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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TallIan" data-source="post: 7129076" data-attributes="member: 6853819">They did offer much greater penetration of armour than spring and muscle powered weapons, but the D&D armour system doesn't really allow for that since armour essentially protects from 100% damage or it lets 100% through.  The only way you could model this would be to make all firearms get a +x to hit, making them considerably more powerful, especially in 5e where +x to hit is hard to come by.As S'mon points out the higher speed and lack of cutting edges means that the shot effectively bludgeons its way through causing more damage than an equivalent sizes arrow/bolt/blade.I think both of these phenomena are best modelled in D&D by higher damage potential, since AC is a reflection of your ability to dodge a hit as well as your armour's ability to absorb the damage.  This can be balanced by slower loading times, a realistic problem faced by early firearms. As you say a big advantage to firearms over other weapons is the ability to conscript any able bodies person into the army and have them capable of fighting effectively within a couple of weeks (this won't address morale issues).  I would get around this argument by pointing out that conscripts were effective in massed formations - 200 musket balls fired at once is going to do something so long as all the shooters are pointing at the same target.  Muskets are horrible inaccurate, so not suited to "hero" style combat, but for the sake of fun we can argue than good training allows you to be more effective with a musket, eg. you are only making one roll to hit but actually you re reloading fast enough to get two shots out in a round.</blockquote>

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