Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Well, at least they won't be laughing long.
Which fantasy TRPGs do you think truly reflect the characteristics of firearms as Game Changers?
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dragoner
KosmicRPG.com
The broad sword does also.
aramis erak
Legend
I think CP 2013 did so better. Maxed out Solos can take WAY more abuse in CP2020 than CP2013...
WFRP 1e does a great job at that, too... combined with the (slightly more than realistic) high risks they bring to the user.
A duckfoot pistol can bring a dragon down on a lucky shot...
aramis erak
Legend
Same as a Rifle: 3d. Only weapons over 3d in LBB1 are shotguns (4d), Laser Carbines (4d), and Laser Rifles (5d).
Book four direct fire, the ACR is also 3D, unless loaded with HE rounds, when it does 4d, but sucks vs combat armor and cloth armor. The ARL and tac missiles do well more, but those are 4cm or larger explosive warheads, and FGMP and PGMP weapons basically eradicate man sized targets if they get through the armor. (which is abstracted into the To-Hit in CT).
An issue which resulted in me using Striker/AHL for personal combat instead...
rmcoen
Adventurer
In a game with "Hit Points" - already discussed a thousand times, so just leave it - and Levels that add more Hit Points, why does a Firearm need to be anything more/different than a "noisy crossbow"? A d8 or d10 weapon will kill a normal person, and mortally wound other comparable threats (goblins, kobolds). Make 'em "Simple Weapons", to reflect ease of training, and you're good. You need a completely different combat system than D&D to reflect armor penetration, biotrauma, proper defenses, agility... and then you've changed the game. (no pun intended towards OP's "game changer" comment)
Shadowrun, designed to be "magic and guns", is probably the best bet. Guns will kill your meat points, spells will sap your soul (or do direct damage like guns), but blades nicely slice through armor and meat... it comes down to the user's skill and/or "enhancements".
Shadowrun, designed to be "magic and guns", is probably the best bet. Guns will kill your meat points, spells will sap your soul (or do direct damage like guns), but blades nicely slice through armor and meat... it comes down to the user's skill and/or "enhancements".
Moonmover
Adventurer
Later printings of Lamentations of the Flame Princess have an appendix detailing rules for early modern (as opposed to medieval) weapons. Firearms do more damage than other weapons, and can force enemies to make morale checks. They have other drawbacks, though - cost, bulk, noisiness, reload time, and the need to keep your powder dry. The same appendix also provides a list of early modern armors, because of course as soon as arquebuses get involved most people are going to ditch their chainmail.
Gorgon Zee
Hero
If we are talking about introducing modern firearms into medieval warfare, then sure it would have a huge impact, but historically, the early ones had very little impact. It took centuries for them to become ascendant:
These early guns (about 1380) were slow to reload, had limited range, and were as dangerous to the user as to the enemy. In comparison, archery, crossbows, and slings offered superior range and a faster rate of fire. By 1530, firearms had evolved into more practical weapons and were common on the battlefield, gradually replacing archers and crossbowmen. The era of pike and shot ended with the introduction of the bayonet, which made firearms fully self-sufficient. By 1680–1700, pikes and halberds disappeared, replaced by musketeers equipped with bayonets.
Assuming the standard fantasy levels of technology, if you treated a gun as about as effective as a crossbow, you'd not be far off for much of the medieval period.
These early guns (about 1380) were slow to reload, had limited range, and were as dangerous to the user as to the enemy. In comparison, archery, crossbows, and slings offered superior range and a faster rate of fire. By 1530, firearms had evolved into more practical weapons and were common on the battlefield, gradually replacing archers and crossbowmen. The era of pike and shot ended with the introduction of the bayonet, which made firearms fully self-sufficient. By 1680–1700, pikes and halberds disappeared, replaced by musketeers equipped with bayonets.
Assuming the standard fantasy levels of technology, if you treated a gun as about as effective as a crossbow, you'd not be far off for much of the medieval period.
Celebrim
Legend
This isn't going to be an answer that most people like, but most games are by design not designed to do this, but it is pretty easy to remove the safety on most games and make this happen. It's just, you probably don't want to do it.
Star Wars for example is a setting where weapons more advanced than modern weaponry exist, and yet lightsabers and enraged unarmed Wookies and even hordes of Ewoks with clubs are more powerful in the stories than those advanced weapons. If you want genre verisimilitude, you need to tone down non-melee weaponry and favor melee combat because that's what happens on screen.
