Making guns palatable in high fantasy [Design Theory]

[Hassassin]

I suppose you're just very selective on what gun tropes you adhere to, then.

Do you mean that most of those are supported by D&D gun mechanics?

Otherwise that's just a list of more ways in which the mechanics don't support what some people may expect.

 

[KiloGex]

Also, historically firearms made armor less useful, so that might influence their adoption in a fantasy setting.

Exactly why I think Pathfinder did it right with giving firearms touch attack for their first range increment.

My only issue with guns in D&D has been their cost. However, that can be easily changed by the GM as firearms become more commonplace.

 

[gamerprinter]

Of course there's a mechanic that could duplicate that. A simple save-or-die mechanic would duplicate that. It might have other problems, but it would duplicate that perfectly.

Well of course, most anything can be made into a workable mechanic. I'm just pointing to the existing rules in various editions of D&D, and that rule doesn't exist in RAW. It could be, but it's not.

 

[gamerprinter]

The problem, as far as realism is concerned, is not that guns are insufficiently deadly; it's that they can't kill in one shot. (The only time they can kill with one shot is when the target is "weak" enough to be guaranteed to die in two shots.)

The distribution is wrong. Death shouldn't arrive on the nth shot, with no deaths on the first shot and death guaranteed by the n+1th shot.

That's wrong for any weapon, but it's especially jarring for one-shot weapons. It breaks expectations -- both realistic expectations and action-story expectations -- when, say, a hold-up is a guaranteed non-issue, or a duel can't kill either party, or a hunter can't take down common game, or a sniper can't take out an officer.

In other areas where this problem is too jarring, we add coup-de-grace rules, or sneak attack bonus damage, or iaijutsu damage. I don't think those are a perfect fit for ordinary gun-fights, but they point to some other places where hit points and expectations don't match up well.

Regarding One-Shot Kills:
Thing about items/abilities that bypass hit points and becomes a 'one shot kill', it does come in game, but usually at quite some cost. An assassin can do it, but then you don't get to play a caster or fighter, unless you use lots more levels so you take enough rogue to qualify for the prestige class. It comes with a class/level/feat cost - actually quite expensive.

Pathfinder has the Ninja, but it's Assassinate ninja trick is a 10th level ability at minimum. Even more expensive.

20th level rogues have an assassinate like ability at 20th too - but then that's 20 levels of cost.

Vorpal weapons are +5 magical weapons, not including it's actual enhancement bonus - a very, very expensive sword. And you still have to confirm a critical hit, on a beings without immunity to crits.

So if you introduce a single weapon, that anyone can have that might require exotic weapon proficiency that offers a one-shot-one-kill capability. It's now very cheap too achieve the assassinate ability. You don't have to leave your class, your concept, or anything except possible one required feet that a 1st level character can take - that's way too powerful.

Technically speaking a lucky shot by an untrained person (0 level commoner) wielding a knitting needle could bypass your armor, even your notice and pierce your heart, kidney or brain. If you allow firearms to have one-shot kill capability, then you have to allow all weapons that capability, because no matter unlikely it would happen, by the effects of 'reality' it could happen.

This would mean that vorpal weapons, expensive feat/class choices to achieve a one-shot kill capability is a waste of time, because anybody can win an encounter with a one-shot kill, and I think this would largely diminish my game.

One shot kill firearms should be expensive magic items like vorpal swords, otherwise it unfairly imbalances the game in a huge way.

And a sniper could by the rules easily take out that guard with a one-shot kill, as long as the guard was a 0-level warrior. If he's got less hit points that the amount of damage your weapon causes - he is dead. It's easy to one-shot killing any NPC as long as they don't have many hit points.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Vorpal weapons ... still have to confirm a critical hit, on a beings without immunity to crits.

Ah, the misunderstanding of Vorpal.
Roll a 20. Roll again, and if that hits then the thing's head comes off. Period.
"But, constructs and undead are immune to critical hits!"
Vorpal isn't a critical hit. It's a magical effect that triggers on a natural 20. The only thing immune to Vorpal is a thing without a head or, like the Lumi, those which are specifically immune to vorpal. Now, many things don't care if they lose their head, but they do lose it.

The other one-shot kills? Save or Die spells.

Still, valid conceptual points. Making firearms into save-or-die weapons and not doing the same for everything else is a serious imbalance.

 

[gamerprinter]

Ah, the misunderstanding of Vorpal.
Roll a 20. Roll again, and if that hits then the thing's head comes off. Period.
"But, constructs and undead are immune to critical hits!"
Vorpal isn't a critical hit. It's a magical effect that triggers on a natural 20. The only thing immune to Vorpal is a thing without a head or, like the Lumi, those which are specifically immune to vorpal. Now, many things don't care if they lose their head, but they do lose it.

The other one-shot kills? Save or Die spells.

Still, valid conceptual points. Making firearms into save-or-die weapons and not doing the same for everything else is a serious imbalance.

I'm quite aware that vorpal is an arcane weapon property - it's magic. In our game you still have to confirm the natural 20 vorpal shot, it isn't automatic for us (we consider that too powerful). I misremembered we house-ruled that.

As long as a firearm's possible one-shot kill effect is equivalent to the cost of having to take a prestige class, 10th level or more in a class, or the capability to cast a Save or Die spell, which is never a low level spell - it's fair.

