Alternative Firearms rules? [4e]

[hirou]

Hello, first post here. Stumbled upon Zeitgeist about a month ago, became fascinated, bought the whole path and now preparing to run first module with a group of 6 just this Sunday.
We discussed the Player's guide a lot with the group, and the most heated topic was, surprisingly, the firearms rules. The rules that are presented in the book and our problems with them are as follows:

• Default rules - firearms have brutal 2, high crit and reload standard. Statistically, they are 1 point above crossbows in terms of damage, but without feats are mostly once-per-encounter use. So, you spend, say, 25-30 gp for a carbine or rifle and get a net +3 or +4 average bonus damage on your 3[W] daily power or even less on encounter powers. Not bad but definitely not outstanding.
• Gunsmoke and Mishaps - guns release smoke and can backfire. Now you get the same tiny bonus damage and a chance of self-damage on top of that. Oh, and maybe concealment, that may be handy, but did you really pick that pistol to be able to hide? Nice flavor, but not that much interesting.
• Killing tool - this is where things go south. It sounds good - +2 dice of damage for the (suggested) price of requiring 2 move actions to reload. Even on per-encounter basis, adding 2 dice of damage to your nova burst sounds good... until you consider 2 things. First, I dunno about you, but I tend to have my bad guys somewhat competent and comparable in wits to PCs. Any minion monster with a carbine suddenly gains an encounter attack of 3d8. 4ed mechanics says that 4 minions should be exp-wise a normal battle for one PC... anyone wants to receive 12d8 salvo in the face on the first round of combat? Even factoring in the misses, this is very likely to bloody or outright knock out the 1st level character. And it's not all. Look at that table on page 16, with all firearms listed. What's the very first line? That's right, grenade. Attacks with which basically become '3d10, Burst 1 within 5, half damage on miss'. If I'm not mistaken with the math, that's roughly 12 damage on average, factoring misses, from one opponent, from one grenade. Remember what I said about a small team of 4 minions? That's ~50 damage for you, incoming. I think kobolds will soon rule this poor world...
• Threat of force - you get "always readied up" attack on any creature entering the square within 30 feet of you. If you allow to make the same attack as Reaction(or Interrupt) to any other action that normally provokes an attack of opportunity (say, an enemy makes a ranged attack near you), you can enact the "Han shot first" scene from Star Wars, which makes me really like this option, but it's a bit situation-dependent. It's deadly for common folk if we suppose that they're minions (first shot - first kill), but doesn't change the situation much for PCs.

So, all in all, the firearms rules presented in the guide simply does not make firearms attractive to the players. At best, they act the same as reflavored crossbows, with nothing really distinguishing.
Right now we're discussing the alternative mechanics - every attack with firearms gets built-in +3 power bonus to hit roll, with high crit and reload standard (or maybe 2 move actions). The reasoning can be defended from different angles: firearms are easier to aim and shoot, bullet is faster than the arrow and therefore harder to dodge, bullets pierce armor. It's a power bonus, so it's not possible to stack this with to-hit bonuses from Warlord, for example. +3 value is under discussion, but it's basically slightly below the above-mentioned bonus from competent warlord, but big enough to be substantial. And it allows a bullet to punch through hide armor (AC+3) on immobile target with a roll of 10, if we want to have some real-life comparison.

So I have 2 questions for fellow players (and maybe, hopefully, the creators of this wonderful AP):

• What was your impression of firearms in your game? Which rules you've used and how that played out?
• What do you think of the suggested change? Is this too powerful? Too simple? Not needed at all?

 

[skotothalamos]

The rules we're using in our game:

Killing Tool (for +2 dice per attack)
Threat of Force (the 6-space pseudo-oppo)
"These things are clunky" my own rule that reloading a firearm while in melee range provokes a bonus opportunity attack, above and beyond the oppo for making a ranged attack while in melee range (this is to prevent "well, he oppo'd me when I shot him point blank, so now I reload in his face")

I find Killing Tool with the regulat Standard-Action reload to be nicely balanced with a crossbow with reload minor. A ranged basic from a character with a crossbow and 18 Dex will do 1d8+4 damage on a hit, for an average of 8 points, or 16 if they hit two rounds in a row. That same character with a carbine will do 3d8+4 damage on a hit, or 16 damage, then reload the following round, for a total damage output of 16 in two rounds, exactly the same as the crossbow-wielder.

