AT DEBATE: Firearm tags

This is multiple things, so I'm going to make an ordered list

1. Firearms are explicitly Martial in addition to Firearm proficiency
   
2. Blunderbuss becomes two-handed. We may set up a secondary Dragon pistol version so as to maintain historicity
   
3. Bad News becomes Heavy
   
4. Hand Mortar becomes Two-Handed, Heavy
   

We've mostly agreed on points one and three, and are actively debating point four

1). I'm fine with this, in fact I encourage it.

2). I wholeheartedly disagree with this. Blunderbusses were not long guns. They were fielded in a number of roles, though they were most popular on ships, they were also used in roles such as cavalry (cavalry often operating their weapons one handed, be it firearms or sabers). To get more technical with it, they typically had a larger powder load than muskets but not to the extremes, it was mostly because of the larger chamber. The barrel was quite wide and the ammunition load was usually fairly light and loose when compared to a musket shot (the difference in barrel size considered) meaning they had a much lower muzzle velocity and a lot less pressure behind the shot. Yes the *did* have significant recoil, but not an undue amount compared to most firearms of the time.
When considering the two handed property in relation to firearms I believe it is more to do with Length and Balance. Here we see some typical blunderbusses:
[Appendix A]
and here we see some typical muskets:
[Appendix B]
The fact that the muskets are so bloody long is is a bigger deal than the recoil, especially given that you can shoulder a weapon with one hand if you can balance it, the second hand is really more for stability.
Furthermore we have the comparison with modern shotguns: People can one hand-fire modern shotguns. Is it easy? no. Neither is fighting with a battle ax in each hand. There is a reason its simply 'not two-handed' instead of 'Light', and requires a feat to use akimbo.
Making a new weapon to 'remedy' this is punching a hole in a damn then slapping a bandaid on it.
Blunderbusses should remain unchanged. if people are worried about dual wielding them being OP they need to keep in mind how much stat/feat investment a dual wielding build requires, and the additional drawbacks it presents.

3) I'd like to preface this with the following: Bad News is listed as having no reload trait but having the explosive trait. I believe this to be a typo, and the the explosive trait was meant to be Reload 1. Going forward I'll operate under that assumption.
Bad News is indeed a big, heavy gun. it is not a cannon. furthermore, simply being big and heavy do not make the Heavy trait. In D&D 5th Edition, the Heavy trait is more indicative of an inability to operate it without being a certain size. Longbows weigh less than Hand Crossbows and yet they have Heavy, the reason is not the weight of the weapon but the way the weapon is operated, a small creature simply isn't big enough for it, regardless how strong they are. In the case of 'traditionally' heavy weapons, its more due to the size and weight, when the weapon weighs more than you, its more like *you* will move before *it* does (yes I know they weigh between 6 and 18 pounds), the weapon gains the heavy trait because operating it involves swinging the thing around and regardless how strong you are you simply wont have the leverage or the stability to effectively make use of it's size without it's size getting in the way.
The operation of a bad news, on the other hand, is remarkably similar to the operation of a musket. The barrel length is probably the greatest drawback, and the momentum of the recoil (though momentum goes both ways, the weight that makes it hard to stop also makes it hard to move, ergo less felt recoil for the user). And the barrel length, practically speaking, is probably similar to a musket, the difference between the two being in the finer details of the design rather than 'this one is bigger', though the bad news certainly is bigger.
All that said, I'm not as dug in with the Heavy bad news as I am with the blunderbuss and hand mortar.

4) where to even start. To begin with, hand mortar is not 'ye old grenade launcher'. Lets look at the hand mortar in the gunslinger class and compare it to weapons of the same name to see if it's what the one in the rules is referring to.
[Appendix C]
This is a typical hand mortar of ye olden times. Note they are not as big as they look, they have little to no barrel, and do not have a heavy duty firing chamber. The practical range of these weapons was very short, typically ones like these were used to launch fireworks. Though they also made heavier duty variation made for shrapnel bombs that were intended for actual combat, though they had a similar practical range.
With this in mind looking at the weapon's stats we see: it is exclusively fire damage, and it is not extremely heavy. In fact, I'd argue that a significant chunk of that weight is in the loaded ammunition.
So first consider it is exclusively fire damage. This leads one to believe the ammunition has no significant physical impact, any shrapnel from the case is either burned away or insignificant enough to not cause any piercing or slashing damage. This suggests it may something like a firework rather than a shrapnel bomb, and points to the weapon being the type pictured above. Secondly consider the limited range, again consistent with whats shown above. lastly the weigh of the weapon is, again, consistent with the above. Even the misfire is consistent as this would be much easier to over or underload on powder, or fire improperly than say, a blunderbuss or musket.
To give it the two-handed and the heavy property it would need to be much larger, longer, and would reasonably have a significantly increased range and different damage stats. The weapon you're thinking of when you say 'hand mortar but heavy and two handed' is a hand cannon, not a mortar.
Needless to say, I disagree with the proposed changes to hand mortar, I do not think that any are necessary. And again, if the issue is 'but thats OP', its really not, you need to build specifically for it for it to be effective, or even possible.

Lastly consider the impact these changes would have: Lets say they go into effect and someone wants to make a halfling gunslinger. What are their options? well, they can't get bad news OR a hand mortar, so right out the two big shiny custom guns are a no go for them. they can't dual wield anything bigger than a pepperbox or pistol. they can get a musket, but the step from a D8 to a D12 does not justify cutting the rate of fire in half. If you're a small size creature, suddenly your options as a gunslinger have become minuscule, and you'll be hard pressed to keep up in damage with something like a human or elf of the same class.

