The main issue with applying any sort of malfunction issue to a weapon other then a gun is, realistically, how do they 'misfire'? Does a link in a flail break? A bowstring snap? A sword bend? All these things are seriously more detrimental than just needing to clear a gun chamber. These weapons are supposed to be akin to the first guns ever invented, which were prone to misfiring, even truly injuring their users. They were also extremely slow to reload, and deadly against previous forms of protection, specifically lighter armor. My only change to guns would be to ignore specific amounts of armor/nat armor, but that can be very difficult for a DM to keep track of.
I would make the gunslinger reduce the misfire chance. That is a great idea.
Nobody would ever use a firearm if one shot in twenty (or 1 in ten for a musket) caused a misfire.
Even if you accept that failure mechanics might be warranted (some people like critical failure rules) the simple fact of the matter is that the probability of failure is way, way too high.
I kinda thought the odds were AT LEAST that high. Ever wonder why the phrase "as dangerous to the shooter as the target" came about?
I kinda thought the odds were AT LEAST that high. Ever wonder why the phrase "as dangerous to the shooter as the target" came about?Nobody would ever use a firearm if one shot in twenty (or 1 in ten for a musket) caused a misfire.
Even if you accept that failure mechanics might be warranted (some people like critical failure rules) the simple fact of the matter is that the probability of failure is way, way too high.
Are guns supposed to be exclusive to peasant levies or are we wanting a heroic weapon that in theory remains useful from levels 1-20?
Because if they are weapons for peasant armies then I have no problem with them being completely worthless. You need to change the economy on them so a single shot fired doesn't equal 1/3 of a year's pay but I can accept that.
However if the weapon is something that a hero will use from low levels to high levels then it needs to be reliable and scale correctly. The guns currently in front of us simply can't be used as anything other than an low level opening round ambush weapon. Once iteratives (or feats like rapid shot) come online the longbow simply surges ahead.
Some people like that because let's face it medieval and renaissance guns were in many ways inferior to a longbow. It's not fair to saddle a gun specialist with shoddy rules unless you never wish to see them used by players.
Personally, I think if you want a gun, you should have to deal with gun issues. And I don't know what lit you are reading or what movies you're watching, but several use misfire and jams as plot devices.
Unforgiven had a scene like that, towards the end, when Eastwood's character's gun misfired and Hackman's character got excited and pushed his guys to take advantage.
I could cite hundreds of more movies, books, comics, tv shows, whatever if you like. So that statement is provably wrong.
Stuff like that can build dramatic tension. And a lack of that, imo, is playing in video game mode. Because that's the only place in pop culture guns never jam or misfire.
I agree with you, guns should have special advantages and disadvantages, however imo they have gone too far with "realism" this time.
Let me elaborate:
Destroying weapons is something very rare in Pathfinder, IMO the current rules for guns go against the general philosophy of the game, may cause gameplay issues and too much frustration.
Regular weapons should (from a realist prespective) break too without being intentionally sundered, specially polearms, lances and spears, but it isn't part of the game.I agree with guns getting broken, but it should never be destroyed, at least not if it's a magical gun (i agree with that too), the broken condition already comes with penalties.
The gunslinger can avoid that at level 15th, far too late for a gun specialist imo, and the ability to avoid the destruction of the weapon should be at least available to a wide range of multiclass characters.
Edit: I forgot the Quick Clear ability, yet it means that guns can't be used properly by other characters.
With the right deeds odds that you will see a Gunslinger's (or anyone else's due to grit feats) firearm destroyed as a result of a misfire are rare.
I kinda thought the odds were AT LEAST that high. Ever wonder why the phrase "as dangerous to the shooter as the target" came about?Nobody would ever use a firearm if one shot in twenty (or 1 in ten for a musket) caused a misfire.
Even if you accept that failure mechanics might be warranted (some people like critical failure rules) the simple fact of the matter is that the probability of failure is way, way too high.
I agree, hell even modern firearms jam from time to time. I don't want to begin to count the times I have had to clear a jam on my M16 when I was in the military and I took very good care of my weapon.
