Whats wrong with guns, exactly?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Devilkiller wrote:
I wasn’t really trying to address any general “realism” problem of armor and natural armor making you harder to hit instead of harder to hurt. In fact, the values I suggested are designed around the idea of allowing guns to ignore pretty much any antique armor from the real world. For instance, with my proposal even a pistol could completely ignore the rhino’s natural armor of +7. If we wanted to focus on the game’s lack of realism I think it would be just as easy to propose that since dragons can fly and halfling Monks can punch elephants to death guns shouldn’t be able to ignore armor or natural armor at all. That ability is a big part of what makes them special from a game mechanics aspect though, and it fits into the common narrative that the rise of guns helped precipitate the fall of armor.

Natural armor really doesn't make any sense at all. Most natural armor just represents thick skin. Thick skin isn't armor. It doesn't turn glancing blows into misses like real armor. Only things like dragon scales or tortoise shells actually at all like D&D armor. If "armor" can be injured, like a rhino's hide, it's an extra wad of hitpoints or maybe a very small amount of DR/- like a barbarian gets. Not D&D style abstract armor class.

Thought experiment time:
Imagine casting maximized scorching ray on an elephant. Thermal energy is transfered into the elephant, starting at the surface of the epidermis. It transfers a certain amount of energy (24 damage worth). If some of that energy goes into burning the epidermis less is available to burn the dermis and underlying muscle, bones, and organs. Enough energy to inflict first degree burns is lost to the epidermis before second degree burns can be inflicted. If the dead epidermis is natural armor it would be untouched while the scorching ray directly effects the underlying living flesh. Sure, magic. Except that alchemist's fire is also a touch attack dealing fire damage and not magical. Elephants therefore cannot have natural armor. Their thick skin can be injured and is therefore made of hitpoints. They were given natural armor instead of extra hitpoints because the statblock was written by people who didn't actually understand the game system they were writing for.


Atarlost wrote:
Devilkiller wrote:
I wasn’t really trying to address any general “realism” problem of armor and natural armor making you harder to hit instead of harder to hurt. In fact, the values I suggested are designed around the idea of allowing guns to ignore pretty much any antique armor from the real world. For instance, with my proposal even a pistol could completely ignore the rhino’s natural armor of +7. If we wanted to focus on the game’s lack of realism I think it would be just as easy to propose that since dragons can fly and halfling Monks can punch elephants to death guns shouldn’t be able to ignore armor or natural armor at all. That ability is a big part of what makes them special from a game mechanics aspect though, and it fits into the common narrative that the rise of guns helped precipitate the fall of armor.

Natural armor really doesn't make any sense at all. Most natural armor just represents thick skin. Thick skin isn't armor. It doesn't turn glancing blows into misses like real armor. Only things like dragon scales or tortoise shells actually at all like D&D armor. If "armor" can be injured, like a rhino's hide, it's an extra wad of hitpoints or maybe a very small amount of DR/- like a barbarian gets. Not D&D style abstract armor class.

Thought experiment time:
Imagine casting maximized scorching ray on an elephant. Thermal energy is transfered into the elephant, starting at the surface of the epidermis. It transfers a certain amount of energy (24 damage worth). If some of that energy goes into burning the epidermis less is available to burn the dermis and underlying muscle, bones, and organs. Enough energy to inflict first degree burns is lost to the epidermis before second degree burns can be inflicted. If the dead epidermis is natural armor it would be untouched while the scorching ray directly effects the underlying living flesh. Sure, magic. Except that alchemist's fire is also a touch attack dealing fire damage and not magical. Elephants therefore cannot have...

Actually, I think it was more of stories about animals having such thick hides that weapons wouldn't penetrate.

The bit about Scorching Ray though, can also be applied to just mundane Armor. You shoot an arrow and it penetrates his armor, there is now a hole in it, but one does not actually have to repair his armor.


Rhatahema wrote:

I think the reload time is the only thing that breaks immersion, for me. I mean, no one can operate a bow with the speed and accuracy that's possible in D&D/PF,

Lars can:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zGnxeSbb3g
Quote:


but it's conceivable. The speed in which a character can reload a muzzle-loaded blackpowder firearm is just absurd. You'd be a Flash-like blur, to the point that it's comical. And it's pretty strange that it's possible to reload a musket faster than a shotgun.

