I think you're overestimating pre-modern firearms a bit, there.
They replaced bows for a lot of reasons, but it wasn't that they were just strictly better until probably the 15th-16th century, and even then bows were *faster*, but guns had a lot of advantages that don't translate to dnd at all. Like bayonets.
Critically, swords weren't obsoleted for much longer. They were "reduced" to specialized roles, because for the foot soldier it made more sense to rely on your bayonet, and that type of weapon (a bayonet on a musket or rifle is basically a spear or short pike) is easier to use/learn/master than a sword, anyway.
So cannons and the like killed wartime archery, and lines of bayoneted personal arms killed other medieval weapons.
One guy with an anachronistic pepper box isn't going to just completely outshine his friend with a sword, or his friend with a bow.
Of course, reastically, fights would be over once enough people are wounded, regardless of how lethal the weapons involved are, because most wounds take you out of the immediate fight, so I don't really care about detailed realism in dnd.
What I care about is fun and balance. and no, you don't need to do any of what you suggest to have balance with guns.
Early firearms had a chance of misfiring. Guns today have a chance at misfiring. The only thing is that guns today have such a minuscule chance of misfiring that it's almost completely negligible. Even if they do misfire, no person even slightly trained to use firearms would have such a catastrophic misfire that it breaks the gun so much that it can't be used.
Even centuries ago, misfires that catastrophic were not common, and when they did happen, you lost fingers, got severely burned, or at worst lost your hand altogether.
TLDR; if your gun (no matter what century the gun is from) misfires to the point that the gun breaks and is unusable, you aren't just inconvenienced, you're more than likely missing fingers.
On another note, I really don't think that there should be ANY drawbacks to using firearms in D&D. Why would there be? Firearms are obviously superior to bows and crossbows. If there was any real, perceptible drawbacks, we wouldn't have armies equipped with them since the late 1300s. If you're worried about "balance" then either increase the number of enemies players face, increase the health or AC of the enemies, or simply don't allow firearms in your game. I was running a sci-fi game for a bit, and just using the modern weapons in the DMG, enemy creatures went down in one or two attacks. I'm not talking CR1/8 creatures, I mean level-appropriate CR 1/2/3 creatures. Firearms are simply much more deadly, and handicapping players for using them makes about as much sense as telling equipping the modern US army with muskets.
That's what I do. In my opinion, medieval fantasy and firearms don't mix. Please don't kill me for saying that.
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"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
To each their own, just don't expect me to take seriously advice on the topic of including them that is based on a view that they don't fit.
You have a point.
To me, the idea that Dumas doesn't fit in dnd is just...weird.
Dumas is Renaissance Era, not Medieval Era. If you want Renaissance Era D&D, though, far be it from me to stop you.
Eh, it's not that different. The medieval world dnd sometimes likes to pretend to emulate never existed, and to the extent it did, it was a vastly smaller part of the world than folks imagine.
How different, really, is medieval and renaissance Italy, aside from guns? How distinct are the two, in Italy, where the first of the renaissances started, IIRC.
In some ways, Spain went backwards after the Reconquista. Even the "dark" parts of Europe weren't mud farmers from Monty python. They were much more like the folks in the show Vikings, even with it's inaccuracies.
My point being, the transition was gradual, and vastly more complex than a simple timeline can make it seem.
Heck, FR is more renaissance Europe was when guns first showed up, imo. Especially on the Sword Coast.
But at the end of the day, for me, Dumas, The Princess Bride, Arabian Nights, the Fianna, the Benendanti, Sigurd, Ezio, and all the rest, can exist in the same world, and it makes a much more interesting world than when it's just the ones that lived close to each other. Because actual irl 900ad was far and away more interesting than the common conception of medieval Europe.
LOL "your double crit damage can be really high if you roll well on the damage die, so yeah it's really good" are you serious?
You don't double the damage, by the way.
You roll the damage dice twice. So, even if you roll max value on both d10's, it's 30, not 40. And a double crit has a 1/400 chance of happening.
More likely is you get ~5+5+10=20(avg die result+mods+sharpshooter) most rounds that you hit with sharpshooter, but you hit noticeably less often, and ~10+5+10=25 on a crit. Very, very, *very* rarely, you might get that twice in a round. 1/SR.
and if you roll a 1, you burn an action making the gun work again, with a decent chance of breaking the gun and losing it until you can spend time working on it.
How did it not occur to anyone to just treat the blamed things as crossbows? And add the Loading property to the artificer's Thundercannon instead of making it take a bonus action to reload?
