[Grim Tales] Muskets

[Maester Luwin]

HeapThaumaturgist looks good for damage & reloads- I keep these in the 2-3 rounds myself! Just to add to the mix I'd probably make it a -4 instead of a -2 per range inc. Just my two coppers. Thanks all for your input! Maester Luwin

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Was planning on using the GT -3 per inc. for the smoothbores.

And, because some people were experimenting with rifling, I think one of the players wants a custom rifle with lower damage, better range, and that -2 range inc. penalty.

--fje

 

[mmadsen]

I believe in GT I recommend that they be Simple Weapons, but require a Feat to reload. I know I couldn't load a muzzleloader...

While you can quickly teach a conscript how to load a matchlock arquebus, it takes lots and lots of training to get good at it. For PCs, a two-minute reload time means that these are one-shot weapons.

In the later flintlock era, even the best-drilled soldiers only managed three shots per minute -- or, in D&D terms, with enough "fire drill" feats you could get down to two full rounds to load, one full round to shoot. And reloading or shooting would provoke an Attack of Opportunity.

 

[mmadsen]

Some reasonable stats for matchlock weapons:

Musket 50 gp 1d10 19–20/x2 120 ft. 8 lb. Piercing
Powder and ball (10) 1 gp — — — 1 lb. —
Arquebus 35 gp 1d8 19–20/x2 80 ft. 4 lb. Piercing
Powder and ball (10) 1 gp — — — 1 lb. —
Pistol 20 gp 1d4 19–20/x2 30 ft. 2 lb. Piercing
Powder and ball (10) 1 gp — — — 1 lb. —

 

[mmadsen]

And, because some people were experimenting with rifling, I think one of the players wants a custom rifle with lower damage, better range, ...

A rifle has better range and similar damage to a smoothbore, but it takes much, much longer to load, since the ball must fit the rifled barrel almost perfectly. It actually needs to be gently hammered into the barrel before being rammed down.

 

[Fenris]

The limiting factor with muzzle-loading weapons is reload time. They are single shot weapons, which means you won't ever get iterative attacks out of them.


Wulf

Time to dust off another under-used Core feat that Grim Tales has suddenly made relevant.

Helloooo Shot on the Run. With slow reload times SotR becomes a VERY useful feat in games with muskets.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Played the first game tonight with the firearms I presented above.

With a 2-round reload the damage has to be pretty darn high. The players were sort of grumbling as they fought two dire badgers in the primeval forest because after the first round of missed shots the ONE guy with melee weapons nearly got killed while the guy with the musketoon tried to get his gun reloaded and the wizard (using Black Company magic) took several Full Round actions to get a puny little spell off. It was him versus the badgers for quite a while, and he was losing fast.

Then the wizard finally threw down a 5d4 Nonlethal Damage burst on the badgers, knocking one out, and the musketoon guy rolled a critical and got 2d20+4 damage on the other (total 26 damage) and killed it. But it was durn close for a second. (And the burst spell was a memorized spell from earlier, the wizard didn't even get that multi-round spell off as a badger slashed him and he lost it. Lovin' that system.)

They're going to stroll into town next time wearing badger-skin cloaks and vests ... not every day you survive getting attacked by 2 400lbs badgers. At least in a Grim Tales game.

(Plus I have a whole OTHER magic system based on Craft that the wizard is getting into, hoping to use some of the Badger mojo. Has to wait to get the XP and time to roll the Craft Points, though.)

--fje

 

[mmadsen]

With a 2-round reload the damage has to be pretty darn high. The players were sort of grumbling as they fought two dire badgers in the primeval forest because after the first round of missed shots the ONE guy with melee weapons nearly got killed while the guy with the musketoon tried to get his gun reloaded and the wizard (using Black Company magic) took several Full Round actions to get a puny little spell off. It was him versus the badgers for quite a while, and he was losing fast.

