Hi!
I'm already at half of my Rise of Runelords-Shattered Star campaign, and I'm starting to take a look to the next possibility.
We are thinking about a change of pace, with Iron Gods, playing in a distant planet instead of Golarion, with an apocalyptic future style, like Mad Max or Fallout, but adding technomancy (and techno priests, as faith and machines is the core of the AP).
As such, I'm planing to change the default technology to "modern firearms" so the PC get firearms as simple weapons and such. I plan to add vehicles too (motorbikes instead of horses, and so).
The problem I have found is.... modern firearms are better than futuristic energy weapons. By far. A M1895 Nagant revolver does 1d8 x4, while a laser weapon does 1d8 x2, and is fire damage (a lot of fire resist dudes in the game). Machine guns are even better.
So, how can I improve this, beyond the obvious "increase laser damage" option, which is not that great as it creates an inflation of damage?
Possibilities I have thought:
Swap generic crit multiplier of fire weapons to x3, and energy weapons (or most of them) to x4. This create the "feeling" of stronger damage potential, even if there is not a big difference. Lasers are timeworn too, while bullets work fine.
Alternatively, make Lasers to crit with 18+. That makes them useful vs robots, as robots have crit vulnerability
Bullets no longer shoot vs touch attack, but rays do. This is a generic nerf to firearms, but might be worth it, as they are going to be much more common. Piercing (expensive) bullets might ignore part or all of the armor bonus
Laser and other energy weapons ignore part of the hardness, like the laser torch does
Ignore the charges for laser and other energy weapons, making them amunittion-less. But this goes against part of the AP feeling, which is about finding charges to use the nice timeworn stuff.
Make force-fields much more frequent, and/or more powerful, to the point that ignoring them with energy weapons is important. Maybe even most people (or at least most bosses) have one, Halo style.
Please note that "don't make fireweapons more common" is not going to help, as the goal is to play a campaign with lots of gunfights, for a change of pace from the magic heavy Shattered Runelords mashup
So, what does the forum communal wisdom has to offer? Any brilliant (or obvious) idea I'm missing?
Hi!
I'm already at half of my Rise of Runelords-Shattered Star campaign, and I'm starting to take a look to the next possibility.
We are thinking about a change of pace, with Iron Gods, playing in a distant planet instead of Golarion, with an apocalyptic future style, like Mad Max or Fallout, but adding technomancy (and techno priests, as faith and machines is the core of the AP).
As such, I'm planing to change the default technology to "modern firearms" so the PC get firearms as simple weapons and such. I plan to add vehicles too (motorbikes instead of horses, and so).
The problem I have found is.... modern firearms are better than futuristic energy weapons. By far. A M1895 Nagant revolver does 1d8 x4, while a laser weapon does 1d8 x2, and is fire damage (a lot of fire resist dudes in the game). Machine guns are even better.
What is your source for the M1895 Nagant?
However, the information from Ultimate Combat for the Advanced Firearms: revolver does bear this out.So, how can I improve this, beyond the obvious "increase laser damage" option, which is not that great as it creates an inflation of damage?
Possibilities I have thought:
Swap generic crit multiplier of fire weapons to x3, and energy weapons (or most of them) to x4. This create the "feeling" of stronger damage potential, even if there is not a big difference. Lasers are timeworn too, while bullets work fine.
Alternatively, make Lasers to crit with 18+. That makes them useful vs robots, as robots have crit vulnerability
Do both of these. This would make technological weapons suitably frightening.
Bullets no longer shoot vs touch attack, but rays do. This is a generic nerf to firearms, but might be worth it, as they are going to be much more common. Piercing (expensive) bullets might ignore part or all of the armor bonus.
This might be too much of a rule change.
Ignore the charges for laser and other energy weapons, making them amunittion-less. But this goes against part of the AP feeling, which is about finding charges to use the nice timeworn stuff.
A better option would be to increase the capacity for technological weapons ... i.e., more shots per charge.
Reign of Winter, book five is where he's getting his firearms, Lord Fyre.
