I was thinking....Swashbuckling Adventures from AEG had some variant firearm rules that might give a means of simulating the power of firearms without resorting to ranged touch attacks etc.
I think they basically dictated that at short range, a firearm gave *up to +5 to attack rolls, with a maximum based on the armor value of the target*. Thus, at short range, a firearm would give +5 to hit plate armor (which has a +8 armor bonus), but only +2 to hit leather armor (which has a +2 armor bonus). At medium range, they gave up to +2 to attack rolls, and at long range, nothing.
Then, they also included the misfire rules, and tended to have higher critical modifiers.
Finally, the had slow reload times. Pistols took 8 rounds to load, and muskets took 8 rounds to load. In a sidebar, the book referenced that firearms in the period took about a minute to load. The book included a feat that allowed a character to cut those reload times in half. But the quickest a character could reload a firearm was about 4 rounds for a pistol, or 5 rounds for a musket.
Having run a Swashbuckling Adventures campaign for a year, I can attest from play experience that it had a desired effect (I guess compared to what I wanted):
1-Firearms, with their high crit modifiers, could be very dangerous. If a gun could do 1d10 (x3) on crits, it was conceivable for even low level minions to score sizable damage.
2-Because of the armor penetration edge they had, they encouraged a progression to lighter armor, and much more prevalent use of cover in games. We had lots of sessions where PCs were in fights with enemies, using carriages or walls or barrels or whatever, popping up, taking shots, ducking behind cover, etc.
This also meant that even low level minions could be effective against armored and trained higher level fighters....a lvl 2 warrior with a musket could still be effective against a lvl 5 fighter in chainmail or halfplate.
To me, this kind of simulated the idea that firearms were easier to outfit mass numbers of less well trained soldiers with....rather than spending years teaching them to use a longbow.
3-The slow reload times encouraged the use of cover (as #2 above), and they also encouraged the use of traditional weapons. Very often, at the start of a fight, opponents would pull out their pistols, fire off shots against each other, and then either drop a pistol and pull a second one out (some characters carried 4 pistols, and just took their one shot with each, then entered melee). Once the pistols had expended their shots, characters typically pulled out their swords, and then engaged opponents in melee.
Reloading was typically left to be conducted after the battle had been finished.
Which to me, seems pretty cinematic, and realistic (in my limited understanding).
Now, I know someone'll likely point out balance issues with that book..but I don't think they're relevant to the discussion. Most only appeared when you tried to combine the feats from that game with regular levels of magic items etc. I removed all magic items from the game, and the problem vanished.
The firearms rules however, encouraged a refreshing difference in gameplay, without changing it too much. I didn't find those particular rules unbalanced.
And in a setting like Golarion, the proliferation of firearms could still be limited by the effectiveness of wizards and sorcerers, which didn't exist on Earth.
A wizard's magic missile or sleep spell can still be quicker and as or more effective as a warrior with a musket.....but an army with 500 musket wielding warriors? That's a different story. They could do a lot of damage to another army, unless a wizard came along and fireballed them.
Banshee
I think they basically dictated that at short range, a firearm gave *up to +5 to attack rolls, with a maximum based on the armor value of the target*. Thus, at short range, a firearm would give +5 to hit plate armor (which has a +8 armor bonus), but only +2 to hit leather armor (which has a +2 armor bonus). At medium range, they gave up to +2 to attack rolls, and at long range, nothing.
Then, they also included the misfire rules, and tended to have higher critical modifiers.
Finally, the had slow reload times. Pistols took 8 rounds to load, and muskets took 8 rounds to load. In a sidebar, the book referenced that firearms in the period took about a minute to load. The book included a feat that allowed a character to cut those reload times in half. But the quickest a character could reload a firearm was about 4 rounds for a pistol, or 5 rounds for a musket.
Having run a Swashbuckling Adventures campaign for a year, I can attest from play experience that it had a desired effect (I guess compared to what I wanted):
1-Firearms, with their high crit modifiers, could be very dangerous. If a gun could do 1d10 (x3) on crits, it was conceivable for even low level minions to score sizable damage.
2-Because of the armor penetration edge they had, they encouraged a progression to lighter armor, and much more prevalent use of cover in games. We had lots of sessions where PCs were in fights with enemies, using carriages or walls or barrels or whatever, popping up, taking shots, ducking behind cover, etc.
This also meant that even low level minions could be effective against armored and trained higher level fighters....a lvl 2 warrior with a musket could still be effective against a lvl 5 fighter in chainmail or halfplate.
To me, this kind of simulated the idea that firearms were easier to outfit mass numbers of less well trained soldiers with....rather than spending years teaching them to use a longbow.
3-The slow reload times encouraged the use of cover (as #2 above), and they also encouraged the use of traditional weapons. Very often, at the start of a fight, opponents would pull out their pistols, fire off shots against each other, and then either drop a pistol and pull a second one out (some characters carried 4 pistols, and just took their one shot with each, then entered melee). Once the pistols had expended their shots, characters typically pulled out their swords, and then engaged opponents in melee.
Reloading was typically left to be conducted after the battle had been finished.
Which to me, seems pretty cinematic, and realistic (in my limited understanding).
Now, I know someone'll likely point out balance issues with that book..but I don't think they're relevant to the discussion. Most only appeared when you tried to combine the feats from that game with regular levels of magic items etc. I removed all magic items from the game, and the problem vanished.
The firearms rules however, encouraged a refreshing difference in gameplay, without changing it too much. I didn't find those particular rules unbalanced.
And in a setting like Golarion, the proliferation of firearms could still be limited by the effectiveness of wizards and sorcerers, which didn't exist on Earth.
A wizard's magic missile or sleep spell can still be quicker and as or more effective as a warrior with a musket.....but an army with 500 musket wielding warriors? That's a different story. They could do a lot of damage to another army, unless a wizard came along and fireballed them.
Banshee
(And don't get me started on the caracole... bloody waste of horseflesh, powder, and wealth.)
