Different eras of firearms

The list of firearms in the playtest is pretty short, and they all fit an era where guns were clunky, unique, and unreliable. Something I'm hoping to see in the final book is guidance on firearms from different eras.

Paizo's primary focus is, of course, the Lost Omens setting. That's entirely understandable, but it's not the only setting people play. Adventure Paths and homebrew settings often involve eras of firearms that are quite distinct from the culture of Golarion. For example...

In my own games, I'd like to be able to run adventures in something like a musketeers era, or a Napoleonic era.

I understand that there need to be barriers to stop players taking an AK-47 into a medieval setting. But I hope that doesn't mean uncommon firearms are left out of the book entirely.

At the risk of plugging my own houserules, I have been using homebrewed guns of vaguely psuedo wild west/ww1 tech level, and I got around the the single shot thing by inventing a trait called "magazine [x]", inspired by paizo's pf 1e multishot guns.

Basically, it lets you store x pieces of ammo in the weapon, and as long as there's ammo in the weapon, it is treated as having a reload of 0 (a proofing mechanic to allow things like Hunter's Shot to function with an automatic/semi automatic gun).

When you reload the weapon, you swap out the whole magazine. Guns what use modern mags, or speed loaders have a reload of 1, guns where you thumb in each piece of ammo individually have a reload of 2

Functionally, they have been working great so far, and are pretty balanced compared to existing options. On the whole, most of my guns do a d6 or a d8 damage, most are fatal, and sometimes have other traits; like my SMG has sweep to represent their "spray and pray" nature, while the battle rifle has agile because they are built to be stable, and both are distinct enough from bows to feel unique, while neither are obviously better choices.

I could see this as a super viable way of handling more advanced guns than are currently out

At the risk of plugging my own houserules, I have been using homebrewed guns of vaguely psuedo wild west/ww1 tech level, and I got around the the single shot thing by inventing a trait called "magazine [x]", inspired by paizo's pf 1e multishot guns.

Basically, it lets you store x pieces of ammo in the weapon, and as long as there's ammo in the weapon, it is treated as having a reload of 0 (a proofing mechanic to allow things like Hunter's Shot to function with an automatic/semi automatic gun).

When you reload the weapon, you swap out the whole magazine. Guns what use modern mags, or speed loaders have a reload of 1, guns where you thumb in each piece of ammo individually have a reload of 2

Functionally, they have been working great so far, and are pretty balanced compared to existing options. On the whole, most of my guns do a d6 or a d8 damage, most are fatal, and sometimes have other traits; like my SMG has sweep to represent their "spray and pray" nature, while the battle rifle has agile because they are built to be stable, and both are distinct enough from bows to feel unique, while neither are obviously better choices.

I could see this as a super viable way of handling more advanced guns than are currently out

Brilliant! Just slap on the Rare tag in Golarion and Golarion-like settings and we can call it a day.

It works really well for weapons like repeating crossbows, too. I have a simple repeating crossbow based off the chu ko nu that uses magazine 5, 1d4 damage, reload 2, range 30. In my game they are uncommon with a regional/cultural access.

No one has used it though so idk how balanced it is yet in actual play

I really hope they keep the advanced firearms as martial/simple weapons and give them the Rare trait rather than making the advanced firearms, uh, advanced firearms.

It breaks verisimilitude, at least for me, for something that was popular specifically because it was easier to use being a higher weapon category of complexity.

I really hope they keep the advanced firearms as martial/simple weapons and give them the Rare trait rather than making the advanced firearms, uh, advanced firearms.

It breaks verisimilitude, at least for me, for something that was popular specifically because it was easier to use being a higher weapon category of complexity.

Edit: Also going to add my love for your homebrewed firearms, too. I love that Magazine trait.

I have given the idea of repeating crossbows some thought, and the solution I came up with was a weapon rune based on bags of holding. Basically you can load X bolts into the crossbow, and fire up to X times before needing to reload, but each bolt needs to be reloaded separately.

A clip fed crossbow is a really cool idea, and I didn't know how common they were in China. From what I have seen, you could rationally give it agile to take advantage of the ability to fire without reloading. This could be balanced by not being able to store poisoned bolts without the poison losing potency, meaning you would have to rely on the 1d4 damage dice.

I have given the idea of repeating crossbows some thought, and the solution I came up with was a weapon rune based on bags of holding. Basically you can load X bolts into the crossbow, and fire up to X times before needing to reload, but each bolt needs to be reloaded separately.

A clip fed crossbow is a really cool idea, and I didn't know how common they were in China. From what I have seen, you could rationally give it agile to take advantage of the ability to fire without reloading. This could be balanced by not being able to store poisoned bolts without the poison losing potency, meaning you would have to rely on the 1d4 damage dice.

I'm not actually sure I dig the poison thing, since some sources claim the bolts in chu ko nu were often poisoned because they didn't have much lethality on their own. With that bit of history, it would actually make for a really cool weapon for a tian toxicologist and the like, not to mention just, the power of poison is offset by it's cost

Nateen wrote:

I have given the idea of repeating crossbows some thought, and the solution I came up with was a weapon rune based on bags of holding. Basically you can load X bolts into the crossbow, and fire up to X times before needing to reload, but each bolt needs to be reloaded separately.

A clip fed crossbow is a really cool idea, and I didn't know how common they were in China. From what I have seen, you could rationally give it agile to take advantage of the ability to fire without reloading. This could be balanced by not being able to store poisoned bolts without the poison losing potency, meaning you would have to rely on the 1d4 damage dice.

I'm not actually sure I dig the poison thing, since some sources claim the bolts in chu ko nu were often poisoned because they didn't have much lethality on their own. With that bit of history, it would actually make for a really cool weapon for a tian toxicologist and the like, not to mention just, the power of poison is offset by it's cost

Your right. I thought there was a limit to how long a poison could last on a weapon, but I was incorrect. In that case, using even a simple poison would be a massive increase in damage. I guess at that point the addition of agile wouldn't do much.