making firearms more deadly (deadlier?)

[TheAuldGrump]

I feel sick to my stomach. It reminds me of Gangs of New York with all their backstabbing, or that scene from Saving Private Ryan when Upham's pal gets it. Yuck! Shivs are scary.

If I recall correctly in the high middle ages it was more frequent for a knight to be killed with a dagger than a sword on the field of battle. Armor (even chain) will stop either one, but once the knight is down you can put the dagger where you want... under the chin was popular. The helmet evolved quite a bit attempting to prevent this, folks would use the nasal as a lever to bove the head and expose the throat.

Knives are much scarier than bullets.

The Auld Grump

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

I've been watching this thread with interest since, for a homebrew I'm working on, I'd been debating adjusting guns or otherwise coming up with rules to make them more lethal. And based on what I've seen here, I'm now convinced that I don't really have to worry about it. If I want to make combat overall more lethal, I'll just adjust HP or the MDT.

It's the sort of genre (1940s) in which people should still prefer guns over melee weapons, but I think I'll just write that into the fluff instead of finding mechanics for it. Ditto with old-fashioned armor, though I might take Spellslinger's route and have guns ignore metal armor (actually I think what they did was have firearms be a ranged touch attack, which I don't want to do).

 

[Fenris]

Glassjaw,
Ok, simple solution for you:
Have guns do (log d100)^2 damage. Give a nice distribution and isn't always lethal to low level but can still kill high level characters. And trust me, when your player see you pull out that slide rule to calculate damage they will fear firearms

No really, you have had some time to think it over what will you be going with (before this threat gets anymore hijacked)?

 

[arscott]

(log d100)^2?

As in the log-base-ten of the result of a hundred sided die, raised to the second power?

Gives results from 0 to 4. that's not too deadly.

 

[GlassJaw]

No really, you have had some time to think it over what will you be going with (before this threat gets anymore hijacked)?

I'll probably end up leaving them as-is to be honest. The VP/WP system inherently allows for the previously mentioned "punk with a gun" to get lucky and deal physical/wound damage (with a critical).

In the campaign I'm envisioning (which is sort of steampunkish), firearms will be very rare, and quite possibly illegal except for military use. If the PC's do come across them, they will no doubt be pretty unique so I won't have any problems making little tweaks to each one to give them some kind of special abilities or powers.

I might increase the damage or the threat range of the more "generic" firearms but I doubt I'll do anything beyond that.

 

[Andur]

Couple of things:

1) To make weapons more deadly do two things: make MDT = 10 and make the MDT save = damage dealt.

2) To make some firearms more deadly, get rid of the -4 to hit using burst fire, especially with the 3 round burst weapons.

3) Get rid of equipment bonuses of armour, make them all damage reduction only, and also combine with hit location system to determine if that location has armour or not. (Cumbersome, but seems like you want realistic and gritty)

4) The success of the attack determines the severity; 0-4 =graze or scratch no further damage done, 5-8 = minor, 2 points of wound damage -1 to all rolls utilizing that location, 9-12 moderate, 4 points of wound, -2..., 13-16 severe, 6 points of wound, -4 ...., 17+ mortal 8 points of wound, -8 ... And to top it off wound damage decreases your MDT save modifier and is cumalative. (Dr does not apply to this wound damage)

5) To make the above even more deadly us opposed rolls for attacks/defense.

Using the above wil still make melee a viable option, though anyone (even lvl 20) trying to charge across an open field facing 10 1st level mooks with rifles will never get a swing in.