During the public playtest I ran 'Death in Freeport' for some guys at the office who had never roleplayed before. This one-shot expanded into the rest of the freeport trilogy and then out into a homebrew world and custom adventures. The world is at technological level similar to the 16th-17th centuries including gunpowder, cannons and muskets.
During the playtest and after I used firearms simply as reskinned crossbows and this approach has worked well so far. I would like to differentiate firearms and crossbows however and I saw that the DMG has renaissance firearms rules.
I like the grenades and the options for exploding gunpowder barrels (something that I was just thumbsucking) but the firearms bug me. The weapons are similar to crossbows, except more expensive, but the do a lot more damage. A pistol does as much damage as a heavy crossbow.
Has anyone played with these rules? and if so did you find them unbalancing?
During the playtest and after I used firearms simply as reskinned crossbows and this approach has worked well so far. I would like to differentiate firearms and crossbows however and I saw that the DMG has renaissance firearms rules.
I like the grenades and the options for exploding gunpowder barrels (something that I was just thumbsucking) but the firearms bug me. The weapons are similar to crossbows, except more expensive, but the do a lot more damage. A pistol does as much damage as a heavy crossbow.
Has anyone played with these rules? and if so did you find them unbalancing?