D&D 5E Never Give Them Unlimited Black Powder

[Aelryinth]

Gunpowder was accidentally discovered by someone that was trying to create a new medicine.

Sure, but he was a researcher/chemist, not a shaman. Probably working directly for the Chinese Imperial Household.

 

[Aelryinth]

No, but there are a lot that are resistent/immune to fire/nonmagical damage, others with craptons of hp, etc. Most monsters don't need gunpowder—they have other abilities.



Well, if you introduce gunpowder to your setting and it becomes as common as you suggest, then those creature "that live at the level of medieval vikings or Native Americans before the Europeans came" (which is kinda an icky statement, BTW) will adapt to it (just like Native Americans did). Sounds like your humanoids are very two dimensional if they are the enemies of all humanity. Even then, "unknown parties" have a long history of selling arms to the enemies of their enemies in the real world. BTW, is it hard to procure or commonly available in you scenario—I can't keep up?



Your scenarios aren't selling me, either. So, I guess we're at an impasse.



Wait, I thought that they were hard to procure. So, even if available in most large settlements, in what quantity is it available—to the vendors need to resupply their stocks or does the gunpowder and its ingredient just magically resupply after the PCs break the settlements economy (again).



Given that gunpowder avaiability is not a default in D&D, determining how available it (or anything else) is is not a house rule. Different settlements, cultures, and locations will have different resources.



Oh? That seems rather counter to your previous assertions.



Well, in 3e, who needs gunpowder when you can be CoDzilla? Oh no, there goes Tokyo! Thankfully, I no longer play 3e or PF. I'm not going to bother looking up the 3e SRD to see the specifics of fabricate, but in 5e it would require proficiency in the appropriate artisan's tools (which the DM will need to decide if it uses alchemist's tools or a new "powdermaker's tools" or some such), and still require the raw material that would otherwise be needed to make it. It's also a 4th-level spell, so there is another resource cost.



CoDzilla. But Create Wonderous Items is used to create magical items, has a cost in both mundane resouces and XP, and you could use it to create more interesting things.



If the rules you use have an alchemict class (I guess that's a PF thing). Again, depending on the rules you use, alchemy way not even be what is used to create gunpowder.

1) there are some with fire res/immunity. Over the overall numbers, very few. Tons of hp = use more gunpowder or set up a collapse.
2) Who said I was saying it was common?!?! The OP said the PC's are using it, potentially a lot of it. He said nothing about EVERYONE using it? You are inserting artificial facts in there to support your argument.
In any event, that still doesn't mean your enemies have it overnight, especially a whole culture.
3) Given you keep modifying the scenarios away from the narrative I'm using with artificial evolution of the enemies, I'm not surprised.
4) If we're talking gunpowder, the raw elements of charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter are NOT hard to procure. They are literally commodities. 'Hard to procure' generally just means 'go to a bigger city, you're exceeding the wealth cap'. If the base rules don't call out going on a quest for rare elements, they, like material components for spells, are considered to be easily available. It's the default rule. You don't have to go on quests for materials to make tindertwigs, which are basically tiny versions of the same thing.
i.e. the standard rule is that unless it has unique/extremely rare comps, you can just buy them. And if it's actual gunpowder, that's truth.
5) Not at all. The wizard doesn't have to haul around gunpowder at all, and can unleash several fireballs at will from a great distance away, doing more damage then gunpowder and so killing people, and then do it again tomorrow.
So, considering gunpowder a 'massive threat' when these walking cannons are running around is stupid on its face.
Gunpowder's ability comes from the fact you can build up an arsenal of it, and unleash it all at once, AND from the fact it gives a non-spellcaster a KABOOM ability. It takes a much longer time to make bullets than to shoot them, after all.
Note the OP is Players getting unlimited blackpowder access. Building up a stockpile for use in situations is how you use the stuff... and means that when needed, you can get more fireballs/day then a wizard, and all at once, too. that's how wars are basically fought.
6) Because not everyone is a Caster or level 18? CoDzilla is high-end power. Gunpowder is low-end power. A level 1 can light a fuse and launch a keg! True Ubah powah!... oh wait, we just call that a grenade in modern day, ignoring how awesome it would be in a magical world to have your own fireballs as a non-caster.
7) Making magic items is a leverage thing anywhere, agreed. Making magical tools is the same.
8) Alchemist in PF, artificer in D&D, and other systems generally have magical alchemists in some form or another, too. The balance issues with gunpowder are still there... it's a world-changing advance in technology for a good reason, after all.

