PF2e Gunslinger Guide: Ways, Archetypes & Combat Tactics

Front Toward Enemy: A Guide to the PF2e Gunslinger

About the gunslinger & the guide
Weapon primer
Class features primer
Ways
Arcanum & Ancestries
Items & Gear
Archetypes
Background, Skills, & Feats
Noteworthy skill feats & general feats
Drifters & weapons lists
Sniper, Pistolero, Spellshot, Triggerbrand, Vanguard weaponry
Faqs & final notes

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About the gunslinger & the guide

The gunslinger is somewhat of an odd duck of a martial class. While it boasts the strongest weapon proficiency in the game for firearms and crossbows (progression on par with fighters), for the most part, it’s not quite the single-target damage powerhouse that a fighter is. What a gunslinger does bring to the table largely comes down to the choice of Way, detailed in depth later in the guide. Drifters and Pistoleros come with vibes like those of The Man with No Name and the era of the classic spaghetti westerns. Snipers mete out their justice from afar, hiding in advantageous positions and picking off targets at range. Triggerbrands evoke the flair of Final Fantasy-style gunblade users. Vanguards are somewhat similar, getting into the fray and maneuvering their enemies into submission. Spellshots are the oddest of the bunch, relying on a class archetype and shifting some of their power and potential to their intellect. Each of these Ways brings something largely different to a group, providing potential for a role as a flanking skirmisher, face, ranged striker, athletics controller, or versatile librarian. There is some overlap among these roles depending on how you build. These Ways all have an associated skill and much of the kit revolves around the use of said skill. That said, since each Way only relies on one skill, you have a bit of build flexibility. DEX being your key attribute score means that acrobatics and stealth are great options for any Way, not just Drifters and Snipers. Likewise, thievery isn’t just limited to the purview of Triggerbrands. As for mental stats, INT tends to be the exclusive realm of Spellshots, and CHA, for the most part, the same for Pistoleros. WIS, however, is useful for any build should you be able to fit it in. It shores up a weak will save progression, synergizes well with the third best perception progression in the game, and can open up several encounter mode and exploration mode options.

The name of the game with gunslingers is action economy. Normal firearm or crossbow usage would generally take up at least two of your actions per turn to Strike and reload. Each Way has a core level 1 feature that eases the action economy of reloading, dictating much of the Way’s early level gameplay. Several of the feats on offer also have to do with improved action economy, allowing for eased mobility and / or multiple attacks within compressed actions. Don’t expect too many reactions, though. There are a few (notably, Fake Out), but it certainly doesn’t hurt to augment your reaction choices with ancestry feats and maybe an archetype feat here and there.

For the most part, this guide focuses on common options, but uncommon options are impossible to avoid with an uncommon class that uses (mostly) uncommon weapons. If your GM allows you to play a gunslinger, they’ve already allowed at least one uncommon option. That is not to say that you should assume uncommon choices will automatically be available in any given game, and it’s entirely possible that your GM will only allow common crossbows for your weapons. For the rest of this guide, if you only see me mention firearms, consider that mention to also imply crossbow usage. With all that said, other than firearms themselves, I try to identify uncommon options where they exist and where they appropriately relate to gunslinger gameplay. Also, within the gunslinger class, there are some major mechanical differences between crossbows and firearms. For example, any of the feats which have misfire outcomes only function with firearms. You can’t choose feats like Risky Reload or Alchemical Shot unless you’re using a firearm, which bear the possibility for misfires.

This is a guide oriented toward optimization, but you should understand that optimization is not achieved in a vacuum in Pathfinder 2e. Your effectiveness will depend on your party, and your party’s effectiveness will depend on you. As such, please recognize that I can’t possibly capture the nuance of every table. I make a lot of generalizations in this guide and point out where situational options are likely to work well, as well as some recommendations regarding how to make certain options work with certain parties. There are plenty of fun choices that are passable and even effective, but may be such only in the right group and under the right circumstances. Please do not consider this guide a comprehensive be-all, end-all.

This guide is designed such that you can jump to any portion of it and get a full understanding of the available options. If you read this guide from start to finish, be aware that you will see repeat information.

