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

[Vikingkingq]

This may be a bit basic or cringe or whatever, but I actually really like how Critical Role implemented firearms in terms of thematics (rather than mechanics). In Exandria, the gun is revolutionary in the same way that it was in the Early Modern period because it provides a somewhat more "democratic" alternative to the elite power that battlefield magic used to provide, but because it's refacted through fantasy genre tropes, it's tied to demonic pacts and evil conspiracies and alchemical and elemental infusions and the rise of the more bureaucratized HRE-esque Dwendalian Empire as opposed to the more traditional fantasy kingdom of Emon.

To me, that makes it fit in better with the rest of the world-building.

 

[Celebrim]

I'll give you the argument that writers these days live in a moral swamp and have no idea what morals even are. You want to argue that sneaking in and murdering everyone isn't heroic I'm right there with you. Sneaking in and destroying enemy supplies and stocks and getting out again that's pretty freaking heroic, especially if it's a larger and better supplied enemy.

It's anti-heroic. I agree that it is heroic or at least potentially moral, but it is not what we expect the hero to do. Which is why normally when you tell the story of heroic spies, sabotage, and demolition you populate your story with misfits and outcasts.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'll give you the argument that writers these days live in a moral swamp and have no idea what morals even are.

Ah yes, writers these days don't understand morals like the old writers. Tell me Conan, what is good in life?

 

[jasper]

I rub bat doo doo on my glass wand and 10d6 worth damage. YEAH FANTASY.
I am tier 4 and get 6 arrows off in six seconds and hit targets out to 600 feet as short range. YEAH YOU GO ROBIN HOOD.
I shoot my gun 3 times in 6 seconds. WTF GUNS GUNS Reality REALITY ETC ETC.
Back in 3E my gun nut friends said guns in D&D would be breech loading with a modern bullet reskinned as what every. If I was going to change how guns worked in d&D; it would come down to COLT, or Rifleman. If Colt then guns are common and simple weapons and we start out with a hand crossbow as base and change the range. If rifleman then Martial I use light crossbow for pistol and long bow for rifles.

 

[Celebrim]

I rub bat doo doo on my glass wand and 10d6 worth damage. YEAH FANTASY.
I am tier 4 and get 6 arrows off in six seconds and hit targets out to 600 feet as short range. YEAH YOU GO ROBIN HOOD.
I shoot my gun 3 times in 6 seconds. WTF GUNS GUNS Reality REALITY ETC ETC.

That's a fundamental failure to understand the problem.

Your first example involves a 10th level wizard which is something of a rare commodity.

Your second example involves a like 16th level fighter or ranger or something, which is even a rarer commodity.

Your third example involves a 0th level commoner. If suddenly every 0th level commoner can pull a semi-automatic handgun out and fire 3 shots in six seconds, that is not only game changing that's genre changing. That isn't even like super hard verisimilitude. That's just the implications of technology as opposed to magic. Technology democratizes power. There is no restriction on who can pickup a pistol and fire it to lethal effect. Even if your pistol is just a glorified rapid fire crossbow, the fact that anyone can fire three times in six seconds totally changes the dynamics of the game.

Even if all you are modeling are flintlock muskets, the gap between a 1st level warrior and a 10th level wizard just got a whole lot smaller. You don't have to be uber realistic. All you have is a one shot bang stick that justifies its existence by being a good bit harder hitting than a bow. If you get up to modelling modern firearms, a team of 1st or 2nd level hobgoblin fighters with modern weaponry like assault rifles, sniper rifles, grenades, and light machine guns absolutely is a threat to 10th level characters - whether in 1e, 3e, or even more so because of 5e's bounded accuracy.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Ah yes, writers these days don't understand morals like the old writers. Tell me Conan, what is good in life?

Yeah, 'authors today' is not really a take to bring into a fandom that idolizes Howard and Lovecraft.

 

[nevin]

Ah yes, writers these days don't understand morals like the old writers. Tell me Conan, what is good in life?

No Howard never tried to sugar coat what Conan did and make it out to be some grand good deed. It was just savagery and he embraced it.

 

[Stormonu]

Your third example involves a 0th level commoner. If suddenly every 0th level commoner can pull a semi-automatic handgun out and fire 3 shots in six seconds, that is not only game changing that's genre changing. That isn't even like super hard verisimilitude. That's just the implications of technology as opposed to magic. Technology democratizes power. There is no restriction on who can pickup a pistol and fire it to lethal effect. Even if your pistol is just a glorified rapid fire crossbow, the fact that anyone can fire three times in six seconds totally changes

Is this example actually a 0th level commoner though? It could be a high level PC as well using something like a muzzleloader, infamous for its slow loading time (having the slow and/or loading property), pumping out 3 shots in 6 seconds.

Though, it does point out even problems Modern d20 had with modeling 3-round bursts and autofire. Modern guns do work poorly in D&D's level-restricted framework, though it can somewhat model one-and-done guns (such as wheellocks) or single/double action guns (handling them like wands).

