Firearms Adept

Most of those who embrace the journey of becoming an infamous gunslinger start at the very same point as their predecessors: A small-scale firearm in hands, maybe a heirloomed, leased or stolen rifle as well, ready to take on the world. Or succumb guns blazing to its cruel reality. Only with time, blackened scars, burn-marks and increasingly deafened ears do they achieve what most will never live to see: Becoming a true legend. Becoming a Gunslinger, worthy of the name.

When you take on this class, you gain proficiency in the use of simple and martial firearms. These firearms are categorized into flux-driven and tecc-driven, the first being produced in the territories of New Haven, the second being manufactured primarily in the Sunderlands. Depending on your background, you will start off with the simple firearms (and potentially one martial firearm) of either of those nations.

As a Firearms Adept, you know about the different sub-types of firearms (pistols, rifles, shotguns, snipers, heavy weaponry). When you gain levels in this class, especially as soon as you choose your specialization at 3rd level, you acquire the skills to make best use of certain weapon types, becoming more and more known for your trademark guns.

Shooting with most firearms is achieved by taking the Attack Action, and they build on the same optimal and maximum range system as other ranged weaponry. Reloading a firearm (if it can be reloaded) is most commonly done by taking a Bonus Action for pistols and rifles, or by taking an Action for most shtoguns, snipers and heavy weaponry, unless stated otherwise.

Skillshot Techniques

As a Gunslinger, you are more than just capable in the operation of firearms. From a Gunslinger's perspective, any officer or soldier can carry and use a firearm - with decent enough training - to an average extent. But every weapon has its own personality, character, whims and capabilities, that only those willing to delve into their variety can understand - and make use of.

You have access to certain types of skillshots. These may be either ways to modify your attack patterns, or entirely new ways to fire your weapons. As you gain levels in this class, the amount of skillshots you are proficient with increases, up to a maximum as shown in the Skillshot Techniques column of your Class Features. The Skillshot Techniques below are immediately available when you take on this class. As soon as you choose an archetype for your Gunslinger, you learn additional, archetype-specific techniques as well.
The content in brackets refers to certain requirements; skillshots can only be used when they are made with one of the included weaponry. Some skillshots also require you to have a certain number of Hit Markers present on a creature. If a skillshot forces a target to make a saving throw, the DC for that throw is 8 + your proficiency bonus + your DEX modifier.

• Quickshot (All Pistols / 2+ Hit Markers) (When you take the Attack Action, you may make another attack with the same weapon against the same target, without adding your ability modifier to the second attack's damage on a hit.)
• Forceshot (All Rifles / 2+ Hit Markers) (Once per turn when you hit a target, you can force it to make a STR saving throw, pushing it 15 feet away from you on a failure.)
• Staggershot (All Rifles, Shotguns / 2+ Hit Markers) (Once per turn when you hit a target, you can force it to make a STR saving throw, rendering it unstable on a failure. An unstable creature makes STR and DEX saving throws with disadvantage until the start of your next turn.)
• Piercing Projectile (All Rifles / 2+ Hit Markers) (Once per turn when you hit a target, you may have the projectile strike through it. Make attack rolls with disadvantage for any number of targets in a line directly behind the target, up to the weapon's first range increment.)
• Dazing Projectile (Standard Pistols, All Rifles / 2+ Hit Markers) (Once per turn when you hit a target, you may force it to make a CON saving throw or suffer disadvantage on attacks until start of your next turn on a failure.)
• Disarming Projectile (Standard Pistols, All Rifles / 3+ Hit Markers) (Once per turn when you hit a target, you may force it to make a STR saving throw, or drop 1 held object of your choice and have that object be pushed 10 feet away from you.)
• Chainbreaker (Standard Pistols, All Rifles / 3+ Hit Markers) (Once per turn when you hit a target that currently has another creature grappled (but not swallowed), you may force it to make a STR saving throw, or immediately have it end the grapple and be pushed 5 feet away from the creature (triggering opportunity attacks) on a failure.)

