Steampunk and "Modern" Firearms


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Guns & Gears is great and all... but I'm planning for a steampunk campaign that calls for more modern - at least truly repeating - weapons.

I feel like it will be relatively easy to slightly increase the damage of most firearms and give them all a capacity. One thing I need to investigate further is dealing with fully automatic weapons.

Has any 3PP already gotten to this?
Has anyone here on the forums gotten to this?
Does anyone on the forums besides me even like steampunk or dieselpunk?

I feel like tweaking the repeating crossbows is the way to go/place to start as a foundation.


Automatic weapons might be tough to fit in with other weapons. Not impossible, but you may need to homebrew some new mechanics. Bring this to the homebrew threads I'd suggest.

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I had similar thoughts on the steampunk aspect (I blame having played Sunless Seas a while back), and I did a little bit of work on creating some Victorian/Wild West era weapons. I haven't had time to update them to the rules that came out in Guns & Gears, though, since I've been focusing on other things (I decided it'd be far saner for me to hire a freelancer than to split my attention the way I'd need to in order to finish it).

Eventually I intend to get around to the campaign I had in mind, but I'm not sure how long it'll take. I fully intend to have a scene where PCs get to deal with ornithopters while riding on a zeppelin. I think it'd be awesome.

That said, I'd base the repeating weapons on the air rifle, giving them a capacity and higher damage. I did some research on the Wild West era pistols and rifles to get ranges, ammo capacity and the like, but I'm not sure you'd want to trust me on numbers there. I honestly would make automatic weapons more of a siege engine if you're going with something like the gatling gun.


The G&G weapons look quite steampunk to me. They are certainly not historical.


I'd be hesitant to increase the damage dice at all, but slapping capacity on existing firearms shouldn't be too much of an issue if everyone friend and foe alike benefit from it. However the improved action economy could be a little much versus non-firearm users. Not by a lot mind you, but worth keeping in mind.

As for full auto, I might look into how Starfinder handles it. Ie, discharge your whole magazine to attack a cone, or something of the sort.


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I haven't publish 3pp or anything, but I do have fairly modern guns in my game, such as smgs, and had them before G&G

With G&G out, I need to modify my list a bit to have updated traits, but effectively:

-I stated guns for their narrative power, not their irl power. I want a magitech dungeonpunk game, not "guns just kill everything" game. Because of this, gun damage is in line with existing weapons, and we accept that because in movies guns CAN kill, but they are rarely an instanr death sentence for the protagonists or important villains, who always get dramatic fight scenes.

-automatic weapons actually only have like 6-8 shot mags in my game; each strike is assumed to be multiple bullets; this is represented with the sweep and splash (now that G&G updated scatter, I'll be using that) traits to represent "spray and pray" (basically, you fire so many bullets, SOMETHING is likely to at least graze, and sweep captures the sweeping a tommy gun over an area to blast it apart).

Basically, you need to be okay with tossing realistic mag sizes to embrace a mag size that feels right to the fantasy.

-Typically, they are actually low damage, since the cinematic fantasy of these weapons makes them great for holding an area, but major bad guys rarely just get turned into red mist (unless they've already taken a beating already) by automatic weapons. Garanteed AoE damage encourages people to strike multiple times since even a miss does stuff

-weapons that can toggle have a large magazine and use modular: single fire lacks the sweep and scatter, but uses one bullet, auto uses multiple bullets and has sweep and scatter

If these weapons are rare in your games, feel free to make them a little deadlier and bump em up to advanced arms, only used by the best warriors. My assumptions are for a game in which smgs are fairly normal, and they are regularly used alongside sword because of the rule of cool


Uchuujin wrote:

I'd be hesitant to increase the damage dice at all, but slapping capacity on existing firearms shouldn't be too much of an issue if everyone friend and foe alike benefit from it. However the improved action economy could be a little much versus non-firearm users. Not by a lot mind you, but worth keeping in mind.

As for full auto, I might look into how Starfinder handles it. Ie, discharge your whole magazine to attack a cone, or something of the sort.

I think that if I re-skin and re-trait repeating crossbows, I'll be pretty safe. I am aware, however, that this is a tiny bit of power creep vs. bows and makes crossbows completely obsolete. I think it's something that will just take DM adjudicating/handling/tweaking as things unfold.

As for fully automatic weapons, I think I will look back into the past and see if ideas/concepts from d20 modern can be pressed into the service of PF2e. However, looking at what starfinder does is also a good idea especially because that's as close to official PF2e material as you're going to get.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Guns and Gears actually has a whole section on pg 149 about "Revolvers and World War I-Era Weapons" where it went into why there aren't any more advanced weapons written up (that they'd be stronger than advanced weapons). There's a fair bit of context into designing 2e guns beyond what I paraphrase below, so it may be best to take a look at the section yourself.

