Base Class: Fighter
The arcane firearms of Eberron, developed by House Cannith, are named after various celestial bodies. The Comet, is the equivalent to a pistol, and the Supernova is the equivanlent to a musket. While these arcane firearms are similar to renaissance weaponry, there are notable differences.
Arcane tinkerer
You gain this at 3rd level. In creating and maintaining your firearms, you gain proficiency in the Arcana skill and tinkerers tools, and in order to use them, you learn how to use firearms. Should a magical mishap occur, you need to roll an arcana check to understand the exact nature of the issue, and then a tinkerers tools check to fix it. Mechanically, whenever a magical mishap occurs, a DC of 30 is set for fixing the weapon. The arcana check reduces the DC by the amount of the check, which then aids the tinkerers tools check to fix the weapon.
Arcane Firearm properties
Re-Ignite: As opposed to guns in our world, Arcane firearms use dragonshard powder to utilise their powers. Each firearm has a set number of shots before needing to be re-ignited with more dragonshard powder.
Magical Mishap: When a natural 1 is rolled when firing an Arcane firearm, a magical mishap occurs. When this happens, roll on the Sorceror wild magic table to see what occurs, and roll a flat d20 to see the state of the firearm. On a 10 or higher, the weapon merely needs a tinker, and can be fixed with a bonus action. On a 9 or lower, the weapon is damaged and needs to be fixed as described in the Arcane Tinkerer feature.
Shot DC: Whenever an arcane shot feature requires a save the dc is 8+ Proficiency bonus+ int mod.
Arcane Barrel
You gain this at 3rd level.
The arcane barrel is what makes each user of arcane firearms unique. Each barrels are typically uniform in design, allowing them to be taken from old firearms and placed into new and perhaps more powerful ones. They represent their makers understanding of their weapons and techniques as well as being a source of pride for them. Before firing a firearm, a barrel has to be “loaded”. Loading takes a bonus action. When a barrel is loaded, the firearm deals damage based on the barrel and has a special effect associated with each barrel. You can only use the special effects of each barrel 1 per long rest. Each special effect requires 3 shots worth of dragonshard powder.
When selecting this class, you gain 2 barrel options and you then gain 1 additional option at 7th, 10th and 15th level.
Radiant Barrel: When loaded the firearm deals 1d10 radiant damage. Special Effect: You can use your action to fire a targeted burst of light to blind targets. You choose a point within 100ft, anything within 10ft of that target makes a constitution saving throw. On a fail they are blinded and take 3d10 radiant damage, on a success they take half damage and are not blinded.
Flame Barrel: When loaded the firearm deals 1d10 fire damage. Special Effect: You can use an action to fire a fireball spell at a point within range.
Frost Barrel: When loaded the firearm deals 1d10 cold damage. Special Effect: You can use an action to coat an area in ice. Choose a 10 feet cube within in 50ft, that area becomes difficult terrain for 1 minute as it is coated with ice, and anyone standing in the area takes 3d10 cold damage when used.
Lightning Barrel: When loaded the firearm deals 1d10 lightning damage. Special Effect: You can use an action to use the lightning bolt spell as per the spell.
Shadow Barrel: When loaded the firearm deals 1d10 necrotic damage. Special Effect: You can use an action to fire a Shadow shot at a target. If the shot hits, the target must make a strength saving throw. On a failure the target takes 3d10 necrotic damage and is grappled by their own shadow. At the end on their turns they may make a saving throw to escape the shadow. On a success they take half damage and aren’t grappled.
Force Barrel: When loaded the firearm deals 1d10 force damage. Special Effect: You can use an action to fire a small wall of force. The wall is 5ft high and 5ft wide, and can act as cover or as a blockage say, filling up a door. The wall only lasts for 5 minutes or until the barrel is switched out.
