Gun Sage (Gunslinger/Wizard)

In the far reaches of the west are found certain gunmen who incorporate a limited form of arcane magic into their deadly art. These gun sages lack much of the true magical powers of a wizard, but make up for this deficiency through their tertiary study of arcane practices. Masters of damage dealing spells, gun sages push the limits of their spellcasting nearly to the breaking point, allowing them greater versatility in their martial and arcane endeavors. (Original Concept by Christos Gurd)

Primary Class: Gunslinger.

Secondary Class: Wizard.

Alignment: Any.

Hit Dice: d8.

Bonus Skills and Ranks: The gun sage selects three wizard skills to add to his class skills in addition to the normal gunslinger class skills, one of which must be spellcraft. The gun sage gains a number of ranks at each level equal to 4 + Int modifier.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: The gun sage is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, all firearms, and light armor, but not with shields. She can cast sorcerer/wizard spells while wearing light armor without incurring the normal arcane spell failure chance. Like any other arcane spellcaster, a gun sage wearing medium armor or heavy armor, or using a shield incurs a chance of arcane spell failure if the spell in question has a somatic component. A multiclass gun sage still incurs the normal arcane spell failure chance for arcane spells received from other classes.

Spellcasting: A gun sage casts arcane spells drawn from the sorcerer/wizard spell list. A gun sage treats all sorcerer/wizard spells of 7th level and higher as if they were not on her spell list. A gun sage must choose and prepare her spells ahead of time. To learn, prepare, or cast a spell, the gun sage must have an Intelligence score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a gun sage’s spell is 10 + the spell level + the gun sage’s Intelligence modifier. A gun sage can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. Her base daily spell allotment is given on Table: Gun Sage. In addition, she receives bonus spells per day if he has a high Intelligence score. A gun sage also gains cantrips and uses a spellbook like a wizard. A gun sage otherwise learns, prepares, and casts spells as a wizard equal to her gun sage level.

Arcane Grit (Ex): This is exactly like the gunslinger’s grit ability, except that the gun sage uses her Intelligence instead of her Wisdom to determine her total grit. In addition, a gun sage can only regain grit by making a killing blow with either her arcane gun or an evocation spell.

Arcane Gun (Su): At 1st level, a gun sage gains the ability to turn a single firearm into an arcane gun. An arcane gun is a normal one-handed or two-handed firearms in the hands of others, as it was a normal firearm before the gun sage imbued it with magic. In a gun sage’s hands, it both fires projectiles (bullets and pellets) and casts magic. At 1st level, the gun sage decides whether she wants to have one or two arcane guns at a time. If the gun sage chooses to have only one arcane gun at a time, spells fired through the arcane gun that require an attack roll have a ×3 critical hit multiplier.

A gun sage can cast any ranged touch attack, cone, line, or ray spells through her arcane gun. When she casts through the arcane gun, the gun’s enhancement bonus (if any) is a bonus to the spell’s attack rolls or to the spell’s saving throw DCs. Yet there are dangers inherent to this method. If any of the spells’ attack rolls result in a natural 1 (a misfire), or a natural 20 is rolled on any saving throw made against the spell by a target (an overload), the arcane gun gains the broken condition. If the arcane gun already has the broken condition, the gun explodes. When a gun explodes, it lets loose a blast of force, or if the spell has the acid, cold, electricity, or sonic descriptor, it deals that type of energy damage instead. In the case of spells with multiple descriptors, roll randomly among the descriptors to determine the type of damage dealt by the blast. The blast is centered on a single intersection within the gun sage’s space (gun sage’s choice) and deals 1d6 points of the appropriate energy damage or force damage per level of the spell cast. Any creature within the blast other than the gun sage can make a Reflex saving throw to halve the damage. The Reflex save DC is calculated using the spell level of the spell being sacrificed.

A gun sage can attune her arcane guns at the start of each day. That attunement lasts until the gun sage attunes to a new gun, even if a formally attuned gun is destroyed.

Deeds: This is exactly like the gunslinger ability of the same name, except that the gun sage gains only one deed of each level of her choice. Each day, the gun sage can change what deeds she has access to. The gun sage can also gain additional deeds by sacrificing spell slots. She can sacrifice a 1st level spell slot to gain access to one additional 1st level deed for the day. At 3rd level and every four levels thereafter, she can sacrifice one spell slot of each subsequent level to gain access to one additional deed of each subsequent level (a 2nd level spell slot for a 3rd level deed, a 3rd level spell slot for a 7th level deed, and so on). For example, a 7th level gun sage could sacrifice two 1st level spells and one 2nd level spell to gain access to two additional 1st level deeds, and one additional 3rd level deed. The gun sage can sacrifice up to two spell slots of each spell level for a total of three deeds of each level, including the deeds he gains normally. The gun sage selects her deeds every day when she rests to regain her daily allotment of spells, including those she gains by sacrificing her spell slots.

Student of Evocation: Starting at 2nd level, a gun sage gains the school powers of the evocation school as a wizard equal to her gun sage level. She gains her first school power at 2nd level and each subsequent power at 6th and 10th level. Alternatively, the gun sage may choose to gain the powers of either the admixture or generations subschool. However, the gun sage does not choose any opposition schools and therefore does receive the penalties associated with casting or creating magic items with opposition spells. This ability replaces nimble.

Bonus Feats: This is exactly like the gunslinger ability of the same name, except that the gun sage can also choose a metamagic feat, an item creation, or Spell Mastery. The gun sage must still meet all prerequisites for a bonus feat, including caster level minimums.

Arcane Gun Training (Ex): This is exactly like the gunslinger’s gun training ability, except that the gun sage also applies her gun training bonus to spells cast through her arcane gun.

GUN SAGE SPELL LIST

Gun sages gain access to the following spells.

0th-Level Gun Sage Spells—breeze, dancing lights, detect magic, flare, light, mending, penumbra, ray of frost, read magic, resistance, scoop, spark.

1st-Level Gun Sage Spells—burning disarm, burning hands, damp powder, ear-piercing scream, fabricate bullets, flame burst, floating disk, hydraulic push, jury-rig, longshot, magic missile, reinforce armaments, shocking grasp, weaken powder.

2nd-Level Gun Sage Spells—bullet shield, burning gaze, continual flame, darkness, defensive shock, destabilize powder, elemental touch, fire breath, flaming breath, frigid touch, frost fall, gust of wind, gusting sphere, imbue with elemental might, pilfering hand, protective penumbra, recoil fire, reloading hands, ricochet shot, scorching ray, shatter, spontaneous immolation, stabilize powder, thunder fire.

3rd-Level Gun Sage Spells—campfire wall, chain of perdition, daylight, dispel magic, distracting cacophony, draconic reservoir, elemental aura, fireball, firestream, flash fire, force punch, hydraulic torrent, lightning bolt, pain strike, pellet blast, sheet lightning, tiny hut, twilight knife, wind wall.

4th-Level Gun Sage Spells—agonize, ball lightning, detonate, dragon’s breath, fire shield, ice storm, named bullet, resilient sphere, river of wind, shout, telekinetic charge, vitriolic mist, volcanic storm, wall of fire, wall of ice.

5th-Level Gun Sage Spells—cone of cold, energy siege shot, fire snake, icy prison, interposing hand, lightning arc, sending, sonic thrust, wall of force, wall of sound.

6th-Level Gun Sage Spells—chain lightning, chains of fire, cold ice strike, contagious flame, contingency, energy siege shot (greater), forceful hand, freezing sphere, leashed shackles, named bullet (greater), sirocco.

Table: Gun Sage