Gunslinger by Mage Hand Press – D&D 2024 (5.5e) Class Optimisation Guide

Shoot loads of guns with this firearm specialist class from the 3rd party book, Valda’s Spire of Secrets.

At a glance

Gunslinger features

Fighting style (Lv1) – 4/5

A fighting style is always a good option on weapon wielders. Obviously you’ll want to take a fighting style that fits a ranged combatant. That makes archery an obvious and strong option (with +2 to attack rolls).

However, gunslingers can apply fighting styles that are melee weapon exclusive, to their ranged weapons. This opens up feats like dueling and great weapon fighting. Dueling is good, but you have little need to keep a hand spare for a non-weapon item like a shield as you don’t have proficiency with shields (unless you take a feat or multiclass to get around this).

Great weapon fighting might be an option to protect against low damage rolls, but it’s one of the weaker fighting styles and works better on smaller damage dice (like a great sword gets).

Ultimately, archery ends up being your best fighting style unless you plan on using a weapon with the explosive mastery option. Two weapon fighting could also be an option if you intend to use a pair of light firearms for the additional attack you can make.

Quick draw (Lv1) – 3/5

Advantage on initiative will help you attack earlier in combat which is always useful.

Double drawing and stowing can help with weapons with the loading property. Normal rules in D&D 2024 are quite generous here anyway, but if you want to be using your extra attack, you can more easily draw and stow weapons as much as you like now.

Weapon mastery (Lv1) – 4/5

It’s always good to have some extra effects on your weapons and gunslingers get plenty of weapon mastery options. Which you pick depends on quite a few factors like damage or even how you coordinate with allies. You can check out my weapon mastery guide for more advice on this.

Critical shot (Lv2) – 5/5

Increased chances of critical hits is pretty good and the scaling hits early and goes further than even the champion fighter. Even from level 2, 10% of your ranged attacks will land a critical and by level 17, you’ll be landing critical hits 20% of the time. That’s quite a bit on a class with extra attack and if you play a dual wielder, you can be upping those odds even more (though the damage of your critical hits will be lower).

This could also make a decent 2 level multiclass dip for a rogue who hugely benefits from critical hits with their sneak attack dice (and sneak attack works with ranged weapons anyway). Especially as things like a fighting style and quick draw are also good for a rogue.

Risk (Lv2) – 5/5

You should be able to use your risk dice a lot. You’ll have 4-6 of them and they replenish on short or long rests so for many major encounters, you can likely look to use one per turn. Not only this, but they’re usable in a variety of circumstances.

You can temporarily up your AC against an attack, boost a failed saving throw, deal damage on a miss, gain temporary blindsight, dodge out of melee range safely or grant yourself temporary hit points.

That’s a fair bit and the impact is pretty substantial. The temporary hit points is a roll of your risk die + your gunslinger level. Already, this becomes quite substantial quickly and is probably of greater value than grazing shot once you hit mid to high levels. There’s a use case for all of these though making this a really good feature, despite some scaling at higher levels being much better for certain maneuvers.

Extra attack (Lv5) – 5/5

Extra attack is great on any martial class. This is essentially doubling your damage output which will be great.

Gut shot (Lv5) – 2/5

Considering that you land criticals on 10% of your attacks right now (and by level 9, this will be 15%), this means you should land a fair few critical hits, but that’s still only a bit less than one per encounter on average. While it lasts, it’s a decent debuff, but the sacrifice to remove it isn’t too high and enemy spellcasters may not even worry about it as they can switch to casting saving throw spells more.

So while this is a decent extra (remembering we already get extra attack at level 5), it won’t happen loads and isn’t too hard to end so probably isn’t hugely impactful.

Evasion (Lv7) – 4/5

Great defensive feature as many nasty effects require dexterity saving throws, especially AoE spells like fireball.

Overkill (Lv11) – 4/5

To explain this feature a bit more, Valda’s Spire of Secrets has some weapons designated as having the “firearms” property which prevents you adding your ability modifier to the damage of the roll (this doesn’t count for firearms in the Player’s Handbook which still add your ability modifier to damage). This might also occur if dual wielding hand crossbows and making the attack from the light property without having two weapon fighting.

Regardless of all this though, no matter the circumstances, you’re getting a fairly decent damage boost to your ranged weapon attacks for a pretty decent damage bump.

This does become more potent the more attacks you make, so there is a case here for a dual wielder with hand crossbows or handguns.

Cheat death (Lv13) – 4/5

Surviving being dropped to 0HP once every rest is decent for durability and you’ll get 14-21HP to help you survive for more than just a tickle after that making for a surprisingly durable gunslinger.

Dire gambit (Lv15) – 3/5

More risk dice to play around with is always welcome and from this point, you’ll be landing criticals on 15-20% of your attacks. You probably had enough to keep you going anyway, but more is always good.

