Front Toward Enemy: A Guide to the PF2e Gunslinger

PLEASE READ: THIS GUIDE WILL NO LONGER BE UPDATED. While I haven’t made a ton of updates to this guide, there have been a few that have gone undocumented. I will keep this guide alive, but will make a copy of it for Remaster content and provide updates there. This guide will remain in its current state for people who wish to play Pathfinder 2e in the original, pre-Remaster version.

by blammit (AKA u/double_blammit)

About the gunslinger & the guide

The gunslinger is somewhat of an odd duck of a martial class. While it boasts the strongest weapon proficiency in the game for firearms and crossbows (progression on par with fighters), for the most part, it’s not quite the single-target damage powerhouse that a fighter is. What a gunslinger does bring to the table largely comes down to the choice of Way, detailed in depth later in the guide. Drifters and Pistoleros come with vibes like those of The Man with No Name and the era of the classic spaghetti westerns. Snipers mete out their justice from afar, hiding in advantageous positions and picking off targets at range. Triggerbrands evoke the flair of Final Fantasy-style gunblade users. Vanguards are somewhat similar, getting into the fray and maneuvering their enemies into submission. Spellshots are the oddest of the bunch, relying on a class archetype and shifting some of their power and potential to their intellect. Each of these Ways brings something largely different to a group, providing potential for a role as a flanking skirmisher, face, ranged striker, athletics controller, or librarian. These Ways all have an associated skill and much of the kit revolves around the use of said skill. That said, since each Way only relies on one skill, you have a bit of build flexibility. DEX being your key ability score means that acrobatics and stealth are great options for any Way, not just Drifters and Snipers. Likewise, thievery isn’t just limited to the purview of Triggerbrands. As for mental stats, INT tends to be the exclusive realm of Spellshots, and CHA, for the most part, the same for Pistoleros. WIS, however, is useful for any build should you be able to fit it in. It shores up a weak will save progression, synergizes well with the third best perception progression in the game, and can open up several encounter mode and exploration mode options.

The name of the game with gunslingers is action economy. Normal firearm or crossbow usage would generally take up at least two of your actions per turn to Strike and reload. Each Way has a core level 1 feature that eases the action economy of reloading, dictating much of the Way’s gameplay loop. Several of the feats on offer also have to do with improved action economy, allowing for eased mobility and / or multiple attacks. There are also some firearms and crossbows that ease the action economy, but they come with their own limitations. Don’t expect too many reactions, though. There are a few, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to augment your reaction choices with ancestry feats and maybe an archetype feat here and there.

For the most part, this guide focuses on common options, but uncommon options are impossible to avoid with an uncommon class that uses (mostly) uncommon weapons. If your GM allows you to play a gunslinger, they’ve already allowed at least one uncommon option. That is not to say that you should assume uncommon choices will automatically be available in any given game, and it’s entirely possible that your GM will only allow common crossbows for your weapons. For the rest of this guide, if you only see me mention firearms, consider that mention to also imply crossbow usage. With all that said, other than firearms themselves, I try to identify uncommon options where they exist and where they appropriately relate to gunslinger gameplay. Also, within the gunslinger class, there are some major mechanical differences between crossbows and firearms. For example, any of the feats which have misfire outcomes only function with firearms. You can’t choose feats like Risky Reload or Alchemical Shot unless you’re using a firearm, which bear the possibility for misfires.

This is a guide oriented toward optimization. There are plenty of fun choices that are passable and even effective, but not optimized. Please do not consider this guide a comprehensive be-all, end-all. It is designed to guide you toward optimal build choices.

This guide is designed such that you can jump to any portion of it and get a full understanding of the available options. If you read this guide from start to finish, be aware that you will see repeat information.

Regarding ability score optimization, you’re generally going to see the following progression, assuming two free ability boosts from your ancestry (not including apex item boost):

(1) 18 DEX / 16 / 12 / 12 / 10 / 10

(5) 19 DEX / 18 / 14 / 14 / 10 / 10

(10) 20 DEX / 19 / 16 / 16 / 10 /10

(15) 21 DEX / 20 / 18 / 18 / 10 / 10

(20) 22 DEX / 20(21)* / 18(19)* / 18(19)* / 12 / 12

Or:

(1) 18 DEX / 14 / 14 / 12 / 10 / 10

(5) 19 DEX / 16 / 16 / 14 / 10 / 10

(10) 20 DEX / 18 / 18 / 16 / 10 / 10

(15) 21 DEX / 19 / 19 / 18 / 10 / 10

(20) 22 DEX / 20 / 20 / 18 / 12 / 10

Or, in some cases with ancestries that give three boosts and a flaw:

(1) 18 DEX / 16 / 14 / 10 / 10 / 10

(5) 19 DEX / 18 / 16 / 12 / 10 / 10

(10) 20 DEX / 19 / 18 / 14 / 10 / 10

(15) 21 DEX / 20 / 19 / 16 / 10 / 10

(20) 22 DEX / 20 / 20 / 18 / 12 / 10

*: Indicates that the fourth ability boost is flexible between the three available choices because it makes no mechanical difference.

Your second most important ability score should, most of the time, be the one tied to your Way skill, although a starting 16 in WIS can help your party out if needed (medicine) and shore up some of your own strengths and weaknesses. In the Ways section, I provide recommendations as to how you can best optimize your ability distribution. While you can sort of get away with a starting 16 DEX due to your progression, 18 starting DEX is the better choice because it plays to one of your most important strengths: high crit chance. Additionally, Snipers have the most flexibility in their starting scores since they only need DEX.

If you have questions, comments, or recommendations, please feel free to message me on reddit as u/double_blammit.

Weapon primer

Since firearms and crossbows are the very core of gunslinger gameplay, this section exists to give you an awareness of how they work at baseline. The idea here is for you to be able to parse the ways that gunslinger interacts with or changes a firearm’s or crossbow’s functions.

Importantly, many firearms bear the deadly or fatal (aim) trait, which heavily incentivizes MAP-free ranged Strikes due to the greater likelihood and greater damage value of a crit. This means that builds incorporating a melee option (including athletics skill actions) generally want their first attack in any given round to be that of their fatal/deadly weapon. This is not always the case, but it is a strong rule of thumb, especially prior to gaining feats that improve melee Strikes.

One feature of firearms you should be aware of for level 1 gameplay is that most firearms are expensive. The cheapest firearm costs 5 gp, though there is one way to get a free firearm at level 1 (uncommon dwarf ancestry feat).

Pay careful attention to your weapon choices if you want to use a crossbow. They currently do not bear any traits identifying them as crossbows, meaning you need to rely on the weapon’s name or flavor description to determine which weapons will benefit from class features. Until the remaster, this grouping includes:

Simple: alchemical crossbows, crossbows, hand crossbows, heavy crossbows
Martial: crescent crosses, gauntlet bows, lancers, repeating heavy crossbows, rotary bows, sukgungs
Advanced: repeating crossbows, repeating hand crossbows, taw launchers

Misfires: For the most part, you don’t need to worry about misfires. The only general occasion for a weapon to misfire is when you don’t maintain it as part of your daily preparations. It should be pretty rare that you aren’t afforded the usual hour every day for daily preparations (and you can generally clean up to five firearms during daily preparations). If you aren't able to maintain your weapon(s), every time you fire your firearm, you have a 20% chance of a misfire (DC 5 flat check). The triggering attack becomes a critical failure and you can’t use the weapon again until you’ve used an Interact action to clear it. For the most part, though, you’re only going to see misfires as a component of various traits and feats. Misfires are primarily used in these traits and feats as a means of balancing a powerful effect, causing you to risk extra strain on your action economy to get those powerful effects.

A note on familiars: while former Paizo dev Mark Seifter has clarified how familiars with the Independent and Manual Dexterity abilities function when reloading a weapon (they more-or-less don’t; see below), that clarification has not been extended to misfires. The most likely intended way for familiars to function when attempting to clear a jammed weapon is the same as that of reloading, but since that clarification has yet to materialize, you should consult with your GM. If your GM allows a familiar to clear a misfired weapon with a single action, familiars become an outstanding tool alongside the better feats that can result in misfires (namely, Risky Reload and Alchemical Shot) and make weapons with the cobbled trait somewhat less risky.

Range: Your range increment dictates how far you can shoot the weapon. The Range value listed for any given weapon is the maximum of its first range increment, out to which you will not suffer a penalty to attacks. Your maximum range is 6x the number listed in the Range entry for your weapon, with stacking -2 penalties for each range increment beyond the first, to a maximum of -10 out to the furthest part of your sixth range increment.

Reload: This value dictates how many Interact actions it takes to reload a single round of ammunition into your weapon. After you have made a Strike with your weapon or used certain class feats / features that require you to discharge your weapon, you’ll have to reload in order to perform any of those actions / activities again. With firearms and crossbows that have a Reload value of 2, it’s up to your GM whether or not you can use your Slinger’s Reload or other reload-related feats for each of the required Interact actions, making Reload 2 weapons in general drastically less valuable for you (unless your GM is willing to play ball, in which case they’re just a huge pain instead of totally worthless). Reload 2 weapons are particularly painful in tandem with feats that have a misfire component, requiring a total of 3 actions to shoot again on a misfire. While technically you need a free hand to reload a weapon, the actions used to reload automatically include changing your grip to have a free hand and re-gripping the weapon. This is of particular value for two-handed weapons (and most Ways, since most Ways do not want to use one-handed weapons) since you won’t have to worry about putting away or dropping anything in order to have a free hand. Additionally, and this one’s important, all reloads, including your Slinger’s Reload and reload feats, allow you to re-grip your weapon even if you used the Release basic action to take a hand off your weapon prior to reloading. Also important: that is not the case with one-handed weapons. You have to either drop them (since Releasing a one-handed weapon implies it’s dropped) or stow them in order to have a free hand to reload, unless your Slinger’s Reload provides some sort of free hand easement for one-handed weapons (only Drifter’s does). There are also some trait interactions with the Reload value that I detail below in the traits section.

A note on familiars: as mentioned above, Mark Seifter has clarified the way familiars work for reloading when they have the Independent and Manual Dexterity abilities. Reloading requires a creature to be wielding the weapon they’re reloading. As such, in order to have your familiar reload a weapon, you’d have to spend an action to transfer it to the familiar, have the familiar spend an action to reload it, and spend an action to hand it back. All told, it’s a net loss of actions and a nightmare on the action economy. Don’t bother.

Hands: All of the weapons you’ll want to use will have a hand value of either 1 or 2. Primarily, Drifters and Pistoleros are the only Ways that will want to use one-handed weapons, though having a free hand open is useful for, say, access to healer’s tools and medicine skill actions. None of your options will have a Hands value of 1+ as those are all bows (specifically, not crossbows). As stated above, two-handed weapons actually tend to be easier on hand usage since you have an action-efficient means of re-gripping your weapon after Releasing a hand. Two-handed weapons will be more restrictive while actively using a hand for an activity like Climbing, though.

Traits: The traits your weapon bears will add some capabilities or adjust some facts about how it works.

Agile: Very few firearms bear this trait, but it will ease your multiple attack penalty (MAP) from the usual -5 / -10 for second and subsequent attacks to -4 / -8. From a raw numbers perspective, your damage will be better on a MAP-affected attack with a higher damage die than with the agile trait. To put that into an example, a d4 agile weapon on a MAP-affected attack will do less overall average damage than a d6 weapon on a MAP-affected attack.
Alchemical: There’s only one alchemical weapon that matters for the purpose of this primer: the alchemical crossbow. Basically, this trait just serves to distinguish that the alchemical crossbow is an alchemical item, which has some interactions with various feats as detailed throughout applicable parts of the guide (mostly ancestry feats).
Backstabber: Extra precision damage against Flat-Footed targets. It’s somewhat hard to make targets Flat-Footed against ranged attacks. Consider your (and your party’s) ability to render targets Flat-Footed before you choose a ranged backstabber weapon. It’s generally easiest to accomplish if you’re using stealth, but there are other means available to you.
Capacity: This trait always has a numeric value. Whatever that number is, that is the maximum number of bolts / rounds the weapon can hold. Each round must still be reloaded, and changing to another chamber still requires an Interact action. The Interact action required to change to another chamber can be done with your Slinger’s Reload or any reload feat. What this enables, for the most part, is being able to dual wield (or have your other hand occupied with, say, an alchemical item) without having to worry about a free hand (at least, until all rounds are expended). The eventual (though rare) drawback is that it ultimately doubles the number of actions required to reload each bolt / round: an Interact to change chambers, leaving you still needing to use an Interact to reload a round into each empty chamber. Typically, that isn’t an issue, but it may come up for the odd longer-running encounter.
Cobbled: Weapons with this trait have a 20% chance of misfiring any time your attacks fail or crit fail, making them particularly risky when firing under the MAP. Currently, there are very few cobbled weapons, and the two most accessible of them are both goblin ancestry weapons (shocking, I know).
Combination: These weapons have both a ranged and melee mode, and switching between them requires an Interact action. Each mode bears its own traits, but there’s some unaddressed weirdness between these traits. The most egregious example is with the melee mode’s forceful and sweep traits, which may or may not work if a turn consists of a ranged Strike, followed by an Interact to switch to melee mode, followed by a melee Strike. Consult your GM as to how they want the traits to work across modes, if it all. If the weapon is loaded, your action sequence can consist of a melee Strike followed by a ranged Strike without having to change modes, with the usual requirement to reload it after in order to use a ranged Strike again. This action order interacts with the MAP as normal and leaves your weapon in melee mode after the two Strikes are completed. Property runes also apply to both modes so long as they would normally apply. For example, a mace multipistol with a flaming rune would apply the extra fire damage regardless of mode. The same mace multipistol with a crushing rune would only apply the crushing rune in melee mode. You can’t add an attached weapon like a reinforced stock to a combination weapon. Most Ways will struggle to use combination weapons due to action economy limitations and item power budget distribution.

Critical Fusion: I’m listing this trait this way because it is inseparable from combination weapons. It’s technically not a ranged weapon trait because it only exists in the melee mode of combination weapons. Assuming you have melee critical weapon specialization, the critical fusion trait adds two critical specialization effect options to every combination weapon’s melee mode. The most reliable means of gaining access to melee critical weapon specialization is through ancestry feats. You can instead take the Mauler Dedication feat for critical specialization with two-handed combination weapons. With appropriate feat support, you’ll be able to choose between any one of the normal melee weapon group’s crit specialization effect, the normal firearm critical specialization effect (if the weapon is loaded and you discharge it), or (again, if loaded) discharging the weapon and adding two damage per weapon die. The extra two damage per weapon die are not doubled due to the fact that you gain that damage specifically from a critical hit (CRB pg. 451).

Concealable: Gives you a sizable bonus to stealth checks and DCs to keep the weapon hidden. Useful for infiltration and intrigue- / social-heavy campaigns.
Concussive: Gives an action-free means of allowing your firearm to overcome resistances / immunities. Your Strikes will automatically change damage type from piercing to bludgeoning as the Strike occurs when the target’s bludgeoning resistance is less than that of its piercing resistance / immunity. This trait does not offer the same benefit for weaknesses. A creature weak to bludgeoning damage will still take piercing damage from a concussive weapon. Additionally, the Ifact that a weapon can deal bludgeoning damage via the concussive trait does not make it a bludgeoning weapon, which is important for determining which weapons can benefit from the crushing rune.
Double Barrel: Sort of similar to the capacity trait in that you can have two rounds loaded, can fire both without reloading, and need to spend an Interact action to reload each round individually. Unlike the capacity trait, these weapons can expend both rounds in a row without using an Interact action between, which provides some flexibility for feats and features that allow you to make multiple ranged Strikes in a row. Their reloads function as normal meaning you can't reload them while dual wielding. These weapons also give you the ability to expend both rounds in a single shot for better damage, and have some item support with breech ejectors. You can have two different ammunition types loaded and expend them simultaneously to get both ammunition effects at once.
Fatal: Changes your weapon’s damage die to the listed value when you crit with the weapon, as well as adding a damage die of the same value after the damage has been doubled. For example, a flintlock pistol, which has a d4 damage die and bears the fatal d8 trait, would deal (2 * (1d8)) + 1d8 damage on a crit, with the number of baseline damage dice scaling as normal with striking runes. A flintlock pistol with a greater striking rune would deal (2 * (3d8)) + 1d8.
Fatal Aim: These nominally one-handed weapons can be used with a one- or two-handed grip. The one-handed grip only functions if your other hand is not holding a weapon or shield, or otherwise occupied. Switching between the grips is harder for fatal aim weapons, requiring an Interact action to change to the one-handed grip unlike a normal Release free action. They also do not receive the eased Release and re-grip when reloading as weapons without this trait do. The language on how this works is tricky. With any two-handed weapon that doesn’t bear this trait, there outright isn’t a two-handed mode, which makes the order of operations of hand release / reload / re-grip simple. That process is still the same with a fatal aim weapon: if you reload it while wielded in a two-handed grip, you still release, reload, and re-grip as a two handed weapon. What it does not do is allow you to come out of your reload with the weapon instead held in a one-handed grip.
Free-Hand: These weapons can’t be Disarmed and free a hand up for other uses. While wielding a free-hand weapon, you can (mostly) do anything that would require a free hand. While using said hand for whatever actions you need to do, though, you can’t make attacks with a free-hand weapon. They’re useful for overcoming reload limitations in one-handed weapon builds (namely, Pistoleros) and for keeping a hand free to use athletics skill actions (namely, Drifters). The only ranged weapon in the game right now that bears the free-hand trait explicitly forbids you from reloading it with the hand wielding it, but it does still make dual-wield reloading easier for the other weapon. Additionally, this trait enables some clever play around the action economy when used alongside feats that require a specific status of weapon load to function. If your final action on a turn is to Strike with your primary two-handed weapon, leaving that weapon unloaded, you can free action release your grip to have the free-hand weapon available as a loaded weapon, and the primary two-handed weapon available as an unloaded weapon, for the purposes of either type of feat.
Kickback: These weapons give you a penalty to attack unless you have a minimum 14 STR or use a stabilizer like a bipod or tripod. Stabilizers require an action to deploy and either root you in place or require you to use more actions to mobilize and deploy them again. As a tradeoff to the ability score or action limitations, kickback weapons deal an extra point of untyped damage. This trait is also one of the two traits that interacts with the large bore modifications, a level 5 item which is detailed in the items section of the guide.
Modular B, P, or S: These weapons allow you to use an Interact action to change between any one of the three physical damage types. All subsequent attacks after you’ve changed the type will deal that damage. They’re heavy on action economy, but give you damage type versatility. These weapons at baseline deal “dX modular” damage, which means these weapons don’t, by RAW, function with a crushing rune. Talk to your GM, though, because if they’re willing to treat these weapons as bludgeoning weapons, the crushing rune is an outstanding improvement.
Parry: You can use an action to get a temporary +1 circumstance bonus to AC, the same as Raising a Shield with a buckler.
Razing: Deal some extra damage to objects equivalent to double the number of your weapon’s damage dice.
Repeating: These weapons use a magazine of ammunition rather than individual pieces of ammunition. What this means is that they do not need to be reloaded until the currently loaded magazine runs out of ammunition, and that they do not bear a typical Reload value. Once that magazine is out, it requires 3 Interact actions to reload, which can each be done independently and allows you to use each of the 3 required actions as part of your Slinger’s Reload or a reload feat. Depending on the weapon, magazines hold a different amount of ammunition: air repeater (6), barricade buster (8), long air repeater (8), and each repeating crossbow magazine holds 5 bolts. The reduced shot-to-reload economy enables feats and features that allow for multiple ranged Strikes in a row.
Scatter: These weapons also bear a distinction of either 5 ft. or 10 ft. This number is the range of the splash damage emanation around the target of a scatter weapon’s attack. As these weapons deal splash damage, both the target of the attack and all creatures within the listed range will also take a point of splash damage per weapon die. These weapons are risky for your party since you can damage yourself and allies, but the damage is mitigable with a backfire mantle (or greater backfire mantle once you have a major striking rune). They technically have the best possible damage scaling of any weapon, but that depends entirely on how many enemies you can hit with the splash damage. Scatter is the other trait that interacts with large bore modifications, which is detailed in the items section.
Volley: You’ll take a -2 penalty to attack within a volley weapon’s listed range. Most of the time, the volley trait comes with a range value, such as with the barricade buster (volley 20 ft.). The only other firearm to bear the volley trait, the shobhad longrifle, does not have a listed range, but the devs have said it’s supposed to be 30 ft.

Ammunition: You’ll be using either bolts or rounds. As such, any alchemical or magical ammunition that lists its type as bolt, round, or any is usable for you depending on whether you’re using a firearm or crossbow. For rounds specifically, there are several important interactions:

Where arrows and bolts are simply defined, rounds are not. In fact, rounds don’t technically exist: there is no such thing as a baseline round, and mechanical mentions of rounds only occur where you’d see them as an ammunition type (for example, exsanguinating ammunition exists as a round) and as an ammunition amount (for example, the harmona gun lists “5 rounds” for its ammunition purchase / crafting stack amount). The closest rules clarification comes from the Guns and Gears Ammunition paragraph on page 150:

A round of ammo can vary in its composition but is typically either a prepackaged paper

cartridge, including wadding, bullet, and black powder, or loose shot packed in manually. Some weapons, like hand cannons and blunderbusses, can fire other materials, but their ammunition has the same Price due to the cost of the black powder. Because making rounds of firearm ammunition requires creating black powder, you need the Alchemical Crafting skill feat to make them. Firearm rounds are a valid option for magical ammunition, just like arrows or bolts. Crafting magical firearm ammunition requires you to be able to craft both alchemical and magical items.

None of this text explicitly defines the existence of a baseline round, whether or not black powder should count as the baseline round, or whether magical ammunition which exists in the form of a round (whether defined as an “any” or a “round” type of ammunition) inherits the alchemical trait of a black powder round.

Black powder is (sort of) the standard basis / unit of firearm rounds, but even black powder (like all other special ammunition types, be they alchemical or magical) shows that it exists as a modification to the semi-existent baseline round. Black powder is specifically an alchemical item as it bears the alchemical trait. This fact is what allows backfire mantles to ignore splash damage from firearms with the scatter trait, since the splash damage is being dealt by an alchemical item.
Any magical ammunition that can be crafted as a round may or may not inherit the alchemical trait of a black powder round. Your GM may allow your feats that grant advanced alchemy to give you magical ammunition so long as it’s of the appropriate type (“any” or “round”). If your GM rules that magical ammunition inherits the alchemical trait of black powder ammunition, backfire mantles will help protect you and your allies against any splash damage from firing magical ammunition with a scatter weapon.
While magical ammunition has explicitly defined rules, alchemical ammunition does not. Currently, the best answers lie somewhere between “just treat alchemical ammunition the same as magical ammunition” (which brings a whole host of issues) and “alchemical ammunition functions completely separately from magical ammunition and you have to put its mechanical functionality together from clues in disparate locations.”

For comparison, magical and alchemical ammunition typically list an “Activate” requirement (usually one Interact action). Magical ammunition has clearly defined action requirements to activate it: “Types of magic ammunition that have an Activate entry must be activated with additional actions before being used. Once you activate the ammunition, you must shoot it before the end of your turn. Otherwise, it deactivates (but it isn’t consumed) and you must activate it again before you can use it. If you shoot the ammunition without activating it first, it functions as non-magical ammunition and is still consumed.” Not only does alchemical ammunition not have any mechanical description whatsoever, it is also explicitly stated in the very first sentence of the Alchemical Items rules that “Alchemical items are not magical.”
To make matters worse, even black powder has an Activate: 1 Interact listing in its rules block. The commonly accepted community approach is that this activation is specifically to set off a black powder packet as a small explosive, not as part of its use as a round of ammunition. This makes the most sense for black powder because adding an Interact action on top of reloading in order to make the most accessible, basic type of ammunition usable would utterly wreck firearm action economy. There are no rules supporting this interpretation, however. Extrapolating this approach to all alchemical ammunition makes alchemical ammunition significantly stronger action economy-wise than magical ammunition and is likely unintended.

The action required to activate the ammunition doesn’t alter how many actions it takes to reload. For example, you could activate a beacon shot arrow by touching it with 1 action, then draw and shoot the arrow as part of a Strike as normal. For a beacon shot bolt, you could activate it, load it into a crossbow, then shoot it, or load it into the crossbow, then activate it, and then shoot it. Firearms with activated ammunition bear some issues. Where a bow or crossbow clearly allows you to touch the ammunition after it’s been loaded, firearms may or may not depending on your GM. If your GM does not allow you to touch your ammunition after it’s loaded, activated ammunition requires a specific action sequence: Activate, Interact (reload), Strike. Assuming alchemical ammunition functions similarly to magical ammunition in that it only stays activated until the end of your turn, that sequence is your only means of using activated ammunition with your firearm. Do all you can to convince your GM that rules functionality should trump the reality of your ability to touch loaded ammunition. Activated ammunition is difficult enough to employ as-is without your GM making it worse.

A note on the occasional “firearm ammunition (X rounds)” element that you’ll see on AoN: This rules entry serves to indicate how many individual rounds you get when purchasing or crafting (via the crafting skill, not advanced alchemy) a set of ammunition. The normal rate is 1 sp for 10 rounds. In the case of, for example, the harmona gun, the entry “firearm ammunition (5 rounds)” means that you would instead only get 5 harmona gun rounds for 1 sp. This also sort of serves to distinguish one weapon’s rounds from another: the harmona gun’s rounds are different and function separately from the rounds you’d use for, say, an arquebus, which bears the (AoN) entry “firearm ammunition (10 rounds),” although there’s no actual rule that specifies these rounds should be treated as being any different.

Class features primer

HP: You’re one of the relatively squishy martials with 8 class HP. Higher ancestry HP can do a little bit to offset this, and Toughness is a very helpful feat on the HP front. Dwarves also offer a mid-level feat-based means of overcoming your HP limitations which isn’t tied to ancestry-based physiology. If you absolutely need extra HP, you can take an archetype which includes a feat that gives 3 HP per associated archetype feat (fighter, for example).

Perception: As one of only four classes that gets legendary perception proficiency and the third best perception progression overall, you can get a lot of mileage out of WIS investment and feats that grant you imprecise senses and bonuses to Seek. There are some class feats that help in this area as well, and unsurprisingly, you’re a great resource to Point Out enemies your party might otherwise have difficulty detecting. Having solid perception will also help with initiative quite a bit, although there are some exceptions for, mostly, Snipers due to stealth being such an easy initiative replacement, as well as Pistoleros since deception can frequently be used for initiative.

Saves: Expert reflex and fortitude right out the gate with master reflex at 11 and fortitude at 17. Both improvements also turn successes into crit successes for their respective saves. Feats and features which shore up your fortitude save against poisons and diseases will help quite a bit through most of the game, though your reflex save should be just fine due to both your DEX reliance and solid proficiency progression. Bonuses to your save DCs against athletics skill actions will also be useful, regardless of whether they’re for your reflex or fortitude DC. Will saves, however, are a bit of an issue: you start off trained, hit expert at 3, and never improve past that. As such, feats and features which help against fear, emotion, and mental effects, as well as effects which render you Controlled, will be highly valuable, as will WIS investment. The thaumaturge archetype and the Canny Acumen feat are notable means of improving your will save. The thaumaturge archetype requires either two class feats and 14 CHA or the half-elf heritage, an ancestry feat, and a class feat.

Skills: 3+INT plus a skill from your Way is plenty to cover all you need to do with skills. You’re not a skill monkey. Oddly, Spellshots will have the hardest time with skills despite reliance on INT since they really want all possible Recall Knowledge-based skills (arcana, crafting, nature, occultism, religion, and society at a minimum).

Attacks: You have the best possible attack proficiency progression so long as you’re using a simple / martial firearm or crossbow, both of which also get a baseline +1 circumstance bonus to damage from the Singular Expertise class feature. That’s important because it will not stack with other features that grant circumstance bonuses to damage. With any other weapon, you have standard martial proficiency progression. This means that Drifters and Triggerbrands have a lesser ability to hit / crit with melee weapons, but you’re no worse off than your martial counterparts (aside from fighters). Advanced firearms and crossbows progress at the same rate as non-firearm / -crossbow simple and martial weapons, meaning you’re generally best off using martial firearms and crossbows. NOTE: The devs have acknowledged that there is an issue with the wording of gunslinger attack proficiency, although there’s not an errata yet. Gunslinging Legend at level 13 is supposed to grant you master proficiency with simple weapons, martial weapons, and unarmed attacks, not expert, since you already have expert proficiency.

Defenses: Standard martial progression for unarmored, light, and medium armor proficiencies, meaning improvements at levels 13 and 19. For the most part, you should just use light armor or, at level 10 (when you should have a +5 DEX mod) and beyond, explorer’s clothing. While your DEX mod will go higher than the DEX cap of explorer’s clothing, you’ll need the explorer’s clothing to hold runes.

Class DC: Standard martial class DC progression, although Spellshots fall behind due to their class DC being tied to INT rather than DEX. Additionally, when you reach master class DC proficiency at level 17, you can attack out to your ranged weapon’s third range increment without penalty, giving you potentially massive range and easing distance requirements quite a bit for Ways in or near melee who may be using a shorter-range weapon.

Gunslinger Weapon Mastery: Starting at level 5, you get critical weapon specialization with firearms and crossbows. Both create an action tax for your enemies, but there are some differences. Firearm crits can inflict Stunned 1, but give the enemy a chance to immediately ignore said effect with a successful fortitude save versus your class DC. Spellshots are less able to land the Stunned 1 condition due to their class DC being tied to INT. The Stunned condition will stop a target from being able to take reactions while they are Stunned. If you Stun a target immediately after its turn, you’ll effectively have a full round where you don’t need to worry about its reactions, meaning you can Delay and Ready to set up that pitfall for your enemies. Crossbows fall into the bow group, meaning their crits will Immobilize the target with no save. The target can use an Interact action to attempt a DC 10 athletics check (read: total joke DC) to free themselves. Regardless, though, the target has to use, at a bare minimum (even if the bare minimum will almost always be all that’s required) one action to be able to move, and that action can trigger some friendly reactions against the target. If the target has at least a +19 athletics mod, it will be unable to fail the check to overcome the Immobilized condition. If it has at least a +8 athletics mod, it’ll be able to overcome the Immobilized condition on any d20 outcome other than a nat 1.

Weapon Specialization: Starting at level 7, you’ll deal extra damage with weapons and unarmed attacks. You don’t have any real reason to use unarmed attacks, but your firearms’ and crossbows’ extra damage will scale at the same rate as that of a fighter. For firearms and crossbows, you’ll get +3 damage from level 7 to 12, +4 damage from level 13 to 14, and +8 damage from level 15 on when you get the Greater Weapon Specialization class feature. For other weapons (namely, melee for Drifters and Triggerbrands), you’ll get +2 damage from level 7 to 12, +3 damage from level 13 to 14, and +6 damage from level 15 on.

Color/rating guide

Best (*****): Seriously. You want this.

Great (****): You almost certainly want this.

Good (***): Generally worth taking, but not in all cases.

Situational (**): You can make it work, but it mostly applies in limited situations.

Bad (*): Generally, you don’t want this. Sometimes worth taking in rare situations, or requires a lot of effort to make it work.

Identifiers

(U): Uncommon option. Since the class itself is uncommon and relates to so many uncommon features, it is important to note uncommon choices so you can have an informed conversation with your GM about what they will and won’t allow.

(F): Firearm-related. This identifier will typically be next to a (U) identifier since most GMs who allow gunslingers will also allow uncommon firearms. It also serves to distinguish against options with a (U) identifier that don’t have anything to do with firearms or are firearm-adjacent, but not necessary to support firearms’ existence in any given campaign. In other words, it’s a good way to pick out options that should logically exist for a table that allows firearms.

(MM): This tag is used on magical ammunition that can be crafted with Munitions Machinist. This one is a bit dubious, but the baseline rounds are black powder and pellets. Almost all firearms use black powder ammunition, which bears the alchemical trait. Technically, if you can make your magical ammunition for a weapon that uses black powder ammunition, you’re making alchemical ammunition. Discuss with your GM.

Ancestries

I deliberately did not include certain heritages and ancestry feats. If it’s not in the guide, consider it either too situational for me to include it in the guide or, in rare cases, outright bad. That’s not to say you should always avoid the options the guide doesn’t list - just be aware that those options will tend to be situational or otherwise highly specialized. For example, while climbing and swimming will have some applications, those are both relatively common offerings for across the ancestries as a whole and tools whose situational frequency I can’t predict for the average game. Their lack of representation in this guide is not to say they’re bad choices - it just isn’t worth it for me to take up page space on them.

Across the board, ancestry-related lore feats will help shore up your number of trained skills, assuming you feel the need for a few more trained skills. Generally, I consider these feats yellow (**) because you’re only ever realistically going to have three skills that receive boosts. More trained skills may or may not feel useful to you. These feats will be better at early levels and you can comfortably retrain out of them at later levels.

In the case of heritages and feats that only grant one specific type of resistance, you can comfortably take them since they’re almost certain to come up at some point. These are always worth talking with your GM, though, assuming said GM is willing to work with you on choices that you can expect to be useful. No one likes a dead feat(ure).

Common ancestries

Dwarf (***)

The low speed is annoying, but 10 HP, darkvision, ability boosts that both improve your saves, and an ability flaw that all but Pistoleros can feel happy about make for a solid ancestry chassis. Pistoleros can choose two free boosts instead. The free clan dagger is a decent enough melee weapon for Drifters, although it doesn’t offer much in the way of damage type versatility. Many of the feats on offer are situational, but you can get around that easily with a versatile heritage. There are also several firearm-supporting feats available should your GM allow them.

Heritage:

Ancient-Blooded (***): The circumstance bonus to saves as a reaction is great no matter what. Grit and Tenacity is a stronger reaction when it’s available (if you have it), but considering you can only use that reaction once per hour, having the Call on Ancient Blood reaction in the interim will be a helpful way to fill the gap.
Anvil (**): Decent if you’re going to be crafting, which is primarily a function for Spellshots. It’ll be a free trained skill and Specialty Crafting, which will be handy for making items like owlbear claws and bombs.
Death Warden (***): Lots of nasty necromancy effects out there. Unshakable Grit does something similar, but only once per hour, at the cost of two class feats, and at a higher level. Especially good if you’re going to be fighting a lot of undead since it gives you access to the Tomb-Watcher’s Glare feat.
Oathkeeper (**): You have great perception progression and, with this ancestry, are almost certainly building to have the WIS to back it up. As such, being the party lie detector is a useful role. Half of the value of this heritage will be wasted on most builds, though, since only Pistoleros can really pull off diplomacy. Pistoleros may also feel some pain taking this heritage because of the massive penalty to Lie, although they can get away with focusing on intimidation instead.
Rock (***): This rating is for the Ways that want to be in melee. Since action economy comes at a premium for you, having to expend actions to Stand after being knocked Prone or get back into melee after being Shoved is painful. Resisting those effects in the first place is a much better way to go about it, and this heritage helps.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Clan Lore (***): Two fairly flexible skill picks plus an extra lore at trained proficiency. Several options work well for you. In particular, any of them with crafting will work well alongside an alchemy build. As a generally low-INT class (barring Spellshots), getting flexibility to add to an otherwise short skill list can be a nice way to help keep your character a valuable party member.
(1) Clan Pistol (***): (U, F) This rating is for Drifters and Pistoleros. The clan pistol weapon is basically the same as the dueling pistol, but with better range. Both are excellent weapons for Pistoleros, but considering that Pistoleros have no reason to get into melee, you might as well enjoy the extra 20 feet of range. That said, there probably aren’t going to be a ton of situations where the difference between 60 ft. and 80 ft. range increments is all that noticeable. It will also help out with certain CHA-based skill checks in the right locations. Drifters are sort of similar in that they don’t really need the range, but may still appreciate having the option to stay well away from melee when needed.
(1) Clan’s Edge (**): This rating is for Drifters. You don’t have a ton of features that provide value from you making two melee Strikes in a turn, but there may be situations when that is a useful turn. If so, getting both of those Strikes and the value from the parry trait is decent on the action economy, even if the clan dagger deals minimum damage.
(1) Dongun Education (**): (U) This rating is for Spellshots. If you’re in a campaign centered around one of the firearm-common locations, the lores on offer here will be frequently useful, and you can’t beat automatic skill proficiency scaling. Situational by nature, though.
(1) Dwarven Doughtiness (***): Frightened is a pretty ubiquitous debuff. Especially into the higher levels, it’s fairly frequent that enemies have means of applying Frightened 2 or higher to you. Getting rid of Frightened more quickly will be consistently useful.
(1) Dwarven Weapon Familiarity (**): Access to the dwarven scattergun, which is useful for Vanguards who are willing to buy a backfire mantle and warn their melee allies that they probably also want a backfire mantle. If you and your allies are willing to put money into backfire mantles, Vanguards should (eventually, level 3+ and money willing) consider this feat green (***). Snipers can kind of put the dwarven scattergun to good use too, with backfire mantle requirements applying to their melee allies but not themselves. If you want to use your clan dagger (instead of a clan pistol) or a pick as a Drifter, you may also want Dwarven Weapon Cunning. There are other one-handed options for Drifters, but those are the best of them.
(1) Eye for Treasure (**): This rating is for Spellshots. While arcana can cover much of the function you need to Recall Knowledge, you can replace a fair bit of it with this feat and crafting. If you’re going for an alchemy feat build, you can load some extra utility onto your crafting skill, as well as get a permanent circumstance bonus to Recall Knowledge with crafting. It won’t be useful for the Spellshot Slinger’s Reload very often, but still useful in several situations.
(1) Rock Runner (**): If you don’t feel like taking Feather Step, this feat can help ease the issue of difficult terrain eliminating your ability to Step, albeit only in certain terrain. Having to Balance on specific terrain isn’t exactly common either, but it can help you get into a good position to fire at enemies safely.
(1) Stonecunning (**): Basically a budget version of the rogue’s / investigator’s Trap Finder feat, giving you some ability to passively notice traps. Also, if you’re in a campaign with a lot of dungeon delving, you’re probably going to benefit from the circumstance bonus to perception fairly frequently. Situational by nature, but boy are the benefits strong in the right situation. With your perception progression, you (and your party) will very much appreciate the bonus.
(1) Vengeful Hatred (**): Situational by nature, but getting ways to deal extra damage when you don’t generally get much of a damage bonus for your Strikes is a meaningful improvement. Talk with your GM and see if they’ll let you know which foes are most likely to apply.
(5) Boulder Roll (**): This rating is for Vanguards. As a two-action activity, it’ll be hard to fit in alongside the rest of your kit. That said, if you want to MAP-free force an enemy to move and then Shove it, you can get some extra distance with less RNG risk.
(5) Clan Protector (**): This rating is for Drifters. If you have nothing else to do with a third action and there’s an ally nearby, you can give said ally your parry bonus to AC. That’s probably not going to come up a ton considering how much you want to flank, but in a melee-heavy party you can add some defensive value. An imaginary weapon-toting psychic would appreciate it.
(5) Defy the Darkness (***): Greater darkness isn’t terribly common, but this feat is entirely an improvement for you since you don’t have spells and aren’t likely to need to use anything else with the darkness trait.
(5) Sheltering Slab (**): Situational by nature, but negating flanking is a strong defensive benefit when you’re in the right terrain.
(5) Tomb-Watcher’s Glare (***): Requires the death warden heritage. While this feat is situational by nature, undead are such common enemies that it’s bound to be a useful feat. Since you have such great firearm proficiency progression, you’re also bound to crit undead with relative frequency. Passively debuffing your targets is always a welcome improvement, especially since there’s nothing they can do to stop it.
(9) Demolitionist (**): (U) If you’re building for the alchemy class feats and have a trapfinder role in your party, you can more easily destroy traps with your bombs. It does require a Strike, though, so Shattering Shot won’t benefit.
(9) Echoes in Stone (**): Although it’ll be hard on your action economy to use this feat, tremorsense is a fantastic improvement to your already excellent perception progression. It is inherently situational, though, require specific terrain.
(9) Heroes’ Call (***): As long as you don’t have a bard in your party, being able to prebuff before an encounter once per day with a status bonus to your attacks will be outstanding. If you do have someone in your party handing out status bonuses, give this feat a pass.
(9) Kneel for No God (**): Requires ancient-blooded heritage and the Vahird ethnicity. Only helpful against divine spells, but turning crit fails into fails will make those divine spells much less painful for you when you use Call on Ancient Blood.
(9) Mountain’s Stoutness (***): Basically Toughness, but also stacks with Toughness to great effect. Especially useful for the Ways that want to be in or near melee.
(9) Stone Bones (***): It’s not a high chance to shrug off crits, but it’s something. Pistoleros running around with Pistolero’s Challenge up will especially appreciate being able to shrug off crits.
(9) Stonewalker (**): You can definitely afford and put to good use the stealth that will be required to really make meld into stone effective. It’s situational by nature because of terrain though. Also provides some improvements to Stonecunning if you have it.
(13) Crafter’s Instinct (**): (U) Situational because only a select few builds will ever have master proficiency in crafting. If that is the case, and you meet the regional requirements, you can ease the pain of misfires, making the feats that have potential misfire outcomes a bit less risky. Only once per day, though.
(13) Telluric Power (***): This rating is for Drifters and Triggerbrands. Although situational by nature, the benefit is so good that it deserves a higher rating. Extra damage on your melee Strikes is excellent when you meet the terrain requirement.
(17) Forge-Blessed Shot (****): (U) This feat bears both religion and regional requirements, and it’s only once per day. Despite those limitations, getting a +2 circumstance bonus to an attack roll is not only great on its own, it stacks with Phase Bullet for a massive hit / crit chance improvement. Overcoming the Concealed condition and all forms of cover won’t matter for Phase Bullet, but it will for every other application.

Elf (***)

DEX and INT are awesome for Spellshots, but significantly less useful for other Ways, who should instead choose two free ability boosts. CON penalties always suck, too. You do, at least, get low-light vision, and 30 feet of speed is awesome. There are several good options for heritages here, but nothing so overwhelmingly good that you couldn’t take a versatile heritage instead.

Heritage:

Ancient (***): There are a few good archetype dedication feats that stand on their own, no further feats needed. Rogue gives you the surprise attack class feature, which is great for Snipers. Ranger’s Hunt Prey helps with range issues. Swashbuckler’s panache feature functions very well with Drifters. Plus, if you’re planning to build around a multiclass archetype anyway, you’ll free up your second level class feat slot.
Cavern (***): Darkvision is always good.
Seer (**): This rating is for Spellshots. Detect magic is a useful cantrip and the bonus to Identify Magic will be helpful occasionally.
Whisper (***): Since you have excellent perception progression, improving the range of your Seek’s cone and, inside the normal cone, your chance of finding Undetected creatures are both meaningful upgrades.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Ancestral Longevity (**): A flexible skill will help with your INT issue / general lack of skills, although gunslingers aren’t skill monkeys and will do fine with a limited number of skills. The followup feats, Expert Longevity and Universal Longevity, make Ancestral Longevity, respectively, a bit stronger and a bit more flexible, but ultimately don’t deserve any higher of a rating.
(1) Demonbane Warrior (**): Inherently situational, but demons are common enough enemies that you’ll appreciate a bit of extra damage from time to time. Talk with your GM.
(1) Elven Verve (***): All three conditions are nasty and chances are good you’ll run into at least one of them with some frequency, even if this feat is inherently situational.
(1) Elven Weapon Familiarity (**): If you want a two-handed firearm with parry, you can get access to either the mithral tree or the three peaked tree. Triggerbrands using the three peaked tree will also want (5) Elven Weapon Elegance (***), but this rating is only for Triggerbrands. Drifters can also get critical specialization for rapiers and longswords.
(1) Forlorn (***): Emotion effects are fairly common (Demoralize) and your will save isn’t great. Having some help overcoming emotion effects is a welcome improvement.
(1) Nimble Elf (****): 35 movement speed right out the gate? Yes please.
(1) Otherworldly Magic (**): Gain an arcane cantrip. Bullhorn (Pistoleros), detect magic, light, mage hand, message (Snipers while Sneaking / scouting ahead), read aura, shield, and warp step are decent choices.
(1) Unwavering Mien (***): With your poor will save progression, enemies have a solid chance of landing mental effects on you. Reducing their duration is a meaningful way to counter one of the gunslinger class’s weaknesses.
(5) Ageless Patience (***): Might as well enjoy some bonuses to perception. You’re already good at it. Lean into your strengths.
(5) Ancestral Suspicion (***): Similar to Unwavering Mien. They complement each other nicely to shrug off control effects since many of those effects will also have the mental trait.
(5) Elven Instincts (***): Bonuses to initiative are always nice, especially since your perception progression is excellent. Somewhat less useful for Snipers, depending on ability scores, since they can easily pull off using stealth for initiative. Regardless, going ahead of enemies in a tie is a nice improvement.
(9) Brightness Seeker (***): It’s only once per day, but augury is frequently useful. On top of which, you get access to an outstanding reaction for 30 minutes. If you have a bard in your party or someone who similarly hands out status bonuses with regularity, the reaction may be redundant.
(9) Elf Step (***): Won’t work with any of your gunslinger features that allow you to Step as part of an activity, but getting two Steps for one action is a good way to get out of danger or into position. Somewhat redundant with Drifter’s Juke. Feather Step improves its value.
(9) Otherworldly Acumen (***): Gain a second level innate spell based on the list you had as a prerequisite for this feat. Since Otherworldly Magic was your only common choice, it’s probably arcane. Good choices include blur, create food, darkvision, endure elements, false life, humanoid form (Pistoleros), invisibility, knock (Triggerbrands), loose time’s arrow, mirror image, see invisibility (especially with Blood in the Air), slough skin, and spider climb. If your GM will let you choose a first level spell, true strike is outstanding. Being able to change your spell day-to-day is great too.
(13) Wandering Heart (**): Your best option is cavern, but this feat will give you some environmental flexibility or darkvision as needed, provided you have enough downtime.

Gnome (**)

Small size is a limitation for Vanguards no matter what and for Drifters or Triggerbrands using a weapon with a grapple / shove / trip trait, although Titan Wrestler can mostly overcome that. CON and CHA boosts will only really be useful for Pistoleros, who luckily don’t need STR. Other Ways should choose two free ability boosts instead. Low-light vision isn’t terribly exciting, but it’s better than normal at least. You do start with three languages, which is higher than normal and potentially helpful for Pistoleros & language-limited feats. There are several feats and heritages which grant innate magic. You will get little to no value out of offensive spells and won’t generally have the action economy to do much with buffs or utility spells. Only one meaningful feat relies on a specific heritage. A versatile heritage wouldn’t go amiss in order to bolster the number of useful feats available to you.

Heritage:

Chameleon (**): +2 to stealth is nice for Snipers, although getting it is situational.
Fey-Touched (**): Get a flexible primal cantrip. Good choices include detect magic (if your party doesn’t have it), guidance, healing plaster (if you’re the party medic), light, read aura, stabilize, and maybe tame sometimes (especially for Pistoleros using deception for infiltration).
Sensate (***): Imprecise senses are a great way to capitalize on your perception progression. Plus, you get a big bonus to Seek against Undetected creatures within your scent range - even if you can’t actually smell them.
Umbral (***): Darkvision is always good.
Wellspring (**): Less flexible than fey-touched since you can’t swap your cantrip day-to-day, but with more options: bullhorn (Pistoleros; divine / occult), mage hand (arcane / occult), message (Snipers for their stealth and scouting; arcane / divine / occult) shield (arcane / divine / occult), or warp step (arcane / occult). Divine spells are your worst choice if you’re taking this heritage to qualify for certain gnome feats.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Animal Accomplice (***): Familiars provide some value to you even if you have no means of granting them extra abilities. Partner in Crime is useful for Pistoleros, Triggerbrands, and anyone building for a trapfinder role. Second Opinion is good for Spellshots. Threat Display will relieve Pistoleros from needing Intimidating Glare. Innate Surge gives you an extra daily cast of any one leveled innate spell you have from other gnome feats. Flier + Share Senses gives you some scouting potential. Familiar skill usage will work best on Pistoleros who have the CHA to fuel the familiar’s skills.
(1) Empathetic Plea (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. If you’re focusing on diplomacy and want some damage reduction early in an encounter, you can get it with this feat. You may have a hard time achieving the trigger though, since you want to act hostile toward enemies early and often.
(1) First World Magic (**): Same list of useful spells as the fey-touched heritage, but without the day-to-day flexibility.
(1) Gnome Obsession (**): This rating is for Spellshots. Having an automatically scaling lore skill will be occasionally helpful to Recall Knowledge, which will function with Thoughtful Reload.
(1) Gnome Weapon Familiarity / (5) Innovator (***): This rating is for Drifters. Drifters can get access to the gnome flickmace or, if you prefer a weapon with the trip trait, the gnome hooked hammer and get critical specialization for them. The kukri is also a good option for Drifters, and its critical specialization synergizes well with exsanguinating ammunition. Triggerbrands can get access to the gnome amalgam musket, but its Reload 2 is annoying at best.
(1) Grim Insight (***): Requires umbral gnome heritage. With your poor will save progression, enemies have a solid chance of landing fear effects on you. Reducing their likelihood of success is a meaningful way to counter one of the gunslinger class’s weaknesses, plus the excellent response of making said enemy Flat-Footed for even trying is outstanding.
(1) Illusion Sense (***): Getting a bonus to Seek against Invisible targets is a great application for this feat. It works especially well in tandem with Blood in the Air.

(5) Illusory Disguise (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. Illusory disguise works well alongside with your deception skill, provided you and your party use deception as part of your infiltration attempts. Item facade and ventriloquism are harder to gauge as they’re entirely situational, but having flexible access to them makes their situational nature more easily leveraged. The fact that these spells automatically heighten is unusual for innate spells and helps keep them relevant.

(1) Life-Giving Magic (**): Requires you to cast primal innate spells granted by the gnome ancestry in order to function. Best used alongside the fey-touched heritage and either the guidance or shield cantrip for ready temp HP at the cost of an action and a reaction. Primarily valuable in melee where you’ll be more consistently attacked. This feat synergizes quite well with the beast gunner archetype.
(1) Unexpected Shift / (9) Fortuitous Shift (*** / ****): While Dazzled is unpleasant, free damage resistance is great. The fact that there’s no limit on how often you can use this reaction makes it a meaningful addition to your kit since so many of the gunslinger reactions are situational. The circumstance bonus to saves won’t apply to very many things, but there may be rider effects on enemy spells that would require a second save after taking damage. Fortuitous shift takes the flat check’s success chance from 25% to 50% and gets rid of the Dazzled condition, which is outstanding. If you’re frequently fighting from a range where you’re not likely to be targeted (Snipers), these feats will be less useful for you.
(9) Cautious Curiosity (**): Requires an arcane or occult innate spell from gnome.This rating is for Snipers. Silence is sometimes a useful tool to prop up your stealth, especially because attacking with firearms doesn’t bear the auditory trait and you can silence your shots for a minute. Misdirection isn’t very good.
(9) First World Adept (**): Requires an innate primal spell from gnome. You’ll have a hard time fitting faerie fire in on your turns, but it may be useful in exploration mode. Invisibility is always nice, even if you can’t cast the heightened version.
(9) Life Leap (***): Functions somewhat similarly to Tumble Through. Life Leap has no associated check, happens automatically, doesn’t treat the enemy’s square(s) as difficult terrain, and doesn’t trigger reactions. Tumble Through requires an acrobatics check vs. the target’s reflex DC as part of a Stride (or Climb, Fly, or Swim) and can trigger a reaction if you fail or can’t make it all the way through the difficult terrain squares. Life Leap also requires you to be adjacent to the target when you use it, while the Stride for Tumble Through can start wherever relative to the target so long as you have enough speed to make it through. Basically, Life Leap is safer and doesn’t require a skill, but requires more setup. If you’re already in place adjacent to a target and need to guarantee you’ll get to the other side for flanking or escape, Life Leap is generally the better option unless you still need some extra movement on the other side. Even if you are focusing on acrobatics, though, Life Leap is a meaningful addition to your kit.
(9) Vivacious Conduit (**): By this level, someone in your party likely has a means of healing you rapidly between encounters, making this feat speed that process up a bit. If your party does not contain someone with renewable exploration mode healing resources, Vivacious Conduit is an excellent way to bring yourself back up to full HP.
(13) Instinctive Obfuscation (**): Requires an arcane or occult innate spell from gnome. Mirror image as a reaction once per day is a nice defensive tool, even if it gives you fewer images than normal.

Goblin (***)

Small size is a limitation for Vanguards no matter what and for Drifters or Triggerbrands using a weapon with a grapple / shove / trip trait, although Titan Wrestler can mostly overcome that. DEX and CHA are good for Pistoleros, but the WIS flaw hurts, especially since your will progression is poor. You’re generally going to be best off with two free ability boosts instead. Darkvision is always good. While the baseline ability boosts aren’t much to look at, goblin has lots of great feats on offer. You can’t go wrong with the unbreakable heritage, but if you don’t like that or any of the other heritages’ associated feats, you can get away with a versatile heritage.

Heritage:

Charhide (***): While normally I don’t point out resistance options, this one has some unique value. With all the emphasis on fire damage-based alchemical items that this ancestry offers, the charhide goblin heritage provides fire resistance for Alchemical Shot when the dice don’t roll your way.
Snow (**): Not particularly exciting on its own, as it gives you situational resistance, but it’s required for a good feat based around athletics.
Tailed (**): Gives Combat Climber, reduces the number of hands required to Climb and Trip, and gives a bonus to Climb. Those are situational, but potentially useful for any Way. Vanguards, however, will love getting weapon flexibility: you’ll be able to Trip without a free hand. Since Shove and Trip become doable with both hands occupied, and eventually Grapple with the Vanguard’s Greater Deed, your weapon options are wide open. This heritage is green (***) for Vanguards. It’s not quite as good for Drifters or Triggerbrands, but if you’re playing one of those Ways and investing in athletics, you’ll appreciate the eased free hand requirement for Tripping.
Treedweller (**): This rating is for Snipers. Situational by nature, but if you're in forests or jungles often, the bonus to Hide and Sneak will be awesome. When you’re in those locations, the goblin feats which improve stealth will be outstanding.
Unbreakable (***): Extra ancestry HP and reduced falling damage if you don’t care about acrobatics & Cat Fall. Also opens up some solid feats.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Bouncy Goblin (***): Requires unbreakable goblin heritage. Acrobatics works quite well for you, especially for Drifters. Tumble Through is your primary usage for acrobatics regardless of Way. Getting a +2 bonus to Tumble Through is great even if you never go beyond trained proficiency.

(9) Roll with It (**): Stunned 1 and being moved 30 feet away from the triggering enemy in the direction of its choice are dangerous, especially since the movement can trigger reactions. That said, getting moved away from an enemy is fine for you since you can always use ranged attacks. The 75% chance to either take minimum damage or negate a crit is solid too.

(1) Burn It! (***): This rating applies if you have a means of dealing damage with an alchemical item. It provides a little extra damage on your alchemist’s fire and Alchemical Shot’s persistent damage (fire only). Alchemical crossbows, alchemical gauntlets, or weapon siphons potentially gain some damage as well, although the alchemical crossbow is uncommon. You’ll only really be able to use the alchemical gauntlet or a weapon siphon on a Drifter. Chances are, if you’re using alchemical items for damage, you’re not actually throwing bombs all that often, which means Alchemical Shot (only the persistent damage benefits without an alchemical crossbow) and an alchemical weapon are the most consistent ways to benefit from this feat. Shattering Shot should benefit as well since you’re dealing “the bomb’s normal damage” by using an alchemical item. Your GM may rule that the Spellshot’s Initial Deed and Fulminating Shot count while using an alchemical crossbow (or alchemical gauntlet / weapon siphon, but Spellshots don’t have any reason to be in melee), but that’s fuzzier. You’re dealing additional fire damage, not necessarily dealing fire damage with an alchemical item - although alchemical weapons are alchemical items and you’re dealing fire damage through their attacks.
(1) Goblin Scuttle (***): This rating is for the Ways that want to be in or near melee. Getting a Step as a reaction to your ally’s movement is a good way to get into place for flanking.

