Meaningless Limitations - Excluding Things not Available in Game World

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

Unless the GM is allowing Lightning Fingers and Quick Reloadx3 perks, in which case you could maybe (if the GM agrees*) squeeze that Flintlock Musket down to a 3 round reload.


* The idea that cocking the Flintlock requires a Ready action and is part of the 15 rounds of reload time, so Lightning Fingers would make that a Free Action... so Quick Reload x 3 reduces it to 4 rounds and Lightning Fingers shaves off another round.

Just so everyone is on the same page, OP did note that breechloading flintlock weapons are available. Those have a base time of 10 seconds, reduced to 8 with Fast-Draw. So Quick Reload will get it down to 6 seconds - 5 with Lightning Fingers if the GM allows that to apply here. If allowing for multiple levels of Quick Reload (which I assume means each level shaves off the same amount of time, down to instant reloads), two levels would reduce this to 4 or 3, three levels to 2 or 1, and four levels would allow for an instant reload regardless of if you have Lightning Fingers (and how the GM treats it). 6 or 5 seconds to reload means you may be able to get off a second shot during a GURPS fight, but that's not guaranteed. 3 or 4 means you're likely to get off a second shot, but may not get a third. 1 or 2 means you're generally guaranteed to get off a second shot (unless the "fight" is extremely one-sided), and likely to get off a third, but may not get a fourth.

Alternatively, for a setting where Gunslinger is available, it might be an option to make use of Time Spent to reload even a muzzle-loader extremely quickly by taking a penalty to Fast-Draw. A normal Fast-Draw (Ammo) roll with a muzzleloading flintlock pistol takes 16 seconds (reduced from 20), meaning each -1 to Fast-Draw would reduce this by 1.6 seconds. But with Gunslinger halving Fast-Draw penalties, you're actually looking at 3.2 seconds off for every -1 to Fast-Draw - Fast-Draw (Ammo) at -4 is going to let you reload such a weapon in only 3.2 seconds (which I'd probably round down to 3), and at -5 you're looking at doing it instantly. For a breechloader,
-3 will let you do it in that same 3.2 seconds (-4 is 1.6, -5 is instant).

As for Acc, while it's true that most flintlock pistols have Acc 1, there's a notable exception to that - the Queen Anne pistol has Acc 2, because the bullets can be more closely matched to the size of the barrel on account of the bullet not needing to be a bit sub-caliber to be able to shove it down the barrel (it's neither a muzzle-loader nor a breechloader, but rather the barrel unscrews and you load it from the back). This would also be the case for a breechloader, so Acc 2 may be called for there as well (as another datapoint, the breechloading carbine has a much shorter barrel than the muzzleloading jager rifle, yet still has the same Acc 3). Note that qualifies it for Fine (Accurate), so you could potentially have an Acc 3 breechloading pistol.

All told, I'd still argue that Gunslinger in a setting without metallic cartridges should have a lower cost than in one with such, simply because you aren't going to be able to shoot very much in a fight. But it's not quite as bad as some are making it out to be, given the setting in question is apparently TL 4, given the availability of breechloaders. I'll also note that Gunslinger's ability to negate a weapon's Bulk isn't restricted to using the weapon in Close Combat - this also applies when using the weapon with a Move and Attack (with TL 4 pistols, that's typically going to negate -3 or more of penalties).

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by Varyon

All told, I'd still argue that Gunslinger in a setting without metallic cartridges should have a lower cost than in one with such, simply because you aren't going to be able to shoot very much in a fight.

Agreed. I was just trying to show that it wasn't impossible to have a flintlock in the hands of a dedicated, supernaturally fast, reloader get more than 1 or 2 shots off in a one minute battle.

But even then, I agree Heroic Gunslinger should be reduced a bit in price.