The blue mage uses his magic to imbue his firearms with spells. The practice needed to learn and perfect the art of guns and magic means they have less time to hone their blue magic to perfection, and never learn to mimic the fighting styles of monsters. But combining this emerging technology with their considerable arcane skills, they transform firearms into a powerful focus.
The gun mage is an archetype of the blue mage class.
Archetype Main Ability Scores:
The gun mage mainly focuses on DEX for martial combat and INT for their class features and spellcasting.
Archetype Feature Replacements:
1st – Cantrips, Spell Proficiency, Blue Magery. 2nd – Azure Talent, Favored Enemy, Scan. 4th – Azure Physical Training, Azure Talent. 6th – Azure Talent. 8th – Azure Physical Training, Azure Talent. 10th – Azure Talent. 12th – Azure Physical Training, Azure Talent. 14th – Azure Talent, Seen It Before. 16th – Azure Physical Training, Azure Talent. 18th – Azure Talent. 20th – Assimilation, Azure Physical Training, Azure Talent.
Sapphire Gun (Su)
At 1st level, the gun mage gains the Exotic Weapon Proficiency (simple firearms) feat, and one or two of his firearms can be sapphire guns. Sapphire guns are normal one-handed or two-handed firearms in the hands of others, as they were normal firearms before the gun mage imbued them with magic. In a gun mage’s hands, they both fire projectiles (bullets and pellets) and cast magic. At 1st level, the gun mage decides whether he wants to have one or two sapphire guns at a time. If the gun mage chooses to have only one sapphire gun at a time, spells fired through the sapphire gun that require an attack roll have a ×3 critical hit multiplier.
As a standard action, the gun mage can cast any ranged touch attack, cone, line, or ray blue mage spells through his sapphire gun that has a casting time of 1 standard action or less. When he casts through the sapphire gun, the gun’s enhancement bonus (if any) is a bonus to the spell’s attack rolls or to the spell’s saving throw DCs. Yet there are dangers inherent to this method. If any of the spells’ attack rolls result in a natural 1 (a misfire), or a natural 20 is rolled on any saving throw made against the spell by a target (an overload), the sapphire gun gains the broken condition. If the sapphire gun already has the broken condition, the gun explodes. When a gun explodes, it lets loose a blast of force, or if the spell has the dark, earth, fire, ice, light, lightning, water, or wind descriptor, it deals that type of elemental damage instead. In the case of spells with multiple descriptors, roll randomly among the descriptors to determine the type of damage dealt by the blast. The blast is centered on a single intersection within the gun mage’s space (gun mage’s choice) and deals 1d6 points of the appropriate elemental damage or non-elemental damage per level of the spell cast. Any creature within the blast other than the gun mage can make a Reflex saving throw (DC 10 + sacrificed spell’s level + his Intelligence modifier) to halve the damage.
A gun mage can attune his sapphire guns at the start of each day. That attunement lasts until the gun mage attunes to a new gun, even if a formerly attuned gun is destroyed.
This ability replaces favored enemy and seen it before gained at 2nd level and 14th level.
Precise Shot
The gun mage gains Precise Shot as a bonus feat.
This ability replaces spell proficiency.
Gunsmith
The gun mage gains the Gunsmithing feat and a battered gun that is identical to the gun a gunner gains at first level. If the gun mage chooses the ability to attune two sapphire guns, he still only starts out with one gun. Like a gunner, a gun mage can use the Gunsmithing feat to restore his battered gun.
This ability replaces a blue magery gained at 1st level.
Mage Bullets (Su)
A gun mage is adept at transferring spell energy into his sapphire gun attacks. As a swift action, he can spend MP (up to the highest spell level he can cast) and transform that energy into a weapon bonus equal to the MP spent on a single barrel of his firearm. With that weapon bonus the gun mage can apply any of the following to his weapon: enhancement bonuses (up to +5) and allying, designating (lesser and greater), distance, earthen, earthen burst, flaming, flaming burst, frost, ghost touch, huntsman, icy burst, jetstream, jetstream burst, merciful, roaring, roaring burst, seeking, shock, shocking burst, spell storing, thundering, and wounding. A sapphire gun gains no benefit from having two of the same weapon special abilities on the same barrel. The effect of the mage bullets ability lasts for a number of minutes equal to the MP spent, or until this ability is used again to assign the barrel different enhancements.
This ability replaces cantrips, but the gun mage gains the detect magic and read magic cantrips. He can cast either of these as 1st-level spells.
Blue Magery (Ex)
At 1st level, the gun mage loses natural prowess blue magery but gains access to the following:
- Magic Shot: While the gun mage’s gun is imbued with power from the mage bullets, he can fire non-elemental bullets instead of regular ammunition. A non-elemental bullet deals 1d4 points of non-elemental damage for every time this blue magery is selected. Non-elemental bullets do not use black powder or ammunition and count as magic for the purpose of bypassing damage reduction.
This ability modifies blue magery.
Gunnery Talents (Ex)
As a gun mage gains experience, he learns a number of talents that aid his marksmanship skills. Starting at 2nd level, a gun mage gains one gunnery talent or azure talent. He gains an additional gunnery talent or azure talent for every two levels of blue mage attained after 2nd level. A gun mage must meet the prerequisite of the talent selected and unless specified otherwise, each talent can only be selected once. If a talent requires grit, the gun mage may use MP instead to pay for the activation.
- A complete list of gunnery talents can be found here: Gunnery Talents
This ability may replace azure talents.
Gun Fix (Ex)
At 2nd level, as a swift action, a gun mage can remove the broken condition from a single firearm he is currently wielding, as long as that condition was gained by a firearm misfire. He can use this ability a number of times per day equal to his Intelligence modifier.
This about replaces scan.
Fiend Hunter (Su)
At 4th level, the gun mage may choose a creature type (and subtype, if he chooses Humanoid or Outsider). He may spend 1 MP as a swift action to grant his sapphire guns the bane ability against that creature type. This benefit lasts until the beginning of his next turn. At 8th level and every four levels thereafter, the gun mage may select an additional creature type, and can choose to grant his sapphire guns the bane ability against that creature type instead. The gun mage may only have one fiend hunter ability active at a time.
Beginning at 12th level, the gun mage may spend an additional 2 MP to gain an additional +2 bonus to Attack rolls and +2d6 damage against the creature type.
This ability replaces azure physical training.
Fiend Slayer (Su)
At 20th level, once per day per creature type, the gun mage can spend an additional 2 MP when using his fiend hunter ability. In addition to taking damage normally, a creature that takes bonus damage from the gun mage’s fiend hunter ability must make a Fortitude Save (DC 10 + half of the blue mage’s level + his Intelligence modifier) or die. A gun mage can choose instead to deal an amount of nonlethal damage equal to the creature’s current hit points. A successful save negates this damage.
This ability replaces assimilation.