You can't go adventuring with no melee weapon! Musketeers need either (a) pikemen to protect them or (b) their own bayonets; otherwise they get overrun.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Heh, it's not MY responsiblity to point out their shortcomings to them. Though I honestly wasn't expecting them to be that overmatched by the badgers. I figured the wizard would memorize a few big thumper spells and that the musketeer would fall back to his trusty "beLAYing pin". Unfortunately he was way too scared of getting anywhere near two giant badgers and figured he'd do more damage with the musketoon. He missed the first shot and had to reload again and I think he just got into the "gun" and forgot he had other options he could consider. The wizard has 8Str and 8Dex, so he's just a grumpy chubby guy in robes ... he doesn't bother to carry weapons, much less utilize them.

What I didn't realize was that two of three spell effects he'd memorized for the day were big Air effects he spent most of the morning drumming and dancing up so he could help blow the ship back to port across the prevailing trade winds. The Force effect he'd drummed up was a bit beyond his means, figuring he might have to punch a hole through a boarding party at distance as a last-resort. Darn near knocked him out.

Made for a great cinematic scene, though. The third mate let go with his pistol daggers as the great badgers tore up from their wood-covered hole. As the others scrambled for cover in shock he adjusted his grip and jumped onto the nearest beast, smoke still trailing from his blades! The second mate (and ship's carpenter ... and surgeon) turned, dropped to one knee, and took sight with his musketoon ... but his sweat-slick hands betrayed him and though the smokey thunder of his report shook the trees, he did little but further enrage the great beasts as their claws turned on his stalwart companion. The ship's wizard began to mutter under his breath, the glow of magics about his fingers ... but the fight rolled over him and he found himself batted aside by an earth-clotted paw, sorcery forgotten in the rush to survive.

--fje

 

[ledded]

There's a certain point after which you get diminishing returns, however, as far as damage goes.

That and ball and bullets are two pretty different things. I'm pretty sure, say, that musket ball would interact very well with Kevlar. Soft lead, alot of surface area, it would splatter and spread the energy out nicely. Against flesh, though, it'd go through just as easy as modern ammunition. Even at "low" musket velocities, flesh and bone are little barrier. Modern bullets are smaller and have to be specially designed to splatter more or you get through-and-through penetration without doing enough damage to surrounding tissue.

--fje

While certainly very true (as much as having a bowling ball dropped on your head from 10 stories up will hit you less hard than an anvil dropped on your head from 10 stories, the end result makes it a bit on the moot side ), as an aside it is interesting when you look at a large amount of anecdotal evidence of the variance in actual delivery of energy to the target of the older blackpowder muzzleloaders due to quite a few factors such as quality/amount of powder and/or loading of said powder and shot. An example of the extremes of this is a story from late in the English Civil War taken from the memoirs of a young nobleman in the cavalry being amazed at the incredible destructive power of wheellock pistols, having seen a comrade shot with one at no less than 40 yards, the ball passing through not only the man but the back-and-breast he was wearing and continuing onwards to kill the horse of the man behind him. On the opposite side there is a story about a Scottish duellist from around the same time frame who, upon being surprised by the husband of a woman he had taken company with, was shot in the forehead with a musket at close range. While it did drop him, several minutes later (being assumed dead) he sat up, rubbing his forehead, with nothing less than a large goose-egg and a bad headache for wear (it was later found out that he had lost the sight in his left eye shortly after the incident).

Whether absolutely true or not it isnt known, but does paint a bit of a picture for how unpredictable early firearms could be, which is one reason why for our similar game I've been working up an interesting list of 'failures' to try to catch a bit of that feel.

Sounds like a *really* fun game Heap. I like the stats you are using also; are those all assuming a flintlock and not other lock types? Also, how do you handle (if you even allow it) multi-barrel/multi-lock firearms. And has anyone ever tried to figure out a workable mechanic for a duck's foot pistol? (Yeah I know they weren't exactly common, but they did exist, and are so absurd looking I just have to toss a few into my game ).