The Gunslinger Class by heavyarms | Homebrew Review/How-to-Play

[Music] so [Music] so it's finally here now in the public and we get to talk about the gun singer class from heavy arms now i got to play test this thing or rather i had a player play test this at my tables uh they were wanting the more like wild west kind of a character out of their gunslinger and they were originally playing mage jam presence and while i think that one fits a good spot for a campaign setting agnostic kind of a gunslinger this one by heavy arms just feels like it gets across all the you know arthur morgan kind of red dead redemption gunslinger tropes that you're really really wanting out of like a more western influenced gunslinger this gunslinger also feels like the ranged barbarian in a way rather than the kind of ranged monk which to me was a huge huge selling point in getting across this idea of whenever you're in a firefight you want to keep in the middle of that fire fight we're going to go through today i'm going to kind of run down the base class image features uh the separate subclasses might be their own video but as of right now i've had a lot of requests to take a look at this one and talk you all sort of through the base class and its features and kind of explain why i love this gunslinger so much more than probably some other options i've seen out there so let's start this off who is heavy arms if you know about the complete armorers handbook then you're very familiar with heavy's work this is i know that he's contributed to a lot of other stuff since the complete armorers handbook but i think this is his first big solo thing since releasing that uh i'm not super sure let me know in the comments heavy if i got that wrong uh but he's got a whole bunch of other stuff planned that looks to be extremely exciting for the upcoming year heavy is also another creator that's moving away from publishing on the dungeon masters guild so we're seeing his first ogl class published over on his own website so uh pretty exciting to see some creators out there actually making a name for themselves through their own means so just as a disclaimer before we get super super into this one uh heavy arms is a sponsor mine over on patreon but i was play testing this before he became a patreon sponsor uh we've gotten into each other pretty well just through being home from designers so just know that before i get into this review heavy and i are pretty familiar with each other and i was part of the play testing uh well on in an unofficial capacity uh i did get to play tests at my tables so my first thing right out of the bat man dude heavy you killed it with the layout work on this one i i love this first page right here of the class this just feels like if this is going to be your your trade dress moving forward through bravo this is a great style to move forward with and i also just really dig overall the look like it just feels like you've got the aesthetic you were going for across just yeah let's do some sexy layout appreciation you incorporated your logo into the artwork both columns for your class features are even and take up the entire page you develop a consistent look throughout the entire product you commissioned artists [Music] okay now i don't know how to get in this minute so we're just gonna go back to the video let's move into the stuff that i know that you all are gonna be really really interested in and that's gonna be the base class and its features so this is a gunslinger that's going to have a d8 hit die which i feel makes a lot of sense they're going to have these extremely deadly weapons and they're going to want to stay probably in the i'm going to say most likely the mid to back line they're going to get proficiency with light armor weapons simple weapons firearms and whips tools are thieves tools tinker's tools or one type of gaming set saving throws are going to be dexterity and charisma and your skills you're going to choose to from animal handling athletics insight intimidation perception sleight of hand stealth and survival as far as equipment goes you get leather armor and a simple weapon of your choice a sidearm and 20 rounds a a hand cannon and 20 rounds or b a repeating rifle in 20 rounds or c a sawed off shotgun and 20 shotgun shells a an engineers pack or b an explorer's pack and then you can forego the starting equipment to get 64 x 10 gold pieces to buy your equipment getting into this class and its features number one this first level feature right here feels so foundational and uh class identity defining to me to what a gunslinger should be that like i i just can't imagine a gunslinger without something like this moving forward deadeye at first level in combat you find your flow with deadly efficiency whenever you hit a creature with a ranged weapon attack the lowest number you must roll on the d20 to score a critical hit with subsequent ranged weapon attacks decreases by 1. you can gain this benefit multiple times but it can't reduce the threshold for scoring a critical hit below 16. you lose this benefit if you miss with an attack and become incapacitated or if your turn ends and you haven't attacked a hostile creature since your last turn so the overall crit threshold is reduced but you have to be able to keep hitting your attacks it also functions like rage in a way right here where you have to keep making these attacks if you end your turn and you haven't attacked a hostile creature since your last turn you're gonna lose out on this crit threshold reduction so and then the rest of it at 14th level whenever you land the hit it reduces it by two rather than just one but it still can't reduce the threshold below a 16. yeah and this to me this is exactly what i would want out of a gunslinger right here rolling out at first level uh bravo this is such a cool foundational feature and then here at first