Gunslinger | Base Class

Get all 17 subclasses in the Complete Gunslinger!

Gunslinger

A glass falls, clattering to the floor, and the tavern grows silent. A dwarf with a deep scowl, dripping with freshly spilled beer, leers at a drunken nearby orc and fingers for a pair of revolvers at his waist.
High on a hillside, carefully concealed beneath foliage and stones, a rifleman steadies her breathing and adjusts her scope, acquiring her target and patiently awaiting the moment to strike.
Risk is in a gunslinger’s blood. They are bold renegades, bucking tradition and forging a new path with dangerous and inelegant firearms. Gunslingers are infamous for surviving by their wits, relying on split-second timing and a considerable amount of luck to survive.

Guts and Gunpowder

Black powder is not for the faint of heart. Its thunderous applause is volatile and imprecise—a barely controlled explosion directed at an enemy. Only the truly fearless seek to master it, for one must be mad or have nerves of steel to weather the risk of its use. But those who call themselves gunslingers are fearless combatants, hurling death from their guns in a roaring cacophony. Adapted for shootouts, gunslingers are mobile and daring, knowing that life or death hangs on snap decision-making and one’s own mettle.

Dangerous Outsiders

A gunslinger’s explosive lifestyle lends well to wandering and adventuring. Gunslingers will often shoot first and ask questions later, an attitude which earns them few friends and bountiful enemies. In their travels, most gunslingers are secretive and take great lengths to go unnoticed, lest they be spotted by old foes with scores to settle.
Yet, their skills are not unneeded. Anyone requiring protection or revenge of their own can count on a gunslinger to be in need of an odd job when they roll into town. After all, skill with a gun is always in demand somewhere.

Creating a Gunslinger

When creating your gunslinger, consider where firearms fit in the campaign’s world and what the common perceptions are of those who use them. If firearms are the norm, your gunslinger might be a mercenary or militia fighter. If firearms are rare, your gunslinger might be one of a kind, a trailblazer in new types of warfare.
It’s also not unusual for a gunslinger to be haunted by their past. Did some event drive you to the gun and motivate you to travel? Is there a bounty on your head in one or more areas? Do you have any old enemies that seek you for revenge?

Quick Build
To make a gunslinger quickly, follow these suggestions. Make Dexterity and Constitution your highest ability scores. If you plan to choose the Gun Tank creed, instead make Strength your highest ability score. Lastly, choose any background, preferably one that emphasizes your familiarity with firearms and penchant for risk-taking.

Class Features

As a gunslinger, you gain the following class features.

Equipment
You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

• Leather armor with a longcoat
• A dagger and (a) a handgun and 20 bullets or (b) a revolver and 10 bullets
• Any two-handed firearm that isn’t heavy and 30 bullets or shells
• (a) a dungeoneer’s pack or (b) an explorer’s pack

Fighting Style

You adopt a particular style of gunfighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following options. You can’t take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if you later get to choose again.

Akimbo
When you engage in two-weapon fighting with firearms, you don’t take a penalty to the damage of the second attack.

Bullseye
You gain a +2 bonus to ranged attack rolls you make with firearms. The weapon must have the Sighted property or have a normal range of 80 feet or longer to gain this benefit. This benefit doesn’t stack with the Archery fighting style.

Duelist
While you are wielding a firearm in one hand and nothing in the other, if you make a ranged weapon attack and exceed the target’s AC by 5 or more, you deal one extra die of weapon damage. You can only use this ability once per round.

Shotgunner
When you hit with a ranged weapon attack using a firearm that has the Scatter property, you can reroll the lowest damage die, and you must use the new roll, even if the new roll is worse than the original.

Quick Draw

Gunslingers have twitch reflexes and can pull a gun in the blink of an eye. You have advantage on initiative rolls. Additionally, you can draw or stow up to two weapons when you roll initiative and whenever you take an action on your turn.

Critical Shot

At 2nd level, your ranged firearm attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20.
Starting at 9th level, your ranged firearm attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 18–20, and at 17th level your ranged firearm attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 17–20.

Poker Face

Starting at 2nd level, you have advantage on ability checks and saving throws made to prevent others from sensing your motives, perceiving your emotions, or reading your thoughts.

