Guns as a touch attack?

[Machiavelli]

Actually, rgard, there is quite a lot of evidence to suggest that Agincourt was much more complex than simply arrows versus armor. There is even much evidence that the arrows were not terribly reliable against the armor. Regardless, it's not necessarily a good example of the longbow, in particular, obviating the advantages of plate armor. In a fantasy setting such as D&D, you would likely be better off citing popular fictional literature.


Ah, as for the guns as ranged touch... if the simulationist in you makes you want to separate guns from other ranged weapons, follow the advice of other posters. Otherwise, I would simply give them a better damage rating, but apply a minor skill check to use them, and a substantial reload time (full-round, as per Heavy Crossbow). Perhaps a certain level of success on the skill check would function like Rapid Reload, and a certain level of failure would ruin the ammunition. Make guns simple weapons, so that just about anyone with a bit of training to reload can pick up and use them.


If being a simulationist on the usage end doesn't satisfy you, then I would advocate the armor penetration ideas.

 

[ValhallaGH]

I'd recommend having guns ignore traditional non-magical armors as well as the mundane component of magical armors. So studded leather and full-plate are useless against a line of musket men, but +3 studded leather still gives you the magical +3 to AC; however, a monster's hide, certain unusual materials and designs of armors, and most magical defenses still protect against firearms.

It means you'll want to add a "firearms AC" to each stat block but that's not such a big deal.

 

[Sigurd]

I can just see the ammunition now:

Spent Artifact Badguy Piercing rounds.


Sigurd

 

[Zirnitra]

One thing though, bullets DIDN'T make armor redundant for a very long time, for a very long while well made plate armor had a pretty good chance of stopping most musket and pistol balls. During the 14, 15, and a good deal of the 16 hundreds a well made suit of armor offered significant (but not total) protection from bullets.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Well, if your system is an Armor-as-DR or hybrid system (part AC, part DR), then making firearms into touch attacks isn't as much of an issue. That's what we did IMC; firearms are treated the same as Ray spells, which are slightly different than the "book" ray spells, as they have no maximum range but add a range penalty as you go further out.

As for the realism aspect? If you got hit by an arquebus ball in the chest while wearing a breastplate, sure the armor would save your life, but you'd be knocked flat and probably with some broken bones. In army-on-army settings this wasn't so bad, but since D&D's more about single combat, you'd still be a sitting duck for a CDG. And if the shot hit you in a limb, you lost the limb and probably bled out. The only things that kept early firearms from being really deadly were their horrible accuracy, requiring volley fire, and their slow reload speed; in D&D terms this'd be something like a -8 to hit and one shot per five rounds; how useful would THAT be?

So I'm okay with saying that armor doesn't do squat against firearms.

 

[Stalker0]

One thing though, bullets DIDN'T make armor redundant for a very long time, for a very long while well made plate armor had a pretty good chance of stopping most musket and pistol balls. During the 14, 15, and a good deal of the 16 hundreds a well made suit of armor offered significant (but not total) protection from bullets.

Agreed. The original gun was a crappy weapon compared to the longbow. Its slow to load, very inaccurate, and possessed less penetration power than a crossbow. What made it such a good weapon was the fact that it was EASY to learn. After a day of training, you could have a guy be "decent" with a musket, a few months and he was ready to go. Longbowman took years.

You could have an army of musketmen in months, and a line of those guys will take out knights and so forth. Its not that the knights were necessarily ineffective, they were just too expensive and took too long to train, so were eventually discontinued.

Now that modern armies are becoming reduced in size (compared to armies of the old eras), becoming more specialized, and due to the modern industry, we can once again provide armor on the battle...but this time its to the regular soldier.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Muskets and other early firearms should be simple weapons. They should have long reload times (3 rounds or more) and do a good deal of damage, maybe even good critical multiplier/damage. Possibly ignore some armor (but not magical bonuses of armor) and have short range increments (don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes!). They should be fairly inexpensive and non fuctional when wet.

For D&D characters, who are far beyond what a normal human is, early firearms are useless except as something to do in the first round before drawing your real weapons.

 

[Meatboy]

Thanks all for the many replies. They have given me a lot to mull over. From the replies as well as for balance sake I'll give up historical accuracy and try to come up with something that would make the players want to use them, so not so long a loading time as three rounds. I have a few ideas brewing and will hopefully get them up here soon.

 

[Nifft]

One last idea: fun with modern ammo ideas!

AP shells: touch attacks, penetrates DR/adamantine, doesn't do all that much damage except to golems and undead.

Hollowpoint: regular attacks, damage reduced by armor or natural armor, but does a lot of damage to living critters.

Etc. Cheers, -- N

 

[GreatLemur]

Make guns simple weapons, so that just about anyone with a bit of training to reload can pick up and use them.

Yeah, exactly. Firearms as exotic weapons doesn't actually make a lot of sense to me, since while they could be complicated to load and maintain, the actual fighting part of their use is just point-and-squeeze, as with any crossbow.

AP shells: touch attacks, penetrates DR/adamantine, doesn't do all that much damage except to golems and undead.

Hollowpoint: regular attacks, damage reduced by armor or natural armor, but does a lot of damage to living critters.

See, I'd think you'd want hollowpoints for undead. They don't tend to be armored, and--since they haven't got any vital organs--you can only really hurt them by doing massive structural damage. And the same would go for the softer types of golem (flesh, clay, etc.). (I've always been of the opinion that critters that are immune to critical hits should take almost negligible damage from piercing attacks, personally.)

What damage type would you call hollowpoint shots, anyway? AP and ordinary ammo certainly do piercing, but hollowpoints blow chunks out of targts. Should that be shoehorned into slashing?