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[Kadzar]

   I definitely want some sort of world where spellguns exist as a way of doing magic, though, probably not the only way. Actual casters shouldn’t need to use them, having much better options available, and armies will limit their use to no more than one per squad due to cost and extra weight.

   Caster guns would take more effort and resources to make than their mundane firearm counterparts, and ditto for their ammo. Alternatively, perhaps spell cartridges should require fresh spell ingredients to work properly, and would decay after a while. Or maybe both things are true: Spell cartridges need to be made from fresh spell components to activate properly, but a certain process can be used which makes a cartridge viable indefinitely. Or perhaps the method of creation could have an effect on the “power level” of spells; maybe “higher tier” spell cartridges require more complicated methods or setups to produce. Or maybe the method of creating a spell cartridge affects its quality: lower quality, easy to make spell cartridges might fizzle out or explode or backfire on the person using the spellgun.

   The extra weight of a caster gun shouldn’t be neglected. Sure, they weigh about the same as a regular gun, but their ammo is completely incompatible with that of firearms, and vice versa. While it might seem like a good idea, then, to use a castergun as one’s main weapon to cut down on weight, offensive-type spell cartridges are too precious to be used as a general replacement for bullets. Spellgun users will want a primary weapon to dispatch enemies and consider the castergun as a sort of Swiss Army knife with interchangeable tools that are consumed when used. It is important to note that, while spell cartridges weigh less than most of the tools they replace, and many can do things that can’t be replicated by any tool, they are single-use items.

More on Spellguns and their role in this post.
Monsters, magic bullets, and Mad Scientists mentioned in this post.

Please post any thoughts or opinions you might have.

[Knight of Fools]

So, rifles of magic missile?

Sounds fun.  If you want to make the magical guns stand out, though, get rid of normal guns unless they're very well balanced (I'm assuming a D&D world meant to be played, of course). Either you're going to have players choosing between magical damage or standard damage (Where Magic wins out every time), or you'll have players that choose normal guns so that the magical ones don't blow up in their faces constantly or at inopportune moments. Either way, one will supersede the either and having the extra one won't make things any more interesting. If you really want standard firearms in the world, have the base ammunition for the firearms be projectiles that are launched magically, and make all other forms of ammunition exponentially expensive.

Taking things a step further, if the guns don't use explosions to generate momentum for the projectiles, they won't be as loud. You'd still hear a loud crack from objects breaking the sound barrier, but if the projectile were insubstantial, like a magic missile, the shot could be silent, depending on your idea of how magic works.

[LordBucket]

Please post any thoughts or opinions you might have

What's your goal?

From the description you've given, why would a caster choose to use this over a standard rechargeable wand or staff, or ring of spell storing?

What's the benefit of using physical cartridges over spell charges? I'm not familiar with your game world, as you haven't mentioned it, but in mine it's standard practice for magic missile wands, fireball staves, etc. to be able to easily take new charges by simply casting a memorized spell with intent to recharge rather than discharge. A standard ring of spell storing can accommodate a number of spell levels of any spells the mage wishes to imbue it with. So if you want to have 50 fireballs on hand, you charge your staff over a few weeks. If you need a variety of spells, you put it in the spell storing ring. Again, these are totally generic, standard issue random-drop items. An enterprising mage who wants to create their own items can combine these properties to get a swiss-army knife effect of high capacity spell storage.

What's the benefit of creating a spellgun that does this same thing, except that it requires that rounds be individually created through a special process, but nevertheless can explore of backfire on the user?

Actual casters shouldn’t need to use them

...ahh, so the entire point of these is to give high-capacity ring of spell storing type items to non-casters? This immediately brings up questions of balance.

offensive-type spell cartridges are too precious to be
used as a general replacement for bullets.

...ok, but if bullets are readily available, then for it to make sense to have spellgun bullets at all, those spellgun bullets will presumably have to be significantly more powerful than bullets, yes? What's the benefit of making or using a rare and precious spellgun bullet that requires lots of time/magic/gold/etc to acquire, and has a chance of backfiring on the user, when things like magic arrows, bullets, and mages who can cast the same spell with no chance of backfire, are all readily available?

