Currently in the midst of the Dragon Heist campaign with a 5th level High Elf, Gloom Stalker Ranger (DEX 20, Crossbow Expert feat taken). I currently serve mostly as the scout of my party (so the Message cantrip is helpful). My DM has allowed me to acquire both of the Drow's Poisonous Pistols which he's allowing me to study as he's encouraged me to become a Gunslinger. At R5, I feel that I'm now ready to start talking Fighter levels to gain Firearms proficiency at 8th level (R5, F3) - then try my pistols with the Dual Wielding feat and perhaps acquire another pistol or two. I'm more interested in damage than trick shots. I do not wish to multi-class more than these two classes, so my question is this:
Should I go straight Fighter from now on or is there a point y'all recommend to stop Fighter leveling and go back to Ranger?
The Drow Gunslinger's Poisonous Pistol isn't provided as its own item in the appendix, but I assume it functions basically as a Pistol with a bonus 2d10 poison damage on a hit. If that's the case, Pistols have the Ammunition and Loading properties, just like Crossbow, Hand (though, they aren't Light, so that's very different...). Presumably since your DM is encouraging this, they plan to allow you to apply the benefit of Crossbow Expert to these Pistols as if they were Crossbows? Though since the Gunslinger is an Exandria class, maybe your Poisonous Pistol won't look like the one in the Drow Gunslinger stat block and instead be based off of the Pistol (Exandria) that's described in the Gunslinger's class features, which doesn't have Ammunition or Loading but does have Reload and Misfire? How would that interact with Crossbow Expert (if at all)? Complicated.
Baseline, a Gunslinger Pistol (Exandria) will be able to be fired four times without any kind of reload type thing requiring a free hand. And there's no feat or feature that will allow you to get any benefit from wielding two, other than having more shots at your disposal before reloading. Because it's unclear what (if any) benefit you're going to get from Crossbow Expert , the only benefits you're definitely entitled to are (1) the ability to do any kind of ranged attack while in melee without disadvantage, (2) the ability to fire a hand crossbow in your offhand as a Bonus Action after shooting your pistol, and (3) the ability to theoretically make more than one attack per action type with the hand crossbow (which won't be relevant, if you're just using it in your off-hand to make a Bonus Action attack). Answers below based on this baseline assumption, unless there's some other benefit you know your DM will apply from Crossbow Expert to an Pistol (Exandria) or a reason to think you'll really be using a Pistol instead.
Your attack rotation to use a Pistol + Hand Crossbow right now is... complex. Action Pistol-Action Pistol with your main hand triggers a Bonus Crossbow... but you need a free hand to load Ammunition to actually take the Bonus Crossbow. So it looks like Action Pistol-Action Pistol-Free Action Holster Pistol-Bonus Crossbow.... but then that leaves your pistol in its holster. Next round you Free Action Draw-Action Pistol-Action Pistol... and don't have a free hand to make your Bonus Crossbow attack, and also don't have an Action or attack left to reload your empty pistol (nor do you have an empty hand with which to do so). So then the following round looks like Free Action Holster Crossbow-Action Pistol (reload)-Action Pistol Attack... and then still no way to redraw your bow and holster your pistol to get the Bonus Crossbow attack. It's just a mess.
With Dual Wieler, it gets better, but it's still a nightmare. Action Pistol-Action Pistol-Free Action Holster Pistol-Bonus Crossbow-Free Action Draw Pistol in round 1. Action Pistol-Action Pistol-Free Action Holster-Bonus Crossbow-Free Action Holster Crossbow round 2 (because you need to set up being able to reload Pistol round 3). Free Action Draw Pistol-Action Pistol (reload)-Action Pistol (attack)-Free Action Draw Crossbow-[no free hand to make a Bonus Crossbow, even if you'd drawn it earlier]. And then and then.... it isn't even a simple A-B-A-B rotation, or even A-B-C-A-B-C, it just keeps evolving and getting more and more complex...... having a second loaded pistol makes it a little easier, because you could draw the new loaded pistol at the end of Round 2 instead of holstering your crossbow, to put you back into Round 1 mode, but....
Just single wield a single pistol, that's what the Pistol (Exandria) is designed for, and it's all that it really works with!!!! The level 7 Gunslinger feature lets you holster an empty pistol and replace it with a new loaded one with a single free interaction, but that doesn't change the fact that the rotation with two full hands is a nightmare.
