Firearms Design impressions

I'm not sold on the current design of the firearms as is. The damage feels a bit low generally, and having them all be Reload 1 is questionable.

We are talking about black powder muzzle loader weapons, not neat cased ammo bolt action firearms after all. A musket would take at Least as long to reload as a Heavy Crossbow, the Arquebus even longer due to it's longer barrel, and how unwieldy it would be.

Then we have the addition of Versatile B/Modular. What is this supposed to represent? The ability to use the weapon as a melee weapon? If so, does it retain it's Fatal trait? If not, then what, we have blunt bullets? Modular on the Hand Cannon makes some bit of sense, as you can load sharp projectiles for Slashing and rocks or some such for Blunt damage, but a musket ball/bullet is... just a bullet. There isn't really a good way to make that bullet deal a different "type" of damage.

I would have preferred to see more refined later age firearms honestly than Black Powder weapons like this. Simple Revolvers, limited magazine fed weapons like the Volcanic etc... They are just more interesting than Muskets.

The weapons being black powder style weapons also make some of the feats feel... off. Pistol Twirl for instance is just asking for your ball/bullet to come flying out of your barrel, followed by a stream of your powder.

Thoughts?

Did you play with firearms in first edition?

I just feel like the firearm table is incomplete. I can't really judge it as is.

Did you play with firearms in first edition?

I did not. I think in my group we only had a gunslinger once, and they took the crossbow ace-esque archetype.

But that's beyond the point really. This isn't 1st ed, and the world has changed a bit. No reason why they couldn't advance the firearms from simple muskets to slightly more advanced weapons. They are easier to deal with mechanically, and don't require as much suspension of disbelief to operate.

If game rounds are more or less 6 seconds, that should mean that you get to shoot your musket at Most every other round. Every other action at level 1 would mean that your Gunslinger at 1st level is the most proficient rifleman who ever lived the day he picked up his gun.

The weapons being black powder style weapons also make some of the feats feel... off. Pistol Twirl for instance is just asking for your ball/bullet to come flying out of your barrel, followed by a stream of your powder.

Thoughts?

isn't that the reason people put some stuffing in front of the bullet when loading the weapon?

Reload is hard enough to balance as is even at reload 1. Making them even slower seems like a bad idea.

I think you're letting realism come before balance on some of these complaints. Realistically sure you would probably take longer than 2 seconds to reload a black powder weapon, but that would make the weapons suck. There's a reason no one uses heavy crossbows

RexAliquid wrote:

Did you play with firearms in first edition?

But that's beyond the point really. This isn't 1st ed, and the world has changed a bit.

The versatile B is a holdover from when guns did P and B damage.

beowulf99 wrote:

The weapons being black powder style weapons also make some of the feats feel... off. Pistol Twirl for instance is just asking for your ball/bullet to come flying out of your barrel, followed by a stream of your powder.

Thoughts?

isn't that the reason people put some stuffing in front of the bullet when loading the weapon?

Sure, called Wadding. You still didn't want to twirl your muzzle loader around a whole lot. There isn't a whole lot of force holding it in place. And the wadding goes in between the ball and the powder, meaning there is Nothing holding the ball in place at all, besides the tension of the barrel. So if you have Really well crafted ammunition that perfectly matches your rifle/pistol, you maybe could get away with this.

Reload is hard enough to balance as is even at reload 1. Making them even slower seems like a bad idea.

Sure sure, I get it. But that's why I feel they should probably just advance the age a bit and use cased ammo and weapons with breaches at least. I don't see a single good reason why they couldn't or shouldn't.

Just add a weapon trait. Magazine X or some such, where you can fire without reloading for X shots, then you have to spend some number of actions to reload the weapon. Done.

Did you play with firearms in first edition?

In first edition they were all effectively reload 0 due to rapid reload and Alchemical Cartridges. Many firearms also had capacity, which let them fire more than one shot before needing to be reloaded.

While beowulf99 is saying they reload too quickly now from realism perspective, the real problem from a balance perspective is that there damage is low for how long it takes to reload them.

Ideally, Firearms should at least compete with Bows for damage when including the reload requirements.

