D&D General Magic guns against "realistic firearms".

[LuisCarlos17f]

I was thinking about the power balance in a D&D setting where the firearms were allowed. My concern was that if they were allowed, players might end up discarding classes that are too focused on melee combat, such as barbarians and monks.

I felt curiosity and I asked Grok to create a relatively cheap magic wand to work like a pistol. This was its answer:

Firebolt Staff (Common, ~75 OG)
Wonderful item, requires attunement (optional for non-casters).
This carved wooden staff has 7 charges. As an action, spend 1 charge to cast the firebolt cantrip spell (1d10 fire, magic attack within 120 feet).
Regain 1d6+1 charges at dawn. If you spend the last charge and roll a 1 on a d20, it breaks.(Damage = pistol, but range x4, ignores charge/misfire, fire vs. piercing.)
Crafting: 37 OG + 37 days (2014) or 75 OG / 10 = 8 days (2024).Advantages vs. fire: No ammunition (save 0.3 OG/shot), no "misfire," usable by anyone.

Here a table comparing:

Appearance	Pistol (250 OG) dnd5e.wikidot.com	Raystaff (75 OG)	Winner
Damage	1d10 piercing	1d10 fire	Tie
Range	30/90 ft.	120 ft	Staff
Properties	Ammunition, charge, misfire	Daily charges (practically unlimited)	Staff
Starting Cost	250 OG	50-100 OG	Staff
Recurring Cost	~0.3 OG/bullet (3 OG/10)	0 OG	Staff
Maintenance	Cleaning or misfire	None	Staff
Rarity	Mundane (easy)	Common (short quest)	Staff

This should mean with enough time and work "Outlaws of Thunder Juction" could be possible like an official D&D setting together Stryxhaven, Ravnica and Theros. You could say this "raystaff" may need a nerfing and I don't mind the changes could be necesary.

I have also about how players could create homemade low-level spells if their PCs are from a more primitive civilitation and they have to face invaders with steampunk tech. Reading about malfuctions of firearms in the real life these without proper maintenance are like Russian roulette.

Firearm malfunction - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Can you imagine how easy could be a spell to cause squib loads in enemies' guns? Other idea is some spell like the psionic "Dimensional Screen" (psychoportation devotion from "the Will and the Way") or a curse where the shooters become allergic to the gases produced by firearms.

Other idea is to add a new monster to the battlefield, the hamrs, (name of a creature from the folklore). These are humanoids who have been killed by "industrial" firearms, and then they suffer a "mutation" and they rise again in the middle of the battlefield to take revenge against those "warriors without honor". They aren't undead but more like a variant of troll (their origin is a divine curse by war deities) style "freakers" from the videogame "Days Gone" . They have got regeneration and resistance against "industrial ballistic" damage but with magic or "homemade"weapons they can be hurt and defeated. With this creature barbarian and monks are still useful because they have to finnish the hamrs off "in the traditional way". The hamrs can be hurt by firearms but if these are handcrafted by a gunsmith in a workshop, not in an industrial factory

(Disclaimer: this post wasn't to talk about content created by AI).

 

[aco175]

I find the way cantrips work in 5e it lessens the need for firearms. The firebolt vs pistol example shows that anyone with a cantrip wand does not need a firearm.

But, then how can I make a cool duel-pistol guy instead of a duel-crossbow guy? Part of this might be that wands cost is like plate mail and you need to wait a couple levels, or that using a magic item can be a 1/round thing. There must be a feat in there someplace to let you use two wands.

I'm fine with leaving them out, but it seems there is a push to include them.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

And we can't forget the possibilies of crossbows with a motor, in the real life they are possible, and even you could find some video in youtube.

I see in 5e the humanoids who are "special units" are "generic" in the sense not linked to certain specie. For example if you have the monster stats for a gunslinger, musketeer, sniper this can be a human, hobgoblin or drow. Maybe the same soldier but with a different weapon would be also a different XP value. Today players are too used to shooters like Fortnite or Overwatch and they can tell the difference between a gun, a shotgun or a machine gun in the battlefield.

Other point is how to calculate the XP value according the "special gear". For example there is a trap in a dungeon what is a crossbow with a motor for self-loading. A day later to infiltrate within the enemy wall they have to face a humanoid sentinel with the same motorized crossbow. Should the XP value to be the same?

* Other idea is in the fantasy setting the gunpowder is known but in the mass battles is a serious taboo because the soldiers killed by balistic damage automatically become Einherjar, celestials with ballistic damage inmunity, and they only can be hurt by magic or "old-school" combat.

 

[GMMichael]

Here a table comparing:

Appearance	Pistol (250 OG) dnd5e.wikidot.com	Raystaff (75 OG)	Winner
Damage	1d10 piercing	1d10 fire	Tie
Range	30/90 ft.	120 ft	Staff
Properties	Ammunition, charge, misfire	Daily charges (practically unlimited)	Staff
Starting Cost	250 OG	50-100 OG	Staff
Recurring Cost	~0.3 OG/bullet (3 OG/10)	0 OG	Staff
Maintenance	Cleaning or misfire	None	Staff
Rarity	Mundane (easy)	Common (short quest)	Staff

My takeaway here is that whoever Grok is, he shouldn't be trusted with making magic items.

 

[DragonLancer]

I was thinking about the power balance in a D&D setting where the firearms were allowed. My concern was that if they were allowed, players might end up discarding classes that are too focused on melee combat, such as barbarians and monks.

Believe me, it doesn't happen. In most D&D games ranged attacks are great to start but they won't outside the barbarians and monks to that extent.

In one of my two 2024 campaigns, I have a player with a Rogue (Assassin) who is built around using a pistol. Yes, he's great initially but believe me when that thing goes off it isn't quiet. The sound of that thing going off in a dungeon, cave complex or out in the woods tends to bring all manner of trouble down on the party. It's not just about the mechanics of firearms and their potential, but also "real world" practicalities to be considered.

Firearms are not going to outshine that badly.

 

[Steampunkette]

So... Guns are kinda "Whatever", ultimately.

In reality, guns essentially (but not entirely) negated armor outside of very thick and heavily curved plates, which is why we imagine conquistadors wearing the breastplate and helmet that we do. They were meant to cause pistol and rifle balls to deflect from vital organs even though the limbs were exposed to keep the weight down.

So you have a bit of the 3e "Touch AC" situation going on. Except even crappy armor can defend against a bullet in weird ways, sometimes, due to the vagaries of environmental factors, black powder quality, etc. Books stopping bullets has been a historical precedent as silly as it seems.

And then you have to figure out the damage they deal... which is insanely variable. Sure, one shot might kill you. Or you can take 40 bullets and drive yourself to the hospital because somehow nothing vital was hit in a way that caused your death.

Ultimately, unless you design a full simulationist game around guns, you're going to wind up handwaving a -lot- of stuff.

That's why I made them simple weapons in Martial Artistry that are just stronger crossbows, essentially.

"Precision" as a weapon trait allows you to roll the weapon's damage twice and take the better result. For a d6 weapon it's roughly equivalent to a +1 average damage increase, d8 basically gets a +2, and d10 basically gets a +3. All while keeping the maximum damage in-line with other d6/d8/d10 weapons.

For the fancy features (ammunition and fire-rate increases) you just pay an additional, stacking, premium. +20gp for a revolving version, +50gp for a semiautomatic version (+70 total), +30gp for Burst Fire (+100 total), and +50gp for automatic (+150 total).

I also made a specific note that those fancy features can also be added to Crossbows for folks who want to pull a Van Helsing or Edgar Figaro thing.