I am in the process of moving our campaign to a new setting. Bridging the original characters over from the Sword Coast to an alternate plane that takes place in a “modern” wasteland Wild West setting. Think Fallout New Vegas meets DnD in mid 1800s Southwestern United States.
I want to introduce guns to the format, but don’t want the characters getting too crazy or too powerful too fast. I was thinking that as they level up they gain more access to better weapons or their abilities give them proficiency and expertise.
Anyone have any thoughts on how I could link certain weapons to their class? Like heavy weapons for fighters and barbarians meeting a certain STR level?
I am in the process of moving our campaign to a new setting. Bridging the original characters over from the Sword Coast to an alternate plane that takes place in a “modern” wasteland Wild West setting. Think Fallout New Vegas meets DnD in mid 1800s Southwestern United States.
I want to introduce guns to the format, but don’t want the characters getting too crazy or too powerful too fast. I was thinking that as they level up they gain more access to better weapons or their abilities give them proficiency and expertise.
Anyone have any thoughts on how I could link certain weapons to their class? Like heavy weapons for fighters and barbarians meeting a certain STR level?
No bad ideas in brainstorming…
You mean... like the heavy property? Aside from that, you probably want to make them very expensive - roughly equivalent to magic items for high quality ones
That’s a good point. Making it cost prohibitive could force them to spend money. Or even making the ammo really expensive and cumbersome. Like 10 rounds of lead ammo would be additional “x” weight and would cost 3 or 4 times the cost of 25 arrows or bolts.
That’s a good point. Making it cost prohibitive could force them to spend money. Or even making the ammo really expensive and cumbersome. Like 10 rounds of lead ammo would be additional “x” weight and would cost 3 or 4 times the cost of 25 arrows or bolts.
You could even used more fall out ideas like desperate people making guns, that are far less effective, using alternative ammunition like teeth. Just lower the damage dice by how ever much from the DMG. Otherwise, the cost of 'real' bullets being much more expensive.
You could even add in a failure chance since this is a post apocalyptic setting. Each use has a chance to fail and damage the weapon so it is useless until repaired... which would be expensive to repair.
Guns in D&D can introduce some narrative issues that, to be fair, are kinda true of bows as well. Namely: what is a hit? What does it look like? You hit someone with a bullet in real life and, pretty much wherever it lands, they're out for the count, but that's not what you see represented by a simple loss of HP. So maybe a hit is just a graze? Bullet goes ZZZ and cuts your shoulder, tearing your sleeve in a badass fashion? That's fine now and again, but if both sides of the fight are just ZZZ ZZZ ZZZ constantly and everyone is just getting grazed, it's going to sound ridiculous when you narrate it. Can nobody here shoot straight? Yet they're still good enough to not miss outright so everyone is getting papercut to death in this gunfight?
None of this is to say "don't do guns in dnd", you can absolutely, but just maybe don't make all combat be guns, and be careful how you narrate it if all combat *is* guns. Watch Matt Coleville's Let's Kill a Player video for the super useful segment at the beginning about what constitutes a "hit" in the narrative, beyond the mechanics. Dnd as a system doesn't have an answer for this problem, so it won't help you out.
How is getting shot any different that getting hit with an axe or stabbed with a sword? We're playing in a world where you fully heal after a good night's sleep and where people can literally warp the fabric of reality. Realism went out the window a long time ago.
That’s a good point. Making it cost prohibitive could force them to spend money. Or even making the ammo really expensive and cumbersome. Like 10 rounds of lead ammo would be additional “x” weight and would cost 3 or 4 times the cost of 25 arrows or bolts.
