[Mechanics] Building Firearms

[Aeternis]

The link at the bottom of this post will take you to the tables from which firearms are constructed, but before you click it, read the contents of this post - this text is above the link for a reason.

To use these tables, simply start at the first page (called [1] Cost). Select the amount you want to spend on your weapon (before magical enhancement), and write down the point budget which corresponds. Then proceed to the second sheet (which is marked in logical manner: [2] Form Factor), and select a form factor, modifying your point budget as necessary.

Once you have a cost and a form factor, proceed to tables 3-7 in any order you wish, selecting options until there are no points remaining.

Once you have allocated all points, proceed to tables 8 and 9, which govern making your firearm magical. The costs displayed on table 8 added to the cost of your firearm, and are not cumulative - simply pick the effective enhancement you wish to use and use that row's cost factor.

Once you've completed this, I suggest that you spend some time thinking about how the gun looks, where it was made, whether it was a custom model (expensive firearms, for the most part), a stock model from a factory (mostly cheaper firearms) or a mod on a stock design (any price range). As I have suggested in previous campaigns, magical weapons should be ornate, and I will not grudge you a minor flavor effect (an icy firearm might shed icy mist when left at rest, or a banishing one might be inlaid with spiraled lines of fiendish runes which flash when it's fired).

During this process, you should note the following.

• Negative point costs mean that you gain points for selecting that option, and these options tend to carry drawbacks. For example, a Carbine body costs -2 points, but it requires two hands to wield and has no inherent benefit.
• Options on tables 3-6 (Caliber, Loader, Range, Criticals) are mutually exclusive - you can only pick one per list and you must pick one per list. There are 0-cost options on each list if that aspect of your firearm is not a priority.
• Options on table 7 (Special Properties) are not mutually exclusive, but none can be taken more than once. Many options there have point costs of 0, but this doesn't mean you want all of them on all your guns - read the descriptions before you select these options.
• You should not start here when building a character, but I can hardly enforce that.
• If anything in this process is ambiguous, use the "Mechanics Discussion" thread to get your questions answered. If rules glitches are found, I will fix them and republish the tables.

Google Sheets: Gun Creation Tables

[Aeternis]

I'd thought this part of my notes was in here somewhere, but apparently not so.

Upgrading Firearms

When a character with the "Gunsmith" feat achieves a new level and puts a rank in Craft: Gunsmithing, he or she may attempt to upgrade any firearm in their posession per point of Wisdom modifier, minimum 1. Such a process takes about a week and must be started in reasonable time after the level up (these attempts cannot be saved). One weapon can't be so operated upon more than once per level, even by multiple gunsmiths.

This process requires a workbench and toolkit valued at 1000gp (many of which are rented out by enterprising Agarthans at a fee of seventy-five gold chits per week), materials valued at half of the gun's price (for firearms with odd point values, use the value of the gun as if it had one more point than it does), and a series of three Craft(Gunsmithing) rolls - one at the beginning of the week, one in the middle, and one at the end. Ten may be taken (but not twenty) if the character is not under outside pressure during this process and tools and materials remain available - the character must roll if they are, for example, wanted, laying low to avoid attention, or if materials or tools are scarce. The DC of each check is equal to fifteen plus the number of points currently constituting the firearm being altered for the first check, and the two subsequent ones increase in DC by 1 each. Thus, for example, to upgrade a shoddy 0-point holdout, the first DC is 15, the second is 16, and the third is 17.

A successful upgrade will add one point to the firearm's total, but not reassign any existing points. There is a separate check for point reassignment. This point may be used to add any one-point weapon special ability or added to the points spent in any category the gun, but if it is insufficient to upgrade the gun to the next value in that category the upgrade has no immediate effect. Such a point isn't lost, of course - further upgrades of this type may finish the work the first started.

If any of the three checks is failed, the gunsmith may re-attempt it, but this increases the DC of that attempt and of all following checks in the process by 4. Two consecutive failed checks ends the process, but does not destroy the firearm, merely giving it the "broken" condition until repaired. If instead, a check is failed with a result of natural one, the process ends immediately, and the firearm is rendered "horribly broken", a condition which takes an eight-hour period and a DC 15+(Gun's points) Gunsmithing check to remove. One can take ten on this check if the conditions for taking ten on the upgrade procedure apply, but if a natural one is rolled to repair a gun that is rendered "horribly broken" it is destroyed, and the parts can be sold for one tenth of the firearm's value before it was so mutilated.