Now, generally, my preferred fix for Gunslingers and firearms is to use the Heroes of Alvena ruleset, where, among other things, they don't target touch AC. But it occurs to me--if one took it as a design girl that guns *do*interact with AC specially, perhaps instead of touch, they should target Flat-Footed AC?
The thing is, while guns do have significant penetrative power, so do crossbows, even longbows for that matter, and armorb of some form, be it an elephant or rhino's tough hide, full plate against early firearms, or a Kevlar vest, armor of some stripe has and does often stop small arms fire. What doesn't happen in real life is *dodging* bullets, as they generally move with an excessive amount of velocity.
From a game balance perspective, hitting Flat-footed is generally a lot less impressive than hitting touch. In some cases, it's everything, while in others it can be literally nothing.
Thoughts?
Sneak Attack damage
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I think the main reason why they get their dex and dodge bonus to AC isn't because they are trying to dodge a bullet, it's because that in combat, your opponent is constantly moving and it's harder to hit a moving target than a still one.
What would make the most sense would be to have it consider that their Dex mod is 2-4 lower like the creepy jester said, because it's still easier to hit someone with a bullet then an arrow, and to reduce their armor/natural armor/shield bonus to AC by half due to superior penetration... Or just save your GM the headache and have it target touch.
If you want the game to be more realistic, use the Armor as DR rule and give guns an appropriate amount of automatic DRR or count as 1 step higher for bypassing DR.
Would you say this idea of yours is just a shot in the dark?
Maybe it could treat the target's Dexterity modifier as 4 lower in all cases, since any score above 18 is technically superhuman.
Someone hasn't seen any of the great FFvsT debates.
Game balancing and real life representing crossing into game mechanics is best off using FF to AC targeting, they still get full progression so they make sense now to have full BAB they are still a dex based class but they get bonuses as is for dodging other firearms (and one could even allow dex against other firearms), and they now aren't punching through full plate like its butter when we already know there were knight plates from pre-gun age that could stop average muskets from the 1500's and it isn't rped as all shots are direct shots.
Personally, as we get to advanced/modern weapons, it does start targeting touch from a real life stand point, since only specially designed armors (ie officer's plates from WW1) could stop bullets and that they were much more accurate so you wouldn't be grazing most of the time until Kevlar (which is still a specially designed armor). As for future, more science fiction campaigns, we now have the technology to make subdermal carbon "chainmail" at the molecular level so now everyone gets armor with no AC penalty or Max Dex (woot, rogues just broke tier 5).
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Would you say this idea of yours is just a shot in the dark?
Brilliant.
As for balance concerns, I think the overall rules for firearms in Pathfinder are broken beyond saving, and not in the overpowered way either; guns in PF are all pieces of crap, even compared to weapons like crossbow, and classes like Gunslinger exist just to make them half-viable weapons. How do they make up for this? Targeting Touch AC and doing both Piercing and Bludgeoning damage. However, not only is this not realistic, but it simultaneously makes the guns both overpowered as hell AND useless pieces of crap, and it takes a lot of special kind of talent to accomplish that in the same place and time.
In order to get guns that are half-decent in PF, while simultaneously not being overpowered in ways that don't make up for the downsides (nor make any sense at all), I think that they should just use the firearm rules from games like D20 Modern and Mutants & Masterminds.
It's funny, I've never had an issue with the rules as they are written...
The cost has prevented guns from being abused in our games, my players HATE high cost consumables, which guns are.
I mean, a single combat costs 6gp X number of shots fired. That's assuming he makes the alchemical cartridges himself!
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I'm glad firearms don't target flatfooted. I don't see anything wrong with someone dodging your bullets matrix style. This is a fantasy game after all.
I'm glad firearms don't target flatfooted. I don't see anything wrong with someone dodging your bullets matrix style. This is a fantasy game after all.
I love that you can actually deflect them with a feat too.
It rarely comes up, and is totally awesome on the rare occasions it does. :D
I'm glad firearms don't target flatfooted. I don't see anything wrong with someone dodging your bullets matrix style. This is a fantasy game after all.I love that you can actually deflect them with a feat too.
It rarely comes up, and is totally awesome on the rare occasions it does. :D
Don't forget that you can catch them, too.
What I really like is that in the firearms rules it calls out those feats specifically and says that they work on bullets, just to make sure nobody says otherwise.
Modern firearms have trouble with metal armor even to this day. Metal inserts are popular additions to bullet-resistant vests for that reason.
Firearms replaced knights on horseback because a man wielding a gun takes much less time to train than a knight does. It means you can field replacements for your army faster and also field much larger armies with lower resource cost.
What about switching it around? Guns target normal armor and don't explode, but gunslingers can spend grit to make firearms hit Touch AC to reflect the expertise the gunslinger has with a firearm.
That is exactly the Heroes of Alvna solution--along with fur her limiting that deed to a single shot, as I recall.
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I like this. This is very good. Also, if a gunslinger is clever about the way they build or upgrade their firearms(since I doubt that a Gm is going to just throw magic/better guns their way), using downtime to attempt craft mechanical or 'tinkering' rolls to modify the guns they use, like adding barrels, altering the firing mechanism, making the gun easier to reload, or adding things like sights and stocks for improved accuracy. They can use gold to buy the upgrades, and it sort of makes sense for something this experimental to be modified extensively.
I never really had a problem with how firearms work but if I were to change it I'd prefer how its handled in some third party material. They don't target touch AC but add dex to damage naturally.
