What Do You Do For: GUNPOWDER

[HeavenShallBurn]

Well, even granting that what you have experience with is guncotton (3 times as powerful as black powder), and even granting that what's in a Claymore is (correct me if I'm wrong here) RDX which is a whole different ball game when it comes to gas velocity, yeah, a claymore like device could be a potential problem...But still, for the sake of argument, I'm not entirely convinced you could build one with black powder, at least one that works like a claymore, because to achieve the force of detonation you'd need to get it to work you'd have to bind the powder pretty tightly, and that would destroy the physics that make a claymore work in the first place. So, a pipe bomb, sure, you can do that with black powder, but I'm not convinced of a claymore. And even if I was, I'm not convinced of its ability to penetrate plate outside of 30 meters or so.

Yeah, even improvised modern stuff is a LOT more powerful than older pre-guncotton explosives. It's not as effective, but it can work. As far as the physics go it is possible just requires adjustments, a lot of them. They would have been about the size of a shoebox and with the banded iron construction for significant parts weighted in at somewhere around ten to fifteen pounds each. Hell they even drew the thing up and went to the effort of making sure it actually would work, when I was generous and gave its area of effect an 80 foot range they even suggested I should probably dial it back to about 60ft which was surprising since I expected them to wring every single advantage out of it.

Ditto with shaped charges. Again, to get a shaped charge to work, you need an explosion that happens almost simultanously throughout the charge. That doesn't happen with black powder. The sodium nitrate and desiel fuel with a bit of powdered nails and aluminum charges that you are used to improvising as breaching devices have a rate of burn thats like nine times what you get with black powder (you can grind black powder really fine to get the grains to pack to partly offset that, but that's a good way to blow yourself up). So to get your shaped charge to work, you'd have to build a massive sturdy chest shaped like the charge you wanted to create, and pack it tightly with fine grained powder, then transport it without it getting rained on and so forth. And the thing is, I think I could handle that sort of thing. It's no worse than the typical plan of cammando team of flying invisible PC's that storm the barbican and open the gates for the army advancing undercover of obscuring mist.

The shaped charge was invented in the nineteenth century and the first few were actually built using blackpowder. Within short order he switched to guncotton once he realized how much more efficiently it would work, but the first ones were black powder and showed that they could generate enough power to cut armor plate used in ironclads which was the problem that spurred him to develop the thing. So the precedent was there. I did mention that it took a wagon to move the thing? Essentially they built a pre-industrial truck bomb. It weighted a ton and a half and took up most of the wagon with the copper plate right behind the bench and a probe that stuck out five feet in front of the wagon. They used phantom steeds to pull it. They were fighting orcs that had retreated into the old mines under a mountain and filled the main entrance with mine tailings. I was expected a scry and teleport inside tactic, instead they decided they would blast through the obstructed entrance.

And I'm inclined to think your animal intestine idea doesn't work at all. You get an explosion with all the force of a firecracker, because animal intestine doesn't bind black powder tightly enough to keep it from blowing apart and just burning. And the weight required - look it up in the manual - would prohibit the breaching effect I think you are going for.

This was really the only ridiculous use of explosives but they were getting bored and I was getting desperate to get them to cross the area so I just let it happen. Thing was I'd put what was essentially a small field of punji stakes out in one area to restrict movement and they assumed it couldn't JUST be a fraise it had to have some hidden trap or danger so they didn't want to cross it until they'd "cleared" it. One of them mentioned what they needed was a bangalore and it snowballed from there. I pretty much just let them do it to get them moving to the real fight further on.

 

[Gabester]

Eventually I had to say that's it, no more blackpowder in future campaigns cause nobody could help but put RL experience into play.

Sometimes you just have to say no.

Not, "well it's a DC of 40" but "no".

Just like you say "no" when someone tries to use the out-of-character information they have learned from, say, you publically announcing the results of a successful spot or listen check. Or the information they receive from hearing a roleplayed conversation that takes place in a conversation their character doesn't speak. They will have to just grin and bear it when you tell them that "no" they can't use their out-of-character military expertise or even the bow with explosive arrows thing they saw on Rambo.

"No". It's a powerful DM tool. Not one you should use often but this is one of those cases where you should and then just move on.

 

[AnonymousOne]

3) Reloading an early firearm should take at least 5 rounds or so (without a fast loading feat). This is one of the reasons #2 needs to be true.