.

No, you can reload shotgun just as fast with Musket Master too.


Starbuck_II wrote:
Rhatahema wrote:

I think the reload time is the only thing that breaks immersion, for me. I mean, no one can operate a bow with the speed and accuracy that's possible in D&D/PF,

Lars can:

Link.

Linked that for you. I was going to link to one of his earlier videos where his technique was hidden as he was still perfecting it.

Speed Archer while no Lars, this girl demonstrates someone who would make a fine addition to a formation as she can unleash many arrows in a short time.


I see your multishot archer and raise you girl that can fire arrows with her feet :)


Odraude wrote:
I see your multishot archer and raise you girl that can fire arrows with her feet :)

I'm sure that's not all she can do with her feet. ;)


Tels wrote:
Odraude wrote:
I see your multishot archer and raise you girl that can fire arrows with her feet :)
I'm sure that's not all she can do with her feet. ;)

I... don't know what to say...

*ponders* :D


Come on, we all know guns have no place in proper fantasy


Haha, I had a feeling that statement would be challenged! I'll skip on trying to counter with absurd Pathfinder-level tests of skill though. Neat video.

I was under the impression musket master did nothing for advanced firearms. Unlike early firearms, it's a move action to reload both one-handed and two-handed advanced firearms, so the reduction from Fast Musket has no effect. Rapid reload doesn't seem to take into account advanced firearms either. Am I missing something? (I know there was a thread debating metal cartridges reload speed, but I didn't keep up with it.)

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The Welsh longbow was the machine gun of its time. I have no doubt that a real life archer could fire off six shots in nearly as many seconds. It would take many years of training, but that would be the cost. In fact, longbowmen took ten years to train, and there are stories of them firing very quickly and very accurately at long ranges.

Firearms like the ones represented in Pathfinder on the other hand have reports of a shot about every 6 to 10 seconds being the record. That is pretty darn fast, but once again we are talking about well trained troops.

Now, I don't really care for realism in my games. If I wanted realism there would be thousands of different weapons with a dozen stats for each, along with as much variety and complexity in armor. Such a system would require computers to run in any sort of exciting pace. Instead we have to deal with a system that has only a few simple stats. There are many, many combinations of these stats, but essentially you can't account for everything without adding further complexity.

The addition of the rule that firearms attacks touch AC was an attempt to add such complexity so that the rules could fit a new class of weapons. However, I do not think it works, both because of balance reason and because it is base on a somewhat false idea.

It isn't balanced because it allows a class to reach stupid levels of DPR far easier than other classes. If the touch attack rule wasn't able to be used as often, or if other classes also had access to it as easily, maybe the balance would be better.

The false idea is that body armor was pointless against firearms, and that that was the reason why it disappeared from the battlefield. The fact is that cost was bigger factor than the power of firearms. Properly designed steel armor was decent at protecting a soldier, but it was expensive to produce for the massive armies of infantry. Yes, it could still be penetrated by a firearm, but so could special arrows fired from a longbow.

What do I think would be needed to bring balance back? Scrap the gunslinger and rebuild it from the ground up. Remove the touch attack from the firearm mechanics. Make the fastest reload time for firearms a move action. Change critical to 19-20/x3. If you want to represent better penetration at close range give them a +2 bonus to attack in the first range, 0 in the second, -2 in the next, and so on. Don't assume armor is useless against it. That was never completely true.


@Atarlost - While I’d imagine that the game might benefit from nerfing touch attacks in general rather than just guns specifically I think that’s a much bigger, system level change and therefore even less likely to happen than the already unlikely ones I’ve suggested. It would also require using a flat limit like bypassing 8 or 10 points of bonus instead of something linked to base damage since many touch attacks don’t do damage at all. Luckily most other touch attacks have various other hurdles like SR, saving throws, or energy resistance to overcome.

@CalebTGordon - I suspect that just imposing a longer reload time wouldn't fix a lot by itself since Quick Draw and Clustered Shots could be combined with double-barreled pistols or pepperboxes in various ways to create a lot of touch attack damage which still bypasses SR and mostly bypasses DR. The idea of making firearms target regular AC but giving them a bonus to hit at close range seems interesting, but it would make creatures without any armor at all easier to hit too. That’s one reason why I thought allowing them to overcome a set amount of armor might work better than a flat bonus on attack rolls.


