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Message: <blockquote data-quote="marcelvdpol" data-source="post: 6953517" data-attributes="member: 6837387">That is always a possibility. You can take a Hand Crossbow and call it a Pistol but use the same stats and properties. This keeps the balance intact and allows reflavouring weapons for use in another setting. However, if you want a setting where Firearms are used / available next to bows, crossbows, longswords, rapiers etc you might want them to be different from the normal Hand Crossbow, Light Crossbow or Longbow.From a balance perspective it is quite important that Firearms have about similar DPR compared to other weapons of similar handedness and range. A Hand Crossbow for example does 1d6 damage, has a range of 30/120 and needs 1 hand to fire (but 2 hands to reload). A Firearm with similar range and handedness should deal a similar amount of damage over a single round with the same character; this depends amongst others on the abilities of the character (Extra Attack for example).To make a Firearm different it therefore needs to have other properties which might amount to the same DPR but with slightly different types (Bludgeoning damage vs Piercing damage or added Fire as a type of damage in exchange for reduced long range).Needing an Action / Bonus Action to reload reduces the usefulness of the Firearm for characters with Extra Attack compared to the Longbow. Crossbows due to the Loading property are only allowed to be fired once per Attack unless the character has a Feat which removes this restriction. Firearms could be even slower than Crossbows (although this is historically perhaps not accurate) so that it costs an Action or Bonus Action; in exchange a Firearm could do more damage and adds a damage type (Fire).</blockquote>

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