For a mundane firearm to be allowed to one-shot kill at 1st level for possible one feat, or possibly no cost beyond the weapon and the bullet is not even a reasonable consideration.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Adressing Issues

I do find it interesting that no one has proposed making guns work differently for PCs and NPCs.
A major purpose of hit points is to provide some plot protection for the characters - PCs and important NPCs. If you're willing to use that concept directly then you can have a weapon do dX damage to things with HP and everything else makes a save versus death. That's basically how minions worked in Spycraft. And this works equally well for knives, swords, firearms, guns, and catapults.

The idea being that you get the best of both worlds. Important characters cannot be killed with a single shot. Unimportant characters can. And the players never know who is who.
Can this be abused? Yes. Does it require GM adjudication? Absolutely, but the readers are probably GMs and the game will certainly have a GM, so there is no problem with that. Is it quick, clean and simple? Simple, possibly quick, but not very clean. It's clunky game design but the underlying issue is that no single elegant solution works broadly enough to satisfy everyone, especially in the D&D damage model.*

*Classic Deadlands may have the best Firearms-related damage system, ever. And it applied equally to all weapons and creatures, making it possible (though obscenely difficult) to kill a bull elephant using a .22 pistol. It was still clunky, but it was fun and indirectly allowed for differentiation between extras and 'tagonists.

 

[gamerprinter]

I do find it interesting that no one has proposed making guns work differently for PCs and NPCs.
A major purpose of hit points is to provide some plot protection for the characters - PCs and important NPCs. If you're willing to use that concept directly then you can have a weapon do dX damage to things with HP and everything else makes a save versus death. That's basically how minions worked in Spycraft. And this works equally well for knives, swords, firearms, guns, and catapults.

The idea being that you get the best of both worlds. Important characters cannot be killed with a single shot. Unimportant characters can. And the players never know who is who.
Can this be abused? Yes. Does it require GM adjudication? Absolutely, but the readers are probably GMs and the game will certainly have a GM, so there is no problem with that. Is it quick, clean and simple? Simple, possibly quick, but not very clean. It's clunky game design but the underlying issue is that no single elegant solution works broadly enough to satisfy everyone, especially in the D&D damage model.*

*Classic Deadlands may have the best Firearms-related damage system, ever. And it applied equally to all weapons and creatures, making it possible (though obscenely difficult) to kill a bull elephant using a .22 pistol. It was still clunky, but it was fun and indirectly allowed for differentiation between extras and 'tagonists.

In my games PCs and NPCs are in an equal opportunity situation. If a PC can take a feat, magic item, spell, class, level in anything, so can an NPC. Most NPCs my PCs fight in combat are higher level than they. My adventurers never have a specific advantage, except their luck in rolls, and level in creativity in bypassing my encounter. And they usually do fine.

If I dimished the challenge in some way, my players wouldn't feel as heroic.

But I've also stated that 0+ level NPC classes exist as nuisances as part of a larger encounter and sniping a guard with a single shot, single hack can and does happen. Not any major NPC.

 

[Janx]

What if the guns were made of black licorice?

I like licorice. I imagine I could stomach a gun made of that.

 

[mmadsen]

The complaint about guns almost always comes back to "it doesn't fit my idea of high fantasy" not "it breaks my suspension of disbelief."

I wouldn't claim that there is exactly one complaint against guns in D&D. Certainly many people don't want guns in their Tolkien-esque high-fantasy game or even in their Howard-esque sword & sorcery game -- while others do want guns in their Burroughs-esque sword & planet game or their Heavy Metal-esque post-apocalyptic game.

If you haven't heard anyone complain about how guns are "unrealistic" in D&D, perhaps you have noticed how many people want house rules to make them more lethal, to make them bypass armor, etc. Those rules may or may not be a good idea, but certainly many people find something off-putting about how D&D handles guns.

The complaints aren't purely against guns though, because they're often about, say, city guards with crossbows who got the drop on a high-level PC, where the crossbows are a quasi-medieval stand-in for guns -- and the high-level PC is not the least bit scared of taking a few crossbow bolts.

And yes, [MENTION=1645]mmadsen[/MENTION] helped me "put my finger on it", thanks!

You're quite welcome, [MENTION=6675228]Hassassin[/MENTION].

Thing about items/abilities that bypass hit points and becomes a 'one shot kill', it does come in game, but usually at quite some cost. [...] If you allow firearms to have one-shot kill capability, then you have to allow all weapons that capability, because no matter unlikely it would happen, by the effects of 'reality' it could happen.

I haven't been making a recommendation for how to handle firearms in D&D. Or, rather, my recommendation has been to handle them just like crossbows and to accept that they don't feel like guns much of the time.

If we were starting from scratch, and we wanted to make firearms no more lethal than they currently are yet dangerous from the very first shot, we could give them a small chance of killing (or disabling) their target with each hit instead of knocking down the target's hit point total.

Since gamers who have grown up with D&D-style hit points often have trouble grasping a weapon that isn't especially lethal but can kill with one shot, let's imagine a small-caliber pistol with a 1-in-20 chance of killing its target. Does it generally kill its target on the first shot? No, not even close. Would you be scared to take a single shot from it? Yes, definitely. How many shots does it typically take to drop someone? There isn't a good answer for that, because the distribution isn't clustered around a single mean, median, and mode. Half the time the target survives 13 shots before succumbing, but the average number of shots needed to drop a target is 20, and each shot is equally likely to finish the job.

It's just a different way of modeling damage.