Guns in D&D?

[TheAuldGrump]

Lots of good links to historical firearms info.

Keep in mind, however, that the D&D rules already hold Medieval realism at arms length in order to make the game more fun. I would highly recommend doing with firearms what seems more fun than worrying about realism in a game that already deals in abstractions.

It seems to me the two roads to go down would be:

1. Simple to use... once per combat. Simple weapons, but they take many rounds to reload. The game effect is going to be that everyone that can afford one is going to carry them (assuming they do decent damage) and use them in the first round. People with quickdraw and multiple attacks will want to carry around a bunch of them. That could be fun. Certainly introduces a new dynamic.

2. Hard to use, but worth learning. Exotic weapons, no harder to reload than a crossbow, but probably more damage (or better crits). This is the DMG approach, more or less. This approach means that only a few people will carry them, but those that do will get a lot of use of out them. In the end, it becomes more of a flavor thing than anything. They're basically exotic crossbows.

Two possible missteps:

1. Armor penetration. Yeah, firearms eventually became good at this. But so did bows. So did certain melee weapons. It seems a strange time to introduce the very real aspect of armor penetration for firearms but not other weapons. Plus, you have the complication of magic armor--is it so easily penetrated? If you use an armor as DR variant, this could work. Otherwise, I think it's too wonky for D&D.

2. Explosive misfire chances. Unless you're already using some kind of fumble rules (which personally, I don't feel are worth it in the end--I don't think the d20 offers enough variation to make the chance realistic, which is also why I don't consider the 1 an auto miss and a 20 an auto hit) it seems odd that firearms carry this danger and other weapons don't. It seems odd to me that if you have 20 riflemen line up fire their weapons, one will have his gun blow up in his face every time. But maybe it's years of playing Rolemaster long ago that have turned me off of that kind of thing.

Also, when thinking about "how firearms changed the real world" keep in mind that D&D isn't the real world. There are still spells, manticores and ghosts to deal with. Even if the enemy nation next door has cannons, your castle walls aren't useless in that they protect you from the owlbears and dire wolves prowling the countryside. Even if enemy humans carry guns that can puncture your armor, you'll still want to wear it to protect you from dragon claws and teeth.

Lastly, don't forget that in a D&D world with firearms, magical firearms and ammunition are likely to be as common as any other kind of magical weapons.

One other, very common, misconception: Guns are slower to load than crossbows.

Heavy crossbows in the real world (tm) were actually slower to load than a firearm. D&D vastly increases the speed with which a heavy crossbow can be reloaded.... So while I do not mind making firearms slow loading if you want realism you have to slow down the heavy crossbow as well.

On the other hand, the square headed crossbow bolt was actually better at penetrating armor of the period than a firearm. Bows and crossbows had a lot more variation in ammunition than guns did. Some were good at penetrating armor, some were better at wounding an unarmored or lightly armored target.

Finally, black powder firearms produce a great deal of really foul smelling smoke. The devil's own flatulence. Under poor conditions the smoke from a group of hand gunners can become a serious problem.

For misfires, the Brown Bess misfired under field conditions (in other words not cleaned thoroughly after every shot) about one in sixteen shots. Most misfires were either of the gun going *phut* and not shooting very far, or a hangfire, where there is a delay before the bulk of the powder ignites. (I have had a number of both occur to me while using early firearms.) A more annoying, though not damaging, error is the 'weld shot', where hot gases escaping around the soft lead bullet melt the metal enough that it becomes welded to the gun barrel. I have not had that one occur, but I have met folks that did.

I tend to give firearms a decent damage but an excellent critical multiplier. Those slow moving but massive soft lead balls did a great job of transferring energy to the target. Bones would often be pulverized.

The Auld Grump

 

[ceratitis]

you americans ,always bringing guns to everything. dont you realize the english arent going to invade????
Z

 

[Infernal Teddy]

you americans...

I'll have you know, Sir, that I consider this a grave insult, and that you will hear from my seconds soon.

The cheek...

 

[jasper]

As I said before my gun nut friends looked at the firearm rules in d&d 3.5 and said only way it could be done would be a breech loading flintlock. But most agreed the rules as game rules were ok. Some want them to be simple weapons.
I created a magical muskeeter PRC which uses the Arcana Archer as base. Basically flip the last two special ablities.
If you want to give firearms some AP ability just cut the ac rating for armours in 1/2. Plate is ac+4 (but keep any magical bonuse as is) this makes armor still protect and have dragons laughing at your dragoons.

