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Flintlock Firearms for 5E

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"The loud thunder of firing blackpowder guns, the choking smoke, billowing over the battlefield and the satisfaction of seeing your opponents go down after being pierced by balls of lead...what an invention."

Rakor Ironhide, leader of the Bloodied Shields

Though the DMG contains rules for a blackpowder pistol and musket, these are quick and simple examples, not a fleshed out ruleset for frequent use in a campaign. In essence, these examples are like crossbows mechanics wise, with a higher damage value and an inredibly low range, that reminds me more of thrown weapons than ranged weapons.

This PDF contains rules for a more in depth look at flintlock firearms to use instead, not in addition to the DMG variant for your D&D 5th Edition game. I tried to make them as balanced as possible with all other ranged weapons, without making them 'stronger crossbows' or thrown weapons in range. No need for new classes or feats to use these weapons - they fall under the simple or martial weapon groups.

This is of course no 100% realistic depiction of flintlock firearms and it skips some crucial steps in the evolution of firearms for the sake of usability for adventurers.

Please leave a comment if you like or have some constructive criticism.

Also a huge shoutout to Matthew Mercer for his excellent Gunslinger class, which has inspired me to create this homebrew.

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Discussions (3)
Customer avatar
Karl K October 24, 2022 2:26 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I really like the rules for reloading. I think using the action economy of 5e as a way to balance the power of the weapons is very useful. The misfire table is also another great balancing factor and reflects that we're not talking about guns even at the American Old West level of reliability.
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Rasmus N October 24, 2022 3:10 pm UTC
CREATOR
Thanks. That was exactly the idea. I tried to find a way to make early firearms it's own thing - not just a retexture of the crossbow, but a weapon class of it's own with it's own rules and implications. Really heavy hitting, but you better make your shots count, cause reloading is a long, painful process. Or even better: carry several backup guns and eventually switch to melee (like in real history).
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John K February 28, 2018 12:09 am UTC
PURCHASER
Thanks for putting all this together, it's going to work great for the campaign I'm running
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Rasmus N November 30, 2018 6:59 am UTC
CREATOR
You are very welcome.
I prefer the gritty, more realistic feel when it comes to my rules, so I was hoping it would reach similarly minded minds here.
Customer avatar
Michael S September 21, 2016 11:07 pm UTC
PURCHASER
The DMG already has rules for this. How exactly are your firearms different? Sell me on this product, my good man.
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Rasmus N September 22, 2016 7:51 am UTC
CREATOR
A fair point, good sir. However the rules for firearms in the DMG are rather rudimentary examples and list exactly TWO renaissance firearms, before jumping right into modern and sci-fi firearms.
Their rules feel like they are crossbows with hire damage values, which have been balanced out by giving them an incredibly low range of thrown weapons.
I took a different route, that IMHO is a fairer compromise between how they really were and game balance while going a bit more in depth about the different types of blackpowder firarms, that commonly existed.
My EIGHT firearms are no thrown weapons when it comes to range and they pack a heavy punch, but this is balanced out by longer reload times (with the Extra Attack feature a few are equal to crossbows, some take longer) and the possibility of misfiring, which a bow or a crossbow lack.
Of course after all things being said, this is also a matter of personal tastes.

