Gunpowder Creation, And Other Q's

[Sarellion]

I would say that a 1500gp gun is a little bit too expensive for its intended use, in long lines of troops. For characters or wealthy ppl it would be a good idea. Separates the commoners from the nobles again in their quality of weapon.

I would make a gun a simple weapon. Even during the civil war people thought about training longbow units, but to be effective, they would have taken too long to train. At least as far as I heard, but the simplicity of the system compared to the training with a longbow (for use in war, like welsh longbowmen) was really one of the main factors to have gunpowder see widespread use in rifles. The hassles reloading the weapon can be learned in a few weeks.

 

[Ace]

I have gunpowder weapons in one of the later ages of my game world.

Because it is unwise to form a "square" or a "line' formation they never quite catch on until the magic level lowers.

Also the players don't like Flintlock era games very much so I have to abstain.

 

[Azure Trance]

To give a real world example, England during the Reniassance restricted the making of gunpowder and ran a monopoly on it.

Really? Do you mean for the entirety of Europe? If that's the case (I've seen different Saltpeter / Charcoal / Sulfur ratio mixes from England to Russian) how did they hold the monopoly? Controlling all sources and undercutting competitors?

 

[Azure Trance]

My homebrew world has gun powder. The dwarves invented it for mining and keep a tight grip on it.

You know ... that's a really, really cool idea. For some reason, I can see dwarves mesh well with mechanical items and firearms seem a natural extension. Their a boost to their defenses since their often played as a 'dying race' or always engaged in one war or another with goblins or the underdark. It also leaves the impression that the guns are still unique. Finely crafted by a dwarven gunsmiths hand, coming all the way from the Barrier Mountains! Selling this wonderful musket for 50, do I hear 100, 100, do I hear 200, 200 ... going once, going twice-

I use guns and gunpowder too - the 'secret is the exclusive property of the Guild of Gunsmiths which is Licenced by the Church to do so (making the Church army the main beneficiaries of gun weapons)

Another often powerful 'power group' which has the resources to control a commodity such as firearms. And the reason it's quite cool to picture an Inquisitor decked out in platemail and robes with a huge pistol.

 

[Azure Trance]

Edit, to condense posts.

 

[Azure Trance]

An early firearm is equivilent to if not inferior to a heavy crossbow. A D&D heavy crossbow is in fact an arbalast which is quite a fearsome weapon.

You're probably right (taken from a page on the web, emphasis mine for those who don't want to read it all):

I was aware that spherical rounds lost a lot of V with range - any stats? Esp. comparing with arrows or bolts? Less than 30m- distance would certainly maximise K. E. As to historical evidence, there is some, but of course the details (muzzle V, armour quality, etc.) are often lacking. I do not think crossbow penetration is solely K.E. As a thought experiment, I plugged some numbers into the penetration formula listed in Longbow, and came up with the same penetrative ability as a musket, when one factors in the X-section area (I assumed 1/4" bodkin for the crossbow and a .75" D ball for the musket. The upshot was that the bodkin point did 1/7th of the work of the musket ball. Granted these are poor figures, but as a ROM it is quite illuminating)

 

[Azure Trance]

Now another thing to note is that the primary source of problems with early firearms is the ignition source and this is where most the the technological development was concentrated for years. Matchlocks progressed to wheel locks to flint locks to cap and ball guns. In a D&D world, particularly a 3ed one this can all be hop-scotched. Even if you don't enchant the gun itself your trigger can be enchanted to produce the spark cantrip. This would allow a completely sealed breech and would enormously improve the reliability and safety of the gun. Such an enchanted trigger would cost 1000gp. (Unlimited use, use activated, cantrip.) If the use of such becomes standard practice (which might take only a couple of examples of other designs blowing up in peoples faces) then you have a perfect reason to explain the cost of a gun. At that point any new firearm should cost a minimum of 1500 gp. On the other hand with a sealed breech, it wouldn't automatically go off when someone drops a fireball on you. It might still cook off, but there should at least be a save.

