Napoleon versus Orcs

[Stalker0]

There's a lot of evidence that you're wrong in many parts of this, particularly when it comes to armour penetration

I haven't seen any evidence that muskets had better penetrating power than the longbow at that point in history.

If you go with Krakenspire's method, than I would give muskets the stats of a longbow, make it a simple weapon...and make weapon proficiencies in the world much rarer. The longbow then becomes an elite weapon, not seen in many fights.

 

[Gwarh]

You might enjoy the novels of this fellow http://gunpowderfantasy.com/tag/flintlock-fantasy/

He calls it "Griffons & Gunpowder"

And there was/is? a wargame called "Flintloque" that had Orcs as the British, Elves, Dwarves etc in a Napoleonic setting. I've pasted a few links below for you.

http://www.alternative-armies.com/collections/flintloque-game-system
http://www.ifelix.co.uk/phoflint.html

 

[Derren]

Hey man, thanks. And thanks for all this, this is very in depth. Hey, I haven't looked at the firearms on the DMG for a while, but do they have really long reload times? Because I want to remain faithful to that.

I think 2 shots per minute with muzzle loaders were considered a rather good rate of fire.

I have to agree with Krakenspire's post. Longbows were for the most part superior, except that this did not last until the machine gun, but until rifled breech loader were common (about 1850).
Fun fact, the plate armor we know from shining knights was partially invented to deal with firearms and the term "bulletproof" comes from shooting a pistol at a suit of armor to show that it could withstand such an attack. But don't think that longbows were that superior either in penetration power. They too would struggle to penetrate plate armor at anything than close range. What they have is rate of fire.

The advantages of muskets is logistics. Smoothbore muskets were easy to make and once you figured out how to mass produce gunpowder the ammunition was also easy to supply. A longbow on the other hand took years to dry before it was ready and mass producing arrows was also much more complicated and it would have been impossible to supply armies as seen during the Napoleonic wars with enough arrows to keep fighting.
And as he said, there is the "training" issue. I put it in quotations because it was not that much harder to learn to aim with a bow, especially volley firing, but it took a very long time to build up the strength to use a longbow effectively and not to tire our during the battle.

Anyway, be sure that you differentiate between smoothbore muskets (bad accuracy) and rifles (good accuracy and long range). The rifling technology was available early on, but only in the 19th century did the industrialization allow for widespread use. But they were available much early as sort of masterwork weapon.

 

[Bluenose]

I haven't seen any evidence that muskets had better penetrating power than the longbow at that point in history.

If you go with Krakenspire's method, than I would give muskets the stats of a longbow, make it a simple weapon...and make weapon proficiencies in the world much rarer. The longbow then becomes an elite weapon, not seen in many fights.

When the armour that people equip themselves with becomes thicker and heavier as guns replace bows/X-bows, I think you've got a pretty good indication that people think one has better penetration than the other. They're probably right, based on the battlefield evidence, too.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

When the armour that people equip themselves with becomes thicker and heavier as guns replace bows/X-bows, I think you've got a pretty good indication that people think one has better penetration than the other. They're probably right, based on the battlefield evidence, too.

Yeah, I have to agree. You didn't see 'proof marks' in the pre-gunpowder age of heavy armor either. The truth is that at close range a longbow might come close to equalling a musket, but arrow velocity tends to fall off pretty quickly, so anything beyond that is problematic. Accuracy fell off pretty steeply as well, since arching bow fire is definitely NOT that accurate. Heavy crossbows were better, as the much higher quarrel velocity made for a fairly flat aimable trajectory. Crossbows were however hard to make, and very expensive, at least as expensive as any gun by the 17th Century.

 

[BigVanVader]

I had the first game tonight, it was tons of fun. Right now there are two players, but there might be two more potential players(with insane chaotic schedules). The two there is an Elven Fighter, and a Draconic Barbarian. The two are in Morocco and are part of the Legion stationed there. They were sent on camel to investigate a nearby farm where the people there were complaining about needing protection.

So, the two rode off, had a random encounter(That I totally screwed up, but they had fun anyway.). They win by the skin of their teeth, they rest up, and then they finally get to the farm. They discover that the farmers there have had their livestock constantly going missing in the dead of night, and their fences constantly have to be rebuilt every day. They find large tracks, and there they find a cave, around which a large crude fence is built, and in that fence are the animals.

They immediately decide "Funk this!", they go and hide behind a rock, and the Elf fires his musket pistol into the air. That noise brings out a large, lumbering cyclops who picks up a cow to bring back with it into the cave. They shoot at it, the Draconic misses but the Elf hits it square in the back...and the big one-eyed giant promptly panics, drops the cow(breaking all of the beast's legs in the process), and runs into the cave. They put the cow out of its misery, and reluctantly follow the cyclops into his cave.

They discover a lot of differing passages, but follow the biggest once, and find the cyclops blubbering and sobbing into its hands. From there they take pity, and the Elf begins the long, painful task of trying to reason with this giant one-eyed idiot, named 'Trog the Terrible'. ('Twog the Tewwible', due to its Andre the Giant-styled accent.)

Finally, he gets the Cyclops to understand that it can't just steal livestock, it has to buy them with gold. It finally understands, they get everything cleared up, and that was the game. It was fun.