Custom and Technomantic Weapons for a Steampunk Setting

The setting is roughly at the mid to later 19th century in terms of conventional technology (trains, cameras and possibly Gramophones), though magic very much exists and in some cases pseudoscience might actually work (a magnetic device can heal!). So I of course thought of weapons like firearms which are generally better than renaissance firearms, but inferior to the modern firearms using that DMG table as a guideline. So I sort of settled for:

1d10 for standard pistols, revolvers included
1d12 damage for heavier pistols, revolvers included
2d6 for rifles, including repeating rifles (4 or 5 bullets before reload) this might also include carbines which were a shorter rifle made for cavalry
2d8 for single shot rifles, that can only be fired once per round. Typically ones used by militaries and have bayonets (1d8 damage two-handed treated as a polearm) mounted on them.

But then I thought what about all the special cases, like a Marksman's Pistol that might have a range beyond 30/90 or revolvers that have any amount of bullets that aren't 6, like less if it a powerful calibre or more because it's an efficiently superior model. Or what about an "Elephant Rifle" (which I doubt it would be called that, since there are bigger and nastier things than elephants to hunt) a really high calibre rifle that might do 2d10 damage, and might require more than a bonus action to reload like 1 action or 1 short rest/minute to reload.

And then there's the idea of combination weapons, like Rapier-pistols and Axe-rifles that were mostly a Renaissance thing, but fell out of favour when multiple shot weapons became more reliable because they were unwieldy weapons. I figured many of those weapons would still be around despite multiple shot firearms, because the world has more than just Humans in it. Dwarves, Gnomes and other races are more skilled than Humans at creating combination melee-firearms that aren't unwieldy, and Orcs and other races wouldn't be bothered by how unwieldy such weapons would be.

And then finally there's technomancy and weird science, where there's pistols and rifles that while having roughly the same damage ranges as conventional firearms, would instead do damage types other than piercing damage. I figured that Fire, Cold, Lightning, Acid, Poison and Thunder damage, might be the more common varieties, maybe slashing damage for some disk shooter (could be an Orcish weapon). And rarer technomantic firearms might do Force, Psychic, Radiant or Necrotic damage. But once we get to these weapons, I feel they're pushing into Magic Item territory, even if they could be used with the standard proficiencies of weapon. The Fire, Cold, Lightning, Acid, Poison and Thunder firearms I guess could be Common Magic Items, and Force, Psychic, Radiant and Necrotic firearms might be Uncommon Magic Items.

Though I guess that some of these elemental firearms should though have different ammo capacities and different ranges from conventional firearms. Like a Lightning pistol is 1d10 damage, 3 ammo, range 50/100 or something like that.

In some ways I feel it should be like a video game like Borderlands or Destiny I guess, minus that disposable level scaling for loot, where you could pick up a variety of things with different stats.

If my memory doesn't fail, there is in the SRD something for steampunk setting published by 3rd parties.

My opinion is if the firearms are too powerful in a game with d20 System then too many players don't want hand-to-hand fighter like paladins or barbarians. And they can break the balance of power. A simple level 1 goblin with a sniper rifle from the top of a tree, or riding a flying monster, could be a true nightmare for a monk PC without distance attacks. How should be the XP reward?

Other matter is about creation of low level powers against gunslingers, for example a bulleproof magic shield, or creating a little piece of ectoplasm to block enemy canons.

LuisCarlos17f said:

If my memory doesn't fail, there is in the SRD something for steampunk setting published by 3rd parties.

My opinion is if the firearms are too powerful in a game with d20 System then too many players don't want hand-to-hand fighter like paladins or barbarians. And they can break the balance of power. A simple level 1 goblin with a sniper rifle from the top of a tree, or riding a flying monster, could be a true nightmare for a monk PC without distance attacks. How should be the XP reward?

Other matter is about creation of low level powers against gunslingers, for example a bulleproof magic shield, or creating a little piece of ectoplasm to block enemy canons.

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It's going to be assumed the campaign from the start is balanced towards everyone having a firearm in some ways. Fighters are assumed to have rifles and likely ones with bayonets, Barbarians will likely use shotguns or combination melee-firearms, Monks carry pistols as backup, Paladins are sort of the types in fancy military dress uniforms with pistols and swords. Steam powered armour does exist too, though likely more of a subclass focus and outside of availability of 1st level characters.

Magic Focuses at least add ability mod to cantrips, if not more, even though any wizard or sorcerer can pick up a pistol too. Existing abilities such as the Monk's Deflect Arrows works on bullets, Protection from Arrows from previous editions would be brought back as a spell, but the spell would probably get renamed though because arrows are less common but it's still functionally the same. My reason for wanting ability mod added to cantrips is so that cantrips aren't downplayed until 5th level, and cantrips should be the preferred choice of most casters with the exception of weapon-oriented Clerics, Bards, and magic subclasses that focus on firearms like Technomancer Wizards and Hexslinger Warlocks.

