D&D 5E A modern fantasy setting?

[jayoungr]

Spitballing, but would exploding dice make guns sufficiently more dangerous than other weapons, yet still not instakills every time? (Exploding dice: if you roll the maximum on a damage die, you roll again and add that amount to the damage. If the second roll is also maximum, you keep doing it until you get a non-maximum roll.)

Oh, also, this isn't a setting per se, but it does have a framework for using the 5E ruleset in various period settings:

DriveThruRPG

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[humble minion]

Then again, if we're talking about some sort of modern(ish) setting where guns are pretty common, certainly the armours are more advanced too? They're designed to stop the bullets.

That really depends on the genre you’re trying to emulate, to be honest. My rules are aimed at a setting with the aesthetic of Sharpe and Austen and pirate movies where armour is a rare and archaic thing but not ENTIRELY unknown. A firearms system intended to evoke the WH40K feel would obviously have to support effective armour as it’s so ubiquitous in the setting. On the other hand, emulating a wwii setting like Weird Wars, or a modern military setting? Other than helmets and the odd flak jacket, which I believe are mostly intended to resist spent bullets and grenade fragments, armour is just a very rare thing to see, and a system which shoehorned armour in would result in a game where the ‘feel’ would inevitably vary very, very widely from the source material it’s meant to evoke.

 

[Oofta]

There's a whole other thread on this, but guns are not instant death. They are deadly, but most people that get shot survive. That includes a whole lot of level 0 commoners.

It's all about what type of gameplay you want to have. D&D has always felt like an action movie to me, so I have no problem leaning into it. Are they realistic? Not really. Doesn't mean they can't be fun.

Assume that plate armor is high tech battle armor, barbarians an monks have a mild supernatural force field. Enforce disadvantage to hit if in melee and limit sight lines and improve cover rules.

In any case, just my 2¢.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There's a whole other thread on this, but guns are not instant death. They are deadly, but most people that get shot survive. That includes a whole lot of level 0 commoners.

It's all about what type of gameplay you want to have. D&D has always felt like an action movie to me, so I have no problem leaning into it. Are they realistic? Not really. Doesn't mean they can't be fun.

Assume that plate armor is high tech battle armor, barbarians an monks have a mild supernatural force field. Enforce disadvantage to hit if in melee and limit sight lines and improve cover rules.

In any case, just my 2¢.

I think the issue tends to come up when people start getting shot A LOT rather than just occasionally.

Like, when people occasionally get shot by a flintlock or w/e in D&D it's rarely even thought about. But when you have a situation like d20 Modern, where unarmoured or very lightly armoured people are just getting blasted over and over by rules that make it clear these are to some extent meat points, and they're just completely fine, it starts to get quite farce-y and not very action-movie-ish.

It's like, get shot and survive, fine, but if you keep getting shot multiple times in a fight in multiple sessions, every time you're like "Pffft I'm fine", it starts getting weird. And yeah it's a double-standard, but it's one that, for my main group, definitely rapidly exceeded the "This is fine" level of shenanigans/silly business when we tried playing d20 Modern and also when we tried playing some other d20 ones (maybe Spycraft?).

To feel like an action movie the SW approach works really well, but pure HP starts making things a bit bizarre. OTOH if it was a setting where people wear armour all the time, are covered in magical forcefields and so on, or have armoured skins and stuff, it would probably just fly.

 

[humble minion]

Spitballing, but would exploding dice make guns sufficiently more dangerous than other weapons, yet still not instakills every time? (Exploding dice: if you roll the maximum on a damage die, you roll again and add that amount to the damage. If the second roll is also maximum, you keep doing it until you get a non-maximum roll.)

Problem with exploding dice in a d&d context is that not all weapons are created equal. A 1d4 weapon will explode 1 time in 4, but a 1d8 weapon will only explode half as often, while a 2d6 weapon will only manage it 1 time in 36. And extra damage dice due to smite, sneak attack, enlarge, etc will mess with the maths even further.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

There's a whole other thread on this, but guns are not instant death. They are deadly, but most people that get shot survive. That includes a whole lot of level 0 commoners.

That thread got so weird so fast. I don't recommend it to anyone!

 

[jayoungr]

Problem with exploding dice in a d&d context is that not all weapons are created equal.