Simple firearms should be on par with other simple weapons, likewise martial with martial. The flintlock is worse than a crossbow unless you crit (d8 crossbow vs d6 flintlock, 120 vs 40 ft range, both reload 1, flintlock gets fatal d10 and versatile B), so it is a garbage weapon unless you are a fighter or gunslinger who crits more often.

I like that they require skill to be their most effective. A number of the feats plus expertise give you additional damage.

Fatal is crazy good and will make for exciting moments.

Simple firearms should be on par with other simple weapons, likewise martial with martial. The flintlock is worse than a crossbow unless you crit (d8 crossbow vs d6 flintlock, 120 vs 40 ft range, both reload 1, flintlock gets fatal d10 and versatile B), so it is a garbage weapon unless you are a fighter or gunslinger who crits more often.

I think that's the whole point; from a design perspective, firearms are something that you will only use if you really, really want to, or are really, really good at. They will not become all pervasive in the game world because they are not able to compete directly with existing options

I like that firearms are low damage by default with strong crit effects and interesting traits. This lets the Gunslinger class add the interesting extra damage options, without making guns by themselves too over powered to be weapons that non-gunslingers might occasionally pick up and use. The fire arm is all about crit fishing, which actually feels pretty appropriate.

I like that firearms are low damage by default with strong crit effects and interesting traits. This lets the Gunslinger class add the interesting extra damage options, without making guns by themselves too over powered to be weapons that non-gunslingers might occasionally pick up and use. The fire arm is all about crit fishing, which actually feels pretty appropriate.

Eh, I tend to agree from a balance perspective, which is why I like the Gunslinger having Fighter Proficiency. Though I do feel that I have to point out that this means that the Gunslinger effectively relies on crit fishing for their optimal damage, something that many (not myself) Hated about the design of the Magus and Striking Spell. I wouldn't be surprised to see many of those arguments creep back up as the weeks go on in this playtest. But we shall see.

As is, I am not a fan of the current range of firearms available. They are the only thing that I feel really holds the Gunslinger back. But I need more time to really firm up my opinion on that, after I build a couple of example characters and run them through some white room tests.

I doubt my opinion on the Era of weapons presented will change though. The class feels designed around the idea of Wild West style gunslinger. You can't really do much of that with black powder weapons.

I guess my main point of contention is this: Why bend over backwards to fit Blackpowder weapons to the rules, when more advanced weapons already exist that just fit better? Why make Flintlock weapons fit in the 6 second 3 action round, when instead you could just introduce magazine-less breach loading rifles and pistols?

About the only archetypical "gunman" the gunslinger currently represents is the "brace of pistols" bearing pirate. And it only does that, sorta, since you would have to only drop and draw with one hand to continue using your ranged Doubling Rings effectively. Assuming you have magical weapons that is.

Edit: I also would like to see the Blunderbuss lose Versatile B and pick up Modular, since it's really just a Hand Canon writ large. Shove some cutlery in there!

My first impression was also that they seemed very low damage. But once I started thinking about the Gunslinger's "fighter-level" weapons proficiency, I think it clicked. The designers were looking for a way to make firearms particularly good for gunslingers without making them useless for everyone else. The fatal trait + superior proficiency is a pretty elegant (and exciting) way to make that happen.

The fact that two of the guns have (1st level) next to them kind of implies that there are other non-1st level versions of those guns. Unless I'm reading way too much into it.

Everything about the gun is low. I know this is pre-rifling but accurate range for a man sized target 300 yards https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/iusburj/article/view/19841/2 5918. the arquebus should not be using a tripod, historically it was a monopod and if you want best features maybe go with a bipod after all the "third leg" is the shooter. a tripod would just cause problems especially with a moving target.

the damage also seems low. the firearm beat the sword.

About the only archetypical "gunman" the gunslinger currently represents is the "brace of pistols" bearing pirate. And it only does that, sorta, since you would have to only drop and draw with one hand to continue using your ranged Doubling Rings effectively. Assuming you have magical weapons that is.

Actually, I think this playstyle doesn't really work either. The "improved doubling rings" require you to preemptively choose the primary and secondary weapons that benefit from it when you invest the rings. If you do try to use a brace of pistols style, only one of your pistols will benefit from the rune transfer effect unless you reinvest your rings every time you draw another pistol.

The fact that two of the guns have (1st level) next to them kind of implies that there are other non-1st level versions of those guns. Unless I'm reading way too much into it.

