So here's the situation. I'm running the Iron Gods AP for my players, and one player is a Techslinger 1/Spellslinger 5 (going to be taking the Technomancer prestige class next level).
I'm operating under the idea that firearms are Emerging in Golarion, aside from the technological firearms that are found in Numeria, obviously.
The Gunsmithing feat states "At your GM’s discretion, you can craft advanced firearms for a cost in raw materials equal to half the price of the firearm."
Thus, I told this player that if she succeeded a Knowledge (engineering) check of a really high DC, which can only be made once each time she levels and takes a rank in Knowledge (engineering), then she would thereafter know how to use the Gunsmithing feat to craft advanced firearms.
My question is: What DC would you assign this Knowledge (engineering) check? My first thought would be somewhere around DC 35.
The DC is a bit high, but unless she has access to a workshop that is set up for crafting advanced technology, making advanced firearms SHOULD be a very difficult process. Personally, I'd just make the character take a feat (craft technological arms and armor) and require access to an advanced workshop in order to make them. Limit the crafting to firearms specifically unless they also have the Technologist feat as well.
The character actually passed DC 35 on their check last session. xD
And she has the Technologist feat and Craft (mechanical) as a skill. The party is also based in Torch, a town whose economical specialty is forging skymetal, so there would be non-technological workshops aplenty.
There's a real difference between modern science and what is modelled in the game as knowledge skills.
Take the Technologist and Craft Technological Item Feat
so RAW has modelled this difference as a feat and craft feat.
It's really a GM decision as to where handguns fit in this arrangement of technology or you take the RAW method and choose Gunsmithing and Create Enhanced Firearm feat (the everything costs a feat method).
With crafting it can be done
1) alchemically using normal skills based on personal magics and formulae (which will vary for each practitioner).
2) technologically using an appropriate skill set and likely requiring specialized tools and equipment. Anyone with the right knowledge and tools can follow this procedural method.
Personally I would treat creating advanced firearms like creating magic weapons. Allowing a PC to create multiple advanced fire arms is going to change the nature of the campaign. If you are ok with the campaign shifting from emerging fire arms to something higher than go ahead and let the player be the one behind the change. The DC for picking a superior lock for disable device is 40 with proper tools. Inventing a completely new technology should be at least as hard as picking the best lock money can buy. Also considering it is new technology it should take the penalty for not having the proper tools which would raise the DC to 50.
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My personal advice here is to tell the player you didn't understand the ramifications and recant your position.
Tell the player that they can be researching a nebulous goal of improving firearms, but that it is beyond them without more advanced manufacturing technology.
In the end, allowing your players to craft advanced firearms upsets the general balance of the game. It may not be the end of the world, but it definitely makes things significantly easier.
Claxon wrote: In the end, allowing your players to craft advanced firearms upsets the general balance of the game. It may not be the end of the world, but it definitely makes things significantly easier. Using the firearms rules made things significantly easier. Advanced firearms is an improvement, but not over and above just having a firearm to begin with. If you were relying on misfire chance and range to be the balancing factor for use of firearms it becomes largely moot once a player starts enchanting their weapons.
Advanced firearm's major benefit is targeting touch AC into their first five range increments. Most combats won't take place that far away anyway. However, it is much safer for the PC.
I have seen a GM regret allowing a PC access to advanced firearms. In isolation, I would not recommend giving PCs access to them. But, the campaign is Iron Gods, the PCs will have access to zapp guns and other technological shenanigans and in my experience with Iron Gods, you have to fight to make the PCs interested in technology when equivalent magic items are cheaper, more easily available, and reliable.
The difference between a laser pistol and a revolver is not as great as the difference between a laser pistol and a pistol.
I would have something like that start at DC 50, minimum.
If springs or wheels didn't exist, the DC for a player to be THE guy that invented the wheel would be 50+, as well.
I would ensure that even taking 20 is not enough without further/significant investment... might, MIGHT, give your character a bonus, or lower the DC's, if you are a Master Tinkerer Gnome... or a character's with a background and class and archetype and decent roleplay that is an inventor-type character. But probably not, if that is just who you are, then you can probably hit the DC's without any extra help... so, DC 50+, it is, for everyone.
