So I realized on the train to work, just days before my first session, that I hadn’t come up with any rules for firearms for our Western! Luckily, I’ve been playing a lot of Cyberpunk Red and have some fresh ideas for firearm combat!

My biggest thing here is I want these to be easy and interesting; I don’t want to have to rebuild combat around gunfights, but I do want there to be a reason a player would choose a firearm over a melee weapon or a bow.

First let’s talk about firearm rules. Firearms are ranged martial weapons, and require proficiency to use. Aside from the pistol, firearms also have the two-handed property, so you won’t be dual-wielding a shortsword and shotgun any time soon. Finally, and probably the biggest drawback, firearms have the reload property.

See, all firearms have a reload rate, a number of times they can be fired before you run out of bullets in the chamber, and in my game, reloading a firearm will take an action. This is actually something I’ve borrowed from Cyberpunk Red after experiencing the tension it built in a fairly tough combat, but a limitation that can make it hard to choose a firearm over a bow. Of course there are many ways to get around this limitation: choosing weapons with a high reload rate, picking up the Gunner feat to ignore the reload property, acquiring weapons that ignore this property, ect.

Still, we want to incentivize players to pick up a firearm without needing to resort to these options, something I think we can achieve through unique design. For simplicity’s sake we’ll give ourselves three variants to start: pistols, rifles, and shotguns.

The Pistol (Range 40/120, 1d6 Piercing, Reload 6)

First up is our workhorse, the pistol. While I’d love to upjump the shortbow’s damage die, pistols are going to be so prolific that I think it’s best to stick with a d6. We still want to make this thing cool though, so let’s add a special action:

Fan the Hammer.
As an action, choose one creature that you can see within range. That creature must make a DC 13 Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save the creature takes 1d6 piercing damage for each bullet you have left in the chamber. Creatures with half or three-quarters cover ignore this damage.

You must have one hand free to use this action, and once you do so you must reload before you can fire again.

A potential 6d6 damage feels awesome, and can come in extremely clutch, especially against a high AC target, but this move is also curbed by several factors. First, this is single target damage, which means that if you’re fighting a lot of enemies with low HP maximums, you’ll be wasting bullets. The second is the reload property; taking a full action is a very big resource to expend. Third, while the damage is comparable at low levels, once a character gains the extra attack feature, their normal rate of fire damage begins to outpace this burst damage.

Overall, I think this is a fun interpretation of the pistol that will lead to a lot of interesting play at the table.

The Rifle (Range 80/240, 1d8 Piercing, Reload 5)

Next up is our simplest conversion, the rifle. We don’t have to do anything fancy here and so we won’t. We’ll keep the longbow’s d8 damage die, but to represent our raw firepower, we’ll give all rifles a nonmagical +1 to their damage rolls. In addition, to simulate their accuracy, we’ll say that rifles ignore half and three-fourths cover.

This one is pretty clean and straightforward. I know that I just jumped through hoops for the pistol, but I believe this version of the rifle can stand on its own without the bells and whistles of its younger brother.

The Shotgun (Range 30/90, 1d12 Piercing, Reload 2)

Finally, we have my personal favorite, the shotgun. Here we’re trading the lowest reload property for the highest damage potential, the coveted d12, and for good measure, we’ll say it does double damage to objects and structures. I also want to borrow a brilliant mechanic from Cyberpunk Red and introduce a second way to fire the shotgun:

Buckshot Shell (alternate ammo).
A buckshot shell is filled with metal pellets, spreading your damage over a wider area. When fired, each creature is a 15-foot cube originating from you must make a DC 13 Constitution saving throw, taking 2d6 piercing damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

Now that’s firepower! Obviously I am a little biased, but I think shotguns are cool as hell, and that seeing one should be an “Oh Shit!” moment for NPCs and players alike.

That’s all I’ve got for today folks! I’m sure I’ll be making a bunch of magicked-up firearms in the future, so stick around if you liked these designs.