Just a quick historical note (as my dad builds muzzleloading firearms as a hobby):

A well Trained Musketman, Skirmisher, or Militiamen using a muzzleloader could fire roughly 5 rounds a minute, or one shot every 12 seconds. Assuming that your character gains this kind of speed loading from rapid reload, and the PHB 3.5 Stipulation that a round is six seconds, you are looking at a two round reload time. Just thought I'd share, for clarity's sake.

 

[Celebrim]

A well Trained Musketman, Skirmisher, or Militiamen using a muzzleloader could fire roughly 5 rounds a minute, or one shot every 12 seconds. Assuming that your character gains this kind of speed loading from rapid reload, and the PHB 3.5 Stipulation that a round is six seconds, you are looking at a two round reload time. Just thought I'd share, for clarity's sake.

For the record, I think I specified an early musket. That is to say a matchlock or a wheellock.

I'd be willing to bet that your dad does not shoot matchlocks, and if he does, he doesn't reload them 5 times in a minute. In fact, I'd be impressed if he could reload one in a minute, and something like two minutes is probably more reasonable.

So yeah, 12 second reload times are possible as an absolute minimum reloading time, oh, maybe 400 years and five or six major technology breakthoughs from the first thing that's recognizably a musket, but that wasn't my intention but something closer to the Reinnasance.

 

[AnonymousOne]

For the record, I think I specified an early musket. That is to say a matchlock or a wheellock.

I'd be willing to bet that your dad does not shoot matchlocks, and if he does, he doesn't reload them 5 times in a minute. In fact, I'd be impressed if he could reload one in a minute, and something like two minutes is probably more reasonable.

So yeah, 12 second reload times are possible as an absolute minimum reloading time, oh, maybe 400 years and five or six major technology breakthoughs from the first thing that's recognizably a musket, but that wasn't my intention but something closer to the Reinnasance.

Ah yeah ... wheellocks are a whooooole different story. Sorry for the confusion. I started reading 1700s in some of the posts and immediately thought "Brown Bess".

On a side not I once asked my dad why he doesn't build wheel-locks or matchlocks.
His reply: "I want something that actually goes BOOM with some degree of reliability."

 

[Shades of Green]

Just a quick historical note (as my dad builds muzzleloading firearms as a hobby):

A well Trained Musketman, Skirmisher, or Militiamen using a muzzleloader could fire roughly 5 rounds a minute, or one shot every 12 seconds. Assuming that your character gains this kind of speed loading from rapid reload, and the PHB 3.5 Stipulation that a round is six seconds, you are looking at a two round reload time. Just thought I'd share, for clarity's sake.

Hmmm... So you're saying that a load time of 2 full-round actions (or 1 full-round action with Rapid Reload) is realistic for flintlocks?

 

[Celebrim]

Hmmm... So you're saying that a load time of 2 full-round actions (or 1 full-round action with Rapid Reload) is realistic for flintlocks?

No, I think he's saying that it might be possible to get the reload time on a flintlock down to 2 rounds if you have a couple of feats. And it just might, though I think 3 rounds is maybe more real.

 

[Agamemnon]

Speaking of guns, I wanted to make a character wielding a smokepowder pistol, but it occurred to me that in order to have a weapon of any kind of combat potential, I'd need to stuff tens of thousands of gps worth of thaumaturgy into that one handgun, at which point I'm already wielding a magic item and can dispense with the powder and bullets altogether.

The ideal D&D handgun is something like a rechargeable wand of Agannazar's Scorcher.

 

[Celebrim]

Speaking of guns, I wanted to make a character wielding a smokepowder pistol, but it occurred to me that in order to have a weapon of any kind of combat potential, I'd need to stuff tens of thousands of gps worth of thaumaturgy into that one handgun, at which point I'm already wielding a magic item and can dispense with the powder and bullets altogether.

The ideal D&D handgun is something like a rechargeable wand of Agannazar's Scorcher.

You know, it occurs to me that in a world with actual gunpowder (the sulfer, charcoal, sodium nitrate stuff) there is no particular reason why a player using major creation could not create gunpowder instantly with a successful craft (alchemy) check. Now, let's see, gunpowder weighs 58lbs per cubic foot, and a caster can create one cubic foot per caster level...

 

[Agamemnon]

That's a problem with the spell and/or the magic system, really. Major creation, fabricate, you name it. It's pretty much just falling apart at the seams.