Guns in 4e?

[Leeham]

Does any body know where I can find/ have stats for/ have the time to homebrew firearms for the good old forth edition of DnD?

[Kurald Galain]

Gamma World.

[Leeham]

I suppose, but aren't they a bit more sci-fi? I'm looking for a more muskety type of thing.

[serok42]

The Gamma World firearm rules are pretty generic and can be made whatever you want them to be.

[Leeham]

How do they fit in with the simple/ military/ superior proficiencies? Are they balanced with 4e?

[Dimers]

Unless you're at the technology level where cartridges replace bullets-and-separate-powder, gun based powers will be Dailies because they take so long to reload. And each Daily will require you to have a different gun.

The powers should generally be Rattling (no relation to Gatling, mind you). Gunshots are notorious for frightening animals, and you can expect them to be pretty scary for unfamiliarized people too. For weapon stats, I'd recommend the high-crit quality, but otherwise pretty normal -- two hands, ranged attack provokes OA, Dex-based, probably +2 proficiency bonus. A shotgun or blunderbuss would give you either a close blast (more fun but not realistic) or a secondary attack in a close burst 1 around the primary target.

In the typical D&D fantasy world, they'd definitely be Superior proficiency. I wouldn't move them down to Martial until there are one or two handgun owners in every mid-sized town. They're Simple to use (though still not Simple to care for) once you've got cartridges.

[Leeham]

I was thinking that cartridge rifles would be your average rifle, and i really like the idea of a blunderbuss as a close burst (reminds me of chaos dwarves). So as a military weapon, how much damage should i expect a rifle to do?

[Hal]

I'd probably treat them like magic weapons, especially for a "spread" type shot. Even if the power they come with is At-Will, this probably makes them a little more controllable.

[Doug Lampert]

Unless you're at the technology level where cartridges replace bullets-and-separate-powder, gun based powers will be Dailies because they take so long to reload. And each Daily will require you to have a different gun.

Load time makes them Encounter, not daily. You reload all your guns during the 5 minute rest between encounters.

[Sipex]

Taking a look at facts a flintlock rifle or blunderbuss both took roughly 15 seconds to reload.

So I'd call it an encounter power weapon which could be reloaded mid battle by using up two standard actions side by side.

Of course, this all depends on the type of gun you're implementing.

[Kurald Galain]

Taking a look at facts a flintlock rifle or blunderbuss both took roughly 15 seconds to reload.
Sure, but by 4E logic it's entirely reasonable that you can fire a gun only once per encounter, or only once per day.

Spending two standard actions on a reload isn't a worthwhile strategy in the first place.

[RTGoodman]

So I'd call it an encounter power weapon which could be reloaded mid battle by using up two standard actions side by side.

But NO ONE would waste the time reloading. Personally I'd just stat them up with crossbow stats, but as Superior weapons with High Crit or something to make it slightly more worthwhile. But then again, I like simplicity.

[Tengu_temp]

In my steampunky setting guns simply use the stats of crossbows. Seems to work very well so far.

[Sipex]

I know the point that no one would do it, most would fire the gun off and leave it until the end of the fight. But you might want an option available for the player who goes "You know, these guns really only take 15 seconds to reload, IF I CHOOSE, could I do that mid battle?"

[Venerable]

A character in my group has a rifle, which the DM house-ruled thus:

damage is on the high end for normal weapons, d12 IIRC
a hit pushes the target one square
reloading is a standard action; you can burn a feat to turn it into a minor

It ended up being a fun but not over-powering weapon for our bard. This is in Eberron, so a primitive rifle isn't terribly anachronistic.

[Tiki Snakes]

Anything other than the most ridiculously basic guns I'd just measure against crossbows, to be perfectly honest. No need for them to do weird tricks above and beyond that. Just perhaps slightly more damaging/dangerous versions of the crossbows.

Depending on how much support you want them to have, you either just let people apply crossbow feats to them, or hack up your own line of gun-related feats. anything more than that seems like overkill, really. It's not like they're that much more deadly or terrible than a crossbow.

If you DO want Guns to be 'special', then have them basically be magic weapons. You can't get a mundane gun, they are all at least +2 weapons merely by nature of their connstruction, or so on. Something like the masterwork armour system perhaps.

I suppose alternatively simply modelling them after not so much magic weapons as magic items with item-powers could work too, but it would basically cripplingly limit them to only ever being used in a very unrefined way which would for me take a lot of the draw out of it. Perhaps allowing them to be at-will item powers that slightly modify a ranged weapon attack, (adding area burst or close blast perhaps for blunderbuss types, rattling for rifles etc?) would allow a bit more actual use...

[DragonBaneDM]

Sup. I've been playing an Archer Ranger for two years now, and these rules my DM made for me keep things balanced. Been having a blast, and on par with other rangers. Don't know if they'll fit in the musket era for you, but this works for multiple shots in a round. Having to reload between shots cripples the Ranger, so think carefully before you add that function.

