Doing a Colonial Gothic conversion. What would you put the Gunpowder Rifle and Pistol at?

Smooth bore blackpowder flintlock weapons, probably 7 damage for a rifle, 5 for a pistol, Inaccurate 1 and Prepare 2 for both. That's a bit generous vs. reality, but better to keep it fun. Long range for a rifle, Short for a pistol. That's probably a pretty decent start. Despair on an attack roll could mean a misfire, or it could mean the gun blows up in your face.

I'm making a fantasy/steampunk game centered around air pirates and I made my gun powder weapons like this,

musket, dam-8, crit-3, range-long, special-inaccurate 1, reload,

blunderbuss, dam-6, crit-4, range-short, special- blast-4, reload.

flintlock pistol, dam-6, crit-3, range-medium, special- inaccurate 1, reload.

special rule, reload- you must spend a manoeuvre to reload this weapon.

I felt this to be the simplest way to make the guns feel like blackpowder weapons without being complicated.

8 hours ago, the BaldBarian said:

I'm making a fantasy/steampunk game centered around air pirates and I made my gun powder weapons like this,

musket, dam-8, crit-3, range-long, special-inaccurate 1, reload,

blunderbuss, dam-6, crit-4, range-short, special- blast-4, reload.

flintlock pistol, dam-6, crit-3, range-medium, special- inaccurate 1, reload.

special rule, reload- you must spend a manoeuvre to reload this weapon.

I felt this to be the simplest way to make the guns feel like blackpowder weapons without being complicated.

You could replace the reload quality with Limited Ammo 1 and achieve the same effect.

4 minutes ago, kaosoe said:

You could replace the reload quality with Limited Ammo 1 and achieve the same effect.

Prepare 1 would work a bit better, if you don't want to keep track of how much ammo you have.

A smoothbore musket should not reach farther than medium, the pistol short.

7 minutes ago, Swordbreaker said:

Prepare 1 would work a bit better, if you don't want to keep track of how much ammo you have.

I thought about that too, but the OP wanted the reload maneuver to happen after the initial firing, and not potentially before.

I think I like Slow Firing 1 more for rifle, maybe prepare 1 or 2 for pistol.

8 hours ago, Grimmerling said:

A smoothbore musket should not reach farther than medium, the pistol short.

I look up how far a musket can shoot this is what I found.

8 hours ago, kaosoe said:

You could replace the reload quality with Limited Ammo 1 and achieve the same effect.

true, I might just do that.

37 minutes ago, the BaldBarian said:

I look up how far a musket can shoot this is what I found.

What is the range of a musket?

The accuracy of the Brown Bess was fair, as with most other muskets . The effective range is often quoted as 175 yards (160 m), but the Brown Bess was often fired en masse at 50 yards (46 m) to inflict the greatest damage upon the enemy.

wouldn't 175 yards count as long range?

I think it appropriate that a musket have Long range, but I think its inherent inaccuracy could be reflected by Inaccurate 2, or maybe get another black die at Long range.

I have a separate question for black-powder weapons: what are the justifications for taking out multiple minions with a single musket shot? I can think of hitting two with one shot or demoralization, but a skilled character will be seeing these occur often. What are some others?

4 hours ago, Dedran Cray said:

I think it appropriate that a musket have Long range, but I think its inherent inaccuracy could be reflected by Inaccurate 2, or maybe get another black die at Long range.

I have a separate question for black-powder weapons: what are the justifications for taking out multiple minions with a single musket shot? I can think of hitting two with one shot or demoralization, but a skilled character will be seeing these occur often. What are some others?

"as your opponents charge, you raise your rifle and fire! you hit one straight in the chest! as he jerks back from the impact he discharges his weapon, shooting he's own ally!"

"your enemy hides behind a boulder, firing pot shots behind cover, you notice a loose branch hanging above them, you take aim and fire! the bullet rips through the branch causing it to fall! it lands on your enemys and crushes them!"

another thing to take notice of is strain gets turned into wounds with minions.

"as your opponents head explodes, his friend, seeing the gore, decides this fight isn't worth it and flees!"

there's a couple of ideas.

As you said an action can be a culmination of multiple small attacks, a manoeuvre can be the culmination of multiple small manoeuvres. A manoeuvre really represents your character focusing on getting a task done, be that aiming or moving or reloading... but that doesn’t mean aiming once, moving once or reloading once.

The combination of a musket and a manoeuvre to reload, or an action for slow firing, doesn’t have to represent a single shot.

”The enemy unit is advancing towards your position, they are using the trees and gullies as cover but your elevated and defended position gives you a big advantage. As they close you line up the first shot, then when the time is right you pull the trigger... BANG!!! the shot echoes through the forest, and your target falls to the floor.

Quickly you reload, their wary now but BANG!!! a second enemy falls. With another burst of motion you reload and fire one more time, only clipping the shoulder of a third soldier. Your efforts have been telling, with two dead and a third screaming in pain the entire enemy unit takes cover, halting their advance as their leader decides what to do with you.”

The stats for a musket depend a lot on the firing mechanism. A wheelock is different from a matchlock which is different from a flintlock and which is different from a 19th century musket that uses cartridges.

Either way, a musket is going to have high damage. As in 10 or so. I can't think of a musket with a caliber lower than .50, if you got hit by a musket, you're dead or losing an arm, if you're lucky.

A wheellock should have a prepare of 2, this means if you want to fire it once a turn you need to spend strain to be able to do that. Any more than two and no one will use it, what's the point if you're not doing anything on your turn?

The reason I'd go for prepare over limited ammo is that a turn is not one shot, it's multiple. RAW generally describes it as a minute, so being able to fire off a few shots would be better represented with prepare, not limited ammo. This would show that you're firing the musket and reloading it, during your action, several times. Especially for more later muskets.

A flintlock will have a prepare of 1, a skilled musketman can fire off a shot every 15 seconds or so. Meaning it's perfectly feasible in the narrative to take out a minion group, especially when you consider how high caliber muskets are, sure the ball going through two people might seem pulpy if you want more realism, but a musket is a pretty deadly weapon.

A musket also would have a low crit rating, maybe even vicious. As noted before if you got hit by a musket, you were out. If on the off chance you survived, it was because hit took off your arm.

Now, to offset this, a musket should have inaccurate, maybe 2 to 3 even. Makes it hard to shoot with, but powerful. You might not hit every turn, but when you do it's sure to kill something. Don't be afraid of adding inferior as well, especially for earlier muskets.

As for range, I'd stick to medium for rifles, short for pistols. Muskets can have a farther maximum range than that, but that's not exactly the effective range of a musket.

Generally, if I were stating out a flintlock musket, think American Revolutionary War, i'd do this:

Damage 10, Crit 2, range of medium, then have the qualities of prepare 1, inaccurate 3, vicious 2, inferior

I also wouldn't give it pierce or anything, a breastplate can still stop a musket ball.

The general idea of a musket that I would want to get across is that it's deadly, could take off your arm, but is inaccurate and doesn't have a great range

41 minutes ago, Ricky Olie said:

The stats for a musket depend a lot on the firing mechanism. A wheelock is different from a matchlock which is different from a flintlock and which is different from a 19th century musket that uses cartridges

It’s definitely important to plan around this. Will your campaign have a wide variety of black powder weapons? Will they need to be different to provide a sense or character to the setting?

Or is this just one weapon type in a broader range? Will a single option be enough without over complicating things?