My take on D&D 3.5 firearms.

[qwertyu63]

These weapons are meant for games at a modern-day tech-level. Therefore, guns are the weapon of choice. Rather than model hundreds of models of guns, I abstract and just make a few basic types. These types can be found below. Any commentary is welcome.

{table="head"]Firearms:|Damage:|Range Inc:|Crit:|Price:|Craft (firearms) DC:
Pistol:|1d10|40 ft.|x2|250 gp|18
Pistol Bullets (12)|-|-|-|1 gp|16
Rifle:|2d6|100 ft.|x3|400 gp|20
Rifle Bullets (6)|-|-|-|1 gp|18
Shotgun:|2d6|10 ft|19-20/x2|400 gp|16
Shotgun Shells (6)|-|-|-|1 gp|14[/table]

Pistol (Light simple weapon):
This acts as all types of pistols. It holds 6 bullets at a time, and reloading is a move action to reload a full set. (You may take the feat Rapid Reload, choosing pistols instead of a type of crossbow, doing so reduces reload time to a free action.) This weapon is automatically masterwork. Special note: All character classes gain proficiency in pistols, even if their selection is otherwise limited.

Rifle (2-handed simple weapon):
This acts as all types of rifles. It holds 3 bullets at a time, and reloading is a move action to reload a full set. (You may take the feat Rapid Reload, choosing rifles instead of a type of crossbow, doing so reduces reload time to a free action.) This weapon is automatically masterwork.

Shotgun (2-handed simple weapon):
This acts as all types of shotguns. It holds 2 shells at a time, and reloading is a move action to reload a full set. (You may take the feat Rapid Reload, choosing shotguns instead of a type of crossbow, doing so reduces reload time to a free action.) This weapon is automatically masterwork. You can also make a special attack with a shotgun. As a standard action, you may attack a line of four squares moving away from you. All creatures in the chosen spaces take 2d6-1 damage (Ref DC 15 for half). This uses 1 shotgun shell.

An important feat for rifle users:
Sniper:
Prereqs: BAB 3+, Dex 13+
Benefit: A number of times per day equal to your dexterity modifier, you may, as a full round action, make a sniper shot on a flatfooted target who is at least 100 feet away. To make a sniper shot, you must be using a ranged weapon with a range increment of at least 100 ft. A sniper shot is a single attack (rolled normally) with its critical hit range increased to 10-20 (no other crit range modifiers apply to this). If this attack is a critical threat, that threat is automatically confirmed, and the critical multiplier is increased by 1.
Special: A fighter may select Sniper as one of his fighter bonus feats.

[Logic]

Suggestion for the Sniper feat (perhaps make it a tree of feats, or a scaling feat)

Add a requirement to make the the target flat-footed,
Automatically confirm critical hits
Note whether critical threat range does/doesn't stack with Keen/Impact/Improved Critical
Increase the critical multiplier by one step


Also, a critical threat on a 10-20 is a 55% chance of a critical hit. Did you mean to make it a 50% chance? If so, it should be 11-20.

[qwertyu63]

Suggestion for the Sniper feat (perhaps make it a tree of feats, or a scaling feat)

Add a requirement to make the the target flat-footed,
Automatically confirm critical hits
Note whether critical threat range does/doesn't stack with Keen/Impact/Improved Critical
Increase the critical multiplier by one step


Also, a critical threat on a 10-20 is a 55% chance of a critical hit. Did you mean to make it a 50% chance? If so, it should be 11-20.

Going down the line:

Eh, flatfooted sounds fair enough. I'll add it.
Duh, should have thought of that. Sometimes I forget you have to confirm crits.
The increased range stacks with nothing.
Increase the modifier? Eh, alright.
55% is intentional.

[qwertyu63]

I'm no expert, but I believe even non-auto rifles have magazines larger than three rounds.

Personally, I'd put magazine capacities at 8, 20, and 2 shots, respectively(pistol, rifle, shotgun).

I'm no expert either, those are just numbers out of thin air. 20 seems far too high though, from a game design standpoint.


I'd make the feat-enhanced reloading a swiift action, to avoid shenanigans.

It just works the same way as the feat Rapid Reload does for heavy crossbows. EDIT: It was supposed to do that, but I screwed up. Fixing. EDIT 2: Or I'm a total derp who meant light crossbows.


Regarding shotguns specifically...

