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I've been flipping through Ultimate Combat, and I'm really interesting in the addition of early and advanced firearms. I've been interested in building a musketeer at a higher level than first, but I've been trying to figure out how one would start with an advanced firearm like a revolver or rifle (rather than a musket or pistol).

A musketeer is given a gun from his order, but also has the Gunsmithing feat, so I'm a bit confused:

  • Would the Musketeer just asked for an advanced firearm?
    • That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense given how much an advanced firearm costs. I'm not even sure how starting with a gun is fair considering a musket ordinarily costs 1500gp.
  • Would the Musketeer just craft an advanced firearm, and ignore the one given by his order?
    • That also doesn't seem to make sense, as the point is that his gun is a sort of focus.

How would a musketeer obtain advanced firearms in this situation?

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Note inclusion of advanced firearms is entirely at your DM's discretion. You may or may not have access to them despite them being "in the book." – mxyzplk♦ Nov 5 '12 at 23:34
@mxyzplk That is true. For the purposes of this question, the DM is ok with advanced firearms. – NT3RP Nov 6 '12 at 2:07

2 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

By RAW, your second option is the correct one: a musketeer who wants to use a firearm other than the musket/pistol given by his order can only do so by ignoring his ability to focus with his gifted weapon. There's nothing that I can find that replaces a cavalier's gifted weapon with an advanced firearm.

However, you should probably talk to your DM about this. Assuming advanced firearms are allowed in your game, I would suggest asking your DM if you can simply pay full price for the advanced firearm out of starting wealth, and have that gun be your gifted weapon.

It makes some sense to me that a cavalier order may give less powerful guns to newer recruits, and allow more experienced members the ability to donate a fee to the order to gain the right to wield a more powerful weapon in their name.

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up vote 1 down vote

I like DuckTapeals answer however:

Break your weapon and request your order craft you an advanced firearm.

If the musketeer’s gifted firearm is destroyed, the cavalier loses this ability for 30 days while a replacement weapon is crafted for him. During this 30-day period, the musketeer takes a –1 penalty on weapon and damage rolls.

The cited text says nothing about your replacement weapon being of the same type as the original.

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By one possible interpretation of the RAW, you're quite right. Two points though: 1. It seems to be against the spirit of the ability to break the item just to upgrade it. 2. It's very unlikely that a DM will allow a player to break their weapon to get a free upgrade to something that's more than twice as expensive. – DuckTapeal Nov 5 '12 at 21:14
@DuckTapeal, I agree with both of your points. In almost all cases where a PC is playing a musketeer and this rule was invoked, I would expect gp to exchange hands. – Colin D Nov 5 '12 at 21:37
1  
No, I do not think this rule permits you to get a different firearm than you started with. The literal meaning of replace is to "restore to a former position". When something is replaced, it is normally replaced by something which is, if not exactly the same, then equivalent. When someone says they will replace something with something better they are explicitly modifying the meaning with context (or arguably misusing it). Without that modifier, it means that the replacement will be the same as what was lost. – TimothyAWiseman Nov 5 '12 at 22:18

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