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Firearms play a prominent role in our homebrew game as well so I would love it if there was some rudimentary firearms support in 5E. We’ve been using the PF Gunslinger class and firearms rules, but I would love to see what WOTC would come up with for not only firearms rules but a class actually designed to take advantage of them. With D&D encapsulating anything from bronze age warriors to renaissance era swashbucklers, I would love to see a high-fantasy firearms based class. I know this would rub a lot of people wrong, which is why I would be content to see it in a supplement or something, not necessarily in the core PH or DMG. But an eventual supplement with firearms, alchemical concoctions and a more technologically advanced baseline would be awesome.

Feb 2, 2012 -- 7:44AM, Leekanh wrote:

The problem with firearms in D&D is the way in wich D&D handles equipment. The problem with making totally new stats for firearms is that they basically dominate ranged combat, full stop, you can trash bow and crossbow since now they are obsolete.
Even if you use early firearms, that still have some relative weakness compared to the bow, the crossbow has no real advantage over them, even on the ease of use.

the easiest solution for D&D is to change the name of the crossbows, since by then you have no reason to use them anyway. If you want even more "advanced" firearms, replace the bows too. If a character really wants to go Rambo on the enemies, let him use a bow without any penalty. No reason to cripple him for just a bit of flavour.

In our PF game right now we have a gunslinger alongside a bow using ranger. The ranger hasn't been looking enviously at the gunslinger. The two classes and the two weapons have a really different feel to them and are supporting two classes that play completely differently. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses, but both players have been pretty satisfied so I'm convinced it can work. Now that I've seen Paizo do it-- and I've ran it in my campaign and seen that it works in execution as well as looking good on paper-- I would like to see what WOTC would come up with as well that could support firearms and/or a firearms based classed with a D&D flavor to it. We have an arcane archer, I would love to see an arcane gunslinger or alchemical charged musketeer!

Feb 2, 2012 -- 8:08AM, Divine_Bobhead wrote:

Charop generally considers gunslingers a weak class and guns a weak weapon, 'specially compared to archery rangers (thus falling into the "guns are worse than bows" category). But if you're having fun then that number crunching stuff don't matter.

Well to be fair Charop, doesn't enter into our game a whole lot. My players tend to be focused on what feels thematically right for the concept they want to play. It is kind of surprising that they end up so much worse than bows given that the one player in my group who is most prone to really optimize his character is the one playing the gunslinger and he hasn't noticed it yet! I'll have to keep an eye on that. I still think that there is a foundation there for making firearms viable in the game and I'd love to see it. If not, well it's not a gamebreaker for me, it's just more work if I do decide I really like 5E and I want to move our homebrew back to it.