Balance of Guns, Crossbows and Bows.

[RegalKain]

So I apologise if this should be in homebrew, I run a campaign in Pathfinder that's Gestalt with a 20rp limit on custom races. The other guy in my group who DMs on the regular and I decided to let Xbows target touch within a certain range like guns. The problem is that now everyone is using guns for the vastly improved accuracy even if the damage is a bit less. Has anyone come up with a good compromise for these three weapon groups?

I'm not after "but magic is x" or "melee charger is x" mostly trying to make it so the primary ranged weapons are on relatively even footing. Having a hard time coming up with balances for that.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'd say that, ideally, neither weapon type should target touch AC; instead, guns should basically be crossbows with more range and damage. Unless they're supposed to be incredibly rare, in which case they should be treated and priced like wands.

[Krazzman]

Ranged weaponry in 3.5 and pathfinder is quite wonky. Every longbow is the same except when you go for composite then suddenly they have draw weights that are tied to strength.

You should probably rework them completely from scratch. Currently you have bows for volley builds, crossbows underperforming and guns being expensive but targeting touch.
Personally I would see a fix in keeping bows as is but removing the non composite ones. Give crossbows innate weapon bonus... instead of 1d8 let them do 1d6+2 or something like that. Higher crit chance was nice but I am unsure if it would fit since I am currently not DMing for any archer type character.

[RegalKain]

I'd say that, ideally, neither weapon type should target touch AC; instead, guns should basically be crossbows with more range and damage. Unless they're supposed to be incredibly rare, in which case they should be treated and priced like wands.

The question then becomes why use Xbows and Guns over Bows. As with the first two you need rapid reload to be competitive, bows don't. That was the original discussion of why let them target touch ACs. Otherwise I'd agree. I guess I'm trying to make them all seem worth using.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I mean, historically crossbows and guns filled pretty similar roles: slow and simple weapons that required less training to use. Unfortunately, proficiency rules and Rapid Reload means that the opposite tends to be true in D&D. I... guess you could grant that feat for free?

So... I guess the question is what relationship do you WANT the three to have, in terms of tradeoffs?

[RegalKain]

I don't mind if guns and crossbows are nearly identical I'm OK with that. Ultimately I think it'd be best if crossbows and guns had very high damage output but low rate of fire. I think that's what was kind of intended with the reload times. However whether with feats or classes etc it quickly becomes a nonissue and they fire just as fast.

Trying to strike a balance for both low and medium levels is the issue I guess. I was thinking something like guns/Xbows get Dex to damage as well as HalfBab to damage, while bows only either get Dex to damage or half Dex to damage. All of them would target normal ac. The problem is, that feels like with the right classes and feats, Xbows are just superior.

[Zanos]

Well, the default reason for crossbows vs bows is a (somewhat) historical one. Bows were strictly better than crossbows, as a good archer could put more arrows out in the same period of time with a similar amount of force. But a crossbow is much easier to use. The interface is pretty much point and shoot, but even someone experienced with a crossbow isn't going to put as much fire downrange as a skilled archer. This is represented in the rules by bows being martial weapons and crossbows being simple weapons, and some classes that don't even have simple weapon proficiency being able to use crossbows. Contrary to popular belief, an English longbow and a crossbow penetrated armor to a similar degree. That is, not super great, but a good shot at close range could still be lethal.

Now, where you want guns to fit in to your setting depends a great deal on the level of advancement of firearms on in your setting. Early firearms served a similar role as crossbows, in that they were not as effective as a good archer, but could be used by pretty much anyone. And also contrary to popular belief, plate armor did not fall out of favor because of firearms. Good plate armor could stop a musketball, although getting hit with any high kinetic energy projectile is going to give you a bad time in general. Material quality had a lot to do with it. However as the scale of warfare expanded, most military forces ceased to be composed of wealthy knights and their families, and began to be bankrolled centrally by the government. Turns out it's a lot cheaper to have 100 guns with muskets or crossbows that you train for two weeks than 10 guys with full plate armor with years of experience. Armor was only obsoleted from a cost perspective, not because a tube with a lead ball coming out the end ripped right through it like it didn't exist.

So early firearms and crossbows can't really ignore armor any more than a longbow. The historical advantage of guns over traditional bows is ease of use, and their advantage over crossbows is maintenance and cost. A musket is really a relatively simple thing. Rifling and precision manufacturing, which is much more expensive, isn't invented until later. Modern firearms will of course tear through medieval plate armor. But a hardened steel plate will stop most common rifle rounds that aren't purpose designed to defeat it. Good steel made with modern methods is extremely durable.

