How did guns change medieval societies?

[Celebrim]

The main thing to remember about the introduction of gunpowder weapons in the West was that they ushered in evolutionairy advances rather than revolutionary ones. This is true whether we examine thier military or social impact.

There was absolutely nothing that gunpowder did that wasn't a continuation of advances already being brought about by other technological innovation.

1) Handguns: As others have said, the main advantage of the handgun is that they were relatively simple to aim and relatively cheap to produce. This resulted in the West fielding larger and larger professional armies, which forced the West to begin adopting more and more scientific approaches to logistics. The entire feudal structure can be seen as an institution devoted to manufacturing and manuevering mounted knights to ensure rapid regional point defence against various mauraders (say the Norse). But by the time that the handgun was introduced, this shift in the makeup of armies away from aristocratic cavalry was already underway - heralded by the success of such weapons as the longbow (under the English) and the pike and crossbow (under the Swiss). In both cases, these weapons led to a relative increase in the status and respect given to commoners in thier respective regions. Handguns only continued this process.

2) Cannon: The cannon more or less obseleted the castle. This resulted in greater centralization of authority, since it became increasingly expensive for a local ruler to produce defenses which were sufficient to thwart attack by any possible force. Since nobles with a good strong castle were no longer able to thumb thier nose at the king, Kings grew in authority - aided by the fact that they were fielding professional armies that were at least in part independent of any reliance on the nobility. But this also was an evolutionary advance. In the centuries before the introduction of the cannon, advances in seige craft, logistics, and in non-gunpowder artillery (such as the Trebuchet) had already tilted the seige in favor of the attacker and castles were increasingly insufficient means of protecting yourself from the attack of a professional army even before the cannon was introduced.

3) Sea Warfare: The victory of the Venetians over the Turks at Lepanto, while it did not permenently ensure the surivival of the West, certainly gave the West its first truly firm political security it had enjoyed since the fall of the Roman empire, and set the stage for its eventual global dominance. Without superior cannon, its doubtful that the Venetians would have won the battle, much less won it in such utterly convincing fashion. The cannon became the preeminent weapon of the West, with which it first gained control of the oceans, and from there would go on to dominate pretty much everywhere that was in cannon shot. But again, this was only an evolutionary advance. That the West was able to produce such a fleet at all was the result of a long and sustained technological and economic revival in Europe dating back to the time of Charlemange. Lepanto may be the most important sea battle in human history (only Salamis compares IMO), but it's significance pales in comparison to for example Charles Martel's victory at Tours as far as determining the fate of Europe.

 

[Steel_Wind]

One interesting point on gunpowder weapon development and the societies who develop them:

Historically, the Chinese both invented gunpowder and weaponized it first. This happened for some very good reasons, principally, China was the largest and richest nation on earth and had the wealth to allow experimentation and structured science to a greater degree than was comparable elsewhere at the time.

The theory goes, however, that the same factors which lead China to discover it and even weaponize it first lead to their inability to be able to develop it significantly as compared to the nations of Europe.

This is because weapons like gunpowder, cannon, musketry and the relatively high tech involved in heavy crossbows (the triggers develop on technology used in Swiss and Northern Italian clock making) take generations to develop and require a stable and dynamic group of artisans who do not have their technology seized and their capital appropriated by the state in a time of emergency to pay for a war.

China as a monolithic and large state was able to do this regularly to its artisans. While their artisans had a head start, they were vulnerable to state expropriation and gruesome taxation in times of need.

The skilled artisans of Europe were not so vulnerable. When the state attempted to do this (and they did - OFTEN) the cannon makers and weaponeers would relocate. From the north of Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands and Hungary - they would move state to state when the government of the day tried to seize their tools and weapons and skills.

The result is that enough moved on with their capital to continue their work without getting economically wiped out as they would have in a monolithic state like China.