 

[Aelryinth]

You're the sapper in my example. You have a self-inflicted problem with gunpowder, and every time someone points out how either the rules or an easy situational change can fix it/ameliorate it you respond by presenting a new reason why that won't work. I mean, when it was pointed out how slow and costly it is to make a relatively small amount of gunpowder, you said magic and high rolls fix that (and no one knows what you're talking about, because there's no such magic in the printed material and high rolls don't do anything by the rules, so more self-inflicted problems). When people pointed out that it's equally easy for the bad guys to get and use gunpowder, you first attempted to restrict discussion to orcs and goblins (because, yeah, if you can the gold and time to make gunpowder you're still fighting orcs and goblins) and waving away all of the many enemies that aren't orcs and goblins. When it was pointed out that there's no reason orcs and goblins can make, or steal, or trade for gunpowder, you said, no, because they're savages and barbaric and can't do those things because... I don't know, lots of "savage" or "barbaric" cultures had trade and often pretty advanced skills and knowledge. You present an ever changing cartoon argument that seems designed not to find a coherent story or game, but instead make sure that you can continue to advance the idea that gunpowder is game-breaking if a GM lets it in. Sure, if you keep shooting yourself in the foot, gunpowder is very dangerous. I recommend that you stop shooting your own foot.

So, you went with the personal insults instead of reason. Hey, great. I was looking past it. Ad hominem idiocy is ad hominem idiocy.

Sure, I was referencing 3e, but the fact is that cost and production issues can be worked past with manpower, and magical tools to help crafters are ubiquitous EVERYWHERE. THAT WAS THE POINT. The rest was examples on how to do so, which you promptly turned into an edition war.

If you are suddenly restricting supply by arbitrary means, then they don't have unlimited gunpowder access now, do they, which means the point of the OP is now moot. Hiring more people to make you the stuff faster costs the exact same as paying one person to make it themself... it's all still man-hours of labor.

When people like you attempted to show that their enemies could get gunpowder, I SHOWED THEM THAT IS STUPID since a very big chunk of their enemies cannot use, understand, or reasonably have access to gunpowder, and so their broad-stroke-fixes-all reasoning was dumb on its face. A party of PC monster hunters logically will NEVER have an enemy that uses gunpowder, without blatant DM shenanigans.

I specifically used the barbaric and savage language explicitly to denote that said orcs and goblins are barbarians and savages, not that 'oh we misunderstood their culture, they are actually extremely advanced, we are so sorry for misjudging you.' i.e. you're warping the scenario.

Hey, look at the default orcs and goblins. They have crap for crafting skills and technology. My example was ON POINT, thank you for not twisting it to suit yourself.

The idea that their whole society will then be able to promptly make, trade, or steal the gunpowder, when the PC's can barely get ahold of it, and overnight they all have keggers of boom makes no logical sense, either. Sure, in a couple generations they might have an alternative. But gunpowder weapons don't spread everywhere that fast, especially to your hated enemies. Your solution of 'PC's have it now, monsters have it next adventure', is dumb on its face.

You topped off your arguments with 'dangerous gunpowder' examples and high level retaliation that could apply equally to any spellcaster blowing things up, meaning they aren't examples at all, they are knee-jerk responses that will be seen as the responses of a jerk, and Fiat Hand of God coming down to say, No, no, no unlimited gunpowder, I goofed, mm-k?

So, sorry, I missed my foot every time. But by the way you're dancing around and continually changing the facts to suit you, I suspect I hit yours several times.

Unlimited gunpowder can, will, and has permanently changed the flavor of campaigns. It changed the way the world made war. So, in the end, if you introduce it, you are changing the very nature of a campaign, because of the power it has and holds. We only have to look at history to know the truth of that.

