Gunslinger, Bullets, Gunsmithing

[Gwiber]

So we find ourselves in a quandry about rules.

The group I am running are deep in the equatorial region of Golarion on a chain of islands, with no real way off for a minimum of 6 months.

One of the players is a Gunsligner with a pistol, and a Gunsmithing kit, and about 60-70 bullets to his name.

He was smart enough to bring a melee weapon that he can use without penalty.

However even conserving bullets. after a bit more than a month he's run down, and is getting seriously concerned with resupply for his pistol.

The rules say the Kit will help him produce more, and how many based on a listed gold cost, but they say nothing about raw materials when you really have no real source of them like you could get in a city.

What exactly is actually needed in terms of supplies here? And since I don't really get the production rules how many can he make in a given period? Like a day?

At least with the books I have read at this point, the situation is highly, and annoyingly, vague.

Note: As was pointed out to me. real world. this chain of islands is part of a chain of dormant volcanoes, so there are, in real life terms, a number of the materials around.

[Casual Viking]

Don't feel constrained by real-world chemistry. Clearly, blackpowder requires 3 components:
*Body parts of a fierce and terrible monster
*Something something from the most dangerous parts of an active volcano
*Something best bartered for from an isolationist tribe in the area.

plus various bits and pieces for bullets (gold coins can be smelted and are properly dense) and maybe some leaves for holding the powder charges.

Once you have the materials, crafting takes 1 day per 1.000 gp cost.

[Layander]

Or if you did care about real world chemistry the ingredients are actually very easy to find.

1. Sulfur
2. saltpeter
3. Charcoal

Probably lead for bullets.

[Gilarius]

Bird poo (guano) makes a reasonable replacement for black powder. Add an alchemy check to convert it (adding charcoal), plus some stones reshaped to act as bullets and some dried leaves for wadding. Make the misfire chance 1 higher, if you wish.

Obsidian bullets might do more damage, but target normal AC instead of touch.

Alchemical cartridges would be a bit trickier, but also doable since their main advantage is having preweighed amounts of gunpowder in them and using the wrapping as wadding.

[QuidEst]

You don't track a wizard's cheap material component availability, do you? I wouldn't worry too much about this, then. Fun is more important than verisimilitude.

[Duiker]

QuidEst wrote:

You don't track a wizard's cheap material component availability, do you? I wouldn't worry too much about this, then. Fun is more important than verisimilitude.

Yeah but for some people, the verisimilitude is part of the fun. I think there are some great ideas in here with turning it into mini-games and sidequests, that add more fun things to the game. And you make a great point, trapped on an island like this, any casters should be running into some supply problems also, which can lead to its own fun of creative solutions.

[Lost In Limbo]

QuidEst wrote:

You don't track a wizard's cheap material component availability, do you? I wouldn't worry too much about this, then. Fun is more important than verisimilitude.

I'm not part of the campaign in question, but it seems to me one of the major purposes of trapping your players in an isolated location is to make acquiring resources more difficult.

It's annoying if it's a campaign long struggle, but over a shorter time period it can be a fun extra challenge.

The only thing I would make sure of was that every character had to work to get resources, even if it was only food and clean water.

[Chicagomed]

What I would do in your situation is have the gunslinger make a survival check to be able to find the appropriate materials, depending on what you set the DC at have it take varying amounts of time and any other spice you might want to throw in.

[Gwiber]

I didn't trap them there. They happily did that themselves chasing riches and ... well riches.

But yes. I am making it so they have to track what they have or suffer the consequences. Which is why I need to know about how many bullets he could make in a given time with the tools he had.

Considering their location and the large amount of metals they have recovered (in the form of coins) It seems like he wont be running out of bullets any time soon.

[Swordjockey]

If you need to see how easy it can be to make gunpowder wach the Star Trek TOS episode Arena. Kirk makes a gun easy enough.

[Talon Starblade]

how many he can make, depends on how the 1k/day limit is worked with...

Using a metal cartridge as an example, he could make 133 bullets (assuming that the 1k is charged vs. 1/2 cost of 7g5s),

or

66 rounds (assuming the 1k is measured against the full market value of the bullets).

A little question I've never been able to get clarified.

[Casual Viking]

Talon Starblade wrote:

how many he can make, depends on how the 1k/day limit is worked with...

Using a metal cartridge as an example, he could make 133 bullets (assuming that the 1k is charged vs. 1/2 cost of 7g5s),

or

66 rounds (assuming the 1k is measured against the full market value of the bullets).

A little question I've never been able to get clarified.

Craft skills and magic item crafting both use final value, so what do you think?