Regarding attribute score optimization, you’re generally going to see the following progression, assuming two free attribute boosts from your ancestry (not including apex item boost):

(1) +4 DEX / +3 / +1 / +1 / 0 / 0

(5) +4↑ DEX / +4 / +2 / +2 / 0 / 0

(10) +5 DEX / +4↑ / +3 / +3 / 0 /0

(15) +5↑ DEX / +5 / +4 / +3 / +1 / 0

(20) +6 DEX / +5 / +4 / +4 / +2 / +1

Or:

(1) +4 DEX / +2 / +2 / +1 / 0 / 0

(5) +4↑ DEX / +3 / +3 / +2 / 0 / 0

(10) +5 DEX / +4 / +4 / +3 / 0 / 0

(15) +5↑ DEX / +4↑ / +4↑ / +4 / 0 / 0

(20) +6 DEX / +5 / +5 / +4 / +1 / 0

If you choose an ancestry with a favorable attribute spread, you may start off with +4 DEX / +3 /

+2 /

+1 / 0 / -1 or +4 DEX / +3 / +2 / 0 / 0 / 0. Both of those spreads are fine as well.

Your second most important attribute score should, most of the time, be the one tied to your

Way skill, although a starting +3 in WIS can help your party out if needed (medicine) and shore

up some of your own strengths and weaknesses. In the Ways section, I provide

recommendations as to how you can best build your attribute distribution. While you can sort of

get away with a starting +3 DEX due to your progression, +4 starting DEX is the better choice

because it plays to one of your most important strengths: high crit chance. Additionally, Snipers

have the most flexibility in their starting scores since they only realistically need DEX.

If you have questions, comments, or recommendations, please feel free to message me on

reddit as u/double_blammit.

Weapon primer

Since firearms and crossbows are the very core of gunslinger gameplay, this section exists to

give you an awareness of how they work at baseline. The idea here is for you to be able to

parse the ways that gunslinger interacts with or changes a firearm’s or crossbow’s functions.

Importantly, many firearms bear the fatal (aim) trait, which heavily incentivizes MAP-free

ranged Strikes due to the greater likelihood and greater damage value of a crit success.

This means that builds incorporating a melee option (including athletics skill actions) generally

want their first attack in any given round to be that of their fatal (or sometimes deadly) weapon.

This is not always the case, but it is a strong rule of thumb, especially prior to gaining feats that

improve melee Strikes.

One feature of firearms you should be aware of for level 1 gameplay is that most firearms are

relatively expensive. The cheapest firearm costs 5 gp, though there is one way to get a free

firearm at level 1 (uncommon dwarf ancestry feat).

Misfires: For the most part, you don’t need to worry about misfires. The only general occasion

for a weapon to misfire is when you don’t maintain it as part of your daily preparations. It should

be pretty rare that you aren’t afforded the usual hour every day for daily preparations (and you

can generally clean up to five firearms during daily preparations). If you aren't able to maintain

your weapon(s), every time you fire your firearm, you have a 20% chance of a misfire (DC 5 flat

check). The triggering attack becomes a critical failure and you can’t use the weapon again until

you’ve used an Interact action to clear it. For the most part, though, you’re only going to see

misfires as a component of various traits and feats. Misfires are primarily used in these traits

and feats as a means of balancing a powerful effect, causing you to risk extra strain on your

action economy to get those powerful effects.

● A note on familiars: while former Paizo dev Mark Seifter has clarified how familiars with

the Independent and Manual Dexterity abilities function when reloading a weapon (they

more-or-less don’t; see below), that clarification has not been extended to misfires. The

most likely intended way for familiars to function when attempting to clear a jammed

weapon is the same as that of reloading, but since that clarification has yet to

materialize, you should consult with your GM.

Range: Your range increment dictates how far you can shoot the weapon. The Range value

listed for any given weapon is the maximum of its first range increment, out to which you will not

suffer a penalty to attacks. Your maximum range is 6x the number listed in the Range entry for

your weapon, with stacking -2 penalties for each range increment beyond the first, to a

maximum of -10 out to the furthest part of your sixth range increment. Gunslingers get several

means of easing range increment penalties.