I play with an open deck. Everyone can decide on their own if they...See more
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Michael S September 23, 2016 7:44 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Why isn't this explanation in the description for your product? Explain what's in it. Make people WANT to pay money for this. I made a 5E update of the Warforged and told everyone it was a no-nonsense port that attempts to update the race, various racial character progressions, and many racial feats. I've sold dozens of copies at $2 a pop because of it.
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Michael S September 23, 2016 7:54 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Okay, now, upon downloading this, I'm realizing that the language is somewhat difficult to understand. That's bad. The Reloading mechanic says "Number of attacks". Do you mean attacks available to you in a turn or number of attack actions? Because this is not worded clearly and simultaneously makes the use of some of these weapons incredibly strange. Also, does this include Bonus Action attacks, if it does count attacks available to you? Because if one combines the effects of Dual-Wielder with these weapons, a fighter could reasonably fire and reload a Dragon or Pistol several times every every single turn.
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Michael S September 23, 2016 8:22 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Nextly, what is a Minor Action? I don't see that in the 5th edition rules. Please, revise the language to this booklet so that it accurately matches the system it's devised for. This is written like it was for 3.0 or 4.0 and you just slapped the 5e label onto it and called it good. When you homebrew, you have to preserve the spirit of the rules. If a weapon reloads slowly, either use the Loading property, or make one that's equally simple to understand. Like "Slow: This weapon requires an action to reload." You're making the language in this booklet woo difficult to understand and too nitpicky. It makes it easier for DMs to just say "Alright, this is an unpolished, slapdashed affair and I have no reason to use this at my table. I'm going to just use the rules of the DMG."
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Rasmus N September 23, 2016 8:40 pm UTC
CREATOR
Thanks for all the feedback. There really are a couple of formulations, that slipped by unnoticed as I was writing this.
I'll see how I can address some of the criticism you have brought forth. However I would like to give back, that you might also want to revise your own language in your commentary to make it sound less...accusatory (' This is written like it was for 3.0 or 4.0 and you just slapped the 5e label onto it and called it good. ')
This is my first homebrew I published and thus there are bound to be issues to nitpick upon. However I also would give players and DMs more credit in interpreting rules, as even the official Wizards products have things, that need to be adressed post-release in FAQs and erratas.
Still, I will do my best to revise the language to be clearer and more in line with the PHB and DMG.
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Michael S September 23, 2016 8:51 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I apologize for that.
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Rasmus N September 25, 2016 1:03 pm UTC
CREATOR
It's fine, just wanted to point out that you got quite passionate in your comment there ;) I understand that you mean well, giving me this much constructive critsicism and I really appreciate it.
I'm going to work on the terminology and finding a balance to make firearms different than crossbows without being too complicated, but it might take a week or two, as I'm going to be away for a couple of days.
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Michael S September 27, 2016 11:48 pm UTC
PURCHASER
That's fine. But one thing I'd recommend is giving scatter-type weapons the cube effect from the DMG for simplicity, but somewhat reduced damage, since the payload is spread to everything within the cube. The rifles can be more powerful - perhaps going all the way up to 2d10 or 2d12 for damage, but make them require an action to reload. This makes sure that they just have high spike damage and can hit like a truck when used, but aren't as reliable as some simpler weapons.
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Rasmus N October 03, 2016 7:46 pm UTC
CREATOR
For now I'll stick to a cone and keep the damage of the dragon and blunderbuss where it is, because I think it is fine as it is - the overall damage output might be huge occasionally, but usually circumstances won't allow for a large amount of targets, either because of range, spread or allies within the line of fire. However I made them slower to load, so they can't be rapid-fired into groups of enemies - these are after all single shot muzzle-loaders, not pump action shotguns.
However I heeded your advise, cleaned up the language to be more in line with the DMG and simplified the reload property by going for actions. Thus firearms are slower, to a point that even with the Gunslinger feat you will be firing less often than a crossbow wielder with the Crossbow Mastery feat. To offset that, I upped the damage of some weapons, as you suggested.
Thanks again for the feedback, it really helped a lot.
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Michael S October 11, 2016 10:11 am UTC
PURCHASER
No problem. I'll check out what you've got now and let you know what I think.
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Customer avatar
Michael S October 11, 2016 10:21 am UTC
PURCHASER
It's a lot better, but in all honesty, it feels like you're over-complicating things a bit. Especially when these weapons take your average damage per round and starts condensing it into a single attack. Unless someone's ridiculously confident in their abilities, they're not going to even consider picking some of these weapons up because they'll miss and have to spend the next several turns reloading. If they're going to take THAT long to reload, give them a boost so they aren't dealing the same DPR of a Barbarian with a Greataxe (Who, might I add, swings more often, affording him a higher average chance of hitting). Make that one shot every 4 turns count.
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Customer avatar
Rasmus N October 11, 2016 10:37 am UTC
CREATOR
Hmm. Good point.
It's difficult to find the sweetspot for damage. Too high and these things will wipe the floor in the first round, stealing the show from all other party members. Too low and you can only use them to initiate combat and then have to switch to melee weapons (for which I'm considering making planted bayonets finesse weapons, so the Dex-based characters don't have to switch out for a different weapon).
Guess I have to mull over the numbers and compare it to what some of the classes can dish out.
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Michael S October 12, 2016 6:33 am UTC
PURCHASER
Your best bet might just be to make them function as more powerful crossbows with added resource expenditure. Unlike bows and crossbows, they can't retrieve their ammunition and the ammunition is bloody expensive. That coupled with their damage and an inability to fire more than once every other turn will make them adequately functional and sufficiently simple.
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File Last Updated:
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This title was added to our catalog on September 13, 2016.