Rambling aside, the game doesn't really represent maintenance as a thing, and we aren't playing a game of high level military budgeting. The cost of base weapons is often irrelevant, so I wouldn't use that as a balancing mechanic. As for other weapon statistics, weight often doesn't really matter much at all since most adventurers aren't carrying massive loadouts anyway. I would throw out "hits touch AC" as an advantage because it's quite dumb from both a historical and balance perspective. Pretty much any ranged build would take a feat tax to hit touch AC all the time. It seems like you want all the weapon types to be equally viable rather than one just being worse but easier to use. So really all you can do is tweak range increments, damage, and crit range/multiplier for each weapon type until you think you have something workable.

[RegalKain]

Thank you for the informative post Zanos, pathfinder originally had the rules for touch AC we sorta copied it over to Xbows to make Xbows on a level playing field. My issue right now is that most of my players are just opting for guns/Xbows for the touch AC, however if I remove that ability bows become strictly superior. Also it's very rare that encounters happen. At 300+ feet away. Making the range thing less of an issue.

[Flickerdart]

The question then becomes why use Xbows and Guns over Bows. As with the first two you need rapid reload to be competitive, bows don't. That was the original discussion of why let them target touch ACs. Otherwise I'd agree. I guess I'm trying to make them all seem worth using.

Would you let a character take a feat to target touch AC with their bow? If not, then letting crossbows and guns target touch AC (and require a feat for Rapid Reload) is too strong.

Think about the various kinds of ranged weapons that already exist in D&D. They vary on several axes, so try and leverage some of them to create differences that aren't overpowering:


Range: This is an easy one. Primitive firearms have low effective range (unless volley firing) until rifling is invented. Bows and crossbows have longer effective range. Do not overvalue this - most engagements begin at point-blank range, or enter it quickly enough.
Damage: Firearms are more powerful, then crossbows, then bows. But base damage only really matters at the start of the game - a character's build is the main source of damage anyway. Consider that since composite bows add the wielder's STR to damage, similar schemes can be made available for the other items. Perhaps DEX to damage for a crossbow (the user can more deftly wield the winch) or WIS to damage for firearms (since Spot and Listen are WIS based, this can represent great aim).
Handedness: A bow, no matter how much you try, can't be fired one-handed. This is a great benefit of pistols and smaller crossbows.
Action cost: Reloading each turn is awful. But what about an action to prime, only necessary at the beginning of combat? This approach works well with super high range weapons, because it encourages getting the drop on people. You could also create some kind of "aim" mechanic that allows gun and crossbow users to brace themselves for greater accuracy/damage. Bow users don't get this because bows shoot in an arc (or so the argument would go, anyhow).
Price (weapon): An early firearm is basically a big metal tube, while a bow or crossbow is more complicated. This is a negligible distinction beyond the low levels.
Price (ammunition): On the other hand, arrows are essentially sharp sticks, while gunpowder may be expensive in your setting. Again, negligible distinction once magic weapons come into it.
Weight: An arquebus weighed 9 pounds. A pistol is much lighter, a D&D longbow is only 3 pounds.
Fire while prone: Yes for crossbows and guns, no for bows.


As a benchmark for your differences, consider the level of the character. Will a 20th level character, with many feats, skill ranks, and gold pieces, obviously choose one over the other? If yes, it might be too strong.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I don't mind if guns and crossbows are nearly identical I'm OK with that. Ultimately I think it'd be best if crossbows and guns had very high damage output but low rate of fire. I think that's what was kind of intended with the reload times. However whether with feats or classes etc it quickly becomes a nonissue and they fire just as fast.
How 'bout this? Ditch Rapid Reload and all similar features-- all guns and crossbows require a swift action to load and a full-round action to fire, always. But when they do, combine all the damage you could have done with multiple hits into one value. So, like, a 20th level Fighter with a longbow and Deadly Aim would do 4x(d8+10), while with a crossbow he'd do 4d8+40.

[RegalKain]

How 'bout this? Ditch Rapid Reload and all similar features-- all guns and crossbows require a swift action to load and a full-round action to fire, always. But when they do, combine all the damage you could have done with multiple hits into one value. So, like, a 20th level Fighter with a longbow and Deadly Aim would do 4x(d8+10), while with a crossbow he'd do 4d8+40.

Out of curiosity, what is the benefit of using a bow in that case? I've always seen multiple attacks as a greater threshold for failing a roll. I suppose any rider effects on the bow would count multiple times where as on a gun it wouldn't such as flaming etc. But whooo boy if you crit on the Xbows. Thanks so a good starting place though, I like where it's headed. I'll try to think on it more. Currently at work so I don't have books and stuff on hand to roll some tests with.