That section described how it might be best to stat them up regardless of mechanical balance with other weapons. Suggestions include:
- Cartridge-fed rifle: something like a non-magical rowan rifle with the repeating trait
- Revolver: something like a dueling pistol with the repeating trait

There's also a few less game-changing alternatives, including making the guns currently written up take a more realistic amount of time to reload and instead using their current stats for more advanced weapons. So a revolver would have the stats of a pepperbox, but classical pepperboxes would take a while longer to reload. This approach is probably the most balanced and easiest if you'd rather not create your own system for modern firearms.

Finally, it suggests maybe just giving specific magic weapon variants that can't be used outside of those versions. Probably wouldn't help much for your case.


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thewastedwalrus wrote:

That section described how it might be best to stat them up regardless of mechanical balance with other weapons. Suggestions include:
- Cartridge-fed rifle: something like a non-magical rowan rifle with the repeating trait
- Revolver: something like a dueling pistol with the repeating trait

Whenever I homebrew, which is very rare, my rule of thumb is always to cleave as much as possible to existing design principles/mechanics so that is validaating.

thewastedwalrus wrote:


There's also a few less game-changing alternatives, including making the guns currently written up take a more realistic amount of time to reload and instead using their current stats for more advanced weapons. So a revolver would have the stats of a pepperbox, but classical pepperboxes would take a while longer to reload. This approach is probably the most balanced and easiest if you'd rather not create your own system for modern firearms.

Not sure I understand what you mean, can you give me an example?

thewastedwalrus wrote:
Finally, it suggests maybe just giving specific magic weapon variants that can't be used outside of those versions. Probably wouldn't help much for your case.

Enhancements are easily re-flavored into the service of technology so that's a live option.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

So if you wanted say a Mosin-Nagant style rifle, you could use the stats of a musket for it, or a revolver could use the stats of a pepperbox.

The other half of using that idea, is that all firearms currently printed would be made worse to show that these are the latest and greatest. So an actual musket would take 3+ actions to reload vs the 1 action more modern rifle.


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thewastedwalrus wrote:
So if you wanted say a Mosin-Nagant style rifle, you could use the stats of a musket for it, or a revolver could use the stats of a pepperbox.

I see, I wasn't sure but I understand now. Just applying the repeating trait to existing weapons.

thewastedwalrus wrote:
The other half of using that idea, is that all firearms currently printed would be made worse to show that these are the latest and greatest. So an actual musket would take 3+ actions to reload vs the 1 action more modern rifle.

Ah, I don't think "old" firearms will even be available or tremendously relevant. The fact that a weapon can reliable "repeat" is what would demonstrate that it's superior to a musket, not necessarily it's stopping power.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Yeah, its more to try and justify just using the stats of the current weapons when there are obvious differences. Using this idea is only suggested if the use of more modern firearms would be widespread so that no one actually uses the classical firearms.

And to clarify, you wouldn't give it the repeating trait if you decided to use the musket's stats. I think it might make sense to justify the 1 action "reload" as just pulling the bolt handle, but you would keep it as an action to preserve the balance of the weapon compared to things like bows/crossbows.


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thewastedwalrus wrote:
And to clarify, you wouldn't give it the repeating trait if you decided to use the musket's stats. I think it might make sense to justify the 1 action "reload" as just pulling the bolt handle, but you would keep it as an action to preserve the balance of the weapon compared to things like bows/crossbows.

Ya that's a stretch for me. If pulling the slide bolt on a long arm requires an action, then drawing an arrow from a quiver would require an action. I'm interested in balance, but I'm also interested in verisimilitude. I accept that in a steampunk world that is roughly analogous in terms of physics that guns actually WILL be slightly imbalanced over bows. The issue is whether or not that imbalance is onerous.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

For sure, the first option was to just give the current stats some upgrades to make more powerful weapons if that's what you're looking for.


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If you start thinking too hard about versimilitude of how many actions it takes to action or reload a firearm, you run into serious issues.

For example, with revolutionary war era firearms, a traditional musket took 15-20 seconds to reload after firing, and the early American rifles used by American partisans during that war took at least a minute (some of what I can find says as much as three minutes).

I think pulling a slide bolt+regripping being an action is easier to accept than turning your gun around, then applying shot+wadding+powder+ramming it all with a stick+regripping being an action.

They made a realism sacrifice for the sake of balance/usability by making reloading a flintlock musket or arquebus only be 1 action, so I think making a slide bolt an action (especially since it involves taking a hand off the weapon and regripping as part of the action, something that is normally an action on its own) is a lot less of a stretch.

(Note that with a bow you are not gripping the weapon with the arrow hand at all).


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Tender Tendrils wrote:

They made a realism sacrifice for the sake of balance/usability by making reloading a flintlock musket or arquebus only be 1 action, so I think making a slide bolt an action (especially since it involves taking a hand off the weapon and regripping as part of the action, something that is normally an action on its own) is a lot less of a stretch.

(Note that with a bow you are not gripping the weapon with the arrow hand at all).

