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1) They were terribly inaccurate. Their one virtue was that it was easy to train people in their use, and thus they were a good weapon for war and mass combat but not good personal weapons.
This was my conception for the longest time as well, but it turns out that it's a modern misconception. Early smoothbore firearms were only inaccurate at long range. At short range they were highly accurate. Furthermore, ease of training was only one of their advantages. The other big one was the low physical exertion required to reload them, which kept troops fresh for longer.
I agree with your other critiques, though.
but so far every campaign I've been in has resulted in the DM allowing the gunslinger to acquire a revolver, which is just a step too far for me.
The revolver and rifle are just plain overpowered, and if you're running the "guns everywhere" rules... well, it's true to its name.
1) They were terribly inaccurate. Their one virtue was that it was easy to train people in their use, and thus they were a good weapon for war and mass combat but not good personal weapons.This was my conception for the longest time as well, but it turns out that it's a modern misconception. Early smoothbore firearms were only inaccurate at long range. At short range they were highly accurate. Furthermore, ease of training was only one of their advantages. The other big one was the low physical exertion required to reload them, which kept troops fresh for longer.
Out of curiosity, what do you consider to be long range? I've also done some reading about Napoleonic warfare, and my understanding is that infantry could shoot at each other all day at 100 yards or more without having any real effect. Infantry fire combat only really got serious when the range closed to 50 yards or less.
Of course, this was in part a function of how line infantry were trained and the poor quality of the mass produced muskets they were using.
1) They were terribly inaccurate. Their one virtue was that it was easy to train people in their use, and thus they were a good weapon for war and mass combat but not good personal weapons.This was my conception for the longest time as well, but it turns out that it's a modern misconception. Early smoothbore firearms were only inaccurate at long range. At short range they were highly accurate. Furthermore, ease of training was only one of their advantages. The other big one was the low physical exertion required to reload them, which kept troops fresh for longer.Out of curiosity, what do you consider to be long range? I've also done some reading about Napoleonic warfare, and my understanding is that infantry could shoot at each other all day at 100 yards or more without having any real effect. Infantry fire combat only really got serious when the range closed to 50 yards or less.
Of course, this was in part a function of how line infantry were trained and the poor quality of the mass produced muskets they were using.
It also has a lot to do with the fact that they tended to use slightly undersized balls to combat the build up from black powder of the day. This allowed them to keep up a higher rate of fire without having to stop and clean their muskets constantly. I've seen tests performed with smooth-bore guns, and they were actually fairly accurate when used with a properly fitted ball. The accuracy does drop off a lot more sharply with range than it does with a rifle. I believe it was pretty even rifle vs musket at 50 yds, but at 100 the musket grouping was about twice as large.
50 yards is 150 feet or 30 squares (Assuming 5 foot squares are still a thing). Typical combat in pathfinder is nowhere near that large in area. Just saying.1) They were terribly inaccurate. Their one virtue was that it was easy to train people in their use, and thus they were a good weapon for war and mass combat but not good personal weapons.This was my conception for the longest time as well, but it turns out that it's a modern misconception. Early smoothbore firearms were only inaccurate at long range. At short range they were highly accurate. Furthermore, ease of training was only one of their advantages. The other big one was the low physical exertion required to reload them, which kept troops fresh for longer.Out of curiosity, what do you consider to be long range? I've also done some reading about Napoleonic warfare, and my understanding is that infantry could shoot at each other all day at 100 yards or more without having any real effect. Infantry fire combat only really got serious when the range closed to 50 yards or less.
Of course, this was in part a function of how line infantry were trained and the poor quality of the mass produced muskets they were using.
To put it in the context of P2e, I feel like it wouldn't be a bad idea if Firearms filled in a sort of middle ground between croswbows and longbows - light crossbows having a range of 80 feet, firearms having a range of 100 feet, and longbows having a range of 120 feet, if not firearms just sharing the range of (or even superseding) crossbows. Historical accuracy should come secondly to game design; firearms taking 5 rounds to reload doesn't mesh well with similar weapons (crossbows and longbows) that would have a much higher rate of fire - this would also create a proficiency dichotomy of crossbows falling slightly short to both longbows and firearms but being easier to pick up and use, whereas firearms and longbows both require more training and each have their own pros/cons (higher damage but lower fire rate/range, lower damage but higher fire rate/range, respectively).