Edit, I'm such a putz. Bows can fire once and move and fire on the run etc as well. If a Xbows or gun user wants to fire they can do nothing else.

[Zanos]

How 'bout this? Ditch Rapid Reload and all similar features-- all guns and crossbows require a swift action to load and a full-round action to fire, always. But when they do, combine all the damage you could have done with multiple hits into one value. So, like, a 20th level Fighter with a longbow and Deadly Aim would do 4x(d8+10), while with a crossbow he'd do 4d8+40.
Doing damage in one large chunk is better than doing it in small chunks since DR and Hardness exist.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Doing damage in one large chunk is better than doing it in small chunks since DR and Hardness exist.
Sure; bow archers would have to take Clustered Shots, which seems like a more fair way to set up the feat tax. The trick, I guess, would be figuring out what should and shouldn't get included in the multiplier. Just weapon dice seems kind of harsh, since so much of your damage does come from things like Deadly Aim and Gun Training... buuut I totally spaced on the fact that your lower-value iterative attacks will be unlikely to hit. So yeah, maybe just multiply the base damage dice would be better. You'd have to play with the math.

[Deophaun]

But a hardened steel plate will stop most common rifle rounds that aren't purpose designed to defeat it.
Side track: To be fair, that just means a bullet with a steel core; not exactly high on the technology department. If getting through steel plates such as on a proper breastplate was the predominant use of a bullet as opposed to hitting soft targets (where complete penetration is undesirable), the common rifle round would be a penetrating round without much fuss at all.

[tedcahill2]

I use some home made guns in my campaign. Since guns are pretty common place they are simple weapons. There are only two types, pistols, and muskets. Pistols deal 1d8 and muskets, 1d10. They have a slightly better range than crossbows, can't remember of the top of my head, but they get -2 penalties for each range increment. The damage differentiator is that crossbows have 19-20/x2 crit, guns have 20/x4 crits.

My rational here is that accuracy is difficult with a blackpowder weapon, but they're potentially much more devastating.

If you think of wartime firing line tactics, if you have dozens of soldiers lined up firing muskets, the 5% crit chance is all but guaranteeing a kill against low level infantry types.

So that's my take on it.

[RegalKain]

So how about this. Building on Grods idea. First let's say all ranged weapons give you Dex to damage.

For our examples let's say we're using a level 20 fighter with 20 Dex. Who uses a +1 Flaming Weapon.

Xbows/Guns let's say Swift to reload, full round action to fire. It would deal 4d8+ 5 +1d6

A bow would deal 4x 1d8+5+1d6, with each attack losing accuracy for iteratives.

This makes it so bows are better slightly on "damage over time" and additive damage like skirmish, weapon properties, and stat to damages. Where as Xbows and Guns are better at punching through DR and dealing large chunks of damage.

Edit: what happens to pistols and one handed crossbows with this method though?

[Zanos]

Sure; bow archers would have to take Clustered Shots, which seems like a more fair way to set up the feat tax. The trick, I guess, would be figuring out what should and shouldn't get included in the multiplier. Just weapon dice seems kind of harsh, since so much of your damage does come from things like Deadly Aim and Gun Training... buuut I totally spaced on the fact that your lower-value iterative attacks will be unlikely to hit. So yeah, maybe just multiply the base damage dice would be better. You'd have to play with the math.
You're at -15 by the time you get to your final iterative. Which is why I maintain that Vital Strike isn't a terrible feat sometimes since you can do it as a standard and it's all rolled at your highest AB.


Side track: To be fair, that just means a bullet with a steel core; not exactly high on the technology department. If getting through steel plates such as on a proper
breastplate was the predominant use of a bullet as opposed to hitting soft targets (where complete penetration is undesirable), the common rifle round would be a penetrating round without much fuss at all.
Yeah, the typical round is designed to either tumble or expand within the target to create as devastating as wound channel as possible and not overpenetrate and cause collateral damage. Makes one guy as dead as possible.

Still, high end modern armor systems are resilient as hell. A Level IV armor system is rated against a full power armor penetrating rifle cartridge(AP 30-06), at least for single shot protection. 30-06 is no joke to stop, modern infantry rifles fire significantly less powerful rounds than that.

[Ashtagon]

Out of curiosity, those who say crossbows are just point and click: have any of you actually used an authentic replica? Because they really aren't that easy.