Lord Fyre:
As Cap' Yesterday says, the Nagant comes from Reign of Winter timetraveling adventure.
I think there is something flawed in the design.
A hackbut does 2d12. A more modern muskett does 1d12 x4. A WWI rifle does 1D10x4. Lasers do 1d8 x2.
Yeah, they no longer do things like they used in the good old past...
It is counterintuitive and breaks the inmersion in the AP in my opinion. Gunslingers should not use hackbuts over láser and plasma rifles.
I think I'm going to implement most of these chances, if not all.
Will also add pistols (with magacines), assault riffles, submachine guns, flamethrowing guitars and all the staple stuff :)
Frankly, a lot of the complaints here seem to be from folks who don't grok guns. Muskets did massive amounts of gross tissue damage. Modern expanding bullets also do massive amounts of gross tissue damage (though should likely lose the ability to target touch AC). FMJ bullets still do a good bit of gross tissue damage, but not anywhere near that caused by soft lead or expanding bullets. The damage dice make a good bit of sense, and I don't see any reason to complain about how firearms are treated
Possibly, but I'd like to point a few things:
I have exactly 0% intention to model reality in an Adventure about a spaceship full of sentient robots that crashes in s world of magic wielding elves. I want verosimilitude with the imagined world, not real life, so real life tissue damage is not a factor, specially when the PC are going to shoot robots, oozes, fire elementals and ghosts.
I'm not a gun expert, but nobody is when we talk about laser pistols and plasma guns and gravity cannons. We are free to imagine them as devaststing as we want. For the campaign inmersion, it "should" feel that a laser pistol with a few remaining charges is a powerful magic treasure, and currently it doesnt.
My main problem is not with muskets and hackbuts, because i'm not going to put them. It is with "modern" fire weapon like a tommy gun. Those are Semiautomatic (and automatic) too, negating the rate of fire adventage that laser weapons have over muskets.
Energy resistance is easy to have, more than DR/-. That alone make most energy weapons bad. That they do much less potential damage adds salt to the injury
What 50% reduction is that?As to energy weapons against robots, arc pistols are amazing against them, not suffering the 50% reduction in damage of other energy weapons, and actually getting a bonus.
None.
He is tslking about energy doing half damage vs objects, but that's not in effect with Robots as they are not objects, they are creatures. But if you use that house rule, energy weapons are even worse: laser, gravity, zero and plasma guns would do 50% damage to robots, while s musket do 100%.Even arrows would do better, as bows can be mighty and add stength
I'm not a gun expert, but nobody is when we talk about laser pistols and plasma guns and gravity cannons. We are free to imagine them as devaststing as we want. For the campaign inmersion, it "should" feel that a laser pistol with a few remaining charges is a powerful magic treasure, and currently it doesnt.
My main problem is not with muskets and hackbuts, because i'm not going to put them. It is with "modern" fire weapon like a tommy gun. Those are Semiautomatic (and automatic) too, negating the rate of fire adventage that laser weapons have over muskets.
We don't have real life expectations about laser pistols, but we have expectations from movies. Some of those apply to modern guns in movies, too, such as bad guys usually miss and guns never run out of ammunition unless the good guy is deliberately waiting for the bad guy to reload.
Add mechanics that resemble movie special effects. Perhaps gravity guns have a knockback (bull rush) on a successful hit. Perhaps plasma arcs dazzle people they hit. Maybe laser pistols have a laser target-lock feature that on a successful hit can automatically hit with the next shot if done against the same target, and crit if the first shot was a crit. Perhaps all energy guns have the clustered shots feat to reduce the effect of DR.
Ignore the charges for laser and other energy weapons, making them amunittion-less. But this goes against part of the AP feeling, which is about finding charges to use the nice timeworn stuff.
How about instead allow the energy weapons to store 100 charges drained from those 10-charge batteries. Thus, the party reloads energy weapons only between encounters. That always seemed the main advantage of energy guns and needler guns (held a clip of 100 high-velocity needles) in science fiction stories: avoiding dealing with ammunition in the middle of combat.