That being said, this is coming from a somewhat skewed perspective, due to the fact that in home games I use the commonplace gun rules, where early firearms are martial weapons. This is how I would want firearms to work out in P2e if early firearms were martial weapons - in regards to them being exotic (if it's still a weapon category in P2e), my stance and suggestions become somewhat muddled.
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Historical accuracy should come secondly to game design;
There's a balance to be had here. No one expects Pathfinder to be a historical simulation, but at the same time the weapons should be grounded in reality. Their strengths and weaknesses should reflect their real-life properties so that they feel like what they are trying to represent.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong from a game design perspective of having the default of firearms being that they can be loaded before battle, but take too long to reload in-battle. A character who discharges their firearm then enters melee is central to many iconic firearm-using character archetypes, such as the musketeer or swashbuckler. I'd like to see the PF2 firearm rules give them a better shake. Doesn't mean the flintlock cowboy can't exist, I just don't want him to be the only viable way to use firearms.
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Historical accuracy should come secondly to game design;There's a balance to be had here. No one expects Pathfinder to be a historical simulation, but at the same time the weapons should be grounded in reality. Their strengths and weaknesses should reflect their real-life properties so that they feel like what they are trying to represent.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong from a game design perspective of having the default of firearms being that they can be loaded before battle, but take too long to reload in-battle. A character who discharges their firearm then enters melee is central to many iconic firearm-using character archetypes, such as the musketeer or swashbuckler. I'd like to see the PF2 firearm rules give them a better shake. Doesn't mean the flintlock cowboy can't exist, I just don't want him to be the only viable way to use firearms.
+1000 - particularly the part about time required to reload.
If muzzle loading black powder weapons are to be part of PF in general and the setting of Golarion specifically, then they should be "grounded in reality" in two important ways:
1) They should be hard to reload
2) They should make a lot of noise and smoke
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Historical accuracy should come secondly to game design;There's a balance to be had here. No one expects Pathfinder to be a historical simulation, but at the same time the weapons should be grounded in reality. Their strengths and weaknesses should reflect their real-life properties so that they feel like what they are trying to represent.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong from a game design perspective of having the default of firearms being that they can be loaded before battle, but take too long to reload in-battle. A character who discharges their firearm then enters melee is central to many iconic firearm-using character archetypes, such as the musketeer or swashbuckler. I'd like to see the PF2 firearm rules give them a better shake. Doesn't mean the flintlock cowboy can't exist, I just don't want him to be the only viable way to use firearms.
The problem with PF 1 firearms is they are too expensive so you can't have multiple loaded ones, so the optimal ideas was just reloading 1 firearm multiple times.
If they lower the price, then you can have multiple.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong from a game design perspective of having the default of firearms being that they can be loaded before battle, but take too long to reload in-battle. A character who discharges their firearm then enters melee is central to many iconic firearm-using character archetypes, such as the musketeer or swashbuckler.
Unfortunately, Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons have an inherent game design principle that does not mesh well with long reload times: limited-damage combat.
Pathfinder wants to put players into dangerous combat yet have them live through almost all of them. To ensure this, combat is designed to be safe if the PCs use reasonable tactics against level-appropriate opponents. In an APL+2 challenge, the PCs face a party of opponents half as powerful as their party. Hence, we expect the PCs to end combat with half their hit points remaining and no PC at zero hit points. If opponents could take out half of a PC's hit points in a single hit, then a critical hit or the entire enemy party attacking just one PC in the first round could kill a PC. Therefore, no opponent is allowed deal that much damage; instead, they must make a lot of attacks over at least two rounds and wear down the PC by attrition.
Suppose a firearm has a reload time of two rounds. If we want the firearm to deal as much damage as a 1d6 shortbow over an extended combat, then surely the firearm should deal 3d6 damage.