But that is just how I would approach it, if I allowed it at all. I know what happens when you give the party a flying carpet... I can only imagine what they would do with the ability to invent new and advanced technologies...
"I'm going to walk the Wizard through making me an A10 Warthog..."
BBBBRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTtttttttttt
Kasoh wrote: Claxon wrote: In the end, allowing your players to craft advanced firearms upsets the general balance of the game. It may not be the end of the world, but it definitely makes things significantly easier. Using the firearms rules made things significantly easier. Advanced firearms is an improvement, but not over and above just having a firearm to begin with. If you were relying on misfire chance and range to be the balancing factor for use of firearms it becomes largely moot once a player starts enchanting their weapons.
Advanced firearm's major benefit is targeting touch AC into their first five range increments. Most combats won't take place that far away anyway. However, it is much safer for the PC.
I have seen a GM regret allowing a PC access to advanced firearms. In isolation, I would not recommend giving PCs access to them. But, the campaign is Iron Gods, the PCs will have access to zapp guns and other technological shenanigans and in my experience with Iron Gods, you have to fight to make the PCs interested in technology when equivalent magic items are cheaper, more easily available, and reliable.
The difference between a laser pistol and a revolver is not as great as the difference between a laser pistol and a pistol.
The biggest difference in my experience, and having only played the first book of Iron Gods is:
1) Reload time/frequency of advanced weapons vs basic fire arms.
2) While the high tech weapons do exist, they tend to have limited ammunition with access to more being inconsistent at best. Unless as a GM you're willing to handwave the problem, what I recall is that you wouldn't be able to reliably use the same high tech weapon for very long as you would run out of ammo and the ammo wasn't necessarily interchangeable between different high tech weapons.
Downtime activities and scroll down for Craft Mundane Items, Spell Research, Research Facts and Lore...
knowing a price can determine how long an item will take to make AND approximately how long it should take to research making such an item (3-5-10* as long).
Claxon wrote: The biggest difference in my experience, and having only played the first book of Iron Gods is:
1) Reload time/frequency of advanced weapons vs basic fire arms.
2) While the high tech weapons do exist, they tend to have limited ammunition with access to more being inconsistent at best. Unless as a GM you're willing to handwave the problem, what I recall is that you wouldn't be able to reliably use the same high tech weapon for very long as you would run out of ammo and the ammo wasn't necessarily interchangeable between different high tech weapons.
Yeah, a firearms focused character is already aiming for free action reloads on their weapon, Rapid Reload+Alchemical Cartridges and other such shenanigans. Advanced Firearms do not need the Alchemical Cartridges, but often have the requirement for metal cartridges, so the effort to acquire probably balances out.
You're right, but in the specific build mentioned, a Techslinger can 'generate' charges for their weapons by spending grit and the Technomancer Prestige class can remove the timeworn condition from items, in addition to other battery shenanigans. So, for this build, I don't think it will be an egregious power upgrade compared to that time I saw a Gunslinger 1/Paladin X in Carrion Crown get an advanced firearm.
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Kasoh wrote: Claxon wrote: In the end, allowing your players to craft advanced firearms upsets the general balance of the game. It may not be the end of the world, but it definitely makes things significantly easier. Using the firearms rules made things significantly easier. Advanced firearms is an improvement, but not over and above just having a firearm to begin with. If you were relying on misfire chance and range to be the balancing factor for use of firearms it becomes largely moot once a player starts enchanting their weapons. Misfire and range arn't the balancing factors of firearms… it is reload time and capacity… most early firearms have a capacity of 1 or 2… this greatly restricts the number of attacks you can take per round with a firearm… but when you get into advanced firearms you start to see 6+ capacity, enabling not only full attack actions with no lost attacks but also the ability to full attack back to back on multiple turns without needing to spend any actions to reload… misfire and range are just minor inconveniences in the grand scheme of things. Misfire is easy enough to negate, and range is a non-issue in most encounters.