Examine the economy of this device. Does it make sense to build one?

sort of Swiss Army knife with interchangeable tools

Ok. Then this isn't really a "gun" then, right? No reason to limit the rechargables to offensive spells. Although it does bring into question the nature of the mental/magical "targeting" that the device might use. A caster can direct a charged spell being discharged to its intended target. A non-caster generally wouldn't know how.

Making these telepathic, sentient ego items / artifacts would probably be the simplest solution., so that they can receive mental direction from the user regardless of casting ability.

Please post any thoughts or opinions you might have.

What you're describing could certainly be created, at least using the standard item enchantment rules from my campaigns, but it seems like exactly the sort of thing that mages would be reluctant to make. They would be fairly time consuming to make, and would give away substantial magic power to non-mages. Though the single-use rounds brings up interesting possibilities for highly lucrative arms monopolies. Even so, I would think these things would make a user about as high priority a target for mage guilds as a typical mageslayer weapon wielder.

But again, campaigns vary.

In any case, if mages are maing these things with intent to create monopolies, or perhaps to alter the nature of war, then why would they choose to make the reachargable rounds physical? Wouldn't it be vastly easier and more in their interest to simply make them able to receive standard spell charges? Adding/changing the stored spells would require a mage to do it, rather than making it, and allowing the user to change rounds as desired, but from the perspective of enchanters, again, it seems like it would be less effort for them while simultaneously giving them greater control over the result.

So again, what's your goal? And what's the goal of the enchanters who are making these things?

[Eagleon]

As this is a world-building idea, I don't think it's useful to ask stuff like "Why not rings of arbitrary power? Or a staff of some sort". For a similar reason, why limit your objections to your campaign's setting? Who says magic can do what you expect it to be able to do in his world?

I like the idea, I see it as more of a stylistic difference, and you could easily explain 'why guns' - I'd go with a physical vs. ethereal conflict, that the alternative is casting spells with elaborate metaphor-filled ritual that gradually evokes an effect on the real world, whereas the guns are a handy shortcut to turn your wad of rare herbs into a raging fireball. Which would you rather use - long division, or a pocket calculator? I guess you're stepping into Full Metal Alchemist territory here, but that's cool too.

If mages can make these weapons, there will be nations that cultivate knowledge of magic just so that they can have access to them. The fact that someone first made them at some point also means there's a reason they're useful, beyond "Hey, we've got magic, let's try to use it to replace our regular weapons even though it's really difficult and expensive." I'm thinking defenses that can't be breached by normal weapons, on a battlefield scale. You could have your spellguns be used to attempt to take out those defenses and let your normal combat happen, or to do nasty things like raise the dead behind enemy lines, or open up a teleportation gate to get an assassin through, or just demoralize the opponent with noxious gas. All depending on how powerful you want it to be - it would modify how powerful regular magic is at the same time.

You could have different 'brands' of spellguns with different enchantments that react differently to cartridges. A cartridge from a different family would react unpredictably to a different type of gun, causing Fun. I can see the cartridges using expensive or rare ingredients, with the recipes being standard to one gun (or type of gun) and maybe not even requiring magic. You'd get a sort of supply balance where anyone could make and sell the cartridges to you and your buddies, but no one would care if the people with the guns didn't have the money for it (or were dead) and supply would fall off until no one knew how to make them anymore. You could find crazy-powerful spellguns that you'd have trouble finding reliable use for, because their creators got a little too carried away with the pillage and conquest thing and attracted the wrong enemies. At that point you could start stuffing in random bundles of magic-reactive ingredients and hope your DM feels generous.

[Kadzar]

I didn't realize I needed to say this, but this isn't meant for a D&D game. I'm not sure what system I'd end up using, but the idea of a caster gun really isn't compatible with D&D's magic system and I don't want to try to make it fit. Another aspect of this world is that I want being a doctor to be a legitimate option for a player character. Generally, trying to instantly heal someone with magic should make them worse in the long run. Most priests should be able to, at best, make the healing process go smoother or a bit faster; any priest who can heal someone instantly will need a lot of support from their deity, and so they probably can't just follow around a group of without a very damn good reason.

Now, as for the spellgun itself, the idea is pretty much based on the Casters from Outlaw Star, which was a pretty cool idea that I have seen used again basically nowhere. The basic idea of the Casters was that they were a rare magic gun that a non-magic user could use to shoot a spell at someone, provided they had the proper caster shell for it. In the show, the protagonist, Gene, only used his caster to fight enemies that couldn't be defeated otherwise because caster shells were so rare and expensive, and defeated all other enemies with fists, knives, bullets, and, occasionally, rockets.

