GM Looking for advice about firearms


Advice


I've been mulling over a new campaign idea for a while now. The idea is to run a semi-steam punk campaign. In other words, technology is starting to emerge as sort of an alternative to magic but technology is still relatively new. Larger nations, naturally, have more use of it, but its certainly not an everyday use everywhere.

All of this of course leads to the idea of firearms as they would be a natural inclusion for an emerging technology. My question is, have you found the current firearm rules/weapons as written to be fairly balanced? My main concern is that I would still like to keep bows relevant in the campaign for those that wish to use them. Initial thoughts are that guns should certainly be capable of greater damage, but should also carry some sort of a drawback (either in terms of cost, rate of firearm, potential for malfunction, etc.) Most importantly though, I don't want anything to too overpowered.

Certainly I can make house rules if needed, but thought I would check and see how the default rules are. As always, thanks in advance for any help!


Up till the point where full spellcasters hit their stride firearms are fairly balanced. Not too many of the DPR Olympics posts had firearms last I looked but gunslingers are reliable and consistent. The issue I would be careful with is those who take heavy armor will not appreciate an over abundance of firearms among their enemies as their touch AC will stink.


Renegadeshepherd wrote:
Up till the point where full spellcasters hit their stride firearms are fairly balanced. Not too many of the DPR Olympics posts had firearms last I looked but gunslingers are reliable and consistent. The issue I would be careful with is those who take heavy armor will not appreciate an over abundance of firearms among their enemies as their touch AC will stink.

Thanks. I certainly do not plan on making all the enemies, or even a large majority, have firearms anyway. For one, as you said, you have to be careful to keep things balanced even for going against your players. For instance, if I had a player with really good Fort saves, but low Will, I wouldn't always throw Save vs. Will at them.

Ideally, I would like Firearms to really be seen as an emerging, but not dominant, technology. They should be useful for those PCs that want to use them, but a character that chooses to go the bow and arrow route (for instance) should not feel useless.


For me, I got rid of the touch AC mechanic and the misfire chance mechanic. Aside from 1 archetype that I can think of that trades increasing misfire chance for bonuses it works out well.

If you need a reason, armor is made better so that it more effectively blocks bullets. It's magic.


The only thing that concerns me about firearms is the double-barrel. Once you get free action reload, it doubles your number of attacks at the cost of a -4 penalty to hit... which is pretty negligible if you're shooting at Touch.


Claxon wrote:

For me, I got rid of the touch AC mechanic and the misfire chance mechanic. Aside from 1 archetype that I can think of that trades increasing misfire chance for bonuses it works out well.

If you need a reason, armor is made better so that it more effectively blocks bullets. It's magic.

Interesting idea. I think if nothing else, I could save that mechanic for certain "special" enemies (i.e. they have the special armor). Of course, that then opens the PCs up to "liberating" said armor, but its an idea.

Did you find the firearms to be too OP with the typical Touch AC rule?


The rule of thumb I've gone by in the past is changing every third enemy crossbow into a pistol or musket.

Lantern Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Heavy armor doesn't need to be some kind of "magic" explanation for being more resistant to bullets (thus negating the touch attack rule); historically breastplates were tested by firing early pistols at them at close range. It's where the term "bullet proof" comes from, and you can see the results in a lot of late-model museum pieces - there'll be a dent about the size of a bullet on the piece, which was the mark of being "bullet proofed."

Also consider using stone ammunition for things like the blunderbuss, as that's what the thing was originally designed to use. Handfuls of gravel being a lot more plentiful than lead shot.


kestral287 wrote:
The only thing that concerns me about firearms is the double-barrel. Once you get free action reload, it doubles your number of attacks at the cost of a -4 penalty to hit... which is pretty negligible if you're shooting at Touch.

That is a good point. I could at least restrict the availability of double barreled to avoid this issue if need be. Thanks for the head's up on this though because I doubt I would have thought of that.


Gargs454 wrote:
Did you find the firearms to be too OP with the typical Touch AC rule?

Yes, but I also play with people who like to min max. They did the full double barrel twf pistol shenanigans. Why? Because the penalties to attack are virtually meaningless to them. Touch AC typically goes down as CR increases, meaning the gunslinger doesn't care about any of the penalties he is incurring.


Claxon and I are more or less coming at the same issue from different sides.

