Firearm Feat Feedback

[Cayotick]

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[Trask]

It seems a bit strong, depending on the damage of the firearms you are using. Personally I wouldn't ever reduce the firearm reload speed to a bonus action. Not going for hyper realism here but I would always have it as an action at least. The prone sniper position is interesting but I'm not very sure if it would be good for flintlock and matchlock weapons, considering you'd have to keep standing up to reload effectively. Of course a lot of this is just flavor and preference, it looks good but potentially a bit strong if the firearm damage is very high.

Also restricting proficiency with firearms to taking a feat also feels a bit questionable to me, depending on what theyre supposed to be in your world (super rare or commonplace). The musket was a very easy thing to reload. I might just make all martial classes proficient with them.

[Cayotick]

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[Rusvul]

Firearms are tricky. If you make them an action to reload, nobody with iterative attacks (those who should, in theory, be best with them) will use them, unless they're absurdly powerful. If you make them free to reload, nobody will use crossbows. In 3.X I'd say make it a move action at minimum, since this is 5e I think either bonus action or "all of your movement" might be appropriate.

You might reword Misfire so that natural 2s miss as well, unless jamming while making an effective attack is an intended consequence.

I'd also avoid giving situational static bonuses for anything ever- 5e (for almost all d20 rolls) sticks to a strict formula of proficiency + stat + magic. (A few class features, the Archery fighting style in particular, break this format.) A +2 that you sometimes get and sometimes do not, however, kind of goes against 5e's "no fiddly modifiers" thing. Maybe you're okay with that- it isn't necessarily bad- but it doesn't fit with the rest of the game.

Something you might look into (if you haven't already) is the Pathfinder rules for firearms. A lot of it isn't applicable to 5e (the touch attack rule in particular), but some things (the 15' cone for blunderbusses in particular) might be easily adapted.

[Cayotick]

Firearms are tricky. If you make them an action to reload, nobody with iterative attacks (those who should, in theory, be best with them) will use them, unless they're absurdly powerful. If you make them free to reload, nobody will use crossbows. In 3.X I'd say make it a move action at minimum, since this is 5e I think either bonus action or "all of your movement" might be appropriate.

You might reword Misfire so that natural 2s miss as well, unless jamming while making an effective attack is an intended consequence.

I'd also avoid giving situational static bonuses for anything ever- 5e (for almost all d20 rolls) sticks to a strict formula of proficiency + stat + magic. (A few class features, the Archery fighting style in particular, break this format.) A +2 that you sometimes get and sometimes do not, however, kind of goes against 5e's "no fiddly modifiers" thing. Maybe you're okay with that- it isn't necessarily bad- but it doesn't fit with the rest of the game.

Something you might look into (if you haven't already) is the Pathfinder rules for firearms. A lot of it isn't applicable to 5e (the touch attack rule in particular), but some things (the 15' cone for blunderbusses in particular) might be easily adapted.

Natural 2 was the intended meaning of that property, I'll have to make that clear

I'll have to fiddle with the prone thing, I like the idea of putting yourself in a vulnerable position for an bonus, but I feel like advantage on the attack would be far stronger than a +2 to attack rolls.

I'll check out the Pathfinder rules, I have been working on a Blunderbuss as a cone attack so that sounds perfect

Thanks for your input

[Trabian]

So a bit of commentary, some of it is nitpicky.

You gain proficiency with the use of firearms and may add your proficiency bonus to any attack rolls made with firearms.
You're fine removing everything after "and may" because adding your proficiency bonus is what gaining proficiency means.

You ignore penalties from attacking within melee range with a firearm.
This is where I'd make a distinction between pistols and arquebuses. Arquebuses are rather unwieldy, so I would only allow pistols to do this. But it's not that important.

You may take a prone sniper's position, while in this position you have all of the benefits and penalties of the prone condition, except you ignore the disadvantage penalty and gain a +2 to attack roll when using a two-handed firearm.
This stacks with Archery fighting style as written, making it the most accurate in the game. Which is too much of a good thing, in a game where even a +1 to hit is hard to earn. Also, combined with the rules for your normal firearms, it might be a bit too fiddly in rules.

