Yeah, it's a tricky upgrade; I think I'm still leaning towards them counting as two weapons though, as this solves any issue with how runes and other upgrades work since those are really intended to just be firearm upgrades. To have both parts as proper magic weapons you'd need to get the blade enchanted separately, or obtain a magic one to use.

Having two artificer infusions on a pistol sword does seem cheesy, but I guess it's no different to if you were dual wielding those weapons and infused them separately, the big difference is that they only occupy one hand (so you can either keep the other free to reload/cast, or have an infused shield, wand or whatever). That is consuming more infusions though so it seems like it balances out, as for two infusions on the pistol sword you're not necessarily getting full use out of them both every turn, so it's still more about versatility than raw strength; you could achieve the same result most of the time with two separate weapons and switching them out, the main difference with the pistol sword is you don't have to, and if you use the bonus pistol attack you can benefit from the infusion on that, which I don't think is too OP.

Pistol Sword is probably an upgrade I haven't thought about enough, as it's not one my own intended gunner is likely to take. It occurs to me that with the Surprise Shot trick shot it could become a really crazy weapon for a Gunfighter (four sword attacks at level 20, plus a bonus action pistol shot, plus a reaction pistol shot both ignoring range). The mention of other sword types is also interesting, I'm wondering about reworking it to something like:

Prerequisite: 3 upgrades including Lightweight
A Lightweight pistol combined with a Greatsword, Rapier, Shortsword or Longsword no longer requires a separate hand to wield it. If you make a one-handed attack with the sword, you may immediately attack the same target using the pistol following the rules for two-weapon fighting as if the pistol were in your off-hand. Cannot be combined with a Drop Loop.

This would give a greater range of swords, but means that attacking with the pistol as well is just like attacking with an off-hand weapon, so you could only do it with the shortsword unless you take the Dual Wielder feat (as the others aren't Light), and won't add dexterity to the damage unless you have the two-weapon fighting style. Meanwhile for a two-handed Longsword or Greatsword player it's just a (short-)ranged option you can fire when not in melee range.

Update: Despite it probably being the most (re-)read rule of the sub-class, I just realised that swapping Loading for Reload (1 shot) was a bit of a dumb way to handle faster reloads when I could just allow reloading of one firearm with Loading as a Bonus Action; much cleaner, and can be added as an actual bonus action on the character sheet, this is now reflected in the first post.

Update 2: I changed my mind, I've dropped Haemorrhaging shot, too annoying to actually use.

So I'm going to stop promising imminent release, though I haven't really changed anything fundamental since last time, it's almost all in the crafting section. Highlights this time include:

