[3.5] Wild West E6

[RFLS]

Hey, Playgrounders, I could use some advice. How would you go about modifying 3.5 in a way that would let you play a Wild West-type game with low-ish magic?

Background: I was chatting with a friend, and he mentioned that a low-magic Wild West game sounded fun. The idea grabbed me, and I've been turning it over in my head. I'd like to represent a lot of standard fantasy species and races through the lens of the genre, so there'd obviously need to be quite a few reworked (or completely new) stat blocks to scale for E6. I'd also like to avoid the sheer craziness that accompanies even third level spells. This would possibly include writing up some new base classes. Finally, guns. The most obvious solution I can see is to port in the PF gunslinger. Are there any other things that would slot in well there?

[Grod_The_Giant]

I don't know too much about Pathfinder's gun rules, but if I remember correctly they really played up the whole "unreliable guns" bit, which is kind of the opposite of what you want out of a Western game.

I'd start looking at Tome of Battle stuff. I know there are some homebrew ranged disciplines out there; it's also pretty easy to make a lot of the maneuvers as written apply to ranged attacks as well as melee. Given that you'll want most of your characters running around making weapon attacks, something that makes weapon attacks interesting should be your focus.

[prufock]

Not quite what you describe, but my Weird West (http://weird-west.wikispaces.com/) setting might be a starting point for you.

[Calimehter]

Some things I've used for a pseudo-historical campaign:

E6 - You've already got this one. Make sure people know that no tricks to get at 4th level spells/slots will be allowed (the basic E6 rules actually don't prevent it, and there are ways even with a 6th level cap).

Generic Classes from UA - This one keeps things simple and avoids a lot of non-genre classes and ACFs. I also require the spellcaster to pick a list of spells (druid, cleric, wizard) to work with rather than having all of them. With no Tier 1's running around and no spellbooks, fewer spell powers are available and it helps keep magic in check. ToB is still available through feats if it is desired.

Vitality/Wound points - I used this one more for the "grit" factor than for any genre-specific need, but I mention it for your Western genre because you could use it and then give firearms a much improved critical range to emphasise their deadliness. Without a boost of some sort (whether it be this suggestion or something else) firearms will be outdone by spells and melee damage the way 3.5 is set up now, and might start getting ignored altogether by high level characters.

[Piggy Knowles]

What if you restricted the magical classes, but made wands easily accessible? Wands can be sold with a special wand grip that gives a +10 bonus to UMD and allows you to make the check untrained, but only work for a specific wand. Most magic in the setting would be covered by access to these wands, and they could also sub in for guns. A random person, completely untrained, could pick one up and have about a 55% chance of it working properly, while trained wandslingers could easily get that up to 100% (with no Charisma and 9 ranks in UMD, that's enough to get there).

Just kind of spitballing here. Ever since seeing someone play a gunslinger-themed Cannith Wand Adept, I've liked the idea of wands as guns in D&D.