The core mechanic of firearms-- that they get to shoot at Touch AC-- is paired with the fact that Touch AC either doesn't scale or scales inversely. So, as Claxon points out-- Gunslingers are basically looking to translate to-hit into damage.

Realistically, the mediums to do this are limited. Deadly Aim, Rapid Shot, TWF, and double-barreled weapons are the four best. I, personally, have no problem with the first two. TWF is a concern that would have me looking very hard at how it was done; I would probably disallow it on principle unless the situation was particularly inventive. Double-Barreled's raw doubling of damage output, though, put it immediately on my no-fly list (which is a list it shares exclusively with the Master Summoner and Sacred Geometry).

You can also force Gunslingers to care about accuracy and sidestep much of the issue, as Claxon did, but personally I dislike that route-- not for any logical reason, just because I like the thought of guns being different, and so long as we can keep that balanced, all is good.

Silver Crusade

The Spanish Tercio is an early military formation that successfully exploits improving firearm technology. Pike-and-shot formations, where the pikes form the 'fort' that the gunners retreat into when pressed, were invented to protect early musketeers from cavalry. Here's an indirect link to a Youtube video which clearly shows this dynamic.

Cavalry dominated warfare during the Dark Ages and early medieval period. In the late medieval period it became obvious that pike formations (i.e. reach tactics) were superior to cavalry and everything else, despite being simple, cheap, and plebian. For several centuries pike formations dominated Asian and European battlefields. A pike formation was the only infantry that a cavalry charge could not sweep away.

As firearm technology improved some generals began adding guns to their best units, which generally meant pike formations. Early guns had a very low rate of fire, making them very vulnerable to cavalry. Only the arrival of fully-automatic machine guns (WWI era) ended the effectiveness of the cavalry charge versus infantry. The Spanish tercio was the first military formation to make effective use of guns on the battlefield.

As firearm technology improved the ratio of gunners to melee troops increased. The invention of the bayonet gave riflemen a melee weapon comparable to spear, which gradually made the pike obsolete.

While RPGs don't generally take place in a military setting, available weapons and tactics are largely determined by the current military state of the art.

The most important factor in the effectiveness of missile weapons is Rate of Fire. Pathfinder drastically increases the Rate of Fire of guns, to make them competitive with bows. Realistic muskets could only shoot once every three (6-second) combat rounds. A good archer can maintain a rate of fire comparable to a (late 19th century) bolt-action rifle, which is far superior to anything possible with black powder weapons. Plus, archery is an indirect fire weapon, while guns are direct fire weapons only. This means a formation of archers can all drop arrows on a target area (this is called an Arrowstorm), while only the front line of musketeers can fire on the foe. Musketeers handled this by moving forward to fire and back to reload, also visible in the above linked video.

Bows remain quite competitive with guns in Pathfinder. A good archer will consistently pump out more damage than all but the most elite gunslingers. Only when heavy armor is involved do firearms have an advantage, and that only because firearm rate-of-fire is artificially increased.

The big advantage of guns was not firepower, it was ease of use. Pathfinder glosses over this, because PCs are all super-elite so ease of use does not matter. It takes a decade or so to train a good war archer, while a musketeer could become skilled with a gun in a few months. Thus, training a war archer costs ~40 times more than training a musketeer, but the archer is not 40 times better. That's the real reason guns replaced archery on the battlefield.


Allow Advanced Firearms (Revolvers and whatnot), and then ban Double Barreled weapons.

Many of the problems with guns on both ends are solved (reloading being a pain in the ass for the player, and negating most of the "OMG WTF I CAN'T EVEN WHY" factor for the GM).


I really dislike how the firearms rules and the gunslinger class, it seems too cluncky and messy and potentially disrupting to play, i have found that the technological firearms are better written and less disruptive to the game, sure they still carry some of the messy things of early firearms but are more manageable to a game (especially an AP or module).

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Gargs454 wrote:

I've been mulling over a new campaign idea for a while now. The idea is to run a semi-steam punk campaign. In other words, technology is starting to emerge as sort of an alternative to magic but technology is still relatively new. Larger nations, naturally, have more use of it, but its certainly not an everyday use everywhere.

That's not steampunk. You don't have steampunk until you have tech or magitech on the order of airships, trains, and communications on the level of telegraph. And information processing on the level of Babbage machines.

Fun fact: One thing that Babbage claimed about his machines is that it would put computers out of work. Computers being defined in the Victorian age as people engaged in manual processing of data.


