D&D 5E Modifying the light crossbow to be a gunslingers pistol.

[Rocksome]

So I did a bit of a search and read a bunch of 5e Gunslinger archetypes. Most of them seem awkward and trying to copy the exact rules of Pathfinder instead of the spirit of the class. I imagine that a standard archer battle master fighter with light crossbows does a good , if not better job at portraying a gunslinger than these other homework conversions.

Except for one thing, the hand crossbow itself. I'd be happy to work with it but it doesn't have the unreliable flavour of black powder weapons. So I would like opinions on how to modify the hand crossbow to create a balanced weapon .

My starting point would be to increase the damage die by one, (d8) and to counter that with a misfire chance and potentially reduce the range.

What effects should the misfire have and how often should it be triggered? I'm aiming for simple solutions that will be the fun kind of inconvenience that makes combat exciting, not something that will slow down play. Any suggestions?

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Have you read through the firearms rules in the DMG? They are not much, but they are a start.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Why not just use the light or hand-crossbow as-is, but reflavour the mechanics for your concept?

 

[Rocksome]

I was just going to call the hand crossbow a pistol and be done with it, but I'd like to emulate the risk/reward aspect of using firearms as well. i.e. they deal more damage but they can also blow up in your face.

I looked at the DMG firearms, but they are significantly more powerful than a hand crossbow, and I think that the Crossbow Expert feat covers a lot of the gunslinger flavour, so I want something that works with that and is on par with a hand crossbow. I might just make it into d8 damage but on natural 1 it misfires and requires using one attack from the attack action to clear it.

 

[Horwath]

Just make a repeating hand crossbow with bolt "magazine" holding 5 or 6 bolts and make reloading a magazine an Action.

 

[KahlessNestor]

Why not check out Matt Mercer's Gunslinger? It's the best one I've seen, and I have seen hours of it in play.

Sent from my SM-G900P using EN World mobile app

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Gunslingers weren't really a thing before we had reliable six-shooters. It's weird to include one but not the other.

 

[Satyrn]

I might just make it into d8 damage but on natural 1 it misfires and requires using one attack from the attack action to clear it.

I like this, except that I would go harder on the misfire. On a natural 1, the gun misfires and jams up. In order to make it usable again, you must clean it, which be done during a short or long rest.

That feels nicely significant.

 

[koga305]

I like this, except that I would go harder on the misfire. On a natural 1, the gun misfires and jams up. In order to make it usable again, you must clean it, which be done during a short or long rest.

That feels nicely significant.

Couldn't the character just carry multiple guns?

 

[aco175]

I first thought about pulling the crossbow out of a holster like a gunslinger and have the arms spring out from the sides ready to fire. I forget which movie I saw something like this in. Combine that with the repeating crossbow in the movie Van Helsing and you have something cool.

I would lessen the range since the bolts would be smaller. Maybe keep the 1d6 damage instead of going down to 1d4, but should be 1d4 like a dagger. I would make it able to shoot while threatened without disadvantage as well. Not sure how many shots each magazine should have before using an action to reload, maybe 12