Aaaaaaaaand, I just found the developer blog post clarifying that I'm completely wrong:
So, ignore my previous comment. Although I wish I'd seen that when I was running Iron Gods. My players would have been happier.How does hardness work for creatures? Does energy damage such as cold deal half damage to creatures with hardness (Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook 173-174) even before applying the flat numerical reduction?
When a creature with hardness sustains damage, subtract its hardness from the damage dealt. The rules for halving damage, doubling damage, dealing damage with ineffective tools, immunities, and the like only apply to damaging inanimate objects.
(This is apparently a question the Design Team has received a few times during the development of Iron Gods, so they were ready to go with an answer!)
Yep. If you use the "attacks vs objects" rule, then the players are totally hosed. Not only because energy weapons: spells like fireball also do half damage, and more importantly: a huge percentage of weapons would be considered "innefective tools" vs planks of glaucite, regardless of hardiness and damage, such as daggers. Just like you can't take down a stone wall with a dagger, no matter if you are specialized and have power attack and whatever, because it is an ineffective tool (the example in the book says hammers and picks are effective vs walls).
It would make a lot of character concepts unplayable. Robots are creatures. They have hardiness, and they substract their hardiness from damage, but that's all.
Another clear example is that objects are not subject to critical hits. Robots are not only subject to them, but they are even vulnerable.
I'm not a gun expert, but nobody is when we talk about laser pistols and plasma guns and gravity cannons. We are free to imagine them as devaststing as we want. For the campaign inmersion, it "should" feel that a laser pistol with a few remaining charges is a powerful magic treasure, and currently it doesnt.
My main problem is not with muskets and hackbuts, because i'm not going to put them. It is with "modern" fire weapon like a tommy gun. Those are Semiautomatic (and automatic) too, negating the rate of fire adventage that laser weapons have over muskets.
We don't have real life expectations about laser pistols, but we have expectations from movies. Some of those apply to modern guns in movies, too, such as bad guys usually miss and guns never run out of ammunition unless the good guy is deliberately waiting for the bad guy to reload.
Add mechanics that resemble movie special effects. Perhaps gravity guns have a knockback (bull rush) on a successful hit. Perhaps plasma arcs dazzle people they hit. Maybe laser pistols have a laser target-lock feature that on a successful hit can automatically hit with the next shot if done against the same target, and crit if the first shot was a crit. Perhaps all energy guns have the clustered shots feat to reduce the effect of DR.
Ignore the charges for laser and other energy weapons, making them amunittion-less. But this goes against part of the AP feeling, which is about finding charges to use the nice timeworn stuff.How about instead allow the energy weapons to store 100 charges drained from those 10-charge batteries. Thus, the party reloads energy weapons only between encounters. That always seemed the main advantage of energy guns and needler guns (held a clip of 100 high-velocity needles) in science fiction stories: avoiding dealing with ammunition in the middle of combat.
Bigger "clips" or longer batteries is an option I'm thinking. The issue with it is that we, as a group, have yet to decide the overall tone of the campaign. Unlimited (or close to) laser ammo will work great for a space-opera style. For a grittier "survival" game, such as Fallout (specifically, the first fallout), it is better if ammo is scarce and/or expensive, just because it feels like you "have to make every shot count" because you don't know when you can reload.
It's purely a matter of what flavor I want to give, and I'm undecided yet. I'm leaning toward MAd Max/The Wasteland, but unsure.
Energy weapons having crits with 18+, and an effect in crits (daze/staggered, slow, burning, bull rush, etc) could work well. Maybe 19+ crit for sonic, zero, gravity, plasma and arc, and 18+ for Laser (I can't think a proper Laser ability for crits), making laser more accurate than other blasts. Will think about it.
Right now I'm leaning toward using better crit threat range for energy, and not a better crit multiplier. The reasons are: spells that can crit, as scorching ray, have x2 multiplier, the higher chance of crit make them better overall wepons vs robots because of crit vulnerability, and it goes better with the idea of better accuracy