D&D 5E (2014) Let's Talk About Guns in 5E

[CreamCloud0]

Why make the assumption that magic is not equally available unless you want to force a specific result? Only a few people may be wizards but for centuries in our world only a few people wielded firearms on the battlefield. Assume that a fair number of people can use cantrips (all elves apparently can) and things change.

I don't assume everyone can cast spells from the PHB in my campaign. But I do assume that magic is used in many ways because to me it's not logical that there's only battle magic. The magic most people use is subtle and not very flashy, they likely don't even realize they are using magic. But crops grow a little better because the people do special festivals, healing poultices really do speed recovery or at least give people a fighting chance and so on.

Why would people know they could close the gap? It's not like someone was tinkering around and one day they invented a fully functional flintlock rifle.

If you want a world that looks like how D&D is presented in almost all fiction and played at every table I've ever played at there has to be a reason for the idiosyncrasies we have or you just ignore them. I prefer having a reason.

Ive gone into this topic before, namely with wizards specifically but i think it applies to all magic, i hate how much of the spell list is weighted towards combat applications, there should be reams upon reams of spells for the other areas of society but like 70% of it is all explosions and thunderbolts.

Like, if we assumed roughly equal research/spell production was being put into all areas of magic and labelled combat stuff the ‘military’ sector, then consider all the spells we should theoretically have for the sectors of health and medicine, agriculture, meteorology, construction, law and security, diplomacy, transport, and probably a dozen other areas im forgetting.

But my point is, ‘combat’ shouldn’t be the first thing most people think of in your world when you ask them what a caster uses magic for.

 

[Remathilis]

I would daresay most DM's would balk at the idea of being able to mass produce magic items because they see such things as "rare and special" and might not even allow PC's to make them in the first place.

DMs may balk, but magic item crafting has been a thing since third edition. That ship sailed on the same boat as "dwarves can't be wizards".

But even so, a player with alchemy proficiency can craft alchemist fire in nearly limitless supply. So unless you are banning ALL player crafting, making a ton of gunpowder and a keg of alchemist fire isn't significantly different.

 

[Cergorach]

You're jumping from crude hand cannons to muskets. That took centuries of development.

Yes, but that's where the gun 'economy' is at in a default D&D campaign.

While guns might be common in places such as the US, here (Netherlands) they are rare (1 for every 90 people, in the US it's about 135x more prevalent). But we can still get modern weapons, we do not need to invent weapons from the ground up, our society just decided that very few actually need firearms. I suspect that the same is true for firearms in a standard D&D world, where certain interested parties (like gnomes/artificers) have developed gun technology to the musket level over centuries if not millennia... Chances are also good that there are far more advanced one-offs, prototypes and magical guns in the Realm.

It just really depends on how you play your game with your group. We occasionally have a gun toting character, rarely designed that way from the start, but more often looted from an enemy. It's usually not a big deal, just expensive to own and often outpaced by other character options...

 

[VashVet]

My thoughts on widespread gun use in a campaign setting is that you’re playing a specific point in time in that setting. If gun technology is not widespread, it’s going to remain that way unless you’re going to play the campaign over a period of decades. I’ve really yet to see that. If country A has guns and country B doesn’t, that’s fine. I don’t have to worry about when country B achieves parity because I’m not playing out that evolution.

 

[CreamCloud0]

They already have, it's called 'Firebolt', a cantrip that you can cast infinitly, without ammo. And has the range of a musket, as well as almost the same damage, which can be potentially a LOT more at higher levels.

A Musket costs 500gp and you need training to use it. But if you qualify for those, anyone can wield it. The amount of casters is a LOT less, and depending on the class, takes a LOT more training to use a 'Firebolt', unless you have it due to initiate magical ability or contract...

500gp is a LOT though, about 250 days of hiring a skilled hireling or almost 7 years for an unskilled hireling. A 5,000 mile sea trip, or 5 muskets would pay for a trip around the world...

Firearms in a magical world in standard D&D would make sense for societies that tend to be industrious, technical, have access to an overflow of metals, wealthy, and have traditionally not all that much magic users amongst their ranks. My mind goes to Dwarves, but as firearms and explosives make a LOT of noise/pressure when used, I wouldn't see them using that underground or in the mountains (avalanche)...

Even pirates plundered from navies (and black market goods), if no one really uses firearms all that much, I doubt even pirates would have many uses for firearms in a standard D&D world. Now... If you want to set a certain atmosphere, firearms could be far more available, either through cheaper production methods of from huge preserved caches from ancient kingdoms...

Part of this equation not being considered is i think ‘how much would it cost to train a wizard up?’, it’s an inconvenient detail skipped over because making a character find a way to cough up their tuition fees before playing a class is just bad design.