(Refer to pinned messages in #Council-Chamber for Appendices A, B, and C)

I'm fine with the hand mortar being not heavy. Me and Charlie think we make a bad news and a (working name) "Worse news." The worse news is the 2d12 rifle and the bad new becomes a 2 handed hand cannon that does 2d8 damage

explanation? Why?

Is Bad News any easier to use than a Heavy Crossbow?

Yes. Bad news operates identically to a musket just bigger. a heavy crossbow has a long draw to load/cock it. ultimately its drawing back the string that I think gives it heavy.

you still haven't commented on anything I've said. Simply brushed past it and offered other ideas.

To give a different option for the smaller races, as well as I don't know how to respond

Lets go one point at a time. Point #1

Do you agree with the idea that Firearms are explicitly Martial in addition to Firearm proficiency?

Every gun minus the palm pistol should require martial proficiency and firearms proficiency

RE: Blunderbuss not being two-handed; ranged weapons are fundamentally different from melee weapons, especially muzzle-loaders. Even with modern shotguns, while they can certainly be fired, they require two for operation. You need two hands unencumbered to use a blunderbuss more than once, and that in the real world requires you to take several seconds to reload after each shot (10-15 seconds, which is on the order of two full round actions). Now, that wouldn't be fun, but I hardly think mandating you keep a hand completely free to reload is too much.

RE: Bad News; Bad News is 25 pounds.That is 7 pounds heavier than the heaviest other Heavy weapons in base 5e, the Heavy Crossbow and the Pike. If not Heavy, then what? Unwieldy (make anything up to a nat 5 a auto miss, even without a misfire)? Also of note; Muskets are around 3 feet long and Bad News should be something similar if not longer, since it doubles the damage of a musket. Halflings, meanwhile, range in height from 3'8" to 4'2". It makes physical sense for a halfling, or really any creature under 5', to have trouble using a weapon that's as long as that much of their height.

Really, Musket should also suffer from this. NOW, another DM friend of our has brought up a good point. These guns should have a Special Heavy property, where it counts as Heavy unless the gun is braced or mounted to something

I think all firearms should require at least Firearm proficiency, and Palm Pistol could be Simple while the rest are Martial, or it can be martial too, i don't care one way or the other on that.

The "Bracing Heavy" would be interesting, but that requires some setup, you could get a rest, or you could lay on the ground and get the same effect. It'd make it the equivalent of a machine gun, deadly as shit in the right situation, but takes two rounds to set up and by that point the rest of the party's annihilated them. I don't think it's a good idea.

Reaper wrote:The "Bracing Heavy" would be interesting, but that requires some setup, you could get a rest, or you could lay on the ground and get the same effect. It'd make it the equivalent of a machine gun, deadly as shit in the right situation, but takes two rounds to set up and by that point the rest of the party's annihilated them. I don't think it's a good idea.

Where did two rounds come in? Everything is sped up in 5e, so I'd assume it'd just be your move action (or maybe half movement even) to go prone and brace to fire. That or a BA to do it after all of your motion

can I just ask why this even came up in the first place? Is there an issue with the guns as is? especially on the server where you have expanded blacksmithing and readily available spell scrolls?
What is so out of balance that they have issues?
If your issue is it behaving unrealistically then you should take a look at crossbow master fighter who can fire and reload a crossbow up to 8 times in the span of 6 seconds. If the issue is balance I would like to again direct your attention to crossbow master fighter who can match (dice for dice, exceed when factoring stat damage) the DPS of a Bad News gunslinger, assuming their rolls are consistent. Or better yet for the unrealistic thing look at monks who innately get the ability to punch ghosts to death.

RE: blunderbuss. Needing a free hand to reload has been assumed this whole time. Given that gunslinger guns, unlike crossbows, separate the action of loading and firing. In the case of akimbo blunderbusses, it would depend on the level, but from my understanding it would be a minimum of two attack actions to load both of them, and you need to put one away to reload each one at a time. having quickdraw and dual wielder makes this easier but it should still be considered. To give an example: in his current state, Two-Booms would be able to fire both guns, then would need to spend the next two rounds reloading them. And if you wanna make the reload argument, take a look at dual handcrossbow builds.

RE: Bad News. I give up, I GIVE UP you're going to make it heavy so just go for it at least the one you refuse to budge on is the one with some logical credit to it. Making bad news heavy is an unnecessary nerf that does nothing but kick you in the teeth for daring to play a small sized character. go ahead and make it heavy. See all the balancing it does. Besides range and damage the bloody thing is practically made out of downsides to balance those two things out. Ammo is 8 times as expensive, the thing has a VERY high DC to build (most of the time, will vary with GM), it's DPS is lower than a heavy crossbow with crossbow master (and WAY lower than a repeating heavy crossbow), the weight of the weapon is already a drawback on it's own because it takes up a lot of weight in your inventory, and it's three times more likely to explode in your hands! BUT SURE! lets add heavy so a small subset of players don't get to use it.

And I think the 'bad news, worse news' idea is just a flat out bad idea. Like I said before, it's punching a hole in the dam then slapping a bandaid over it and claiming to have improved it.
(Whats more it wholly misunderstands the name of the gun. They call it bad news cuz nothing travels faster.)