D&D 5E Why do guns do so much damage?

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

That's because relatively few people are shot in the chest or head. Hips, arms and legs (and even abdomen) shots are generally not lethal presuming urgent medical care is available.

However that also applies to cutting and stabbing injuries as well.

Your chances of surviving a 9mm or 5.56 round to the head or chest are negligible.

I can assure you, if I had a sword, and my opponent pulled a loaded single shot .45 handgun on me, I'd call off the attack.

Well, like I said, that's largely because you have a better chance to actually kill someone from range with a gun than with a sword. If someone was standing 60 feet away from me pointing a sword at me, I would get the heck out of there as fast as I could, and I'd probably survive. If someone was standing 60 feet away from me pointing a gun at me, I would still try to run, but I'd have a lower chance of survival because the primary benefit of firearms is that they're lethal at range and fairly easy to use in comparison to other ranged weapons.

A dude throws a sword at me from 60 feet away, that's likely his only sword, and I'm going to survive. If a dude shoots a bullet from a gun at me, he has a decent chance of hitting me and doing lethal damage, and even if he misses, he almost definitely has more bullets.

There's a reason no one uses swords and other weapons in modern warfare and combat anymore, because guns are easier/faster to use than other ranged weapons, and the farther away you are from someone that's attacking you, the less likely they are to hit. D&D can't properly model this, because your Armor Class and Hit Points are the same whether you're 5 feet away from someone with a hunting rifle than if you're 80 feet away from them. D&D doesn't properly model this, even when accounting for Long Range, Cover, and other factors (especially if you just take Sharpshooter to ignore both of those things).

Guns are deadlier because they're more difficult to dodge than swords, they have a much longer lethality range than swords, and are easier to master. I personally use the current official D&D firearm mechanics as written, and I can understand arguments both for less damage dice and for more damage dice for both firearms and swords, but D&D just isn't good at modeling this (and isn't meant to). Slings should have a higher damage dice than 1d4, darts should probably do just 1 damage, crossbows should take forever to load (as should renaissance firearms), and people shouldn't just pass out when they drop to 0 hit points. However, D&D isn't modeled to be realistic, it's modeled to let its players have fun. (That is not to say that it can't/shouldn't improve, but I just don't think that this discussion will have any constructive conclusion.)

 

[ph0rk]

These early muzzle loaders had a much larger caliber than what we think of as handguns and rifles today. I am not a gun nerd, but a larger ball (which needs more powder to fire) can hit a target with more energy than a smaller ball. Some early muzzle loaders had .66 or larger caliber balls. That means the ball is roughly two thirds of an inch in diameter, and it is hurled one hell of a lot harder than a sling. Yes, the ball is fast, but speed is a side effect of the force. The ball can break bones and is likely to have a pretty large exit wound (small hole in front, much larger hole in back).

And, importantly, hitting a target (actually hitting it) with a sword is hard. Targets try not to get hit and swords take some skill.

Firearms, much like crossbows, take less skill. Yes, some - you have to aim, but less. There isn’t a great way to model this ease in a system like 5e. Guns are a tech upgrade from bows and crossbows in many ways (much less strength required to load a muzzle loader than to draw a longbow or load a large crossbow). As they got better, muzzle loaders could be loaded frighteningly fast, too, though nothing at all like 2-4 times in 6 seconds. There isn’t really a system in 5e to handle technologically superior weapons.

And, lastly, hp is an abstraction. If you get critically hit by a two-handed longsword swing, you have not been hit square-on with that weapon, because you would be dead no matter how many hp you have. The hit points represent you avoiding that killing blow, and you get tired.

It is harder to avoid that musket ball, so it does a little more.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That's because relatively few people are shot in the chest or head. Hips, arms and legs (and even abdomen) shots are generally not lethal presuming urgent medical care is available.

However that also applies to cutting and stabbing injuries as well.

Your chances of surviving a 9mm or 5.56 round to the head or chest are negligible.

Most gunshots to the chest aren’t lethal. Most successful hits with nearly any weapon of war are.

I can assure you, if I had a sword, and my opponent pulled a loaded single shot .45 handgun on me, I'd call off the attack.

That choice would be fairly foolish, for two reasons, assuming you aren’t changing the parameters from what I stated before. That is, that you within close sprint-and-lunge distance of eachother.

1) Handguns are not very accurate in a fight, even in the hands of experts, and shooting someone who is rushing you is extremely difficult. The sword fighter is going to win that fight 9.9 times out of ten.

2) If they are pulling a gun on you, they mean to kill you. Calling off your attack likely gets you shot while you stand there.