• Firearm Proficiency: I decided that swapping Loading for Reload (1 shot) was too clunky, instead a Gunfighter can simply reload a firearm with Loading during their turn as a bonus action, this means they can still reload it at the end of their turn as well (no having to track between odd turns).
• Cartridge Loading (4): Given the change to Firearm Proficiency I've added that a Gunfighter does not need to complete Cartridge Loading (2) to begin Cartridge Loading (4), but still needs to complete three upgrades first. Multiple Barrels (2) however must still be completed before Multiple Barrels (4), since it's available immediately.
• Bipod: This is an upgrade/replacement after Hook & Fork which provides the same benefit when firing from cover or while prone, but also eliminates the prone firing penalty against targets at least 80 feet away and in front of you. Basically it enables sniping but only at suitable range, stationary and with a fixed facing while already prone, i.e- you really need to be ambushing the enemy, though you could potentially move into position and snipe during a combat, but it'd take at least one turn to setup. The key thing is that the musket must be resting on the bipod, so you can't claim the bonus if you're knocked prone, you must take up the position intentionally. It's only mainly of interest to characters with the Sharpshooter feat, or a number of the range increasing upgrades already completed (otherwise you'll be firing at disadvantage anyway due to long range).
• Drop Loops & Holsters: Drop Loops no longer enable easier drawing of pistols, instead they simply prevent you from losing them. Instead the new (cheap) "upgrade" Holster enables easy drawing of holstered pistols after every action, allowing any character with access to multiple attacks through any means to draw up to one per attack if they wish, dropping those that are spent (for which drop loops are ideal). This should better support the pistolero, especially when playing as a Fighter sub-class, due the possible nine attacks in a single turn (four basic + action surge + two weapon fighting) as a maximum of eight holsters means you can draw all the basic attacks and still use a free object interaction to draw the ninth.
• Fusillade Trick Shot: This is a trick shot specifically for the bracer-full-of-pistols Gunfighter, and unlike other trick shots it lasts the turn; it takes up to WIS grit, and once activated you may only make firearm attacks, and these must be made with different weapons, adding damage equal to the grit spent. This is intended to overcome the sheer cost and difficulty of applying magic upgrades to many pistols, giving a modest bonus to damage. Since a Gunfighter can potentially scale to four attacks per turn as standard, and eight with an action surge, and realistically nine for a pistolero (bonus attack from two-weapon fighting) this is potential bonus damage with WIS 5 and 5 grit of +45, assuming every attack hits. It may sound a lot, but I think in practice it should even out compared to a Gunfighter who puts everything into a cartridge loaded musket with multiple magic upgrades (e.g- +3 to hit with d4-d6+3 extra damage). Technically this trick shot would work with multiple muskets as well, but these can only be drawn normally, so you'd probably need to have someone feeding fresh muskets to you, or have them laid out ready at your firing location(s).
• Rune Rarity: I've colour coded the magical upgrades to indicate the rarity of the runes, and to allow a weapon's resulting rarity to be determined. This is really just for DM and player convenience to give you an idea of what kind of upgrades make sense when, i.e- you shouldn't expect to be applying rare runes while the party only has uncommon magic items.
• Drawbacks: I've added a note about firearm drawbacks (loud noise and oxygen requirement). While not strictly RAW these are things DM's might want to keep in mind as drawbacks of firearms compared to bows/crossbows.
• Runes of Dampening: Rare rune that enables a firearm to be fired once per long rest without producing any discernible report (no flash, smoke or sound), making a "silenced" firearm possible, albeit at considerable expense. These runes do not hide the shot itself however, so an impact or exit wound may still give away your general location (as an arrow or bolt would).
• Runes of Reliability: Uncommon stackable rune that enables a firearm to be fired underwater without having to find some kind of workaround (fire from inside an air tight sack, or find some magical alternative).
• Half cost crafting: I've added a note under crafting that crafting of items you've already produced should half material costs. This is in addition to advantage on the Tinker's Tools checks, so not only should weapons and upgrades you've produced before take less time to complete, they'll cost less as well. Note that for magical upgrades this only applies to the base cost, not the enchanting cost (the gem dust).

I've started using the firearm upgrades chart in play, via my artificer in Grave of Saints.  Currently she's using a pistol with the Precision Sight and Drop Loop (she built these before the update) upgrades, as those were easy to squeeze in during her other crafting efforts.

Precision Sight may - may, mind, but may - need to be upcosted some.  As it stands, spending 25gp and a day-odd's crafting if you're an artificer with a +11 to your Tinker's Tools lets you nearly double the effective range of a DMG pistol.  It's outrageously good for the cost, especially when one short-circuits the need for half the upgrade table via a Repeating Shot infusion.  Honestly, as awesome as it is, you maaay want to consider addressing Repeating Shot somehow - as it stands, a Gunfighter that splashes two levels of artificer (which is a totally reasonable thing for most of them to do, really) can gain a +1 magic gun that basically works like an unlimited ammo modern semi-auto.  No need for Cartridge Loading, Multibarrels, or any of the other shot count stuff.  An actual artificer is balanced out somewhat by the fact that we don't get trick shots or a giant flurry of Action Surge-driven attacks, but even without that, I'm one rifled barrel and a Sharpshooter feat away from a 240-foot effective range rustic Glock.  To say nothing of the fact that this is all technically still compatible with a Pistol Sword upgrade.

Heh.  Ironically, the results of a few hundred gold's expenditure from this table and Repeating Shot beat out most of the advanced Exandrian firearms that're also present in the setting, and even the pseudo-legendary cursed rifle Star picked up.  It's really hard to beat a one-handed 1d10 out to shortbow ranges without any ammunition concerns.

Thanks for the continued feedback!

So what would you think then; increase the cost of precision sight and decrease the costs on multiple barrels and cartridge loading?

Artificer shenanigans do make the balance a bit tricky; I love the class (though I've actually never properly played as one, just for one-shots really) as the Repeating Shot infusion is really powerful (it's basically a free feat, even more so for firearms that don't currently have a Crossbow Expert equivalent).

Thinking about it more, Gunfighters effectively don't need it before level 11 as they can reload twice per turn already, and if they take the Lightning Reload trick shot they can reload three times per turn (two second reload speed, take that Napoleonic era amateurs!), though they're losing a point of grit plus a bonus action and reaction to do it. So it probably does make sense to drop the cost of reload upgrades with this in mind.

I'm thinking maybe 100g/250g [60h/120h] for cartridge loading (2)/(4), and 150g/250g [45h/60h] for multiple barrels (4)/(6) in that case. Plus maybe 100g [60h] for precision sight? An alternative might be to add a basic sight as an easier upgrade adding say 10'/20' so there's still a quick option and position precision sight somewhere more in the middle with telescopic sight?

