Firearm balance

[Zejety]

Hi,

I am planning to convert an ongoing PF campaign to 5e.

One of our players is a Gunslinger and he plans to simply switch to playing a Rogue who carries firearms.

Now, since I have not played thge system yet (only own the PHB) I have a hard time evaluating the frearms rules from the DMG.

Comparing the Pistol and the Hand Crossbow, the differences seem to be:

Pistol's 1d10 vs Hand Crossbow's 1d6
Hand Crossbow is light
Hand Crossbow has feat support
Pistols are loud
Pistols have lower maximum range


How does the balance end up without homebrew? Can a character (most importanlty a rogue) get away with using a pistol? Does it actually end up being stronger than a crossbow for all characters despite the loading property?

What happens when you convert Crossbow Expert to also cover firearms (as I've seen suggested several times)? My intuition tells me that this will obsolete crossbows...

I suppose the modern firearms (revolver) are too much in any case unless you hand them out like magical items?


Thanks in advance!

[Malifice]

Use them as is.

I've made the following feats myself for a Golarion campaign:

Gunslinger


You gain proficiency in firearms and gunsmithing tools
On your turn, if you spend a bonus action to aim, your first ranged attack with a firearm this turn has advantage. You cannot move before or after this attack to gain this benefit.
You obtain a battered firearm; either a musket or a pistol. If you ever roll a natural 1, 2, 3 or 4 on an attack roll when firing this weapon, it misfires requiring an action to clear. You can spend 1 week of downtime and gp equal to half the price of the weapon to remove this last property from the firearm.


Pistolero

Prerequisite: Proficient in firearms


Being within 5’ of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls
When you use the attack action and attack with a one handed firearm, you can attack with a one handed firearm or a melee weapon that you wield in your off hand as a bonus action
When a foe provokes an opportunity attack from you, you can make your opportunity attack with any loaded one handed firearm you are holding.

[Eslin]

Why not tie the firearms to the general tech level of your setting? Most settings seem to ape European technological periods, 1400s being the most common - what kind of tech level/firearms do you have?

[Zejety]

Why not tie the firearms to the general tech level of your setting? Most settings seem to ape European technological periods, 1400s being the most common - what kind of tech level/firearms do you have?
It's a Golarion campaign with emerging guns. So guns are generally rare. Most people will recognize a pistol but they are still treated as (dangerous!) oddities.

My biggest concern is that the group also has an archer and I don't know enough about the mechanical balance to understand if one will overshadow the other just by choice of weapons (with or without homebrewed feats).
If there is any kind of problem I'll most likely just refluff hand crossbows (as most people seem to have done before the DMG preview).

[Eslin]

It's a Golarion campaign with emerging guns. So guns are generally rare. Most people will recognize a pistol but they are still treated as (dangerous!) oddities.

My biggest concern is that the group also has an archer and I don't know enough about the mechanical balance to understand if one will overshadow the other just by choice of weapons (with or without homebrewed feats).
If there is any kind of problem I'll most likely just refluff hand crossbows (as most people seem to have done before the DMG preview).

If they're emerging, they'll be worse than bows. Guns weren't good ranged weapons at first, they were slow to reload and incredibly inaccurate, they just gained traction because unlike bows they didn't require specific wood (europe got pretty deforested), the ammunition was easier to transport and someone could be taught to use them in the span of days or weeks rather than the years a bow took.

Crossbows replaced bows for most of europe (easier to use, less strength and training required and again less specific wood needed) and guns replaced crossbows, since they were about as difficult to make, had easier ammunition and didn't require as much strength or training.

So yes, one will overshadow the other. In most permutations of your setting you'll see guns everywhere pretty soon, but it'll be a while before a gun is anywhere near as useful as a longbow for a player character. Longbows work in wet conditions (just destring it, keep in mind composite bows will get deglued by water) while muskets or whatever your setting has won't, will have better range, be far more accurate and have better penetration (though guns will outstrip them penetration wise faster sooner than they will accuracy wise).

There's really no way to make a gun (simple weapon) as useful as a bow (martial weapon) for a player character (who are typically elite, not the massed infantry that guns were useful for) without boosting your technology ahead quite a lot.


Edit: Please note that you can ignore all of that if you feel like it. D&D only has at best a passing resemblance to actual weapon usage - bows aren't strength requiring at all despite draw strength being what determines how far and fast your arrow flies and crossbows don't seem to store energy and a fighter can somehow attack 9 times in 6 seconds with a heavy crossbow which should be literally impossible. If you want guns to work differently than they do in real life because you and your players like the changes better then by all means do it.