I agree, hell even modern firearms jam from time to time. I don't want to begin to count the times I have had to clear a jam on my M16 when I was in the military and I took very good care of my weapon.I kinda thought the odds were AT LEAST that high. Ever wonder why the phrase "as dangerous to the shooter as the target" came about?Nobody would ever use a firearm if one shot in twenty (or 1 in ten for a musket) caused a misfire.
Even if you accept that failure mechanics might be warranted (some people like critical failure rules) the simple fact of the matter is that the probability of failure is way, way too high.
What is the rate of misfire in relation to the number of shots fired on an automatic rifle?
I understand that we are talking an advanced assault rifle and something like a smoothbore flintlock but is the rate of misfire really that high?
And even if the historical weapon was that bad we aren't doing Civil War simulations we are doing high fantasy. Having a weapon jam such a high percentage of the time is simply not going to work if you want this class to be adopted.
stuff
Hey James, I think you have an incorrect PFS character number reported for Dragon CON 9-4-10. The player of character #9223-1 tells me he wasn't there.
thanks
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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stuffHey James, I think you have an incorrect PFS character number reported for Dragon CON 9-4-10. The player of character #9223-1 tells me he wasn't there.
thanks
Yea, I don't report those. I pass around a sheet where the players put down their numbers, faction, and name. They then come and pick up those sheets to report. So either it was a typo when they entered the info or the player put down the wrong number on the sheet. I can try to contact the DragonCon events team and see if I can get the 9223-1 player removed.
My house rule has always been, on the roll of a natural 1, you make a reflex save, dc 15 vs a mishap. Failure means you brake your weapon, as in the broken condition. If you roll a natural 1 on a weapon with the broken condition, the save is increased to 20, and failure results in the weapon being destroyed. This too complicated?
My house rule has always been, on the roll of a natural 1, you make a reflex save, dc 15 vs a mishap. Failure means you brake your weapon, as in the broken condition. If you roll a natural 1 on a weapon with the broken condition, the save is increased to 20, and failure results in the weapon being destroyed. This too complicated?
The reflex save represents the character's ability to subvert damage to the weapon before it occurs. With a sword, they fumble on the swing and either hit, or miss a stone wall. With a gun, the natural 1 would be represented with the gun beginning to flare up, and the reflex save would be to try and smother the flame before the shot explodes. I use this because low level characters have a fair chance of failing this and ruining their weapons. Where as high level pcs might rarely still misfire through sheer bad luck.
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My house rule has always been, on the roll of a natural 1, you make a reflex save, dc 15 vs a mishap. Failure means you brake your weapon, as in the broken condition. If you roll a natural 1 on a weapon with the broken condition, the save is increased to 20, and failure results in the weapon being destroyed. This too complicated?
That's not complicated, but it's also not very good. Is it really realistic that 1 out of every 20 uses of your sword or bow has a significant chance of breaking it? At low levels, DC 15 is very tough. Even at mid levels, 15 is still tough for characters with a poor reflex save. Why does it make sense to punish fighters more than rogues?
On top of that, you're actually punishing high-level characters more than low-level ones. If you only have on attack per round, you have a 5% chance of rolling a 1. (warning: doing some napkin math here, let me know if my numbers are off) After you have four attacks per round, though, you have a 12.5% chance of rolling a 1 on at least one of them. Let's say you're a 16th-level fighter with a 12 dex, because you're wearing plate and don't need anything higher. Without any magic to boost your saves, that's a +6 reflex, or a 40% chance of failing that DC 15. On the other hand, that same fighter at level 1 would just have a +1 reflex, for a 65% chance of failing the DC.
In other words, a 16th-level fighter has a 5% chance per round to break his weapon, which at this point is probably highly magical, to boot. The 1st-level fighter has a 3.25% chance per round to break his weapon. Does that make sense at all? And after the weapon is initially broken, the chance of destroying it on subsequent rounds is much higher due to the DC 20.
