D&D (2024) Firearms to be made a fixed part of the game, new Weapons Rules

[Saracenus]

Nope. Official release Greyhawk only had laser guns and robots.

 

[Charlaquin]

Nevermind

 

[Horwath]

I am very happy with this, as it means going forward I can eradicate hand crossbows from my game. I [CENSORED] can't stand [CENSORED] [CENSORED] hand crossbows, so now people can take a [CENSORED] brace of pistols instead.

Playing PF2 has opened my eyes to ways guns can work in the D&D milieu without being pea-shooters or horribly OP. That they're getting folded into d&d doesn't surprise me.

Don't know why the hate towards hand crossbow, when obvious culprits are (old)Sharpshooter feat combined with (old)crossbow expert feat.
In base form, it's mediocre damage with terrible range and you NEED two feats to make it viable.
And if you want to have one-handed reloading, you need two specific magic crossbows to make that work.


But, crossbows could be made more realistic, all of them.

High damage, Action reload(or Bonus action), medium range.

I.E.

Crossbow:
simple
two handed
d12 piercing damage,
Loading: Action
range: 80/320

Crossbow, heavy
simple
two handed
heavy
2d6 piercing damage
Loading: Action
range: 100/400

Crossbow, hand
simple
one handed(need two hands for reloading)
light
1d8 piercing damage
Loading: Bonus action
range: 40/160

 

[Minigiant]

My fear,none f these weapon properties and new weapons increase warrior damage enough.

The core issue with 5e was that the warriors' lesser versatility and utility was justified compared to casters by their higher damage, But the caster's powerful spells brought them close due to OP spells. Thw warriors and half casters only edged outwith OP feats and OP magic items.

Take out the OP feats and magic items but keep the baseline and the wizard could outdamage the fighter. Cool idea but this is a wait and see.

 

[Horwath]

My fear,none f these weapon properties and new weapons increase warrior damage enough.

The core issue with 5e was that the warriors' lesser versatility and utility was justified compared to casters by their higher damage, But the caster's powerful spells brought them close due to OP spells. Thw warriors and half casters only edged outwith OP feats and OP magic items.

Take out the OP feats and magic items but keep the baseline and the wizard could outdamage the fighter. Cool idea but this is a wait and see.

Problem with that is that in theory short rest are a thing, but in reality they are not.

In every campaign that I played, we had probably on average half a short rest per long rest.
1hr "short" rest is complete failure of a mechanic.

if you can get 4 or 5 short rests, then fighter pulls infront of wizard in damage and self healing with action surge and second wind.
But if you can use that mechanics once, maaaybe twice per day, the ability does not work as intended. And wizard only need one short rest per day, but not really.

 

[ArmoredSaint77]

Cool.

Now please do the same with armour.

 

[Knight_Marshal]

So they are putting in firearms, but not the class most likely to make them.

 

[Remathilis]

So they are putting in firearms, but not the class most likely to make them.

Maybe gunslinger will be the fourth fighter subclass?

In reality, all they are doing is moving them from the DMG to PHB to make it easier for players to find that info.

 

[Horwath]

Maybe gunslinger will be the fourth fighter subclass?

In reality, all they are doing is moving them from the DMG to PHB to make it easier for players to find that info.

Rogue could also be a good candidate.
Maybe one of 3rd level sub-class abilities could be that you could use Aim bonus action while using move in the same round, but only with firearms.

 

[Minigiant]

Problem with that is that in theory short rest are a thing, but in reality they are not.

In every campaign that I played, we had probably on average half a short rest per long rest.
1hr "short" rest is complete failure of a mechanic.

if you can get 4 or 5 short rests, then fighter pulls infront of wizard in damage and self healing with action surge and second wind.
But if you can use that mechanics once, maaaybe twice per day, the ability does not work as intended. And wizard only need one short rest per day, but not really.

It's more that the dice chosen for weapons are too small.

Martial weapons should be bumped up at least 2 dice sizes. Martial characters need a 1-6 damage increase across the board. The issue with the Master feats were that they were feats and not automatic.

If warriors dealt more base damage, you'd have more freedom to branch out in other areas

Adding firearms adds more damage but makes good versatile warriors into gunners.