Two more levels of Ranger gets you proficiency in Wisdom saves, an additional Favored Enemy & Language, an additional terrain type for Natural Explorer, one more second level spell slot, and one more known spell. A third level of Ranger would also get you an ASI, and the ability to ignore difficult terrain, and some niche save bonuses. At higher levels, you just get some more limited spell slots (hard to use with your hands full), the ability to hide without concealment with prep (meh), the ability to get more attacks if you miss (strictly inferior to getting more attacks without needing to miss), hide as a bonus (meh unless you have a way of creating concealment on the fly), the ability to impose disadvantage on an attack against you as a reaction (pretty good I guess), and the ability to attack Invisible targets without disadvantage (meh). Honestly the spell slots are about the only thing valuable I see over level 8.
A full fifteen levels of Fighter is necessary to get the ability to reload them as a Bonus, instead of as an Action or in place of one attack in an Attack Action. That's (1) endgame, so probably not relevant to how you're going to play at the table, and (2) hard to see how that benefits you, if you're planning on using your Bonus Action to be making offhand Hand Crossbow attacks. Either way, you'll be losing one attack to Reload. Ten levels of Fighter is necessary to get the ability to fix jams with a Bonus, instead of as an Action. Since that will potentially let you fix a jam for the cost of one attack, instead of an Action that contains two (or more!) attacks, that seems like a good one to get. Eleven levels of Fighter gets you three attacks per attack action, doesn't make much sense to flirt with lots of Fighter levels unless you push for that too. And from there, it's one more Fighter level for a regular ASI, and then two more for a bonus Fighter ASI at 14. 11 levels of Fighter is very good, but more than that is take-it-or-leave-it.
Ranger 8/Fighter 12 and Ranger 5/Fighter 15 seem to be the main contenders how I see it. They get the same number of ASI, so let's put that aside. Ranger 8 has one more spell slot and can ignore difficult terrain and has Wisdom save proficiency. Fighter 15 has one more save reroll from an extra Indomitable, and can Reload as a Bonus.Between those two at 20, I think the Ranger 8 is clearly superior... but you're probably not playing all the way to 20! As for what the future looks like at the table... I would just start taking Fighter levels until you hit Fighter 11 before considering dabbling with anything else.
Any other feats needed? Sharpshooter, obviously. Maybe Martial Adept if you want to be able to disarm, trip, or push someone from range with a pistol shot? Other than that, meh. Dual Wielder will make you life simpler doing the Action pistol-Action pistol-holster pistol-Bonus crossbow-draw pistol rotation that you'll need to get any benefit out of Crossbow Expert... but again, it's too complex, just ditch the crossbow and single wield pistols.
Thanks for the reply. My DM gave me a copy of the table for the Poisonous Pistols. His take is that once I'm through with this particular ammo, which he deems enchanted, then I can use regular ammo without issue. I "think" the DM's recommendation early on that I take Crossbow Expert (though I use a longbow) is to allow me the Loading and Close Quarters aspects of the Feat, since we do not use the UA Close Quarters Combat feat... but not necessarily the bonus action attack since I have been using Hunter's Mark more often as my bonus action. With Dual Wield feat, I "think" the idea is more being able to use two pistols then drop one and reload the other without taking an action. He and I are still working on the gameplay mechanics at our table.
What I'm more interested in knowing about when, if ever, I should stop Fighter levels. I'm not seeing an advantage either way, but this is new territory.
So that's the issue. If your DM is using Pistol, then a lot of the Gunslinger features are meaningless because your Pistol doesn't have Reload or Misfire, and that's what Gunslinger helps with. But if you're using the Pistol (Exandria), then even if the DM says "okay treat Pistols as Crossbows for the purpose of Crossbow Expert," it's still unclear what (if anything) removing Loading would mean for a weapon that doesn't have Loading.
I think you need an answer to that before getting too committed to whether you plan to Dual Wield or Single Wield pistols. Either way, taking some Gunslinger levels and grabbing Sharpshooter is a good idea, so I'd start there in the short term.