Chell Raighn wrote: Misfire and range arn't the balancing factors of firearms… it is reload time and capacity… most early firearms have a capacity of 1 or 2… this greatly restricts the number of attacks you can take per round with a firearm… but when you get into advanced firearms you start to see 6+ capacity, enabling not only full attack actions with no lost attacks but also the ability to full attack back to back on multiple turns without needing to spend any actions to reload… misfire and range are just minor inconveniences in the grand scheme of things. Misfire is easy enough to negate, and range is a non-issue in most encounters. This may just be my local meta, but I have never seen a firearms using character who did not have free action reloads by level 3. I am surprised people are actually saying its a mitigating factor.
Kasoh wrote: Chell Raighn wrote: Misfire and range arn't the balancing factors of firearms… it is reload time and capacity… most early firearms have a capacity of 1 or 2… this greatly restricts the number of attacks you can take per round with a firearm… but when you get into advanced firearms you start to see 6+ capacity, enabling not only full attack actions with no lost attacks but also the ability to full attack back to back on multiple turns without needing to spend any actions to reload… misfire and range are just minor inconveniences in the grand scheme of things. Misfire is easy enough to negate, and range is a non-issue in most encounters. This may just be my local meta, but I have never seen a firearms using character who did not have free action reloads by level 3. I am surprised people are actually saying its a mitigating factor. It's more about forcing them to devote those resources to it.
Honestly most of the methods are pretty cheesy anyways, but forcing them to go through the hoops is about the most you can do. Also, it limits the kind of firearms you can use to pistol because long arms (which have more damage) have longer reload times that rapid reload and alchemical cartridges don't fully resolve. And on a gunslinger that is constantly using alchemical cartridges it will put a significant dent in their available wealth if you force them to track it. As a GM I don't normally make players track regular ammo, but stuff like alchemical cartridges are getting tracked. Alchemical cartridges are 12 gp a shot. At higher levels you're spending hundreds or possibly 1000+ gp per combat just on ammo. It adds up.
As for the techslinger, it's technically true that you can "recharge" the battery one grit point at a time...at level 11. Consider that book 6 (the final book) start at level 15, you're spending the majority of the adventure without the ability to do so.
Claxon wrote: It's more about forcing them to devote those resources to it.
Honestly most of the methods are pretty cheesy anyways, but forcing them to go through the hoops is about the most you can do. Also, it limits the kind of firearms you can use to pistol because long arms (which have more damage) have longer reload times that rapid reload and alchemical cartridges don't fully resolve. And on a gunslinger that is constantly using alchemical cartridges it will put a significant dent in their available wealth if you force them to track it. As a GM I don't normally make players track regular ammo, but stuff like alchemical cartridges are getting tracked. Alchemical cartridges are 12 gp a shot. At higher levels you're spending hundreds or possibly 1000+ gp per combat just on ammo. It adds up.
As for the techslinger, it's technically true that you can "recharge" the battery one grit point at a time...at level 11. Consider that book 6 (the final book) start at level 15, you're spending the majority of the adventure without the ability to do so.
Right, I probably should have read the deed description closer.
Tracking ammo cost is a great way to keep Gunslingers in line. I agree. Of course, gunslingers craft bullets at 10% cost and I've always assumed that applies to the alchemical cartridges too, so its closer to 1.2 gp per bullet. (Does Techslinger alter that? Didn't check) There could be room for GM interpretation there. And any longarm slinger will be a Musket Master anyway...
I dunno. Once someone has chosen to go Gunslinger, saying its an opportunity cost to pursue free action reloads seems a bit off to me. I've had players who complain about Precise Shot being a feat, but I figure if you're going Gunslinger, you know what your feat progression looks like going into it. It may be a cost, but it was one they were going to pay anyway.
This is probably just a bias on my part admittedly.
By advanced firearms do you mean stuff like revolvers and rifles or technological firearms like energy weapons.
Cause if the former and your guns are in black powdered era I’d say with a DC 50 engineering (keep in mind this is with black powder being the setting some modern firearms will be devastating foe a character that can mass hit touch). I would use 50 for revolvers and such it would be even higher in my games for things like machine guns.
If technological guns per RAW you need special craft labs. So absolutely is your ally to keep a game from breaking. I would imagine if your black powder and found you can make energy guns that type of lab would be highly guarded.
Kasoh wrote: Right, I probably should have read the deed description closer.
