Our group is about to start a new Pathfinder Adventure Path at 1st level with four 15-pt buy PCs. The GM encouraged one of the players to try out a gunslinger and, due to an elaborate background, is considering giving him starting access to a modern 5-round capacity rifle rather than a gunslinger's typical firearm options.
I'm not terribly familiar with Pathfinder firearms or the gunslinger class. For those who are; what effect would this modern technology have on the the gunslinger's overall class balance at low and higher levels?
At low levels? Not much. However, as he begins being able to take iterative shots with firearm or using rapid shot/many shot he will do more damage then virtually anyone else, and he wont have to pull any shenanigans to do it.
Normally, PCs have to invest quite a bit of cash and character development to be able to reload their firearms as free actions so they can fire their maximum number of attacks every round. However, with the right archetype and a modern rifle he can pick up the ability to reload as a free action. Now, because he isn't dual wielding pistols its not as bad, but he is likely to cause more damage than anyone else in the party at higher levels, and will never have to worry about hitting because he can target touch AC at 5 range increments (with a modern weapon).
I would only allow a revolver from the advanced firearms table at most.
Unless he's attempting to dual-wield modern revovlers...which is like all the normal dual wielding shenanigans. Except I don't think there are modern double barrel pistols.
Probably the same thing will happen in the game as happened in history. Armor will become obsolete and anyone without access to a gun will be at a severe disadvantage. Guns will become the dominant weapon and other weapons will be ignored or relegated to ceremonially use.
A rifle does 1d10 points of damage, has a x4 critical multiplier and a range increment of 20. It targets touch AC for the first 5 range increments, which means anything within 400 feet is pretty easy to hit. At higher level AC goes up fairly quickly, but touch AC does not keep pace. In many cases the touch AC actually goes down instead of up. This means that a gunslinger will hit just about everything he aims at. It also means that most critical threats are easily confirmed.
At lower levels this is not going to be that big of a deal. As the party levels up the gunslinger is going to steadily outpace most of the other characters. Normally two things keep the gunslinger in check. The first is that using early firearms only the first range increment targets touch AC. The second is that his rate of fire is limited by needing to constantly reload. Modern firearms removes both of these limitations.
Is this for Reign of Winter? Is it a homebrew setting?
It's for Reign of Winter, though set in the Forgotten Realms; in Aglarond & Rashemen mostly.
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Depending on how this PC came to be trained in advanced firearms, and his/her upbringing, the DM may want to apply the Commonplace Guns, or Guns Everywhere rules, in regards to this PC.
You can find those rules here.
Go for it, if you can think you can find a justification for more magazines in Golarion. Or why you know how to make them.
Depending on how this PC came to be trained in advanced firearms, and his/her upbringing, the DM may want to apply the Commonplace Guns, or Guns Everywhere rules, in regards to this PC.
The character and his firearm will be effectively unique in a standard "emerging firearms" campaign setting; his origins being another, more technologically advanced, world. I believe the intent is for him to produce his own ammunition via the gunsmithing feat.
Since no one else in the campaign setting would know how to produce modern firearms or ammunition, neither would be more common nor would proficiency in their use be any easier for others to acquire. Effective prices for ammunition wouldn't be any lower, which in turn would mean that our lone gunslinger must retain the gunsmithing feat to function.
All in all, I can't see what effect a gunslinger with a single advanced firearm would have either on the frequency of guns or their associated prices in the campaign setting nor how it would directly affect his class abilities beyond the balance issues that have been pointed out above. Unless of course the character or some NPC goes out of his way to backwards engineer the advanced firearm and seek to spread the technology throughout the setting. Then we're discussing a setting-wide arms & armor revolution.
I think it can work very well in the right party and very poorly in the wrong one. If the other players are casters they won't care that the Gunslinger is good at shooting things, they will be happy. If the other players are archers or melee types, the Gunslinger will pull away as the best damage dealer in the mid levels. When I try to decide whether or not to give a player a power-up like modern firearms I focus on what it will do to the other players enjoyment more than mine as a GM or the player who wants the cool power-up. I like it when the PCs are relatively balanced against each other because it makes my job as GM easier. I like it as a player because everyone gets engaged when they feel like equals rather that some main characters and some sidekicks.
I am not trying to spoil anything, but modern firearms will fit just fine in Reign of Winter.