Players are not dumb, and will find ways to exploit it. It's VERY exploitable. It changed the world! Some might choose to let it ride, but others... well, it's the table you're at, I suppose.

There's a funny rule in GURPS Fantasy's main world where the spellcasters there actively and viciously hunt down anyone using gunpowder weapons simply because of the threat it offers. I thought that both funny and appropriate.

 

[Ovinomancer]

So, you went with the personal insults instead of reason. Hey, great. I was looking past it. Ad hominem idiocy is ad hominem idiocy.

Sure, I was referencing 3e, but the fact is that cost and production issues can be worked past with manpower, and magical tools to help crafters are ubiquitous EVERYWHERE. THAT WAS THE POINT. The rest was examples on how to do so, which you promptly turned into an edition war.

If you are suddenly restricting supply by arbitrary means, then they don't have unlimited gunpowder access now, do they, which means the point of the OP is now moot. Hiring more people to make you the stuff faster costs the exact same as paying one person to make it themself... it's all still man-hours of labor.

When people like you attempted to show that their enemies could get gunpowder, I SHOWED THEM THAT IS STUPID since a very big chunk of their enemies cannot use, understand, or reasonably have access to gunpowder, and so their broad-stroke-fixes-all reasoning was dumb on its face. A party of PC monster hunters logically will NEVER have an enemy that uses gunpowder, without blatant DM shenanigans.

I specifically used the barbaric and savage language explicitly to denote that said orcs and goblins are barbarians and savages, not that 'oh we misunderstood their culture, they are actually extremely advanced, we are so sorry for misjudging you.' i.e. you're warping the scenario.

Hey, look at the default orcs and goblins. They have crap for crafting skills and technology. My example was ON POINT, thank you for not twisting it to suit yourself.

The idea that their whole society will then be able to promptly make, trade, or steal the gunpowder, when the PC's can barely get ahold of it, and overnight they all have keggers of boom makes no logical sense, either. Sure, in a couple generations they might have an alternative. But gunpowder weapons don't spread everywhere that fast, especially to your hated enemies. Your solution of 'PC's have it now, monsters have it next adventure', is dumb on its face.

You topped off your arguments with 'dangerous gunpowder' examples and high level retaliation that could apply equally to any spellcaster blowing things up, meaning they aren't examples at all, they are knee-jerk responses that will be seen as the responses of a jerk, and Fiat Hand of God coming down to say, No, no, no unlimited gunpowder, I goofed, mm-k?

So, sorry, I missed my foot every time. But by the way you're dancing around and continually changing the facts to suit you, I suspect I hit yours several times.

Unlimited gunpowder can, will, and has permanently changed the flavor of campaigns. It changed the way the world made war. So, in the end, if you introduce it, you are changing the very nature of a campaign, because of the power it has and holds. We only have to look at history to know the truth of that.

Players are not dumb, and will find ways to exploit it. It's VERY exploitable. It changed the world! Some might choose to let it ride, but others... well, it's the table you're at, I suppose.

There's a funny rule in GURPS Fantasy's main world where the spellcasters there actively and viciously hunt down anyone using gunpowder weapons simply because of the threat it offers. I thought that both funny and appropriate.

Ad homs are when I argue against what you say because of things about you, and none of my response does that. I'm very critical of the things you've said, but I'm not critical of you in place of addressing the things you've said. And, no players aren't dumb, but there's no reason monsters have to be -- that's the issues at hand. If you let the optional gunpowder rules (they were optional in 3e as well) into your game and then create a situation that your players can exploit while finding reasons nothing that might balance that works (monsters using gunpowder, enforcing crafting rules, etc.), then the problem isn't gunpowder, it's your self-inflicted problems of how you've chosen to implement gunpowder.

 

[Aelryinth]

Ad homs are when I argue against what you say because of things about you, and none of my response does that. I'm very critical of the things you've said, but I'm not critical of you in place of addressing the things you've said. And, no players aren't dumb, but there's no reason monsters have to be -- that's the issues at hand. If you let the optional gunpowder rules (they were optional in 3e as well) into your game and then create a situation that your players can exploit while finding reasons nothing that might balance that works (monsters using gunpowder, enforcing crafting rules, etc.), then the problem isn't gunpowder, it's your self-inflicted problems of how you've chosen to implement gunpowder.