Like Claxton, I house ruled out the automatic touch ac to hit and did away with the misfires, and basically had it hit reg ac unless they wanted to spend a grit point to hit touch ac.
When run as written, the gunslinger will consistently hit something unless it's a natural one and at early levels if they roll to many misfires will be as useful as a wizard who had his spellbook taken and spell pouch sundered. doing away with misfires and touch ac, bring them more in line with the party but still have the option to shine if u still allow them to spend a grit to hit ac.

Silver Crusade

The first physical implementation of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine was built in 1989. Among other tests, they successfully ran the first computer software, which computed Bernoulli numbers. The first computer programmer was Countess Lady Ada Lovelace, who wrote software for the (still theoretical) Difference Engine circa 1842.

Had Babbage got funding to build a real Difference Engine it might have kicked off the Information Age 100 years early. This might have led to a Steampunk sort of world. As it was, we had to wait for Alan Turing to figure it out. I expect Turing would have liked Golarion.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Magda Luckbender wrote:

The first physical implementation of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine was built in 1989. Among other tests, they successfully ran the first computer software, which computed Bernoulli numbers. The first computer programmer was Countess Lady Ada Lovelace, who wrote software for the (still theoretical) Difference Engine circa 1842.

Had Babbage got funding to build a real Difference Engine it might have kicked off the Information Age 100 years early. This might have led to a Steampunk sort of world. As it was, we had to wait for Alan Turing to figure it out. I expect Turing would have liked Golarion.

At the very least, it would have been less likely to drive him to suicide.

Shadow Lodge

Math Wise, firearms are completely balanced if you ban double barrled weapons. A regular gunslinger does damage on par of a regular two handed fighter (actually a little less at some points).

DB weapons i have to yet do the math, but your game can live witouth needing them. While the hit is good there is way too much investment to make firearms viable which compensates for the touch mechanic. While you are investing feats in not sucking the regular fighter is investing feats in actual damage.


Gunslingers only hit touch ac within the first increment. So beyond 20ft for pistols and beyond 40 ft they hit normal ac. So beyond 20-40ft the archer has the advantage overall.


Doc Green wrote:
Gunslingers only hit touch ac within the first increment. So beyond 20ft for pistols and beyond 40 ft they hit normal ac. So beyond 20-40ft the archer has the advantage overall.

That's standard for any Early Firearm, even if someone nonproficient is using it. Advanced Firearms target touch within the first /five/ increments.

Gunslingers can extend the touch range with one of their first level deeds (also an option for anyone taking the Amateur Gunslinger feat):

Deadeye (Ex): At 1st level, the gunslinger can resolve an attack against touch AC instead of normal AC when firing beyond her firearm’s first range increment. Performing this deed costs 1 grit point per range increment beyond the first. The gunslinger still takes the –2 penalty on attack rolls for each range increment beyond the first when she performs this deed.

Note that this becomes less cost-effective for advanced firearms, as they still have to pay all the way through the additional four increments to be getting any benefit. I imagine all but the most stringent DM's would adjust this.


This kind of reminds me of the debate with the Warlock way back when. The EB doing touch attacks.

Advanced Firearms are really not suppose to come into play till what level 10? Are they still that powerful at that level?


In my experience, a damage focused Gunslinger, usually pistellero, and a vanilla ranger tend to have the same damage potential.
Rangers gain favoured terrain, favoured enemies, and buff spells for to hit as well as damage increases as well as longer range.
Gunslingers hit touch AC (and can negate natural 1's), as well they can gain a comparable fire rate, their damage is lower by a few points (double barrel seems to bring them to par with a full round attacking ranger), their ammunition costs more (even at the reduced self crafting price), is harder to enchant (fewer options), and they must use up a limited points pool to gain effective pistol attack range, and they are less likely to be a melee threat early on.
By keeping guns rare, banning advanced firearms, and placing enemies at range a GM can mitigate the DPR of a gunslinger somewhat.
At my tables we also stopped the gun twirling cheese that let gunslinger do 3 - double attacks in a single round. For us, reloading an early firearm requires a free hand to use, and thus limits the speed of attack and reload.

I would say let your players have guns, let them know that you will keep an eye on cheese moves. Otherwise guns are reasonably balanced vs other ranged options IMO.


Beware the Kasatha Gunslinger, for he brings with him a damnable amount of attacks per round.

Silver Crusade

Pale Rider wrote:
Advanced Firearms are really not suppose to come into play till what level 10? Are they still that powerful at that level?

