So I'm trying to work my way through figuring out how to allow a PC to have a rifle without unbalancing the campaign or making other players feel inferior.
At first glance a longbow is weaker (1d8 vs 2d8).
But we add in cantrips and at level 5 many cantrips are 2d8 plus other effects, or even 2d12.
Assuming I don't allow the PC to take stuff like hunter's mark we're back into the reasonably balanced category.
In addition they will never find a magic rifle, though at some point I may allow them at great cost to create magical or silvered bullets. And the weapon IMO would create a thunderous sound heard out to 300 feet (it would really be much further, but to stick to game mechanics of spells that cause actual damage with thunder...)
Also planning on making creating additional ammunition an exceedingly difficult thing requiring tons of money and time to get it set up at all, and then a very slow creation speed. As well as preventing multi-classing to avoid gaining medieval proficiencies like shields. Thinking of creating a subclass to this effect... either Fighter or Rogue.
The question is, what else am I not considering in this regard? A straight crossbow rogue has less range and only 1d6 damage base attack.
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Well, if we take a look at a hunting rifle from the DMG we've got a 2d10 ranged weapon, 80/240, reloading, ammunition (5 rounds), and two-handed.
First we note that the damage is higher than the other ranged weapons, I don't see a reason for changing that due to the nature of the weapon.
Then we have the range, there's nothing special here, it's not going to be bothersome compared to spells and some other ranged weapons.
Two-handed, again nothing that really stands out.
Reloading, it's a common tag for weapons, and rifles are going to need to be reloaded after the rounds are spent, so it's a no brainer.
Ammunition (5 rounds), now here is where we can have a little fun and make it a little more toned down without breaking the weapon. Rather than a 5 round clip, make it a single action rifle. It becomes a beefier heavy crossbow, still functions as a rifle, and is a reasonable "nerf".
The last thing to note here is that the ammunition is spent, irretrievable, and it's going to be difficult to manufacture bullets without the appropriate tools. If you go the route of a musket, then a single action is a given and the rounds will be a little easier to make, the issue will be with the black powder and wads. If you go with a more modern rifle, you'll need the casings, bullets, caps, powder, and press.
Some of this can be accomplished with the use of an alchemist, but it all depends on how you want to work the training and understanding of the projectiles, powder and engineering that goes into making a round and rifle.
Thanks for the feedback. This would be a US Marine ported into the world, so single shot wouldn't be a thing. Even a bolt action is easily cycled. Seems your general point is the difficulty of making more ammo makes the tradeoff for more damage reasonable?
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I'm thinking that the difficulty of ammo could make the weapon worthless for a time. Then it becomes a necessity to figure out how to make the ammo so that the weapon becomes useful again. I would make the rifle a rare commodity, a last ditch weapon, something that shouldn't be used unless absolutely necessary or when the time comes that ammunition becomes more readily available.
Now that thought process is attached to how I run games and the worlds I run them in. I do fantasy and generally shy away from modern technology with exception to magical analogies or steampunk variants. Both of those exceptions are heavily influenced by the campaign setting. I generally would not allow a firearm into my games, but if I did, I would go with the thought process I described above. I don't want to punish a player for having the firearm, but I do want to make the weapon seem very out of place in the setting, so it becomes a bit of a task to make it work.
As the player would be USMC, I could see them understanding the basics of how the firearm works, the basics of the science, and the basics of the engineering. This would allow the player to expand on it and find ways to implement the weapon to it's fullest as the resources become available, or are found.
A modern military rifle, with ammo to spare is going to output significant damage, rivaling mid level spells. So like spells, you have to limit use.
At low and mid level play using a modern rifle as primary means of attack (not having to worry about ammo) is likely OP vs other characters. At higher level you could try making ammo more available, as the rest of the party advances, letting them use it more frequently could be fine. Maybe a magical pouch could be eventually crafted that has so many bullets appear in it every morning.
"The marine is in a combat situation, most ammo already used up. Separated from their squad they stumble through the jungle and inadvertently through a hidden portal to another world. Noticing subtle changes in the landscape they try unsuccessfully to navigate back to camp. They are attacked by a noticeably fantastical beast, a manticore or somesuch, and kill it or drive it off using most of their second last clip of ammo. Arriving where their camp should be, they instead find a small village populated by bizarrely small folk who call themselves "gnomes". A bit of awkward conversation later and they realize they are no longer in Kansas.