It sorta does, but it could also just be there to prevent an Inventor from making a Flintlock out of their contraption, since it has to be, "a level-0 common simple or martial weapon of your choice."

Time will tell.

Edit:

Actually, I think this playstyle doesn't really work either. The "improved doubling rings" require you to preemptively choose the primary and secondary weapons that benefit from it when you invest the rings. If you do try to use a brace of pistols style, only one of your pistols will benefit from the rune transfer effect unless you reinvest your rings every time you draw another pistol.

I don't believe this is true. If you read Doubling Rings, the only thing that ends when you no longer wield a weapon, is the doubled effect, no the investment of your rings. Otherwise, you would have to immediately invest your rings when you draw your weapons, and any form of disarm would immediately shut down your schtick.

When you wield a melee weapon in

the hand wearing the golden ring, the weapon’s fundamental
runes are replicated onto any melee weapon you
wield in the hand wearing the iron ring. (The
fundamental runes are weapon potency
and striking, which add an item bonus
to attack rolls and extra weapon
damage dice, respectively.) Any
fundamental runes on the
weapon in the hand wearing
the iron ring are suppressed.
The replication functions only
if you wear both rings, and it ends as
soon as you cease wielding a melee weapon in
one of your hands. Consequently, the benefit
doesn’t apply to thrown attacks or if you’re
holding a weapon but not wielding it
(such as holding in one hand a weapon
that requires two hands to wield).

The bolded section is only talking about the effect of the rings. For example, say you have a shortsword and a dagger, and you use doubling rings to give the dagger +1. You throw the dagger and draw another. The second dagger will also benefit from doubling rings.

So for the Pistol Pirate, you would need to have a "main" pistol that you don't drop, then drop/draw from your other hand only. It works, but not in the way that pirates/whoever are depicted using braces of pistols.

I'll be honest all of the weapons are pretty close with probably the exception being Flintlock Musket.

Versatile B and Fatal 1d10 is not enough to make up for a 1 damage average drop per weapon die when you also lose 80ft of range.

1d8 base or maybe Fatal 1d12 and it'd be there though. But as an Uncommon gun I would hope it would be at least worth using over a Crossbow if you had one (especially considering Misfire).

EDIT: Actually can someone explain Misfire to me? Does it work similarly to the Inventor's "Unstable" in that once you fire a firearm you either need to spend 1 hour cleaning/maintaining it or you risk a 20% Misfire on any future shots? Or is it only if you haven't cleaned it since prior to the current day (aka, if you clean it every night, you're good).

I'll be honest all of the weapons are pretty close with probably the exception being Flintlock Musket.

Versatile B and Fatal 1d10 is not enough to make up for a 1 damage average drop per weapon die when you also lose 80ft of range.

1d8 base or maybe Fatal 1d12 and it'd be there though. But as an Uncommon gun I would hope it would be at least worth using over a Crossbow if you had one (especially considering Misfire).

EDIT: Actually can someone explain Misfire to me? Does it work similarly to the Inventor's "Unstable" in that once you fire a firearm you either need to spend 1 hour cleaning/maintaining it or you risk a 20% Misfire on any future shots? Or is it only if you haven't cleaned it since prior to the current day (aka, if you clean it every night, you're good).

As far as I can tell, Misfire only happens if you don't upkeep your weapons Every day. It only triggers the Next day, not immediately after firing the gun.

This is a bit odd, as it means that even if you only fire the weapon once, leaving it over night fouls the barrel somehow, though you could fire it 1,000 times in the same day and not have to clean it. It's better than having to track individual shots and figuring out exactly when you would need to clean the weapon though. Easier to deal with.

just a joke but party gets ambushed at 11:59 PM a few rounds into combat the gunslinger has to start rolling misfire.

As far as I can tell, Misfire only happens if you don't upkeep your weapons Every day. It only triggers the Next day, not immediately after firing the gun.

This is a bit odd, as it means that even if you only fire the weapon once, leaving it over night fouls the barrel somehow, though you could fire it 1,000 times in the same day and not have to clean it. It's better than having to track individual shots and figuring out exactly when you would need to clean the weapon though. Easier to deal with.

