The Gunner Feat and Its Implications for D&D

 Firearms have been part of 5th Edition D&D since its inception - but you'll see no mention of it in the Player's Handbook. Instead, it's found in the Dungeon Master's Guide. There are statistics provided for firearms from three different technological eras - Renaissance, Modern, and Futuristic. I think the reason these show up in the DMG instead of the PHB is that, while a player should have the ultimate say on the construction of their character, it is the DM's role to determine the broader reality of their setting.

To some people, their preferred form of fantasy is one that limits technology to that seen in the High Middle Ages at its most advanced, and the strictest limit on that is the absence of guns. In fact, there's a whole TV Trope about it. (As a side note, some people consider fantasy to be an inherently medieval-set genre, which I strongly disagree with, citing important works like the Dark Tower series, not to mention His Dark Materials, Harry Potter, and Star Wars - the latter of which I realize also starts an argument over where fantasy ends and science fiction begins).

In one of the more influential examples of D&D in recent years, namely Critical Role, the first campaign had within it the character of Percy, who was a Gunslinger. Now, I'm given to understand that this was a Pathfinder class that had to be converted to 5th Edition, which they did by making it a Fighter subclass (which works out pretty well) but on the other hand, the character was, in fact, the inventor of firearms within Exandria, the technology inspired by a demon with which Percy had made a deal to get his revenge.

Generally, we've seen only a few creature stat blocks that use firearms - in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist there are some Drow Gunslingers. In Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, the Giff have a nigh-religious devotion to firearms and explosives, and use muskets in their stat block. And in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden (spoiler alert) there are some Gnome Cereomorphs (apparently Gnomish minds don't get totally converted when they're taken over by Illithids) that wield Laser Pistols.

But these have all generally been rare edge cases.

However, in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, in a section that's clearly designed for players as well as DMs (in a way that lists of creatures' stat blocks wouldn't be) there is the Gunner feat.

So let's unpack it:

First off, you gain a +1 bonus to Dexterity, to a maximum of 20.

Next, you gain proficiency with Firearms (which gets around the odd question of just who would be proficient with them. On one hand, they're considered martial weapons, so in theory any Fighter, Ranger, Paladin, etc. maybe should be, but they're also kind of their own weird thing.)

Next, you ignore the loading property of firearms. This one's interesting, because I think it only really affects Renaissance firearms. Modern and Futuristic instead have the Reload property, which works similarly, but you get to fire a certain number of shots before you have to load it again. Rules as Written, this only affects Loading, so you'd never have to use a bonus action or action to reload a musket or pistol, but you would, every couple turns (or every turn with a Shotgun and Extra Attack) have to reload your more advanced weapon. (As a DM I might rule that this covers Reload as well.)

Finally, being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn't impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls.

First off, this clearly resembles the Crossbow Expert feat, which allows you to shoot in melee and ignore the loading property. Rather than allowing a bonus action attack with a Hand Crossbow, it instead gives you the Dexterity and the ability to use firearms.

So let's analyze:

First off, this is a sure sign that WotC is telling DMs and players they can really consider putting guns into their worlds. (To be clear, I'm not advocating for gun ownership in the real world - I don't want to get deep into politics here, but I think it's pretty clear that when there are fewer guns around, people tend to get shot a lot less).

It's possible this will also create some difficult conversations between DMs and players if a player wants to use guns but the DM doesn't really want that to be part of the campaign, and I'd remind any player that A: everything in Tasha's is up for DMs to decide whether they can be used or not, B: technically the entire feat rule is only usable at the DM's discretion, but also C: if your player has a cool concept, DMs should try to support it - if a player wants to take this feat, give them an opportunity for their character to get those kinds of weapons.

In terms of strength, I'd say that this feat is actually a way to handle some of the overpowered nature of firearms.

As an example, the lowest damage of any firearm is 1d10, and that with a one-handed pistol (though its range is pretty terrible - 30/90.) 1d10 is already on par with all but the strongest melee weapons, and I think generally they keep ranged weapon damage a little lower due to the inherent advantage of being able to fight from afar (not to mention the existence of +X ammunition on top of +X weapons).

Before we get to the craziness that is futuristic weapons (though in my original campaign it actually worked out when I gave the Rogue a laser pistol, given that Rogues rely much less on weapon damage than, say, a Fighter), the least powerful of the modern weapons is already on par with the most powerful melee weapons - the automatic pistol does 2d6 damage.

That being said, if you force players to take the Gunner feat if they want to use firearms, you can effectively counterbalance this - they'll have to make the rather big investment in order to use these weapons, and apart from the +1 bonus to Dexterity, there's not much in the feat that really boosts the damage output of the guns - it just makes them more convenient to use.

I would note, however, that the Artificer class does explicitly say that if your world has firearms, that class would most likely be (which I read as: is) proficient with firearms. But given that an Artificer isn't going to be pumping out weapon damage like a Ranger or Fighter, I think it's not going to break things to let them use a gun.

As a big fan of decidedly non-medieval D&D settings, I'm actually really happy to see this possibility pushed forward as a potential option for the game.