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CalebTGordan wrote:
Historically, by the way, the English longbows were far superiour to both crossbows and firearms. Accurate volley firing of up to 200 yards, armor piercing arrows, and the ability to fire just about every other second made it the top method of combat. Armored knights were powerless against it...

This is coming dangerously close to longbow fanboyism, which is very nearly as irritating as katana fanboyism.

Remember that Agincourt is the last of the great English longbow victories. It did not prove as effective against advancing armour technology. Plate armour won the conflict with the longbow. Sure, there was a back-and-forth, and at times the longbow even had the upper hand at a few points in the 14th century, but ultimately plate armour prevailed. It took the advent of effective firearms to drive armour from the battlefield. William Turner, writing hudreds of years later in the late 17th century argues that longbow use should be revived because, "...arrows would do more mischief than formerly they did: since neither men nor horses are so well armed now to resist them, as in former ages they used to be." Essentially, he believed that a force of longbowmen would be effective in battle since they can shoot more quickly than musketeers, but also because soldiers would be vulnerable to the arrows precisely because they no longer made a practice of wearing armour into battle. He acknowledges that armour defeated arrows and drove the longbow from its once-exalted position on the battlefield.

The longbow won at Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt simply because the English got to pick the battlefield and made the French fight on their terms, which included placing their longbowmen behind substantial field fortifications. What conclusion should we draw from the results of other battles in which English archers were ridden down by the very heavy cavalry whose bane they supposedly were? In the batle of Patay, that's just what happened. Where was the longbow's armour-piercing power then?

I submit the following passage from Dr. Michael Lacy's paper on the Effectiveness of Medieval Knightly Armour. This portion deals with the battle of Flodden (1513) wherein the Scots fielded a force clad in the latest plate infantry armours mass-produced on the Continent:

"...the longbow, so decisive in the wars of the last century, was defeated by the heavy German armour of the Scottish front ranks; a contemporary accounts describe them as "most assuredly harnesed" in armour, and that they "abode the most dangerous shot of arrows, which sore them annoyed but yet except it hit them in some bare place, did them no hurt." Bishop Ruthal, writing 10 days after the battle remarked "they were so well cased in armour that the arrows did them no harm, and were such large and stout men that one would not fall when four or five bills struck them."

That's right, contemporary English chroniclers reveal that the longbow did not pierce armour. Other accounts from Poitiers and Brouwershaven (1426) tell similar stories, to say nothing of reports of battles from the English dynastic struggle known as the Wars of the Roses in which both sides turned the longbow on each other, in which it is specially pointed out that Lords Clifford and Dacre were not vulnerable to arrows until they had lifted their visors to drink or shout or breathe.

More near the time of Agincourt, here is a passage from the biography of Don Pero Niño, a Spanish privateer, who raided the English coast a couple of years before Agincourt:

"...they (the Spanish) were so near them (the English) that they could easily tell the fair men from the dark...the standard and he who bore it were likewise riddled with arrows, and the standard bearer had as many round his body as a bull in the ring, but he was shielded by his good armour"

For what it's worth, that standard bearer was none other than the author of this account himself, Gutierre Diaz de Gamez. It is noteworthy that his plate armour enabled him to survive a close-range arrow onslaught and live to write this passage years later.

The longbow was not the "king of the battlefield," the magical nuclear armour-piercer that its fanboys want you to believe. It was only effective under certain controlled circumstances, and even then was mostly an anti-cavalry weapon. Don't buy the hype. Don't misunderstand me--the English were awesome during the early part of the Hundred Years War, but it was because of their strategic expertise, and canny use of combined arms tactics, not because they possessed some magical, battle-winning wonder weapon.

I do not say that most of the casualties at Agincourt are the result of Henry's slaughtering of prisoners, but it can't be denied that that action did indeed inflate the numbers of men of rank who perished there.

The fact that the English were caught out in the open as being a decisive factor in the French victory. Again, IMO the English longbow seems to prevail over armoured men only if the English get to choose the ground and have time to set up their stakes and such beforehand.

I have lately dug up another account in support of armour stopping arrows. This is from a letter written by one Jehan Baugey, and dated 16 September 1475:

"That Monday after supper the English (mercenary longbowmen) quarreled over a wench and wanted to kill each other. As soon as the duke (of Burgundy) heard of this, he went to them with a few people to appease them but they, not recognizing the duke, as they claimed, shot two or three times directly at him with their bows. (The arrows went) very near his head and it was extraordinarily lucky that he was not killed, for he had no armour on at all."