(9) Skittering Scuttle (***): More mobility than Goblin Scuttle, but a Stride can trigger enemy reactions. Fortunately, you get to make the decision whether you Step 5 feet or Stride 15 feet whenever you use the reaction.

(1) Goblin Weapon Familiarity / (5) Frenzy (***): This rating is for Drifters and Triggerbrands. The dogslicer is great for Drifters and the explosive dogslicer is good for Triggerbrands, although Triggerbrands will have to carefully consider their turns to get the maximum value from an explosive dogslicer. The big boom gun is a high risk, high reward weapon for Drifters or Pistoleros. The flingflenser and spoon gun both bring the scatter trait, which is risky for your whole party (unless you can convince them to buy backfire mantles), and the cobbled trait on both the big boom gun and the spoon gun risks misfiring. If you’re taking Goblin Weapon Familiarity for the big boom gun, flingflenser, or spoon gun, you should treat Goblin Weapon Familiarity as yellow (**) and not bother with Goblin Weapon Frenzy.
(1) Junk Tinker (**): If you’re planning to lean into crafting, this will help save you some downtime. It’ll make churning out items like breech ejectors and alchemical ammunition less painful.
(1) Twitchy (***): This rating is primarily for Triggerbrands, but also for any build to be the party trapfinder and invest in thievery. The bonus to AC and saves against hazards will help keep you a bit safer in that trapfinder roll, and the initiative bonus is nice. Especially useful if your game has a lot of social encounters.
(1) Very Sneaky (***): Extra speed when you Sneak and some easing of the cover and concealment requirements are notable improvements to Sneak. If you’re leaving stealth at trained proficiency, this feat is solid. If you’re investing in stealth, you should retrain it once you have Legendary Sneak. Note that its easing of Sneak requirements is useful even when you have Swift Sneak.

(13) Very, Very Sneaky (**): Primarily useful if your stealth is trained and no further. If you’re investing in stealth, you can just take Legendary Sneak instead. This feat will give you more or less the same benefits of Legendary Sneak for levels 13 and 14 if you want to take it and then retrain once you have Legendary Sneak.

(5) Kneecap (**): Since you have to make a Strike, this feat’s action will contribute to the MAP. If you need to kite away from danger, though, you can enable yourself to do so since you can move away, make a ranged attack, and capitalize on the enemy’s penalized speed. This feat adds some value to the razortooth heritage specifically for Vanguards since the jaws unarmed attack is possible with both hands occupied. That’s also somewhat true for Triggerbrands since they can use the jaws unarmed attack without having to switch between weapon modes. Both are pretty fringe uses that require both your heritage and a fifth level ancestry feat, though.
(5) Vandal (**): This rating is for the trapfinder role. If you run into a trap that’s giving you trouble on the disabling front, you can always just smash through it with this feat’s hardness reduction. At range, no less.
(9) Freeze It! (***): Requires the snow goblin heritage. This rating is primarily for Vanguards, but it also applies for Drifters and Triggerbrands with investment in athletics. Being able to make an enemy Clumsy 1 or 2 with an athletics check that does not influence the MAP is a strong use for athletics, and which works nicely to improve your hit / crit chances. A flanked, Clumsy 1 enemy is at a net -3 to its AC. Drifters taking advantage of this with an agile weapon (dogslicer) are in a very good place.
(13) Unbreakable-er Goblin (***): Requires unbreakable goblin heritage. 10 extra HP is a big difference, and you no longer need Cat Fall. Coupled with Bouncy Goblin, you can even traverse some vertical obstacles, although by this level that may not be much of an issue for you (especially with Black Powder Boost).
(17) Reckless Abandon (***): Particularly awesome for Ways that want to be in melee and have run out of options to avoid triggering reactions. Also applies for those in a trapfinder role who can minimize hazard damage. The save improvements only occur on your turn, but there are all sorts of situations where the benefits of this feat apply.

Halfling (****)

Small size is a limitation for Vanguards no matter what and for Drifters or Triggerbrands using a weapon with a grapple / shove / trip trait, although Titan Wrestler can mostly overcome that. DEX and WIS are great boosts all around and the STR flaw is fine for Pistoleros and Spellshots, as well as Snipers who want to use a tripod for kickback weapons. Drifters, Triggerbrands, and Vanguards, as well as snipers who prefer not to punish their own action economy, will need to overcome the STR flaw and may prefer two free ability boosts instead. Also, if you’re willing to skimp on damage until level 10 or 15, you can start with 8 or 10 STR and boost it as you level up, building toward a kickback weapon in the middle-to-late levels. The Keen Eyes feature is a great addition to your already excellent perception progression, although its synergy with Blood in the Air only comes into play against Invisible targets. Generally speaking, Keen Eyes functions better with Deadeye. If you want to play a halfling, you should strongly consider investing in stealth. Many of its feats revolve around Hiding and Sneaking. Otherwise, you still have several great options in the Halfling Luck feat tree.

Heritage:

Gutsy (***): Emotion effects are fairly common (Demoralize) and your will save isn’t great. Having some help overcoming emotion effects is a welcome improvement.
Hillock (**): You want to be at or near full HP at the start of every encounter. This will help you get there a bit more easily. It’s not necessary provided your party has the resources to heal everyone up to full as needed in exploration mode. At low levels, it will be much more valuable.
Observant (***): Alongside your excellent perception progression, enemies will have a harder time staying Hidden from and Lying to you.
Twilight (**): Low-light vision is at least an improvement over normal vision.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Distracting Shadows (****): Even if you’re not playing a Sniper, this feat is a huge incentive to invest in stealth. If you are playing a Sniper, Hide behind your spellcaster friend in the back line. Being able to use your allies to Hide and Sneak is an outstanding means of rendering enemies Flat-Footed to you.

(13) Ceaseless Shadows (****): Very nearly on par with Legendary Sneak, allowing you to Sneak without cover or concealment. Being able to get standard cover from creatures (mostly going to be your allies) is awesome no matter what, but especially for Snipers, for whom this feat is purple (*****).

(1) Folksy Patter (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. It’s a means of communicating with your allies without revealing information to would-be listeners. Relies on deception.
(1) Halfling Luck / (13) Incredible Luck (****): Halfling Luck is limited to once per day, but you’re almost certainly going to fail a skill check or saving throw at least once per day. Considering how many of your Way features rely on your Way skill, that along is enough to recommend taking this feat. Coupled with judicious hero point usage, you can really make it stretch, too. Incredible Luck makes this much less limited, although it doesn’t affect Guiding Luck or Helpful Halfling.

(5) Halfling Ingenuity (**): This makes your Halfling Luck more versatile. It’s kind of like Untrained Improvisation, but limited in when it applies and with a circumstance bonus equivalent to that of expert proficiency to reroll untrained skill checks.
(5) Shared Luck (****): This makes your Halfling Luck more versatile. Share the love with your party. Giving an ally a reroll on a failed save can make a huge difference.
(9) Guiding Luck (****): This is essentially a once-per-day reroll for an attack or perception and nothing else, but both of those are worthy uses for a once-per-day reroll. Note that the Seek and Sense Motive actions are secret checks. Speak with your GM about how this will work for rerolls.

(1) Intuitive Cooperation (***): (U) Requires a specific ethnicity, but if you meet that requirement, this feat helps Fake Out a bit, although it does override the +1 circumstance bonus. That’s not too much of a problem, though, as it just makes Fake Out more readily usable without conditionals.
(1) Unfettered Halfling (**): Extra protections against and ability to Escape from the Grabbed and Restrained conditions. Situational, but you don’t want those to happen to you.
(1) Watchful Halfling (**): Needing to notice enchanted or possessed creatures isn’t likely to happen often, but at least you can Aid your allies in overcoming those same effects.
(5) Cultural Adaptability (****): There are a ton of great feats you can get with Adopted Ancestry, which you get as part of this feat, as well as a first level ancestry feat corresponding to the ancestry you choose. If nothing else, it’s a means of getting an ancestry weapon, of which there are many good choices. Just keep in mind that your choices are limited to common ancestries.
(5) Step Lively (***): This rating is for the Ways that want to be in melee. Getting better positioning without triggering reactions, as a reaction to enemies ending their movement next to you, is a great way to set up flanking.

(9) Dance Underfoot (***): This rating is primarily for Drifters, but it also applies if you’ve invested in acrobatics as a Way that wants to be in melee. In the middle and higher levels when large and larger enemies become more frequently, being able to occupy their spaces, whether from Tumble Through or Step Lively, opens up your positioning quite a bit. It won’t be great for flanking, but it will make it much easier for you to move about.

(13) Toppling Dance (***): You’ll need to also invest in athletics, but you’ll get a lot of freedom for which weapons you can use to Trip, as well as when and where you can Trip large and larger enemies. Since it doesn’t specify melee weapons, you can Trip with a ranged weapon as long as you meet the other requirements.

(17) Shadow Self (***): Requires legendary proficiency in stealth. Hiding and Sneaking can cause you to become Invisible once per hour for a minute, as well as misdirecting enemies to think you’re in a different location. Basically a once-per-hour second level invisibility spell with some bells and whistles, which is good regardless of Way provided you’ve invested in stealth.

Human (***)

The human ancestry has little to offer at baseline, but the feat selection is strong. Most of the feats aren’t stand-out game changers, but you’ve got a lot of good options. What the human ancestry brings is flexibility. You can pull off quite a few different builds with it, and it’s especially valuable for Unconventional Weaponry as a means of enabling repeating hand crossbow usage.

Heritage:

Half-elf (***): See the half-human heritages section.
Half-orc (***): See the half-human heritages section.
Skilled (**): Since gunslinger is generally such an INT-averse class, an extra skill that auto-scales to expert proficiency (though no further) can be helpful, but it’s not the strongest heritage on offer.
Versatile (****): Getting a general feat at level 1 is huge. Adopted Ancestry alone opens up so much build potential and, getting it from your heritage, leaves your ancestry feat slot open for whichever ancestry you pick. See the noteworthy general feats section for other good choices.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Cooperative Nature (***): Does a lot to help with Fake Out and supportive skill check Aiding, although you may want to retrain Cooperative Nature at higher levels when you need the bonus less. It will overwrite the +1 circumstance bonus from Fake Out, but that’s not really a problem.
(1) General Training (***): Another means of gaining a general feat, which can also be used for Adopted Ancestry. You may feel less need for it with the versatile human heritage, but it’s a great ancestry feat choice for half-elves and half-orcs. It’s also not quite as flexible as the versatile human heritage, taking up the ancestry feat slot you’d otherwise use for another ancestry’s feat from the versatile human heritage.
(1) Gloomseer (**): Requires the Nidalese ethnicity. Low-light vision is at least an improvement over normal vision.

(5) Darkseer (***): Requires some interaction with Zon-Kuthon and / or his faith, although that interaction can be antagonistic. Regardless, this feat implies a story connection for the god of darkness, envy, loss, and pain to give you his blessing. If you’re willing to accept those roleplay and story / backstory requirements, darkvision is always good.

(1) Haughty Obstinacy (***): With your poor will save progression, enemies have a solid chance of landing mental effects on you. Turning successes against those effects into critical successes is a meaningful way to counter one of the gunslinger class’s weaknesses. The Coercion resistance component is unlikely to come up, though.
(1) Natural Ambition (***): Extra first level class feat. You already get one of those at level 1, but if you want one of the more situational options, there are a few okay choices. Alchemical crossbow usage benefits very much from this feat: you can get both Crossbow Crack Shot and Munitions Crafter at level 1. Drifters (and dual wield Triggerbrands if you feel so inclined) will also appreciate getting both Dual-Weapon Reload and Sword and Pistol at level 1.
(1) Unconventional Weaponry (***): Access to any of the good ancestry weapons, although you won’t get critical specialization. If you want to use an applicable advanced ranged weapon like a repeating hand crossbow (culturally associated with drow via the drow shootist archetype), this feat is a better means of using one than the level 6 class feat Advanced Shooter.
(5) Clever Improviser (***): The stronger version of Untrained Improvisation, already a good feat, which allows you to use any skill action that would require you to be trained.

(9) Incredible Improvisation (***): Versatility when it matters. Getting a +4 bonus to a skill action once per day can make a world of difference. It’s basically a once-per-day expert proficiency for a skill action related to a skill in which you are untrained.

(9) Group Aid (**): Mostly useful for stealth, but there may be other situations where your entire group is attempting the same skill check in which you can contribute some circumstance bonuses.
(9) Multitalented (***): There are a few good archetype dedication feats that stand on their own, no further feats needed. Rogue gives you the surprise attack class feature, which is great for Snipers. Ranger’s Hunt Prey helps with range issues at the cost of action economy. Swashbuckler’s panache feature functions very well with Drifters (although the CHA limitation is rough). For Spellshots in particular, you can get around the fact that the Spellshot dedication locks you into its archetype feats (barring beast gunner). This feat only gives Spellshots a new archetype a level early, though. That “one level early” assumption does imply that you’ve taken Call Gun at level 8, which is a rather weak class feat. As such, this feat does still have quite a bit of value for Spellshots who want to branch out into another archetype without taking subpar Spellshot feats. Half-elves get a much easier time since they don’t need to meet the ability score requirements, which is realistically the only ability score-optimal way for, say, a Drifter to take a swashbuckler archetype. As a class that’s generally strapped for ability score flexibility, the half-elf benefit can go a long way.
(13) Advanced General Training (***): General feats are awesome, although your build may be all set on them by this point. This can also get you a skill feat if there’s one you absolutely need.
(13) Bounce Back (***): Especially if you’re in or near melee frequently, being able to shrug off your first value increase for the Wounded condition once per day is an excellent defensive benefit.
(13) Stubborn Persistence (***): This rating assumes you’re planning to take Dance of Thunder or Triggerbrand Blitz. Although it’s a small chance, being able to outright overcome the Fatigued condition is worth an ancestry feat.

(17) Zealous Conviction (***): Being able to pre-buff with temp HP due to the 10 minute duration makes this feat pretty readily usable. The status bonus to will saves is big despite functioning specifically against mental effects. That said, mental effects are pretty scary due to your poor will save progression. Getting a bonus to shrug off some nasty control effects is highly beneficial.

Uncommon ancestries

Azarketi (*)

30 feet of swim speed is a lot, but it comes with costs. Your normal speed is only 20 feet, which isn’t horrible, but it’s frustrating to have lower speed. CON and CHA are good for Pistoleros, but the WIS flaw hurts, especially since your will progression is poor. You’re generally going to be best off with two free ability boosts instead. Low-light vision isn’t particularly exciting, but it’s at least better than normal vision. The real difficulty with this ancestry is in the fact that you need to be able to fully submerge in water every day or start taking penalties and, eventually, suffocating. Unsurprisingly, this ancestry is best suited to an aquatic campaign. Most of the feats available have to do with being in bodies of water. Since the majority of campaigns are not aquatic, versatile heritages generally aren’t an option to make this ancestry widely viable - you need the mistbreath azarketi heritage to even function in most campaigns. Adopted Ancestry is a better way to fill out your ancestry feat slots.

Heritage

Ancient Scale (***): Darkvision is always good, and you can provide a small source of light to help your allies out.
Mistbreath (***): Removes the need to submerge yourself, brings your speed up to average at 25 ft., and reduces your swim speed to 15 ft. If you’re playing in a non-aquatic campaign, this is the heritage you want. Frustrating that it takes a heritage to make your ancestry function normally, though.
Murkeyed (**): Good synergy with Deadeye.
Thalassic (**): Helpful to overcome ranged weapon limitations in an aquatic campaign.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Algollthu Bound (***): This feat is a bit of a double-edged sword. If your campaign is unlikely to feature many, if any, algollthus, it’s a straight upgrade. Otherwise, it’s a danger. With your poor will save progression, having a few buffs to shore up your ability to shrug off mental effects that would make you Controlled is a good way to not light up your allies with gunfire.
(1) Cynical (**): It’ll be harder for NPCs to Lie to you, which is sometimes useful given your strong perception progression.
(1) Hydraulic Deflection (***): Basically a buckler without the hand usage or bulk. If you can fit Raising a Shield in on any given turn, extra AC is always nice.
(5) Marine Ally (**): Familiars provide some value to you even if you have no means of granting them extra abilities. Unfortunately, one of your familiar’s abilities must be Amphibious. Partner in Crime is useful for Pistoleros, Triggerbrands, and anyone building for a trapfinder role. Second Opinion is good for Spellshots. Threat Display will relieve Pistoleros from needing Intimidating Glare. Flier + Share Senses gives you some scouting potential. Familiar skill usage will work best on Pistoleros who have the CHA to fuel the familiar’s skills.
(5) Water Strider / (13) Mist Strider (**): Water Strider is sort of a budget version of the athletics feat Water Sprint, but at an earlier level and with stricter action requirements. Mist Strider is budget flight, but at an earlier level than most ancestries get flight. You’ll either need to carefully consider your vertical movement and where / when you land, or you’ll need Cat Fall and acrobatics investment to counter the fall damage.
(13) Hydraulic Maneuvers (**): Extra range on your athletics skill actions (except Grapple) at the cost of an action. By this level, chances are good you’ve got something that will protect your movement from reactions, but having a backup if that isn’t the case is decent. Action economy is the issue here since you have to spend an action to get the range.
(13) Rehydration (***): Mostly removes the need to submerge yourself. Only a useful feat if you picked a heritage other than mistbreath.

Catfolk (****)

DEX and CHA are good for Pistoleros, but the WIS flaw hurts, especially since your will progression is poor. You’re generally going to be best off with two free ability boosts instead. Low-light vision isn’t particularly exciting, but at least it’s better than normal. The Land on your Feet feature won’t totally mitigate fall damage, but it does provide some synergy with Black Powder Boost and Reach for the Stars. While many of the options on offer are only truly useful for Drifters, there are enough good choices here for it to be a worthwhile ancestry pick. Likewise with the available heritages: while there are several good choices, you could certainly get away with a versatile heritage and cherry pick the catfolk feats you like most.

Heritage:

Flexible (***): Frees up a fairly common situation that causes difficult terrain, making you more mobile around the battlefield and harder to chase, and gives you a nice bonus to Escape attempts to boot.
Hunting (***): Imprecise senses are a great way to build upon your already strong perception progression. Just make sure to overcome the WIS flaw. Also helps with survival checks to Track, but that’s not exactly a mainstay skill for you.
Liminal (**): Detect magic is good if your party doesn’t have it, and even if they do it’s sometimes nice to have two or three users who can triangulate magic effects at lower levels. The occultism bonus will mostly only apply for Spellshots.
Nine Lives (***): Going to Dying 2 in one hit is a scary way to approach death. Reducing it to Dying 1 will be much more manageable, especially if you’re already Wounded.
Sharp-Eared (***): Not only do you have excellent perception progression that will be able to put paid to the Seek circumstance bonus, you’ll be much more able to help your allies out with the free Point Out action. Synergizes well with Blood in the Air. Also synergizes well with True Perception, but mostly just for the free Point Out when it applies.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Cat Nap (***): Best if someone else in your party is the medic, but regardless, free temp HP once per hour is a solid way to stay alive, especially for the Ways that want to be in or near melee.
(1) Cat’s Luck (***): Your reflex save is strong. Make it stronger with a reroll once per day.

(5) Expanded Luck (****): Same as Cat’s Luck, but now applies to fortitude and will saves as well. Especially useful for will saves since your progression is poor.
(5) Lucky Break (**): While it’s nice to have some flexibility in how you use your Cat’s Luck, the consequences for failing an athletics or acrobatics check are generally less dire than those for a failed reflex save. You might like this more as a Vanguard, though, especially if and when you have Reliable Luck.
(9) Sense for Trouble (***): Going higher in initiative is generally good, especially for the Ways that want to position for flanking. This does still compete with your other uses for Cat’s Luck, though.
(9) Shared Luck (***): Unlike the other feats at this level and below, this feat does not compete for your Cat’s Luck usage - it just improves it when you use it on a reflex save, allowing you to give rerolls to nearby allies as well. Useful for effects like fireball.
(17) Reliable Luck (****): Cat’s Luck usage once per hour rather than once per day, regardless of how you use it. If you’re building into Cat’s Luck, you absolutely want this feat.

(1) Catfolk Dance (***): Best for Drifters who both want to be in melee and want to focus on acrobatics, but the other Ways who want to be in / near melee will appreciate it if focusing on acrobatics. If you have the room for it, a third action to debuff a target’s reflex save and maybe make them Flat-Footed is a great way to set up your allies. As a generally supportive martial, you might as well lean into the role.
(1) Catfolk Weapon Familiarity / Rake (***): This rating is for Drifters. Kukris and claw blades are both good melee weapons for Drifters, both of which are accessible through the Familiarity feat. The bleed from the claw blade and kukri critical specialization with the Rake feat synergizes well with exsanguinating ammunition. The hatchet’s critical specialization gives you a bit of extra damage in two-target encounters, provided those targets are adjacent to each other and within your reach.
(5) Graceful Guidance (***): Complements Shared Luck well. You’ll have to set up to Aid, but it will give you a useful group support tool provided you can fit in the necessary action.
(5) Pride Hunter (***): While not as versatile as the halfling version, being able to Hide behind your allies is outstanding. While any build can fit in a stealth investment, Snipers will love this feat and should treat it as blue (****).
(9) Evade Doom (**): Situational by nature, but Doomed is a scary condition. Being able to shrug it off sometimes is helpful.

(17) Ten Lives (**): Hopefully you’re not often getting into situations where you’re about to die, but if you are, getting a small chance to survive is a nice protective feature.

(9) Predator’s Growl (***): This rating is for Pistoleros. Hidden and Undetected enemies are common enough that the situation where this feat applies is bound to come up for you with noticeable frequency. Getting a Demoralize as a reaction is a meaningful addition to your list of available situational reactions.
(9) Silent Step (***): Similar to many of your class feats and features, this feat combines a Step and a Hide or Sneak into a single action. A little extra mobility to get you in place for a Hide or Sneak is welcome on any build with a stealth investment, but especially Snipers.
(9) Wary Skulker (****): This rating is for builds investing in stealth, especially Snipers. Other than Spellshots, you can easily fit stealth into most builds, Combining both the party-wide initiative bonus from Scouting and the personal safety and information gathering of Avoid Notice is outstanding.
(9) Well-Groomed (**): Diseases are situational, but a somewhat common situation. They also tend to be scary. Getting a bonus to overcome them is helpful if you can reasonably expect to need it. Couples well with your fortitude progression.
(13) Black Cat Curse (****): Always nice to have an extra use for your reaction, especially to help a nasty effect stick. You can use it for your firearm critical specialization Stuns, though it’s also helpful to assist your allies in landing their scary spells. It also has late game synergy with Ricochet Legend.
(17) Elude Trouble (****): Getting to Stride without triggering reactions, as a reaction, is fantastic no matter your Way. It synergizes especially well with the Ways that want to be in or near melee, but it’s also useful to get away when you need the range.

Fetchling (**)

The only baseline value this ancestry brings is darkvision, which is good, but as the only improvement over the norm it doesn’t do much to make the ancestry a desirable pick. Most everything this ancestry has to offer feat-wise improves your perception or stealth, though, both of which are great for your kit. If you want to play this ancestry, it’s because you’re investing in stealth. As such, I’ve written the feats under the general assumption that you will have a stealth focus. Snipers and builds with a stealth focus should consider this ancestry green (***). While there are several good heritages on offer, a versatile heritage can fill some gaps from level 9 onward should you feel the need for higher-level ancestry feats. Adopted Ancestry wouldn’t go amiss, either.

Heritage:

Bright (**): You won’t need any of the effects this heritage brings, but your party might. Coordinate with your caster friends when building your character to see if they would appreciate a free cantrip slot, because that’s effectively what this heritage does.
Liminal (***): Meaningful improvements to your Seek, and synergizes with both Blood in the Air and Deadeye. One of the benefits of this heritage will be overwritten with either feat, but those benefits will still be useful until and unless you get those feats.
Resolute (***): Emotion effects are fairly common (Demoralize) and your will save isn’t great. Having some help overcoming emotion effects is a welcome improvement.
Wisp (***): This rating is primarily for Drifters, but melee or melee-adjacent builds that invest in acrobatics will also benefit. The bonus to Tumble Through will be frequently beneficial. Quick Squeeze is pretty useless, though. Small size will also make athletics skill actions difficult, although Titan Wrestler can mostly overcome that.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Hard to Fool (***): At a bare minimum, it’ll help your already strong perception progression when you try to Seek past Invisibility. Has anti-synergy with Deadeye. Also helps your will saves against illusions and shadow effects, which is situational, but it’s always nice to have bonuses to your weak will saves.
(1) Shadow Blending (***): Enemies become 10% less likely to hit you when you’re Concealed or Hidden and you use this reaction. Solid.
(1) Shrouded Magic (**): Gain an occult cantrip. Bullhorn (Pistoleros), detect magic, guidance, light (for allies if needed), mage hand, message, read aura, shield, and warp step are decent choices.
(1) Slink (***): Extra movement while Sneaking is great, as are the action economy easements for continuing the Sneak while behind cover or Concealed. The extra speed won’t matter once you have Swift Sneak, but the rest of the features will remain useful.
(5) Extinguish Light (***): Works particularly well for Triggerbrands or those in a trapfinder role with a focus on thievery. Synergizes well with Slink since you can create the conditions that ease the Sneak action economy, but at the cost of two actions. That said, if your allies all have darkvision, you’ve basically got an on-demand darkness every ten minutes with much greater range. This feat is also a great way to enable your stealth.
(5) Lightless Litheness (**): Squeezing doesn’t come up often enough to recommend this feat, but the improvements to Escape will be useful sometimes.
(5) Shadowy Disguise (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. Illusory disguise will sometimes be a useful tool to complement your deception.
(9) Shadow Sight (**): Greater darkvision once per hour will help you overcome magical darkness sometimes. It takes an action to activate, though.
(13) Skirt the Light (**): (U) If overland travel speed is an issue for you, you can help your party speed past the issue once per day.

Gnoll (**)

STR and INT boosts with a WIS flaw do more harm than good for any Way. STR is useless for Spellshots, who want the INT, and INT is useless for the Drifters, Triggerbrands, and Vanguards, who want the STR. Just take two free boosts instead. Low-light vision isn’t particularly exciting, but it’s at least better than normal vision. There are some good lower-level feats on offer, but to get the most out of this ancestry you’ll want a versatile heritage and / or Adopted Ancestry.

Heritage:

Ant (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. Getting a bonus to Lie will be helpful sometimes for social interactions, and if you can find a way to use deception for initiative, the bonus there will be nice as well. This heritage is mostly useful for social encounters and social interactions in exploration mode, though.
Great (****): This rating is primarily for Vanguards, but can also apply for Drifters and Triggerbrands with appropriate melee weapon traits. 2 extra HP isn’t a ton, but every little bit helps. The real value lies in the constant circumstance bonus to Shove and Trip, both of which are great for builds with athletics.
Sweetbreath (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. If you want to round out your face skills, you’ll get a bonus to one of the most useful applications of diplomacy.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Gnoll Weapon Familiarity / Practicality (***): This rating is for Drifters. The best choice is the khopesh, to which you get access and which offers the trip trait alongside a d8 damage die. You also get access to the mambele. The thrown and disarm traits are nothing special, but it does at least bear the deadly d8 trait for some extra average damage. As for critical specialization effects from Gnoll Weapon Practicality, those of the flail, spear, khopesh, and mambele all give you some value, with the flail’s automatic prone effect on crits the strongest of the bunch. Any of them will do, though, and the Flat-Footed effect from the khopesh is nothing to sneeze at. You’ll want maximum STR for all of these weapons, but generally you’ll want maximum STR anyway for damage output.
(1) Hyena Familiar (***): Familiars provide some value to you even if you have no means of granting them extra abilities. Partner in Crime is useful for Pistoleros, Triggerbrands, and anyone building for a trapfinder role. Second Opinion is good for Spellshots. Threat Display will relieve Pistoleros from needing Intimidating Glare. Flier + Share Senses gives you some scouting potential. Familiar skill usage will work best on Pistoleros who have the CHA to fuel the familiar’s skills.
(1) Pack Hunter (***): This feat helps Fake Out a bit, although it does override the +1 circumstance bonus. That’s not too much of a problem, though, as it just makes Fake Out more readily usable without conditionals. It also encourages your allies to Aid you, giving them a bonus to do so.

(5) Pack Stalker (**): This rating is for builds focusing on stealth. While the Terrain Stalker feat is inherently situational, being able to eventually allow your allies free positioning in the right terrain can give you a huge advantage in an encounter. This feat also doesn’t limit your terrain sharing to the granted version of Terrain Stalker, meaning you can take it two more times to share it with your allies in all three available terrain types. Doing so doesn’t change the situational nature of Terrain Stalker, but it does make it more frequently viable.

(1) Sensitive Nose (***): Imprecise senses are a great way to improve your already excellent perception progression.
(9) Grandmother’s Wisdom (***): Augury is a useful spell. Being able to cast it twice per day is a great way to augment your party’s divination capabilities.
(9) Laughing Gnoll (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. If you’re feeling strapped for skill feats, this feat frees you from having to take Intimidating Glare and Battle Cry, both of which you can retrain if needed.

Grippli (*)

Small size is a limitation for Vanguards no matter what and for Drifters or Triggerbrands using a weapon with a grapple / shove / trip trait, although Titan Wrestler can mostly overcome that. Pistoleros and Spellshots will do well with the DEX and WIS boosts alongside a STR flaw. Drifters, Snipers, Triggerbrands, and Vanguards will be better off taking two free boosts instead. Low-light vision isn’t particularly exciting, but it’s at least better than normal. This ancestry only really has one consistently useful feat in Envenomed Edge. If you really want that or Ricocheting Leap for a bit of extra mobility, you’ll almost certainly want either a versatile heritage or Adopted Ancestry. Or both. This ancestry seriously has very little to offer you other than a good ability spread for Pistoleros and Spellshots.

Heritage:

Poisonhide (**): Dealing a bit of scaling poison damage as a reaction is an efficient means of damage delivery, but the trigger is somewhat situational. Spellshots will find this heritage less effective because of their class DC being tied to INT.
Stickytoe (***): This rating is for the Ways that want to be in melee. Since action economy comes at a premium for you, having to expend actions to Stand after being knocked Prone or get back into melee after being Shoved is painful. Resisting those effects in the first place is a much better way to go about it, and this heritage helps.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Nocturnal Grippli (***): Darkvision is always good.
(9) Absorb Toxin (**): Situational, but very useful when multiple people in your party are under the effects of an AoE poison or disease. Less useful for Spellshots since their class DC is tied to their INT.
(9) Ricocheting Leap (***): This rating is primarily for Vanguards, but also applies for builds investing in athletics. Requires master proficiency in athletics and the Wall Jump feat. If you’ve got Black Powder Boost and / or Reach for the Stars, using Wall Jump was already a means of extending those feats’ value. Ricocheting Leap applies even moreso, giving you some extra distance on your Wall Jump leap, mobility across a populated battlefield, and some eased athletics skill action economy to boot.
(13) Envenomed Edge (***): You pretty consistently deal piercing damage with firearms and have a relatively high likelihood of landing crits. Might as well stack a bit of extra persistent poison damage on. Useful for Spellshots to hit as many damage types in one shot as possible. Modular B, P, or S weapons will give you a means of dealing slashing damage with your shots in the rare case where enemies are resistant / immune to piercing damage with no such protections for slashing damage. For Drifters and Triggerbrands, you’ll instead have the option to use a slashing melee weapon, albeit at the cost of lower crit chance.

Hobgoblin (***)

CON and INT boosts are fine for Spellshots, but WIS is always a painful flaw. You’re generally better off with two free boosts instead. Darkvision is always good. There are quite a few solid heritages and feats on offer here, especially with the Runtsage feat. The feat value is pretty evenly spread among specific Ways, though. While the hobgoblin ancestry overall has a lot to offer, certain Ways may appreciate a versatile heritage’s feat set to supplement what’s available here.

Heritage:

Elfbane (***): An always-available reaction to improve your saves against magic is great, especially against arcane magic.
Smokeworker (**): Synergizes very well with the Smoke Curtain feat. That feat isn’t available until level 8, though, and until then this heritage will be highly situational. If you’re comfortable with the action economy limitations of Smoke Curtain, it plus you ignoring its associated Concealed condition can be a highly effective combination for your own safety, especially for Snipers. Make sure to communicate with your party about your plans to use and play / build around smoke.
Steelskin (***): While technically situational, the fact that this heritage helps you overcome just about all forms of persistent damage is bound to be useful on a fairly consistent basis.
Warrenbred (**): Improving your Seek burst to 30 feet against Undetected creatures is an outstanding improvement alongside your already excellent perception progression, but make sure your GM knows it’s up to them to recognize when the burst radius improves. You may want to prompt them from time to time to check if this benefit applies.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Alchemical Scholar (**): Extra alchemical item formulas, and more as you level up. You may feel you have plenty if you’re pursuing the Munitions Crafter feat line, or you may like a bit more flexibility in your free ammunition / bombs.
(1) Cantorian Reinforcement (***): Although virulent diseases and poisons aren’t terribly common, they are particularly nasty. Feats in this vein are the only way to make it easier to overcome virulent afflictions. Plus, diseases tend to be nasty, and between diseases and poisons, those afflictions are fairly common on their own. With your good fortitude progression and almost certainly some investment in CON, you’ll have a much easier time shrugging off diseases and poisons.
Hobgoblin Weapon Familiarity / Discipline (***): This rating is for Drifters. The Familiarity feat gives access to a one-handed reach weapon, the breaching pike. The razing trait on the breaching pike isn’t all that exciting, but overcoming hardness does at least help you break shields. The Discipline feat gives critical specialization for the breaching pike, which inflicts Clumsy 1, and for the longsword to inflict Flat-Footed.
(1) Remorseless Lash (**): This rating is for Drifters and Triggerbrands. If someone in your party is consistently applying the Frightened condition (and someone should be, just not you), then you might as well help them out and keep that condition going. Gunslingers are sort of martial support, after all. Still, it’s a situational feat because it’s not really possible to predict any given party’s overall capabilities. If your party has someone using Demoralize often, you’ll love this feat. Likewise with other Frightened-inducing effects: your bard friend with Dirge of Doom will appreciate the composition cantrip flexibility that you’ll afford them with this feat, for example.
(1) Sneaky (***): Extra movement while Sneaking is great, as are the action economy easements for continuing the Sneak while behind cover or Concealed. The extra speed won’t matter once you have Swift Sneak, but the rest of the features will remain useful.
(1) Stone Face (***): With your poor will save progression, enemies have a solid chance of landing fear effects on you. Reducing their likelihood of success is a meaningful way to counter one of the gunslinger class’s weaknesses. Especially valuable for the improved bonus against Demoralize attempts (and similar intimidate skill actions) since that’s such a ubiquitous means of applying a fear effect.
(1) Vigorous Health (**): Drained doesn’t come up terribly often, but when it does, it’s a frustrating condition, especially if you get multiple stacks of it. Getting a chance, even if small, to immediately shrug it off is useful when the right situation arises.
(5) Agonizing Rebuke (***): This rating is for Pistoleros. Might as well enjoy some free damage for using your kit as normal. If you’ve got a bard or swashbuckler in your party that can keep the Frightened condition going, even better.
(5) Expert Drill Sergeant (***): This rating is mostly for Snipers and builds with a stealth focus, but there are a few other exploration activities that can benefit. Helping your allies be more stealthy (or more whatever-y for other skills) is useful from a support perspective.
(5) Runtsage (***): There are quite a few strong goblin feats, although some of the best are locked behind goblin heritages. If you’re playing a stealth build, you can retrain Sneaky and take Runtsage to get access to the Very Sneaky / Very, Very Sneaky feats. Burn It! is also on offer for alchemical crossbow and / or bomb usage, as well as all the other considerations that come with said feat.
(9) Cantorian Rejuvenation (**): Chances are, you’re relying on someone else to heal you in encounters, but having the option to do it yourself once per day can be nice. It is heavy on the action economy, though.
(9) Squad Tactics (**): This rating is for Drifters, Triggerbrands, and Vanguards. Situational because it depends on your party composition. If you have two other melee party members, though, you can reliably render enemies Flat-Footed to you for both ranged and melee attacks, which is great.
(17) Cantorian Restoration (***): Long enough range that you shouldn’t have much trouble being in position unless you’re a Sniper on a larger battlefield. As long as you’re in range, though, being able to use breath of life once per day as a reaction to keep an ally from dying is strong.
(17) Rallying Cry (**): Sort of like haste once per day, but it doesn’t affect you and hands out temporary hit points. It’ll be hard to fit alongside your action economy, although the Quickened condition is generally very strong.

Kitsune (*)

Kitsune offers very little of value. You get low-light vision and that’s about it. You even get fewer languages than most ancestries. Change Shape can potentially be useful for Pistoleros in social encounters and activities. While there is a familiar on offer here, it has to have the Innate Surge master ability, which is borderline useless for you since the innate spells available from this ancestry are almost all worthless or require investment in worthless spells / feats to get to anything useful. If you’re playing a kitsune, it’ll be for flavor, not feat or heritage value.

Heritage:

Celestial Envoy (**): Getting bonuses to your saves as a reaction is nice, but you can only use this against divine effects. At least you can use it to fish for divine effects, I guess? Tailless form is more useful for Pistoleros.
Dark Fields (***): This rating is for Pistoleros. Getting temporary HP once per hour as a reaction when you Demoralize (or any time a creature in range gains the Frightened condition, even if your allies cause it) is decent. Fox alternate form is awful since pest form has very little use to begin with and falls off almost immediately.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Shapechangers Intuition (**): At least it’s something passive that works with your excellent perception progression. You’ll potentially be able to passively see through transmutation and disguises.
(5) Myriad Forms (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. If your chosen heritage has a fox alternate form, you’ll want this feat to get a tailless alternate form so that Change Shape has even a little bit of relevance.
(5) Shifting Faces (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. If you have a humanoid form available for Change Shape, you can at least get illusory disguise once per day to help with deception and infiltration.
(9) Fox Trick (**): For Pistoleros or Snipers, you can get a free action use of Create a Diversion (Pistolero) or Conceal an Object / Hide (Sniper) once per day. Also applies for non-Sniper stealth builds.

Kobold (***)

Small size is a limitation for Vanguards no matter what and for Drifters or Triggerbrands using a weapon with a grapple / shove / trip trait, although Titan Wrestler can mostly overcome that. DEX and CHA are good boosts for Pistoleros. You ought to overcome the CON flaw, though. You can do that by choosing two free ability boosts regardless of Way, or you can accept an 18/16/14/10/10/10 starting ability spread and boost CON as you level up if you’re willing to risk lower HP for earlier levels. Darkvision is always nice. The heritages aren’t particularly exciting, making versatile heritages not only viable but encouraged. There are plenty of good feats on offer, though, making it somewhat difficult to squeeze in versatile heritage feats.

Heritage:

Dragonscaled (**): Talk to your GM if you want to pick this heritage. It’s a resistance of your choosing at character creation, but which you can’t change later on.
Spellscale (**): Gain an arcane cantrip. Bullhorn (Pistoleros), detect magic, light, mage hand, message (Snipers while Sneaking / scouting ahead), read aura, shield, and warp step are decent choices. Also sets you up for some nice spells via feats later on.
Venomtail (**): A bit of extra damage once per day since firearms and crossbows all deal piercing damage.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Cringe (***): Reduce critical hit damage by a bit. Especially for the melee and melee-adjacent Ways, getting a bit of damage resistance against nasty crits is useful.
(1) Dragon’s Presence (**): This feat is truly a double-edged sword for you because of your will save progression. Turning successes into crit successes against fear effects is great, but turning failures into crit failures is also a fairly likely outcome. Pistoleros will appreciate an occasional bonus for their Demoralize attempts.
(1) Kobold Breath (**): Heavy on the action economy, but it gives you some AoE capability and damage type versatility.

(9) Dragon’s Breath (***): Much better damage and area coverage, although it does limit both your Kobold Breath and Dragon’s Breath usage to once per hour when you use Dragon’s Breath.

(1) Kobold Weapon Familiarity / Innovator (***): This rating is for Drifters. The Familiarity feat gives you access to the fangwire, flying talon, and tricky pick. Though as low as possible on the damage die, the fangwire brings some excellent traits. Finesse and agile work great for Drifters, backstabber and deadly d8 add some much needed damage potential, and the grapple trait gives you a use for athletics while your hands are occupied, plus a means of activating backstabber without a flanking buddy. The flying talon gives you access to the ranged trip trait, which does not show up on many weapons, and it’s got the tethered trait to boot. You’ll be able to throw this weapon without the usual issues of a thrown weapon (although there is an action economy tax to reel the weapon back in). Like the fangwire, its damage is low, but it gives an option for athletics if you’re investing in it. The tricky pick is the damage option of the three, offering the same damage as many one-handed pistols (although without the proficiency to back it up; not too much of a problem if you start 16 STR), plus backstabber for a little more. The Innovator feat gives you critical specialization effects for the pick, light pick, spear, and kobold weapons, all of which bring some value to the table (extra damage, Clumsy 1, Slowed 1, or Prone).
(1) Scamper (***): Get away from enemies to more safely use your ranged attacks. Useful no matter the Way, even if you have to go back for melee attacks eventually.
(5) Ally’s Shelter (***): Especially useful if you’re able to hang out back by your casters where you can take advantage of their will saves.
(5) Winglets (**): Synergizes well with Black Powder Boost if you can get up on something tall, use Black Powder Boost again, and glide for range and vertical access. If nothing else, it’s a means of mitigating fall damage (at the cost of an action), which is a frequent concern with Black Powder Boost. Also a means of mitigating most of the issues of Black Powder Boost without having to invest in athletics.

(13) Hatchling Flight (***): Some flight is better than none. You’ll do best with at least 30 feet of movement speed.

(17) Wyrmling Flight (****): A permanent fly speed is always great. You will want to retrain Black Powder Boost if you have it, though.

(9) Between the Scales (***): This rating is for Drifters. It’s pretty easy to render an enemy Flat-Footed via flanking since that’s much of your role in the party. If you’re using a weapon with both the finesse and agile traits - which isn’t a bad idea for Drifters - you might as well get a bit of extra reliable damage. Triggerbrands can also benefit if using a dagger pistol, but that’s one of the weakest combination weapons.
(9) Briar Battler (**): This rating is for Snipers. The feat is situational by nature, but considering how often the environment is the reason for difficult terrain, it’s a solid choice to improve the situations in which you can Take Cover.
(9) Close Quarters (**): Party-dependent, but opening up the areas in which you can take advantage of the same terrain benefits your allies want to use is bound to be good at some point. You’ll just need small allies.
(9) Dracomancer / (13) Elite Dracomancer (***): If nothing else, Dracomancer gives you true strike once per day. There are other good options with no associated save, too, some of which are encounter mode utility options. If you only see first and second level spells for a given draconic exemplar, you should only bother with the Dracomancer feat for that color / metal.

Black: alarm, true strike (1); blur, invisibility (2)
Blue: alarm (1); invisibility, mirror image (2)
Green: true strike, ventriloquism (Pistolero) (1); humanoid form (Pistolero), mirror image (2); locate (3); dimension door, stoneskin (4)
Red: true strike (1); comprehend language (Pistolero) (2); haste (3); invisibility, stoneskin (4)
White: true strike (1); invisibility (2); haste (3); dimension door, freedom of movement (4)
Brass: alarm, ventriloquism (Pistolero) (1); humanoid form (Pistolero), mirror image(2); locate (3); dimension door (4)
Bronze: alarm, true strike (1); comprehend language (Pistolero), mirror image (2)
Copper: fleet step (1), invisibility (2), haste (3), stoneskin (4)
Gold: alarm, mending (group-dependent), protection (1); restoration (2); haste (3); discern lies, restoration (4)
Silver: alarm, bless, protection, true strike (1); augury, restoration (2); wall of wind (3); freedom of movement, read omens, restoration (4)

(9) Dragonblood Paragon (***): There are several improvements on offer here. Using it with the Dracomancer feat is very good for the black, green, white, bronze, and silver draconic exemplars because of true strike and a few other key spells, but you won’t be able to do so until level 13. The other good option with this feat is to add persistent damage to your Kobold Breath. Note that the persistent damage does also occur when improving your baseline damage via Dragon’s Breath. If you went with the venomtail kobold heritage, you can instead use that a second time per day. Generally, your best bets with this feat are Dracomancer and Kobold Breath.

Leshy (**)

Small size is a limitation for Vanguards no matter what and for Drifters or Triggerbrands using a weapon with a grapple / shove / trip trait, although Titan Wrestler can mostly overcome that. CON and WIS are good boosts for all but Spellshot if you aren’t worried about starting with a 16 in STR. The INT flaw is why Spellshot suffers, but any other Way will be just fine with it. Spellshots and, if you want 16 STR, Drifters, Triggerbrands, and Vanguards should instead take two free ability boosts. Low-light vision isn’t terribly exciting, but it’s at least better than normal. Plant Nourishment means you generally won’t have to worry about rations or Subsisting. There are a few strong feats available, but most of what’s on offer here is situational and / or difficult to put to good use. If you want to be a leshy, it could certainly stand some improvement via a versatile heritage or Adopted Ancestry.

Heritage:

Fruit (**): A bit of extra party support if needed.
Fungus (***): Darkvision is always good.
Gourd (**): Provides some support for a swap-and-drop play style. Beyond that, it’s up to you whether it’s worth having a readily accessible item stored in your head.
Leaf (**): Synergizes well with Black Powder Boost and Reach for the Stars. No more fall damage. Useful if you’re not investing in acrobatics and don’t want the Cat Fall feat.
Root (***): This rating is for the Ways that want to be in melee. Since action economy comes at a premium for you, having to expend actions to Stand after being knocked Prone or get back into melee after being Shoved is painful. Resisting those effects in the first place is a much better way to go about it, and this heritage helps.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Leshy Superstition (***): +1 to any save as a reaction is solid.

(9) Lucky Keepsake (****): Getting a permanent bonus to saves is even better.

(1) Undaunted (***): Emotion effects are fairly common (Demoralize) and your will save isn’t great. Having some help overcoming emotion effects is a welcome improvement.
(5) Anchoring Roots (**): Much like the root leshy heritage, this rating is for ways that want to be in melee. Steady Balance doesn’t come up a ton, but it is at least a means of getting range from a weird or slick surface as a means of deterring enemy approach when you want to go fully ranged. The Anchor action you gain from this feat is basically the same as the benefit from the root leshy heritage. For root leshys, it does stack with their bonus. A +4 to resist Shove and Trip attempts is strong, but the problem is that you have to spend an action to get it when your turns are already pretty competitive for action use.
(5) Leshy Glide (**): Requires leaf leshy heritage or the Cat Fall feat. With this feat, you can get a lot of horizontal range from a high point, which tend to be easy to reach provided you have Black Powder Boost. It does require an action to use and maintain, though.
(5) Ritual Reversion (**): Tree shape can be a useful scouting / infiltration tool. If you have the stealth to support getting into position, you’ll probably find a use for it here and there while trying to infiltrate and gain information about foes.
(9) Solar Rejuvenation (**): You want to be at or near full HP at the start of every encounter. This will help you get there a bit more easily. It’s not necessary provided your party has the resources to heal everyone up to full as needed in exploration mode. It also comes online at a late enough level that you may not feel the need for the extra exploration mode healing oomph. Party-dependent.
(9) Spore Cloud (**): Basically an emergency “ninja vanish” tool, but the action economy is quite restrictive. All you’ll realistically be able to do is spend your third action to Step or Stride away, but if you absolutely need the defense and repositioning, it can be a useful means of getting where you need to be. Less useful for Spellshots since it functions off of class DC.
(13) Cloak of Poison (**): It’s not a ton of damage, takes two actions to activate, and can only be used once per day. It is an okay deterrent, though, and will be most useful on Ways that want to be in or near melee. At least you can pre-buff with it.
(17) Flourish and Ruin (**): Vanguards can take advantage of tangling creepers with Shoves since the spell’s speed penalty has no associated save. Pistoleros with longer-range weapons and Snipers can put it to good use as well since it’s got a 500 foot range. Bottleneck an area and go to town taking pot shots at enemies mired in the speed reduction. Attacking with it is a bad idea because your spell attack / spell DC is going to be terrible. Field of life can be useful depending on opposition and positioning. If you’re fighting undead, the melee and melee-adjacent Ways will be able to provide a bit of passive sustain and damage with no associated save. Otherwise, you can hang out in the back line and keep yourself and fellow ranged allies (spellcasters) healthy against ranged enemies. The problem, of course, is action economy. Both spells require two actions to use initially and both require you to Sustain a Spell for an action per turn.
(17) Regenerate (***): Regenerate is a solid supportive spell which isn’t too harsh on your action economy besides the two actions to cast it.

Lizardfolk (**)

STR and WIS boosts are good for melee and melee-adjacent Ways, or if you otherwise want to use a kickback weapon. The INT flaw is fine for any Way but Spellshot. If you don’t care about STR and / or are a Spellshot, you’re better off with two free ability boosts. Breath Control is a situational feat, but particularly useful against inhaled poisons, giving it some value for a trapfinder role. There aren’t a whole lot of good feats on offer, but you can make it work with a versatile heritage or Adopted Ancestry. Discuss with your party well ahead of time if you plan to take Terrain Advantage.

Heritage:

Cloudleaper (**): Synergizes well with Black Powder Boost and Reach for the Stars. No more fall damage. Useful if you’re not investing in acrobatics and don’t want the Cat Fall feat.
Frilled (**): Removes the need for Intimidating Glare for Pistoleros, although they won’t get any use from the Threatening Approach activity.
Unseen (***): This rating is for Snipers and builds incorporating stealth. While technically situational, you can spend an hour to adapt to your environment as needed and get that stealth bonus fairly frequently. A +2 is a pretty big bonus.
Woodstalker (**): Situational by nature, but being able to ease the environment requirements to Take Cover sometimes is decent for Snipers. Likewise with Terrain Stalker, although you can still take it two more times (and can easily get another terrain type from a background’s Terrain Stalker feat) to cover one or both of the other available environments.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Bone Magic (**): Get a primal cantrip. Good choices include detect magic (if your party doesn’t have it), guidance, healing plaster (if you’re the party medic), light, read aura, stabilize, and maybe tame sometimes (especially for Pistoleros using deception for infiltration).
(1) Parthenogenic Hatchling (**): Although virulent diseases aren’t terribly common, they are particularly nasty. Feats in this vein are the only way to make it easier to overcome virulent afflictions. Plus, diseases tend to be nasty, if situational. With your good fortitude progression and almost certainly some investment in CON, you’ll have a much easier time shrugging off diseases.
(5) Guided by the Stars (****): Fortune on a skill check or saving throw once per day as a free action is slightly better than Halfling Luck since you take the better roll, and even better if you’re outdoors at night often.
(5) Iruxi Glide (**): Requires the cloudleaper lizardfolk heritage. With this feat, you can get a lot of horizontal range from a high point, which tend to be easy to reach provided you have Black Powder Boost. It does require an action to use and maintain, though.
(9) Read the Stars (**): This rating is for Spellshots. If you’re investing in occultism, you can get story clues to help you progress the campaign.
(9) Terrain Advantage (**): You’ll need someone in your party capable of creating difficult terrain, but being able to make any enemy in difficult terrain Flat-Footed regardless of your own positioning (and, importantly, range) is quite strong. One means of creating difficult terrain is the level 7 meteor shot consumable. Party-dependent, but with the right party this is a very strong feat.
(13) Primal Rampage (***): Freedom of movement and stoneskin are both good self-buffs, you can pre-buff with them, and you can get both up at once in a single turn as a three-action activity. Decent.

Nagaji (*)

Low-light vision isn’t particularly exciting, but it’s at least better than normal. That’s about all this ancestry has to offer you at baseline. There aren’t a lot of good feats on offer either, and the only decent heritage is primarily useful for melee and melee-adjacent Ways. What little value there is in the available feats is also available from other ancestries. If you really want to play a nagaji, I strongly encourage you to look into a versatile heritage and / or Adopted Ancestry.

Heritage:

Hooded (*): Worthless on its own since you have much better ranged attack options. It is one way to qualify for a good feat, though.
Sacred (***): The tail attack is pretty much worthless for you unless you really want to sink a ton of gold into it as a Drifter. The bonus to your DC against Grapple and Trip attempts is solid, though, especially because it also applies against effects that cause those conditions even if they’re not from athletics skill actions.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Cold Minded (***): Emotion effects are fairly common (Demoralize) and your will save isn’t great. Having some help overcoming emotion effects is a welcome improvement.
(1) Nagaji Spell Familiarity (**): Daily flexibility between detect magic and mage hand, both of which are decent spells for you. Don’t bother with daze, though.

(5) Nagaji Spell Mysteries (**): Technically the requirements for this feat allow for you to meet the prerequisites with a heritage, but none of the nagaji heritages offer innate spells. Your only real choice here is fleet step, but that’s a pretty good spell with long-term value.

(13) Nagaji Spell Expertise (**): Your only real choice here is blink, but control water might be useful from time to time.

(1) Serpent’s Tongue (***): Imprecise senses are a great way to improve your already excellent perception progression.
(1) Water Nagaji (**): Swim speed is situational enough that I don’t generally list it, but this feat also comes with Breath Control. Breath Control is a situational feat, but particularly useful against inhaled poisons, giving it some value for a trapfinder role.
(5) Hypnotic Lure (**): Two actions make this hard to fit into your action economy. With someone in your group that has a reaction triggered by movement, you can force targets into better positioning for yourself (generally only for melee and melee-adjacent Ways) and help your other martial friends out. It does also make your movement safer past your target since said target can’t take reactions against your movement until its turn, as well as safeguarding you against reactions to your ranged attacks in melee.
(5) Skin Split (**): Hard on the action economy, but it will outright break you out of persistent damage for two actions. Persistent damage is somewhat common, it’ll just be hard to fit this activity in alongside your difficult action economy.
(5) Venom Spit (*): Just like the hooded nagaji heritage, you don’t really gain anything from a ranged attack. It’s just here to qualify you for Envenom Strike if you want that feat and don’t want to take the hooded nagaji heritage.
(9) Envenom Strike (**): 2d6 extra poison damage effectively once per encounter is a decent damage improvement, but you’ll have to spend an action to get it and you’ll have to take either the hooded nagaji heritage or the Venom Spit feat to qualify. If you put the poison damage on a firearm or crossbow, at least you have a relatively high chance of landing a crit. 2x 2d6 damage is good compared to other classes’ single action non-MAP damaging effects.
(9) Serpentcoil Slam (**): This rating is for Drifters and Triggerbrands. You’ll need a means of getting up close enough to a flying enemy that you can hit them with a melee Strike. Black Powder Boost / Reach for the Stars are potential options, and a reach weapon helps. If you are able to melee Strike flying enemies, your allies will likely appreciate you being able to bring those flying enemies down to the ground.

Orc (***)

Darkvision is always good, but that’s all you get at baseline. Luckily, with a couple universally useful heritages and feats, and a few feats that are useful for specific Ways, there’s something for everyone here.