Now let's compare two 3rd-level encounters. The party runs into an APL+1 average encounter of two hostile 2nd-level archers, 50 feet away behind a low barrier that prevents charging at them. They have a +7 to hit with their 1d8 masterwork longbows and their chosen target is the party's elven bard with 18 hp and AC 16. I am still fuzzy about the PF2 action economy, but let's suppose they used one action to move for a clear shot and have two actions left for attacks. The first attack has a 60% chance (10% crit) to hit and the 2nd has a 35% chance to hit. That gives an average damage per archer of 5.175 damage (assuming longbow still has x3 critical hit damage). The poor bard is down to 8 hp. It the archers rolled maximum damage on every hit or hit all 4 times or hit 3 times with 1 crit, the bard would be down, but those are not likely.
Let's swap the archer's masterwork longbows for masterwork muskets, but these muskets deal 3d6 damage, have a x2 crit, and take two rounds to reload. Due to the need to reload, the muskets get only one shot per musketeer, 60% chance to hit, 10% chance to crit. The average damage per musketeer is 7.35. The poor bard is down to 3 hp. If the musketeers hit both times or critically hit once, the bard would be down. Those are likely; hitting both times has a 36% probability and critting once but missing the other shot has a 8% probability.
Okay, 3d6 is too much damage for our PF2 musket (unless PF2 gives the bard 5 more hit points, which might happen with ancestral hp). Dropping it to 2d6 would give an average damage per musketeer of 4.9, a little less damage than the longbows. In fact, the PF1 musket deals 1d12 damage but has a x4 critical chance and takes a full-round action to reload. I suspect that Paizo performed calculations similar to mine in figuring out the damage dice for a musket, but I don't like that PC-killing x4 crit.
In both scenarios the party will have reached the archers or musketeers by the second round, so combat would switch to melee. Reloading time would not matter beyond the musket's one attack to the longbow's two attacks. But what about a single gunslinger in a party that lets him keep making ranged attacks from the back?
The dwarf gunslinger in my Iron Gods campaign was a minor damage dealer with a 1d8, full-round-reload blunderbuss at low levels before she acquired the tools to be a master of battlefield control. She had good Perception due to her high Wisdom and good Disable Device due to her high Dexterity and Local Ties trait, so she served in the trapfinding/lockpicking rogue niche for the party, where low combat damage was fine. But a character in a martial role needs more than 1d8 damage every other turn. 2d6 damage once every three turns is about the same low level of damage: 1d8/2 averages 2.25 damage and 2d6/3 averages 2.33 damage. That is not enough damage.
For additional data, my homebrew-archetype gunslinging bloodrager NPC in the same campaign had an ability that let her load a cantrip attacked to her bullet for 1d8+1d3 damage with her pistol (the archetype also gave her cantrips). That is the equivalent of 1d12 damage, like a musket, but in a one-handed weapon that let her use a sword in the other. And when I took away her Gun-and-Sword ability, she switched to shortbow and sword. The ease of use of the shortbow was more valuable than the damage from the spell-loaded pistol. Only increasing the ease of use of her pistol by restoring Gun-and-Sword returned her to her pistol.
Finally, the smoke from an early firearm could be modeled as a new weapon feature "smokey":
Smokey - Attacking with this weapon fills the wielder's square with smoke, providing 20% miss chance due to concealment for all later attacks into, through, and out of this square until the end of the wielder's turn. A strong wind prevents this.
Historical accuracy should come secondly to game design;There's a balance to be had here. No one expects Pathfinder to be a historical simulation, but at the same time the weapons should be grounded in reality. Their strengths and weaknesses should reflect their real-life properties so that they feel like what they are trying to represent.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong from a game design perspective of having the default of firearms being that they can be loaded before battle, but take too long to reload in-battle. A character who discharges their firearm then enters melee is central to many iconic firearm-using character archetypes, such as the musketeer or swashbuckler. I'd like to see the PF2 firearm rules give them a better shake. Doesn't mean the flintlock cowboy can't exist, I just don't want him to be the only viable way to use firearms.