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"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
To be honest I like the archetype. Though I am a fan of firearms. I have been looking at this subclass for a while now as I have guns in my campaign and some players are interested in it. But for me there are a few things that balance out the firearms in comparison to bows and in general things with comparing this class type to others.
The first one is range. The firearms mentioned in the pdf out rank their bow counterparts by a lot while having equal or higher damage dice. A musket has greater range and damage than a longbow.
Next is damage which guns out do bows and crossbows on. A good comparison is between the longbow and pistol. The longbow slightly out ranges the pistol but the pistol has a higher damage dice. BUT the pistol is a one handed weapon. Which opens up dual wielding potential (though the pistol isn't considered a light weapon so you have to consider that) or you could use a shield and go full Riot Cop.
With the two above things I think having misfire on the guns is fair. I personally don't care about the guns being historically accurate. As D&D is a game so balancing is more important. Plus D&D is a fantasy based game so it isn't really historically accurate to begin with haha. But modern guns can misfire or jam so the same goes for older guns. So it makes sense for them to have misfire chances and also longer loading times (muzzle loading is slow as hell). With the loading times they do making wielding guns outside of the class a bit difficult. But I am fine with this. With the fighter's action surge and some of the gunslingers abilities reloading isn't too much of a problem.
Now the archetype features. I honestly think they are pretty cool. Specially the trick shots. They give you a decent amount of versatility while making you feel like a badass haha. All of it's abilities are things you can choose to do when you take a shot. So don't consume any extra actions helping a lot with damage output. Yes you can only do them a number of times equal to your grit points. But unlike other classes with points systems you can get them back a lot easier. As you get them back on a short rest, when you crit or when you kill something. So lots of possibilities for fancy shots.
Overall I like it. I played a bit of Gunslinger in pathfinder and the archetype carries over the feel of it pretty well.
Those are good points. Honestly I've found that my issue is the guns, not the subclass.
My biggest gripe isn't that they misfire, but that they have that pretty decent chance to full on *break*, requiring significant time and half the cost of the gun to repair if that happens. Delete that and I'm cool with this, although I'd rather play a rogue or ranger with a similar subclass.
Now I've seen that the thread is mostly about the class itself which yeah might be very flawed, considering the chance of the guns breaking but it works for Taliesin. It really should be pointed out that the class while available for use to anyone now, was designed around a character who built the very first guns so the misfire/breaking thing works for the campaign. Like does it work outside of that maybe not the way we think it should, but does it make sense in the context it was created? Yeah it really does. Just figured I'd bring that to the table.
I would like through in my two cents. One the "world" for which this gunslinger was created, there are two people that can be considered gunslingers Percy & Riply.
Percy is more advanced than Riply and directed at first by an other worldly being. (and very darn lucky)
Riply has lost a hand from a critical misfire or other accident from her experimentation with firearms.
All the firearms are one of a kind, hand built, "functioning" works of art. They are not built by a select group of "trained" blacksmiths/tinkers.
Besides Matt has said in his GM tips if you don't like tweak it to your liking and run with it, it's your game world. He has also requested that if you do teak it let him know how it works for you so that if it makes sense and fits he can change and update his rendition of a gunslinger or any other subclass he has put out there.
How did it not occur to anyone to just treat the blamed things as crossbows? And add the Loading property to the artificer's Thundercannon instead of making it take a bonus action to reload?
That sounds like the easy way, and some people just want it the 3.5 way.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I think gunslinger is a fun class for players who want a bit of spice in their party. I agree that it's not the most powerful, but I made a kind of silly character to go with the class, so it ends up working for her. She's a winged kobold with a broken wing, so she can't fly (our campaign agreed to eliminate flying mechanics from our games) and a Pirate background, so her learning how to use guns made for a cool backstory. Since she has the Archery fighter specialty, she has a crossbow that she uses if her pistol breaks, so it's not a huge deal--she just can't use her trick shots when that happens. Also, the L7 trait of adding your proficiency bonus to Initiative is really neat. At L20, she has a +11 in Initiative because of that + max Dex modifier. Sure, it could use some improvement, and my halfling monk is more powerful (with better AC, but fewer HP), but I still think gunslinger's a fun class that I really enjoy playing.
I think gunslinger is a fun class for players who want a bit of spice in their party. I agree that it's not the most powerful, but I made a kind of silly character to go with the class, so it ends up working for her. She's a winged kobold with a broken wing, so she can't fly (our campaign agreed to eliminate flying mechanics from our games) and a Pirate background, so her learning how to use guns made for a cool backstory. Since she has the Archery fighter specialty, she has a crossbow that she uses if her pistol breaks, so it's not a huge deal--she just can't use her trick shots when that happens. Also, the L7 trait of adding your proficiency bonus to Initiative is really neat. At L20, she has a +11 in Initiative because of that + max Dex modifier. Sure, it could use some improvement, and my halfling monk is more powerful (with better AC, but fewer HP), but I still think gunslinger's a fun class that I really enjoy playing.
