DannyBoy's page

Steadfast should go to +3.

Also, there should be another, similar enchantment that reduces misfire by 3 points as a +5 bonus.

With alchemical cartridges in play, guns can misfire on 1, 2, or 3, so an enchantment that completely covers that option would be nice, and putting the misfire "family" of enchantments at 1 = +1, 2 = +3, 3 = +5 makes sense.

Did you seriously suggest that's worth +5? Are you insane? This is a property that's expected to compete with something like adding Speed + Wounding to a weapon. It's not even in the same ballpark.

I would also include options for the metal cartridge are they using regular gunpowder or smokeless as there is a major difference in range and stopping power when used.

I figured that would be a bit advanced for the entire scheme. But it wouldn't be too difficult just to add another category of weapon to the mix and rule that black powder weapons suffer an increased misfire change using smokeless powder cartridges.

Excuse me if this is somewhat rambling.

I was considering the advanced firearms and I realized that they don't appeal to me. Not only do they not play into my obsessive love of percussion cap weaponry (it just doesn't get enough credit I say), there just seems to be something clumsy about it.

So I was thinking of proposing advanced weaponry simply as a modification of the baseline early firearms, with each only available at certain levels of firearm rarity. They'd be defined primarily by the ammunition they used and each would also represent a general advancement in firearm design and production (resulting in lower misfire chances, greater ranges, and reduced cost). These categories would respectively be percussion cap and metal cartridge.

Percussion cap firearms wouldn't be available in any campaign with a greater rarity than "Commonplace Guns". Percussion cap versions of early firearms would cost 25% less (with early firearms and ammunition still only costing 25% of their original price at this level of rarity), their base range increment doubled, and have their misfire chance reduced by 1; additionally, their reload times would be reduced by 1 step. They also require percussion caps to fire, in addition to a black powder charge and a bullet.

Metal cartridge firearms wouldn't be available in any campaign with a greater rarity than "Guns Everywhere". Metal cartridge versions of early firearms would cost 50% less (with early firearms and ammunition as well as percussion cap firearms and ammunition still only costing 10% of their original price at this level of rarity), their base range increment tripled, and have their misfire chance reduced by 2; additionally, their reload times would be reduced by 2 steps. They require metal cartridges to fire.

Now for some new gear, yay.

Percussion cap: These tiny metal cylinders contain a volatile explosive compound that detonates with a sharp impact. They're either affixed to special nipples on the rear of a chamber or affixed to the rear of a cartridge and are used to provide a spark to ignite black powder. Cost: 10 gp.

Metal Cartridge:: These small metal casings combine bullet, percussion cap, and powder into one unit. Making for substantially easier loading and storing of firearms designed to make use of them. Cost: 10 gp.

That last bit was just included as what I consider a more suitable explanation for this system and to bring cartridge prices within the standard of ~10 gp per shot for 'cutting edge' firearms.

Edit: I realized with this that some slight modification of the alchemical cartridges was in order. So here we go.

Alchemical Bullets: Alchemical bullets are specialty rounds for firearms that come in a number of different varieties each with their own effects.
(copypaste the rules for alchemical cartridges here, excluding paper cartridges, remove all references to increasing misfire chance and reduce all prices by 10 gp. Reduce Salt Shot to 1 gp. Use the same base prices for metal cartridge ammunitions; save Salt Shot which should only cost 10 gp).

Paper Cartridge: This is a simple paper wrapping surrounding a combination of bullet and powder. Increase the misfire chance of any firearm using paper cartridges by 1 and reduce reload times by 1 step. Cost: 1 gp plus the cost of the powder and bullet.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that Reliable would be fine at a flat +2000 gold pieces to the cost of the firearm, and that Steadfast would be acceptable as a +1. Considering that it's expected to compete with properties on the weapons of other classes that aren't bent over by an extremely questionable mechanic on their weapon, this seems pretty reasonable to me.

Once again, I recommend single shot cartridge firearms. I believe they'd fit in just fine in many Pathfinder settings, even Golarion (which has a nation dedicated to technology).

The Thompson Center Contender makes an excellent model for a pistol.
http://www.tcarms.com/firearms/firearmDetails.php?ID=3566

The Martini-henry rifle is a similarly excellent model for a rifle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Martini_Henry_Mk_IV.jpg

The former would need to be fluffed up a bit differently, but I really see no reason that either of these would look all that out of place for a Pathfinder. With the fluff out of the way, all that's needed are stats. As I said before, basing the rifle off the great crossbow stats and extrapolating pistol stats from that point would probably get you a fairly satisfactory stat-line. Ammunition costs would be a flat 1gp per shot, and since the T/C contender is already designed to fire rifle ammunition, I really don't see ammunition being interchangeable as a problem. The shorter barrel and the accompanying loss of velocity would more than adequately explain the lower damage of the pistol.

Human ingenuity has taken us from rock connected to stick for more bashy power to airplanes and moon landings in a remarkably short time.

In all fairness, for most of our existence as a species, we didn't have much in the way of tools at all. Even the more advanced periods of the stone ages represent a comparatively small fraction of our time on planet earth compared to the time where we really didn't live much better than chimps and our time with advanced tools represents a comparative drop in the bucket. But if we wanted realistic technological advancement, we really wouldn't be playing fantasy games. Where technology is often found via the works of elder races that were created with the knowledge, through flashes of (literally) divine inspiration, and through basic "It's magic, I aint gotta explain shit".

Regular AC, simply for the sake of balance and maintaining mechanical consistency.

Personally, I feel that setting the cost at 1/10th the current cost would be quite reasonable. That would set pistol costs at 100 GP and rifle costs at 150 GP. Making them comparable to the cost of a composite longbow (another item that requires a skilled craftsman with an extensive knowledge of his work to make).

Secondly, I'd abandon the idea of them being flintlock arms. I really see no reason why a cartridge firearm in a fantasy setting would be harder to swallow than a musket that you can reload in a six second round and still have time to get a shot off. I'm envisioning muskets resembling martini-henry rifles, and pistols resembling the thompson center contender (except of course older looking). Ammunition would be set at a flat gold piece per cartridge. Anachronistic? Sure, but so are flintlock arms. If you want to make them more appropriate to D&D, you could just rule that they're using a paper cartridge with an alchemist fire primer.

Finally, I'd suggest basing musket stats around the great crossbow stats that were present in races of stone and deriving your pistol stats from there. This would make them a pair of exotic weapons that I could conceivably see being worth the proficiency.

I get that firearms are rare in Golarion, but 1500 GP for a rifle seems ill conceived. A masterpiece sword only comes to 300 over the cost of a normal sword. A mail shirt made of mithral only comes to 1000 over the cost of a chainshirt. Hell, an adamantine (you know, the material that 2 tons of is more than most worlds can provide, according to the bestiary 2 anyway) weapon is only twice that. This is especially bizarre considering that firearms are mass produced in Alkenstar (albeit in limited numbers currently, but those figures inflate massively in times of war, so it's clearly not an issue of severe difficulty and I seriously don't think that artificial inflation is going to drive costs to the point that two muskets are as pricey as an adamantine greatsword.).

Well, as inconvenient as that sounds: thank you.

Would there by chance be a gallery of the artwork from pathfinder? I like a great deal of it, and much of it be quite useful for such purposes as character portraits and such, but I can't seem to find any gallery, if indeed such a thing exists. Could anyone help me?