sources for historical firearms?
- Thread starter GlassJaw
- Start date
The Big Bang series covers firearms dating back as far as 1840, the dawn of "modern weapons". So far, only two books in the line target specific eras, one covering european military rifles from 1870-1900, the other covering german small arms of WW2.
Sidewinder presents a lot of "cowboy" era weapons from the American frontier.
I expect Northern Crown will present firearms from about 1750-1800.
Most of those can be found on rpgnow.
Other than that, you'd have to find targeted books. I'll see if my boss can give me a list of some examples, since he has several hundred such books.
Sidewinder presents a lot of "cowboy" era weapons from the American frontier.
I expect Northern Crown will present firearms from about 1750-1800.
Most of those can be found on rpgnow.
Other than that, you'd have to find targeted books. I'll see if my boss can give me a list of some examples, since he has several hundred such books.
The Shaman
First Post
Here are a few I statted for a Modern/Past game that I planned to run.
Khayman
Explorer
The Shaman said:
Nice. I had an opportunity to fire a Snider about two weeks ago --- big cartridges. 2d12 is a considerable amount of damage, but the thing is a beast.
Any suggestions for statting a Northwest Trade Gun? (i.e., flintlock, circa 1770-1820) I'd presume it's similar to the Enfield musket, maybe a bit less damage.
dougmander
Explorer
Yes, Northern Crown has rules for firearms and artillery from about 1600-1700. They include accurate reload times, rules for misfire, gun-related feats like Take Aim, Both Barrels, and Hair Trigger, and cinematic gun tricks like shooting the ram rod, double-shotting, and improvised small shot. Not to mention baroque sci-fi weapons and technologies like multi-barrelled quick-loading volley guns, heliopyritic mirrors and electrostatic gunlocks.
A caveat emptor from the author: the gun rules in NC at first glance seem to offer little or no advantage over bows and arrows. From a purely min-maxing perspective, this is true, but not the whole story. What matters is the relative effectiveness of the first volley: two-handed guns do more damage and have much better crits than bows or crossbows, and so are particularly well-suited for the ambushes, duels, frontier sieges, and pike-and-shot volley tactics of the NC universe. Twenty muskets doing d12 (or 2d12 if double-shotted, albeit with a 5% chance of bursting the barrel) with crit ranges of 17-20/x2 vs. the same number of bows doing d8 with crit ranges of 20/x3: which side would you rather be on after the first volley?
A caveat emptor from the author: the gun rules in NC at first glance seem to offer little or no advantage over bows and arrows. From a purely min-maxing perspective, this is true, but not the whole story. What matters is the relative effectiveness of the first volley: two-handed guns do more damage and have much better crits than bows or crossbows, and so are particularly well-suited for the ambushes, duels, frontier sieges, and pike-and-shot volley tactics of the NC universe. Twenty muskets doing d12 (or 2d12 if double-shotted, albeit with a 5% chance of bursting the barrel) with crit ranges of 17-20/x2 vs. the same number of bows doing d8 with crit ranges of 20/x3: which side would you rather be on after the first volley?
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