+1000 - particularly the part about time required to reload.
If muzzle loading black powder weapons are to be part of PF in general and the setting of Golarion specifically, then they should be "grounded in reality" in two important ways:
1) They should be hard to reload
I agree with Dasrak, and I'm not saying that firearms should be so quick at reloading that it's negligible. I'm saying that firearms taking longer to reload, unless balanced in such a way that it's at least competitive to things like longbows, will run the risk of them being a trap option.
In P1e, because they targeted off of touch AC, they had to be balanced out with a ludicrously short range, and because they could only reliably be used at short range, the flintlock cowboy playstyle was heavily encouraged (and this is without getting into the prices of firearms, like Starbuck_II said.)
I am perfectly okay with firearms taking a while to reload - I've shot muzzleloaders before so I have first hand experience - but if they're only viable within melee combat range, are so expensive that the logistics behind having more than one are slim to none, and don't have enough pros to them so that they can compete with longbows in some regard, then it's less about being historically accurate and more about forcing players to adhere to specific playstyles for firearms to be a reasonable option.
If muzzle loading black powder weapons are to be part of PF in general and the setting of Golarion specifically, then they should be "grounded in reality" in two important ways:
1) They should be hard to reload
2) They should make a lot of noise and smoke
Since you want to go down this reality rabbit hole
If we're going to ground them in reality by increasing their reload time, they should also get an increase in damage dice to reflect their increased killing power over arrows.
In addition, since in reality they were used because they didn't tire the troops as much, bows should all have a minimum str requirement of 18 to use to reflect how only those who've sufficiently trained in using them had the muscles built up to use them (still dex to hit as it's a ranged attack). In addition, bows who get a str bonus to hit increase that str required for the bonus damage based from the 18 (20 str for +1 etc).
Composite bows, you're asking for composite bows.
I would be fine with black powder, smoothbore guns doing more damage in exchange for a much longer reload time.
Finally, the smoke from an early firearm could be modeled as a new weapon feature "smokey":
Smokey - Attacking with this weapon fills the wielder's square with smoke, providing 20% miss chance due to concealment for all later attacks into, through, and out of this square until the end of the wielder's turn. A strong wind prevents this.
I think one or more squares in front of the firer should also be filled with smoke. There could of course be options for higher quality/more expensive gunpowder that doesn't make as much smoke.
I would be fine with black powder, smoothbore guns doing more damage in exchange for a much longer reload time.
But how long do you need them to take to reload? The minute it starts taking more than a full round to reload a musket by default, unless they're doing a significant amount of damage right out of the gate, is the minute that players are going to avoid it like the plague because it can't keep up with the DPR of other weapon options.
Muskets in P1e had this problem; it couldn't compete with the DPR output of other ranged weapons, unless you were a Gunslinger with the Musket Master archetype to reduce the reload speed - a long reload speed in conjunction with a range of 40 feet made it next to worthless in combat - even with Rapid Reload, you're only getting a shot in every other round, and you couldn't take advantage of the firearm's main feature of bypassing armor at ranges where it would make sense to have a slow loading ranged weapon.
In P2e, I'm already more comfortable with the concept of a musket taking roughly as long to reload as it did in P1e, because instead of it being a full-round action --> standard action RR, it translates into 3 actions --> 2 actions RR, and being able to fire whenever you had a spare action would go a long way to alleviate this problem. The only situation where I would be fine with it being longer is if Paizo:
1.) Increased the range of firearms and dropped the armor piercing gimmick, that way as a baseline they're comparable to other ranged weapons and can be balanced as such
2.) Made it so that bayonets function more like socket bayonets rather than plug bayonets. If people in the 1600s could tell that plug bayonets sucked when they were first introduced, then it doesn't make sense to have the bayonet in PF be based off of them This would increase the utility of muskets even further, as then once melee combatants got close to musketeers they can just fix bayonets and use them as polearms, and then not have to worry about taking off the bayonet just to be able to start shooting again. (EDIT: Or, if nothing else, make it so that the bayonets can be used as a dagger when not attached to the musket, and when attached have it act similarly to a spear or longspear.)