I would definitely not bother with adding weight- among other things you're likely to run into players (yes, even high school students) who are well aware that bullets really don't weigh much especially when compared to arrows. And that's on top of the fact that weight is already seen as more of an annoyance than a positive addition to the game. I would definitely make them more expensive than arrows or bolts and require that players track them.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
So, the simplest way to make guns viable for D&D: don't make them markedly better than the medieval ranged weapons. Really, this doesn't present significant verisimilitude issues within the scope of the existing combat system- while a bullet's ability to pierce breastplates was definitely a significant reason they altered the entire paradigm of armed conflict, the bigger game changer was that it took far less time to train a competent corps of riflemen than swords, bow, or pikemen. This isn't something that's really going to impact a bunch of D&D PC's since level 1 of any class already has you trained to competence in the relevant weapons, and with the HP system the nuances of how quickly a particular weapon wound would take someone out of a fight are fairly moot. The Gunslinger subclass adapted from Critical Role has a good revolver-esque weapon as a part of its firearm rules; feel free to keep or drop the misfire portion as you like.
I would suggest avoiding the "modern" Fallout New Vegas aspect if you're concerned with an "authentic feel" to the weapons- once you've gone from revolvers and lever action rifles to man portable artillery and high capacity semi or full auto weapons you can't really reconcile them performing at the same tier as swords and bows, and you'd probably be better served looking for an alternate rules system that's better structured to give a balanced combat experience with them. It's not objectively impossible to make work under 5e, but you're gonna have to do a lot of eyeball adjusting and/or number crunching if the baseline "normal attack" damage output is jumping from 1-5 dice per player per turn to something like 5-10.
So, the simplest way to make guns viable for D&D: don't make them markedly better than the medieval ranged weapons. Really, this doesn't present significant verisimilitude issues within the scope of the existing combat system- while a bullet's ability to pierce breastplates was definitely a significant reason they altered the entire paradigm of armed conflict, the bigger game changer was that it took far less time to train a competent corps of riflemen than swords, bow, or pikemen. This isn't something that's really going to impact a bunch of D&D PC's since level 1 of any class already has you trained to competence in the relevant weapons, and with the HP system the nuances of how quickly a particular weapon wound would take someone out of a fight are fairly moot. The Gunslinger subclass adapted from Critical Role has a good revolver-esque weapon as a part of its firearm rules; feel free to keep or drop the misfire portion as you like.
I would suggest avoiding the "modern" Fallout New Vegas aspect if you're concerned with an "authentic feel" to the weapons- once you've gone from revolvers and lever action rifles to man portable artillery and high capacity semi or full auto weapons you can't really reconcile them performing at the same tier as swords and bows, and you'd probably be better served looking for an alternate rules system that's better structured to give a balanced combat experience with them. It's not objectively impossible to make work under 5e, but you're gonna have to do a lot of eyeball adjusting and/or number crunching if the baseline "normal attack" damage output is jumping from 1-5 dice per player per turn to something like 5-10.
The fallout aspects I was looking at adopting are more in the vain a crafted and makeshift weapons like pipe pistols. And then limiting certain classes to a subset of weapon and only as the PC gain level will they be able to use or upgrade certain weapons.
How is getting shot any different that getting hit with an axe or stabbed with a sword? We're playing in a world where you fully heal after a good night's sleep and where people can literally warp the fabric of reality. Realism went out the window a long time ago.
HP isn't directly analogous to health and well being (again, see the video I referenced in my original comment). Combat is far more complex a thing than the rules can handle, so narratively, you might describe a character being "hit" by an axe as only blocking the blow at the cost of sure footing therefore opening them up further to a killing blow later. A "hit" could be that the character blocks the axe with their shield but the force of the blow demoralizes them to the point that they're not fighting their best anymore as fear of their opponents strength takes over. A cool thing to do when narrating combat is, when someone is hit, tell them "this blow would have killed you, but you..." and invite them to narrate how they stay in the fight.
If a "hit" in dnd was directly analogous to the axe breaking armor and slicing into flesh, again it would be ridiculous with every fight being the Black Knight scene from Holy Grail. One doesn't simply sleep off an axe wound to the chest, no matter how much fantasy magic you have at your fingertips. It's immersion-breaking.
I think guns in dnd highlight that weakness of the combat system, so you just need to be careful how you represent combat narratively.