If this theory is true (I believe it is, fwiw) then the true gunpowder states in your world would make sense to arise in a relatively compact and politically diverse small continental mass - and not within a large and vast empire.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Two things are missing here:

1.) The cannon didn't make castles obsolete in the sense in which it's being used thus far. I mean cannons had been around through much of the era of castles and castles still got built. Even after castles went out fortresses were still effective up through WWI so theoretically all you would have to do is change the design of castles to make them like fortresses and you would be fine. What really got rid of castles were a simultaneous change in the role of nobility in the new nation states and the expense of acquiring cannons with which to defend your fortresses. Not simply expense, either, but bottlenecks in supply. It takes a load of infrastructure to build a good cannon foundry, this load makes it fairly easy for central authorities to control their construction. Castles take a load of infrastructure as well but its general infrastructure everyone needs since they'll be building urban defenses, churches, and civic works which use many of the same skills and supplies as fortified aristocratic homes.

A similar thing happens with the printing press. For all the talk about how it makes knowledge democratic the early printing presses made production insanely centralized. Censorship wasn't a worry before the printing press, but it was also much easier afterwards.

2.) The medieval society is one of elites, yes, but the post-medieval society is more so, particularly since the elites can get round to running armies rather then being in them. What the medieval society had that the post-medieval society had less of was niche protection for the lower classes. When those restrictions were lapsed in the wake of the economic realities of the black plague (less need for food more need for labour) that's when you could finally get your lower classes out of the places where they had rights and guaranteed material support and into the military where you could put them into cheap massive units like pike formations and gun units.

So my final answer would be:

Guns didn't change anything in the middle ages except make mercenary companies a more attractive deal. In the early modern period guns became an exceptionally important component of the military revolution, but even though that was happening in conjunction with improvements in firearms it wasn't happening because of firearms.

in other words:

The death of the middle ages and their military regimes had to do with the black plague, intellectual, and institutional upheaval, the firearm wasn't part of the problem it was just their for the show and had been for some time.

in other other words:

Guns don't kill people, microbes do.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

This is because weapons like gunpowder, cannon, musketry and the relatively high tech involved in heavy crossbows (the triggers develop on technology used in Swiss and Northern Italian clock making) take generations to develop and require a stable and dynamic group of artisans who do not have their technology seized and their capital appropriated by the state in a time of emergency to pay for a war.

Triggers are good, yes, but the don't forget that China lacked the critical firing tube technology that had been developed by the Greeks to use Greek Fire. Without it you're sort of stuck for guns.

I'd also say that artisans weren't the issue so much as the geo-physical realities of China's situation.

If most of your fighting is done on the steppes or through police actions than really large scale infantry formations, as you had with the military revolution, don't make much sense unless you have field artillery all ready.

So if your large scale empire has frequent conflicts in terrain that favors massed infantry, a freely exploitable peasant population, and cause to develop innovative tactics in naval combat and siege warfare then I think you've got a good shot at them developing the firearm.

Or at least that's true if they've already developed gunpowder, which it's worthwhile to note China did do.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I house ruled guns in One game as follows:

Armor class still counts in full, to simulate how inaccurate guns were.
The attack roll was normal, not a ranged touch.
Range increments for pistols were 5 feet, and ten feet for long guns.
Damage was 3d6 for a pistol or 4d8 for a long gun.
Criticals were on any natural roll of 12 or higher.
Improved Crit can never be applied.
If a critical hit is rolled, then roll your damage dice and keep rolling any die that comes up with an even number. Then mulitply by 2. (Can be very deadly.)
Reload time is 5 rounds, but the loader cannot move or take any other action. (I considered but never used a feat called 'Gunner' that would allow the person to move normal speed, but take no other action while loading.)
The long reload time has a huge impact in a DnD battle.
(I made firearms rare and 2 to 3 times the cost of a MW or +1 crossbow, - though that wasn't a rule so much as a circumstance.) As a foot note, we don't use guns in our present campaign.

Sweet mother of Smurfs! The damage is so incredibly overpowered I cannot begin to describe it! If this is what you used I don't blame you for dropping them. Guns are nice, but no where near this good. The ranges and reload timesare so underpowered in some ways that those are almost as bad.

