Reloading a musket...

[Jack Haggerty]

So, I was thinking it would be neat to have a group of gnomes who weren't really any sort of tinker, but had advenced to Renaissance technology before anyone else had... They'd have gunpowder and pistols and muskets and cannons and all those goodies. The main reason that they'd have them is because they discovered a plentiful source of mithril, allowing them to build light, strong barrels for the guns to contain the controlled explosions.

But that's all really beside the point.

Because of all this, I was looking through the rules for Renessaince weaponry and technology in the DMG and SRD. I found something a little funky...

From the SRD:

"Musket: The musket holds a single shot and requires a standard action to reload."

and

"Pistol: This pistol holds a single shot and requires a standard action to reload."

In other words, it takes about 3 seconds to reload a muzzle-loading gun. That didn't seem right at all, so I looked into it a little. All sources I found said something like, "A talented, trained musketeer can fire three well aimed shots in one minute." And most sources agreed that, in reality, this rarely happened, either due to conservation of ammo, misfires, or slow (improper) loading due to poor training.

A round is 6 seconds, meaning 10 rounds to a minute. That makes your average loading time two full-round actions, with one partial action to aim and fire.

Now, I'll agree that, game-wise, two rounds to load a weapon is a long time, but what about at least increasing the load-time to a full round action?

Maybe give the guns another benefit to offset that extra time... change the critical to 19-20/x3 perhaps? or have them ignore the target's Armor bonus at short range?

What do you guys think?

 

[Crothian]

I think 2 full round actions to reload sounds about right. You fire, then put it away and draw your melee weapon. That happned a lot back then. Or, you get in a big line with all your friends with a line behind you. You and your friends fire, and while you reload, the other line fires.

I would greatly increase the damage, range, critical of these weapons because guns are very deadly. Having them ignore armor is also good.

 

[Jack Haggerty]

Come to think of it... you're right. 2 full rounds isn't all that bad for a weapon that should be potentially powerful. There's always the option of carrying a brace of pistols.

Or building a blackpowder revolver that holds six shots, but requires 12 rounds to reload all six shots.

 

[Tetsubo]

Well, if you use paper cartidges you might speed that up just a bit. A paper cartidge has the bullet, wadding and powder in one easy to use paper container. So having it take a full round to reload would be fairly reasonable. Especially considering that D&D isn't the most realistic of gaming systems.

But this is a great reason to have double barreled or multi-barreled weapons. And revolvers did exist in the time period you are basing your weapons on. They were rare of course but PC's can afford rare. There's also the combination weapon option. Combining a firearm with a crossbow, axe, mace, staff, hammer or shield.

And having the firearm have a greater armour penetration ability also makes sense. Say base it on the critical multiplier. If the weapon has a multiplier of x2 it would ignore two points of physical AC, a multiplier of x3 would ignore three points of physical AC, etc.

If firearms become common than defenses against them will also become common. I could see Protection Against Bullets spells popping up. Just a few thoughts.

 

[Jack Haggerty]

The idea is that this particular society is the only one to have developed them at this point... And they are modestly rare, because of the expense. The typical foot soldier would probably be armed with a spear, a short sword and a crossbow. Squire-types might have muskets provided by their liege lords. Knights might carry a pair of pistols.

I think I'll go with a single full-round action to reload, increase the crit threat range to 19-20/x3 and consider ignoring Armor bonuses to AC within the first range increment.

I think I will also add that, on a natural attack roll of 1, the gun misfires. This does not hurt the attacker, or permanently damage the gun. It only means the gunpowder didn't burn properly and left the bullet in the gun. The barrel must be cleared and reloaded, which takes a full minute.

 

[Jack Daniel]

In my house rule thread, I use the Deadlands/Dragon Magazine standard of three full-round actions. That's 18 seconds, which is pretty damn good for realoading a flintlock.

 

[novyet]

In my house rule thread, I use the Deadlands/Dragon Magazine standard of three full-round actions. That's 18 seconds, which is pretty damn good for realoading a flintlock.

18 seconds is pretty fast for a flintlock, the best I can do is about 30 seconds or so with one.