Mark the Target

Gunslingers are infamous for their hawkish ability to zero in on their targets. The longer they are given time to do so, the more accurate, capable and determined they are when performing tricks and knacks highly uncommon for any regular soldier or law enforcer.

You can stack a number of Hit Markers on your targets, up to a maximum represented by the Hit Marker Limit column in your class feature table. Whenever you hit or miss a creature with a firearms attack, you add one stackable Hit Marker onto that creature. Furthermore, you can use your Bonus Action to add another Hit Marker onto any creature you can see within 30 feet, whether or not you have hit it on this turn. Hit Markers remain on targets for up to 10 minutes, after which they are immediately voided.

Hit Markers allow you to use particular skillshots on targets that you have accumulated enough Hit Markers on, as well as providing additional benefits as soon as you veer into a specific Gunslinger archetype later on. Alternatively, when you hit a target with a firearms attack, you may remove 3 Hit Markers from it to roll an additional damage die of the weapons' type as part of the attack. This feature can still be used if you already included a skillshot in the attack, consuming the Hit Markers after the end of the attack.

Gunner's Calm

From 2nd Level onwards, your experiences made you able to retain your calm and focus even under high pressure, both inside and outside of combat.

Whenever you are forced to make a WIS saving throw against being frightened or charmed, you can treat a roll of 9 or lower on the d20 as a 10.

Furthermore, once per combat round, you may choose to ignore a disadvantage imposed on a ranged or firearms weapon attack roll you make due to a hostile creature being within 5 feet of you.

Exposure

Beginning at 2nd Level, you can spend your Action or Bonus Action to focus your senses on a target's weak points for the next hour.
Each time you choose - depending on the level of this feature - one (Level 2), two (Level 9) or three (level 14) of the following:

• You gain +2 to your AC against attack rolls made by the target.
• Attack rolls you make against the target gain an additional +2 to hit.
• The target suffers a -2 saving throw penalty against effects originating from you.
  This applies only to triggering effects induced after you used this feature.
• You gain +2 to saving throws against effects originating from the target.
  This applies only to triggering effects induced after you used this feature.
• Whenever you hit the taget with an attack roll, you may roll one addtional damage die and use the highest result(s).
• The next three INT and/or WIS-based skill checks you make concerning the target are made with advantage.
  

In some cases, the effects may apply to all targets of the same closer species (i.e. paper wasps, plated crocodiles, bulletes...), up to the GM's discretion.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, thenceforth requiring you to finish a long rest to restore all charges.

Gunner Archetype

At 3rd Level, Gunslingers decide which field of arms and crafts fits their stil and interests best. Such a choice is highly personal, and upcoming Gunslingers pride themselves with the skill and knowledge that accompanies their dedication and specialization. These fields are divided between the Dead-Eyes, Cannoniers and Marksmen.
Dead-Eyes relish in the heat of battle at the foremost front, effortlessly maneuvering between multiple enemies and taking them on at the same time.
Canonniers, though keeping some more distance than their colleagues, prefer to deal considerable area strikes, blasting foes apart and controlling great fields of combat at the same time with debilitating effects.
Finally, the Marksmen are those at times not even seen in battle. Hidden afar, their goal is to end fights before they even begin, and if they still do, to finish them and tidy up quickly without giving their enemies even the slight of a chance.

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level - as well as at 8th / 12th / 16th / and 19th level - you either increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or two ability scores of your choice by 1.

You can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Danger Sense

At 5th Level, you gain an uncanny sense of when things nearby aren't as they should be, giving you an edge when you dodge away from danger.

You have advantage on Dexterity Saving Throws against Effects that you can see, such as traps and Spells.

To gain this benefit, you can't be Blinded, Deafened, or Incapacitated.

Leave an Impression

At 5th level as well, Gunslingers have acquired enough experience with difficult shots to impress or intimidate both friend and foe, channeling their innate focus for a guaranteed hit. Or to, well, just light their target up straight without any further need for drama.

