D&D 5E Has anyone used the firearm rules in the dmg?

[iserith]

The adventure looks cool. I love eberron.

When you used firearms how prevalent were they? how many party members used them? and did you have adversaries use them?

Thanks! The firearms were in the hands of the PCs. The scenario involved big game hunting - dinosaurs - so they used their guns a fair bit. Dinosaurs are notoriously bad shots so they didn't use any guns. In a different adventure, the NPCs had guns as well (juju zombie musketeers and bullywug pirates). The players used their own guns off and on in that one.

I've offered guns as an option in a lot of campaigns. Surprisingly, it's rare that players actually take or use them. I think you really need to have a premise that focuses on them for the players to be engaged enough to want to use them. A pirates game is low-hanging fruit in this regard.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

If anything firearms should be better IMO, maybe make a new feat or let people sacrifice extra attacks they should otherwise be able to take to increase the base damage, example a 11th level fighter with 3 attacks using multiattack only gets to make one attack roll with his pistol but it does 3d10+dex mod damage.

Even then, you're still better off just making longbow attacks for 3d8 +3xDex (plus potentially 3x magic weapon, plus 3x sharpshooter). There are a few situations where you want one big shot, but its fairly rare. I agree that firearms really aren't worth using in their current incarnation.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I like the idea that firearms have exploding damage. I ran a test where I ran firearms that allowed damage dice to be rerolled and added to the total. So a weapon with 2d10 damage would continue rolling damage dice and adding their value if any/all come up 9 or 10. This made them potentially very lethal and appropriate to the firearms mystique.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Personally, I'd allow the Crossbow Expert feat to also apply to firearms. Thinking about it, I might treat (Renaissance) firearms as crossbows for purposes of proficiencies, feats, and basically anything other than the stats on the table. That would allow dual-wielding pistols like hand crossbows.

One could instead make a separate feat that did exactly the same thing but applied to firearms instead of crossbows...but why? Would extending it to firearms be a significant boost to the feat's power? I doubt it. If you think the feat is overpowered you'll still think it is. If you nerf the feat to prevent that, your nerfs will still apply.

 

[aramis erak]

I've been playing with an idea for firearms: they do d10 damage, but they ignore armor and natural armor. It makes sense to me for modern firearms; maybe someone knowledgeable here can tell me if it makes sense for renaissance era guns.

Doesn't make much sense for either.

A .22 won't penetrate laquered leather reliably. A .357 won't reliably penetrate 18ga steel... which is a little light for breastplates.

A musket has lower energy and a larger impact area...

And late medieval and renaissance breastplates often have a dimple where it was "proofed" - shot at about 5' range with a .40 cal muzzle-loading pistol.

If it will stop a sling, it will stop a musket, and will probably stop most pistol caliber modern rounds.

If you want to make them properly deadly, house rule them to do damage to Con, rather than to HP, and note that there's no minimum 1 per hit die...

 

[Remathilis]

Personally, I'd allow the Crossbow Expert feat to also apply to firearms. Thinking about it, I might treat (Renaissance) firearms as crossbows for purposes of proficiencies, feats, and basically anything other than the stats on the table. That would allow dual-wielding pistols like hand crossbows.

One could instead make a separate feat that did exactly the same thing but applied to firearms instead of crossbows...but why? Would extending it to firearms be a significant boost to the feat's power? I doubt it. If you think the feat is overpowered you'll still think it is. If you nerf the feat to prevent that, your nerfs will still apply.

I might allow a "Marksman" feat that is basically Crossbow Expert with "crossbow" crossed out and "firearm" written in, but I would make it a separate feat rather than roll it in with the other one.

That said, the firearm rules here are a helluva lot better than Pathfinder's firearms/gunslinger (AC 30? What's its touch AC? oh, only an 8. I can't miss but on a 1)

 

[Remathilis]

Something like:

Marksman
You are a master of the new form of technology known as firearms, you gain the following benefits:
• You gain proficiency with firearms.
• You ignore the loading quality of firearms with which you are proficient.
• Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls.

 

[Beleriphon]

Something like:

Marksman
You are a master of the new form of technology known as firearms, you gain the following benefits:
• You gain proficiency with firearms.
• You ignore the loading quality of firearms with which you are proficient.
• Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls.

Hmmm, not bad. Being away from my books does Crossbow Master provide the within 5 feet benefit? If it does I'd personally replace that with something a bit different just to make a choice beyond pure aesthetics. Maybe it gets a +2 bonus to damage with firearms? That doesn't seem overwhelming and appropriate to (somewhat wrong headed) myth that guns are super deadly compared to bows and crossbows.

My uderstanding is that a modern pistol round actually does less damage to a body than an arrow or a bolt by virtue of the fact that they're likely to be an in-and-out wound depending on where they hit. Also, being much smaller they tend to leave much smaller holes in the body and don't usually have barbed heads. I know about hydrostatic shock and such, but how would a .357 Magnum round compare to the damage done by a siege crossbow fired into the same unarmoured target?

 

[Leatherhead]

Hmmm, not bad. Being away from my books does Crossbow Master provide the within 5 feet benefit? If it does I'd personally replace that with something a bit different just to make a choice beyond pure aesthetics. Maybe it gets a +2 bonus to damage with firearms? That doesn't seem overwhelming and appropriate to (somewhat wrong headed) myth that guns are super deadly compared to bows and crossbows.

How about a ricochet shot trick: -5 to aim, hit another target (or one that isn't even in LoS)?

I would call the feat Musketeer

 

[inquisitorthreefive]

Doesn't make much sense for either.

A .22 won't penetrate laquered leather reliably. A .357 won't reliably penetrate 18ga steel... which is a little light for breastplates.

A musket has lower energy and a larger impact area...

And late medieval and renaissance breastplates often have a dimple where it was "proofed" - shot at about 5' range with a .40 cal muzzle-loading pistol.

If it will stop a sling, it will stop a musket, and will probably stop most pistol caliber modern rounds.

If you want to make them properly deadly, house rule them to do damage to Con, rather than to HP, and note that there's no minimum 1 per hit die...

I know comparatively little about muskets but your statements about lower velocity are, generally, correct. Impact area varies wildly, but on average a musket ball is bigger than a modern bullet with significant overlap. However, I know quite a bit about modern firearms and you are seriously underestimating their ability to penetrate. 18 gauge steel is a 1 mm thick and while not all steel is created equal and neither are all bullets but unless you are using something like AR500 or you have light loads a .357 will care precisely not at all about 18 gauge sheet metal. A .357 revolver can also fire .38 Short Colt and .38 Special with no modification and people often use these lighter loads for target practice. Neither round is especially potent, but I would guess that they might be stopped by 18 gauge sheet steel. In fact, it's probably that a fast .22 would penetrate 18 gauge steel. A cheap hollow steel door has walls about 1mm thick and I'm willing to assume this guy knows what he's shooting at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl2MBRu9WlU

More .22 LR penetration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbEKKXU4bLo

If you'd really like, I can head out to the woods and put some holes in things for demo purposes. I don't own a .357, but a +p 9mm round should suffice as a decent stand in even if it is a bit slower if I can't borrow a .357.