I'm pretty sure the version of him who had to rely on pre-industrial medicine died.

So did the version of him who got stabbed in the head with a sword and had to rely on pre-modern medicine.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I mean, that hasn't changed. An individual with a holstered gun being surprised by someone within 20 feet with a knife is almost certainly going to be mortally wounded before drawing their gun. Training videos for police tell you that if an attacker is closer than 10 feet you will be wounded before you have drawn your weapon even if you're on guard. Melee range is a lot further than you'd think. People are fast, reactions are slow.

Back to the original point, I think the problem is back to the design of the weapon table:

A dagger deals 1d4 damage. So does a throwing knife or dart.
Shortbows are a two-handed weapon, so they need to be better than daggers and darts somehow. They deal 1d6 damage.
Longbows are martial, so they need to be better than shortbows somehow. They deal 1d8.
Light crossbows have the loading property, so they need to be better than shortbows somehow. They deal 1d8 damage.
Heavy crossbows are martial, have the loading property, and are heavy, so they need to be better than everything above. They do 1d10 damage.

Guns are exotic, and they require rare and exotic ammunition (gunpowder) that as a rule can't easily be produced. They should outclass everything above. Pistols do 1d10, muskets do 1d12.

In short, can we please have class-based weapon damage rolls?

I’d rather just make all weapons do 1d10 damage.

 

[Marandahir]

No, they aren't. In 3e, they're saves you roll; in 5e, you have six saves, and every single one has the same name as an ability score.

You're right. Doh. I wasn't thinking straight; I was in 4e mode and even had to edit fortitude/reflex/will defenses to fort/ref/will saves, but of course those are gone too. DOH.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

The unanswerable question, there is no correct answer to this. One is that D&D hit points are really plot armour and from a plot protection view the damage output should be similar. Combat range in D&D is melee range for pretty much everything, including magic and ranged weapons, where as sensible engagement ranges for modern firearms would be a lot longer.
Personally if modelling modern firearms I would add status effect (with save ) to modern weapons used at range. Renaissance firearms should really be more damaging but one use per combat then switch to sword. That is what they did at the time. Or just leave as is for convenience and balance reasons.

As for realism, does anyone really want realism in rpg combat? Real life is much too random, just look at all the people that survived extended combat on the Western Front in WWI and lived to tell the tale despite the statistical unlikelihood of such an event.
Or look at the stories of people that won VC's or the Medal of Honour and the damage they did before going under.

 

[SkidAce]

The speed isn't important. It's the amount of damage done that matters.

A bullet puts a finger sized hole in your body. A battleaxe will put a hole you can fit your ENTIRE HAND IN.

The speed of the bullet is how it punches that hole in the body, but it's the size of the hole and the amount of damaged material that matters.

Actually, its based on its kinetic impact, which is speed. A hollow point will expand and stop in the body, transfering the energy, and doing more damage.

I mean you are correct to a point, a narrow tipped bullet at high velocity will pass through a body, doing less damage (assuming its not hitting a bone or holing a vital organ.)

But I just noticed this is a 1st page post, so someone has likely mentioned this already.

 

[ph0rk]

Actually, its based on its kinetic impact, which is speed. A hollow point will expand and stop in the body, transfering the energy, and doing more damage.

An archaic muzzle load ball is not a hollow point.

And, again, muzzle load rounds were big. They did a hell of a lot more damage than 9mm or 5.56 bullets do (at distances they were lethal at, but not much combat in 5e happens at ranges where firearms have a tactical advantage).

They also had a much slower fire rate, of course.

 

[SkidAce]

I was watching a drama about Anne Boleyn yesterday. She certainly didn't think swords don't do much damage.

The benefit of guns is that (a) they're ranged and (b) they're easier to operate. If damage was just about kinetic velocity then a rogue's sneak attack wouldn't do all that damage. Getting beheaded with an axe is just as fatal as being shot in the head by a gun. It's not the velocity, it's what you do with it.

Also, I feel like I have this exact conversation every couple of months!

Its not either/or, with the bullet, it is a function of velocity.

With the sneak attack, its not velocity, its critical precise placement in a vital organ.

Both things can be true, but ultimately dnd is an imprecise damage simulator.

 

[Weiley31]

showed them his health insurance card in order to receive treatment.

Man, I can imagine a messed up version where it goes like this if they held it against a poor guy shot 30 times without the health insurance card:

"Oh you don't have Health Insurance?" kicks him back out on the sidewalk while spitting on his horribly wounded body.