My wife built one for a weird west game, while I built a Kensei Monk who is a bit more of a mixed range sniper/brawler. We'll see how it plays out, but I know that we aren't using Matt's firearms, or at least not as written, which ends up being my larger gripe, moreso than the subclass itself.
Sorry to resurrect a dead thread, but since it's now been added to the site and we can create them for ourselves can anyone tell me why you'd want to use Bullying Shot over Deadeye shot? The former gives you a chance to miss out on gaining advantage and the latter seems like a guarantee. Am I missing something?
Sorry to resurrect a dead thread, but since it's now been added to the site and we can create them for ourselves can anyone tell me why you'd want to use Bullying Shot over Deadeye shot? The former gives you a chance to miss out on gaining advantage and the latter seems like a guarantee. Am I missing something?
It isn't giving you advantage on an attack, but on an intimidation check.
Anyway, from the comments on the subclass:
"
Posted 17 mins ago
I can't imagine ever using violent shot. Just pick up sharpshooter, and get a similar effect without the increased chance of misfire.
The misfire on these guns, and the fact a failed repair check means you lose the gun until you can take a rest and spend 1/4 the cost of the weapon, make this subclass very difficult to justify for my group. Better off just re flavoring an arcane archer or something, without a DM willing to nix the chance for a completely broken weapon.
Two bad rolls, each already burning an action, should not have a chance of making you lose the thing that lets you utilize your subclass for the rest of the fight (or for multiple fights, if your timing sucks bad enough).
The misfire by itself I can see as a balance point for the increased damage and range, but even then, do the guns and class features here add more than the arcane archer does? If not (and I suspect they don't), why do we need a balancing downside? IF so, the broken weapon rules are still totally unnecessary. "
Having played many First Person shooters (various incarnations of Call of Duty, Battlefield et al...) I can tell you that guns in D&D are over-rated.
I can normally survive three or four hits with the 'ole flying lead (apparently not even lead!) and yet a single dagger strike will kill me instantly. In D&D, the dagger does D4 + STR/Dex Bonus (so for the heroes of COD/BF etc, let's say +3) giving an average of 5 1/2. A modern Sniper rifle could be considered equivalent to the dagger as it can kill in one shot, but otherwise bullet damage (even on burst mode) should be no more than 2.
Unless these multi-million unit selling games are just flawed in the name of gameplay. Also, why is bunny-hopping not listed as a movement type in 5th Edition? It is the most effective way of not getting shot. I'm surprised modern forces aren't trained in the technique.
Unless guns are at least equal to other options, most people will not use them unless they really think it is cool to dual wield pistols/uzis/rail guns (thanks Eraser!) against Dragons and Giant Alligators (Thanks Eraser!) Otherwise, they are just unwanted luggage. (Tha....yeah, you know where that was going!)
The main problem I have with guns is that regardless of your level of skill, you just can't realistically defend against them. (Unless, like Jon Shannow and Dirty Harry, you are Roland, or you are blessed with Jedi senses and reflexes.) If guns are relatively common, there should be spells that are specifically designed to counter them (See Shield) so that they do not become too common.
Also, has anybody considered just how loud a gunshot would be in your average dungeon corridor?
I just played an L20 one-shot with this character, and it was wild, lol. With action surge, I got two turns that dealt over 100 damage. On the flip side, I've never rolled so many 1s in my life as in that game--I think my gun misfired 3 times. But since you can repair it with a bonus action, it wasn't a huge deal--more amusing than anything. It's not the kind of class I'd want for a character I played exclusively, but fun to alternate with my halfling monk.
I figure in a fantasy setting with magic as prolific as it is, a simple cantrip could be used to set off the gunpowder making early guns a super dangerous option to use. the shear amount of fire damage and fire based spells makes carrying around black powder not a smart thing. Think of a heat metal spell being used to explode a gun...
At least an excuse to keep them out of the setting - a reason why they aren't around.
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I think you're overestimating pre-modern firearms a bit, there.
They replaced bows for a lot of reasons, but it wasn't that they were just strictly better until probably the 15th-16th century, and even then bows were *faster*, but guns had a lot of advantages that don't translate to dnd at all. Like bayonets.
Critically, swords weren't obsoleted for much longer. They were "reduced" to specialized roles, because for the foot soldier it made more sense to rely on your bayonet, and that type of weapon (a bayonet on a musket or rifle is basically a spear or short pike) is easier to use/learn/master than a sword, anyway.