On top of that, regardless of whether it's realistic or not, it's not fun. When you're a few floors down into a big dungeon crawl and the fighter breaks his best weapon, now he's both out of a ton of gold and also worthless in combat. His choices are to either make do with a weaker backup weapon or walk back to town to buy a new replacement. You may not have either of those options if your weapon breaks right at the beginning of a big fight. Or, I suppose if he has the appropriate skills and there happens to be a forge in the dungeon, he could try to fix his weapon, assuming wandering monsters don't attack while he's getting the forge started up.
To top it off, it's an unfair penalty for players. It doesn't really matter if NPCs' weapons break -- most armed NPCs that the players fight only show up for a single battle, anyway, and then the characters loot their equipment afterwards. If the enemies' equipment breaks during combat, that basically means that the players' reward for that fight is being destroyed. The players lose, either way.
And that's why I hate critical failure mechanics. The misfire chance for guns isn't any better.
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What I'm seeing is a group of people complaining because Guns aren't the be and end all as they are today. But this is the problem. If guns didn't suffer misfires and therefor were as reliable as crossbows and longbows, on top of the damage and rules for a handgun. Why use anything else?
Except, as has been pointed out in many other threads, guns don't put out that much damage. The stats on paper looks nice, but when you factor in the reload time combined with the inability to use Manyshot, Rapid Shot, and Deadly Aim with guns, guns do MUCH less damage per round than bows do. This is even before you factor in your weapon occasionally destroying itself. And if you do allow Rapid Shot to be used, now you have an even higher chance per round of your gun exploding...
I don't have anything against the concept of guns having some kind of mechanic to separate themselves from bows. If Paizo's goal is to make it so that nobody other than a gunslinger would ever consider using a gun, then fine, make them misfire on a natural 1. Even then, I don't think it's unreasonable for gunslingers to get an ability -- at a very low level, even -- that negates the misfire chance for them.
Why should gunslingers have to deal with a worse-than-real-life chance of their weapon breaking at the same time that other PCs are bending the rules of reality? Higher-level wizards can travel between planes of reality, clerics can raise the dead, fighters can chop through walls of stone, but gunslingers still have a very significant chance of their raison d'être malfunctioning.
What I'm seeing is a group of people complaining because Guns aren't the be and end all as they are today. But this is the problem. If guns didn't suffer misfires and therefor were as reliable as crossbows and longbows, on top of the damage and rules for a handgun. Why use anything else?
This is a FANTASY game where FANTASY weapons are predominant. Guns needed to be played down to keep them from dominating the game.
So you are saying that despite not deserving misfires as they currently aren't close to a bow (remember thease are exotic so they deserve to be better than a marial), you want to make not good?
I mean, I could see 2d6 for a pistol, 20/x4, misfire/reload mechanics. The reload/misfire mechanics would keep it from being a primary weapon for everyone but gunslinger.
Yes they have a high failure rating compared to the damage they give out and are very expensive to maintain and replace. But that's so that the whole Pathfinder world doesn't turn into a shooter rp with magic.
You forgot they are also exotic so you have to spend a feat for proficiency.
But they aren't worth it currently for anyone.A high failure + great damage + expensive + feat proficiency= decent
But: high failure + low damage + expensive + feat proficiency= fail.
Even with the decent example (increasing current damage): you wouldn't see world turned into shooter rp with magic.
Note, Faerun had guns without massive misfires or expensiveness. Yet the world stayed sword/sorcery. Why? Because not everyone will use an exotic weapon.
If you buy rules and you have to immediately houserule them so that they properly function with the rest of the established system, then it is an inferior product and not really worth the value you paid for it.
Couldn't have said it better Mok.
Requiring a full 20 level class (alternate, base, whatever) to "choose" abilities or bonus feats in order to achieve the same reliability and base-line playability of the other available classes is broken (no other class requires choosing an ability in order to do their main spotlight activity which for the gunslinger is combat combat combat).
These mechanic adjustments should either be available as "static" abilities doled out at a balanced level pace or the item itself needs to function differently. I would abhor the latter and hope for the former.
Guns in a fantasy setting should not, in my opinion, be modified to be more reliable. Neither, then, should the Gunslinger recieve some super secret special gun that reverts to a normal crappy gun when they set it down. They should simply be able to use guns better than anyone or the class should be scrapped as it will not be fun.
