What's your source?
You can find what I'm telling you in A Knight in Armor and a Knight in Battle and a History of Medieval Warfare. You trying to call me out for falsehoods? There's your sources.
Why DON'T people like guns in D&D?
- Thread starter Herobizkit
- Start date
What's your source?
You can find what I'm telling you in A Knight in Armor and a Knight in Battle and a History of Medieval Warfare. You trying to call me out for falsehoods? There's your sources.
So the weapons they carried were meaningless. I guess the Mongols were stupid, they should have avoided carrying weapons at all, since Russia, China, the Mideast, Czechoslovakia, Poland all gave up because of Mongol numbers. Why even use weapons and armor in war, since only the numbers matter - somehow that sounds WRONG.
How about them dumb ole English Long Bowman - what a waste of time. So that's why the French cut off the fingers of a captured English Bowman, to teach them a lessen for choosing such an inferior weapon to battle. The French hated them because of that.
While its really not worth discussing history with you, since you obviously know more than the truth about every standing army that ever chose bows as a weapon of war. What a bunch of dumb asses they were.
Since it only takes numbers perhaps sending 50,000 peasants with no weapons was better - the other side would just give up, cause numbers is everything...
GP
Oh, this is your comeback. A sarcastic insulting comeback with little to no facts. Yes. I'm aware of the English longbow and the effectiveness of the longbow archer. I even know it was originally a Welsh weapon. And yes, I know about Crecy and Agincourt. I study Medieval Warfare, sorry for bothering to do so and offer that information here.
Of course the Mongol weapons were effective, but not superior to their opponents. The reason they conquered parts of Europe and China was because of numbers. Most European and Asian nations did not have large standing armies as we do nowadays. Thus they were unprepared for a large invasion by a horde the size of the Mongol Horde. It would have taken them a long time to gather an army to repel them. They were rather surprised by the advance of a foreign horde into European territory. It's not like old world Europe had a sophisticated intelligence system in place prepared for such eventualities.
And the small riding bow did have it's period of effectiveness, until defenses were created against them. The gun was the ultimate destroyer of the age of armor, at least armor as the Medieval folk made it. We have plenty of modern armor made for stopping small arms fire, but killing power has still far exceeded defense in modern warfare. One of the last times defense was competitive was back in the Medieval days where heavy armor was designed to protect against even longbow arrows.
The Mongols also had effective tactics. They knew how to siege cities, cut off supply lines, instill fear, and cut off communication. That is why they were feared over the weapons they employed. And if you failed to defend against them, they wiped you out as an example to future rulers that might defy them. Alot more going on than their skill with the small riding bow.
I haven't been spouting facts. I've been generalizing about the progression of firearms and how it affected warfare and weapons.
No, I'm not completely wrong. I find it strange that you would say so given how few facts I've stated and the simplicity of my argument.
No it is not historical fact. The Chinese army was not this unified force with modern communication standards and the ability rally thousands of troops quickly to a given location. It didn't work that way back then. China was spread amongst the country in urban and rural communities. There are many isolated villages, cities, and the like loosely unified by an emperor. It is nowhere near likt is in the modern day.
It was not the mounted archers that gave them superiority. Numbers had a great deal to do with it. If you are a student of history, you would admit this.
The Mongol Horde was called a horde for a reason. Genghis first united a great many Mongol tribes into a vast army. Then he took this army on to conquer other nations.
Very few were prepared to deal with an army this size because they did not maintain large standing armies that were anywhere near as mobile as the Mongol Horde.
You seem to believe that horse archers were anything new in warfare to Europe or China. Mounted archers have existed for a long, long time prior to the Mongol invasion. But not the numbers the Mongols brought to bear.
You going to argue this? I'd love to see you argue this one.
I know just about everything involving Medieval history you listed. I was aware plate came later. I'm not the one that brought up Napoleon. I'm aware that plate armor and its descendants such as partial plate contiued to exist and be used, though full suits of plate were more for ceremonial use than warfare.
The weapons were talking about are all about mass warfare. Guns, bows, mounted calvary charges, pikes, and the like were all mass warfare tactics that were most effective when employed by large, trained groups. And they changed how warfare was conducted, every single one of them and all were trumped by the gun.
What part of my argument do you consider wrong?
It's pretty simple. I'll state it in order.
1. Guns are better than bows. They will obviate the need for bows pretty quickly. They will obsolete plate armor pretty quickly. They have a nearly open ended growth potential that far exceeds the muscle-powered bow. Muscle-power is an inherent limitation of the bow that does not exist with the gun.
2. Guns change the way warfare is conducted. They change tactics, weapons, and just about everything involved in warfare including defensive contruction of buildings and fortifications.
3. If you are going to introduce guns into D&D, prepare to make the extreme change to the world that guns had on the real world.
You make it sound like gun advancement was slow. It wasn't unless you are looking only in terms of a few human lives. In terms of human history, gun advancement a lightning strike.