Given how minor it is I wonder if there's really any merit to guns that aren't maintained for an hour every day misfiring, I'm pretty sure its already assumed that the PCs spend some time maintaining their gear, but we don't really worry about rust chipped blades.

I like misfire as a mechanic on certain feats (I actually really like risky reload, the misfire basically lets you differ the reload cost on hit, but pay it on miss). But I can't see maintenance it really coming up in real play, certainly not enough to justify doubling the amount of text in misfire.

beowulf99 wrote:

As far as I can tell, Misfire only happens if you don't upkeep your weapons Every day. It only triggers the Next day, not immediately after firing the gun.

This is a bit odd, as it means that even if you only fire the weapon once, leaving it over night fouls the barrel somehow, though you could fire it 1,000 times in the same day and not have to clean it. It's better than having to track individual shots and figuring out exactly when you would need to clean the weapon though. Easier to deal with.

Given how minor it is I wonder if there's really any merit to guns that aren't maintained for an hour every day misfiring, I'm pretty sure its already assumed that the PCs spend some time maintaining their gear, but we don't really worry about rust chipped blades.

I like misfire as a mechanic on certain feats (I actually really like risky reload, the misfire basically lets you differ the reload cost on hit, but pay it on miss). But I can't see maintenance it really coming up in real play, certainly not enough to justify doubling the amount of text in misfire.

Yeah, it's basically just going to be tied into morning preparation I'd imagine. The Wizard is studying their spell book, the Alchemist is brewing their items, and the Gunslinger is polishing their barrel. What's new?

Bardarok wrote:

The fact that two of the guns have (1st level) next to them kind of implies that there are other non-1st level versions of those guns. Unless I'm reading way too much into it.

It sorta does, but it could also just be there to prevent an Inventor from making a Flintlock out of their contraption, since it has to be, "a level-0 common simple or martial weapon of your choice."

Time will tell.

Ah that makes a lot of sense as well.

Midnightoker wrote:

I'll be honest all of the weapons are pretty close with probably the exception being Flintlock Musket.

Versatile B and Fatal 1d10 is not enough to make up for a 1 damage average drop per weapon die when you also lose 80ft of range.

1d8 base or maybe Fatal 1d12 and it'd be there though. But as an Uncommon gun I would hope it would be at least worth using over a Crossbow if you had one (especially considering Misfire).

EDIT: Actually can someone explain Misfire to me? Does it work similarly to the Inventor's "Unstable" in that once you fire a firearm you either need to spend 1 hour cleaning/maintaining it or you risk a 20% Misfire on any future shots? Or is it only if you haven't cleaned it since prior to the current day (aka, if you clean it every night, you're good).

As far as I can tell, Misfire only happens if you don't upkeep your weapons Every day. It only triggers the Next day, not immediately after firing the gun.

This is a bit odd, as it means that even if you only fire the weapon once, leaving it over night fouls the barrel somehow, though you could fire it 1,000 times in the same day and not have to clean it. It's better than having to track individual shots and figuring out exactly when you would need to clean the weapon though. Easier to deal with.

Misfire is the penalty for missing almost all of the Gunslinger's special action attacks, which is... really bad. That's a harsh penalty for just a Failure.

Misfire is the penalty for missing almost all of the Gunslinger's special action attacks, which is... really bad. That's a harsh penalty for just a Failure.

4 feats have a chance of misfire on a failure or worse.

Risky Reload: Fair enough, as you are getting a two for one special on actions.

Alchemical Shot: Fair enough, you are getting additional damage by pouring acid on your gun. Or oil. Or... ice stuff.

Scatter Blast: Increased range on a template weapon is pretty good. That's a lot of possible splash damage.

Smoke Curtain: This is probably the least worth it cause, but really on demand concealment along with an attack isn't bad.

And none of these force future Misfire chances on the gun, they just cause a guaranteed misfire on a failure. Spend an action to clear the jam, reload, and your good to go.

It's not that bad. Think of it like being Slowed 1 for 1 round.

You're already being penalized for a failure by not doing any damage. It's especially bad for the multi-action strikes, since you end up wasting four actions on one bad roll (reload, attack, clear the misfire).

Misfire is the penalty for missing almost all of the Gunslinger's special action attacks, which is... really bad. That's a harsh penalty for just a Failure.

