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

[dave2008]

I would look at the American Civil War for examples.

Actually, IIRC, field medics / medicine improved quite a lot during the Civil War. Perhaps you were thinking of the Revolutionary War?

 

[wellis]

I wonder how dangerous explosive & fulminating bullets would be for D&D/Pathfinder damage.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Actually, IIRC, field medics / medicine improved quite a lot during the Civil War. Perhaps you were thinking of the Revolutionary War?

Yes I was. Thanks!

War does cause tech advancement, sadly. I was thinking of the ACW due to my research on artificial blood.

 

[Chance1970]

So a Flintlock Pistol in 5e D&D deals 1d10 damage. A longsword deals 1d8 damage, 1d10 if you hold it with both hands.

But if you've ever seen what a sword can -do- to a human body, you know that the damage difference is incomparable!

Yeah, a bullet can be really effective at killing a person by catastrophically randomizing a narrow line through their body. If you hit something vital, death is assured in fairly short order, and if you don't hit something vital there's a decent shot the person will still bleed out over the course of the next hour or two, depending on their activity during that time and lack of medical care.

If you hit something vital with a sword, your target will -also- die in very short order. But if you don't strike something vital they will STILL DIE IN VERY SHORT ORDER. This is because a Sword catastrophically randomizes a very large area of the human body on each strike. At least when compared to something like a Pistol.

Depending on your ammo type a gun is going to put a fairly small hole in the front of your target and a moderately larger hole out of the back of your target with a relatively straight line between the two. With the appropriate training, a sword will completely eradicate your ability to have intestines that remain both inside your body and intact.

Take a look at this video if you can/care to (TW: Dead Animal, Fake Blood, Violence)

Spoiler: Kilij vs Pig

This is a Kilij. Roughly the same shape as a scimitar, it's got a slightly weighted tip to increase percussive force. It would not be out of place in most D&D campaign settings. It cuts -through- that pig on the first strike. And the second. The third sets it spinning and the fourth cuts through, again.

Compare that to a single hole running through your torso.

You could of course argue that that was a fairly small pig and thus the sword could easily pass through it. But upscale that pig and the damage would -still- be significant even if the sword didn't manage to pass through the bones. And all the internal organs in it's very wide, very deep, path would be randomized and compromised.

Now I'm not saying that pistols aren't deadly. They flatly and -absolutely- are deadly. But compared to the damage that a -sword- can do? It's not even in the same ball park. And that's not even getting INTO things like two-handed swords, axes of any variety, or spears...

Now you could argue that they do so much damage because HP is an abstraction and it shows how well they punch through armor... but you still make the same attack roll with the same bonuses and the same AC to overcome. And AC is -itself- an abstraction accounting for both the deflecting and cushioning effects of a piece of armor between you and oncoming metal.

And it only gets worse when you get into Revolvers and Rifles that jump up to the 2d8 and 2d10 damage range.

All things considered... I just feel like guns should do damage in-line with the rest of the weapons available. 1d6 for a pistol, 1d10 for a rifle. Basically a Hand and Heavy Crossbow for all intents and purposes. And then making them repeating weapons or whatever should just increase the number of shots before you have to spend an action reloading. I think the designers, and many players, overwhelmingly inflate just how much damage a gun does to a human being compared to the weapons, and monsters, D&D characters face.

That's my take, anyhow.

but bullets aren't just piercing weapons they are also designed to flatten out/expand after hitting and gouge out more flesh as they do so. Also it depends on the caliber/size of the bullet which would adjust the potential damage. Musket balls were actually pretty big. and the damage done was probably close to pike damage, they killed many a men with one shot on the battlefield. I found a version of an Arcane gunslinger for 5e where the damages for the firearms are more realistic than what was originally released but the list only goes up to cowboy tech in firearms. It doesn't say who made it but I thought it was pretty descent.

 

[Chance1970]

D&D absurdly overvalues firearms, particularly late medieval and early Renaissance firearms. Plate Armour exists to counter firearms, the conquistadors were staggering around with breastplates on while they had guns. The utility of early firearms was in their ability to be used enmasse. A single person wielding a blunderbuss wasn't actually that deadly.

incorrect plate armor was made to resist slower arms like arrows and swords and usually wasn't as thick as you might think due to weight. it wasn't like modern day thickness of steel. A bullet due to its velocity to size could usually pierce and kill its occupant much easier than you would think. Hence why armor saw less and less use on the battlefield after firearms became prevalent on the scene.

 

[CleverNickName]

Welcome to the forums, Chance!

 

[Flamestrike]

incorrect plate armor was made to resist slower arms like arrows and swords and usually wasn't as thick as you might think due to weight. it wasn't like modern day thickness of steel. A bullet due to its velocity to size could usually pierce and kill its occupant much easier than you would think. Hence why armor saw less and less use on the battlefield after firearms became prevalent on the scene.

Ned Kelly would like a word with you.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Firearms in D&D should do psychic damage for the mental damage discussions about them deal.

 

[Weiley31]

Firearms in D&D should do psychic damage for the mental damage discussions about them deal.

About a half other threads too.

 

[rmcoen]

I liked an old 2e idea - implemented for crossbows - which was Armor Piercing: a crossbow ignores 5pts of AC-due-to-armor when fired at a target in short range. That seems like it would be a great buff for the pistol/rifle, while keeping the damage in the same range as the other weapons available. "Don't much care about that fancy armor, bub, you'll be just as dead..." Till "bub" anime-ninja-slides to the right, rendering the kill shot just a graze (translation "bub" took 6 hp, but has like 40, so whatever).

The primary limiter, in my mind, for firearms in fantasy is either Complexity/Maintenance/Uniqueness, or COST, or both. No one else has a gun like Percy's because it was demonwrought. (oops, spoiler) Kazan the Doomguard (a PC in our Plaescape campaign in college) had a "shotgun" as his personal entropic weapon, but rarely used it because each shot was 100gp! (unless he was using his faction/class power of "entropic blow") In my campaign, "boomtubes" are completely sealed "black-box" style weapons identical to pistols or rifles, but when their shots are used, they aren't replaceable (and tampering with a sealed boomtub results in the thing exploding); only the Blackrock Clan of dwarves makes boomtubes, and there's not really a resale market, since there is no way to tell how many bullets remain!

So most people - and even fantasy heroes - are going to use crossbows (or bows, etc.) instead of firearms. Maybe keep that handy pistol/boomtube for piercing a particularly armored target... but even then, how threatening is that d6 wound without something else behind it?