When making a CHA (Performance) or CHA (Intimidation) check that encompasses a firearms shot, you may make that roll with advantage and definitely hit whatever you have been aiming at within your weapon range, though not automatically succeeding on the check depending on the circumstances. Alternatively, you may use this feature during combat to double your current Hit Markers on a target for the next firearms weapon attack you make against it.

You may use this feature a number of times equal to half your proficiency bonus (rounded up), before having to finish a long rest to restore all charges.

Expertise

At 6th Level, choose two of your skill Proficiencies, or one of your skill Proficiencies and one of your job Proficiencies.

Your Proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of the chosen Proficiencies.

Firearms Expert

At the time a Gunslinger reaches 9th level, they have become accustomed to their weaponry so much that it becomes inevitable for most to choose a favorite. Those that already made a public name for themselves may even become known for their "trademark gun", which some care for to an uneering extent.

When you gain this feature, choose a firearms type (pistols, rifles, shotguns, snipers, heavy weaponry). Weapon attacks you make and abilities you use with the chosen type are treated as if the weapon had an additional (+1) affixed to it on top of any other boni (affecting Hit Bonus, Damage Bonus, Firearm Save DC). Furthermore, whenever you hit with an attack roll made with a weapon of the chosen type, you may reroll the lowest damage die once, and take the higher result. If the result is the same, you may treat the roll as the maximum of that damage die instead.

Finally, the first time you use your Leave an Impression feature each day with a firearm of the chosen type, it doesn´t consume a charge of the feature.

Deadly Markers

A Gunslinger that lives to reach 11th level already possess a font of experience unrivaled by even the most battle-hardened soldiers, law enforcers and outlaws. Effectively putting a death timer on their adversaries the second they enter a room, as letting such a gunslinger take even mere moments to lock-on his targets could be far to much already for them to see another day.

At the end of each of your turns, every creature of your choice that you can see within the optimal range of your currently equipped firearm gains a Hit Marker. If you do not have a firearm actively equipped when this feature triggers, its range is 30ft instead.

Finally, you may shift your built-up focus from one target to another in an instant: Choose a creature you can see within the optimal range of your currently equipped firearm. As a Bonus Action, you may transfer up to 10 Hit Markers from that creature to another creature within the same range that you can see. You may use this aspect of Deadly Markers once, before you have to finish a short rest to restore its charge.

Temper Control

At 11th level, Gunslingers are furthermore able to expand their own Gunner´s Calm onto their allies, exhibiting an aura of temperance in the heat of battle.

Every allied creature within 60 feet of you that can see you may benefit from the effects of Gunner´s Calm as well. Furthermore, you never suffer the disadvantage imposed on ranged attack rolls if a hostile creature is within 5 feet of you.

This trait temporarily ceases to function if you are unconscious, feared or visibly charmed.

Assessment

At 13th level, you gain the ability to peer at a creature and discern how best to hurt it. As an action, choose one creature you can see within 60 feet of you. You immediately learn whether the creature has any damage immunities, resistances, or vulnerabilities and what they are.

The first time each turn that you hit a creature assessed in this way with a damage type it is vulnerable to, it takes an additional 1d8 damage from the source. Every creature you can and do communicate your insights to may profit from the additional damage die as well.

In some cases, these effects may apply to all targets of the same closer species (i.e. paper wasps, plated crocodiles, bulletes...), up to the GM's discretion.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of once). You regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.

Blindsense

Starting at 14th level, if you are able to hear, you are aware of the Location of any hidden or Invisible creature within 10 feet of you.

Firearms Master

Gunners' Vision

One-Shot

Reaper Markers

At 3rd Level, Marksmen veer off the path that Canonniers and Dead-Eyes choose in many ways. One of them being that they do not primarily take interest in taking down a dozen foes at the same time; the greatest and most deadly threat is just quite enough. This philosophy enables them to accumulate focus on single targets at a much higher pace than any other gunslinger could dare to dream of.

