Hi all, I would like to start this thread with a simple question: why publish firearms rules?
It's nice to have additional rules for alternate settings. At first I was agaisnt the publishing of these rules myself, but someone brought up that if you don't want to use them, you don't have to. In most of my games, firearms aren't allowed. I have, however, been concieving of a wild west campaign not unlike the old PS game "Wild Arms" with guns, magic, and all the fantasy races. Now we have the options open to us to perform such campaigns. However, if you don't want fireamrs in your campaign, don't have them. It's that simple.
Firearms had been damned for a great part of "classical" fantasy role-playing players... And don't know why. Historical set up? Yeah, because spellcraft and elves are part of hour [sic] world history. Too much damage? So a greataxe deals 1d12 like a muskett. Throw the bows and crossbows to a forgotten sea? You cannot be an Arcane Archer with a rifle and also a firearm is more than 10 times expensive than a crossbow.
Firearms are generally not allowed in most 'traditional' fantasy games because most campaigns take place in a fantasy version of a time period where they havne't been invented yet, or at least not in any kind of wide usage. As far as I know, the damage has never been an issue with firearms, the place in the timeline is the only reason people don't do it.
Um, why can't you be an Arcane Archer with a rifle? It's true that the core rules state that you need the weapon focus on the shortbow or longbow, but it's not like noboedy EVER homebrews stuff. If fact, it's pretty likely that Arcane Archers would find ways to incorporate the much more accurate, much deadlier, and much more armor-ignoring musket and rifle once they've been invented in a campaign world.
As an example, a low level character NEVER will have a firearm and a high level character will find firearms useless... Because a 20th level character with a light crossbow and the appropiate feats could make, at least, 6 shots for 1d8 + deadly aim and magical bonuses, while the sane character with a pistol coul make a single shot for... 1d8 + magical bonuses? (assuming the ultimate combat firearms rules set in the playtest PDF file, where a pistol with rapid reload feat reloads as a move action and shots as a ranged touch attack, denying the benefits of deadly aim feat).
The only thing we expect is a playable firearms set... They may make more damage than a bow or crossbow, but they are more expensive... Why complicate the things in this way? As I read in another post around here, treat firearms as crossbows, maybe making more damage in exchange of its unearthly price, and adding the exploding dice and misfire rules, both very interesting.
Deadly Aim: It's fairly obvious that this was intended to be a rule agaisnt spellcasters, and in the gunslinger description, there's an ability that allows then to use Deadly Aim with a firearm. In a world where guns are everywhere, it can be made pretty easily that Deadly Aim applys to all firearms if you're, say, a rifle Ranger or something.
Pistols, muskets, and rifles do take a while to reload, but even back in colonial times, people stopped using the bow and arrow to use the musket. The fact that firearms ignore armor is pretty huge. However, you have the revolver, which can easily shoot multiple times and is quick to reload. If you're going for a quick-shooter, whether in the game or in real life, you don't want to be using a rifle anyway. Rifles are for presision shooting, and revolvers (or more advanced pistols) are for speed. Then there are shootguns, which give even infantry the ability to hit multiple targets with one shot.
It is true that firearms are more expensive, in a 'traditional' fantasy campagn setting, but even teh core rules for the gunslinger say that the prices of firearms should be reduced greatly if firearms are much more common in the game.
In my opinion, the best rules are those published in Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting (3.5 rules), maybe modifying the weapons damage, reducing the range (150 ft for a rifle is a lot) and adding the possibility to play crossbow feats over firearms (both crossbows and firearms have triggers and, if I don't remember bad, firearms are an evolution of the crossbow trigger system). Prehaps some magical objects for firearms would be nice. So, all players will be happy and will have fun.
I never saw anything that stated you couldn't use crossbow feats for the firearm, since they are basically the same assembly.
Reducing the range for a rifle isn't really consistant for a rifle. 50 yards (150 ft.) is EXTREMELY short range for a rifle. Most rifles, even back then, could shoot out to 300 meters or more. That's about 1000 feet. Also, according to the playtest PDF I have, the rifle's range increment is 80 ft, not 150. Reducing it would remove the desire to have firearms, since one of the other reasons rifles replaced bows in history was not jsut the accuracy, but also the range. True, a longbowman could shoot out to 1000 feet, but he wasn't gonna hit anything. It was teh same as artilery fire. Rifles can shoot out that far and expect to make a kill.