There are indeed plenty of monsters who are dumb... it's right there in their stat blocks.
Optional gunpowder does indeed create problems, but the whole nature of my replies is based on the OP giving gunpowder to players, not the whole world having it, which you immediately turned around as the solution to. If you do that, you vastly change the nature of the campaign world, not just hand a tool to PC's, and the hackneyed 'solutions' to the problem are going to come across very poorly in that instance.
I also don't assume a home-brew campaign, where you can change as you like, and instead stay PC focused, which means people who play modules, including adventure paths, and how gunpowder can change things when the written scenario is NOT designed with gunpowder in mind.

Personally, I love the fellow above who just had flintlocks and cartridges, and that's as far as the players took it... but that's the players going along with things, instead of looking for toys to play with.

IMC, I just don't allow it in normal form, because it blows up spontaneously. People know the formulas, know they exist, but nobody dares use them except inside an anti-magic shell... and having one of those permanently around one of your guns, your powder magazine, and your ammo transports is the very definition of expensive. Only hellaciously rich locations with lots of money are going to have such things... and not high quality, since they don't exactly get in a lot of practice.

Finding a way to stop the ambient fire spirits from blowing the heck out of the stuff without anti-magic in place is the goal of many an alchemist. They tend to go through a lot of labs... and the fire spirits love to tag around them and find other stuff to blow up, too...

So, in short, it's potentially there, but priced so high the usefulness is out of reach. There's the potential for a solution, and THAT would be the target of the PC's, at which point spreading that knowledge would cause an evolution in the whole campaign.

Until then, it's fireballs and ballista instead of mortars and cannons.

 

[Ovinomancer]

There are indeed plenty of monsters who are dumb... it's right there in their stat blocks.
Optional gunpowder does indeed create problems, but the whole nature of my replies is based on the OP giving gunpowder to players, not the whole world having it, which you immediately turned around as the solution to. If you do that, you vastly change the nature of the campaign world, not just hand a tool to PC's, and the hackneyed 'solutions' to the problem are going to come across very poorly in that instance.
I also don't assume a home-brew campaign, where you can change as you like, and instead stay PC focused, which means people who play modules, including adventure paths, and how gunpowder can change things when the written scenario is NOT designed with gunpowder in mind.

Personally, I love the fellow above who just had flintlocks and cartridges, and that's as far as the players took it... but that's the players going along with things, instead of looking for toys to play with.

IMC, I just don't allow it in normal form, because it blows up spontaneously. People know the formulas, know they exist, but nobody dares use them except inside an anti-magic shell... and having one of those permanently around one of your guns, your powder magazine, and your ammo transports is the very definition of expensive. Only hellaciously rich locations with lots of money are going to have such things... and not high quality, since they don't exactly get in a lot of practice.

Finding a way to stop the ambient fire spirits from blowing the heck out of the stuff without anti-magic in place is the goal of many an alchemist. They tend to go through a lot of labs... and the fire spirits love to tag around them and find other stuff to blow up, too...

So, in short, it's potentially there, but priced so high the usefulness is out of reach. There's the potential for a solution, and THAT would be the target of the PC's, at which point spreading that knowledge would cause an evolution in the whole campaign.

Until then, it's fireballs and ballista instead of mortars and cannons.

There's nothing in the OP that says only the PCs get gunpowder, just asking for stories about when PCs got a lot of gunpowder and used it. You've created this argument where ONLY the PCs get gunpowder, which it appears you've just been arguing for instead of actually using. That makes your willingness to continue to create special arguments to keep that weird premise alive even less appreciated. You've essentially picked your own interpretation, one you don't even follow, and decided to spend pages on arguing for it via special pleading, and for no good reason I can see. It didn't illuminate anything and certainly didn't answer the OP's prompt, which was for actual game events where gunpowder featured.