We players are aware that this unique character is an itinerant WW 1 Russian soldier armed with his stock rifle who's been indadvertedly ported to the Forgotten Realms. Thing is, he'll be starting off as such at 1st level. That's about all we know however, so no more AP spoilers please.
advanced firearms have a cost not entirely unlike low grade magical weapons. This is worth noting both for 'when it should be available' but also for 'what you're paying for the weapon's abilities'. That advanced firearm is a significant chunk of your WBL at very low levels. You'll have a mundane shotgun, the fighter'll have his +2 weapon, and everyone could be happy.
That might matter if the character were to pay for the rifle, but he'll be receiving it for free in lieu of the gunslinger's usual firearm. He'll be keeping pace treasure-wise with the other PCs as they level, so when others have +2 weapons, he'll likely have enhanced his modern rifle to +2 as well.
Reason is that Rapid Reload and Alchemical Cartridges are incompatible with advanced firearms. This means you will ALWAYS require a move action to reload your gun, rather than being able to get it down to a free action. The advanced firearms have no real support from archetypes either.
From what I can see, Rapid Reload isn't so much incompatible as it is redundant; reloading a modern rifle is automatically faster than the feat can manage; a move action I believe. When combined with a 5 cartridge capacity firearm, seems to me that the character will be able to pull off full attacks most of the time, only needing to slow down to a single shot every 3rd round or so once he has sufficient iterative attacks.
Is there really no spell, feat, item enhancement or class ability that can further improve a modern firearm's reloading speed from a move to a free action? I'm just trying to get a view of the big picture.
Ambrus, I'm not aware of the specifics of a WW1 Russian rifle, but if it uses a magazine then I'd happily allow rapid reload to get changing magazines down to a free action. If you have to feed each cartridge into it individually, like the German (and others) rifles did, then I'd allow each cartridge to be loaded as a free action anyway - but limited to only 6 free actions per round as suggested in the FAQ about gun reloading.
However, I'd also apply misfire chances to this PC because his rifle needs high quality metals and gunpowder/cordite etc to make cartridges, not the very crude stuff originally used for early firearms. Or a source of magically refined materials...If he goes on a quest for them.
It's a Mosin-Nagant M1891 Rifle with a 5 round internal non-detachable magazine that is typically loaded with 5-round stripper clips (loading it is a move action). Without stripper clips, it can only be reloaded with up to 2 rounds of ammunition as a move action.
At lower levels this is not going to be that big of a deal. As the party levels up the gunslinger is going to steadily outpace most of the other characters. Normally two things keep the gunslinger in check. The first is that using early firearms only the first range increment targets touch AC. The second is that his rate of fire is limited by needing to constantly reload. Modern firearms removes both of these limitations.
I don't really see how this makes Advanced Firearms that much more powerful than normal ones. Unless you're using a one-handed firearm, all the range increments are up to 30-50ft, so you're almost never going to be outside of range. As for more attacks, with Rapid Reload and Alchemical Cartridges you can get reloads on Early Firearms down to free action as well, so Advanced Firearms do not give a Gunslinger more attacks (unless he is Dual Wielding Advanced Pistols, which DOES give more attacks).
It's a Mosin-Nagant M1891 Rifle with a 5 round internal non-detachable magazine that is typically loaded with 5-round stripper clips (loading it is a move action). Without stripper clips, it can only be reloaded with up to 2 rounds of ammunition as a move action.
That sounds like it's pretty much the same as most of the WW1 rifles. Which, in real life, are so easy to shoot that almost anyone can become expert enough within a couple of hours to be accurately hitting human-sized targets at a range of about one mile, using simple iron sights. I would be lucky to not have a dex penalty, personally, and I was able to do that after two hours of 'playing' with a Mauser 1897K rifle on a firing range. Reloading quickly takes more practice than I had, but the equivalent of the rapid reload feat should improve matters, despite the rules.
So, my advice is:
1) this is a home brew campaign; 2) you've already bent the official 'rules' to allow this character with this weapon; 3) so allow him to take rapid reload and house rule it so it does what you want.
This isn't the rules forum, so go with whatever makes the game more fun for your group.
I'd still be inclined to make misfires happen, as I explained above.
If you want modern guns, The Modern Path is your friend. But, if you use these in conjunction with the gunslinger, you'll have a ruthless carnage machine! And such guns (with rules more akin to D20 Modern) would dominate over other forms of combat... even with magical counter-measures designed to foil guns. In a modernized fantasy setting, there's likely no problem, as guns would be the dominant form of weapon combat anyway.