Guns!!

[Luke da Puke]

Give me feedback/ tips for my rules concerning guns;

These are the classic ball-and-powder pistols and muskets

These weapons are fairly new, so only the milatary of advanced nations will be able to make them. (There will of course be exeptions, e.g an old gunslinger with a brace of pistols, ect)

Nearly all guns are immune to magic, but thus cannot be enchanted. This is because the are the pinnacle of technolgy, and technolgy and science defy magic. The expitions are guns forged with 'magic' metals. (Adamanite, mithril ect)

Each type of gun is a extoic profinescy (Execpt pistols)

To use a gun you must load it and fire it. This can take time, espically if the last shot misfired or if it was a dud.

1.0 Weapons Chart

Name Cost/ ammo cost*(GP) Firing time/reloading time+ Misfire chance Dud chance* Damage
Pistol 50/10 1 seg/ 1 seg 2/10 1/10
Musket 100/25 1 round 1/10 1/10
Cannon 500/200 1 round/1 round 3/10 Never


*per enought resources for 20 firings

+If no time if given, reloading is part of firing (E.g reload, BANG!, next round, reload, BANG! ect)

Damage;pistol 1d8, musket 1d12, cannon 2d20

Add DEX modifier to To Hit chance. If a dud/ misfire occurs, a) not shot is fired, b) the weapon must be cleaned out



Name Time taken to clean out
Pistol 1 segment
Musket 2rounds
Cannon 3 rounds


All done! (I think!)

 

[SuedodeuS]

It looks pretty decent, although you made the same mistake as I did on my first post. This board condenses any number of spaces into just 1, making most tables difficult to read. If you use the [ CODE ] [ /CODE ] option (no spaces), however, you'll end up with a table formatted where each character takes up exactly the same amount of space and all the spaces are maintained.

Personally, I'd probably increase the cost of the weapons (although not necessarily the ammunition). This is probably a null point, though, since the weapons wouldn't be available for sale anyway.

You mention that proficiency with muskets and cannons are exotic, but you didn't mention what the pistol was. Were you intending it to be martial or simple? Also, I was curious as to what a "segment" was? Is this like a catch-all phrase that can be a standard action or move-equivalent action?

One last comment, this one about the magic/science thing. Having things created through modestly advanced science be immune to magic/unenchantable makes science into a "magical" force of its own - specifically, antimagic. You could probably instead have it where the technology is simply too advanced for normal run-of-the-mill magic to be able to augment it (I'd still make it vulnerable to magic - just because it's been incorporated into a gun shouldn't make some piece of steel immune to heat metal or the like). You could put this into the rules by making it cost more to enchant (maybe half again as much?), require a Craft (gunsmith) check by the mage doing the enchanting, or a combination of the two.
[edit: I forgot to mention this. From a gameplay perspective, having firearms made of normal steel being unable to be enchanted just means that everyone would utilize a different material (mithral or maybe adamantine) to make it. Eventually, being able to fire an arrow with a +4 enchantment and the flaming quality and taking advantage of your strength bonus just by using a mighty +4 flaming composite longbow is going to outweigh any advantage of using the musket rifle. The fact that an archer can get off multiple attacks in a round is just icing on the cake.]

 

[ValhallaGH]

I find the implication of the magical immunity quite interesting.

Can normal guns ignore magical defenses? Does this include armor (or just the magic part)? How about Force effects like Mage Armor, Bracers of Armor or the Shield spell?

How do guns interact with things that have DR X/Magic?

 

[JiffyPopTart]

In my game I made guns as such....

1. Make ranged touch-attacks, not normal attacks.

2. Take a full-round-action to reload.

3. Can only be used by gnomes (the powerder was a gnome-only magical item).

4. Pistols have a 10' range increment (max 5X)/Rifles have a 30' range increment (max 5X).

5. Damage is 2d6/18-20 X2.

DS

 

[wargear]

I am planning on introducing guns into my campaign soon. The setting has millennia of fallen civilisations and the ruins of said, the firearms technology will be a relic of a long extinct civilisation.
As for the stats, i'll be using the dmg stats mostly, and allowing enchantment like any other missile weapon.

In my game I made guns as such....

1. Make ranged touch-attacks, not normal attacks.

Brilliant idea, I think i'll go with that.

3. Can only be used by gnomes (the powerder was a gnome-only magical item).

Sadly, there are no gnomes in my campaign world.

 

[GreatLemur]

1. Make ranged touch-attacks, not normal attacks.

This is a very interesting idea that's been discussed here a number of times in the past. You might want to check out the most recent thread on the subject. Some very good issues were raised, and alternative ways of representing armor penetration were suggested.

 

[Luke da Puke]

Cool....

Thanks for posting on the rules!!
Yes, segment is a 'catch all' (cool term) word that I got from Temple of Elemtal Evil for PC.
Guns would penatrate all magic.
Magical metal weapons would cost the great wheel (hahahahaha!)
The guns ar'nt soppused to replace bows and crossbows.
Pistols are matial profiencencees. (SP) sorry for not pointing that out!)
Guns would affect things with DRx/Magic while including the DR

 

[Pbartender]

Also be aware that, historically speaking, your average muzzle-loading pistol or musket would take 5 or 6 full-round actions to reload. Highly drilled soldiers (like the British Redcoats) could relaod in the equivalent of as little as 2 full-round actions.

Green Ronin's Skull & Bones suppliment has excellent rules for reasonably historically accurate blackpowder firearms.

Of course, if accuracy is not your goal (and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that), simply disregard this.

 

[JDJblatherings]

regarding loading and cleaning times-


muzzloading pistols, muskets and rifles all take about the ame time to load. Muskets are the easiest actually. the chief advantage of pistols is you can carry more of them and when technology allowed them to get small enough they were easier to hide. 2 rounds for folks that aren't well trained and a round for the well trained.

cleaning times- 10 minutes to half an hour is more likely long it takes to clean a muzzle loader. longer to clear a "dud" since one has to worry about accidently denoating any powder that may not have gone off the first time.

 

[Pbartender]

muzzloading pistols, muskets and rifles all take about the ame time to load. Muskets are the easiest actually... ...2 rounds for folks that aren't well trained and a round for the well trained.

I'm sorry, but that's inaccurate. Do a little bit of research.

An average person who wasn't "well trained" -- say, a farmer going hunting -- would properly load a musket in about half a minute.

An average soldier could load and fire his musket three times in about a minute... That'd be three full-actions to reload and a standard action to fire, or about 21 seconds.

By drilling the reloading process until it was instinctual (or by skipping less important steps in the reloading process), the very best trained (or most reckless) soldiers, like the British Redcoats (or the Confederate skirmishers), could get as many as four shots off in a minute (five, if the gun was loaded to begin with)... that's two full round action to reload and a standard action to fire, or about 15 seconds.

That's why the battle formations and volley fire was so important... and would still make sense using D20 rules. Take a formation of Redcoats three ranks deep for example:

Every round of the battle, you'd have one rank performing their first full round of reloading, one rank performing their second round of reloading, and then the rear rank which uses a movement action to step in front of the other two ranks and a standard action to fire in a volley. Every round 1/3 of the formation is firing while the rest reload.

That's another reason pistol stay useful... Out of a mass formation, muskets are only really good for hunting, because it takes too long to reload. As you mention, though, pistols are small enough to carry several and be used one-handed, so an individual combatant can carry several braces of pistols and get off four or six shots before needing to reload, while sitll carrying a sword in your other hand to defend yourself at close quarters.