Fireball Pistol

It came up.

I threw together a world where magic existed in 1879 and had existed for a long time.

It was my modified GURPS: Magic system with a requirement of Mage's Guild membership and an athame for spell casting.

One of the players misunderstood how much magic this implied.

He wanted to go to the hardware store and buy a gun that fired fireballs.

That's not a standard magic item.  Not even close.

It was also outside the scope of how I imagined magic in this world so I tabled it.

But I got reminded of it while chatting with FuzzyGeff this evening.

One way to do it is to buy it with points:

Innate attack; 2d+1 burn damage.  Range 10/100, Acc 3, RoF 1, Rcl 1.  5pts per die. [12]

This needs to be modified to be more like an 1879 era revolver's stats or nobody would buy one.

Increasing the range to 120/1200 is a +40% enhancement.

It should be able to be fanned, the rules for fanning led me to rule that the increase in the RoF is completely offset by the reduction in skill while doing so, so +0% enhancement.

Revolvers of the day are less accurate than the default power: Acc 2; -5% limitation.

Revolvers have six shots:  Limited Use, 6 shots, slow reload 5-sec per round, -5% limitation.  This assumes that ammo is readily available.

Revolvers have recoil and it will come up when fanning, so Rcl 2, -10% limitation.

It's magic so it cannot be used in a no-mana zone: Accessibility, not in no-mana; -5% limitation.

It's a physical object that can be damaged, broken or break-down:  Breakable, DR 14, 6 HP, can break down; -15% limitation.

It's a small physical object:  SM -6; -10% limitation.

It's a physical object that can be stolen:  -30% limitation.

The total of the enhancements and limitations add up to -40%.  That comes to 7.2 points or [8] because we always round to more expensive for the player!

8-points is fairly cheap, to be honest.

The rules state that if something can be bought with money, then it should be rather than with points.

What would this firearm that uses magic cost?

It the magic is inherent to the firearm itself and conventional .44-40 ammunition comes out as a fireball, then it requires the attention of a real live enchanting mage to make.  That's going to make it more expensive than the normal Peacemaker ($450 in G$ or GURPS dollars)

If it's the ammunition that makes it special and the gun is a normal Colt, then we need an alchemist making the projectiles.  There are very few to no alchemical products that are cheaper than $50.  A normal round of .44-40 is a mere 60¢.

If they're both magic...  Mage and alchemist.

They cost whatever I, as the GM, say they should cost.  If I like the idea and think it fits the world, they're going to be cheaper than if I don't.  A player's attitude about asking for such things can certainly affect my willingness to allow it as well.  I've allowed too many things which ended up unbalancing my worlds before.

Basically I need to decide if it's the gun, ammo or both that make the item and decide the relative merit against 2d+1 pi+ versus 2d+1 burn.

Better wipe that gun off if you buy it, the arbitrarily set prices are pulled straight out of my ass.