Also if your gunman gets killed you can just pick up their 500g rifle and hand it to the next one in line, if your wizard goes down thats 500g of tuition down the drain...

 

[Rocker26a]

Why make the assumption that magic is not equally available unless you want to force a specific result?

It's not an assumption! Not everyone in Cornfield Village is a Wizard, because not everyone in Cornfield Village can be a Wizard! For a variety of potential reasons!

 

[Cergorach]

Part of this equation not being considered is i think ‘how much would it cost to train a wizard up?’, it’s an inconvenient detail skipped over because making a character find a way to cough up their tuition fees before playing a class is just bad design.

Student loans!

Also if your gunman gets killed you can just pick up their 500g rifle and hand it to the next one in line, if your wizard goes down thats 500g of tuition down the drain...

Maybe, depending on how your rifleman died, it was either trampled by a monster or captured by the enemy... 500gp gone. I also suspect that training a wizard costs a LOT more then 500gp. But it makes them a LOT more versatile when employed. Just imagine what a level 5 wizard could do (FIREBALL!!!)...

What people forget is that for one musket, you can buy 20 light crossbows, a FAR longer range, a simple weapon (everyone can use it), and it still does 1d8 damage (vs 1d12). You can far more easily equip 20 peasants with light crossbows, doing more damage at a greater range, then one trained rifleman with a musket...

Currently a pistol or a musket is reserved for the wealthy individual or for a very wealthy person that already has a an expert unit under their command. It can happen, but is rare!

 

[Indagare Nogitsune]

Student loans!

Maybe, depending on how your rifleman died, it was either trampled by a monster or captured by the enemy... 500gp gone. I also suspect that training a wizard costs a LOT more then 500gp. But it makes them a LOT more versatile when employed. Just imagine what a level 5 wizard could do (FIREBALL!!!)...

What people forget is that for one musket, you can buy 20 light crossbows, a FAR longer range, a simple weapon (everyone can use it), and it still does 1d8 damage (vs 1d12). You can far more easily equip 20 peasants with light crossbows, doing more damage at a greater range, then one trained rifleman with a musket...

Not to mention that flame arrow is a thing and certainly variants could appear (possibly under "energy munition"). Research into attaching other effects (like fireball) would also be likely.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

And factions could use magic to summon new creatures with bulleproof traits.

 

[nevin]

This has come up as a side discussion in a few threads, so I wanted to start a dedicated thread to dig into the subject. Note that I don't think there is a hige difference between how guns would work in 5E 2014 vs 2024, so the 2014 tag is just to try and limit this discussion to various 5E versions of the game and rules.

Anyway -- it seems some people have strong opinions about the way 5E is built with relation to melee vs ranged combat, and especially with regards to the viability of firearms. I honestly do not understand the arguments. 5E is not particularly "melee locked" in my opinion. Lots of classes have access to spammable ranged attacks and perform fine. In addition, I do not think firearms should be treated as a different class of weapon from arrows or eldritch blasts. Nothing in 5E is remotely realistic or simulationist, so why would we try and make firearms (or lazer, mazer or plasma cannons) "realistic"?

the 5E engine is primarily focused on action adventure combat with Hollywood physics and John McClane style protagonists who get bloody but rarely fall down. Guns fit fine into that paradigm.

The sniper rifle argument is an interesting one, though: what do you do when your PCs want to use super long range, high caliber weapons to take out their targets instead of risking themselves? My answer is simple: don't put those things in the game. Don't give the players a "finger of death" gun if you don't want them to use it. But I know that will be unsatisfying to some folks.

So now that I have said my piece (peace?), what do you think? Do you think guns are a problem in the 5E rules? Why, or why not? Have you played a contemporary or sci-fi game with the 5E rules? If so, how did guns impact play?

In my experience it's not that guns are the problem its that most people want thier fantasy to be fantasy and guns don't fit into that vibe. Pretty much anything that could easily fit into modern games or scifi games runs into that in D&D. Psionics has been hated by most since it was introduced. people see it as scifi in thier fantasy game they don't like it. Thus in most games it's relegated to the big bad evil illithids who don't seem to belong either. You are correct they can fit. In the borderline supers game that is DND they fit right in with magical weapons and all the other stuff. Just as Psionics can but I think you'll find no matter how hard you try most fantasy nerds don't want them in their fantasy game. Unfortunately, there are more fantasy nerds than roleplaying scifi and modern nerds so they tend to win when the game designers set up their worlds. I've tried many times to implement stuff like that and the guys that like them want to act like they are playing westerns or scifi games and then just turn off other players even worse. I'd love to hear some success stories on this but I've never seen one.