guns in my campaign

[jehoshaphat]

i'm toying with putting guns in my campaign. after looking at the renaissance era weapons described in the dmg i feel like, firstly, that they do too little damage (a gunshot was devastating even back then) that they should somehow ignore at least some armor class, and that for that era weapon they reload too quickly. anyone have any ideas? I wouldn't mind a pistol doing 1d20 damage. Ranged touch seems a little overpowering, but maybe more realistic. I plan on guns being very very rare, very expensive, and very slow to reload. Any help would rock.

 

[Geoff Watson]

Realistically, guns weren't that great. Sure they were easier to use than other weapons, but they weren't any better.

Armour DOES help against guns.
Muskets/etc are about the same as crossbows.

The gun stats in the DMG are about right, in comparison with other D&D weapons.

Geoff.

 

[trepanier]

The main advantage is psychological. Agaisnt low levels, roll a fear effect if heared for the 1st time or against a formation of musketeers.

Will roll against 10. Shaken if failed, fumble = frightenen- cumulative

damage is ok. Your supossed to dodge, roll with the blow- only under constitution score you should get REAL damage.

Ok to reduce AC a little. But armor does coutn. The king of Sweden was kill in the 30 years war by gunshot the day he didn't wear his full plate...

 

[00durrin]

i guess the problem i have with it is that it seems like it would be MUCH more damaging to get shot one time with a gun (regardless of the gun almost) than stabbed one time with a sword. maybe not though.

 

[AMG]

Guns are not a bad idea. I would adjust the damage based on the players skill and how far the target is from the PC. If a marks man is point blank with the target, I would give a d30 damage. The same marks man would get a d12 damage from a distance. An unskilled shooter would get a d20 from point blank vs. a d6 from a distance etc.

HTH,

-AMG-

 

[Humanophile]

Don't get me started on guns as per the DMG. Too much effort went into making sure they were "balanced", if you ask me.

First, they should be simple weapons. Especially the modern ones, but (and correct me if I'm wrong), learning how to load, aim, and fire an early firearm shouldn't be that much harder than learning how to use a crossbow effectively or how to knife fight. They don't need a feat cost to make them uncommon; the gold cost, relative fragility, lack of magical upgrades, noise, and abyssal rate of fire already do that.

Second, they should do a little more damage than a crossbow should, even if it wouldn't "realistically" work that way, it feels more "gunlike" to me, and should speak some to the gun's penetrating power. But it'd probably work best as increasing the gun's damage dice by one step for all firearms and modern weapons. And similarly, increasing the critical rating to 19-20/X3 would also make them slightly more lethal and frightening, without making them too horrid against the PC's. They'd still be pretty much a Wizard's weapon or the armanent of a rich empire, but the mark of a true high-level hero is still his sword. The cost would be prohibitive for most people, as would the loss of attacks for most PC-types.

Making firearms into RTA's also feels "gunnish", but would be an absolute pain to balance, and as such I'll just handwave it away unless the gunner is within 5' of the target. Which makes it absolutely foolish to do if you're in real combat, and not worth worrying about if the opponent is helpless on the grounds that he's already helpless. (The noise should foul up the old "Sleep and CdG" trick, though.)

And finally, if firearms are used, there should be a feat that makes reloading them once a round a free action. Something based on Rapid Reload, probably. Even though it should only require a +1 BAB, since as I said before guns do strike me as a wizard weapon.

So, any opinions/feedback on this?

 

[Dr Tenebrous]

If you're talking about renaissance era firearms, the DMG looks pretty spot-on to me, in comparison to bows and crossbows. Remember, the ONLY advantage that black powder firearms had over bows/crossbows was that it took relatively little training (a few weeks) to make them effective as part of a large unit. Bowmen and crossbowmen took MUCH longer to train, as in years. A Welsh/English longbow of the era, in the hands of a trained user, is more accurate, has greater penetrating power, a longer range, and a MUCH greater rate of fire. Rate of fire on Heavy Crossbow is about equivalent to arquebus or musket, but in all other respects, it enjoys the same advantages as longbow.

Remember how they used arquebus units. Large formations with volley fire at the enemy. They didn't aim, they pointed it thataway, closed their eyes (against flash and particles of powder), and jerked the lever when ordered. After the first three or four volleys, the smoke cloud was thick enough that they couldn't see the enemy, anyway. Rate of fire for a good unit was about 40 shots an hour. (i.e. once every 15 rounds) Somebody who could actually hit things was very rare, so making it an exotic weapon proficiency makes sense. Remember that these are smoothbore weapons. Rifling was not introduced until well into the industrial revolution.

A site that will give you an idea of just how much fun a musket was to handle is http://www.vincents.demon.co.uk/musket.htm#Drill which includes (among other things) the list of steps involved in loading, firing and reloading a musket.

Now, if we were talking modern firearms, then it would be a whole other ball of wax.

 

[NoOneofConsequence]

I don't know if this is helpful, but until the introduction of cartridge, a gun had very little chance of penetrating armour. Ranged touch attack should realistically be for revolver level tech and higher only.

Also, consider making a pistol a ranged weapon that doesn't attract an attack of opportunity in close quarters - after all a pistol is really a close quarters weapon.

 

[Lannon]

Second, they should do a little more damage than a crossbow should, even if it wouldn't "realistically" work that way, it feels more "gunlike" to me, and should speak some to the gun's penetrating power.

It simply is not true that a wound caused by a gun is going to be as damaging or less damaging than one created by an arrow or bolt. The wound channel and damage effects of a firearm are considerable more terrible than those caused by a bow or crossbow. This is due to the mushrooming effect of the bullet (especially soft lead bullets like those used in the past).

A wound channel for an arrow may look like this.

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A wound channel caused by a firearm will show obvious signs of the mushrooming of the missile and may look something like this.

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The damage and shock caused by bullet wounds is significantly greater. Damage listing in the DMG are very very far off what they should be. Bows are NOT good ranged weapons. This is why guns eventually replaced them on the battlefield.

The problem with introducing guns or really combat into the core rules system has to do with the way that they handle damage from weapons. AC and HP make the system unusable for any accurate portrayal of actual physical damage. After all, how is it that you SHOT a man only to have him still dodge or shrug off your shot because he has hit points left? More problems arise from the use of AC. Guns have this affect of partially, under the core D&D rules system, of removing the heroic feel of the system. It is suited for handling blows that the combatants can see coming not for handling effectively invisible flying missiles with low trajectories.

Lannon

 

[Bug]

I tend to agree with Lannon.

I use guns in my campaign as well. I use pretty much what is listed in the DMG but with a few alterations. There was a simple rule that I came across a couple of months ago that said with a firearm that does d10 damage, whenever you roll a 10, reroll the die and add the result. If the second result is a 10, reroll again and continue to add results.

This allows for firearms, on occasion, to do a very significant amount of damage in a single hit.

Another thing that I use is adding the AC bonus of the defender's armor to the damage that they take. I only do this when the target is wearing metal armor that was not specifically designed to withstand a musket ball. But, if you think about it, it makes sense. What is chain-mail to a flintlock pistol except shrapnel?

I also enforce lead poisoning (DC 16 Fortitude) from some untreated or severe gunshot wounds. Critical hits could also possibly result in bone fragments that permanently lower DEX.

This enhanced fatality is balanced by a rate of fire of 1/3 for flintlocks and 1/4 for muskets, which is much higher than the actual rate of fire. Most players fire their guns in the first round and then holster them to engage in melee.

Using the above suggestions, I have had flintlocks used in my present campaign now for over eight months without making too big of a digression from the tone of the game, and without having to overall the rules in the DMG for firearms.