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As it stands, the primary difference between "guns" as a class of weapons and "crossbows" as a different one is "guns suffer misfire chances." But aside form that they're just reload weapons with different stats, traits, and ammunition.
A major difference between "guns" and "things that are not guns" is that guns are very loud. Even if black powder weapons aren't quite as loud as modern centerfire rifles, you're still going to want to wear hearing protection and it's very difficult to be sneaky when you're shooting.
Crossbows tend to be around 80dB when they fire (like a .22 is around 140dB when you fire it), but with enough distance between you and what you're shooting, you should be able to sneak around and have people not find you immediately. But if you're firing an arquebus, if the report doesn't give you away then the big cloud of black smoke should.
I made a level 13 sniper gunslinger, and it is interesting how easy it is to fire, hide and then sneak away while reloading.
Overall, I think that crossbows really look like a complete waste of time with this class as the abilities and design of it are given. The gun slinger is just too accurate, but too limited in rate of fire for a minor base damage die boost to be worth anything near what you get out of fatal and versatile. It is still my preference to pull the crossbow element out, rather than have the class straddle it awkwardly, but I agree strongly that if the goal is to make the crossbow belong in the class, then there is going to need to be some new feats, and probably some new martial crossbows, perhaps with new weapon traits, that really interact more with the class features of favoring one handed weapons, having amazing accuracy, and doing a lot of the flavorful utility aspects of the class that are just clearly envisioned with a gun.
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But that just makes the gunslinger an incredibly bad player choice in games where firearms are not going to be allowed. Why not just tie the class to firearms and have the rules cover that it is not a good class to play in games where guns are none existent?
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But that just makes the gunslinger an incredibly bad player choice in games where firearms are not going to be allowed. Why not just tie the class to firearms and have the rules cover that it is not a good class to play in games where guns are none existent?
I would rather have Gunslinger be competitive with other classes when they use the crossbow, and that they prefer to use guns when those are available.
I like the Gunslinger as the expert in reload weapons, be they firearms or otherwise.
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But that just makes the gunslinger an incredibly bad player choice in games where firearms are not going to be allowed. Why not just tie the class to firearms and have the rules cover that it is not a good class to play in games where guns are none existent?
Because a lot of players and GMs specifically requested that they not do that.
Doesn't really need to be anything more than that.
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We only have simple crossbows right now. I wouldn't be surprised if this book included some martial crossbows whose performance is closer to the guns in the playtest.
Crossbows are pretty competitive already vs guns. If you aren't a fighter/gunslinger crit-fishing, the crossbow is a better option IMO. And lets not even talk about bows: I was making a inventor and wanted to make a gun for a innovation and came to the conclusion it was just SO much worse than a composite shortbow I couldn't do it.
So I want to see if Marital gun and crossbow options actually compete with bows: if not, what's the point?
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I think it is important to distinguish between the guns and crossbows being able to compete with bows by themselves VS in the hands of a Gunslinger.
I believe if guns and crossbows were on par with bows, no one would use the latter because it requires some STR for damage. While the former allow you to allocate stat boosts elsewhere.
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I think it is important to distinguish between the guns and crossbows being able to compete with bows by themselves VS in the hands of a Gunslinger.
I believe if guns and crossbows were on par with bows, no one would use the latter because it requires some STR for damage. While the former allow you to allocate stat boosts elsewhere.
I don't think there is a need to add gunslinger into it as #1 you can just hand those weapons to a fighter and get the same proficiency bonus out of them and #2 weapons of the same category [simple, martial, advanced] should be competitive in a vacuum or what's the point of the category? Or does the existence of the gunslinger mean that the gun and crossbow are forced to be subpar just so the gunslinger can look awesome using them compared to others?
So a simple crossbow and a simple firearm should be competitive against each other while a composite bow should be competitive vs a martial gun or a martial crossbow and, IMO, the martial guns so far just aren't.