3.) Made firearms and ammunition cheaper. I get that in Golarion firearms are extremely rare everywhere beyond Alkenstar, but a blunderbuss shouldn't cost as much as a +1 weapon.
I don't want to sacrifice historical accuracy in the name of game balance, but the fact of the matter is that Pathfinder is a game, not a historical combat simulator, and you need to be careful not to become too overzealous in being true to realism. I would refuse to say that reloading a musket would take longer than two full rounds, because with paper cartridges it's more than possible for an 18th century rifleman to be able to reload within 12 seconds, but when reloading takes that long you have to have firearms doing as much, if not more damage than a +1 Greatsword right out of the gate just for it to be able to compete with a Longbow, which mechanically has no reload speed whatsoever.
Upon reflection, I feel that a lot of my general issues with P1e Firearm rules lie with the fact that a lot of the necessities are heavily baked into the Gunslinger class; Gunslingers are the only ones who are readily capable of dealing with misfires, with Spellcasters like Magi behind due to access to the Mending spell, which upgrades fixing the misfire from one standard action to... 10 minutes. Gunslingers are the only ones who get dexterity-to-damage with Firearms, which, while it makes sense, heavily incentives people to go Gunslinger if they want to use a gun unless their GM is foolish enough to allow the Trench Fighter archetype. Due to the fact that Firearms are both exotic weapons and prohibitively expensive, only Gunslingers (and archetypes that give firearm proficiency as well as a battered gun) are really capable of being able to get the one thing vital to their build at level 1; even with the Commonplace Guns rule a musket still costs 375 gp, let alone the ammo to go along with it, and that's five times more expensive than a longbow - even a pistol comes at a price tag of 250 gp, which will break the bank on any character at start that isn't a fighter that rolled max on starting wealth.
Firearms need to be divorced from the Gunslinger (and other gun archetypes) in order for them to be universally viable in P2e. The Gunslinger needs to be the gun master, not the gun user.
How about:
- Reloading takes two actions, firing takes 1 action
- Guns start around 2d12 damage
- They still resolve against touch AC
- Misfire on a nat 1, takes 3 actions to clear the misfire
- Guns are still expensive
That gets rid of the "shoot four times a round" nonsense, and still has guns doing a relevant amount of damage without being so good all characters will want one - after all, they're still doing less damage than a power attack (and not enough damage to drop a level 1 character,) and the cost will be a barrier. Of course Gunslingers and other characters that invest into using guns will be able to scale that damage.
Something like that would really create a different feel to guns - focusing on one big hit, rather than rapid-fire pinging away. It would feel different than using a bow.
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How about:
- Reloading takes two actions, firing takes 1 action
- Guns start around 2d12 damage
- They still resolve against touch AC
- Misfire on a nat 1, takes 3 actions to clear the misfire
- Guns are still expensive
That gets rid of the "shoot four times a round" nonsense, and still has them doing a relevant amount of damage without being so good all characters will want one - after all, they're still doing less damage than a power attack (and not enough damage to drop a level 1 character,) and the cost will be a barrier. Of course Gunslingers and other characters that invest into using guns will be able to scale that damage.
Something like that would really create a different feel to guns - focusing on one big hit, rather than rapid-fire pinging away. It would feel different than using a bow.
The problem with firearms still resolving against Touch AC, other than the fact that Touch AC doesn't really scale (and I'm not sure if it's going to scale in P2e similarly or not), is that it completely breaks the >10< Crit system. When targeting off of touch AC, the odds of exceeding a 14 AC by the time you're level 5 by at least 10 is huge, and that'll effectively make a vast majority of firearm shots critical hits. That's logistically no longer possible.
Also, firearms being expensive would still give Gunslingers and gun-heavy archetypes a monopoly on firearms, as they're the only ones who get a class feature that gives them a free gun. They don't have to be cheap, but they shouldn't be so expensive that you have to have a class feature (or be obscenely wealthy at character creation, depending on the rules) just to get started on your build.