The Burgundians had been hiring English longbowmen as mercenaries for decades at this point, and would have been intimately familiar with the power of the longbow. Yet they still expected that plate armour would have saved a man if he were struck by one of those arrows. What conclusion should we draw from this?

Here is a passage from Vaughan's Philip the Good that deals with the battle of Brouwershaven:

"...they (The English) returned fire with their deadly long-bows and drove the Dutch back in disorder. However, arrows could make no impression on Philip and his heavily-armed knights, who now arrived on the scene. The chronicler points out that Andrieu de Valines was killed by an arrow in the eye because he was not wearing a helmet."

Here, not only do we again have the expectation that a helmet would have saved one man, but a direct statement that the arrows from those longbows made no impression on the (presumably plate-clad) knights.


CalebTGordan wrote:

What do I think would be needed to bring balance back? Scrap the gunslinger and rebuild it from the ground up. Remove the touch attack from the firearm mechanics. Make the fastest reload time for firearms a move action. Change critical to 19-20/x3. If you want to represent better penetration at close range give them a +2 bonus to attack in the first range, 0 in the second, -2 in the next, and so on. Don't assume armor is useless against it. That was never completely true.

Making Firearms a worse version of a bow seems pointless.

Why would I use a Firearm if it can't full attack?

Think about this thought before you put forth gun ideas. You need an attractive reasons to use guns over a bow for the average player. If you don't think the idea is attractive then your idea won't fly.
A bonus to hit that can't full attack is worseless after level 6 (until Vital Strike is improved by a fix).

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Sorry, I forgot to mention that I would keep the dead shot deed, probably as a feat with its own feat chain, and with the ability to use crossbows with the ability. I still think they should have their reload time never be faster than a move action, but I agree that there should be a way to gain a full attack with one. If you don't limit reload times, and allow them to be free actions with even muskets, then don't have anything like the dead shot deed available. One or the other, not both.

But the problem I have with them is similar to what Starbuck II talked about. If I want to use a ranged weapon, why would I use anything besides a firearm? If I can guarantee myself that all of my attacks have a 95% chance to hit for very high amounts of damage, why wouldn't I use a firearm?

At least we all agree that something needs to be done. Devilkiller has some good ideas that I could live with, though my taste is for something more simple. That is why I suggested changing how they treat range increment penalties. If you want something that doesn't give blanket bonuses or penalties, I am sure something just as simple could be used.

As for ArmoredSaint's comments, I didn't read the full post. You are clearly a scholar on the subject, and I must have touched a nerve with my short generalization. The fact is that I wanted to recognize the comments about bows but didn't want to derail the discussion with a huge post about bows and their history. The subject is what problems we have with firearms within the Pathfinder rules. I probably should have just ignored the comments on real life history and focused on that topic.

Ultimately you are correct, that while arrows were able to penetrate armor under the right circumstances (point-blank range at the exact right spot and correct angle,) armor had evolved to protect the soldier. That is the nature of war. One side develops a way to protect their soldiers, another a way to bypass that protection. Yes, firearms were better at penetrating that armor, but that was only one small reason for the gradual replacement of the bow. Yes, I am a fan of the longbow, but no more than I am of firearms. My grandfather took me out to fire muzzle loaders way before I learned the joy of archery. Honestly, lets just leave it at that. I bow (pun intended) to your extensive knowledge of the subject, now lets actually talk about what this discussion is about.

Do you see any problems with firearms in the Pathfinder game? If so, what are they? Do you have any examples? Do you have any suggestions for how to fix the problems? If not, why not?


Starbuck_II wrote:


Making Firearms a worse version of a bow seems pointless.
Why would I use a Firearm if it can't full attack?

Think about this thought before you put forth gun ideas. You need an attractive reasons to use guns over a bow for the average player. If you don't think the idea is attractive then your idea won't fly.
A bonus to hit that can't full attack is worseless after level 6 (until Vital Strike is improved by a fix).

And that's why I don't like gunslingers.

To make a class based on guns viable, you have to have full attacks with guns. But full attacks with guns make them "feel" like Western six-shooters, not like medieval-era super-primitive guns.