One way to look at it is how any given Reload-enabling mod stacks up with a longbow, since the longbow allows shooting beyond the range of even the most heavily enhanced musket without any worry of reload, if at the cost of reduced damage.  A longbow's ammunition is also much less expensive and much easier to source.  Given that, and the fact that these mechanisms exist to basically just give the gunfighter back their integral extra-attack class features (i.e. Extra Attack), it seems like it may be worth investigating dropping the cost of the Reload modifiers.  Admittedly, switching from a blackpowder muzzle-loader to a cartridge-firing bolt-action feels like it should cost a ton, but this is Der&Der, not real life.

The 'Basic Sight' vs. 'Precision Sight' thing feels like a good idea, especially when one takes into account the provisions made for sack-of-guns pistoleros.  Those guys are looking for economy mods they can apply to a whole stack of pistols, though I suppose the cost reduction of multishot mods would in turn disincentivize brace-of-pistols characters.  You can make six to eight pistols at 125 a pop after the first...or you can make one pistol at 250, one Cartridge 4 mod for the cost of two additional pistols, and basically get the benefit of having a bunch of guns.  I do like the idea of the holster being an official piece of kit, non-shooters really don't recognize how awesome/important a good, well-fitted holster is, but man.  Balancing costs on this stuff is rough.

I will also admit, I'm a little embarrassed.  I completely missed that there's no listed costs for cartridge, shot, or shot cartridge ammunition in your table, only regular roundball* and silvered roundball.  Mayhaps that might rein in the above issue somewhat, if cartridge loads are more expensive.  As it stands, building a rifled pepperbox is a financial nightmare next to a Cartridge 4 mare's leg, but if the cartridge shot costs twice what the roundball does...well.  Heh, anyone who's spent time at the range knows it's not the cost of the gun that drives you to drink, it's the cost of feeding the damned thing.  Especially these days.  Yeesh.  Admittedly, it still costs over a thousand gold to assemble a Multi 6 pepperbox with rifled barrels even taking the cost reduction for Barrels 2-6 into account, but I suppose a gunfighter who's likely wearing inexpensive studded leather armor instead of saving up for platemail can spring for at least one really good gun.  And frankly, Multi 4 is Good Enough for most pistoleros until they hit level 11 anyways, that's two full rounds of attacks before requiring a reload.

I have to run, I'll try and get back to you with any additional feedback from play.

First of all, this is a really great homebrew. I think that the crafting and upgrade system you made is very cool. I was wondering, if I was to come up with other upgrade ideas for one of my players, what gold/hour ratio seems best to you for crafting purposes? I averaged all the prices per hour you have listed and came up with roughly one gold per two hours assuming that the Tinker’s Tools rolls aren’t above 15 (0.476 gold/ hour). Does that seem like a decent price to you ? Just wondering, and again, this is a really great subclass.

edit: fixed tool tips (I hope)

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

I will also admit, I'm a little embarrassed.  I completely missed that there's no listed costs for cartridge, shot, or shot cartridge ammunition in your table, only regular roundball* and silvered roundball.  Mayhaps that might rein in the above issue somewhat, if cartridge loads are more expensive.

Huh, I never considered it at all either, I guess I just assumed it would be the same cost and they were incompatible, but making them more costly would make a lot of sense, especially since cartridges would definitely be harder to make. I'll see about factoring that in! It would also make it easier to make those upgrades less expensive without it feeling a bit weird to do-so!

Quote from Geophreigh_the_rather_large >>

First of all, this is a really great homebrew. I think that the crafting and upgrade system you made is very cool. I was wondering, if I was to come up with other upgrade ideas for one of my players, what gold/hour ratio seems best to you for crafting purposes? I averaged all the prices per hour you have listed and came up with roughly one gold per two hours assuming that the [tool] tinker’s tools [/tool] rolls aren’t above 15 (0.476 gold/ hour). Does that seem like a decent price to you ? Just wondering, and again, this is a really great subclass.

Thanks! Originally there were no hours set for any upgrades, the time an upgrade took was based upon its cost (iirc it was three hours per 50g), but I added hours later when it become clear some upgrades took far too long while others were too quick, and of course it didn't work well at all for magic upgrades. To be honest I never approached it as rigidly as 2 hours costs 1 gold (or vice versa) when I changed it, but that seems like a good rule of thumb.

Thanks! I will keep this in mind. I look forward to using or seeing this subclass used in a game.