level you also get bad medicine you can roll two additional weapon damage die when determining the extra damage or a critical hit with a firearm the number of additional weapon damage dice increases as you gain levels in this class as shown in the bad medicine column of the gunslinger table so the number of damage dies it basically increases at the same level that your proficiency bonus is going to increase this is making firearms feel so much more devastating like the firearm that you would kind of expect them to be uh without making them or rather without giving them the kind of higher damage damage dice like 2d8 or 2d10 or whatever right here these are all starting at really reasonable damage dice right 1d8 piercing 1d6 piercing 1d10 piercing 1d10 piercing windings and piercing they all have some different kinds of mechanics to them but they're nothing that i think if you played with matthew mercer's gunslinger that's going to look all that unfamiliar uh or if you've looked at the guns that are in the dungeon masters guide then these are going to look all that super foreign uh sure some of them have these features like loud uh loud is the kind of thing that i think kind of brings firearms into a sense of balance uh if you want to get aggressive you're gonna immediately break stealth there's no way that you're gonna be able to hide from anything in the dungeon you're gonna alert everything within a 300 foot radius as soon as you fire a firearm down into a dungeon like yeah so these weapons are rolling out already a bit more devastating you're gonna get the extra critical hit damage dice uh that i i think makes you feel more like a sniper rather than just having the like overall range increase i there's just a lot to really love i get right out of the bat with this first level um and here's the thing that i really liked about this was that it didn't feel super complicated for the new player at my table to play uh this is one of the only homebrew classes that i've been able to throw in front of a player and then feel like they just they knew how to pilot it it was yeah it was really fun with the m4 uh moving into the second level feature with grit the hard-fought battles of your past have instilled in you a wellspring resolve which is represented by grip points you have a number of grip points equal to one plus your wisdom modifier minimum of one grip point you can spend these points to fuel various grit features you start knowing four such features buck up bullet time covering fire and dodge roll you learn more grip features as you gain levels in this class when you spin a grip point it is unavailable until you regain it you regain one expended grip point whenever you score a critical hit against a hostile creature and you regain all expenditure points when you finish a short or long rest so with buck up you can expend one grip point as a bonus action to spin one or more hit dice following the normal rules for regaining hit points using hit dice the maximum number of hit dice you can spend each time you use this feature equals your proficiency bonus now this doesn't necessarily scale up as well as second wind but you're gonna be able to get more uses out of this a little bit more reliably which to me is honestly kind of a common complaint i see at a second wind where i've got players that just don't really feel as if um it's really rewarding them enough or uh how do i put it the fighter characters i see usually forget about second win because it just doesn't feel like it comes up often enough for them despite the fact that they can get it like basically once for combat if they were able to get it as much as they got buck up right like possibly you as a champion could regain a use of your second win whenever you score a critical hit i think you'd be seeing champion fighters be favored a lot more if suddenly they were able to get an extra use a second win actually that would be a really interesting fix for that but i see players always forgetting that they even have hit dice and what they even do so i'm all here for a feature like this that's making players rethink like this core class feature that they just don't ever consider bullet time when a creature you can see makes a range attack against you you can expend one grip point to impose disadvantage on the attack roll great cinematics right here you know exactly where this is coming from uh covering fire when a creature you can see within the normal range of your weapon makes an attack against a creature other than you you can spend one grit point as a reaction to impose disadvantage on the roll so you're almost playing a quasi-support if you favor this one you are not going to be making a whole lot of opportunity attacks as this gunslinger so you having something extra that you can do as your reaction is some really nice action economy coverage right here and then with dodge roll you can spend one grip point as a bonus action to move up to 10 feet without provoking opportunity attacks this is really just nice if somebody rolls up on you and you start your turn like within their range and you just need the gtfo seriously not a bad use of your grip point right here especially considering there's ways for you to regenerate this like see this right here is i think why monk is a little bit reluctant to be using their bonus action and any key points in order to use their key disengagement tool because they just don't really have a means of regenerating key in the middle of a fight right i think a lot of monk might be fixed up if you're able to allow them to regenerate key in some manner in the middle of a fight so let me talk about a perception issue right here and that might be that some dms are going to look at this and think wow this is getting more than monk and it's kind of based off of monk so of course this has to be a little bit overpowered right i don't know