[4e] Firearms in 4e

[Panda-s1]

(repost from rpg.net)
So I guess it's been mentioned that guns might be included in the Adventurer's Vault (formerly Tome of Treasures, don't know why they changed the name...), but my campaign setting takes place in a big city in industrial times, and I have to start running a game in two weeks. I thought about having it take place 200 years prior to when I last did a campaign, but I thought "Nah, I like the world as it is".

So remembering how superior weapons are just a notch up from other weapons, I decided to do this: Take the hand crossbow, crossbow, and longbow. Then give them high crit, and call them pistol/revolver, rifle, and shotgun.

I'm also not sure how to handle reloading. What I want to do is say something like "Magazine 6, load free" where magazine 6 would mean you could use the weapon 6 times before needing to reload. I'm also probably gonna nerf the range for shotguns, just 'cause they're shotguns. Well, what do you think?

[Ceiling009]

There's a thread here somewhere with 4e post apocalyptic/sci fi... But I think those ideas would work well... Though I think they should be the high crit analogues of shortbow, long bow, and shot gun would probably be something like a 1d12 with a range of a shuriken. Also depends on the guns, most pistols can carry anywhere between 6 to 12; I think. Machine guns, and other rifles can easily carry more...

Also are you doing burst fire? or Autofire? or Strafe tactics? I'm also wondering are you going to homebrew a gunslinger class? Or retrofit a rogue?

[TheOOB]

Firearms would most likely be superior weapons with a +2 attack bonus, a good damage and high crit, but a fairly low range. If the gun used shot and powder like a flint-lock, reloading during battle is pretty much not going to happen. If it uses some kind of magical or alchemical charge, it wouldn't take longer then a crossbow to reload.

As for shotguns, that depends, a shotgun is really just a type of rifle, it's your ammunition, shot or slug, that determines it's range.

[Panda-s1]

There's a thread here somewhere with 4e post apocalyptic/sci fi... But I think those ideas would work well... Though I think they should be the high crit analogues of shortbow, long bow, and shot gun would probably be something like a 1d12 with a range of a shuriken. Also depends on the guns, most pistols can carry anywhere between 6 to 12; I think. Machine guns, and other rifles can easily carry more...

Also are you doing burst fire? or Autofire? or Strafe tactics? I'm also wondering are you going to homebrew a gunslinger class? Or retrofit a rogue?

Well it's only industrial, the only weapons that can autofire would be things like gatling guns, which aren't exactly portable and fall more under the siege weapon category.

For now it seems like rangers make ideal riflemen, while rogues would probably use pistols. I can just say pistol counts as a crossbow for rogue power purposes. Rangers can also dual wield pistols, though most of their two weapon powers work with melee weapons, and doing 1d4 damage with no proficiency bonus is pretty crappy, so that'd make them some weird kind of TWF/Archery hybrid.

Seeing that the rifle would be a step up from the crossbow, I could probably count it as a military weapon and get away with it, thus not having to give rangers this funny weapon proficiency that sticks out like a sore thumb. I do like your shotgun idea, though it's definitely a superior weapon, and probably needs to be reloaded every two shots.

Thanks for the advice! I really should look for that thread you were talking about, probably help me a bit.

[Panda-s1]

Firearms would most likely be superior weapons with a +2 attack bonus, a good damage and high crit, but a fairly low range. If the gun used shot and powder like a flint-lock, reloading during battle is pretty much not going to happen. If it uses some kind of magical or alchemical charge, it wouldn't take longer then a crossbow to reload.

As for shotguns, that depends, a shotgun is really just a type of rifle, it's your ammunition, shot or slug, that determines it's range.

Range is a bit of an issue for me. I'm probably just gonna use the hand crossbow range for the pistol, and longbow range for the rifle. It is the industrial age, even if weapons didn't have the range they did today, they were still relatively far. And reloading times are a moot point. People like to bring up how it took forever to reload a muzzle loaded rifle, but the fact that in game you reload a crossbow as a minor action is terribly inaccurate!

[JackTR69]

I'd probably up the damage dice for them and give them a # of shots before reloading, but take away some range and give them a chance to missfire (critical miss? D%?). It wouldn't make any sense to have it work so that shooting someone with a revolver does d4 damage, probably something like 2d4 would make more sense. You'd just have to make the penalties severe enough so that the higher damage balances.

[Vadin]

You could try the link in my sig. Its got pistols, heavy guns, and light guns as normal, balanced weapons, but more powerful guns can easily be represented by the addition of different enhancements.

[Nikolai_II]

I'd probably up the damage dice for them and give them a # of shots before reloading, but take away some range and give them a chance to missfire (critical miss? D%?). It wouldn't make any sense to have it work so that shooting someone with a revolver does d4 damage, probably something like 2d4 would make more sense. You'd just have to make the penalties severe enough so that the higher damage balances.

Make them feat-bound and you can do them somewhat better. Misfire really isn't needed. But if they are pre-rifling they get pretty poor proficiency bonus..

[Vavaara]

There is a 3.5 Edition class floating around called the Gunmage, though i'm not sure if it's been converted to 4ED yet. But if it has...

[Hawriel]

As for shotguns, that depends, a shotgun is really just a type of rifle, it's your ammunition, shot or slug, that determines it's range.

Um NO. A shotgun is not just a type of rifle. Shot guns are not rifled at all. they are smooth bore weapons. Just because a shotgun looks similar to a rifle and is held in the same manner does not make a shot gun just like a rilfe. Range is dettermed by strength of charge and the construction of the barrel. Shotguns are a short range weapon.

for simplisity I would give a firearm +2 with prof. Shotguns +1 with pistol ranges. +2 if you use a shot round and have a thin cone templet. Maybe getting one squar wider with a drop in one die in damage with every ranged increment.

As for reload times. You should give us more information on what kind of firearms you are using. Are they guns used between 1850 - 1865 or 1870 - 1880. Are they mussle loading, breach loading, with percution caps, flint locks? or do they use paiper or brass cartriges? more info will give you better feedback in laodtimes. and ranges.