D&D 5E Firearms help needed please

Tony Vargas · Sep 2, 2017

One major bit of common wisdom about firearms is that they are an 'equilizer' - they're fairly easy to learn to use, not that expensive, and depending on the period, could defeat armor.

One thing to keep in mind with D&D damage, though, is that 'deadly' doesn't necessarily mean huge damage. A knife is a deadly weapon, but D&D only gives it a d4, a small handgun might reasonably do similar damage. You might want to narrate more firearm damage as not actually hitting, too...

To model that, you'd want to make the lethality hinge less on skill (level). In 5e, weapon damage scales a bit with primary stat, and a lot with Extra Attack. A modern firearm can certainly be fired very quickly. Consider giving guns a RoF, of 3 or so. If you have extra attack, you get one more , not 3 more. Between that and BA guns can get fairly deadly in indifferent hands without being wildly OP in skilled hands.

Put all that together - modest damage, high RoF, and narrating damage that doesn't drop the target as missing, and you might even get action-movie-like scenes out of it.

Oh, and don't forget to give that bad guy you thought was down a big SA so he can one-shot-kill the secondary character just when we thought everything was going to be OK.

Oofta · Sep 2, 2017

Yune Vangelov said:
I have some of the more complete segments I have been working on in my drive. Its a constant work in progress but feel free to check it out, and please, share any thoughts. Find me on Discord; Haunts#1456
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0ByXtJdtw96ceTHJhLXF4UGk1blU?usp=sharing
Be warned, the formatting will be off, as I used the fonts from the D20 Modern book when I wrote them up.

Thanks for the update, I don't have to take a look now but will when I have a few.

I've been toying with the idea of a more modern setting (although it may be more Victorian era/wild west mashup) than true "modern" which helps limit a few things.

Tormyr · Sep 2, 2017

Rodney Mulraney said:
Hi,

I love 5e D&D, but we tend to prefer to play in modern/futuristic times recently. So we started to use the UA:Modern Magic rules, and the stuff in the DMG about firearms and grenades and stuff.

First problem we ran into was that hacking rules were being operated on in the UA:MM article, but were not specified, so we added them. That was easily solved.

The second problem is proving quite difficult to solve. This is the problem with the firearms in the DMG. The modern and futuristic weapons are ridiculously overpowered. All classes have to take them at low level, and martial classes scale base weapon dmg up to increase their chars dmg as they increase in level. Whilst wizards will find their cantrips will be more powerful than guns at later levels, the martial classes just keep scaling their gun damage up and remain completely overpowered as a result.

modern and future guns just dont fit in with the mechanics of 5e at all.

I've read lots of forum posts etc, where they try to rationalise some way to make firearms work in 5e. The obvious and simple solution is to just set their dmgs as equivalent to shortbows/longbows/crossbows, but that seems to lose the flavour of guns.

The original author of the UA:MM article has another article on a webpage that describes damage reduction and resistant armours for ballistic dmg, a new dmg type that guns do to try to reduce their dmg, this doesnt work without rewritting the monster manual ofcourse. He also talks about an "aim" bonus action - so only once per turn round they do OP dmg, and then it trails off, whilst this might mitigate the problem slightly, and ive not done the math, I'm guessing the math will show it is not solving the problem, only adding needless complication and game slow down.

Talking about about complications and game slow downs; another popular solution is to introduce a whole host of varying complication complexities. I hope the math works out, but I feel it breaks the spirit of 5e. Critical role; Matt Mercer, had Tailsins class like that, and his turn always bogged down the game with delays and complex tallies and whatnot.

We have tried various ways to fix firearms, but so far nothing either feels right or is balanced.

If anyone has thought about this and can offer any advice, I would greatly appreciate it.

My latest idea is something like this:

* Firearms are loud (sounds)
* Future firearms are loud (energy signatures), and only do modern firearm damage (3dX is just too much!)

* All firearms have the "Firearm" property

* "Firearm": new weapon property: You do not add your strength or dexterity modifier to attack rolls or damage rolls for this weapon.

Any advice, great appreciated, thanks.

Have you taken a look at the EN5ider firearms articles? They cover firearms from renaissance to early 20th century, but you could extrapolate from there to future applications.

Imaculata · Sep 2, 2017

One of the rules I introduced for a SWAT boardgame that I'm working on, is that enemies in close combat get advantage on disarm attempts when you are wielding a longarm. This adds an extra incentive to use bullpup rifles in close quarters instead (specifically sub machine guns) that have shortened barrels, and are harder to wrestle away from the user.

Morrus said:
Do they? Being beheaded with a sword is pretty catastrophic damage, IMO.

You can be beheaded by a gun as well. But I think your changes for survival are better if you get stabbed with a sword, or shot with a bow, than if you get shot with a gun. The velocity and force of bullets are pretty devastating to the human body.