Heritage:

Battle-Ready (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. If you’re going with an intimidation focus, it’s a free trained skill. If you’re going for a deception focus, it’ll let you cover all bases with your kit. Intimidating Glare is a great skill feat. Ultimately, though, you’re using a heritage for picks you were likely to already take.
Grave (***): There are a lot of nasty necromancy effects out there, especially when fighting undead. Plenty of necromancy effects also bear the death trait, which tend to be particularly bad for you. In some cases, the bonus will also help shore up your relatively poor will save.
Hold-Scarred (***): 12 ancestry HP is a lot, but its value is mostly in comparison to the lower-HP ancestries. Double HP versus, say, the halfling ancestry is solid by comparison, but the extra HP will mostly matter at earlier levels. Gunslinger is an 8 HP martial class though, so some extra HP may feel useful to you, especially with a lower CON score build. Diehard is also a solid feat, but you may never be at risk enough to really need it.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Orc Ferocity / (13) Incredible Ferocity (***): As a ranged class, being able to survive an effect that would put you into Dying so that you can get away and keep shooting is a useful feature despite being once per. Once per hour instead of once per day with Incredible Ferocity. If you or someone in your party can create magical tattoos, the One Hundred Victories tattoo is great alongside Orc Ferocity, especially with the hold-scarred orc heritage. NOTE: If your GM is running the wounded rules from the GM screen rather than the CRB, staying up with wounded 1 is more deadly than waiting for an ally to heal you and you should not take this feat chain.

(5) Defy Death (***): Partial Toughness (minus the HP), except it also stacks with Toughness. Especially for the Ways in and near melee, having an easier time of standing back up in a dangerous position so you can get away and keep shooting is solid.
(9) Undying Ferocity (***): Temporary hit points to make it that much more likely that you’ll stay up to get into a better firing position.
(17) Rampaging Ferocity (*** / **): This rating applies to Drifters and Triggerbrands, respectively. Drifters getting a free action Strike in dangerous situations, which can help keep them up if you manage to down your target, is a strong upgrade to Orc Ferocity. Likewise with Triggerbrands, but situational since their weapon will have to be in melee mode.

(1) Orc Superstition (***): A bonus to any save vs. spells / magic as a reaction is always solid.

(9) Pervasive Superstition (****): Even better when that bonus is permanent.

(13) Spell Devourer (***): Can’t hurt to add some temp HP when you succeed on a save against a spell, especially for the Ways in more danger up in or near melee. The temp HP does drop off at the end of your next turn following the successful save, though.

(1) Orc Warmask (**): Most consistently useful for Spellshots, but with the Dubious Knowledge feat even the other Ways can get information from Recall Knowledge without any INT investment. Your primary reason to take this feat is because of its follow-up feats.

(5) Mask of Power (***): True strike as an innate spell is great, even if the other two options won’t be of any value to you.
(5) Mask of Rejection (**): Situational by nature since it only works against the spell tradition tied to your Orc Warmask’s skill, but a +2 bonus to saves as a reaction is a strong buff.
(9) Mask of Pain (***): This rating is for Pistoleros. Dealing 2d6 or, eventually, 4d6 mental damage is a reaction is a solid use of a reaction when you successfully Demoralize. It’s only once per target per day, but with no associated save you’re just about guaranteed extra damage on every enemy you encounter.
(13) Mask of Fear (***): Fear effects are relatively common and you have poor will save progression. Automatically removing a fear effect as a free action, no counteract check required, even if you wouldn’t otherwise be able to act because of said fear effect, is quite strong.

(1) Orc Weapon Familiarity (** / ***): The only weapon worth taking with this feat is the barricade buster. It’s primarily useful for Spellshots, but Vanguards can get some use from it as well with a proper build. Snipers may get some use from it as well with an understanding of its range limitations.
(5) Hold Mark (***): This rating is for Drifters and Triggerbrands. Since there aren’t many good options from the Orc Weapon Familiarity feat, gaining critical specialization for a melee weapon group without a prerequisite feat is quite strong. Your options are axes, picks, hammers, shields, bombs, and knives, which is quite the selection. While Drifters have tons of options for their melee weapons, Triggerbrands will only want this feat if using an axe musket, crescent cross, dagger pistol, or hammer gun. Of these, only the hammer gun provides optimal value. Its shove trait is much better than the axe musket’s sweep trait (although you will need athletics investment) and the hammer critical specialization is strong. Crescent cross and dagger pistol are an option for Triggerbrands who want to dual wield or have a free hand. Dual wielding comes with its own host of complications. For other Ways (namely Vanguard), the knife critical specialization applies for bayonets.

A note on bombs: this is one of very few ways for you to gain bomb critical specialization effects, which provides some synergy with your alchemy class feats. That said, the bomb specialization increases splash radius to 10 feet. This “improvement” bears the same issue as weapons with the scatter trait: you’re putting your allies and potentially yourself at risk. This critical specialization is situational and unreliable. You will have a hard time predicting when a 10 ft. splash radius will be useful due to weaknesses / resistances / immunities and battlefield positioning, and can’t really rely on bomb crits (especially because your bombs’ item bonuses to attack will occur 3 levels behind normal).

(5) Scar-Thick Skin (**): Bleed damage is situational, but it’s among the more common persistent damage types. Making the flat check to overcome bleed damage easier will be useful from time to time.
(5) Victorious Vigor (**): This rating is primarily for Ways in or near melee. Getting temp HP as a reaction whenever you bring an enemy down to 0 HP will help keep you a bit safer. The most it will ever give is 5 temp HP unless you’re using your apex item for CON, though, and it only lasts until the end of the turn following your reaction.
(9) Death’s Drums (**): If you’re frequently Wounded, getting a sizable bonus to fortitude saves will be useful. That should be pretty situational, though, as should your suffering from persistent damage.
(13) Lifeblood’s Call (**): This rating is for Drifters and Triggerbrands. Similar to Death’s Drums, but with Doomed and Wounded, and a bonus to melee damage instead.

Ratfolk (*)

Small size is a limitation for Vanguards no matter what and for Drifters or Triggerbrands using a weapon with a grapple / shove / trip trait, although Titan Wrestler can mostly overcome that. DEX and INT boosts plus a STR flaw are perfect for most Spellshots (for whom this ancestry should be treated as yellow (**)), unless using a kickback weapon. Other Ways will generally prefer two free ability boosts. Low-light vision isn’t particularly exciting, but it’s at least better than normal. While there are a few good options for heritages, there are very few good feat choices. Also, most of the good options you can get from this ancestry are available elsewhere. If you really want to play a ratfolk, I strongly suggest Adopted Ancestry. A versatile heritage can work as well, but will overwrite the value you’d otherwise gain from a normal ratfolk heritage.

Heritage:

Deep (***): Darkvision is always good.
Longsnout (***): Imprecise senses are a great way to capitalize on your perception progression. Plus, you get a big bonus to Seek against Undetected creatures within your scent range - even if you can’t actually smell them.
Sewer (***): Although virulent diseases and poisons aren’t terribly common, they are particularly nasty. Feats in this vein are the only way to make it easier to overcome virulent afflictions. Plus, diseases tend to be nasty, and between diseases and poisons, those afflictions are fairly common on their own. With your good fortitude progression and almost certainly some investment in CON, you’ll have a much easier time shrugging off diseases and poisons.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Rat Familiar (***): Familiars provide some value to you even if you have no means of granting them extra abilities. Partner in Crime is useful for Pistoleros, Triggerbrands, and anyone building for a trapfinder role. Second Opinion is good for Spellshots. Threat Display will relieve Pistoleros from needing Intimidating Glare. Flier + Share Senses gives you some scouting potential. Familiar skill usage will work best on Pistoleros who have the CHA to fuel the familiar’s skills.
(1) Skull Creeper (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. It’ll either be a free trained skill or round out your kit’s skills to include both deception and intimidation. It also gives you access to a +1 item bonus to intimidation as soon as you’re able to spend 50 gp on a splendid skull mask.
(5) Cornered Fury (**): Hopefully you’re not eating crits too often, but when it happens you’ll get to treat the offending foe as Flat-Footed. Most useful for Ways in or near melee since they’re generally in the most danger.
(5) Plague Sniffer (**): Requires the longsnout ratfolk heritage. You’ll be highly capable of detecting diseases when they otherwise show no effects, which can help you and your party stave off some of the nastier long-term diseases before they start causing problems.
(9) Overcrowd (**): Party-dependent, but opening up the areas in which you can take advantage of the same terrain benefits your allies want to use is bound to be good at some point. You’ll just need small allies.

(13) Shinstabber (***): Chances are you’ve got medium allies. Extra battlefield positioning options will be useful and can get you over lesser cover limitations.

(9) Uncanny Cheeks (**): Both Prescient Planner and Prescient Consumable are inherently situational feats, but getting two general feats is decent if your GM is cooperative on your “Aha! I have just the right tool!” moments.

Tengu (**)

Low-light vision isn’t particularly exciting, but it’s at least better than normal. That’s all this ancestry has to offer at baseline. Most tengu feats are geared toward spellcasters, but there are a few great feats here. Primarily, flight and perception improvements will be useful for everyone. Drifters in particular will appreciate this ancestry and should treat it as green (***). Adopted Ancestry or a versatile heritage will help fill the gaps.

Heritage:

Jinxed (**): While situational all around, curses come up often enough that you’ll occasionally appreciate being able to turn saves against them into crit saves. Misfortune effects get the same benefit, but are much rarer. You’ll also have a 20% chance to shrug off Doomed.
Skyborn (**): Synergizes well with Black Powder Boost and Reach for the Stars. No more fall damage. Useful if you’re not investing in acrobatics and don’t want the Cat Fall feat. Situational on its own, but this heritage also sets you up for feats that grant flight.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Scavenger’s Search (***): Expands the area of your automatic secret Seek checks for hidden doors and hazards while Searching, and applies if you’re deliberately Seeking in an area for said hidden doors and hazards. Also functions while Seeking for objects, but that’s a much more situational use. Great for the trapfinder role and of particular value for Triggerbrands.
(1) Squawk! (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. It’ll help sometimes in social encounters, but won’t do anything for Create a Diversion or Demoralize. If you’re going all in on face skills and have Bon Mot, it’ll significantly ease the crit fail risk of Bon Mot.
(1) Tengu Weapon Familiarity / (5) Study (****): This rating is for Drifters. First and foremost, and the reason for the rating, you can make falcatas into simple weapons and get critical specialization with them. Falcatas are among the best one-handed melee weapons for pure damage. Otherwise, temple swords, wakizashis, rapiers, and shortswords are good options for the Study feat, with temple swords and wakizashis accessible through the Familiary feat. You could instead use a tengu gale blade, which is mathematically equal to a shortsword, but comes with baseline slashing damage and the disarm trait as opposed to the shortsword’s baseline piercing damage and versatile S trait.
(5) Long-Nosed Form (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. You’ll have a somewhat easier time of infiltration using deception since you won’t necessarily need to rely on a disguise.
(9) Soaring Flight (***): Requires the skyborn tengu heritage. Temporary flight once per day.

(17) Soaring Form (****): Permanent fly speed.

(13) Harbinger’s Caw (***): Imposing misfortune once per day as a reaction is a solid way to shut down nastier enemies.

Vanara (**)

This ancestry offers nothing at baseline unless your GM is particularly forgiving with the Prehensile Tail and reloading. If your GM does allow you to reload with the Prehensile tail, it’s an excellent feature for dual wield Pistoleros or Triggerbrands. The way Prehensile Tail is written is vague enough that it’s possible a GM would allow reloading, but it’s not written too favorably to allow you to do so. These points all hold for clearing misfires as well. This ancestry doesn’t offer a ton of value, but it’s got a little something for everyone. It could use some help from Adopted Ancestry or a versatile heritage, but they’re not entirely necessary.

Heritage:

Ragdyan (**): Gain a divine cantrip. Bullhorn (Pistoleros), detect magic, guidance, light, message (Snipers for their stealth and scouting), read aura, and shield are decent options.
Wajaghand (***): Emotion effects are fairly common (Demoralize) and your will save isn’t great. Having some help overcoming emotion effects is a welcome improvement.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Canopy Sight (**): Low-light vision isn’t particularly exciting, but it’s at least better than normal.
(1) Climbing Tail (***): This rating is primarily for Vanguards, but the feat is also useful for Drifters and Triggerbrands investing in athletics. You will no longer need a weapon with the trip trait to be able to trip.
(1) Sudden Mindfulness (**): Triggering from successful saves against the Dazzled or Fascinated condition is inherently situational, but Dazzled is annoying and common enough that shrugging it off and rendering the offending enemy Flat-Footed for a reaction is nice.
(1) Vanara Weapon Familiarity / Trickery (***): This rating is for Drifters. The urumi is one of only two one-handed weapons with the deadly d10 trait, which is quite strong on the damage front. It’s also a flail, which has one of the best melee critical specializations.
(5) Darting Monkey (***): This rating is for Ways in or near melee. Rendering an enemy unable to flank you when you hit them is a strong means of keeping yourself safe in melee.
(5) Jungle Runner (**): This rating is for Snipers. Situational by nature, but being able to ease the environment requirements to Take Cover sometimes is decent.
(5) Ragdya’s Revelry (**): This rating is for Triggerbrands. You may be able to Steal something useful off enemies as a reaction (with a once per day limitation) in combat sometimes. The only eased restriction is that you can use the baseline Steal action in combat, though.
(9) Ragdya’s Dance (**): A chance at better positioning once per hour as a reaction to being hit by an adjacent enemy (including spell attacks) is alright. You can use it to set up flanking or to position yourself better to get away from the attacker. Less useful for Spellshots since it relies on class DC.
(13) Unbound Freedom (**): While the fact that it only works against the Controlled condition is situational, that condition is a somewhat common outcome of will-targeting spells and effects. Since your will save progression is poor, having a 20% chance to shrug off the condition is decent.
(13) Vanara Battle Clarity (***): This rating is for Ways in or near melee. It’s the better version of Darting Monkey, providing its effects permanently. If and when you take this feat, you can retrain Darting Monkey.
(17) Unfettering Prankster (**): 1 hour buff once per day that allows you and your allies to ignore environmental difficult terrain. Situational, but useful, and brings with it a few other minor effects.

Rare ancestries

Anadi (**)

Note that the anadi ancestry does not inherently speak Common. DEX and WIS boosts are good no matter your Way, but the CON flaw is painful. If you want to overcome the CON flaw (and you should), you may as well just pick two free ability boosts instead. This ancestry doesn’t offer much of use at baseline. There are a few situational feats on offer here which I don’t generally list (climb speed, for example) that can round out the feat list a bit better if you’re fine with generic situational options. While there aren’t a ton of universally useful feats here, the fact that you can get either a speed increase or Adopted Ancestry at level from your heritage is quite good, especially for weapon familiarity feats.

Heritage:

Adaptive Anadi (****): There are so very many great feats on offer with Adopted Ancestry. Getting it at level 1 is even better.
Spindly (****): Movement speed is always great.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Reassuring Presence (***): Reducing an ally’s Frightened condition by 1 once per hour as a reaction is a pretty good use of a reaction, and there’s no check required.
(1) Studious Magic (**): Gain an arcane cantrip. Bullhorn (Pistoleros), detect magic, light, mage hand, message (Snipers while Sneaking / scouting ahead), read aura, shield, and warp step are decent choices.

(9) Studious Adept (***): Humanoid form will mostly be useful for Pistoleros, but mirror image is useful for all Ways at all levels.

(9) Web Hunter (***): Although it (normally) offers less range than most other imprecise sense, imprecise tremorsense is a useful improvement for your perception.

Android (***)

DEX and INT boosts with a CHA flaw is the best possible ability score spread for Spellshots. Other Ways will generally be better off with two free ability boosts. Low-light vision isn’t particularly exciting, but it’s at least better than normal. Getting a bonus to saves against diseases and poisons is decent (and radiation, but that’s rare), although it’s offset by a penalty to diplomacy, performance, and Sense Motive checks. The only painful part of that penalty is on Sense Motive checks, at least. Given how much value there is in this ancestry’s level 1 feats, it’s a good idea to take Ancestral Paragon. The heritages aren’t terribly useful and can be replaced with versatile heritages, but there are so many good feats here that all you’re really after is the initial benefit(s) from a versatile heritage.

Heritage:

Artisan (**): If you’re planning to make your own ammunition / consumables, you might as well have Specialty Crafting.
Laborer (**): If you’re going to be trained in athletics, your party will appreciate you being the pack mule with Hefty Hauler.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Cleansing Subroutine (**): Although virulent poisons aren’t terribly common, they are particularly nasty. Feats in this vein are the only way to make it easier to overcome virulent afflictions. Plus, poisons tend to be nasty, if situational. With your good fortitude progression and almost certainly some investment in CON, you’ll have a much easier time shrugging off poisons.
(1) Emotionless (***): Emotion effects are fairly common (Demoralize) and your will save isn’t great. Having some help overcoming emotion effects is a welcome improvement.
(1) Internal Compartment (**): Budget Quick Draw with some situational value in keeping the weapon hidden when needed.
(1) Nanite Surge (****): Considering how closely tied to your kit your Way skill is, getting a +2 status bonus to a skill check once per hour as a reaction is outstanding. Drifters are a bit different since they’ll mostly be using acrobatics to Tumble Through rather than fueling Slinger’s Reloads or Deeds, but you’re still almost certainly going to be using Tumble Through at least once per hour. Note that, with the addition of a Subroutine feat (or both), Nanite Surge’s once-per-hour limitation applies regardless of how you use it.

(5) Protective Subroutine (****): Adding your Nanite surge bonus to saves is fantastic.
(9) Offensive Subroutine (****): Be your own bard once per hour with a +1 status bonus to an attack once per hour. Significantly less useful if someone in your party consistently applies status bonuses to your attack rolls (like a bard).
(13) Consistent Surge (****): All of the outstanding value of any of the above Nanite Surge-related feats once per ten minutes instead of once per hour.

(1) Nightvision Adaptation (***): Darkvision is always good.
(1) Proximity Alert (***): Snipers may not like this feat if they’re frequently rolling stealth for initiative, but everyone else will. Incredible Initiative (an equivalent +2 circumstance bonus for initiative) is better because it applies to all initiative rolls, but the facts that most Ways will typically use perception for initiative and that you can get this feat at level 1 are strong reasons to recommend it.
(1) Radiant Circuitry (**): A better version of a torch or the light cantrip if your party needs light.
(5) Advanced Targeting Increase (***): True strike is a nice damage increase, on average. It’s only once per day, but when you really need to land a big shot it makes a big difference.
(5) Inoculation Subroutine (**): The disease counterpart to Cleansing Subroutine.
(5) Nanite Shroud (***): Being Concealed will be a useful defensive tool, even if it doesn’t provide synergy for the Sniper kit.
(9) Repair Module (***): A bit of emergency fast healing once per day should you need it.
(13) Revivication Protocol (***): Free action once per day to immediately bring you up from the Dying condition. You’ll still be Wounded and in danger at 1 HP, so you’ll have to time this well in order to safely escape whatever caused you to go into the Dying condition.

Automaton (***)

Low-light vision isn’t particularly exciting on its own, but it’s at least better than normal. Only needing two hours of rest per day alongside your excellent perception progression makes you a useful guard during daily rest periods. Some GMs and campaign settings don’t worry much about rations and water, but if you’re in a game where those matter, you’ll be unburdened by those issues. You can choose to be small instead of medium, but you don’t gain any benefit for doing so and limit the applicability of your athletics skill actions. A versatile heritage wouldn’t go amiss for its initial benefit(s), but there are plenty of good ancestry feats available as-is.

Heritage:

Hunter (**): Although the extra movement speed is nice, you’ll be hard-pressed to keep both hands free in most situations where movement speed matters. Weapons with the Called rune or Spellshots with the Call Gun feat can kind of make this issue easier, but it’ll still be heavy on the action economy.
Mage (**): Gain an arcane cantrip. Bullhorn (Pistoleros), detect magic, light, mage hand, message (Snipers while Sneaking / scouting ahead), read aura, shield, and warp step are decent choices.
Sharpshooter (***): If your chosen weapon has a 30 ft. or greater range increment, you’re better off using Automaton Aim than Striding, which is a nice means of simultaneously avoiding movement-triggered reactions and range penalties. With a weapon that has a longer range increment, though, you probably won’t ever have to worry about Automaton Aim. The Shootist’s Edge class feature completely overwrites the value of this heritage’s baseline value, but at least that isn’t available until level 17.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Arcane Communication (**): Silent communication with your party tends to be useful, especially if you’re performing scouting functions with stealth. The touch range limits its value, though. The enhancement only increases the range to 10 feet.
(1) Arcane Eye (***): Darkvision is always good. The enhancement giving you see invisibility once per hour provides synergy with Blood in the Air.
(5) Arcane Safeguards (***): Getting a bonus to saves against spells and magical effects as a reaction is solid. The enhancement giving you temp HP every time you use it, regardless of your save’s outcome, is a meaningful improvement.
(9) Arcane Camouflage (***): Requires the hunter automaton heritage. Blur and invisibility (2nd) are both solid spells. The enhancement gives you ten minutes of blur when you cast it and the choice to cast invisibility as a second or fourth level spell.
(9) Arcane Propulsion (***): Flight once per day. The enhancement gives you a permanent fly speed.
(9) Core Attunement (***): Requires the mage automaton heritage. Gain a first and second level arcane innate spell. Good first level choices include alarm, ant haul, anticipate peril, feather fall (assuming no Cat Fall), fleet step, illusory disguise (Pistoleros), jump, longstrider, negate aroma (Snipers), pocket library (Spellshots), thicket of knives (Pistoleros), and especially true strike. Good second level choices include blur, darkvision, endure elements, false life, humanoid form (Pistoleros), invisibility, knock (Triggerbrands), loose time’s arrow, mirror image, see invisibility (especially with Blood in the Air), slough skin, and spider climb.
(9) Lesser Augmentation (***): Enhance a first or fifth level automaton feat. Arcane Eye and Arcane Safeguards are strong choices.
(9) Rain of Bolts (**): Requires the sharpshooter automaton heritage. Once per day two-action activity that deals piercing damage in a 30 foot cone or 10 foot emanation, no save, which doesn’t interact with the MAP, and which scales. Especially useful on Ways that want to be in or near melee, but the 30 foot cone is doable for other Ways. The enhancement increases the damage by quite a bit and allows you to choose a material type between adamantine, cold iron, and silver for the damage. This feat is strong, but the required two actions may be hard to fit into your action economy and you may put allies at risk.
(13) Arcane Locomotion (**): Climb and swim speeds are situational, but you at least get a choice between them. More importantly, the enhancement provides an option to increase your speed by 5 feet.
(13) Astral Blink (***): Dimension door is a useful spell to begin with. Getting it once per hour is a meaningful improvement over the usual innate spell. The enhancement allows you to use it as a free action to turn your Strides into teleportation effects which don’t trigger movement-based reactions. It won’t totally free you from reactions since your reloads and ranged attacks can still trigger, but it will make you much safer. That also provides some synergy with the Drifter’s Initial and Greater Deeds, as well as the Vanguard’s Greater Deed.
(13) Core Rejuvenation (***): Free action once per day to immediately bring you up from the Dying condition. You’ll still be Wounded and in danger at 1 HP, so you’ll have to time this well in order to safely escape whatever caused you to go into the Dying condition. The enhancement will keep you safer with temp HP as a buffer while you find a better position.
(13) Enlarged Chassis (*): This feat is a bad idea when it’s first available because you really don’t want to be Clumsy. However, if you retrain it at level 17 when you can get it enhanced, you’ll be under the effects of enlarge without being Clumsy, which is a great improvement for Drifters and Triggerbrands, at which point the feat becomes green (***) for them.
(17) Greater Augmentation (*** / ****): Enhance any one automaton ancestry feat of level 13 or below. Enhancement effects are listed with each feat above. Permanent flight is always a great choice.

Conrasu (**)

Note that the conrasu ancestry does not inherently speak Common. CON and WIS boosts with a CHA flaw is a good ability spread, but it does prevent a few optimization choices. Spellshots can’t start with 18 DEX and 16 INT and Drifters, Triggerbrands, and Vanguards can’t start with 18 DEX and 16 STR, unless you instead choose to use two free ability boosts. The normal ability boosts / flaw make for a good defensive build, though. Pistoleros will prefer the two free ability boosts in order to overcome the CHA flaw. Sunlight Healing will help ease the burdens of your party healer once per day, provided you’re adventuring in direct sunlight. Despite a decent stat spread, there are slim pickings for heritages and feats. The choices aren’t terrible, but Adopted Ancestry or a versatile heritage would certainly help.

Heritage:

Rite of Invocation (**): Gain an arcane or occult cantrip. Bullhorn (Pistoleros), detect magic, guidance, light, mage hand, message (Snipers while Sneaking / scouting ahead), read aura, shield, and warp step are decent choices.
Rite of Knowing (***): This rating is for Spellshots. Getting fortune once per day on a Recall Knowledge, and with no chance of a critical failure, is a solid way to figure out information when you know you’ll need it. Pair with Dubious Knowledge for a guaranteed result.
Rite of Light (**): Allows you to use your Sunlight Healing on each ally once per day in addition to your once-per-day self-use.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Ceremony of Protection (***): Basically a buckler without the hand usage or bulk. If you can afford the action, extra AC is always nice.

(9) Ceremony of Fortification (***): Flexibly, readily-accessible resistance to physical damage. If you’re about to take physical damage from a weapon, its type should be pretty predictable. Likewise with most creatures’ unarmed attacks. Fangs for piercing, limbs for bludgeoning, claws for slashing, etc.

(1) Conrasu Weapon Familiarity (***): This rating is for Snipers and Spellshots. The taw launcher is a solid damage-dealing weapon with d10 modular B, P, or S damage and the deadly d10 trait. It’s not quite the damage that an arquebus will put out, but it does relieve the need for STR or a tripod. Also an option in games without firearms. This feat on its own does nothing for Drifters, but it does give them access to Conrasu Weapon Understanding.

(5) Conrasu Weapon Understanding (**): Drifters can get critical specialization with the spear for a means of inflicting Clumsy 1. Spears aren’t a particularly great choice for Drifters, though.

(5) Ceremony of Knowledge (***): Untrained Improvisation, but better since you can use trained skill actions. Since most Ways don’t have or want the INT to support many trained skills, you’ll open up some options for yourself even if you won’t be the strongest skill user.
(5) Ceremony of Sunlight (**): More healing from Sunlight Healing.
(9) Ceremony of Aeon’s Guidance (**): Calm emotions is worthless, but augury can be useful.
(13) Ceremony of Growth (**): This rating is for Drifters and Triggerbrands who do not use a finesse weapon. While normally enlarge’s Clumsy 1 is a painful debuff for you, being able to turn enlarge on and off with an action will give you some flexibility in reach and, with a STR-based melee weapon, the Clumsy 1 won’t be as much of a problem for you.
(17) Ceremony of Sun’s Gift (**): Your party will no longer need to heal you between encounters provided you have access to sunlight. If your party is tying resources into healing, this feat will be much more useful, but if someone in your party is investing in medicine it’ll just save time. Party-dependent.

Fleshwarp (**)

Low-light vision for a moderate improvement over normal and a bonus to saves against diseases and poisons. The latter part will be useful. There aren’t a whole lot of feats here and the one solid ancestry grants a common effect you could get from another ancestry. It’s not a bad ancestry, it just needs some help from Adopted Ancestry or a versatile heritage to fill in the gaps.

Heritage:

Created (**): No need to eat, and improve your bonus to saves against diseases to +2. Diseases can be scary and, while situational, come up often enough to be worth the improvement.
Mutated (**): Bleed damage is situational, but it’s among the more common persistent damage types. Making the flat check to overcome bleed damage easier will be useful from time to time.
Technological (***): Emotion effects are fairly common (Demoralize) and your will save isn’t great. Having some help overcoming emotion effects is a welcome improvement.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Deepvision (***): Darkvision is always good.
(1) Startling Appearance (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. Free trained skill or round out your skills for both used in your Slinger’s Reload, plus Intimidating Glare at level 1 when you’d ordinarily get access to it at level 2. It’s all features you’d get anyway, but getting features that are generally core to your gameplay at level 1 is decent.
(5) Gaping Flesh (***): This rating is for Ways in or near melee. It’s especially useful if you have a means of Grappling. Adding Sickened to the list of debuffs you can apply is solid, especially as a reaction, even if it’s only once per day.
(5) Powerful Guts (**): Sickened is a pretty common condition, but getting it above 1 isn’t. In the situations where you go above Sickened 1, you’ll appreciate being able to remove it more quickly and easily.
(5) Uncanny Awareness (***): Imprecise senses are a great way to improve on your already strong perception progression, and motion sense will be comparatively easier to apply than the more commonly available scent.
(9) Embodied Dragoon Subjectivity (**): Feather fall and phantom steed can both be useful, but they don’t heighten. If you’re not investing in acrobatics / Cat Fall, you’ll appreciate feather fall more. Phantom steed is basically just a regular old mount that you can summon once per day for up to 8 hours. If nothing else, phantom steed can carry a whole lot of bulk.
(9) Slip the Grasp (**): Combining an Escape with a Step or Stride is a great way to get away from the offending creature and to a safe spot where you can shoot back, although you’ll have to deal with the MAP. The unarmed attack part is pointless for you though. This feat is more useful for Ways in or near melee who are more at risk of the triggering conditions.
(13) Augment Senses (***): Much larger areas for your Seek when using it to find creatures and some extra passive range while using Seek to Search for hidden doors and hazards. Synergizes with Blood in the Air.

Ghoran (**)

No need to eat provided you have ready access to sunlight, and low-light vision for a moderate improvement over normal. For Ways in or near melee, there’s at least something available at every level. That said, this ancestry is very nearly red. It needs some help from Adopted Ancestry or a versatile heritage.

Heritage:

Ancient Ash (**): Automatic scaling to expert in a skill will help you a bit on the skill front.
Enchanting Lily (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. If you want to fully lean into the face role and focus on diplomacy, Make an Impression is one of the most common exploration mode uses and gets a near-permanent bonus.
Strong Oak (**): The bonus to your DC against Grapple and Trip attempts is solid, although Balancing doesn’t come up much. More useful if you can reliably find places from which to attack enemies where Balancing is something you can do but your enemies can’t.
Thorned Rose (***): This rating is for Ways in or near melee. Dealing some passive, scaling piercing damage once per day as a reaction is a solid use of a reaction, and you’ll almost certainly use it every day. You can even make it more accessible with a feat.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Ancient Memories (**): A flexible skill will help with your INT issue / general lack of skills, although gunslingers aren’t skill monkeys and will do fine with a limited number of skills. The followup feats, Endless Memories and UEternal Memories, make Ancient memories, respectively, a bit stronger and a bit more flexible, but ultimately don’t deserve any higher of a rating.
(1) Ghoran Weapon Familiarity / (5) Practice (**): This rating is for Drifters. The thorn whip is a reach finesse weapon with trip, which is good if you want your melee weapon to have more control, safety, and utility. As a brawling weapon, it can Slow enemies who fail a fortitude save against your class DC as long as you have the Ghoran Weapon Practice feat. You can also get critical specialization for hatchets and sickles, which respectively give you a situational means of dealing damage to two targets at once and a means of inflicting bleed damage for exsanguinating ammunition synergy.
(5) Murderous Thorns (***): While it has two options for prerequisites, the only one that matters to you is the thorned rose heritage. Changing the Wicked Thorns reaction’s frequency to once per hour makes it a much more viable reaction. Just like its prerequisite heritage, this rating is for Ways in or near melee.
(9) Flower Magic (**): Barkskin doesn’t provide a ton of resistance, but at least it’s something, provided you can pre-buff and don’t need to worry about squeezing it into your action economy. Tree shape can be a decent infiltration tool if you’ve got the stealth to back it up.
(9) Solar Rejuvenation (**): You want to be at or near full HP at the start of every encounter. This will help you get there a bit more easily. It’s not necessary provided your party has the resources to heal everyone up to full as needed in exploration mode. It also comes online at a late enough level that you may not feel the need for the extra exploration mode healing oomph. Party-dependent.
(13) Look but Don’t Touch (**): A bit of extra passive damage that pairs well with the thorned rose ghoran heritage / Murderous Thorns. As a two-action activity, you’ll want to pre-buff with it, and you can only use it once per day.
(17) Ghoran’s Wrath (**): The three action requirement will be tough to fit in, but the difficult terrain will be nice since it has such a long range and does not affect you or allies. At this level, though, it’s entirely possible your enemies can just fly over the difficult terrain. Unlike most innate spells, you can use the granted nature’s reprisal once per hour.

Goloma (***)

30 feet of movement speed at base is great. Note that you do not start out being able to speak Common. Being able to Seek in two areas simultaneously is an awesome improvement alongside your perception progression. There aren’t a lot of feats available, but this ancestry offers some of the best perception-improving feats in the game, and there’s at least one good feat at every level (although some require situational feats as prerequisites). As one of very few classes that gets legendary proficiency in perception, that’s a pretty significant synergy. It’s an especially good choice for you to fill the trapfinder role in your party, which is frequently the case for Triggerbrands.

Heritage:

Farsight (**): Low-light vision is at least a moderate improvement over normal.
Frightful (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. Free trained skill or round out your skills for both used in your Slinger’s Reload, plus Intimidating Glare at level 1 when you’d ordinarily get access to it at level 2. It’s all features you’d get anyway, but getting features that are generally core to your gameplay at level 1 is decent.
Insightful (**): Alongside your excellent perception progression, enemies will have a harder time Lying to you and you’ll have an easier time with Sense Motive.
Vigilant (***): Detect magic is generally useful, but someone else in your party may already have it. You can at least use two people with detect magic to pinpoint magic aura locations at low levels. The much better feature of this heritage is the fact that your perception proficiency is considered one higher for the purpose of finding magical traps. That benefit will fall off at level 19 when you hit legendary perception proficiency, but for the vast majority, if not all, of your game, you’ll have a much easier time finding magical traps.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Goloma Courage (***): With your poor will save progression, enemies have a solid chance of landing fear effects on you. Reducing their likelihood of success is a meaningful way to counter one of the gunslinger class’s weaknesses, plus you get a bonus on will saves against fear effects and an even bigger bonus against Demoralize attempts.
(1) Pierce the Darkness (***): Darkvision is always good. You’ll need the farsight goloma heritage to get it, though.
(1) Watchful Gaze (**): This rating is for Ways in or near melee. Spending an action to negate flanking is decent if you have the space for it alongside your action economy.

(9) Constant Gaze (***): It’s only permanent flanking negation against enemies of your level or lower, but enemies in that level range are frequently the ones that will be in place to flank you.

(5) Ambush Awareness (***): Bonuses to initiative are always nice, especially since your perception progression is excellent. Somewhat less useful for Snipers, depending on ability scores, since they can easily pull off using stealth for initiative. Regardless, going ahead of enemies in a tie is a nice improvement.
(9) Defensive Instincts (**): Effectively a hands-free buckler, but only when you’re adjacent to two or more enemies. Decent if you want some extra AC now and again and don’t have a parry weapon.
(13) Arcane Sight (***): Requires you to be able to cast detect magic, which generally means the vigilant goloma heritage. Being able to simultaneously Search and Detect Magic is a solid improvement to your role as “person who finds stuff” and is one of the rare ways to execute two simultaneous exploration activities.
(13) See the Unseen (***): This is somewhat of a companion feat to both Blood in the Air and Deadeye. The flat check reduction to target Hidden enemies won’t do anything if you’ve got Blood in the Air, but being able to passively render Undetected creatures Hidden instead will be helpful. With Deadeye, you’ll get a very similar Undetected -> Hidden automation, but without an action required and with positional and level requirements. Also makes it easier to target enemies that you’ve detected with Deadeye. It’s a good feat offensively for melee and melee-adjacent Ways and defensively for the more ranged Ways.
(17) True Gaze (***): Very similar to True Perception, but available two levels earlier and with a once-per-hour frequency and a one-action activation.

Kashrishi (***)

Small size is a limitation for Vanguards no matter what and for Drifters or Triggerbrands using a weapon with a grapple / shove / trip trait, although Titan Wrestler can mostly overcome that. Imprecise senses are generally useful, although Empathic Sense has some limitations. It’s worded weirdly in such a way that a GM might interpret it not to render creatures that would ordinarily be Undetected instead Hidden to you. It also doesn’t work against mindless creatures (undead and constructs, most frequently, and those aren’t exactly rare) and has a smaller range than most imprecise senses. You do get a pretty big bonus to Sense Motive against non-mindless creatures, at least. You can also get passive dim light in a 10 foot radius from Glowing Horn if you take ancestry feats that give you occult actions (mostly occult spells). There are some pretty good feats on offer here, mostly surrounding skill use, will save improvement, and a few good innate occult spells.

Heritage:

Nascent (***): Getting two ancestry feats right out the gate is usually pretty good. This ancestry is no exception, with several good choices at level 1.
Trogloshi (**): Basically the light cantrip for a single action, although you can improve it with feat support. Your party will appreciate you if they need the light. You certainly will.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Community Knowledge (****): Considering how closely tied to your kit your Way skill is, getting a +2 status bonus to a skill check once per hour as a reaction is outstanding. Drifters are a bit different since they’ll mostly be using acrobatics to Tumble Through, but you’re still almost certainly going to be doing that at least once per hour.
(1) Crystal Luminescence (**): Offers the same benefit as the trogloshi kashrishi heritage, but if you did pick the trogloshi heritage, your light will provide 40 feet of bright and 40 feet of dim light. Getting to use it as a free action is pretty good, too, and has extra applications in some situations like Sneaking up on unsuspecting light sensitive enemies while under some sort of darkvision effect. If you also take ancestry feats that give you occult spells, you can increase the radius by 10 feet for a total of 30 x 30 at baseline and 50 x 50 for the trogloshi heritage when using an occult spell.
(1) Emotional Partitions (***): Emotion effects are fairly common (Demoralize) and your will save isn’t great. Having some help overcoming emotion effects is a welcome improvement.
(1) Mental Sustenance (**): Needing very little food and water is a good way to conserve rations in the campaigns where you need to worry about supplies. Holding your breath for longer is situational as well, but useful in the cases where you need to go underwater or survive inhaled poisons.
(1) Open Mind (**): Gain an occult cantrip. Bullhorn (Pistoleros), detect magic, guidance, light (for allies if needed; light up their equipment if you have trogloshi heritage / Crystal Luminescence), mage hand, message, read aura, shield, and warp step are decent choices.

(5) Unlock Secret (***): Gain a first level innate occult spell. Good choices include alarm, anticipate peril, bane (melee), bless, illusory disguise (Pistoleros), and especially true strike.

(9) Transcendent Realization (***): Gain a third level innate occult spell, including lower level spells heightened to third level. Good choices include another use of true strike, augury, blur, darkvision, faerie fire, false life, humanoid form (Pistoleros), invisibility, knock (Triggerbrands), lucky number, mirror image, remove fear, remove paralysis, restoration, restore senses, spirit sense (depending on campaign, if haunts are frequent), cozy cabin, haste, heroism, hypercognition (Spellshots), invisibility sphere, shadow spy, time jump, and web of eyes.

(13) Reimagine (**): Retraining has its uses. If you expect to need to retrain anything, dreaming potential makes that process much easier.
(17) Bend Space (***): (U) Teleport is always a useful spell.

(9) Fortified Mind (***): The Fascinated condition isn’t bothersome enough to care about it the vast majority of the time. Stupefied, however, is very, very bad for you because of your poor will save progression. If an enemy is able to land Stupefied on you - and that’s a very real possibility - it’s going to flush your will saves down the toilet and set you up for some nasty effects. Even just a 20% chance to shrug off the Stupefied condition is a noticeable improvement. It’s situational, but boy is that situation bad for you.
(9) Telekinetic Slip (**): Having an easier time getting out of the Grabbed or Restrained condition once per day as a reaction will be a decent defensive tool. Notably, the bonus lasts until your Escape succeeds.
(13) Kashrishi Revification (***): Free action once per day to immediately bring you up from the Dying condition. You’ll still be Wounded and in danger at 1 HP, so you’ll have to time this well in order to safely escape whatever caused you to go into the Dying condition.
(17) Cleansing Light (***): Even if you don’t use it in combat, fourth level restoration is useful and removes or reduces quite a few conditions and afflictions. Having an area Dazzled effect on top of the restoration is decent for encounter mode usage, although the two actions required for it will muscle out most of your other normal actions.

Poppet (***)

Small size is a limitation for Vanguards no matter what and for Drifters or Triggerbrands using a weapon with a grapple / shove / trip trait, although Titan Wrestler can mostly overcome that. You absolutely do not want the DEX flaw and should instead choose two free ability boosts. Darkvision is always good. The Constructed feature gives you a bonus to saves against a ton of effects: death, disease, poison, and effects that would inflict Drained, Paralyzed, or Sickened. These benefits do come at the cost of a fire weakness, though. At least you can remove that with an ancestry feat. There aren’t any particularly good level 9 feats, but there are enough useful level 1 and 5 feats that you can take one of those instead. Otherwise, Adopted Ancestry wouldn’t go amiss, and the heritages on offer aren’t so exciting that you’d regret a versatile heritage.

Heritages:

Stuffed (**): Synergizes well with Black Powder Boost and Reach for the Stars. No more fall damage. Useful if you’re not investing in acrobatics and don’t want the Cat Fall feat.
Toy (***): This rating is for Snipers. You can potentially Take Cover behind your allies, although the heritage does call out the fact that doing so only occurs in certain “circumstances.”
Wishborn (***): Improve your successes on both emotion and fear effects to critical successes. Both effect types are pretty common, and with your poor will save progression, you’ll appreciate being able to shrug them off.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Harmless Doll (**): This rating is for Pistoleros and Snipers. Being able to Impersonate toys and Hide in plain sight are useful infiltration tools.
(1) Helpful Poppet (***): Aiding is always useful. Getting a bonus to do so and being unable to penalize allies on a critical failure are both great improvements to Aid. Synergizes with Fake Out, although it does override Fake Out’s circumstance bonus.
(1) Quadruped (****): Extra movement speed is always great.
(1) Wash Out (**): Although virulent poisons aren’t terribly common, they are particularly nasty. Feats in this vein are the only way to make it easier to overcome virulent afflictions. Plus, poisons tend to be nasty, if situational. With your good fortitude progression and almost certainly some investment in CON, you’ll have a much easier time shrugging off poisons.
(5) Cunning Tinker (**): A little extra scaling healing once per day as part of your usual ten-minute recovery period. It’ll save some time between encounters. If you don’t use it on yourself, you can help repair party gear if needed.
(5) Histrionic Injury (***): Reaction once per hour to force a melee attacker to save against your class DC or be Stupefied 1. Useful way to apply a debuff, synergizes well for Pistoleros and Demoralize, and helps set up your caster friends. Less useful on Spellshots since it relies on class DC.
(5) Sealed Poppet (***): No more fire weakness. You can’t take this with the stuffed poppet heritage.
(13) Reanimating Spark (***): Gain the ability, once per day, to immediately bring yourself up from the Dying condition. It’s not specified that this is a free action, but considering the wording is exactly the same as other ancestries’ equivalent feats, it’s safe to assume it should be. You’ll still be Wounded and in danger at 1 HP, so you’ll have to time this well in order to safely escape whatever caused you to go into the Dying condition.
(13) Squirm Free (***): Escape from being Grabbed, Immobilized, or Restrained as a reaction. This is great because, unlike similar ancestry feats from other ancestries, it does not have a frequency limitation, and as a reaction it does not interact with the MAP.
(17) Restitch (***): Regenerate is a solid innate spell.
(17) Soaring Poppet (***): It’s not much fly speed, but it’s a fly speed.

Shisk (*)

Note that you don’t start out being able to speak Common. Darkvision is always good, but that’s all this ancestry offers at baseline. There are a couple good and unique feats on offer here, but the good feats tend to only be good for a specific Way, meaning this ancestry generally only offers a feat or two for any given build. Luckily, it is fixable with Adopted Ancestry or versatile heritage feat support, so don’t fully count it out despite its rating.

Heritage:

Lorekeeper (**): Automatic scaling to expert in a lore and an INT- or WIS-based skill. Primarily useful for Spellshots, but free skill scaling is decent even if the selection is limited.
Quillcoat (***): This rating is for Ways in or near melee. Dealing some passive, scaling piercing damage once per day as a reaction is a solid use of a reaction, and you’ll almost certainly use it every day. You can even make it more accessible with a feat.
Spellkeeper (**): Gain an occult or primal cantrip. Bullhorn (Pistoleros) (occult), detect magic (primal / occult), guidance (primal / occult), healing plaster (if you’re the party medic), light (for allies if needed) (primal / occult), mage hand (occult), message (occult), read aura (primal / occult), shield (occult), stabilize (primal), maybe tame sometimes (especially for Pistoleros using deception for infiltration), and warp step (occult) are decent choices.

Ancestry feats:

(5) Bristle (***): Basically a buckler without the hand usage or bulk. If you can afford the action, extra AC is always nice.
(5) Renewing Quills (***): While it has two options for prerequisites, the only one that matters to you is the quillcoat heritage. Changing the Barbed Quills reaction’s frequency to once per ten minutes makes it a much more viable reaction. Just like its prerequisite heritage, this rating is for Ways in or near melee.
(9) Dig Up Secrets (***): This rating is for Spellshots. Hypercognition as an innate spell is solid.
(9) Quill Spray (***): Once per day two-action activity that deals scaling piercing damage in a 30 foot cone against a basic reflex save. This damage is decent, but the required two actions may be hard to fit into your action economy and you may put allies at risk.
(13) Secret Eyes (***): Long-range scouting functionality once per day that works off of your perception, although you’ll need to Sustain the Spell.
(17) Fountain of Secrets (****): This rating is for Spellshots. Getting a free Recall Knowledge every round is great, especially because you get the equivalent of crit success results on a success. It can quickly render your Slinger’s Reload useless, but that’s okay - just use regular reloads or a reload from another gunslinger feat when that happens.

Shoony (**)

Small size is a limitation for Vanguards no matter what and for Drifters or Triggerbrands using a weapon with a grapple / shove / trip trait, although Titan Wrestler can mostly overcome that. DEX and CHA boosts are good for Pistoleros, but you’ll probably still want to overcome the CON flaw. For the most part, you’re best off just taking two free ability boosts instead, although a starting spread of 18/16/14/10/10/10 is doable for Pistoleros who want to invest in CON long-term. Low-light vision is a moderate improvement over normal. Blunt Snout’s improvement for saves against inhaled effects is situational. There aren’t a ton of feats on offer and what is on offer is almost all only useful for certain ways, but for those Ways (Drifters specifically, but also Triggerbrands and Vanguards investing in acrobatics), this ancestry is green (***). It functions especially well with the Acrobat Dedication feat for auto-scaling on acrobatics. Also, Loyal Empath and, more importantly, Steadfast Ally are awesome feats. If nothing else, you can pick shoony just for those two feats and take Adopted Ancestry or a versatile heritage to fill your other slots. The ancestry is pretty weak on its own, but it can be redeemed.

Heritage:

Bloodhound (***): Imprecise senses are a great way to build upon your already strong perception progression.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Esteemed Visitor (**): This rating is for Pistoleros who want to fully lean into the face role with diplomacy investment. Gather Information and Make an Impression are two of the most common uses for a social skill and can drive quite a bit in a campaign. Being unable to critically fail either skill action will allow you to keep on trying without angering the locals so badly they want to drive you out.
(1) Scamper Underfoot (***): This rating is primarily for Drifters, but Triggerbrands and Vanguards investing in acrobatics can benefit too. Getting a bonus to Tumble Through the spaces of medium and larger creatures will be consistently useful, as will the fact that the enemy’s space is not difficult terrain for you.

(5) Tough Tumbler (***): You’ll still make it through the target’s space on a failed check to Tumble Through, only getting stopped on a crit fail. Also helps protect you against movement-triggered reactions when you fail to Tumble Through.

(5) Loyal Empath (***): Getting more uses for Aid is good, and helping your allies’ will saves is an especially valuable use for Aid.

(13) Steadfast Ally (****): You no longer need to use an action on your turn to prepare the reaction for Loyal Empath. If you’re not using reaction for something more important, you can just hand out will save bonuses left and right.

Skeleton (**)

DEX and CHA boosts with an INT flaw are perfect for Pistoleros. Other Ways will generally prefer two free boosts, especially Spellshots. Basic undead benefits grant you low-light vision, negative healing, immunity to death effects, and a bonus on diseases and poisons. The last three are pretty good, especially the immunity to death effects. Negative healing will be hard for your party to handle unless they are specifically prepared for it, though. That means more than taking the Stitch Flesh feat for them. Soothe and harm will be the best in-combat healing tools for you since the likes of Battle Medicine won’t help you and heal will damage you. Your undead hunger, at least, is pretty easy: you just need to collect bones. You also only need to rest for 4 hours a day, making you more flexible than most for rest period guard duty. While there are some solid perks to this ancestry, it’ll be hard to fit into most parties and really needs the feat support on offer from As in Life, So in Death.

Heritage:

Fodder (****): Extra movement speed is always great.
Sturdy (***): As an HP martial, half a level’s worth of extra HP can’t hurt. Diehard is a decent feat, too.

Ancestry feats:

(1) As in Life, So in Death (****): Getting Adopted Ancestry right out the gate is great and opens up a ton of build options.
(1) Collapse (***): Negating critical hit damage (but not effects) once per ten minutes as a reaction is decent, especially for Ways in or near melee. You do suffer some ill effects for it, though: you’re Flat-Footed while collapsed and will need to spend an action to Stand. Still, this can prevent a lot of damage.
(1) Play Dead (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. You can use it as an infiltration tool to look like a regular old skeleton.
(9) Bone Missile (**): If you’re using a crossbow, you can deal extra negative damage with it. You’ll pull from your own HP to do so, though, making it a risky option.
(9) Rejuvenation Token (***): (U) Make yourself very hard to permanently kill at the cost of losing major memories.
(17) Bone Swarm (**): Decent area damage and a fly speed once per day, but nothing about it synergizes with the gunslinger kit.
(17) Necromantic Heir (***): Finally, some self-sustain. 6th level harm once per hour. Without a spell DC or spell proficiency, your only real use for it is on yourself, but at least that’s a good use.

Sprite (*)

Tiny size is best for Snipers, who can use it to Take Cover behind allies under GM-specified circumstances. Pistoleros and Spellshots can take advantage of it too, just not as well as Snipers can. DEX and INT boosts with a STR flaw are perfect for Spellshots, though other Ways will generally prefer two free boosts. Low-light vision is at least a moderate improvement over normal. Magical Strikes making all of your Strikes magical may be useful against a few enemies at level 1, but you’re very quickly going to overwrite that feature with a potency rune. It does sort of enable swap-and-drop. 20 ft. speed is annoying. Sprites don’t have much going for them, but they do at least offer fly speed and fourth level invisibility once per hour. That invisibility is really the only thing to recommend this ancestry because you can get the fly speed and much more from a sylph versatile heritage.

Heritage:

Grig (**): Provides some synergy with Black Powder Boost for extra Long Jump range, and eventually High Jump range. Ghost sound might occasionally be useful for Pistoleros or Snipers to aid in distraction and infiltration.
Luminous (**): Basically your own light cantrip, should your party need some extra light. You certainly will.
Nyktera (***): Extra range when you Seek in a cone and a sizable bonus to Seek Undetected creatures that you can hear. Synergizes with Blood in the Air.
Pixie (***): Small size instead of tiny. Still bears athletics limitations, but nowhere near as bad as being tiny.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Evanescent Wings (*): Doesn’t do much on its own besides give you vertical access to objects medium creatures could reach, but it’s a prerequisite for flight feats.

(9) Energize Wings (***): 30 ft. fly speed for a minute once per hour.

(17) Hero’s Wings (****): Permanent fly speed, although what that fly speed is isn’t specified. Also gives Pistoleros some situational bonuses to diplomacy and intimidate.

(1) Fey Cantrips (**): Dancing lights and ghost sound aren’t all that useful, but if you have the grig heritage you can at least get detect magic.
(9) Fey Magic (***): Faerie fire and invisibility are both consistently useful. Level isn’t specified, but they’re probably both second level spells.
(13) Invisible Trickster (****): Fourth level invisibility once per hour. Especially great for Snipers, but making every target Flat-Footed regardless of whether you’re using a ranged or melee attack is awesome. Plus, it’s a great infiltration and defensive tool.

Strix (**)

Low-light vision is a moderate improvement over normal. The strix Wings feature is what really sells this ancestry, though. Other ancestries with similar improvements to Leap specify that the extra 5 ft. to do so does not stack with Powerful Jump. Not so with the strix. They also have excellent synergy with Black Powder Boost and remove the need for Quick Jump. A key component of that synergy is that they effectively lower the DC to Long Jump by 10, although you still can’t Long Jump a further distance than your speed. You do get access to flight at level 13, though, at which point you should probably retrain Black Powder Boost. Since the only good heritage offers darkvision, you can comfortably take a versatile heritage that offers darkvision so that you can shore up the lack of good level 1 feats (and total lack of level 17 feats). If you’re playing this ancestry, it’s almost purely for flight and early Leap / Black Powder Boost mobility.

Heritage:

Nightglider (***): Darkvision is always good. This is also the only normal strix heritage that’s really worth taking.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Nestling Fall (**): Synergizes well with Black Powder Boost and Reach for the Stars. No more fall damage, at least as long as you’re able to act. Useful if you’re not investing in acrobatics and don’t want the Cat Fall feat. You can retrain this once you have permanent flight.
(5) Feathered Cloak (**): Adds some bonuses to deception and stealth, giving you infiltration tools and an easier time of Concealing Objects. Situationally useful for, primarily, Pistoleros and Snipers.
(5) Fledgling Flight (***): Budget flight once per round at half your speed. It’s a pretty early level for flight, even if it does take an action to use.
(5) Strix Vengeance (***): For a turn, you get extra damage as a reaction once per ten minutes to you or an ally taking crit damage. It’s a solid and reliable chunk of damage that’s tied to your weapon’s striking rune.
(9) Juvenile Flight (***): Fly speed equal to your speed once per day for ten minutes, although you get a 10 ft. status bonus to your fly speed if you also have Fledgling Flight. Solid.

(13) Fully Flighted (****): Permanent fly speed four levels earlier than most ancestries offer it, and it retains the status bonus to fly speed if you have Fledgling Flight.

(9) Wing Step (***): Using two Steps as a single action is a good way to keep yourself in a safe position, although it won’t work in difficult terrain without additional feat support.

Vishkanya (***)

Low-light vision is a moderate improvement over normal. The Innate Venom feature allows you to use an action once per day to add a simple injury poison to a piece of ammunition or a weapon for a chance at some extra poison damage. Most of the ancestry feats revolve around improving that poison, although you will always need to use an action to Envenom ammunition (technically you can also Envenom a melee weapon, but you’re much better off taking advantage of your legendary firearm proficiency). While the feats are great, a versatile heritage is a good idea.

Heritage:

Elusive (**): Being Grabbed / Restrained sucks. The circumstance bonus to Escape will be helpful from time to time.
Keen-Venom (**): You won’t trigger manipulate-based reactions for your Envenom and can use it as part of drawing a weapon. It’s a little bit of extra safety and action efficiency.
Scalekeeper (**): This rating is for Spellshots. Once per day free action Recall Knowledge is decent.
Venom-Resistant (**): Although virulent poisons aren’t terribly common, they are particularly nasty. Featsure0 in this vein are the only way to make it easier to overcome virulent afflictions. Plus, poisons tend to be nasty, if situational. With your good fortitude progression and almost certainly some investment in CON, you’ll have a much easier time shrugging off poisons.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Alabaster Eyes (***): Darkvision is always good.
(1) Lesser Enhance Venom (***): Improves your Envenom damage from 1d4 to 1d6 for the first stages, and 2d6 for the third stage. Also allows you to use it once per hour, regardless of use..

