Gunslinger

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Overview & Creation

Waking up to a goblin ambush, a human reaches for the pistol she always keeps at her side. She leaps to her feet and begins to fire, blasting the nearest goblin away before he can strike.   A gnome sighs to himself in satisfaction as he puts the final screw into his masterpiece: a massive rifle, almost twice as tall as he is. He loads it and tests it out on a nearby tree. The ensuing blast knocks the gnome off of his feet. He stumbles upright, grinning as he sees the tree topple over from the hit.   Gunslingers are masters of the firearm, using them to devastating effect on the battlefield. A gunslinger uses a steady trigger finger and technical skill to provide cover fire for her companions and cripples opponents with deadly special shots.   Gunslingers thrive on the outskirts of civilization, both famous and infamous in the more free-spirited areas of the world. Talk with your DM about an appropriate origin for your Gunslinger. Do you live in a city, where your weapons are possibly outlawed? Or, perhaps, you come from the frontier, where your kind are common and the laws, less so.   How did you acquire your first gun? Did your fervor for invention lead you to create something more powerful than you know? Did a demon trade this knowledge for the promise of a favor? Maybe you killed a vengeful foe and took your gun off his dead body.  

Quick Build

You can make a gunslinger quickly by following these suggestions.

1. First, put your highest ability score in Dexterity, followed by Intelligence or Wisdom, depending on the Trail you intend to take at 3rd level.
2. Second, choose the outlander background.

 

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Class Features

Tinkerer

Beginning at 1st level, you can use Tinker’s Tools to craft basic firearms, detailed at the end of the class description, as well as basic ammunition for those firearms.  

Natural Talent

Beginning at 1st level, choose one of your skill proficiencies. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses your chosen proficiency. In addition, you gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls you make using firearms.

Grit

You, like every gunslinger, have something which allows you to remain cool and collected, even in the most dire situations. Starting at 2nd level, you gain a number of Grit points equal to your proficiency bonus. The number of Grit points you have can never exceed your proficiency bonus.   You can spend these points to fuel various class features. You start knowing one such feature: Aimed Shot. You learn more such features as you gain additional levels in this class. Any expended Grit points refill at the end of a short or long rest. In addition, you regain 1 Grit point, up to your current maximum, whenever you roll a critical hit with a firearm attack, or you use a firearm to reduce a creature to 0 or fewer hit points. If you reduce a creature to 0 or fewer hit points with a critical hit, you regain only 1 Grit point, not 2.   Some of your Grit features require your target to make a saving throw to resist the feature’s effects. The saving throw DC is calculated as follows:   Grit save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Dexterity modifier

Aimed Shot

Beginning at 2nd level, when making an attack with a firearm as part of your attack action, you may choose to expend a number of Grit points up to your current maximum to gain a bonus on the attack roll equal to the number of Grit points spent. If this attack hits, you add the number of Grit points spent to its damage roll as well.

Gunslinger’s Trail

At 3rd level, you choose the trail which reflects your own personal style and credo. Following one of these trails separates a mere gun-toting adventurer from a legendary gunslinger. Choose the Trail of the Desperado or the Trail of the Gunsmith, both detailed at the end of the class description. Your choice grants you a unique feature when you choose it at 3rd level. It also grants you additional benefits at 6th, 10th, 14th, and 17th levels.

Extra Attack

Starting at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

Trick Shot

Starting at 7th Level, you can target a specific location on a foe’s body, so long as the foe’s body has the location you want to target. When making an attack with a firearm, you may spend a Grit point to add an additional effect based on the targeted location.

Armshot

On a hit, the target must make a Constitution saving throw or drop a single held item of your choice.

Headshot

On a hit, the target must make a Constitution saving throw or have disadvantage on attacks made until the start of your next turn.

Legshot

On a hit, the target must make a Constitution saving throw or fall prone.

Bodyshot

On a hit, the target must make a Constitution saving throw or have disadvantage on Strength and Dexterity ability checks and saving throws until the start of your next turn.

