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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Derren" data-source="post: 6530035" data-attributes="member: 2518">The problem, especially in D&D, but also in many other RPGs is that they do not model the parts were guns were advantageous over bows much or at all. So instead, and also because of unrealistic Hollywood expectations, they are given unrealistic attributes like the mentioned armor penetration.The advantage of guns were for example that everyone could use them. High strength bows required a rather strong person to use especially over a long time. That was the main reason why good longbow archers were rather rare. Crossbows, at least the stronger ones, used various mechanisms to ready them but that made them rather large and still exhausted the wielder. Guns on the other hand could be used by anyone over a far longer time as the power of the shot was stored in the gunpowder and did not have to be supplied by the user.Also at first they had quite a moral impact with their noise and their "invisible" shots.Another thing was the ammunition. Yes, you had to carry around large amounts of gunpowder. But soon enough that could be made fairly easily in large quantities. Bullets could be made on the field rather easily with a mold. Now making arrows was not all that easy as some might think. To make a good arrow you need to need a good piece of wood, something rather unlikely you find on a field in large quantities. Supplying a big army with enough arrows over a long campaign was quite a task.As for the armor penetration, where do you think the name "bulletproof" came from? It comes from the practice of shooting a piece of plate armor to show that they are proof against firearms.And D&D has the additional problem of HP bloat where ranged weapons in general are unable to kill enemies before they could close into melee range except at very low level.The imo best way to add firearms to a fantasy setting is to dispel the Hollywood notion of super powerful armor piercing weapons and instead make them "one shot" weapons people who are not strong or proficient enough to use (cross)bows as indeed over a large part of history a bow was superior to a musket for a trained user.</blockquote>

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