So cannons and the like killed wartime archery, and lines of bayoneted personal arms killed other medieval weapons.
One guy with an anachronistic pepper box isn't going to just completely outshine his friend with a sword, or his friend with a bow.
Of course, reastically, fights would be over once enough people are wounded, regardless of how lethal the weapons involved are, because most wounds take you out of the immediate fight, so I don't really care about detailed realism in dnd.
What I care about is fun and balance. and no, you don't need to do any of what you suggest to have balance with guns.
We do bones, motherf***ker!
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
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To each their own, just don't expect me to take seriously advice on the topic of including them that is based on a view that they don't fit.
To me, the idea that Dumas doesn't fit in dnd is just...weird.
We do bones, motherf***ker!
You have a point.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Tooltips (Help/aid)
We do bones, motherf***ker!
LOL "your double crit damage can be really high if you roll well on the damage die, so yeah it's really good" are you serious?
You don't double the damage, by the way.
You roll the damage dice twice. So, even if you roll max value on both d10's, it's 30, not 40. And a double crit has a 1/400 chance of happening.
More likely is you get ~5+5+10=20(avg die result+mods+sharpshooter) most rounds that you hit with sharpshooter, but you hit noticeably less often, and ~10+5+10=25 on a crit. Very, very, *very* rarely, you might get that twice in a round. 1/SR.
and if you roll a 1, you burn an action making the gun work again, with a decent chance of breaking the gun and losing it until you can spend time working on it.
We do bones, motherf***ker!
How did it not occur to anyone to just treat the blamed things as crossbows? And add the Loading property to the artificer's Thundercannon instead of making it take a bonus action to reload?
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Tooltips (Help/aid)
To be honest I like the archetype. Though I am a fan of firearms. I have been looking at this subclass for a while now as I have guns in my campaign and some players are interested in it. But for me there are a few things that balance out the firearms in comparison to bows and in general things with comparing this class type to others.
The first one is range. The firearms mentioned in the pdf out rank their bow counterparts by a lot while having equal or higher damage dice. A musket has greater range and damage than a longbow.
Next is damage which guns out do bows and crossbows on. A good comparison is between the longbow and pistol. The longbow slightly out ranges the pistol but the pistol has a higher damage dice. BUT the pistol is a one handed weapon. Which opens up dual wielding potential (though the pistol isn't considered a light weapon so you have to consider that) or you could use a shield and go full Riot Cop.
With the two above things I think having misfire on the guns is fair. I personally don't care about the guns being historically accurate. As D&D is a game so balancing is more important. Plus D&D is a fantasy based game so it isn't really historically accurate to begin with haha. But modern guns can misfire or jam so the same goes for older guns. So it makes sense for them to have misfire chances and also longer loading times (muzzle loading is slow as hell). With the loading times they do making wielding guns outside of the class a bit difficult. But I am fine with this. With the fighter's action surge and some of the gunslingers abilities reloading isn't too much of a problem.
Now the archetype features. I honestly think they are pretty cool. Specially the trick shots. They give you a decent amount of versatility while making you feel like a badass haha. All of it's abilities are things you can choose to do when you take a shot. So don't consume any extra actions helping a lot with damage output. Yes you can only do them a number of times equal to your grit points. But unlike other classes with points systems you can get them back a lot easier. As you get them back on a short rest, when you crit or when you kill something. So lots of possibilities for fancy shots.
Overall I like it. I played a bit of Gunslinger in pathfinder and the archetype carries over the feel of it pretty well.
"Toss a coin to your [Insert class here]"
Those are good points. Honestly I've found that my issue is the guns, not the subclass.
My biggest gripe isn't that they misfire, but that they have that pretty decent chance to full on *break*, requiring significant time and half the cost of the gun to repair if that happens. Delete that and I'm cool with this, although I'd rather play a rogue or ranger with a similar subclass.
We do bones, motherf***ker!
Now I've seen that the thread is mostly about the class itself which yeah might be very flawed, considering the chance of the guns breaking but it works for Taliesin. It really should be pointed out that the class while available for use to anyone now, was designed around a character who built the very first guns so the misfire/breaking thing works for the campaign. Like does it work outside of that maybe not the way we think it should, but does it make sense in the context it was created? Yeah it really does. Just figured I'd bring that to the table.
I would like through in my two cents. One the "world" for which this gunslinger was created, there are two people that can be considered gunslingers Percy & Riply.