Tracking ammo cost is a great way to keep Gunslingers in line. I agree. Of course, gunslingers craft bullets at 10% cost and I've always assumed that applies to the alchemical cartridges too, so its closer to 1.2 gp per bullet. (Does Techslinger alter that? Didn't check) There could be room for GM interpretation there. And any longarm slinger will be a Musket Master anyway...
I dunno. Once someone has chosen to go Gunslinger, saying its an opportunity cost to pursue free action reloads seems a bit off to me. I've had players who complain about Precise Shot being a feat, but I figure if you're going Gunslinger, you know what your feat progression looks like going into it. It may be a cost, but it was one they were going to pay anyway.
This is probably just a bias on my part admittedly.
Yeah, the gunslinger/techslinger probably get's to use the 10% costs, that's a good point. But I'm basically looking at all the things to hold back even the basic firearms. If you allow advanced firearms, it basically pulls out all those stops and controls you had.
The most you can do it make the pay the costs along the way.
Personally I don't like gunslingers in the first place, they're mechanically problematic. I don't have a problem with them in setting, but two weapon fighting with dual pistols with free action reloads with tiefling tails to facilitate reloading etc can result in crazy bucket loads of damage. As someone who's already opposed to gunslingers, I'm not interested in letting them have advanced firearms and making things any easier on them.
Claxon wrote: Yeah, the gunslinger/techslinger probably get's to use the 10% costs, that's a good point. But I'm basically looking at all the things to hold back even the basic firearms. If you allow advanced firearms, it basically pulls out all those stops and controls you had.
The most you can do it make the pay the costs along the way.
Personally I don't like gunslingers in the first place, they're mechanically problematic. I don't have a problem with them in setting, but two weapon fighting with dual pistols with free action reloads with tiefling tails to facilitate reloading etc can result in crazy bucket loads of damage. As someone who's already opposed to gunslingers, I'm not interested in letting them have advanced firearms and making things any easier on them.
I don't mind single pistol or musket users generally. I'm resistant to TWF tail reloading chicanery, but in the end, the PCs are going to win the fight anyway, so as long as its not detracting from the other player's enjoyment I'll just target them more with Dominate spells.
I wouldn't. Some things just can't be done, and if I'm running an emerging guns campaign one of those things is going to be having an advanced firearm.
Claxon wrote: Tell the player that they can be researching a nebulous goal of improving firearms, but that it is beyond them without more advanced manufacturing technology. I suppose that depends on exactly what they're working with when they're not trying to craft on the road, but precision machining itself probably isn't the obstacle on Golarion that it would have been in the 1400s to late-mid-1800s. Especially once you bring magical assistance into the mix, whether in the form of the spell Fabricate or using a pair of Gloves of Shaping to achieve by intricate carving what they could not do with more conventional metallurgy.
They would also probably already know that you need precise mechanisms if they know how to build firearms successfully and understand the various ways that guns can misfire.
It's the entirely new ideas part that's really the kicker, ultimately, but if something like a pepperbox pistol is on their radar, the thought of being able to do the same thing with one barrel but a revolving chamber instead is pretty conceivable. Especially if they've also already encountered the idea of weapons having magazines.
Determining the exact strengths needed for various parts is also likely a factor that could be taken into account, but even more nebulous in terms of how much they'd need to work on the problem vs. how much they'd already know from existing tolerances and limitations. So it might be more of a headache than it's worth to address. Especially when you've got stronger than steel materials like Adamantine and Mithral in the mix, with Mithral being both stronger and lighter.
Faolán Maiali the Azure Abjurer wrote: My question is: What DC would you assign this Knowledge (engineering) check? My first thought would be somewhere around DC 35. I'd suggest something more along the lines of needing to put in X amount of time and resources into the matter, with how much is necessary modified by various milestones, goals accomplished, technologies and ideas encountered especially ones that were deciphered and understood, etc.
This both makes it something that they can't be permanently denied due to a single die roll (or that they're able to attempt once per level) and, I think more importantly, allows more of a sense of progression, rather than being a binary state.
I know its not a great argument to make, but the creation of advanced firearms is quite possible and not especially difficult, since we've managed to do that on Earth and I don't think we have a lot of people who can make a DC 50 Knowledge:Engineering check. History of Firearms notwithstanding, I'm sure there's reasons for the timescale it happened on our planet and Golarion is not earth and using reality to base what is essentially a game balance decision isn't a good idea...etc etc.
