Firearm Rules for D&D 3.5

[Howler Dagger]

So, I am setting up a PBP on this forum, and one of the players has requested firearms. The problem is, I don't like the Firearms Rules in the DMG, and also need rules for energy guns (would star wars saga be a good source for this?) And, based on the circumstances for the games, I would hope to be able to simulate different types of guns used throughout history.

My question is: What would a good source for firearm rules be? I have considered pathfinder's, but I wasn't sure.

[Chilingsworth]

Well, you could look for the weapon rules for D20 Modern (and its spin-offs D20 Past and D20 Future.) Those books have alot of varried firearms (and even energy weapons) in them. Might be more powerful than you're looking for, though. Also, they don't list prices as such, so you'd have to come up with those.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Well, you could look for the weapon rules for D20 Modern (and its spin-offs D20 Past and D20 Future.) Those books have alot of varried firearms (and even energy weapons) in them. Might be more powerful than you're looking for, though. Also, they don't list prices as such, so you'd have to come up with those.

I believe Urban Arcana (another d20 modern supplement) has conversion tables for gold pieces to wealth-check DC's.

As for their power though, they use the exact same mechanics as a crossbow just with bigger dice for the most part. D20 future has some weapons with interesting special effects, but nothing too impressive.

I'd go with the PF rule-set for firearms. It's pretty reasonable.

[Matticussama]

There are also several great Firearms rule variants in the Homebrew section of the forums. They aren't based out of any official rulebooks, but if you are willing to allow them there are several choices for you to pick from that attempt to emulate early renaissance firearms.

[PlusSixPelican]

The Pathfinder firearms are pretty fair compared to the rest of the system they're in. I'm not a pro or anything, though.

[Prime32]

The Pathfinder firearms are pretty fair compared to the rest of the system they're in. I'm not a pro or anything, though.They're messy (inconsistent pricing + rule exceptions), require a lot of investment to use, and don't work much like real world guns...

Real firearms were easy to use but had inferior armor penetration abilities to crossbows or picks. So you could try taking the crossbow stats, reducing base damage by one step and increasing their threat range to 18-20/x2 (being sure to allow all crossbow feats like Rapid Reload and Crossbow Sniper). If you want to represent modern, more powerful weapons, then treat it like enchanting a magic item rather than altering their base stats (in a fantasy setting, advanced guns would likely be magitek anyway).

EDIT: After consulting someone who knows this stuff better than me

{table=head]Name|Damage|Crit|Range increment
Musket, light|2d6|x2|30ft
Musket, heavy|2d8|x2|50ft
[/table]

{table=head]Name|Damage|Crit|Range increment
Pistol|1d8|x2|10ft
Musket, light repeating|2d6|x2|30ft
Musket, heavy repeating|2d8|x2|50ft
[/table]
(otherwise function as light/heavy/hand crossbows; weapon/ammo prices should be around the same as crossbows/bolts)

[Talionis]

I've actually used wands as Firearms. The wand is shaped like a blunderbust or musket. The wands have limited amounts of uses and can cast whatever spell effects you want often we went with Magic Missile. This way the DM can control what spells are available (some spells may be too powerful), you may want to make them cheaper and more consumable. But this made us feel like bullets were special and expensive so they were a rare weapon to use.

This way the damage scaled with level pretty well because the spells cast into the wands were higher level as the characters were higher level.

It was pretty interesting to see UMD be the stat for weapons, but it worked well as sometimes the guns jammed or miss-fired, which was the feel we wanted for our campaign.

I'm just throwing it out there, because I'm with you. I wanted the "guns" to be limited use and not the focus of the campaign, but it gave the feel of characters like Solomon Kane that always had his muskets that seemed to be good for taking a powerful enemy out of the fight so he could focus on dispatching someone else with his sword.