Even with a tube-fed lever gun, which is one of the more basic cartridges using repeaters around, you're going to be able to get off 3 or 4 aimed shots per six seconds. An entire revolver drum can be unloaded in the same timeframe even with a slow single-action weapon.

Repeaters dominated combat for a reason and the only thing that slowed their adoption was cost and the lack of industrial capacity to make such tightly machined parts at a reasonable rate.


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Tender Tendrils wrote:
Post
Verdyn wrote:
Post

I appreciate both of your historical commentaries, but this isn't very helpful for my purposes. I said verisimilitude, and not realism, for a reason. I don't expect, or even want, to simulate modern firearms. This isn't a history thread.

However, I would be interested in your feedback as to whether or not these changes would be too imbalanced, (granting that I already know they're literally/technically overpowered). This is especially given your post suggests you didn't review my document as the weapons I'm proposing are not flintlock weapons with automatic or semiautomatic rates of fire.

I would also welcome feedback on elegant/simple ways to deal with weapons that have an automatic rate of fire - If so I'd suggest reviewing the d20 modern and Starfinder links before proposing any new mechanics that have not been tried elsewhere.


PrismaticPandaBear wrote:

However, I would be interested in your feedback as to whether or not these changes would be too imbalanced, (granting that I already know they're literally/technically overpowered). This is especially given your post suggests you didn't review my document as the weapons I'm proposing are not flintlock weapons with automatic or semiautomatic rates of fire.

I would also welcome feedback on elegant/simple ways to deal with weapons that have an automatic rate of fire - If so I'd suggest reviewing the d20 modern and Starfinder links before proposing any new mechanics that have not been tried elsewhere.

I don't think bumping guns up a damage die and adding repeating to them will break anything. What it will do is make it so that anybody can use them as the primary issue with using a gun outside of being a gunslinger is dealing with their awful action economy.


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Automatic weapons were also a thing back in PF1. It had both the automatic and semi-automatic properties, which makes either an extra attack similar to rapid shot (semi) or an AoE cone (auto).


Sauce987654321 wrote:
Automatic weapons were also a thing back in PF1. It had both the automatic and semi-automatic properties, which makes either an extra attack similar to rapid shot (semi) or an AoE cone (auto).

I think that for any 'normal' attack 1 action = 1 attack, so the semi-auto approach of PF1 is just going to be out if we're using the three action economy. However, it is worth looking what they did for auto. Right now the resources I'm looking at for guidance are:

3.5 DMG
d20 Core
Starfinder
Pathfinder (1e)


You know one way to do full auto is to use small bullets but multiple strikes with 1 actions.

So instead of 1d8 for 1 strike, its 2d4 for 1 strike. Then hard code the interaction with Striking in the "full auto" trait as "when using a striking rune of dice by 2 instead of 1." Thus the 2d4 becomes 4d4. Mathematically it would raise the minimum damage (fitting for a rapid fire gun); But it will not increase the max damage.

Semi auto is effectively just auto reload. Which is handled by the capacity trait.

Another way of doing it is by making machine guns strike multiple times but with a -2 penalty and increasing MAP per shot. Effectively you spend 1 action to strike twice as normal, but with a penalty. Extra actions would be the equivalent of holding down the trigger and missing half the shots.


I'm not sure that solution would work out in praxis. MAP is already a fairly big limiter on how many attacks someone is going to use, and making it slightly worse could have the consequence that almost nobody will use Automatic for fear of missing all their attacks.

Though that can vary from group to group: how much they care about Rule of Cool, how much a -1 or -2 to hit concerns them, etc.


What about. A proficient user can use [weapon name] to create a cone equal to half [weapon name]'s range that lasts until the start of the firer's next turn. Anybody starting their turn within the cone or entering it has to make a reflex save or take damage.

Crit Fail: Take damage as if hit by a critical hit from [weapon name].
Fail: Take damage as if hit by [weapon name].
Success: Take half the damage you would take if hit by [weapon name].
Crit Success: You escape unscathed.

This would give machine guns a crowd control role and allow them to be used as an area denial tool which generally fits the trope.


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Tender Tendrils wrote:
I think pulling a slide bolt+regripping being an action is easier to accept than turning your gun around, then applying shot+wadding+powder+ramming it all with a stick+regripping being an action.

Actually funnily enough the weapons in GnG are specifically mostly backloaded flintlocks despite that not really being a thing historically. They wanted it to seem more logical that you could reload the weapon quicker and felt saying "Technology advanced differently on Golarion compared to Earth" (I.e, instead of inventing entirely new types of firing mechanisms and gun types, they just kept improving their flintlocks) was the simplest way of doing that logically.

Silver Crusade

Hmm, I wonder if there is a market for just a steam punk RPG?


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Arklore wrote:
Hmm, I wonder if there is a market for just a steam punk RPG?

Such games exist, so yes.

None of them are major bestsellers, so the market is either small or as yet not fully tapped.

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