Author Topic: [PF] Long-gunner of the Apocalypse (absurd gunslinger 23k burst DPR)  (Read 4262 times)

Offline phyxion

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(with apologies to Howard Tayler)

Here's the mythic gunslinger build I mentioned before. Did a little optimizing, bumped the damage significantly. I expect there's still a lot of room for improvement generally (the saves are pretty terrible - Will is +11), but I don't see damage going much higher with a gunslinger. A barb could probably do better, but then he's not hitting flat-footed touch AC from 200 ft away either.

The sneak attack damage is fairly paltry, the only reason it's even there is to get the Ambush, Snap Shot, and Surprise Attacks abilities. If you focus on getting more sneak attack damage, you'll be losing BAB and won't be able to get Greater Vital Strike, which is a huge loss of potential damage. It might be the way to go on a non-mythic build, though.

Average damage 429, Crit for 4k+, max damage of 23832 in a single surprise round.

Tiefling (Asura-spawn)
   Alt racial trait: Use Large Weapons

Stats: 15pb

Str 10
Dex 16 +2 = 18
Con 12
Int 14 -2 = 12
Wis 10 +2 = 12
Cha 10

Gunslinger (Musket Master) 13 / Fighter (Weapon Master) 3 / Ninja (Bandit) 4
Leveling order: Gun 5, Nin 4, Ftr 3, Gun +7

Mythic Trickster 10

All level-up stat bumps (including mythic) go to Dex, which should get you to 44 (+17 mod).

Class Abilities:
   Quick Clear - clear broken cond from misfire as std or move action instead of 1 hour
   Deed: Fast Musket - reload 2h firearm as if it was 1h
   Rapid Reloader - Rapid Reload for muskets as bonus feat
      These two allow you to reload musket as a free action if using alchemical cartridges.
   Gunslinger Initiative - Quickdraw non-hidden firearm as part of init check
   Musket Training - at 3rd level, gain Dex bonus to damage with muskets.
      at 13th, never misfire with 2h firearms
   Ninja Trick: Snap Shot - the wording on this is a little tricky. It says
Quote
A rogue with this talent may treat her intitiative roll as a 20 for a surprise round, regardless of her initiative, but she may only take an attack action with a ranged weapon. Her normal initiative roll is used in subsequent rounds. If two or more rogues possess this talent, their initiative determines the order in which they act, but they all go before any other creature. If a rogue is prevented from acting in the surprise round, this talent has no effect.
      The "may" wording should mean it's optional to treat your initiative as 20, and the limit of only taking an attack action with a ranged weapon is part of that clause. What's not part of that clause is the bit that allows you to go before any other creature without that trick in the surprise round. So, if there is a surprise round, you're pretty much guaranteed to go first.
   Ninja Trick: Surprise Attacks - all opponents are flat-footed to you in the surprise round
   Ambush (Bandit) - When you're able to act in the surprise round (which should be every time), you can take a standard+move+swift.
   Weapon Training - this is going to be with your musket, of course.

Feats:
   Bludgeoner (do nonlethal, so you can take prisoners - guns do bludgeoning damage) - optional but your party may appreciate it.
   Deadly Aim (+ Mythic)
   Fiend Sight x2 (for See In Darkness - this is really optional but you need to be able to see your victimstargets)
   Fiendish Heritage (at level 1)
      lets you roll 3x on table for alt racial trait (you may be able to convince your GM to just let you pick one alt trait instead of rolling. You want the one that lets you use large weapons.
   Hellcat Stealth (extra attacks in surprise round)
   Hellcat Pounce
   Vital Strike (plus Improved, Greater, and Mythic)
   Point Blank Shot
   Precise Shot
   Quick Draw
   Skill Focus: Stealth

Mythic Path Abilities
   Always a Chance - you don't automatically miss if you roll a 1. This is absolutely gold on a touch attack build (like gunslingers).
   Limitless Range - multiply range increment of all ranged and thrown weapons by 5. So, for a musket, your first range increment (which is how far away you can make touch attacks) becomes 200'. Priceless.
   Critical Master - autoconfirm every crit threat AND do max damage from it? YES. Take it twice so it works on mythic opponents as well.
   Precision Critical - double (note - just x2, not actual crit multiplier) precision damage. Not a huge thing on this build, but every little bit helps.
   Legendary Item - allows legendary weapon abilities. Take it at least twice, since one ability you must get is Foe-Biter, which can only be put on a minor artifact. That allows you to spend a point of mythic power to double ALL damage from an attack. If it's a crit, you have to spend 2 points, but it applies to everything. Which means you can get 10x damage on a natural 19-20.
   Beyond Morality - not directly related to the build, but everyone should pick this up. It's complete immunity to alignment-based attacks like Dictum/Unhallow etc.

