Guns - experience?

[J-H]

Has anyone tried using the guns as presented in the DMG?
My Westvault campaign is going to drop down to 2 players for about 3 months due to RL work training for one player, and her BF not coming when she's not there.

I'm toying with just running Castlevania again, but doing it in an 1800s-era setting where the players have access to some guns. Looking at the DMG options, I'd allow Revolver (range 40/120, 6 shots before reloading, 2d8), lever-action Rifle, hunting (range 80/240, 5 shots before reloading, 2d10), and Shotgun (range 30/90, 2 shots before reloading, 2d8).

No special gunslinger class or anything. I'd treat the shotgun as a simple weapon and the other two as martial weapons... I think. Guns are really pretty easy to use, but the difference would be "in a combat situation" to justify it.

It looks like that gives the party great ranged damage, but when something gets up close and personal, they will still need to switch to melee weapons - and bludgeoning is better against skeletons anyway.
Also, the group would need some kind of casting and healing, so we might end up with one gun-mage and one gun-warrior-type with them swapping off between spells and blades.

Okay, that actually sounds pretty cool...

So, has anyone used these? How did it work out?

[Mastikator]

I've played with Renaissance Item and used the missfire rules as a player. Here's my experience.

At low level they're almost too expensive to use, the missfire mechanic makes them not worth using.

By level 5 they are not worth using without gunner feat, firing a longbow twice is just better than a musket once.

They are weak and feel bad to use, I personally hate fumble mechanics with the passion of the entire abyss so my views on missfire are colored by that.

the Modern ones are quite a bit better since they sidestep loading property and arguably shouldn't have missfire and would probably change my mind about not using guns. Because I didn't use them even when guns were dropped as loot. They got sold off and that was that. I think the DM was a bit disappointed.

[Phhase]

Personally I like them. Might just be me though. I'm partial to explosives launchers, flamers, and longarms. Things like the musket work well with Monk and Rogue.

[Pyrophilios]

They are perfectly fine if you don't have a problem with a kind of mundane Eldritch Blast. Artificers can use the repeating shot infusion to make them slightly above average ranged options, but that's a fair power boost.

Ammunition is kind of expensive, but in the great scheme of things you'll barely feel their impact compared to what magic types can do.

[sithlordnergal]

So, I've only really played around with the pistol, but I have handed out firearms, here's what I've found. First, do not, for any reason, use the misfire rules, EVER. They make guns unusable and borderline worthless. They basically become a trap option that no player should ever use. Outside of that, they're basically like crossbows, handy for characters who only want to make a single attack per round, but not very good for anyone else.

Now, if you do allow guns to be used, I highly suggest allowing people to take the Gunner feat. Its pretty similar to Crossbow Expert, only it lacks that Bonus Action attack Crossbow Expert has. I feel its actually a pretty well balanced feat, all things considered. As for the DMG weapons themselves, they deal a lot more damage with far less range, so they will be a considerable buff for most ranged characters. The cost isn't so bad, 3gp for 10 shots isn't great, but not too prohibitive.

All in all, I don't think you'd need to worry too much. Just make sure you give the party a way to permanently make a pistol magical. I personally went the way of giving the party an Ild Rune, which can be applied to a non-magical weapon to let it deal an extra 1d6 fire damage and make the weapon magical.

[Odessa333]

Guns are tricky to balance. In a game I'm currently in, guns are allowed. I asked how they would work as I was curious to see if they would fit my rogue. But they had noise, didn't work in rain, and had a large misfire chance, so I decided to stick to a crossbow. The DM then let me find a 'magic' gun that didn't mind water and had a silence rune on it to get rid of those penalties, but it still had a 1-4 misfire rate and did the same damage as my crossbow. While I don't like the high misfire rate, due a homebrew rule that a nat 1 hits a fellow party member, my guns actually work out better than the crossbow, as a nat for me jams my gun, and does NOT hit my teammates. Still, if that homebrew rule was not in effect, the non magical crossbow would be better than the magic gun. And I had to pay for gun training, making them far more expensive, even before the ammo.

It's an odd problem for games like this. If you make guns TOO good, then there's no reason to use other weapons. Give too many penalties, and there's no point to using them at all.

