Gunslinger Class Preview

[Trese Brothers]

We wanted to share the next class for the game will be the Gunslinger! Before we put a wrap on this pistol-heavy Talent list, we like to put out a call to the community for cool Talent and ability ideas and suggestions.

The Gunslinger's Gunlink spinal implant hardwires them to their chosen weaponry, allowing them to move and fire with something more than reflex, something more than instinct. Like the fabled duelists of the Old West, the Gunslinger walks with a quiet confidence, their guns ready to speak for them. They live by the gun, and they walk through the fire with calm precision.

Gunslingers are combatants who focus on carrying dual Pistols or Revolvers, or using a Pistol or Revolver as a sidearm. This design keeps them very open to multi-class and to freedom of weapon choice, even if a segment of their tree is only available when Dual Wielding. Gunslinger will have an Overwatch Talent. The Gunslinger will also have a segment of their tree that is not linked to Pistols and provides interesting combat utility abilities that could link well with any other class.

The class requires a Gunlink implant in the Spinal slot.

Got cool ideas for Talents/passives we could include with this class?

(now up on our Discord[discord.com] as well)

[[Heretic]Rivga]

"Hold up" instead of killing a person you can point a gun to them and stop them reacting. A kind of "stand still or I will shoot you"
An upgraded version of this could be "Hostage" you can move the person along with yourself at half speed.

Imagine the hacker is hooked in and a guad comes along. Well the gunslinger can use "Hold up" to stop him and hostage to move him to a corner we he cannot be seen, by other guards.
Wait until the hacker is finished, maybe a few rounds, the kill or hit the guard. Advantage is it does ot set of his bio signature thingy, disadvantage the gunslinger is stuck next to the guard until he finishes the hold up.

[[Heretic]Rivga]

Reactive shot or quick draw, gunslinger gets to shoot first time before someone shoots at them.
High level passive

[[Heretic]Rivga]

Concealed weapon - with pistols being small at first glance the gunslinger does not appear to be a threat. With a simple "hi I am lost" or "Hi I am the new guy" th enemy is confused for a few seconds and loses a round.
Function, an active ability thay stuns the enemy for a round.

[Trese Brothers]

Originally posted by HereticRivga:

Reactive shot or quick draw, gunslinger gets to shoot first time before someone shoots at them.
High level passive

This concept fits pretty well with 2 mentioned on the Discord -

Passive: Quickdraw--
If the Gunslinger is shot at while wielding a pistol or revolver, the Gunslinger immediately returns fire, no more than once per Turn.

Passive: Snapshot--
If the Gunslinger attacks an enemy who has them in Overwatch, the Gunslinger draws and fires first. If the enemy is hit, their Overwatch is canceled before they can take their reaction shot. Requires a Pistol or Revolver.

[Berthold]

An idea stolen from the "finger trick" I think it was called in Stephen King's Gunslinger:

For the next X turns (# of turns to make this worthwhile would be a balance decision, but I think 2 or 3 at most) when using a revolver, the gunslinger slides new cartridges in while firing. Automatically reload after every shot without using AP. [Or you could just make shots not use ammo while it's up].

The idea being that for a brief period a revolver-user could engage in a frenetic series of moves and shots. Possibly somewhat limited by recoil but it would still be fun to play.

Edit - just looked it up. in the books the trick came with a downside that if used for too long it would burn his fingertips. that could add a bit of flavor to it.

[[Heretic]Rivga]

Flashy: the style and panache of the gunslinger means attention is on him, making it easier for his friends to get shots off on enemies. An accuracy bonus vs an enemy

[Denshihaya]

Double Tap - This pistol/revolver attack fires two shots instead of one at the same target
Would allow the gunslinger to kill an enemy with one pistol attack instead of two (or more), as is normal. Low level single wield talent.

Hail of bullets - This dual pistol/revolver attack empties the clips of the weapons across its firing arc. Mechanically, it would be like treating the pistols as full auto for this attack. High level dual wield.
A different idea is
Shooting gallery - Attack of as many targets in firing arc as there are bullets in the gun, one shot per target. Gunslinger version of slashslide. Mid level talent, not restricted to pistols/revolvers.

Deadeye - I don't know how to make this different from aim lock, crosshair lock, or hit streak (does anyone use hit streak?) but something that gives a benefit to crit and/or accuracy would be a good addition. Maybe a hit streak kind of mechanic that isn't canceled by movement but only lasts one turn to encourage multiple attacks in a turn, with a more than 3 turn cooldown and a high level upgrade that would allow it to spill into another turn.

I need to put some thought into utility talent ideas apart from the shooty ones.....

As for the finger trick mentioned above, I think a free reload talent is a great idea, would like it not to be restricted to revolvers, which means the backstory would have to change.

I am so excited for this class. Are there plans to have the gunlink be a chooseable starting cyberware for the Knight so they can multiclass at the beginning?

[Denshihaya]

Sneaky Varmint - If Hidden or Hunted, move without generating sound or recoil. Some upgrades give a bonus to accuracy/dmg/crit for longer distance moved. May not be used if status is Spotted. Canceled by attack or detection.

Sheriff - Passive. Allies within X m gain bonuses when attacking an enemy that the Gunslinger hit during this turn (or previous turn on upgrade).

High Noon - Passive. Gunslinger gets bonuses when attacking an enemy that can see him. I try very hard to shoot from out of sight - this would be a different playstyle for me.

