Infinity Matrix: The Gunslinger

As the session zero date for the Infinity Matrix campaign comes up there's one more gun related thing I have to tackle, and for this I'm going to ask the players what they want before they make their characters.

The Gunslinger is a very controversial class, usually just for bringing guns into the equation but also it can deal a lot of damage in a short amount of time if cheesed out. Usually the limitations of firearms knock it down a pet as using Rapid Shot with two guns can easily equal a -8 penalty to each shot and a boatload of gold lost. The limitations are lessened in a futuristic setting naturally but there's one problematic ability, which is Gun Training, a means to add dexterity to damage rolls with firearms.

This is a problem for a few reasons. Dex to damage makes firearms way more dangerous but that's easy to compensate for so the biggest problem is that the gunslinger is the only one that can do it. With guns being martial weapons in this campaign it's easy enough to use them but that dex to damage is way too valuable to pass up forcing anyone that would want to do this to dip into gunslinger since everyone would want to use a firearm and I don't want Gunslinger to be the only class that does this if everyone is using firearms.

Luckily this can be easy to house rule away but there are a few ways to go about it that are pretty good so I'm giving my players a choice.

1. Ban Gunslinger. This eliminates the problem altogether and I don't have to change anything. Although despite the advantages of firearms using rapid shot with them and using automatic mode is still -4 to each shot so they may actually come out relatively weak considering that technology makes melee combat pretty dangerous and the ability to avoid touch attacks is greatly increased. Also this option makes energy resistance extra annoying and thus eventually Clustered Shot a feat tax just to deal damage to anyone in a HEV suit.

2. Change how firearms work. One thing that I do for steampunky games is to make firearms lose the touch attacks and misfire and instead naturally deal dex to damage. Gunslinger gets Gun Training but its a +1 competence bonus at first level and every four levels after. This still results in me not needing to do anything to compensate for touch attacks being a major thing. However this makes some abilities and items useless like bulletproofing, scatterlight armor and the Avoidance feat chain.

3. Make Gun Training a combat feat, prerequisite +1 BAB and 13 Dex. This is the most extreme in terms of compensating but it's not impossible. In situations like this I add creatures' Natural Armor to their touch AC against firearms or as DR through the use of third party templates. Or in some cases just adding more monsters. It also can prove to be pretty lethal to players as They have to account for NPCs with firearms dealing a lot of damage to them without bonus HP to compensate. This makes touch AC very vital and although there is enough defenses to go around this will eat up equipment, feats or class features.