If full armor class counts because of the weapon's inaccuracy then why is the armor counted? With that argument you might be better with a touch attack with -4 or -6 penalty to hit. This simulates the inaccuracy better, since it is easier to hit someone in heavy armor, but not to injure him.

Guns are faster to use than a heavy crossbow - how long do you have it take to load one of those?

Long guns had much better ranges than that, and you are giving a pistol less range than a thrown rock!

Gah!

The Auld Grump

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Interesting point about guns - I've heard that one tactic of the British Army in Revolutionary times was to have the formation fire, inflict some casualties, make a whole cloud of smoke, then charge through the smoke and bayonet the surviving opposition. One could have a smokestick effect resulting from each arquebus shot... good defensive measure.

Very, very popular tactic in naval fighting during the period, at least. The ship on the weather gauge (upwind of its opponent) could let the smoke from its cannon drift downwind, obscuring it from its opponent.

Firing a final broadside, and then boarding in the smoke, was a popular way to establish a foothold on an enemy's ship.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As others have pointed out, early firearms were cheaper than longbows and easier to train with, more than offsetting the higher accuracy and rate of fire of a skilled longbowman. And the individual gunman could carry much more ammo than a longbowman as well.

But what really killed armor wasn't sidearms, it was artillery. In addition to eventually making battlements obsolete, cannon were more effective against infantry and cavalry than any other heavy weapon. Sure, a catapult or trebuchet could be used against troops, but they were much more useful against battlements. Used against troops, they'd crush a few people and make a crater. In contrast, the more mobile cannon could be fired directly AT troops, making a 20+ yard trench with solid shot (or a cone of death with grapeshot), killing and maiming as it went.

How did this make armor obsolete? Because it suddenly became more important to be mobile than to avoid injury. Dropping 30 or so pounds of metal armor goes a long way to doing that, and lets your soldiers carry more firepower (or any other kind of supply) to the point of attack.

 

[Storyteller01]

Some OGL rules:

Fuse weapon (tube full of powder with a bullet and wick) does 2d8 (x3), has a -6 to hit, range increment: 20, weighs 10 lbs. Doesn't fire on a natural 3-5, explodes on a natural 1-2. You do get a +2 to your Gunsmithing check to make it though!

Match lock weapons have a -2 to hit, don't fire on a natural 3-4, and explode on a natural 1-2. No penalty to GUnsmithing to craft.

Whhelock/flintlock weapons have no penalty to hit, doesn't fire on a natural 2-4, explodes on a natural one. You take a -5 to Gunsmithing to craft.


Not exactly what was asked for, but it could help.

 

[jasper]

For the most part, it sounds like guns really changed things because of the impact they had on armies, not on heroes:
1) They were cheaper to make than longbows Um no no no no no no. You still need a gun smith to create forge, file, etc eact one especially once you move pass the hollow iron bar with a touch hole stage.
2) Any peasant could be conscripted, handed a rifle, and sent to war
True but they never were. The royal bought, hired, trained musketters.
3) Armies could carry more ammo, and thus outlast their bow-wielding enemies neither which takes up more 1 pd of powder which may seperate while on the wagon or a bundle of arrows. I will give maybe a quarter space saved to gunpowder.

At best until you introduce rifling etc what I would do is firearms are simple weapons.
Armour is 1/2 not including magic. Since there are document cases of someone shooting their mistress in the throat and she surviving I would not change bullets being instant death into d&D.. Why mr. wimble. What is more dangerous> Grandma carrying a shot gun yell death to carpet baggers. Or an angry red dragon carrying four captain guns. Note captian guns two pistols with 3 barrels each flintlock used to put down mutinities. 2 trigger pulls = 6 shots in to the crowd of dread pirates.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I'm rather fond of the simple approach to Firearms - no ranged touch attack, etc. I use the Privateer Press rules - to give a basic sense, a military pistol is 2d6 dmg/19-20 x3 critical range, with rifles going up to 2d8 or even 2d10 (they actually have them 2d8+2, which is silly, as it works out to 2d10 in the long run and breaks basic rules of d20, but that's another issue). That's plenty dangerous for the average man.