Tell me more about these "spells", which occur in limited numbers, are capable of long-range attacks, deal explosive & powerful damage... and can only be performed by someone who has the proper equipment and spends time in advance preparing them for use? :-D
I'll need to watch it again! It's been so very long. It is such a core part of my aesthetic & genre preferences since I first saw it as a teenager, but I haven't seen it in a good while.
He definitely does, but I think it fades in and out of use at times. Even in Storm Front I believe he has a .38 Special. Later books I think it's a .44 Magnum.
5E's semi-official gunslinger uses wisdom instead of intelligence, so unless you have a GM willing to let you make a wis-casting wizard you might want to go cleric instead. I think that swapping casting stats should be allowed in a lot of situations anyway, and not only because wis-ard is a funny pun, but I'm aware that this isn't a universal opinion. Forge cleric would let you make your gun magic and ask god for ammunition with only two levels though
Artificer would work too though. Arcane spells, flamethrower, and pistol. Call it the 'Namancer. Let the Artificer upgrade it as their wand for Arcane firearm and burst fire a number of shots identical to cantrip scaling.
Hold on. I need to go write this up. I feel some Duality of Man helmet graffiti coming on...
Elminster took one level of Fighter for a reason. Even without the 3 levels of Cleric, or the level of Rogue, that one level of Fighter helps every Wizard once the enemy is too close to safely cast. Automatic proficiency with all basic and martial weapons is useful at close range. Especially if one happened to pick up a Vorpal Keen Katana that one happens to be proficient with.
Oh, and taking a Pseudodragon Familiar gives the Wizard the Improved Evasion Feat, so you just kinda became almost immune to other wizards because if you fail a DEX check, you take half damage, and almost all of the Wizard direct damage spells require a DEX check.
Simple jinx should cause most firearms to fail or jam
In a universe where guns exist and level-1 wizards can cast magic missile/fireball and cantrips like firebolt, setting fire to things (like gunpowder), my bet is that low-level magic users aren't going to be trumped by steampunk-grade tech that easily
You could make that argument for almost any weapon though. The physical meddling required to snap a bowstring, dull a blade, or even just put a rock in their shoe is minimal. Magic needs to have limits if you want the mundane to compete at any level, and one of those limits is often an unspoken acceptance that you can't just arbitrarily foul another person's gear.
Being that there the laws for magic depending on the setting - you're either true or total nonsense.
I think Dresden said it best. A super sonic round from far enough away will pop your head like a balloon before you ever even hear the gunshot. Magic won't save you then.