D&D 5E Guns in your world, and in mine!

[TheCosmicKid]

I guess that is why you see ranged weapons rule the day over melee in modern terms. At some point, armor becomes obsolete until new materials or applications are invented. It would break my verisimilitude if something did not change in regards to even fantasy expectations when firearms are included.

There's a difference between "something should change" and "steel plate armor provides no more protection than a layer of baby oil".

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I...completely disagree. Eberron, for instance, is absolutely, inarguably, unequivocally, a fantasy setting.

It's a fantasy setting because it has stuff like the daelkyr and the dragonmarks and the Church of the Silver Flame. If your characters are dealing with those mystical elements, you're doing fantasy. But if your adventure revolves around an engineering problem aboard the lightning rail or some other consequence of industrialized magical technology, then yeah, you're veering hard into the realm of science fiction.

I'd be more inclined to call Star Wars a fantasy setting in space, with advanced tech elements...

Me too!

Also, magic isn't mysterious to its users in dnd, regardless of setting.

You sure about that?

 

[Caliburn101]

The best way to deal with firearms in a game with the ridiculousness of AC conflating armour, evasion and parrying is to have the Attack Roll opposed by a Dex Save.

Ancient and medieval armours were irrelevant against firearms - only the ability too get out of the way by using speed, unpredictable movement and cover can save your ass.

Attack Roll vs. Dex Save simulates this nicely, and without slowing things down at the table.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Ancient and medieval armours were irrelevant against firearms...

This is simply not a true statement. Muzzle velocities of early firearms were low enough that plate could deflect or stop a bullet (depending on the range, the angle of the hit, and so on). You certainly wouldn't want to just stand in front of a gunman and let him shoot at you willy-nilly, but you wouldn't want to do that with a longbowman or an arbalester, either. In any case, armor was a lot better than nothing.

If you're not convinced, we can go to a black powder firing range. I'll wear full plate, you'll wear swim trunks, we'll both stand down at the far end and see who is horribly killed first.

 

[KahlessNestor]

This is simply not a true statement. Muzzle velocities of early firearms were low enough that plate could deflect or stop a bullet (depending on the range, the angle of the hit, and so on). You certainly wouldn't want to just stand in front of a gunman and let him shoot at you willy-nilly, but you wouldn't want to do that with a longbowman or an arbalester, either. In any case, armor was a lot better than nothing.

If you're not convinced, we can go to a black powder firing range. I'll wear full plate, you'll wear swim trunks, we'll both stand down at the far end and see who is horribly killed first.

I agree. I have seen film reel of experiments putting WW1 soldiers in some type of plate mail and being fired on at close range (30 feet or so. Still within the folm frame, at any rate). They didn't go down, or even get hurt. And this is with modern gunpowder (not blackpowder) and cartridge systems.

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[UselessTriviaMan]

And at this point, the age-old argument about guns vs. armor, is where I check out of the thread.

If you want realism in your RPG, you need to play something else besides D&D. It's an abstraction, and there's very little realism anywhere in this game. Arguing about these finicky little fine points is (to me) an utter waste of time and effort.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It's a fantasy setting because it has stuff like the daelkyr and the dragonmarks and the Church of the Silver Flame. If your characters are dealing with those mystical elements, you're doing fantasy. But if your adventure revolves around an engineering problem aboard the lightning rail or some other consequence of industrialized magical technology, then yeah, you're veering hard into the realm of science fiction.

Me too!

You sure about that?

Completely sure, at least in case of arcane magic. Even divine and nature magic is, at most, mysterious in terms of where it comes from. How it works is predictable. Arcane magic is straight up scientific.

Eberron is a fantasy setting, and would be regardless of the elements you list. The Silver Flame isn't even especially mysterious. Heck, divine magic comes from faith, and most clergy and such know that. Again, mysterious to commoners perhaps, but not to the people using it.
The lightning rail is a fantasy world element. It isn't sci fi, at all. Warforged and airships, either. They are all powered and/or created by magic, in a fantastical world that runs on magic. That is fantasy.

A world where the street lights are powered by a magic ritual, ships fly through the air because magically boyant wood and bound elementals, and there are beings made of living wood and stone who think and feel and can access divine (faith based) magics just as well as any human, and thus very well might have souls, is a fantasy world.

or perhaps you think Harry Potter isn't fantasy? Magic is understood, studied in school, predictable, and permeates every part of life, from flying buses to healing potions.

A fantasy world is fantasy because because it is fantastical, not because magic is mysterious and can't be understood.

An adventure set on the Lightning Rail, dealing with the system that moves the thing forward, would absolutely be fantasy. It's a magical floating train! I don't remember for sure, but the forward momentum probably either comes from a bound elemental, or the same magic that makes the thing float.

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

Historical guns:
Guns are simple weapon for the masses (and cheap in upkeep) but less effective than bows.

I am thinking using the simple weapons for the masses idea for a campaign i'm brainstorming about.

My idea was for the guns to copy the damage of the crossbows with a damage bonus of +3 but not adding a ability score bonus to damage.
So a character with a dex lower then 16 would be better of using a gun instead of a bow/xbow and if you have a dex of 18 or better your better of going with the bow.

so a group of pesants equiped with guns don't hit so often but if they hit they deal decent damage.

 

[Salamandyr]

No flintlocks-too modern

Were I to add firearms to my next campaign--I'd either go science fantasy; with radium powered rifles with 200 mile ranges like on Barsoom, or keep my firearms historically accurate to the medieval time period---armies have cannon, and the arquebus exists. Neither would be particularly useful for the individual adventurer (though they probably would encounter arquebusiers among the defenders of the dungeons they raid), but they could make use of cast iron grenades.

 

[Tony Vargas]

This is simply not a true statement. Muzzle velocities of early firearms were low enough that plate could deflect or stop a bullet (depending on the range, the angle of the hit, and so on).

Yep, there was a whole back and forth between armor and firearms for quite a while there. Armor-makers would 'proof' their armor by firing a pistol at it (and customers would bring pistols bearing a hotter load). Firearms got more refined, armor got heavier. Eventually you had cuirassiers wearing armor so heavy that only partial coverage (about like a D&D 'breastplate') was practical, and the armor started spending more time in carts than worn, and was finally largely abandoned.

But, armor keeps coming back. Today we have soldiers wearing body armor once again. It's a constant arms race. Bottom line, the DM's free to have one or the other on top - or more or less at a draw - in his setting. The editions of D&D that have 'balanced' light & heavy armors make that a bit easier in some ways. Those that emphasize heavy-armor dependence or make Touch AC or DEX saves a big blind spot for some classes complicate the option of de-emphasizing armor. (I'm not sure where 5e falls in that analysis, for the most part it seems like going DEX/light armor instead of STR/heavy armor is pretty seamless, but maybe not for every class).