Guns in D&D - A Hot Take

[TiwazTyrsfist]

In real life, statistics show that roughly 1 in 3 victims die from a single gunshot wound, 2/3 survive assuming they get immediate medical attention.

The average person in D&D is modeled by the Level 1 Commoner

A Level 1 Commoner has 4hp

Therefore, the bullet must average 1/3rd of hits at 4+ dmg, and 2/3rd of hits at 3 or less dmg.

Therefore the correct damage for a bullet from a modern firearm is 1d3+1.

The true danger of bullets must be modeled with special features such as ignoring armor, and guns being allowed to fire multiple times as a single attack.

 

[Immortal Sun]

When I want to use guns, I use the ones presented in the Mass Effect d20. I don't play a lot of d20 modern, but these are the only weapons I've ever seen that actually feel deadly in play.

 

[WhosDaDungeonMaster]

How many of those victims die from blood loss and not the immediate damage of the bullet, though? I think more people die from the blood loss than the immediate affect of the wound.

Options you might like could be allowing attacks by gun at advantage. After all, a bullet is MUCH faster than other attacks, and its small point of impact could penetrate armors and hide more easily (also represented by giving advantage).

 

[77IM]

Yes! It is a pet peeve of mine when people want to give guns extraordinary damage. I get that being shot can be deadly, but is it really more deadly than being cleft in twain by a greataxe? Or stabbed by a shortsword? The advantage of modern guns is their rate of fire and ease of use.

Ease of use = most guns should be simple weapons. (I could see something like a sniper rifle being treated as a martial weapon because learning to use it effectively takes a lot of practice.) Rate of fire = you can do extra damage, but it chews through ammo. For game balance, I'd make the effect modest, otherwise you overpower assault rifles and machine guns.

However, historical guns were a bit different. I'm not an expert, but I'm under the impression that getting hit with a musket ball was pretty devastating. But, reloading took a positively un-fun amount of time. If we use the crossbow rules for reloading (which are unrealistically fast), then the damage should probably be on par with a crossbow, too, for game balance. Honestly, I think you could do a lot worse than re-skinning crossbows to model early firearms.

 

[WhosDaDungeonMaster]

That is a good point 77IM about rate of fire. Historically a trained soldier could load and fire a musket at best 3 times per minute. Such a weapon would only fire once and then take a full action or longer to reload.

 

[77IM]

A popular theory is that guns took over in warfare not because of their damage, range, or ease of use, but because they are loud. When you hear a row of guys fire mini-cannons at you, it is kinda scary.

In most early gun battles, the majority of injuries were caused by bayonets, often after one side had routed. The gun volleys were just the intimidating set-up for the bayonet charge. So the theory goes.

 

[WhosDaDungeonMaster]

Well, earlier guns were also fairly inaccurate. Which was why the volley system was used: blanketing an area more likely ensured some hits. Also due to the time required to reload, once a foe got too close you were much better off fighting hand-to-hand.

Personally, I will never use guns in D&D LOL, and never looked at the rules for them in the DMG. I think reducing the damage would be appropriate. Trust me, a Revolver is no more deadly than a sword thrust.

However, another suggestion I would offer is increasing the Critical range for guns to 19-20 or making it so on a 20, guns to triple damage instead of double. Just some thoughts.

 

[MarkB]

The one modern-setting campaign I've run so far for D&D 5e gave guns similar damage output to equivalent base-game ranged weapons. The only major difference was a couple of extra firing-mode options. Basically, the reason characters ran around with guns instead of crossbows was because it was a modern setting and those were the commonly-available weapons.

I can see the temptation to do otherwise when running a standard setting wherein guns are introduced as a newly-invented weapon. In that circumstance they're supposed to be more scary than the conventional alternatives, otherwise why would anyone bother with inventing them, and even if they did, why would anyone else care?

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I'd model the idea of guns punching trough armors with the same mechanic as with the psy-blade from the UA Mystic.

Phantom Knife
Starting at 14th level, you can make an attack
that phases through most defenses. As an action,
you can make one attack with your soul knife.
Treat the target’s AC as 10 against this attack,
regardless of the target’s actual AC

So, something like this:

1d10 or 12 piercing, ranged, ammunition, heavy, special: action that allows to make a ranged attack against AC 10.

 

[jmartkdr]

Re: guns ignoring armor: plate armor was invented specifically to stop bullets. It's even where the term bullet-proof comes from.

As metallurgy improved, higher loads became possible, which made the armor weight requirements too much to practically wear even when you factor in that people only wore armor during actual battles. Plus, cannons don't care what you're wearing. Pre-musket firearms weren't really better than the crossbow available at the time. The rate, effective range, lethality, etc. were all fairly close; in many cases which you used had more to do with logistics (was it easier to keep in bolts or in powder?) than the relative merits of the weapons.

But being too realistic isn't fun, so I generally just make guns mechanically equivalent to crossbows at the same price point.. In other words, if you can start with a gun, it has the same traits as a crossbow. If it's better than a crossbow, it costs more - roughly equivalent to where I'd put a magic crossbow with the same traits. That's why I'd use the prices in the dmg for early firearms if anyone asked. They seem about right for the small benefit.