[silveralen]

Okay, one thing to note is that, if the character is being represented as a rogue, it won't matter hugely what weapon he wields. His damage comes from sneak attack. The loading quality also isn't a huge issue, because he only shoots once per turn.

By RAW, you can't duel wield any ranged weapon (I have no idea why hand crossbow is listed as light, by the rules it can't actually benefit from it), which might be a bit of an issue if that was part of his theme. It also might be a problem if he used guns up close. Both aspects normally exist as part of crossbow expert, but the feat doesn't give the rogue access to an offhand attack with a gun like it would a crossbow user, which makes it a bit more limiting. By RAW he also can't access sharpshooter, another useful feat, though less so on rogue.

The simplest solution to these issues is to actually ignore the DMG and treat early firearms as crossbows. That might be annoying for some players, but it simplifies things quite a bit. The stats will be balanced against other ranged weapons, as will the feats.

[Zejety]

The simplest solution to these issues is to actually ignore the DMG and treat early firearms as crossbows. That might be annoying for some players, but it simplifies things quite a bit. The stats will be balanced against other ranged weapons, as will the feats.

Yeah, that was my fall-back option from the get-go. They won't be perfectly equal in practice (pistols are less stealthy and opponents are expected to drop little ammunition but they are somewhat more intimidating) but these differences will probably even out. If not, I may bump pistol damage to 2d3.

Dual Wielding is not a problem so far. We're only level two and he has just used a single gun so far. I suppose I will ask him and if he doesn't intend to use two guns are use it in close combat, I'll take the DMG stats and if he does, we'll re-fluff the hand crossbow. Option 1 still depends on people confirming it to be balanced on Rgoue (who seems to suffer less from the restrictions). Sounds like it is generally stronger before extra attacks happen on 5th level.


Also, my thanks to Eslin for the historical run-down. I'm more interested in the mechanical balance at the moment though since the setting is already more-or-less identified.

[MadGrady]

Biggest difference between PF and 5e is the loss of touch AC - it no longer exists.

In my current homebrew campaign (a pirate game) we just refluffed crossbows to be pistols/muskets. Same damage, properties, and everything, it's just a pistol (hand crossbow) or a musket (regular crossbow).

This kept damage and balance in place, but allowed the flavor desired by the character. We also refluffed the feat Crossbow Expert to be our version of Gunslinger in this case.

Same benefits, but it applies to firearms vs stringed weapons.

The balance has been perfectly fine - no issues whatsoever by doing this.

[Knaight]

It should be fine. As-is the characterizing traits are higher damage and less range, which is a reasonable tradeoff, that also works pretty well from a simulation perspective for late medieval firearms (which were frequently used with lots of gunpowder).


Crossbows replaced bows for most of europe (easier to use, less strength and training required and again less specific wood needed) and guns replaced crossbows, since they were about as difficult to make, had easier ammunition and didn't require as much strength or training.
...
There's really no way to make a gun (simple weapon) as useful as a bow (martial weapon) for a player character (who are typically elite, not the massed infantry that guns were useful for) without boosting your technology ahead quite a lot.

A lot of this is contested. Anglophone period sources tend to display English biases, which are generally pro-bow. Outside of that though, plenty of sources indicate that crossbows replaced bows in a lot of cases because they were generally better weapons for the fighting that was going on, and guns were often in the same boat. Neither were exclusively for massed infantry, crossbowmen were frequently well paid, and there were very professional mercenary crossbowmen in use (particularly from Genoa). Guns saw heavier use in eastern Europe, which is more often ignored by English sources. There, they were frequently used with the war wagons in use at the time, which would set up field fortifications by going into a ring, and have people fire from behind them, focusing on heavily armored targets, which were getting more and more common with the time.

[Rogue Shadows]

Biggest difference between PF and 5e is the loss of touch AC - it no longer exists.

Easy enough to mod back in for the purposes of gun attacks, though.

[MeeposFire]

Easy enough to mod back in for the purposes of gun attacks, though.

Actually it may be better not to. The extra penetrating power of the gun could be negated in large part by the faulty accuracy of early guns. Essentially decide that the two cancel each other out so that effectively you get your standard prof bonus (keeps things simple while giving the gun people the fluff that the gun has better penetrating power and the history buffs that the guns were very inaccurate for a long time).

[silveralen]

Easy enough to mod back in for the purposes of gun attacks, though.

