I'm sure this has been addressed before, but my search-fu seem to be weak today. Links to existing answers are welcome. Any advice is appreciated.
I'm considering running the Skull & Shackles adventure path for my regular group. While I generally prefer not to have guns in fantasy, they fit much better in a game about pirates than a game about paladins, so I'd like to change our groups "No Guns" rule for purposes of this campaign.
Guns cost 11gp per shot. That seems to change the economics of the game significantly, especially at lower levels. Am I seeing a problem where there isn't one? Is there a generally accepted solution?
Gunsmithing feat halves the cost to produce ammo and all gunslingers start with it as a bonus feat. What materials are you using? Gunslingers are in the UC along with all firearms.
I'm sure this has been addressed before, but my search-fu seem to be weak today. Links to existing answers are welcome. Any advice is appreciated.
I'm considering running the Skull & Shackles adventure path for my regular group. While I generally prefer not to have guns in fantasy, they fit much better in a game about pirates than a game about paladins, so I'd like to change our groups "No Guns" rule for purposes of this campaign.
Guns cost 11gp per shot. That seems to change the economics of the game significantly, especially at lower levels. Am I seeing a problem where there isn't one? Is there a generally accepted solution?
Yeah, there's not much you can do about it. Gunsmithing lets you make a bullet and powder for 1.1g which sounds good until you realize that you need to be using paper cartridges to fore more than once a round. Paper cartridges (which literally consist of nothing but a bullet and some gunpowder in a tiny paper envelope) cost you 6g each. From which you can deduce that in the Pathfinder world, little paper envelopes cost 4.9g.
Anyway, depending on how your GM reads Abundant Ammunition you might be able to get free cartridges that way.
|
There are a few ways to tackle this:
1. Accept that Gunslingers are going to be the ones using firearms.
2. Give Gunsmithing as a free feat.
3. Use or adapt the Commonplace guns rule. For example, you could reduce the price of firearms and ammunition to 25% of the book value, but still keep firearms as exotic weapons. That would make them sufficiently difficult for non-gunslingers to access, but not cost prohibitive.
certain archetypes provide a free battered firearm: [Trophy Hunter]Ranger,[Musketeer]cavalier,spellslinger[wizard], to name a few.
oh,and [holy gun] paladin. So no need to tweak firearm costs.
Guns cost 11gp per shot. That seems to change the economics of the game significantly, especially at lower levels. Am I seeing a problem where there isn't one? Is there a generally accepted solution?
Firearms are touch attacks and do high damage with even higher crits. Yes, they and their ammo are expensive, but at low levels (when things that cost less than 100 gp still matter because the PCs are not yet crazy rich compared to any NPC) being able to ignore armor and do high damage is awesome.
For another example of spammable armor ignoring, A wand of 0 level acid orb costs 7.5gp per charge for 1d3 ranged touch damage. Even at 6gp for gunsmithed paper cartridges, you're making out like a bandit.
Plus, paper cartridges are only important if you reload in combat. A 10th level gunslinger with a pepperbox can full-attack three times without reloading.
The weapon proficiency and gold cost requirements to use guns were placed there for balance reasons. If you don't like that, you certainly could make firearms into simple weapons with inexpensive ammunition. However, expect what happened in real life to happen in your Pathfinder game: guns will make other types of weapons and fighting styles obsolete.
Thanks for all the advice, everybody. I intended to respond sooner, but I've been having some serious difficulties with the forums in the last week or so.
.
.
The weapon proficiency and gold cost requirements to use guns were placed there for balance reasons. If you don't like that, you certainly could make firearms into simple weapons with inexpensive ammunition. However, expect what happened in real life to happen in your Pathfinder game: guns will make other types of weapons and fighting styles obsolete.
Right! That's exactly the path I don't want to go down.
.
. . . An abundant ammunition wand helps gunslingers beat the price of ammo pretty easily, although I recommend finding someone else to cast it for you instead of making UMD rolls. A wand is only 15G/charge so it is a good investment until you can afford the pouch.Ah, the pouch of Abundant Ammunition! Since I generally allow players a fair amount of freedom with custom magic items (as long as they fit the character and campaign, that is) that solution should work well.
- Abundant Ammunition, caster level 1, use activated, 1/day = 800 gold
- Abundant Ammunition, caster level 1, use activated, 2/day = 1600
- Abundant Ammunition, caster level 1, use activated, 3/day = 2400
- Abundant Ammunition, caster level 1, use activated, 4/day = 3200
- Abundant Ammunition, caster level 1, use activated, unlimited = 4000
Thanks again for all your input!