well, you might want to run a gonzo campaign or a western or a modern game or whatever using 5e. because...people are weird and stubborn like that. so .45s and snipers and shotguns could come up in those scenarios.
).
I disagree with that. I'm going as far as saying that D&D was Medieval Fantasy up and until 5e, and only 5e24 really, consciously moved away from medieval, and even then, it still is closer to medieval fantasy than anything else. Yes, even Dark Sun and Planescape. You can refine those genres further, but they are still sub-genres of medieval fantasy.
And, yet, history has firearms existing in the middle ages. Flamethowers, too.
Patently untrue as I discussed above.
A definition that broad suggests a term that isn't much use to anyone. It sounds like what you mean by "medieval fantasy" is "no guns" and "you have to wear armor."
I consider what you describe is "realism". Verisimilitude is the term used because people whined about any use of realism for inability to suspend disbelief, and is used for immersion in the given fantasy world rather than any connection to the real world.
i don't really like pf2e's approach to guns for a few different reasons, but the fundamental one is that it makes them only really practical if you specialize in them, and basically useless otherwise. which is...like...the exact opposite of why they became popular to begin with. it feels a little silly.PF2e tries to make firearms mechanically different without being clearly, broadly superior. To give an example, a PF2e jezail is a bit more expensive than an arbalest and harder to find (firearms are mostly produced and used in certain regions of Golarion, not everywhere), with slightly lower range and the same rate of fire (one action to reload). The jezail has a base damage of 1d8 piercing, while the arbalest does 1d10 piercing. The jezail, however, has the Concussive trait , so it gets treated as doing bludgeoning or piercing damage, whichever is better from the attacker's point of view; it can be fired one-handed; or, it can be fired two-handed via the "Fatal Aim d12" trait. If it is used two-handed, and if the wielder scores a critical hit with it (which, in PF2e, can happen without a natural 20; success by 10+ suffices, while a n20 will also usually be a critical hit because it shifts by one degree of success)... well, while the arbalest would do 1d8x2 for a critical hit, fatal would make the jezail do (1d12x2) + d12 on a critical hit. At shorter ranges, a shortbow user might well outdo a wielder of either arbalest or jezail just through rate of fire, unless the latter has some ability to speed up reloading (e.g. Gunslinger feats); and a longbow user can compete at range, but will be hampered at close range, taking a penalty to hit ( which, in turn, means reduced chance of critical hits...).
Likewise, a dueling pistol... base damage 1d4 piercing, which is rather weak; and it has a modest range; but it can be fired one-handed (with another hand required to actually reload it), it has the "concussive" trait which can be handy if you're dealing with enemies that might be resistant to piercing or to bludgeoning but not both; and it has "Fatal d8", so crits end up doing (1d8x2)+1d8. The hand crossbow has significantly better range, and will do slightly more damage when not scoring critical hits.
They're also given different critical specialization effects (similar to D&D 2024's Weapon Mastery properties, but only triggering on critical hits) with firearms tending to require the target to resist being stunned briefly, while crossbows can inflict persistent bleeding damage, and regular bows pinning targets to a nearby surface until they free themselves.
You could probably port in a lot of properties into D&D, but things like "lower base damage usually, but much higher damage on an excellent hit" -- which relies heavily on PF2e's 10-over/under system in addition to more granular proficiency levels. With 10-over/10-under, you can increase your chances of critical hits by finding ways to debuff the enemy's armor class or buffing your own attack roll. If you only treated it as "low damage normal hits, very damaging critical hits" without straying from D&D 5E's critical hits mostly being n20-related ( there's, what, critical hits on 5' attacks on paralyzed and unconscious enemies?), then crit-fishing is a bit less practical (what, D&D 2014-era elven accuracy gloomstalker fighting darkvision-dependent enemies in the Underdark?
and since dark sun is there you can apparently skip the armor, too.
the bolded is fundamentally an oxymoron (assault rifles are definitionally select fire - if it's semi-auto only, it cannot be an assault rifle [and also calling a civilian rifle "standard issue" is...uhm...inherently nonsensical? maybe you meant cheap or out-of-the-box?]), but that aside probably the easiest way to handle this is weapon properties that give certain benefits (and possibly drawbacks) for using more ammunition on an attack. like as a simple example you could have a property that lets you spend x additional rounds up to a certain limit to get y bonus to the damage roll (say, every 2 additional shots you fire gives you a +1 damage bonus, and you can spend up to maybe 6 additional rounds per attack). if you want to balance that further, maybe every shot you fire past the first reduces the short range of that attack by 5 or 10 feet.
(Dungeons & Dragons)
Rulebook featuring "high magic" options, including a host of new spells.
