D&D 5E Why do guns do so much damage?

[wellis]

Isn't another factor in how dangerous early guns could be (of course modern guns are even more dangerous but we're talking about fantasy D&D here) that because they fired a big lead ball relatively slow, that lead ball could often cause devestating damage like pulverizing your bones practically if it hit into them?

I know D&D/Pathfinder settings often have a lot of magic in them, but I've never really heard much on how good surgery in their settings often are.

 

[Steampunkette]

Of course heavy plate stops muskets. It stops even more than musket rounds.

You forget I'm Australian:

View attachment 137993



Ned Kelly - Wikipedia

Over a dozen 19th century high calibre rifle and pistol bullets failed to pierce it at 50m.

Look mate, guns are more lethal than swords. We're straying into katana fangirl territory here.

When i get a chance Ill try and dig up some casualty reports from a war that features casualty counts (separated by blade and by bullet) and I reckon you'll find the fatality rates for firearms per victim higher than that for edged weapons per victim.

Musket balls are more lethal that sword swings. The overwhelming number of edged weapon strikes result in defensive wounds. Gunshot wounds far more often than not just generally killed you.

And if you had the numbers for archers versus swordsmen you would result in more people being killed by arrows than swords. Does that mean an arrow is more lethal than a sword? No it means that you can kill people with an arrow before they get close enough to use a sword.

You cannot control for such factors in real-world encounters throughout history. What you can do is simulate damage and compare the simulated damage.

And when you compare simulated damage the results are largely similar, though far from identical.

A bullet that strikes you in a non-vital part of your body will not kill you. A sword which strikes you in a nonvital part of your body will not kill you. That isn't a question! It's also not a question of how many shots does it take compared to how many bullets does it take to hit a vital organ.

The question in this thread is about the amount of damage dealt to the human body. That is to say the size of the wound channel whether from a sword, a spear, or a lead ball.

I get that you really like guns! I get that you know in your heart of hearts that they are way more lethal than a sword. That is all well and good. But at the end of the day a 4 cm diameter hole with an 8 centimeter diameter cylinder of damaged tissue around it, which is what we all saw in the video that you linked, is exactly what you're going to get out of that gun for the purposes of any discussion of the damage that it deals.

That is the damage that we must try to compare to simulated damage from a long sword, or a short sword, or a spear! Trying to compare modern weapons to that, or numbers of deaths from various wars, or other things that are not particularly relevant does not help us come to a conclusion.

 

[Fenris-77]

Or ... you could admit that D&D isn't a historical simulation when it comes to damage. I know, I know, sad but true.

 

[Steampunkette]

Or ... you could admit that D&D isn't a historical simulation when it comes to damage. I know, I know, sad but true.

I have never claimed that it is a historical simulation. At any point.

Your passive aggressive ad hominem sniping straw man can go take a hike.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

You want to know the real reason guns do so much damage?

It's not because they actually do more damage. Getting stabbed in the chest by a longsword is going to be just as deadly (probably more actually) than getting shot by a gun in the chest.

The reason guns are more dangerous is that they are extremely easy to use. People don't need much training to handle a pistol, and they don't need to be in as much good physical fitness as a skilled swordsman.

So if they rules reflected guns real strength, the damage wouldn't be very different, but it would have a much higher attack bonus; you're much more likely to hit with a gun than with a sword. The best sniper is more likely to hit more people than the best swordsman.

But 5E is designed so that you are more likely to hit than miss, so making guns even more likely to hit will just result in anyone with a gun hitting almost every attack roll. So that doesn't work, so the designers decided instead to reflect the increased danger of a gunman with increased damage.

So it doesn't really make sense, but it does sort-of reflect that yes guns are more dangerous than swords. So it works well enough if you don't think about it too much.

 

[Fenris-77]

I have never claimed that it is a historical simulation. At any point.

Your passive aggressive ad hominem sniping straw man can go take a hike.

That's not at all how that was intended, sorry. I was just pointing out that D&D is not particularly granular or historical in terms of weapon options, rules, or damage (like, at all). That makes projects that want to work it like that a lot more work. If you want nuance, which is a fine goal, you'd need to expand and revise the entire weapon table and add a lot of elements.

