Rules for pistols and muskets

[Greatwyrm]

One idea I've kicked around is using the DMG weapons as they are, with one exception. Treat all firearm attacks as touch attacks. Bullets would punch right through most fantasy armors and natrual armor, but make dodging much more important. This would make up for the reload times and somewhat unimpressive damage.

This also mimics the real world fairly well. Heavier armors like breastplates and chainmail practically disappeared once black-powder arms became common.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

In my campaign that I'll be starting up, firearms are mainly simple and martial weapons. Every class can at least use a small pistol and light musket. The damage ranges from 2d3 for tiny derringer pistols up to 2d8 damage, for medium sized characters. I'm generally having them all have a crit of 19-20/x3 and most forms of armor only use half of their rating against firearms. Every class also gets a defense rating, but armor does reduce class defense bonus by an ammount equal to half its armor check penalty. Taking an armor penetration feat, a character can ignore all non-ballistic armors in attack rolls.

Rolling a 1 on an attack roll with firearms causes problems with some, there's a table with results such as misfire, jam, backfire, delayed burn and explosion.

There's variations on many guns such as double-barrelled, pepperbox (4 shots), and there's the spitter weapons from the Spelljammer d20 campaign in Polyhedron which are like primitive revolvers but the size of the weapon is at least one category higher than it's single shot counterpart. Other available weapons are blunderbusses, combination weapons like rapier-pistols, bombs, rockets much like the ones used in ancient China, and flamethrowers (and it's counterparts which do other types of energy damage such as the acid-sprayer and freeze-cannon).

 

[Kalle Palander]

I've always felt that if I were to introduce firearms to my gaming group I'd had to to something with the whole hp and AC system.

Especially, as pointed out by Kobold Avenger, the armor class system. AC against firearms shouldn't be the same as against a sword. A breastplate does'nt help much against a bullet. Kobold Avenger has done something about it, but I think it complifies the whole thing (nothing personal ) and I don't think my gaming group would like it.

So far I haven't found a way to merge the two, but then again, I don't know a thing about d20 Modern, maybe I just don't care

 

[Anime Kidd]

My site has rules fo firearms. It may not be great, but may be useful. Link is in the sig.

 

[Eben]

quote:A breastplate does'nt help much against a bullet.

I'm not too sure this is true. Breastplates were still used well into the nineteenth century. I do believe a breastplate could stop a bullet. Armour did become less efficient with the wide use of muskets. But the reason for this might well have been the scale of things.
Armies became much bigger because anybody can be trained to use a musket in a short period of time. Longbows and crossbows were much more efficiënt, but required much more training. Medieval bowmen were professional soldiers, while any poor sod could be taught to point a musket in the general direction of the enemy.
Equiping these troops with armour became too costly to be efficiënt. For comparison: look at the early gunpowder era op until the English civil war and thirty years war: you still had armoured infantry, while a few decennia later (Wars of the Spanish succesion: Louis XIV vs. Marlbourough and Eugène of Savoie) heavy armour was only still worn by the elite cavalry and only a singel cuiras (breastplate).

So in effect: heavy armour became less efficiënt because the scale of warfare was drastically changed in comparison to medieval warfare. On an individual basis a suit of armour has similar chances of stopping a musket bullet as of stopping a crossbow bolt. Except that in hitting, the crossbow is a more eficiënt weapon than a musket. But the statement that gunpowder made armour obsolte is disproved by the fact that armour was still in use on the nineteenth century battlefields. Protection was most likely less than in medieval times (especially for light armour), but far from obsolete.

 

[Pbartender]

Unless you were a sharpshooting hunter or sniper, the trick to blackpowder firearms wasn't learning to aim... That's why you had ranks and files of infantry firing in volleys. All you had to do was teach your men to aim low, so the bullets didn't fly over the heads of the enemy. ...it was learning to reload quickly and properly.

The reason the British infantry was so successful in the late 1700's and early 1800's was that its infantry was drilled incessantly on reloading and firing. They used live ammo in their drills to get their troops used to the noise and smoke of battle. It was that trained discipline that allowed them to fire fast enough to simply put more lead into the enemy faster. Plus it allowed them to stand firm and advance even in the face of enemy fire, instead of retreating at the first casualities.

If you can find the numbers, go compare sometime the diffierence between the number of bullets fired in a typical musket battle to the number of actual casualites. Typically, it tool a LOT of bullets fired in volleys to kill even a few men.

 

[Kalle Palander]

Breastplates were still used well into the nineteenth century.

Yes, both sides used them on their cavalry in WWI. But this was remains of Once Great Europe. The reason why breastplates were used for such a long time were not it's ability to stop bullets, but rather for show ( it does look cool) and due to the ability to stop sabres and lances from percing you, weapons both sides cavalry used until WWI. That is why armor were used for so a long period of time

 

[LostSoul]

I've always felt that if I were to introduce firearms to my gaming group I'd had to to something with the whole hp and AC system.

Just give guns a STR bonus to Hit and Damage - similar to Mighty Composite Bows - that represents the power of the bullet.

I think that's exactly the way they should work.

 

[Pbartender]

Just give guns a STR bonus to Hit and Damage - similar to Mighty Composite Bows - that represents the power of the bullet.

How so?

 

[Desdichado]

Yes, both sides used them on their cavalry in WWI. But this was remains of Once Great Europe. The reason why breastplates were used for such a long time were not it's ability to stop bullets, but rather for show ( it does look cool) and due to the ability to stop sabres and lances from percing you, weapons both sides cavalry used until WWI. That is why armor were used for so a long period of time

No, breastplates are still used today. From soldiers in Iraq to S.W.A.T. teams everywhere, kevlar breastplates are still quite efficient at stopping most bullets. And before guns became late twentieth century efficient, they didn't even need to be kevlar.