Deft maneuver (Lv18) – 3/5

Half of your maneuvers need a bonus action to activate and this allows you to do so without disrupting other things you might be doing with your bonus action (like making an offhand attack). You could also activate 2 different bonus action maneuvers or make some other use for a bonus action (like an offhand weapon attack). You’re still limited by the number of risk dice you can use though, but I guess this way you can do a bit more in less time.

Headshot (Lv20) – 5/5

This is literally deadly! It relies on landing a critical hit, but those will happen for 20% of your attacks so you’ll likely have a chance to use this every encounter. It’s not always easy to time this on the right hit (you don’t want to waste it on a creature that’s about to die anyway), but this is a great finisher for creatures with reasonably hefty hit points still.

How good is the gunslinger?

Gunslingers are capable of some pretty solid amounts of ranged damage dealing. There’s safety at range, which is why it tends to be a little less damaging (at least with weapons) but gunslingers manage to bypass some of these by being really good at using ranged weapons. There’s also a decent amount of durability there too with easy access to plenty of temporary hit points, boosts to saving throws and AC, some evasiveness and even the ability to cheat death in true desperado style.

However, this is about all a gunslinger amounts to. Shooting lots of stuff at range and living long enough to tell the tale. There’s very little utility (beyond a high dexterity and early blindsight), they’re poor in melee combat and they have no kind of spellcasting.

The gunslinger also happens to be a luxury class. In this, what I mean is that most parties will benefit from certain roles. You want a frontline warrior to take the heat off of less durable classes, a healer to help everyone survive longer, a full spellcaster for the damage and utility that grants and probably some kind of utility expert and/or party face. Some classes fulfil multiple roles here too.

What you don’t need is a ranged weapon damage dealer. It’s not a bad thing to have, but in a party of 3-4 (the average and recommended party size), there’s not much room for a gunslinger. If you make a gunslinger your main party martial, then there’s not a lot they can do to protect everyone else other than kill as fast as humanly possible.

With that in mind, while the gunslinger does well in its role as damage dealer and survivor, it doesn’t do what most damage dealers also need to be able to do. It’s not tanking and taking heat off of everyone else, or being as potent as spellcasters that might be blasting fireballs at enemies. For that reason it’s docked a point. In a large party though, this can still be a solid class.

3/5

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Optimising a gunslinger build

Gunslingers are fairly straightforward to optimise (though the subclasses can alter things a little). Build for dexterity and damage dealing and pick up some ranged weapons. There is a bit more to it than that so I’ve outlined everything else to consider below too.

Ability scores

Recommended options

• Dexterity: Essential for a gunslinger. You’re going to be using this for your ranged weapon attacks as well as for your DC on things like your maneuvers. It will also help get your AC looking decent.
• Constitution: More hit points is always good and will help you last longer.
• Charisma: This can technically be dumped if you want, but high rollers will want this looking decent and I’d argue that any subclass other than the spellslinger should have space for one more ability score that’s decent. For little other reason than it works thematically and you have the option of a couple of face skills, I’d suggest investing at least a bit in charisma.

Options to avoid

• Strength: You’ll be making all your weapon attacks with dexterity and if you do have to get into melee combat, a dagger will do for those desperate situations (or just use dodge roll to move away). The exception here is the gun tank who may want to use strength for their attacks. You might also want 13 strength if you plan on using a heavy weapon.
• Intelligence: Unless you’ve taken the spellslinger subclass, you’ve no need for intelligence.
• Wisdom: This can be dumped.

Ability score	Point Buy	Standard Array
Strength	8	13
Dexterity	15	15
Constitution	15	14
Intelligence	8	8
Wisdom	8	10
Charisma	15	12

Skills

Recommended options

• Acrobatics: Will be used a fair bit and is quite good on a dexterity build.
• Deception: Good option if you’ve got the charisma for it.
• Intimidation: Another good option if you have the charisma for it.
• Perception: Always a useful skill for anyone and works thematically too.
• Persuasion: One of the more important face skills so a good choice if you’ve invested in charisma.
• Sleight of hand: You should have a strong dexterity. If you’re lacking a rogue, then you could moonlight as the sneaky one.
• Stealth: Similarly, you should have the dexterity for this and even if you have a stealth expert like a rogue, they aren’t the only ones that need to sneak around.

Species

As a gunslinger, you’ll likely want your species to help you with certain aspects of your build including:

• Evasiveness: Gunslingers are already a bit evasive, but more of this will help them keep shooting instead of getting bogged down in melee.
• Damage dealing: Gunslingers are all about dealing as much damage as possible. More of this will always be good.

