Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shadow64" data-source="post: 726243" data-attributes="member: 6868">Mistwell:If i made a D&D Sword that was better then anything else and had no drawbacks they would ask how many +'s were on the thing <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />.  In a "magical" world such as the standard d&d world it is very easy (rules-wise) to make a powerful weapon with no real drawbacks.  Lets figure that 1gp = $1, then the M134 is just about the equal to a +4 weapon (the M134 being around $30k).In D&D terms even for a High Magic world i think we can agree that a +4 is certainly high on the food chain.  And probably barring a wizard dropping fireballs and the like it has a very high damage potential, 3 to 4 times that of a "normal" weapon.  Lets take the standard 1d6 Longsword and make it a +4 weapon.  So, how's about a +1 Longsword of Flaming, Shocking and Frost.  So we got a weapon that will do 1d6 + 3d6 + 1.  Boatloads of damage.OK - enough with the D&D part.  Let me break down how i "balanced" the weapon in my opinion.First the  4d10damage: for the 4d10 damage, well, this thing spits out on average 10 times the amount of ammo as a normal weapon firing on autofire.  I feel that the damage dice should reflect this.  As for the size of the damage area increase I think it is only fair, once again given the extremely high rate of fire.  If I left it at a 10x10 area I probably would have upped the save DC to 20.  The whole damage/size thing boils down to one thing:  the amount of bullets going towards a specific area.  Anything in there should be ripped up.Now, with such a high damage rate I figured that you'd have to have a serious disadvantage...so what is the best way to balance someone down in a gunfight?  Easy - don't let them move, or make moving difficult.  Once they turn the weapon on they can't move unless they make the strength check, so guess what they become?  A big, slow target.  And if they want to move they have to shut the weapon off and then move...that will take them out of combat for two rounds.  One round to turn the weapon off and move, the other to turn it back on.For all intents and purposes the person using this thing becomes a gun turret.  Now, a smart player is going to do two things:  run for cover/concelment and the start autofiring on the area where the minigunner is at.  That way even if they minigunner has on heavy armor they have a chance of hitting.  And because of the movement rules i placed in the weapon the minigunner will have their own tough time getting to cover, and if they do they have two rounds of people manuvering/shooting before they can do anything.Hmmm...i feel i am beggining to ramble, so i'll wrap it up.Berk:In my complete lack of experience with automatic weapons I figure that a person could potentially handle the kick of 100 rounds in six seconds, but 200 might be a bit much.  I was shooting for 1000 rounds per minute, which is the bare minimum for a weapon like this.  If i upped the bullets/round i'd probably up the damage a bit too.As for the size of the area i initially thought of using something the size of a 10' burst or even a 15' burst (as per splash weapon area effects), which was toned down to a 20' area, but i thought that was a little large (Being 4 times the size of a standard autofire area), so thus came the 15'x15' area.  Bigger then 10'x10' and less then 20'x20'.  *Shrug*  Heh - that's the best "excuse" i can come up with.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> As for the Exotic feat, I initially had it taking its own feat, but the way the wording of the Exotic Firearms Prof goes it sounds like they break it down into medium and heavy machine guns.  Sadly, they only included one of each style in the book, so i really can't tell if they wanted to make them weapon groups or if they want an EFP for each medium/heavy machine gun you want to use.OK - I'm done!</blockquote>

Verification