The Western World went from roughly 10000 years of knives, swords, spears, bows, slings, and their variations to roughly the Arquebus to Nuclear weapons in 600 years. Do you take that into account when introducing guns into your D&D world?
I do. To me 600 years is a flash in the pan. Just because Chine failed to capitalize on gunpowder and maximize its advantages doesn't change that Europe did maximize it to the effect of conquering most of the known world.
You write all that and all you do is prove exactly what I stated to begin with, except you supply greater factual evidence with dates and a rough timeline. Thanks for proving my argument.
Guns introduced into a D&D world will have a dramatic effect on warfare and personal weapons to the point it will obsolete plate, bows, swords, and the like. Dragons will be fought with heavy artillery as will giants. And the technology curve will speed along fairly fast.
You can even begin to discuss and hypothesize how magic will affect firearms advancement. Will it accelerate it or slow it? Both sides could be argued. But it will have an effect on the advancement of firearms.
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gamerprinter
Mapper/Publisher
Actually it is factual, and if it seemed insulting, I was only responding in kind. Your previous post "seemed" to indicate that I was wrong in my declaration that the Mongols were an effective fighting machine, and bows were a major part of that. I never said it was their only effective tactic.
The post I was responding to seemed to indicate - Mongols were effective only due to their numbers, which by declaration negates any other citing of Mongol effectiveness.
However, I see in this response that you actually realize that numbers are not the only effective tools for Mongols - large forces of trained fighters, highly mobile cavalry and mounted infantry, skill in siege tactics (learned in China), cutting off supply lines and lines of communication, and use of fear tactics. All true, and I am in total agreement. If you qualified your previous statement to emphasize that numbers in addtion to the above points, I would not have responded with such "snarkiness."
You also need to add to that list of Mongol battle tactics is they did their campaigning in the winter, as their homeland is largely mush in the warmer months, whereas Europeans generally campaigned in the summer. Finding a horde at your door, when your snuggling to keep warm - gave the Mongols a serious tactical advantage.
Regarding your list of Armor Books - except for some of the newer material that is being based on actual testing of said arms and armament, most of the books you mention, actually are rewritten excerpts from Stone's Guide to Armor and Weapons - which I see as the only definitely work on armor, I disdain most of the other sources as copied text from Stone's Guide and nothing much new.
While I only minored in history - my information is based facts. So my "insulting comeback" was only based on facts.
Oh and Tale's point about "bullet proof" being armor tested by firing a gun is true - source: Stone's Guide to Armor and Weapons.
We have both studied. But a major reason the Mongol Horde had success was their numbers. It is a documented fact.
Yes they were good warriors. Better than say the best Chinese or European? Arguable, very arguable. Especially if you took a Mongol warrior one on one.
There's a reason Genghis Khan united Mongolia before going on his empire building spree. One or two Mongol tribes weren't going to conquer China, Russia, and Europe. China had fight Mongols before successfully.
Ultimately, Genghis amassed a huge army of trained soldiers and went on a conquering spree. When an army the size of the Mongol army showed up on your doorstep, you had better be ready or bow down. That is why so many bowed down without a fight once they learned Genghis knew how to bring a city down.
China and Europe both believed their city walls would stand against the Mongol Horde without a problem. Little did they realize the Mongols had learned how to take down cities. And a city that wasn't prepared for a sieged was going to be destroyed.
And the Mongol army often had a numbers advantage on top of a mobility advantage against the places they attacked in Europe and China. One thing about the feudal system and the like is that it did not encourage large standing armies. It encourage a loose federation of individual armies that worked through various agents such as dukes, knights, and the like.
And there were also various mercenary units such as the Swiss Pikeman that took time to gather and pay. Thus slowing down the gathering of an army in Europe.
Whereas Genghis Kahn and his descendants had their army gathered and ready when they showed up on the doorstep. It was a bit too late then to put out the call to conscript the peasants and get all your knights and mercenaries gathered.
Even during the Crusades, those armies were mostly made up of gathered knights, mercenaries, and peasants loosely tied together by a cause. Even then there was massive infighting.
But the Mongols were unified. They were one large army that had been working together to conquer for ages, much like Rome. I would have loved to see the organized armies of Rome during their peak go up against the Mongol Horde during its peak. That would be very interesting.
Just to add, mounted archers were nothing new when the Mongol Horde came. They existed ages back and are well-documented during Rome's conquests.
No need for a heavy argument. People are going to do what they want in D&D. Some will throw guns in for a little added fun. And I'd go with them if a world builder did a good job integrating them into the campaign world rather than them being an afterthought as they usually are. Otherwise, I don't like guns. Just like at one time I couldn't stand monks in campaigns based in Western civilization. Having a Eastern style martial artist as a primary class in a standard Medieval type campaign I found annoying. I've learned to live with that. So if someone does guns up right, I'll learn to live with them. Otherwise, I'll keep them out of my campaign unless I want to do them up properly.