that i can think of anybody that thinks that monk is in a generally okay state in the game i actually think that what heavy presents here is a pretty good fix for a lot of the issues that i've seen come up with key and that's that there's really no hard set way for you to regenerate key points in the middle of battle so they feel like once you have them you're kind of locked into that number and you're kind of reluctant to use your features because you just don't really have an easy way to regain key there's also a few things that i think that midline well i'll just say d8 classes kind of need to kind of function really well especially as martialists you as a d8 character need to have the ability to disengage somehow not provoke an opportunity attacks as a bonus action during your turn notice that out of all these features this gunslinger is not getting anything offensive that it can use with this grit buck up is going to be a little bit of healing that you can get bullet time is a bit of defense against ranged attacks covering fire is a really cool support kind of a defensive feature and then dodge roll is your key disengagement tool all the offense that's coming out of this is honestly coming out of its deadeye features so grit i really super don't mind this is giving you some great action economy coverage right here you can refuel it pretty easily through the dead eye i love the synergy that's built in with here um and honestly this is the way that i think we might be able to fix key for monk is to give them some means of regenerating key as a core part of the martial arts feature uh and then quick draw you have advantage on initiative rules this is the key thing that i see in a lot of gunslingers and it super super makes sense in addition whenever you draw or stow a firearm you can draw or stow any number of weapons as a part of the same move or action at third level you choose your gunslinger trail so you choose your path to walk either the maverick the beast rider the enforcer preacher or revelator each of which is detailed at the end of the classes description your choice grants you features at third level and again at sixth tenth and seventeenth level so the one that i saw and play was the maverick and i saw this one go all the way up to i think it was sixth level uh the one that i remember coming into play the most often was actually the snapshot feature so when you roll for initiative you can spend one grit point as a reaction to draw a firearm and make one ranged attack with it against a creature or object you can see this one happened so so often i i adored this as just an opener to the subclass right here uh getting into what the other ones kind of do the beast rider gets you a mountain this is like mostly the kind of cowboy centric but you can also get on flying mounts kind of a gunslinger uh the enforcer feels a bit like an investigator the preacher is your quasi kind of a gunslinger and then the revelator is honestly your quasi-paladin there's a lot of cool flavor i actually think i would probably lean in on the revelator the next time i roll one of these up uh again i'm gonna be saying this pretty often um heavy really dug into the wild west flare with this uh and i think totally did it justice uh i'm curious to see what the future gunslinger trails are gonna be i heard him talk a little bit about possibly a psionic gunslinger in here for some matrixy flare so yeah they're going to get these standard ability score improvements extra attack you can attack twice instead of once when we take the attack action on your turn and right here he fixed the biggest part uh the biggest qualm i think i had with matthew mercer's gunslinger you can reload a firearm you're holding as a part of your move or action oh man being able to clear this up to where extra attack will actually work in the case of like low reload firearms a lock and load is cleaning up so much of your action economy i i think this is absolutely must be standard uh also shows somebody that has recognized the issues of gunslingers in the past uh ace in the hole once returned when you mess with an attack rule you can spend one grip point to add your wisdom modifier to the roll potentially turning the miss into a hit uh now this is modifying the rule so this isn't going to actually affect uh from what i understand yeah this is going to modify the role so it's not going to actually turn a miss into a possibly a crit this is the first offensive use of your grit that you're gonna get with the ace in the hole uh i actually think that this is probably mostly gonna be pretty worth it of course you're gonna be investing pretty heavily into your decks uh with this we're talking about an average of probably a plus two even at later levels maybe a plus three or a plus four to the attack roll uh as the use of a grit point i'd say this is gonna be very very much worth it to use uh born lucky here at ninth level when you're first make a saving throw you can send one grip point to make it with advantage this probably had to be thrown in here or else the gunslinger was going to kind of lose its defensive relevance at this tier of play wow yeah i think had this been given to you as a part of grit i would have thought that this is probably a little too good but now that i'm thinking about this after seeing it again i think that it had to get this here at this level or else the gunslinger was actually gonna fall off defensively oh no i really like that choice actually okay cool once your justice which you're gonna get at 11th level feels like that total stand your ground moment when a creature you can see willingly moves into a space within 10 feet of you while you're holding a firearm you can use your reaction to make one ranged weapon attack against that creature so also notice that because it's within 10 feet of view that means that your ranged weapon attack