D&D 5E Guns with a kick! Effect on game world?

[GameOgre]

I'm fine with the way firearms work in 5E. it really just makes them like everything else BUT what if you want to make them more like real life? What if you want the game world to be in the throws of advancement?

What if Firearms ignored armor? Just punched right through it!

If that was the case and guns became more commonplace(not sure how long that would take) what effect would that have on a D&D society?

I'm thinking of creating a game set in a early renaissance type of game world.

Less Tolkien and Conan and more ....something else.

I love the idea of Goblins with crude guns and Dwarven armies pulling massive Cannon.

 

[Morrus]

BUT what if you want to make them more like real life?

Why would you select guns to be the one thing in D&D that works like real life? Not that you shouldn't - it's your game, after all - but nothing else in D&D works like real life.

I guess if you made them like real life, they would horrifically injure and maim people in ugly ways, who die slowly in agony, if not from the wound itself, then from resultant infections. I'm not sure I want that in my escapist fantasy, though!

What if Firearms ignored armor? Just punched right through it!

The kevlar manufacturers of the world hate you already!

Now, fireballs in real life - that's pretty ugly. First degree burns all over the body caused by unavoidable area effects. Nasty stuff. Even worse if your'e wearing metal armour. Much scarier than guns!

 

[Ath-kethin]

What if Firearms ignored armor? Just punched right through it!

If that was the case and guns became more commonplace(not sure how long that would take) what effect would that have on a D&D society?

A book on the late Renaissance will answer this question.

What effect will it have? Well, all of a sudden training in armor becomes more for ceremony than function, and any idiot who can pull a lever becomes as dangerous on the battlefield as a highly skilled knight.

You can bet your gener-bending butt that the old protection from normal missiles spell would get developed real fast though.

 

[Lancelot]

I'm kind of with Morrus on this. Every time I read a thread about how guns aren't lethal enough, I just think: "I'd far prefer to be shot with a typical handgun wielded by a typical trained user at (say) 30 feet of range... rather than a guy who can press 140 pounds striking a solid blow against my unprotected body with a sharpened 4-foot length of steel."

The former might kill me, but there's a solid chance it won't. And if I survive it, there's an even better chance I'll return to physical normality over the next 3 months (assuming it didn't take out a major organ or nerve system).

The latter will basically end my life. If by chance I survive the blow and associated massive blood loss, there's a very high probability that I've suffered a crippling injury or disfigurement. And I don't even want to know what it would be like to be hit by (say) an ogre using a battleaxe.

D&D ultimately abstracts all of that guff using hit points. If you want a critical system that more closely matches real life, then expect to see typical humans being killed, permanently maimed or laid up for months on end every time they take a hit. From anything.

...

However, in the spirit of being constructive, here are some thoughts on how a fantasy world would deal with it.

Firstly, not all guns can punch through all armors... and you don't need a gun to do so. A longbow arrow will punch through plate armor... where a small caliber bullet might bounce off. An ogre swinging a pick-axe doesn't get any special "armor penetration" abilities in D&D... but, if such a thing were possible in the real world, I can guarantee you it'd have penetrative abilities that would make guns look like jokes. So, if you're going to give guns special properties to ignore AC, I'd suggest you'd need to do similar for anything that could apply the same force over a small area. Manticore tail spikes, the sting of a giant scorpion... basically, any supernaturally potent piercing damage.

Secondly, I'd imagine that any fantasy world that had to deal with firearms would develop new types of armor with ablative properties. More... curves? Fewer shot traps? I'm not an armour expert, but I recall that's one of the factors that heavily influenced tank design as WW2 progressed. Tanks started developing more curved surfaces to increase the chance of deflecting shots (reduced force on flat surface). Perhaps the same concepts could be applied to plate mail. I'd certainly expect more plate and less leather/chain.

Thirdly, I'd expect wizards would be at even more of a premium than before. An area-effect anti-projectiles spell would be a huge military advantage... but, then, the same is true if you're just using arrows. Protection from normal missiles would have been just as relevant at Agincourt as it would have been at Stalingrad. So, I guess, probably no change. It'd be nice to have magic that could protect against bullets, but it's equally nice to have magic to protect against fireballs or ogres-with-pickaxes. It's just one more damage source that can kill a dude. If guns were so widespread that they appeared in every field battle, and if (illogically) they were the only things with special armour penetration capabilities, then I'd suggest most soldiers would simply stop wearing armour... rather than politicians spending precious gold to protect against it.