(9) Moderate Enhance Venom (***): Damage goes up quite a bit with this feat: 3d6, 4d6, and 5d6 for the respective stages, plus you can use it once per ten minutes regardless of use.

(17) Greater Enhance Venom (****): Brings the damage up to 7d6, 9d6, and 11d6 for the respective stages, available once per minute mostly regardless of use. That’s a lot of extra damage for a single action, assuming you’re targeting low-fortitude save enemies.

(1) Social Camouflage (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. You get a small bonus to Impersonate once you’ve been in a settlement for a day, enabling some infiltration. It also lightens the load of face skill investment, allowing you to use deception to Gather Information.
(1) Vishkanya Weapon Familiarity / Arts (*** / **): This rating is for Drifters. The fighting fan bears a decent set of traits between finesse, agile, deadly d6, and backstabber. The deadly trait isn’t very high, but it’s at least a bit of extra damage on crits. Melee isn’t really your bread and butter damage anyway, so any little bit helps. It’s basically a more consistent kris, which is also on offer. The kukri is a choice as well if you want a trip weapon with decent damage. All of the good choices in this feat chain are knives, which will apply bleed damage on a crit with Vishkanya Weapon Arts and will synergize with exsanguinating ammunition.
(5) Debilitating Venom (***): Gives you a choice between hampering and stumbling venom, which you can choose at the time of Envenoming and which replaces the damage of a normal Envenom. The hampering version can help you lock enemies in place with a speed reduction, dancing around them with ranged Strikes. The stumbling version eventually makes the target Flat-Footed and penalizes their speed at stage 3. You can take this feat twice to get both versions of the venom.

(13) Stronger Debilitating Venom (***): Also requires Moderate Enhance Venom. Nothing in this feat states that using the debilitating venom reduces Envenom’s frequency, unlike its prerequisite Moderate Enhance Venom. That said, it’s reasonable to assume RAI is that it functions off of the Moderate Enhance Venom frequency because of how it interacts with said feat’s damage. This feat gives you one of, and up to, four choices of changes to your Envenom, which replace some or all of the damage of your Moderate Enhance Venom in exchange for debuffs: bungling loses 1 damage die in exchange for eventual Clumsy, devitalizing loses 3 damage dice in exchange for eventual Drained, nauseating loses 2 damage dice in exchange for eventual Sickened, and weakening loses 1 damage die in exchange for Enfeebled. Clumsy will help you and your AC-targeting allies land crits, as well as make it easier to Trip and for your allies to land reflex-targeting effects (and is the most selfish / personally useful), Drained will make it easier to Grapple and for your allies to land fortitude-targeting effects, Sickened is a generic debuff that everyone can benefit from but is easy to remove, and Enfeebled will help you lock down melee enemies.

(5) Restoring Blood (**): A bit of extra healing for you or an ally once per ten minutes (at best, depending on whether you have Lesser or Moderate Enhance Venom) and which improves at level 15.
(9) Viper Strike (**): Movement safety while Striding, although the included Strike can still trigger reactions if it’s a ranged Strike. It at least shores up some holes in various Ways that don’t have a ready means of Striding safely.
(17) Vicious Venom (***): It’ll take you two actions to use this and then apply your Envenom, but turning it into a virulent poison is quite strong, regardless of whether you’re trying to ramp up debuffs or deal extra damage.

Half-human heritages

If your GM uses the variant rule to allow any race to be a half-elf or half-orc, consider these to be the same as versatile heritages. Normally, though, they are only available as heritage choices for humans.

Half-elf (***)

Low-light vision is a moderate improvement over normal. See the elf and human ancestries for information about their feats. Note that half-elves can take the human ancestry feat Multitalented without having to worry about the archetype’s ability score prerequisites, which makes this potentially a fantastic option if you want to take a multiclass archetype. Naturally, if your GM is using the variant rule for half-elves, this won’t be available to you if you choose half-elf for any ancestries other than elf or human. Although the Multitalented feat is detailed in the human ancestry feats section, it deserves a mention here. Alchemist, champion, fighter, investigator, swashbuckler, and thaumaturge can all have annoying ability score prerequisites which are completely removed as a half-elf with Multitalented (albeit at a fairly late point in many games).

Ancestry feats:

(1) Elf Atavism (***): Darkvision is always good, although there are a few good options with this feat beyond just darkvision. See the elf heritages for good choices. As long as you’re not playing in Pathfinder Society, you can even take the ancient elf heritage and get a multiclass archetype.
(5) Inspire Imitation (***): Since skills are so heavily tied into each Way, you might as well ease the action economy to help your allies from time to time. It’ll only allow you to Aid with the same skill, but there are plenty of party setups and situations in which your skill Aid will apply.
(9) Pinch Time (***): Haste is a solid innate spell for you.

Half-orc (***)

Low-light vision is a moderate improvement over normal. See the orc and human ancestries for information about their feats. Being able to cherry pick the best of both worlds provides for quite a few outstanding choices.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Monstrous Peacemaker (**): This rating is primarily for Pistoleros who want to build fully into the face role and invest in diplomacy, but any Way can benefit from the Sense Motive bonus. It’s a good feat if you’re filling a face role. Situational because it only applies when interacting with certain creatures / humanoids, but that situation is probably going to come up for you somewhat often.
(1) Orc Sight (***): Darkvision is always good.
(1) Overlooked Mastermind (**): Social utility for Pistoleros who Lie often.

Uncommon versatile heritages

Aasimar (***)

Improves your ancestry’s vision either from normal to low-light vision or from low-light vision to darkvision. This heritage offers all sorts of useful feats and can really shore up a weak ancestry.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Celestial Eyes (***): Darkvision if you didn’t already have it.
(1) Halo (**): Light cantrip if your party needs it, but without action usage requirements unless you want to turn it off.

(5) Healer’s Halo (**): A bit of extra healing tacked on to any positive healing within 30 feet of you as a reaction once per ten minutes. It’ll get less useful as you level up since it doesn’t scale.

(1) Lawbringer (***): Emotion effects are fairly common (Demoralize) and your will save isn’t great. Having some help overcoming emotion effects is a welcome improvement.

(13) Enforced Order (***): Free damage on your weapons is pretty good, even if it isn’t much and only hits chaotic creatures.

(1) Musetouched (***): A permanent bonus to Escape is decent, but the real value is in the Escape result upgrades. You won’t be able to crit fail Escape any more, and any rolled success becomes a crit success, allowing you to Stride 5 feet away from the offending creature or effect after successfully Escaping no matter what. Just be aware of movement-triggered reactions since it grants a Stride, not a Step. Especially valuable if you’re investing in acrobatics. Although I don’t have it listed in the item section due to its universal value, this feat pairs particularly well with the level 5 consumables salve of slipperiness and shark tooth charm.

(9) Call of Elysium (****): Extra movement speed is always good, although it won’t stack with your baseline ancestry’s speed feats (if any).

(1) Plumekith (**): Situational by nature, but at least it’s a sizable bonus to saves against air effects. Ordinarily I wouldn’t list this feat because of how situational it is, but it’s a prerequisite for a decent feat.

(9) Garuda Magic (***): Blur and see invisibility are good innate spells for you.

(5) Empyreal Blessing (***): Bless is a decent innate spell for you.
(9) Celestial Wings (***): Fly speed equal to your normal speed once per day.

(17) Eternal Wings (****): Permanent flight.

(13) Celestial Strikes (***): Free damage on your weapons is pretty good, even if it isn’t much. Chances are you’re mostly fighting evil creatures, which gives this a good range of enemies it’ll hurt.
(17) Radiate Glory (***): Imposing a miss chance for a single action is a solid defensive tool.

Aphorite (**)

Improves your ancestry’s vision either from normal to low-light vision or from low-light vision to darkvision. There aren’t a ton of good feats, but a few are strong.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Lemma of Vision (***): Darkvision if you didn’t already have it.
(5) Crystalline Dust (**): Being Concealed will be a useful defensive tool, even if it doesn’t provide synergy for the Sniper kit. It’s only available once per day, though.

(9) Ancillary Motes (**): One extra use of Crystalline Dust per day. This feat can be taken multiple times.
(9) Crystalline Cloud (**): Use Crystalline Dust as a three action activity to create a 10 foot emanation that provides concealment in the area. That’s useful and Snipers can even put it to good use, but the three actions will be painful in combat.

(5) Intercorporate (***): It’ll be much harder for poisons and diseases to progress on you. This feat is especially strong when paired with Fast Recovery or a similar ancestry feat.
(5) Offensive Analysis (***): True strike is a strong innate spell for you.
(9) Analyze Information (***): This rating is for Spellshots. Hypercognition as an innate spell is solid.
(13) Impose Order (***): It’s only once per day, but being able to convert a crit failed skill check into, effectively, the outcome of Assurance as a reaction is decent, especially because skill usage factors into your kit so much.
(17) Channel the Godmind (**): Once per day, you can basically ignore anything that would render enemies Undetected. It doesn’t really do much in tandem with your perception since it basically overrides your perception, but when you’re fighting enemies that even your perception can’t detect, you’ll have a tool to overcome that problem.

Changeling (**)

Improves your ancestry’s vision either from normal to low-light vision or from low-light vision to darkvision. There aren’t a ton of great feats, but there are a few standouts. This heritage is stronger for Snipers and stealth builds. If your GM allows Cunning Hair to reload your firearm, Pistoleros and dual wield Triggerbrands will like this heritage much more.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Callow May (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. Charming Liar can reduce your skill requirements if you want more face capabilities, giving deception some of diplomacy’s value. The strength of this feat lies in being able to treat enemies that haven’t acted against you as Flat-Footed when you roll deception for initiative. That may or may not happen often depending on your campaign. If it does happen often, this feat is great.
(1) Dream May (**): Mostly useful for overcoming the Drained and Doomed conditions more easily if your party doesn’t have a ready way of removing them. The sleep bonus will rarely come up and the extra HP from resting probably won’t matter much since parties tend to just burn whatever remaining resources they have or Treat Wounds their way to full health before the end of an adventuring day.
(1) Hag’s Sight (***): Darkvision if you didn’t already have it.
(1) Moon May (***): Guidance is a solid cantrip.
(1) Virga May (*): You don’t really have any capability to use offensive spells. Pistoleros have the greatest chance, but you’re still never going to have better than trained spell proficiency unless you take a caster archetype. This feat is a prerequisite for a potentially useful feat, though.

(5) Favorable Winds (**): Single action that overcomes wind penalties for your shots. That’s situational, but if your GM is paying close attention to ranged rules, they may enforce this issue. If that is the case, you can overcome the problem. Also adds range to thrown weapons with 10 ft. or less of range if, for some reason, you want to use one.

(5) Called (***): Bonus to will saves against mental effects. With your poor will save progression, that’s a very useful improvement. Also improves your successful saves against effects which would make you Controlled to crit successes. This feat synergizes nicely with ancestry feats that improve your saves against emotion and / or fear effects from successes to crit successes. Also synergizes well with the vanara’s Unbound Freedom feat.
(5) Cunning Hair: No rating on this one because it’s a crapshoot, but if your GM lets you reload your firearm with this feat, it’s awesome for Pistoleros and dual wield Triggerbrands.
(5) Mist Child (****): This rating is for Snipers and builds focusing on stealth. Reducing enemies’ chances to hit you when you’re Concealed or Hidden is great since you want to be under one of those conditions as often as possible.
(9) Mother’s Mindfulness (**): If you’re in melee, absorbing attacks for your melee buddies may or may not be useful. If you’re absorbing for a barbarian, you’re at greater risk because of their lower AC while raging. For other martials, it’s basically an emergency tool once per minute to share the load if they’re about to go into Dying. At range, though, you can do a lot to keep your squishy wizard friend safe. Still shares a similar risk to absorbing for a barbarian, but your 6 HP allies will appreciate you being a meat shield for them.
(13) Hag Magic (***): Augury, clairaudience, and clairvoyance are all useful tools, with clairvoyance being the strongest choice due to your perception progression. Illusory disguise heightened to 4th level (its max heightened effect is at 3rd) is decent for Pistoleros.

Dhampir (*)

You (and your party) will have to deal with negative healing. At least you’re not undead, though, which makes negative healing less annoying to deal with than in the case of the skeleton ancestry. Improves your ancestry’s vision either from normal to low-light vision or from low-light vision to darkvision. While there are several good level 1 feats, most of them are mutually exclusive as lineage feats. They also come with the baggage of negative healing. Also, you can’t take both Eyes of Night and a lineage feat since both must be taken at level 1. Unless you really like a lineage feat, this heritage doesn’t offer much consistent value.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Adhyabhau (***): Emotion effects are fairly common (Demoralize) and your will save isn’t great. Having some help overcoming emotion effects is a welcome improvement.

(5) Feed on Pain (**): You’ll only want this feat with specific features. Orc Pistoleros with Mask of Pain can reliably deal mental damage and get the benefits of Feed on Pain. You can also get them with alchemical weapons that deal mental damage. Dread ampoule is common, but its mental damage is miniscule and won’t work especially well with this feat. Better is the vexing vapor, but that’s uncommon, so seek GM permission. If you can get your hands on a mindlance or a dread helm (same issues as dread ampoules), those also deal mental damage. If you are able to consistently deal mental damage, you can get temp HP equal to half the mental damage dealt once per hour as a reaction.

(1) Eyes of the Night (***): Darkvision if you didn’t already have it.
(1) Nocturnal Charm (***): This rating is for Pistoleros who want to fully lean into the face role with diplomacy investment. Bonuses to Lie, Gather Information, and Make an Impression are among the most frequent social skill actions. Getting a +1 to all three is solid if you’re the party face.
(1) Straveika (***): Getting a bonus to Sense Motive and to your DC against Lies is frequently useful. Bad guy NPCs are always trying to slip something past PCs. Especially useful for Pistoleros in a face role.
(1) Svetocher (***): Makes the Drained condition less awful.
(5) Necromantic Physiology (**): Sizable bonus to saves against diseases.
(5) Undead Slayer (**): Extra damage against undead and even more against vampires. It’s situational, but undead are a fairly common enemy.
(13) Daywalker (**): Makes it easier for your allies to heal you, but by this level they should have figured out the negative healing issue.

Duskwalker (***)

Improves your ancestry’s vision either from normal to low-light vision or from low-light vision to darkvision. There are quite a few good feats on offer here.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Chance Death (***): Not dying is good. While you shouldn’t get that so close to death that you can activate this feat often, the fact that it’s a rather potent effect outweighs its technically situational nature.
(1) Deliberate Death (**): This rating is primarily for Drifters, but it also applies for Triggerbrands when they end their turn with their weapon in melee mode. If you’re going to go into Dying, might as well get a reaction to try to take the offender down.
(1) Gravesight (***): Darkvision if you didn’t already have it.
(1) Willing Death (***): No real synergy with the gunslinger kit, but your allies will appreciate you using the once-per-day reaction to keep them out of Dying.
(5) Lifesense (**): Imprecise senses are useful for you and this one works against just about every creature type (not constructs, though). The limitation is that it only has a 10 foot range.
(5) Spirit Soother (**): Great trapfinder feat if you’re in a game with lots of haunts (Abomination Vaults is a notable example), but it’ll be game-dependent.
(5) Ward Against Corruption (***): While situational, death effects are nasty enough that getting a bonus against them is of high value. The bonus against diseases and effects created by undead is situationally useful as well. The fact that death effects frequently come from undead makes the increased bonus to undead’s death effects even better.
(9) Duskwalker Magic (***): Augury is usually good, but by this level you may not really need gentle repose.
(9) Spirit Strikes (***): Additional damage on your Strikes is always good, even if it’s not much. In this case, you’ll be able to deal the extra damage to almost all targets (constructs being a notable exception).
(13) Resist Ruin (***): The negative energy resistance is situational, but getting death ward as an innate spell is solid.
(17) Olethros’s Decree (***): This rating only applies if you’re using a crossbow. Getting a big damage boost to a crossbow Strike once per day for an action is solid, especially considering the average damage of a crossbow with Crossbow Crack Shot at level 17 is 25.5, and 31 once you have a major striking rune.
(17) Yamaraj’s Grandeur (***): Since you won’t tend to have much in the way of AoE options, this will be a useful tool once per day. Especially helpful because it can cause Sickened 2.

Ganzi (**)

Randomized resistance to acid, electricity, or sonic. Comes with a nice bonus to saves against effects that would make you Controlled. The later levels offer a few useful feats, but that’s about all.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Ganzi Gaze (***): Darkvision is always good, although you’ll need to take it twice in order to get it on an ancestry with normal vision.
(1) Irrepressible (***): Emotion effects are fairly common (Demoralize) and your will save isn’t great. Having some help overcoming emotion effects is a welcome improvement.
(1) Vestigial Wings (**): You won’t have much need for this feat as a Drifter or if you’re investing in acrobatics, but Cat Fall is frequently useful. It won’t scale unless you invest in acrobatics, though. Steady Balance is situational and may never come up, but you can potentially use it to access a location in uneven ground to deter enemies from approaching you.
(5) Amorphous Aspect (**): A bonus to Escape is nice, but there are better Escape improvements from other ancestry feats. The Squeeze bonus is almost never going to come up.
(5) Skillful Tail: No rating on this one because it’s a crapshoot, but if your GM lets you reload your firearm with this feat, it’s awesome for dual wield Pistoleros and Triggerbrands.

(13) Mischievous Tail (***): This rating is primarily for Vanguards, but it also applies for Drifters and Triggerbrands who are investing in athletics. Being able to Trip while your hands are occupied is useful.

(9) Glory and Valor! (***): Solid self-healing in combat as you attack.
(13) Alter Resistance (***): Once-per-hour means of shifting your resistance to the triggering damage (acid, electricity, or sonic).
(13) Arise, Ye Worthy! (***): Breath of life is a useful innate spell.

Ifrit (***)

Fire resistance and lessened environmental heat effects are situational. Several of the good feats are only usable once per day, but there’s a fair bit of value from the feats on offer regardless.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Brightsoul (**): Light cantrip if your party needs it. Absolutely do not take this feat as a Sniper.
(1) Cindersoul (***): Situational, but persistent acid, bleed, and poison damage are among the more common types. Overcoming them more easily will be useful.
(1) Ember’s Eyes (***): Darkvision is always good, although you’ll need to take this feat twice to get it if you’re choosing this on an ancestry with normal vision.
(1) Sinister Appearance (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. If you’re going with an intimidation focus, it’s a free trained skill. If you’re going for a deception focus, it’ll let you cover all bases with your kit. Intimidating Glare is a great skill feat. Ultimately, though, you’re using a heritage for picks you were likely to already take. Also provides a bonus to Impersonate yourself, but as a tiefling.
(5) Firesight (**): Lets you see through the smoke from Smoke Curtain.
(5) Heatwave (***): Situational, but fire damage is among the most common damage types. Becoming Concealed as a reaction once per ten minutes when you take fire damage is good.
(5) Noble Resolve (***): A +1 to will saves against mental effects will be frequently useful since you have poor will save progression.
(5) Skillful Tail: No rating on this one because it’s a crapshoot, but if your GM lets you reload your firearm with this feat, it’s awesome for Pistoleros and dual wield Triggerbrands.
(9) Scorching Disarm (**): This rating is for Vanguards and builds focusing on athletics. Once per day, you can make Disarm kind of useful and potentially deal fire damage with it. It’s a lot of damage for a single action. Combines well with the level 5 consumable oily button.
(13) Planar Sidestep (***): Big damage resistance against a melee enemy once per day as a reaction.
(17) Blazing Aura (****): Giving a Quickened round to nearby allies and simultaneously doing fire damage in an emanation once per day as a reaction is very strong.

Oread (*)

Improves your ancestry’s vision either from normal to low-light vision or from low-light vision to darkvision. Almost everything available here is available from a different genie heritage, but there are a couple useful feats. Being able to drop difficult terrain for a single action works very well for lizardfolk and a Way in or near melee.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Elemental Eyes (***): Darkvision if you didn’t already have it.
(5) Noble Resolve (***): A +1 to will saves against mental effects will be frequently useful since you have poor will save progression.
(5) Skillful Tail: No rating on this one because it’s a crapshoot, but if your GM lets you reload your firearm with this feat, it’s awesome for Pistoleros and dual wield Triggerbrands.
(5) Treacherous Earth (**): Mostly useful for melee and melee-adjacent Ways, but dropping a burst of difficult terrain can be a useful escape tool / deterrent. It’s got excellent synergy with the lizardfolk feat Terrain Advantage.
(9) Earthsense (***): Imprecise senses are always useful, and tremorsense is almost always applicable.
(13) Planar Sidestep (***): Big damage resistance against a melee enemy once per day as a reaction.
(13) Shaitan Skin (***): Stoneskin is a nice defensive innate spell.

Suli (***)

Improves your ancestry’s vision either from normal to low-light vision or from low-light vision to darkvision. There aren’t a ton of feats available, but all of them are good.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Elemental Assault (***): Flexible extra damage for a single turn once per day between electricity, bludgeoning, fire, and water for an action. Especially useful on Spellshots. Despite the limited frequency, you’ve got some potential to target a weakness and the damage is decent at early levels.

(9) Tetraelemental Assault (***): Four uses of Elemental Assault for the single action, with a different element each time. Only one use per turn, but that’s a fair bit more damage.
(13) Continuous Assault (***): Elemental Assault once per hour instead of once per day.

(1) Elemental Eyes (***): Darkvision if you didn’t already have it.
(5) Elemental Bulwark (****): Reaction to give you resistance to most elemental damage or spells with the air, earth, fire, or water traits. That’s a lot of effects, and there’s no frequency limitation.

(13) Improved Elemental Bulwark (****): 10 resistance instead of 5.

(5) Noble Resolve (***): A +1 to will saves against mental effects will be frequently useful since you have poor will save progression.
(5) Skillful Tail: No rating on this one because it’s a crapshoot, but if your GM lets you reload your firearm with this feat, it’s awesome for Pistoleros and dual wield Triggerbrands.
(13) Planar Sidestep (***): Big damage resistance against a melee enemy once per day as a reaction.
(13) Suli Amir (***): (U) Read omens can give you a little bit of plot help once per day. 4th level invisibility once per day is great. Level 13 is super late for detect magic, but it can still be useful and is fully heightened.

Sylph (***)

Improves your ancestry’s vision either from normal to low-light vision or from low-light vision to darkvision. There are several good feats here, but most importantly this heritage offers two of the most universally useful ancestry feat effects: speed and flight.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Elemental Eyes (***): Darkvision if you didn’t already have it.
(1) Smokesoul (**): Situational, but at least you can create applicable concealment for yourself with Smoke Curtain eventually.
(1) Swift (****): Extra movement speed is always good, although it won’t stack with your baseline ancestry’s speed feats (if any).
(1) Wind Pillow (***): Treating falls as 10 feet shorter is great for Black Powder Boost and generally useful, even if you have Cat Fall (at least until legendary acrobatics proficiency). Plus, Powerful Leap synergizes with Black Powder Boost, and this feat is a means of getting Powerful Leap without trained proficiency in athletics.
(5) Noble Resolve (***): A +1 to will saves against mental effects will be frequently useful since you have poor will save progression.
(5) Skillful Tail: No rating on this one because it’s a crapshoot, but if your GM lets you reload your firearm with this feat, it’s awesome for Pistoleros and dual wield Triggerbrands.
(9) Djinni Magic (***): Gust of wind is useless for you, but having invisibility as an innate spell will be useful.
(9) Wings of Air (***): Fly speed equal to your normal speed once per day.

(17) Eternal Wings (****): Permanent flight.

(13) Airy Step (***): Create a small burst of fog for Concealment once per day as a reaction to being attacked, then Step or Escape and Step if needed. Solid defensive tool.

Note: you can pair this with (5) Cloud Gazer to overcome the Concealment for enemies in the fog, but that’s about the only consistent, predictable use for that feat unless your party has a caster who puts up fog spells often.

(13) Planar Sidestep (***): Big damage resistance against a melee enemy once per day as a reaction.

Tiefling (**)

Improves your ancestry’s vision either from normal to low-light vision or from low-light vision to darkvision. This heritage doesn’t offer a whole lot beyond speed and flight, but those are good. The issue is that if you want to take this heritage for those features, you could just pick sylph instead.

Ancestry feat:

(1) Faultspawn (***): A bonus to saves against spells / magic as a reaction with no frequency limitation is always good. Getting the larger bonus is generally rare, but talk with your GM and see if there’s an appropriate religion that will come up often.

(17) Dominion Aura (***): Once per day single action that deals solid area force damage and can knock creatures prone, plus passive damage in an emanation around you for a minute. Although the feat itself does not specify the DC that the fortitude save must beat, it is clarified for Pathfinder Society that the DC can function off of your class DC. So long as your GM is fine with that (and they should be) this feat is good. Less useful for Spellshots since it functions off of class DC.

(1) Fiendish Eyes (***): Darkvision if you didn’t already have it.
(1) Nimble Hooves (****): Extra movement speed is always good, although it won’t stack with your baseline ancestry’s speed feats (if any).
(5) Skillful Tail: No rating on this one because it’s a crapshoot, but if your GM lets you reload your firearm with this feat, it’s awesome for Pistoleros and dual wield Triggerbrands.
(9) Fiendish Wings (***): Fly speed equal to your normal speed once per day.

(17) Relentless Wings (****): Permanent flight.

(13) Fiend’s Door (***): Dimension door is a solid innate spell for you, and you get the heightened version to boot.

Undine (*)

10 ft. swim speed and the ability to breathe water are situational. There’s not much here that you couldn’t get from a better genie versatile heritage. Unsurprisingly, there’s more utility in this heritage if you’re playing an aquatic game.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Aquatic Eyes (***): Darkvision is always good, although you’ll need to take this feat twice to get it if you’re choosing this on an ancestry with normal vision.
(1) Brinesoul (***): Dealing persistent acid damage and causing an attacker to become Sickened 1 once per day as a reaction is solid.
(1) Mistsoul (**): Situational, but at least you can create applicable concealment for yourself with Smoke Curtain eventually.
(1) Native Waters (**): Mostly useful for overcoming the Doomed and Fatigued conditions more easily if your party doesn’t have a ready way of removing them. The extra HP from resting may be useful at early levels, but later on it probably won’t matter much since parties tend to just burn whatever remaining resources they have or Treat Wounds their way to full health before the end of an adventuring day once able. Also requires you to consistently be close enough to an appropriate body of water to be able to use this feat.
(5) Noble Resolve (***): A +1 to will saves against mental effects will be frequently useful since you have poor will save progression.
(5) Skillful Tail: No rating on this one because it’s a crapshoot, but if your GM lets you reload your firearm with this feat, it’s awesome for Pistoleros and dual wield Triggerbrands.
(9) Marid Magic (**): Hydraulic push is worthless for you, but if you took the Mistsoul feat, you can put obscuring mist to good use.
(13) Planar Sidestep (***): Big damage resistance against a melee enemy once per day as a reaction.
(17) Tidal Shield (**): It’s a huge AC bonus for you and adjacent allies, but it’s once per day, takes two actions to activate, and requires you to Sustain it. You can effectively do a massive Shield Block with it, reducing incoming damage for any one creature under Tidal Shield by 40.

Rare versatile heritages

Beastkin (**)

You can change between a humanoid shape and a hybrid shape. In the hybrid shape, you get an unarmed Strike, which is useless for you unless you want to spend a whole lot of money maintaining two sets of weapon runes on a Drifter. There aren’t a ton of feats available here, but the imprecise senses are difficult to come by elsewhere.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Animal Senses (***): Your choice of low-light vision (or darkvision, if you already have low-light vision) or imprecise scent. Darkvision and imprecise scent are both good options.
(5) Animalistic Resistance (***): Sizable bonus to saves against diseases and poisons. That’s good on its own, but it synergizes very well with Fast Recovery or a similar ancestry feat.
(5) Greater Animal Senses (***): Imprecise echolocation or tremorsense, provided your chosen animal would have one of those senses. Both are strong imprecise senses.
(9) Pack Tactics (**): This rating is for Ways in or near melee. It’s a party-dependent feat, but if you can rely on two or more other party members being adjacent to your enemies at the same time as you are, treating said enemies as Flat-Footed is great, especially because it functions for your ranged Strikes (unlike flanking).
(17) Animal Swiftness (****): It comes online late, but 5 (or 10) feet of extra movement speed, plus a potential fly speed, is very good.

Reflection (*)

This heritage doesn’t really offer anything at baseline other than flavor / roleplay potential. The feats have some unique value, though there aren’t many good ones. If nothing else, Warped Reflection and Mistaken Identity give you strong debuff potential and a meaningful (if somewhat risky) improvement for your will saves. This heritage won’t do much to bolster an ancestry’s weak feat list.

Ancestry feats:

(1) Clone-Risen (***): It’s only once per day, but getting a +2 to your will save as a reaction to a mental effect is helpful in overcoming your poor will save progression.

(5) Replicate (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. Illusory disguise can be helpful with deception-based infiltration.

(1) Mirror-Risen (***): Impose a 50% chance once per day to reduce the result of a (crit) successful Strike against you. It’ll save you some HP, and shrugging off a crit is good.

(9) Mirror Refuge (**): If you’re able to infiltrate (mostly Pistoleros and Snipers), getting, effectively, meld into stone for mirrors once per day can be a helpful tool to enable said infiltration. Mostly applies in urban settings.

(1) Warped Reflection (***): Inflicting both Frightened 1 and Stupefied 1 for a single action, with a will save against your class DC, is quite strong. The once per minute frequency isn’t too bad. Less useful for Spellshots due to the class DC requirement.
(5) Mistaken Identity (***): Being able to apply fortune to a save against a mental effect as a reaction once per minute is a great way to bolster your poor will save, but it does come at the cost of being Frightened 1 after.

Backgrounds

While backgrounds are a fairly easy decision and don’t have a ton of bearing on your build, there are a few standouts for certain Ways. I’m not going to give them ratings, just going to point out a few common backgrounds that synergize well with specific Ways. Don’t take this as a be-all, end-all list. Other backgrounds can work perfectly fine so long as they enable you to meet your ability score requirements.

Drifter: Cannoneer, Deckhand, Driver, Farmhand, Junker, Laborer, Martial Disciple

Pistolero: Anti-Tech Activist, Bandit, Barkeep, Barrister, Charlatan, Deckhand, Driver, Gambler, Guard, Haunted Citizen, Insurgent, Martial Disciple, Merchant, Night Watch, Tax Collector, Warrior

Sniper: Deckhand, Driver, Hired Killer, Martial Disciple, Spotter

Spellshot: Academy Dropout, Archaeologist, Artisan, Artist, Astrologer, Codebreaker, Courier, Deckhand, Detective, Disciple of the Gear, Driver, Fortune Teller, Gunsmith, Hermit, Junk Collector, Magical Merchant, Magical Misfit, Martial Disciple, Mechanic, Necromancer’s Apprentice, Noble, Raised by Belief, Refugee, Scholar, Servant, Spell Seeker, Student of Magic, Tinker, Toymaker

Triggerbrand: Cannoneer, Deckhand, Driver, Farmhand, Hounded Thief, Junker, Laborer, Martial Disciple, Saboteur, Street Urchin

Vanguard: Cannoneer, Deckhand, Driver, Farmhand, Junker, Laborer, Martial Disciple

Ways

A gunslinger’s Way defines how their class will function and which weapons will be best used. Each Way starts off with a Slinger’s Reload and an Initial Deed. At levels 9 and 15, each Way gets, respectively, an Advanced Deed and a Greater Deed. The Slinger’s Reload will either require some manipulation or use of your weapon(s) or a skill check, but will ease the action economy of reloading by combining your reload with another action. Deeds are all specialized actions (sometimes free actions or reactions) which will drive your function within your party and how you play your class.

For the two Ways which use some form of melee weapon (Drifter and Triggerbrand), although there are numerous mentions of being unable to get melee critical specialization, owlbear claws very quickly become a cheap improvement for your melee Strikes. If someone in your party is either a talisman dabbler or can craft (and, specifically, has the Magical Crafting skill feat), you should have ready access to owlbear claws. By level 5, a crit success (13 on the die for a trained crafter with +4 INT and Specialty Crafting, 11 for expert) on a crafting roll will complete the item with only a single extra day of downtime (on top of the usual 4). By level 6, a success (a 2 on the die regardless of proficiency with Specialty Crafting) can achieve the same. At level 11 with master proficiency, max INT, and Specialty Crafting, the crafter can succeed on a nat 1. Spending 6 gp every five downtime days (or four, if you have the goblin feat Junk Tinker) for four owlbear claws is a drop in the bucket for the value you get. The fact that you choose if and when you want to activate them makes owlbear claws a highly versatile tool for your melee Strikes.

Speaking of crafting, if you use a double barrel weapon, breech ejectors are another valuable consumable to have in stock. They’ll take a bit longer to be easily made. A crit success on the craft check at level 9 or a success at level 10, assuming the crafter is at least expert proficiency in the craft skill, will get four of them made with five days of downtime and 20 gp. At level 9, a crafter with expert proficiency, max INT, and Specialty Crafting will need a 10 on the die, 7 on the die for master proficiency. At level 10 with the same parameters, the crafter will need a 2 on the die regardless. At level 13 with master proficiency, max INT, and specialty crafting, the crafter can succeed on a nat 1.

If your GM is willing to use the alternate crafting rules from Treasure Vault, these useful consumables are much faster to craft, requiring only three days of downtime as you get into the levels that can guarantee completion on the next day after the mandatory setup time. Rushing the work can eventually reduce the crafting interval to 4 hours, allowing you to complete a set of consumables in a single day at half cost. The speed does come at the cost of a higher DC, though. The goblin feat Junk Tinker can also further reduce crafting times.

Way of the Drifter

This Way is designed to make you a switch hitter, relying on both a one-handed firearm and a one-handed melee weapon. Being a switch hitter means mobility and flexibility in positioning and your weapons’ uses. Much of your function in a party will come down to the traits on your weapon and how often / well you can take advantage of those traits, plus the all-important flanking. Reach weapons in particular provide opportunities for allies’ mobility and flanking. Although this is a two-weapon Way, Doubling Rings won’t do you any good because they only work for melee weapons. You will instead want Blazons of Shared Power. It’s important to know that unarmed attacks are prohibitively expensive for you since Blazons of Shared Power do not function with Handwraps of Mighty Blows. Note that, although somewhat rare, enemies with Attack of Opportunity can use it as a reaction to you using a ranged attack while they are within melee range of you. You also become trained in acrobatics, which will primarily be useful to Tumble Through enemies for better positioning. Although you won’t have the most damage output, you will have flexibility in how you approach encounters and a safe ranged option when you want / need it.

Ability spread: STR (***) / DEX (****) / CON (***) / INT (*) / WIS (**) / CHA (*) STR is useful because it’ll add damage to your melee Strikes and, if you’re after higher DPR, be the ability score used for your melee attack rolls. Depending on your choice of melee weapon, STR can also help with athletics skill actions like tripping. CON is a must because you’ll be in melee and probably getting hit. Something’s got to give and, unfortunately, it’s probably WIS. You want at least some WIS, though. Not only will it be great for your perception - you get legendary proficiency eventually, after all - it’ll help shore up your will save, which caps out at expert proficiency. INT and CHA have no synergy with this Way.

Slinger’s Reload: Reloading Strike allows you to make a melee Strike and simultaneously reload your firearm without a free hand, which is a noticeable improvement over the usual action economy and limitations of dual wield builds. You can actually use Reloading Strike even if you’re not adjacent to an enemy since you can make a melee Strike against a nonexistent “Invisible” enemy, though doing so will increase your MAP. You can use unarmed Strikes with this reload, but as noted above, it’s a bad idea due to the monetary cost. Enemies with reactions triggered by manipulate actions will be a danger for you. Against enemies without reach, you can overcome this with a reach weapon. Luckily, not too many enemies have Attack of Opportunity or similar reactions, but it’s still worth caution. Your allies can hopefully help you out either by testing for reactions (champion/fighter friends, ideally) or through Recall Knowledge.

Initial Deed: Into the Fray occurs as a free action when you roll initiative. Sometimes exploration activities take two hands - climbing, digging through piles of stuff while Searching, reading a book to Investigate, etc. Into the Fray makes drawing weapons a concern of the past, allowing you to always have your weapons out at the start of an encounter. Some GMs will be more strict about weapon management than others, but you won’t have to worry about that with this Deed. It also gives you a free Stride toward a perceived enemy (useful, since you have good perception progression) before you take any other actions. This will be especially valuable to position you for a shorter-range firearm and to set up for a Reloading Strike. Additionally, ancestry-granted imprecise senses will be helpful to overcome hidden enemies.

Advanced Deed: Finish the Job functions sort of like a fighter’s Press action, but without the Press trait. With this Deed, you can follow up a failed (but not critically failed) firearm Strike with a melee Strike without suffering the MAP until after the melee Strike. Once again, reach will be helpful. The extra Stride from Into the Fray will help you get into proper position for this Deed. Note that the requirements for this action are “On your last action, you failed… a Strike,” meaning you can’t separate the failed firearm Strike from the followup Finish the Job melee Strike. Additionally, you’re still making two Strikes with this action - you generally won’t want to spend your third action on another Strike. Striding away from your enemy as a third action will keep you safer, but you’ll likely want to be in position the next turn for a Reloading Strike.

Greater Deed: Drifter’s Wake lets you occupy a full (non-Quickened) turn with Strikes as long as they’re all against different enemies. Importantly, it specifies Strikes, which means you can’t use Reloading Strike during this activity. Similarly, it requires a Stride, so you can’t use your acrobatics to Tumble Through any enemies while using this activity. None of the activity’s Strikes suffer the MAP, but you will still have to contend with only being able to make a single firearm Strike. You can overcome that with an air repeater or a repeating hand crossbow, but those come with some complications: the air repeater is simple, meaning lower damage (and the agile trait won’t matter here), and the repeating hand crossbow is advanced, meaning lower proficiency (though you can overcome this with the human feat Unconventional Weaponry). Since the Strikes can occur at any point during Drifter’s Wake’s associated single Stride, you can use this activity for all sorts of positioning advantages. Get to the two nearest enemies, melee Strike both of them, and complete your Stride as far away from enemies as possible, capping it off with a firearm Strike if you want to play defensively. Since none of your movement during this activity triggers reactions, you can move about freely as needed. You can also put this activity to good use by setting up flanking for an ally at the end of your Stride. Speed boosts will be most welcome with this activity. You can easily get some extra speed from some ancestries, or you can coordinate with your party for speed buffs. This activity does not remove the fact that ranged attacks can still trigger Attack of Opportunity, so you should still be somewhat wary of firing while adjacent to an enemy. If used on your first turn, this activity effectively incorporates five actions: two Strides (one from Into the Fray) and three Strikes.

Level 6 feat: Drifter’s Juke (***)

Level 14 feat: Disruptive Blur (***)

Drifter Weapons

Melee: The ratings below assume a starting 16 STR. If you start with 14 STR or less, the weapons without finesse (battle axe, breaching pike, falcata, gnome flickmace, khopesh / temple sword, longsword / pick, shield boss / shield spikes, and warhammer) are less useful. The falcata is an exception because its average damage is still nuts even with a lower starting STR. Agile weapons will be useful (if lower DPR), especially when doing a ranged attack and Reloading Strike in the same turn. While ancestry-granted unarmed attacks may seem useful in giving you a free hand, Blazons of Shared Power do not work with them. They are cost-prohibitive if you want them to remain relevant. If you’re playing at a table that’s using the Automatic Bonus Progression variant rule, ancestry unarmed attacks are a much friendlier option (assuming you can afford independent property runes). The kashrishi ancestry offers an exemplary option in a d8 finesse unarmed attack (again, assuming ABP). Even at an ABP table, some feats still require you to wield a melee weapon (notably, Sword and Pistol).

Alchemical Gauntlet (**): Gives a melee means of using your available alchemy-related feats and delivering alchemical bombs.
Battle Axe (** / ***): Prior to level 15, you’re better off with another d8 weapon. Once you have Drifter’s Wake, though, you’ll appreciate the sweep trait.
Bayonet (**): Not a lot of damage, but it’ll free up a hand and benefits from the runes on your firearm / crossbow without needing Blazons of Shared Power (unless you remove it and decide to wield it in a hand). Having a free hand may be important to you if your party includes, say, an alchemist who hands out consumables on the regular. It also means you don’t have to 100% rely on Slinger’s Reload for reload action economy ease. Useful for versatility in athletics skill actions if you don’t want to pigeonhole yourself into one trait-based athletics action.
Breaching Pike (***): Basically just reach and a d6 damage die, but reach is great and you can get crit specialization (inflicting Clumsy 1) with it from an ancestry feat. Also has the razing trait for improved object damage, although that’s a situational benefit. Combat-wise, the razing trait will primarily help you bust enemy shields.
Bladed Gauntlet (**): (U) If you have access to it, this weapon should be a pick for damage type versatility (although that comes with action economy limitations), more consistent MAP hits (although that comes with lower average damage), and the free-hand use for athletics skill action versatility and reload flexibility. Has the finesse trait.
Claw Blade (**): As a catfolk ancestry weapon, you can get access to critical specialization effects. Bleed damage isn’t amazing, but synergizes with exsanguinating ammunition, and you get extra damage on crits with the deadly d8 trait.
Dogslicer (****): As a goblin ancestry weapon, you can get access to critical specialization effects. Making enemies Flat-Footed on a crit is good. It has high damage potential between the d6 die, finesse, agile, and backstabber traits. It won’t be as much damage as a falcata, but it will be more consistent due to the finesse and agile traits and will be less frustrating on MAP-affected Strikes.
Falcata (****): NOTE: this rating assumes you have the tengu weapon familiarity feat to be able to treat this weapon as a martial weapon. Its damage is far and away better than any other one-handed melee option, and you can get critical specialization for it.
Fangwire (***): As a kobold ancestry weapon, you can get access to critical specialization effects. Slowing enemies is awesome, on top of the fact that a crit includes the deadly d8 trait to bring the average damage up a fair bit. Backstabber will give you a little extra damage if you have melee allies with whom you can flank. The grapple trait will give you more value for your STR score and allow you to grapple without a free hand, although you’ll still trigger any enemy reactions if you try to use a ranged Strike against them while they’re Grappled (unless you have appropriate feats).
Flyssa / Shortsword (***): One (two?) of very few weapons with d6 damage and both the finesse and agile traits. Their damage types are effectively the same since you can choose between piercing and slashing damage on an attack-to-attack basis without any actions spent. Alongside a concussive firearm, you’ll have total physical damage type coverage.
Gnome Flickmace (****): Reach and d6 damage are solid, and the sweep trait is useful once you have Drifter’s Wake. Also has a great critical specialization in knocking a target Prone.
Khopesh / Temple Sword (****): Good damage and the trip trait. Both weapons are associated with ancestry weapon feats, giving you access to critical weapon specialization.
Kukri / Lion Scythe (**** / ***): If you have access to either, they’ll be consistently useful melee weapons due to the trip trait. Their damage will be on par with that of the flyssa & shortsword, you’ll just only be able to deal slashing damage. That’s fine since concussive firearms deal piercing or bludgeoning damage. The kukri at least is available from a few different ancestry weapon feats (gnome, catfolk, and vishkanya), which also gives access to critical specialization for some bleed damage and exsanguinating ammunition synergy.
Longsword / Pick (*** / **): Damage falls off compared to a d6 agile & finesse weapon at 17. They’re about on par prior to that point. Picks will be more swingy because their average damage relies on crits. You can also get critical specialization for picks, which improves their damage a fair bit.
Main-Gauche (**): This weapon is for a more defensive build, allowing you to use the parry trait for a little extra AC on a third action. You’ll also get physical damage type coverage with versatile S. Disarm sucks, though.
Rapier (***): Slightly higher damage than a shortsword on turns where you make a MAP-free melee attack, but slightly lower damage than a shortsword when you only make a melee attack under the MAP. Disarm sucks.
Scorpion Whip (***): If you have access to it, its improvement over the normal whip is that it doesn’t bear the nonlethal trait. Reach and trip are both solid traits.
Shield Boss / Shield Spikes (**): A shield should be your weapon only if you want to use Raise a Shield often for the +2 AC. Boss deals bludgeoning, spikes deal piercing. No real damage versatility here unless you’re using a weapon without concussive.
Sword Cane (**): If you’re playing in an intrigue-heavy game where you need to keep weapons concealed, you’ll probably like this weapon. Concealable will help you keep it hidden.
Tengu Gale Blade (***): Basically just a flyssa / shortsword, but with disarm instead of versatile (which is a downgrade). The value here is that you can get critical specialization with an ancestry feat.
Thorn Whip (***): As a ghoran ancestry weapon, you can get access to critical specialization effects, and it’s generally the most usable of any of the whips. Making enemies Slowed is solid, especially with a reach weapon. Like the scorpion whip, it also does not bear the nonlethal trait. Reach and trip are useful as always.
Warhammer (***): Good damage and the shove trait for some athletics usage and battlefield control.
War Razor (**): If you can rely on flanking, backstabber will bring its average damage up to about par with shortswords. Just be aware that the variance on this weapon will be greater because it’s a d4 weapon with deadly d8. Higher highs and lower lows, with a reliance on positioning and allied coordination for optimal damage.
Whip (**): The bog-standard reach trip weapon. Available if you have access to nothing else which can accomplish similar results. Reach and trip are great, disarm is a dud, and having the nonlethal treat makes it significantly less effective against enemies which are immune to nonlethal damage.

Ranged: Stay away from scatter weapons, for the most part. You can get away with a scatter 5 ft. firearm if you also use a reach weapon, but it’s going to force some action economy issues, namely having to get away from enemies that close in to melee with you. An alternative is to use the backfire mantle, but you’ll have to convince your allies to use them as well.

Big Boom Gun (**): The modular B, P, or S trait will give you full physical damage type coverage with action economy limitations, and fatal d12 will be awesome on crits (the highest average damage for a one-handed firearm). There are some drawbacks here, though: the cobbled trait can cause it to misfire on any shot, which in turn causes the weapon to deal 1d12 fire damage to you (plus an action economy tax). It’s also only got a 20 ft. range, although you want to be near melee enough that it shouldn’t be too huge a detriment. This is a risk big, win big weapon with explosive consequences, as you might expect from a goblin gun. Be aware of the 10gp price tag if you’re using it at level 1.
Clan Pistol (***): Good range, damage, and damage type versatility. You can take a level 1 ancestry feat as a dwarf to get this weapon for free at level 1, with a limitation based on where you’re from. Otherwise, 5 gp is doable, assuming you have access. Its only real offering over the dueling pistol is extra range, but that is (most likely) at the cost of an ancestry feat.
Double-Barreled Pistol (**): The damage on its own isn’t spectacular, nor is the fatal d8 trait. That said, you can expend both rounds of ammunition in a single shot to make it a d6 weapon with fatal d10. This will also give you some reload flexibility in how (and how often) you use Reloading Strike, as well as some flexibility in how (and how often) you use ranged attacks. Concussive gives it damage type versatility. It’s also cheaper than most firearms, coming in at a manageable (for level 1) 7 gp. Breech ejectors are a consumable that you can use for a single one Interact reload for both barrels once per encounter at 10 gp each.
Dueling Pistol (****): Slightly less range than a clan pistol, but otherwise a very similar weapon. It carries with it the same concussive and fatal d10 traits, but also bears the concealable trait. If you’re investing in stealth, you’ll be able to sneak this weapon past passive observers more often. 60ft. range will be plenty. Just be aware of the 12gp price tag if you’re trying to use one at level 1.
Flintlock Pistol (**): Not a particularly great weapon, but it’s more affordable at level 1 than the better options, coming in at 6 gp. Replace it as soon as you can.
Hand Crossbow (**): At 3 gp, it’s the most cost-friendly option at level 1. If you take Crossbow Crack Shot, you can improve its damage die to a d8 when you reload, which is strong for a one-handed weapon. That feat will clash with Sword and Pistol, though, meaning you’ll need to be a human if you want to be fully effective with a hand crossbow at level 1.
Jezail / Sukgung (***): Highest damage die of a one-handed firearm / crossbow, though you should mostly use these with a two-handed grip. This sort-of hand freedom comes at the cost of being unable to use this firearm while holding a weapon in your other hand, however. As such, the best way to effectively use either weapon with this Way is with a bayonet or a reinforced stock. The bayonet will enable you to free up a hand sometimes, but only does d4 damage and comes with action economy limitations due to the fatal aim trait. Unless you’re using the acrobat and / or mauler archetype, the option to change to a one-handed grip will be your only real means of using athletics skill actions (though some ancestry feats can skirt the issue). The reinforced stock will give extra damage as compared to the bayonet, but you won’t have a one-handed melee option. You cannot release a hand as a free action like you could with a normal weapon since these weapons bear the fatal aim d12 trait. The jezail bears the concussive trait for damage type versatility, but the sukgung does not. 90 ft. range will be more than plenty. The sukgung is the more affordable of the two at 7 gp, while the jezail will be harder to fit into your gear list at level 1 with its 11 gp price tag.
Repeating Hand Crossbow (** / ***): As an advanced weapon, your proficiency will never be as high as that of a martial weapon unless you have feat support. Unconventional Weaponry is the best way to go about providing that feat support. Overall, reloading the repeating hand crossbow is easier on action economy than normal reloading, requiring three Interact actions to load a 5 round magazine instead of the usual 1-to-1. There’s also item support for repeating hand crossbows in the uncommon shootist bandolier level 0 item, reducing the number of Interacts required to two for up to three magazines. This weapon will give you flexibility in how you use your Strikes for Drifter’s Wake. Its damage is poor, but its action efficiency is high.
Rotary Bow (***): D8 damage and capacity 4 will make this weapon very easy to use. It’ll deal solid damage at the cost of not having much in the way of interesting traits (it has no concussive trait), but it’s got a lot of flexibility in regards to action economy and consistently strong damage. It’s not as much average damage as a d6 die / fatal d10 weapon, but it’ll be less swingy. At 8gp, it’s fairly affordable.
Slide Pistol (***): You won’t be able to afford this weapon at level 1 with its 16 gp price tag. Its average damage is on par with that of the dueling pistol, which is slightly better than that of the rotary bow. Its advantage over the dueling pistol is that you don’t have to use Reloading Strike or a reload feat to keep firing from this weapon, though you can if you want to.

Way of the Pistolero

This Way focuses on the use of one-handed firearms. There is some support for dual wielding. Your primary role in a party is to debuff enemies and / or try for crits while you’re Hidden from Create a Diversion. You’ll have a fairly heavy focus on either deception or intimidation (or both), bringing with them a need for CHA. This is a mid-range Way with little to no use for melee. As the only Way with no inherent support for either two-handed or dual weapon usage, you will need to either pay close attention to feat investment and usage, or accept that your damage and weapon trait leverage will be subpar compared to the other Ways in favor of build choices for DPR or debuff focus. Another viable option is to focus on the alchemy-related feats and leave a hand open for alchemical items. Alternatively, you can embrace a more supportive role and run a single one-handed weapon build to leave a hand free for, say, Battle Medicine.

Ability spread: STR (*) / DEX (****) / CON (**) / INT (*) / WIS (**) / CHA (***) Naturally, you want DEX for firearm usage. CHA is a must for a secondary focus because of the reliance on deception and / or intimidate. Between CON and WIS, it’s really up to you. CON will keep you healthy with some extra HP and complements the eventual master fortitude save proficiency. WIS provides synergy with your eventual legendary perception progression and shores up your poor will save. STR and INT are unnecessary and have no synergy with this Way.

Slinger’s Reload: Raconteur’s Reload combines reloading with either the Create a Diversion or the Demoralize skill action. Note that this action does not remove the need for a free hand to reload, and that the manipulate trait from Interacting will still trigger some reactions if you’re in range of them. On its own, Create a Diversion is a nasty action economy tax that only leaves you Hidden against enemies whose perception DC you beat and only lasts until the end of your turn - not until the end of the round or beginning of your next turn. As such, you’re only Hidden against enemy reactions - though the Hidden condition is very useful for rendering your enemies Flat-Footed to your attacks. Additionally, past your first attempt to Create a Diversion, any foe subjected to the attempt receives a +4 circumstance bonus to their perception DC. There are a few ways to make this somewhat better: invest in stealth, take the Confabulator skill feat (sort of helpful to eventually very helpful), and / or take the Lengthy Diversion skill feat. Stealth will require you to use another action to Sneak after Creating a Diversion, which means you will end up devoting two actions to Raconteur’s Reload (which includes the Create a Diversion) and Sneaking away. This option locks two of your three maximized skills into deception and stealth. Alternatively, at a minimum, Lengthy Diversion gives you an extra round of being hidden (with significant limitations, like needing a crit success and not being able to do anything besides Step or Hide). You’ll only need to focus on deception for this benefit. Deception also allows you to use the Feint skill action, but doing so requires you to be in melee - not a playstyle supported by this Way. You can overcome that issue with feat support (Pistol Twirl), making deception once again much more functional with feats. Your better choice lies in intimidation: it’s universally useful, not just in combat, and Demoralize inflicts a debuff to all of an enemy’s modifiers and DCs for one round. The biggest drawback to the Demoralize action is that, once you’ve used it against an enemy, that enemy is then immune to your Demoralize for 10 minutes, meaning you’ll have to rely on regular Interact actions, Demoralizing a different enemy, or deception.

Initial Deed: Ten Paces occurs as a free action when you roll initiative. It’ll add to your initiative roll, which is great (but invalidates certain ancestry and/or general feats), and allows you to draw a one-handed firearm/crossbow plus a 10 foot Step (if you Step before any other action on your first turn). Higher initiative is always good and potentially frees up some feat choices. The Step can get you out of danger without triggering, although triggering a reaction may not even be an option on the first turn, or safely into range of whatever you need to shoot. If you’re running a single one-handed weapon build, you aren’t likely to be hand-limited while dungeon-delving, but you may sometimes find yourself exploring without a weapon drawn. In those cases, you’ll appreciate not having to use an Interact action to draw your weapon (or one of your weapons, if you, for some reason, use two).

Advanced Deed: Pistoler’s Retort is a reaction which only triggers when an enemy critically fails to attack you. If you’re looking for ways to use this reaction (and you should be), that means you should be trying to fire from behind cover and sometimes using the Take Cover action for as much as +4 to your AC. Unfortunately, doing what you can to penalize enemies’ attacks against you is likely to cause them to just attack your allies instead. In order to get the most from this reaction, you’ll need to be able to rely on enemies critically failing their attacks against you. If they just never take those attacks, well… this reaction won’t do much. Even when enemies are attacking you, crit failed attacks aren’t exactly common unless you’re often fighting enemies with lower levels. That said, you will be good at clearing out minions. Your weapon will also have to be loaded in order for you to shoot back, meaning you’ll have to plan prior turns such that your firearm is ready to fire ahead of using this reaction, or use a weapon that needs reloading less often (capacity or repeating trait). If the stars align, this reaction will result in a MAP-free attack within your weapon’s first range increment.

Greater Deed: Grim Swagger lets you mass debuff your enemies within 30 feet and, with a critical success, render them fleeing. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve focused on deception or intimidation, both achieve the same effect. Inflicting frightened 2 on a group of enemies is great, especially considering the duration of the debuff immunity lies on the enemy and not on yourself. As a two action activity, you can easily fit it alongside a ranged Strike. It won’t benefit you much directly, but against groups of enemies it’ll help out quite a bit with setting up your blaster caster ally to nuke a bunch of mooks. Even against a single target, landing frightened 2 is a rare benefit. Being able to land frightened 3 with a crit, plus causing lower level enemies to flee, is a huge debuff that can take enemies out of the fight for a round (technically more, since they have to spend actions returning to the fight). Be aware that your allies (especially melee allies) may not like having to deal with fleeing enemies. Set yourself up on your first turn with Ten Paces’ 10 foot step to maximize the number of enemies you hit with Grim Swagger.