How is getting shot any different that getting hit with an axe or stabbed with a sword? We're playing in a world where you fully heal after a good night's sleep and where people can literally warp the fabric of reality. Realism went out the window a long time ago.
Because you can narrate a "hit" from an axe as being something that doesn't inflict a deep wound. For example, a blow can be absorbed by your armour so that "hit" didn't actually bite into your flesh, but perhaps pounded on your armour. That still takes it out of you a bit and makes it easier for the opponent to get a more accurate blow later that might kill you...but doesn't necessarily result in an actual wound this time. Bullets...tend to be harder to explain because if they hit, they wound. To be fair, things like poisoned blades also present challenges.
D&D is good for a lot of things...realism isn't its strong point.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
How is getting shot any different that getting hit with an axe or stabbed with a sword? We're playing in a world where you fully heal after a good night's sleep and where people can literally warp the fabric of reality. Realism went out the window a long time ago.
Because you can narrate a "hit" from an axe as being something that doesn't inflict a deep wound. For example, a blow can be absorbed by your armour so that "hit" didn't actually bite into your flesh, but perhaps pounded on your armour. That still takes it out of you a bit and makes it easier for the opponent to get a more accurate blow later that might kill you...but doesn't necessarily result in an actual wound this time. Bullets...tend to be harder to explain because if they hit, they wound. To be fair, things like poisoned blades also present challenges.
D&D is good for a lot of things...realism isn't its strong point.
A bullet could be narrated as simply grazing the target as a near miss.
Or, you know, you don't have to actually detail out how every hit looks during combat.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
So, the simplest way to make guns viable for D&D: don't make them markedly better than the medieval ranged weapons. Really, this doesn't present significant verisimilitude issues within the scope of the existing combat system- while a bullet's ability to pierce breastplates was definitely a significant reason they altered the entire paradigm of armed conflict, the bigger game changer was that it took far less time to train a competent corps of riflemen than swords, bow, or pikemen. This isn't something that's really going to impact a bunch of D&D PC's since level 1 of any class already has you trained to competence in the relevant weapons, and with the HP system the nuances of how quickly a particular weapon wound would take someone out of a fight are fairly moot. The Gunslinger subclass adapted from Critical Role has a good revolver-esque weapon as a part of its firearm rules; feel free to keep or drop the misfire portion as you like.
I would suggest avoiding the "modern" Fallout New Vegas aspect if you're concerned with an "authentic feel" to the weapons- once you've gone from revolvers and lever action rifles to man portable artillery and high capacity semi or full auto weapons you can't really reconcile them performing at the same tier as swords and bows, and you'd probably be better served looking for an alternate rules system that's better structured to give a balanced combat experience with them. It's not objectively impossible to make work under 5e, but you're gonna have to do a lot of eyeball adjusting and/or number crunching if the baseline "normal attack" damage output is jumping from 1-5 dice per player per turn to something like 5-10.
Modern technology has evolved around guns. Therefore, while guns are still the most effective weapon, you can say that kevlar armor - that has been optimized to protect from bullets - is widely available.
So, the simplest way to make guns viable for D&D: don't make them markedly better than the medieval ranged weapons. Really, this doesn't present significant verisimilitude issues within the scope of the existing combat system- while a bullet's ability to pierce breastplates was definitely a significant reason they altered the entire paradigm of armed conflict, the bigger game changer was that it took far less time to train a competent corps of riflemen than swords, bow, or pikemen. This isn't something that's really going to impact a bunch of D&D PC's since level 1 of any class already has you trained to competence in the relevant weapons, and with the HP system the nuances of how quickly a particular weapon wound would take someone out of a fight are fairly moot. The Gunslinger subclass adapted from Critical Role has a good revolver-esque weapon as a part of its firearm rules; feel free to keep or drop the misfire portion as you like.