When did I say that horse archers were a new invention of the Mongols? I clearly stated that horse archers from Central Asia had been conquering everybody else for most of human history. Don't forget the reason we are talking about the Mongols in the first place. You were arguing vehemently that bows are useless as a weapon of war, so someone then brought up the Mongols as an example of a military force that predominantly used the bow. You then countered with the argument that the Mongols only won using sheer numbers (with the clear implication that their numerical advantage was so significant that it didn't matter what weapon they used). I just brought up China because its population is so large that it can field really large armies, which negates your "numbers is the only thing that matters" point. Once we bring in factors other than numbers (such as tactics, organization, mobility, and weaponry), your arguments begin to fall apart.
In any case though, what brought the Mongols their victories wasn't numbers or horse archers alone: it was tactics and organization. Genghis Khan was a brilliant military and civil leader, who not only unified the Mongol tribes but transformed them into an organized state. Not the least of his contributions was inventing a writing system for the Mongol language. Moreover, the Mongols as a whole were masters of fear. They were unspeakably brutal, razing cities that defied them to the ground, and they used that track record to terrorize other cities into surrendering peacefully.
Calling the Mongols a horde of barbarians who relied completely on overwhelming numbers is a complete misrepresentation. Of course, this whole Mongol thing is a complete tangent that has little to do with the main point of the thread, so I suppose we should just drop it and focus on the subject at hand.
I wasn't posting that just for benefit; most of the latter part of my post was directed more towards the topic as a whole and for the benefit of everyone else on reading this thread.
Points 1 and 2 are true, eventually. It wasn't true at all with early firearms. As I demonstrated it took centuries for gunpowder weapons to advance from crude early designs into the weapons we are more familiar with. Furthermore, the amount of change guns brought about is often grossly exaggerated (and much of the changes that guns take credit for are due to other factors).
As for the third point, that I completely disagree with. Most fantasy is loosed based on the Late Middle Ages with some Renaissance elements thrown in. Well, in the 14th and 15th centuries, gunpowder and early firearms were already in Europe. In other parts of the world, firearms weapons have been developed considerably. So as long as people stick to actual early firearms, rather than anachronistic 18th century flintlocks, it is possible to add in guns with no significant changes to a setting at all.
In geological time or in terms of evolution maybe, but to a historian 600 years is a long time full of significant changes and a multitude of things worthy of a lifetime of study. Is the Han dynasty just a "flash in the pan"? Is the Roman Empire a "lightning strike"? What does that make WW2? It only lasted a mere six years, so by your reckoning it can't possibly be important. History is the study of what life was like in the past; a single human lifetime is not an insignificant measurement of time.
You are just trying to talk about guns in D&D as being equivalent to 19th century firearms, and ignoring the reality that there were entire centuries where guns, plate armor, bows, swords and pikes were all utilized alongside each other. Yes, change did eventually happen. But guns hardly swept away everything else overnight. If guns in D&D resemble the actual weapons at use in the world of the 15th century, then there is no reason to revise anything about a setting.
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Leatherhead
Possibly a Idiot.
The main reason against guns:
They are overcomplicated. Everyone tries to write up rules for guns including stuff like misfires, and long loading times, and special maintenance skills, and extra or special damage, and armor penetration, and rules for getting gunpowder wet, and everything else about guns they may have heard.
Contrast all that with the rules for swinging a sword. It shouldn't be that complicated to shoot a gun. In fact, if it is more complicated to shoot a gun than a crossbow, the system is probably doing something wrong.
They are overcomplicated. Everyone tries to write up rules for guns including stuff like misfires, and long loading times, and special maintenance skills, and extra or special damage, and armor penetration, and rules for getting gunpowder wet, and everything else about guns they may have heard.
Contrast all that with the rules for swinging a sword. It shouldn't be that complicated to shoot a gun. In fact, if it is more complicated to shoot a gun than a crossbow, the system is probably doing something wrong.
TheAuldGrump
First Post
I object to your use of the term 'everyone' - as I stated way up the thread I just give them good damage, good critical multiplier, short range increments, and the same reload time as a heavy crossbow.
No special rules against armor, no rules for misfires, and no rules for firing in the rain - rain is even worse for bows than it is for guns, and can turn an expensive composite bow to worthless junk just by having it strung and kept in the rain. If I am going to handwave the one I am going to handwave the other.
Getting the powder wet I do have rules for, which comes down to 'buy new powder. or get an alchemist to reclaim the powder, but really, powder is cheap, so just buy more'. Better still 'Keep your powder dry', which works wonders for keeping the rules simple....
The Auld Grump
David Howery
Hero
another special rule should be just what happens when the PCs' powder flasks fail their saving throws vs. fire... I used to live for such moments...
and those flasks pretty much have to be made out of brass; no glass, steel, or any of that... not the greatest saving throw...
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