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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quasqueton" data-source="post: 1176242" data-attributes="member: 3854">Do ranged weapons break the D&D system? All through my D&D "career" (20+ years), the bow and crossbow have shaken my willing suspension of disbelief. I've been looking at the d20 modern rules lately, and guns in that system *break* my WSB.In a melee fight, I can easily imagine the damage dealt by swords and axes as being cuts and scratches, bruises and fatiguing. I can accept that a 20 point sword thrust to the heart is turned into a bare scratch on the arm for the 10th-level fighter.I can imagine how a high-level fighter can look at the half-dozen soldiers around him and figure his skill can see him through a fight.I can even understand how spears and javelins can be dodged or deflected just enough to turn lethal damage into scratchs and pricks.But when it comes to arrows and bolts (and bullets), I have a very hard time getting my imagination around the dodging and deflecting, and turning major hits into minor damage. I mean, people are trained all the time (in RL) to dodge, deflect, and absorb melee attacks, but no one trains to dodge, deflect, and absorb ranged attacks (other than to make oneself a more difficult or smaller target before the shot is made).I can't easily take the high-level fighter looking at the half-dozen soldiers with crossbows pointed at him, and thinking, I can survive their first volley and close with them.Or the two duelists facing off across the glade with their pistols in hand, firing shot after shot after shot after shot, until one is so winded that he can't dodge the next bullet.This is something that I've learned to just ignore for my D&D game playing. I kind of "blur my eyes" when arrows and bolts go flying in D&D. But I have a hard time doing this with bullets.Do you have a hard time suspending disbelief with ranged weapons in D&D? Do you have a good description or method for overcoming that disbelief? Those of you who play d20 modern, or other such systems with guns and "hit points", do you have a hard time suspending disbelief with this mechanic?Quasqueton</blockquote>

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