On that line, the economic considerations would be the most interesting. I think the biggest impact of firearm availability isn't going to be in terms of combat rules (...because there are so many equally lethal things in D&D), but in terms of backstory. Any critical component that goes into the firearm or its ammunition becomes a valuable resource. If black powder / copper / pixie dust is used in the production of "firearms for the masses", then control of that resource becomes important. Mining becomes key. Adventurers are hired to find, acquire, steal or destroy firearms supplies. It basically becomes a gold rush. The trivial power of guns is irrelevant to adventurers (who can throw fireballs, heal gunshot wounds with the wave of a hand, and summon elementals who simply can't be affected by them), but their value to non-adventurers is immense. Again, much like the real world. Part of the mystique of guns is that they can turn any shmoe into a potential killer... whereas it takes a bit of training to become Robin Hood with a bow.

...which in turn suggests that the average adventuring party would actually be anti-guns, and would probably actively look for ways to destroy production or resources. Why give a 0-level peasant an even chance? If I was a highly-trained swordsman, I'd fear being made redundant by convenient mass-produced weapons. I wouldn't wait for the moment when I'm testing the strength of my plate mail or the wizard's warding spell against firearms in combat... I'd be using my powers to destroy the capability to produce such weapons before they ever got off the production line.

...which in turn suggests a campaign setting where racial or cultural violence is commonplace against any civilization which promotes the use of firearms, before they begin replacing magic or skill-based weapons. The dwarves are building cannon production facilities? Time to slap them with crippling economic sanctions, covertly assassinate or replace their leaders, sabotage their facilities or, at worst, declare war before they can produce (or proliferate) such game-changing weapons. Once the weapons exist so widely that spells and swords are no longer applicable... congratulations! You're now playing Axis & Allies, not D&D.

 

[GameOgre]

Actually guys I'm not REALLY looking to make guns more lethal. That might be a side effect of what I'm looking to do though.

What I want is for armor to become (or start to become) more obsolete and to advance technology past the medieval era.

To give it a more renaissance feel.


Realistic was not the right word. I don't give two #$#$ about realism. What I am looking to do is advance things along to a later type time period than medieval.

 

[Morrus]

In that case, I'd say the primary advantage guns had was that they were really easy to use. A bowman could penetrate armor, as could many skilled melee weapon users, but they take a lot of training. Transitioning to gunmen, suddenly you have much lower training overheads, leading to a much bigger pool of available missilemen.

So it's not so much about the weapon's cabilities, as it is about its ease of use. Guns need to be incredibly easy to use by anyone. Do that, and armor starts to fade away.

 

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

In that case, I'd say the primary advantage guns had was that they were really easy to use. A bowman could penetrate armor, as could many skilled melee weapon users, but they take a lot of training. Transitioning to gunmen, suddenly you have much lower training overheads, leading to a much bigger pool of available missilemen.

So it's not so much about the weapon's cabilities, as it is about its ease of use. Guns need to be incredibly easy to use by anyone. Do that, and armor starts to fade away.

back in the 3e days I had a DM play around with the idea... he gave everyone (yup even commoners) prof in firearms, then made them all hit like +1 weapons (or +1 higher if they had enhancments) for DR, and said almost no one had martial weapon profs (PCs were the execption)...

 

[Lehrbuch]

To give it a more renaissance feel...What I am looking to do is advance things along to a later type time period than medieval.

Well, you know what you want it to look like then. Like the renaissance.

You can just do this, of course. You don't really need to make any mechanics changes.

Just have NPCs mostly not wear armour and carry more firearms. You can just adjust the AC of humanoid monsters (Gnolls, Orcs, etc) to reflect that they aren't wearing as heavy armour, and re-calculate their damage for firearms. To make things simpler I'd just leave non-armoured monsters (Dragons, et al) as they are.

Then PCs can either wear armour or not, depending on what the players want to do. If they do (and therefore want to be weirdos), just give them the standard AC; so they'll have better AC relative to NPCs who are not wearing armour. On the other hand, prices of armour might increase due to availability problems.

That would seem to achieve what you want, without bothering to make game mechanic changes.

If you do really feel you need to make a game mechanic change, then I think making firearms ignore armour is about the worst possible idea. It does make some sense from a "realism" perspective. However, it means you need two ACs for every PC/NPC (with and without firearms) and you will constantly need to make decisions about monsters who aren't really wearing armour and whether their AC needs to be reduced or not due to being hit by firearms (and you'll need to make decisions all the time about magic that affects AC).

 

[NotActuallyTim]

Divide armors into two new types: bullet resistant and not. Not has a set AC of, I don't know, 10 vs. people with guns. Resistant gets to keep it's AC.

You could either make up new armors entirely, or decide that the old armors can just have additional padding built into them or magic or something to make them resistant, and if nobody bothers to upgrade they're on the path to being swiss cheese.

Then use guns. They do hitpoint damage. No need for further changes.

 

[Imaculata]

In my pirate setting, anyone that wears heavy armor on board a ship better pray that they don't loose their footing, especially during a storm. So as a result, people wear leather at best. But armor still has a function. Even bullets can bounce off a plate suit of armor, depending on the weapon and caliber. But when everyone needs to be able to swim (and not sink like a brick) armor tends to fall out of favor quickly.