It is not exactly part of the playtest, but seeing as we have basically exhausted the discussion about the existing material, this is a good a time and place as any.
Anyway, it is not hard to see that any weapon with a capacity of higher than 1 will be... interesting in the balance department. I have never played 1E, only watched it, but even from that I can surmise that this is not a direction we want to go in. From what I have gathered you run around with a dinky little pistol/crossbow until you pick up something that costs as much as some magic items, at which point you become the god of dakka.
For 2E, the problem is that these weapons largely get around the reason why reload weapons need to be substantially better than they are currently - the reloading part. It is conceivable that capacity could be the answer to propulsive variants of non-reloading ranged weapons, but that is a very fine line to walk.
Capacity 2 is still fine, as that still only allows for two attacks per round, which is mostly fine. Unless the reload stuff the gunslinger gets is as hilarious as the 1E semi-auto musket, this should work. Actually a decent equivalent to composite variants. Propulsive is not really useful to anything but the drifter, as far as the gunslinger goes, so that would make sense as an option. Being able to consistently do 2/3 of the attacks of a bow specialist is a lot better than half, so these could be reasonably balanced. It would also be much more satisfying to be able to do 2 attacks per round, rather than the 2-1-2-1 routine.
Anything more than that is problematic. The strongest versions - revolvers, rifles, repeating crossbows, ...etc. - would definitely have to be advanced weapons or they would just not fit into the general balance of power. At least not if the rest of the stats stays the same from the one-shot versions, which is the only thing that makes sense. But is that enough?
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Higher misfire Flat Check DC perhaps? They will easily be the kind of firearms that roll for Misfire more often than their lower capacity peers but I think it makes some sense that more mechanically involved firearms would have a greater chance to misfire, especially since it would work nicely as a tradeoff versus a more reliable gun that has to be reloaded frequently.
Higher misfire Flat Check DC perhaps?
It's hard to really have a conversation about misfire when we know the numbers we have are messed up and have no idea where the new balance point will be. It could work but at this time, it's hard to say.
They will easily be the kind of firearms that roll for Misfire more often than their lower capacity peers but I think it makes some sense that more mechanically involved firearms would have a greater chance to misfire, especially since it would work nicely as a tradeoff versus a more reliable gun that has to be reloaded frequently.
I don't know that it would necessarily follow that they are more prone since we could be talking about a difference in tech levels so we could be talking about higher tech bullets and manufacturing that inherently has lower misfire to offset the chances a loading system goes wrong. We're already covering a pretty big range with gun tech from a hand cannon to dueling pistols using the same misfire.
Higher misfire Flat Check DC perhaps? They will easily be the kind of firearms that roll for Misfire more often than their lower capacity peers but I think it makes some sense that more mechanically involved firearms would have a greater chance to misfire, especially since it would work nicely as a tradeoff versus a more reliable gun that has to be reloaded frequently.
I could get behind this. Better benefits for more risks
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Its not particularly difficult to balance higher capacity firearms, we already have an effective baseline for what an infinite capacity one can do, bows.
The real question is more about how to make them mechanically unique. That could be as part of the capacity itself, a 10000 clip static machine gun with a 25% misfire chance practically has a reload of 1/4. Or it could just be about choosing unique trait combinations. A six shot revolver with agile fills an absent niche.
Its not particularly difficult to balance higher capacity firearms, we already have an effective baseline for what an infinite capacity one can do, bows.
The real question is more about how to make them mechanically unique. That could be as part of the capacity itself, a 10000 clip static machine gun with a 25% misfire chance practically has a reload of 1/4. Or it could just be about choosing unique trait combinations. A six shot revolver with agile fills an absent niche.
Well, yes and no. Even capacity weapons will have to reload eventually, so you can't just make a revolver a shortbow plus capacity 6 and reload. Unless you give it reload 1 for the entire drum, at which point why do you have reload and capacity in the first place?
You also cannot make them worse than the basic single-shot counterpart or they become essentially obsolete as soon as you get into TWF or they get a way to do two shots every round, which will probably happen rather soon.
And if I have anything to say about it, misfire will stay as optional as it is now. If it is not optional, it is a terrible mechanic that is disliked by an overwhelming majority of players, at least to my knowledge. I most certainly wouldn't touch them. I have played it in other systems and seen it played in 1E and I say "no, thank you". The whole point of 2E is to remove things that are just not fun, so why would we put it back in?
