Firearms

[Satyrn]

Let's imagine spellcaster using reverse engineering to create a weapon like the gristle gun in the Chinese restaurant scene from the movie "ExistEnZ".

Huh. I'm probably the only other person here who has seen that movie, but I don't remember that scene.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Huh. I'm probably the only other person here who has seen that movie, but I don't remember that scene.

You're not, and I do.

I preferred Dark City to ExistEnZ, though, and still haven't seen The Thirteenth Floor.

 

[Satyrn]

Wow. It took only 8 minutes for me to be proven wrong.

But surely, we're the only 3 people who have seen eXistenZ

 

[Azzy]

I hope the OP ignores most of this thread, and just uses the weapons in the DMG and doesn't try to make them "realistic".

 

[tglassy]

Critical hits are headshots and are instakill

 

[MechaPilot]

I hope the OP ignores most of this thread, and just uses the weapons in the DMG and doesn't try to make them "realistic".

Agreed. And I think @jmartkdr really hit it on the head when we pointed out that,

The problem with firearms in DnD is they can really be only one of the following three things:

1. Balanced for gameplay,

2. Historically accurate,

3. True to the Hollywood tropes of guns.

So you need to pick one and run with that.

As for making firearms realistic, that can be fine, and it can be fun if you're into that. Big warning though, not everyone wants to have that much realism in their game. And, if you do make them more realistic, don't expect a character to actually reload a gun in combat (especially if it's a pistol). But, if you go realistic you might want to give the gun advantage on attack rolls against armored foes to play up their armor-piercing quality (and to really make it actually worth something to use one, and to consider reloading it).

 

[Tony Vargas]

But surely, we're the only 3 people who have seen eXistenZ

Cronenberg had a lot of fans (maybe not a lot of crossover with Jude Law fans), and it piggybacked on the Matrix, a bit.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Critical hits are headshots and are instakill

There's a bunch of other RPG systems out there, and critical hits with firearms aren't usually instakill, unless it one of those systems where everyone has low HP.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I hope the OP ignores most of this thread, and just uses the weapons in the DMG and doesn't try to make them "realistic".

The OP asked one question that could be answered right away, it's the nature of internet to go off on tangents after that.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

As for making firearms realistic, that can be fine, and it can be fun if you're into that. Big warning though, not everyone wants to have that much realism in their game. And, if you do make them more realistic, don't expect a character to actually reload a gun in combat (especially if it's a pistol). But, if you go realistic you might want to give the gun advantage on attack rolls against armored foes to play up their armor-piercing quality (and to really make it actually worth something to use one, and to consider reloading it).

There's limitation on how 5e is and there's no equivalent of D20 Modern to compare against like there was in 3e. But generally I think reloading a gun could be seen as wasting an action. I realize that beyond 1 action to reload (and that's being generous), the only longer length of time that's worth bothering with is "out of combat", based on all the problems with tracking which round someone is on reloading.

I know the strong need for specialization and optimization makes the idea of a character mixing ranged combat and melee combat seem sub-optimal and totally undesirable, even though that's really was a thing where there was an opening salvo of gunshots and then everyone charged into melee with swords or bayonets or using muskets as clubs. And it might play up some of the more unusual combination weapons that existed like Axe-Guns or Rapier-Pistols, especially if they're the types of things that non-humans are way more into then Humans ever were.