Mythic Feats
   Dual Path -> Champion - lets you take Champion path abilities
   Mythic Deadly Aim - increases DA bonus to +3 dmg per -1 to hit (+15 base dmg instead of +10 with normal DA)
   Mythic Improved Critical (musket) - increases crit multiplier from 4 to 5
   Mythic Vital Strike - the lynchpin of this build.
Quote
Whenever you use Vital Strike, Improved Vital Strike, or Greater Vital Strike, multiply the Strength bonus, magic bonus, and other bonuses that would normally be multiplied on a critical hit by the number of weapon damage dice you roll for that feat.
Extra damage from sources that wouldn't normally be multiplied on a critical hit isn't multiplied by this feat.
      The wording is clear, and also clearly not what was intended (Paizo needs to spend more time editing their rules text to catch things like this). What it actually SAYS is, if you have a multiple dice weapon (say, a large musket that does 3d6), then you multiply your flat damage bonus by 3 for each feat in the VS chain you are using. Which is a total multiplier of NINE, when you have Greater Vital Strike. Since they only issue errata when there's an additional printing, it's unlikely that this will be changed for some years to come.
   
Gear:
   Standard stuff. All stats +6, get a tome of Dex +5, use light armor (bracers +8 maybe), Goz mask to see through smoke and fog, ring of sublime for fear immunity, decoy ring for re-stealthing, sniper goggles for SA at any range and +2 dmg per die, gloves of dueling for +2 hit/dmg.

Weapon:
   Large musket, for 3d6 base damage. You need to put Reliable (Greater) on this until you get to 13th level Gunslinger and can ignore misfires. You also need the legendary property Foe-Biting, which lets you "double the total amount of damage it deals". For my calculations, I used +4, Holy, Bane (Mythic), Impervious, Reliable (Greater), and Foe-Biting.

The damage calculation:

3d6 + 36 base weapon damage
   4 enhancement bonus
   17 dex mod
   15 deadly aim
2d6 holy
2d6+2 bane
3d6 vital strike
3d6 Imp vital strike
3d6 greater vital strike
324 mythic vital strike (9 * 36) (if read as probably intended, this would be 3 * 36 = 108)
2d6+4 sneak attack

For a grand total of 18d6 + 366 on a non-crit sneak attack. Without the sneak attack, it's 16d6 + 362.

On a crit threat, you auto-confirm and do max damage, so let's calculate that.

3d6+36 = 18 + 36 = 54 base weapon damage
324 MVS

Total of 378 from things that multiply normally, in this case x5 = 1890.

2d6 holy
2d6+2 bane
3d6 VS
3d6 IVS
3d6 GVS
2d6+4 sneak attack

Total of 15d6+6 = 96 precision and "other" damage that doesn't normally multiply. If you have Precision Critical, add another 16.

Running total is 2002. Spend 2 points of mythic power with Foe-Biting to get 4004. (Non-sneak attack is 3940.)

Now, if that's not enough, you can actually get 6 attacks in the surprise round (although only 3 will have SA damage). Amazing Initiative mythic ability lets you spend 1 mp on your turn as a free action to take an additional standard action. Distant Barrage lets you spend 1mp as a swift action to make a ranged attack at your highest attack bonus (doesn't specify standard action, so this may be up to your DM whether you can use VS with it). That's 3 so far, and all are against flat-footed opponents (per Surprise Attacks). Hellcat Pounce says:
Quote
Whenever you attack and damage an opponent in the surprise round, you may immediately make a second attack against the same opponent using the same attack bonus. The target is not considered flat-footed against this second attack.
... so that's your 3 more attacks.

IF (and it is a big if) all of the attacks are crit threats, that's a total of 23832 damage (or, if you're attacking multiple targets, 7944 for each of 3 targets).

On the other hand, if you get no crit threats (even if you roll all 1's), you're still doing 34d6 + 654 to each of 3 targets, or 102d6 + 1962 to a single enemy. With Foe-Biting, 68d6 + 1308 to 3 targets or 204d6 + 3924 to one.

And if your DM nerfs MVS down to where it probably should be, you still get 34d6 + 222 per target (or 102d6 + 666 :smirk on a single target), against flat-footed touch AC, within 200 ft. Add FB for 68d6+444 to 3 targets or 204d6 + 1332 to a single.

Tweaks, comments welcome.