Final thing... if you are using a Pistol, then the Battlemaster Fighter subclass is going to do essentially the same stuff for you that the Gunslinger Fighter subclass would have done for a Pistol (Exandria). You'll have maneuver dice instead of grit points, but maneuver dice are better than grit points anyway, so even with a Pistol (Exandria) Battlemaster may be the better pick. There's pretty much a maneuver for every trick shot (and more), you get the same Tool proficiency either way, so the only real difference if we're talking Pistol is that the Gunslinger gets proficiency in Firearms (which your DM might be considering you have by virtue of studying these guns? or which can be replicated with a feat that grants +1 Dex if needed), and Quick Draw at 7 (which can be wholly replicated and surpassed with Dual Wielder). Fighters get plenty of feats, so even if you have to take both of those feats I feel like you're still ahead with Battlemaster... I just don't think there's much call for being a Gunslinger at all, if you don't have weapon jamming to worry about- and even then, that isn't even an edge you get until Fighter level 10/character level 15, which is probably outside the scope of your campaign anyway if you're running Dragon Heist.
As popular as it is, the Gunslinger fighter class kind of stinks. It's built to replicate a Pathfinder class which fits in with the more complicated ruleset of Pathfinder, but as a 5e class it's basically just a Battlemaster where half of the class features are built around managing the extremely fragile Exandria firearms. If you could take the Gunner feat, or swap your Crossbow Expert feat with Gunner (since it accomplishes more or less the same thing, just with guns) and just continue leveling up as a Gloomstalker Ranger, since it's one of the best Ranger Subclasses already.
That all said, if you do feel like you really want to dip into Fighter for the Gunslinger subclass, then I would recommend taking just 3 levels. You only get two trick shots, but honestly just taking Deadeye shot alone is probably the best option anyway... maybe also grab Winging Shot if only because it lets you down flying opponents. But your amount of grit points keys off of your Wisdom modifier, so it's not like you get more uses of Grit by leveling up more in Gunslinger.
Alternatively you could take a single level dip into Artificer, which also grants firearm proficiency, and gets you a little bit more spellcasting... at the very least you get two more cantrips, but otherwise Artificer doesn't have much synergy with your build. It's mostly just a faster way to get firearm proficiency than spending 3 levels on fighter.
Currently in the midst of the Dragon Heist campaign with a 5th level High Elf, Gloom Stalker Ranger (DEX 20, Crossbow Expert feat taken). I currently serve mostly as the scout of my party (so the Message cantrip is helpful). My DM has allowed me to acquire both of the Drow's Poisonous Pistols which he's allowing me to study as he's encouraged me to become a Gunslinger. At R5, I feel that I'm now ready to start talking Fighter levels to gain Firearms proficiency at 8th level (R5, F3) - then try my pistols with the Dual Wielding feat and perhaps acquire another pistol or two. I'm more interested in damage than trick shots. I do not wish to multi-class more than these two classes, so my question is this:
Should I go straight Fighter from now on or is there a point y'all recommend to stop Fighter leveling and go back to Ranger?
Targeted and Firing
The Drow Gunslinger's Poisonous Pistol isn't provided as its own item in the appendix, but I assume it functions basically as a Pistol with a bonus 2d10 poison damage on a hit. If that's the case, Pistols have the Ammunition and Loading properties, just like Crossbow, Hand (though, they aren't Light, so that's very different...). Presumably since your DM is encouraging this, they plan to allow you to apply the benefit of Crossbow Expert to these Pistols as if they were Crossbows? Though since the Gunslinger is an Exandria class, maybe your Poisonous Pistol won't look like the one in the Drow Gunslinger stat block and instead be based off of the Pistol (Exandria) that's described in the Gunslinger's class features, which doesn't have Ammunition or Loading but does have Reload and Misfire? How would that interact with Crossbow Expert (if at all)? Complicated.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Baseline, a Gunslinger Pistol (Exandria) will be able to be fired four times without any kind of reload type thing requiring a free hand. And there's no feat or feature that will allow you to get any benefit from wielding two, other than having more shots at your disposal before reloading. Because it's unclear what (if any) benefit you're going to get from Crossbow Expert , the only benefits you're definitely entitled to are (1) the ability to do any kind of ranged attack while in melee without disadvantage, (2) the ability to fire a hand crossbow in your offhand as a Bonus Action after shooting your pistol, and (3) the ability to theoretically make more than one attack per action type with the hand crossbow (which won't be relevant, if you're just using it in your off-hand to make a Bonus Action attack). Answers below based on this baseline assumption, unless there's some other benefit you know your DM will apply from Crossbow Expert to an Pistol (Exandria) or a reason to think you'll really be using a Pistol instead.