Firearms are the reason why we don't see knights on horseback in modern wars. They were very powerful and relatively easily usable for common weak folk, though they took a while to reload.
Sorry to say you're wrong but we did have cavalry during the shot and pike time period; fact check folks, its not hard.
As far as other peoples comments go, that's perfectly fine if you want to make guns matrix style in your games but base PF was built around martials having more realism than fantasy (with exception to SU and SP abilities) so it would target FF normally and then you could rule it back to Touch, you're the GM after all. However at the same time, I would argue that the armor in your fantasy setting would also be special and would stop said matrix bullets so to me it sounds like full AC would apply, but once again, up to you.
Le voila: http://heroesofalvena.wikidot.com/gunslinger
As far as other peoples comments go, that's perfectly fine if you want to make guns matrix style in your games but base PF was built around martials having more realism than fantasy (with exception to SU and SP abilities) so it would target FF normally and then you could rule it back to Touch, you're the GM after all. However at the same time, I would argue that the armor in your fantasy setting would also be special and would stop said matrix bullets so to me it sounds like full AC would apply, but once again, up to you.
In any case it would not target flatfooted at all, because you're not only dealing with armored humanoid encounters. Dexterity also can mean that the target is fast moving, such as cats, insects, and birds, for example.
The game already abstracts armor penetration. Attack/damage roll bonuses represent precision and penetration just as AC bonuses represent greater protection and thickness.
This is my biggest problem with armor penetration ideas.Plus, it makes things more complicated.
As far as other peoples comments go, that's perfectly fine if you want to make guns matrix style in your games but base PF was built around martials having more realism than fantasy (with exception to SU and SP abilities) so it would target FF normally and then you could rule it back to Touch, you're the GM after all. However at the same time, I would argue that the armor in your fantasy setting would also be special and would stop said matrix bullets so to me it sounds like full AC would apply, but once again, up to you.In any case it would not target flatfooted at all, because you're not only dealing with armored humanoid encounters. Dexterity also can mean that the target is fast moving, such as cats, insects, and birds, for example.
The lack of accuracy in the weapons and the fact that not every hit is a direct hit (and even when they are, they don't just punch through plating) is why it "wouldn't" target touch. You can't dodge a bullet in real life so once you aim your super inaccurate gun, its just up to the luck of the dice or in real life the chance the bullet flies towards the target and doesn't veer off, it isn't about the person reacting to it. Dodging the aim of a gun doesn't really work either just in that its equally hard to dodge a bows aim in real life since all I have to do is twitch my aim a couple degrees for every 3-5ft you displace yourself, and its not like it gets better if you get closer since I can fire it and then you wont react in time, especially against a bullet.
Animals have very thick skin and fur, there are weapons from the modern day that cant get past a bear's greasy fur (9mms, more often then not, will also not puncture a human skull on the first hit). Your argument that animal hides wont stop or hinder a bullet from a early firearm is not based on fact and certainly doesn't apply when we would have things like dragon hides thrown into the mix. AC isn't stop an attacks success, its making it less likely: something many defenders of Touch AC fail to understand.
If you want a game that does allow bullet time dodging or want to create a weapon ability that would make your gun target a particular AC, that's fine; however no core abstraction with a real life model should use touch as the base item's AC targeting. Science an ballistic physics show that Touch targeting not how the time periods firearms work when compared to other ranged weapons, its not how it works against armor, and its not how human reaction time processes "get out of the way".
As far as other peoples comments go, that's perfectly fine if you want to make guns matrix style in your games but base PF was built around martials having more realism than fantasy (with exception to SU and SP abilities) so it would target FF normally and then you could rule it back to Touch, you're the GM after all. However at the same time, I would argue that the armor in your fantasy setting would also be special and would stop said matrix bullets so to me it sounds like full AC would apply, but once again, up to you.In any case it would not target flatfooted at all, because you're not only dealing with armored humanoid encounters. Dexterity also can mean that the target is fast moving, such as cats, insects, and birds, for example.The lack of accuracy in the weapons and the fact that not every hit is a direct hit (and even when they are, they don't just punch through plating) is why it "wouldn't" target touch. You can't dodge a bullet in real life so once you aim your super inaccurate gun, its just up to the luck of the dice or in real life the chance the bullet flies towards the target and doesn't veer off, it isn't about the person reacting to it. Dodging the aim of a gun doesn't really work either just in that its equally hard to dodge a bows aim in real life since all I have to do is twitch my aim a couple degrees for every 3-5ft you displace yourself, and its not like it gets better if you get closer since I can fire it and then you wont react in time, especially against a bullet.
Animals have very thick skin and fur, there are weapons from the modern day that cant get past a bear's greasy fur (9mms, more often then not, will also not puncture a human skull on the first hit). Your argument that animal hides wont stop or hinder a bullet from a early firearm is not based on fact and certainly doesn't apply when we would have things like dragon hides thrown into the mix. AC isn't stop an attacks success, its making it less likely:...
What? I was saying that it shouldn't target flatfooted is all I was saying. I do agree that firearms shouldn't target touch, but that's not what I meant. My example of animals was a reason why it shouldn't target flatfooted.
My counter example was why it should target FF, not more about why it shouldn't target touch. "Natural Armor" and actual armor alike aren't magically punctured by bullets especially when its a glancing shot like most bullet damage is implied, crits are implied vital/direct blasts. The proof is in the pudding. It also gives Gunslingers a Niche that isn't broken like it is with touch.