PS: even is we assume a str of 10, bow comes out WAY ahead vs marital guns IMO. deadly and fatal are pretty much a push, you get slightly less range and damage dice but 0 reload and no unsteady vs a Arquebus [meaning 1 action attacks vs 3 action attacks]... Sniper is ultimately forgettable overall. I can't see a reason why I'd pick a gun is a bow was an option.
But that just makes the gunslinger an incredibly bad player choice in games where firearms are not going to be allowed. Why not just tie the class to firearms and have the rules cover that it is not a good class to play in games where guns are none existent?I would rather have Gunslinger be competitive with other classes when they use the crossbow, and that they prefer to use guns when those are available.
I like the Gunslinger as the expert in reload weapons, be they firearms or otherwise.
I thought the point that Unicore was making was that *if* the “Gun”slinger has to resort to using a crossbow in a non-gun conversant game that they won’t be any good because crossbows aren’t as good as guns.
Even for gunslingers, crossbows offer more reliable steady damage, and a higher damage over the course of a fight. Guns offer lower overall damage, but the spread is different, and crits are massive.
If you look at damage over ten rounds, crossbows are better.
If you look at burst damage and status effects, guns are better.
It’s a choice of style. It’s good to have it.
If that is the case then yes, absolutely.
If that is the case then yes, absolutely.
From the Reddit megathread,
assuming 50% hit rate, the average damage from a crossbow is 2.475. The average damage from a musket (simple two-handed reload 1) is 2.125. With a 30% chance to hit, these become 1.575 for the crossbow and 1.425 for the musket, and on a 70% chance to hit, you have 4.05 for crossbows and 3.95 for the musket.
[...]
Eventually, a crossbow can get to 9.9 average damage, but a gun with the same effects will stop at 7.675 (despite the hits looking more like 18/36 for crossbows and 14/49.5 for musket).
There’s a bit more in the comments but the gist is that crossbows are for sustained damage, guns are for big bursts and stuns.
A lot depends on how the final wording of firearm ace and how it applies to crossbows. I think a lot of folks first runs at testing this out are at low enough levels where characters won't be using dueling pistols, which is a lot better than the hand crossbow, especially for the first round shot, which won't be benefiting from firearm ace in the first place (assuming you are not spending an action on the first round to load your gun).
This is why some of the white room damage comparisons I am seeing don't make a lot of sense. Most sniper gunslingers aren't going to settle into doing the same three actions every round because they have interesting and useful 2 action strikes that are very situational.
In theory, a sniper with a crossbow could sneak and reload for their first action, fire for their second action, and then hide for their third action. This is necessary because the crossbow is really bad without assuming there will be either a fix to firearm ace or a separate crossbow ace, but those bonuses only apply the round you reload, so the crossbow ace will want an unloaded crossbow in hand at the start of every round and be in the same position they were in when they last fired if they are trying to get the enemy flatfooted for their next shot. You also will never be able to use any of the reaction abilities with an unloaded weapon.
A sniper is probably only using the arquebus for the first shot, then dropping it to switch to a dueling pistol (assuming we are high enough level to own multiple firearms). The arquebus on the first shot of the round is probably being done with shooter's aim. This way you won't have had to set up, you don't really need the +2 damage that firearm ace gives you since it is a martial weapon, so you don't have to waste an action reloading before you fire, and thus you can take a shot that will likely be a +2 higher than the crossbow ace, ignores cover, and still hits their flatfooted AC, in the round where you get your bonus one shot, one kill damage.
At level 8 a sniper is likely to have a +6 master +8 level +4 attribute +1 item for a +19 base attack bonus. +2 circumstance bonus is a +21 vs an enemy flat-footed AC.
A level 8 desert drake has an average monster AC of 27. Flat-footed you are +21 vs AC 25. You hit on a 4 and Crit on a 14. If you have waited for the rest of your team to go before you (a great idea for a sniper) and they have inspired courage, or cast bless or heroism on you, you crit on a 13+. These numbers are the same as at level 13. where I looked, but it is not impossible that you have a +2 status bonus instead of a +1. A 40% chance to crit on the first attack of the round makes the Arquebus obliterate the regular crossbow as a weapon.