The craft DC for a nanite fueled Death Ray is 32.
Jetpack? DC 26.
Invent internal magazines with gas powered recoil loading mechanism for a rifle? ??
If you want a PC to have it, then make it achievable in a reasonable timeframe. If you don't want it available, you should just say "No, you can't have advanced firearms."
I recall a GM who tried to placate a player who wanted an airship by setting high DCs to source the parts and magic and made it prohibitively expensive, when what they really wanted was to say no, and eventually had to when the player kept trying to derail the campaign to achieve those goals set forward. That was a mistake, but we learned from it.
Yeah, I personally think the correct answer here is to say "Sorry, but no."
Considering my party's composition, I'm not really concerned about advanced firearms upsetting the balance of the game. And I'm already fully decided that advanced firearms (as described in Ultimate Combat) would be allowed if the character puts time and effort into researching them, mainly because it's the Iron Gods AP and the character's whole shtick is being obsessed with technology and guns.
The only characters that would be using the firearms are:
The ratfolk techslinger 1/spellslinger 5/technomancer x, so BAB is going to be pretty low the whole game, making iterative attacks not an issue. She's the one that would be crafting and making use of them.
Current Feats: Gunsmithing (class bonus), Technologist (1st), Point-Blank (3rd), Skill Focus: Knowledge engineering (5th, and a prereq for technomancer), and Craft Wondrous Item (Wizard 5th)
Later Planned Feats: Precise Shot (7th), Craft Tech Arms and Armor (9th), Craft Magic Arms and Armor (11th)
And the human inquisitor of Sarenrae (Healing domain), who until this point has been making use of a repeating light crossbow and has been focusing mostly on being the party medic and eliminating ranged penalties with his feat selection. (And his attack bonus is even lower than the former character right now due to being larger and having a lower Dex, so most of his crossbow shots have been missing, in part due to terrible luck)
Current Feats: Point-Blank (1st), Precise Shot (human), Rapid Reload (3rd: will be retrained to Firearm proficiency under the former character's tutelage), Rapid Shot (5th), Friendly Fire Maneuvers (Inquisitor 3), Coordinated Shot (Inquisitor 6)
The rest of the party is too invested in other strategies to even consider taking proficiency in firearms:
A kitsune druid focused on summoning. (Spell Focus: Conj, Augment Summoning, Superior Summoning)
A rougarou paladin of Iomedae with the Monstrous Mount feat so she has a griffon.
And a tiefling brawler focused on Pummeling Style and tripping feats.
I think DC 50 might be a bit extreme, since it would require a modifier of at least +30, which would pretty much require the character to be at least 16th-level and roll a natural 20 (factoring in increases to Intelligence and full ranks and Skill Focus, and the Local Ties trait paired with Technologist). And at that point, the AP is basically almost over.
Couple this with the fact the character would know how to craft Technological Arms and Armor with the assistance of a military lab well before then. The idea that she could craft energy weapons but not a revolver seems pretty off.
Given that you're amenable to them having them already, I'd probably just pick whatever DC gives them a 50/50 shot at their current level of skill. If they have a +15 the DC is 26. If they fail, keep the DC, but as they grow in skill it will become easier.
The exact number isn't given but the description of Emerging Guns suggests Emerging Guns wrote: Advanced firearms may exist, but only as rare and wondrous items—the stuff of high-level treasure troves. So this should be beyond the standard checks. Since the Knowledge skills says "really tough questions" should be DC 20 or 30, 35 or 40 sounds about right.
That being said, given the setting (both weapon availability and adventure path), I would suggest rather than a check to create one out of nothing you make it a check to recognize and repair one that already exists. Or cobble together the parts from found technology, or strip the parts from a robot, or however you end up choosing to describe it. That would make advanced firearms rare and special by limiting the supply of creation materials but should give the player what they want. I haven't played the adventure path but I'm led to believe tech is fairly plentiful (and fought over).
Bob Bob Bob wrote: The exact number isn't given but the description of Emerging Guns suggests Emerging Guns wrote: Advanced firearms may exist, but only as rare and wondrous items—the stuff of high-level treasure troves. So this should be beyond the standard checks. Since the Knowledge skills says "really tough questions" should be DC 20 or 30, 35 or 40 sounds about right.