What I want for the spellgun is for it to be a useful weapon that still can't replace conventional weaponry and isn't something that everyone will necessarily want to have. I'd also like some of the spell cartridges to do things other than dealing direct damage, such as literally shooting a curse at someone, or launching a rope that attaches itself to any surface it hits, or shooting someone to instant heal them while also poisoning them. I want there to be a reason you won't find a caster gun in the hands of every soldier you come across or even in the hands of every PC, but still something a player character might reasonably possess. I want a caster gun to be something that isn't so useful that everyone will want one, but useful enough that some will. I want spell cartridges to be rare and costly enough that players would hesitate to use them, but not so much so that no one would ever buy them in the first place.

As for the exploding, that's just to discourage players from making all their spell cartridges on their own. Store-bought spell cartridges, having been made in the proper facilities, will never explode when activated. Those cartridges you assembled in the lab you just cobbled together in town are a bit more unstable. I want player-made spell cartridges to be something you can make if you need to, but not something that can completely replace store-bought cartridges. They may not all explode, but they should be in some way inferior to the ones you have to pay for. I'd also like it if we didn't get in a situation where spellgun users would feel they absolutely need a magic user in their party to make spell cartridges for them on the cheap.

EDIT: Eagleon got it before I posted my explanation.    It's kind of like a bazooka in that it fulfills a certain role but doesn't make other weapons obsolete. And I like his idea of different kinds of spellguns. I wasn't thinking of making them so widely used but this is something to consider.

[Kadzar]

   I've been thinking about it, and I definitely want the world to have a sort of Wild West feel to it. I'll most likely make it an alternate universe Earth, rather than just a fantasy world, partly so I can have England or an England epxy ruled by a mysterious monarch known only as the "Lizard Queen".

   I’ve also been considering the idea of supernatural threats. While normally towns in trouble might find themselves threatened by bandits and other such ruffians, there should be the occasional town that has itself a monster problem. Since mankind has gotten so good at killing monstrosities through the dominance of science and magic, the horrors that still thrive and survive are those that are very good at hiding. Vampires, werewolves, wendigos, and skin-walkers are generally able to blend into society to hide their crimes in the daytime. Fairies are able to slip in and out of the fae realm with ease. Doppelgängers and boogeymen seem to come from nowhere at all. And sure, while you might find some of the less subtle beasts of old out on the plains, where the twenty-foot high buffalo roam, the wilds of the world grow less wild everyday.

   Now, even though monsters have less free reign over the world, that doesn’t make them any less dangerous. Whether or not you own a caster gun, there are plenty of options available for your monster-killing needs. For instance, aether-charged bullets deliver a paralyzing into the system of whatever they hit, providing more “stopping power”, though not necessarily anymore lethality, than a bullet ten times its caliber. There are also ghost-banishing bullets: while you can’t put a wayward soul to rest by shooting at it, you can at least get it out of your face.

   If a certain ghost keeps bothering you and, for what ever reason, you can’t put its spirit to rest, and you don’t mind little things like “crimes against nature and the human soul”, you can simply vaporize their ectoplasm with a specter-killing ray gun. While no one knows what the universal or theological ramifications of destroying a soul are, a man or woman of science prefers to leave that sort of thing to the philosophers when angry ghosts are around.

   Those who prefer to use science to solve all their problems are often known as Mad Scientists. Such people are capable of build various types of ray guns and operating them proficiently. While it’s true that anyone can operate a ray gun, nearly all ray guns in existence are unstable prototypes. Fortunately, any competent Mad Scientist knows how to keep their machine from going kablooie and how to repair it if it breaks down. When dealing with another Mad Scientist’s invention, they can usually get by well enough to know when it’s about to explode and do something about it, such as running away really fast.

   While most of the ray guns Mad Scientists are some sort of death ray, there are some ray guns that could technically be used for non-violent applications (though they usually aren’t). Cavorite is a rare metal which, in its pure form, shields against gravity when an electric current is run through it. Provided you can your hands on enough of it, a chargeable cavorite tube is an essential component for most Localized Gravity Amplification Ray Guns. There’s also the shrink ray, capable of temporarily reducing the size of any creature or object, provided you have enough shrinking fluid.