Gunblade

[Bean 2.0]

I always thought of the gunblades as a a freaky serires of double weapons, the blade part always being the primary weapon and the pistol being off hand, the grip for a long sword, scimitar or great sword potencially even a full-blade is easily modified at no penalty (unfortunatly the intracite balance of a katana or bastarad sword is not compatible)

Here's my version using a longsword and a modified pistol (based on squall's blades can't figure out Seifier's)
Gunblade Large exotic double weapon

damage 1d8/1d8(6 maybe)
crit (19-20)x2/x3
weight 30
damage type slashing/piercing
range increment -/20
cost 2,600 gp (always materwork)
Bullets 5 gp for clips of ten (1/4 each clip)

the gun blade is an intricate and powerful weapon. its rarity means that a weilder's allys have their magic swords and armor by the time the character has his first gunblade. The gunblade is a double weapon with a few iteresting abilities first since the pistol is a ranged weapon the blade is always considered the primary weapon. It must always be weilded two-hand its odd grip and balance combined with the need to pull the trigger make one handed use all but impossible, a -8 penalty is inflicted even if an ability would allow the character to weild a large weapon one-handed and even then you may only attack with the blade. you need both hands to handle the recoil. gunblades may be fired at 5 without provoking an attack of opportunity. They are loaded with clips of ten bullets at a time, they require a standard action to reload, By taking the rapid reload feat a character may reduce this to a free action, but only once per round.

a little long but then this is a complicated weapon

what do you think?

 

[Imperialus]

Hrm... I used to have a sword pistol but I was forced to sell it some time back... Basically what it looked like was short streight single edged blade (approx. 11 or 12 inches) with a half clamshell guard and a short barreled flintlock pistol where the other half of the clamshell would be. Underneath one of the quillons was the trigger for the pistol and the sword had a streight grip. a curved grip like the gunblades of FF8 would be impractical due to the fact that you would be forced to curve and therefore weaken the tang. I can only imagine it wouldn't be the most accurate weapon in the world even by the standards of pistols at the time. It would have been designed to be used offhand in navel combat where the close quarters would have made the combination useful enough to offset the innaccuracy of the weapon. It still would not have been the most practical of weapons. The welding techniques of the time would have made the marrage of the weapons shoddy at best and if used in any serious combat the pistol would be likely to break off and quite possibly take the blade with it. Even if that didn't happen a parried sword blow has a better than even chance of breaking off the arm holding the flint.

A more practical solution was found by weighting and re-enforceing the butt end of a regular pistol to turn it into a reasonably effective club by simply reverseing the weapon and holding it by the barrel.

Gun swords were typically weapons for show. They would have been expencive to make and largely impractial to use.

By the looks of your writeup though it isn't quite the concept you were going for... I'll try and write up my interpritation of the historical version for comparison though.

It's a double weapon (naturally) with the sword as the primary weapon and the pistol as a secondary.

Damage: 1d6/1d8 (due to a smaller pistol caliber)
Crit: (19-20)x2/x3
Range Increment: 20 ft
Weight: 15
Cost: 615 GP (short sword+DMG pistol cost+Master working cost)
Special: It requires a full action to reload the pistol due to the interferance of the blade for useing the ramrod and powder cartrages. Then again the blade is there to avoid haveing to reload . The pistol also suffers a -1 to hit irrigardless of range due to the streight grip. Any time a 1 is rolled on an attack roll (with either the pistol or sword) the weapon is damaged. The nature of the damage is left to the DM's discression but this either represents the pistol ball strikeing the blade as it is fired or the pistol itself being damaged after being struck in close combat. Due to the forced weakening of the tang during construction the pistol being struck might even result in the snapping of the blade at the hilt.

This is getting long I know, but that said I see nothing wrong with your design. It is a more fantastical one sure and not something I would chose to use but if it fits your campaign, more power to you. It seems to be balanced (at least assumeing your campaign includes other repeating firearms) which is all that really matters. Mine is as direct an interpritation as I can come up with of a late 18th early 19th century design.