Heck, if you're unlucky a simple knife could be pretty deadly too. But the overal damage of a knife is less than that of a sword or a gun. I think the rules are correct to give more damage to guns.

Satyrn · Sep 2, 2017

Rodney Mulraney said:
Also even playing that risky tactical game, still fighters/martial classes just keep ramping up their power, whilst other classes will not. You can just make the game harder/high diffculty encounters/etc, and that kind of tactical play will become necessary with bows anyway. The base dmg of guns is the problem; it only takes a few lucky enemy hit rolls, crits+high dmg rolls, and you get a complete TPK in one round, with the players having no way to do anything about it, even when their characters are not that low level anymore.

Could your table just drop the base damage of rifles (hunting rifle, assault rifle and sniper rifle, etc) down to longbow damage and put pistols at short bow damage?

That is, would they get over the "but modern weapons ought to be better!" idea in order to accept adjusting the mechanics to achieve your goal?

Because as you say, the base damage is the problem, and it seems easiest to me to just fix that.

Imaculata · Sep 2, 2017

Satyrn said:
Could your table just drop the base damage of rifles (hunting rifle, assault rifle and sniper rifle, etc) down to longbow damage and put pistols at short bow damage?

That is, would they get over the "but modern weapons ought to be better!" idea in order to accept adjusting the mechanics to achieve your goal?

If you're going to make firearms deal the same damage as archaic weapons, why even have firearms at all? That kind of defeats the point doesn't it?

In my current pirate campaign, flintlock pistols and rifles simply do more damage than regular weapons, but they have some disadvantages (such as a vulnerability to water, chance to explode on a fumble and long reloading times). I've also ruled that spells specifically designed to stop arrows and slings, will also stop bullets. The result of this is that the players will for the most part all use firearms, until the firearm is empty, or they need to swim. The long loading times also encourage the players to preload multiple pistols, and stash them in a bandolier. That along with the Quickdraw feat, allows them to drop empty pistols to the ground, and draw a new preloaded pistol in the same round (as pirates did in real life). And when you run out of preloaded pistols, that is when you draw your cutlass.

Morrus · Sep 2, 2017

Imaculata said:
You can be beheaded by a gun as well. But I think your changes for survival are better if you get stabbed with a sword, or shot with a bow, than if you get shot with a gun. The velocity and force of bullets are pretty devastating to the human body.

People don’t usually get beheaded by guns.

That aside, I don’t agree with that premise. I’d be very interested in seeing some studies about the comparative amount of damage to the human body from a bulletproof or being slashed with a sharp sword.

The reason guns are better is because they are easier to use, require less training than a sword, and are ranged. But if you stand there and take a solid blow from a sword, there will be a catastrophic amount of damage to your body.

There’s a reason you have a single headsman, but a firing squad.

discosoc · Sep 2, 2017

Morrus said:
Do they? Being beheaded with a sword is pretty catastrophic damage, IMO.

Maybe he means they have a much larger margin for error. Killing someone with a sword (who's fighting back or running away) takes some level of skill, assuming the target isn't helpless or surprised at your attempt. Killing someone with a gun is incredibly easy, and the wounds are much harder to treat with more collateral damage.

Morrus · Sep 2, 2017

discosoc said:
Maybe he means they have a much larger margin for error. Killing someone with a sword (who's fighting back or running away) takes some level of skill, assuming the target isn't helpless or surprised at your attempt. Killing someone with a gun is incredibly easy, and the wounds are much harder to treat with more collateral damage.

Yes, guns arrived because - like crossbows before them - they were easier to use than a sword or a longbow. Not because they did super damage.

I don’t agree that a bullet wound is harder to treat; a sword will mangle up your insides just fine; and you’re not reattaching a dismembered hand. But I’m not a doctor, so if any doctors here say otherwise I’ll take their word for it.

Caliban · Sep 2, 2017

Morrus said:
Yes, guns arrived because - like crossbows before them - they were easier to use than a sword or a longbow. Not because they did super damage.

I don’t agree that a bullet wound is harder to treat; a sword will mangle up your insides just fine; and you’re not reattaching a dismembered hand. But I’m not a doctor, so if any doctors here say otherwise I’ll take their word for it.

Bullets tend to impart a lot more kinetic force to the target than a sword or arrow does, causing waves of concussive force that travel through the body and can amplify the wound (Hydrostatic Shock).

It's even uglier if the bullet hits a bone instead of passing through - then it can ricochet inside the body or limb, doing devastating damage.

But, that's only if you want the grim and gritty gun damage. Cinematic gun damage means people shrug off bullet wounds just like anything else. "I just winged him" and "It's only a flesh wound."

D&D 5E Firearms help needed please

Tony Vargas

Legend

Oofta

Legend

Tormyr

Adventurer

Imaculata

Hero

Satyrn

First Post

Imaculata

Hero

Morrus

Well, that was fun

discosoc

First Post

Morrus

Well, that was fun

Caliban

Rules Monkey

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