The loosing velocity of the arrows/bolts is in the same general ballpark. This means as a consequence that both weapons need to be "arched". That is, both need to be aimed noticeably higher than simply pointing directly at the target down the arrow shaft / crossbow stock. Sights as such didn't exist back then. The earliest record I can find of iron sights on a firearm date to the 1850s, with simpler "peep" sights (basically, aiming down the barrel) dating back to the 16th century. I have found no tradition of sights on bows or crossbows before the 20th century (beyond peep sights on crossbow stocks).

Modern archers often use a pin as an improvised sight, and expensive bows can have sights mounted on them. Crossbows in principle benefit from sights, but because they had a tradition of being used at ranges where arching would be necessary, aiming down a sight was not traditionally (i.e., in military use) a useful technique.

The big difference wasn't so much the point-and-click interface. It was that a crossbow could make use of mechanical assistance to reload, allowing for higher draw weights relative to the physical strength of the soldier. This meant in turn that the soldier didn't need to spent a decade-plus training up his arm strength, allowing for larger armies to be fielded. Conversely, the mechanical assistance meant the crossbow was typically slower to reload. A realistic archer can consistently put out 10-20 arrows a minute. A crossbowyer could put out about half that; less if the crossbow requires a windlass to assist in reloading.

[RegalKain]

Out of curiosity, those who say crossbows are just point and click: have any of you actually used an authentic replica? Because they really aren't that easy.

The loosing velocity of the arrows/bolts is in the same general ballpark. This means as a consequence that both weapons need to be "arched". That is, both need to be aimed noticeably higher than simply pointing directly at the target down the arrow shaft / crossbow stock. Sights as such didn't exist back then. The earliest record I can find of iron sights on a firearm date to the 1850s, with simpler "peep" sights (basically, aiming down the barrel) dating back to the 16th century. I have found no tradition of sights on bows or crossbows before the 20th century (beyond peep sights on crossbow stocks).

Modern archers often use a pin as an improvised sight, and expensive bows can have sights mounted on them. Crossbows in principle benefit from sights, but because they had a tradition of being used at ranges where arching would be necessary, aiming down a sight was not traditionally (i.e., in military use) a useful technique.

The big difference wasn't so much the point-and-click interface. It was that a crossbow could make use of mechanical assistance to reload, allowing for higher draw weights relative to the physical strength of the soldier. This meant in turn that the soldier didn't need to spent a decade-plus training up his arm strength, allowing for larger armies to be fielded. Conversely, the mechanical assistance meant the crossbow was typically slower to reload. A realistic archer can consistently put out 10-20 arrows a minute. A crossbowyer could put out about half that; less if the crossbow requires a windlass to assist in reloading.

While this is off-topic, and I do to a degree agree with what you're saying, as someone who has fired both replicas crossbows as well as long bows, I can say that I can hit a target 10-50 feet away with relative ease with a crossbow, where as the first 30 shots with a bow didn't get anywhere close if they did it was by shear dumb luck alone. There is a lot more to firing a bow, pulling the draw fingers off the string at the same time, not curling them when you pull the string back, pulling back evenly setting the arrow at the proper "height" on the string to avoid it firing up, or down, the arm strength as you said, learning how to hold and position your arms so that the string doesn't snap back and leave welts/thin cuts due to how heavy of a draw it is etc. So I understand your words but, generally speaking a crossbow is very much" point and click" compared to a bow, at least in my opinion.

[Ashtagon]

A target 10-50 feet away is one that removes the biggest shift in technique - the arching. At that range, you can point directly at the target and expect a hit if your technique is otherwise correct. Try a target 300 feet away and achieve the same feat.

[tedcahill2]

From a game mechanics standpoint crossbows and guns should actually be very similar. Historically, bows have always required more training and more skill to use effectively in combat. The benefit of a skilled bowman was is their ability to fire arrows more rapidly.

When crossbows were invented, it presented a weapon that a civilian militia could be trained to load, and fight with, in a significantly shorter period of time then training a skilled bowman.

Similarly, when firearms were invented they were equally easy to train a militia to use. Firearms were not more or less accurate, and did not deal any, significant, additional damage, but they did produce a fearsome bang upon firing. With all else being equal, range, accuracy, training time, lethality, etc., armies chose to go with the gun because the one thing it had over the crossbow was that psychological factor created by the bang.

Mechanically speaking, if we were going for realism, I don't think any high-level character with a crossbow should ever be able to outshoot, or out damage, an archer. A fact, I think, that can be seen in the design of the weapons in the game as is. The bow being able to add strength mod to damage, and able to make multiple attacks in a round.