Obviously, the gun will be spikier since it is making half as many attacks which do twice as much damage, and their crits are crazy. One miss with a gun is a lot bigger deal. Of course, this starts to break down when people go all-out for guns with a Gunslinger making semi-automatic weapons and people taking Speed Loader to shoot every turn instead of every other turn. Guns are verrry attractive if you put the time into them.

As far as danger to the PCs goes, there are very few enemies with guns for a while. My group is in adventure four and I can count the number of gunfights they've gotten into on one hand. By the time you get a lot of bad guys with guns, hopefully they'll be just as ready to deal out big spikes of damage.

We had three (of six) characters with guns, but there have been some deaths and now we're down to two characters with guns, but both very specialized (a gunsmith ranger and a technologist artificer). Mostly, our rules have served to speed up combat.

As far as minions go, to give an equivalent boost for Killing Tool, I just double their listed damage if they have firearms, rather than rolling 3d6 or 3d8 or whatever.

 

[Obryn]

We use pretty basic Firearms rules - they're longer-reload, higher-damage crossbows - but I allow my players to use their highest stat and any relevant feats on them. So basically they are a lot like Theme powers.

Why? I love the idea of a fire-and-forget flintlock. Take your shot, drop the weapon, close to range. This makes guns the best missile choice for most characters.

I also couldn't figure out a class in 4e who'd ever choose to use two pistols, so the group's ranger has a musket (taking the weapon proficiency feat for it) reskinned into to pistols. It works awesome. We also use the older Firearm Expertise feat, which allows her to reload as a Minor action; needing to spend a Minor to reload is a good enough downside for me, compared to a Crossbow.

 

[Bruize]

My group started off using the Killing Tool variant. At first, it wasn't so bad but once we got a ranger that used firearms with twin strike and had reloading feats I had to change them. Toward the end of Dying Skyseer, I ruled that the extra forceful ammo they had been using is in very short supply and that the RHC switched over to another brand. The new brand was Brutal 2 and +1 dmg die. So far it seems to be a happy medium between the standard firearms rules presented in the original player's guide and the killing tool variant.

As we move into the next mod (after Always on Time...is it Cauldron Born?) we're transitioning to the errata'd firearms reload rules.

 

[al_fredo]

I don't have any variant rules in place...and perhaps because of it, no one uses firearms in the campaign. The DEX based PC in the group is a rogue, and mostly fighting in melee...the other characters would be bad at using guns.

But I'd like to have the single-shot, fire and drop, encounter type thing happening. Upping to 3[w] might at least make my players carry loaded pistols. I literally might have to have Delft just GIVE them pistols as part of "RHC standard equipment. You should have these!" You just have to watch out for any Kell-guild pistoleers, who all of a sudden become deadly.

I agree that optimizing this (speed loader + twin strike) is overkill. BTW... 3[w] on a pistol is avg 10.5 dmg roll. Brutal 2 and 2[w] (as per Bruize) is 9. Not much difference, considering PCs are getting like +7ish as damage bonus. So you're talking 17.5 vs. 16. 3[w] might just be easier.

 

[eamon]

I'm not running zeitgeist yet, but I'd also like to see the fire-and-forget style firearm be attractive.

The fundamental issue here is that anything that is powerful enough to be attractive to lots of classes as a kind of simple, powerful ranged attack is going to be too powerful for someone that can use it every round.

I was considering splitting the firearms into two classes - those that take long to reload but are extra powerful, and those that take less-than-standard to reload, and are not extra powerful. The in-game reasoning might simply be that fast reloads are possible only with intricate components near the rear of the barrel, and those can't take the force of more powerful explosives. So you get to pick: front-loading (slow...) and powerful, or rear-loading (possibly fast) and crossbow-like.

However, there is a loophole here, and it's a pretty cool one, but not great for game balance. A character with the quick draw feat can simply have a whole host of firearms, and draw a new one for each attack. That circumvents the reload mechanics entirely, though at considerable cost if he wants enchantments. Even without quick draw, it's just a minor to draw a pistol from your belt...