I can totally get behind guns misfiring and being generally sketchy and unreliable. I'd even be okay with a low level Gunslinger blowing themselves up. But the Gunslinger as a fun alternate class option should, through class advancement and basic features, be better. I realize they can currently "choose" to be more reliable. I believe that is the fly in the ointment. As they advance they should not have to "choose" between abilities that allow them to do cool things in combat and abilities that keep them from sucking.
Again, I'm cool with low level gunslingers having to waste grit to avoid their weapon's destruction. I just don't think it should even be a concern for a Gunslinger beyond a certain level, and all they should be worried about is how to build their gunslinger up in the way that fits their character concept and that will have their groupmates clapping them on the back as they charge in guns blazing into the infernos of Dis.
TLDR; The most specialized-item dependent class in the game needs to be able to, through concrete advancement or basic starter features, be 100% effective with said item (insert Paizo's capable handling of game balance and level to ability pacing). If no optional bonus feats, daily use abilities or special class powers were ever chosen/used the Gunslinger should still be able to pull the trigger on his/her gun all day every day to blow out the evil/good/neutral brains of their adversaries.
This is a FANTASY game where FANTASY weapons are predominant. Guns needed to be played down to keep them from dominating the game.
Who says guns can't be fantasy weapons?
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Owner - D20 Hobbies
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Guns aren't the be and end all as they are today. Why use anything else?
high failure rating compared to the damage they give out and are very expensive to maintain and replace.
This message was confusing to me, because when I looked at Gunslinger (and even imagined a heavily optimized Fighter for use with a Gun) I never thought it would be much damage.
So I decided to show you the truth. I pulled out a character I played in a 15th level game. It was heavily optimized for unarmed strike, but would have been better built using a more damaging weapon combo.
My 15th Level CORE only, non-Monk unarmed Fighter using non magicical Unarmed Strike
Amulet of 1d6 fire and no Cestus/Brass Knuckles/etc (because they are non CORE)
The only non-Core item is a Wayfinder for the Dusty Rose Synergy bonus
+21/+21/+16/+16/+11/+11 1d8+21+1d6 Fire 19-20x2 for Unarmed Strike (Power Attack) and +2d6 Sneak Attack (TWRend)
DPR vs AC 30 (CR 15 average)
2*(.70*(9+21+9)+.1*.70*(9+21))+2*(.40*(9+21+9)+.1*.40*(9+21))+2*(.20*(9+21+ 9)+.1*.20*(9+21))+.7*.7*(5.5+13)
118.265 DPR Flanking (93.065 DPR not flanking)
If I geared him to be a Gunslinger (without Gunslinger levels)
Swap all TWF related + 1 more for Improved Precise Shot/Deadly Aim/Rapid Reload/Rapid Shot/Quick Shot
+15/+15/+10/+7 1d8+10 19-20x4 for 4x MW Pistols (Say I own only 16; or 4 rounds of shots) Deadly Aim
Can't use my Fighter +2 Atk/Dmg Weapon Training because there is no Pistol group
Can't use Str or Dex to damage, so I pump up my Con.
Can't use Sneak Attack after the first shot (so only calculated into first)
Ignore AC for cover/concealment (so on par with Unarmed Strike)
DPR vs AC 30 (CR 15 average)
.45*(4.5+10+1+9)+.45*(4.5+10+1)+2*(.1*.45*3*(4.5+10+1))+.20*(4.5+10+1)+.1*. 20*3*(4.5+10+1)+.05*(4.5+10+1)
.40*(4.5+10+9)+.40*(4.5+10)+2*(.1*.40*3*(4.5+10))+.15*(4.5+10)+.1*.15*3*(4. 5+10)+.05*(4.5+10)
26.99 DPR Sneak Attacking <30' (22.2325 DPR >30')
So best damage in a round from the Unarmed is 438 percent (%) of the Pistol shooter
The more I think about this, the more I think the guns need changes like this:
Exploding Die !!!OR!!! a +X magical property to auto reload like Returning