In the end, D&D grew up without guns - unlike Warhammer Fantasy - and for the most part I'm fine with it not being included by default in the game.

 

[Celebrim]

Is this example actually a 0th level commoner though? It could be a high level PC as well using something like a muzzleloader, infamous for its slow loading time (having the slow and/or loading property), pumping out 3 shots in 6 seconds.

If his point is that if you are only modelling a gun in your system with no plans for granularity between weapons, and if you then conceivably have a PC high enough level to do that with a crossbow (I'm not sure how viable crossbow guy is in 5e), then why care about realism? Then fine I can see that albiet I'd still expect some distinction between guns and crossbows unless you just want a game that assumes guns as the standard melee weapon.

But if you do differentiate between types of guns, early muzzleloaders are significantly slower than just about anything but a windlass crossbow. It's generally equivalent to spending at least 2 and sometimes as many as 6 loading actions to fire one shot with the primary difference between hand gonnes, matchlocks, wheellocks, flintlocks and caplocks being just how many loading actions are needed to prepare a single shot.

But even with the idea that an 18th level fighter could shoot 9 shots in the time it takes a 0th level commoner to reload by acquiring some specific martial skills, that fundamentally doesn't change my point. As I said in my post, it's that initial volley of fire that is game changing and its the presence of stable explosives that is game changing. And if you don't have any of that, if guns are powered by magic or requires warlock pacts to function or if guns are not different in some quantitative way than crossbows or magic wands then you've got guns that aren't guns.

And this gets back on topic, as it's this "Who cares about realism" that results in guns often just being kind of tacked on as slight upgrade to a heavy crossbow for balance issues.

Though, it does point out even problems Modern d20 had with modeling 3-round bursts and autofire.

Pretty much every system I'm aware of has problems modeling bursts and auto fire. There is a tradeoff between attempting to model every round and its kickback and speed of play at the table that just means either you have slow play or you have implausible results or you have both. Often like with GURPS you have both. All the simple solutions have problems and all the good solutions aren't simple and add a bunch of steps you don't have to worry about with any other weapon. It's bad enough that if you did run a gunplay heavy system you'd probably want an app that fired the weapon for you and did all the calculations.

Modern guns do work poorly in D&D's level-restricted framework...

I'm not sure what you mean by that. I can give you reasonably good D&D stats and rules for just about any modern light arms. It's not so much that they work poorly, it's that when a 2nd level fighter is wielding a scoped 12.7mm anti-material weapon with even fairly low verisimilitude (2d8+6 damage rather than say 4d20) you are still dealing with him having a weapon that in certain respects outclasses most magic and magical weapons and totally changes the threat that a low-level character represents. And while that's a pretty extreme case, it's true of basically everything starting with flintlock rifles.

Granted 5e has notably less granularity between weapons than any edition since 0e, so having guns have granularity and nothing else is inelegant but I don't see what that has to do with the level-restricted framework.

 

[Quickleaf]

@Ancalagon I think that's a terrific approach. The whole 1/encounter ability, while yeah it's abstracted/meta-gamey, works really well and is clear for players to understand.

Personally, I wrote up my own rules for smokepowder weapons. They're high damage, moderate range weapons that have some limitations.

1st limitation = This is Faerûn / Sea of Fallen Stars focused, where the firearms are mostly exclusive to Pirate Isles who traded with the gnomes of Lantan before the portal closed. So while there are guns circulating, and bullets a plenty, smokepowder is as rare as uncommon magic items, and costs 100 gp per packet worth 5-shots.

2nd limitation = Proficiency with them is not covered by martial weapons, so you need to get it through a special rules variant, subclass feature, Gunner or Weapon Master feat.

3rd limitation = Misfire and jam on natural 1. Also exposure to water can "jam" the weapon, and there is some sailing / underwater adventure in my game-in-the-works.

Anyhow, functionally it focuses on exploding damage dice, and pistols / muskets having two damage dice to increase odds of exploding.

Pistol (250 gp): 2d4 piercing damage; range 30/90; Ammunition, Loading, Exploding (reroll any damage die at max value and add to damage), Misfire (on natural 1 to attack, the pistol misfires and jams, cannot be used again until tended and cleaned during a short rest).

Musket (500 gp): 2d6 piercing damage; range 40/120; Ammunition, Loading, Exploding (reroll any damage die at max value and add to damage), Misfire (on natural 1 to attack, the pistol misfires and jams, cannot be used again until tended and cleaned during a short rest).

EDIT: I ran a quick test of 100 damage rolls for pistol and musket – not counting critical hits or misfires – compared to the hand crossbow (1d6) and heavy crossbow (1d10), respectively. From that little test, the pistol appears to do +2.75 damage more than the hand crossbow, while the musket appears to do +2.4 damage more than the heavy crossbow.