Then the gun sniper hides, so first round, both are in similar positions, but the gun sniper took the much better shot.
After the first round, the arquebus sniper is in a bit of a spot. If she is still hidden, she can sneak and reload (action 1), then fire a shooter's aim again with the same bonuses from before (only missing the one shot one kill damage) but will end the turn unhidden. If she doesn't use shooter's aim and she moved as a part of the sneak action to reload, then the circumstance bonus and the unsteady penalty are a wash. A lot will depend here on whether your enemy is actively seeking you out, and doing so successfully or ignoring you. Actually, the crossbow ace could take the same action sequence here (since you have to reload before you fire), but the +2 to accuracy might not be worth the extra action for the crossbow sniper, unless it also allows the sniper to ignore active cover.
A lot of snipers might decide this second shot is still worth it and then abandon the arquebus for round 3, when they end up unhidden, with an unloaded weapon. Quick drawing a dueling pistol, firing, and then hiding and sneaking can give you a loaded firearm (for any cool reaction abilities you might have) and have let you hid and snuck in the same round, meaning the enemy might have no idea what square you are even in. This can set you up for a very interesting round 4 vital shot.
The problem the crossbow sniper has is that those two action abilities you have are nearly useless to you, because you have to start every round reloading, which you can combine into a move action with running reload, but will only gain the benefits of sneaking if you ended your last round hidden.
Perhaps a feat to let a sniper with a crossbow end a round hidden after firing could be a cool crossbow only choice, since the crossbow doesn't go BOOM after you fire?
Basically, after a much closer analysis, I think that the crossbow sniper may not be universally worse than the gun sniper, based upon which action boosting feats you pick up along the way, but the need to reload before you fire to be effective with a crossbow, but it only being a little more damage for higher level gunslingers using martial firearms, is going to end up really eating into the options you have from your class as far as what feat actions you are going to be able to do. At first level, it might not be as noticeable, but there are lots of higher level feats that are just not going to ever see the light of day for a crossbow ace.
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A lot depends on how the final wording of firearm ace and how it applies to crossbows.
I don't want to "well actually" your very thorough analysis, but if Gunslingers don't have access to the Crossbow Ace feat, I will be greatly surprised.
I think we can safely assume access to that feat for the purposes of comparisons.
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A lot depends on how the final wording of firearm ace and how it applies to crossbows.I don't want to "well actually" your very thorough analysis, but if Gunslingers don't have access to the Crossbow Ace feat, I will be greatly surprised.
I think we can safely assume access to that feat for the purposes of comparisons.
I agree, but if either Ace ability looks exactly like it does now, the crossbow ace sniper in particular is in a pretty bad spot for their first shot of the round, since you only get the benefits of the feat from reloading your weapon, either that round or the round before (depending upon how that wording gets shook out).
A crossbow slinger will never really want to fire their weapon without benefiting from that feat. A gunslinger with a martial weapon is only a little damage less.
I believe if guns and crossbows were on par with bows, no one would use the latter because it requires some STR for damage. While the former allow you to allocate stat boosts elsewhere.
Yeah, the distinction I see here is that a bow in the hands of a max dex, just below max strength character should do more damage than a crossbow.
What the crossbow does is lets you say "okay, my two most important stats are dex and int/wis/cha, and this is a weapon that works with that approach."
Mostly I started this thread because I wanted guns to be less sneaky than crossbows.
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A sniper is probably only using the arquebus for the first shot, then dropping it to switch to a dueling pistol (assuming we are high enough level to own multiple firearms).
I don't see this happening very often. Having two fully upgraded weapons is really expensive, especially if you're just going to make one attack in a combat with it.
When the game was newer there were a lot of people suggesting the same thing with heavy crossbows and I've just never seen anyone actually try it. It just doesn't seem at all economical. Maybe in an ABP game, though.