[sithlordnergal]

Guns are tricky to balance. In a game I'm currently in, guns are allowed. I asked how they would work as I was curious to see if they would fit my rogue. But they had noise, didn't work in rain, and had a large misfire chance, so I decided to stick to a crossbow. The DM then let me find a 'magic' gun that didn't mind water and had a silence rune on it to get rid of those penalties, but it still had a 1-4 misfire rate and did the same damage as my crossbow. While I don't like the high misfire rate, due a homebrew rule that a nat 1 hits a fellow party member, my guns actually work out better than the crossbow, as a nat for me jams my gun, and does NOT hit my teammates. Still, if that homebrew rule was not in effect, the non magical crossbow would be better than the magic gun. And I had to pay for gun training, making them far more expensive, even before the ammo.

It's an odd problem for games like this. If you make guns TOO good, then there's no reason to use other weapons. Give too many penalties, and there's no point to using them at all.

Yeah, this is why you should just run them with the DMG, no misfire shenanigans. Misfire rules make guns pointless, and effectively a trap weapon for players that want to do something cool. Why waste time with an unreliable weapon when a Crossbow does comparable damage and doesn't have the chance of forcing you to waste two turns?

[KorvinStarmast]

we had muskets/rifles per DMG in my nephew's campaign a few years ago. None of us were proficient with them (he allowed a feat if we wanted to take it) and as a result they were very rarely used.

[JLandan]

One of the settings I use is comparable to Napoleonic Europe. Much use of guns, a bit less magic, but still a lot of melee work. Mostly light armor, but still some medium; heavy armor was almost unused.

One issue I have with the DMG guns is the rate of fire is way too fast for muzzle loading weapons. Historically, a good musket or rifle would fire 2 or 3 shots in a minute. That's 4 rounds of reloading and 1 round of firing. DMG is 1/1. So, to fit the setting I house-ruled a longer load times with reload being a single attack action so higher level features would make possible faster loading.

Another is the damage. While the firearms (Rennaissance era) do slightly more damage than bows, the rate of fire makes firearms less appealing, even before my increase. So, to compensate, I house-ruled two dice damage and triple crit.

The last issue I had was with proficiency. One of the main reasons firearms replaced bows in warfare was because they are far easier to learn. During the Napoleonic era, a company of archers would have decimated an enemy armed with muskets. Why didn't this happen? Because training to use a gun effectively takes far less time than learning to use a bow effectively. In most D&D settings with firearms, this is the reverse. Firearm use is specialized, and bows are common. So, to accommodate the setting, I house-ruled firearms to be simple weapon proficiency.

Also, in this setting, magic is much less common, rendering the need for alternate options for the "big gun" in combat. It was a common practice to fire off a brace of pistols and then go at it with swords. Rifles or muskets were often worked in pairs with a loader and a shooter working in tandem to increase the rate of fire. Also common, was the use of bayonets for close work after firing off the longarm's charge, making the longarm both a ranged and a melee weapon.

Different settings should have different levels of technology and different combat culture. A totally fantasy setting, not based on any historical equivalent, would be radically different. Possibly more along the lines of the DMG stats.

[Sigreid]

I'd suggest not just thinking about the guns but how other things might interact with the guns. For example, does the revolver become more powerful than you'd like if one of the party makes an artificer and puts the repeating shot invocation on it?

[JackPhoenix]

The cost isn't so bad, 3gp for 10 shots isn't great, but not too prohibitive.

That's just for the bullets. You also need powder to shoot those bullets.

[DarknessEternal]

I've played with all the guns, even lasers. There's no game impact, just another ranged weapon.

[Sigreid]

I've played with all the guns, even lasers. There's no game impact, just another ranged weapon.

I'd argue that giving the fighter with his several attacks and sharpshooter access to the antimatter rifle would be a game changer. :smallbiggrin:

[Sparky McDibben]

Playing a Western campaign now, and I'm only using three guns - pistols, shotguns, and rifles.

Pistols have Reload (6) (meaning you have six shots till you reload by spending an attack), range 30 / 120 feet, and deal 1d10 damage.

Rifles have Reload (6), range 150 / 600 feet, and deal 2d8 piercing damage.

Shotguns have the Scatter (15-foot-cone) trait, require a Dex save vs the wielder's 8 + Str mod + proficiency bonus, and deal 3d6 damage.

Made the game deadlier at low levels, since I did not adjust CR (I used XP for cash). I would recommend tracking ammo, and seeding the world with special ammo (incendiary shotgun rounds, mushroom bullets, etc).