The same is true of just about any genre of game you want to play. Guns only kill bad guys in most stories, and heroes are reduced to fists. Star Trek? Kirk does his two-handed fist hammer smash more often than he shoots someone with a phaser. James Bond? Never is taken out by a sniper with one shot, but always gets into hand to hand with a henchmen or thug.
But I can easily take something like 3e D&D or a generic D20 game and if I want to add modern weapons to it in a way that overshadows melee. You just take normal melee weapons in that genera and give them increased to hit bonuses, slightly higher damage, increased rates of fire, improved range increments compared to other missile weapons, improved critical ranges, and make them easy weapons to acquire skill in. You won't necessarily impact the game much until you start simulating 18th century tech, and you won't change the world until you have at least mid-19th century tech, but by the time you have 20th century tech suddenly 1st level orcs or goblins are a serious threat to 8th or 10th level fighters.
And that is the problem with advanced weaponry. Heroes depends on having greater defense than the offensive power that can be brought to bear by mooks. Heroic is all about in some fashion being able to defend yourself. And in a world with machine guns, grenades and artillery you are in a world about armies and not about individuals. Random death becomes too likely of an outcome. There is a reason that you don't have 105mm and 155mm howitzer shells raining down on the PCs in games, because it's solely luck whether you survive that. High tech guns are fundamentally that same problem. If you introduce realistic guns you are going to find the need for advanced armor, luck or destiny points to alter random outcomes, force fields, plot protection, or precognitive reflexes and the ability to dodge and block bullets. Or else, you are going to have stories that don't simulate the arc of the stories people tell.
Star Wars for example is a setting where weapons more advanced than modern weaponry exist, and yet lightsabers and enraged unarmed Wookies and even hordes of Ewoks with clubs are more powerful in the stories than those advanced weapons. If you want genre verisimilitude, you need to tone down non-melee weaponry and favor melee combat because that's what happens on screen.
The same is true of just about any genre of game you want to play. Guns only kill bad guys in most stories, and heroes are reduced to fists. Star Trek? Kirk does his two-handed fist hammer smash more often than he shoots someone with a phaser. James Bond? Never is taken out by a sniper with one shot, but always gets into hand to hand with a henchmen or thug.
But I can easily take something like 3e D&D or a generic D20 game and if I want to add modern weapons to it in a way that overshadows melee. You just take normal melee weapons in that genera and give them increased to hit bonuses, slightly higher damage, increased rates of fire, improved range increments compared to other missile weapons, improved critical ranges, and make them easy weapons to acquire skill in. You won't necessarily impact the game much until you start simulating 18th century tech, and you won't change the world until you have at least mid-19th century tech, but by the time you have 20th century tech suddenly 1st level orcs or goblins are a serious threat to 8th or 10th level fighters.
And that is the problem with advanced weaponry. Heroes depends on having greater defense than the offensive power that can be brought to bear by mooks. Heroic is all about in some fashion being able to defend yourself. And in a world with machine guns, grenades and artillery you are in a world about armies and not about individuals. Random death becomes too likely of an outcome. There is a reason that you don't have 105mm and 155mm howitzer shells raining down on the PCs in games, because it's solely luck whether you survive that. High tech guns are fundamentally that same problem. If you introduce realistic guns you are going to find the need for advanced armor, luck or destiny points to alter random outcomes, force fields, plot protection, or precognitive reflexes and the ability to dodge and block bullets. Or else, you are going to have stories that don't simulate the arc of the stories people tell.
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rmcoen
Adventurer
Watching the Vox Machina animated show gives a good impression of firearms in fantasy. Percy has a "pepperbox" (a revolver), and "the List" (a sniper rifle). The revolver's main benefit is ease of use - he can snap off a half-dozen shots while running, with reasonable accuracy. But they don't seem to do much more damage than Vax's daggers or Vex's arrows, skipping off dragonscale or thick hide without apparent effect. So.. a d8 ranged weapons, noisy, quick, easy to use, requires reloading. And doesn't appreciably alter the power balance of the "system" (weapons vs. defenses vs. magic).
A bad guy copies his design, and wants to foment revolution/chaos by giving firearms to everyone. Precisely because they are so easy to use. And boom, you're back to @Celebrim and others' points that the story becomes about armies and random death instead of heroic efforts...