Conventionally, aren't they two-handed weapons? I know you can saw them off and make a one-handed weapon out of them, but that's not an out-of-the-box weapon.

I have no idea how they are wielded; I've never seen one in person.


Also, your shotgun's special attack doesn't bear much resemblance to how shotgun fire actually works.

(my favourite shotgun mechanic is to have the highest damage, but have the range increment act as a penalty on shell damage)

I was going for a spread mechanic with the special attack.

[qwertyu63]

The realistic spread of a shotgun load at 100 feet is about six inches, with proportionately smaller spreads closer in. Any kind of cone or area effect damage for a shotgun is extremely cinematic, if not blatantly unrealistic.

Eh, I'm alright with it being cinematic. Fun is a higher priority than realism.

[qwertyu63]

In that case, I'd just say designate four squares in a line moving away from you, and make it an area effect blast attack (DC 15Reflex for half damage).

Ooh, I like that idea.

[Melayl]

If the average commoner/normal person has 4 HP, I'd say your damage for the pistol is a little high. I'd drop it to 1d6 or 1d8. One bullet from a pistol usually won't instantly kill someone unless you get lucky. It might not often incapacitate someone. You can function after being shot once without risking further damage (i.e. at 0 HP and stable)...

I'm really quite tired right now, so take all of this with a dose of salt.

[Sindri]

If the average commoner/normal person has 4 HP, I'd say your damage for the pistol is a little high. I'd drop it to 1d6 or 1d8. One bullet from a pistol usually won't instantly kill someone unless you get lucky. It might not often incapacitate someone. You can function after being shot once without risking further damage (i.e. at 0 HP and stable)...

I'm really quite tired right now, so take all of this with a dose of salt.
A pistol bullet will do more damage to a person than an arrow will, usually. Most weapons in D&D aren't balanced based on their effects against commoners, they're balanced based on their effects on monsters and people with class levels. And the hit point system doesn't take into account things like blood loss over time and other realistic effects of injuries; most pistol shots will kill a man without medical attention or a lot of luck even if you could keep functioning for minutes or hours after getting hit.

Bullets also tend to make most conventional armors obsolete; i'd add an effect to guns that reduces the armor bonus of the target by half, maybe? And perhaps increase the damage of a shotgun relative to a rifle in exchange for removing the penetration effect?

Anyway, I think your ranges are way off. A sling has a range increment of 50ft. A heavy crossbow, 120. A shortspear has 20ft. The range and accuracy of even a low grade pistol should be higher than that of a sling, and according to this I'm twice as accurate with a thrown hammer as with a shotgun (a stable longarm used primarily for hunting).

100ft might make sense for a black powder musket, but a modern rifle ought to have an increment of something like 300ft for an assault rifle, more for anything intended for sniping. Most modern combat is done at hundreds of feet away, which should be in the first or second range band. The longest range sniper kill on record was 9237 feet, so that would be the 10 range bands, -20 to hit range, giving us an increment of at least 920 feet for a .50 caliber sniper rifle (presumably including appropriate feats to maximize range).

I don't remember specifically but I think that you can get about 1.5x normal range with feat selection? So I'd give a range increment of 300ft for an assault rifle, 400 for a battle rifle, 500 for good hunting/light sniper rifles, and 600 for heavy sniping/anti materiel rifles. For a shotgun loaded with a slug I'd say 100-150, loaded with shot maybe half that, a damage bonus, and remove the anti-armor properties. I'd probably put a pistol somewhere in the 50-80ft range, like a shortbow or light crossbow. Submachineguns and sawn-off shotguns, due to difficulty of control, would be shorter.

And then we need to come up with rules for autofire...

[Kasbark]

Most modern pistols hold at least 10 shots in a clip. Most modern bolt-action rifles (used for hunting, as opposed to rifles used for warfare) have a clip of at least 6. Both of those numbers should also fit well within game design - 20 or 30 rounds/clip is too much if you don't have rules for autofire.

I would also increase the range on at the very least the shotgun - modern hunting shotguns are quite accurate at medium range (50-100 feet).
Lastly i would increase the damage of the shotgun (to make up for it's lower range and smaller clip compared to a rifle) and remove the AOE attack. While it's quite fun and unique, shotguns have terrible penetration compared to pistols and rifles - even buckshot (which are 10-15 times the size of birdshot) would not be able to seriously harm a target after first going through a person.