Keeping up 2 weapons is not too much of a stretch. A lot of characters do this for their switch hitting potential. After looking at it a little closer and the class in play, you can get shots off in the first 2 rounds with the Arquebus relatively easily as a sniper using shooter's aim. When you do that, it is pretty reasonable to expect 35-40% crit rates against equal level opponents (ignoring cover, getting a +2 circumstance bonus to the attack roll and shooting from being hidden). It doesn't get more brutal as a crit fishing weapon.
There are only a couple of levels where you are likely to behind a very significant striking rune on your back up weapon, and there are a lot of neat activities that actually make having a weapon you can draw and have loaded pretty useful, so only carrying one gun is going to be a bit of a mistake for high level gunslingers anyway.
I agree that I would like to see a crossbow feat or two specifically designed around the ability to be sneaky with it, but they need to be really good to make the crossbow an attractive weapon for a sniper, which is the most focused on being a crit-fishing first striking monster, all of which the crossbow is terrible for.
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Just need to print the crossbow equivalent to the arquebus. Portable ballista: sniper, unsteady, and longer range than the heavy crossbow.
As a small note, right now the difference between guns and crossbow, given equal investment (weapon class, hand usage, reload time) is as follows:
Guns:
+crit damage (+20%-30%)
++debuff (stun, unique)
Crossbows:
++base damage (roughly 30%)
+average damage (+5%-25%)
Guns do the one shot one kill thing and can have massive impact. Crossbows do good damage.
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STOP THE PRESS I WAS WRONG.
I redid all my calculations and went for a bit more detail this time, and... it's inconsistent. Depending on runes, the same accuracy gives different results - sometimes guns are better, sometimes not.
For example, on an accuracy of 20%, guns are better unless they're Greater Striking - in which case they're equivalent.
on accuracies of 5%, 25% to 40%, and 60% to 65%, Greater Striking crossbows are better than Greater Striking guns, but for everything else guns are still better.
On 45% to 55%, crossbows are better unless Striking.
On 10 to 15% and 70% and higher, guns are always better.
I've only run this one on musket vs crossbow so far, but... huh. Fatal is a bit weird I guess.
STOP THE PRESS I WAS WRONG.
I redid all my calculations and went for a bit more detail this time, and... it's inconsistent. Depending on runes, the same accuracy gives different results - sometimes guns are better, sometimes not.
For example, on an accuracy of 20%, guns are better unless they're Greater Striking - in which case they're equivalent.
on accuracies of 5%, 25% to 40%, and 60% to 65%, Greater Striking crossbows are better than Greater Striking guns, but for everything else guns are still better.
On 45% to 55%, crossbows are better unless Striking.
On 10 to 15% and 70% and higher, guns are always better.
I've only run this one on musket vs crossbow so far, but... huh. Fatal is a bit weird I guess.
This is assuming Firearm ace for both of them I assume? The musket, even with firearm ace is not better than the Arquebuss for a sniper (the only one of the builds likely to be using a 2 handed weapon). Otherwise you probably need to be comparing the hand crossbow to the dueling pistol.
Which means that the gun slinger is going to come out on top in the first round of combat against the crossbow slinger almost everytime, assuming shooting a loaded weapon.
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STOP THE PRESS I WAS WRONG.
I redid all my calculations and went for a bit more detail this time, and... it's inconsistent. Depending on runes, the same accuracy gives different results - sometimes guns are better, sometimes not.
For example, on an accuracy of 20%, guns are better unless they're Greater Striking - in which case they're equivalent.
on accuracies of 5%, 25% to 40%, and 60% to 65%, Greater Striking crossbows are better than Greater Striking guns, but for everything else guns are still better.
On 45% to 55%, crossbows are better unless Striking.
On 10 to 15% and 70% and higher, guns are always better.
I've only run this one on musket vs crossbow so far, but... huh. Fatal is a bit weird I guess.
Ok, I just have to say, I just read the thread about concerns about the PRESS trait with gunslingers, and couldn't help but read your message with that definition of Press at first.
Sorry, I had to share the laughter.
