What do you think of the UC Firearms rules?

[Firechanter]

Hello Playgrounders,

I'd like to hear some opinions about the Firearms rules presented in UC. This is mainly addressed at people who would like to implement firearms into their game. Some topics for discussion:

- Proficiencies. Is the Exotic prof alright, or should firearms rather be Martial or even Simple?
- Ammo cost. Personally I find this ridiculous, even considering the reduced prices for self-made ammo.
- Ranged Touch Attack in first range increment. I guess this is the most debatable issue. Yes, firearms are pretty good at piercing armour, but should they ignore it entirely?

Looking forward to your thoughts.

[Big Fau]

- Proficiencies. Is the Exotic prof alright, or should firearms rather be Martial or even Simple?

As someone who has used a gun, the complexity comes from maintenance, not from use (although some guns are tricky to reload; pretty much any belt-fed gun is going to seem complicated next to a pistol).

I think Martial would be the best place for them.


- Ammo cost. Personally I find this ridiculous, even considering the reduced prices for self-made ammo.

This is the biggest problem with ranged combat even in 3.5 or 4E. Ammo is overpriced, and it hurts the entire idea of ranged combat. Using GP or PP to price ammo is unacceptable. Hell, even SP is pushing it, since ranged characters use so much ammo over the course of their careers that it will end up eating a chunk of their WBL.


- Ranged Touch Attack in first range increment. I guess this is the most debatable issue. Yes, firearms are pretty good at piercing armour, but should they ignore it entirely?

And yet again Paizo proves they do not know how to balance something. Sure, let's make armor less useful, in spite of the fact that the Germans actually busted out breastplate during the WW-era because they actually proved fairly useful against guns outside of point-blank range.

[Starbuck_II]

Hello Playgrounders,

I'd like to hear some opinions about the Firearms rules presented in UC. This is mainly addressed at people who would like to implement firearms into their game. Some topics for discussion:

- Proficiencies. Is the Exotic prof alright, or should firearms rather be Martial or even Simple?

Really it makes more sense as Martial.
I hate idea that exotic means weird and not "really good" sometimes.
Example, Falcata, better than other martials so exotic is fine. Spiked chain... basically a Flail, not worth a feat.


- Ammo cost. Personally I find this ridiculous, even considering the reduced prices for self-made ammo.

Agreed, only reason I'm sort of okay with it is it hits Touch AC.


- Ranged Touch Attack in first range increment. I guess this is the most debatable issue. Yes, firearms are pretty good at piercing armour, but should they ignore it entirely?

Looking forward to your thoughts.

If they are gonna make them expensive Touch AC is only thing that makes it worth it.
But remember, you then have to add in misfire chance/issues.

Basically, guns are only good in hands of a Gunsmith feat user (mostly Gunslingers). If prices were lower, then you could see them at least being using at first round (like in history) as a starting blow before switching to melee weapons.

[BlueInc]

And yet again Paizo proves they do not know how to balance something. Sure, let's make armor less useful, in spite of the fact that the Germans actually busted out breastplate during the WW-era because they actually proved fairly useful against guns outside of point-blank range.

Isn't the first range increment considered "point blank range"? There's even a feat (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/point-blank-shot-combat---final).

[Hiro Protagonest]

Isn't the first range increment considered "point blank range"? There's even a feat (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/point-blank-shot-combat---final).

That feat is competing with Dodge as the epitome of feat tax. You need it to get *any* good ranged combat feats, but it's basically worthless otherwise. And gunslingers don't care if you're within first range increment, as long as you don't take an archetype (and even then it might just be delayed or not replaced at all).

[Big Fau]

Isn't the first range increment considered "point blank range"? There's even a feat (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/point-blank-shot-combat---final).

For each of the guns with a range increment under 20ft, yes.



Oh, and they have a misfire built into them? Not worth using as a PC.

[Firechanter]

Weighing in:

Proficiencies: "Exotic" generally doesn't mean "unusual" but "more difficult to use than normal weapons". And generally early Firearms are very simple to shoot, but require training to handle / reload them. So either case could be made.
They might as well have introduced a new category, "Firearm Proficiency".