I would suggest avoiding the "modern" Fallout New Vegas aspect if you're concerned with an "authentic feel" to the weapons- once you've gone from revolvers and lever action rifles to man portable artillery and high capacity semi or full auto weapons you can't really reconcile them performing at the same tier as swords and bows, and you'd probably be better served looking for an alternate rules system that's better structured to give a balanced combat experience with them. It's not objectively impossible to make work under 5e, but you're gonna have to do a lot of eyeball adjusting and/or number crunching if the baseline "normal attack" damage output is jumping from 1-5 dice per player per turn to something like 5-10.
Modern technology has evolved around guns. Therefore, while guns are still the most effective weapon, you can say that kevlar armor - that has been optimized to protect from bullets - is widely available.
So, the simplest way to make guns viable for D&D: don't make them markedly better than the medieval ranged weapons. Really, this doesn't present significant verisimilitude issues within the scope of the existing combat system- while a bullet's ability to pierce breastplates was definitely a significant reason they altered the entire paradigm of armed conflict, the bigger game changer was that it took far less time to train a competent corps of riflemen than swords, bow, or pikemen. This isn't something that's really going to impact a bunch of D&D PC's since level 1 of any class already has you trained to competence in the relevant weapons, and with the HP system the nuances of how quickly a particular weapon wound would take someone out of a fight are fairly moot. The Gunslinger subclass adapted from Critical Role has a good revolver-esque weapon as a part of its firearm rules; feel free to keep or drop the misfire portion as you like.
I would suggest avoiding the "modern" Fallout New Vegas aspect if you're concerned with an "authentic feel" to the weapons- once you've gone from revolvers and lever action rifles to man portable artillery and high capacity semi or full auto weapons you can't really reconcile them performing at the same tier as swords and bows, and you'd probably be better served looking for an alternate rules system that's better structured to give a balanced combat experience with them. It's not objectively impossible to make work under 5e, but you're gonna have to do a lot of eyeball adjusting and/or number crunching if the baseline "normal attack" damage output is jumping from 1-5 dice per player per turn to something like 5-10.
Modern technology has evolved around guns. Therefore, while guns are still the most effective weapon, you can say that kevlar armor - that has been optimized to protect from bullets - is widely available.
That's not really very "old west" though.
The OP asked for a "...'modern' wasteland wild west setting."
instead of modern fire arms you could have flint locks. Unrifled they were effectively worse than bow and arrow in combat. Wildly in accurate at anything longer than 50 ft. Pistol dueling was more a test of courage and not a test of accuracy. Most participants were only wounded and not killed.
A flintlock shotgun would be most effective.and could be made with old shotgun barrels.
The development of the percussion cap made the revolver and eventually modern cartridges possible.
Adding modern tech to D&D magic is a mixture that will quickly break down a game. Limit both A LOT and it could work.
instead of modern fire arms you could have flint locks. Unrifled they were effectively worse than bow and arrow in combat. Wildly in accurate at anything longer than 50 ft. Pistol dueling was more a test of courage and not a test of accuracy. Most participants were only wounded and not killed.
A flintlock shotgun would be most effective.and could be made with old shotgun barrels.
The development of the percussion cap made the revolver and eventually modern cartridges possible.
Adding modern tech to D&D magic is a mixture that will quickly break down a game. Limit both A LOT and it could work.
Flintlocks were less accurate than, but had a number of advantages over bows.