Your attack rotation to use a Pistol + Hand Crossbow right now is... complex. Action Pistol-Action Pistol with your main hand triggers a Bonus Crossbow... but you need a free hand to load Ammunition to actually take the Bonus Crossbow. So it looks like Action Pistol-Action Pistol-Free Action Holster Pistol-Bonus Crossbow.... but then that leaves your pistol in its holster. Next round you Free Action Draw-Action Pistol-Action Pistol... and don't have a free hand to make your Bonus Crossbow attack, and also don't have an Action or attack left to reload your empty pistol (nor do you have an empty hand with which to do so). So then the following round looks like Free Action Holster Crossbow-Action Pistol (reload)-Action Pistol Attack... and then still no way to redraw your bow and holster your pistol to get the Bonus Crossbow attack. It's just a mess.
With Dual Wieler, it gets better, but it's still a nightmare. Action Pistol-Action Pistol-Free Action Holster Pistol-Bonus Crossbow-Free Action Draw Pistol in round 1. Action Pistol-Action Pistol-Free Action Holster-Bonus Crossbow-Free Action Holster Crossbow round 2 (because you need to set up being able to reload Pistol round 3). Free Action Draw Pistol-Action Pistol (reload)-Action Pistol (attack)-Free Action Draw Crossbow-[no free hand to make a Bonus Crossbow, even if you'd drawn it earlier]. And then and then.... it isn't even a simple A-B-A-B rotation, or even A-B-C-A-B-C, it just keeps evolving and getting more and more complex...... having a second loaded pistol makes it a little easier, because you could draw the new loaded pistol at the end of Round 2 instead of holstering your crossbow, to put you back into Round 1 mode, but....
Just single wield a single pistol, that's what the Pistol (Exandria) is designed for, and it's all that it really works with!!!! The level 7 Gunslinger feature lets you holster an empty pistol and replace it with a new loaded one with a single free interaction, but that doesn't change the fact that the rotation with two full hands is a nightmare.
Two more levels of Ranger gets you proficiency in Wisdom saves, an additional Favored Enemy & Language, an additional terrain type for Natural Explorer, one more second level spell slot, and one more known spell. A third level of Ranger would also get you an ASI, and the ability to ignore difficult terrain, and some niche save bonuses. At higher levels, you just get some more limited spell slots (hard to use with your hands full), the ability to hide without concealment with prep (meh), the ability to get more attacks if you miss (strictly inferior to getting more attacks without needing to miss), hide as a bonus (meh unless you have a way of creating concealment on the fly), the ability to impose disadvantage on an attack against you as a reaction (pretty good I guess), and the ability to attack Invisible targets without disadvantage (meh). Honestly the spell slots are about the only thing valuable I see over level 8.
A full fifteen levels of Fighter is necessary to get the ability to reload them as a Bonus, instead of as an Action or in place of one attack in an Attack Action. That's (1) endgame, so probably not relevant to how you're going to play at the table, and (2) hard to see how that benefits you, if you're planning on using your Bonus Action to be making offhand Hand Crossbow attacks. Either way, you'll be losing one attack to Reload. Ten levels of Fighter is necessary to get the ability to fix jams with a Bonus, instead of as an Action. Since that will potentially let you fix a jam for the cost of one attack, instead of an Action that contains two (or more!) attacks, that seems like a good one to get. Eleven levels of Fighter gets you three attacks per attack action, doesn't make much sense to flirt with lots of Fighter levels unless you push for that too. And from there, it's one more Fighter level for a regular ASI, and then two more for a bonus Fighter ASI at 14. 11 levels of Fighter is very good, but more than that is take-it-or-leave-it.
Ranger 8/Fighter 12 and Ranger 5/Fighter 15 seem to be the main contenders how I see it. They get the same number of ASI, so let's put that aside. Ranger 8 has one more spell slot and can ignore difficult terrain and has Wisdom save proficiency. Fighter 15 has one more save reroll from an extra Indomitable, and can Reload as a Bonus. Between those two at 20, I think the Ranger 8 is clearly superior... but you're probably not playing all the way to 20! As for what the future looks like at the table... I would just start taking Fighter levels until you hit Fighter 11 before considering dabbling with anything else.