In Game terms, an Exotic weapon is supposed to give you an advantage, something that Martial weapons cannot offer. Of course there are good deals and bad deals here. Many Exotic weapons just offer an average +1 damage, and that's certainly not worth a feat.

As for the Spiked Chain, the D&D version is pretty much the _only_ weapon (at least in Core) that is worth spending a feat on. In PF however they nerfed it to oblivion, definitely not worth spending a feat on it.

--

Ammo cost: we know that 1 pound of lead costs 1 silver piece. If we take this as raw material cost and add twice that sum to account for the labour of casting the lead into bullets, that would be 3 silver pieces for _30_ bullets., or 1 COPPER per bullet, not 1 Gold.

(Side note: so all PF Firearms are 30ga, which comes down to 0.537" calibre. That's a relatively small caliber compared to historical muskets; for instance the Brown Bess had 0.75" calibre and the bullet would have been much heavier -- about 11ga, i.e. 11 bullets per pound.)

--

Armour Piercing: Let's gather some data.
Firearms have a much higher impulse and kinetic energy than mechanical projectile weapons. For instance, a Brown Bess had a muzzle velocity of somewhere between 200 and 300m/s and fired a 40g bullet. That's a muzzle energy of about 1250J (assuming 250m/s). With the same powder charge, you could accelerate a 30ga bullet to 400m/s.
For comparison: even arrows of modern longbows don't get much faster than about 50-60m/s. (any draw weight mandates a certain minimum arrow weight to prevent damage to the bow, so the velocity is pretty much fixed at that point, but those are details.)

So if you figure that a musket ball has about 4-8 times the impulse and 20 times the kinetic energy of an arrow... I guess it is reasonable that it should have some advantage against armour.
On the other hand, a good armour with a solid Enhancement bonus should still be able to make the bullet go *plink*. That's why it's magical.

[Blisstake]

For each of the guns with a range increment under 20ft, yes.

I think 85% of the firearms have their first range increment in point blank range. There are two that do not, but one is widely impractical.


Oh, and they have a misfire built into them? Not worth using as a PC.

Not a huge deal, honestly. Especially if you're a class/archetype designed to use guns, which has plenty of ways to overcome that. I have a gunslinger in a game I'm playing now, and well as a gun using rogue, for neither of whom misfire has been an issue. :smallconfused:

[Dr.Orpheus]

i like the scope magic item it lets you snipe from afar and hit touch and flat footed for a incredibly high hit chance now beef the critical threat range and they will be calling you Mr. headshot

[Larpus]

- Proficiencies. Is the Exotic prof alright, or should firearms rather be Martial or even Simple?
I think that this depends on how common the DM wants them to be in their world, for the "normal" RPG world, Exotic is fine since technology is limited and all that, but if it's a more modern world such as the times of the pirates, then it should be Martial as nearly everyone who fights knows how to use one.

For firearms that are closer to the ones that we have today they can go as far as simple, since they're so easy to use.


- Ammo cost. Personally I find this ridiculous, even considering the reduced prices for self-made ammo.
I agree that ammo is completely overpriced, not only firearms ammo, but also arrows and bolts. This should be seriously be balanced, at least there are spells for doing it but still, something for mundanes shouldn't "require" magic to work.


- Ranged Touch Attack in first range increment. I guess this is the most debatable issue. Yes, firearms are pretty good at piercing armour, but should they ignore it entirely?
Again, Paizo should've done something D&D completely ignore: introduce armor types (similar to damage types) and then make a RPS relationship between them and with that I'd be ok with firearms being touch against one or two types of armor.

[Firechanter]

I agree that ammo is completely overpriced, not only firearms ammo, but also arrows and bolts.

Regular arrows aren't so bad; okay, 1GP per 20, that's 5 copper apiece. I guess you could reduce it. I don't know what present-day firearm ammo costs, but a good arrow can easily be 10€ apiece. Of course, you reuse it a hundred times. Some quick googling indicates that you can get 50 9mm rounds for the same price as one good arrow.