Recommended options

• Aasimar: 2 resistances will help you toughen up and you get some light healing. The main thing though is temporary flight allowing you to fly out of range and rain shots down at enemies.
• Changeling (FotA): A charisma build might work well as a Changeling as you get 2 more face skills, advantage on face skills and you can shapeshift to change your appearance. Works well if you want to deceive and impersonate.
• Dragonborn: A choice of a resistance and a breath weapon for some crowd control works great. Temporary flight will allow you to shoot from a safer position and likely away from melee combat.
• Geppetin (VSoS): I’d go for the bisque variant as you’ll get enhanced weapon damage in turn 1 and improved charisma skills plus a few extras.
• Goliath: Lots of good options with the giant ancestry. Cloud’s jaunt could be used when out of risk dice, fire’s burn will allow you to deal even more damage and frost’s chill will damage and slow enemies down.
• Human: Plenty of heroic inspiration, an extra origin feat and another skill to give you a little more utility. Alert could be a good option as you’ll not only get even better initiative that stacks with quick draw, but can also hand your initiative score to someone that will benefit from it more.
• Near-Human (VSoS): An extra skill and a choice of many Near-Human feats. There are loads of options but something like reptiloid or stoneborn work well.

Backgrounds

Much of the choice behind your background comes down to the proficiencies you want to take. Gunslingers will want to prioritise dexterity and constitution with some possibly taking charisma and the spellslinger wanting intelligence. You’ll also want skills that reflect these ability scores and origin feats that work well for a gunslinger.

Name	Ability scores	Origin feat	Skill proficiencies	Tool proficiency
Criminal	Dexterity, constitution, intelligence	Alert	Sleight of hand, stealth	Thieves tools
Charlatan	Dexterity, constitution, charisma	Skilled	Deception, sleight of hand	Forgery kit
Entertainer	Strength, dexterity, charisma	Musician	Acrobatics, performance	One kind of musical instrument
Guide	Dexterity, constitution, wisdom	Magic initiate (druid)	stealth, survival	Cartographer’s tools
Horizon weaver initiate (AU)	Dexterity, constitution, wisdom	Portal jumper	Acrobatics, survival	Weaver’s tools
Ice fisher (HoF)	Strength, dexterity, constitution	Alert	Animal handling, athletics	Woodcarver’s tools
Mulhorandi tomb raider (HoF)	Dexterity, constitution, intelligence	Lucky	Investigation, religion	Mason’s tools
Shadowmaster’s exile (HoF)	Dexterity, intelligence, charisma	Savage attacker	Acrobatics, stealth	Thieves’ tools
Soldier	Strength, dexterity, constitution	Savage attacker	Athletics, intimidation	One kind of gaming set
Wayfarer	Dexterity, wisdom, charisma	Lucky	Insight, stealth	Thieves’ tools

Choosing your subclass

Gunslingers choose their subclass at level 3 and have 9 to choose from. They are:

Feats

Origin feats

• Alert – Stacks with quick draw and will allow you to swap your superior initiative with allies that need to go early in combat more.
• Lucky – Always a useful feat for granting advantage or disadvantage on d20 tests.
• Musician – A universally great feat for dishing out heroic inspiration.
• Portal jumper (AU) – Save some risk dice and a bonus action by moving out of range of melee attackers with some of your movement instead.
• Skilled – If you lack a skills expert in the group, gunslingers tend to have high dexterity and possibly a high charisma which can be useful for scouts or a party face. This will help you to increase your skill proficiencies so you can do more utility.
• Tough – More hit points is always useful, though gunslingers are perhaps more durable than most non-melee classes.

General feats

• Mage slayer – Best against mages, but having what is practically legendary resistance is also great.
• Marksman’s luck (VSoS) – Once per turn, transform a really bad damage roll into a really good one.
• Sharpshooter – You’re going to be making ranged weapon attacks a lot. You don’t want to be hampered by long range, cover or enemies being really close so this can tackle all those things.
• Speedy – Good for hit and run tactics when you don’t want to use your bonus action on disengaging.
• Spell resistant (AU) – A damage resistance and some magic resilience is great for increasing your durability further.

Weapons

The obvious kind of weapon is ranged weapons for a gunslinger as this is what takes advantage of their features. You’ll need to be careful of the loading property and your extra attack, but as it’s easy enough for you to draw and stow weapons, I’d be tempted to grab a pair of muskets and keep swapping them in and out (there’s nothing in the rules that says they need to be reloaded, just that you can only make one attack with them per round).

With all the extra firearms in Valda’s Spire of Secrets, I’d be really tempted to grab a few different weapons for a few different purposes. For instance, a grenade launcher is great for when you want a small AoE. A sniper rifle is great for really long range attacks and a gatling gun or assault rifle can be great for spraying loads of shots at easy to hit targets. This obviously costs a fair bit, so you may need to build your arsenal over time.

Armor

You should be playing a dexterity build and gunslingers are only proficient in light armor so studded leather is usually your best option and is fairly cheap. However, Valda’s Spire of Secrets does also have brigandine armor which is +1 AC compared to studded leather, if you can find some. Neither are especially expensive either.

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