 

[Aelryinth]

There's nothing in the OP that says only the PCs get gunpowder, just asking for stories about when PCs got a lot of gunpowder and used it. You've created this argument where ONLY the PCs get gunpowder, which it appears you've just been arguing for instead of actually using. That makes your willingness to continue to create special arguments to keep that weird premise alive even less appreciated. You've essentially picked your own interpretation, one you don't even follow, and decided to spend pages on arguing for it via special pleading, and for no good reason I can see. It didn't illuminate anything and certainly didn't answer the OP's prompt, which was for actual game events where gunpowder featured.

And you filled in additional facts of the campaign and world that WERE NOT GIVEN US, where I did not, which promptly makes your whole assumption above invalid. Congrats for wasted typing!

In other words, I stayed true to the original premise and what it portended, and looked at it through the lens of that, while you promptly loaded the whole thing with tons of other details and solutions that fit your spontaneously created details, and not the original post... and I still pointed out the weaknesses of those dutifully enough, faithfully adding more spontaneously created details to your own, while at the same time defining them strictly enough that you had to go and create even MORE changes to shoot them down.

As for the actual game events, you instead presented hacked solutions and DM Fiat stuff, not actual game events, either. I actually started off my posts with IMC, no gunpowder is used, and why, which I just elaborated on... you know, actual game events, because I am aware of the changes gunpowder brings to a campaign!

Yes, wonderful. Special, indeed, giving the OP what he wanted, instead of extemperous solutions and non-existent campaign details shifted on the fly to favor arguments.

So, no, I wasn't giving you any special consideration for your points, either. You spun stuff out of nowhere, I at least grabbed from the history of the game and existing monsters and their stats (which you basically just advocated tossing out). When you lowered yourself to starting personal attacks, hey, that just shows you don't really have a defensible position.

 

[Ovinomancer]

And you filled in additional facts of the campaign and world that WERE NOT GIVEN US, where I did not, which promptly makes your whole assumption above invalid. Congrats for wasted typing!

In other words, I stayed true to the original premise and what it portended, and looked at it through the lens of that, while you promptly loaded the whole thing with tons of other details and solutions that fit your spontaneously created details, and not the original post... and I still pointed out the weaknesses of those dutifully enough, faithfully adding more spontaneously created details to your own, while at the same time defining them strictly enough that you had to go and create even MORE changes to shoot them down.

As for the actual game events, you instead presented hacked solutions and DM Fiat stuff, not actual game events, either. I actually started off my posts with IMC, no gunpowder is used, and why, which I just elaborated on... you know, actual game events, because I am aware of the changes gunpowder brings to a campaign!

Yes, wonderful. Special, indeed, giving the OP what he wanted, instead of extemperous solutions and non-existent campaign details shifted on the fly to favor arguments.

So, no, I wasn't giving you any special consideration for your points, either. You spun stuff out of nowhere, I at least grabbed from the history of the game and existing monsters and their stats (which you basically just advocated tossing out). When you lowered yourself to starting personal attacks, hey, that just shows you don't really have a defensible position.

Um, no, because it wasn't a hypothetical campaign world what-if but a request for stories from existing games where gunpowder was used. It took until you said you thought there was a world proposed in the OP to realise you were on that kick instead of thinking you were arguing how it should be in general or saying that was your problem in your game. I mean, the ask was for stories from your game and you started talking about terrible problems with gunpowder which seemed to come from your game. That's what was asked for. So, you got a lot of replies trying to help, which you kept shooting down with weird claims of truth. Now I also know that you misunderstood the OP, thought, somehow, that it postulated a hypothetical world where only PCs have lots of gunpowder, and was asking what that looked like. I still don't know how you got some of that, but okay, I guess I see the pattern. Although it's odd that it's only here that you offer that you think the OP demanded your responses -- seems like that would have been a better response much earlier on the thread, but, hey, I certainly didn't catch on to your misreading until now so maybe that works. Especially since you still think the OP demands your responses.

