Guns require too many feats

[Goldkatana]

Hi, I'm about to start running the 4E version of ZG and am very excited. Looks great! But, already, I'm getting pushback from players who initally wanted to go the way of Ranger or Rogue with Gunsmith background. Essentially, I am being asked "why shouldn't I simply use 1 feat to take Greatbow and be done with it?" To use Musket, a feat needs to be used to access the superior weapon and it has a reload of standard, unless Firearm's Expertise feat is used to drop it to minor, and Speed Loader feat needs to be taken to drop reload to free - which finally equals the Greatbow's reload. Am I missing something? I and the players would like to make use of fusils but they cost too many feats to be effective.
Thanks!

 

[Siberys]

The guns are simple weapons, for one thing.

For another, expertise is good without the gun benefit, with it it's great. This is true of all expertise feats.

Finally, speed loader, yeah, but consider you're getting high crit and brutal from the gun.

The players might also consider the Hunter - they get Crossbow Expertise free, and it's a simple DM house-rule to say it's gun expertise instead. That is a feat-free method to get reload free, if I'm reading it right.

 

[RangerWickett]

The musket was designed as a parallel to the superior crossbow. Both of them are +3 proficiency, d10 damage, 20/40 range. The crossbow has load minor, while the musket has load standard, brutal 2, and high-crit. We felt the two items were comparably balanced, and it made it easy to create a character using the Character Builder.

It reflects the style of the setting, where guns are available but not common. It's easy to have a carbine or pistol, fire it once in combat, and then switch to melee weapons.

Of course, if you're a ranged-focused combatant, you'll want to be able to reload easily. At low-level, though, in order to be balanced you're going to need to stick to a carbine or pistol, and spend your feat on Firearms Expertise and possibly Speed Loader. Then at 2nd or 4th level you can pick up Musket proficiency.

Consider that in the rules a 'musket' represents a sort of over-the-top gun that's long and unwieldy:

If you want to make it easier to use a powerful firearm, and aren't concerned about the PC being a little above the curve, you can give the PC musket proficiency. Maybe treat a musket as a martial weapon instead of superior. Alternately, you could let Firearms Expertise knock it down straight to load free, removing the need for Speed Loader.

 

[RangerWickett]

The guns are simple weapons, for one thing.

Muskets are superior.

The players might also consider the Hunter - they get Crossbow Expertise free, and it's a simple DM house-rule to say it's gun expertise instead. That is a feat-free method to get reload free, if I'm reading it right.

Yeah, a hunter musketeer would get to load free automatically. You'd just need to spend a feat to be proficient.

 

[Siberys]

Ah, I see. I only looked at the top, didn't notice Muskets were superior.

 

[phoffman]

Muskets are superior.



Yeah, a hunter musketeer would get to load free automatically. You'd just need to spend a feat to be proficient.

I like what you originally did with the "load minor." (with Firearm Expertise) My players are known for their optimization.

I want a reason that people would use Crossbows and Bows still, to maintain the mix of fantasy with technology. After all if they do better damage than crossbows, with the same training then every army would want their men to be covered blunderbusters. The demand for firearms would rise dramatically, and gunsmiths would command hundreds of gold just for the most basic firearm.

Making the early firearms more difficult to use allows it to be more believable that you could purchase one with a level 1 character.

 

[Siberys]

Well, any untrained schmuck, no feats, can choose one of two options - slow (with crossbows), or stronger but slower (guns).

Crossbows and bows remain faster if you're only talking proficiency, too. What that ultimately means is that, to use guns quickly, they need a lot more training, but that loss in speed does not equate to lower overall effectiveness because of how hard the punch is.

 

[phoffman]

Well, any untrained schmuck, no feats, can choose one of two options - slow (with crossbows), or stronger but slower (guns).

Crossbows and bows remain faster if you're only talking proficiency, too. What that ultimately means is that, to use guns quickly, they need a lot more training, but that loss in speed does not equate to lower overall effectiveness because of how hard the punch is.

Perhaps this is a "not as effective at level 1" issue.

The difference between hand cross bow and pistol damage (for one shot) is about 0.7 average damage at level one. High Crit makes it more difficult to judge the average damage. (Especially leaders often increase the chance critical hits, bards are well known for this.)

Once players have a few levels under their belts Firearms are just going to be the next logical step to increase damage. By then they can afford to have the feats to leverage the extra damage.

 

[Goldkatana]

Thanks for all the responses! Finally, the "it's a BRUTAL 2!" won the argument.

 

[Riastlin]

Honestly, in the end it comes down to how prevalent you want guns to be in your version of the campaign. If bows and guns require the same amount of training to be able to shoot just as fast, then the result will be that nobody goes with the bows (guns simply deal more damage). If that's what you are looking for, then great.

If though you want an even mix between guns and bows, then you need to slow down the gun training a bit in order to balance out the damage. In the end, the gunfighter will deal more damage than the archer, but the gunfighter will also likely be more vulnerable.