They could kill faster and more easily
They were easier to carry
Similarly to a crossbow: they could be carried ready to fire
If you want an “old west “ feel try actually looking historically. Single shot flintlock firearms were all there were until about 1815 when the first percussion firearms, still single shot muzzle loading ( with a few rare exceptions). The best you got was about 3-4 shots a minute (1 shot every other round) vs the 12 shots a minute for a bow. The first repeating gun of any importance was the colt revolver of 1835 which was a small caliber ( .32 or .36).the first big caliber (.44/.45) was the walker colt ( 1838) followed by the dragons (1840-1860) and the “baby” dragons/early “navy” pistols (.36 cal) of the same era. Still all cap and ball pistols and the closest thing to repeating long guns were the colt revolving rifle and shotgun. The colt army and navy pistols of 1860-1876 were still cap and ball. The first metal cartridge gun was the Volcanic which became the Henry which became the Winchester (after the civil war). The other major repeaters of the civil war and beyond were the sharps and the Spencer- both of which were percussion cap breach loading, paper cartridge weapons at least initially. The first actual cartridge pistols were the smith and wessons from about 1870 on. There walker and dragoon pistols were sufficiently heavy that they were considered “ horse” pistols with a pair strapped to the saddle not carried on the belt. The smaller, lighter baby dragoon and navy pistols were worn on the belt. Typically 2 were carried as reloading was time consuming so you carried a second for when you needed the extra fire power. There were all sorts of attempts at multi shot weapons during the flintlock era but non were really effective with one possible exception. That was the Ferguson rifle of the revolutionary war period but, while it could hit the bow’s 12 shots a minute rate, it had fouling problems like most black powder weapons. There were also a number of rotating chamber guns tried but they were hand turned ( so you need a free hand) or multi barreled “ pepper box” types that often fired all the barrels at once if you were unlucky ( so misfire chances) .
for game purposes I would make the flintlocks ( except the Ferguson) limited to 1 shot a round even if the pc has more possible attacks. Cap and ball pistols would be capable of 2 shots a round. But need a round ( or 2) of reloading after 3 rounds of firing (welcome to carrying 2 guns for 6 rounds of fire power). Cap and ball rifles aren’t really much faster than flintlocks but could get 1 shot a round legitimately. Breach loading percussion rifles ( Spencer and sharps) were capable of 2 shots a round. Only the Henry/ Winchester was really capable of 3-4 shots around. The smaller pistols might be considered “light” weapons allowing for dual wielding but the walker, dragons and really even the 1860 army weren’t. The Spencer, sharps, and most flintlocks were .50 caliber or larger so maybe a D12 for damage. The .44/.45 pistols and rifles maybe a d10 and the .36 cal a d8. The .32 would be a d6 and anything smaller a d4.
I am in the process of moving our campaign to a new setting. Bridging the original characters over from the Sword Coast to an alternate plane that takes place in a “modern” wasteland Wild West setting. Think Fallout New Vegas meets DnD in mid 1800s Southwestern United States.
I want to introduce guns to the format, but don’t want the characters getting too crazy or too powerful too fast. I was thinking that as they level up they gain more access to better weapons or their abilities give them proficiency and expertise.
Anyone have any thoughts on how I could link certain weapons to their class? Like heavy weapons for fighters and barbarians meeting a certain STR level?
No bad ideas in brainstorming…
You mean... like the heavy property? Aside from that, you probably want to make them very expensive - roughly equivalent to magic items for high quality ones
Guns are in the PHB now.
And the ‘14 DMG has rules for more modern guns, and sci-fi weapons like an antimatter rifle.
That’s a good point. Making it cost prohibitive could force them to spend money. Or even making the ammo really expensive and cumbersome. Like 10 rounds of lead ammo would be additional “x” weight and would cost 3 or 4 times the cost of 25 arrows or bolts.
You could even used more fall out ideas like desperate people making guns, that are far less effective, using alternative ammunition like teeth. Just lower the damage dice by how ever much from the DMG. Otherwise, the cost of 'real' bullets being much more expensive.
You could even add in a failure chance since this is a post apocalyptic setting. Each use has a chance to fail and damage the weapon so it is useless until repaired... which would be expensive to repair.
Guns in D&D can introduce some narrative issues that, to be fair, are kinda true of bows as well. Namely: what is a hit? What does it look like? You hit someone with a bullet in real life and, pretty much wherever it lands, they're out for the count, but that's not what you see represented by a simple loss of HP. So maybe a hit is just a graze? Bullet goes ZZZ and cuts your shoulder, tearing your sleeve in a badass fashion? That's fine now and again, but if both sides of the fight are just ZZZ ZZZ ZZZ constantly and everyone is just getting grazed, it's going to sound ridiculous when you narrate it. Can nobody here shoot straight? Yet they're still good enough to not miss outright so everyone is getting papercut to death in this gunfight?