Okay, so here's a preliminary version of the changes as they may appear (slimmed down to just what I've changed):

So I've integrated the changes from my last post with some additional tweaks; it's now possible to go all the way to Cartridge Loading (8) but with each stage taking 60 hours (on top of any other upgrades you want) it's something you're likely to progress towards on a Gunfighter with a view towards reaching level 20, at which point you'll be able to fire a single weapon eight times (with Action Surge) in a turn and fully reload with your Bonus Action, or fire four times each in two rounds only sacrificing one Bonus Action, at fairly modest expense for 17 levels.

Multiple Barrels by comparison is cheaper and quicker (half the time per step) maxing out at Reload (6), so it's easier to build a pepperbox early on for conserving Bonus Actions in short to medium range shoot-outs.

I've also completely changed my mind on how to deal with the Extra Attack at 5th level; what I've done is drop the bonus action loading fudge from Firearm Proficiency in favour of allowing the Gunfighter to swap one trick shot at 5th level, making it possible to swap for Lightning Reload if you need it at this point (since it depends on your crafting progression and the style of Gunfighter you're going for). If you do take the Lightning Reload trick shot it now allows you to spend Grit to reload a firearm immediately (if it has Reload) or to ignore the Loading property of one firearm until the end of the turn, so if you take this at 5th level you should be able to brute force (using Grit) your way to multiple shots per turn if you absolutely have to, or just save it for your Action Surge. This still isn't quite as good as being given the Repeating Shot Artificer Infusion, or taking the Gunner feat (Tasha's Cauldron), and your goal should still be to craft a Reload upgrade or a second firearm when you can unless you have one of those.

I also partly made this change because I realised that I've been playing Loading wrong for years. I thought it was one shot per turn, but it's actually once per action, bonus action or reaction, meaning a Fighter using Action Surge can fire a crossbow or firearm twice in one turn from 2nd level, so the difficulty is only with Extra Attack. Classic case of "thought I already knew the rule, so never bothered to re-read it". 🤦‍♂️

Still not sure if I'm completely happy with this change or not, as it means you could still end up with a single-weapon Gunfighter (e.g- Musket sniper) who can't use all of their attacks every round, but eliminating that for the class would make Reload upgrades, Repeating Shot and Gunner either totally or partly redundant for the Gunfighter. Doing it this way also means there's a trade-off early between going all-in on a single weapon, versus taking multiple so it may be better balance wise between the different styles?

Will play-test this version to see how it feels; something tells me I may not be releasing the final sub-class this year at this rate though!

So after more testing I think I'm satisfied with the Lightning Reload compromise; not happy exactly but I don't think there's a perfect solution to the extra attack reload issue that won't step all over Gunner and Repeating Shot, and it depends how early you can build a weapon with multiple barrels or cartridge loading (which will likely depend on your DM), so it was always going to be a compromise one way or another.

Other than that, my recent testing has been focused mostly on the crafting side, and I'm thinking there needs to be a material cost reduction across the board. I'm fairly satisfied with the timings, as a modest bonus on your Tinker's Tools checks will reduce times quite a bit anyway, but I've been trying to go over comparable upgrades and items where possible, and think more about what a complete weapon might cost after multiple upgrades.

You can find the preliminary updated costs back in the first post; not everything is cheaper, and the biggest reductions are on magical upgrades where I realised I'd massively overpriced most of them (well beyond the suggestions in the DMG for cost by rarity), and ultimately magic upgrades are gated by your DM providing access to magical gem dust, rather than what it costs as such (as some campaigns splash money around while others force you to be frugal). I've also tried to distinguish the costs of magical upgrades a little bit more, as some of the same rarity are stronger than others. Even with the reductions in cost, your high-end sniper musket or pepperbox could cost 1,500-2,000g in upgrades and 300-500h of work, and that's just for the non-magical upgrades, so crafting powerful firearms is still slightly more expensive than Warhammer as a hobby. 😄

I've also added a note in the crafting suggestion at the end regarding the ability for casters to perform the enchanting step of magical upgrades as I've had a couple players ask about this; this is only a suggestion (DM is free to not use it) and you still need the necessary component (high quality gem dust) to enchant. Basically you take the enchanted material cost (second value), divide by 50 and that's how many spell levels must be expended to perform the enchantment over any length of time. So it doesn't provide an easy shortcut or anything as you either need a block of downtime where you can risk burning all your slots to do it fast (still several days) or else do it more slowly over a longer time to avoid crippling casting for an (un)expected combat.

Just wanted to quickly update so people know I haven't forgotten about this; there have been a few wording updates to the class, but I haven't edited all of these into the first post (as I don't remember what most of them were, and it's a pain in the arse to copy everything over between homebrew to the forums).