Weapon |
Weight |
Reignite |
Creation cost |
Range |
Pistol |
4lb |
6 |
200Gp |
30/90 |
Rifle |
9lb |
2 |
300gp |
100/300 |
Musket |
11lb |
4 |
250gp |
40/120 |
Flame Barrel
When loaded the firearm deals 1d10 fire damage. Special Effect: You can use an action to fire a fireball spell at a point within range.
Force Barrel
When loaded the firearm deals 1d10 force damage. Special Effect: You can use an action to fire a small wall of force. The wall is 5ft high and 5ft wide, and can act as cover or as a blockage say, filling up a door. The wall only lasts for 5 minutes or until the barrel is switched out.
Frost Barrel
When loaded the firearm deals 1d10 cold damage. Special Effect: You can use an action to coat an area in ice. Choose a 10 feet cube within in 50ft, that area becomes difficult terrain for 1 minute as it is coated with ice, and anyone standing in the area takes 3d10 cold damage when used.
Lightning Barrel
When loaded the firearm deals 1d10 lightning damage. Special Effect: You can use an action to use the lightning bolt spell as per the spell.
Radiant Barrel
When loaded the firearm deals 1d10 radiant damage. Special Effect: You can use your action to fire a targeted burst of light to blind targets. You choose a point within 100ft, anything within 10ft of that target makes a constitution saving throw. On a fail they are blinded and take 3d10 radiant damage, on a success they take half damage and are not blinded.
Shadow Barrel
When loaded the firearm deals 1d10 necrotic damage. Special Effect: You can use an action to fire a Shadow shot at a target. If the shot hits, the target must make a strength saving throw. On a failure the target takes 3d10 necrotic damage and is grappled by their own shadow. At the end on their turns they may make a saving throw to escape the shadow. On a success they take half damage and aren’t grappled.
Magic from Mayhem
At 7th level, when a magical mishap occurs, you can choose channel the explosive burst of magical energy into a shot. You make at attack with disadvantage against a target, and it counts as a critical on a hit. You then suffer the effects of a Magical Mishap and your Arcane Barrel is badly damaged and needs to be fixed as per the Arcane Tinkerer feature.
Spin the Barrel
At 10th level, you gain the option to Spin the Barrel as an action. Once per short rest, you can target up to a number of enemies equal to the amount to Arcane Barrels you have functioning , and make a number of shots equal to the number of Arcane Barrels you have functioning. You can spread the shots across as you like, for example making 1 shot each at 2 people and make 2 shots at a single person. After using this feature you suffer a Magical Mishap.
Superior Barrel
At 15th level, if you finish a short rest and have only 1 or less special effects from your barrels you regenerate 1 barrel's special effect.
Dragon Barrels
At 18th level, your mastery of your craft reaches its pinnacle. You gain access to your final Arcane Barrel, a Dragon Barrel. The dragon barrels are based off of the 3 Progenitor dragons, Eberron, Siberys and Khyber.
Eberron, the Dragon Between: When loaded the firearm deals 1d6 force damage and 1d6 cold damage. Special Effect: You can use an action to fire an Eberron Shot. Assisted by the world around you, you deal 4d6 force and 4d6 cold damage to your target, and regain that much HP.
Siberys, the Dragon Above: When loaded the firearm deals 1d6 radiant damage and 1d6 lightning damage. Special Effect: You can use an action to fire an Siberys Shot. If the target of the shot has the capacity to cast spells, they take 3d10 radiant and 3d10 lightning damage, and if they cast a spell on their next turn, the spell is countered and they retake the damage.
Khyber, the Dragon Below: When loaded, the firearm deals 1d6 necrotic damage and 1d6 fire damage. Special Effect: You can use an action to fire a Khyber Shot. If the target has an intelligence of 3 or higher, and is not a fiend, they take 4d6 necrotic damage and 4d6 fire damage and are paralysed as they experience terrible images of the Khyber. At the end of their turns they can make an intelligence saving through to escape the paralysis.
