Infinity Matrix: He's got a gun!

I've had to think long and hard about how guns are going to work in a space based campaign.

In Pathfinder firearms are notoriously problematic. On their own they aren't very remarkable. In close range they hit touch AC but the ammunition is expensive, they have a built in critical fumble mechanic, and they have a reload time. With a gunslinger and/or the right feats something good can come out of it but it's much simpler to just use a longbow. With advanced firearms the gunslinger's ability to deal dexterity to damage becomes more relevant as you can more easily continuously shoot and if you make firearms more prevalent in the world the price goes down dramatically. The issue with touch attacks becomes more pronounced as players can easily wipe out creatures in one round as the price goes down and guns become more useable. Technological firearms are potentially worse as they have effectively 10 round clips, ammunition price that becomes negligible in a scifi setting, no misfire, free stacking Rapid Shot, and all attack touch AC. So what do I do?

I experimented with a lot of scenarios taking rules from various scifi Pathfinder books. At some point the best option looked like changing a few Gunslinger class features in order to remove touch attacks from all firearms and instead allow them to add dexterity to damage rolls. But in the end I decided to do nothing for the most part, and here is why;

Firstly, with third party products involved there are a lot of defenses against firearms. In Paizo's Technology Guide Scatterlight armor has AC that counts as touch AC against beam weapons and armor that grants resistance from energy damage. In Fat Goblin Game's Fantastic Technology there are armor modifications that counts AC against firearms. In Rogue Genius Games' Anachronistic Adventures there are a series of feats that grant more and more dodge bonuses. Within the base game there are plenty of additional ways to get more touch AC including taking cover. Through feats, items or tactics the campaign has enough material to avoid dying from gun fights at the drop of a hat so from their end the issue of firearms hitting touch AC is diminished.

Secondly, monsters are still easier to kill and I'm okay with that. While NPCs can enjoy the benefits of armor and feats that keep them from dying too fast to firearms, (especially technological ones that have way fewer drawbacks.) what about monsters or pre-printed NPCs? Well from a flavor standpoint I don't care if monsters and NPCs die easily. The PCs are heroes, the main characters of the story, but mechanically they have to go through a lot of enemies that have full HP. In this campaign I decided that it's okay because I can more easily make PCs feel threatened but also feel like invincible heroes from movies like Rambo or Total Recall by mowing down monsters by the dozens. This also appeals to when I want to be lazy by using premade stat blocks over building a monster or NPC while making PCs feel like action heroes.


Eventually it is a combination of third party fixing problems themselves and not wanting to shake up the game more than I already have.