I like your other points, though, but my opinion on the exact damage would probably depend on the availability of reload-reducing methods and just how quickly a firearm can be reloaded with them.
The problem with firearms still resolving against Touch AC, other than the fact that Touch AC doesn't really scale (and I'm not sure if it's going to scale in P2e similarly or not), is that [i]it completely breaks the >10< Crit system[i]. When targeting off of touch AC, the odds of exceeding a 14 AC by the time you're level 5 by at least 10 is huge, and that'll effectively make a vast majority of firearm shots critical hits. That's logistically no longer possible.Actually I just thought of something, what if they hit Touch, but were checked against regular AC for the purposes of Crits.
As long as the damage is set appropriately so the math works out, I like that idea a lot.
I think getting tons of crits (vs touch AC) isn't necessarily a bad thing. It gives a natural way for damage to scale, and it just furthers the "look and feel" of guns causing huge damage. Although one issue that needs consideration is making sure Joe Schmoe with a gun isn't scaling too fast compared to someone who is investing feats or class levels.
Also, in terms of misfires, keep in mind they would be happening far less if you're firing once/round and misfiring on a 1 than if you are firing four times/round and misfiring on a 1-3. So, I think having it be a real "oh s#!+" moment when it happens isn't necessarily a bad thing.
The problem with firearms still resolving against Touch AC, other than the fact that Touch AC doesn't really scale (and I'm not sure if it's going to scale in P2e similarly or not), is that it completely breaks the >10< Crit system. When targeting off of touch AC, the odds of exceeding a 14 AC by the time you're level 5 by at least 10 is huge, and that'll effectively make a vast majority of firearm shots critical hits. That's logistically no longer possible.Actually I just thought of something, what if they hit Touch, but were checked against regular AC for the purposes of Crits.
That just adds even more complexity to firearms, and results in having to check multiple types of AC for the same attack roll. It's clunky and would only slow things down, if not make things right out confusing, if it was used in practice.
Also, historically speaking, alchemical paper cartridges did reduce reload time; as I mentioned above, it's what allowed riflemen in the 18th century to be able to reload a musket in 12 seconds, as everything they need to reload is in one small bundle that's easy to manipulate.
We don't need to reinvent the wheel when dealing with firearms in P2e; trying to balance them so that they're comparable to other ranged weapons, as opposed to trying to keep flawed features that wound up making it a game-balance mess, would be more beneficial in the long run. For crits, I would just propose that we keep the x4 damage, or reduce it to x3 depending on how other weapons are balanced.
I think getting tons of crits (vs touch AC) isn't necessarily a bad thing. It gives a natural way for damage to scale, and it just furthers the "look and feel" of guns causing huge damage. Although one issue that needs consideration is making sure Joe Schmoe with a gun isn't scaling too fast compared to someone who is investing feats or class levels.
Also, in terms of misfires, keep in mind they would be happening far less if you're firing once/round and misfiring on a 1 than if you are firing four times/round and misfiring on a 1-3. So, I think having it be a real "oh s#!+" moment when it happens isn't necessarily a bad thing.
I also think that hitting the touch AC and therefore criting a lot could make the balance with having only one shot per round. Math will have to be run through but as it seems that damage will scale through a lot of dice rather than static modifiers, it should work out.
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Honestly black powder misfires will probably be critical failure on an attack roll.
This would seem wrong to me... fire at an ooze and your gun never misfires, fire at a will-o'-wisp and you're now running a 25% chance of misfire? But it's the same gun!
I'd rather see misfires tied to the natural die result rather than tied to a fumble.
3) They took a long time to reload. The development of drill and salvo/volley fire turned them into effective battlefield weapons but this is outside the kind of combat we see in PF. There are some wonderful scenes in the 1974 movie The Four Musketeers which show how long it took to reload these weapons.