Wingshot

On a hit, the target must make a Constitution saving throw or fall 60 feet. Creatures of Huge size or larger automatically succeed on saving throws made against this shot.

Evasion

Beginning at 9th level, you can nimbly dodge out of the way of certain area effects, such as a red dragon’s fiery breath or an ice storm spell. When you are subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you instead take no damage if you succeed on the saving throw, and only half damage if you fail.

Violent Shot

Starting at 11th Level, you’ve learned that you can’t always play safe if you want to win. As part of a ranged attack action using a firearm, you can spend a Grit point to perform a Violent Shot. If your attack hits, it is treated as a critical hit which does not restore Grit and your weapon is broken (see the Firearm Properties detailed at the end of the class description).hich does not restore Grit and your weapon is broken (see the Firearm Properties detailed at the end of the class description).

Personal Effects

Beginning at 13th level, you may choose one of the following items as your Personal Effects. Your chosen item grants you a unique bonus, specified below. If your Personal Effects are lost or destroyed, they are mysteriously found immediately following your next long rest.

Acrobatics Harness (Desperado Only)

The strains of rolling, ducking, and dodging can take their toll on the body. With this harness, you can perform stunts to dodge out of harm’s way with little strain on yourself. While wearing your Acrobatics Harness, you may also add your Proficiency modifier to the damage reduction component of Dodge Roll.

The Rambolier (Gunsmith Only)

You never leave home without an ammo stockpile about the size of a munition depot. This high-capacity, smooth leather bandolier carries it all for you. While wearing The Rambolier, you may craft and store up to 2 extra rounds of Specialty Ammo during each long rest, which are added to your current maximum.

Comfortable Duster

This old, trail-worn duster has been your constant companion. Full of holes, torn in places, and never quite clean, it’s like you in more ways than one. While wearing your Comfortable Duster, you never make an ability check or saving throw with disadvantage.

Lucky Hat

This hat has been with you since the beginning, and no matter how many times you lose it, it always seems to find its way back. When you are hit with an attack while wearing your Lucky Hat, you may turn that attack into a miss, even if that attack is a Critical Hit. You may use this feature once between each long rest.

Quality Cigar

No matter where you draw on it, this cigar always gives you a quiet moment to reflect. As an action, you make take a draw on your Quality Cigar to regain 1 Grit point. You may take a draw on the Quality Cigar up to 2 times between each long rest.

Tinker’s Goggles

Tinkering has always kept you up at night, and these goggles have been a tinker’s best friend. While wearing your Tinker’s Goggles, you can see normally in darkness, both magical and nonmagical, up to a distance of 120 feet, and you are immune to the blind condition. In addition, you have advantage on Tinker’s Tools ability checks to repair a broken gun.

Trick Up Your Sleeve

When you reach 15th level, you never go anywhere without a gun on your person, come hell or high water. Whenever you make a Sleight of Hand check to draw or hide a light weapon on your person, you can treat a d20 roll of 19 or lower as a 20.

‘Slinger’s Luck

Starting at 18th level, some swear you’ve been kissed by Lady Luck herself. Before you roll a saving throw, you can choose to automatically succeed. Once you use this feature, you must take a long rest before using it again.

True Grit

At 20th level, whenever you would regain 1 Grit Point, you instead regain 2, up to your current maximum.

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Starting Equipment

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

• (a) a pistol (b) a musket or (c) a scattergun
• (a) an explorer’s pack or (b) a dungeoneer’s pack
• Leather armor, a set of tinker’s tools, and 30 pieces of ammunition

 

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Subclass Options

Gunslinger’s Trail - Trail of the Desperato

The desperado fights with skill, reflexes, and a quick trigger finger. Her movements are crisp and sharp, faster than the average person can track. Those following this path drill their motions until they surpass normal mortal limits.

