Pistolancer
The Pistolancer is a vanguard warrior who combines polearm discipline with alchemical engineering. Whether fighting behind a massive shield or wielding a heavy weapon, a Pistolancer turns each impact into a controlled detonation, using the recoil of a gunlance to hold the line, protect allies, and break enemy assaults.
Fighter Subclass: Pistolancer
Bastion Arsenal
3rd-level Fighter feature
You learn to forge, maintain, and wield your discipline's signature weapon. You gain proficiency with smith's tools. In addition, you can spend 1 hour working with your smith's tools to modify one of the following weapons into a gunlance: a spear, a lance, a halberd, a pike, or a trident. The gunlance retains the chosen weapon's normal statistics, including its damage dice and properties, but incorporates an alchemical firing mechanism. You can have only one gunlance at a time. If you create a new one, the previous gunlance's mechanism deteriorates, and it becomes an ordinary weapon again.
Bulwark Handling
If your gunlance is a spear, a lance, or a trident, you can wield it in one hand while wielding a shield in the other. When you wield a gunlance made from a lance in this way, you ignore its usual restriction on close combat: you do not have disadvantage on attack rolls against targets within 1.5 meters of you. However, its damage die becomes 1d10 instead of 1d12 while it is wielded in one hand. While you wield your gunlance in one hand and a shield in the other, your speed is reduced by 3 meters.
Heavy Weapons
If your gunlance has the heavy property, as a halberd or pike does, you must always wield it in two hands. You cannot benefit from Bulwark Handling with a gunlance that has the heavy property.
Explosive Ammunition
3rd-level Fighter feature
Your gunlance uses alchemical cartridges that you prepare and maintain yourself. Your maximum number of cartridges equals your Constitution modifier + your proficiency bonus, with a minimum of 1 cartridge.
You regain all expended cartridges when you finish a short or long rest.
Shelling: Once per turn, when you hit a creature with a melee attack using your gunlance, you can expend 1 cartridge to trigger a controlled detonation. The attack deals an extra 1d6 force damage to the target.
Tactical Reload: As a bonus action, you can regain a number of expended cartridges equal to your proficiency bonus, up to your maximum number of cartridges.
Once you use this bonus action, you cannot use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Interception Guard
7th-level Fighter feature
You learn to use your gunlance's recoil to hold your position and break an enemy's momentum.
Bastion Anchor: You have advantage on saving throws and ability checks made to resist effects that would move you against your will or knock you prone.
Suppressing Fire: When a creature you can see within your gunlance's reach makes an attack roll against a creature other than you, or forces at least one creature other than you to make a saving throw, you can use your reaction and expend 1 cartridge to fire a suppressing salvo.
Roll 1d6.
- If the trigger was an attack roll, subtract the number rolled from the creature's attack roll.
- If the trigger was a saving throw, choose an affected creature you can see. That creature adds the number rolled to its saving throw.
You must use this reaction before the outcome of the roll is announced.
Bulwark Expertise: Your mastery of heavy equipment and war machinery makes you especially effective against physical obstacles. You have advantage on Strength (Athletics) checks made to break down a door, push a heavy load, hold a position, or break an inanimate object.
In addition, if you spend at least 1 minute inspecting a structure, door, siege weapon, mechanism, or alchemical device, the DM can tell you whether it appears reinforced, unstable, trapped, or designed to explode.
Wyvern Fire
10th-level Fighter feature
You learn to release all the heat built up in your gunlance in a single blast.
When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can replace one of your attacks with an explosive discharge. You must expend all your remaining cartridges, with a minimum of 1 cartridge. The explosion forms a 4.5-meter cone in front of you. Each creature in the area must make a Dexterity saving throw against your Pistolancer save DC.
Pistolancer save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength or Dexterity modifier, your choice.
A creature takes 1d8 fire damage per cartridge expended on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. Once you use Wyvern Fire, you cannot use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Perfect Mechanism
15th-level Fighter feature
Your mastery of the gunlance reaches an exceptional degree of precision.
Your Shelling damage die increases from 1d6 to 1d8. Your Suppressing Fire die also increases from 1d6 to 1d8.
In addition, when you use Tactical Reload, you regain all expended cartridges instead of a number equal to your proficiency bonus.
Perfect Mechanism
18th-level Fighter feature
You know how to push your gunlance beyond its normal physical limits.
When you use your Action Surge class feature to gain an additional action, your gunlance enters thermal overload until the end of your current turn.
During this overload, you gain the following benefits:
- Every successful melee attack with your gunlance automatically triggers the Shelling effect, without expending a cartridge and ignoring its limit of once per turn.
- All bludgeoning, piercing, slashing, force, and fire damage dealt by your gunlance ignores the target creatures' damage resistances.
This feature does not allow you to ignore damage immunities.