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I don't know that Capacity firearms need a statistical balance. I think the best way to tackle them is by level gating them to higher levels, and making them at least Uncommon if not Rare.
Cost is another factor. Some people may not like it, but that's about the only balancing point I see. The alternative is a revolver that fires the same exact sized bullet with as much powder as a flintlock pistol yet somehow doing less damage than the flintlock pistol. Or maybe a revolver that somehow has a higher misfire chance than said fl pistol. Neither of those options are appealing to me personally.
That is the reality of technology. Cased shells made free powder and shot obsolete. Revolvers and magazine fed weapons made single loaders obsolete. The only way to really balance these weapons in a reasonable way is through access. Level, Rarity and Cost.
I don't know that Capacity firearms need a statistical balance. I think the best way to tackle them is by level gating them to higher levels, and making them at least Uncommon if not Rare.
Cost is another factor. Some people may not like it, but that's about the only balancing point I see. The alternative is a revolver that fires the same exact sized bullet with as much powder as a flintlock pistol yet somehow doing less damage than the flintlock pistol. Or maybe a revolver that somehow has a higher misfire chance than said fl pistol. Neither of those options are appealing to me personally.
That is the reality of technology. Cased shells made free powder and shot obsolete. Revolvers and magazine fed weapons made single loaders obsolete. The only way to really balance these weapons in a reasonable way is through access. Level, Rarity and Cost.
I guess you are right, though I wish there was a better way. I already find the small upgrade shenanigans with composite bows a bit silly, but it is not the worst solution.
Level will solve itself with the strong ones being advanced, as you can only use them starting at level 6 via class feats.
Rarity being increased to rare is definitely a necessity for both lore and machanics. The things are extremely new and guarded technoligy after all. And I don't think we want Unconventional Weaponry cheese circumventing the other limitations.
So I guess this makes them essentially magical items, with the same substantial cost attached?
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Rarity is specifically designed not to be a balancing factor. Turning it into one is bad for the health of the game. It might be appropriate for them to be Rare for flavor reasons, but Uncommon or Rare isn't supposed to mean objectively stronger. So that option's a no go.
Having them be leveled items intentionally designed to replace their lesser counterparts is an interesting one. That sort of removes the balance issue in the same way that no one complains that Shortbows are worse than Composite Shortbows.
Honestly though, a big part of why ammo capacity is so potentially scary is because Reload itself is such a poorly balanced trait.
If reload was balanced better, designing weapons that circumvented reload without breaking the balance would be easier.
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Rarity is specifically designed not to be a balancing factor. Turning it into one is bad for the health of the game. It might be appropriate for them to be Rare for flavor reasons, but Uncommon or Rare isn't supposed to mean objectively stronger. So that option's a no go.
Sorry, I phrased that poorly. What I meant was that several feats, especially Unconventional Weaponry, give access to uncommon weapons and put them on a lower proficiency track. Rare gets around that, which is definitely what we want.
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Caveat : I make a difference between Capacity weapons, that can be shot several times before having to reload them one ammunition by one, and Magazine weapons were you only need 1 action to reload to full Capacity.
From my response to the Playtest Open Survey :
"Finally, weapons with a Capacity trait that can shoot several rounds before needing reload (with the usual one action per round reloaded) would be great, likely with the Capacity capacity being 2 to 4.
And higher Capacity values, or magazines that you can swap as an activity, as advanced weapons."
I should have added that any Capacity weapon should be Martial at the least.
Note that Magazine weapons could be balanced with a longer reload.
Also, it is important here to remember that those traits could be on a crossbow, and not only on guns. So any explanation specific to firearms does not really work for me.
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I made the "magazine X" trait for my home game's guns, and it works really well.
The mechanics behind it are pretty easy: when you reload the weapon, you put X amount of ammunition into it instead of just one. While it has ammo inside it, treat the weapon as if it had reload 0 until it runs out of stored ammunition
I balanced these weapons as bows, but with a minor boon, since having a magazine to reload is better than reload 1, but still worse that reload 0. After about 10 or so though, magazine stops being a significant limitation.