Sniper Rogue Archetype and Firearms

[Jontilles]

Is there any reason why the Sniper Rogue's Accuracy ability shouldn't be used with firearms?

Just want to know if there's something super unbalanced about allowing Accuracy to work with firearms as well as crossbows.

[Dasrak]

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Is there any reason why the Sniper Rogue's Accuracy ability shouldn't be used with firearms?

Because the Sniper archetype rules were published before the firearms rules were. They didn't exist at the time.

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Just want to know if there's something super unbalanced about allowing Accuracy to work with firearms as well as crossbows.

Early firearms really can't make use of the sniper archetype's abilities. Remember that their ability hit touch AC only works within the first increment; the accuracy class feature doesn't help you here, and your range increment is too small to make use of deadly range. Maybe with advanced firearms there might be an issue, but I doubt it.

[Jontilles]

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Because the Sniper archetype rules were published before the firearms rules were. They didn't exist at the time.

Well, Rapid Reload existed before the introduction of firearms, but it was updated to work with them.

But, assuming that the ability to hit touch AC is irrelevant to the player using it, allowing Accuracy to work with firearms should be fine?

[cnetarian]

Because the rules only specify bows and crossbows, and even when the archetype came out there were other ranged options.

Given that the sniper rogue isn't uber-powered to begin with I think that a house rule allowing accuracy to be used with firearms would not be unbalancing except maybe is some corner case involving advanced firearms and the distance enchant.

[Mistah J]

I am leading a wild west style campaign, complete with cheap advanced firearms right now. One of the PCs is exactly what you describe: a sniper rogue with a rifle.

There have been no issues. In fact, if anything, he kind of lags behind the others.

[Ellis Mirari]

Mistah J wrote:

I am leading a wild west style campaign, complete with cheap advanced firearms right now. One of the PCs is exactly what you describe: a sniper rogue with a rifle.

There have been no issues. In fact, if anything, he kind of lags behind the others.

In my 17th-18th century style campaign (early firearms are cheap enough to buy very early) I have firearms target flat-footed AC instead of touch, which helps the rogue more than any other class, and it seems to narrow the damage/hit gap. It might get crazier if you used this rule with modern firearms, though.