D&D 5E Guns and D&D - are we doing it wrong? An alternative

[Fanaelialae]

IMC, firearms deal a lot of damage but don't add modifier to damage.

For example, a flintlock pistol deals 2d6 damage, whereas a musket deals 2d8.

IMO, this fits the idea of guns. They're likely more effective in the hands of a low-skill user than bows or crossbows. But for characters with high modifiers they're slightly inferior. They also crit harder than bows, since in 5e you double the dice but not the mod.

I also use the Gunslinger class (Valda's Spire of Secrets), which does gain the ability to add their mod to attacks with firearms.

Guns are a decent option for someone with a low mod or someone that just likes big crits, but they're not a must-have for anyone other than the Gunslinger (for obvious reasons).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, the "problems" with guns come up when you start treating them like Wands of Instant Death and then feel you have to balance them with long reload times, expensive ammunition, etc., until they become useless and no fun.

Meanwhile, in most fantasy media that includes guns, they're just a weapon like any other.

Yep. I see no reason to not just let them be regular weapons.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Guns - how to incorporate them in a D&D game?

(for clarity, this is for low tech guns - muzzleloaders, not modern metallic cartridge weapons)

So far the approach has been to have them be a bit like an "extra" crossbow - even more damage, even slower rate for fire. But then people want to shoot their guns all the time so there are feats/ways to load them faster, and now there are potential balance issues. Other ways include adding them some kind of armor piercing bonus, something that is easier to do in some rulesets than others (3.x did it well, 5e would be more clunky).

Is there really a need to make them better than everything else?
Just as there is no reason to assume that the 5e heavy crossbow is of the same design and operation as the historical cranequin-cranked arbalest, there is no reason to assume that a 5E gun is of the same design or operation as a historical musket.
The rate of fire for both would indicate not.

I've never been fully satisfied with this state of affair. On one hand, the rate of fire often becomes rather ludicrous compared to historical weapons (given the short 6 second rounds). On the other hand, the extra damage often isn't... that much more, for balance reasons. Having a gun pointed to your head is not much more threatening than a bow.

Should it be?

I think the answer can be found in an element of 4e. Guns are encounter powers. D&D battles are not the long, slow battles where ranks of gunners shoot at each other from a fairly great distance. They are intense, close combat skirmishes that go fast. So a gun using PC would fire a pistol or two at the start of a fight, then switch to other weapons. Because they are used once, rate of fire issues go away. And because they are used once, they can do more damage without being unbalanced.

I'm not sure how to balance this exactly, the devil is in the details, after all. But I think this would be a much more satisfying way to incorporate guns in a D&D game than the current approach.

I think that people who insist that they want to use guns in D&D want to use them most of the time, rather than fire-and-forget at the start of a fight. And as has already been pointed out, the only limitation to how many times you can fire a slow-loading weapon in D&D is how many you can carry.

I don't think the problem is with guns in D&D, but with wanting to have both guns and middle-age weapons, and balance them with each other. Firearms are simply vastly superior than old historical weapons.

Well, no. They're not.
If you think about it a bit, you can understand why: even after guns had advanced quite far beyond their initial incarnations, people were still using "old historical weapons" alongside them. And using armour against them.
The early guns that we are probably talking about were still outperformed by bows even after they had become the standard for military use: gun users and ammunition can be mass-produced. Bowmen and good arrows cannot be. Logistics lead to their adoption by the military, not individual effectiveness.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If there is firearms there is an "arm race" of homemade ideas against gunslingers, usually low-level tricks, for example illusory magic as a smoke grenade effect, creating little piece of ectoplasm to block canons, summoning swams, anti-ballistic mage's shields...

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Stealing, thanks!

 

[overgeeked]

Guns - how to incorporate them in a D&D game?

(for clarity, this is for low tech guns - muzzleloaders, not modern metallic cartridge weapons)

So far the approach has been to have them be a bit like an "extra" crossbow - even more damage, even slower rate for fire. But then people want to shoot their guns all the time so there are feats/ways to load them faster, and now there are potential balance issues. Other ways include adding them some kind of armor piercing bonus, something that is easier to do in some rulesets than others (3.x did it well, 5e would be more clunky).

I've never been fully satisfied with this state of affair. On one hand, the rate of fire often becomes rather ludicrous compared to historical weapons (given the short 6 second rounds). On the other hand, the extra damage often isn't... that much more, for balance reasons. Having a gun pointed to your head is not much more threatening than a bow. So how do we make them "better", more... gunnish?

I think the answer can be found in an element of 4e. Guns are encounter powers. D&D battles are not the long, slow battles where ranks of gunners shoot at each other from a fairly great distance. They are intense, close combat skirmishes that go fast. So a gun using PC would fire a pistol or two at the start of a fight, then switch to other weapons. Because they are used once, rate of fire issues go away. And because they are used once, they can do more damage without being unbalanced.

