Firearms

[Azzy]

Ever played GURPS?

If you want hyper-realism, play GURPS—don't try to inject it into D&D, it's completely out of place.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

My goal with Firearms is I want it to resemble combat in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, which means gunshots in the opening rounds, and then melee combat. There's certainly a push in a few cases for which genres one wants to push their games in, which many people have different preferences for.

 

[Celebrim]

If you want hyper-realism, play GURPS—don't try to inject it into D&D, it's completely out of place.

So you are saying they shouldn't care whether it is realistic, because you don't care if it is realistic?

 

[Fenris-77]

I think he's saying that the realism of the firearms rules should probably match the overall realism level of the game, which is mostly pretty low compared to a lot of the suggestions we've seen in this thread. If people want hyper-realistic firearms rules in their campaign they can obviously do what they like, and they should, but as far as what fits into 5e generally and meshes with the existing rules set, both in mechanics and feel, it's not a complicated sub-system with a double handful of special rules.

I think this thread needs to be more granular when it comes to being upfront about what question a given poster is addressing. "What kind of firearms rules would fit well into 5e as-is" is a very different question than "what would realistic firearms look like in 5e". I think Azzy is quite correct to point out that some of the suggestions posted here don't match the rest of the 5e rules set, tonally or mechanically, but that's not the same as him saying "realistic firearms rules have no place in your campaign" to any particular GM, which he didn't do.

 

[tglassy]

OMG, we're saying if you want to care if it's realistic then you need to care that ALL of it is realistic, not cherry pick things just cause you don't want it in your game. By hyperfocusing on Firearms and making sure they are "Realistic" to the point where they suck so nobody uses them, but not caring at all about how being able to use magic and create magical items should have shot 'technology' forward 10,000 years all one is doing is revealing their own hypocrisy. They don't want firearms in their game. Just say so. Otherwise, the DMG has a great answer to firearms. A Revolver does 2d8 piercing damage and has the Ammunition and Reload (6) properties. The end. If you really have to, add in a loud sound that can be heard however many feet away if you want, but there shouldn't be anything more than that. No need for thunder damage. No need for acrid smoke. Why does a revolver do that much damage? Because they're revolvers. They're fairly accurate, well made and are easier to use untrained. God didn't make men equal, Mr. Colt did. A child can pick up a revolver and kill someone a heck of a lot easier than if he picked up a sword or a bow. So the damage SHOULD be higher, and it should be a good option for someone who is not proficient. But a SKILLED gunslinger is many times more effective than a skilled swordsman or even a skilled archer. I've seen marksmen who can fire six shots out of a revolver, reload, and then fire another six shots in LESS THAN FIVE SECONDS. That's ten shots a round. The only one who will come that close in the game is a lvl 17 fighter with action surge and Haste, but if you wanna be REALISTIC, then there's no reason someone who is proficient with firearms can't do the same thing.

If you like the Renaissance feel of everyone lining up to take a shot and then charging, go with those guns instead. Pistol does 1d10 piercing damage and has the ammunition and loading property, which means only one shot a turn. The lower damage makes sense, as those guns were harder to use and required more skill than a revolver to be effective. Yeah, Rogues may just choose to reload and fire every turn, but anyone with Extra Attack will drop the gun and pull out their melee weapons unless they have the means to ignore the Loading property. 1d10 isn't enough damage to warrant forgoing an extra attack.

 

[Sacrosanct]

This is what generally happens—you start talking about firearms in D&D, and suddenly people are concerned with "realism" in a game where other weapons, armor, creatures, settings, etc. are inherently unrealistic.

