Testing custom rules: Would this be balanced?

[Odessa333]

Hey all!


So I'm DM, and my player wants to bring in a Gunslinger using the Matt Mercer rules (and NOT the new UA rules). It seems fairly balanced, so I gave it the ok. Easy!

...Then he asks if he can dual wield two guns, and that's getting a bit trickier.

Normally, the weapon is a 1d10, and he's asking to have 1d6 for each gun instead. And with the Mercer rules, he can reload a gun with an attack (aka giving up one of his extra attacks, not a full action) but he needs a free hand to reload. The argument being some rounds he will have full ammo and can fire a 1d6 each round, but then he will have to reload on some rounds and only be doing 1d6.

The character is a gun using multiclass with Wizard, so he'll need a free hand often to cast spells as well. I 'think' it works as he'll be hurting himself with only one weapon drawn more often than not, but I can't help but worry there's a strong advantage that I'm not seeing. The player in question is usually fairly optimized, but I don't see the danger in this, which is making me nervous lol.


Any suggestions/advice/thoughts would be most welcome. Thank you for your time!

[pangoo209]

I'd personally say that he should just use one gun, but it's your call of course. You say that he is fairly experienced and he optimizes, so lets see if I can find out what I'd do.

First off, I'd play a variant human and start with the war caster feat, assuming they didn't find another way to switch weapons without using an action or bonus action. (I don't have my PHB on me so forgive me if this is wrong). That would allow me to cast while i'm wielding my two guns.

Secondly, I would use mage hand to reload, using one action to (potentially) reload both of my guns. This would remove the requirement for a free hand, and allowing you to use ONE action to reload TWO guns. (Depending on how you rule it)

It's also worth noting that this reload type won't take any spell slots, nor will it put any disadvantage on the caster, because they're just grabbing ammo out of a bag and loading two guns. This could easily be done in under the maximum thirty feet.

But a lot of this can be stopped by you, being the DM, you can rule that any of these things don't work for a number of reasons.

Hope I helped! :smallsmile:

[GlenSmash!]

My suggestion would be to try the Class as written for a few sessions and then re-evaluate based on how it went.