So I've been planning on creating an advanced magitech setting, with 1950s to 1960s level of firearm technology, but one important thing I wanted to make sure is that they don't overpower weapon selections of a regular Pathfinder game. So a character swinging a sword will still be viable next to a character with an assault rifle.
A while ago I found mdt's writeup which included automatic firearms and everything i really needed, except that the modern weapons are clearly superior to melee weapons and things like bows (as they realisitcally should be) so I decided to work off of that.
My revision of mdt's rewrite (open office document)
Some important things I did:
- Scatter weapons: I heavily changed that mechanic because i thought a 90° angle on a scattering weapon is nothing short of ridiculous. The mechanic I came up with is a bit more complex, so let me know if it isn't understandable.
- Range and penetration: While firearms still ignore physical armor at short range, i took out the reference to touch attacks, because that to my mind just makes it cumbersome. Also for a more modern firearm setting i included the idea of advanced armor and adapted natural armor that works against firearms at short range, to mitigate the otherwise mechanically superior modern firearms.
- Autofire: I took inspiration from shadowrun for this rule, and significantly nerfed it from mdt's version.
I also changed and added some weapon equipment and polished the terminology a little (like making the proper distinction between magazines and clips)
questions, comments and criticism are welcome.
But wasent firearms better than every alternative in that time period? Why do you want the sword to still be relevant compared to a assult rifle?
Rule of cool. I'm not looking for realism, I want to make a fun blend of technology and medieval.
So "rule of cool" covers additionally complicated (yet realistic) new rules, but not the unrealistic-yet-straightforward current rules? We may have different definitions of the word "cool". Which is fine, but I'd save these new rules for the next time I run/play a Wild West campaign...
Some things bother me more than others, I guess, with things like the scatter rule, a 90° cone just doesn't jive with me. I wanted some things to be more realistic, some less.
in mine I did something to make it fit with pathfinder a bit more
all fire types besides bolt action are weapon enhancements and thus cost a lot of money and can be applied to any weapon type. the prerequie is craft(firearm) at least 5 ranks, instead of a feat.
I made shotguns have higher crit chances instead of making them spread, which is what they're more like. Shotguns don't really actually spread out over a large area.
you can fire as normal for BAB
rolls are against normal AC, with that one grit talent or whatever granting it to touch AC, which everyone can get with that feat that allows you to get grit.
(it didn't yay)
name price dmg crit range weight type clip special
Pistol 50 1d6 X2 60 3 P 8 1-handed
Rifle, Light 60 1d6 x2 90 7 P 20
Rifle 100 1d8 X2 120 10 P 10
Shotgun 100 1d8 19-20,X2 20 10 P & B 6
Heavy Rifle 125 1d10 X2 60 25 P 20
Exotic
Heavy Pistol 100 1d8 X2 70 6 P 6 1-handed
Bean-bag 100 1d10 X2 60 10 B 20 non-lethal
Rifle, light 50 1d6 X2 90 7 P 20 1-handed
(you can get a feat for one handing light rifles like bastard swords, they're meant to emulate SMGs and carbines)
Semi-auto
+1 enhancement
if you beat someone's AC by more than 10 in an attack roll, you can a free attack roll at the bonus for the current attack. This only allows up to twice as many attacks as normal. fire two bullets per attack.
Full-Auto
+3 enhancement
if you beat someone's AC by more than 5 in an attack roll, you can a free attack roll at the bonus for the current attack. This only allows up to twice as many attacks as normal. fire three bullets per attack.
Scoped
+1 enhancement
double the range of the weapon and give an additional +2 to hit when aiming down the sights.
Movement Actions:
Aim Down Sights(ADS) - Doubles the current range of the weapon and adds a +2 to hit, movement greater than half removes bonus, removing this bonus is a free action.
Unload/reload magazine - allows you to take a magazine out of, or put a magazine in, a gun. Also, may put/take-out Dex mod rounds into/out-of a weapon or non-loaded magazine.
Standard Actions:
Fire - self-explanatory, roll all your attacks
Clear the barrel - DC 10 profession(soldier) check, or strength to undo a Jam. fail: gun still jammed.
Swift Actions:
Switch weapon fire modes - allows you to switch between various fire modes if a weapon has them.
Free Actions:
none
Full-Round:
Sustained Fire - suppresses a target, does normal attack roll. Will Save or become frightened. must be fully automatic or semi-automatic.
Gun Training:
Pre - +5 BaB
apply your dexterity modifier to damage rolls to a chosen firearm type. This feat can be taken multiple times, each time you must chose a different firearm.
