4E DMG: No guns?!?

[StreamOfTheSky]

Much as I enjoy taking potshots at 4E, this really isn't an issue for me. I personally don't like guns (except very primitive rifles perhaps) in a fantasy setting to begin with, I don't see why you can't just use crossbow stats and call it a gun, and I can't help but think that people who say doing thi isn't good enough aren't desiring the flavor of having guns, but rather just want a more powerful weapon available.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

*Shrugs shoulders* For myself, yeah I use crossbow rules for now. But if WoTC makes official gun-rules I would like more indepth rules with more flavour since well my settings have lots of guns. It is like saying essentially for a setting like mine, it is fine to have no indepth rules or flavour for magic.

I personally don't want them to be overpowered, thus why I want it in a supplement so they can spend time making it unique but balanced. So, basically I would like to have my six-shooters and repeating rifles balanced with rapiers, plate armour and all the rest.

 

[Imaro]

Much as I enjoy taking potshots at 4E, this really isn't an issue for me. I personally don't like guns (except very primitive rifles perhaps) in a fantasy setting to begin with, I don't see why you can't just use crossbow stats and call it a gun, and I can't help but think that people who say doing thi isn't good enough aren't desiring the flavor of having guns, but rather just want a more powerful weapon available.{/B]

Mighty big leap of logic there...but no, that's not it (at least for me). I just want a player who chooses a gun over a crossbow to have actually made a choice. This is the problem I have with reskinning things or just changing fluff... all I've done is give the player the illusion his choice actually matters in the game... especially when it comes to combat (which in 4e is very detailed oriented). I mean a gun might do more damage than a crossbow, but take longer to reload... or have a chance to misfire... or even have a chance to explode and hurt the character in exchange for that greater damage.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Mighty big leap of logic there...but no, that's not it (at least for me). I just want a player who chooses a gun over a crossbow to have actually made a choice. This is the problem I have with reskinning things or just changing fluff... all I've done is give the player the illusion his choice actually matters in the game... especially when it comes to combat (which in 4e is very detailed oriented). I mean a gun might do more damage than a crossbow, but take longer to reload... or have a chance to misfire... or even have a chance to explode and hurt the character in exchange for that greater damage.

Considering 4e's design mechanic, I don't think more powerful guns that might explode would work as a balancing technique.

In fact, 2e psionics tried to use that to balance some powers ... and it failed!

 

[Obryn]

This is a really, really silly discussion.

Look, I've been playing D&D since the days when Barrier Peaks was still a fairly newish module. I've been reading fantasy ever since the days it was considered just a little minor sub-branch of sci-fi, and the two genres intermixed regularly. I've run the games with lasers & guns. I've run WFRP2, with its common firearms. I remember the 1e DMG with its conversion tables for Gamma World and Boot Hill.

Really, though. I think you guys are making a mountain out of a molehill here. Yeah, there's no gun rules. 4e concentrates primarily on its default D&D setting, which has a low tech level. A lack of firearms doesn't mean the game itself is incomplete - it means it may not have everything immediately at hand for some play styles. Which, honestly, we already knew.

I'll say that 4e is the first version of D&D where I think firearms may be reasonably powerful, since missile weapons get a Dex bonus to damage. Maybe. We'll see.

Compared to missing gnomes, bards, and barbarians? This is both minor and way, way easier to improvise.

-O

 

[FraserRonald]

At the Battle of Mohacs, the Turkish Jannisaries used guns, and the Europeans had none to reply with. That took place in 1526, after the end of the Hundred Years' War.

If you have evidence about culverins and Ribaldi, I'd like to see them.

Kelly DeVries in "Medieval Military Technology" indicates that John the Fearless of Burgundy had about 4000 hand-held gunpowder weapons in his arsenal by 1410. Dr. DeVries refers to "coulverines a main" and "haquebusses" earlier in this same paragraph (pg 149 of the 1992 Broadview Press edition).

That same chapter refers to Charles the Bold having haquebusses "without number" by around 1470.

I believe that cannons were used as anti-personnel weapons during the Scots Wars of Independence (by the English), and if you like, I can probably find a cite for that.

I can't speak with any authority on the Battle of Mohacs, but could it be that the Europeans weren't equipped with gunpowder weapons rather than gunpowder weapons were not available in Europe?

 

[Hussar]

Mighty big leap of logic there...but no, that's not it (at least for me). I just want a player who chooses a gun over a crossbow to have actually made a choice. This is the problem I have with reskinning things or just changing fluff... all I've done is give the player the illusion his choice actually matters in the game... especially when it comes to combat (which in 4e is very detailed oriented). I mean a gun might do more damage than a crossbow, but take longer to reload... or have a chance to misfire... or even have a chance to explode and hurt the character in exchange for that greater damage.

And, right there, you've nailed why there's no gunpowder weapons in the DMG. Why simplistic, half baked rules don't work. "Backfire" mechanics have never worked as a balancing mechanic in D&D- players either find a work around or just choose something else because the backfire mechanic is too much of a PITA.

Again, it goes back to an earlier post about realism. ((Sorry, forgot who posted and too lazy to track back)) We don't worry about upkeep on bows or crossbows. How many new bowstrings has your elf ranger EVER bought? How long does it take to string a bow? How long can you keep a crossbow cocked before the string stretches?

Who cares? We hand wave all that for the same reason we hand wave all that stuff. It's boring and adds pretty much nothing to the game.

So, if you want actual rules for gunpowder weapons in D&D, that players will actually use at the table, you need to go a bit beyond this sort of thinking. There's been some great 3e gunpowder rules out there, none of them core.

----

On the best DMG.

I don't own a 3.5 DMG, so I cannot comment. But the 4e DMG is light years ahead of the 3.0 DMG. It's actually a book that teaches players how to DM, rather than a random collection of rules and minutia that pretty much never gets used.

I mean, other than the magic section, maybe the traps section, possibly the demographics section (depending on your campaign), how often have you read the DMG? If the conditions list was in the PHB, I don't think I'd ever open my 3.0 DMG after the first time.

I'm more than willing to stack the 4e DMG against the 1e DMG in terms of utility and actually teaching people how to DM.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Kelly DeVries in "Medieval Military Technology" indicates that John the Fearless of Burgundy had about 4000 hand-held gunpowder weapons in his arsenal by 1410. Dr. DeVries refers to "coulverines a main" and "haquebusses" earlier in this same paragraph (pg 149 of the 1992 Broadview Press edition).

That same chapter refers to Charles the Bold having haquebusses "without number" by around 1470.

Smoeone took me up on that. I'm quite happy.

Maybe the issue with guns is fantasy, rather than history. (I thought I was a pretty good historian until now.) They do appear in some fantasy settings, but only rarely.

 

[Hussar]

Just a question, a bit off topic, because I haven't been following things.

How have the Skill challenges been changed beyond shifting some numbers? Haven't the basics been kept, but the target numbers been changed?

I don't see that as a major reworking, just a tweaking.

 

[Imaro]

Just a question, a bit off topic, because I haven't been following things.

How have the Skill challenges been changed beyond shifting some numbers? Haven't the basics been kept, but the target numbers been changed?

I don't see that as a major reworking, just a tweaking.

Well I know two major reworkings were ...

in the original skill challlenges, everyone had to roll initiative, and on their turn had to act within the skill challenge... thus solving the supposed problem of only one character, with the best skill, having the lone spotlight.

Now, there is no initiative check...a character does not have to participate at all in a skill challenge if they don't want to, which brings us back to tactical minded players letting their best skill man spam the challenge for the best result... especially with the wacky way successes and failures work.