The penalty for a misfire is just spending an action to clear it, and a miss is a crit miss. Depending on the action its ok.

On risky reload that just means you have to pay for your reload (reload and strike for 1 action, unjam for 1 action -- compared to reload 1 action, strike 1 action). I like this one, and misfire being a way to play with action economy is a good use.

Alchemical shot already hurts you ontop of the misfire, which makes it extra punishing (on top of the fact that you missed!). But I don't think thats misfire's fault, so much as there's no good reason for either punishment, given you already wasted a bomb, and 2 actions for a full miss.

Scatter blast is a bit annoying, but I think is there so that there's no splash on miss. I'm not sure if this needed to be a full misfire, but at least it isn't super harsh. If scatter blast was 1 action, and occasionally became 2 (effectively) with the misfire I think it would be nice.

Smoke curtain is kind of annoying, making the feat effectively 2-3 actions. For no real good reason.

The penalty for a misfire is just spending an action to clear it, and a miss is a crit miss. Depending on the action its ok.

Actually, Misfires as a result of an action directly don't make the action a Critical miss. Failing the Misfire Check for not upkeeping your firearm does.

If you attempt

to fire a firearm that was used the previous day and that
hasn’t been cleaned and maintained since then, attempt
a DC 5 flat check before making your attack roll. If you
fail this misfire check, the weapon misfires and jams. The
attack also becomes a critical failure...

If misfiring due to failing an attack Also made that attack a critical miss, Scatter Blast would be Doubly punishing, as on a critical miss your weapon would explode and deal all that damage to everyone close by. Including you.

Instead the critical miss bit is tied to failing the flat check of a "standard" misfire.

Bardarok wrote:

The fact that two of the guns have (1st level) next to them kind of implies that there are other non-1st level versions of those guns. Unless I'm reading way too much into it.

It sorta does, but it could also just be there to prevent an Inventor from making a Flintlock out of their contraption, since it has to be, "a level-0 common simple or martial weapon of your choice."

Time will tell.

Edit:

Lightdroplet wrote:

Actually, I think this playstyle doesn't really work either. The "improved doubling rings" require you to preemptively choose the primary and secondary weapons that benefit from it when you invest the rings. If you do try to use a brace of pistols style, only one of your pistols will benefit from the rune transfer effect unless you reinvest your rings every time you draw another pistol.

I don't believe this is true. If you read Doubling Rings, the only thing that ends when you no longer wield a weapon, is the doubled effect, no the investment of your rings. Otherwise, you would have to immediately invest your rings when you draw your weapons, and any form of disarm would immediately shut down your schtick.

CRB PG. 610 "Doubling Rings" wrote:

When you wield a melee weapon in

the hand wearing the golden ring, the weapon’s fundamental
runes are replicated onto any melee weapon you
wield in the hand wearing the iron ring. (The
fundamental runes are weapon potency
and striking, which add an item bonus
to attack rolls and extra weapon
damage dice, respectively.) Any
fundamental runes on the
weapon in the hand wearing
the iron ring are suppressed.
The replication functions only
if you wear both rings, and it ends as
soon as you cease wielding a melee weapon in
one of your hands. Consequently, the benefit
doesn’t apply to thrown attacks or if you’re
holding a weapon but not wielding it
(such as holding in one hand a weapon
that requires two hands to wield).

The bolded section is only talking about the effect of the...

Doubling Rings only work with Melee Weapons. This playtest has a sidebar that introduces new and slightly different doubling rings that explicitly disallow the Pistol Brace concept, requiring you to designate exactly two firearms that they work with.

I think if I consider misfire as a form of risky metamagic for guns then it feels like a good mechanic. Risky reload is a chance to quicken a reload. Scatter blast is a 1-2 action widen spell metamagic, smoke curtain is a 1-2 action darken (smoke cloud) meta magic.

Most of these feel too expensive to me, but I like them.

beowulf99 wrote:

Bardarok wrote:

The fact that two of the guns have (1st level) next to them kind of implies that there are other non-1st level versions of those guns. Unless I'm reading way too much into it.

It sorta does, but it could also just be there to prevent an Inventor from making a Flintlock out of their contraption, since it has to be, "a level-0 common simple or martial weapon of your choice."

Time will tell.

Ah that makes a lot of sense as well.