Level 6 feat: Pistolero’s Challenge (***)

Level 14 feat: Come at Me! (**)

Pistolero Weapons

Your options exist between dual wielding or retaining a free hand. If dual wielding, you’ll want the level 4 feat Paired Shots. See that feat for DPR discussion between weapon sets. If you’re running a single weapon build, DPR is not your goal. The free hand will be kept around for uses like tools or items.

Big Boom Gun (**): Lots of damage, but it’s risky and requires you to be close to melee. Modular B, P, or S will give you damage type versatility and fatal d12 will be great damage on crits, but it comes with tradeoffs. The cobbled trait means it may blow up in your face on any given shot, deal fire damage to you, and require an Interact action to clear the misfire, plus it only has a 20 ft. range. At least with a dual wield build you’ll be able to better decide when to use it: if a target is debuffed to the gills and you’re not likely to fail an attack roll against it, light it up with this weapon. Plus, with two weapons, you’ll be more resilient against misfires since you’ll have another weapon. Or go full goblin and rock two big boom guns (not actually recommended - the MAP is scary with cobbled). Risk big, win big.
Clan Pistol (***): If you have access to it, the concussive and fatal d10 traits give you both some damage versatility and a nice improvement to damage on crits. 80 ft. range is plenty for this Way. Not dual wield-viable.
Crescent Cross (**): While combination weapons are generally the exclusive territory of Triggerbrands, the d6 damage die plus capacity 3 and parry traits are decent for the ranged mode as a defensive weapon. If you’re using, say, a big boom gun where risk is an issue, you can offset that risk somewhat with the parry trait, though that setup is difficult to optimize DPR. Generally speaking, the gauntlet bow fits the defensive niche better, but if you want better damage outside of Paired Shots the crescent cross can provide a slight bump. There’s no real reason to ever care about the melee mode, especially because action economy is already a hassle for a dual wield build, but it will give you some odd (and less-than-optimal) build options such as Sword and Pistol. Again, that’s not a good idea, but it’s a possibility if you want to get weird with your Pistolero.
Double-Barreled Pistol (**): Despite needing two reload actions to fully load this weapon, it’s got some value going for it, especially in encounters against more than one enemy. The concussive trait will give it damage versatility. Double barrel improves the damage at the cost of action economy and ammunition. Importantly, you can Demoralize twice with this weapon to get it fully loaded. So long as you have two targets in a given counter against which you can use Demoralize, this weapon is manageable. If you’re investing in both deception and intimidation, you can instead Create a Diversion and Demoralize to throw down heavy debuffs on a single target. 30 ft. range is a bit limited for this Way, but workable. Breech ejectors are a consumable that you can use for a single Interact reload for both barrels once per encounter at 10 gp each.
Dragon Mouth Pistol (**): The option for splash damage. Your melee allies won’t like this weapon much without backfire mantles, but as long as you can reliably hit targets other than those to which your melee buddies are glued, you’ll have a minor AoE option. 20 ft. range is pretty limiting for this Way, though. Not dual wield-viable.
Dueling Pistol (***): The gold standard of easy-access one-handed firearms. Damage and damage type versatility are good, and the concealable trait will be useful in sneaking this weapon past prying eyes. 60 ft. range is plenty for this Way. Not dual wield-viable.
Gauntlet Bow (*** / **): Low damage, but it keeps your hand “free” to reload your other weapon and has a defensive option in the parry trait. Also easier on the overall action economy with capacity 4. This weapon also gives you some melee options if you want to be an odd duck of a Pistolero, and will work with the likes of Sword and Pistol and Reloading Strike. Unlike the very similar thaumaturge feat Ammunition Thaumaturgy, you cannot reload the gauntlet bow with the hand wielding it. With the capacity 4 trait, you’ll be able to put this weapon to good use for the feats that let you Strike with both wielded weapons and not worry about reloading until it’s out of ammo. Until that point, the fact that you can reload your primary weapon with the hand wielding the gauntlet bow gives it high value.
Hand Crossbow (**): At 3 gp, it’s the most cost-friendly option at level 1. If you take Crossbow Crack Shot, you can improve its damage die to a d8 when you reload, which is strong for a one-handed weapon. That feat will clash with Dual-Weapon Reload, though, meaning you’ll need to be a human if you want to dual wield effectively at level 1. If nothing else, you can use a hand crossbow + Crossbow Crack Shot at level 1 for cost savings and retrain Crossbow Crack Shot when you can afford a better weapon or two.
Jezail (**): D8 damage with concussive. You won’t have any real reason to use its two-handed grip for the fatal aim d12 trait, but the option is there if you’re willing to accept the action economy issues in doing so. Also, you can’t dual wield with it due to the fatal aim trait.
Repeating Hand Crossbow (****): This rating assumes you have feat support to be able to treat this weapon as a martial weapon (Unconventional Weaponry). You’ll have to worry much, much less about hand limitations for reloading with two of these weapons. That does come at the cost of useful traits like concussive and fatal. This weapon is uniquely viable for the Paired Shots feat. You can use two of them for the easiest possible action economy-to-DPR tradeoff around Paired Shots, though there are other choices detailed in the feat description.
Rotary Bow (***): D8 damage and capacity 4 will make this weapon very easy to use. It’ll deal solid damage at the cost of not having much in the way of interesting traits (it has no concussive trait), but it’s got a lot of flexibility in regards to action economy and consistently strong damage. It’s not as much average damage as a d6 die + fatal d10 weapon, but it’ll be less swingy. At 8gp, it’s somewhat affordable. It’s also a good stand-in for a slide pistol at level 1 if you want to burn all your gold on weapons.
Sukgung (**): Basically a jezail with more range, no concussive trait, and bolts instead of rounds (meaning Munitions Machinist limitations).
Slide Pistol (****): Sort of skirts around needing Dual-Weapon Reload, although you’re still going to need it if and when your slide pistols run out of ammunition unless you want to add more feats and / or actions into the mix. You’re doubling up on the Interact actions needed to use this weapon every time you change barrels, but it’s an easy means of skirting around hand management issues until all rounds are expended. Also note that you won’t be able to afford even a single slide pistol at level 1 due to its 16 gp price tag.

Way of the Sniper

This Way is the striker option. If you’ve gone with this Way, it’s because you want to be the single target damage dealer in your group. It revolves around stealth and cover mechanics and synergizes well with longer-ranged weapons. Naturally, your Way skill is stealth. If you’ve got an arcane or occult caster ally, do your level best to convince them that they should buff you with 4th level invisibility as often as possible. Alternatively, put some focus on the arcana or occultism skill and get the Trick Magic Item skill feat plus a wand and / or numerous scrolls of 4th level invisibility. Invisibility Potions are an option too, if you have access to them, but they only give 2nd level invisibility.

Ability spread: STR (***) / DEX (****) / CON (***) / INT (*) / WIS (**) / CHA (*) You don’t really need anything other than DEX, but of course your save-related ability scores will be useful. Since this way is so SAD, you can certainly get away with a secondary WIS focus and its associated skills. If you’re planning to use a kickback weapon, your most damage-efficient option is to get enough STR to overcome its kickback penalty and avoid dealing with the action economy of a stabilizer. Starting with 16 STR will also enable you to use large bore modifications as early as possible, assuming you go to 18 STR at level 5. Kickback’s damage and large bore modifications serve to make kickback weapons function very similarly to propulsive weapons. If, for some reason, you’re not playing Way of the Sniper to do big crit damage, you can afford to skimp on STR and invest more in WIS. If your party is lacking in INT or CHA, you can help fill that gap somewhat, but it will come at the cost of damage or defense.

Slinger’s Reload: Covered Reload almost requires you to focus on stealth. Technically, if you don’t want anything to do with stealth, you could just position yourself around the Take Cover action, which is doable no matter what if you Drop Prone. Dropping Prone is an action, so it’s not exactly the most friendly with the action economy. It also gives you a -2 to attack, which makes Prone an emergency option only. Another option for Take Cover spam is the deployable cover item. Hiding suffers from a similar action economy issue, requiring some prerequisites such as cover or concealment, then followed by a stealth-based skill action. Hiding also technically doesn’t work since, by RAW, you break your Hidden condition as soon as you Interact as part of Covered Reload. That should be a pretty easy issue to smooth over with your GM via the Ambiguous Rules (p. 444) section of the CRB as the Way doesn’t really work if they insist on being RAW-adherent in this case. If they insist that one of your most basic class features doesn’t actually work because RAW, they’re a jerk, and you can tell them I called them a jerk. There are some ancestry feats that make Hiding easier (namely those of the halfling ancestry). Action economy issues aside, this is a highly defensive Slinger’s Reload that will grant you a (potentially huge) circumstance bonus to AC or impose a miss chance on enemies who try to target you. Additionally, attacking while hidden renders your target Flat-Footed to your attacks, giving you an offensive advantage as well. Coupled with your excellent firearm / crossbow proficiency, you’ve got a great chance of landing crits against your targets with Covered Reload.

Initial Deed: In order to activate One Shot, One Kill, you’ll have to roll stealth for initiative. That shouldn’t be too hard to pull off considering how stealth-focused this Way is. What that should inform about your gameplay is your exploration activities. The easiest means of getting to roll stealth for initiative is to Avoid Notice as often as possible. If you do roll stealth for initiative, you can draw your weapon as a free action on the first round of combat, but that’s about it for the action economy easement. You do at least deal a bit of extra damage on your first Strike of the turn. It does not require that your first action be a Strike, so you can set yourself up with Hide to at least apply Flat-Footed, and hopefully have some pre-buffs from your party.

Advanced Deed: Vital Shot is a two-action activity that requires a ranged Strike and improves if your target is Flat-Footed (one extra die of weapon damage plus persistent bleed damage). With a crit from a fatal weapon, that extra weapon damage die is the same as the improved critical damage die. The most reliable way to make your enemies Flat-Footed is for you to be Hidden (which is highly encouraged) since you have such a focus on stealth. You have other means to accomplish this such as Pistol Twirl or a thaumaturge archetype if you have the CHA. If your allies have a means of making enemies Flat-Footed, even better. This activity is especially useful if your target’s AC is debuffed, rendering them more likely to receive a crit. The other Flat-Footed-dependent component of this activity adds a number of dice of persistent bleed damage equal to the precision damage dice from One Shot, One Kill. Assuming you’re using a weapon with several major damage components going for it (arquebus, harmona gun, shobhad longrifle, taw launcher), the DPR for this activity is quite high and outpaces other options. It only increases your MAP by one level, meaning you could still technically follow up with Risky Reload if you’re willing to run a risky playstyle and potentially jam your weapon.

Greater Deed: Ghost Shot also encourages you to be hidden (or undetected) before using it. If you meet either of those conditions, your Strike adds precision damage equal to that of One Shot, One Kill - at this level, an extra 3d6 damage. Basically, it’s a single action Strike that deals precision damage on demand, provided you’re at least hidden. If you want to maximize damage on your first turn, you can take a shot buffed with One Shot, One Kill, Hide behind something (or someone, if possible) with Covered Reload, and use Ghost Shot.

Level 6 feat: Sniper’s Aim (***)

Level 14 feat: Headshot (**)

Sniper Weapons

Big damage with two-handed firearms is the name of the game here, though you can get away with dual wielding and Paired Shots assuming repeating hand crossbow access. Vital Shot has stronger DPR as compared to Paired Shots when your target is Flat-Footed and you’re using a stronger two-handed weapon (arquebus, primarily, but there are other good options). Action economy and the reliability of the Flat-Footed condition will dictate which of the two choices are better. If you (and / or your allies) can reliably render targets Flat-Footed (say, by Hiding), Vital Shot will generally pull ahead (though it’s available 5 levels after Paired Shots). Otherwise, the usual considerations of Paired Shots make for better DPR on average since you don’t have to rely on Flat-Footed, though that does come with the cost of a level 4 class feat versus a feature you’d get automatically.

Alchemical crossbow (**): If you're willing to invest in the alchemy-related class feats, you’ll have some options with this weapon. It’s not particularly well-suited to this Way, especially because of the shorter range, but it has some value.
Arquebus (****): Solid damage and excellent range. The kickback trait is a blessing and a curse. Most of the time, countering it with a stabilizer is just too much of a tax on your action economy, especially when you want to use Vital Shot, although this Way is uniquely suited to finding a safe spot and planting itself. You’ll want 14 STR to be able to ignore the tripod, and 16 STR for the earliest possible damage scaling / easing of action economy. If you have either a stabilizer set up or 14+ STR, you’ll be able to ignore the attack penalty from kickback and just take advantage of the extra point(s) of damage. If you do prefer to use a stabilizer, the shielded tripod gives you a convenient and portable means of Taking Cover. Concussive gives damage type versatility between bludgeoning and piercing. At 10 gp, it’s a bit steep for level 1, but doable.
Barricade Buster (**): The repeating trait is great for your action economy, but you’ll have to work around some issues. Your range window is very narrow, having to be (for the most part) between 20 and 40 feet away from your targets. Sniper’s beads, archetypes (fighter, ranger), and the level 17 class feature Shootist’s Edge do a lot to help with the range increment issue. Also, with the kickback trait, you’ll need to rely on STR or a stabilizer. It does qualify for a crushing rune, though, which is a strong buff to this weapon.
Crossbow (**): Starter weapon if you’re strapped for gold. Its d8 damage and 120 ft. range are solid for level 1 and, if you’re playing in a no-firearms game, will keep it a decent weapon all the way through a campaign. You can also improve its damage die to a d10 with feat support.
Double-Barreled Musket (**): Despite needing two reload actions to fully load this weapon, it’s got some value going for it. With double barrel, you can do d8 baseline damage and improve to a d12 fatal trait if you both have the weapon fully loaded and expend both rounds of ammunition with one shot. Doing so puts this weapon’s damage on par with that of the arquebus, but without the kickback trait (slightly less damage, no STR or stabilizer required). The tradeoff as compared to the arquebus is the fact that you have to reload twice. If the terrain is suitable, you can use Covered Reload twice to both Hide and Take Cover in order to fully reload the weapon. 60 ft. range is plenty for most encounters. Be aware of the 11 gp price tag at level 1. Breech ejectors are a consumable that you can use for a single one Interact reload for both barrels once per encounter at 10 gp each.
Dwarven Scattergun (**): Relatively low range, but good damage potential between kickback and scatter. Make sure your melee allies are willing to buy backfire mantles.
Flintlock Musket (**): Not a particularly great weapon, but it’s more affordable at level 1 than the better options, coming in at 7 gp. It’s got a lower damage die than a crossbow, but bears the concussive and fatal d10 traits to offset that fact.
Gauntlet Bow (***): Enables some action economy around reloading while qualifying you for feats that require a weapon to be in a loaded or unloaded state.
Harmona Gun (****): This rating assumes you can get a crushing rune. Although it does less average damage than the arquebus, its damage will be less swingy and it’s the only firearm that can benefit from a crushing rune. Additionally, it’s got great range. It does still have the STR or stabilizer requirements due to the kickback trait.
Jezail (***): A weapon near the damage of an arquebus without the need for STR or a stabilizer. Also gives some flexibility with hand usage if you’re willing to handle the action economy impact. If you’re not building for STR, this is the most action-efficient weapon and, for a low-STR build, will generally beat the arquebus for DPR due to the lack of additional action requirement.
Repeating Hand Crossbow (****): Snipers are very viable with a dual wield Paired Shots build so long as the repeating hand crossbow is involved, though their 60 ft. range may not satisfy the sniper fantasy and may sometimes hinder your access to cover and / or places to Hide. If you don’t want to dual wield RHCs, a slide pistol plus a RHC can work too.
Shobhad Longrifle (*****): Basically a better version of the arquebus with its backstabber trait dealing extra damage to Flat-Footed targets, but it bears the rare and volley traits. Volley shouldn’t be an issue for you since you want to stay away from melee, but tight dungeon rooms will pose a problem. Also, the volley trait is supposed to include a range number to indicate the distance inside of which you take the attack penalty. This weapon does not have a listed volley range. The devs have said it’s supposed to be 30 ft., but no errata exists yet.
Flingflenser (***): Goblin weapon that’ll deal a bit of extra damage to your primary target on every hit: 1 (or 2, at high levels) from backstabber and 1 to 4 from scatter. You’ll also be able to do a bit of AoE damage with the scatter 5 ft. trait, but be wary of this because it can and will hit your melee allies (unless they have backfire mantles). With these two traits, it does slightly higher damage than that of the single shot double-barreled musket. If you’re able to activate the backstabber trait, its damage is generally on par with that of the arquebus. As long as you’ve got the goblin weapon familiarity feat, it’s treated as a martial weapon, eliminating the proficiency issue. At 6 gp, this weapon is easily affordable at level 1.
Sukgung (***): Same damage output and hand “flexibility” as a jezail, but with more than twice the range (longest range you can get, actually) and no concussive trait. It’s also cheaper, but if you’re building for Munitions Machinist, you won’t benefit from that feat as much as you would with a firearm due to ammunition type.
Taw Launcher (****): Solid damage if you’ve got the conrasu weapon familiarity feat to treat it as a martial weapon. Modular B, P, or S will give you damage type versatility at the cost of action economy. The damage is, on average, a bit lower than that of the arquebus, but requires no items, actions, or STR to get there. You’re a striker, and this weapon fully enables that role without too much strain. Be aware of the 10 gp price tag at level 1.

Way of the Spellshot

This Way is designed for you to be able to leverage Recall Knowledge information against your enemies, capitalizing on weaknesses or avoiding resistances / immunities. With a thundering rune and an alignment damage rune, you have incredible potential for damage type coverage and weakness fishing (plus energized cartridges and elemental ammunition). Damage type coverage (and Recall Knowledge) is also useful for shutting down some enemies’ abilities, the troll’s regeneration being a notorious example. A brilliant rune can sort of replace the alignment damage rune in the right campaign. Since Recall Knowledge isn’t particularly well-defined regarding what information you gain, this Way will be somewhat GM-dependent as to how effective it will be. If you can rely on your GM to give you useful information with Recall Knowledge, this Way will play as a somewhat support-based martial, allowing you to pass useful information to your allies and enable their gameplay while still doing respectable damage. It is also somewhat suited to mental ability-based roles like the party medic since you can afford to use a one-handed weapon. Your Way skill is arcana, enabling at least some of your Recall Knowledge checks. You can take a loremaster archetype to help with Recall Knowledge a fair bit, but you should be aware that it isn’t an option until level 10 at the earliest (or level 8 with free archetype variant rules).

While you won’t be able to take the Spellshot Dedication feat until level 2, it is mandatory for this Way since it’s a class archetype. None of the other spellshot archetype feats are mandatory, however. As such, the only portion of the archetype I’m going to include in this part of the guide is the fact that you’ll get Conjure Bullet at level 2. Conjure Bullet allows you to create and load normal level-0 ammunition with a single action, giving you an emergency supply of ammunition if needed, or just stretching out what you do have. The ammunition only lasts for a round, so you can’t use it to solve all your ammunition needs.

Ability spread: STR (*) / DEX (****) / CON (**) / INT (****) / WIS (***) / CHA (*) Naturally, you want maximum DEX for your Strikes. INT is absolutely necessary because, unlike other Ways, it drives your class DC instead of DEX. DEX is still your key ability score, though, so your class DC is going to suffer compared to other Ways no matter what. That also includes a lower chance to stun enemies with firearm critical specialization. WIS is important as well, not only to shore up your weak will save, but also to be able to use nature and religion as needed for Recall Knowledge. You still want CON, but something has to give. STR and CHA are of no use to you.

Slinger’s Reload: Thoughtful Reload is the reason you want to beef up your INT and WIS. Combine a Recall Knowledge check with a reload in a single action. Using this reload will enable the key focus of this Way. If your enemies don’t have any weaknesses, resistances, or immunities, hopefully your GM will be lenient enough with information that you can determine your target’s weakest save(s) to help out your allies. It’s also important to note that Thoughtful Reload requires you to use actual ammunition. It will not work with Conjure Bullet. Be aware of the limitations of using Recall Knowledge multiple times against the same target, or even multiple targets of the same type. The DC to Recall Knowledge gets harder the more you succeed, eventually becoming impossible. You aren’t locked out of trying again if you fail or critically fail before a success, though.

Initial Deed: As a free action when you roll initiative, Energy Shot allows you to empower your first three Strikes in an encounter with a single point of acid, cold, fire, or electricity damage. You can also draw your weapon if it wasn’t out, which will generally be most useful with a two-handed weapon. Your first Strike is almost certainly going to occur before you use Thoughtful Reload, which means either you’ll have to go for a normal Recall Knowledge before Striking or go with your best guess on which damage type to use. After that first Strike, though, Thoughtful Reload will be a useful pairing with Energy Shot. Once you have access to Fulminating Strike, you can add two different damage types to your first three Strikes if needed. If you’re just going weakness fishing and Recall Knowledge either isn’t successful or your GM is stingy with information, you can coordinate with caster allies to enable the weakness fishing.

Advanced Deed: Recall Ammunition allows you to reload normal ammunition as a reaction when you miss. Magical ammunition does not qualify for this Deed, nor will a missed shot that’s been buffed with Energy Shot or Fulminating Shot retain its extra damage when recalled. Similar to Conjure Bullet, this Deed is mainly an ammunition saver. The real benefit is in the fact that you don’t have to spend an action to reload.

Greater Deed: Dispelling Bullet allows you, as a two action activity, to counteract ongoing spell effects on your targets. Removing enemy buffs is a powerful way to bring them back down in line with your group’s capabilities, especially because you can do so resource-free. Just be aware that boss enemies +3 levels above you or higher will be particularly difficult to counteract since their highest buffs are likely to be more than 1 level above your counteract level. For ease of reference, the table below will give you your counteract level and counteract modifier for levels 15-20. The counteract modifiers assume you start with a 16 in INT. For comparison, a level 17 enemy should have a spell DC somewhere around 38-43. If you don’t know what buffs your enemy has up, you automatically attempt to counteract the highest-level effect on them. Knowing the level of enemy you’re fighting and using those Recall Knowledge checks to figure out their buffs will be extremely helpful in knowing when and what to dispel. As an example, a level 17 vaspercham has the spells spell immunity (9th) and regenerate (7th). If you use Dispelling Bullet against a vaspercham with both buffs up and don’t declare which effect you’re targeting, you’ll automatically attempt to dispel spell immunity. The vaspercham has a spell DC of 41. At level 15, you’d require a 17 on the die to successfully counteract spell immunity. If, instead, you know about the regenerate and specifically target it, you’d need an 8 on the die to counteract it (32 is a failure, but not a critical failure, which will counteract effects of a lower level). With an INT apex item, you’re on par with a caster’s counteract modifier at levels 17 and 18, but behind by 2 points at levels 15, 16, and 19, and by 3 points at level 20. With a DEX apex item, you’re behind by at least 1 point at all levels. The tradeoff is that casters have to expend resources for their dispels, where yours is always available and gets a Strike in the mix. NOTE: There is a CRB item called the dispelling sliver that works with the rogue’s equivalent of Dispelling Bullet, Dispelling Slice. By RAW, the dispelling sliver does not function with Dispelling Bullet. It’s worth asking your GM if they’re willing to make it work, though.

Character level	Counteract level	Counteract modifier (DEX apex)	Counteract modifier (INT apex)
15	8	24	24
16	8	25	25
17	9	28	29
18	9	29	30
19	10	30	31
20	10	31	32

Spellshot Weapons

Since much of the purpose of this Way is to deal elemental damage, you can get away with a one-handed weapon if you feel the need to leave a hand open. If you want a one-handed weapon, it should either be because you’re after the modular B, P, or S trait or because you’re filling a role in the party that needs a free hand (e.g., Battle Medicine usage). You are somewhat uniquely suited to filling roles in the party that require a free hand since you’re more about weakness / resistance / immunity fishing than DPR. Even though I don’t list much in the way of one-handed weapons below, keep that in mind for weapon selection. See the Drifter and Pistolero weapon choices for analyses of one-handed weapons if you need to use one. Your best bets for personal optimization are two-handed weapons because there’s no real need in the Way’s kit for a free hand. While kickback weapons are sort of viable, the need to use a stabilizer is action-intensive, and you’d have to skimp on CON or WIS to add STR into the mix. Additionally, one feature of the Spellshot Dedication feat is that you can take the Beast Gunner Dedication feat without meeting the usual archetype feat requirements before taking a second dedication. If you choose to go this route, your weapon considerations will change as you’ll be looking at beast guns instead. I cover beast guns later in the guide under the beast gunner archetype in the Other Archetypes section.

Alchemical Crossbow (***): As the Way with the most focus on damage type versatility, being able to throw out additional damage types via alchemical consumables is a solid benefit. If you can fit it in alongside Munitions Crafter, Crossbow Crack Shot will improve this weapon’s damage since it’s a simple weapon. If it becomes a matter of prioritizing between the feats (as is almost always the case unless playing a human with Natural Ambition), Munitions Crafter is the better choice. Note, however, that you cannot afford an alchemical crossbow at level 1 due to its 25 gp price tag.
Arquebus (**): Great damage, but hard to handle the kickback trait.
Barricade Buster (**): With the kickback trait, its damage is about on par with that of the taw launcher, but you’ll have a hard time handling the trait’s drawbacks. It has some situational value in breaking objects. Given that the Spellshot is designed to be versatile in their damage types / uses, you may find some value in being able to destroy items, barriers, etc. The repeating trait means you’ll have to worry about reloading significantly less (8 shots for 3 Interacts is about as efficient as it gets), but that means you’re clumping up your Thoughtful Reloads at the end of a magazine… which is probably going to happen after combat is over. You’ll have to contend with the volley trait, but volley 20 ft. isn’t too bad since you don’t have much reason to be near melee. 3 bulk is quite prohibitive unless you’re planning to invest in STR and skimp on WIS or CON.
Crossbow (**): Barebones, but effective, especially in a no-firearms game. D8 damage and 120 ft. range will be plenty, and it only costs 3 gp. Has feat support to frequently bump its damage die up to d10 if needed.
Double-Barreled Musket (**): Despite needing two reload actions to fully load this weapon, it’s got some value going for it. Its damage is decent and can be improved if you expend both loaded rounds at once. Doing so brings this weapon’s output up to that of the arquebus minus the kickback trait. The tradeoff for not having the kickback trait is the fact that you have to reload twice. You can use Thoughtful Reload twice to fully load the weapon, but know that eventually you’ll be reduced to regular old Interact actions once you’re no longer able to Recall Knowledge any more. 60 ft. of range is plenty. Be aware of the 11 gp price tag at level 1. Breech ejectors are a consumable that you can use for a single one Interact reload for both barrels once per encounter at 10 gp each.
Flintlock Musket (**): Not a particularly great weapon, but it’s more affordable at level 1 than the better options, coming in at 7 gp. It’s got a lower damage die than a crossbow, but bears the concussive and fatal d10 traits to offset that fact.
Gauntlet Bow (***): Enables some action economy around reloading while qualifying you for feats that require a weapon to be in a loaded or unloaded state.
Hand Cannon (**): A one-handed weapon, only providing value to you through the modular B, P, or S trait for versatility at the cost of action economy. Only has 30 ft. of range. At 5 gp, it’s pretty affordable, at least.
Repeating Hand Crossbow (***): This rating assumes you have feat support to be able to treat this weapon as a martial weapon (Unconventional Weaponry). You can ease a lot of action economy issues with a repeating hand crossbow. Eased action economy frees you up for the actions required of bomb use, as well as mobility. With Paired Shots and a dual repeating hand crossbow build, you can help overcome resist (all), as well as other resistances if you pick wrong on Alchemical Shot.
Harmona Gun (***): This rating assumes you can get a crushing rune. Although it does less average damage than the taw launcher, it’s the only firearm that can benefit from a crushing rune. Plus, its range is outstanding, giving you positional flexibility and safety where you can comfortably leverage your Recall Knowledges. Also, although ammunition cost isn’t exactly a concern, its ammunition does cost double the normal price, giving Recall Ammunition some extra monetary value. You’ll have to contend with the kickback trait on this weapon, too.
Jezail (***): A weapon near the damage of an arquebus without the need for STR or a stabilizer. Also gives some flexibility with hand usage if you’re willing to handle the action economy impact. The hand may be useful for alchemical items.
Mithral Tree (**): While this weapon’s damage is on par with the baseline damage of a double-barrel musket, it cannot deal improved damage. What it brings instead is the parry trait for some additional defense when needed. You shouldn’t be so close to melee that you’ll need it much, but you’ll find yourself with a third action open for use from time to time and may appreciate the defense. Your playstyle revolves around leveraging different damage types anyway, so you may feel comfortable relying on your elemental damage and keeping the parry action as an option in exchange for lower weapon damage. It’s an elf weapon, so you’ll probably need the associated weapon familiarity feat. 150 ft. of range is more than plenty.
Sukgung (***): Same damage output and hand “flexibility” as a jezail, but with more than twice the range (longest range you can get, actually) and no concussive trait. It’s also cheaper, but if you’re building for Munitions Machinist, you won’t benefit from that feat as much as you would with a firearm due to ammunition type.
Taw Launcher (****): As long as you get access to this weapon through the conrasu weapon familiarity feat, you get to treat it as a martial weapon. Its damage is the strongest you’ll get without having to sacrifice ability scores or action economy for a kickback weapon. Importantly, it’s also got the modular B, P, or S trait, the ultimate in damage type coverage despite the action economy issues, which synergizes well with this Way. 100 ft. of range is more than plenty.

Way of the Triggerbrand

A note about combination weapons: they don’t always play nice with traits. Forceful and sweep have some ambiguity depending on how your GM interprets the respective phrases “ “this weapon” and “When you attack with it more than once on your turn.” I am of the opinion that traits are supposed to be exclusive to their respective mode, but there is room for argument that a combination weapon bearing these traits in its melee mode gains their benefits when following up a ranged Strike with a melee Strike. Consult with your GM.

This Way is all about combination weapons, and even grants unique access to one. Be aware that your melee proficiency only goes up to master. Much of this Way revolves around mobility, making you a good flanking buddy for your allies. Movement speed from your ancestry or from allies’ buffs will be of high value to you. Although you won’t have the most damage output, you will have flexibility in how you approach encounters and a safe ranged option when you want / need it. Note that a flanked enemy is only Flat-Footed to you for melee strikes. If you’re shooting while in melee, even though you have some tools to do so, you’ll want to find other ways to make your targets Flat-Footed. Your Way skill is thievery, which is used in your Deeds and sets you up to be the party trapfinder. If you run a dual wield build, the only real advantage is trait flexibility. The benefits of running a single one-handed weapon are that you can leave a hand free for athletics and / or thievery skill actions, or that you can use a shield for some extra AC when the action economy permits. You could also leave a hand free for, say, Battle Medicine (assuming you can fit the required mental ability score(s) in).

Ability spread: STR (***) / DEX (****) / CON (***) / INT (*) / WIS (**) / CHA (*) With melee weapons in the mix, you want STR to be able to deal damage. DEX is a must, naturally, since it’s your key ability score and drives both your ranged attack rolls and your Way skill, thievery. You’ll need CON to stand in melee. Something’s got to give, unfortunately, and that probably means WIS. You want at least some WIS, though. Not only will it be great for your perception - you get legendary proficiency eventually, after all - it’ll help shore up your will save, which caps out at expert proficiency. INT and CHA have no synergy with this Way.

Slinger’s Reload: Touch and Go mixes quite a bit in, giving you great action economy for reloads. With Touch and Go, you can Step toward an enemy, change your combination weapon from melee to ranged or vice versa, and reload all in one action. Note the order of operations here. You don’t actually have to Step or change your weapon between modes, but either / both of those occur first due to the passage “and you then Interact to reload.” Step doesn’t trigger movement-based reactions, but Interacting has the manipulate trait regardless of whether you’re changing weapon modes or reloading. If you Step into a square where you can trigger a reaction, then use either Interact function in Touch and Go, those Interacts can still trigger reactions. Unfortunately, you can’t Step after the reload. Also, you can only step toward an enemy. In an encounter against multiple enemies, if you’re standing next to an enemy and want to Step away, you can sort of skirt around the limitation by using Touch and Go to step toward a different enemy. Against a single enemy, though, you won’t be able to use Touch and Go as an escape tool.

Initial Deed: As a free action when you roll initiative, Spring the Trap allows you to both draw a combination weapon and set it to whichever mode you prefer, as well as relieve you from triggering reactions due to movement or ranged attacks on your first turn. It’s a great way to set up your battlefield positioning, get off a ranged Strike for maximum crit chance, and be in place to flank for an ally. A common first turn for you is likely to be ranged Strike -> Touch and Go -> Stride. This feature is somewhat less useful for you if you’re running a dual wield build.

Advanced Deed: Wind Them Up is generally going to require some support from allies. Since you’ll be using this activity to Steal, you’ll want to use it against enemies with poor perception. Knowing which enemies have poor perception will require Recall Knowledge and a supportive GM. If you succeed on the attempt to Steal, your target will be flat-footed to your ranged Strikes until the start of your next turn. Generally, you’ll only have one action to do so, unless you’re buffed with haste or something similar, which means your turn will be fully occupied when using Wind Them Up. It can also be used as an escape tool since a successful Steal will stop you from triggering reactions with either ranged attacks or movement.

Greater Deed: Break Them Down helps a fair bit with your crit chance on the ranged Strike portion, assuming your melee Strike hits. Being able to execute both attacks before increasing your MAP and potentially landing both persistent damage and the Dazzled condition is quite a lot of punch for a two-action activity. You’ll need your weapon to be in melee mode to use this activity, but it does bear the benefit of not needing an action to swap to firearm mode for its second Strike. You won’t be able to couple Break Them Down with Wind Them Up on the same turn, unfortunately, so there’s not really an easy means of imposing the flat-footed condition for your ranged Strike. Hopefully you’ve communicated enough with your allies by this point that they know how effective a status bonus to your attacks and a means of making enemies Flat-Footed to you can be. Especially powerful if you can also make your target Stunned 1 with the firearm critical specialization effect.

Level 6 feat: Triggerbrand Salvo (****)

Level 14 feat: Triggerbrand Blitz (***)

Triggerbrand Weapons

As the Way designed to ease the action economy of combination weapons, that’s what you’ll want to use. That said, the traits on several of the combination weapons are strange, and that unfortunately eats up their power budget. The Triggerbrand is unique in that you can take the Mauler Dedication feat with a two-handed weapon to get melee critical weapon specialization, which is otherwise only available for ancestry weapons. Your choices for melee critical specialization without said dedication are the explosive dogslicer (party tactics option), gnome amalgam musket (trip option, but reload 2 is rough), and three peaked tree (defensive option). You’ll want melee critical specialization from some source to get maximum value out of combination weapons since you can’t use the critical fusion trait without it.

Finesse: Up front, I should say: the average damage output is very, very close between all finesse combination weapons, generally within 2-3 points at all levels. If you don’t want to get down to the absolute squeaky specifics, any of the finesse weapons will do just fine for you. Unsurprisingly, the two-handed weapons do better damage. Range isn’t much of a consideration with the variation being between 20 ft. and 40 ft. As a subclass that wants to be near enough for a Stride into melee, these ranges are functional.

Explosive Dogslicer (***): If you’re able to get the damage from the backstabber trait on both your ranged and melee Strikes, the explosive dogslicer is about on par with the damage of the gun sword. It brings access to melee critical weapon specialization to boot, giving you a more consistent means of activating the backstabber trait, on top of the fact that your allies will love more chances for you to make a target Flat-Footed. Once you have Wind Them Up, you have another tool to make enemies Flat-Footed for backstabber activation, although the odds of success will be against you. Also offers melee crit value flexibility via the critical fusion trait. The ranged mode does have scatter 5 ft., so you and melee allies will be in danger of taking splash damage without backfire mantles.
Piercing Wind (**): If you want to go light on STR and your GM is willing to rule that a ranged Strike -> melee Strike turn can benefit from the forceful and sweep traits, the piercing wind comes close to the gun sword in average damage. Also gives some free hand potential with the fatal aim trait, though switching between the grips can be harsh on your action economy depending on how you go about it. This weapon negates any ability to dual wield.
Triggerbrand (**): If you’re using a triggerbrand, it’s to maximize the value of a free hand. That includes the use of athletics and thievery skill actions (other than those involved in your Slinger’s Reload / Deeds).

STR-based melee: Non-finesse weapons are the better option for damage. They deal comparatively more damage than their finesse counterparts at 14 and 16 starting STR, which you really want regardless of the existence of the finesse trait on your preferred weapon. Axe musket is only really useful if your GM rules that the sweep trait activates after you’ve made a ranged Strike. Gnome amalgam muskets bring a lot to the table, but their Reload 2 is atrocious. Reload 2 is a huge limitation for the lancer as well. Black powder knuckle duster and cane pistol are just subpar damage for no real gain.

Crescent Cross (**): The damage isn't great, but if it’s your only weapon, you’ll have a free hand and parry for some extra defense when needed. It’s also one of the most affordable starting weapons at 4 gp. It also enables dual wielding somewhat since you can change its barrels without a free hand, though at capacity 3 it’s got somewhat restricted in-encounter longevity.
Gun Sword (****): Your best two-handed choice for damage, as well as the most meaningful damage improvement for a non-finesse weapon over a finesse weapon. As a weapon with the kickback trait, you’ll very much want large bore modifications at level 5, which is even further justification for starting with 16 STR.
Hammer Gun (***): Two-handed version of getting the shove trait, nearly on par with the gun sword for damage. This is also your longest-range weapon at 60 ft.
Mace Multipistol (**): One-handed version of getting the shove trait. Also has capacity 3, which can be used to get around some limitations for certain feats (namely, that you can’t use two ranged Strikes in most 2+ Strike activities). The other value of this weapon is for a free hand if you want athletics skill action flexibility or to be able to use thievery skill actions in combat (other than those involved in your Slinger’s Reload / Deeds).
Three Peaked Tree (***): A lower-damage, defensive choice via the parry trait, it also offers the spear critical specialization, which temporarily renders the target Clumsy 1. As usual for combination weapons, it has melee crit flexibility via the critical fusion trait. While the thrown trait isn’t often useful, the 20 ft. range is kind of workable and gives you a ranged d8 option that you can use while the weapon isn’t loaded. Throwing it also allows you to use the critical fusion trait at range if it is loaded, though you’re almost always better off just shooting it. With the tethered trait, you don’t explicitly need a returning rune, it’ll just help with action economy.

Way of the Vanguard

This Way provides some options for a role as a defender and controller. With your Way skill being athletics, tripping and shoving will be useful. It focuses on two-handed firearms / crossbows.

Ability spread: STR (***) / DEX (****) / CON (***) / INT (*) / WIS (**) / CHA (*) DEX is a must, naturally, since it’s your key ability score and drives your ranged attack rolls. You’ll also need STR for your way skill, athletics, which is used in your Slinger’s Reload. You’ll get less damage value from STR than the partial melee Ways, but starting with 16 STR will still give you the earliest access to large bore modifications and maximize your kickback damage. You’ll need CON to stand in melee. Something’s got to give, unfortunately, and that probably means WIS. You want at least some WIS, though. Not only will it be great for your perception - you get legendary proficiency eventually, after all - it’ll help shore up your will save, which caps out at expert proficiency. INT and CHA have no synergy with this Way.

Slinger’s Reload: Clear a Path effectively allows you to emulate the shove trait while reloading, but with some extra perks. If you shoot, then use Clear a Path, you can reload and Shove without suffering the MAP for the Shove. Regardless, you get easier action economy for your reloads while trying to penalize enemies’ action economy with the Shove. Your ranged Strikes can still trigger reactions, though. If the target has a reaction, you’ll have a hard time using Clear a Path to its full effect because using a ranged Strike at range would then require you to Stride to close the distance for a Shove. Clear a Path does not provide the easier MAP if you Stride between the ranged Strike and the Shove. Additionally, it’s not really a great idea to go out of your way to use Clear a Path. From both a class fantasy and mechanical point of view, this Slinger’s Reload is best used to create space so that you can go back to safely shooting. Use your ranged Strikes until an enemy gets close, then punish their action economy for doing so and go back to ranged Strikes.

Initial Deed: As a free action when you roll initiative, you can draw a firearm / crossbow and sort of Raise a Shield. Weapons with the parry trait will provide more value. It’s sort of like being allowed to use the Defend exploration activity at the same time as another exploration activity, and exactly like a free Defend exploration activity + one other if you use a firearm with the parry trait.

Advanced Deed: Unless you’re Quickened, Spinning Crush is an activity that will take your whole turn. Spinning Crush is comparable to the level 14 barbarian / fighter feat Whirlwind Strike, but at an earlier level and with a reliance on targeting enemies with poor reflex saves rather than your melee weapon proficiency for damage. Unlike Whirlwind Strike, it can also push enemies away, penalizing the overall enemy action economy. Naturally, it’s less useful against solo enemies, but fighting solo enemies frees up your action economy to parry.

Greater Deed: Siegebreaker requires you to use a firearm with either the kickback or scatter trait, or to use a two-handed crossbow. If that is the case, it’ll allow you to exercise some mobility, get into melee range of a target, and make a ranged Strike against the adjacent target with some extra damage applied, as well as ignoring some Hardness. Since it’s only against an adjacent target, if you’re using a scatter weapon, you will take splash damage unless you have a (greater) backfire mantle equipped. Speaking of Hardness, if your target has a shield, you’ll have a noticeably easier time of breaking said shield when the target Shield Blocks. It’ll also passively give you a circumstance bonus to AC, with the bonus being higher if you’re using a weapon with the parry trait. The ranged Strike part of this activity still bears the manipulate trait and can trigger reactions. If you need to move at all, you’ll want to do so before using Siegebreaker since you’ll become Immobilized.

Level 6 feat: Phalanx Breaker (****)

Level 14 feat: Blast Tackle (**)

Vanguard Weapons

Your two most meaningful choices are between a kickback weapon and a parry weapon. Scatter weapons make you more of a mid-ranged combatant unless you have a backfire mantle. With a backfire mantle, you gain resistance to your own alchemical items’ splash damage and can handle being up near an enemy in your own scatter radius. Black powder ammunition is an alchemical item. If you’re using a scatter 5 ft. weapon, it’ll work well with Clear a Path since you can Shove enemies away from you (and closer together) so that you’re only hitting enemies with the splash damage. Weapons have no bearing on Spinning Crush’s function, so the scatter trait won’t hurt you there. While you only have one weapon option with a natural parry trait, there is class feat support to give the parry trait to any two-handed firearm.

Arquebus (****): Highest damage of any two-handed firearm against a single target and you can use it for Siegebreaker.
Barricade Buster (**): The repeating trait will do wonders for your action economy, but you’ll more or less have to take the Fighter Dedication and Point-Blank Shot to get past the volley trait. The damage is decent and, with the kickback trait, will work with Siegebreaker. Its a good idea to get a crushing rune on this weapon if possible.
Crossbow (**): Cheap and easy to access, it’s a decent weapon for level 1 and is your best choice in a no-firearms game.
Dwarven Scattergun (***): Damage is about on par with the arquebus when you can catch two targets in your scatter radius, and out-damages the arquebus when you can catch three or more in the radius. You and your party will certainly want backfire mantles since large bore modifications will increase its scatter radius to 15 ft. As an advanced weapon, it’ll need (generally ancestry) feat support for proper usage.
Flingflenser (***): Your only two-handed choice for scatter 5 ft. Since it doesn’t have kickback, there’s no need for you to get large bore modifications unless you and your party are willing to get backfire mantles. If you’re able to activate the backstabber trait, its single target damage is between that of the arquebus and the dwarven scattergun for most levels. When you’re not able to activate backstabber, it’s the lowest damage of the bunch, about on par with a crossbow’s Crossbow Crack Shot damage. As an advanced weapon, it’ll need (generally ancestry) feat support for proper usage.
Gauntlet Bow (***): Enables some action economy around reloading while qualifying you for feats that require a weapon to be in a loaded or unloaded state.
Harmona Gun (****): This rating assumes you can get a crushing rune. Although it does less average damage than the arquebus, its damage will be less swingy and it’s the only firearm that can benefit from a crushing rune.
Mithral Tree (**): Only two-handed firearm that inherently comes with the parry trait, possibly saving you a class feat slot (or giving you a hefty +2 bonus to AC with Defensive Armaments when parrying), but doesn’t function with Siegebreaker.
Reinforced Stock (**): Although this Way isn’t built to do much with melee, having an option for melee will make you safer against enemies with reactions that trigger from ranged Strikes. You’ll also need Blazons of Shared Power to make this weapon useful. If you’re using a reinforced stock, Stab and Blast becomes a good option for DPR. While it’s not of high mechanical value, if what you wanted from the Way of the Vanguard was a build that could switch-hit between ranged and melee, the reinforced stock can accomplish that ideal to some extent.

Class feats

Level 1

Blast Lock (**): Spellshots will have the easiest time with this feat since they have unlimited common ammunition. Your maximum attack modifier, as compared to the modifier of a rogue maxing both DEX and thievery, will only be better at the levels where you have an earlier proficiency improvement: 1, 5, 6, 13, and 14. The biggest advantage this feat has over just using thievery is that it doesn’t require tools, which means you can’t break a set of thieves’ tools trying to Pick a Lock. It does also allow you to Blast a Lock from 10 feet away. Additionally, it does not bear the manipulate trait, whereas Pick a Lock does, making Blasting a Lock less risky in combat. Its action economy is also comparatively improved right from level 1, where thievery requires the master proficiency Quick Unlock skill feat to make Picking a Lock take only one action per attempt. As tradeoffs, your failed attempts will make it harder to Pick or Blast the Lock, and at some point you’ll have to reload your firearm. This feat removes reliance on thievery to enable you as a trapfinder for your party. If you take this feat as a Triggerbrand, retrain it once your thievery skill can accomplish the same effects.

Cover Fire (**): If you find yourself fighting enemies with ranged Strikes often, you’ll like this feat more. It’s only functional against enemies using ranged attacks, not spell attacks, since the terms are differentiated in the Attack Rolls rules. If and when you are fighting enemies that rely on ranged Strikes, you can either debuff their attacks or give yourself a higher chance to crit / hit. Snipers should stay away from this feat since their role is to deal damage.

Crossbow Crack Shot (**): Brings the crossbow’s damage up to about average as compared to other weapons, but only on turns in which you’ve reloaded your crossbow. If gold is the driving factor in why you’re using a crossbow, you should retrain this feat as soon as you have enough gold to buy a better weapon. This feat does function for alchemical crossbows, although the action to load an alchemical bomb into one is not the same as Interacting to reload and won’t function with any of your reload feats, Slinger’s Reload, or this feat. For crossbows that require martial or advanced proficiency, you do still deal an extra point of damage from this feat after reloading. That’s not particularly useful for crossbows of the repeating stripe, but it’s something.

Note for Pistoleros: The only other applicable one-handed weapons with a d8 damage die are the jezail and the sukgung. Hand crossbows go up to a d8 when reloaded with this feat, making them a decent choice if all you want is the highest possible damage die.

Dual-Weapon Reload:

Dual wield Pistolero, Sniper, Spellshot, and Triggerbrand (**): Pistoleros and Snipers will generally have the best time with this feat since it can help with dual wield DPR, but no matter what it overrides the use of any other type of reload (including your Slinger’s reload). That negates a fair amount of your kit in favor of being sort of able to dual wield. Spellshots and Triggerbrands can be built for dual wielding as well, but they have less reason to do so than Pistolero or Sniper. Spellshots generally want damage type versatility more, meaning an open hand is better served with bombs. Triggerbrands are better off with two-handed weapons because of the already heinous action economy behind combination weapons. If you absolutely don’t want to rely on other, superior setups (dual repeating hand crossbows, Thaumaturge Dedication + Ammunition Thaumaturgy), this feat will do in a pinch, but it isn’t the staple of a dual wield build you might expect it to be.
Others (*): Vanguards have no reason to dual wield. Drifters dual wield, but have other means of reloading with their hands occupied.

Hit the Dirt! (**): Although using this reaction will make you go Prone, that’s not entirely a bad thing if you’re able to take advantage of the condition. Snipers may appreciate having a reaction to place them in a position such that they can then Take Cover (though the attack penalty hurts). That said, the +2 AC from this reaction is a nice improvement, and being able to follow up on later turns with Take Cover will help keep you safe. Drifters, Triggerbrands, and Vanguards will like this feat less since Standing will take an action (unless you’re investing in acrobatics and until level 7 when you have access to Kip Up) before you can close into melee. You also get some synergy with the Powerful Leap athletics skill feat. Getting 10-20 feet away from a melee aggressor as a reaction is a great way to penalize said enemy’s action economy. Unless you’re playing a slower ancestry (dwarf, sprite, etc.), you can easily get a 20 foot Leap with the Fleet general feat and Powerful Leap. The biggest drawback to this feat’s reaction is that it only triggers from ranged Strikes, making it fairly situational.

Munitions Crafter (***): You get several useful ammunition options right from the jump: black powder (or ten rounds of “basic level-0 ammunition” (read: black powder cartridges) at level 1), bane ammunition (persistent poison damage), or elemental ammunition (splash and persistent elemental damage). Note that both bane and elemental ammunition require an action to activate on top of being loaded, so they will be painful for your action economy. Your proficiency to use bombs won’t be as good as firearms, but you’ll at least have some damage type versatility and debuff capability. Action economy will be a greater issue for you to Strike with bombs as compared to just using a firearm (at least prior to Quick Draw), but again, this feat is more about setting you up for later feats. Spellshots can get a lot of value from this feat since it gives you options to add poison, mental, positive, negative, and sonic damage to your arsenal, plus the usual debuff options, and possibly alignment damage, persistent bleed damage, and / or other debuff potential if your GM allows uncommon or rare bombs. Those options are available to anyone, but they shine in the hands of a Spellshot who wants to be able to target weaknesses and avoid resistances. Spellshots are also the only Way with any value placed upon INT, giving them some means of putting alchemical crafting to good use. If you’re taking this feat purely to fuel an alchemical crossbow or alchemical gauntlet / weapon siphon, that weapon can never increase the damage it deals due to the loaded bomb, so you’ll never need higher than level 1 bombs. If your GM agrees that magical ammunition which functions for rounds inherits the alchemical trait, you can also make shining ammunition. Note that you gain advanced alchemy, but not quick alchemy, from this feat. As such, your decisions as to how to expend your infused reagents occur only at the start of each day. If you choose to expend them on bombs or any type of alchemical ammunition other than basic level 0 ammunition, you will get two of whichever bomb or ammunition you choose per expended infused reagent. This concept carries forward into the later related feats as well.

Note that repeating weapons significantly ease the action economy behind activated ammunition.

Sword and Pistol (**** / ***): This rating only applies to Drifters and Triggerbrands, respectively. For those two Ways, this feat grants you some useful features. When your turn has a melee Strike first and a ranged Strike second, your ranged Strike doesn’t trigger reactions, which is awesome. It also synergizes well with the Triggerbrand’s Advanced and Greater Deeds, and with combination weapons in general. That said, this part of the feat does nothing for Triggerbrands on their first turn of an encounter. It does have great synergy with the Drifter’s Slinger’s Reload. The other portion of the feat, which functions when your turn has a ranged Strike first (as long as said ranged Strike is done within your reach of an enemy) and a melee Strike second (as long as you’re Striking the same enemy), causes that enemy to be Flat-Footed to your melee Strike. This is better for Drifters with reach weapons since your first ranged Strike can still trigger reactions. The reaction issue is persistent for Triggerbrands, for whom there isn’t a combination weapon that has the reach trait on its melee mode. If you’re using a melee (mode) weapon with the backstabber trait, this feat will give you an easy means of activating it. Note that, regardless of which part of this feat applies, you can take an action between the two Strikes and still get the benefits of the feat. Another issue for Triggerbrands is that they generally function best with a two-handed weapon, but this feat makes their dual wield build more viable.

Level 2

Not a lot of desirable feats at this level with some notable exceptions for Pistoleros and Vanguards. Fake Out is the stand-out feat, but if you’re not a Spellshot and don’t want Fake Out for some reason, this is a good level for a dedication feat. Acrobat Dedication tends to be a good one regardless of your Way.

Defensive Armaments:

Vanguard (***): Great synergy, providing you either with, effectively, a shield’s worth of AC if you’re using a mithral tree, or improving the AC circumstance bonus granted by their Initial and Greater Deeds.
Spellshot and Triggerbrand (**): You have enough reason to use two-handed firearms that you can get a little extra AC from them when needed. Action economy will be an issue. Triggerbrands may, from time to time, appreciate having an option to raise their AC while standing in melee, though. Spellshots already have their second level feat spoken for, meaning you’ll have to find a way to fit Defensive Armaments in at a higher level.
Others (*): Drifters and Pistoleros don’t use two-handed weapons. Snipers are much better off Taking Cover instead of using the parry trait.

Fake Out (*** / ****): Chances are pretty good that you’ll generally be in range to use this reaction. At level 2, it’ll be hard to pull off an Aid, even with the circumstance bonus to do so. The early levels introduce some risk that you’ll penalize your ally’s roll if you crit fail, but if you start 18 DEX at level 1 (and you should), you can only crit fail this Aid on a nat 1. Once your level is a bit higher, and especially from levels 5 and 13 when your firearm proficiency increases (meaning greater bonuses for your ally if you critically succeed), this is a fantastic use of a reaction. It even allows you to Aid spell attacks. With the human feat Cooperative Nature (+4 to Aid checks), you’ll have better chances at a crit success much earlier than without. Since human is one of the ancestries available from the general feat Adopted Ancestry, this combination is always an option, if build- / feat-intensive. If you’re a Triggerbrand, you’ll have to have your weapon in firearm mode by the end of your turn to use this reaction, and regardless of your Way, your firearm has to be loaded before you can use this reaction. A gauntlet bow can solve these issues, but requires a bit of awareness. With a one-handed weapon, just keep a gauntlet bow equipped, no more actions required. With a two-handed weapon, you’ll have to Release a hand before the end of your turn. If you go the two-handed / Release route, you should plan your turns such that you can start your turn with a reload of some sort.

Note: There are some archetype interactions with this feat that make it much more effective. I won’t go into depth on them in the archetypes section, but the pathfinder agent’s (or guild agent, for you Pathbuilder users) Deft Cooperation feat and the Swordmaster Dedication do a lot to help both you and your allies when you use Fake Out. It is a four feat investment, though, which is a heavy tax (unless you’re playing with the free archetype variant rules).

Pistol Twirl: At later levels, if you’ve got the Confabulator skill feat (and you should, for a build with a deception focus), you won’t need this feat as much, though Feint crit successes are better than any result for Create a Diversion.

Pistolero (****): If you’re trained in deception, you’ll love this feat. Making enemies Flat-Footed for ranged attacks is harder than for melee attacks. Pistol Twirl makes that a breeze. The thaumaturge feat Divine Disharmony is strictly better than this feat, but getting it requires two class feat slots as opposed to one (assuming no free archetype variant rule). See the archetypes section toward the end of the guide for comparison.
Drifter and Sniper (**): Drifters don’t have much use for CHA, but if you’ve fit it in, a Feint will be helpful for both your ranged and melee Strikes. This feat is less useful if you also have Sword and Pistol, but it will at least make your target Flat-Footed to your ranged Strikes, and makes your target Flat-Footed to your melee Strikes when you use a melee Strike first. If you don’t have Sword and Pistol for some reason, this feat is a means of replacing part of its value and will still help with backstabber weapons. Snipers can also put this feat to use for a means of applying Flat-Footed when they’re unable to Hide, but that will become less of an issue at later levels as tools like heightened invisibility become more common. Snipers will become dependent on CHA and the deception skill in order to use this feat, which means investing in CHA over another ability like STR (for kickback) or WIS (for safety). Additionally, picking this feat will force Snipers into one-handed weapon usage, which is doable, but requires some build planning and DPR awareness.
Others (*): Spellshots and Triggerbrands have a little bit of use for one-handed weapons, but won’t have the ability scores left over to fit in the necessary CHA. Plus, Spellshots already have their second level feat slot spoken for. Vanguards have no use for one-handed weapons.

