Would a limited Gunner Feat be a balanced addition to list of Fighter's Fighting Style options?

Question

Inspired by this answer to Is this homebrew gunslinger class balanced? I wanted to ask.

Let's say a player wants to play a gunslinger. Let's also say it is a world where firearms are reasonably common. At first level Fighter can choose a fighting style. Would adding a Gunslinger - basically Gunner Feat from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, except the ability score increase, be a balanced option to other ones?

If not, what else from that feat would we need to remove to balance that? Ideally, I'd like the feat to be either completely redundant or not redundant at all, so that the gunslinger player wouldn't need to miss out on things - by either not having to take it at all, or not getting the same benefit twice, getting overall underpowered build.

Answer 1

How good this is depends on the available choices for firearms

Gunner minus the ability score increase as a fighting style gives you

• You gain proficiency with firearms (see "Firearms" in the Dungeon Master's Guide).
• You ignore the loading property of firearms.
• Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn't impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls.

For rifles, the first two bullets put you on par with what you get when you take a longbow: proficiency and no loading limitation.

With handguns, you can use your other hand for a second weapon, or to hold a shield, worth the equivalent of +2 AC. You'd initially pick this "Gunslinger" fighting style instead of picking Archery, which would give you +2 to attack rolls with ranged weapons instead.

If both weapons are dealing comparable damage, that means you are effectively winning 2 AC and the ability to attack from within 5 feet without disadvantage for giving up +2 to hit and a longer range. This makes you better in melee, for being worse in longer range combat. Overall this would seem relatively balanced.

However, how good this really is will depend strongly on the available weapon choices. To compare, here are a few options:

Weapon	Range	Damage	Properties	Period
Longbow	150/600	1d8 piercing	Ammunition, heavy, two-handed	Medieval
Pistol	30/90	1d10 piercing	Ammunition, loading	Renaissance
Musket	40/120	1d12 piercing	Ammunition, loading, two-handed	Renaissance
Revolver	40/120	2d8 piercing	Ammunition, reload (6 shots)	Modern
Laser Pistol	100/300	3d6 radiant	Ammunition, reload (50 shots)	Futuristic
Antimatter Rifle	120/360	6d8 necrotic	Ammunition, reload (2 shots), two-handed	Futuristic

For Renaissance weapons like the pistol, it seems slightly better than Archery + Longbow. You deal an expected one point of extra damage (d10 instead of d8), on top of the deal above, which at least at lower levels may be worth about as much as +1 of the +2 to hit from Archery, or half a fighting style.

For all of the modern or futuristic weapons, the fighting style would be clearly unbalanced.¹ Here, gaining proficiency with these killer weapons is what really makes the fighting style tick. The other stuff is just gravy.

For example, with a Revolver you would be dealing 2d8 damage, or an extra 4.5 more damage each attack, doubling your damage output. There is no comparable fighting style that would add that amount of extra damage, never mind putting this on top of other advantages like better AC.

If you had access to a Laser Pistol, you would be dealing an expected 6 extra damage with each attack, more than doubling your damage output with each attack, and using a better damage type. This would be entirely broken at low levels.

Now, what weapons are available is of course up to the DM. But in a game world with access to such weapons, getting to be proficient with them would be extremely strong, and would make this fighting style an automatic pick over other ranged fighting styles.

I don't think there is a good way to balance this, because the weapon choices are so unbalanced. Even if you strip away free loading and close combat benefits, just plain proficiency with something like an antimatter rifle is going to be bonkers. And if you take away proficiency instead, Rennaissance weapons would be disgustingly bad.

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¹ Dropping loading does not matter with modern weapons, as they work with reload instead. But with a typical fight just going about 4 rounds, reload effectively means there is no need to load at all (or maybe once with a bonus action, if you have extra attacks and a revolver).

Answer 2

This is probably fine.

I'm going to say this is probably just fine on the basis that two out of the three points you would gain are just to make the weapons usable. The second and third bullets of the Gunner feat give you proficiency and allow you to use Extra Attack with the firearm. These points shouldn't be considered for balance because these are just the bare minimum for actually being able to use the weapon. So what we're really looking at here is "is the third bullet appropriate as a fighting style?":

Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls.

There really isn't much to compare this to, other than this also being one of the bullets from Crossbow Expert. I don't think it's too powerful as a Fighting Style. While it might see more use, I don't think it stronger than the Blind Fighting style:

Blind Fighting

You have blindsight with a range of 10 feet. Within that range, you can effectively see anything that isn’t behind total cover, even if you’re blinded or in darkness. Moreover, you can see an invisible creature within that range, unless the creature successfully hides from you.

So it probably isn't overpowered, and whether or not it comes off as underpowered is probably going to depend on the character's playstyle. If you never shoot up close, you'll never take advantage of the feature, and it might feel like an underpowered fighting style choice. But if you shoot up close often, and you get to see a bow-wielding ally struggle to get a hit off up close, you'll feel like a proper gun slinger.

Answer 3

It would be a decent choice, maybe a bit weak

Presuming the firearms in your world are the two renaissance weapons (Light crossbow for comparison):

Weapon	Damage	Properties
Pistol	1d10 Piercing	Ammunition (range 30/90), loading
Musket	1d12 Piercing	Ammunition (range 40/120), loading, two-handed
Light Crossbow	1d8 Piercing	Ammunition (range 80/320), loading, two-handed

And the rule of Firearms which would imply your character already has proficiency in a world full of guns:

It’s up to you to decide whether a character has proficiency with a firearm. Characters in most D&D worlds wouldn’t have such proficiency. During their downtime, characters can use the training rules in the Player’s Handbook to acquire proficiency, assuming that they have enough ammunition to keep the weapons working while mastering their use.

Then this trait is essentially giving:

• Ignore Loading property
• Ability to use guns in melee range

Comparing to just using a Light Crossbow and taking Archery the difference is:

• You won't have the +2 to accuracy
• You will have bigger hit dice leading to 1-2 damage more per attack for pistol-musket
• You have considerably shorter range, making the melee range guns useful (crossbow is outside of normal move speed for melee fighters, pistols are not, muskets are just)
• Make crossbow expert worse to take

As a result, this is different strength between musket and pistol. Musket is essentially the feat thrown weapons/duelling, pistol is slightly weaker. However would add something extra to the feat, either the ignore cover portion of Close Quarter Shooter (emphasis mine):

You are trained in making ranged attacks at close quarters. When making a ranged attack while you are within 5 feet of a hostile creature, you do not have disadvantage on the attack roll. Your ranged attacks ignore half cover and three-quarters cover against targets within 30 feet of you.

Or give it as a half fighting style with Archery and give it a +1 to hit, maybe with a proviso that you may change it if it turns out too strong.