Thus there shouldn't be a class based around guns.

I'm fine with them existing in world, but once you start treating them as something designed for adventuring PCs to use, you bring in (IMO) modern or at least 19th-century, Western-era assumptions about effectiveness and usefulness.

And it's not about realism -- I agree PF combat isn't especially realistic about other weapons. It's about "feel", the feel of medieval fantasy as opposed to steampunk or urban fantasy. (Which are of course fine, but PF isn't the best game for them.)


I wouldn't feel I was being fair to a Gunslinger player if I didn't give them access to advanced firearms, specifically the revolver. My usual rationale is that they or someone they know has developed them, and that's why they can get hold of a one-off model while they're not available in stores anywhere in the setting.


KtA wrote:
To make a class based on guns viable, you have to have full attacks with guns.

Why? Two-handed fighting (THF) is stronger then two weapon fighting (TWF) even though TWF gives you more attacks per round, but the higher damage and higher accuracy (plus the need for less feats) of TWF makes it stronger. Why can't firearms be the TWF to bow's THF (so to speak)? High damage and armor piercing to offset a low rate of fire. Something like the hand cannoneer and janissary in Age of Empires II.

The main problem with Pathfinder firearms is that there are too modern - the accuracy and rate of fire is WAY to high in a setting with other matrial classes. Sure, PF is not trying to be historical accurate, but a gunslinger and a fighter really can't believable be on the same battlefield. I'm not talking about melee weapons or heavy armor, but about melee fighter characters. If firearms are good enough to use, every martial needs to be able to use one.

TL;DR: The early firearms are not early enough to work in a setting with melee classes.


KtA wrote:
Starbuck_II wrote:


Making Firearms a worse version of a bow seems pointless.
Why would I use a Firearm if it can't full attack?

Think about this thought before you put forth gun ideas. You need an attractive reasons to use guns over a bow for the average player. If you don't think the idea is attractive then your idea won't fly.
A bonus to hit that can't full attack is worseless after level 6 (until Vital Strike is improved by a fix).

And that's why I don't like gunslingers.

To make a class based on guns viable, you have to have full attacks with guns. But full attacks with guns make them "feel" like Western six-shooters, not like medieval-era super-primitive guns.

Thus there shouldn't be a class based around guns.

I'm fine with them existing in world, but once you start treating them as something designed for adventuring PCs to use, you bring in (IMO) modern or at least 19th-century, Western-era assumptions about effectiveness and usefulness.

And it's not about realism -- I agree PF combat isn't especially realistic about other weapons. It's about "feel", the feel of medieval fantasy as opposed to steampunk or urban fantasy. (Which are of course fine, but PF isn't the best game for them.)

Agree on all counts. Why do we need to contort the rules in an effort to 'convince' people to use guns?


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I think part of the reason people dislike the gun mechanics is that there is a fairly obvious disconnect between how the Pathfinder guns are presented (similar early design muzzle loaded firearms that reload powder and round using paper cartridges was fired and reloaded roughly every 15 seconds by a trained soldier) and the speed with which these firearms can be fired and reloaded in-game - For instance a level 3 musket master can fire and reload a musket as a free action.

Since ranged attacks typically bank on firing many shots, this quickly becomes a rather ludicrous idea when the musket master reloads and fires his musket four, five, six or more times in a 6-second period.

Personally I mentally sidestepped this disconnect by assuming that gunslinger is able to reload his firearm so fast both by dedicated training (rapid reload etc) but also by tweaking his firearm, improving its reload mechanism, adding secondary barrels or alternate loading chambers and so on. Thematically (but not mechanically) the gunslinger's firearm moves from early to late gun designs as the gunslinger levels up and continues to fine-tune and develop his personal sidearm.

If I think of early guns as fantastical, mysterious and magical devices instead of the real-world equivalent firearms they seem to be I find that the disconnect is easier to accept.


Derklord wrote:
KtA wrote:
To make a class based on guns viable, you have to have full attacks with guns.

Why? Two-handed fighting (THF) is stronger then two weapon fighting (TWF) even though TWF gives you more attacks per round, but the higher damage and higher accuracy (plus the need for less feats) of TWF makes it stronger. Why can't firearms be the TWF to bow's THF (so to speak)? High damage and armor piercing to offset a low rate of fire. Something like the hand cannoneer and janissary in Age of Empires II.