Things like smoke bombs might get a lot of uses. As this is a steampunk and not historical, there's would a cheap 1 person flying machine, sort of the bicycle of air vehicles, it would close the gap of flying, but is likely to go down if hit by 1 or 2 pistol shots.

Kobold Avenger said:

In some ways I feel it should be like a video game like Borderlands

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You rang?

My solution was to stay 5e simple, so I used the crossbow stats.

The sniper rifle is the heavy crossbow, with increased ranged.

The rifle is the standard crossbow with the DMG's reload (10) property and a reduced range (so the sniper rifle stands out art long range)

The pistol is the hand crossbow with reload (5) and probably a reduced range.

The shotgun is the standard crossbow with reload (5) and drastically reduced range and any one of the various "scatter" properties you might find in homebrew and 3rd party supplements (I couldn't settle on one, so I'm using them all)

There wasn't enough design space left to bother differentiating between pistols and revolvers, or to include smgs. And it felt complete to me.

The big thing, for the Borderlands feel, was adding a special property to the gun based on the legendary dwarven smith who made it. Jacobs guns do more damage, Maliwans do elemental damage, Tediore (clearly a gnome) guns are an unlimited supply of grenades, so long as you actually have ammo to load into it.

So, only 4 guns added to the weapon table, with theoretically infinite variety by adding a special ability.

If steampunk is possible, why not biopunk? and what is biopunk? Biopunk is fictional technology using living beings like machines, like the gun in the restaurant from the movie "ExIsTenZ" or the Yuuzhan Vong from Star Wars. Let's imagine a crossbow what reload itself with a biological muscle. Not only necromancer would create something like this, but also some flesh-modeler crazy scientifics or spellcasters.

I suggest to add factions who hate gunpowder, for example genies, giants, dragons, lord fays, cults or constructs controlled by elemental spirits. Other idea is creating demiplanes within "Faywild" where naive creatures are enough bulletproof to need hand-to-hand weapons. For example warriors without firearms are killed by bullets and they don't become undead ghosts but return as lord fays' champions with fay monster subtype and bulleproof monster traits.

LuisCarlos17f said:

If steampunk is possible, why not biopunk?

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I have biopunk in mind for things at the fringes of the setting. There's certainly Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and HG Wells Island of Dr. Moreau as touchstones. The core of the setting would be like our world in the 19th century where there's nations sort of like a Victorian England, a Wild West, a Qing Dynasty China that never went into decline, an India equivalent with fleets of Vinama air fortresses, a France that never left the revolution behind and so on, thrown in the blender with Elves, Orcs and other fantasy elements and D&Disms.

The Far Realm certainly does have it's influence on the world. Illithids lurk, and there's the Kaorti and they use things such as Kroath shock troopers and N'sss war machines, taking the alien types from Alternity's Star*Drive setting and D20 Future.

Anyways circling back to before, I think there should only be about 4 or 5 basic firearm types. I based them on the ones in the DMG. But allow for there to be many variations on those basic types.

Some vary by range, or damage, ammo capacity, and reload times (bonus action, action, short rest/minute) or even damage type.

Conceivably custom built weapon could apply to some melee weapons too, as ways to sort of have the exotic weapons that 3e had.

I have a d20 modern book with guidelines of how to stat firearms. It’s pretty detailed talking about caliber and stuff but it also has guidelines for futuristic weapons. If I get a chance, I’ll pm the basics to you.

You could add bulleproof magic traits to the armours by city guardians, but this only works within the city for the guardians chosen by the city church.

Other idea to add bulleproof monsters like a soft way of werebeasts because savage tribes drink special poisons, or a zone of the faywild is tainted by a planar gate to the far realm creating mutants, or an invasion by zombie-like creatures mind-controlled by a special type of parasite, elemental crystals embedded on the skin. Do you remember the zerns from MM IV (3.5 D&D), and the ethergaunts from Fiend Folio (3rd-3.5 Ed)?

Have you thought about the idea or exosuits used by gnomes a goblins?

LuisCarlos17f said:

Have you thought about the idea or exosuits used by gnomes a goblins?

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There's some thought to armours that are bulletproof or not, though generally all classes lose Heavy Armour Proficiency. Since 19 century Cuirassiers still wore Breastplate, Medium Armour is still a thing and still uses it's AC bonus against bullets. Heavy Armour Proficiency has to be gained by picking certain subclasses or a feat, they give access to Mechanical Power Armour which is probably AC 18.

I feel should have maybe as much as 3 special traits. Like increased land speed, jump jets, the ability to use 1 size larger melee weapons, built in shotguns, darkvision, fire resistance, or those types of things.