Sure, but not all guns are created equal either. Different types of guns could have different damage dice.

a 2d6 weapon will only manage it 1 time in 36.

Only if you require both dice to come up maximum in order to get the exploding benefits. You could say they explode if either of them comes up a 6, which would mean it happens more frequently than when using a single die.

--Yeah, this would involve a lot of math modeling and tweaking, but it seems like it should be possible to get to something that puts firearms in the right zone.

And extra damage dice due to smite, sneak attack, enlarge, etc will mess with the maths even further.

That's a fair point and could mean keeping weapon dice separate from the rest. Which, admittedly, would be a pain.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Problem with exploding dice in a d&d context is that not all weapons are created equal. A 1d4 weapon will explode 1 time in 4, but a 1d8 weapon will only explode half as often, while a 2d6 weapon will only manage it 1 time in 36. And extra damage dice due to smite, sneak attack, enlarge, etc will mess with the maths even further.

There are ways to solve those issues.

For starters, in such an implemention, you probably want to roll weapon damage separately (which is already done when you deal different damage types, such as with a smite, so I don't see this as a significant issue).

You can simply use the same probability for exploding. For example, you could have a d4 explode on a 3-4, a d6 on 4-6, and so forth.

Or just use d4s, d8s, and d12s for guns and have them explode on 4, 7-8, and 10-12 respectively.

Or have every gun use multiple d4s. Pistols use a 1d4, Rifles 2d4, and Shotguns 3d4.

These are just quick examples off the top of my head. I'm not suggesting it should be implemented this way, just demonstrating different examples for resolving the issue.

Personally, what I am currently planning to do for my next campaign is have the damage dice for my guns have advantage. They roll double the weapon damage dice and then drop the lower roll.

 

[Oofta]

I think the issue tends to come up when people start getting shot A LOT rather than just occasionally.

Like, when people occasionally get shot by a flintlock or w/e in D&D it's rarely even thought about. But when you have a situation like d20 Modern, where unarmoured or very lightly armoured people are just getting blasted over and over by rules that make it clear these are to some extent meat points, and they're just completely fine, it starts to get quite farce-y and not very action-movie-ish.

It's like, get shot and survive, fine, but if you keep getting shot multiple times in a fight in multiple sessions, every time you're like "Pffft I'm fine", it starts getting weird. And yeah it's a double-standard, but it's one that, for my main group, definitely rapidly exceeded the "This is fine" level of shenanigans/silly business when we tried playing d20 Modern and also when we tried playing some other d20 ones (maybe Spycraft?).

To feel like an action movie the SW approach works really well, but pure HP starts making things a bit bizarre. OTOH if it was a setting where people wear armour all the time, are covered in magical forcefields and so on, or have armoured skins and stuff, it would probably just fly.

You're assuming they get shot. I've never assumed a "hit" in D&D does direct physical damage. When it comes to firearms, it's a grazing wound, a bruise but your armor stopped the bullet, a bit of shrapnel from the bullet that hits the wall, it's the pulled muscle as you leap out of the way as you see someone pointing a gun at you, it's luck and plot armor.

Realism and games don't often mix. That's not just D&D, that's all games whether TTRPGs or video.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

With my ideas on the genre to represent, I feel that single pistol shots will only kill low level characters in one shot (not counting sneak attacks). Though one could go back to the 3e era usage of different critical damage values for different weapons (like x3, x4, 19-20, 18-20).

If one wants to change things about armor here's what I'd do. Have AC dependent on a characters Proficiency bonus, different classes might have different base numbers or even ability modifiers, but in general 8+Proficiency Bonus+Dex Bonus. Armor might affect the AC bonus by limiting the bonus, or allowing some classes to replace the Dex Bonus with another Ability Bonus.

Armor instead offers bonus temp HP or Armor HP to be tracked separately, either flat rate like 5/10/20 for light/medium/heavy or something like 2xPB/4xPB/6xPB, with certain weapons/abilities/spells doing double or half damage in different situations against Armor HP (think of it as armor having vulnerability or resistance to certain damage types). Firearms would be of the Ballistic damage type, which is a subtype of Piercing damage. So plate might be vulnerable to ballistic damage, but some types of "bullet-proof" armor might be resistant to ballistic but vulnerable to others.