The amalj’aa are known for being devout to their false God, Ifrit, they practice many different styles of combat. Some rise as thaumaturges, others as lancers, and others take up archery. These few have learned much from trading and working with the Warrior of Light, gaining new technology to add to their arsenal. Once very strong archers, are now fitted with modern technology to enhance and build upon their strengths.
The bowgunner is an archetype of the archer class, available only to amalj’aa archers.
Archetype Main Ability Scores:
The bowgunner mainly focuses on STR for martial combat and for his class features.
Archetype Feature Replacements:
1st – Weapon and Armor Proficiency, Archer Training. 3rd – Agile Archer. 4th – Expert Archer. 6th – Fast Movement. 8th –Heavy Pull.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency
Bowgunners are proficient with all simple weapons, light and heavy bowgun, and all non-exotic bows and crossbows. Bowgunners are proficient with light and medium armor, but not with any type of shields.
This ability modifies weapon and armor proficiency.
Light Bowgun (Ex)
Starting at 1st level, a bowgunner begins play with a specialty heavy repeating crossbow. The light bowgun uses a 20-box magazine fitted for crossbow bolts and requires a move action to reload. In addition, the bowgunner uses his Strength modifier for attack rolls with a bowgun (instead of his Dexterity modifier) and uses his total archer levels in place of his base attack bonus for the purpose of qualifying for feats. Any archer class feature that only works while wearing light or no armor now also function while wearing medium armor and any archer class feature that keys of Dexterity instead keys of Strength. If lost or destroyed, the bowgunner can pay 100 gil to get one remade.
This ability replaces archer training.
Strong Grip (Ex)
Starting at 3rd level, a bowgunner may add his Strength modifier to the damage roll while using a bow or crossbow. If an effect or item would allow a bowgunner to use his Dexterity for ranged weapon damage rolls, he instead uses Strength, but it doesn’t stack.
This ability replaces agile archer.
Specialty Ammo (Ex)
Starting at 4th level, the bowgunner can start to use smaller box magazines with a capacity of 5 to load specialty ammo into his bowgun. It requires a move action to remove the current box magazine and load a specialty magazine. Specialty ammo costs 5 gil per bolt, or 40 gil for a full 5 box magazine.
- Blunted: Changes the damage type of his attacks to bludgeoning.
- Elemental: Changes the damage type of his attacks to the element on the bolts.
- Piercing: Attack rolls now ignore the target’s armor bonus to AC.
- Slashing: Changes the damage type of his attacks to slashing.
- Sunder: Attack rolls cause damage to the target and a piece of equipment on them.
This ability replaces expert archer.
Heavy Bowgun (Ex)
Modifications and upgrades have been made to the bowgunner’s light bowgun. This increases the damage to 2d6. Additionally, it increases to a 30-box magazine capacity for ammo that is not specialty ammo.
This ability replaces fast movement.
Hellfire Shot (Su)
Starting at 8th level, the bowgunner has learned how to harness the power of his false God. As a full-round action, he can drop to prone with no penalties and charge up a single attack. The bowgunner can make a ranged touch attack that, if successful, deals normal weapon damage plus 1d6 points of fire damage for every two archer levels. If the hit is successful, it explodes out in a 20-ft.-radius and hits other enemies with a Reflex save DC (10 + half of the archer’s level + his Strength modifier) for half damage.
This ability replaces heavy pull.