More specifically, the game as it stands is not the product of any kind of nuanced investigation of how actual weapons hurt actual people. At best it's a very general reflection of that, and even with that notion you'd get a lot of arguments and pushback from people who actually know weapons and combat.

So no, not a strawman, nor a PA snipe, just the reality of the rules set. YMMV about how much faffing about you want to do with things, of course.

 

[Flamestrike]

And if you had the numbers for archers versus swordsmen you would result in more people being killed by arrows than swords.

No, Im not talking about the number killed in total.

Im talking about looking at the number wounded (by blade, and then by gun), and dividing that by the number killed.

So If I can find a battle where 10 men died by melee from 100 melee (bayonet/ sword whatever) related injuries, and 50 died by gunshot out of 100 injured by gunshot, we can say bullets are 5 times more lethal than melee weapons (swords and bayonets which both do 1d8 damage - a bayonet basically being a spear).

 

[Ovinomancer]

You want to know the real reason guns do so much damage?

It's not because they actually do more damage. Getting stabbed in the chest by a longsword is going to be just as deadly (probably more actually) than getting shot by a gun in the chest.

The reason guns are more dangerous is that they are extremely easy to use. People don't need much training to handle a pistol, and they don't need to be in as much good physical fitness as a skilled swordsman.

So if they rules reflected guns real strength, the damage wouldn't be very different, but it would have a much higher attack bonus; you're much more likely to hit with a gun than with a sword. The best sniper is more likely to hit more people than the best swordsman.

But 5E is designed so that you are more likely to hit than miss, so making guns even more likely to hit will just result in anyone with a gun hitting almost every attack roll. So that doesn't work, so the designers decided instead to reflect the increased danger of a gunman with increased damage.

So it doesn't really make sense, but it does sort-of reflect that yes guns are more dangerous than swords. So it works well enough if you don't think about it too much.

Actually, being stabbed in the chest by a longsword is less deadly (although certainly not to the point that anyone should welcome it). There are a number of places you can be stabbed that do not sever major arteries or destroy the heart. On the other hand, the wound channel caused by a musket ball entering the chest is almost guaranteed to destroy or damage both, because it's going to cause about a football's worth of pulping versus the much more narrow and contained (but still terrible) would channel of the sword.

The way guns work in movies is a real detriment to how people understand the lethality of a gun. People get shot in places that are rarely non-fatal and get up and fight a few minutes later in movies. This doesn't really happen in real life.

This is why you shouldn't be looking for any real world reasoning at all for deciding how guns should work in your D&D -- they're just not fun, and defeat the purpose.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Actually, being stabbed in the chest by a longsword is less deadly (although certainly not to the point that anyone should welcome it). There are a number of places you can be stabbed that do not sever major arteries or destroy the heart. On the other hand, the wound channel caused by a musket ball entering the chest is almost guaranteed to destroy or damage both, because it's going to cause about a football's worth of pulping versus the much more narrow and contained (but still terrible) would channel of the sword.

The way guns work in movies is a real detriment to how people understand the lethality of a gun. People get shot in places that are rarely non-fatal and get up and fight a few minutes later in movies. This doesn't really happen in real life.

This is why you shouldn't be looking for any real world reasoning at all for deciding how guns should work in your D&D -- they're just not fun, and defeat the purpose.

I meant specifically getting impaled through the chest by a longsword like the image below (couldn't find a PG sword version). The average sword strike is much less deadly than a gun shot, but this type of wound is really really bad, because of the two cuts that are made when someone stabs you in the front and then cuts you again when withdrawing the blade. It is not the same as a clean bullet wound passing through the front and through. I was trying to compare a really bad sword attack to a really bad gun attack (although if you shoot someone in the heart, they're pretty much instantly dead too).

That said, I agree movies aren't reflective of guns lethality.

 

[wellis]

It is not the same as a clean bullet wound passing through the front and through.

Musket rounds were hardly ever producers of "clean bullet wounds." I don't understand why people in this thread keep on trying to use claims about modern bullets and applying them to musket bullets., despite those same people mentioning about how D&D uses muskets and such.

Like seriously, muskets produced nasty wounds. Wounds that could get easily infected. Very much maiming wounds.

Bullets clean punching theough is more something that would happen with an FMJ bullet, hardly the sort of thing you would see in a fantasy D&D setting.