[Zhorn]

Has anyone tried using the guns as presented in the DMG?
I tend to have renaissance firearms in my campaigns as an emerging technology, "them crazy new boom sticks some gnomes cooked up in Lantan"
With modern firearms being treated as magic items in terms of rarity and distribution, and futuristic firearms reserved for higher level play when some of the more potent magic weapons are in play.

Can be a little costly at low levels, but by tier 2 it's not an issue. Just space out the availability of the more powerful firearms to align with the similar damage potential of magic weapons and it all works out.


No special gunslinger class or anything.
My advice for players looking to be a Gunslinger was just direct them to the Battle Master with the Gunner feat at 4th level.
For a Sniper, many rogues work for that one-shot-one-kill flavour.
Rangers aren't bad either, and a gunk (gun monk) can also be fun.


the missfire mechanic makes them not worth using.
Indeed, which thankfully that mechanic is not part of the DMG firearms.
Misfire on firearms is very much like fumble rolls. You only include them if you want your players to fail, or want to discourage a playstyle.
As much as I like critical role, mercer's blasted gunslinger pdf was terrible in normalizing the perception of firearms needing misfire mechanics, hence steering any gun-curious players I have to just use the Battle Master with DMG firearms instead. All the same perks without the madness and failure.

[Leon]

No, but i do look forward to at some point running a game in a setting (Iron Kingdoms) that is designed to have firearms in it from the start and my experiences in that setting in 3.5 were reasonable but we did end up cutting the cost of powder to make using them less prohibitive

[kingcheesepants]

Had a player that used a swashbuckler rouge with a renaissance pistol and the gunner feat and another game with an artificer that used a musket. Aside from the way they flavored their attacks neither felt particularly different from the standard archer/crossbow user. In fact in terms of pure damage output both of them were behind a similarly leveled battlemaster with sharpshooter and crossbow expert. In those particular games ammunition was not a factor for anyone (I typically don't ask my players to track things like rations or ammo except in exceptional circumstances).

That being said however I've never played with post renaissance firearms and they do look stronger. Stronger enough that I don't think any martial character (who's even a little bit interested in optimization) would bother with non firearm weapons so long as the gunner feat exists. After all why bother with a greatsword and do 2d6 when you can have a revolver and do 2d8 or better yet a rifle and do 2d10 and be able to hit things at range and focus on a superior stat. Without the gunner feat they do have to worry about enemies closing into melee and then getting disadvantage however so you might consider not allowing the gunner feat if you want them using melee weapons and not guns all the time.

[chainer1216]

One issue I have with the DMG guns is the rate of fire is way too fast for muzzle loading weapons. Historically, a good musket or rifle would fire 2 or 3 shots in a minute. That's 4 rounds of reloading and 1 round of firing. DMG is 1/1. So, to fit the setting I house-ruled a longer load times with reload being a single attack action so higher level features would make possible faster loading.

Another is the damage. While the firearms (Rennaissance era) do slightly more damage than bows, the rate of fire makes firearms less appealing, even before my increase. So, to compensate, I house-ruled two dice damage and triple crit.


And I'm sure you made crossbows follow the exact same rules too since they generally took just as long or even longer to reload in the real world.

[Gurgeh]

2-3 rounds a minute is about right for early rifles, since the ball had to fit tightly in the barrel, but smoothbore muskets could be loaded significantly faster. Elite soldiers could manage four or five or sometimes even six rounds a minute. Given how much stuff in D&D is already larger than life (a twentieth-level Samurai's apparently able to fire nine crossbow bolts in six seconds - ten, if they're using a hand crossbow!), I don't think it's fair to suddenly insist on ironclad verisimilitude for firearms without applying the blowtorch to everything else.

As for the claim that a longbow would be a "better" weapon than an early modern firearm - more often than not, it wouldn't. Even early matchlock weapons possessed the tremendous advantage of being able to penetrate heavy armour that arrows simply could not (so your gun makes you capable of dealing with targets that a bow simply cannot threaten), and by the time you get to the start of the nineteenth century you're dealing with more reliable flintlock mechanisms and your guns can all be fitted with bayonets that let your infantry repel cavalry and close in for shock combat if needed.

[Doug Lampert]

2-3 rounds a minute is about right for early rifles, since the ball had to fit tightly in the barrel, but smoothbore muskets could be loaded significantly faster. Elite soldiers could manage four or five or sometimes even six rounds a minute. Given how much stuff in D&D is already larger than life (a twentieth-level Samurai's apparently able to fire nine crossbow bolts in six seconds - ten, if they're using a hand crossbow!), I don't think it's fair to suddenly insist on ironclad verisimilitude for firearms without applying the blowtorch to everything else.