The gnomes, notorious tinkers, are justifiably curious about all of the equipment carried by this strange soldier. The marine is not comfortable handing much over, but gives them the set of night-vision goggles as a gift in thanks for their hospitality. Later that night the village is attacked by goblin raiders and the marine demonstrates their bravery and capability in the fight, though now is down to just one clip and three rounds. Now worried this weapon will soon be useless they take it to the village's chief tinker. The tinker thinks she can manufacture some bullets that will work, but not with the rifle's rapid-fire functionality, nor at the same level of accuracy or power. She gets to work and at the end provides a good supply of single-shot bullets (plus a promise to send a constant supply of similar munitions in exchange for that little belt of grenades for her to study). The result is a weapon with the damage and reload speed of a heavy crossbow, but the range of a longbow. The village mystic has two other ideas that might help. Certain rare crystals might be acquired and fitted to the muzzle that would have the effect of rendering the shots magically enhanced - difficult and expensive to achieve, but maybe the alchemists guild in the nearby human city would have some leads. And more importantly, there exists certain ancient dwarven magics that could be used to exactly duplicate the one remaining clip of ammo, like the fabled jug of alchemy does with liquids. The nearest dwarven fortress is some months travel from here, but getting your hands on an item like that would mean a limited daily supply of full strength ammunition.
The gnomes gift the marine with some clothes that will draw less attention, travel supplies and a sturdy sword that might come in handy at close quarters, and the marine heads off. Halfway to the city they run into some other adventurers and find themselves dragged into some plot with a dark cult and a dragon and such..."
So the weapon starts severely nerfed, for technological reasons, but in exchange for role play and quest completion the quality of ammo could be upgraded (better gunpowder supplies to up the damage, silver bullets, magical augmentation), building to a late game acquisition of some sort of bag of daily replication, able to give the weapon a set number of daily uses at some outrageous damage level.
The rest of the situation is pure fluff. The modern day character has very advanced knowledge of some things (medicine, science), but is woefully uninformed on others (arcana, history of this world). Fish out of water tropes encouraged. Also some nemesis villain who hears of the advanced weapon and will use any nefarious method to acquire it...
@RegentCorreon That is definitely a viable backstory, and gets one thinking. I'm trying to figure how I might turn this into a consistent class, however, so I'm not sure I could shoehorn everyone into that backstory, but that does give me some ideas.
As a guideline (and not thought out at all yet):
1-5 does 1d(whatever) (works if you've been in this world long enough to try to create ammo, but maybe the powder just isn't there yet to deliver the proper punch)
6-10 does 2d(whatever) (You worked out the problems with producing powder, so you're back to normal)
etc etc.
I had had in my mind that the firearms should be RAW firearms, and maybe they should. If they were perhaps you subtract 2-3 from the damage until level 5?
I'll let you know when I publish a draft. I'll probably create a background you should take to go with the class to cover the knowledge stuff.
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Playtesting Fugare Draconis, an epic tale of adventure, loss, and redemption
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So I'm trying to work my way through figuring out how to allow a PC to have a rifle without unbalancing the campaign or making other players feel inferior.
At first glance a longbow is weaker (1d8 vs 2d8).
But we add in cantrips and at level 5 many cantrips are 2d8 plus other effects, or even 2d12.
Assuming I don't allow the PC to take stuff like hunter's mark we're back into the reasonably balanced category.
In addition they will never find a magic rifle, though at some point I may allow them at great cost to create magical or silvered bullets. And the weapon IMO would create a thunderous sound heard out to 300 feet (it would really be much further, but to stick to game mechanics of spells that cause actual damage with thunder...)
Also planning on making creating additional ammunition an exceedingly difficult thing requiring tons of money and time to get it set up at all, and then a very slow creation speed. As well as preventing multi-classing to avoid gaining medieval proficiencies like shields. Thinking of creating a subclass to this effect... either Fighter or Rogue.
The question is, what else am I not considering in this regard? A straight crossbow rogue has less range and only 1d6 damage base attack.
Playtesting Fugare Draconis, an epic tale of adventure, loss, and redemption
Well, if we take a look at a hunting rifle from the DMG we've got a 2d10 ranged weapon, 80/240, reloading, ammunition (5 rounds), and two-handed.
First we note that the damage is higher than the other ranged weapons, I don't see a reason for changing that due to the nature of the weapon.
Then we have the range, there's nothing special here, it's not going to be bothersome compared to spells and some other ranged weapons.
Two-handed, again nothing that really stands out.
Reloading, it's a common tag for weapons, and rifles are going to need to be reloaded after the rounds are spent, so it's a no brainer.
Ammunition (5 rounds), now here is where we can have a little fun and make it a little more toned down without breaking the weapon. Rather than a 5 round clip, make it a single action rifle. It becomes a beefier heavy crossbow, still functions as a rifle, and is a reasonable "nerf".
The last thing to note here is that the ammunition is spent, irretrievable, and it's going to be difficult to manufacture bullets without the appropriate tools. If you go the route of a musket, then a single action is a given and the rounds will be a little easier to make, the issue will be with the black powder and wads. If you go with a more modern rifle, you'll need the casings, bullets, caps, powder, and press.
Some of this can be accomplished with the use of an alchemist, but it all depends on how you want to work the training and understanding of the projectiles, powder and engineering that goes into making a round and rifle.
Thanks for the feedback. This would be a US Marine ported into the world, so single shot wouldn't be a thing. Even a bolt action is easily cycled. Seems your general point is the difficulty of making more ammo makes the tradeoff for more damage reasonable?
