Kobold Avenger
Legend
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.
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.