As for the claim that a longbow would be a "better" weapon than an early modern firearm - more often than not, it wouldn't. Even early matchlock weapons possessed the tremendous advantage of being able to penetrate heavy armour that arrows simply could not (so your gun makes you capable of dealing with targets that a bow simply cannot threaten), and by the time you get to the start of the nineteenth century you're dealing with more reliable flintlock mechanisms and your guns can all be fitted with bayonets that let your infantry repel cavalry and close in for shock combat if needed.

The Turks lost at Malta largely because 50,000 guys with guns couldn't kill a handful of men in plate.

The English Civil War has several accounts of things like horsemen in armor being completely surrounded, unhorsed, and rescued 15 minutes later when the rest of their unit fought through after taking dozens of shots at contact range without being hurt.

Plate armor was routinely "proofed", this consisted of taking a good musket, double charging it, and firing it into the armor at point blank range with no backing for the armor. The "proof mark" was the tiny dent that this left in the armor which showed that it had stood up to the test.

These are all point blank range shots. Musket roundshot slowed FAST in the air, it was subsonic within 20' of the muzzle. One reason for all those heavy wool buff coats was that there was a real chance they'd STOP a musket ball at the longer range engagements.

Ned Kelly and his men IMPROVISED plate armor against fairly modern guns, and they had to shoot them in the legs because something thrown together by a handful of criminals was good enough to stop more modern bullets from rifles with smokeless powder.

Just say no to the myth that guns have magical anti-armor properties. A gun was more likely to hurt a man in armor than a bow (bows were driven entirely off the field by plate armor), but neither bows nor guns were all that good vs. armor.

Armor went out of use because it is EXPENSIVE, and the whole point of early guns in a military sense is to get lots of cheap infantry in the field because quantity has a quality all its own.

[Burley]

My campaign is taking place right as gun powder is being discovered. We're on a pirate vessel and I thought, yeah, a handgun would be cool for my character. But, it's like having a light crossbow with more expensive ammo that can blow up in your face and, realistically, would be wet and prone to misfire in the salty-wet air of a seafaring vessel.

I'm okay with it conceptually, but bows and crossbows are less of a mechanical headache and, therefore, much more fun.

[JLandan]

2-3 rounds a minute is about right for early rifles, since the ball had to fit tightly in the barrel, but smoothbore muskets could be loaded significantly faster. Elite soldiers could manage four or five or sometimes even six rounds a minute. Given how much stuff in D&D is already larger than life (a twentieth-level Samurai's apparently able to fire nine crossbow bolts in six seconds - ten, if they're using a hand crossbow!), I don't think it's fair to suddenly insist on ironclad verisimilitude for firearms without applying the blowtorch to everything else.

As for the claim that a longbow would be a "better" weapon than an early modern firearm - more often than not, it wouldn't. Even early matchlock weapons possessed the tremendous advantage of being able to penetrate heavy armour that arrows simply could not (so your gun makes you capable of dealing with targets that a bow simply cannot threaten), and by the time you get to the start of the nineteenth century you're dealing with more reliable flintlock mechanisms and your guns can all be fitted with bayonets that let your infantry repel cavalry and close in for shock combat if needed.

The Coldstream Guards in 1817 regarded 4 rounds a minute with a musket to be a "crack troop". I've seen no records of more than 5 per minute, and that was at a training range, not combat. Rifles were somewhat slower, 2-3 per minute v. 3-4 per minute (all stats for experienced regiments). Bad musket regiments would only fire 1-2 per minute. There were no bad rifle regiments.

The comment I made about a longbow being better than a musket was in the context of the Napoleonic era, not modern. No one wore armor (except a few cavalrymen that wore cuirasses) and a cartridge was a paper wrapped shot with some measured powder. It had to be bitten open keeping the shot in the mouth, primed, poured, shot spat into the muzzle, rammed home with the paper remnant as wadding, returned the ram, recovered and aimed. That's a lot to do in 20 seconds, even more so in 12 seconds, and not possible in 6. Drawing and knocking an arrow, the pulling the bow and aiming; not so much.

Rate of fire was often the turning point for battles. That's how a British line would often beat a French column. An experienced longbowman could loose 15-18 arrows in a minute. Averaging 2-3 per 6 second round; in line with 5e firing rates.

