Spellslinger

The heavy overcoat of the outlaw dragged behind him, kicking up sand and dust as he haphazardly sprinted though the small desert towns backstreets. Empty bullet shells rattled on the cobblestones as his revolver emptied and reloaded itself with uncanny speed. As he came to a dead end in the alley, he turned around to face his pursuer, a mage wrapped in a robe of azure, and recited a quick, silvery incantation, a bending series of hand symbols and summoned a fizzle of bright blue glyphs that circled around the barrel. He pointed the six-shooter at the mage and fired a bullet, sparking and spinning, straight through his shimmering arcane barrier and shattering his skull.

As the outlaw reloads his weapon and adjusts his hat, he takes the amulet from the slim, elven neck of the mage, pockets the trinket and disappears into the shimmering wave of heat like a mirage of the desert.

 

Spellslinger Wizards are a new, experimental school of magic that uses recent technologies to enhance their magical attacks. They learn to augment their preferred firearm with a multitude of magical effects, as well as being able to store magical effects inside their ammunition before releasing it at the perfect time. Some prefer to use evocation magic to cause elemental bursts upon successful shots, others prefer to hit their shot every time by seeing their targets movements before they happen using divination magic. Whatever their style of spellslinging, they all think guns and magic are a match made in heaven.

Many Spellslingers take to the practice of using firearms in conjunction with magic to make up for their lack of arcane proficiency, scarce spellbooks and other magical scriptures accessible to them, or due to their shaky magical control. This reputation of questionable ability within the arcane arts often leads to spellslingers being shunned by traditional schools and teachers of magic and developing unique styles of fighting and unusual pronunciations of certain spells.

Some could confuse the abilities of Spellslingers with those of Artificers and while their are similarities between how they use magic, they are not identical. Artificers weave magic directly into the structure of the item, making the magic belong to the item, whereas Spellslingers merely wrap magic around their ammunition, using it as a vehicle to deliver the desired spell to their target.

Trained Shot

Beginning when you select this school at 2nd level, you gain interest in the combination of magic and machination. You gain proficiency in a firearm of your choice from a given list (at the discretion of the DM). While holding this firearm, you are able to add your Intelligence modifier to all your initiative rolls. If this firearm is lost or broken, you can spend 1 hour to repair or replace it using your mechanical and magical knowledge. This requires half the price of the firearm worth of parts. You are given full proficiency in firearms at 6th level.

Additionally, you are able to use a firearm as an arcane focus.

Infused Ammo

Starting at 2nd level when you choose this school, once per long rest, you can spend 1 hour to infuse your ammunition with magical energy.

During a long rest, you may expend a spell slot of the approriate level to infuse 1 + your wizard level of ammo with a spell that you know. This spell must have a range other than self or touch and must not require concentration. The spell must not be higher than 4th level. This ability can be stacked to use more spell slots to infuse more ammo (infusing a cantrip cannot be done more than once per long rest however). When you hit a creature with Infused Ammo, the creature takes the damage from the spell and suffers it effects, in addition to the firearms normal damage and any effects it posseses. If the spell has an AoE effects, the area is placed where the bullet hits. The spell's normal range is replaced by the range of the firearm. The attack does not have to hit a creature to activate the spell effect in special cases.

Arcane Loader

Beginning at 6th level, using magic to reload has become so natural to you that bullets seem to fly through your fingers, often before others can react. You can instead reload with your bonus action, and the first shot after rolling initiative always hits.

Outlaw's Roll

Starting at 6th level, when you take the Dodge action, you are able to attack as a reaction when a creature misses an attack against you.

Deadeye

Starting at 10th level, creatures hit by your Infused Ammo have advantage against them until the start of your next turn.

Sharpslinger's Boon

At 14th level, when you land a critical hit with a firearm, you gain a surge of magical energy,  bolstering you with one of the four following effects (your choice):

• You can turn your next missed ranged spell or firearm attack into a hit
• You can regain a lost spell slot of 3rd level or lower
• During your next use of Outlaw's Roll, you can attack twice
• You can give the hit creature disadvantage on all attacks until the beginning of your next turn