[Sindri]

For automatic fire, I'm thinking that you should have two basic options. First is a burst, which spends some number of bullets (usually 2-5, depends on the weapon maybe?) and gives a bonus either to hit (wide burst) or to damage (narrow burst) of +1 per bullet fired after the first. So a normal assault rifle set to fire 3-round bursts would give the wielder a +2 to hit or +2 damage every time they fired, but go through it's ammunition thrice as fast.
The second option is to spend a full-round action to spray bullets everywhere. Designate a number of continuous 5ft squares up to half the number of bullets you used as the target area, make your attack roll, and everybody within the area needs to make a reflex save (DC equal to your attack roll) to dodge or they get hit once for the weapon's normal damage. Maybe double the save bonus from cover, so autofire can either cut down a group in the open or force targets behind cover to keep their heads down, but not instantly slaughter people behind walls.

The range increment of the weapon should probably be halved during autofire, due to recoil. So at short range you're more likely to hit with a quick burst, but at long range it's wiser to use a single controlled shot.


As for ammunition capacities: A normal automatic pistol generally carries 8-15 rounds, with some (like the big stupid desert eagle) only holding seven and some (like the Five-seveN) holding up to thirty. It's probably a move action to reload most pistols, assuming that you have a ready magazine, maybe a free action with rapid reload (putting loose bullets into an empty magazine would likely be a move action for each, and should not be attempted in combat).
A revolver of course has 5-6, and would be a full round action to reload without a speedloader, move action with.
An assault rifle tends to have about 30 rounds in it, and would be a full round action to change magazines (move with rapid reload).
Submachineguns tend to use 20-50 round magazines, depending on caliber and weight of the weapon.
Shotguns range from breach loaders with one or two shells and a full round action to reload, to the typical tube magazine (6-8 shots but must be fed one shell at a time, probably for a move action each), to great big drum magazines (up to 20 shots, but rather unwieldy and prone to mishap, reload like an assault rifle).
Heavier rifles tend to be about 4-8 shots in the magazine (and no autofire, obviously).

[Sindri]

Then you might want to go into varying ammo types. The basic bullets would be relatively cheap and halve the target's armor bonus (even plate mail won't slow a rifle round down much, and it'll go through a dragon better than an arrow will); just average their normal and touch ACs.

Then maybe hollowpoint rounds, which remove the armor penetration in exchange for a +2 damage, and cost maybe twice as much and have a higher craft DC.

Armor piercing rounds would tend to overpenetrate on soft targets, and so have a -2 damage, but turn the shot into a true touch attack. Not sure of cost here, maybe x3? Maybe x5?

Shotguns would get the really fun ammo types of course. Start with slugs, which count as normal bullets (like a rifle, but a lot less range and a little more damage).
Then Buckshot, for a +2 to hit and damage at half range and no armor penetration, like a burst-fire with hollowpoints.
Birdshot should be available, but not optimal for combat. Maybe +4 to hit, -2 damage, double armor bonuses due to terrible penetration?
Rubber bullets/beanbags act like slugs, but no armor penetration and all damage is nonlethal.
Dragon's Breath shells turn the attack into a line effect of fire damage, out to a max of say, 1/4 the normal range increment of the gun, with a reflex save to avoid damage entirely (it's not as wide as an actual breath weapon)
Rock salt acts like birdshot but deals nonlethal damage against living targets. Possibly has extra effects on ghosts and demons (salt being a purity symbol in many cultures and having the power to block or banish evil spirits).

And then you get fun with alchemical rounds... there are a lot of mixtures that need to be thrown at the target normally, and there are real world shotgun shells with compressed water inside for subdual or disrupting electronics, so I see no reason not to mix these.

[Hanuman]

Eh, I'm alright with it being cinematic. Fun is a higher priority than realism.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/gunslinger

Modern firearms don't really work in DnD.

Look over pathfinders firearms then mull over why the ranges and types of options are what they are.

Decide from those reference what changes you would want to make and why you would want to make them.

[SassyQuatch]

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/gunslinger

Modern firearms don't really work in DnD.

Look over pathfinders firearms then mull over why the ranges and types of options are what they are.

Decide from those reference what changes you would want to make and why you would want to make them.

Yeah, pistols would be more like 5-10ft range increment while even a carbine would rate 150ft increments, rifles likely double that, damage would be more skill-based than the critical hit system would account for, etc.