Presence or absence of Advanced Firearms is a characteristic of the campaign setting, not the level of the PCs.


Have you considered getting your group together and trying some trial combat to get a feel for it?Personally I'm against banning or nerfing things as such things tend to be rooted in a weakness or prejudice of the D/GM. Maybe it's different when dealing with min/maxer's but the group I'm in tends more towards RP even in combat and won't necessarily go for massive damage output even when mechanically capable of it.The first time the gunslinger in our campaign used the touch AC deed he missed and the second time he rolled a one and misfired so there's still no guarantee of hitting.


Decimus Drake wrote:
Have you considered getting your group together and trying some trial combat to get a feel for it?Personally I'm against banning or nerfing things as such things tend to be rooted in a weakness or prejudice of the D/GM. Maybe it's different when dealing with min/maxer's but the group I'm in tends more towards RP even in combat and won't necessarily go for massive damage output even when mechanically capable of it.The first time the gunslinger in our campaign used the touch AC deed he missed and the second time he rolled a one and misfired so there's still no guarantee of hitting.

The real issue with gunslingers is that they can quickly be guaranteed to hit touch by low-mid levels, and they can negate critical 1's entirely very early, thus even an RP player would have a hard time NOT choosing damage feats, as to hit bonuses are generally wasted, couples with double guns (cool visuals I will admit), and a gunslinger can easily out shine an RP focused party. In a min/maxer group they certainly are not any better than a well built ranged martial.


LazarX wrote:
Gargs454 wrote:

I've been mulling over a new campaign idea for a while now. The idea is to run a semi-steam punk campaign. In other words, technology is starting to emerge as sort of an alternative to magic but technology is still relatively new. Larger nations, naturally, have more use of it, but its certainly not an everyday use everywhere.

That's not steampunk. You don't have steampunk until you have tech or magitech on the order of airships, trains, and communications on the level of telegraph. And information processing on the level of Babbage machines.

Well, I do plan on having trains and airships, I just didn't mention them because I didn't see it as being relevant to the question. That said, there was a reason I said semi-steampunk. :P

To everybody: I really appreciate all the replies, it really does help. In particular, @Decimus Drake: I generally agree with you, and in particular I tend to defer to the judgment of those who are professional game designers over my own amateur experiences. I was more concerned with whether or not the firearm rules were even balanced to begin with, or if they were designed to make firearms more powerful than regular missile weapons. My personal instinct for the campaign is that firearms should have their place, and certainly should be capable of dealing a great deal of damage, I just didn't want them to make bows obsolete. From the sounds of it, I don't have a lot to worry about with perhaps a few exceptions.

As for my group's preferences, there are certainly some true RP'ers/flavor types out there, but then I also have a couple that are definite min-maxers who will tweak every single possible point they can, etc. I don't mind, I just didn't want a situation where if one of these players chose to be a gunslinger they were all of a sudden relegating the rest of the group to tagalong status. Granted, this can be an issue with casters already, but that is another issue which can usually be handled if need be.

Shadow Lodge

Grimmjow wrote:
Beware the Kasatha Gunslinger, for he brings with him a damnable amount of attacks per round.

You know I would actually fear more a kasatha barabarian


Guardianlord wrote:
At my tables we also stopped the gun twirling cheese that let gunslinger do 3 - double attacks in a single round. For us, reloading an early firearm requires a free hand to use, and thus limits the speed of attack and reload.

Gun twirling is the least effective way of getting past the "must have free hand" stipulation. I mean, your game, your rules, but dipping 2 levels of Alchemist (vivisectionist), or just going straight mutation fighter, or being a tiefling with prehensile tail, or grabbing a level of White Haired Witch, or... anyway, you get my point.


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber
Magda Luckbender wrote:
Early guns had a very low rate of fire, making them very vulnerable to cavalry. Only the arrival of fully-automatic machine guns (WWI era) ended the effectiveness of the cavalry charge versus infantry. The Spanish tercio was the first military formation to make effective use of guns on the battlefield.

this isn't entirely accurate, by the victorian you started having single lines of infantry defeating 3 lines of cavalry, this was largely due to increased accuracy from conical bullets and rifled barrels, along with breach loading and packed pre-prepared powder in small bags. by the time we had modern bullets with a casing, and magazines, guns were king and cavalry was pulling back and becoming a supporting unit due to their mobility.

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