It is a weird thing. I would initially think it's because firearms are modern, and people may have real experience with them, or that we see firearms associated with grit in our media (post apoc movies, etc). But then I remember in the movies, there's no realism with firearms. Especially movies from the 80s, where a machine gun could chop down a forest, and magazines never went empty

I have a pretty good background with firearms. As far as I can tell, there are 2 major issues with firearms in D&D that come up:

1. As you and others have said, people seem to hold them to realism standard when they don't with any other weapon.
2. Making firearms realistic would ruin the game for most people because most people don't want to look up the charts and apply the dozens of factors that impact ballistics in their games. As a game designer, I've designed games with firearms. I recall one day when I stepped back and looked at what I had: many pages of tables and charts. Lists of all the ammunition types and the affects they have in penetration and wound channels, and tables of ballistic protection levels of various materials, and bullet drop and wind calculations, etc etc. It was too much. Way to complicated. No one would want that. And that was a stand alone game. Trying to cram all of that into D&D? Better just to assign a range and damage and call it good.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I've seen marksmen who can fire six shots out of a revolver, reload, and then fire another six shots in LESS THAN FIVE SECONDS. That's ten shots a round. The only one who will come that close in the game is a lvl 17 fighter with action surge and Haste, but if you wanna be REALISTIC, then there's no reason someone who is proficient with firearms can't do the same thing.
.

Not to be nit picky, but with melee attacks, an "attack" isn't just one swing of the sword. Since the beginning of D&D, a PC's attack represents several swings, parries, etc summed up into one attack roll. We've always just narrated it as one attack, but that's not how it's actually represented.

 

[MechaPilot]

Not to be nit picky, but with melee attacks, an "attack" isn't just one swing of the sword. Since the beginning of D&D, a PC's attack represents several swings, parries, etc summed up into one attack roll. We've always just narrated it as one attack, but that's not how it's actually represented.

I think there was a general shift in that thinking when 3e came around, and the round was shortened from 1 minute to 6 seconds. The multiple attacks from a higher BAB in 3e seemed to make a lot of people see each attack roll as a single attack. However, I think that removes some narrative flexibility. Sometimes when I resolve attack rolls, which I do before rolling damage, I'll narrate two successful rolls as one particularly devastating attack.

 

[tglassy]

Not to be nit picky, but with melee attacks, an "attack" isn't just one swing of the sword. Since the beginning of D&D, a PC's attack represents several swings, parries, etc summed up into one attack roll. We've always just narrated it as one attack, but that's not how it's actually represented.

Sure, I can see that and that's great.

Except for weapons with the Reload, Loading or Ammunition properties. Each shot has to be kept track of, per the rules. So a hand crossbow can only shoot a single bolt on a single turn, regardless of how good the person is with it. With a sword attack, you could say "I chop and chop and chop until i cut his arm off!" when a crit determines you cut off the guy's arm (there's a sword that can do that, right?). But with weapons with the Loading property, it's one shot per turn. With the Reload property, let's say the revolver cause it's easy, it's six shots per reload. I can't just use one attack and say "I fired all six bullets at him!" and use that as fluff because then I'd have to account for the fact that I now have no bullets in the gun, and the rules say one shot one roll, and the "Burst Fire" property, which allows for 10 shots at a time, isn't on that gun.

But for melee weapons, or for example the new Artificer's Repeating Weapon infusion which allows the weapon to ignore the Loading, Reloading or Ammunition properties by creating magic ammunition that appears everytime you pull the trigger and disappears after hitting or missing, yeah, sure, fluff it up to your heart's content.

 

[Satyrn]

I need not demonstrate it when this thread does an excellent job for me. I'm simply pointing out the inherent irrationality of trying to assert hyper-"realism" (or, more often, a false perception of realism) on the mechanics of firearms in a game the eschews such realism on other weapons or other aspects of the game. A nice example has been provided here in wanting firearms to be deafening despite similarly loud sounds from spells not being so. This all typically leads to bad game design that is punishing, kuldgy, and/or unecessary.

Instead, rules need to be playable, in keeping with the other rules of the game, and not add undue or unnecessary complexity.

I totally agree with what you're saying . . . but the crazy thing is I just got inspired by the idea of the room filling up with smoke.

Now, my guns don't use gunpowder or anything what that did create the smoke, so the idea is mostly a dead end . . . unless I introduce some new Bandit gun that uses alchemist's fire to propel the bullet.

No. Even better! It projects alchemist's fire as a beam of deadly heat. Side effects include a smoky room and burning doors.



I have just invented the D&D laser.