[PF]Homebrew firearms for an upcoming campaign

[meemaas]

Sniper Rifle (TAC-50)
Price: ?????GP
Light damage: 2d8
Medium damage: 2d10
Crit: x5
Range increment: 95ft
Capacity: 5(5 attack rolls until reload.)
Weight: 30lbs
Damage type: P
Special Properties: Steady**
**Steady: Gun fires once per round, requires full-round action to fire, and the feats Rapid Shot, Many Shot, and Vital Strike, or any of the sort, may not be applied to the use of this weapon.

So, we're looking to create a viable sniper rifle, that players would use, without overpowering it, and staying true to the source. As such, this is what we have come up with. Within the Pathfinder rules, of course. My question is. Is this balanced for higher levels, and what price should we make it to prevent lower levels from getting hold of it before it's time.

Any suggestions are much appreciated.

[Cieyrin]

Seems excessive to me, especially in comparison to the Advanced Firearms and this seems beyond their capabilities. It's like a combination of a Double Hackbut and a Rifle. Really, though, the art of sniping as we know it is against low level creatures, so you don't need that much damage to insta-gib targets or raising the crit mod.

Why not just get a +1 Distance Rifle, get to Musket Master 7 so you can Deadly Aim and Dead Shot for a potential 2d10+5+Dex mod at up to 170' range for no loss of accuracy beyond Deadly Aim, out to 850' before you have to worry about armor coming into the picture. Add in Sniper Rogue and Sniper Goggles to flavor. Because really, it isn't the gun that makes it so deadly, it's the sniper behind the sights. She needs a quality tool but it's not of that much use in the hands of a novice.

Also this way, you don't need to create a weird ability to limit it if it only carries one bullet at a time. If you want to be really sure, just get a Bane bullet against that creature type or get a Named Bullet for that target. :smallsmile:

If you still want to pursue this path, I'd definitely just make it Capacity 1, given that historically sniper rifles are designed to be precision weapons, which can be thrown off by having a magazine dragging the muzzle down with its weight. Restricting against Dead Shot and Vital Strike seems counter-intuitive in that regard as well.

[meemaas]

I'll send the creator out to read this. But i was the one who suggested the no vital strike. I thought it would be too powerful, since for any single attack, it already deals more damage than a single attack for most or rather all other weapons. He was trying to make realistic guns, and felt like the capacity of five was realistic, although i know nothing about guns themselves, so i don't entirely know.

[Savior]

Considering it is a for an extremely modern time, in the year 2012, the Tac-50 is a bolt action, which means you can't fire multiple times, but you don't have to hand load another bullet. The whole, it's not the gun, it's the sniper, i disagree with. In the real world, you give a novice a gun, he'll be able to hit it 3-10 times. We're assuming anyone that has the time and energy to GET this rifle, is going to know how to use the thing. Going back to guns though, an SPR is weaker in every aspect, compared to let's say a TPG-1. Where does your argument come into play there? There have been people that take multiple sniper shots from SPR to take down. I rarely see someone hit with a 50. cal get hit more than twice before taking a knee. And as for muskets, if that's what you want me to do, THAT is historically in correct. Muskets are battle rifles, much like MK14 or regular m14. They have been known to be transferred into sniper rifles, M14ebr, but they lack the true quality of a SNIPER rifle, seeing as though they retain fully-automatic capabilities and do not require you to stop shooting for more than one second.

[Spiryt]

For sniper rifle, range increment is ridiculously low, and per PF rules it makes it impossible to fire at distances one actually would use scope at....

And creates general problems with use of it, with all the restrictions about firing it.

I would drop critical modifier to much more standard x4, but increase range to, say 180ft to make it actually snipe rifle, with Far Shot and possibly other feats etc.

[Cieyrin]

Considering it is a for an extremely modern time, in the year 2012, the Tac-50 is a bolt action, which means you can't fire multiple times, but you don't have to hand load another bullet. The whole, it's not the gun, it's the sniper, i disagree with. In the real world, you give a novice a gun, he'll be able to hit it 3-10 times.

Bull **** they will, I've been to enough firing ranges to know some people are good at shooting and others are better off throwing the gun at the targets, since they'll be more likely to hit. These are people that managed to get through basic rifle marksmanship in U.S. Army Basic Training and there are still people who have trouble hitting targets 50 yards away, regardless if they're guns are correctly sighted or not.


We're assuming anyone that has the time and energy to GET this rifle, is going to know how to use the thing. Going back to guns though, an SPR is weaker in every aspect, compared to let's say a TPG-1. Where does your argument come into play there? There have been people that take multiple sniper shots from SPR to take down. I rarely see someone hit with a 50. cal get hit more than twice before taking a knee. And as for muskets, if that's what you want me to do, THAT is historically in correct. Muskets are battle rifles, much like MK14 or regular m14. They have been known to be transferred into sniper rifles, M14ebr, but they lack the true quality of a SNIPER rifle, seeing as though they retain fully-automatic capabilities and do not require you to stop shooting for more than one second.

See, the problem here is PF gun tech assumes breach loaders and a lack of rifling, which is, what, 200-300 years ago in our time? The best PF guns are just mastering revolvers and figuring out how rifling works, so there's a huge difference between that and what you're proposing here. Given that's the impression I was under, that we weren't doing PF Modern, that's the basis I was going by.

Now, as for people surviving sniper shots, there is such a thing as rolling low on damage. Everybody rolls snake eyes now and again, which is basically a glancing blow, a flesh wound, whatever. On average, though, your average human with a Con of 10 and 1-2 HD averages 4-9 HP. A rifle straight out of UC averages 5.5, so you can kill normal people just fine with it. Where variances come in is when you have a higher Con (common in soldiers and adventurers) and getting the PC 1st HD max, as well as being higher level than the base assumption. By the same token, when you take the sniper behind the rifle, who has abilities and feats to enhance their ability to kill targets, like my aforementioned Musket Master 7 with Deadly Aim, Dead Shot and Steady Aim, she can increase that average to about 21 damage and her minimum to 12, which should be able to take out politicians and paper pushing officers easily and has a good chance to take out experience veterans and officers who were promoted from the enlisted branch.

That's why I suggest going by the rifle's stats, as the extra damage from taking your time via Dead Shot or Vital Strike is getting you to the same position and is meant to be the difference to show experience and ability getting that much out of every shot. Snipers, more than any other soldier, would be going that extra mile, so I see no reason not to reward them for doing so.