Guns in a fantasy setting

[Rechan]

I'll bring up the dirty word around here: Exalted. In Exalted, there wasn't really gunpowder. The thing that was holding firearms/steam/combustion back is that the spirits of Fire, Earth, Water, and Wood couldn't agree who got to rule over all of it, because all of the elements had a hand in the function of the item.

Eberron's "Magical technology" is such that gunpowder wouldn't fly. But binding a fire elemental or an air elemental into a cannon and then having it "fire" rocks or flaming balls of pitch, that's in line with the setting.

For me, I find the biggest disappointment is not that firearms are hard to do, but explosives are hard to do. Bombs that can wipe out an entire building. Fireball is nice, but it doesn't destroy a structure, it just singes it.

I agree with the above poster, the 'damage problem'. One potential answer is to limit the amount of time you can reload between shots. Not to the extent of 'fire one round, load the next', but you could have a situation with 'fire for four rounds, load for two'. This would also limit these weaposn being superior to bows for abilities that let you fire more than once per round. (Clever players would just fire until empty, then drop and pick up a more reliable weapon).

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I thought of things to do with firearms. Generally I base them of the firearms in D20 Past, which works off of D20 Modern were firearms do 2d4, 2d6 or 2d8 damage generally. I go with the D&D 3e ruling that it's standard actions to reload, simply because it's easier to keep track of.

For the most part what matters with firearms in 4e is what classes get powers involving firearms. Generally I feel that the martial classes should get most of them, with the Ranger being the best with guns. They should get a rifleman combat-style that gives them fast reload right away. Then most of their bow powers should work with firearms, except at the higher levels you may want to tone down the mutlipliers if you consider that a rifle could do 2d8 damage. Probably no higher 6[W] or 5[W] since 6x2d8 is roughly equivalent to 7x2d6.

World wise playing with firearms does allow for some different themes. While most of you are probably thinking steamtech, there's also the chance to play with a western theme. After all, what's cooler than a cowboy on a dragon?

Of course you do realize that with magic and firearms existing side by side, warfare might not completely resemble warfare of the 18th and 19th centuries. It could be impractical to march in neat rows in brightly coloured uniforms, waiting for an officer to give the orders to fire or reload, when there's invisible spellcasting wizards, dragons, iron golems and more.

 

[JohnRTroy]

Of course you do realize that with magic and firearms existing side by side, warfare might not completely resemble warfare of the 18th and 19th centuries. It could be impractical to march in neat rows in brightly coloured uniforms, waiting for an officer to give the orders to fire or reload, when there's invisible spellcasting wizards, dragons, iron golems and more.

Technically, in fantasy military warfare without guns, you'd have to change infantry/calvary. This usually means the magic wielders cancel each other out on the battlefield, more or less. Think of a real-time-strategy game with units sort of cancelling each other out.

Guns usually make calvary less important than infantry. With magic involved, I could see a move to trench warfare very quickly.

 

[mmadsen]

The notion of guns in D&D has been discussed many times before, and a pattern I keep noticing is that people instinctively think of modern guns rather than early matchlocks.

Modern guns would presumably change the battlefield, but early matchlocks would simply be comparable to crossbows of the time, but much louder and scarier -- which is very, very important in real-life combat, but not-so-much in RPG combat, where everyone fights to the last hit point.

So you might make a matchlock pistol comparable to a hand crossbow, an arquebus comparable to a light crossbow, and a musket comparable to a heavy crossbow.

Reloading should take a long, long time -- which, I guess, fits in nicely with 4E's notion of per-encounter powers.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

When I usually describe guns in D&D I generally refer to Percussion-Cap or Cap and Ball Guns that were prevalent in the 19th century. Generally they're the type of guns that aren't anywhere near modern ones, but certainly without many of the flaws of the older ones. Semi-automatic weapons like revolvers are at least possible.

 

[Andor]

I've written this one enough times I should just keep a copy handy to re-post...

Anyhoo Mmadsen is right, firing mechanism are key.

Amusingly the most reliable mechanism you could make would be a magelock weapon where the weapon is fired by a minor fire cantrip enchanted into the gun. This makes all decent guns magic items and therefore too expensive to really change the world much.

Given the superiority of the magelock development of wheellocks and flintlocks might be long delayed.

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

#1) Spelljammer had guns nothing quite like a giff with a handcannon, eh what?

#2) Guns have very serious problems in fantasy settings, such as flammability of propellant (fireball vs infantry unit = death by cook off!);
hard to enchant ammo that gets heated red hot & squashed on firing;
damage reduction means many beasties would be immune ot bullets.

#3) Decent firearms *need* high technology. old unrifle dmuskets are crap, versus a couple of casters...same money to buy guns, you can hire a wizard or two...and avoid arming your peasants!

#4) Most folk do not understand guns. Guns are good because they can fire very rapidly, VERY precisely, at long range, they pack so much punch in so little a cross section armour is pierced easily.
However:
-Firearms are often less likely to kill you than edged weapons;
-they require a huge amount of support to machine, produce ammo etc;
-beyond simple defencive positions, it still requires a lot of work to make a gun-armed peasant into anything of real mobile offensive use (hence the idiocy of the line up and shoot battles), trained riflemen-soldiers are expensive veterans.
-armour still actually gives some measure of protection, bullets have crazy tendencies to ricochet or do very peculiar things indeed (seriously).
-a rifle in a tavern brawl or narrow dungeon is not much use at all
-Bullets do NOT knock you flying (except maybe when hit by a 50 cal machine gun and tha'ts more like you get bits blown off and you collapse, cannons can knock you around though)
-And frankly, faced with a wraith or the like, you are stuffed, sunshine, 'cause a bullet's gonna do bugger all to a ghostie!


So for those and many other possible reasons, guns in fantasy should not be thought of as being "super".

In my own games, a magically powered pistol does exist, fires copper or bronze bolts, hits extremely hard. Requires a wizard to recharge it though and wizard users from a certain island are infamous for using them, think wizards crossed with gunslingers.
See that's the problem, we Earth Humans htink guns = BANG! gunpwoder
Very very wrong, we're limited in scope. Other places do nto need to work liek our universe at all, nor it's people think like us.

The first incarnation of my bolt gun (telek, named after weapon in a book) was powered by a spring made from a gambado's "foot" (anyone recall that beastie? ), then i improved it to be Ring of Telekinesis.

Different ways of achieving things

hm 4th ed it would be Superior Ranged Weapon +3 hit, 1d10 dmg range 10/20; group crossbow (or pistol actually); load free (magazine holds 10 shots) price 1,500 gp, needs recharged by a Ritual.

 

[Afrodyte]

Actually, they'd probably work a lot like wands. The trick isn't to get them to work, but making them so a non-caster could use them.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

#4) Most folk do not understand guns. Guns are good because they can fire very rapidly, VERY precisely, at long range, they pack so much punch in so little a cross section armour is pierced easily.

We're talking about Flintlocks, Matchlocks, Wheel-locks and Percussion Caps, not Kalashnikovs or Heckler & Koch.

 

[Obryn]

They work great in WFRP.

Really, they add a nice dimension to the setting.

-O