Any other feats needed? Sharpshooter, obviously. Maybe Martial Adept if you want to be able to disarm, trip, or push someone from range with a pistol shot? Other than that, meh. Dual Wielder will make you life simpler doing the Action pistol-Action pistol-holster pistol-Bonus crossbow-draw pistol rotation that you'll need to get any benefit out of Crossbow Expert... but again, it's too complex, just ditch the crossbow and single wield pistols.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Thanks for the reply. My DM gave me a copy of the table for the Poisonous Pistols. His take is that once I'm through with this particular ammo, which he deems enchanted, then I can use regular ammo without issue. I "think" the DM's recommendation early on that I take Crossbow Expert (though I use a longbow) is to allow me the Loading and Close Quarters aspects of the Feat, since we do not use the UA Close Quarters Combat feat... but not necessarily the bonus action attack since I have been using Hunter's Mark more often as my bonus action. With Dual Wield feat, I "think" the idea is more being able to use two pistols then drop one and reload the other without taking an action. He and I are still working on the gameplay mechanics at our table.
What I'm more interested in knowing about when, if ever, I should stop Fighter levels. I'm not seeing an advantage either way, but this is new territory.
Targeted and Firing
So that's the issue. If your DM is using Pistol, then a lot of the Gunslinger features are meaningless because your Pistol doesn't have Reload or Misfire, and that's what Gunslinger helps with. But if you're using the Pistol (Exandria), then even if the DM says "okay treat Pistols as Crossbows for the purpose of Crossbow Expert," it's still unclear what (if anything) removing Loading would mean for a weapon that doesn't have Loading.
I think you need an answer to that before getting too committed to whether you plan to Dual Wield or Single Wield pistols. Either way, taking some Gunslinger levels and grabbing Sharpshooter is a good idea, so I'd start there in the short term.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Thanks for your well versed replies. I'll pass this info along to my DM.
Targeted and Firing
Final thing... if you are using a Pistol, then the Battlemaster Fighter subclass is going to do essentially the same stuff for you that the Gunslinger Fighter subclass would have done for a Pistol (Exandria). You'll have maneuver dice instead of grit points, but maneuver dice are better than grit points anyway, so even with a Pistol (Exandria) Battlemaster may be the better pick. There's pretty much a maneuver for every trick shot (and more), you get the same Tool proficiency either way, so the only real difference if we're talking Pistol is that the Gunslinger gets proficiency in Firearms (which your DM might be considering you have by virtue of studying these guns? or which can be replicated with a feat that grants +1 Dex if needed), and Quick Draw at 7 (which can be wholly replicated and surpassed with Dual Wielder). Fighters get plenty of feats, so even if you have to take both of those feats I feel like you're still ahead with Battlemaster... I just don't think there's much call for being a Gunslinger at all, if you don't have weapon jamming to worry about- and even then, that isn't even an edge you get until Fighter level 10/character level 15, which is probably outside the scope of your campaign anyway if you're running Dragon Heist.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
gunner feat
As popular as it is, the Gunslinger fighter class kind of stinks. It's built to replicate a Pathfinder class which fits in with the more complicated ruleset of Pathfinder, but as a 5e class it's basically just a Battlemaster where half of the class features are built around managing the extremely fragile Exandria firearms. If you could take the Gunner feat, or swap your Crossbow Expert feat with Gunner (since it accomplishes more or less the same thing, just with guns) and just continue leveling up as a Gloomstalker Ranger, since it's one of the best Ranger Subclasses already.
That all said, if you do feel like you really want to dip into Fighter for the Gunslinger subclass, then I would recommend taking just 3 levels. You only get two trick shots, but honestly just taking Deadeye shot alone is probably the best option anyway... maybe also grab Winging Shot if only because it lets you down flying opponents. But your amount of grit points keys off of your Wisdom modifier, so it's not like you get more uses of Grit by leveling up more in Gunslinger.
Alternatively you could take a single level dip into Artificer, which also grants firearm proficiency, and gets you a little bit more spellcasting... at the very least you get two more cantrips, but otherwise Artificer doesn't have much synergy with your build. It's mostly just a faster way to get firearm proficiency than spending 3 levels on fighter.
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