D&D 5E (2014) Let's Talk About Guns in 5E

[W'rkncacnter]

Gary Gygax also invented studded leather armor by misidentifying a picture of lamellar. I don't fully trust his analysis of ballistic either.

i'm not entirely sure GARY invented it specifically, but SOMEBODY SURE DID.

also it was brigandine, not lamellar.

 

[Reynard]

i'm not entirely sure GARY invented it specifically, but SOMEBODY SURE DID.

also it was brigandine, not lamellar.

Wait, which one of those is samurai armor?

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Wait, which one of those is samurai armor?

lamellar. lamellar is small plates laced together, while brigandine is a garment (typically canvas or heavy cloth) with steel plates riveted onto the inside. that's an important distinction because scale is small plates attached to each other on some sort of backing (usually cloth or leather), such that the scales are on the outside (whereas with brigandine the plates are on the inside).

armor can get weird.

 

[Parmandur]

Gary Gygax also invented studded leather armor by misidentifying a picture of lamellar. I don't fully trust his analysis of ballistic either.

Fair point, but firearms do change the way warfare and fighting are conducted on a fundamental level: it is a singularity event, and it isn't possible to have a quick and dirty system that keeps sword and plate on the same plane as musketeers.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't think they imply any sort of mathematical specialness especially. HP are not meat points* (until they are). All the bullets sparking off of railings and making poofs of dust as they hit around the running action hero are hits draining them of hit points, just as all the arrows that hit our adventurers aren't actually sticking out of them like some Frank Miller comic. Its not like a bullet to the head is going to cause significantly more damage that even an average strength man actually hitting you in the head with an arming sword. We seem to have a holy terror of guns that think they are death, but that is only because we do not experience more people getting hit with melee weapons with intent to kill. (and we have unrealistic idea of ability hit targets in the heat of battle with guns)

*Although I have been contrary at times and said HP are meat points and while a commoner gets stuck in the stomach with a knife and bleeds out, a hero can take a broadsword through the sternum and keep fighting. That is just the nature of heroic fantasy. Of course, I've also said that our characters in D&D are not actually human but creatures made of a spongy sort of flesh that gets tougher with experience and not much organs to speak of. Thus why there are no broken bones and other long term injuries in D&D. Then I wax on about how HP are logarithmic which is why only the last one matters.

No, they aren't meat points, though in the naval war game Gygax cribbed fit the rules they are the meat points of a ship. It's an abstraction to allow for quick resolution of combat. Thing is, it is a mathematical abstraction thst breaks down at a certain point...that point is gunpowder.

But again, Modern D&D isn't really rolling that way, but still there isn't a good way to simulate in the rules as written how armor becomes pointless of the enemey has a muskeet.

 

[James Gasik]

If country A has guns, country B is going to pursue the same technology. If that happens then guns (and other technological advancements) become ubiquitous. That's not the assumption in official D&D campaign that I remember other than Spelljammer but even that relies on "smokepowder" which IIRC is quite rare. Even Eberron doesn't have them - I simply want a reason my campaign does not.

Forgotten Realms, 2e. Gond gave the Lantanese the arquebus, which was then sold throughout the Realms with his symbol stamped on the the weapon. Meanwhile, a Tradesman Spelljammer landed in Waterdeep Harbor and sold wheellock pistols in the city. In both cases, this came with sales of "smoke powder".

Source: Forgotten Realms Adventures.

 

[Reynard]

lamellar. lamellar is small plates laced together, while brigandine is a garment (typically canvas or heavy cloth) with steel plates riveted onto the inside. that's an important distinction because scale is small plates attached to each other on some sort of backing (usually cloth or leather), such that the scales are on the outside (whereas with brigandine the plates are on the inside).

armor can get weird.

Isn't scale often leather?

 

[Remathilis]

No, they aren't meat points, though in the naval war game Gygax cribbed fit the rules they are the meat points of a ship. It's an abstraction to allow for quick resolution of combat. Thing is, it is a mathematical abstraction thst breaks down at a certain point...that point is gunpowder.

That point is magic. Because you cannot even remotely adjudicate hit point damage of meat vs luck when magic missile auto hits and a rogue can stand at ground zero of a 40 foot diameter blast of fire and take no damage on a successful save while never displacing his current location. There is nothing game-breaking that gunpowder can do that magic has done several time before breakfast.

 

[Remathilis]

i'm not entirely sure GARY invented it specifically, but SOMEBODY SURE DID.

also it was brigandine, not lamellar.

Damn, misrememberd, but I knew it was some rather obscure armor that somehow later ALSO existed alongside studded leather.

And don't get me started on longsword/greatsword/bastard sword/arming sword...

 

[Rocker26a]

armor becomes pointless of the enemey has a muskeet.

That wasn't the case! The given firearm of a historical period didn't ever just, flatly conquer the contemporary armour! Bar anything short of point blank and straight on!