Aren't rifles a little late for a Musketeer campaign? A smoothbore blunderbuss akin to a shotgun is a more likely alternative to a musket.

Face meet palm.

Quick Draw Reduces Prepare by 1, to a minimum of 1. it cannot reduce it below that of Limited Ammo

Limited Ammo always requires a manoeuvre to put more Ammo in after you fire the weapon. But also remember “However, remember that combat encounters generally only last four or five rounds, so if your Limited Ammo rating is higher than that, running out of ammo won’t come into play. So, unless each shot costs money, don’t give weapons high Limited Ammo ratings.”

Prepare only requires a manoeuvre when the GM determines you need to, usually because you moved in some way, but ultimately it’s up to your gm.

The weapons that have Prepare or Limited Ammo, or both, in the core book:

Crossbow, Prepare 1; “ Thee downside of a crossbow is the additional time it takes to ready it for firing versus simply nocking an arrow, hence the Prepare quality.”

Auto Rotary Gun, Prepare 1 (also has Auto Fire...): “This results in a rather large and heavy weapon that consumes a voracious amount of ammunition and coal (which take some time to arrange before firing, represented by the Prepare quality).

Hand Cannon, Prepare 1, Limited Ammo 1: “Someone firing a hand cannon probably has to brace themself to deal with the significant recoil, which we’ve represented with the Prepare quality. It has to reload, so characters only get one shot (but that’s usually enough).”

Rotor Pistol, Limited Ammo 1 (Auto Fire): “The Limited Ammo quality doesn’t mean a rotor pistol only holds one bullet, of course, but that a single burst of fire consumes all its ammunition.”

Meteop Launcher, Limited Ammo 1: “They are fired from bulky, single-shot launchers”

Hunting Rifle, Limited Ammo 2: “The hunting rifle presented here is a double-barreled deer rifle... Finally, a hunting rifle can have an internal magazine. These rifles lose the Limited Ammo 2 quality, but increase their price by 100”

Portable Missile Launcher, Limited Ammo 1, Prepare 1: “They, of course, only hold one missile at a time and need a few moments to set up, so the Limited Ammo and Prepare qualities are a must for these weapons” then it goes on to give the only example of specific ammunition cost in the book “reloads for these launchers should cost half of the weapon’s initial cost”

Sniper Rifle: Limited Ammo 4: “They do, however, have a smaller magazine, hence the Limited Ammo quality.”

Micro Missile Launcher, Prepare 1, Limited Ammo 3: “The tracking ability comes with the Guided quality (and the time to lock onto a target is represented by the Prepare quality)”

Grenade Lobber, Limited Ammo 6: no explanation given

Particle Grenade, Limited Ammo 1: no explanation given (or needed really!)

Sliver Rocket Launcher, Prepare 1, Limited Ammo 3: No explanation given, but see Micro Missile Launcher.

Bipod Mount: “If the user spends one preparation maneuver to deploy the bipod”

Tripod Mount: “If the user spends two preparation maneuvers to deploy the tripod” then it goes on to say “The weapon may not be moved (except to pivot on the tripod mount) once it has been set up. The user must spend two preparation maneuvers to take the tripod down.

Prepare is shown as a way to represent Preparing a weapon for use. Not every pull of the trigger, just to use the weapon. Bipod and tripod are the absolute best examples of that, but also the Hand Cannon, where preparing the weapon is bracing against the kick of the gun whilst the inexpensive ammunition is tracked with Limited Ammo.

Comparing the Auto Rotary Gun and the Rotor Pistol is another great example, both have Autofire, one has Prepare the other Limited Ammo. The one that runs out of ammunition after a single attack is the one that has Limited Ammo.

Limited Ammo is all about counting how many times a weapon can be used before all its barrels or clips are empty. In some cases that ammunition is expensive, but in many cases it’s not.

Thats all the stuff from the book. It’s what the game expects you to think. If you want to change how FFG expected Prepare to work then fine, do it, but please tell people in your wonderful setting documents that you have done it.

Making reloading an empty weapon require 2 manoeuvres is another option, with Quick Draw reducing it to 1, or introduce a new talent called Quick Load to reduce it to 1. Perhaps it’s only some weapons that take two manoeuvres.

In my opinion, the line between prepare and limited ammo 1 is hazy. My read on the two qualities is that limited ammo is for when you need to keep track of ammo (and pay for it) whereas prepare is closer to crossbows where you need to do something more than just point-and-shoot.

@Richardbuxton, thank you for the analysis between the two.

31 minutes ago, c__beck said:

In my opinion, the line between prepare and limited ammo 1 is hazy. My read on the two qualities is that limited ammo is for when you need to keep track of ammo (and pay for it) whereas prepare is closer to crossbows where you need to do something more than just point-and-shoot.

@Richardbuxton, thank you for the analysis between the two.

Which goes back to my previous comment about how it seems there should be an additional trait

prepare - weapon needs to be set up, then can fire repeatedly

limited ammo - weapon needs to be frequently reloaded and the ammo is expensive or bulky enough to require independent tracking

reload - weapon needs to be frequently reloaded, but the ammo is small and inexpensive enough to not require additional bookkeeping.

1 hour ago, Forgottenlore said:

reload - weapon needs to be frequently reloaded, but the ammo is small and inexpensive enough to not require additional bookkeeping.

I like this. May have to see where can use it.

Agreed, Reload is a good option.

5 hours ago, c__beck said:

In my opinion, the line between prepare and limited ammo 1 is hazy. My read on the two qualities is that limited ammo is for when you need to keep track of ammo (and pay for it) whereas prepare is closer to crossbows where you need to do something more than just point-and-shoot.

@Richardbuxton, thank you for the analysis between the two.

And I agree it is hazy, particularly when you read the description in the quality description section.