Because more attacks are how martial damage scales up with level. THF does more damage per attack and gets less attacks than TWF, but it still scales up with level.

Guns could work as single shot/round weapons if another mechanism was provided to scale damage up. The Vital Strike/Dead shot approach just isn't enough. It falls too far behind iterative damage, since damage bonuses are only added once.


thejeff wrote:
Derklord wrote:
KtA wrote:
To make a class based on guns viable, you have to have full attacks with guns.

Why? Two-handed fighting (THF) is stronger then two weapon fighting (TWF) even though TWF gives you more attacks per round, but the higher damage and higher accuracy (plus the need for less feats) of TWF makes it stronger. Why can't firearms be the TWF to bow's THF (so to speak)? High damage and armor piercing to offset a low rate of fire. Something like the hand cannoneer and janissary in Age of Empires II.

Because more attacks are how martial damage scales up with level. THF does more damage per attack and gets less attacks than TWF, but it still scales up with level.

Guns could work as single shot/round weapons if another mechanism was provided to scale damage up. The Vital Strike/Dead shot approach just isn't enough. It falls too far behind iterative damage, since damage bonuses are only added once.

However, an exception could be made for guns and Vital Strike, similar to how guns currently benefit from Deadly Aim despite being a touch attack.


Allowing Vital Strike and Dead Shot to increase the armor piercing ability of a gun using my proposed "fix" might provide some reason for a PC to use those options. They'd also be good for preserving ammo, which might allow a Musket Master to build up a nice collection of special purpose bullets such as +1 dragon bane. Vital Strike could also be useful on rounds when you wanted to move either to get into armor piercing range or get out of melee full attack range.

A recent foe in a game I play was an AC42 ancient black dragon (with mage armor, a spell on its list). It normally has a touch AC of just 8. Under my proposal a musket would reduce that to 30, and a hasted 14th level Musket Master with a +2 holy musket could expect to do around 70 DPR on average with a full attack, not counting crits. Meanwhile an Improved Vital Strike with Devastating Strike would only inflict about 50 damage. If the dragon didn't like being shot and used Combat Expertise the full attack damage would drop to around 35 though, and suddenly Improved Vital Strike or Dead Shot might look pretty effective. Crit threats could skew this back in the direction of the full attack being more effective, but I suspect that the increased chance to threaten would be largely offset by the decreased chance to confirm.

As a point of reference a hasted pouncing barbarian with a +11 Str mod from greater rage and a +2 holy greatsword could probably expect to do around 65 damage against AC42. That drops to just around 25 damage if the dragon uses Combat Expertise for an AC48. Meanwhile, without my proposed change the 14th level Gunslinger could around 160 damage with a single barreled musket or roughly twice that much by strict RAW with a double-barreled musket (though I think many GMs would rule as I do that you need to use a standard action to fire both barrels). I certainly could have missed some minor points in this analysis, but I doubt I'm off by orders of magnitude. Averaging 320 damage when the pouncing Barbarian can only manage 30 seems a little over the top to me. If the Gunslinger has Improved Crit there's also nearly a 100% chance to roll a crit threat during the round. With a little luck you could take out two dragons in one round. Certainly you could blow away the dragon and a few mooks, and this isn't even the highest damage Gunslinger build possible but a musket based build focused on striking from a greater distance. With a little extra gold you could put the distance enchantment on your gun and blow dragons away from 160 feet with a grit point or Signature Deed (Deadeye).

The RAW Gunslinger turns an otherwise tough encounter into kind of a joke. Obviously the GM could customize the dragon with special defenses like Displacement and Mirror Image, but those would make the other PCs face an even tougher fight than the one which already gave our party of three 14th level PCs some real trouble and almost killed our Inquisitor. There are a million excuses for why it shouldn’t be a problem for the Gunslinger to have that much offensive power. I can’t think of as many for why the Gunslinger should be allowed to outperform other martial classes by such a wide margin though. Requiring a standard action to fire both barrels of a double-barreled firearm would help a lot, but I think more is needed.