 

[Aelryinth]

Um, no, because it wasn't a hypothetical campaign world what-if but a request for stories from existing games where gunpowder was used. It took until you said you thought there was a world proposed in the OP to realise you were on that kick instead of thinking you were arguing how it should be in general or saying that was your problem in your game. I mean, the ask was for stories from your game and you started talking about terrible problems with gunpowder which seemed to come from your game. That's what was asked for. So, you got a lot of replies trying to help, which you kept shooting down with weird claims of truth. Now I also know that you misunderstood the OP, thought, somehow, that it postulated a hypothetical world where only PCs have lots of gunpowder, and was asking what that looked like. I still don't know how you got some of that, but okay, I guess I see the pattern. Although it's odd that it's only here that you offer that you think the OP demanded your responses -- seems like that would have been a better response much earlier on the thread, but, hey, I certainly didn't catch on to your misreading until now so maybe that works. Especially since you still think the OP demands your responses.

Wow, you are really centered on me, me, me for some reason, and still keeping up with the insults.
I was not the first person to say there were problems, and instead of it being smart that I was adhering to the OP's question and not going beyond it, it became all my fault that I didn't go beyond it, while you invented a whole bunch of new stuff for him and are pure in intent.

The replies and solutions weren't for me, and if they were, I certainly didn't take them that way. They were just a random sauce of DM Fiat that basically didn't do anything that had anything to do with gunpowder. Indeed, the general response from the first post was that doing what he was going to do was going to cause problems, and then others chimed in saying they could fix the problems easy as pie with DM Fiat nonsense.

And somehow, in the middle of all that, it became all about me?

Wow, you definitely have your blame filters on pretty heavy. It's showing you patterns where there are none, turning truths into blame, and consideration into obsession. Wow. Like, seriously. That is the biggest heap of nonsense I've ever read on these boards, turning your own mistakes into blaming me for them.

And, in that note, I'm done with the thread, because all you're doing is flaming me now, and I'm responding in kind, and I don't want to.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Wow, you are really centered on me, me, me for some reason, and still keeping up with the insults.

There was no insult in there. I was acknowledging I was incorrect before, that the problem wasn't you trying to showcase the problems you have in your own game and arguing against any suggestions to fix it but that you've misunderstood what the OP asked for and were trying to deliver on that, honestly and earnestly.

As for being fixated on you, you're the primary responder in this thread, and I'm responding to you quoting and speaking to me directly. Is there someone else I to whom I should respond to address the things you said to me?

I was not the first person to say there were problems, and instead of it being smart that I was adhering to the OP's question and not going beyond it, it became all my fault that I didn't go beyond it, while you invented a whole bunch of new stuff for him and are pure in intent.

The OP's question was:

Have any of you DMs out there made the mistake of giving the party an arbitrarily large amount of explosives? How much damage did it do, and what got blow'd up?

That's an ask for a story where something happened in your game already, not an imagining of a hypothetical situation.

The replies and solutions weren't for me, and if they were, I certainly didn't take them that way. They were just a random sauce of DM Fiat that basically didn't do anything that had anything to do with gunpowder. Indeed, the general response from the first post was that doing what he was going to do was going to cause problems, and then others chimed in saying they could fix the problems easy as pie with DM Fiat nonsense.

And somehow, in the middle of all that, it became all about me?

Wow, you definitely have your blame filters on pretty heavy. It's showing you patterns where there are none, turning truths into blame, and consideration into obsession. Wow. Like, seriously. That is the biggest heap of nonsense I've ever read on these boards, turning your own mistakes into blaming me for them.

And, in that note, I'm done with the thread, because all you're doing is flaming me now, and I'm responding in kind, and I don't want to.

I said you had honestly mistaken the ask in the OP and that I understood where you were coming from, now. It's somewhat clear, though, that you aren't reading me, or perhaps I'm doing a very bad job of communicating, because you're still talking about the OP says something it doesn't and saying I'm insulting and flaming you when I'm not. I did, upthread, get snarky with the petard statement, but, as I said just before this, that was because I hadn't grokked where you were coming from. I do know, and I see it, but you've misunderstood the OP to get there. That's cool, stuff like that happens all the time, I do it often enough (and try to remember to eat my crow when I do). I misunderstood you until about three posts ago, and my last post was both acknowledging that and trying to point out where you mistook the OP. No insults intended.