As for earlier muskets and bows. The British longbows at Agincourt in 1415 are sometimes cited as putting an end to armor, but that's not really so. It wasn't until muskets became common on the battlefield, later in the 1400s, that armor was mostly abandoned. That's when hand weapons no longer needed to be so heavy to penetrate armor and the era of finesse weapons, such as the rapier, cutlass and sabre, came about.

The iconic musketeer right through to the rifleman was the dominant warrior for quite some time. That ended with the advent of casing (though it is still mostly called cartridge) and repeat action weapons in the 1830s. Then came the time of the gunmen.

Achk! I can't believe I wrote that much. That's enough history for my brain today.

[sithlordnergal]

I mean, all that historical stuff is great and all...but I think the more important question should be "Is it fun to use/play", not "is it accurate". If you want to play a gunslinger, and you can only shoot your gun once or twice every combat encounter, is that fun? Are you playing a gunslinger, or are you playing someone who shoots their gun once and then pulls out their Longbow?

And if you want to make guns that slow, how much damage should they do? If you can only fire it once or twice per combat, then they would need a massive damage buff to make up for the fact you can only do it once or twice.

And how would you want to handle reloading? Is it going to cost your action to start reloading? Is it a free action? Can you reload and make an attack with a different weapon at the same time?

Because keep in mind, 1 minute is basically the length of an entire combat session. Very few combat encounters last longer than 1 minute. So if it takes 5 rounds to reload a gun, you basically get to shoot that gun twice, and then you're done. That's not exactly "Fun", and you just end up with the same problem that the whole "Misfire" system has, where it punishes players who want to use firearms too much and makes the firearms useless.

[JackPhoenix]

Before Trasha came up with Gunner feat and Thrown Weapon Master FS, I made changes to Crossbow Expert, splitting it up into two feats, the more relevant for this thread being Gunslinger feat:

- You can draw a light ranged weapon as a part of a ranged weapon attack. A weapon with Ammunition quality must be loaded when used this way.
- Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn't impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls.
- You can use two-weapon fighting even with light ranged weapons.

It helped dart and knife throwers, as well as allowing to have a brace of pistols and draw, fire and drop them during the attack (inspired in no small part by Victor "I have 30 pistols under my coat" Salzpyre)

[JLandan]

I mean, all that historical stuff is great and all...but I think the more important question should be "Is it fun to use/play", not "is it accurate". If you want to play a gunslinger, and you can only shoot your gun once or twice every combat encounter, is that fun? Are you playing a gunslinger, or are you playing someone who shoots their gun once and then pulls out their Longbow?

And if you want to make guns that slow, how much damage should they do? If you can only fire it once or twice per combat, then they would need a massive damage buff to make up for the fact you can only do it once or twice.

And how would you want to handle reloading? Is it going to cost your action to start reloading? Is it a free action? Can you reload and make an attack with a different weapon at the same time?

Because keep in mind, 1 minute is basically the length of an entire combat session. Very few combat encounters last longer than 1 minute. So if it takes 5 rounds to reload a gun, you basically get to shoot that gun twice, and then you're done. That's not exactly "Fun", and you just end up with the same problem that the whole "Misfire" system has, where it punishes players who want to use firearms too much and makes the firearms useless.

In my setting, which is historically based, not entirely fantasy, I DID increase the damage output of guns. Considerably. See my earlier post. I do not use the misfire rules. A professional adventurer would keep good care of his weapons. When was the last time a PC said he was going to sharpen a sword? It's a given as part of rests, as I see it.

Typically, in combat, one or two shots would be fired, then it was time to go to town with cold steel. Sometimes a volley would be set up. Your players may differ, but mine never just use one weapon. The archers always have a rapier or shortsword at hand. The barbarians will have javelins or handaxes besides the big axe. The PCs that used muskets or rifles would have bayonets or swords for close in work. Sometimes just the rifle butt like a club.

I run reloading off of attacks, not actions. So extra attack allows for faster reload. Some feats make reloading faster too. I haven't run it since the Gunner feat came out, but I allowed the Crossbow Expert feat to apply. I didn't allow the reload property to be ignored, but I allowed a single reload to count as two, making it way faster, but not impossibly so. I would do the same for Gunner. Haste can get reloading done faster too. Movement doesn't interfere with reloading.