Of course, no matter how easy it might be you have no real reason to. Isn't balanced, isn't accurate (early guns didn't pierce armor that well compared to other weapon types that existed. Not enough to go from full protection to nothing), isn't a particularly interesting usage of time etc.

[Knaight]

Of course, no matter how easy it might be you have no real reason to. Isn't balanced, isn't accurate (early guns didn't pierce armor that well compared to other weapon types that existed. Not enough to go from full protection to nothing), isn't a particularly interesting usage of time etc.

Plus, it gets into the oddity of introducing variable armor, and just using it once. If guns are ignoring armor, crossbows should really be ignoring at least some of it. On the melee end, it should probably be easier to hurt an armored person with a halberd than a one handed sword. It gets into a lot of complexity that the system just isn't designed for, and is better avoided.

[Eslin]

Plus, it gets into the oddity of introducing variable armor, and just using it once. If guns are ignoring armor, crossbows should really be ignoring at least some of it. On the melee end, it should probably be easier to hurt an armored person with a halberd than a one handed sword. It gets into a lot of complexity that the system just isn't designed for, and is better avoided.

Crossbows had better penetration than guns in the period we're talking about, and as you say an arming sword (which apparently only do slashing damage these days, despite the tip being what you used to shank someone armoured) somehow has the same penetrative power as a polearm.


A lot of this is contested. Anglophone period sources tend to display English biases, which are generally pro-bow. Outside of that though, plenty of sources indicate that crossbows replaced bows in a lot of cases because they were generally better weapons for the fighting that was going on, and guns were often in the same boat. Neither were exclusively for massed infantry, crossbowmen were frequently well paid, and there were very professional mercenary crossbowmen in use (particularly from Genoa). Guns saw heavier use in eastern Europe, which is more often ignored by English sources. There, they were frequently used with the war wagons in use at the time, which would set up field fortifications by going into a ring, and have people fire from behind them, focusing on heavily armored targets, which were getting more and more common with the time.

A lot of that was due to better armour technology, you needed greater and greater draw strength to get through armour until you only had longbows and some composite bows working. Crossbows didn't require the same strength, but were complicated enough that professional crossbowmen were very well paid.

And English sources (which we have more exposure to as English speakers) naturally focus more on English stuff.

[Knaight]

Crossbows had better penetration than guns in the period we're talking about, and as you say an arming sword (which apparently only do slashing damage these days, despite the tip being what you used to shank someone armoured) somehow has the same penetrative power as a polearm.
It depended on the gun and the crossbow, both were used in fairly similar roles for a long while. This thread is looking at a pistol, which aren't exactly on the high end of armor penetration, so crossbows are routinely much higher. Eastern Europe in particular had a surprisingly high number of larger arquebuses, some of which were better at penetrating armor than even very heavy crossbows.

Regardless though, the difference is definitely not the difference between a touch attack and full armor, which is what bringing touch attack firearms in does. It gets particularly ridiculous with pistols, when there are a ton of historical artifacts of armor shot with pistols, from close range, on purpose, to demonstrate that it works against it. That's not a touch attack right there.


A lot of that was due to better armour technology, you needed greater and greater draw strength to get through armour until you only had longbows and some composite bows working. Crossbows didn't require the same strength, but were complicated enough that professional crossbowmen were very well paid.

And English sources (which we have more exposure to as English speakers) naturally focus more on English stuff.
It's not just that it focuses more on English stuff, it's that it was written with a pro-English bias a lot of the time, and overstates the effectiveness of what the English were doing while understating the effectiveness of equipment and tactics employed elsewhere. So this introduces a skew, wherein the idea that the longbow was just better than crossbows and firearms and only lost because of skill is prevalent. That doesn't match the records of lots of very skilled crossbowmen and firearms users elsewhere, particularly as the late medieval period was often an age of relatively small armies composed of a lot of professional mercenaries, skilled town militia, etc. Massed infantry with minimal training was more of an early modern thing, better characterizing pike and shot warfare than anything.

As for better armor technology, that did have a great deal to do with the rise of the crossbow. However, there were other factors. Better metallurgy and finer precision allowed for the development of better crossbows and tools like the crannequin which couldn't have been reliably produced en-mass with earlier technology. There's the context of changes in fortification technology, where most battles actually took place in and around sieges (plus lots of raiding), heavier and less portable personal weaponry became more viable in later fortress designs, particularly compared to early motte and bailey designs. It's a lot more complicated than martial skill going down and simpler weapons taking over, accompanied by better armor pushing for weapons better at penetrating it.