Rules for pistols and muskets

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I'm considering including gunpowder in my campaign and I was wondering if there were rules for such technology somewhere on the web. The rules in the DMG are far too basic and simple, not to mention that no one in my group would even consider taking an exotic weapon proficiency for those obviously underpowered weapons.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

Freeport has some rules that were published in a Dragon annual that's still available in (as least) my FLGS.

But I wouldn't complicate things much.

Guns were primarily used early on because they were easier to learn than bows. The D&D proficiency/feat system doesn't reflect a learning curve very well though. So I would make them simple weapons, if you want a lot of people using guns. If you want to cut down on gun use, rule that any time a player fails a save vs a fire-based attack (magical in origin or otherwise) then all the gunpowder on that character cooks off and blows up.

Just my two cents.

 

[Desdichado]

Early firearms weren't all that easy to use, there was a lot of care and maintenaince of the black powder, there was the packing and ramming and loading, which was much more complicated than loading and firing a bow. And I'm not convinced that learning to fire a bow well is any harder than learning to fire an early flintlock-ish pistol or musket, either.

Green Ronin's rules are good -- I've got them up under the OGL on my campaign site (link in sig) as a matter of fact. Privateer Press also has some pretty good rules, which I also believe are available as a PDF at their website.

 

[WayneLigon]

Privateer Press does have their gun rules up in a PDF
Right Here

 

[Ashrum the Black]

Well, if you don't like basic rules that are in the DMG I can say that the Lock & Load: Iron Kingdoms Character Primer has some wonderful rules for using muskets and pistols.

Like all the Priveteer Press products it is well conceived, and well crafted. The rules make sense for use of firearms in a magical campiagn, and the firearms are deadly, but not overpowered.

If you're looking at adding a more steam punkish feel for you campaign you may want to check out the whole Witchfire series as it is a wealth of information that can be pillaged for a homebrew.

Oops, you guys beat me too it!

 

[Destil]

My own rules for such are simple: firearms are a simple weapon, but loading them has a 5% chance of underloading (jams the firearm and requires 1d4 rounds to fix) and a 5% chance of overloading (boom! 1d12 fire/piercing damage in a 5' area, others can make a DC 25 reflex save for half, weapon is destroyed). The firearms profiency feat removes this chance.

Aside from that I use the stats from the DMG (though x3 crits when using bullets, which are hard to obtain and rare, or a 19-20x2 crit with ball ammo).

 

[Sixchan]

Early firearms weren't all that easy to use, there was a lot of care and maintenaince of the black powder, there was the packing and ramming and loading, which was much more complicated than loading and firing a bow. And I'm not convinced that learning to fire a bow well is any harder than learning to fire an early flintlock-ish pistol or musket, either.

Green Ronin's rules are good -- I've got them up under the OGL on my campaign site (link in sig) as a matter of fact. Privateer Press also has some pretty good rules, which I also believe are available as a PDF at their website.

AFAIK, it's not the learning to shoot well that is the problem, it's the learning to pull the string that is. There are over 100lbs of draw weight involved in some English Longbows, and Mongolian Composite bows reached up to 160lbs. Anyone who hadn't been training for almost his entire life wouldn't be able to pull the string on the more powerful bows.

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Thanks!

 

[Desdichado]

AFAIK, it's not the learning to shoot well that is the problem, it's the learning to pull the string that is. There are over 100lbs of draw weight involved in some English Longbows, and Mongolian Composite bows reached up to 160lbs. Anyone who hadn't been training for almost his entire life wouldn't be able to pull the string on the more powerful bows.

Yeah, but you're looking at extreme cases. I used to shoot bows in cub scouts when I was about 10 years old, and I didn't have a problem drawing the strings. There were certainly much smaller bows with a much smaller draw weight in existence for centuries, and they were effective as military weapons, albeit not as effective as the infamous longbows of the Welshmen/English, or the infamous composite bows of the Mongol horsemen.

 

[Larry Fitz]

The big problem with the bows as I understand it was not pulling the string, stringing the bow. This is why no one but Odysseus could use his bow, not becaus he was the strongest man around, but because he knew how to use his own weight to bend the bow far enough to string it properly.