Fast Reflexes

When you choose this trail at 3rd level, your speed increases by 10 feet while you are unarmored or wearing light armor. In addition, you may use your bonus action to either repair or reload a weapon in your possession.

Quick Draw

By 6th level, you’ve learned to keep a close eye on your surroundings, and a close hand on your gun. You add your proficiency bonus to any initiative check. Furthermore, during the first round of combat in which you are not surprised, you can spend a Grit point to make a single attack with a one-handed firearm at your initiative + 10. Afterward, initiative proceeds as normal.

Dodge Roll

Starting at 10th level, you’ve learned to tumble away from ranged attacks. Whenever you are on the ground and take damage from a source more than 10 feet away which you can see, you may use your reaction to dodge out of the way of further assault, moving a distance up to half your movement speed, and if you move at least 5 feet, reducing the damage by an amount equal to your Dexterity modifier. While moving in this manner, enemies have disadvantage on attacks of opportunity made against you.

Fan Fire

Starting at 14th level you can attack three times, instead of two, whenever you take the attack action on your turn.

Improved Quick Draw

At 17th level, Quick Draw no longer consumes Grit. In addition, you have advantage on any initiative check, and you are unable to be surprised while you are conscious.

Gunslinger's Trail - Trail of the Gunsmith

A gunsmith is an eccentric arcane tinkerer, unafraid of taking risks or personally modifying their firearms. They learn by improving their existing creations and building new guns. Each new creation is a stepping stone to something greater. Those following this Trail use their intelligence to forge weapons and ammunition unparalleled in the rest of the world.   Some Gunsmith features require your target to make a saving throw to resist the feature’s effects. The saving throw DC is equivalent to your Grit save DC.

Walking Armory

When you choose this trail at 3rd level, you craft a mechanism which allows you to easily store and equip your personal firearms. You may draw any firearm within arm’s reach without using your object interaction.

Apprentice Guncrafting

When you choose this trail at 3rd level, you can craft new firearms and modify your current ones. One-handed guns are based on the pistol, two-handed guns on the musket, and cone guns on the scattergun.   Modifying a firearm requires 1 day of constant work per modification. You may remove an existing modification at the same time as you add a new one.

Maintenance

Modifications require constant tuning and maintenance in order to remain in working order. During a long rest, you may maintain a number of modified firearms up to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of one). If a modified firearm is not maintained during a long rest, any attack roll made with that firearm has disadvantage.

Limited Modification

You may modify a firearm a number of times up to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of once). In addition, every modification falls into a category. You may only place a single modification from each category on a given firearm. Modifications for firearms are shown on the Modifications chart. At 3rd Level, you gain access to the Long Barrel, Snubnose Barrel, Elemental Barrel modifications. You gain additional modifications as your level increases, as detailed in the Modifications Table.