Playtesting Fugare Draconis, an epic tale of adventure, loss, and redemption
I'm thinking that the difficulty of ammo could make the weapon worthless for a time. Then it becomes a necessity to figure out how to make the ammo so that the weapon becomes useful again. I would make the rifle a rare commodity, a last ditch weapon, something that shouldn't be used unless absolutely necessary or when the time comes that ammunition becomes more readily available.
Now that thought process is attached to how I run games and the worlds I run them in. I do fantasy and generally shy away from modern technology with exception to magical analogies or steampunk variants. Both of those exceptions are heavily influenced by the campaign setting. I generally would not allow a firearm into my games, but if I did, I would go with the thought process I described above. I don't want to punish a player for having the firearm, but I do want to make the weapon seem very out of place in the setting, so it becomes a bit of a task to make it work.
As the player would be USMC, I could see them understanding the basics of how the firearm works, the basics of the science, and the basics of the engineering. This would allow the player to expand on it and find ways to implement the weapon to it's fullest as the resources become available, or are found.
Keeping ammo difficult to acquire seems key.
A modern military rifle, with ammo to spare is going to output significant damage, rivaling mid level spells. So like spells, you have to limit use.
At low and mid level play using a modern rifle as primary means of attack (not having to worry about ammo) is likely OP vs other characters. At higher level you could try making ammo more available, as the rest of the party advances, letting them use it more frequently could be fine. Maybe a magical pouch could be eventually crafted that has so many bullets appear in it every morning.
Hmm, a challenge. Perhaps a story to handle it:
"The marine is in a combat situation, most ammo already used up. Separated from their squad they stumble through the jungle and inadvertently through a hidden portal to another world. Noticing subtle changes in the landscape they try unsuccessfully to navigate back to camp. They are attacked by a noticeably fantastical beast, a manticore or somesuch, and kill it or drive it off using most of their second last clip of ammo. Arriving where their camp should be, they instead find a small village populated by bizarrely small folk who call themselves "gnomes". A bit of awkward conversation later and they realize they are no longer in Kansas.
The gnomes, notorious tinkers, are justifiably curious about all of the equipment carried by this strange soldier. The marine is not comfortable handing much over, but gives them the set of night-vision goggles as a gift in thanks for their hospitality. Later that night the village is attacked by goblin raiders and the marine demonstrates their bravery and capability in the fight, though now is down to just one clip and three rounds. Now worried this weapon will soon be useless they take it to the village's chief tinker. The tinker thinks she can manufacture some bullets that will work, but not with the rifle's rapid-fire functionality, nor at the same level of accuracy or power. She gets to work and at the end provides a good supply of single-shot bullets (plus a promise to send a constant supply of similar munitions in exchange for that little belt of grenades for her to study). The result is a weapon with the damage and reload speed of a heavy crossbow, but the range of a longbow. The village mystic has two other ideas that might help. Certain rare crystals might be acquired and fitted to the muzzle that would have the effect of rendering the shots magically enhanced - difficult and expensive to achieve, but maybe the alchemists guild in the nearby human city would have some leads. And more importantly, there exists certain ancient dwarven magics that could be used to exactly duplicate the one remaining clip of ammo, like the fabled jug of alchemy does with liquids. The nearest dwarven fortress is some months travel from here, but getting your hands on an item like that would mean a limited daily supply of full strength ammunition.
The gnomes gift the marine with some clothes that will draw less attention, travel supplies and a sturdy sword that might come in handy at close quarters, and the marine heads off. Halfway to the city they run into some other adventurers and find themselves dragged into some plot with a dark cult and a dragon and such..."
So the weapon starts severely nerfed, for technological reasons, but in exchange for role play and quest completion the quality of ammo could be upgraded (better gunpowder supplies to up the damage, silver bullets, magical augmentation), building to a late game acquisition of some sort of bag of daily replication, able to give the weapon a set number of daily uses at some outrageous damage level.
The rest of the situation is pure fluff. The modern day character has very advanced knowledge of some things (medicine, science), but is woefully uninformed on others (arcana, history of this world). Fish out of water tropes encouraged. Also some nemesis villain who hears of the advanced weapon and will use any nefarious method to acquire it...
@RegentCorreon That is definitely a viable backstory, and gets one thinking. I'm trying to figure how I might turn this into a consistent class, however, so I'm not sure I could shoehorn everyone into that backstory, but that does give me some ideas.
As a guideline (and not thought out at all yet):
1-5 does 1d(whatever) (works if you've been in this world long enough to try to create ammo, but maybe the powder just isn't there yet to deliver the proper punch)
6-10 does 2d(whatever) (You worked out the problems with producing powder, so you're back to normal)
etc etc.
I had had in my mind that the firearms should be RAW firearms, and maybe they should. If they were perhaps you subtract 2-3 from the damage until level 5?
I'll let you know when I publish a draft. I'll probably create a background you should take to go with the class to cover the knowledge stuff.
Playtesting Fugare Draconis, an epic tale of adventure, loss, and redemption