Alternate firearm rules.

[LeleyX]

I had liked the idea of firearms in Gollarion, but generally I am not a PC, and until recently I haven't had a PC who had wanted to be a gunslinger until recently.
I have been running the Skull & Shackles adventure path, and one of my players is a gunslinger and I hate him with the strength of a thousand suns. He seems to do a ton damage, and it is SO difficult to add guns to other NPCs.

So I've been working on a house rule, and I'm ready to get some feedback.

Inaccurate Early firearms are vastly inacurate, any range increment penalties are 50% than any other ranged weapons.
Firearm Proficiency Firearms are considered Simple Weapons, but as simple weapons their range increments are halved and your misfire chance increases by +4. But characters may take the Exoctic Weapon Proficiency(Firearms) feat and it then acts as listed.
All other features of a firearm remains the same as listed in Ultimate Combat.

I think this makes it a lot easier to add firearms to a pre-written campaign such as an adventure path. You can just give any NPC a gun, if you want this NPC a little better with it, change a feat around, and if you want the NPC to be really good, respec him.

So, I know it's a simple change, but what do you think?

[Elamdri]

Personally, I have never really gotten "Firearms are Exotic Weapons"

Exotic Weapons in my opinion implies that there is some sort of art to using them; a high degree of skill in that weapon above and beyond normal weapons. I mean, dire flail? Cmon.

Firearms however were so popular partially because of their ease of use. It's the same principle as a crossbow. Using a bow is hard work that requires a lot of skill. Any mook can pickup and use a crossbow relatively effectively without a lot of work. Guns follow the same principle. It's point n' shoot.

IMHO, anyone should be able to USE a firearm. What distinguishes a Gunslinger should be the crazy bull**** they do with those firearms.

[The Fox]

I think that if you want your NPCs to have firearms, you give your NPCs firearms.

If you want more PCs to be using firearms, then just make pistols simple weapons.

[LeleyX]

lol, good point.

[Elamdri]

Well, if you think about it, a Gunslinger shouldn't be the only person able to use guns. Guns are ubiquitous weapons; nothing levels the playing field like the gun.

Gunslingers on the other hand, SHOULD be the only people able to use guns in ways that others like us can only dream of.

A regular Joe can shoot a gun and kill people just like anyone else. But:

Only a gunslinger can shoot a guy with a rifle hundreds of feet outside it's effective range.

Only a gunslinger can shoot a weapon out of the badguy's hands

Only a gunslinger can put a hole in the center of a coin tossed in the air.

Only a gunslinger can put a bullet between the eyes of a guy using a hostage as a human shield.

Only a gunslinger can reload a six-shooter and fire it in seconds.

Only a gunslinger can ricochet bullets around corners to hit their target

Being a gunslinger shouldn't be about using guns. Anyone can use guns. Being a gunslinger should be about pushing guns to and beyond the limits of a human being.

[+5 Toaster]

Elamdri wrote:

Being a gunslinger shouldn't be about using guns. Anyone can use guns. Being a gunslinger should be about pushing guns to and beyond the limits of a human being.

hear hear

[Lamontius]

did you give your PC access to Simple or Advanced firearms?

[Atarlost]

I think your misfire increase may be excessive. Really misfires are the fault of the weapon, not the user. They are related to maintenance, though. I might rule that early firearms have their misfire chance increase by 1 to a maximum of baseline+4 after each shot and someone with advanced proficiency can spend 5 or 10 minutes cleaning the gun to reduce it to the baseline and assume guns in nonproficient hands are at +4. Or +1d4 if they're in a group of mixed proficient and nonproficient users.

Realistically, since the gun itself is inaccurate, it should get a scaling miss chance instead of increased accuracy penalties. No amount of skill and training is going to let you hit accurately with an unrifled early firearm beyond near-melee range. Or a maximum accuracy. Maybe the first range increment can't exceed 20 to hit, the second 18, and so forth.

In return grit could stand to be decoupled from firearms and non-firearm deeds introduced. Not give grit and deeds to other classes, but make gunslinger a little less overspecialized.

Early firearms should be less spaghetti western more Alexandre Dumas.

Because you can't reload any early firearms fast. They should have been balanced with the understanding that nobody would ever fire more than 1 shot a round unless they had a double barrel weapon or a drilling and that you would probably only even think of reloading wheel locks in a mounted chase and flintlock or proto-flintlock weapons in small group combat.

Unless you're a mook you should realistically plan to end up in melee and the class should better support that.

[LeleyX]

@Lamontius: Simple, early firearms only.

I more or less agree with both Atarlost and Elamdri, but I think that if the PCs want to super specialize, let them, maybe the creation of some archetypes that are better rounded, or with a greater lean toward melee would be in order.

I'd hoped that the house rule would bring things more in line with reality without over complicating things too much, I think Atarlost's way might bring a little too much accountancy to the players, and I'm not sure I want to do that.

All I was looking for is an easy way to explain and quick and dirty mechanics to add more guns around, yes, like The Fox says, I could just as well dump guns all over the place, but that idea seems unfair to me, personal choice I suppose.

[Lamontius]

What level is the PC, and are you absolutely sure they are using the reloading, damage and grit rules correctly?

Also, what kind of gun are they using?

I've seen a lot of these threads and they are most often caused by the PC making a mistake with their build or calculations and a non-gun GM not catching it.