Reload: This value dictates how many Interact actions it takes to reload a single round of

ammunition into your weapon. After you have made a Strike with your weapon or used certain

class feats / features that require you to discharge your weapon, you’ll have to reload in order to

perform any of those actions / activities again. With firearms and crossbows that have a Reload

value of 2, it’s up to your GM whether or not you can use your Slinger’s Reload or other

reload-related feats for each of the required Interact actions, making Reload 2 weapons in

general drastically less valuable for you (unless your GM is willing to play ball, in which case

they’re just a huge pain instead of totally worthless). Reload 2 weapons are particularly painful

in tandem with feats that have a misfire component, requiring a total of 3 actions to shoot again

on a misfire. Combination weapons, explored more in the traits section below, offer somewhat of

an easier time with Reload 2 weapons due to the fact that you can use them for melee attacks

at maximum proficiency in between Reload actions.

● A note on hand usage: while technically you need a free hand to reload a weapon, the

actions used to reload automatically include changing your grip to have a free hand and

re-gripping the weapon. This is of particular value for two-handed weapons since you

won’t have to worry about putting away or dropping anything in order to have a free

hand. Additionally, all reloads, including your Slinger’s Reload and reload feats,

allow you to re-grip your weapon even if you used the Release basic action to take

a hand off your weapon prior to reloading. Also important: that is not the case with

one-handed weapons. You have to either drop them (since Releasing a one-handed

weapon implies it’s dropped) or stow them in order to have a free hand to reload, unless

you have a feature that eases hand requirements for reloading with both hands occupied

such as the Dual Weapon Reload feat or the Drifter’s Slinger’s Reload. There are also

some trait interactions with the Reload value that I detail below in the traits section.

● A note on familiars: as mentioned above, Mark Seifter has clarified the way familiars work for reloading when they have the Independent and Manual Dexterity abilities.

Reloading requires a creature to be wielding the weapon they’re reloading. As such, in

order to have your familiar reload a weapon, you’d have to spend an action to transfer it

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Archetypes

Below, I have listed some of the acceptable and, in some cases, even good choices for

archetypes should you want to use one. The ratings below exist to denote how viable an

archetype is. The ratings should not indicate to you that you should take every single feat I have

listed, only that you can pull value relative to the rating from any given archetype. Not all

archetype feats are listed, just those that are acceptable or stand-out choices. Also, the list

below is not exhaustive. You can make other archetypes work, these are just generally the more

appropriate, thematic, or synergistic choices. On a similar note, there are several archetypes

that can add some value to Spellshots due to their INT-based natures, but are very difficult to fit

into a Spellshot build because they aren’t available until level 10 at the earliest (or 8 with free

archetype variant rules).

Multiclass Archetypes

The alchemist archetype gives a few improvements to alchemy, such as earlier quick alchemy

and some capability to regenerate versatile vials, but the +2 INT requirement is tough to meet

without aiuvarin Multitalented. Champion is similarly difficult to meet attribute requirements, with

no Way doing well investing in both STR and CHA. It does give you a bit of extra AC with heavy

armor and some great reactions, though, which are decent gains from Multitalented.

Thaumaturge doesn’t offer a whole lot, but you can get master will proficiency at level 12 rather

than 17 with Canny Acumen. Monk is the other means of getting master will proficiency early,

but requires +2 STR and DEX rather than CHA. Cleric and cosmos oracle are also worth a

mention since you can get the cloak of shadow domain spell without having to rely on an

uncommon archetype.

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Sparking Spellgun (*): Easy access to persistent fire damage and the dazzled condition,

with a good chance to instead Blind. It’ll work best with Pistoleros due to the one-handed usage.

Especially useful against enemies with fire weakness because it’s so very easy to apply the

persistent damage.

(5) Wounding Oil (**): (U) Mostly useful for Drifters to set themselves up for exsanguinating

ammunition.

(6+) Conduit Shot (**): (MC) Helps improve your caster ally’s AoE spells, but with some level

limitations.

(6) Oil of Swiftness (**): (U) The speed rune is quite strong, albeit rare. Getting its effects

temporarily from an uncommon item is much more likely to pass muster. You should still expect

to only get two Strikes in a turn, making this item less useful for effects like Dance of Thunder,

but it’ll open your turn up for an extra reload, Slinger’s Reload, mobility, or other more niche

uses like true strike.

(6) Singing Muse (*): (U) This rating is only for the pistol phenom archetype. Being able

to turn performance check successes into crit successes will be incredible for Pistol Twirl’s Feint

(even better with Showstopper), Gunpowder Gauntlet’s debuff, the buff from Phenom’s Verve,

and Whirling Knockdown.