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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jackcarter" data-source="post: 22110" data-attributes="member: 1651">Let's take a stereotypical high fantasy, for this purpose the Forgotten Realms will suit fine, and examine what a wide adoption of firearms will do to such a society.  With a twist, of course.  It doesn't matter what high fantasy, but FR will do since I would presume that more people on this board are familiar with it than any other high fantasy setting.  For those unfamiliar with FR, it is a setting where magic, arcane and divine, dominates completely, and powerful (20+ level) mages are more plentiful than fish in the sea.  Low-level magic items, including offensive ones like wands of fireball or potions of fire breath, are mass-produced very much like the 15th century Venetians did in glassblowing.In the default Realms, firearms are mostly relegated to a tiny isle and pretty rare elsewhere.  Furthermore, that isle, Lantan, is secretive about its guns and takes measures to protect its secret, with the entire deific pantheon of the setting cooperating to various degrees in that indeavor (I think...).  Last, gunpowder itself is an expensive alchemical, pseudo-magical substance.Now, let's say that gunpowder suddenly became chemical/non-magical substance, and that its manufacturing process became widely known, while gods became mostly neutral about its dissemination.  Let's say that a merchant got a book on gunpowder from Far East (as in RL history) or that a spelljammer crashed with gunsmiths.  Whatever the cause, within 20 years, everyone knew how to make gunpowder (once again similar to RL history).Here's the catch.  Whenever used by people with innate spellcasting abilities or Spell-like abilities, the chances of firearms misfire greatly rise.  Let's say, something like 70% chance of exploding in your face and causing damage.  This would make firearm's use among mages, clerics, paladins, assassins, and others extremely hazardous.  In fact, among mages and clerics, with offensive spells within easy reach, firearms wouldn't be much useful even without the misfire chance.  However, if the prices of firearms drop to the RL 16th century level, i.e., about 1/5 the cost of a crossbow or 1/2 of a longbow or recursive bow and the price of gunpowder negligible (under 1 gp), how would this change the face of the Realms, or any other high fantasy setting?According to the DMG, a pistol does 1d10/x3 while a musket does 1d12/x3 damage.  Not only that, let's say that it only requires a Simple Weapon proficiency to know how to use them (a RL equivalency to high easy it was to learn to use them vis-a-vis bows or x-bows).  If these kinds of damage become cheap to produce (say, 10 gp for a musket) and easy to use, how should a high fantasy or the Realms change?For example, there is a stereotypical evil wizard nation bent on world domination (the Red Wizards), which is feared throughout the world for its magical prowess.  However, if its neighbors possess large armies equipped with firearms, would it be as feared?  Protection from Arrows is a decent protection, but against a volley of gunfire, it wouldn't last a minute.  The key here is the cheap cost, as well as the high damage.  An army that could previously field 5000 x-bowmen can now field 25000 musketeers at the same price!  Combine that with high damage die and faster reloading time, standard v. full-round, the actual combat capacity becomes much greater than the sheer number.If the evil wizards equipped their armies with guns, then it would return to the pre-gunpowder power balance.  However, can the evil wizards (Red Wizards) trust their fighters enough to equip them en masse with such dangerous weapons--weapons they themselves can't use?Possibilities are endless, but I'd like to hear what you have to say, so I'll stop here.</blockquote>

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