I hope they work for you:

New Weapons: Ironbows

Clip: After making an attack with a weapon with the clip property, roll the indicated die; if you roll a 1, the weapon is out of ammo and must be reloaded. Weapons with the clip property will always also have the load property, but you do not need to reload them until you roll a 1 on your clip die after an attack. You only roll the die once per attack power, after the power is completely done.

Spread: Whenever you make a ranged attack with a spread weapon and the attack has only a single target, if the attack hits then every creature adjacent to the target takes 1[W] damage.

Unreliable: When making an attack roll with an unreliable weapon, if your natural d20 roll (before applying modifiers) is equal to or lower than the unreliable value given for the weapon, the weapon jams. You may not make any more attacks with the weapon again until you’ve spent a move action clearing it. A weapon jamming does not prevent any portion of a given power from working, so for example if a power has a secondary attack and you jam while rolling for the primary attack you still get to make the secondary attack. In essence, the jamming doesn’t happen until after the attack is completely done. If you roll a jam but the attack would otherwise hit, it still hits as normal.

Revolver
Type - Military Ranged, One-Handed
Group - Ironbow
Proficiency - +3
Damage - 1d8
Range - 15/30
Price - 35 gp
Weight - 2 lbs
Properties -
Clip d6
Unreliable 2
Load Minor

Shotgun
Type - Military Ranged, Two-Handed
Group - Ironbow
Proficiency - +2
Damage - 2d4
Range - 5/10
Price - 45 gp
Weight - 7 lbs
Properties -
Clip d8
Unreliable 3
Load Move
Spread

Rifle
Type - Military Ranged, Two-Handed
Group - Ironbow
Proficiency - +3
Damage - 1d10
Range - 20/40
Price - 50 gp
Weight - 7 lbs
Properties -
Clip d10
Unreliable 3
Load Move

Magnum
Type - Superior Ranged, One-Handed
Group - Ironbow
Proficiency - +3
Damage - 1d10
Range - 15/30
Price - 75 gp
Weight - 7 lbs
Properties -
Clip d8
Unreliable 3
Load Move
High Crit
Brutal 1

Assault Rifle
Type - Superior Ranged, Two-Handed
Group - Ironbow
Proficiency - +2
Damage - 1d10
Range - 10/20
Price - 125 gp
Weight - 12 lbs
Properties -
Clip d12
Unreliable 3
Load Move
Spread
Brutal 1

Sniper Rifle
Type - Superior Ranged, Two-Handed
Group - Ironbow
Proficiency - +3
Damage - 1d12
Range - 25/50
Price - 150 gp
Weight - 10 lbs
Properties -
Clip d10
Unreliable 3
Load Standard
Brutal 1

[Leeham]

Actually, I really like DragonBaneDM's guns. Thank you sir, these are awesome.

[DragonBaneDM]

Actually, I really like DragonBaneDM's guns. Thank you sir, these are awesome.

BOOYAH! Thanks Leeham. I'll tell my DM his homebrews are spreading! :smallbiggrin:

[Vknight]

I enjoy DragonBane's to there similar to the ones I use for my players.
I unfortunately have lost mine so time to remake them. Then I'll post em here, for all to see.

[kc0bbq]

I prefer to do it without adding all kinds of extra rules. I do have a feat you need to handle guns and gunpowder safely. Then they're based generally on an equivalent existing weapon, and if it's based on a superior weapon you still need the superior weapon training.

For example, a repeating pistol is based on a hand crossbow, but with a magazine of 6 shots with a standard action to reload. Then they get extras to balance it out, in this case High Crit.

Gunpowder is nominally alchemists fire, except with keyword thunder added to it.

If something seems too weak to justify the extra feat cost of Gunpower Training, it gets an extra boost somewhere. The cloud of smoke from the black powder is how I justify letting them work with the sneaky hidey rogue powers.

The one character using this in my current game is right about where I'd expect him to be in damage, even if it's his first 4e game and it's a slightly more difficult build to use than the "I shoot it two times" ranger.

[dsmiles]

Guns? We don't need no stinkin' guns (http://www.bodgedtogether.com/firearms.html)!

[Achernar]

I found pathfinder's firearms system to be quite reasonable, and I 've posted in other threads about firearm homebrew. Also, Iif you want a gun that you could comfortably say reloads as a swift action for rapidshot but is still "muskety," there's always some real-life inspiration:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyse_needle_gun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1819_Hall_rifle

Just remember to lower the suggested prices for your players' sake when converting from pathfinder, since those are canonically held high by the nation that makes them. As far as encounter power stuff goes, I have no idea... I play 3.5/3.P

[Leeham]

I found pathfinder's firearms system to be quite reasonable, and I 've posted in other threads about firearm homebrew. Also, Iif you want a gun that you could comfortably say reloads as a swift action for rapidshot but is still "muskety," there's always some real-life inspiration:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyse_needle_gun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1819_Hall_rifle

Just remember to lower the suggested prices for your players' sake when converting from pathfinder, since those are canonically held high by the nation that makes them. As far as encounter power stuff goes, I have no idea... I play 3.5/3.P

Thanks! That's just the kind of bolt action-y goodness I was going for!