I think the real question is just what you want: do you want balance? Do you want *anyone* to ever pick a crossbow again? Then Zeitgeist's default firearms pretty much go as far as they can.

Personally, I don't think that kind of balance is all that important, as long as everyone gets their turn in the spotlight. And at first level a few extra damage dice sound like a lot, but as levels rise and other bonuses get added this will become less and less significant.

 

[hirou]

Thank you all for your responses! So far we had one session, went through Act 1 of furst module. We used Threat of Force rule only, and I don't think it came into play even once. Overall firearms felt a bit lacking right until the timely shot from rogue's musket destroyed the last steam release valve and saved the ship. Still, we're not content with the current rules and still looking for alternatives.

I've thought about some ideas proposed in this thread, I'll definitely consider treating firearms as theme powers (using best ability to fire them) and splitting them into 2 variants. I'll try to post the results later this week, we have a play scheduled for this Thursday.

The main problem with Killing tool, as mentioned by several posters, is that reloading can be circumvented completely by carrying several pistols around. Note that Tinker feature (Gunsmith lvl 5) allows PC to use his enchanted weapon modifier and properties on ALL firearms. With tons of gold, that PCs are getting on later levels, even 250 gp for multiple rifle-muskets is dirt cheap...

 

[skotothalamos]

However, there is a loophole here, and it's a pretty cool one, but not great for game balance. A character with the quick draw feat can simply have a whole host of firearms, and draw a new one for each attack. That circumvents the reload mechanics entirely, though at considerable cost if he wants enchantments. Even without quick draw, it's just a minor to draw a pistol from your belt...

It's pretty cool, though, if your PCs end up looking like this:

 

[Obryn]

Suggestion to those who have a hard time making guns an attractive choice:

Turn them into, in effect, magic items with an encounter power. Level +5 vs. AC, ranged whatever, doing 2d6+Level damage.

This isn't a great idea if you have PCs who specialize in guns, but it's nice and simple.

 

[hirou]

Long-delayed update:
In the end we run with house rule that all firearms except grenades get +3 power bonus to hit; this makes secondary effects on ranged attacks much more dangerous (and actually buffs a lot one of the most UP classes, seeker). They retain reload standard and high crit, but loose brutal 2. The reload time can be shortened with fast loader to move action and further to minor action with specific weapon enchant (don't have the char sheet ready, so can't dig up the enchant name). It's a power bonus, so it doesn't stack with i.e. warlord buffs (which would otherwise skyrocket the firearms accuracy to "only miss on 1"), this gives party gunslinger more chances to roll damage while simultaneously encouraging taking actions to optimize his battle behavior with multiple weapons, reload timing and Quick Draw.

Other problem I ran into is that grenades as written are, honestly, broken. 4ed has many powers/feats combos which activate on a hit/miss of initial attack. I.e. Careful attack+True arrow style feat allows to make a ranged basic attack if the initial attack misses, in exchange for granting combat advantage on attacker for a turn. Now imagine that initial grenade missed, say, 3 targets in burst 1... suddenly there're 3 more grenades incoming. Somehow. Turning any ranged attack into burst 1 which also deals half damage on miss basically means that every encounter ranged power is almost as powerful as a daily, all for measly 10 gp.

I tried a system when individual grenades should be "fine-tuned" for specific powers (with a help of technologist), so, say, Twin Strike attack with a grenade may only involve specifically prepared grenade with double warhead, with price of "tuning" dependent on the level of the power used (one fifth of the equivalent magic item price for daily powers, one tenth for encounter powers). This leads to some balanced math, but it's incredibly frustrating to keep count of each and every grenade, so now I'm trying much easier scheme: each grenade attack adds secondary attack, burst 1 centered on primary target/square, deal the same damage on hit, half on miss with no additional effects. This still increases the damage output a lot, but at least breaks some of the more ridiculous-looking combos my players discovered.

PS: just to give you a picture, our gunslinger carries fast-loading shotgun, his beloved rifled musket Maria (with "duct-taped" silencer which he stole off poor Burton and which misfires every second time), two pistols and metric ton of grenades. Just in case. And all non-lethal, of course.