That being said, given the setting (both weapon availability and adventure path), I would suggest rather than a check to create one out of nothing you make it a check to recognize and repair one that already exists. Since we know that availability isn't a balance concern, and the DM in the situation is amenable to the PC having advanced firearms, I'm a little curious as to why its better to repair one as opposed to a singular PC being able to take credit for inventing it. The end result is the same, PC has advanced firearm, but in the end, someone has to, and aren't PCs uniquely special individuals anyway?
Its just an interesting distinction to make. If a PC wants to be the Eliphalet Remington of Golarion...well, why not?
Kasoh wrote: Bob Bob Bob wrote: The exact number isn't given but the description of Emerging Guns suggests Emerging Guns wrote: Advanced firearms may exist, but only as rare and wondrous items—the stuff of high-level treasure troves. So this should be beyond the standard checks. Since the Knowledge skills says "really tough questions" should be DC 20 or 30, 35 or 40 sounds about right.
That being said, given the setting (both weapon availability and adventure path), I would suggest rather than a check to create one out of nothing you make it a check to recognize and repair one that already exists. Since we know that availability isn't a balance concern, and the DM in the situation is amenable to the PC having advanced firearms, I'm a little curious as to why its better to repair one as opposed to a singular PC being able to take credit for inventing it. The end result is the same, PC has advanced firearm, but in the end, someone has to, and aren't PCs uniquely special individuals anyway?
Its just an interesting distinction to make. If a PC wants to be the Eliphalet Remington of Golarion...well, why not? The rest of that, that you cut off, says: RECURSION! wrote: Or cobble together the parts from found technology, or strip the parts from a robot, or however you end up choosing to describe it. I don't know how the GM or the player want to introduce the guns. I was just listing options, one of which is repair it. The other two are "build it out of high tech parts".
As for why not just let them take a hunk of steel and turn it into an advanced firearm, because then you need an explanation for why other people haven't done it first. A DC 35 is high for normal people. It's not for a mid-level adventurer or as demonstrated here, a level 6 gun nut. If all you needed was Gunsmithing and a lot of Knowledge (Engineering) then someone definitely made them already. Unless the world only moves at the speed of PCs.
"It uses salvaged alien technology" seemed a thematically appropriate reason for the adventure path (and apparently the character) and a good reason why nobody else had mass-produced them yet. And I never said they couldn't make more, just that limiting the creation materials would make them rare and special to fit the description in the setting. If the character wanted to spend their time mass-producing them to spread presumably they could (though maybe not in the adventure path, from my experience many are quite linear).
I’d give a separate check for each advanced firearm. Figuring out how to make a revolver wouldn’t mean you would know how to make flame thrower. It’s cool for the character to “invent” a few weapons, though such research should take time for each weapon.
Bob Bob Bob wrote: As for why not just let them take a hunk of steel and turn it into an advanced firearm, because then you need an explanation for why other people haven't done it first. /shrug. Someone has to be the first to do it. Just hasn't happened yet. A lot of technologies could have been invented earlier if someone had taken the time to invent them.
Kasoh wrote: Bob Bob Bob wrote: As for why not just let them take a hunk of steel and turn it into an advanced firearm, because then you need an explanation for why other people haven't done it first. /shrug. Someone has to be the first to do it. Just hasn't happened yet. A lot of technologies could have been invented earlier if someone had taken the time to invent them. On Golarion, at least, there is something of an explanation, IIRC.
The Technic League is largely more interested in robots and laser pistols while Alkenstar has a good thing going with a monopoly on muskets that they slowly release to the rest of the world while keeping anything better under wraps and as an ace in the hole for themselves.
Quite frankly...why assign a DC or a check at all? Guns aren't a new thing in Golarion. They're mass produced in Alkenstar and fluff seems to indicate that the higher ups down there already know how to create advanced firearms.
In a fantasy world where people are far far far more intelligent than anyone ever born on Earth, I think an aspiring Gunsmith can make a few leaps of logic. The only difference in our progression being trial/error and recording it. Or funnily enough, asking deities or other entities what next to do is also available. Divination OP
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