Percy is more advanced than Riply and directed at first by an other worldly being. (and very darn lucky)
Riply has lost a hand from a critical misfire or other accident from her experimentation with firearms.
All the firearms are one of a kind, hand built, "functioning" works of art. They are not built by a select group of "trained" blacksmiths/tinkers.
Besides Matt has said in his GM tips if you don't like tweak it to your liking and run with it, it's your game world. He has also requested that if you do teak it let him know how it works for you so that if it makes sense and fits he can change and update his rendition of a gunslinger or any other subclass he has put out there.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I think gunslinger is a fun class for players who want a bit of spice in their party. I agree that it's not the most powerful, but I made a kind of silly character to go with the class, so it ends up working for her. She's a winged kobold with a broken wing, so she can't fly (our campaign agreed to eliminate flying mechanics from our games) and a Pirate background, so her learning how to use guns made for a cool backstory. Since she has the Archery fighter specialty, she has a crossbow that she uses if her pistol breaks, so it's not a huge deal--she just can't use her trick shots when that happens. Also, the L7 trait of adding your proficiency bonus to Initiative is really neat. At L20, she has a +11 in Initiative because of that + max Dex modifier. Sure, it could use some improvement, and my halfling monk is more powerful (with better AC, but fewer HP), but I still think gunslinger's a fun class that I really enjoy playing.
We do bones, motherf***ker!
Sorry to resurrect a dead thread, but since it's now been added to the site and we can create them for ourselves can anyone tell me why you'd want to use Bullying Shot over Deadeye shot? The former gives you a chance to miss out on gaining advantage and the latter seems like a guarantee. Am I missing something?
I can't imagine ever using violent shot. Just pick up sharpshooter, and get a similar effect without the increased chance of misfire.
The misfire on these guns, and the fact a failed repair check means you lose the gun until you can take a rest and spend 1/4 the cost of the weapon, make this subclass very difficult to justify for my group. Better off just re flavoring an arcane archer or something, without a DM willing to nix the chance for a completely broken weapon.
Two bad rolls, each already burning an action, should not have a chance of making you lose the thing that lets you utilize your subclass for the rest of the fight (or for multiple fights, if your timing sucks bad enough).
The misfire by itself I can see as a balance point for the increased damage and range, but even then, do the guns and class features here add more than the arcane archer does? If not (and I suspect they don't), why do we need a balancing downside? IF so, the broken weapon rules are still totally unnecessary. "
We do bones, motherf***ker!
Having played many First Person shooters (various incarnations of Call of Duty, Battlefield et al...) I can tell you that guns in D&D are over-rated.
I can normally survive three or four hits with the 'ole flying lead (apparently not even lead!) and yet a single dagger strike will kill me instantly.
In D&D, the dagger does D4 + STR/Dex Bonus (so for the heroes of COD/BF etc, let's say +3) giving an average of 5 1/2. A modern Sniper rifle could be considered equivalent to the dagger as it can kill in one shot, but otherwise bullet damage (even on burst mode) should be no more than 2.
Unless these multi-million unit selling games are just flawed in the name of gameplay.
Also, why is bunny-hopping not listed as a movement type in 5th Edition? It is the most effective way of not getting shot. I'm surprised modern forces aren't trained in the technique.
Unless guns are at least equal to other options, most people will not use them unless they really think it is cool to dual wield pistols/uzis/rail guns (thanks Eraser!) against Dragons and Giant Alligators (Thanks Eraser!) Otherwise, they are just unwanted luggage. (Tha....yeah, you know where that was going!)
The main problem I have with guns is that regardless of your level of skill, you just can't realistically defend against them. (Unless, like Jon Shannow and Dirty Harry, you are Roland, or you are blessed with Jedi senses and reflexes.)
If guns are relatively common, there should be spells that are specifically designed to counter them (See Shield) so that they do not become too common.
Also, has anybody considered just how loud a gunshot would be in your average dungeon corridor?
Roleplaying since Runequest.
I just played an L20 one-shot with this character, and it was wild, lol. With action surge, I got two turns that dealt over 100 damage. On the flip side, I've never rolled so many 1s in my life as in that game--I think my gun misfired 3 times. But since you can repair it with a bonus action, it wasn't a huge deal--more amusing than anything. It's not the kind of class I'd want for a character I played exclusively, but fun to alternate with my halfling monk.
I figure in a fantasy setting with magic as prolific as it is, a simple cantrip could be used to set off the gunpowder making early guns a super dangerous option to use. the shear amount of fire damage and fire based spells makes carrying around black powder not a smart thing. Think of a heat metal spell being used to explode a gun...
At least an excuse to keep them out of the setting - a reason why they aren't around.