 

[FnordBear]

In my setting I use basic firearms, match, wheel, flintlock etc.

I tend to keep the rules simple becasue I follow the KISS principle of game design.

My rules are as follows

All firearms are treaded as simple weapons for proficeny purposes.

For weapon focus/specilization type feats a certain type of firearm must be chosen for the feat (such as weapon focus pistol, weapon specialization musket)

For reload times I give pistol style weapons a reload time of 2 full round actions that provoke aoo.

For rifle style weapons I require 4 full round actions to reload that provoke aoo.

For ranges they will very depending on the firearm, we do as short a range increment as 10ft and as long as 25 ft.

Rifles may be fitted with a bayonet attachment that allows most daggers to be used as a bayonet (I know this isnt realistic but it works in game) and allows the rifle to be wielded as a short spear that cannot be thrown.

To offset the long reload and make them desirable on the battlefield pistol style weapons deal 2d6 damage and rifle style weapons deal 2d8 damage (scaled up and down for diffrent sized weapons) All firearms (if we are using standard RAW d&d rules) have a x3 crit or if we are using the VP/WP rules we give them a 19-20 crit range instead.

We do not use malfunction rules or any other such (this is heroic fantasy after all!) But we do make a nod to thier expense making them rather expensive (all firearms costing as much as a masterwork weapon and masterwork firearms being worth 1000+ gp) putting them mostly in the hands of well-off adventurers and well equiped armys.

We also introduced racial firearms, such as orcish thunderclubs (a matchlock weapon that doubles as a greatclub) dwarven blunderbuss and dwarven doublebus(shotguns!) and the much reviled (by the party nto the setting) enchanted elven long rifles (hey a human-bane thundering rifle wielded by elite elven marksmen will ruin anyone's day!)

Overall we find these rules to give good pros and cons to firearms and made them desirable in some situations and not in others.

 

[Andor]

Also note that you can replace feats with henchmen. Fire the rifle, hand off to your hireling reloader, grab the next musket and fire. That's what the three musketeers did after all. As many rounds as it takes to reload, that's how many hirelings you need.

 

[The_Gneech]

Flintlocks? 2-3 shots per minute, tops. (3-4 rounds to reload.)

Crossbows ditto. The object is to come up with something playable, fun, worth the effort, and not totally out of whack. In the context of a D&D combat, taking a full round to reload a gun is a long, long time.

-The Gneech

 

[tzor]

you americans ,always bringing guns to everything. dont you realize the english arent going to invade????
Z

We're not worried about invasion, we just love the "fog of war." Can't have a smoke field battleground when you only have english bowmen shooting at each other.

Monte makes a good argument (of course he does that alot) about the notion that the realism has to be put at arms length in order to make the game more fun. Wow is this a 180 degree notion from the good old days from 1E when combat rounds were 1 minute long, and some weapons actually had a rate of fire of 1/2 and 1/3. Then the firearms rules (as given in two issues of the Dragon whose numbers escape me at the moment) were highly reasonable, but meele combat was way bizzare. (You mean I only get a change to hit you once in any given minute?) Now with the 6 second round and the lack of anything beyond the "full round action" it's hard to come up with realistic rates of fire.

(Hard but not impossible, that dragon still only gets one breath weapon every so many rounds, but at least he gets to do other fun stuff inbetween.)

On the other hand, when firearms were first introduced to AD&D through the Dragon, they came in with their logical cousin the cannon. Is there any good cannon stats for d20? I always thought it was a fun potential plot hook for low level adventurers to go after a fire belching dragoon, only to find out that they are really attacking a dwarven canon unit.

 

[grimslade]

This is D&D after all

Also note that you can replace feats with henchmen. Fire the rifle, hand off to your hireling reloader, grab the next musket and fire. That's what the three musketeers did after all. As many rounds as it takes to reload, that's how many hirelings you need.

Why bother with the expense of a henchmen? Unseen Servant Horde will provide the service for you and your fellow Magical Marksmen for a pittance of components.

I do however find the concept of an Edward Teach character leaping aboard a ship with bits of fuse burning in his hair and braces of pistols very intriguing. Maybe a dwarf with bits of fuse in his beard to light his blunderbuss...

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Guns in D&D? Many times and never with any significant impact upon game balance or even setting spirit and flavor.