Quick Draw: This feat does not work with, say, the gunner’s bandolier, because they require two different actions to activate each respective item. There really aren’t any items that make this feat better.

Bomb build (***): If you’re planning to build into bomb usage, Quick Draw (plus clever hand management) makes it much easier to use bombs as a weapon rather than just for feats like Alchemical Shot and Shattering Shot. Strike -> release grip (free action) -> Quick Draw -> (Slinger’s) reload is an efficient means of deploying alchemical bombs while using a two-handed weapon, although you’ll suffer the MAP to do so. Also doable if you’re built to have a free hand no matter what (gauntlet bow, one-handed weapon with a bayonet, etc.).
Pistolero and dual wield Triggerbrand (**): Although you can draw a single weapon as a free action when you roll initiative, if you want to draw your second one efficiently, you’ll want this feat. It also enables a swap-and-drop playstyle until you start getting striking runes. You can still use it to draw a second weapon in your free hand, but drawing weapons invalidates much of the gunslinger kit - you want to reload in order to get action economy easement, not draw a weapon with no compounded actions.
Drifter (* / **): If you don’t have a brace of pistols strapped to you, this feat is meaningless. If you do, however, this feat is a companion to your Slinger’s Reload. Where the Slinger’s Reload lets you melee Strike and reload your firearm with a single action, this feat lets you draw a firearm, ranged Strike, drop the weapon, and forget about reloading for a single action. Once you start getting striking runes, though, this feat should be retrained.
Others (*): Snipers, Spellshots, Triggerbrands, and Vanguards don’t have much need to swap between weapons.

Risky Reload (***): Note that this feat bears the flourish trait, making it usable only once per round. Additionally, you can only use this feat with a firearm, not a crossbow. Being able to fire and reload with a single action is a useful addition for any kit. Your most DPR-effective usage of this feat is to start the round with an unloaded weapon -> Risky Reload -> (Slinger’s / feat-based) reload -> Strike. This feat can combine well with other feats later on for overall improved DPR, though you shouldn’t use it while at MAP -10. You really want to use Risky Reload while you’re not under the MAP in order to minimize the risk of a misfire. The greater danger of a misfire from a MAP-affected Strike is unpleasant, to say the least. Like similar feats that combine actions, this one is a means of easing your action economy around required reloads. It isn’t necessarily a direct DPR increase, but general wisdom is that martials want to make two Strikes (or otherwise expend two actions making Strikes, or three if feasible in cases like Drifter’s Wake). Risky Reload enables your desired two Strikes without having to pigeonhole yourself into Strike -> (Slinger’s) reload -> Strike turns, which also eases your overall action economy. Continuing on from that Strike -> (Slinger’s) reload -> Strike turn, the next turn would have to be a (Slinger’s) reload -> Strike -> third action turn since you’d start the round with your weapon unloaded. With this feat, your targeting decisions should generally revolve around your own and your allies’ debuff decisions: shoot at targets with lower(ed) AC in order to reduce your chance of a misfire. Pistol Twirl is an option to impose Flat-Footed for a lesser chance of failure, but that will mean you’re taking either this or Pistol Twirl at a later level. It’s a bit less useful for Drifters since their Slinger’s Reload functions similarly, but it will enable them to execute a ranged Strike and reload if needed rather than relying on a melee Strike + reload action (which eases the MAP for Drifters sometimes). Triggerbrands will need their weapon to be in ranged mode to use this feat. Snipers and Spellshots can get away from the limitations of their Slinger’s Reloads, and Vanguards will free up some of their action economy for, say, athletics skill actions. Additionally, this feat's reload provides no easement for hand usage, leaving dual wield builds high and dry. Drifters will feel the most pain with their kit revolving around dual-wielding. Pistolero comes in near Drifter in terms of difficulty using this feat since they also generally want to dual wield.

Spellshot Dedication (**): Mandatory for Spellshots, although it doesn’t do a whole lot on its own. You’ll be less reliant on ammunition since you can conjure and load ordinary level 0 ammunition with the Conjure Bullet action. It does still make you Interact, bringing all the same considerations that any reload does, and won’t work with the Spellshot’s Slinger’s Reload or any other reload feat. This dedication gives you access to a few feats that no other class or gunslinger Way can access. You’ll be locked into this archetype’s archetype feats until you have three archetype feats, with the exception of the beast gunner archetype.

Warning Shot (*): Basically Intimidating Glare with potential for extra range over the usual 30 feet for Demoralize, but at the cost of a class feat. Also forces you to reload at some point. Pistoleros already have Demoralize as a core part of their gameplay with the way their Slinger’s Reload works. They can kind of put this feat to good use, but it still has drawbacks. Since you can only attempt to Demoralize any given enemy once per encounter, you’re rapidly going to run out of uses for this feat as a Pistolero, and that’s assuming you even want to expend ammunition on a Warning Shot in the first place. For the Ways that want STR, you can probably find plenty of ways to make Intimidating Prowess apply, at least. There is a talisman that gives this feat more value, which is discussed further in the items section of the guide: the admonishing band.

Level 4

Alchemical Shot (** / ***): Your firearm / crossbow will already need to be loaded. Pouring the alchemical bomb onto your ammunition is not a reload. That said, you’ll get a ton of damage type versatility, and the extra damage benefits from the fact that you’re still making a ranged Strike at the highest possible proficiency in the game. If you’ve got the Munitions Crafter feat or an alchemist in your party, this feat is solid. Spellshots in particular will appreciate the damage type versatility. All that said, you take damage and your weapon misfires on a failed Strike, not just a crit fail. You can at least mitigate the damage sometimes with resistance from an ancestry (goblin and its vast amount of feat support for alchemical weapons, fire damage, and fire resistance race to mind). Also, much like a reload, using this feat involves an Interact action and all of the issues that brings. If you’re willing to accept the risk, being able to both target an enemy weakness and land persistent damage of the same type on them has excellent damage potential. Unlike many similar effects, the damage type you deal fully replaces that of your weapon, giving you a great means of getting around physical damage resistances. If you’re not a Spellshot, make sure you’re coordinating with your party to Recall Knowledge and try to find damage type weaknesses. If you’re using an alchemical crossbow, there’s nothing stopping you from using it with this feat and dealing two different damage types, you’ll just eat through your bomb supply twice as quickly.

Note: This is the only feat with a misfire component that allows for crossbow usage. Crossbows have no other interaction with anything misfire-related and, as such, no basis for how their misfires work, or even whether they can misfire - the misfire description itself only talks about firearms. This feat doesn’t do much to clean up that lack of background. It only states, “If the Strike is a failure, you take 1d6 damage of the same type as the bomb you used, and the firearm misfires.” There is no mention of crossbows in the misfire component, but it’s possible your GM will rule that this is the one case where a crossbow can misfire. Most likely, the RAI is that only firearms can misfire with this feat, making crossbows a rather strong choice of weapon if you’re planning to build around the alchemy feats.

Black Powder Boost (**): Though there is a lot of good to be found in this feat for what it does, it still ultimately boils down to a situational movement benefit that competes with the likes of Paired Shots and Running Reload. Worse, it expends ammunition, which means additional actions for reloading in encounters. As for where it’s useful, there are quite a few lower-level challenges in which horizontal and vertical mobility matter. This feat synergizes with both Powerful Leap and Quick Jump, as well as with your own movement speed. At most, you can get a 30 foot horizontal Leap (30 feet of movement speed for a 15 foot leap + 5 feet for Powerful Leap + 10 foot status bonus to distance traveled) or a 15 foot vertical Leap. High Jumping or Long Jumping won’t help you out much until the higher levels, though. High Jump can only get you up to 15 feet with a vertical jump, which you can already do with Powerful Leap. High Jump’s only meaningful addition is the ability to Leap 15 feet vertically and, simultaneously, 10 feet horizontally on a critical success. That’ll require you to get a 40 or higher on your athletics check to High Jump. You can’t do that with anything less than a nat 20 until level 11 at a bare minimum. Long Jump will require you to have a high enough athletics skill to modify the distance of your horizontal Leap by any meaningful amount. For example, with +3 STR and expert proficiency in athletics, in order to move further than the normal maximum of 30 feet with a normal Leap, you’d need a 14 on the die to Long Jump 25 feet, then add the +10 status bonus to your distance. All that said, the distance value added to Leap alone is huge, letting you cross up to 20 foot chasms and Leap over walls / up cliffs with ease, assuming you’re trained in athletics and have the Powerful Leap feat (although there are ways to do this without being trained in athletics). For comparison, the fly spell isn’t even available until level 9 for casters, and permanent flight generally isn’t available until level 16 or 17.

A note on combat usage: this feat’s rating is primarily for exploration mode where you need to overcome environmental challenges. In encounters, you’re going to run into action economy issues, but for the most part you should be able to identify situations where the subsequent (Slinger’s) reload is manageable. Drifters and Triggerbrands want to Black Powder Boost into position where they can melee Strike, and Vanguards where they can Shove an enemy away from an ally (or toward, if you want your fighter to start hammering). Pistoleros and Spellshots want to Black Powder Boost away from danger (within 30 feet of the target if Demoralizing) for a safe spot to debuff with Demoralize, a safe spot from which to become Hidden for a Flat-Footed Strike via Create a Diversion, or a safe spot to Recall Knowledge. Snipers want to Black Powder Boost into a location where they can Take Cover or Hide, then move or shoot back. In all of these cases, be aware that Leap has the move trait, meaning you can trigger reactions with Black Powder Boost.

Instant Backup (*): By this level, you should have a striking rune on your primary weapon, or be very close to getting one shortly after level-up. Anything less is going to be a noticeable drop in damage. Just use an Interact action to clear the misfire and keep doing actual damage. Swap-and-drop isn’t a useful playstyle at this level. There aren’t any items that make Instant Backup more functional.

Paired Shots (****): This rating applies to Pistoleros and Snipers, respectively. Being able to attack twice without the MAP is awesome, and if you’re planning to dual wield, this is how you do it. Combining damage will be better against resistances and worse against weaknesses. The most useful resistance for you to overcome with this feat is All, which 85 creatures have. You’re not likely to deal precision damage, so that part doesn’t matter too much. Since you’re almost certainly using Blazons of Shared Power and not splitting runes between weapons, you’re not likely to care about “add[ing] any applicable effects from both weapons.” Repeating hand crossbows work well with this feat since you can use them for up to five turns in a row without having to reload. A repeating hand crossbow and a capacity weapon is also a feasible combination since you can change barrels / chambers on your capacity weapon without a free hand. The highest potential DPR combination is a repeating hand crossbow and a slide pistol, but using said combination is restrictive on your action economy. Some turn options, with a bit of nuance:

RHC + RHC: 2 action Paired Shots -> third action (up to 5 rounds). Less DPR than RHC + slide pistol for a single round, but more consistently usable since your third action will be flexible. Also goes a long way to negate the need for reload feat support, freeing up much of your build if dual wielding. The drawback is that you’re not going to be using your Slinger’s Reload much, if at all, which invalidates a fair bit of your kit. If you’re uninterested in your Slinger’s Reload, want to have near-best DPR, and retain turn flexibility, the drawback won’t be much of an issue for you.
RHC + slide pistol: 2 action Paired Shots -> (Slinger’s / feat) Reload. You can push the reload to the following turn, but ultimately, 5 turns’ worth of RHC + slide pistol as compared to 2x RHCs requires you to stick to the same action sequence every single turn in order to maintain higher DPR. Doing so limits your ability to do things like Pistol Twirl, Create a Diversion, or Hide to render enemies Flat-Footed for higher DPR. If your party can reliably handle the debuffing for you, that’s preferable. You can build around reload feats like Running Reload to free up your turns. This setup also rewards Slinger’s Reload usage.
RHC + rotary bow: 2 action Paired Shots -> (Slinger’s / feat) Reload. Same as with a slide pistol, but only lasts for four rounds and requires less gold. While a bit murky, this weapon setup works relatively well with Crossbow Crack Shot due to the phrase, “including Interact actions as part of your slinger’s reload and similar effects.” Since the capacity barrel / chamber switch functions effectively as a reload for your Slinger’s Reload and reload feats, it should work with Crossbow Crack Shot to get extra damage on the rotary bow. Consult with your GM to be sure since there is some fuzz in the interpretation. The RHC won’t benefit from Crossbow Crack Shot often, but it’s a combination that provides a bit of extra consistent DPR via the rotary bow. Still not quite as good in whiteroom math as the slide pistol, but it’ll be less feast-or-famine since the damage will be reliable rather than crit-dependent. That does come at the cost of a feat, though.
RHC + gauntlet bow: 2 action Paired shots -> (Slinger’s / feat) Reload. Same action sequence as the two above, but with an occasional defensive option due to the parry trait and hand freedom when possible due to the free-hand trait. Also should benefit from Crossbow Crack Shot when changing barrels / chambers.
Other: Any other combination should be RHC + a weapon without the capacity trait, but will require some additional feat support. The Thaumaturge Dedication + Ammunition Thaumaturgy feats are a means of doing so, but without the free archetype variant rule in place, it’s a very feat-heavy setup. If you’re pursuing this path, it’s to get a different weapon in the mix: big boom gun (high risk / reward due to cobbled and fatal d12), double-barreled pistol (gold savings at earlier levels and round expenditure flexibility), dueling pistol (concealable trait for intrigue campaigns), or jezail / sukgung (hand flexibility for snipers).

Note: While you can use this feat without the RHC, doing so tanks your overall DPR due to action economy and feat investment. Swap-and-drop requires you to keep drawing weapons and spending actions to do so. Using two capacity weapons requires you to use two actions to reload each of them to set up for another use of Paired Shots, meaning your turns would look something like Paired Shots -> Interact; Interact -> Paired Shots; Interact -> Interact -> third action. Even investing in feats that enable dual wielding (Dual-Weapon Reload, Risky Reload sort of, etc.) only brings you to the point of action economy where you’d be with two capacity weapons, but at the cost of feats.

Running Reload (****): Positioning often matters for ranged characters. For some gunslingers, you want to be in or near melee. For others, you want to be far away from it. Most every gunslinger wants to be in a position where their ranged Strikes can avoid the lesser cover of bodies in the way, and most every gunslinger will appreciate having an option to both move and reload (especially if you’re relying on two-action activities for your attacks). Although this feat clashes with your Slinger’s Reload, you’re inevitably going to find yourself in a position at some point where there is going to be a better position and not enough actions to get there. You can rely on that, and the fact that you will absolutely need to reload at some point. This feat combines the solution to those two necessities into one action. No matter your Way, you’ll like having mobility, and movement and reloading are almost guaranteed parts of any given turn. Snipers in particular will appreciate being able to Sneak to a better place to stay Hidden while reloading, on top of the fact that this feat plays nice with Vital Shot.

Level 6

This level presents a Way-specific feat for every way and a few other options. Chances are good you’ll want your Way’s feat.

Advanced Shooter (*): None of the non-ancestry advanced weapons are really worth using. The ancestry weapons all have some means of treating them as martial weapons. The only reasons you should take this feat are if you find expending a 6th level class feat more valuable than expending a 1st level ancestry feat, or if you really want to use a repeating (hand) crossbow without Unconventional Weaponry. You almost certainly don’t want to give up the other great 6th level feats just to save yourself an ancestry feat that you can take at any level. Plus, your GM may not even allow you access to ancestry weapons if you’re not playing one of those ancestries (or a human). Advanced crossbows also don’t have their damage dice upgraded from Crossbow Crack Shot. They will still deal an extra point of damage with that feat, but only when you reload… and the point of using a repeating (hand) crossbow is to reload less often.

Cauterize (**): Bleed damage isn’t exactly rare, but it’s a situational feat by its very nature. If you’re building to be more support-oriented, this feat is fitting. Plus, you can fully replace this feat’s effects with a cauterizing torch, assuming you have access to those.

Drifter’s Juke (***): Drifter only. There’s no easing of the MAP here, but adding two Steps on to your melee and ranged Strike for a turn is both a safe method of movement and a helpful means of getting into position for that melee Strike. This feat also synergizes well with Sword and Pistol.

Fulminating Shot (****): Spellshot only. This feat is the reason you play a Spellshot. It’s where your damage versatility lies and is basically a single action for the equivalent of a once-per-round flexible damage rune. It only adds damage on your first attack of the round, though, regardless of whether you hit or not.

Munitions Machinist (** / ***): Requires the Munitions Crafter feat and expert proficiency in crafting. This feat is necessary to scale your advanced alchemy level past what you get in Munitions Crafter. If you’re taking this feat, you may want an alchemical crossbow and Crossbow Crack Shot, although the alchemical crossbow’s range is rather limited at 30 ft. For Drifters, an alchemical gauntlet or a weapon siphon are alternatives. Triggerbrands can also use a weapon siphon (and technically an alchemical gauntlet, but using one makes their already difficult action economy even more squirrely). Putting the bombs to good use outside of Alchemical Shot is a bit harder, even with an alchemical weapon, and some bombs provide no value in an alchemical weapon. If you took Munitions Crafter to fuel Alchemical Shot and you don’t have an alchemist in your party, you’ll need this feat to increase Alchemical Shot’s persistent damage. As for alchemical ammunition, it always bears the same issues as you saw in Munitions Crafter: there’s an extra action required to activate said ammunition, making your turns using alchemical ammunition inevitably become Activate -> (Slinger’s) reload -> Strike. In almost all cases, alchemical ammunition is only situationally useful due to action economy limitations.

As with Munitions Crafter, note that repeating weapons significantly ease the action economy behind activated ammunition.

Level	New items
6	Black powder horns, bottled sunlight, minor life shot (small amount of encounter mode healing + bonus to saves vs. diseases / poisons), moderate bombs, ooze ammunition (persistent acid damage, speed debuff, immobilize)
7	Exsanguinating ammunition (persistent bleed damage weakness), glue bullet (U) (speed debuff), moderate crystal shards, moderate bottled sunlight
8	Blindpepper bomb (U), freeze ammunition (cold damage + splash, budget grease), lesser blister ammunition (dazzled and concentrate action limitation), eroding bullet (U) (persistent acid damage), moderate bane ammunition, moderate elemental ammunition
9	Black powder kegs, lesser life shot, moderate ooze ammunition
11	Greater exsanguinating ammunition
13	Moderate life shot
14	Greater bane ammunition, greater bombs (2d6 persistent damage for Alchemical Shot), greater elemental ammunition, moderate blister ammunition
15	Greater ooze ammunition, major exsanguinating ammunition, utility bombs (boulder seed, greater bottled sunlight, greater crystal shards, lodestone bomb, shatterstone, trueshape bomb)
16	Moderate rusting ammunition (untyped persistent damage, object destruction)
17	Greater life shot
19	Greater blister ammunition, major life shot
20	Major bombs (3d6 persistent damage for Alchemical Shot)

If your GM agrees that magical ammunition which can be a round inherits the alchemical trait of black powder ammunition, you can use your advanced alchemy to produce the magical ammunition in the table below. Not all of these types of ammunition are actually useful for you. See the items section for suggestions on which ammunition types are worth using. Note that ammunition which has a save DC, such as terrifying ammunition and black tendril shot, will not be great with your advanced alchemy. The item DC will be far behind with a three level lag.

Level	Magical ammunition
6	Ranging shot, trustworthy round, type I spellstrike ammunition
7	Standard golden-cased bullet (U)
8	Bola shot, depth charge I, freezing ammunition, imp shot, lesser weapon shot, reducer round (U), rhino shot (U), type II spellstrike ammunition
9	Fate shot, lesser conduit shot, terrifying ammunition
10	Corrosive ammunition, depth charge II, fair bullet (U), lesser black tendril shot, lesser magnetic shot, lightning rod shot, meteor shot (U), stepping stone shot (U), type III spellstrike ammunition
11	Sighting shot
12	Corpsecaller round (U), explosive ammunition, transposition ammunition (U), type IV spellstrike ammunition
13	Depth charge III, greater golden-cased bullet (U), greater stepping stone shot, moderate conduit shot, moderate weapon shot
14	Juxtaposition ammunition (U), mindlock shot, silencing shot, type V spellstrike ammunition
15	Depth charge IV, dimension shot, greater meteor shot (U), greater weapon shot, moderate black tendril shot, moderate magnetic shot
16	Greater explosive ammunition, singularity ammunition (U), type VI spellstrike ammunition
17	Depth charge V, dreaming round (U), ghost ammunition, greater conduit shot
18	Garrote shot, greater transposition ammunition (U), type VII spellstrike ammunition
19	Depth charge VI, major golden-cased bullet (U), major weapon shot
20	Awakened cold iron shot (U), awakened silver shot (U), greater black tendril shot, greater magnetic shot, major meteor shot (U), type VIII spellstrike ammunition

Phalanx Breaker (****): Vanguard only. Despite the fact that many of the Vanguard Deeds and the Slinger’s Reload are oriented around being adjacent to an enemy, this feat allows you to push a target away from you at range. Considering how much of the Vanguard kit is designed around forcing enemies away as a means of punishing their action economy, this feat does a lot to support that design. In fact, this is one of the only means of putting the Way of the Vanguard kit to good use without being adjacent to an enemy. You can really force an enemy into uselessness by keeping them away from you and your party. This feat is effectively a ranged Strike and a Shove without the MAP, and only increasing the MAP one level, with baseline effects equivalent to a critical Shove and potential for even more forced movement distance. You can even do a bit of extra damage if your target is pushed into an obstacle. Great synergy with the Vanguard kit. The downsides are that there’s no way for you to use it alongside your Advanced or Greater Deeds and that it has no built-in protection for your ranged Strike if you use it as an escape tool while adjacent to an enemy.

Pistolero’s Challenge (***): Pistolero only. You can deal a fair bit of extra damage with this feat, but you’ll want to choose your foe wisely. An enemy that can’t catch up to you is going to feel the pain as you kite around them, provided you can spare the actions for Strides. If your targeted foe catches up to you or can otherwise range you, they will do as much extra damage to you as you do to them. As a particularly low-HP martial, getting hit by your Challenged enemy is a major concern. You should certainly consider the Toughness general feat if you’re going to take Pistolero’s Challenge. You’ve also got the choice to use either your deception or intimidation, which is nice for build flexibility. Synergizes well with Paired Shots for DPR, but that can be dangerous since you won’t be able to Stride away without haste or something similar. Critically failing your check will result in you becoming frightened 1, so it’s a good idea to rely on your allies to point out low-will save targets via Recall Knowledge, assuming your GM will play ball on Recall Knowledge checks.

Scatter Blast (*): Scatter weapons are likely to frustrate your melee allies (unless they all have backfire mantles), but if you go first in an encounter you can maybe safely catch an extra enemy or two in your splash damage burst radius. You can get up to scatter 35 ft. with a scatter 10 ft. weapon, large bore modifications, and this feat. Basically a super weak fireball without an associated save or spell slot expenditure. If your Strike is a failure, you’ll misfire. If your Strike is a crit fail, you’ll misfire and the weapon will explode, becoming broken and harming you and everyone around you. If your party is built to accept that you are a potential danger to them and that your scatter can and will hit your melee allies, this feat is a tool to add a bit of extra damage in multiple-enemy encounters. For the most part, though, extra radius on your scatter, plus some nasty failure consequences, is more of a hindrance than a help. Considering how expensive it is to maintain runes on multiple weapons, taking this feat and only using a scatter weapon in the very most correct encounters, and a different weapon otherwise, isn’t particularly desirable as a means to outweigh the downsides of a class feat.

Sniper’s Aim (***): Sniper only. Since you already have the best possible weapon proficiency scaling in the game, throwing an extra +2 bonus on top of that is useful for the Sniper’s function. If you want to primarily rely on this feat for single-target damage, you can make that happen, but your turns will be more limiting in what you can do. If that is the case, you can forgo the STR and / or tripod requirements to negate the kickback penalty. Ignoring the STR requirements of a kickback weapon hurts your DPR, but it’ll free your build up for other uses. The fact that this feat is first available at level 6 will mean a low-STR build will require you to carefully consider your role in the party prior to this feat’s availability, or to just deal with tripod usage or lower DPR for the first five levels.

DPR notes (assuming arquebus for two-handed weapon): As compared to a dual repeating hand crossbow + Paired Shots turn, you’ll do slightly less damage on average until level 13 or so when the average damage difference starts to become more noticeable in favor of Paired Shots. At level 9 and when your target is Flat-Footed, your automatically-available Vital Shot is far and away the stronger choice for DPR, though since that takes persistent bleed damage into account, it’s only true on the first turn and when the persistent bleed damage falls off. If you’re taking this feat, it’s either because you want a sort-of middle ground choice that allows you to maintain decent DPR on turns when Vital Shot won’t work well, or because you’re fighting a whole lot of enemies that are Concealed.

Triggerbrand Salvo (****): Triggerbrand only. Two Strikes for a single action with no MAP until after the action is outstanding. If you’ve also got Sword and Pistol and are dual wielding, your ranged Strike won’t trigger reactions. Regardless, the +2 circumstance bonus to your ranged Strike will be fantastic for combination weapons with the fatal trait in firearm mode.

Level 8

Bullet Split:

Drifter (***): Two for the price of one on attacks, although your hit rolls against both targets will suffer a bit. Unless you’re playing in a campaign which primarily involves encounters against single enemies, you’ll find plenty of use for this feat. The great part of this feat is that you get two Strikes and only increase your MAP once. Plus, it works alongside Sword and Pistol.
Pistolero and Triggerbrand (**): For Pistoleros, if you’ve got a bayonet attached to one of your pistols, you technically meet the requirements to use this feat’s action. It’s not as valuable for you since you shouldn’t care about Sword and Pistol. Triggerbrands can also get away with a dual wield build, but both Ways will need Dual-Weapon Reload to follow up. Triggerbrands have the added advantage of being able to layer this feat on with Sword and Pistol. Regardless, you’re still basically getting an extra attack in there.
Others (*): The other Ways have no reason to dual wield.

Call Gun (*): Spellshot only. You should have your weapon with you at all times. In the rare case that you find yourself disarmed, you’ll be glad you have this feat, but that’s about it.

Grit and Tenacity (***): If you don’t already have a solid reaction, this one is a great defensive tool. Even if you do have a solid reaction, having some versatility in how you use your reaction is helpful. Besides, fortune effects for saves once per hour are awesome.

Leap and Fire (**): Requires Hit the Dirt! Getting a MAP-free attack as part of your Hit the Dirt! reaction is outstanding. Since you’re using the Hit the Dirt! reaction, it does still bear the situational limitation that only ranged Strikes trigger it. You’ll also have to have your weapon loaded before the end of your turn, and Triggerbrands will need their weapon in firearm mode.

Smoke Curtain (**): While concealment is often useful, this feat has some limitations. The fact that it’s a two-action activity will be taxing for your action economy, but you do at least get to make a ranged Strike as part of the activity. With this Strike, it’s possible to cause your weapon to misfire on a crit fail. The concealment only lasts until the beginning of your next turn and requires the expenditure of black powder. If you’ve got the Munitions Crafter feat, at a minimum, it will be very easy for you to maintain some doses of black powder. Otherwise, it’s only 1 cp per dose. For Snipers, this feat is a means of Sneaking away to a better position. For other Ways, coordinate with your party so they know you’re putting up a cloud. Clouds aren’t exactly a rare tactic for spellcasters to try to control enemies, but they do require some thought as to how to take advantage of them.

Stab and Blast:

Drifter (****): It’s the same as Triggerbrand Salvo, allowing you to execute a melee Strike followed by a ranged Strike MAP-free and with a circumstance bonus to the ranged Strike. If you have Sword and Pistol, your ranged Strike will not trigger reactions. The action economy of this feat is outstanding and will make your turn feel like you actually have three actions. Other Ways will get no use from this feat because they aren’t designed for a one ranged / one melee dual wield playstyle, and Triggerbrands could already do the same thing with Triggerbrand Salvo two levels earlier.
Vanguard (***): If you’re using a reinforced stock, this is a good DPR option. You’ll probably also want to retrain an earlier feat to Sword and Pistol at this level in order to avoid ranged Strike-triggered reactions while using Stab and Blast. If you’re not using a reinforced stock, this feat is red (*).
Others (*): Sniper and Spellshot can also use a reinforced stock like Vanguards, but Snipers don’t want to be near melee and Spellshots don’t have the ability scores to support melee usage. This feat has no use for Pistoleros because they aren’t designed for a one ranged / one melee dual wield playstyle, and Triggerbrands could already do the same thing with Triggerbrand Salvo two levels earlier.
A note for non-Triggerbrand combination weapon users: this feat will make them easier to use. I’m not going to provide a rating for this particular circumstance because the other Ways have so very little support for combination weapons, as well as some outright nonfunctional features. Just know that, if you absolutely love combination weapons and hate Way of the Triggerbrand’s guts, this feat will be helpful for you to achieve your dreams. It’s just not such a great idea to use combination weapons in general.

Level 10

Called Shot (***): Although it’s a two-action activity, you can throw down some serious debuffs with this feat. Enfeebled 2 and Stupefied 2 are very strong, especially for the fact that you have the highest Strike crit chance in the game and can land Enfeebled 1 / Stupefied 1 for a minute. Even better, unlike many effects which impose Enfeebled and Stupefied, there is no associated save. Targeting legs isn’t as strong, basically being the equivalent of a tanglefoot cantrip, but imposing -5 speed for a minute is decent with a crit. Bringing flying enemies down to help out your melee allies, or spellcasters with more limited range than you, is useful as well, especially if you’re using a longer-ranged weapon.

Deflecting Shot (***): Giving an ally a +2 to their AC as a reaction, and knowing ahead of time whether it’ll even matter for you to do so, gives you a lot of influence over your allies’ defenses. Since the gunslinger sort of fills a support martial niche, your allies will certainly appreciate your contributions to their well-being.

Penetrating Fire (***): If you don’t already have a means of making two Strikes without the MAP, this feat will give you that option. Several ways already have access to similar capabilities by this point, but you may appreciate adding the choice to do so with a single firearm. Since you’re only making one attack roll, this feat also brings with it hero point efficiency.

Precious Munitions (***): Requires Munitions Machinist. Gives you cost-free access to otherwise expensive ammunition which can be used to overcome resistances or target weaknesses on quite a few enemies.

Rebounding Assault (*): Even for Drifters and Triggerbrands, this feat does very little. Mechanically, even with a non-finesse weapon, it’ll allow you to attack with DEX and potentially add 1d6 precision damage. Throwing a weapon only realistically adds 5 feet to your melee weapon’s range, and absolutely none on a reach weapon. This feat also does not add any range to thrown weapons. This feat does not work with Sword and Pistol because you’re making two ranged Strikes. It does at least give you two Strikes MAP-free, but you’re generally better off with any of the other feats which do the same. Besides, if you fail with either Strike, you’re out a melee weapon until you spend actions to go pick it up. If you’re using this to get a thrown range on a weapon without the thrown trait, you can’t use a returning rune. Even worse than a misfire since it requires two actions to recover, and maybe even worse than that if your target is smart enough to pick up your melee weapon and keep it from you. Ultimately, you’re getting 1d6 precision damage and maybe 5 feet of range, at the risk of two necessary actions or worse on a later turn, out of a tenth level feat. Naturally, other Ways don’t have a reason to build for melee weapon / ranged weapon dual wielding.

Redirecting Shot (**): If someone else in your party is a ranged attacker, you can give them fortune as a reaction to their failed Strike. A party with two ranged attackers isn’t particularly common, but they’ll probably appreciate you giving their Strikes a reroll every now and again. Note that you’re just giving your ally a reroll, they don’t benefit from your proficiency or stats. You’ll also have to have your weapon loaded before the end of your turn, and Triggerbrands will need their weapon in firearm mode.

Trick Shot (*): Most places don’t have a whole lot of explosive barrels lying around, although places like Alkenstar where firearms are common may be the exception. The Dislodge Object option doesn’t do anything mechanically, leaving it entirely in your GM’s hands whether or not there will be any function to this feat whatsoever. Discuss with your GM ahead of time if you can ever expect to use Trick Shot.

Twin Shot Knockdown (**): This rating only applies for Pistoleros and Triggerbrands. This feat comes online later than Paired Shots, but is functionally similar enough that they deserve comparison. Unlike Paired Shots, you won’t combine the damage from Twin Shot Knockdown’s two Strikes, and you suffer the MAP for the second Strike with Twin Shot Knockdown. If you do land both hits, though, you’ll automatically knock your target Prone, which will be useful for your melee allies. Triggerbrands will only find value from this feat with a dual wield build.

Level 12

Blood in the Air (***): You’ve got the third best perception progression in the game, one of only four classes to get legendary perception proficiency and, generally, room for WIS in your ability spread. You’ve got a solid chance of a Seek helping you out if an enemy is Hidden, Undetected, Invisible, or otherwise difficult to spot. If said enemy tried being Hidden (or similar) as a tactic once, they’ll probably keep using that tactic. By this level, Invisible enemies are also somewhat common, and will continue to be a nuisance for you into later levels. Easing the targeting issues of Concealed / Hidden / Invisible enemies will be frequently valuable for you. Be aware of the concentrate trait for the few enemies that can exploit it. If, for some reason, you neglected WIS, this feat is less valuable for you.

Deadeye (***): Similar to Blood in the Air, but with some action economy and outcome differences. Where Blood in the Air required a Seek to detect Undetected / Invisible enemies and render them Hidden, then an action to actually use Blood in the Air, Deadeye allows you to use an action to just treat Invisible enemies as Concealed. Note that Deadeye specifically works for Invisible enemies, not Undetected enemies. Blood in the Air is more broadly applicable, easing the targeting penalties for Striking a Concealed or Hidden enemy and relying on WIS. Deadeye is more narrowly applicable and won’t help against enemies that are already Concealed or Hidden, but will make Invisible enemies much easier to Strike. It also has no reliance on WIS, making it the better choice between the two if you neglected WIS. Regardless, by this level, Invisible enemies are going to start becoming more common.

Flesh Wound (***): When you’re fighting high AC or extreme AC creatures, you’ll appreciate the ability to deal damage to them more consistently, especi. Considering that you have the best possible proficiency for ranged Strikes, though, missing your Strikes isn’t going to be a concern terribly often. That said, sometimes the dice are haters. Being able to deal damage on a failure result will be, on average, very helpful for your overall damage output.

Ricochet Shot (***): Considering how often enemies get lesser cover from bodies being in the way, this feat will be frequently useful to overcome that issue. On top of which, you can overcome cover and greater cover provided terrain is favorable.

Shattering Shot (***): Hitting multiple enemies with a single bomb at full damage (minus splash and persistent) is great on the damage front, especially for a class that generally doesn’t have a whole lot of AoE options (beyond scatter weapons). It does, however, require a free hand. As such, this feat does include some easement for grip action economy: with a two-handed weapon, you can, with a single action, release your grip, draw a bomb, regrip your weapon, throw the bomb, and shoot it. Drifters and dual wield Pistoleros or Triggerbrands will not have such an easy time, needing to drop or put away one of their weapons in order to have a hand available. If you don’t have an alchemist in your party handing you bombs, you’ll want Munitions Machinist to support this feat. If you are using bombs from Munitions Machinist, just know that they’ll be a few levels behind. The damage on this feat is fairly strong if you’re able to target at least 2 enemies with it, but your allies may be at risk with a 15 foot burst. Additionally, it’s best used against enemies with poor reflex saves; Spellshots should be (mostly) alright to figure out which targets are viable, but other Ways will need ally support. The real kicker on this feat’s damage: no part of it bears the attack trait, which works extremely well with the fact that you’re probably going to be under the MAP on any given turn.

Shooter’s Camouflage (**): For Snipers, if you’re able to predict the terrain you’ll be in, this feat is outstanding. If not, it’s inherently situational. That said, being able to Hide and Sneak without concealment is a strong improvement for Snipers. For the other Ways, you certainly have the DEX to support stealth and this feat can be useful for you if that is the case.

Unshakable Grit (****): Turning successful saves into crit saves and crit fails into fails is outstanding. Where most class features with a similar effect are always on, they only account for one save. This feat accounts for any save type, but with the limitation of once per hour. Still, this feat turns its prerequisite Grit and Tenacity into an outstanding defensive reaction.

Level 14

Blast Tackle (**): Vanguard only. The requirements for your weapon are the same as those of your Greater Deed, so should be no problem for you to meet. Hopefully, you’ve been focusing on athletics, considering it’s a core part of your Slinger’s Reload. If that is the case (and it should be), this feat will enable you to Grapple, which is something you couldn’t really do prior to this feat. This feat does not ease the MAP for the Strike component, but your target will at least be Flat-Footed. It also does not protect you from reactions that trigger from ranged Strikes. 3d6 precision damage is quite a bit, although you only get it on the Strike used as part of Blast Tackle. You can maintain the Grabbed condition like normal and keep making ranged Strikes against the target after the first turn, but will still have to deal with the MAP. This feat provides some solid value, but the action economy, MAP, and danger of reactions make it risky and somewhat difficult to use.

Come at Me! (**): Pistolero only. You don’t have much capability to strike more than one target, but if you do (say, with Bullet Split and a bayonet), you can increase your damage quite a bit with a second application of Pistolero’s Challenge. Beyond that, though, you’re just putting yourself even more at risk. While Shattering Shot is another option, the action (and feat) economy of trying to land Pistolero’s Challenges on all of the targets you’d want to hit, plus the two actions for Shattering Shot, is just too much to be worth the effort. There is something to be said for trying to encourage certain enemies to target you, though. If you’ve got a lot of speed (faster ancestries, ancestry feats, Fleet, reliable buffs, etc.), you can potentially kite melee enemies, although they’re probably going to realize pretty quickly that chasing you isn’t worth it. Against ranged enemies, if you’ve got Hit the Dirt! and some of its related feats, encouraging them to Strike you is a good way to improve your action economy and damage output. The other issue is that you generally want to focus a single target down anyway. Although you could use Come at Me! and Strike two different targets with your other two actions, wouldn’t you rather focus down the first target and get rid of its ability to deal extra damage to you? This feat is somewhat hard to fit into a Pistolero build, but it’s doable.

Dance of Thunder (***): If RNG is on your side, you can get as many as 9 actions out of this activity, but you’ll be battling the MAP to make that happen. With your firearm proficiency, you can reliably expect 6 actions out of it, especially if you’re Striking lower-AC targets. Getting that third set of actions requires you to land a ranged Strike while at MAP -5, which is still fairly doable unless you’re fighting a high-AC target. Generally speaking, you’re not going to land the MAP -10 Strike, but that’s okay - your turn will still have included 8 effective actions by the time that becomes an issue. The fact that you come out of this activity with your firearm loaded no matter what is helpful too, setting you up for any reactions you might have which need a loaded firearm. Basically, this feat gives you a bit of safe mobility with two or three Steps paired with, likely, two Strikes, maybe three. Be aware that difficult terrain will take much of the value from this feat, although you’re still generally going to get four actions’ worth of value out of the activity. As such, feats which enable you to Step in difficult terrain (Feather Step is an easy one) are very helpful for this feat. The problem with this feat is that you’re Fatigued for a minute after, which will be strenuous for the Ways that want to be in melee and dangerous against casters no matter what. The best way to use this feat is to clean up the end of an encounter so you don’t have to worry much about being Fatigued.

Disruptive Blur (***): Drifter only. No longer triggering reactions with movement after a ranged Strike will help you out with positioning. Coupled with Sword and Pistol, you’ll have a very easy time of using a ranged Strike and getting into place to take advantage of the Flat-Footed condition for your melee Strike, then be in position to provide flanking for an ally.

Headshot (**): Sniper only. You’re spending two actions hoping for the stars to align. The requirement to have damage the target within the last minute should be pretty easy, but you’re effectively tanking your action economy hoping for several factors: that you’ll get a crit on your Strike with this feat, that the enemy isn’t of such a high level that the incapacitation trait renders it nigh impossible for the target to fail its Fortitude save, and that the target doesn’t have such a high Fortitude save that your chances are slim to none anyway. If you’re taking this feat, your party should have plenty of means to debuff your target to the gills (and buff you to the gills) before you try to Headshot them. Instantly killing a target is great, but there’s just too much RNG for this to be a reliable feat. Fun, though.

Phase Bullet (***): Spellshot only. It’s only once per day, but getting a +4 status bonus to a Strike is massive. You’re almost guaranteed to run into an enemy wearing armor once per day so that you can get the +4. Deadeye provides some meaningful synergy with this feat since it will render Invisible foes Hidden. Similarly, the general feat True Perception at level 19 will be helpful from time to time, assuming you can counteract enemies’ illusions (Invisibility). These effects are particularly useful because Phase Bullet fully overcomes both the Concealed and Hidden conditions, but not Undetected. Turning Undetected enemies into Hidden enemies will make it much easier to make them Dead enemies. You’ll also be able to overcome a Raised Shield and physical barriers and the lesser cover from bodies being in the way. Unfortunately, because it’s only usable once per day, it’ll be hard to find the “perfect target” against which a Phase Bullet will ignore all possible factors. That said, it is powerful.

Showstopper: Requires Pistol Twirl.

Pistolero (**): Much like with Come at Me!, you just don’t have much capability to deal area damage. If you’re using Bullet Split, being able to Strike two flat-footed targets will be useful. If not, there isn’t a ton of value in a turn that involves Showstopper and two Strikes against two different targets. You generally want to focus a single target down. Although you could use Showstopper and Strike two separate targets with your other two actions, you’re generally better off fully taking an enemy out of the encounter so they can stop doing bad things to you and your party. The strength of this feat comes in the fact that you can potentially critically succeed on your Feint against multiple enemies to keep the Flat-Footed condition going and ease your overall action economy.
Others (*): If you’re not a Pistolero, you’re going to have a hard time fitting the necessary CHA in. Drifters can kind of get away with it, but they have so many better choices to make enemies Flat-Footed.

Triggerbrand Blitz (***): Triggerbrand only. Very similar to Dance of Thunder, but with melee as an option and without the ability to reload as part of the activity. Additionally, your Stride and ranged Strike(s) can still trigger reactions. Coupled with the fact that you’ll be Fatigued for a minute after using this activity, it can be somewhat dangerous to use. That said, three Strikes without the MAP is rather strong, especially because you’ll also have some mobility. Since it’s only a single Stride, feats and features which give you greater speed will be highly useful. Much like Dance of Thunder, consider this feat a means of cleaning up an encounter toward the end so that you suffer least from being Fatigued.

Two-Weapon Fusillade (***): This rating is primarily for Pistoleros, but dual wield Snipers can also put this feat to good use. This feat is your only means of getting two Strikes for a single action. You’ll still suffer the MAP, but it’s efficient, at least. Unlike with Paired Shots, the damage will not combine. It also does not bear some of the useful secondary functions of similar feats like Twin Shot Knockdown. If you’re taking this feat, it’s for the action economy. That’s a good improvement to have, though. While Drifters and dual wield Triggerbrands could get some action order flexibility from this feat as compared to Stab and Blast / Triggerbrand Salvo, they’re going to be in melee anyway and don’t gain much (if anything) from being able to use a ranged Strike first. Other Ways have no use for a dual wield build.

Level 16

Fatal Bullet (***): If you’re not using a fatal weapon, skip this feat. If you are though, this feat is, at a bare minimum, an extra d8 of damage on crits. With your firearm proficiency, crits should be relatively frequent. Tons of firearms have the fatal trait, too. Might as well get some free damage.

Hair Trigger (****): Free Strike at the start of any encounter in which your weapon is already drawn, and which won’t impose the MAP on your first turn. Drifters can still walk around with a free hand and only one weapon out, then draw their second weapon on top of the free Strike. Plus, your target will be Flat-Footed - not just to you, Flat-Footed in general. Since every Way meets the prerequisites for this feat, it’s awesome all around. Triggerbrands using an explosive dogslicer will have an easy means of triggering its backstabber trait on the first round. If you want your allies to be able to take advantage of the Flat-Footed condition, you can always delay your turn behind theirs.

Instant Return (**): Similar to the Hit the Dirt! / Leap and Fire combination, but oriented more toward offense and with no defensive component. Your firearm will have to be unloaded at the end of your turn in order to use this reaction, so it’ll clash with reactions that require a loaded firearm. You’ll also have to be fighting enemies with ranged Strikes, they’ll have to be shooting ammunition you can use, and they’ll have to fail or critically fail those ranged Strikes against you. Pistolero’s Challenge is one means of making enemies want to shoot at you. If your enemies are using special ammunition, you’ll get to use their ammunition back at them. While getting a MAP-free Strike as a reaction is good, there are just too many conditions for this feat to be reliable.

Ricochet Master (***): Requires Ricochet Shot. This feat will give you more flexibility in how you get around enemies’ cover as compared to Ricochet Shot. The real money is in the fact that your first attack against every enemy in every encounter will cause them to be Flat-Footed to that attack. It’s not a particularly flashy feat, but it’s a nice upgrade to Ricochet Shot.

Level 18

Black Powder Embodiment (*): Spellshot only. If your enemies are running away and you don’t have the range / speed to keep up with them, you may appreciate being able to teleport close to them and prevent them from running away. You could also use it as a means of accessing hard-to-reach enemies, say, up on a high cliff or behind an arrow slit. There are some issues, though. First, you don’t have any incentive to get up close to enemies. Second, the situations where this feat would be useful are, well… situational. Highly. Your casters can just cast fly. Third, Black Powder Embodiment only transports you. Splitting parties is almost always a bad idea. It’s an especially bad idea in an encounter where your allies will probably take some time to reach you, on top of the fact that the only situations where you’d really want to use this feat are ones in which it was already difficult for you and, more importantly, your party to reach the target. You can’t even use this feat for general mobility purposes - you have to target a creature with it. You can just use the level 9 transposition ammunition or level 12 dimension shot ammunition to achieve the same effect, except with the benefit of being able to target a square with and, in the case of transposition ammunition, bring up to two allies with you.

Final Shot (***): Note that you cannot use a crossbow with this feat. It’s risky, dangerous, and hard on the action economy, but there is some solid value in this feat. You’ll need to either be spending money (albeit very little) on black powder or have the Munitions Crafter feat. With your proficiency, more often than not, you’re going to have good experiences with this feat turning your successful Strikes into crits. That said, when the dice decide they don’t like you any more, the weapon will misfire. On top of the fact that you’ll be Stunned 1, misfires will occupy two of your actions on the following turn. You’ll also be Flat-Footed for a round. Crits do at least mean your target has to make a fortitude save against being Stunned 1. It’s called Final Shot for a reason: you should probably use it toward the end of an encounter to quickly end an enemy. If you’re in a safe spot already before you use this feat, it’ll also be more functional. You’ll just need to rely on your allies to keep enemies away from you during your Flat-Footed period.

Piercing Critical (**): Your firearm and crossbow proficiency is as good as it gets. Chances are pretty good you’re critting on a 19 anyway, at least for a MAP-free Strike. Mostly it’ll help you on turns when you ranged Strike -> reload (of whatever kind) -> ranged Strike, and specifically on that MAP -5 Strike. Double barrel or repeating weapons will work better since they free up your third action on turns that include two ranged Strikes. Unless you’re fighting a whole lot of high-AC enemies, you’ll be fine without this feat. It’s significantly less valuable for Drifters and Triggerbrands who want to incorporate melee Strikes on their two-Strike turns. Note that this feat does not cause a 19 to function exactly like a 20. Where a 20 would improve any result by one step, this feat only improves successes to crit successes.

Reach for the Stars (***): Requires Black Powder Boost. You might want the Cat Fall skill feat to keep yourself from taking fall damage. That said, a maximum of 55 foot vertical Leap, 60 foot High Jump, or 90 foot horizontal Leap is a lot of movement for a single action. Being able to change direction up to 5 times can be useful too, primarily in getting over obstacles.

Unerring Shot (**): Reducing cover bonuses, including eliminating the lesser cover bonus (so, bodies in the way), is solid. That said, you already have a pretty strong means of ignoring cover in the form of Ricochet Shot. Unerring Shot’s only real improvement as compared to Ricochet Shot is that you won’t rely on terrain. You almost certainly won’t worry much about range increments by this level because of your Shootist’s Edge class feature, and especially if you have a much longer-range weapon like an arquebus or sukgung. Range increments will also matter much less if you’re playing, say, Abomination Vaults where small rooms and tight corridors are the norm. In a hexploration game, or a game with tons of open space, you may find some value in being able to shoot out to your fourth, fith, and sixth range increments penalty-free.

Level 20

Perfect Readiness (****): Extra mobility to get away from danger safely or an extra reload, once per round. Being permanently Quickened is great, even with limitations on what you can do. This feat is less useful if you’re using a repeating weapon (or two).

Ricochet Legend (****): Requires Ricochet Master. As long as you have the terrain for ricochets, cover is a concept of the past. More importantly, your first attack against every creature in every encounter causes a will save to resist being Stunned 2. Making your enemies Flat-Footed and taking away two of their actions right out the gate, plus denying reactions for Stunned enemies, against every enemy you hit, is fantastic.

Slinger’s Reflexes (**): The most important fact to note up front is that the extra reactions this feat grants only occur on enemy turns. You still only have one reaction per round that can be used on your or your allies’ turns. If you’re choosing this for a capstone feat, it’s important to be aware that, as usual, the Stunned condition stops you from being able to use reactions at all. Also important: your only means of gaining gunslinger reactions is through other feats (or being a Pistolero or Spellshot). If you have one or zero gunslinger reactions, this feat is nigh worthless. None of the reactions are particularly well-suited to being used multiple times in a round, and some outright can’t be used multiple times in a round. For the most part, you’ll need specific party compositions (detailed below) in order to get use from this feat. Most of its value lies in having multiple gunslinger reactions since they tend to each be individually limited in how / how often they can apply. You’ll need significant prior feat investment and (most likely) party buy-in to make this feat work as best as possible. With all the doom and gloom disclaimers out of the way, you can get value from this feat with proper planning and party synergy. It’s not at all an auto-pick feat, but it has value in the right conditions.

Fake Out is the best possible interaction with this feat, but since its extra uses can only be used on enemy turns, said extra uses can only buff your allies’ reactions. If your allies can reliably use their reactions for an attack every round, this feat is a decent way to churn out buffs alongside Fake Out. That said, it requires highly specific party synergy and for enemies to frequently trigger said reactions.
Grit and Tenacity (+ Unshakable Grit) still bears its once-per-hour use limitation. It does somewhat ease your action economy to use this feat setup since almost all save failures occur on enemy turns, but once the hour frequency limitation is in place, this feat combination loses all value (until it’s available again). That said, getting to use, for example, Fake Out as your usual reaction and Grit and Tenacity as a Slinger’s Reflexes-enabled reaction is a nice bump to the action economy when possible.
Instant Return only works well when fighting ranged enemies that are using an ammunition type appropriate for your weapon, assuming you ended your own turn with your weapon unloaded or fired your weapon with a previous reaction. If you’re dual wielding a crossbow and a firearm, you’ll have a bit more flexibility in how to apply multiple Instant Return reactions due to ammunition versatility, with the same stipulation that the appropriate weapon has to be unloaded before using Instant Return. This feat combination is still situational, though. You generally can’t rely on the majority of your fights being against other firearm / crossbow users.
Redirecting Shot is unlikely to ever be an option for the extra reaction and will only be possible in very specific party setups (namely, that an ally will have to be able to make a ranged attack outside of their own turn). It also requires you to fire your weapon, meaning you’re not going to get multiple uses out of this individual reaction. Like with Grit and Tenacity, however, over time you’ll still get extra uses out of the reaction, you’ll just have to end your turns with your weapon loaded in order to keep getting extra reactions. While highly situational, it is possible to set yourself up to use Redirecting Shot followed by Instant Return (plus maybe another reaction on your own or an ally’s turn).
Pistolero: Pistoler’s Retort can work with this feat, but is only fully functional with a repeating weapon (namely, repeating hand crossbow) and, generally, against enemies with lower attack mods and / or defensive buffs generally focused on you (parry weapons help, especially the gauntlet bow). While a Pistolero can use Pistoler’s Retort once for each enemy that triggers the reaction, the only way to use it is if you’re wielding a loaded weapon, meaning the repeating trait is required for continued usage. You’re also still relying on enemies to critically fail their Strikes against you in order to use Pistoler’s Retort multiple times in a round, meaning it’s still best to think of the build structure as being able to use two reactions in a round when the stars align. That build set does combine somewhat well with Pistolero’s Challenge / Come At Me!, but as usual with those feats, you’re putting yourself at greater risk to get the higher DPR afforded by MAP-free reactions.
Spellshot: Recall Ammunition doesn’t work with this feat at all unless you have a highly specific build that relies on archetype feats (such as Ranger Dedication + Disrupt Prey + Snap Shot), which is even more problematic because of how difficult it is to add an archetype to a Spellshot build. Plus, you’re relying on a failed attack with said feat combination in order to even be able to use Recall Ammunition with this feat. Taking Slinger’s Reflexes specifically for extra Recall Ammunition usage is an absolute trap.

Skills

This section contains a general breakdown of how useful it is for a gunslinger to invest in any given skill. Lore is not considered here due to its wide variety of options and narrow usage.

Acrobatics (***): Acrobatics doesn’t bring a whole lot of great skill feats, but Cat Fall is always good, especially if and when you get Reach for the Stars. You certainly have the DEX to support acrobatics if you care about it. Triggerbrands and Vanguards may like it for Tumble Through’s positioning value. For Drifters, acrobatics is blue (****).

Arcana (*): INT is the least useful ability score for you. Unless you’re a Spellshot. For Spellshots, arcana is green (***). Its only direct use is in their worst feat (Black Powder Embodiment), but they’ll still want arcana for Recall Knowledge - and ultimately, arcana is a very strong skill for Recall Knowledge due to its widespread applicability and the Unified Theory feat.

Athletics: Many of the Ways want some STR, so athletics is a viable choice to overcome mobility challenges like climbing. You could solve most of your mobility challenges with Black Powder Boost, but that’s not available until level 4.

Vanguard (****): Way skill, and several of your features need athletics.
Drifter and Triggerbrand (***): For the most part, you’ll need a grapple / shove / trip weapon to use any athletics skill actions since your hands will be occupied. That said, you want STR anyway, might as well put it to use in as many ways as possible.
Others (*): Pistoleros, Snipers, and Spellshots don’t really have much use for athletics, even if Snipers can put STR to good use.

Crafting (*): INT is the least useful ability score for you, unless you’re a Spellshot. You may think crafting would be useful for the Munitions Crafter feat and its chain, but crafting is entirely unnecessary to get value from those feats. If you want to be able to produce your own consumables outside of infused reagents, though, you will need to invest some in INT and crafting. For Spellshots, crafting is yellow (**) because they have the INT to support it, but investing in the crafting skill will come at the cost of not investing in a more-used Recall Knowledge skill.

Deception (*): The vast majority of builds can’t afford the CHA to support deception. It’ll cost in the damage department via STR for Drifters, Snipers, Triggerbrands, and Vanguards, or it’ll cost you on one of your saves via CON (plus lower HP) or WIS. Spellshots have the added necessity of INT and really can’t afford CHA. Snipers can kind of get around low STR and maybe invest in CHA if you’re willing to compromise and deal with the action economy issues of a tripod. Pistoleros, however, will find quite a bit of value in deception, making it blue (****) for them.