TBH in our games we never make a fuss about pettycash. Nobody requires an archer to scratch of 5gp for buying 100 arrows.

Either way, if regular arrows are too expensive, then that was certainly just an accident, a mishap on behalf of the designers, with no intention to shaft archers. As opposed to that, the outrageous overpricing of firearm ammo can leave no doubt that this was not an accident.



Introduce armor types (similar to damage types) and then make a RPS relationship between them and with that I'd be ok with firearms being touch against one or two types of armor.

That sounds a bit complicated. I'd rather not introduce additional bookkeeping.

What might be barely tolerable, bookkeeping-wise, would be to allow Firearms to ignore up to, say, 4 points of armour. That way it wouldn't make hitting an unarmoured target easier (as would be the case with a flat attack bonus), but wouldn't allow to totally ignore all armour (as per ranged touch). But I don't know if that wouldn't already slow down combat too much.

[Krazzman]

For the Touch AC problem:

Ignore Light Armor, Ignore 5 AC of Med and 6 AC of Heavy. (Or similar)

Have a nice Day,
Krazzman

[Firechanter]

Would you also allow it to ignore a Chainshirt +5?

[Krazzman]

I don't know, don#t have any books at this time, but would say:
Ignore Light Armor.
Leave 1 Point of AC of Medium(maximum ac -5) and 2+ of Heavy Armor(maximum ac -6).

At least, in my Campaign I will Rule likewise for Armor, Natural Armor is like light armor in this case (at least for me, you don't need to follow this ruling).

Have a nice Day,
Krazzman

[AugustNights]

I took a page from ShadowRun with the guns I allow in my games, and assigned a "Hard Armor Penetration" value to each fire-arm. "Hard Armor" is defined as armor bonuses, shield bonuses, and natural armor bonuses to AC. The hard armor penetration decreased by 1 for every range increment.
Book work, I know, but it gave a "Touch attack" feel that was mitigated by stronger armors. A suit of padded armor doesn't do much, a buckler won't help, but standing several hundred meters away with an enhanced +5 chain-shirt can do the trick alright.

[Larpus]

Regular arrows aren't so bad; okay, 1GP per 20, that's 5 copper apiece. I guess you could reduce it. I don't know what present-day firearm ammo costs, but a good arrow can easily be 10€ apiece. Of course, you reuse it a hundred times. Some quick googling indicates that you can get 50 9mm rounds for the same price as one good arrow.

TBH in our games we never make a fuss about pettycash. Nobody requires an archer to scratch of 5gp for buying 100 arrows.

Either way, if regular arrows are too expensive, then that was certainly just an accident, a mishap on behalf of the designers, with no intention to shaft archers. As opposed to that, the outrageous overpricing of firearm ammo can leave no doubt that this was not an accident.
True the regular arrows aren' so bad, my main problem is with the special arrows, most of which cost 1gp+ per arrow and, as far as I can see, none of them do anything so amazing as to justify burning 1gp+ per shot (even when you can retrieve and reuse the arrow).

Either way, I fully agree that firearms ammo is way too overpriced. Technology in general is overpriced for whatever reason. I understand the whole "this is medieval" deal, but technology costing much more than magic, when said magic isn't that common to begin with, is a bit sketchy in my book.


That sounds a bit complicated. I'd rather not introduce additional bookkeeping.

What might be barely tolerable, bookkeeping-wise, would be to allow Firearms to ignore up to, say, 4 points of armour. That way it wouldn't make hitting an unarmoured target easier (as would be the case with a flat attack bonus), but wouldn't allow to totally ignore all armour (as per ranged touch). But I don't know if that wouldn't already slow down combat too much.
Well, I was just thinking of armor that protects vs. Pierce, Slash and Blunt, nothing else. There'll be some additional bookkeeping, but I don't think it's that bad.

But yeah, just ignore a portion of armor also works or house-rule the armor gives DR in but keep the normal bonus to AC, this would help keeping armors relevant for more time and in the case of firearms they ignore the AC bonus but not the DR.