This is probably my one most irritating thing about firearms in Pathfinder. I know all the arguments about "magical world, you also have flying dragons and people who cast fireballs", etc. etc. but sometimes a complete lack of verisimilitude in a specific thing can be just enough to break your perception of a concept; for me, it's the thought of (even with paper cartridges) someone loading and firing a muzzle-loading firearm multiple times in a six-second time span. I'm even fine with rules like cluster shot "collapsing" the damage from multiple attacks into one, because it at least preserves the plausibility of it taking a sizable number of seconds to load and fire such a weapon.
Since firearms are definitely going to come up eventually, I hope they are in the core rulebook...
My preference would be they leave firearms out of the Core Rulebook and stuff them into something optional. They generally don't fit into the era that I associate with swords and sorcery, or the kinds of stories that I like to tell.
But I do acknowledge that many would like a more Three-Mustketeers feel to their games. So if they did include firearms, then I'm cool with it so long as they are easy for me to trim out of the game.
This is why I prefer Western firearms, lever action repeating rifles and double action revolvers with speed loaders and exchangeable magazines.I know all the arguments about "magical world, you also have flying dragons and people who cast fireballs", etc. etc. but sometimes a complete lack of verisimilitude in a specific thing can be just enough to break your perception of a concept; for me, it's the thought of (even with paper cartridges) someone loading and firing a muzzle-loading firearm multiple times in a six-second time span. I'm even fine with rules like cluster shot "collapsing" the damage from multiple attacks into one, because it at least preserves the plausibility of it taking a sizable number of seconds to load and fire such a weapon.
If I provided my players with 19th-century firearms, they would want other 19th-century inventions, such as the steamboat, photography, matches, and pocket watches. Are 18th- or 19th-century cannons included among those advanced firearms? Those would be handy against giants and dragons.
I googled the times to reload a musket. I don't know the accuracy of the sources, such as myArmory.com, but the earliest 16th century muskets took 2 minutes to reload. With the invention of tools to help reloading, such as paper cartridges and ramrods that stored on the muskets themselves, the reload time dropped to 1 minute in that same century. By the time of the 18th century American Revolutionary War, the reload time was down to 20 seconds. I am amused the Wikipedia said in its Muskets page: "From around 1750, rifles began to be used by skirmishers (Frederick the Great raised a Jäger unit in 1744 from game-keepers and foresters, armed with rifles), but the very slow rate of fire of muzzle-loading rifles restricted their use until the invention of the Minié ball in 1849, ending the smoothbore musket era." Muzzle-loading rifles took six times as long to reload as muskets.
Similar sources also said the best longbow rate of shooting was 12 arrows per minute. The Rapid Shot feet, which some classes can easily gain at 2nd level after Point-Blank Shot and Precise Shot, allows 2 shots per round, which is 20 shots per minute. Given that 20-to-12 improvement, I think we can realistically allow a Pathfinder character with advanced firearm feats and special paper cartridges to shoot a firearm once every 12 seconds, and a gunslinger class to shoot once per round.
The problem with firearms still resolving against Touch AC, other than the fact that Touch AC doesn't really scale (and I'm not sure if it's going to scale in P2e similarly or not), is that it completely breaks the >10< Crit system. When targeting off of touch AC, the odds of exceeding a 14 AC by the time you're level 5 by at least 10 is huge, and that'll effectively make a vast majority of firearm shots critical hits. That's logistically no longer possible.
Touch AC scales to a wizard's attack bonus (1/2 BAB, average Dexterity, and low Strength) while regular AC scales against a fighter's attack bonus (full BAB, high Strength, Weapon Focus), except that in both cases, "scales" means "falls short at high levels."
Hitting touch AC is a cool feature for a weapon and in PF1 that is the main attraction of firearms. But it makes balancing those weapons strange. If a gunslinger can hit the regular AC on a target on an attack roll of 14 or more and can hit the touch AC of the same target on an attack roll of 7 or more, then touch-AC attacks will hit twice as often for twice the damage as regular-AC attacks. However, since touch AC and regular AC are not as far apart on CR 1 opponents, hitting touch AC could serve as a way to give an increasing bonus to gunslingers that would make up for not gaining extra attacks.