Modernization of PF firearms in my experience means:

Reducing or removing misfire chance.
Extending ranged touch attack status to all range increments.
Small boosts to range increments and possibly to damage.


Considering the setting a GM may also want to include firearms as part of the simple/martial weapon groups and not have it's own proficiency. Single shot and semi-auto weapons would almost always be simple, but burst-fire and auto capability or some other peculiarity would require some form of more advanced training (martial).

[Hanuman]

Well, modern firearms are meant to cause hydrostatic shock.

An arrow will deal more damage in terms of lethality but have less stopping power.

You could consider modern firearms to lower the damage needed to qualify as Massive Damage.

Still you'd need to address the issue with range (no weapon should be intended for use over 200' ever, maybe if your campaign consisted almost entirely underground you could make it happen due to the limitations on darkvision and the ability to control the length of tunnels in general.

If you want to run a campaign with weapons that you can engage over 200' then I'd suggest dismissing the grid or buying 4 of them, lay them ontop of each other and use little shuffle poles like they did for massive war maps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plotting_Table.jpg

[SassyQuatch]

Range is always a tricky issue. For example, the longbow was used at ranges of 900ft or more which was at the furthest edges of range for crossbows, though this was more a case of weight of fire than of accuracy. Still, assuming that as an extreme range still works since the range increment penalties would add up quite a bit, especially for most armies' relatively "mundane" archers and not the grand heroes of D&D.

Unfortunately that cannot be replicated well on a grid with 5ft squares. So either, as you say, you have really large maps, or you have to abstract the battle more with larger square sizes. And that only works until you are again facing an enemy up close.

So groups are left with a conundrum. Do you have both short-range "zoom" maps and long range archery/firearms maps, really large maps, or do you reduce the effective range of ranged weapons to avoid the extra bother? For most groups the answer is to have short range increments, even more especially since the game favors melee combat and while having your melee fighters rushing forward for ten rounds searching for cover while the sniper game plays out is probably more accurate, it also "ruins" the game experience of a lot of players.

Personally I love having massive maps and it is awesome playing games where you use the overhead projector on a hardwood floor to properly simulate the massive ranges. But that's not an option for everyone, and not desirable for many who do have the means. So back to keeping the ranges short.

[Jormengand]

I'm no expert either, those are just numbers out of thin air. 20 seems far too high though, from a game design standpoint.

20 is the number of shots that most "Standard" semi-automatic rifles have.

I'd note that rifles shouldn't be simple weapons. Even a cadet training rifle requires at least a few days of training, probably more (I took about 10, I think), before you can actually remember all the things you have to do. An untrained person often would find themselves loading two bullets into the chamber (which is bad), and not knowing how to clear a weapon jam (Which is also bad), not to mention the fact that they won't be able to shoot straight (Which is less bad, but still bad).

Also, it takes somewhere in the region of six to twelve seconds to reload the rifle (Because you have to take out a mag, put a new one in, pull back the cocking handle and then push down on the thing which releases it before you can start shooting again) so it won't be a move action, and there is no way, in the nine hells and beyond, that it will ever, ever be a free action. Pistols are a bit faster because for many of them it is just a case of take out mag, put in mag, but shotguns are the worst because you have to take them open and put two new shells in manually (some firing range single-shot rifles work like this too). Shotguns also usually fire both shots at once.

If you don't care about realism, that's fine, but many of us will be wondering why the hell our rifle only has three bullets, and why we care given that it's a free action if you bother spending a feat on it.


Reducing or removing misfire chance.

Ehh. Given the misfire rules, I'm not sure. There are four types of weapon jams you have to deal with when using a rife - admittedly, one of them is "You're out of ammo, so it won't fire. Reload." The others happen if:

Your cocking handle's screwed up, and you need to give it a whack and start again.
Despite your efforts, the cocking handle is still screwing up, and you need to go through and set your rifle up again.
Something's stuck in the handle (often a bullet case, or a twig or something) and you need to go through and set your rifle up again.

All this takes time, but isn't likely to blow your rifle up. Loading a bullet into the back of another bullet (Yo dawg, I heard you liked bullets) can seriously damage the inner workings of the rifle, i.e the firing chamber blows up, which essentially makes the rifle useless, and beyond immediate repair (by which I mean there's nothing you can do until after the combat) and is something that even trained people sometimes (but infrequently) do. A misfire range of 1 wouldn't actually be that unreasonable, just changing the effects of a misfire would be a good idea.