You may use a bonus action to reload a single firearm.
This is fine with the rules as you presented them for firearms. Although still an issue for fighters with 3-4 attacks (more with action surge), or vengeance paladins with haste

everything put together, I think that you don't need 2 feats, or even an extra one. You could just adjust the expert crossbow feat to work with firearms, and write the rest into the base rules for firearms.
Or just copy paste it and call it firearms expert to make a distinction, and add proficiency.
For example:

Firearms with the two-handed property can only take advantage of the Archery Fighting style while prone, and ignore the disadvantage penalty on range attacks while using these firearms for being prone.
Loading: A limited number of shots can be made with a weapon that has the loading property. A character must then reload it using an action, with the Crossbow Expert feat this becomes a bonus action.

Are these martial weapons? Does any class get any sort of automatic proficiency?


Also this is 5e, don't introduce too many additional rules, handwave it a bit, and it'll be fine.
Also, with this feat you're giving a rogue everything he needs to be able to sneak attack with a d12. :D

[Cayotick]

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[Arkhios]

So a bit of commentary, some of it is nitpicky.

You gain proficiency with the use of firearms and may add your proficiency bonus to any attack rolls made with firearms.
You're fine removing everything after "and may" because adding your proficiency bonus is what gaining proficiency means.
You ignore penalties from attacking within melee range with a firearm.
This is where I'd make a distinction between pistols and arquebuses. Arquebuses are rather unwieldy, so I would only allow pistols to do this. But it's not that important.
You may take a prone sniper's position, while in this position you have all of the benefits and penalties of the prone condition, except you ignore the disadvantage penalty and gain a +2 to attack roll when using a two-handed firearm.
This stacks with Archery fighting style as written, making it the most accurate in the game. Which is too much of a good thing, in a game where even a +1 to hit is hard to earn. Also, combined with the rules for your normal firearms, it might be a bit too fiddly in rules.
You may use a bonus action to reload a single firearm.
This is fine with the rules as you presented them for firearms. Although still an issue for fighters with 3-4 attacks (more with action surge), or vengeance paladins with haste

everything put together, I think that you don't need 2 feats, or even an extra one. You could just adjust the expert crossbow feat to work with firearms, and write the rest into the base rules for firearms.
Or just copy paste it and call it firearms expert to make a distinction, and add proficiency.
For example:

Firearms with the two-handed property can only take advantage of the Archery Fighting style while prone, and ignore the disadvantage penalty on range attacks while using these firearms for being prone.
Loading: A limited number of shots can be made with a weapon that has the loading property. A character must then reload it using an action, with the Crossbow Expert feat this becomes a bonus action.

Are these martial weapons? Does any class get any sort of automatic proficiency?


Also this is 5e, don't introduce too many additional rules, handwave it a bit, and it'll be fine.
Also, with this feat you're giving a rogue everything he needs to be able to sneak attack with a d12. :D

I'm inclined to agree with that you shouldn't get yet another +2 to attack with two-handed firearms while prone, because alleviating a disadvantage is essentially like giving a +5 bonus (disadvantage being worth -5, while advantage is likewise worth +5).

I also agree that close quarters shooting without penalty should only be possible with one-handed firearms, simply because the length of the barrel (longer being unwieldy in melee range). Likewise prone-shooting makes better sense with only two-handed firearms.

If you follow the DMG guidelines, firearms are their own weapon category, neither simple nor martial, so in a normal 5e campaign gaining proficiency to firearms via feat is actually very good idea.
However, if firearms are common place, they could be considered as martial or even simple weapons.

The fact that a rogue could sneak attack with d12 weapon isn't really a big problem, since base damage die is largely irrelevant in the long run. (It's essentially a "1d6" extra, sure, but honestly I wouldn't say it's a big deal).

If, however, you think otherwise, you could add a corner case that early firearms are a bit inaccurate and thus you can't effectively sneak attack with them, being unable to hit a vital spot as accurately as with a bow or crossbow, or something along those lines.

Edit: oddly enough I didn't see OP had replied after Trabian - few hours earlier than I :/

That's a viable solution what you have there.