Also, firearms being expensive would still give Gunslingers and gun-heavy archetypes a monopoly on firearms, as they're the only ones who get a class feature that gives them a free gun. They don't have to be cheap, but they shouldn't be so expensive that you have to have a class feature (or be obscenely wealthy at character creation, depending on the rules) just to get started on your build.
The gunslinger's battered firearm mechanic (a beginning firearm that counts as broken for all other characters and cannot be sold for more than 4d10 gp, but can be made masterwork for 300 gp) is ridiculous. A gunslinger has the maximum starting gold, 5d6 x 10 gp (average 175gp). How about we we reduce the gunslinger's starting gold to 2d6 x 10 gp (average 70gp) and instead give the 1st-level gunslinger a free crude firearm that has low damage, always hits regular AC, and is sold in stores for 200 gp?
Next, we could reduce the cost of one charge of black powder to 1 gp, the cost of a crossbow bolt. However, to balance that, loading a firearm with black powder and bullet will take two full minutes. A paper cartridge could reduce that to two rounds (six actions), at the price of 12 gp but not increasing misfire rate, since increased misfire for better handling of powder makes no sense. Then we could have a fast-load cartridge for 24 gp that reduces the load time to three actions. A Rapid Reload feat can reduce that to two actions. A gunslinger could have a Lightning Reload class feat, with prerequisite Rapid Reload, that would reduce the time to one action, but that would be the absolute minimum for early firearms.
That way, a 1st-level gunslinger could have a sensible pistol and inexpensive black powder but can shoot only once per encounter. As the gunslinger levels up and gains wealth, he can switch to paper cartridges in midcombat for a second shot. Or a character based on real musketeers and swashbucklers could stick to the black powder and one shot per encounter.
I'm in a position with early firearms. What I could use would be some "half rules" to let them work in the meantime, as we wait for more material to come out.
So I hope there'll be some guidance, there!
Same with classes like bloodrager, inquisitor, etc. that my players love. "What until then?"
Inquisitor, I get the impression that the Justice aura might just vanish?
Or we can just make firearms that don't require a special class to be a viable primary weapon and almost any class can be easily built to sling guns.
I see gunslinger and swashbuckler in the same basic function: bandaids in a system where other classes aren't sufficiently flexible.
Paizo Creative Director James Jacobs explained in the Iron Gods thread, Wondering about firearm availability in Numeria, that firearms are always a GM decision.
We left that [firearm availability] unsaid since not every GM is into using firearms in games... even in one like Iron Gods, where they're still not a natural thematic fit.
The odd thing about firearms not being a natural thematic fit in Iron Gods is that some low-level opponents are gunslingers.
The AP also features several gunslinger mooks in the [spoiler], suggesting that slug-throwers are moderately more common than they might otherwise be outside of Alkenstar.
Being the developer of said adventure, I respectfully disagree. Said "gunslinger mooks" are intended to be a specific group of scavengers who operate in a relatively specific part of Numeria and are not the type spread throughout the entire nation, and thus should not imply "guns everywhere."
This discussion illustrates the problem that if firearms are included in an adventure path, then players may take that as sign of guns everywhere. Yet if firearms are absent, then players or the GM could take that as a sign of guns nowhere. The compromise was to make guns expensive and awkward, so that their absence is natural. The irony is that early firearms also have a natural awkwardness--their lengthy reload time--that the Paizo designers decided to remove.
The Gunslinger class was designed to throw a bandaid over the deliberate flaws of firearms to make them playable.
I'm in a position with early firearms. What I could use would be some "half rules" to let them work in the meantime, as we wait for more material to come out.
So I hope there'll be some guidance, there!
Same with classes like bloodrager, inquisitor, etc. that my players love. "What until then?"
Inquisitor, I get the impression that the Justice aura might just vanish?
When Pathfinder 2nd Edition is up for sale, players like me will start creating homebrew adaptions of the old adventure paths and the Pathfinder 1st Edition rules not covered in the 2nd Edition Core Rulebook. I will work on homebrew early firearm rules, using the suggestions in this thread.