Level	Modifications	Effect	Category
3rd	Long Barrel	The firearm can make attacks up to its long range without disadvantage.	Barrel
3rd	Snubnose Barrel	This weapon can only make attacks up to its short range. However, on a hit, the target is knocked back 5 feet.	Barrel
3rd	Elemental Barrel	Damage dealt with the firearm is considered Acid, Cold, Fire, or Lightning for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity. You choose the damage type when you make this modification.	Barrel
3rd	Rune of Hardening	The gun no longer needs to be maintained in order to function properly.	Personal Touches
6th	Dampening Alloy	This firearm is treated as silenced, as detailed in the Firearm Properties section.	Alloy
6th	Light Alloy	The firearm becomes light, as detailed in the PHB. This does not affect firearms with the two-handed property.	Alloy
6th	Nonporous Alloy	The firearm and loaded ammunition are no longer affected by being wet or submerged. You can use the firearm to make attacks normally while submerged, up to the firearm’s short range.	Alloy
6th	Old Faithful	The misfire rating of the gun is reduced by 2.	Personal Touches
10th	Auto-Loader	If you do not use the firearm to make an attack during your turn, the firearm is reloaded to full capacity without requiring an action.	Reloading Mechanism
10th	Vampiric Weapon	You no longer have to reload your weapon, but every attack you make with the firearm deals 1 HP necrotic damage to you.	Reloading Mechanism
10th	Mechanical Reloader	The gun automatically reloads itself when your ammunition count drops to 0. After it reloads itself in this manner, the Mechanical Reloader must be reset before it is usable again. Resetting the Mechanical Reloader requires an action. You may still manually reload the gun.	Reloading Mechanism
10th	Tactical Sniper Scope	As an action, you may aim down the scope and make a single attack with advantage.	Personal Touches
14th	Piercing Ammo	Attacks made using this firearm ignore piercing resistance for the purpose of calculating damage.	Basic Ammunition
14th	Ricochet Ammo	Attacks made using this firearm may ricochet. If an attack hits its intended target, you may choose a single additional target within 10’, and make an attack roll with disadvantage against the second target. This ricochet deals 1d6+DEX mod piercing damage. This second attack roll cannot cause your weapon to misfire.	Basic Ammunition
14th	Corrosive Ammo	Successful attacks made using this firearm inflict an additional 1d4 acid damage.	Basic Ammunition
14th	Modular Design	You may modify this firearm during a short rest.	Personal Touches

Journeyman Guncrafting

When you reach 6th level, your skills at modifying and creating weapons have noticeably grown. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check which uses Tinker’s Tools. In addition, you’ve learned how to modify your guns to pull latent magic from the world around them. From now on, any attack made with a gun you’ve modified is treated as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity.

Blast Packs

At 10th level, your experiments with arcane technologies led you to an explosive, yet useful, discovery. When a creature moves within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to detonate a shaped explosive charge between you and the creature. The creature loses its reaction, and must make a Dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone by the blast, while you ride the shockwave 15 feet directly away from the creature. You cannot use this feature while prone.   You can create one shaped explosive charge during a short or long rest. Unfortunately, the chemicals within each charge are volatile, and only retain their potency until the beginning of your next short or long rest.

Specialty Ammo

Beginning at the 14th level, you can craft special ammo for your firearms with an arcane crystal core, which can be imbued with certain magical effects when fired. Each round of special ammo must be crafted during a long rest, and only retains its special effects until your next long rest. You can craft and store a number of specialty rounds equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of 1 round) during a long rest. Upon loading a gun, you must declare how many specialty rounds (if any) that you are loading into the gun. Once a piece of specialty ammo has been loaded into a gun, you may expend it as part of any attack you make with that gun. You may only use one piece of specialty ammo per attack action. When you fire the round, you may imbue it with any effect from the following list:

Freeze Round

When the round hits a target, a burst of ice spreads from the point of impact, trapping objects within 5’. A creature hit by a freeze round must make a Constitution saving throw or become chilled, taking 3d8 additional frost damage and becoming restrained until the end of your next turn, or half damage on a successful save. This damage increases by an additional 2d8 at the 17th and 20th levels.

Explosive Round

The round detonates on impact with a target, dealing fire damage in a 10’ radius sphere. Creatures in this area of effect must make a Dexterity saving throw or take an additional 3d8 fire damage, or half that on a successful save. This damage increases by an additional 2d8 at the 17th and 20th levels.

Drill Round

The round becomes sheathed in a piercing arcane aura. When you use these rounds to make an attack against a target with half or three-quarters cover, you make the attack as if the target had no cover. In addition, this round deals an additional 3d6 damage on a hit. This damage increases by an additional 2d6 at 17th and 20th levels.

Flash Round

The round doesn’t deal any damage, but instead creates a blinding flash of light emanating in a 30’ cone from the barrel of the gun. Any creature within the cone must make a Constitution saving throw or become blind until the end of your next turn.

Stun Round

This round doesn’t deal any damage, but any creature which is hit must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or fall prone and become stunned until the end of your next turn. Constructs and undead creatures are immune to the effects of this round.