I get that for some, what's fun is to use their bow or axe all the time, and never switch up weapons. Not my cup of tea. Nor my table's. Melee guys always have some ranged alternative, and ranged guys always have some melee alternative. Casters always have melee and ranged spell options as well as a back-up physical weapon.

Gunslinger is an icon from a later era, late 1800s, rather than early 1800s. There were major technological advances that enabled that trope. Which also nearly did away with melee weapons. What's the last western you saw with a battleaxe?

[meandean]

Yeah, Mercer's Gunslinger has the non-5E-esque design that you start off with a bunch of handicaps and as you level up, the handicaps decrease. At 7th level, you get "Quickdraw", so if you misfire, you can just draw a new gun. At 10th level, repairing a misfire becomes a bonus action rather than an action, and at 15th level, the same for re-loading.

But that's all quite late, again especially by 5E standards where classes tend to be front-loaded (and, again, tend not to handicap your own abilities in the first place). I don't even think it has to compare to Crossbow Expert, since a hand crossbow user is inherently a different thing than a sniper. But surely, in between the misfiring and the re-loading, for most of your career (honestly probably your entire campaign, in most cases), you'll be doing worse than a Battle Master archer with a longbow, even though your damage die is theoretically better.¹

Perhaps the idea is that Gunslinger trick shots are better than Battle Master maneuvers, so there needs to be a counterweight. I don't think that's the case, though. For one thing, each trick shot costs a "grit point", which is a pool equal to your WIS modifier -- which is a secondary stat for you. Now, it's true that unlike Battle Master superiority dice, you can regain grit points, and pretty easily at that (on a crit or kill). I'd be curious to know whether people who have played the class find that grit points tend to run out, or whether they constantly replenish. But I suspect I'd feel better about my 4-5 non-rechargeable superiority dice than my 2-3 rechargeable grit points. I certainly don't feel skimming over the trick shots like they're inherently more powerful, probably the opposite if anything.

¹ Yes, you can cheese the misfiring via halfling, Lucky, etc... and maybe you can cheese the re-loading via Artificer? It'd be fun to see those builds, but I don't think it exactly redounds to the class's benefit that you'd need these Weird Tricks in order to keep up.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Our Call of the Netherdeep campaign has a Bard who wanted to start with a Blunderbuss. The ammunition is prohibitively expensive at this stage of the campaign and they typically opt not to fire it without their clockwork amulet for fear of misfiring. It's a very cool thing for the character and player but it's pretty ineffective.

[Kane0]

Has anyone tried using the guns as presented in the DMG?
My Westvault campaign is going to drop down to 2 players for about 3 months due to RL work training for one player, and her BF not coming when she's not there.

I'm toying with just running Castlevania again, but doing it in an 1800s-era setting where the players have access to some guns. Looking at the DMG options, I'd allow Revolver (range 40/120, 6 shots before reloading, 2d8), lever-action Rifle, hunting (range 80/240, 5 shots before reloading, 2d10), and Shotgun (range 30/90, 2 shots before reloading, 2d8).

No special gunslinger class or anything. I'd treat the shotgun as a simple weapon and the other two as martial weapons... I think. Guns are really pretty easy to use, but the difference would be "in a combat situation" to justify it.


Not the ones straight out of the DMG, no.

Generally speaking when I want to run firearms i just take crossbows, give them an extra die of damage and take away ability modifier to the damage roll and there you go, plus maybe the fact that theyre rather loud like when you cast thunderclap, thunderwave, thunderous smite, etc. Balance is much the same and they work with everything else mechanically but they have their own feel and have their own use (good for creatures with low stats or some means of rerolling damage)

[chainer1216]

I DID increase the damage output of guns.

No you didn't, you lowered it.

You said you cut the number of potential attacks in half but "compensated" by doubling damage dice, since the increase is only a doubling of dice and not other increases, like from an ability score, you've lowered the damage, and since it take 2 attacks to make one actual attack missing becomes even more impactful, further lowering average damage.

[Khrysaes]

I played an Artificer2/Fighter 1. and my DM approved me of using a revolver. Granted, this was also when artificers were in UA and had the Arcane Weapon spell (bonus 1d6 damage of varying elemental types). With my Repeating Weapon infusion he was out damaging the rest of the party at 2d8+1d6+6 damage per hit. +1 Repeating, +2 archery, +3 dex.