None of this is to say "don't do guns in dnd", you can absolutely, but just maybe don't make all combat be guns, and be careful how you narrate it if all combat *is* guns. Watch Matt Coleville's Let's Kill a Player video for the super useful segment at the beginning about what constitutes a "hit" in the narrative, beyond the mechanics. Dnd as a system doesn't have an answer for this problem, so it won't help you out.
How is getting shot any different that getting hit with an axe or stabbed with a sword? We're playing in a world where you fully heal after a good night's sleep and where people can literally warp the fabric of reality. Realism went out the window a long time ago.
I would definitely not bother with adding weight- among other things you're likely to run into players (yes, even high school students) who are well aware that bullets really don't weigh much especially when compared to arrows. And that's on top of the fact that weight is already seen as more of an annoyance than a positive addition to the game. I would definitely make them more expensive than arrows or bolts and require that players track them.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
So, the simplest way to make guns viable for D&D: don't make them markedly better than the medieval ranged weapons. Really, this doesn't present significant verisimilitude issues within the scope of the existing combat system- while a bullet's ability to pierce breastplates was definitely a significant reason they altered the entire paradigm of armed conflict, the bigger game changer was that it took far less time to train a competent corps of riflemen than swords, bow, or pikemen. This isn't something that's really going to impact a bunch of D&D PC's since level 1 of any class already has you trained to competence in the relevant weapons, and with the HP system the nuances of how quickly a particular weapon wound would take someone out of a fight are fairly moot. The Gunslinger subclass adapted from Critical Role has a good revolver-esque weapon as a part of its firearm rules; feel free to keep or drop the misfire portion as you like.
I would suggest avoiding the "modern" Fallout New Vegas aspect if you're concerned with an "authentic feel" to the weapons- once you've gone from revolvers and lever action rifles to man portable artillery and high capacity semi or full auto weapons you can't really reconcile them performing at the same tier as swords and bows, and you'd probably be better served looking for an alternate rules system that's better structured to give a balanced combat experience with them. It's not objectively impossible to make work under 5e, but you're gonna have to do a lot of eyeball adjusting and/or number crunching if the baseline "normal attack" damage output is jumping from 1-5 dice per player per turn to something like 5-10.
The fallout aspects I was looking at adopting are more in the vain a crafted and makeshift weapons like pipe pistols. And then limiting certain classes to a subset of weapon and only as the PC gain level will they be able to use or upgrade certain weapons.
HP isn't directly analogous to health and well being (again, see the video I referenced in my original comment). Combat is far more complex a thing than the rules can handle, so narratively, you might describe a character being "hit" by an axe as only blocking the blow at the cost of sure footing therefore opening them up further to a killing blow later. A "hit" could be that the character blocks the axe with their shield but the force of the blow demoralizes them to the point that they're not fighting their best anymore as fear of their opponents strength takes over. A cool thing to do when narrating combat is, when someone is hit, tell them "this blow would have killed you, but you..." and invite them to narrate how they stay in the fight.
If a "hit" in dnd was directly analogous to the axe breaking armor and slicing into flesh, again it would be ridiculous with every fight being the Black Knight scene from Holy Grail. One doesn't simply sleep off an axe wound to the chest, no matter how much fantasy magic you have at your fingertips. It's immersion-breaking.
I think guns in dnd highlight that weakness of the combat system, so you just need to be careful how you represent combat narratively.
Because you can narrate a "hit" from an axe as being something that doesn't inflict a deep wound. For example, a blow can be absorbed by your armour so that "hit" didn't actually bite into your flesh, but perhaps pounded on your armour. That still takes it out of you a bit and makes it easier for the opponent to get a more accurate blow later that might kill you...but doesn't necessarily result in an actual wound this time. Bullets...tend to be harder to explain because if they hit, they wound. To be fair, things like poisoned blades also present challenges.
