to Celestial Armor.
• Gunman’s Duster: While not technically armor, the Gunman’s Duster provides a +4 armorbonus with no maximum dexterity bonus plus a ton of other amazing stuff likean extra Grit point at the beginning of each day. The duster occupies thebody slot, so you can still wear armor with it if you have a good reason todo so.

Rings

• Evasion: Excellent at high levels,especially since you have lots of Dexterity to back it up.
• Grit Mastery: You can’t get the grit backout, and the abilities you can use it for are bad.
• Protection: +1 is an inexpensive boost toAC, and AC bonuses against firearms are important in a campaign wherethey’re allowed.
• Resilience: Remove pesky statusconditions like blindness through sheer force of being cool and also owningthis ring.

Wondrous Items

• Belt of Incredible Dexterity:Essential.
• Cloak of Resistance: Too crucial toforgo.
• Gunman’s Duster: See the Armor section,above.

Permanent Spells

• Reduce Person: The bonus Dexterity andsize bonus to attacks is fantastic. Losing a bit of Strength will likelynever matter for you, and reducing the weapon die size of your guns isnegated by the Dexterity bonus once you get to add Dexterity to your damagethanks to Gun Training.

Multiclassing and Prestige Classes

• alchemist: Two levels can get you theExtra Arm discovery, which is just as good as Prehensile Hair, but takes anextra level.
• Witch: A single level of witch and thePrehensile Hair hex gives you the extra hand you need to reload weapons,which means that you can use two-weapon fighting with pistols effectively.You want to make as many attacks as possible to fish for critical hits tofill your grit pool, so more attacks are always better. Oh, and you cannearly double your damage output.