Hitting or missing a target with a firearms attack generates not one but two Hit Markers instead. Additionally, if you are aiming at a target with any rifle-type firearm, the range at which you can accumulate Hit Markers by means of your Bonus Action increases to the maximum range of that firearm.

At 3rd Level, taking the most perfect shot becomes a central drive of any Marksmen, generating a kind of satisfaction on a success only explicable to their kind. Given enough time,

Whenever you make an attack roll against a target that you have accumulated at least 1 Hit Marker on, choose one of the following for that attack roll:

Every Hit Marker on the target reduces the threshold for a critical hit by 1.

Every Hit Marker on the target increases the result of your attack roll by 1.

At 3rd Level, the decision of refining your skills as a marksman freed you from much of the wild and hasty sprinting through close-combat battles. Instead, you honed a quite seldom ability amongst gunslingers: To remain perfectly calm and still, keeping all focus on your goal.

Whilst you are prone, you do not suffer disadvantage on ranged attack rolls and treat the absolute maximum range of ranged weapons as their optimal range (i.e. range (60/180) becomes (180/180). Furthermore, if you remain prone and don't move for at least 1 minute, your first ranged attack roll is made with advantage.

ALPHA STRIKE

At 7th level, Marksmen are capable enough to immediately make short work of less vigorous targets, or at least to open combat with a devastating strike, potentially shifting the tides of battle to their favour in instant.

Whenever you hit a target with a pistol or rifle firearms attack roll that has equal or less remaining hit points than the maximum damage roll of that weapon attack, you may reduce the target to 0 Hit Points instead of rolling for damage. If the target has any means of reducing, reflecting or otherwise interacting with incoming damage, that damage is treated as if you rolled the weapon's maximum damage.

Furthermore, whenever a global roll for initiative [Start of Combat] is demanded by your GM, you may take your Reaction immediately after the initiative order has been set to make an attack roll against a creature with a lower Initiative than your own. Only for this attack roll, you treat the target as surprised and as if it had 5 additional Hit Markers.

FOLLOW-UP

Furthermore at 7th level, Marksmen gain the ability to channel their focus into rapid follow-up shots, unachievable even to their peers with such normally cumbersome weaponry.

Whenever you take the Attack Action with a basic rifle or sniper rifle firearm against a target that has 5 or more Hit Markers, you may make one additional attack with that weapon against a target that has 5 or more Hit Markers. The targets do not have to be the same, but they must be within your optimal range.

The number of additional attacks you can make by means of this feature increases to two when you reach 11th level in this class and to three when you reach 20th level in this class.

The additional attacks provided by Follow-Up do not stack with other additional attacks gained from the Extra Attack feature of different classes, though you may choose which feature to apply whenever you take the Attack action.

SENTRY

Sharpshooters at 10th level possess the skill to not only swiftly adjust their weapon with utmost precision, even in fast-paced encounters that pose to begin and end within mere moments. Beyond that, they are by now capable of having one eye constantly on their allies. Not neccessarily to protect them. But most definitely to use every inch of insight they can build up on their targets. If, in the process, an ally is saved from a devastating blow... well, even the better.

When a creature that you can see within your current optimal firearms range would hit an allied creature with an attack roll, you may use your Reaction to make one weapon attack with your current firearm against that target, provided that it is within your optimal firearm range. This attack is treated as an opportunity-attack. The attacking creature then substracts half the damage dealt by you (rounded down) from its attack roll, with you potentially averting the hit. Critical hits on your opportunity attack always make the attacker fail the roll. Critical hits by the attacking creature can not be averted.

If the hit is averted, you gain 1 additional Hit Marker on the attacking creature (on top of those from Eyes on the Target). If the attacking creature hits anyways, you loose half the Hit Markers currently on it (rounded up), and don´t gain the Hit Markers you would regularly gain on a miss.