Eberron, the Dragon Between
When loaded the firearm deals 1d6 force damage and 1d6 cold damage. Special Effect: You can use an action to fire an Eberron Shot. Assisted by the world around you, you deal 4d6 force and 4d6 cold damage to your target, and regain that much HP.
Khyber, the Dragon Below
When loaded, the firearm deals 1d6 necrotic damage and 1d6 fire damage. Special Effect: You can use an action to fire a Khyber Shot. If the target has an intelligence of 3 or higher, and is not a fiend, they take 4d6 necrotic damage and 4d6 fire damage and are paralysed as they experience terrible images of the Khyber. At the end of their turns they can make an intelligence saving through to escape the paralysis.
Siberys, the Dragon Above
When loaded the firearm deals 1d6 radiant damage and 1d6 lightning damage. Special Effect: You can use an action to fire an Siberys Shot. If the target of the shot has the capacity to cast spells, they take 3d10 radiant and 3d10 lightning damage, and if they cast a spell on their next turn, the spell is countered and they retake the damage.
So to play this class you need 200 gp and somehow get dragon shard powder off the bat??? Also rifle has 2 charges but needs 3 to cast a spell??
agreed
So at 3rd level you can straight up use fireball. Twice with a pistol before reloading. A full on wizard doesn't get access to fireball till Lv5. This is insane and needs some rebalenceing.
Well made but does give you proficiency in firearms
8/10
Do you do an extra 1d10 (insert dmg type here) when equipping a barrel or not?
This is so well made
I think this is neat but I feel like it's a bit eberron-specific (which I'm fine with but not everyone uses Eberron stuff). I also feel like it ought to be a bit more artificer than fighter just due to the magical craftsmanship being a key part but I can understand fighter. Beyond that I feel like the uses of the special effects ought to have a certain number of uses (1/lr, prof/sr, etc.) rather than allowing the fighter to stock up on dragonshards and throw fireballs before the wizard can.
Absolutely love this homebrew to bits. It'd be a dream come true if there was an Artificer version of this that replaced the spellcasting
Ye, the author I believe saw my comment and updated the class to say that, when I posted the comment originally it just stated the check lowers the DC, just didn't specify to what
Ok so you roll a arcana check and you subtract that from 30 and then that is the DC to fix the weapon with tinker tools
The third level Arcane Tinker ability needs reworking. A DC of 30? That's extremely high, even if you somehow have a stat of 20 at 3rd level. Not to mention, the Arcane check lowering the DC. To what does it lower it to?
There is one thing that still confuses me. Special effects, like casting a Fireball spell or making an icey area, take 3 shots of dragonshard powder. The rifle only has a magazine size of 2 shots.
So can you exploit this, using the special effect for only 2 shots, but reloading after each special effect, or does it drain dragonshard powder directly from your inventory? So you have two shots in the mag, use a special effect, still have two shots in the mag, but missing those 3 shots from your inventory?
Also, i may be blind, but i cant find any entry to the dragonshard powder, so i guess, it is a custom ammunition type, specifically for these weapons. But how much does one package of powder/one shot cost? Because using the rennaisance 10 shot package for 3 gold seems a bit cheap, considering the damage you can do with that thing.
Other than that it seems like a pretty cool subclass.
I think the barrels should be renamed to cartridges to more accurately reflect how a gun would load, otherwise it sounds like you're literally swapping the front of the gun out, which would look odd to carry around depending on what kind of gun you use. The ability "Spin the Barrel" should be renamed to "Fan the Hammer" which is also more accurate to the rapid fire of a revolving type pistol.
This is awesome, I really want to play this class now!
Cool concept I really like it
this is an awesome subclass.
I hope you dont mind me using this as a base in creating my own version.
Are there weapons in the home brew area that pair with this class?
Never played DnD before, but this is going to be the class I strive to one day play! I will probably start with something a little simpler until I can convince a DM to let me take a shot at this one ;D
This is freaking awesome and I hope you don't mind me talking about it on my Youtube channel.