D&D is good for a lot of things...realism isn't its strong point.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
A bullet could be narrated as simply grazing the target as a near miss.
Or, you know, you don't have to actually detail out how every hit looks during combat.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Modern technology has evolved around guns. Therefore, while guns are still the most effective weapon, you can say that kevlar armor - that has been optimized to protect from bullets - is widely available.
That's not really very "old west" though.
The OP asked for a "...'modern' wasteland wild west setting."
instead of modern fire arms you could have flint locks.
Unrifled they were effectively worse than bow and arrow in combat.
Wildly in accurate at anything longer than 50 ft. Pistol dueling was more a test of courage and not a test of accuracy. Most participants were only wounded and not killed.
A flintlock shotgun would be most effective.and could be made with old shotgun barrels.
The development of the percussion cap made the revolver and eventually modern cartridges possible.
Adding modern tech to D&D magic is a mixture that will quickly break down a game. Limit both A LOT and it could work.
Flintlocks were less accurate than, but had a number of advantages over bows.
If you want an “old west “ feel try actually looking historically. Single shot flintlock firearms were all there were until about 1815 when the first percussion firearms, still single shot muzzle loading ( with a few rare exceptions). The best you got was about 3-4 shots a minute (1 shot every other round) vs the 12 shots a minute for a bow. The first repeating gun of any importance was the colt revolver of 1835 which was a small caliber ( .32 or .36).the first big caliber (.44/.45) was the walker colt ( 1838) followed by the dragons (1840-1860) and the “baby” dragons/early “navy” pistols (.36 cal) of the same era. Still all cap and ball pistols and the closest thing to repeating long guns were the colt revolving rifle and shotgun. The colt army and navy pistols of 1860-1876 were still cap and ball. The first metal cartridge gun was the Volcanic which became the Henry which became the Winchester (after the civil war). The other major repeaters of the civil war and beyond were the sharps and the Spencer- both of which were percussion cap breach loading, paper cartridge weapons at least initially. The first actual cartridge pistols were the smith and wessons from about 1870 on. There walker and dragoon pistols were sufficiently heavy that they were considered “ horse” pistols with a pair strapped to the saddle not carried on the belt. The smaller, lighter baby dragoon and navy pistols were worn on the belt. Typically 2 were carried as reloading was time consuming so you carried a second for when you needed the extra fire power.
There were all sorts of attempts at multi shot weapons during the flintlock era but non were really effective with one possible exception. That was the Ferguson rifle of the revolutionary war period but, while it could hit the bow’s 12 shots a minute rate, it had fouling problems like most black powder weapons. There were also a number of rotating chamber guns tried but they were hand turned ( so you need a free hand) or multi barreled “ pepper box” types that often fired all the barrels at once if you were unlucky ( so misfire chances) .
for game purposes I would make the flintlocks ( except the Ferguson) limited to 1 shot a round even if the pc has more possible attacks. Cap and ball pistols would be capable of 2 shots a round. But need a round ( or 2) of reloading after 3 rounds of firing (welcome to carrying 2 guns for 6 rounds of fire power). Cap and ball rifles aren’t really much faster than flintlocks but could get 1 shot a round legitimately. Breach loading percussion rifles ( Spencer and sharps) were capable of 2 shots a round. Only the Henry/ Winchester was really capable of 3-4 shots around. The smaller pistols might be considered “light” weapons allowing for dual wielding but the walker, dragons and really even the 1860 army weren’t. The Spencer, sharps, and most flintlocks were .50 caliber or larger so maybe a D12 for damage. The .44/.45 pistols and rifles maybe a d10 and the .36 cal a d8. The .32 would be a d6 and anything smaller a d4.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
But the OP didn't ask for "old west". They asked for "...'modern' wasteland Wild West setting guns.