Masterwork Guncrafting

Starting at the 17th level, your long, hard hours at a workbench and in the field have paid off, giving you a master’s grasp of tinkering and guncrafting. Whenever you would suffer a misfire, you may choose to ignore it. You must complete a short or long rest before using this ability again.  

Properties of Firearms

Ammunition

You can make a ranged attack with a firearm only if you have ammunition to fire with. Each time you attack with the firearm, you expend one piece of ammunition. Drawing the ammunition from a belt, case, or other container is part of the attack (you need a free hand to load a one-handed weapon). You cannot recover spent ammunition. Once fired, it is gone.

Broken

A broken firearm cannot be fired until it is repaired. To repair a broken firearm, you may use an action to attempt a Tinker’s Tools ability check with a DC equal to 10 plus the weapon’s base misfire score. On a success, the weapon is no longer considered broken.

Capacity

A firearm’s capacity is the number of shots it can hold at one time. When a firearm has been fired a number of times equal to its capacity, it must bereloaded before firing again.

Misfire

If your natural roll for a gun attack falls at or below the misfire score of the gun you are using, you suffer a misfire. Your attack misses, any ammo you used in the attack is expended, and your gun becomes broken.You must repair a broken gun before using it.

Range

Most firearms have two range increments, short and long. Firing at short range has no negative effect. Firing at long range imposes disadvantage on the attack. Guns cannot be fired outside of their long-range increment. Some guns have only a single range increment. In that case, the gun cannot be fired outoutside of its single range increment.

Reload

Reloading a gun replaces your next attack you would make with the firearm, refilling the ammunition in the gun to its capacity. If you prefer, you may insteaduse an action to reload your firearm.

Scatter

Firearms with this property shoot pellets in a cone out to their long range increment. All creatures within the cone must make a Dexterity saving throw (DC equal to the 8 + the shooter’s Dexterity modifier + the shooter’s Proficiency modifier), taking full damage on a failed save, or half damage on a successful one. Creatures outside of the firearm’s short range have advantage on this saving throw. If the shooter is not proficient with firearms, all creatures attempt the savingthrow roll with advantage.

Noise

When fired, a firearm makes a loud sound, much like two stones crashing together at high speed. This sound is easily heard by any creature within 1⁄4 mileof the gunshot. Firearms have this property by default unless replaced by Silenced.

Silenced

When fired, a silenced weapon makes no more noise than a bowshot.

Special - Derringer

A small pistol created for surprise attacks at close range, the derringer is an assassin’s best friend. Derringers grant their wielder advantage on Sleight of Hand checks to draw, and can attack from within 5 feet without disadvantage.

Water-Damage

If your firearm becomes wet, you must use your Tinker’s Tools to disassemble the gun and clean it before it is operational again. Disassembling your gun does not require an ability check, but it does require a set of Tinker’s Tools. You cannot load or fire a firearm underwater without magical aid, unless otherwise stated.  

List of Firearms

Name	Cost	Damage	Weight	Properties
Derringer	1000 g	1d6 Piercing	2 lb	Ammunition (range 15/60), capacity 1, light, misfire 0, reload, special - derringer
Musket	250 g	1d12 Piercing	9 lb	Ammunition (range 150/600), capacity 4, misfire 3, reload, two-handed
Pistol	125 g	1d10 Piercing	4 lb	Ammunition (range 60/240), capacity 4, misfire 3, reload
Sawed-off Scattergun	500 g	1d6 Piercing	8 lb	Ammunition (range 10/20), capacity 2, light, misfire 3, reload, scatter
Scattergun	250 g	1d8 Piercing	8 lb	Ammunition (range 15/30), capacity 2, misfire 3, reload, two-handed, scatter

Ammunition Properties

Water-Damage

If your ammunition becomes wet, there is a 50% chance it becomes a blank. You roll d100 to determine if a wet piece of ammo is a blankwhen it is fired. On a 1-50, it’s a blank and doesn’t fire.

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