Quick Scope:
Pre - +8 BaB
ADS is a swift action
Quick & Careful:
Pre +4 BAB
Reloading/unloading is a swift action, can unload and Reload if a spare clip is in your hand as a standard action.
Covering Fire:
Pre - +4 BAB, Combat Expertise
for every 4 BAB you can lower your attack roll by 1 to also lower the ranged Attack bonus of whoever you fire at by the same amount until the start of your next turn. must be using a gun.
Disruptive Fire:
Pre - +8 BAB, Covering Fire
Covering fire applies to all enemy rolls.
Only Peanutbutter:
Pre - 5 ranks in Profession(Soldier)
+2 to all attempts to clear a jam for every 5 ranks in Profession(soldier)
I actually pulled back on these rules, before they were insanely complicated. also, these were designed with post WW1 weapons in mind.
interesting idea on the shotguns.
Another version would be to take inspiration from shadowrun again, and have them be able to shoot at two or more targets standing close enough together.
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Some direct feedback to my rules would be appreciated.
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interesting idea on the shotguns.
Another version would be to take inspiration from shadowrun again, and have them be able to shoot at two or more targets standing close enough together.------------
Some direct feedback to my rules would be appreciated.
Threeshades, I'm sorry but I don't have direct feedback on your rules. I don't like firearms in my Pathfinder.
But I do want to say, GREAT thread title. Made me smile....evilly.
interesting idea on the shotguns.
Another version would be to take inspiration from shadowrun again, and have them be able to shoot at two or more targets standing close enough together.------------
Some direct feedback to my rules would be appreciated.
Alright, so I skimmed over them, and they look comprehensive. I like some of what I see as a 'rules engineer'. I would've made different choices on a lot of specs for individual firearm types, but that is how it is with every subject in RPG rules, isn't it? I haven't seen MDT's original version, so I can't really give proper feedback on "your" rules changes.
Maybe later.
Good gaming!
what annoyed me about the current pathfinder build and i tried and failed to fix is that damage should be based on the bullets used. The gun should determine accuracy. etc, this caused me to make REALLY complicated rules with tons of variations.
and right off the bat when reading your rules I can see you sort of made the same mistake that I did. there's too many tables to look at when determining what gun you want.(I think I want a light gun with auto fire and... light attachments? I had to read your whole thing to get all of those and what they did)
then when using fully automatic or semi-automatic attacks, attacks get weird.
Burst fire appears to always do -1, but any strength mod would help this. I'd say if your using strength to control your gun, use strength to hit instead of dexterity to cut out these weird circumstances.
I tried implementing recoil but it just was more complicated than people wanted. Just assume that player is proficient with guns and is always bursting and steadying himself in his turn.(I had sustained fire make a single attack instead of full BAB and apply some penalties to the enemy)
also, your autofire seems off, a narrow shot on a target with more bullets will still make you more likely to hit them. sure, your less likely to hit dead center, but still there's more bullets going down range at you enemy.
To me it doesn't seem like that many more tables to read than other weapon lists. You have one extensive table listing weapons and stats, and then the special rules for weapons and how you can modify them.
The idea of using strength to mitigate the attack penalty is to tie in another attribute into the use of autofiring guns. Basically giving the user a strength bonus to damage. I don't feel its that complex really. Not like scatter.
The narrow salvo is the idea of firing multiple bullets at one target, but with recoil it becomes more difficult, while a wide salvo covers a larger area, thus is more likely to hit, but will not do so with all bullets fired.
Hmm it works fine for me. Not sure what might be wrong.
I'm not going to do any rules that make a firearm allow more attacks per turn than any other weapon. "Weapon speed" is not a thing in pathfinder, and I don't intend on making it one.
With a booming thunder the flash of a lightning revealed a lone figure in the pouring rain. In the middle of the night the hunched creature stood at the top of a hill digging a hole under an old tombstone...
Hey, everyone. I wanted to dig my rewrite up once more to share an idea I had.
As stated before I didn't like the idea of scatter weapons using the regular rules for cones because that gives them this ridiculous fan-spread. But I also realize that my original idea was convoluted.
So I wanted to run this idea by the community:
A scatter weapon uses two lines of effect starting at the same point and spreading out at a 15° angle. Everything touched by or caught between the two lines is considered to be inside the area of effect.
For ease of play the line templates can be used as a reference, simply choose one sample line template as a base and then use the closest other sample line two draw the second line.