Diplomacy (*): Same issues as deception. Additionally, not a Way skill for any of the Ways. For Pistoleros, though, diplomacy is green (***).

Intimidation (*): Same issues as deception. Pistoleros, however, will find quite a bit of value in intimidation, making it blue (****) for them.

Medicine (**): Medicine is useful, but you may have a hard time finding the WIS to support it. At least you can Aid someone else in your party who’s investing in medicine. Additionally, you’re not generally going to have a hand free to be able to use healer’s tools in combat.

Nature (**): Your job doesn’t really have much to do with Recall Knowledge, but you might be able to squeeze in the WIS to support some investment in nature. While Spellshots definitely want the Recall Knowledge, something’s got to give. If you’re investing in the two major INT-based Recall Knowledge skills, you’ll only be able to invest in one of the WIS-based Recall Knowledge skills - and even then, society is a contender for the third invested skill.

Occultism (***): Same as arcana.

Performance (*): Bad skill to begin with. Even Pistoleros won’t find value here.

Religion (**): Same as nature.

Society (***): Same as arcana.

Stealth (***): You’ve certainly got the DEX to support stealth, and it’s frequently a useful skill. You’ll probably have a hard time using it in most encounters due to action economy issues, but it’s great in exploration mode too. For Snipers, however, this skill is blue (****) through and through. Pistoleros will also generally appreciate stealth more than most other non-Sniper Ways since it’ll be useful to follow up on Creating a Diversion with deception.

Survival (**): Survival is the weakest of the WIS-based skills. Even if you have the WIS to support it, that means you don’t have the INT to support even getting trained proficiency in survival over any other WIS-based skill.

Thievery (***): Thievery doesn’t generally get as much play as the other DEX-based skills, but it’s still useful for someone in the party to have it. Disabling traps is always good and you’ve got the perception progression to support being the trapfinder. If your party needs someone in that role, you can certainly support the need. For Triggerbrands, thievery is blue (****).

Noteworthy skill feats

Repeated knowledge-related skill feats (Quick Identification, Recognize Spell, etc.) are only described in Arcana, but will be listed in each relevant skill section. Certain differences will be noted in Nature since it’s alphabetically before Religion, and in Occultism since certain feats will be less useful there. As with the Skills section of the guide, ratings assume that your build has the relevant ability score as a key ability. In the case of Quick Identification and Assured Identification, you don’t need to take them more than once in different skills.

The ratings below are made independently of other skills’ feat values. All are self contained and compared against other skill feats within each individual skill itself. For a rating of which skills are valuable as compared to each other, see the above Skills section.

(1) Assurance (***): Rating is for Spellshots and Vanguards. Best used for a Recall Knowledge skill (namely, arcana or occultism). Be aware of where and when an automatic 10 on a check is useful. Recall Knowledge in combat against mooks 2 and sometimes 1 level below you (see this post for reference) can benefit from Assurance. Vanguards can also use it to Shove or Trip against enemies with low associated saves for their third action and not worry about the MAP.

(1) Dubious Knowledge (***): Rating is for Spellshots. Get useful information from your Recall Knowledge checks even on failures. It won’t help with crit failures, but still - even with the false information peppered in, you’ll get so much more mileage out of each Recall Knowledge.

(2) Automatic Knowledge (***): Rating is for Spellshots. You get a free Assurance-modified Recall Knowledge check using whichever skill you selected for Assurance (assuming that skill associates with the Recall Knowledge action) once per round. That’s a solid way to gain information about your enemies.

Acrobatics

(1) Cat Fall (****): It prevents damage at a scaling rate and works very well with Black Powder Boost / Reach for the Stars.
(1) Steady Balance (**): If you find yourself up on rooftops or slick surfaces away from the fracas where you can fire from relative safety, you may find yourself needing to Balance. If that is the case for you, doing so with ease will be beneficial.
(2) Nimble Crawl (**): In fights against primarily ranged enemies, going Prone can be a highly beneficial means of Taking Cover against enemy ranged attacks. That does limit your mobility, though. Nimble Crawl helps ease the pain of being Prone and needing to move.
(7) Aerobatics Mastery (**): Flight rules are ill-defined, but if your GM pays attention to them, you may need to Maneuver in Flight so as to orient your firearms toward your enemies. At some point, you’re probably going to be in aerial combat, even if you use weapons with a ton of range. Protect yourself against your GM.
(7) Kip Up (****): If you ever get knocked prone, being able to get up from prone both as a free action and without triggering reactions will keep you much safer. Between this and Nimble Crawl, Prone is a much friendlier condition to have, assuming you’re not surrounded by melee baddies.

Arcana

(1) Arcane Sense (**): If you want some flexibility in your exploration activities, being able to use detect magic is almost always a useful feature. Chances are, someone else in your party can do it instead, but it’ll be a meaningful addition to a thievery build for trapfinding.
(1) Quick Identification (***): Much better at master proficiency when the time spent is negligible compared to that of your party’s time expenditure during ten minute exploration periods, but still, speeding up your magic item identification potentially allows you to identify all magic items you find while everyone else is refocusing or Treating Wounds.
(1) Recognize Spell (***): Being able to identify spells as a reaction and potentially get a bonus to save against them is solid. Prerequisite for Quick Recognition.
(1) Trick Magic Item (**): Offensive spells won’t really be an option for you, but there are plenty of good supportive arcane spells. While useful, using it in encounters will be limited due to the action cost. Even activating a true strike will become a matter of using two actions.
(2) Assured Identification (***): Being unable to misidentify items is frequently useful, even if you are heavily invested in the skill.
(7) Quick Recognition (****): Getting a free action once per turn to Recognize a Spell and potentially get a bonus to save against it is outstanding.
(15) Unified Theory (****): While it doesn’t outright replace the other Recall Knowledge-related skills, it does a whole lot to cover their uses. At a bare minimum, it’ll make your Quick Identification, Trick Magic Item, and Recognize Spell/Quick Recognition function for all spell traditions, as well as Recall Knowledge if it’s in relation to learning something tied to the magic tradition.

Athletics

(1) Combat Climber (**): The only reason this is yellow is because it’s impossible to predict how often your campaign will require you to climb while in an encounter. That said, this feat eases a lot of the issues with climbing and with the fact that your hands are pretty much always occupied.
(1) Hefty Hauler (***): If you’re investing in athletics, you might as well be the party pack mule. Even if you’re not, a lower-STR build will appreciate some extra bulk wiggle room. There are plenty of firearms with 2 bulk.
(1) Quick Jump (***): Jumping over obstacles is a frequent solution to environmental challenges. Reducing the action economy requirements to do so is often useful. Synergizes with Black Powder Boost to boot.
(1) Titan Wrestler (****): A staple feat of athletics, you’ll need it to Grapple / Shove / Trip enemies who are larger than you. At early levels, it’s generally not as necessary since you’re probably not fighting enemies any bigger than large size. Small and especially tiny ancestries will definitely want it at earlier levels, though.
(2) Lead Climber (**): If you’re the athletics person in the party, you can do a lot to keep your party safe on climbs with this feat. That said, climbing is a situational requirement.
(2) Powerful Leap (****): Even if you’re not taking Black Powder Boost, getting 5 feet on your vertical Leaps and an extra 5 feet on your horizontal Leaps will get you over and around many an obstacle.
(7) Quick Climb (**): Make climbing faster on the occasions you need to climb. Eventually get a climb speed. High spots might be nice for longer-range weapons.
(7) Wall Jump (***): Works with Black Powder Jump / Reach for the Stars if you end up next to a wall at the end of either activity, but you can’t follow one up with another since this feat specifies “next action” as a jump. That said, with this feat, you can get a little extra range out of those class feats.
(15) Cloud Jump (***) Offering good mobility on its own, this feat synergizes rather well with Black Powder Jump / Reach for the Stars. High Jumps can now get a baseline of as much as whatever your speed is (40 is the ancestry maximum), plus as much as 50 feet from Reach for the Stars at level 18, and 5 or 10 feet horizontally on top of that to get you over major obstacles. It doesn’t work as well with Long Jumps since the only action manipulation allowed in Black Powder Jump is that granted by Quick Jump, but you still get the baseline Long Jump mobility improvement as long as you’re Long Jumping and not using Black Powder Jump / Reach for the Stars. With Reach for the Stars, you’re still getting potentially more than two actions worth of value (40 + 40 for 80 feet horizontally with two actions spent on Cloud Jump vs. 90 feet with one action from Reach for the Stars). By level 15, you may not strictly need extra mobility, but it does a fair job of reducing your caster friend’s need to cast fly on you.

Crafting

(1) Alchemical Crafting (****): If you’re investing in crafting, you might as well be able to make alchemical items since they’re some of the most useful consumables in the game. It helps that you get this feat for free from Munitions Crafter, which is basically the only reason you’d want it.
(1) Crafter’s Appraisal (**): If, for some reason, you’re not investing in another Recall Knowledge skill which can identify magic items, you can offload that skill action on to crafting. It won’t be useful for identifying most creatures, though, which limits its value even for Spellshots.
(1) Specialty Crafting (****): The way to make it a bit more likely that you get crit successes on your downtime crafting checks and speed up/cheapen crafting costs. Crank out black powder, bombs, ammunition, owlbear claws, and / or breech ejectors on the cheap. You may have to take this feat more than once if you want to craft everything that’s valuable to you. Discuss with your GM. Prerequisite for Impeccable Crafting.
(7) Impeccable Crafting (****): The most necessary feat to keep the skill functioning. On top of the +2 circumstance bonus you receive for your specialty crafting choice, your successes all become critical successes, drastically improving the crafting process/time investment for specialty crafts.
(7) Inventor (***): If you have trouble coming across the recipes you need, you can just make them instead. Technically gives you access to any and all common items, provided you have enough downtime.
(7) Rapid Affixture (**): If you’re getting into crafting, you’re crafting owlbear claws. Make the time expenditure for you to affix them easier on yourself. Much better if you’re using the Talisman Dabbler archetype.

Deception

(1) Charming Liar (**): You could just use diplomacy instead, but since deception is rather useful for you and you’re limited on skills, you’ll occasionally be able to lie your way into improved attitudes.
(1) Lengthy Diversion (***): You’ll have to also be focusing on stealth for this feat to be of any use. If you are, though, you can ease the number of stealth actions required to stay Hidden when the situation (read: DC) and / or RNG favors you. Plus, Create a Diversion is awesome for you no matter your Way - Flat-Footed enemies die faster.
(1) Lie to Me (**): If your CHA is significantly higher than your WIS (as in, starting CHA 16 and starting WIS 10 or lower), you’ll get value from this feat. Otherwise, it doesn’t really improve your ability to be a lie detector on average.
(2) Confabulator (****): Becomes better as your proficiency in deception goes up. Keep those Create a Diversions rolling with less (eventually, no) penalty.
(2) Discreet Inquiry (**): This feat will only be useful if you’re in a campaign or scenario where it matters that your adversaries are unable to discover what you know and / or what information you’re seeking. Additionally, you’ll have to invest in diplomacy in order to Gather Information.
(2) Quick Disguise (**): If you’re in a campaign where you frequently need to infiltrate or act under disguise, this feat will be helpful.
(7) Doublespeak (***): Secret communication is frequently useful.

Diplomacy

(1) Bon Mot (****): Although it has linguistic restrictions, this is among the best skill feats. Imposing a -2 or -3 to will saves with a single action from a first level skill feat is outstanding. It won’t necessarily be all that helpful to you specifically, unless you’re using Ricochet Legend, but your allies will certainly appreciate it.
(1) Group Impression (***): Turning groups of unfriendly NPCs to indifferent, or from indifferent to friendly, even if temporarily, can make a powerful difference in the roleplay aspect of the game.
(1) Hobnobber (**): Information gathering is good, but you don’t really get the information gathering value out of this feat until master proficiency when you can no longer crit fail to Gather Information. Prior to that point, the improvement to your Gather Information speed may or may not matter depending on your campaign and GM.
(2) Discreet Inquiry (**): Same as the deception feat equivalent, but more valuable in diplomacy since it only relies on diplomacy rather than both deception and diplomacy.
(2) Glad-Hand (***): If an NPC isn’t too keen on talking for a full minute, you can get some words in immediately to try to soften them up, improve their attitude, and make them hear you out.
(7) Evangelize (***): Not quite as heavy of a will save debuff as Bon Mot, but Stupefied affects more than just will saves. It does have the same linguistic limitation that Bon Mot does. This feat can help you shut down casters and potentially debuff CHA-based adversary attempts to sway crowds or other listeners. You’ll have to follow a deity or a philosophy, though.
(15) Legendary Negotiation (**): It’ll be hard to pull off because of the penalty to your diplomacy check, but you potentially end encounters with this feat.

Intimidation

(1) Group Coercion (***): Making groups of NPCs do your bidding is frequently useful. Unfriendly NPCs can be Coerced into doing what you want, and you’ll often run into unfriendly NPCs. You can technically even Coerce hostile NPCs, although they’re unlikely to give you the minute of time required to do so. Coercing groups of hostile NPCs is much easier if you also have Quick Coercion.
(1) Intimidating Glare (****): Completely overcome the linguistic limitation of Demoralize. Demoralize was already one of the best skill actions in the game. Making it more widely usable is fantastic.
(1) Quick Coercion (***): Making NPCs do your bidding with only a round of conversation makes it much easier to Coerce them since they won’t have much opportunity to simply walk away from you, or start hitting you and your allies.
(2) Lasting Coercion (**): This feat massively extends the amount of time that your coerced targets will do your bidding. Still, it’s not likely that you’ll need NPCs to follow your intimidating instructions for a week.
(2) Terrifying Resistance (***): Getting a bonus to saves because you Demoralized a spellcaster is solid. That’s a 2-3 point swing on their casts provided your target tries to cast something on you while it’s Frightened.
(7) Battle Cry (****): Not only do you get a free Demoralize at the start of every encounter, you eventually get to demoralize as a reaction whenever you critically succeed at an attack roll, and you should be landing crit success attacks with some frequency.
(7) Terrified Retreat (***): Taking a target out of the fight for a round (and change, for its actions spent returning, if at all) is a decent control tool. You and your party may find fleeing targets annoying to deal with, though.
(15) Scare to Death (****): Outright killing enemies with intimidation is great, even if it’s hard to pull off. This feat does have a linguistic limitation, though. At least it makes targets frightened 2 on a success, which is a noticeable improvement over Demoralize.

Lore

(1) Additional Lore (**): Getting an extra, automatically scaling, lore skill can be useful if you have a good idea of which lore will be useful. Unless you’re a Spellshot, though, using it will be a shot in the dark.
(2) Battle Planner (**): If you have expert proficiency in warfare lore, you can sometimes use it in place of perception for initiative. Useful, if situational since it requires a minute of prep pre-encounter. If you got warfare lore from the Additional Lore feat, the expert proficiency requirement will be easily met.
(2) Unmistakable Lore (**): Best used in combination with Untrained Improvisation. Regardless, being unable to crit fail lore-based Recall Knowledge checks will stop you from gaining false information. You’ll need at least one lore skill at expert proficiency. If you have the Additional Lore feat, that’s an easy way to meet the requirement.

Medicine

(1) Battle Medicine (***): Battle Medicine is a great feat, but you’ll have a hard time using it in encounters due to your action economy and, in some cases, hand usage. Generally speaking, both of your hands are going to be occupied, which is more of an issue for dual wield builds. If you’re planning to take the Medic Dedication feat, which eventually offers an archetype feat that will make it possible to Stride and use Battle Medicine with a single action, this feat is a requirement for it.
(1) Risky Surgery (***): Good chance to turn your Treat Wounds skill action check into a crit success.
(1) Stitch Flesh (**): Necessary if you’re the party medicine-user and someone in your party is playing an undead character. Otherwise, don’t bother.
(2) Continual Recovery (***): Necessary if you’re the party medicine-user. If you’re just a backup, you’re better off using the Aid action and can skip this feat.
(2) Godless Healing (***): Nice addition to your Treat Wounds or Battle Medicine heals. Since you don’t need to worship a deity, you can easily get away with taking this feat. Prerequisite for Mortal Healing (which is a good feat, but not covered here) if you follow the Laws of Mortality philosophy.
(2) Robust Recovery (**): Similar concept to Inoculation.
(2) Ward Medic (***): Necessary if you’re the party medicine-user. If you’re just a backup, you’re better off using the Aid action and can skip this feat.
(7) Advanced First Aid (**): Much like Battle Medicine, being able to remove conditions in encounters is solid. The problem is the same, though: you don’t really have the actions to support using this feat.
(15) Legendary Medic (***): Being able to remove some of the nastiest conditions out of combat without expending resources (other than time) is solid. Still doesn’t get rid of Fatigue, though.

Nature

(1) Natural Medicine (**): If you’re willing to accept the limitations of Treat Wounds without any feat support, you can combine the value of a core Recall Knowledge skill and a bit of healing. The only improvement you can make with Natural Medicine is the extra HP at higher proficiencies, though. You can’t ever replicate the effects of, say, Continual Recovery or Ward Medic unless you also get to the required proficiencies with the medicine skill.
(1) Quick Identification (***): Same as the arcana version, but relies on WIS.

(1) Recognize Spell (**): Same as the arcana version, but relies on WIS.
(1) Trick Magic Item (**): Same as the arcana version, but relies on WIS. Applies to primal spells rather than arcane. Primal spells are generally not as buff- or utility-friendly as the other traditions.
(7) Consult the Spirits (**): You can get some good information from this feat, but it relies on WIS.
(7) Quick Recognition (***): Same as the arcana version, but relies on WIS, so not as naturally useful.

Occultism

(1) Deceptive Worship (**): Situational, but cults come up somewhat often. In the right campaign, this can be a very useful feat.
(1) Oddity Identification (***): Considering how many occult spells have the mental trait, this is a solid buff to Identify Magic.
(1) Quick Identification (***): Same as the arcana version.
(1) Recognize Spell (***): Same as the arcana version.
(1) Root Magic (***): Once-per-day bonus to an ally’s save. It’s not a ton, but every little bit helps, and it’s not tied to any resource expenditure. You can’t use it for yourself.
(1) Schooled in Secrets (**): Situational, but cults come up somewhat often. In the right campaign, this can be a very useful feat.
(1) Trick Magic Item (**): Same as the arcana version, just a different spell list.
(2) Assured Identification (***): Same as the arcana version.
(7) Consult the Spirits (***): Sort of like augury, giving you some potentially useful information that’s not tied to resource expenditure. At legendary proficiency, you can use it much more often.
(7) Disturbing Knowledge (**): Similar to Demoralize, but tied to INT rather than CHA. Also has a chance to Confuse enemies, which is one hell of a debuff. Unfortunately, it takes two actions, which will be hard to fit into most turns.
(7) Quick Recognition (****): Same as the arcana version.

Religion

(1) Pilgrim’s Token (***): Going ahead of enemies who tie your initiative is solid.
(1) Quick Identification (***): Same as the nature version.
(1) Recognize Spell (***): Same as the nature version.
(1) Trick Magic Item (**): Same as the nature version, but divine spells, which tend to have quite a few good buffs.
(7) Battle Prayer (***): You can do a bit of alignment damage with a single action and potentially target a weakness. Fits well with the Spellshot kit and doesn’t suffer the MAP. It’s not a ton of damage, though.
(7) Consult the Spirits (**): Same as the nature version.
(7) Quick Recognition (***): Same as the nature version.
(7) Sacred Defense (***): Readily available temp HP once per hour for a single action. It isn’t a ton and the DC starts off pretty difficult to beat, but they last for a minute and can keep you safer on the front lines.
(15) Divine Guidance (**): Much like Consult the Spirits, gaining information to help you drive the plot forward tends to be useful, especially if you get information that helps keep you and your party safer. This feat’s value and outcomes are entirely up to your GM, though.

Society

(1) Courtly Graces (**): Removing reliance on CHA can be good, but this feat only functions with nobles. Situational, but useful in the right campaign.
(1) Glean Contents (**): Quickly picking up information from written documents may be useful to help you gain important plot information. Depending on your campaign, the ability to get information from sealed documents may also be useful, but even in a situational feat, this effect is the more situational of the two.
(1) Multilingual (**): It’s hard to predict which languages you’ll need to use. That being said, a few useful CHA-based skill feats have linguistic limitations, and Pistoleros in a face role will appreciate more ability to interact with NPCs. This feat is better with a heritage or ancestry feat that allows you to gain three languages from Multilingual, but I will not list those in the ancestry section since so few builds will need extra languages. Androids, gnomes, and halflings are your options.
(1) Read Lips (**): Situationally useful, but gathering information tends to be good.
(1) Sign Language (**): For the most part, your allies will need this feat as well for it to be of any use. Adversaries who see you and your party communicating nonverbally will likely be suspicious of you, but it’s still good to have nonverbal communications amongst your party members.
(1) Streetwise (***): You can outright replace diplomacy for the purposes of Gathering Information, which is a rather useful feature of diplomacy. Additionally, being able to potentially just Recall Knowledge (in familiar cities) and skip Gather Information altogether, without stopping you from going out and gathering information, is a solid improvement. Additionally, if you’re investing in society, you almost certainly don’t have the CHA to support diplomacy, making this feat a meaningful improvement if you want any kind of face functions.
(15) Legendary Codebreaker (**): If your GM allows it, you can read any written language with this feat, giving you a much broader capability to gain information from written documents.
(15) Legendary Linguist (***): This feat just about removes linguistic limitations, provided you can figure out your target’s mode of communication.

Stealth

(1) Experienced Smuggler (**): If you’re using small one-handed weapons, you might get some use from this feat.
(1) Terrain Stalker (**): Situational by nature, but there are enough uses for stealth in your kit that automatic Sneaking will be useful at some point. You can take this feat more than once to cover all three offered terrain types, too.
(2) Shadow Mark (****): Since you’re a ranged attacker, you might as well do all you can to get the drop on your enemies. Your marked target will have a harder time noticing you, making all the benefits of Sneaking that much easier to get.
(7) Foil Senses (***): There are plenty of creatures out there with senses other than sight. If you’re sneaking around and keeping yourself safe, this will be an extra layer of protection.
(7) Swift Sneak (****): Maximizing your movement speed while Sneaking will be a fantastic improvement to your stealth. Prerequisite for Legendary Sneak.
(15) Legendary Sneak (****) The capstone of stealth and mandatory if you’re investing in it. Passive Avoid Notice while in exploration mode, plus you no longer need cover or concealment to hide or sneak. Major defensive benefits here.

Thievery

(1) Subtle Theft (**): Has some synergy with the Pistolero and Triggerbrand kits, but it’s situational.
(2) Wary Disarmament (****): If you’re the party trapfinder, you might as well keep yourself as protected against mishaps as possible.
(7) Quick Unlock (**): The situation where you need to Pick a Lock more quickly doesn’t come up terribly often, but you’ll be glad you have this feat when it does. Also drastically speeds up your ability to get past locks that require more than one success.
(15) Legendary Thief (**): Situational by nature. Maybe you’ll need to steal something you couldn’t otherwise steal in your campaign, maybe not.

Noteworthy general feats

(1) Adopted Ancestry (****): Although limited to common ancestries, there are so very many good ancestry feat choices available. If nothing else, you can get access to some of the more useful ancestry weapon feats. The Clan Pistol feat is also a decent option for Pistoleros and Drifters.

(1) Canny Acumen (***): Help yourself out and improve your will save at high levels. Take it at level 15 so you only have two “dead levels” for this feat.

(1) Diehard (***): It’s always good to be harder to kill, especially for the Ways that want to be near melee.

(1) Fast Recovery (***): Having some help against virulent diseases and poisons is a noticeable improvement over the norm.

(1) Feather Step (***): So very many class feats and features allow you to Step. You might as well improve Step’s function and make difficult terrain less of a showstopper. Especially useful combined with Dance of Thunder.

(1) Fleet (****): Extra movement speed is always valuable.

(1) Incredible Initiative (***): Going before enemies is useful. Drifters and Triggerbrands that can make enemies Flat-Footed easily without flanking will especially be useful for their parties. Going first, doing your Flat-Footed thing (however you go about it), and being in place to set up flanking for your allies with lower initiative will be highly beneficial.

(1) Shield Block (**): You can technically get away with only a single one-handed weapon on Pistoleros and Triggerbrands, although it’s not necessarily a good idea. Drifters can also use a shield with shield boss / shield spikes. If you want some extra defense, you can fit a shield in, although it’s not particularly optimal.

(1) Toughness (***): More HP is especially helpful for Ways that want to be near the frontlines.

(3) Ancestral Paragon (*** / ****): Some ancestries have several fantastic first level ancestry feats. See the ancestries section of the guide for good choices.

(3) Skitter (**): If you’re not investing in acrobatics and don’t have Nimble Crawl, Skitter is sort of a replacement. It won’t scale, but it will make going Prone a bit safer.

(3) Thorough Search (***): Your perception is probably pretty good. Can’t hurt to make it better. Especially useful if you’re the party trapfinder.

(3) Untrained Improvisation (***): Especially since INT is difficult to fit in for most Ways, being able to attempt any untrained skill action with some chance of success is a significant improvement over the norm.

(7) Expeditious Search (**): This feat will really depend on how strict your GM is with time during exploration mode. It’s an improvement to your already (probably) good perception should you need it.

(7) Numb to Death (**): Although you’ll have to have died once and have Diehard, it’s another layer of defense against your low HP. Ideally, though, you stay away from positions that are likely to get you killed in the first place.

(11) Incredible Scout (***): You’ll still only get the +1 circumstance bonus to initiative for Scouting, but helping your allies out is always good. If the whole party gets to move up a spot or two in the initiative, so much the better for taking out baddies quickly.

(19) True Perception (****): You’re playing one of very few classes that can access this feat. Being able to passively overcome illusions (Invisibility) is quite good, even if it is a relatively low level for counteract checks.

Items

The list of items below is non-exhaustive. It exists to point out some of the more gunslinger-specific useful items you can obtain. I have not listed universally useful items such as those that grant senses, speed, or movement speed types. The items listed below also generally do not consider item bonuses in their ratings. Items that give you an item bonus to perception, your way skill, or any of the other skills you invest in will be useful and usually aren’t too far from each other in terms of secondary effect power.

Adjustments

(0) Shield Augmentation (**): (U) Drifters can add the trip and shove traits (or a few others, but those are the two best options) to a shield at the cost of said shield only dealing d4 damage since the augmentation is mutually exclusive with shield boss / shield spikes. It’s a convenient means of opening up athletics skill actions, albeit at the cost of damage tradeoff.

(1) Twining Chains (**): (U) Drifters, Triggerbrands, and Vanguards are the most likely Ways to have the STR necessary for this augmentation. Considering you don’t really have universally applicable reactions, getting another one to punish unarmed enemies for attacking you is a nice way to add some damage to your turns.

(1) Weapon Siphon (**): Drifters and Triggerbrands can attach this to their melee weapon in order to deliver a d4 of a bomb’s damage type as part of a melee Strike for up to three Strikes per bomb. It does take an action to load the bomb, bringing with it the usual action economy issues of bombs. Also, the MAP is one point worse for a weapon with an attached weapon siphon. It’s best used on an agile weapon or with feats / features that ease or ignore the MAP for melee Strikes.

Adventuring Gear

(0) Alchemist’s Lab (**): Necessary if you’re crafting alchemical items during downtime.

(0) Artisan’s Tools (**): Necessary if you’re crafting non-alchemical items like talismans.

(0) Brass Ear (***): Helpful for listening at doors. With your perception progression, some basic assistive tools for perception usage are a welcome addition to your item stash.

(0) Disguise Kit (***): This rating is for Pistoleros. A disguise kit is more or less necessary to get the most possible value out of the deception skill, although your campaign may not involve much social infiltration.

(0) Dueling Cape (**): This rating is for Pistoleros. If you’re only using one weapon, the dueling cape is effectively a buckler and a readily-accessible circumstance bonus to Feint - it does not bear any restrictions for Feinting like needing to be adjacent to your target.

(0) Fake Blood Pack (**): Pistoleros may be able to put the item bonus to deception to use from time to time to engineer fake emergencies or to infiltrate certain locations, especially if someone else in your party is also good with deception. As this item bears the consumable trait, it’s fairly easy to craft batches if you or someone in your party is willing to take the time. With the alternative crafting rules from Treasure Vault, you’ll very quickly be able to churn these out at speed.

(0) False Manacles (**): May be useful for Pistoleros from time to time to execute deception-based infiltration plans. Their value falls off after a few levels due to the static DC.

(0) Firearm Cleaning Kit (*****): (U, F) Mandatory for firearm use. Without it, you’ll always have a chance of a misfire. If you’re planning to only ever use a crossbow, though, you can skip this item.

(0) Glass Cutter (**): Occasionally useful for thievery-based infiltration, making it potentially valuable for Triggerbrands.

(0) Grappling Bolt (**): (U) If you’re using a longer-range crossbow (200 ft. for a sukgung, 120 ft. for a regular old crossbow) you’ll get half that range increment for, effectively, a grappling hook, which can be very useful at lower levels when mobility / terrain challenges present some difficulty.

(0) Grappling Gun (**): (U) Very similar to the grappling bolt, but doesn’t require you to use a crossbow. Also expends grappling hooks instead of grappling bolts. The level 1 version, the clockwork grappling gun, does not require you to expend grappling hooks and has a reload function that lets you reel your grappling hook back in.

(0) Repair Kit (**): Not strictly necessary if you’re building around crafting, but it’s useful with the right party composition.

(0) Shootist Bandolier (*****): (U) This rating assumes you’re using at least one repeating hand crossbow and have access to this item. Reducing the number of required actions to load a new repeating hand crossbow magazine to 2 is very action-efficient. Beg your GM to give you access if you have to. There is a RAW means of getting access, but it requires two class feats from an uncommon archetype: the Drow Shootist Dedication (U) feat and its associated Repeating Hand Crossbow Training feat.

(0) Silencer (****): This item is effectively a consumable, but without the consumable trait, making them a pain to craft. Fortunately, they’re cheap, plentiful, and common. You can just buy a dozen or so of them early on in your campaign and restock occasionally as needed. Each silencer takes a minute to apply to a weapon and is consumed after the weapon to which it’s attached is fired. They cannot be applied to scatter weapons. As you might expect, silencers drastically reduce sound considerations. If and when you need to make a shot without making a ton of noise, silencers will get the job done.

(0) Thieves’ Tools (****): This rating is primarily for Triggerbrands, but also for other Ways filling a trapfinder role. Many actions that use thievery need these tools.

(0) Tripod (***): The most basic of stabilizers, allowing you to fire kickback weapons without penalty, but at the cost of action economy. If you have any other use for STR or can fit it into your build, you’re generally better off just having high enough STR instead of using a stabilizer, but the option to use an item instead is there if you need it. Note that you’ll need a free hand to deploy a tripod, meaning you’ll need to spend an action to deploy it and an action to re-grip your weapon. That’s particularly nasty for fatal aim weapons, requiring an action to release your grip in the first place and effectively occupying an entire turn just to deploy a tripod.

(0) Waterproof Carrying Case (**): Not strictly mandatory, but it may be useful from time to time in damp dungeons where water can interfere with your weapon / ammunition. If you’re playing an aquatic campaign, there are more specific tools you’ll need to keep your firearm(s) functional.

(1) Bomb Launcher (**): If you’re building for the alchemy feats, you’ll be able to load them into the bomb launcher with a single Interact action and launch them out to 60 feet. It’ll still take an Interact action to draw the bomb, so it’s inefficient - three actions to draw, load, and launch a bomb. This is not a firearm and uses your martial weapon proficiency for bombs as normal.

(1) Deployable Cover (***): (U) Readily-available cover which you can use to set up a firing position, which is especially valuable for Snipers. It does take an action to set up, though, which means it’ll be particularly heavy on the action economy to set up both this and a stabilizer. The level 2 version, deployable ballistic cover, also gives you resistance 2 to piercing damage from ranged attacks.

(2) Periscope (****): With your perception, being able to look around corners is highly valuable.

Consumables

(1) Blast Boots (***): (U) A low-level consumable that replaces the need for Quick Jump when used. Synergizes with Black Powder Boost. Higher level versions increase the distance of High Jumps and Long Jumps without needing to roll athletics. The level 9+ versions also give effects for a duration after initial use, namely larger Leap distances and flight (though the flight causes you to become Clumsy 1).

(1) Merciful Balm (**): If you occasionally want to knock your foes out without an attack penalty, merciful balm will allow you to easily deal nonlethal damage with your weapons.

(1) Owlbear Claw (****): This rating is for Drifters and Triggerbrands who want to use a melee weapon without ancestry feat support for crit specialization. Aside from ancestry feats, it’s the only way for them to get melee crit specialization.

(1) Potency Crystal (**** / **): From levels 1 to 3, being able to make the weapon to which a potency crystal is affixed into a +1 striking weapon for a single shot is outstanding. Once you have a striking rune on your primary weapon, the value falls off quite a bit, only being useful if you need a backup weapon, such as for swap-and-drop.

(1) Potion of Expeditious Retreat (**): Sometimes, you really just need to run away.

(1) Shining Ammunition (**): (MM) Light where you need it as part of an attack. Best if you have darkvision so that you don’t have to worry about miss chances, in which case you’re using this item to help out your allies without darkvision.

(1) Slippery Ribbon (***): (U) For builds incorporating acrobatics, getting enough move speed to make a Tumble Through function when it otherwise wouldn’t is solid.

(1) Wolf Fang (***): For builds incorporating athletics, being able to deal a bit of damage on Trips is solid even if the damage won’t scale well. Even with a +3 STR mod, that nearly equals the average damage of a crit success trip, and you’ll get that damage on both successes and crit successes.

(2) Adaptive Cogwheel (**): Useful from time to time if you need to swap a firearm for more damage or for a desirable trait. For example, a Triggerbrand who uses a hammer gun as a primary weapon for the shove trait could swap to a gun sword for better damage against a low AC foe, or vice versa to pick up the shove trait in a pinch.

(2) Bronze Bull Pendant (***): Helps athletics users to Shove.

(2) Cauterizing Torch (**): (U) If you feel the need to be able to stanch bleed damage more easily, this item is frankly better than the Cauterize feat. It’s situational, but you’re better off spending 30 or so gp every now and again to have a few of these on hand than to occupy your sixth level class feat slot. That said, Cauterize is much easier on the action economy and hand management than this item.

(2) Effervescent Ampoule (**): Brief safety and mobility for acrobatics users.

(2) Hunter’s Bane (**): Automatic detection of undetected enemies, making it much easier for you to pinpoint where to Seek and reduce the miss chance. Follow up with shining ammunition (or a beacon shot, for crossbow users) to mark where the target is or Point Out the target for your allies so that they can use glitterdust or something similar.

(2) Mesmerizing Opal (***): This rating is for Pistoleros. Prevent a critical failure on a Feint in a clutch situation where you really can’t afford a crit fail. It’s predictive rather than reactive, though, so you’ll have to consume it before you roll.

(2+) Moonlit Spellgun (***): Accessible silver and fire damage, scaling at higher levels and doing more damage at night. A d8 damage die is pretty great for a one-handed firearm, and it dazzles. It costs more than silver ammunition does (40 gp for 10 rounds, equating to 4 gp per round), but the fact that this item is basically the moonbeam focus spell in a consumable means it’ll scale its damage much harder than that of a normal firearm. If you’re frequently fighting enemies where silver damage is useful, this weapon is awesome. Otherwise, it’s a means of dealing fire damage with an attack that benefits from your proficiency. It certainly doesn’t hurt to keep one or two of these on hand for the appropriate level. There are some drawbacks, though, namely that spellguns do not apply critical specialization effects and that they don’t benefit from item bonuses.

(2) Onyx Panther (***): For builds incorporating stealth, you’ll appreciate being able to move at full speed while Sneaking when you absolutely need some extra speed.

(2) Smoke Fan (**): Sort of an escape tool for stealth in a pinch. Drawing and using it will be action-intensive.

(2) Wind-Up Cart (** / ***): (U) 6 gp trapfinder. Use it to set off simple hazards, or complex hazards in some cases if it’s capable of triggering them and you can stay out of and / or retreat from the dangerous area. It’s best to load it up with cheap, bulky items like ten-foot poles or tripods in order to give it enough bulk to trigger traps as needed. If you’re suspicious and don’t trust the outcome of your Search roll, send this into the area that’s setting off your Spidey senses. At low levels the cost will be prohibitive, but at higher levels (especially if your group is using alternative crafting rules) your party crafter can churn these out with speed and ease.

(3) Beacon Shot (**): Crossbow only. Helps overcome invisible enemies. It’ll take three actions to load, activate, and fire this ammunition.

(3+) Camouflage Dye (*** / ****): This rating is for Snipers and stealth builds. It’s not quite an invisibility potion, but provides a very similar function. You can Hide and Sneak without cover or concealment, and, even better, the greater (level 7) version allows you to maintain your stealth-related condition(s) despite taking hostile actions (provided you move at half speed or less).

(3) Disrupting Oil (**): Provided you’re able to pre-buff with it, it’s a good source of extra damage against undead, with a good chance to Enfeeble them to boot. The extra incapacitation effect for greater disrupting oil will only be useful for a couple levels and only against lower-level undead. Said effect replaces the Enfeebled condition, too.

(3) Psychic Warding Bracelet (***): Bonuses to saves against mental effects are always welcome. The status bonus this grants will stack with the circumstance bonus that some ancestries grant.

(4) Admonishing Band (**): Temporarily gives you Warning Shot simultaneously with the envision action to activate the item. The real value is in the fact that, if you have Warning Shot already, using an admonishing band does not trigger the Demoralize immunity, potentially allowing you two turns of Frightened against a target in a single encounter. If your group doesn’t have someone who’s able to keep the Frightened condition up (bards, swashbucklers), you’ll appreciate the extra debuff longevity. Pistoleros with one on each weapon will get even more value from Warning Shot with admonishing bands.

(4) Bloodseeker Beak (**): Primarily useful if you have sneak attack from the rogue archetype and specifically in combination with exsanguinating ammunition.

(4+) Chameleon Suit (*** / ****): (U) For stealth builds, being able to Hide without cover or concealment for a full minute is awesome, and only gets better at higher item levels when you can use it for 10 minutes or an hour. It’s basically a means of applying Flat-Footed via the Hidden Condition no matter your positioning, plus all the other value the Hide action / being Hidden provides. The problem is that it takes a two-action activity to activate the item in the first place, meaning pre-buffing with it will be difficult until you can use the level 8+ version.

(4) Energized Cartridge (***): Damage type versatility on demand. For Spellshots, this item should be considered blue (****). Spellshots can eventually apply multiple different damage types to a single shot between their Initial Deed, an energized cartridge, elemental ammunition, Fulminating Shot, and a property rune, making weakness fishing a breeze.

(4) Fortifying Pebble (**): (U) For Drifters using a shield, this will give your shields extra durability, which is really helpful when you eat a crit.

(4) Invisibility Potion (*** / ****): 10 minute Invisible condition that will break on a hostile action. Outstanding for stealthy usage in exploration mode, and it’ll make your first attack in an encounter treat the target as Flat-Footed. Coupled with Hair Trigger, you’ll have a really easy time taking advantage of the Flat-Footed condition for the entire first round of an encounter.

(4+) Sniper’s Bead (***): Only works on two-handed firearms / crossbows, but it’ll allow you to ignore range increments depending on what level of item you consume (second, fourth, and sixth range increments for each respective version). This can outright replace Unerring Shot since these consumables are an on-demand item rather than a high-level class feat, meaning you have them available as needed rather than always in hopes of the right situation arising. Also, since it’s not often you’ll need to worry about increments beyond the second, the base level sniper’s bead has long-term value - especially useful because it’ll rapidly become relatively cheap.

(4) Sure-Step Potion (***): The item bonus isn’t too exciting since it’s only to Balance, but being able to ignore difficult terrain when Stepping provides great synergy for Dance of Thunder without having to occupy a feat slot. Since it’s a one hour duration and, by the time Dance of Thunder is available, a fairly low-level item, it won’t take much gold investment to have a few of these on hand when needed.

(5) Alchemist’s Damper (**): (U) Ignores the kickback penalty when used. If you’re using a kickback weapon, you’ll either have the STR or a stabilizer to overcome the penalty. This consumable is only useful for you if you’re using a stabilizer instead of STR and don’t have the actions available to deploy the stabilizer. If you’re using a stabilizer, it won’t hurt to have a couple of these on hand, but it shouldn’t be a consumable upon which you rely.

(5) Bola Shot (***): (MM) Heavy on the action economy with its activation requirement, but knocking enemies Prone and potentially Stunned 1 is solid. It’s nonlethal damage, but that’s fine, and sometimes even useful.

(5+) Depth Charge (**): (MM) One of your means of handling aquatic games.

(5) Emerald Grasshopper (***): Strong synergy with Black Powder Boost and Reach for the Stars.

(5) Eye of Enlightenment (**): Efficient Recall Knowledge for Spellshots.

(5) Gadget Skates (**): (U) With a heavy armor build, these do a lot to overcome your limited movement.

(5) Goblin-Eye Orb (***): Easy means of overcoming the Concealed and Hidden conditions.

(5) Imp Shot (***): (MM) Its duration is fairly random with a DC 11 to continue on any given turn, and it takes an action to activate the ammunition on top of loading and firing. If you’re prepared to deal with the annoyances of using this ammunition, though, rendering an enemy Flat-Footed while it’s active as well as debuffing said enemy’s attacks and skills is a strong effect.

(5) Oily Button (***): (U) Actually makes the duration on the Disarm debuff valuable, or it taxes the target’s action economy. Improving the status bonus for follow-on Disarm attempts to a +4 also makes it much more likely that an ally trying to Disarm will critically succeed.

(5+) Potion of Disguise (**): (U) Useful for quick disguise and long-duration disguise application, plus the +4 status bonus to your disguise DC, which makes it a useful item for Pistoleros who frequently need to infiltrate. Potentially useful for Snipers and stealth builds, too.

(5) Sneaky Key (**): For trapfinder builds, you’ll be able to negate a critical failure to Pick a Lock.

(5) Sparking Spellgun (***): Easy access to persistent fire damage and the Dazzled condition, with a good chance to instead Blind. It’ll work best with Pistoleros due to the one-handed usage. Especially useful against enemies with fire weakness because it’s so very easy to apply the persistent damage.

(5) Wounding Oil (**): (U) Mostly useful for Drifters to set themselves up for exsanguinating ammunition.

(6+) Conduit Shot (**): (MM) Helps improve your caster ally’s AoE spells, but with some level limitations.

(6) Oil of Swiftness (****): (U) The speed rune is quite strong, albeit rare. Getting its effects temporarily from an uncommon item is much more likely to pass muster. You should still expect to only get two Strikes in a turn, making this item less useful for effects like Dance of Thunder, but it’ll open your turn up for an extra reload, Slinger’s Reload, mobility, or other more niche uses like true strike.

(6) Singing Muse (*****): (U) This rating is only for the pistol phenom archetype. Being able to turn performance check successes into crit successes will be incredible for Pistol Twirl’s Feint (even better with Showstopper), Gunpowder Gauntlet’s debuff, the buff from Phenom’s Verve, and Whirling Knockdown.

(6+) Tentacle Potion: No rating because it’ll depend entirely on your GM. If they are willing to rule that reloading a weapon is a “simple Interact action” that doesn’t “require significant manual dexterity,” this consumable is amazing for Pistoleros and makes jezails and sukgungs much more usable as two-handed weapons. Otherwise, it’s highly situational and not really worth your money.

(7+) Black Tendril Shot (*** / **): (MM) Items with static DCs tend to fall off hard and quickly. It also requires an action to activate. The effects of black tendril shot are strong, though, and at the appropriate levels it’ll be mostly functional so long as you’re using the highest level available.

(7) Corrosive Ammunition (**): Burns through armor, which will eventually debuff AC by 1, 2, or 3 points for light, medium, or heavy armor respectively. Otherwise it’s a relatively strong persistent acid damage effect or an action tax on the enemy’s part. It does require an action to activate.

(7) Dragonfly Fulu (**): One means of getting Quick Jump without athletics investment. Synergizes with Black Powder Jump.

(7) Grim Trophy (****): This rating is for Pistoleros. Being able to double up on your Demoralize targets is great.

(7) Lightning Rod Shot (***): (MM) Help your allies with electric arc do extra damage, or any of the other useful electricity spells.

(7) Persistent Lodestone (****): One automatic reload when you miss. Eased action economy is always welcome, especially if you have access to actions like true strike that are otherwise hard to fit in.

(7+) Stepping Stone Shot (**): (U, MM) Vertical mobility if you need it.

(8) Gallows Tooth (**): Useful for Drifters and Triggerbrands to set up Flat-Footed for a successive ranged Strike. It works especially well in tandem with Sword and Pistol and Stab and Blast and especially for Triggerbrands using an explosive dogslicer. The problem is that it requires master proficiency in intimidation, which is rare for both of those Ways. Pistoleros can use this as well since it doesn’t need to be affixed to a melee weapon, but it does still require them to be adjacent to the target.

(8) Jade Bauble (***): Not actually usable until level 13 due to the proficiency requirements, but it’s another means of setting up Flat-Footed for Drifters and Triggerbrands without having to worry about skill proficiency. It also lasts until the beginning of your next turn, meaning allies can take advantage of the condition too. The drawback is that enemies can just move away from you to stop being Flat-Footed.

(8) Orchestral Brooch (*****): (U) This rating is only for the pistol phenom archetype. It’s very similar in function to the singing muse, but it’s common, gives a status bonus to the triggering performance check, and uses a free action rather than your reaction. If you’re willing and able to pony up the extra gold, this consumable is strictly superior to the singing muse.

(8) Sighting Shot (***): (MM) Especially when paired with a silencer, this consumable is scouting: the ammunition.

(9) Dust of Disappearance (****): (U) 4th level invisibility will give you a minute of nonstop Flat-Footed action.

(9+) Explosive Ammunition (**): (MM) Area fire damage that can hit your allies and requires an action to activate.

(9) Potion of Minute Echoes (***): Status bonus to Seek using your hearing, and your hearing becomes an imprecise sense. That’s solid if you’re trying to find a creature that can make noise, which is pretty frequent.

(9+) Transposition Ammunition (**): (U, MM) Depending on your weapon’s range, you can get a long-distance teleport out of this ammunition. It’s basically a stronger version of dimension door. The level 15 version allows you to bring up to two allies. The two-action activation is harsh for combat usage, but it’s a great tool for exploration mode.

(11) Ghostshot Wrapping (****): Staying Hidden after a Strike is awesome and enables all sorts of stealth gameplay.

(11) Mindlock Shot (**): (MM) No-save action control, although you force the target to Stride (or Step instead) or Strike, potentially twice with a crit. Situational, but action control can be highly beneficial if used well. Especially useful when you can waste boss actions, and without an associated save, that’s much more likely than usual.

(12) Balisse Feather (*** / *): It’s an awesome debuff against creatures you’ve witnessed performing evil acts, but its DC falls off quickly.

(12) Dimension Shot (**): (MM) Black Powder Embodiment in ammunition form, except it’s not limited to Spellshots and can be used to target a square rather than being limited to targeting creatures. It’s somewhat useful for the Ways that want to be in or near melee to get into position (or for any Way to reposition / run away, really), but the two-action activation is harsh in combat. At least it’s a level 12 item instead of a level 18 class feat.

(12) Eye of Apprehension (***): Better chance at a high initiative when you need it.

(12) Penetrating Ammunition (**): Only works for crossbows, but it’ll give you some line AoE capability.

(12) Shrieking Skull (***): This rating is for Pistoleros. It allows for AoE Demoralize around the target with all the usual immunities, so it’ll be most useful if you’re also focusing on deception. It also takes an action to activate.

(13) Reaper’s Spellgun (***): Drained is a strong condition, and you have a relatively good chance of landing both Drained 2 and Doomed 1. It’s not a ton of damage, but -2 to fortitude saves and a hefty chunk of reduced HP are worth it on top of the relatively small damage.

(13+) Reflecting Shard (** / ***): (U) Requires master athletics proficiency. If you’re using a shield as a Drifter, being able to activate spell turning with your athletics mod for the counteract check as a reaction is solid. It’ll only reflect spells of level 5 and below as a level 13 item, but the level 17 version can counteract any spell and has a 9th level counteract, which means it really can counteract any spell with a success on the check.

(14) Ghost Ammunition (**): (MM) Situational in use since it’s just ghost touch ammunition, but the fact that it’s self-regenerating (eventually) makes it a meaningful investment for a consumable. Note that the self-regnerating aspect should not function if you create it with advanced alchemy.

(14) Vapor Sphere (**): Protective function for builds that fall into a trapfinder role. Also helps against undetected enemies.

(14) Viper’s Fang (***): Attack of Opportunity if you don’t have it, or AoO as a free action if you do. Only really usable on Drifters and Triggerbrands.

(15) Garrote Bolt (**): (U) Crossbow only. Fairly heavy persistent slashing damage and a good chance to cause a target to suffocate, which can (eventually) remove low-CON targets from encounters. Suffocation does knock targets out 5+CON mod rounds after it starts, though, so don’t expect this to be a game changer.

(15) Garrote Shot (**): (MM) Same as garrote bolts, but works for firearms and is common.

(16) Ghost Dust (***): Free action level 4 invisibility if you’re legendary in stealth. That’s awesome, but the higher level consumables get expensive quickly.

(19) Spell Echo Shot (***): Your caster allies will love you for using this consumable. To put the numbers in perspective, I’ll use the age-old classic fireball heightened to level 5. It deals 10d6 damage at level 5 and 20d6 when heightened to level 10, the maximum available for a caster at this level. By using a spell echo shot and letting your caster friend get doubled effects on their level 5 fireball, you’re almost bumping the damage of that fifth level spell slot against one target up to what it would do as a level 10 spell. There are some limiting factors here. It’s possible your ammunition won’t stick to the target, rendering this ammunition somewhat less reliable. Also, you’re not doubling the effects of a level 5 or lower spell, you’re making them occur twice, meaning the target saves twice. That may be a blessing against a low save, but not so much for a high save where it just gets another chance to reduce or shrug off the effects. Still, this is a potent effect, as a high level consumable should be.

Customizations

(1+) Portable Weapon Mount:

(1) Monopod (**): Technically still has action economy limitations to deploy as compared to a normal tripod, but the phrasing of the item allows you to deploy this stabilizer when you roll initiative since every Way has a means of drawing a weapon in their Initial Deed. If you need to move, though, it won’t be any easier on the action economy than a tripod. Also, this version still takes a penalty when using kickback weapons, albeit a lesser penalty.
(3) Shielded Tripod (**): No more action economy efficiency on initiative roll, unfortunately. It does give you portable cover, though, which can be useful for Snipers.

(3) Breech Ejectors (**): (U) One-off double-barreled weapon efficiency. These do bear the consumable trait, making them fairly easy / efficient to craft.

(3) Gunner’s Bandolier (**): (U) Kind of enables a swap-and-drop playstyle, but the action economy is harsh. At least it’s efficient on runes. Due to the rune efficiency, it does sort of give you weapon trait flexibility if you’re running a single one-handed weapon build. That can come in handy in overcoming situational issues like resistances.

(5+) Darkvision Scope (**): Darkvision when you need it, though it takes an action every turn to keep it going. Eventually it gives greater darkvision, which is rare, but also rarely needed.

(5) Large Bore Modifications (***** / **): (U) Mandatory for damage optimization on a kickback weapon unless you have a very good reason not to get your STR to 18 or use a stabilizer. Less helpful on a scatter weapon unless your party is prepared to deal with being hit by the splash damage, although the more enemy targets hit with splash, the better the DPR.

(10) Scope of Limning (***): Does a lot to overcome Concealment and Invisibility, and provides some synergy with Blood in the Air. Also, unlike most scopes, the effects exist for your party members, not just you. It takes an action to activate it, though.

Runes

The generic runes that deal extra damage are always useful and are especially useful for Spellshots in order to seek weaknesses.

(3) Crushing (***** / ***): (U) If used on a harmona gun, this rune is amazing and is much of the reason to use a harmona gun. An alternative is the barricade buster if you're willing to deal with its feat investment requirement and volley trait. If used on a melee weapon, your lower proficiency will cause it to be of less value since you’re less likely to crit, but it’s still a good rune. Bribe your GM for it if you have to, it’s that good.

(3) Soft-Landing (**): (U) Gives you a means of surviving the fall after a Black Powder Boost once per day if needed.

(4) Merciful (**): The goody-two-shoes rune, allowing you to make nonlethal attacks without a penalty.

(5+) Fearsome (****): You’re a crit machine. Might as well throw down a debuff when you crit. Frightened 1 for the level 5 version, Frightened 2 for the greater (level 12) version. Also bears some synergy with the rogue archetype and its associated Dread Striker feat.

(5+) Shadow (****): The Sniper’s best friend, for whom this rune is purple (*****) until and unless an apex item overrides it. It’s great for any build incorporating stealth, though.

(5) Stanching (**): (U) Synergizes with Cauterize.

(5) Cunning (****): (U) This rating is for Spellshots. It synergizes perfectly with the Spellshot kit and gives a bonus to Recall Knowledge after attack crits to boot. It’s only usable once per minute, but it’s still an awesome rune for Spellshots.

(5+) Fearsome (*****): You’re a crit machine with your firearms. Throwing an easy and near-universal debuff on your targets when you crit with no associated save and no limitation for how often it can occur is utterly incredible, and only gets better at level 12 when your crits apply Frightened 2. It’s especially strong if you can reliably apply the Flat-Footed condition for your ranged Strikes, such as if you’re built for stealth (Snipers) or deception (Pistoleros).

(6+) Dread (**): The DC isn’t exactly great, but a passive chance to keep up the Frightened debuff on enemies pairs well with the fearsome rune, as well as with the Pistolero kit.

(7) Wounding (***): This rating is for builds incorporating alchemy feats. Synergizes well with exsanguinating ammunition.

(8) Gliding (**): If you aren’t relying on Cat Fall, this rune helps mitigate some of the drawbacks of Black Powder Boost / Reach for the Stars.

(8+) Invisibility (***): Flat-Footed is always nice, even if this rune has daily use limitations.

(9) Grievous (** / ***): The club, hammer, knife, polearm, shield, spear, sword, and especially pick improvements for critical specialization can be nice for Drifters and Triggerbrands, assuming they’re using an ancestry weapon and have melee critical specialization.

(11) Hopeful (****): (U) Passively handing out a status bonus to your allies’ attacks when you crit is great since your proficiency with firearms is so strong. If you have a bard in your party or someone else who frequently hands out a status bonus for attacks, you won’t want this rune, but it’s quite strong otherwise.

Worn Items

(2+) Goz Mask (**): Lets you see through Smoke Curtain.

(3+) Backfire Mantle (** / *****): If you’re not using a scatter weapon, it may or may not be of any use to you depending on your feat selection and party composition. If you are using a scatter weapon and will be close to melee at all, you need one. You won’t need the greater version until you have a major striking rune at level 19.

(3+) Blazons of Shared Power (*****): This rating is for dual-wield builds. This item is mandatory for them because maintaining two sets of weapon runes is cost-prohibitive.

(3+) Dancing Scarf (**): This rating is for the pistol phenom archetype. Having an easy means of making yourself Concealed is a nice defensive tool, but its action will be hard to fit into the action economy. The greater version at least allows you to Stride or Step as part of the action to Conceal yourself.

