I've started a thread at theRPGsite about Guns in 3.5. I'm looking for ways to jazz up flintlocks and such for my upcoming Sky Pirates of Eberron campaign. Any input from d20 mechanical wonks would be greatly appreciated.
There are some interesting comments in this thread. Unlike many of the posters, I think that giving firearms a ranged tough attack is a great idea, but I personally wouldn't speed up the firing rate much - firing once with a pistol, or maybe a brace of pistols, and then engaging with the rapier gives me that swashbucking feel.
Since you're using the Defensive Bonus rules from UA I don't think the touch attack is too unbalanced, whereas if you start to mess with damage or critical ratings fore firearms, you risk loosing a few low level PC's to lucky shots (or Wizards to even average shots).
The problem of tough monsters like Dragons being too vunerable to touch attacks might be solved by using the Armour as Damage Reduction rules for Natural Armour only, or by giving those monsters some Defence Bonus of your own.
One last thought. If you're going to make armour so undesirable, you might want to give the classes that get built-in feats to use medium or heavy armour the option to trade those feats for something else.
There are some interesting comments in this thread. Unlike many of the posters, I think that giving firearms a ranged tough attack is a great idea, but I personally wouldn't speed up the firing rate much - firing once with a pistol, or maybe a brace of pistols, and then engaging with the rapier gives me that swashbucking feel.
ReplyDeleteSince you're using the Defensive Bonus rules from UA I don't think the touch attack is too unbalanced, whereas if you start to mess with damage or critical ratings fore firearms, you risk loosing a few low level PC's to lucky shots (or Wizards to even average shots).
The problem of tough monsters like Dragons being too vunerable to touch attacks might be solved by using the Armour as Damage Reduction rules for Natural Armour only, or by giving those monsters some Defence Bonus of your own.
One last thought. If you're going to make armour so undesirable, you might want to give the classes that get built-in feats to use medium or heavy armour the option to trade those feats for something else.