won't have this advantage on the attack roll but i love the offensive defense that you get out of this uh you know it's kind of like the difference between playing dark souls and bloodborne right dark souls is encouraging you to play a little bit more defensively with like dodges and shields and stuff and then bloodborne is like no we're not gonna give you a shield we're gonna give you a gun right so it's trying to encourage you to play more offensively rather than defensively you just know that there's gonna be one of those amazing moments where the player does this reaction and it's gonna be the moment that their gun is gonna crit with dead eye and it's gonna feel like such a cool moment if they're able to just take out that creature that's running them down like oh god the cinematics out of this are just so great skullcracker that you're going to get here at 13th level suddenly makes you feel like the mage killer when you deal damage to a creature that is concentrating with the ranged weapon attack the target has disadvantage on the saving through it makes to maintain its concentration if the attack is a critical hit the target automatically fails his saving throw i love all the synergies that are happening with this this just feels so sick nasty cheat death at 15th level when you're reduced to zero hit points but not killed outright you can extend one grip point to drop to one hit point instead but each time you do you gain one level of exhaustion so i don't mind the levels of exhaustion super much on range characters as much as i do on frontliners because so frontliners to lose out on your positioning tools is a pretty huge deal but range characters it's most likely you're in this pretty safe position unless something has gotten up on you right here with like this cheat and death uh if something reduces you to zero hit points and doesn't kill you outright you use this to drop one hit point instead if this thing is multi-attack this thing might be wiping you out but uh in the event that you know you did just fail a saving throw it reduce you to zero hit points it's almost always gonna be worth it for you to use this grip point to drop to one level of exhaustion and one hit point instead if you stay in the back line most likely it's gonna be pretty easy for you to maintain that position in the back line but you've also got your buck-up feature that allows you to heal up a little bit if nobody can get to you you also got your bullet time to try and dodge another attack that might occur and then you've got your dodge rule that can allow you to reposition in the case of you being in a bad spot right here have you cleared up a whole lot of the issues that may occur as a part of just playing this class out true grit this 18th level feature when you start your turn and you have no grip points remaining you regain one grip point and see this thing right here like i honestly think that most of the classes that get the as a or what is it you regain one like use of arctic inspiration as a part of the capstone when we roll for initiative those could literally just be like you if you start your turn without a bardic inspiration you get of arctic inspiration and i feel like this would mostly be pretty okay as capstone features uh i think that they were probably a little too careful with the capstones in early 5v design which hey that's yeah i just really love everything that this is throwing out and this capstone that christian goes into you have advantage on ranged weapon attack rolls while the threshold for scoring a critical hit is 16 or lower because you passed the 16th level or sorry 14th level the the threshold is going to reach that 16 if you at least hit with two of the attacks that you make right so you roll out and do extra attack boom boom if both of those hit then the threshold for you to score a critical hit is a 16. yeah man and then you're gonna have advantage on those attacks which means that you can crit fish for that a little bit easy oh man i just i adore so much of what the gunslinger is throwing out you know and what i really like here is the kind of compact design that heavy was trying to get me to build around i wonder we've been talking about creating classes and as if you look at all the class features for this they all fit on one page there's no need for this to sprawl out across like three different pages the class features right here um i really really adore this gunslinger i've had it played out at my tables at least up until uh sixth level uh you know i'm excited to see what would happen with one of these i've played all the way to 20th level let me know what you will think down in the comment section below you can go pick this up in the link that i'll provide in the description to this video this is going to be again the gunslinger by heavy arms uh a major congrats man for getting this one out i adore this gunslinger let me know what you all think down in the comments section a huge shout out to my patreon sponsors for helping keep the lights on around here and coffee in my blood you all are absolute heroes i want to thank you all for being here i hope you all are staying safe staying healthy and i can't wait to see you in the next one [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Indestructoboy

Views: 14,007

Keywords: dungeons & dragons, D&D 5e, dungeons & dragons fifth edition, D&D homebrew, DM Tips, D&D Player Tips, 5e gunslinger, d&d gunslinger, dungeons and dragons, dnd 5e, character class, 5th edition, character classes d&d, 5e gunslinger feat, 5e gunslinger vs battlemaster, 5e gunslinger build, dnd gunslinger, 5e gunslinger official, 5e gunslinger guide, dnd gunslinger music, d&d gunslinger grit points, d&d gunslinger guide, d&d gunslinger multiclass, d&d gunslinger homebrew

Id: DIN-tMYFPRk

Length: 22min 56sec (1376 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 06 2021