(4+) Talisman Cord (***): (U) There are several good talismans out there for you. Having a chance, even if fairly small, to not consume your talismans is quite good since it can be achieved with a one-time investment. If you’re only ever using owlbear claws, you can get a lesser talisman cord attuned to evocation and never spend more gold on the higher level talisman cords.

(4+) Alchemist Goggles (**): There’s no need for this item prior to the greater version. Keeps the item bonus to attack with bombs relevant at certain levels if you’re using Munitions Machinist to create and then throw said bombs. That’ll be levels 11-13 (greater version) and 17-19 (major version) since those are the level ranges where your bombs’ item bonus will fall behind due to their three level lag.

(7) Boots of Bounding (***): Black Powder Boost synergy, though your Leap distance can’t exceed your speed (prior to the status bonus).

(7) Fearless Sash (***): One of few items to give you a status bonus, this one protects against fear effects and will stack with any circumstance bonus from your ancestry. Being able to support your allies by reducing their (and your) Frightened condition once per day is decent too. Maybe hard to fit into the action economy, but one action is much better than the three actions required in the No Cause for Alarm feat.

(7) Ring of Sustenance (***): If you don’t have a means of reducing your sleep requirements from your ancestry, bringing your nightly required rest hours down to 2 makes you into a very good nighttime sentry for your group due to your perception progression.

(9) Diviner’s Nose Chain (***): (U) Imprecise senses are useful for you.

(10) Daredevil Boots (**): If you’re a master in acrobatics and have Cat Fall, fall damage is a thing of the past. Useful for Reach for the Stars at later levels. This item is blue (****) for Drifters due to the fact that it also gives a circumstance bonus to Tumble Through.

(12) Black Pearl Aeon Stone (***): (U) As a reaction with no time limitations, you get not only a huge bonus to a save against a mental effect, but also a huge counteract modifier on par with that of a level 18 caster to send the spell back at the creature that cast it on you. It does have a 20% chance to break every time you use the reaction, though.

Apex Items

If your table runs the Automatic Bonus Progression variant rule, the items rated yellow (**) can be of much more value to you due to the fact that your apex ability boost is separated from the item effects. As such, you’ll be able to use the item in question alongside a DEX boost rather than the usual boost.

(17) Anklets of Alacrity (****): DEX apex item that gives you a once-per-day single action to give yourself a 10 minute long buff of +20 to your speeds, plus the effects of water walk.

(17) Artificer Spectacles (**): INT apex item that gives its bonus to crafting and to Identify Magic, which will include arcana for Spellshots. You’ll only want this on Spellshots if you really prefer to juice your class DC as high as possible rather than your ranged attack mod.

(17) Avalanche Boots (**): STR apex item that gives its bonus to athletics and gives a sizable circumstance bonus to Force Open and Shove. Only truly useful if you really want to improve your melee and athletics over your ranged Strikes. A +5 to Shove is massive for Vanguards, at least.

(17) Diadem of Intellect (**): INT apex item that gives its bonus to all Recall Knowledge checks and hypercognition once per day. You’ll only want this on Spellshots if you really prefer to juice your class DC as high as possible rather than your ranged attack mod. If that is the case, this is generally the better level 17 INT apex item as compared to the artificer spectacles, unless you’re the party crafter.

(17) Pilferer’s Gloves (***): DEX apex item that applies only a +2 item bonus to thievery assuming you’re legendary in thievery. If you’re not legendary in thievery, this item improves your proficiency by one step, but you will not get the item bonus. It’s a pretty weak bonus for an apex item, but it does at least contribute to your DEX. Also offers a once-per-day reaction that improves the result of a failed or crit failed thievery check by one step.

(18) Mercurial Mantle (****): For Drifters, this item is purple (*****). It’s a DEX apex item that gives its item bonus to both acrobatics and stealth, plus an always-on +2 circumstance bonus to AC against reactions triggered by movement. You also get a once-per-hour reaction that triggers when you miss with a melee Strike, which will work for Drifters and Triggerbrands, that will allow you to Step and attempt another melee Strike (with MAP), and that can cause the creature to be Flat-Footed. Also, once per day, you can use a two-action activity to teleport up to twice your speed and make a melee Strike.

(18) Titan’s Grasp (**): STR apex item that applies its item bonus to athletics and gives a +1 circumstance bonus to Grapple, plus deals damage to creatures larger than you when you Grapple them. These are solid bonuses for the Vanguard’s Greater Deed, though you’re giving up on a DEX apex item to get them. The active ability deals some area sonic damage, but it has a very weak DC and can hit your allies.

(18) Shadowmist Cape (****): DEX apex item that gives its item bonus to stealth and grants you a once-per-hour reaction, triggered when a creature misses an attack against you, that allows you to use stealth vs. its perception DC to become Hidden, potentially until the end of your next turn. It also allows you to cast gaseous form on yourself once per day. It’s a solid apex item if you rely on stealth, making it most valuable for Snipers.

(20) Viper Rapier (****): This rating is for Drifters. The most important feature of this item is the fact that it’s a common item with a speed rune on it (which is ordinarily rare), making you permanently Quickened, specifically to make an extra Strike each round with the viper rapier. It’s a DEX apex item, but with no associated skill item bonus. It does stop you from triggering reactions while Striding, Balancing, or Tumbling Through. You’ll also get a once-per-day reaction triggered when you fail an attack (but not crit fail) that will poison an enemy with purple worm poison, an always-available reaction when an enemy misses or critically misses you that allows you to Step, and a once-per-hour two-action activity that causes you to become Concealed for a minute (hostile actions break it) and, while Concealed, get a sizable circumstance bonus to reflex saves.

Archetypes

Below, I have listed some of the acceptable and, in some cases, even good choices for archetypes should you want to use one. The ratings below exist to denote how viable an archetype is. The ratings should not indicate to you that you should take every single feat I have listed, only that you can pull value relative to the rating from any given archetype. Not all archetype feats are listed, just those that are acceptable or stand-out choices. Also, the list below is not exhaustive. You can make other archetypes work, these are just generally the more appropriate, thematic, or synergistic choices. On a similar note, there are several archetypes that can add some value to Spellshots due to their INT-based natures, but are very difficult to fit into a Spellshot build because they aren’t available until level 10 at the earliest (or 8 with free archetype variant rules).

Multiclass Archetypes

Fighter (***)

Fighter offers quite a few feats that can improve your weapon usage. It’ll require 14 STR and DEX, though, which means it’s best taken if you’re using a kickback weapon. Primarily, Drifters, Triggerbrands, and Vanguards will work best for this archetype, but Snipers can benefit as well. Pistoleros and Spellshots have no use for STR.

(2) Fighter Dedication: Basically just skill training. Fighter DC means nothing to you. It’ll round out your physical skills if you haven’t already gotten trained in both, though. That’s useful for any of the Ways that will want this archetype.
(4) Basic Maneuver: Gain a first or second level fighter feat.

Point-Blank Shot: There are only two weapons with the volley trait that matter to you: the barricade buster and the shobhad longrifle. That means basically every other firearm / crossbow gets a circumstance bonus to damage with this feat as long as you’re within the first range increment. Note that this feat does override the circumstance bonus to damage from your Singular Expertise class feature, but it’s still an extra point of damage.
Assisting Shot: You can give a bonus to allies’ attacks alongside your own Strikes as long as you’re suffering the MAP. Since you have the best possible proficiency progression with your applicable weapons, you might as well hand out free buffs to your allies.
Dragging Strike: Easy Flat-Footed for your allies on melee Ways.
Lunge: Extra reach for melee Ways, keeping you safer while making ranged Strikes.

(4) Fighter Resiliency: As an 8 HP martial, you’re behind the power curve on the HP front. Extra HP helps quite a bit.
(4) Opportunist: Great for melee Ways.
(6) Advanced Maneuver: Gain a fighter feat up to half your level. There’s nothing here worth replacing your level 20 class feat, but there’s good stuff if you’re playing with the free archetype variant rules.

(8) Double Shot: Only works if you’re using a repeating weapon with reload 0 (air repeater, long air repeater, and, most useful, barricade buster). It gives a bit of AoE and is less punishing on the MAP front.
(8) Parting Shot: A means of shooting from safety and making your target Flat-Footed. Two actions to use it, though.
(12) Advantageous Assault: As much as 6 extra damage on your Strikes, provided your target meets the requirements for this feat. Synergizes well with Vanguard’s Blast Tackle feat. Otherwise, you’ll generally need someone else in your party for the Grabbed / Prone / Restrained conditions, and you’ll have to deal with the MAP to meet the requirements of the press trait.

Ranger (***)

The ranger archetype doesn’t offer a ton of value, but there are a few standout choices. Namely, Gravity Weapon and Hunter’s Aim can help quite a bit with damage, Ranger Resiliency can give you some extra durability, and Disrupt Prey is useful in melee (as is Snap Shot).

(2) Ranger Dedication: Survival is lackluster at best, but Hunt Prey is pretty useful. The circumstance bonus to Seek your prey is sometimes valuable, but the fact that you have to be able to see or hear the prey to use Hunt Prey in the first place makes it a situational improvement. If you Hunt something that then becomes Invisible or starts using stealth, that’s about the only time you’ll get the benefit. The real value is in the range extension. Being able to target out to the second range increment without the penalty will mostly be helpful with shorter-range weapons, but it gives you a lot of flexibility in positioning and movement safety. The range increment penalty reduction will stop mattering at level 17.
(4) Basic Hunter’s Trick: Gain a first or second level ranger feat.

Gravity Weapon: Applying a (scaling) status bonus to damage once per round for a single action is a great way to start each encounter.
Hunted Shot: Only works if you’re using a repeating weapon with reload 0 (air repeater, long air repeater, and, most useful, barricade buster), but you can take two shots with a single action (MAP still applies).
Monster Hunter: This is a bit of a weird one because you only really want it on a Spellshot, which means you’re getting it at level 12 at the earliest. It’ll give some action economy efficiency for Hunt Prey + Recall Knowledge and gives a buff to one attack roll (including spell attacks) for you and each ally against your Hunted Prey.
Hunter’s Aim: Gives you an option to sink two actions into a Strike to really try for a crit.
Monster Warden: Requires Monster Hunter with all the same implications, making this feat realistically only available at level 14. Gives you and your allies each a bonus to saves and AC against one effect from your Hunted Prey, alongside the bonus from Monster Hunter.

(4) Ranger Resiliency: As an 8 HP martial, you’re behind the power curve on the HP front. Extra HP helps quite a bit.
(6) Advanced Hunter’s Trick: Gain a ranger feat up to half your level. There’s nothing here worth replacing your level 20 class feat, but there’s good stuff if you’re playing with the free archetype variant rules.

(8) Animal Feature: Since you get the animal feature spell at a level where it’s automatically heightened, you can get darkvision, a swim speed, or a fly speed for a minute tied to a focus point. The primary use is the fly speed, but the others may come in handy as well.
(8) Disrupt Prey: Only useful for Drifters and Triggerbrands. Functions somewhat similarly to Attack of Opportunity, but only against your Hunted Prey.
(8) Far Shot: Doubled weapon range, which will also synergize with the range increment penalty reduction from Hunt Prey and from your Shootist’s Edge class feature at level 17.
(8) Hunter’s Luck: Primarily useful for Spellshots to get fortune on one Recall Knowledge per encounter, although the earliest it’s realistically available for them is level 12.
(8) Scout’s Warning: Passive initiative bonus for your allies if you’re not frequently Scouting and you mostly use perception for initiative.
(12) Skirmish Strike: A bit of extra safety and action economy for ranged Strikes, or to safely get into position for melee Strikes.
(12) Snap Shot: Allows you to use Disrupt Prey with a ranged weapon, but still adjacent to you.
(16) Can’t You See?: A bit of extra stealth safety for Snipers.
(16) Eerie Environs: Only useful on Pistoleros with stealth investment. Being able to Demoralize and remain Hidden will make your enemies Frightened and Flat-Footed to an attack, which is a huge debuff.
(16) Hazard Finder: Comes online rather late, but if you’re a trapfinder the bonus will help.

Rogue (***)

Triggerbrands in particular gain a lot of value from a rogue archetype, especially if using an explosive dogslicer. The rogue archetype offers a little something for everyone, though, and is also quite strong for Drifters due to Tumble Behind and Snipers due to how often they should be Hidden.

(2) Rogue Dedication: Basically just a trained skill and Surprise Attack since the class DC and armor training don’t matter to you. Surprise Attack will be great for Snipers and is a good incentive to invest in stealth for other Ways.
(4) Basic Trickery: Gain a first or second level rogue feat.

Nimble Dodge: +2 AC for a reaction is nothing to sneeze at, and it works against ranged and spell attacks too.
Overextending Feint: Safety feature for Pistoleros, although the normal Feint effects are generally better.
Trap Finder: If you’re in a party trapfinder role, you can’t go wrong with this feat. Triggerbrands will almost always appreciate it.
Tumble Behind: Render enemies Flat-Footed (including against ranged attacks) when you successfully Tumble Through. Less useful if you’re not near enemies often (Snipers), but if you’ve got the acrobatics (Drifters) you’ll love being able to nail enemies more often with ranged Strike crits. Especially useful with backstabber weapons.
You’re Next: Pistoleros might as well get a bonus to Demoralize (and use it as a reaction) from time to time when downing an enemy.
Mobility: Especially useful if your ancestry grants you 30 ft. speed. Moving up to half your speed without triggering reactions is a solid improvement.

(4) Sneak Attacker: A bit of extra damage against Flat-Footed enemies. Easier to do with Drifters and Triggerbrands, but this archetype at least offers Tumble Behind to make it happen for ranged Strikes. Snipers can also frequently get the extra damage since so much of their kit renders enemies Flat-Footed.
(6) Advanced Trickery: Gain a rogue feat up to half your level. There’s nothing here worth replacing your level 20 class feat, but there’s good stuff if you’re playing with the free archetype variant rules.

(8) Battle Assessment: If you want a bit more utility in encounters, your strong perception progression does a lot to enable this feat. The information you gain is typically the most valuable possible information you could otherwise gain from Recall Knowledge.
(8) Dread Striker: Especially useful for Pistoleros who can render enemies Flat-Footed to their ranged Strikes with ease, but it’s also good if someone else in your party consistently applies the Frightened condition (bards with Dirge of Doom are a particularly notable example). If you have a fearsome rune on your weapon, you’ll consistently get solid value out of this feat.
(8) Predictable!: Sort of a stronger Raise a Shield, but requires a Sense Motive to pull it off. Getting a bonus to both AC and saves against your target’s effects is quite strong, although the crit fail result will debuff you. With your perception progression, you should be able to pull off a success result most of the time.
(8) Reactive Pursuit: Allows Drifters, Triggerbrands, and Vanguards to stick to their targets as a reaction to their movement.
(8) Scout’s Warning: Passive initiative bonus for your allies if you’re not frequently Scouting and you mostly use perception for initiative.
(8) The Harder They Fall: Add some damage on Trips for primarily Vanguards, but also Drifters and Triggerbrands with appropriate weapons. It’s easier to pull off for Drifters and Triggerbrands since they can render an enemy Flat-Footed with flanking.
(12) Gang Up: Much easier flanking for Drifters and Triggerbrands, although you’ll probably still want to move into normal flanking position to help set up your allies.
(12) Light Step: No more difficult terrain concerns for Striding or Stepping, making several of the Slinger’s Reloads and Deeds less restricted.
(12) Shove Down: Free action Trips for Vanguards if they have a means of Tripping without a free hand, although you’ll still suffer the MAP.
(12) Skirmish Strike: A bit of extra safety and action economy for ranged Strikes, or to safely get into position for melee Strikes.
(16) Delay Trap: Helpful for those in a trapfinder role to temporarily escape the consequences of a triggered trap.
(16) Nimble Roll: Grants the effects of Nimble Dodge to reflex saves and lets you Stride up to 10 ft. away from the triggering effect. Risky against enemies with movement-triggered reactions, but otherwise helps you reposition safely.
(16) Opportune Backstab: Fills a similar niche to Attack of Opportunity, but triggers when an enemy in reach melee attacks an ally. Might as well get extra melee Strikes on Drifters and Triggerbrands.
(16) Sidestep: Make enemies attack each other when they miss you. Niche, but powerful.
(16) Sly Striker: Add that d6 sneak attack to all attacks.
(20) Sneak Savant: Solid for Snipers, turning failed Sneak rolls into successes. Also applies for other stealth builds.

(8) Skill Mastery: If you want more of a skill monkey role, this is how you go about it.
(10) Uncanny Dodge: Helps protect you against enemies of your level or lower trying to flank you, as well as enemies using stealth / Invisibility.

Thaumaturge (***)

This rating is primarily for Pistoleros, but Snipers can also meet the CHA requirements with relative ease. Other Ways can find some value here, but it doesn’t extend much beyond early master will save proficiency as compared to Canny Acumen. The 14 CHA requirement is prohibitive to get that benefit and any other via archetype feats for non-Pistolero or Sniper Ways. You can get around the CHA prerequisite as a half-elf, which will also free up a class feat slot since you can get the dedication feat for your level 9 ancestry feat.

(2) Thaumaturge Dedication: Imposing a 2 point weakness isn’t great for an action, but if you’re Striking twice anyway it’s a bit better. Being trained in any of the skills on offer is inconsequential for any Way aside from Spellshots, for whom any of them are useful. Your choice of implement will probably be weapon, which likely implies that you’re dual wielding since you can only choose a one-handed weapon. At this point, your implement doesn’t do much.
(4) Basic Thaumaturgy: Gain a first or second level thaumaturge feat.

Ammunition Thaumaturgy: While not great for the overall action economy, this feat gives you a means of dual wielding without having to worry much about hand management. For example, using this feat, a build with a dueling pistol as your implement and a slide pistol as your second weapon will have little in the way of hand management concerns. That said, it is a two-feat investment to achieve a lesser action economy outcome as compared to Unconventional Weaponry + a repeating hand crossbow + a capacity weapon (or a RHC + a one-handed firearm / crossbow + Dual-Weapon Reload). If you’re pursuing this feat setup, it’s because you want weapon flexibility (such as retaining the option to use a jezail two-handed or as part of a dual wield setup) or because you really love the traits on a set of weapons without the repeating / capacity traits. It’s also somewhat possible that your table is one of the odd ones and your encounters run long. If, for some reason, you frequently find your capacity and / or repeating weapons running out of ammunition and the encounters running beyond round 4 or 5, you’ll be glad you can reload while dual wielding.
Divine Disharmony: Strictly better than Pistol Twirl. You get to use either deception or intimidation to achieve a better success effect than that of the Feint associated with Pistol Twirl, and there’s a sizable, if situational, bonus associated with the check against certain enemies. This is among the best feats available for Pistoleros and is useful for CHA-invested Snipers as well, especially alongside Vital Shot.
Familiar: There are some useful familiar functions, especially for deception via the Partner in Crime ability. That ability won’t stack with the circumstance bonus from Divine Disharmony, but it will make you more readily able to receive a circumstance bonus.
Enhanced Familiar: Requires the Familiar feat. If you feel the need for a familiar with four abilities, this is a means of getting one.
Talisman Esoterica: Two talismans per day if there are some that are useful for you and / or your group.

(6) Advanced Thaumaturgy: Gain a thaumaturge feat up to half your level. There aren’t a whole lot of good options here since many of them require actual thaumaturge class features, but some are useful.

(16) Elaborate Talisman Esoterica: Requires Talisman Esoterica. Four talismans per day.
(16) Incredible Familiar: Requires Enhanced Familiar. Six abilities on your familiar.

(6) Implement Initiate: With a weapon implement, you’ll gain an attack reaction in a very similar vein to Attack of Opportunity, but it works with a ranged weapon out to 10 feet. Solid. If you’re running a single one-handed weapon build, other decent options include:

Amulet: Damage reduction for yourself or an ally as a reaction if Glimpse Vulnerability is up.
Lantern: Status bonus to your perception checks, which is hard to come by and highly useful, especially if you’re investing in WIS. Also helpful for your allies.
Regalia: The circumstance bonus on CHA-based skills will be useful for the Ways that want this archetype. Also helps you and your allies overcome fear effects and, more specifically (and only for yourself), the Frightened condition.

(12) Resolute: Where normally the earliest you could get master will proficiency is at 17 with Canny Acumen, this will give it to you at level 12, which is a strong improvement over your normal class kit.

Other Archetypes

Acrobat (***)

If nothing else, it’s scaling acrobatics, which is great for Tumble Through at a bare minimum.

(2) Acrobat Dedication: Auto-scaling acrobatics. Also makes crit successes to Tumble Through negate the usual difficult terrain of an enemy’s space.
(4) Contortionist: Works best with an ancestry that grants bonuses to Escape. The Quick Squeeze feat is mostly useless, but being able to make enemies temporarily Flat-Footed is useful sometimes.
(6) Dodge Away: AC as a reaction and the ability to Step away from the offender. Solid defensive reaction.
(7) Graceful Leaper: Synergy with Black Powder Boost if you’re not investing in athletics.
(8) Tumbling Strike: Only useful for Drifters and Triggerbrands. Efficient action economy to Tumble Through and Strike simultaneously, plus a chance to render the enemy Flat-Footed.
(10) Tumbling Opportunist: Free action once per minute to use acrobatics for a Trip following a Tumble Through or Tumbling Strike. While the action economy is great, you’ll need a free hand.

Bastion (**)

This archetype only really has value for Drifters who want to use a shield and will require them to take the Shield Block general feat. That’s doable on its own since a shield can be used to shield bash, but you’ve also got weapon options in shield boss, shield spikes, a spiked gauntlet, or a bayonet.

(2) Bastion Dedication: Easier action economy to Raise a Shield, being able to do so as a reaction. It will compete with your Shield Block reaction, though.
(4) Disarming Block: While Disarm normally sucks, if you’re investing in athletics, you’ll be able to apply the Disarm debuff at a point when it actually matters and will legitimately debuff the target’s attacks. While it’s not listed in the items section due to its limited applicability, the catching rune synergizes well with this feat.
(6) Nimble Shield Hand: Frees up a hand for alchemy-related Interacts if you have the feats to do so.
(6) Shielded Stride: Safe movement and repositioning is a nice feature.
(8) Reflexive Shield: You already have strong reflex saves, but a +1 or +2 bonus is always a nice way to shrug off damage.
(10) Quick Shield Block: Extra reaction every turn to Shield Block, which you can use simultaneously with Reactive Shield since they have different triggers. Great action economy.
(12) Shield Salvation: Save yourself some money and keep your shields from being destroyed.

Beast Gunner (**) (U, F)

A somewhat unique archetype in that Spellshots can take its dedication without first meeting the usual 3-feat archetype exit requirement. Doing so will lock Spellshots into both archetypes for longer though, since they’ll need to meet the requirements of both the Spellshot and Beast Gunner Dedication feats in order to select any other archetype. Additionally, since the dedication feat isn’t available until 6, this archetype will compete with the first available non-dedication Spellshot feat (Fulminating Shot) and further delay access to any other archetype. This archetype also requires trained proficiency in arcana and crafting, making it easiest to qualify as a Spellshot. If you want this archetype on any other Way, consider an ancestry with a lore feat that will make picking up trained proficiency in arcana and crafting easier. Additionally, there are requirements to access and use beast guns themselves. Mechanically, you must kill an appropriate (and appropriately threatening) creature for the beast gun you want to use, meaning your GM has to be willing to play ball. This archetype actually turns you into sort of a gun magus, which may be the flavor you wanted from Spellshot. Beast guns use their own special ammunition and do not fall into the same rules issues as normal firearms regarding alchemical and magical ammunition.

Beast guns: A key fact to be aware of with beast guns is that they are specific magic weapons. As such, you can’t add property runes, meaning they’re generally going to do less damage on average than a normal runed-up weapon. They get some tradeoffs for it, though. For example, it’s rare for other weapons to get a d10 damage die. Currently, the harmona gun is the only readily accessible d10 firearm, with the barricade buster being an option with feat support. Several beast guns have a d10 damage die.

(4) Drake Rifle (***): Must hunt a drake. It’s got a default potency rune, but not a striking rune. Range is solid, the damage die is strong since it’s a two-handed weapon, and the damage type corresponds to the type of drake you hunted. You can also deal persistent damage of the same type on crits, making this a solid choice for Spellshots. Snipers will do fine with it, as will vanguards until level 15 since they won’t be able to use it with their Greater Deed. It can also apply debuffs once per day as a three action activity depending on the type of drake: Sickened 1, speed penalty, Dazzled and Flat-Footed, forced movement away from you and knocking the target Prone, or Enfeebled 1 and Clumsy 1. Unlike most other beast guns, these effects are unburdened by an associated DC and happen automatically as long as the associated Strike hits. The drawbacks are that your damage type is limited and may come up against insurmountable immunities or punishing resistances and that the weapon cannot apply critical specialization effects. Despite the drawbacks, this is generally the best beast gun on offer.
(6+) Spider Gun (**): Must hunt a spider of at least large size. You’re generally better off with a drake rifle because of the DC scaling. That’s slightly less of an issue if you know you’ll have a chance to change out your beast gun at the appropriate levels (8, 14, 18), but item DCs fall off hard and quickly.
(6) Spike Launcher (*): Must hunt a manticore. Reload 2 is too much of a pain to make it worth using despite the excellent damage traits. For comparison, a round of the spike launcher doing Strike -> Interact (reload) -> Interact (reload) is significantly less damage despite strong damage traits as opposed to an arquebus doing Strike -> Interact (reload) -> Strike. Changing the critical specialization to the bow group and adding a once-a-day AoE is not a noticeable improvement. If your GM is willing to rule that you can do both Interacts separately and actually work within your Slinger’s Reload, it can be a bit better with well-planned turns, but this weapon is traited and designed to be a damage-oriented weapon. It is not, in practice, a damage weapon. Its only use is for occasional damage spikes, followed by you doing anything but dealing damage.
(7+) Tentacle Cannon (**): Must hunt a creature with a tentacle Strike and ink. Reload 2 is painful, but at least with the capacity 5 trait it’s got potential to be a problem for after combat. Fatal d12 also gives it decent damage potential, although the 30 foot range increment is fairly limiting. While ranged maneuvers seem cool, the numbers are even worse than usual. It has normal item save DCs for its once-per-hour cone of Blind / Dazzle, but its Grapple bonus starts out 5 points behind that of a dedicated, STR-based athletics user and only gets worse (which is just its save DC -10 for all versions). Additionally, there’s nothing about the ranged Grapple effect that would change your inability to move while you have a creature Grabbed. If your Grapple pulled the creature adjacent to you, you may be significantly increasing your risk of harm, especially if it has a reaction that triggers from ranged attacks. At least with the ink cannon activated effect you can potentially land it on multiple targets, getting multiple spent actions, and possibly missed attacks, on the enemies’ part in exchange for your two actions. Like any other non-scaling item DC, this item is only even somewhat relevant at the appropriate levels (7, 13, 17).
(8+) Breath Blaster (**): Must hunt a dragon. Like the drake rifle, the damage type corresponds to the drake killed. This is the AoE weapon, including the scatter 5 ft. trait inherent on blunderbusses. Like the spider gun, though, it bears typical item DCs and will only be even somewhat relevant at appropriate levels (8, 14, 18). Allies with backfire mantles (and you, if necessary) will be able to ignore the scatter damage like normal, but not the activated effect. There is some synergy with Scatter Blast and this weapon, although the usual issues of that feat still apply. You’ll just be able to deal elemental splash damage and maybe trigger a weakness more often.
(9) Growth Gun (** / ***): Must hunt a creature with regeneration. Hand cannons aren’t the most exciting weapon, but the damage versatility can be good if you feel you can fit in the necessary Interact actions. The weapon functions in aquatic campaigns, at least. It’s also a tool to throw down a save-free Slowed 1 debuff once per minute. You’ll take away one enemy action at the cost of two of your own, which means you’ll get the most value out of forcing that Slowed 1 condition in single target encounters.
(9+) Screech Shooter (*): Must hunt a creature with a frightening screech. Harmona gun is a pretty strong base weapon, although you unfortunately can’t put a crushing rune on it in this case. Being able to Frighten creatures in a 30 / 40 / 50 foot emanation may be useful sometimes, but it suffers the usual DC scaling issue (relevant at 9, 13, 17) and can Frighten your allies.
(15) Petrification Cannon (*): Must hunt a basilisk. Double-barreled musket is a decent base weapon. Being able to effectively cast flesh to stone once per hour can be useful, but the DC falls off quickly and permanently without a scaled version of the weapon (and, as usual, it was somewhat weak already). At least it inflicts Slowed 1 on a success, but you’re trading two actions for one in almost all cases, which is actually worse against bosses due to their significantly higher likelihood of a crit success on their save. The failure effect of flesh to stone will rarely be of any more value than the success effect due to the added incapacitation trait on subsequent rounds - anything level 16 or higher will shrug it off with ease.

(6) Beast Gunner Dedication: You become a spontaneous caster, gain the Cast a Spell Activity, and gain a spell repertoire with either an arcane or primal cantrip that requires a spell attack roll. Unfortunately, your casting ability is CHA, which sucks big time for Spellshots who want to use the spell outside of the Spellsling activity. Pistoleros will be the most able to handle the CHA casting requirement if for some reason you want to use your spell attacks outside of Spellsling. Fortunately, Spellsling, similar to its magus counterpart, does not care about your CHA score - only your ranged Strikes. Although a three-action activity that’ll almost always take up your whole turn, you can hit like an absolute truck with Spellsling. The spell’s outcome is based on your Strike’s outcome and you don’t suffer the MAP until after you complete the Spellsling activity. Additionally, although you’re limited to a single cantrip from this feat, you can use innate spells with Spellsling. If you’re planning to run a beast gunner build, ancestry feats which grant you innate cantrips drastically increase in value for you. They’re also the easiest way to gain more cantrips. Without ancestry feat support, you’re looking at other archetypes for more cantrip options. If you’re playing a Spellshot for whom damage versatility is the name of the game, multiple cantrips are absolutely a feature you want, especially if you’re using a drake rifle or breath blaster. Baseline cantrip options include acid splash, gouging claw, phase bolt (arcane only), produce flame, ray of frost, tanglefoot, and telekinetic projectile (arcane only). Generally speaking, the arcane list is the better choice unless you want a bit of extra healing capability. Occult innate cantrips from an ancestry don’t add anything beyond that list, but divine innate cantrips add divine lance for an alignment damage option. Wellspring gnomes and ragdyan vanaras are the only options for divine cantrips.
(8) Basic Beast Gunner Spellcasting: Gain a first, second, and third level spell and spell slot for your chosen tradition. Note that you can choose lower-level spells in your higher slots, making true strike a great choice if you don’t want anything else at a given level. Unfortunately, you don’t have a means of using true strike before a Spellsling. Realistically, the third level spell is going to be the most valuable slot for a damage spell since your cantrips will generally out-damage a first level spell by now. You do get a signature spell at each level, so if you want to slot a damaging spell in lower slots, you can heighten it for better damage (and should select spells for damage versatility).
(10) Drain Vitality: Temp HP and help against persistent damage once per minute. It’ll prevent you from using your beast gun’s activated effects for a turn, but you can still use Spellsling.
(12) Expert Beast Gunner Spellcasting: Gain a fourth level spell and spell slot when you take the feat, a fifth level spell + slot at level 14, and a sixth level spell + slot at level 16. Also raises your arcane or primal spell attack & DC proficiency to expert, although that doesn’t matter much.
(16) Controlled Bullet: This feat is best with lots of range on your beast gun, making drake gun once again the best option. Being able to Strike multiple targets once each with no MAP for two actions, and keep Striking until you miss, is outstanding even if it’s only usable once per day.
(18) Master Beast Gunner Spellcasting: Gain a seventh level spell and spell slot when you take the feat and an eighth level spell + slot at level 20. Also raises your arcane or primal spell attack & DC proficiency to master, although that doesn’t matter much.

Below, I list some good choices for these spell slots. Spell attack options are underlined. In parentheses, damage types will be indicated as such: B = bludgeoning, P = piercing, S = slashing, A = acid, C = cold, E = electric, F = fire, P = poison. Bolded options are particularly strong choices.

Arcane options:

1st: admonishing ray (B), alarm, ant haul, anticipate peril, briny bolt (B), endure, feather fall (assuming no Cat Fall), fleet step, hydraulic push (B), illusory disguise (Pistoleros), jump, longstrider, negate aroma (Snipers), pocket library (Spellshots), shocking grasp (E), snowball (C), true strike
2nd: acid arrow (A), blur, darkvision, endure elements, false life, humanoid form (Pistoleros), invisibility, knock (Triggerbrands), loose time’s arrow, mirror image, phantom steed, resist energy, see invisibility (especially with Blood in the Air), slough skin, spider climb, telekinetic maneuver
3rd: clairaudience, cozy cabin, haste, invisibility sphere, levitate, magnetic acceleration (B & P), meld into stone (Snipers), safe passage, time jump, warding aggression (Drifters and Triggerbrands), web of eyes
4th: blink, chromatic ray (randomized A / E / F / P), clairvoyance, countless eyes, dimension door, fly, freedom of movement, invisibility curtain, stoneskin, telepathy, veil, winning streak
5th: blink charge (Drifters, Triggerbrands, Vanguards), flowing strike, prying eye, telekinetic haul
6th: disintegrate, mislead (Pistoleros), true seeing
7th: fiery body, true target
8th: disappearance, polar ray (C)

Primal options:

1st: ant haul, briny bolt (B), feather fall (assuming no Cat Fall), fleet step, heal, hydraulic push (B), jump, longstrider, negate aroma (Snipers), shocking grasp (E), snowball (C)
2nd: acid arrow (A), barkskin, create food (campaign-dependent), darkvision, humanoid form (Pistoleros), loose time’s arrow, resist energy, restoration, slough skin, tree shape (Snipers)
3rd: haste, magnetic acceleration (B & P), meld into stone (Snipers), moth’s supper, safe passage, searing light (F (& Good vs. fiends / undead)), shadow spy, soothing blossoms, warding aggression (Drifters and Triggerbrands)
4th: air walk, countless eyes, fly, freedom of movement, murderous vine (B & P), soothing spring, spike stones, stoneskin, vital beacon
5th: death ward, flowing strike, healing well,
6th: blanket of stars (Snipers), field of life, true seeing
7th: fiery body, regenerate

Blessed One (**)

I won’t list the feats for this archetype because they should be pretty easy to pick out. Basically, all of them are useful if you’re going with this archetype, but you’ll have to balance them against your class feats. This archetype offers a brief burst of in-combat healing, as well as lots of condition removal and a few buffs alongside the focus point-oriented heal. Since many of the level 2 gunslinger feats are pretty uninspiring, you could easily take the Blessed One Dedication and never take another archetype feat. Really, though, this archetype should be a pick only if your party needs exploration mode healing because it’s effectively infinitely sustainable outside of combat. If you’re going for a heavier support role and communicate that to your party, this archetype is an improvement for that role.

Dual-Weapon Warrior (**)

This archetype’s rating is primarily for Drifters and Pistoleros, but can also apply for Triggerbrands. While there are some great feats here for dual wield builds, the feat tax to get access to them is quite heavy, requiring two feats to even get the basic benefits of the dedication feat. If you’re willing to tough out the early levels with that feat tax, you’ll enjoy some strong options later on.

(2) Dual-Weapon Warrior Dedication: Only useful for Triggerbrands with both weapons in melee mode. Otherwise, it’s unusable as-is.
(4) Dual Thrower: This is the feat that mostly makes the archetype functional for you, but there’s a bit to break down here. It allows you to use any dual-weapon warrior feat with a melee Strike component for ranged Strikes, as well as carrying any effects from the feats over to ranged Strikes. It does not, however, waive the requirements for any feats, meaning feats like Twin Parry that require you to wield two melee weapons are unusable.
(8) Flensing Slice: Using this feat will take up all three of your actions for a round since it has to follow up on Double Slice. It also requires both attacks to hit. That said, it’s a lot of bleed damage and synergizes well with exsanguinating ammunition. It also renders the target Flat-Footed, which won’t be particularly useful for you, but your allies will appreciate it. Pistoleros in particular will do well with this feat, being able to land two Strikes at range with only a -2 penalty on the second, followed by both the bleed and the debuff out at that same range.
(10) Dual-Weapon Blitz: Kind of like a diet version of the Drifter’s Greater Deed, allowing you to Stride and make two Strikes, but with the MAP penalizing the second Strike. Less useful for Drifters once they have their Greater Deed, but three actions for the price of two is pretty good, especially when you need to reposition.
(12) Twin Riposte: Best on Drifters with a shield who have Raised a Shield for maximum chance of a crit fail Strike against them. That said, Striking back against an enemy who’s crit failed a Strike against you is a good use of a reaction. Note that this is specifically for a crit failed Strike, which excludes spell attacks. If you’re able to Disarm, doing so as a reaction is just about the only time it’s a meaningful debuff, although the impetus for a crit failed Strike may be that the offending enemy was under the MAP already, leaving few debuffed actions.
(14) Dual Onslaught: Better chance of landing a hit if the dice hate you.
(16) Improved Twin Riposte: Extra reactions never hurt even if the chances of this one getting triggered are low.

Familiar Mascot (**)

I won’t list the feats for this archetype because they mostly just give you more familiar abilities. If you didn’t already have a familiar from your ancestry, you’ll get a familiar with two abilities. If you did, your familiar will instead get four abilities, which is all you realistically need from a familiar. The only feat that really breaks the mold here is (4) Familiar Mascot which will provide you with a bit of group support and can help your caster allies out. As for the useful abilities on offer, Partner in Crime is useful for Pistoleros, Triggerbrands, and anyone building for a trapfinder role. Second Opinion is good for Spellshots. Threat Display will relieve Pistoleros from needing Intimidating Glare. Flier + Share Senses gives you some scouting potential, and this scouting combo can certainly benefit from having four or more familiar abilities for better scouting. Familiar skill usage will work best on Pistoleros who have the CHA to fuel the familiar’s skills. If you have true strike (or any non-cantrip innate spell, but that one’s a standout) from your ancestry, Innate Surge will give you an extra use of it per day. If you take Familiar Mascot, just about any of the master abilities will be useful for someone in any given party.

Marshal (***)

This archetype only really works for Pistoleros due to the CHA-based skill requirements, though Snipers can also kind of make it work. Intimidation is generally your best bet, but you can get away with the diplomacy options if you want to fully lean into a face role. There are quite a few solid options here if you want a more supportive role in your party, which is not a bad thing for Pistoleros who can hang out in the back line and be flexible with their actions (especially alongside Fake Out).

(2) Marshal Dedication: Requires you to be trained in diplomacy or intimidation, which should be no problem for you. Trained or expert in whichever skill matters to you between diplomacy and intimidation. If you take this feat at level 2 and go with intimidation, you’ll have expert proficiency a level early. You also give yourself and allies a status bonus to saves against fear, which is frequently useful and stacks with the bonus from similar ancestry feats.
(4) Dread Marshal Stance: Even if you’re the only person in your party who stands a good chance of landing critical Strikes, this feat is still great. If your party has another ranged martial in the group, even better. If you’re using a shorter-range weapon and willing to get near melee with your melee martial friends, it’s also useful, but that’s a risky choice. Regardless, being able to slap Frightened 1 on enemies when you crit with Strikes is awesome.
(4) Inspiring Marshal Stance: If there isn’t a bard in your party (or someone else who can easily throw out a status bonus to attack rolls) you’ll be able to put this to good use, even at range on your spellcaster allies. The bonus to saves against mental effects does not stack against fear effects, but it does broaden the value of the bonus beyond just fear. If absolutely nothing else, it turns you into even more of a crit machine.
(4) Snap Out of It!: Help your allies get out of mental effects like Frightened or being Controlled.
(4) Steel Yourself!: Primarily useful for helping allies overcome poison / disease effects since you can reliably predict those fortitude saves. Otherwise it’s kind of difficult to use. It is at least resource-free temp HP, although not much.
(6) Cadence Call: Pull a single action forward a round once per minute for allies who want to use it. They can only Stride, but if your allies need some help with positioning (especially slower-speed allies like dwarves) you can get them where they need to be in a more timely manner. This one will require some party communication and tactical cohesion. Discuss ahead of time if you want to take this feat.
(8) Back to Back: Negate flanking with your adjacent allies unless at least 3+ enemies coordinate to flank you and one other ally. As a Pistolero, you can hang out in back with your caster friend and keep the two of you safer from enemies who really want to bust up your backline.
(8) To Battle!: Generally best used as the single action version to help ferry an ally into position. The two action version trades two of your actions for an ally’s reaction to Strike MAP-free. That’s going to be less frequently viable since you have excellent firearm proficiency and need your actions to Strike and reload.
(14) Tactical Cadence: Requires Cadence Call. This feat turns Cadence Call into a free Quickened turn for the affected allies without the eventual Slowed 1.
(14) Target of Opportunity: If someone else in your party is built for ranged Strikes, you might as well get a ranged faux-Attack of Opportunity out of it. You’ll suffer a -2 penalty, but being able to get extra ranged Strikes outside of your turn is solid.

Mauler (**)

This archetype only really works for Vanguards using a reinforced stock. It’s not a great archetype for you, but it can give you some athletics skill action options should you feel the need. The concept of a Vanguard wading into melee and slamming foes down with their gun may better meet your concept of the class fantasy. Note that this archetype does not allow you to use your weapon’s potency rune for athletics skill actions.

(2) Mauler Dedication: Dead feat, but it’s necessary to get the better feats.
(4) Knockdown: Simultaneous melee Strike and Trip without the MAP until after the activity completes. It’ll mostly preclude you following up with a ranged Strike since doing so would be at a -10, but it gives you some versatility with your athletics and synergizes well if you’re running a reinforced stock for flanking.
(6) Clear the Way: It won’t come up a whole lot, but being able to Shove a pack of enemies can set up easier tactical situations for you and your allies.
(8) Shoving Sweep: MAP-free Shove when an enemy triggers the reaction, which will interfere with their plans to get where they’re going and potentially waste enemy actions.
(12) Improved Knockdown: Requires Knockdown. Automatic crit success Trip (extra damage included) if you hit while using Knockdown, and it only applies one level of the MAP, which makes following up with a ranged Strike actually viable. The reinforced stock is a d6 weapon when wielded two-handed, so the Trip damage die will not increase from this feat.

Overwatch (***) (U, F)

This archetype helps you make the most of your perception score, as well as some support for athletics-focused allies and, if needed, for allies who suck at acrobatics.

(2) Overwatch Dedication: Gives you and allies within 30 ft. of you a +2 to perception-based initiative checks. Less useful for Snipers, but it’s a rather strong feat for level two considering it’s a sort of better version of the level eleven general feat Incredible Scout.
(4) Spyglass Modification: Especially awesome if you’re frequently Avoiding Notice to get into useful positions, allowing you to see around corners and better leverage your perception.
(8) Topple Giants: If someone else in your party frequently uses athletics skill actions (minus Grapple) and you’re frequently within 30 ft. of them, you can give a pretty big bonus to follow-up attempts when they fail. They’ll still suffer the MAP, but you’ll help with that a fair bit.
(10) Wide Overwatch: Extend your overwatch field to 60 ft.
(12) Forewarn: With your excellent perception progression, chances are good you’ll have a higher perception DC than an ally or two’s AC. Being able to replace their AC with your perception DC once per minute as a reaction is a solid defensive benefit for your party. For comparison, at the level you get this feat, if you were to start with 14 WIS and keep investing in it and a hypothetical wizard friend were to start with 14 DEX and keep investing in it, you’d have a perception DC of 32 vs. the wizard’s AC of 28.
(14) Control Tower: Negates the Concealed condition for you and allies in your overwatch field, as well as making it significantly easier to hit Hidden enemies. Also gives you a sizable bonus to Seek against Hidden and Undetected creatures. Synergizes somewhat with Deadeye.
(16) Converge: Allows you to set up allies to use a MAP-free reaction for a melee Strike when you successfully connect a ranged Strike. Less useful for allies who have a high chance of triggering an Attack of Opportunity or similar reaction, but at least you can guarantee some extra action economy efficiency and melee damage for your party. It does eat up both your reaction and your ally’s, though.

Pistol Phenom (***) (U, F)

This archetype only really works for Pistoleros due to the CHA-based skill requirements. Additionally, performance is a bad skill on its own, but this archetype requires it on top of deception… yet it mostly replaces deception. You’ll want to focus on performance and intimidation as your two primary skills with this archetype. Although reliance on the performance skill is a drawback, this archetype adds a fair bit of versatility to Pistoleros.

(2) Pistol Phenom Dedication: Gives you Pistol Twirl, which is quite good considering you almost certainly wanted that feat at level 2 anyway. Other than that, this feat just lets you use performance instead of deception to do the Pistol Twirl ranged feint. It provides some measure of anti-synergy with your Slinger’s Reload because it more or less negates the use of deception (due to skill investment limitations) for the Slinger’s Reload. That being said, you’ll still be able to use intimidation easily, and you’re almost certainly going to be using Dual-Weapon Reload instead anyway.
(4) Gunpowder Gauntlet: Although you need to be wielding a loaded one-handed firearm to use this feat’s granted action, you don’t actually need to discharge said firearm. If you can kite or tank a few hits, it synergizes quite well with Pistolero’s Challenge since the combination both incentivizes an enemy to attack you and disincentivizes them from attacking your allies. It’ll take two actions requiring two different skill checks to pull off the combination, though.
(6) Dazzling Bullet: One action to both Strike and potentially Dazzle a target with a performance check. Solid.
(8) Hot Foot: It’ll shut off your target’s reactions (and maybe debuff them), which will be good for personal and party positioning when needed, but you have to discharge your firearm and target a reflex DC, which may provide some difficulties in pulling it off. At a bare minimum, you’re committing a subsequent action to reload in exchange for taking away a reaction.
(10) Phenom’s Verve: Buffs your attacks when you critically succeed at a performance check associated with any of the archetype feats. If you have a bard in your party or someone similar who frequently grants status bonuses to attacks, you won’t need this feat. Otherwise, it has potential to passively turn you into even more of a crit machine.
(12) Reach for the Sky: It’s two actions and discharges your (or one of your) firearm(s), but it’s an AoE Demoralize that causes all sorts of drawbacks for enemies who become Frightened. You’ll cancel out Raise a Shield bonuses and negate many reactions, free actions, and item usage. Like a normal Demoralize attempt, you’re only really going to be able to use this activity once per encounter due to its post-usage immunity element. It does not, however, trigger the typical Demoralize immunity, meaning you can follow up this activity with an intimidation-based Slinger’s Reload.

Sentinel (**)

Heavy armor nets you an extra point of AC, but it comes with some drawbacks. You’ll need at least 16 STR in order to not suffer a penalty to your STR- and DEX-based skills and the full -10 ft. penalty to speed. That’s not much of an issue for Drifters, Triggerbrands, or Vanguards, at least, since they generally want to start with 16 STR anyway. Regardless, even with enough STR, you’re still going to suffer a -5ft. penalty to your speed. Since you’re ranged, that’s less of an issue, but the three Ways most able to handle the penalty also most want to get into melee. If your GM allows it, mithral is an uncommon level 12+ option to craft / upgrade your armor so that you will suffer no speed penalties (assuming proper STR). You also don’t have any use for the bulwark trait available on any of the 6 AC / 0 DEX heavy armors.

(2) Sentinel Dedication: Gives you proficiency in heavy armor that scales with your normal armor proficiencies. If you’re just taking this feat to get access to the later Armor Specialist feat for medium armor usage, this feat does nothing for you beyond qualifying you for later feats.
(4) Steel Skin: Fortunately, this one’s a skill feat, because if you’re using heavy armor it doesn’t do anything until level 19. Your DEX is high enough that being ambushed while sleeping won’t be that big of an AC loss, to the point that it’s not worth swapping to medium armor before you sleep. The only real reason to take this feat prior to level 19 is if you want to qualify for another archetype by level 8.
(6) Armor Specialist: Armor specialization for medium and heavy armor. Since the purpose of getting heavy armor proficiency is almost entirely to add a point of AC, your only real options are composite and plate. Composite armor specialization gives you resistance to piercing damage and plate armor specialization gives you resistance to slashing damage. Generally, composite armor (splint mail, specifically) will be better for you since you can stay out at range where the most likely physical damage you’ll take is piercing. Splint mail is also the cheapest heavy armor option, which doesn’t matter much at this level, but does matter if you’re planning ahead from the lower levels. Up in melee, damage type is a crapshoot, so you might as well take the resistance that will have a higher likelihood across diverse combat scenarios. If, for some reason, you did not take this archetype for the extra point of AC, you can get other armor types from the medium armor list and use an armored skirt for better specialization effects. Those options include crit damage reduction, bludgeoning resistance, precision damage resistance, or automatically dealing piercing damage back to an enemy who crits you in melee.
(8) Armored Rebuff: Taxing enemy action economy as a reaction is always a useful tool, even if it only triggers on an enemy’s crit failed melee Strike.

Shadowcaster (***) (U)

Requires you to be able to cast spells, which you can get pretty easily from a heritage or ancestry feat for an innate spell. This rating assumes you’re building for stealth. This archetype, right from the first feat, enables stealth quite a bit. Note that, while you can increase your focus pool size with this archetype, it offers no means of improving your Refocus to ever give you back more than one focus point. If you are unfamiliar with how focus points work, the maximum number of focus points you can ever have is three.

(2) Shadowcaster Dedication: Gives you a focus point and the cloak of shadow focus spell. It’s mobile Concealment that you can use to Hide anywhere, regardless of terrain. It does take an action to cast, but that’s not bad at all for a spell, and it lasts for a minute. Note that this feat renders you unable to cast spells with the light trait. Hopefully you didn’t take light or dancing lights with the ancestry feat that gave you access to this archetype.
(4) Familiar: There are some useful familiar functions, especially for deception via the Partner in Crime ability.
(6) Disciple of Shade: Gives you the two-action focus spell inscrutable mask, which grants a scaling status bonus to Lie, Feint, Demoralize, and Hide (in dim light or darkness). It is a ten minute long buff, but you can only combine it with cloak of shadow once per day. You can reduce that restriction somewhat if you gain a third focus point or you have a feature like the gnome feat Energized Font to get back a focus point once per day. Regardless, it’s a really good buff that you can recharge all day every day and that you can use to pre-buff due to its 10 minute duration.
(6) Enhanced Familiar: Requires the Familiar feat. If you feel the need for a familiar with four abilities, this is a means of getting one.
(12) Shadow Magic: Gain either dance of darkness or shadow jump. Both are focus spells. This is your first means of gaining your third focus point. Shadow jump is far and away the better option, giving you a means of emulating effects like dimension door or Black Powder Embodiment. It’s significantly better at level 15 when it’s eighth level heightened version causes you to become Invisible until the end of the next turn after using shadow jump. That Invisibility will not break when you Strike, giving you an easy means of forcing the Flat-Footed condition. It is a two-action spell, though. You’ll need to be careful about action economy.

Sniping Duo (***)

More than anything, the value of this archetype lies in the wealth of useful reactions. Tag Team in particular is a standout, although you’ll have to be particularly diligent about keeping your weapon loaded. A gauntlet bow can sort of solve the issue, though keeping runes up on two weapons is cost-prohibitive. There are also a few good options that buff your own or your ally’s attacks / damage.

(2) Sniping Duo Dedication: Allows you to select an ally to help you out with later feats and give / receive buffs, sort of. Your firearm Strikes will not receive the circumstance bonus to damage because you already get one. You’ll be able to give your designated ally the damage bonus, though, and Drifters and Trigger brands can get the bonus to melee Strikes.
(4) Assisting Shot: Give your ally a circumstance bonus to attacks (including spell attacks) when you use this feat, which will stack with the circumstance bonus to damage granted by the dedication feat. The fact that you have such great firearm proficiency progression means you have a good chance of giving your ally the better +2 bonus to an attack when you crit.
(4) Triangulate: No penalty for firing into your second range increment and lesser penalties for further increments. Retrain this feat at level 17 as it becomes more or less obsolete.
(6) Exploit Opening: Might as well get a ranged faux-Attack of Opportunity out of your designated ally’s crits. You’ll suffer a -2 penalty and need to be within your first range increment, but being able to get extra ranged Strikes outside of your turn is solid.
(8) Duo’s Aim: The same as the Sniper’s Aim feat, but without having to be a Sniper.
(8) Vantage Shot: There are some stealth requirements for either you or an ally depending on the weapon they’re using, but as long as that condition is satisfied this feat provides an easy reaction-based means of rendering a target Flat-Footed.
(10) Tag Team: Extra chances to Strike, albeit with a -2 penalty, when you or your designated ally miss a Strike, and which does not interact with the MAP for either of you regardless of whose turn it is. Outstanding damage efficiency, especially with a capacity or reloading weapon with which you can follow up your own failed Strikes.
(12) Deflecting Shot: The best part of this feat is the fact that you know whether or not it’s worth spending ammunition ahead of time. With a reaction you can turn a crit into a normal success or a success into a failure when your designated ally gets hit.
(12) Eagle Eyes: Mostly useful for the Ways that get in melee, it’ll often help protect you and your ally from being flanked in multi-enemy fights, plus some protection against stealthy / invisible enemies.

Talisman Dabbler (**)

There are several useful talismans, of which you can easily get two per day for free and never take another feat in this archetype, but of particular use are owlbear claws for Drifters and Triggerbrands. Fortunately, this archetype does not require you to be trained in crafting, but a focus on crafting helps with many of the available feats. Be aware that you can only auto-generate talismans up to half your level.

(2) Talisman Dabbler Dedication: If you want to take this feat and never look at talisman dabbler again, you’ll do just fine. Two owlbear claws per day for Drifter and Triggerbrand melee critical specialization is nothing to sneeze at. If you’re using an ancestry weapon and plan to take the critical specialization feat at level 5, retrain this feat. Note that the free talismans you get are limited to an item level of no more than half your level.
(4) Quick Fix: Gives you Rapid Affixture and emulates its value without ever needing to invest in crafting.
(8) Deeper Dabbler: Two extra free talismans per day every time you take this feat. It’s available for additional picks at level 14+.
(14) Talismanic Sage: Allows you to Affix two talismans to a single item. Drifters and Triggerbrands will appreciate the efficiency since they can attach two owlbear claws to a weapon.

Unexpected Sharpshooter (**) (U)

This archetype gives a few fortune / misfortune effects and shores up some deception capability for Pistoleros. The Chain Reaction feat seems cool, but it’s a trap feat due to the MAP.

(2) Unexpected Sharpshooter Dedication: Gain Accidental Shot, a once-per-day two-action activity to give yourself fortune on an attack and its damage. It negates circumstance penalties as well as the target's Concealed or Hidden condition. Circumstance penalties are rare outside of the kickback trait, and you won’t see the kickback trait as a Pistolero.
(4) Lucky Escape: Once per day reaction to impose misfortune on an enemy attacker.
(6) No Hard Feelings: Give yourself the ability to deal nonlethal damage with your ranged attacks penalty-free. If you’re playing a goody two-shoes who doesn’t like to kill enemies, you’ll love this feat. If your party doesn’t like it when you splatter brains everywhere you go, they’ll also appreciate this feat.
(7) That Was a Close One, Huh?: This one’s a skill feat and requires master proficiency in deception. You’ll be able to Demoralize with deception once per round after using Accidental Shot or Lucky Escape, giving you some skill consolidation if you feel you need it.
(8) Unbelievable Luck: Accidental Shot becomes once per hour instead of once per day.
(10) I Meant to Do That: Once per hour, you’ll be able to use deception for an athletics skill action (minus Grapple) at range. It’ll suffer the MAP, though, since you can only use this action to follow up a missed ranged Strike. Further skill consolidation if you need it.
(10) Unbelievable Escape: Lucky Escape once per hour instead of once per day.