[RPG] How does the UA 2019 artificer’s Reloading Weapon infusion affect Matt Mercer’s Gunslinger firearms

artificerdnd-5efirearmsgunslingermulti-classing

I am creating a multiclassed 2019 UA artificer/Gunslinger fighter, and a question has been raised.

If I infuse a gun with the Repeating Weapon artificer infusion, how does that affect the reloading property of the gun?

The description of the artificer's Repeating Shot infusion says:

Item: A simple or martial weapon with the ammunition property (requires attunement)

This magic weapon grants a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it when it’s used to make a ranged attack, and it ignores the loading property if it has it.

The weapon requires no ammunition; it magically produces one piece of ammunition each time you make a ranged attack with it, unless you manually load it. The ammunition produced by the weapon vanishes the instant after the it hits or misses a target.

And firearms do have the ammunition property.

The Gunslinger's Firearm Properties section says:

Reload. The weapon can be fired a number of times equal to its Reload score before you must spend 1 attack or 1 action to reload. You must have one free hand to reload a firearm.

I am unsure of the how the rules should be interpreted, but wouldn't the repeating weapon cause the gun to never need to reload?

Best Answer

It's unclear if there’s any official answer, but likely works based on DM discretion.

UA generally isn't balanced for multiclassing, and Matt Mercer's stuff isn't canonical, so WotC wouldn't consider it when designing their own content, so there probably won't be a canonical answer for this from WotC.

That said, however, it would be reasonable for it to allow you to fire a weapon indefinitely without reloading, as a result of how it magically produces a new piece of ammunition every time you fire it, which then vanishes after firing allowing a new piece of ammunition to appear within the gun's magazine or cylinder.