Risk

By 2nd level, you can perform incredible feats of daring that are fueled by special dice called risk dice.

Risk Dice
You have four risk dice, which are d8s. You gain additional risk dice, and your risk dice change as you gain levels in this class, as shown in the Risk Dice column of the Gunslinger table. You regain all expended risk dice when you finish a long rest.

Using Risk Dice
Once per turn, you can expend a risk die to perform a deed of your choice. Your deed options are detailed at the end of the class description.

Saving Throws
Some of your deeds require your target to make a saving throw to resist the deed’s effects. The saving throw DC is calculated as follows:

Deed save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Dexterity modifier

Gunslinger’s Creed

By the time gunslingers reach 3rd level, they embrace a way of living, known as their creed, which guides their judgments and their unique brand of gunslinging. Your choice grants you features at 3rd level and again at 7th, 10th, and 14th level.

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Extra Attack

Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

Gut Shot

Starting at 6th level, whenever you score a critical hit against a Large or smaller creature with a firearm, the bullet lodges itself in the target. Until the creature uses its action to dislodge the bullet, it moves at half speed and has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks. Elementals, Oozes, and Undead are immune to this effect.

Evasion

Beginning at 7th level, you can nimbly dodge out of the way of certain area effects, such as a red dragon’s fiery breath or an ice storm spell. When you are subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you instead take no damage if you succeed on the saving throw, and only half damage if you fail.

Mankiller

Starting at 11th level, when you make one or more firearm attacks as part of an action, you can add your ability modifier to the firearm’s damage rolls. Note that firearms do not normally add your ability modifier to their damage rolls.

Dire Gambit

Beginning at 13th level, whenever you score a critical hit, you regain one expended risk die.

Cheat Death

By 15th level, you have a knack for evading the grave. When you drop to 0 hit points and don’t die outright, you can use your reaction and expend one risk die to remain standing. You instead drop to a number of hit points equal to the number rolled on the die.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

Maverick

By 18th level, you have become unshakable. You have advantage on Constitution checks and saving throws.

Head Shot

At 20th level, when you score a critical hit against a creature with a firearm, you can choose for the shot to be a head shot. If the creature has less than 100 hit points, it dies. Otherwise, it takes an extra 10d10 damage from the hit. Elementals, Oozes, Undead, and creatures that lack nervous systems or vital organs take no extra damage from this feature.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

Deeds

The deeds are presented in alphabetical order.

Bite the Bullet
As a bonus action on your turn, you can expend one risk die to gain temporary hit points equal the number rolled on the die + your Constitution modifier.

Covering Fire
When you hit a creature with a ranged weapon attack, you can expend one risk die as a bonus action to cow the creature. Roll the risk die and subtract it from the next attack roll the creature makes before the start of your next turn.

Dodge Roll
You can expend one risk die as a bonus action to move up to 15 feet and reload any firearm you are holding. This movement doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks, ignores difficult terrain, and allows you to move through a hostile creature’s space, as long as you don’t end your movement there.

Limb Shot
When you hit a creature with a ranged weapon attack, you can expend one risk die as a bonus action and aim for one of its limbs, attempting to force it to drop one item of your choice that it’s holding. The target must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, it drops the object you choose. The object lands at its feet.

Skin of Your Teeth
When an attacker you can see makes an attack roll against you, you can expend a risk die as a reaction to dodge out of harm’s way at the last second. You add the risk die to your AC against this attack, potentially causing it to miss.

Steady Aim
On your turn, you can use a bonus action and expend one risk die to double the normal and maximum range for the next ranged weapon attack you make.

Gunslinger Creeds

Gunslingers have many features in common, but each of them walks their own path and follows their own code. This code, which gunslingers call a creed, embodies their core beliefs and informs their unique combat style.

Get all 17 Gunslinger’s Creeds in the Complete Gunslinger!

Firearms

Black powder represents a paradigm shift in the art of warfare, fueling everything from powerful siege weapons to concealable, handheld guns. In many campaign settings, firearms supplant the traditional scheme of weapons, forcing arrows, swords, and battleaxes into obsolescence. They might even be commonplace, a staple tool for hunting and defense.
Firearms follow slightly different rules to conventional ranged weapons, and also generally use two or more damage dice.

Get full firearm rules here!