DEAD-EYE

MANY TO ONE

At 3rd level, gunslingers make a choice regarding the path they wish to continue on. Marksmen become the embodiment of elusive death, striking from outside of reach and bearing down on their companions´ adversaries with every single shot. Gunners make it their personal pleasure to wield impractical, bulky and outright hindering weapons of beautiful destruction. But Dead-Eyes see a different path: A gunslinger, which does not back away from the frontlines of battle, who throws himself into the fray, instincts and reflexes sharper than any blade of their martial brethern and sisters. Staring down their enemies at no less than point-blank range, they twist the ever-imminent threat of death into fuel for their senses. Within the blur of carnage, they find clarity´s trigger. And waste no single second.

Whenever you use your Bonus Action to apply Hit Markers to a creature by means of Mark the Target, you may either do so for up to 3 additional creatures you can see within 30 feet of you, or add an aditional Hit Marker to the original creature.

Furthermore, when taking the Attack Action with a firearm (pistol / shotgun / rifle only), you may make an additional Attack with the same weapon and ammunition against each creature within 30 feet of you that has 3 or more Hit Markers. You may take Skillshots against each of them as usual. You then loose 3 Hit Markers and don´t regain any by means of Mark the Target for each of those creatures, exempt the original target.

ADRENALIZED PRECISION

Furthermore, at 3rd level, Dead-Eyes have gained a capability much unlike their Gunner and Marksmen peers. Although all of them are vulnerable and much less durable than their martial companions may be, Dead-Eyes embrace this weakness, turning adrenaline and pain into ever-heightened focus. Wounded and cornered animals become unpredictable and desperate; wounded and cornered Dead-Eyes become grinning heralds of promised death.

Whenever you make an attack roll against a target that you have accumulated at least 1 Hit Marker on, choose one of the following for that attack roll; If your current Hit Points are equal to or less than 50% of your maximum Hit Points, use the values in parentheses instead:

Every Hit Marker on the target adds 1 [2] additional damage of the weapon´s ammunition-type on a hit. This damage is doubled [tripled] on a critical hit.

Every 3 Hit Markers on the target impose a stacking -1 [-2] malus to its AC, STR and DEX saving throws on a hit until the end of your next turn, up to a total of -5 [-10].

HIGH NOON

Finally, at 3rd level, Dead-Eyes take it up on a personal level when their opponents fail to properly land their strikes. Turning the sudden spike of alertness after a barely survived hit into reflexive retribution, Dead-Eyes will make sure that their adversaries better strike true the next time they dare to attack them - or take that chance forever away from them.

Whenever a creature misses you with a weapon attack roll, you may immediately use your Reaction to make a weapon attack against that creature with your currently wielded firearm (pistol / shotgun / rifle only), or alternatively a sheathed pistol. You must use the current magazine/ammunition of that firearm if you do so.

If you kill the triggering creature through High Noon, you may regain your Reaction.
Furthermore, if the killing blow was a critical hit, you immediately take an additional turn after the current initiative count.

UNENDING SHOOTOUT

At the time Dead-Eyes reach 7th level, they have seen so many skirmishes that combat blurs into an unending flow, where every shot, every dodge and every wound drifts seamlessly into another. Whenever one enemy falls, the next already awaits. Keeping their senses sharp, even through pain and chaos, a Dead-Eye can calmly reap through their foes. One by one.

Whenever a hostile creature that within 60 feet of you dies, you may use your Reaction to move its Hit Markers to another hostile creature within 60 feet of you. You must be able to see both creatures to do so. If 4 or more Hit Markers have been moved at once this way, you gain advantage on firearms attack rolls against the creature you moved them to until the end of your next turn.

If you deal the deathblow to a creature by means of High Noon, you may immediately move its Hit Markers (if any) by means of Unending Shootout as part of the same Reaction. You then regain your Reaction as usual.

CANNONIER