Interestingly enough, I've noticed that the Gun Tank archetype actually has a way to make armor work against firearms and Bombs. They get half their armor's regular armor bonus plus any enhancement bonus it has against such attacks. I had an idea recently about allowing enhancement bonuses to armor (and shield bonuses in general) to count against touch attacks. I felt that would leave high level monsters which rely on natural armor out in the cold though. Some might protest that all of this stuff sounds too complicated, but I don't think it is really much worse than the questions which often arise when somebody is the target of an incorporeal touch. With misfire rules and range increment dependent effects, grit points, and complicated reloading rules, firearms are already complicated. I'd like to see them balanced too.


Nothing wrong with guns. they are a significant part of fantasy in everything from pirate stories to late middle age/renaissance stories. I personally, however, like my guns limited by rate of fire and reloading. I had a great time using pistols in the Arcanis settling and like what they did with gunpouder. I think where Pathfinder has gone a little overboard is the attempt to make guns just like any other weapon that you can use x times per round. I get it from a balance stand point and understand the necesssity to support a gun only class but it is not for me. I like the shoot my pistol draw my sword style of fantasy.


Tels wrote:
Starbuck_II wrote:
Rhatahema wrote:

I think the reload time is the only thing that breaks immersion, for me. I mean, no one can operate a bow with the speed and accuracy that's possible in D&D/PF,

Lars can:

Link.

Linked that for you. I was going to link to one of his earlier videos where his technique was hidden as he was still perfecting it.

Speed Archer while no Lars, this girl demonstrates someone who would make a fine addition to a formation as she can unleash many arrows in a short time.

You know, it occurred to me that, for Pathfinder to do what Lars can do, you would need to be a high-level Mythic Sohei Monk with Mythic Rapid Shot and Mythic Many Shot. This lets you shoot up to 13 arrows in a single round; 7 from Flurry, 2 from Mythic Manyshot, 2 from Mythic Rapid Shot, 1 from Haste, 1 from a Ki Point. A Full BAB martial could get up to 9 attacks: 4 from BAB, 1 from Haste and 4 from Mythic Manyshot/Rapid Shot, the same number as a Zen Archer (who can't take Rapid Shot or Manyshot).

Sovereign Court

In the Thunderscape setting, firearms are extremely cheap (A a holdout pistol is 10 gold, a pistol costs like 25 gold, a rifle 50 gold, a scattergun is 75 gold a sniper rifle is 100 gold) but as firearms are so common they take away the Touch AC rule.

To compensate for this, standard ammo has a flat +1 damage bonus. There is also other optional types of shot. Heavy shot has a +2 damage bonus but a -1 to hit due to recoil and lower accuracy. Armor piercing shot counts a target's AC as 2 less but does a lower die of damage. There is also a special Sniper Shot that gets more accurate at longer ranges but is less accurate at short range.

The firearms rules in Thunderscape are pretty balanced. Firearms have only a x3 crit range (Or 19-20 x2 in case of a pistol). They also require a move action to reload (except for Sniper Rifles that require a standard and a Scatter Gun that takes a full round to reload both barrels). Firearms also don't have a missfire chance either in the setting. They do still have the restrictions of firing in water though. To me this works better for the rules. It makes firearms a useful option without them outshining other weapons in the setting.


Green Smashomancer wrote:

To start, I'd like to point out that I'm not speaking mechanically, I understand that hitting touch AC can feel OP to some GMs.

What I mean is why do I hear people saying they don't "fit?" In a fantasy setting, why is it "normal" that a Wizard should be able to travel to different planes, stop time, and summon a demon before breakfast? Or a paladin to cut down hordes of evil creatures, and shrug off their attacks like nothing, all under the blessing of their god?

But as soon as one guy shows up with a metal pipe that shoots lead balls, what? Immersion is just shattered so thoroughly that no-one can stand it anymore?

In short, I'd like to hear why folks feel guns, specifically, are out of place in fantasy.

The issue often arises from a combination of standard genre conventions and player overenthusiasm.

Pathfinder (and the game it arose from) is traditionally a "swords 'n sorcery RPG". You typically aren't going to find much scientific development past the Renaissance. Consequently, you might, in very well-developed and well-funded metropolises, find a few flintlock pistols or blunderbusses. They were often as hazardous (if not moreso) to their wielders as they were to their targets (and they had awful accuracy and ridiculously long reload times; most people using them would fire once or twice, and then charge into a fight with a more traditional weapon).