I'm not sure how to balance this exactly, the devil is in the details, after all. But I think this would be a much more satisfying way to incorporate guns in a D&D game than the current approach.

That sounds good. I remember looking up arquebus rates of fire and one shot every 90 seconds was considered fast. So pre-loading and discarding seems the most reasonable thing to do. Unless you want to spend 15 rounds reloading your firearm. The other option is loading a brace of firearms ahead of time. But that seems incredible silly considering rarity and cost.

Armor piercing vs unrifled firearms seems to be a wash.

The real question is damage. Something like exploding 2d10 sounds about right. Double 1s, your firearm is fouled. Either d10 rolls a 10, add it to the total and keep rolling.

 

[Minigiant]

Again it feels like Guns and firearms are less Era and more Genre

Heroic Fantasy Firearms (Guns are higher damage slower crossbows)

Martial Ranged Weapon	Cost	Damage	Property	Mastery
Pistol	250gp	1d10 piercing	Ammunition (range 30/90), loading	Vex
Musket	300gp	1d12 Piercing	Ammunition (range 40/120), loading, two handed	Slow

Swashbuckling Fantasy Firearms (Guns are expensive, easier, slightly higher damage, short ranged, bows)

Simple Ranged Weapon	Cost	Damage	Property	Mastery
Pistol	150gp	1d8 piercing	Ammunition (range 30/90),	Vex
Musket	200gp	1d10 Piercing	Ammunition (range 40/120), two handed	Slow

Sword and Sorcery Fantasy Firearms (Guns are very slow deathsticks)

Martial Ranged Weapon	Cost	Damage	Property	Mastery
Pistol	250gp	3d10 piercing	Ammunition (range 30/90), long load (3 actions)	Vex
Musket	300gp	3d12 Piercing	Ammunition (range 40/120), long load (4 actions), two handed	Slow

War Fantasy (Guns are slow very strong crossbows which required backup)

Martial Ranged Weapon	Cost	Damage	Property	Mastery
Pistol	250gp	1d12 piercing	Ammunition (range 30/90), loading, still load,	Vex
Musket	300gp	3d6 Piercing	Ammunition (range 40/120), loading, still load, two handed,	Slow

Still Load: You must remain still while reloading this weapon. Loading this weapon triggers an opportunity attack. If you move or take damage on your turn, you cannot reload it.

Each with their own rules

 

[The Sigil]

Yes, we are doing it wrong. IMHO we are doing it wrong because our (mostly US) culture has a gun fetish and wants them everywhere.

I want my D&D games to use more elegant weapons for a more civilized age. When I'm DM'ing, doing a gun at all is doing it wrong. There are no guns at my table because of all the arguments they engender (it should have more/less range than a longbow! It should reload slower/faster than a crossbow! It should be expensive/cheap to fire! I should/shouldn't have to worry about the powder getting wet!)

My alternative is simple: "there are no guns in this setting. You can't invent one. Pick another weapon."

I don't want arguments, I want to game. I don't want guns - I can play with those today. I can't easily use spells and medieval weapons on my friends. If I wanted guns, I'd go play laser tag. Or airsoft. Or a million other things. I play D&D to get away from guns.

(Don't get me started about City of the Gods or Expedition to the Barrier Peaks or similar - if I want Sci-Fi, I'll happily play sci-fi but keep your darned sci-fi out of my fantasy, thank you!)

EDIT: Also, get off my lawn!

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Other point is even when firearms need to be loaded, this could be done by a squirel. And if they are loaded before the fight, then you can be the first to attack.

And they are very noisy, too much when you need stealth.

Clerics could summon warriors killed by fireams, petitioners with bulletproof traits, because war deities don't like firearms.

Or if a gun is used in a city then the clerics can cast a divination spell to know used the gun and where is this, with only the body of the victim, alive (if she survived) or dead. Or the temple could create a magic zone, and then no firearm can work without permission from the authorities.

Or DMs could use monters with innate ballistic damage reduction: corporeal undeads, constructs, plants.

I am afraid your mistake is you are thinking about only PCs can use firearms, forgotting enemy humanoids with guns become too dangerous for their challenging rating or XP reward.

* If you want firearms in 5e then you could use Iron Kingdom: Requiem.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I want my D&D games to use more elegant weapons for a more civilized age.

The sharp slab what hacks people apart, the less sharp slab what crushes in their armor and drowns em' innar' blood, the big whacker, what crushes 'em, the great spikey ball onna a chain, or the farm tool we got nice an' sharp and turned the wrong way 'round onna stick?

Sofisikated and l'gant as a nob, they is, boss.