D&D 5E Guns in your world, and in mine!

[Tony Vargas]

I wouldn't do this unless I wanted to underscore a major campaign theme to the effect that the new ways are destroying the old ways or whatever.

Depends on how available they are, of course... and, on how important armor is. Since 3e, heavy armor isn't the be-all & end-all of AC it was in the classic game.

Especially in 5E, where there's no touch AC or Reflex defense, you would have to write a special rule to describe how guns are armor-piercing.

Not at all, just have the target make a DEX save - only difference between that an 'attacking REF' is who rolls the die. Make the DC based wholly or primarily on the gun, itself, rather than the guy touching it off, and you really drive home the 'little training required' thing.

More than just commoners defeating armor, at that point, you could have a campaign where new (high DC) guns are turning the balance of power against high-level adventurers and the like. Especially if magic (like Shield & Mage Armor &c) doesn't work terribly well against them, either. A world on the cusp of modernization, at the tipping point where it will cease to be a fantasy setting, at all - but maybe the PCs actions can stop it (or abet it).

Hmm.... another campaign idea I may never get around to using.

And considering that historical early guns weren't that good at piercing armor, we've got more than ample justification for keeping it simple and using the standard AC rules in any campaign where you don't want to make a big thing about it.

Which does kind of defeat the purpose of introducing them in the first place. Though, in that case, it's simple enough to just use crossbow stats for them and be done with it - you get the flavor, a less bulky, effective enough ranged weapon that's easy to use, and don't mess with anything otherwise.

I haven't used guns in 5E yet, but in 4E I balanced them as an effective "encounter power": they take over a minute to reload, so you're basically going to fire your gun once per fight and then get on with your other weapons.

Yep, that works fine.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'd rather see a setting in which guns and industrial tech don't make the setting any less a fantasy setting. I'm kinda tired of the "tech and magic don't coexist well/at all trope." YMMV, of course.

Also, I could see guns making armor less important, and magic *more important*, even if all magic can do is slow down bullets. Also, it'd be interesting if guns and other tech force people to advance the methodical science of magic, mirroring the decreasing mysticism of alchemy in the early modern age. Chemistry didn't replace alchemy, nor science replace natural philosophy. We just came up with new names to distinguish the old era from the new. I'd love to see that happen with magic, and a world where magic and technology are becoming increasingly two branches of one thing, and magic is less and less the purview of the rich and lucky, and more and more a tool of the common man.

Id drop every game I have for that setting.

 

[Leatherhead]

1d14

What?

 

[robus]

What?

Ha transcription typo ... or is it?!

 

[ScaleyBob]

I use guns as well - there's some great ideas in this thread to steal.

I've generally been using the DMG rules, but upping the damage dice size by one, but making reloading a full round action - it takes both your action and move to reload. Any player with a gun tends to fire it at the start of a combat, and then forget about it. Combination weapons are also a thing - axe/guns, sword/guns etc, which means you can shoot, then chop with extra ease.

Background wise, guns have been around a while, but are now becoming common. It's not unusual for guards or soldiers to have them, for instance. They're a status symbol for bandits or thugs as well, especially pistols. There are two different propellants as well - gunpowder, and stabilized elemental material. Users of each look down on the other.

Gunpowder has all the strengths and weaknesses of the historical version, but the elemental version is easier to make if you have a handy gateway to the Elemental Chaos, and know the right, easy to do, ritual. It tends to be easier to work with - there's experiments with cartridges, and other artillery type weapons as well. It's downside is various elemental inhabitants are getting annoyed with the Prime Material Plane stealing the Elementals Planes Essential Essence to make weaponry.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Which does kind of defeat the purpose of introducing them in the first place.

Not at all. Plenty of campaigns have firearms without them being especially important. Your classic pirate swashbuckler, for instance.

And frankly, doing something like a touch attack/Dex defense/Dex save would strain verisimilitude for me. Even if plate armor is less effective against a bullet than a sword, I'd still rather be wearing it than nothing if somebody was shooting at me with just about anything short of a modern assault rifle.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Also, it'd be interesting if guns and other tech force people to advance the methodical science of magic, mirroring the decreasing mysticism of alchemy in the early modern age.

I think that makes it less of a fantasy setting far more than the presence of firearms. A demystified magic system becomes an element of science fiction. You get this a lot when career SF writers try their hand at a swords-and-sorcery world. Jack Vance's Dying Earth being a prime example, it's certainly not as if the notion is foreign to D&D.

 

[Uchawi]

Not at all. Plenty of campaigns have firearms without them being especially important. Your classic pirate swashbuckler, for instance.

And frankly, doing something like a touch attack/Dex defense/Dex save would strain verisimilitude for me. Even if plate armor is less effective against a bullet than a sword, I'd still rather be wearing it than nothing if somebody was shooting at me with just about anything short of a modern assault rifle.

I guess that is why you see ranged weapons rule the day over melee in modern terms. At some point, armor becomes obsolete until new materials or applications are invented. It would break my verisimilitude if something did not change in regards to even fantasy expectations when firearms are included.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think that makes it less of a fantasy setting far more than the presence of firearms. A demystified magic system becomes an element of science fiction. You get this a lot when career SF writers try their hand at a swords-and-sorcery world. Jack Vance's Dying Earth being a prime example, it's certainly not as if the notion is foreign to D&D.

I...completely disagree. Eberron, for instance, is absolutely, inarguably, unequivocally, a fantasy setting.

As would be the setting I described. I'd be more inclined to call Star Wars a fantasy setting in space, with advanced tech elements, than to call such a setting as I described, or Eberron, a sci fi setting.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Also, magic isn't mysterious to its users in dnd, regardless of setting.

Magic magic available to commoners doesn't change its nature.