Oh, they still can. Read the next bit of the same sentence:

It begins with the same statistics as a level-0 common simple or martial weapon of your choice or another level-0 simple or martial weapon to which you have access.

There's bound to be something that grants access at level 1.

The penalty for a misfire is just spending an action to clear it, and a miss is a crit miss. Depending on the action its ok.

Ah I missed that, that's nice (Well, as nice as any penalty is at least).

Doubling Rings only work with Melee Weapons. This playtest has a sidebar that introduces new and slightly different doubling rings that explicitly disallow the Pistol Brace concept, requiring you to designate exactly two firearms that they work with.

Ah, missed that bit in there. My bad. I just assumed that blurb was a long winded way of saying, "You can have doubling rings for guns."

beowulf99 wrote:

RexAliquid wrote:

Did you play with firearms in first edition?

But that's beyond the point really. This isn't 1st ed, and the world has changed a bit.

The versatile B is a holdover from when guns did P and B damage.

Very much this. There's actually a survey question where we talk about this, as it was a point of discussion among the design team.

A bullet deals both bludgeoning and piercing damage as the game understands it; it would be very weird if shooting a skeleton in the skull was less effective than hitting it with a club. But PF2 also doesn't support a weapon simultaneously dealing two damage types unless we split the damage types out, and base weapons still need to measure their damage in single-die increments, so we decided to keep versatile as the closest approximation to the functionality of a firearm. There are other options that we explore in the survey and talked about among ourselves, like just having separate piercing and bludgeoning ammo types, but I worried that was a level of fiddly and unnecessary that would make the game experience less enjoyable for players by giving them two different pools of ammo to manage and also kind of ignoring the way guns actually work (bludgeoning damage concentrated to a small enough point that it has a piercing effect).

So versatile B isn't perfect and we know that, which is why we ask about it in the survey, but it's the closest we could get to properly embodying the story of a bullet leading up to this playtest.

So hang on. Why wouldn't a bullet be less useful than a club? I mean, bullets just leave bullet holes, clubs smash em to pieces.

So hang on. Why wouldn't a bullet be less useful than a club? I mean, bullets just leave bullet holes, clubs smash em to pieces.

The exit hole is usually a lot more pieces than the entry hole

So hang on. Why wouldn't a bullet be less useful than a club? I mean, bullets just leave bullet holes, clubs smash em to pieces.

Yeah... a single bullet might break a single bone while a club could crush several because it hits a MUCH larger area. I'm with you on this.

Arquebuss seems pretty bad for an uncommon, martial weapon. Unsteady is too big of a drawback to what the weapon offers in comparison to the musket. With firearm Ace, you are trading 40ft of Range and 1 + number of hit dice average damage on a crit for what It seems like the worst negative weapon trait yet to be seen.

Taking into consideration that musket is already mediocre, arguably worse than a crossbow, I don't think Arquebuss current state is justifiable.

Bardarok wrote:

beowulf99 wrote:

Bardarok wrote:

The fact that two of the guns have (1st level) next to them kind of implies that there are other non-1st level versions of those guns. Unless I'm reading way too much into it.

It sorta does, but it could also just be there to prevent an Inventor from making a Flintlock out of their contraption, since it has to be, "a level-0 common simple or martial weapon of your choice."

Time will tell.

Ah that makes a lot of sense as well.

Oh, they still can. Read the next bit of the same sentence:

Weapon Innovation wrote:

It begins with the same statistics as a level-0 common simple or martial weapon of your choice or another level-0 simple or martial weapon to which you have access.

There's bound to be something that grants access at level 1.

One of the things if you're playing in Golarion is just to look at the areas listed in the sidebar at the beginning of the playtest where we talk about all the areas where inventors and gunslingers are from. In the final release of G&G, this will be covered in the intro of each section of the book so the majority of inventors and all gunslingers will have firearm access by default (unless survey data leads us in a different direction regarding commonality).

Put me in the give skeletons the benefit of the doubt camp. Really, a gun is a bad choice when shooting with something that is as full of holes as a Skeleton is.

I mean, I'm no slouch at the range, but I don't like my odds of reliably putting lead in a naked human skeleton at any reasonable range.