Players have a propensity to apply more modern concepts to medieval firearms. Perhaps not unreasonably, a player might conclude that their Wizard with a 22 Intelligence (quite far above "genius level") would be able to figure out how to create a chamber to hold and load ammo, or might be able to manage something approximating "automatic fire". Then you get the player who's maxed out Knowledge: Engineering to build the first scope, and before you know it, hundreds of thousands of gold have been spent to turn the medieval adventuring party into Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos. Then players are feating themselves up to take advantage of this, and then hunkering down behind barriers to commit massive guerilla warfare on hapless dragons and extraplanar denizens with their heavily-enchanted firearms.

It can quickly spiral out of control.

Some players are just fantasy purists as well, and don't want something in the game which advances science too much, or which causes the inevitable arguments about whether a gun could "realistically" puncture the breastplate of a suit of full plate (it can; it's why they were made), and then arguments over how much realism you should have in a fantasy game, etc.

With the inclusion of the Gunslinger class, it largely becomes a moot point in Pathfinder unless a GM wields Rule Zero and simply says "No" to that class.

To be honest, I think the best "era-realistic" implementation of firearms in D&D/Pathfinder was the 2nd Edition book "Forgotten Realms Adventures" (which, despite being the core book to bring FR into 2nd Edition, rather quickly went out of print, and subsequently shot up in price on the rare book market; I think I sold mine for around $125 on Ebay when 3rd Edition was out). If you're not pleased with the Pathfinder rules for firearms and can find the old conversion rules to take something from 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition, and you can find that book (or a PDF of it online somewhere; I know WotC was recently putting up PDFs for sale of a lot of previous-edition material; I'm considering pulling in the Book of Vile Darkness if I can't find a passable Pathfinder version, or can't find the original at a used bookstore somewhere), you might consider trying that out for something different.


Silentman73 wrote:
Perhaps not unreasonably, a player might conclude that their Wizard with a 22 Intelligence (quite far above "genius level") would be able to figure out how to create a chamber to hold and load ammo, or might be able to manage something approximating "automatic fire".

To be blunt, wizards already approximate automatic fire without guns even being part of the setting. Do the math on how many quickened magic missiles a high-level wizard can toss out in a minute. They're pretty much approaching the firing rate of modern firearms.


MagusJanus wrote:
Silentman73 wrote:
Perhaps not unreasonably, a player might conclude that their Wizard with a 22 Intelligence (quite far above "genius level") would be able to figure out how to create a chamber to hold and load ammo, or might be able to manage something approximating "automatic fire".
To be blunt, wizards already approximate automatic fire without guns even being part of the setting. Do the math on how many quickened magic missiles a high-level wizard can toss out in a minute. They're pretty much approaching the firing rate of modern firearms.

Yeah, but it takes far longer to train a high-level wizard than to make a gun.


thejeff wrote:
MagusJanus wrote:
Silentman73 wrote:
Perhaps not unreasonably, a player might conclude that their Wizard with a 22 Intelligence (quite far above "genius level") would be able to figure out how to create a chamber to hold and load ammo, or might be able to manage something approximating "automatic fire".
To be blunt, wizards already approximate automatic fire without guns even being part of the setting. Do the math on how many quickened magic missiles a high-level wizard can toss out in a minute. They're pretty much approaching the firing rate of modern firearms.
Yeah, but it takes far longer to train a high-level wizard than to make a gun.

True. But it would take a high-level wizard to make a gun capable of automatic fire under Pathfinder rules, given the way they're set up. Mainly because the weapon would need a lot of magical enchantment ^^

Question becomes why a wizard would do that when they could just make a staff that does the same thing, uses no ammunition that can explode, and can be recharged.


As far as not fitting the time period goes, I house fluff guns a lot. My guns are minor magical devices on their own, break action with cltoh wrapped bullet plugging the barrel. Powder comes in shaped charges that fill in cups behind the bullet and firing mechanisms based on pins enchanted with minor heating spells to ignite the charge. These are first generation weapons developed by alchemists and magicians. The expense of firing mechanisms and percise engineering of barrels and bullet molds is already reflected in the insane prices of guns. and by divorcing guns from real world history the speed and function in game is easier to swallow. That pricing/construction method is also why they remain the toys of the rich and crazy. I also rule that Adamantine guns dont misfire, they just jam and need to be cleared but wont break or cause damage to users with just a misfire or two.

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