I don't think I got him to level 7 so I didn't get extra attack or anything, but I remember he destroyed enemies we came across.

That said, If not an artificer, it is much more balanced, if a bit stronger but more costly.

[Keravath]

I think the main question is "Will fire arms be fun in your campaign?"

Other than that - folks seem to be talking about at least two different kinds of firearms. The first are medieval single shot pistols and rifles requiring a separate charge and shot. Powder can get wet. Two hands are needed to reload and reloading happens every turn. The second (and the ones the OP mentioned) are more modern ones using cartidges with multiple shots before reloading is required.

In the first case, the weapons would be limited to one shot/round ... in the latter, they would get as many attacks as the character has and would only lose time when being reloaded (DMG says the character can use an action or bonus action to reload - their choice).

The second question is how much damage you assign. 2d8 or 2d10 sounds like a lot but firearms wouldn't necessarily include a stat bonus to damage (DMG doesn't mention it so by default an attack with these weapons WOULD include the stat bonus as far as I can tell). However, if a DM doesn't include the stat bonus to damage the weapons become strictly worse than non-firearm counterparts.

The DMG doesn't seem to include any sort of misfire mechanic so I am guessing that comes from homebrew somewhere (or Matt Mercer's gunslinger firearms?).

If you use the multi shot guns that cost a bonus action or action to reload and allow the attack stat modifier to damage then the ranged damage goes up by d8 or d10/attack (based on the numbers you listed) - which isn't that big a deal since it depends on how many hit points the DM assigns to the creatures involved. If you use the single shot muzzle loading guns then, for the most part, they don't seem to offer much if any advantage over their heavy/light/hand crossbow counterparts.

[JLandan]

No you didn't, you lowered it.

You said you cut the number of potential attacks in half but "compensated" by doubling damage dice, since the increase is only a doubling of dice and not other increases, like from an ability score, you've lowered the damage, and since it take 2 attacks to make one actual attack missing becomes even more impactful, further lowering average damage.

First, damage is damage, not rate of fire times damage. What you're thinking of is damage per round. If you need high damage per round, play a video game.

Second, I never said no ability modifier was added to the damage. Dex is added, same as any ranged weapon.

Third, possibility of a miss exists on any attack, so including it in a comparison of damage is futile.

The original poster's question was about experience with guns, not damage per second optimization. The house rules I've established for guns in this setting are for this setting. I posted my reasons for the changes. No one is making you play by them, so simmer down.

[Pixel_Kitsune]

I've run two types of firearms.

My standard D&D game has Renaissance era firearms. As other posters have pointed out, they're weaker than Long Bows. That was true in real life as well, the issue is you can train someone to basically aim one in the right direction a LOT faster than you can train an archer. Same with crossbows. My game runs them largely because I had a few NPCs that had firearms and it made no sense to make them special. It has had no issues or hiccups and the people with firearms feel unique but not more powerful than anyone else.

As a one shot I messed around with the World of Recluce by L.E. Modesitt Jr. The conceit there is that while magic is real, a lot of the ways it's understood and it's early uses happened because space faring races crash landed on the planet and formed societies. Enter "Firelances" which are used by the kingdom of Cyador's lancers. Casual description and how they're seen by a society that has not had direct knowledge of tech for close to a thousand years and they're like magic wands that throw firebolts.

But they're just laser weaponry. With the gimmick that because magic can be manipulated and understood by a sufficient level of scientific knowledge on top of having the genetics for it, let's them be restored and reloaded by wizards. It has the desired affect that Mirror Lancers are more powerful than anything else in their HP and general CR bracket. But, again, does not make them invincible if sufficient numbers, creativity or higher levels are applied.

[gloryblaze]

First, damage is damage, not rate of fire times damage. What you're thinking of is damage per round. If you need high damage per round, play a video game.

Second, I never said no ability modifier was added to the damage. Dex is added, same as any ranged weapon.

Third, possibility of a miss exists on any attack, so including it in a comparison of damage is futile.

The original poster's question was about experience with guns, not damage per second optimization. The house rules I've established for guns in this setting are for this setting. I posted my reasons for the changes. No one is making you play by them, so simmer down.

I think (since they were discussing DPR, not damage per attack), their point is that 1d12 + Dex each round (DMG musket) is going to do significantly more DPR than 2d12 + Dex every other round (which is what your musket is, if I understand correctly? Plus bonus damage on crits?), since the DMG musket gets to add their Dex mod twice as many times