I'm genuinely curious what an advanced firearm is going to look like, and whether that would be worth taking the -2 accuracy penalty compared to a simple or martial one. Perhaps the final class will, like the fighter, have a feat to patch this.

Advanced weapons generally aren't enough better than martial ones to justify that accuracy hit, at least in terms of "what weapons people are willing to use."

AnimatedPaper wrote:

Bardarok wrote:

beowulf99 wrote:

Bardarok wrote:

The fact that two of the guns have (1st level) next to them kind of implies that there are other non-1st level versions of those guns. Unless I'm reading way too much into it.

It sorta does, but it could also just be there to prevent an Inventor from making a Flintlock out of their contraption, since it has to be, "a level-0 common simple or martial weapon of your choice."

Time will tell.

Ah that makes a lot of sense as well.

Oh, they still can. Read the next bit of the same sentence:

Weapon Innovation wrote:

It begins with the same statistics as a level-0 common simple or martial weapon of your choice or another level-0 simple or martial weapon to which you have access.

There's bound to be something that grants access at level 1.

One of the things if you're playing in Golarion is just to look at the areas listed in the sidebar at the beginning of the playtest where we talk about all the areas where inventors and gunslingers are from. In the final release of G&G, this will be covered in the intro of each section of the book so the majority of inventors and all gunslingers will have firearm access by default (unless survey data leads us in a different direction regarding commonality).

All of that I believe was regarding why the Arquebus and Dueling Pistol are listed as "Level 1" in their entry on the table. This prevents an Inventor from making their innovation either one, since they are not "Level-0" weapon. Nothing stopping them from making a Blunderbuss though.

Boomstick approves.

Arquebuss seems pretty bad for an uncommon, martial weapon. Unsteady is too big of a drawback to what the weapon offers in comparison to the musket. With firearm Ace, you are trading 40ft of Range and 1 + number of hit dice average damage on a crit for what It seems like the worst negative weapon trait yet to be seen.

Taking into consideration that musket is already mediocre, arguably worse than a crossbow, I don't think Arquebuss current state is justifiable.

Rarity shouldn't effect power. Marital weapons should balance against martial weapons regardless of rarity.

Yeah... a single bullet might break a single bone while a club could crush several because it hits a MUCH larger area. I'm with you on this.

That's actually why firearms have lower base damage dice but high damage dice criticals through fatal. I've got a fun bullet scar on my hip that was more annoying than anything else when I got it, my uncle has a bullet in his rump Forrest Gump Style and a scar on the bridge of his nose from a bullet deflecting off his rifle scope, etc. (I come from a military family where the majority of the last four generations have served). But if those bullets had been an inch to one side or the other, most of them would have been far more serious injuries (had a few of those in the family, as well).

I'm genuinely curious what an advanced firearm is going to look like, and whether that would be worth taking the -2 accuracy penalty compared to a simple or martial one. Perhaps the final class will, like the fighter, have a feat to patch this.

Advanced weapons generally aren't enough better than martial ones to justify that accuracy hit, at least in terms of "what weapons people are willing to use."

Especially as the fire arm seems heavily designed around getting crusts. Unless some of the advanced ones do radically different things than just getting extra weapon traits.

Put me in the give skeletons the benefit of the doubt camp. Really, a gun is a bad choice when shooting with something that is as full of holes as a Skeleton is.

I mean, I'm no slouch at the range, but I don't like my odds of reliably putting lead in a naked human skeleton at any reasonable range.

I figure if it's moving, there's decent odds on the silhouette of front and back ribs covering a decent area - I don't really care which side gets splintered. But yeah, I'm not sure versatile B needs to be there. It also makes the Hand Cannon feel less unique if the regular pistol already does B or P.

Actually, since a hand cannon is thematically changing damage type by what you load into it, I don't think Modular is appropriate. There's no reason loading ammo for a different damage type for my next shot should take an additional action.

I'm genuinely curious what an advanced firearm is going to look like, and whether that would be worth taking the -2 accuracy penalty compared to a simple or martial one. Perhaps the final class will, like the fighter, have a feat to patch this.

Advanced weapons generally aren't enough better than martial ones to justify that accuracy hit, at least in terms of "what weapons people are willing to use."

If I had to guess, it's be repeating weapons with clips [this works for crossbows too]. Removing reloads for [clip] number of shots would be worth it IMO.