Otherwise the only two changes of note are:

• Smokescreen: Limited this to once per turn. It occurred to me that spamming this with extra attack and Action Surge could create a huge area of smoke in a single round, however the intention of the trick-shot was always more towards quickly creating one reasonable sized bit of cover when faced with heavy ranged resistance, needing to create a distraction, block line of sight in a passage etc. You can still create a larger bank of smoke if you want to but it now requires several turns and a good Wisdom (so the smoke lasts longer), or just make sure a party member has Fog Cloud.
• Tracer Rounds: This "upgrade" lets you create special ammo ideal for fighting in non-magical darkness; when fired it illuminates you and will also illuminate your target if you get at least 15 on your hit roll (regardless of whether you actually hit, you just need to get the round close enough to the target). I originally considered having a whole category for special ammunition, and while I had ideas, it crossed over too much with magical upgrades and just gets even more complicated. Of the ideas I had, tracer rounds were the most useful in that they added something somewhat new; while they still encroach a bit on Runes of Radiance, they're much more limited in effect, and only require Alchemist's Supplies (you don't need to be proficient, so borrowing from another party member is sufficient). I also originally considered requiring a recipe or some kind of breakthrough before these can be created, and while DMs could still require this, they're not really powerful enough to justify it and already have a drawback from self-illumination (enemies ignore dim-light/darkness against you as well).

Otherwise everything is largely unchanged since the last update; I've play-tested quite a bit over Christmas and New Year and it all seems to be playing very smoothly. This should hopefully be the last update before I release, I just need to give it a final read over (or two, or three…) to check for any lingering spelling/grammar mistakes.

And I've decided to just finally bite the bullet and release it! You can now find the full version of the sub-class (complete with nicer formatting) here.

This of course is the part where someone immediately comes back having found a bunch of mistakes I've somehow missed after all this time. 😉

I really think this is a solid homebrew and a great alternative to the gunslinger, but I think all this 'scope' and ' attachment ' stuff is against 5e ethics and design philosophy, which is " keep it simple " but idk

Quote from monkmulticlasser >>

I really think this is a solid homebrew and a great alternative to the gunslinger

Thanks!

Quote from monkmulticlasser >>

but I think all this 'scope' and ' attachment ' stuff is against 5e ethics and design philosophy, which is " keep it simple " but idk

The aim is to give your weapon the possibility of progression; it's worth noting that the Critical Role Gunslinger from which this is adapted does have additional weapons you can get over the course of a campaign (pistol to pepperbox, musket to Bad News etc.), the downside is that the selection is just whatever Percival de Rolo had during their season one campaign, there's no customisation. The "Exandrian Firearms" are just whatever Teliesin Jaffe and Matt Mercer agreed upon behind the scenes.

My idea for the crafting and upgrades section is to give you the same kind of scope for progression, but with more formal options to choose from so people aren't having to reinvent the wheel and homebrew on the fly etc., assuming player and DM are happy with the balance of what I've made, and this gives a lot more options to personalise as you like. This also means that a Gunfighter technically starts out a little weaker than a Gunslinger, assuming comparable starter weapons from the DMG and Exandrian lists, though you also don't have to worry about the Misfire rule.

In terms of the complexity though, a lot of the basic upgrades are actually static replacements, e.g- sights extend range, while cartridge loading/multiple barrels swaps Loading for Reload(X) and then can be upgraded over time. While D&D Beyond doesn't currently support these types of customisation on the character sheet, you can add them to a weapon's notes so it's not hard to remember. Otherwise I've tried to keep upgrades as simple and logical as possible; while there's a lot of choice, your average Gunfighter probably isn't going to have more than two or three upgrades per weapon until they can add magical ones (and even then, only one or two of those). By the time you add it all up it shouldn't really result in a firearm that's wildly different to the kinds of things other players may find in the form of magical swords, bows etc.

It's also not sub-class specific; with a DM's permission you could have anyone in your campaign with Firearms and Tinker's Tools proficiency become a Gunsmith, for example an Artificer. I've just grouped it into that sub-class because there's no easy to separate it out (we unfortunately can't Homebrew general rules yet).

But yeah, in general the customisation is a replacement to the more powerful weapons that the Exandrian Firearms list gives you, and to fill in for the lack of magical firearm options. There's also the argument to be made that in the classic D&D settings firearms would be an emerging technology, with innovations being made all the time, whereas the art of making bows, swords etc. is already pretty well established and about as good as it can get (without magic).

Apologies for the huge answer to this point, but I just wanted to make the rationale clear!