-Andor

You know Andor, for some reason (probably because you put more thought about it into it then I ) I never thought about that. A very good idea for the 'perfect' firearm. I couldn't envision it replacing the good old cheap, mundane firearm; but I'm sure the King would feel nothing else would be as worthy for his musketeers.

 

[Azure Trance]

As far as weapons:
They are martial because mixing in the right amount of gun powder and properly tamping/aiming the weapon requires some training. It is more closly related to the regular bow then the cross bow, modern guns would be more closely related to the cross bow.

Guns are martail weapons (difficult to 'handle' (clean, load, aim) even if they are easy to fire).

You know, after looking for some more information I realized there was a lot more then 'put in some powder, then the ball, and fire'. More information from the web:

The powder in the chamber ignited slowly. Too much powder resulted in the ball leaving the muzzle before all of the powder had been ignited. A correct balance between charge size and length of barrel was important to ensure that all of the powder was ignited before the ball left the muzzle of the barrel. The correct relationship between charge size and barrel length maximizes the muzzle velocity of the ball. In general a higher muzzle velocity results in greater range and accuracy, and better penetration into armor.

[During the 16th-17th c.] Reloading took a long time, involving some 48 distinct movements. Elaborate methods were designed to provide a continuous stream of fire. Troops were deployed in formations of 6 or more ranks to deliver their shots one rank at a time. After one rank of shooters fired a newly reloaded rank would move in front of the them (fire by introduction) or the recent shooters would move to the rear and reload (fire by extroduction), exposing a loaded rank.

 

[Azure Trance]

Which rules are you planning on using for weapons? Some of those questions can be answered implicitly, at least, by the ruleset you use. Personally, I'm in favor of the Freeport rules, and I'd follow that up as a close second with the Iron Kingdoms rules. The DMG rules don't do anything much for me, and I haven't seen Mongoose or AEG rules yet, although I understand they are in print.

Freeport rules have small range increments, high damage, but very high reload times to reflect the rather complicated nature of loading and packing a gun after every shot. A feat can reduce the reload time from three to two rounds, and can be taken again to reduce the time to one round, although you cannot further reduce the reload time after that, and spending two feats on firearms reloading is fairly expensive, IMO (only dedicated musketeers or arquebusiers would have the feat at all, much less twice). Iron Kingdoms assumes the powder is at least somewhat magical, although nothing really in the rules makes that a necessity.

Both sets also have firearms as exotic weapons, although for a campaign in which they feature more prominently, I'd recommend making firearms (or at least basic firearms) be martial weapons, at least for some regions.

I totally forgot Freeport had firearms. I have a few sources of 3rd Ed Firearms (IK, Frex) so give me a bit and I'll combine them into what I'm looking for in Firearms.

 

[Azure Trance]

I would like my firearms to be, at it's most advanced, flintlocks. I'm unsure on whether two or more types of trigger mechanisms can co-exist at the same time (matchlock / wheel lock / snaplock / flintlock) as the obviously superior one will prevail unless matchlock (or someother) continued to be a cheaper alternative. I could forsee different Gunsmithing Guilds holding patents or rights over certain mechanisms - the rich and elite Valonian Gunsmiths have the right to flintlocks, while the more base and common Chador Guild has rights to the inferior matchlock (Poor Chador Guild). Or, perhaps, the advanced Western nation has Flintlock and the looked-at-backwards Eastern Nation is stuck with Wheellock or Matchlock. Though it'd probably be a pain trying to have different rules for each lock mechanism since wheellock, snaplock and flintlock are quite similar game term wise.

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I found references to an average shooter firing a flintlock three times a minute. Once every twenty seconds, or in D&D, three rounds reloading, standard action firing. (Hey, like Freeport!) I also like how they try to really seperate guns apart from damage die and range. The FP Privateer is more reliable, and gets a +1 for the misroll chart, for example. Iron Kingdoms uses Breech loaded guns, which were developed sometime around 1850?, but and have only one standard action for reloading are a wee bit to quick for my tastes.

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I'd also like the option of adding rifling into a musket (hence, making it a rifle) with longer range at the expense of a veeery slooow ROF. Perhaps 1/3 turns, if even.