D&D 5E Firearms help needed please

Morrus said:

Or four well placed arrows. Nobody alive can shrug off an arrow in the eye.

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Yeah, but in D&D terms, the "arrow to the eye" requires a crit or a rogue or someone with the sharpshooter feat. Or opponents with very few hit points.

The point is that guns (in theory) do comparable (or greater!) damage without requiring anything more than proficiency. (Again, this if you are wanting to implement 'realistic' gun damage - if you are doing Hollywood guns, then they do just as much as a longbow or heavy crossbow.)

Guns are both easier to use and do much more damage. If you are being realistic.

Caliban said:

Yeah, but in D&D terms, the "arrow to the eye" requires a crit or a rogue or someone with the sharpshooter feat. Or opponents with very few hit points. [/

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So does every weapon in D&D. No weapon kills a high HP character outright.

The point is that guns (in theory) do comparable damage without requiring anything more than proficiency.

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Well, now you’re all just repeating me. I’m flattered.

*shrug* Nevermind.

Morrus said:

Or four well placed arrows. Nobody alive can shrug off an arrow in the eye.

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And if they take one to the knee they are relegated to guard duty for the rest of their lives.

You could always just use crossbow stats or maybe up the damage to a 1d10 for pistols 1d12 for rifles. No reason for guns to do extra dice of damage the real differences should come from the special qualities.

Imaculata said:

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?

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Aye. That's rather the heart of my question. If his players are cool with a rifle being as deadly as a sword, as [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION] seems to suggest he would be, then making them equal would work.

But if it rubs them wrong, as it does you, then it would be a poor fix.


Akthough, in thinking of a reply to your question, I've had another thought, an addition to my earlier suggestion.

What I suggest the OP do is this: Have rifles deal longbow damage and pistols deal shortbow damage, as I already said, and then lower the damage on all archaic weapons by a die size. Call the whole thing a new game, 5e Modern, and pretend this is the way the game universe always was - meant to model action movies and cop shows where the protagonists are shot at constantly and survive the most ludicrous barrages of gunfire, from gattling guns, helicopters and all manner of that sort.

Satyrn said:

Aye. That's rather the heart of my question. If his players are cool with a rifle being as deadly as a sword, as @Morrus seems to suggest he would be, then making them equal would work.

But if it rubs them wrong, as it does you, then it would be a poor fix.


Akthough, in thinking of a reply to your question, I've had another thought, an addition to my earlier suggestion.

What I suggest the OP do is this: Have rifles deal longbow damage and pistols deal shortbow damage, as I already said, and then lower the damage on all archaic weapons by a die size. Call the whole thing a new game, 5e Modern, and pretend this is the way the game universe always was - meant to model action movies and cop shows where the protagonists are shot at constantly and survive the most ludicrous barrages of gunfire, from gattling guns, helicopters and all manner of that sort.

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Perfect fix, thanks. Actually I realigned all the damage last night, it hit me that this is the way to go. Everything remains balanced, and guns are preferable to archaic weapons.

EDIT: 5e is kinda cinematic by default, we want to keep this, or choose the gritty realism DMG rules if we want more "realistic" fights.

EDIT2: Tanks, "combat helicopter", turret mounted heavy guns, starship guns etc... will be another class of weaponary that do a magnitude more damage anyway.

I've always thought WP/VP rules worked best to make modern/sci fi/realistic games feel more gritty. You can decide whether or not crits go straight to Con/WP or not, depending on how lethal you want to make things.


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Caliban said:

Yeah, but in D&D terms, the "arrow to the eye" requires a crit or a rogue or someone with the sharpshooter feat. Or opponents with very few hit points.

The point is that guns (in theory) do comparable (or greater!) damage without requiring anything more than proficiency. (Again, this if you are wanting to implement 'realistic' gun damage - if you are doing Hollywood guns, then they do just as much as a longbow or heavy crossbow.)

Guns are both easier to use and do much more damage. If you are being realistic.

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The point that he's missing, or is too stubborn to acknowledge, is how firearms factor into a game with such an abstract damage and wound system. With HP, there's a fairly plausible narrative to someone "hitting" someone with 6 sword attacks but not killing him. Glancing blows and superficial cuts rule the day here -- all wounds that don't cause people to wonder how they are still alive after the fact (not strictly realistic, but *plausible*).

Firearms change that dynamic because there's no good way to narrate how a bullet wound doesn't result in massive damage or death within a few rounds. You can't dodge bullets and any "superficial" gunshot wound is the result of pure and insane luck that might be seen once in a doctors' career. ANY hit with a bullet is potentially fatal, and most result in a bleed out time or collapsed lung of about 20 seconds. At one point he even mentioned how swords often result in severed hands and stuff, but without also recognizing that the body can actually control the bleeding in sudden amputations much more effectively (through muscle contractions) than something that just clips an artery.

Basically, there's very little room within the HP mechanics to represent multiple gunshot wounds because multiple gunshot wounds can't be narrated the same way as superficial cuts and some arrows sticking out of a person. As a result, firearms have to "do more damage" within the HP mechanics to compensate.

Satyrn said:

Aye. That's rather the heart of my question. If his players are cool with a rifle being as deadly as a sword, as [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION] seems to suggest he would be, then making them equal would work.

But if it rubs them wrong, as it does you, then it would be a poor fix.


Akthough, in thinking of a reply to your question, I've had another thought, an addition to my earlier suggestion.

What I suggest the OP do is this: Have rifles deal longbow damage and pistols deal shortbow damage, as I already said, and then lower the damage on all archaic weapons by a die size. Call the whole thing a new game, 5e Modern, and pretend this is the way the game universe always was - meant to model action movies and cop shows where the protagonists are shot at constantly and survive the most ludicrous barrages of gunfire, from gattling guns, helicopters and all manner of that sort.

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No, the protagonists in movies survive because they have the most powerful magical armor of all. Plot armor.