Tin Can - debuff drones/give bonuses to attacks versus drones. Without drones in the game or an idea how the drone talents for other classes synergize, it's kind of hard to think of a good talent.

I like the Snapshot. I suggest an upgrade is to make it AoE to neighboring enemies that also have overwatch.

Concealed Weapon is an interesting idea - a different option than stun is for the Gunslinger to be able to pass visual inspection for a turn + upgrades. So guards, drones, and cameras can't detect, but everything else that doesn't rely on what she looks like (radar, proximity mines, motion sensors, lasers, etc.) would be unaffected. Would only work on guards that were Unaware (and maybe Suspicious), not Hunting or Alerted. It would be a unique ability !

[Denshihaya]

Inspired by westerns where the heroes run through enemy gunfire from cover to cover to get a better shot.

Cover me - When running to a destination that will provide cover, the gunslinger is immune to 1 overwatch hit. Upgrades increase movement speed, grant mp, give cover bonus, and increase immunity to more hits. Cannot be used if the gunslinger won't reach cover.

Posse - Give allies within x meters additional mp, evasion, cover bonus. Top upgrade might give some ap.

[[Heretic]Rivga]

I feel the class needs some utility to do stealth missions, or certainly the stealth part of missions. Otherwise he will be left on the bench a huge percentage if the time.

Secondly while I love this concept more than a soldier for missions, as taking hand gun to missions and specialising in that is much more realistic than and assault rifle. The issue is if the gunslinger needs a mod to be a gunslinger - he has to be better than a soldier to warrant that cyber mod, which is a loss of potential.

[Berthold]

Just thinking out loud here but I don't think that a gunslinger would be mutually exclusive with soldier, especially since you could multiclass your gunslinger *into* soldier and pick and choose the abilities you want.

Also, a fundamental issue with using a gunslinger for stealth missions is that revolvers - and this is the only class I can think of that would *want* to use revolvers specifically so I wouldn't want to tune the class away from that - can't equip silencers. No matter what talents you give a gunslinger it's never going to be optimal per se to use them for stealth missions, and perhaps the answer is to embrace that. There are combat missions, and they'll be good for that; there are playstyles that turn stealth missions into combat missions, and they'll be good for that; and you can also bring them along on stealth missions as muscle not because they're "good" at stealth but as a contingency if the stealthy part of things just doesn't work out as planned. They don't have to be good at everything.

Also, I could see a role for them as a sort of Legwork specialist in addition to combat missions.

That said, there is a part of the gunslinger archetype that does lend itself to a stealthy interpretation - that part of the movie where the previously unnoticed gunslinger emerges from a shadowy corner or behind a tree, etc, with their target square in their sights. A talent like the Vanguard's "Blend" would work perfectly for that.

[Trese Brothers]

All of the class trees are large enough to embody many archetypes in one. Revolvers are part of the gunslinger tree but so are pistols, which can be the ultimate stealth. We can think of dual wielding gunslingers who silence their pistols and shoot to kill at close range, so there is room for that too.

[flashbackflip]

Originally posted by Berthold:

An idea stolen from the "finger trick" I think it was called in Stephen King's Gunslinger:

For the next X turns (# of turns to make this worthwhile would be a balance decision, but I think 2 or 3 at most) when using a revolver, the gunslinger slides new cartridges in while firing. Automatically reload after every shot without using AP. [Or you could just make shots not use ammo while it's up].

The idea being that for a brief period a revolver-user could engage in a frenetic series of moves and shots. Possibly somewhat limited by recoil but it would still be fun to play.

Edit - just looked it up. in the books the trick came with a downside that if used for too long it would burn his fingertips. that could add a bit of flavor to it.

i came here for THIS to type)))

one love, brother 🤜🤛

[Berthold]

Originally posted by Trese Brothers:

All of the class trees are large enough to embody many archetypes in one. Revolvers are part of the gunslinger tree but so are pistols, which can be the ultimate stealth. We can think of dual wielding gunslingers who silence their pistols and shoot to kill at close range, so there is room for that too.

Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to imply that pistol-slingers weren't a thing. I guess I'd put it this way: there should be *room* in the game for a revolver-specialized gunslinger, and if one insists that every single class and spec be "good" (in and of itself, without multiclassing) for stealth missions then one really makes it difficult for that archetype to ever be considered viable. Whereas it seems to me that it would be better to have room for the different combat-heavy classes/specs to not be as good at some things in order to have their own niche. And then the option to multi-class, on top of that, lets you shore up the weaknesses or tweak the strengths to enable the kind of playstyle you want.

And I feel like that is kind of what you guys have done. Combat classes have some basic utility tools in common but not all of them, and they aren't exactly 1-for-1 interchangeable in what they provide.

[Trese Brothers]

@Berthhold - agreed agreed, I think we're all thinking the same thing. The open multi-classing system is built - as you said - to support this merging that can make a combat-heavy class into a viable stealth class and visa versa.

So - agreed, Gunslinger will not be a stealth class, there are far too many amazing combat Talent ideas :D Like Solider, they will have a single stealth-utility Talent but if you really want to make a John Wick or whatever, the multi-classing door awaits you.

And then multi-classing into combat classes will stay interesting too. Soldier+Sniper can be a very powerful combo and we want to be sure that Sniper+Gunslinger and Soldier+Gunslinger are both interesting and powerful as well.

Multi-class combinations go boom <3