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View Full Version : My Firearm Rules (3.5) (P.E.A.C.H)



BRC
2009-09-16, 10:47 PM
So, I'm cooking up a Campaign set at roughly the napoleonic era/age of exploration, which means I need some firearms.

Rather than make Firearms deal massive amounts of damage, I instituted a new mechanic, Armor Penetration, which does pretty much what it sounds like. A weapon with Armor Penetration ignores a set amount of the opponents shield, armor, and natural armor (everything that get's ignored with a touch attack) bonus to AC. Like a touch-attack light. Currently, I have two types of firearms, Pistols and Muskets
[QUOTE=BRC;6935360]How does this sound:
{table=head]Name|Cost|Damage|Crit |Armor Penetration|Range|Reload Time|
Pistol|200 gp| 1d10| x3| 3| 150 ft|1 Full round action
Musket| 400 gp| 2d8| x3|6| 250 ft| 2 full round actions[/table]
Both Pistols and Muskets can be reloaded faster with the Rapid Reload feat.
Ammunition for firearms consists of both powder and shot. If a person carrying gunpowder is lit on fire or suffers fire damage, they must make a reflex save to avoid having their powder catch, if it does, they take one point of damage for every individual shot they have on them.
One thing I'm considering adding:
Double Load: By adding a double load of powder and shot to a firearm, a character can make a devestating, if inaccurate attack. It takes two reload actions, however many that may be, to prepare a double load, and a double loaded weapon institutes a -4 penalty on it's attack roll. Both bullets are fired simultaneously, so only one attack roll is made for both shots.

charl
2009-09-16, 11:06 PM
For campaigns that take place in an era of firearms I would use the "armour as damage reduction" rules from UA and make guns do a lot of damage.

But that is just my preference.

Ashtagon
2009-09-17, 02:21 AM
WotC's d20 Past has a good set of rules for early firearms.

The DPS for your guns is pretty weak, btw. Assuming everything hits, the pistol does 2.75 hp/round, the musket 3 hp/round, and a longbow 3.5 hp/round.

If we do a little re-jigging (assume a base 50% chance to hit per shot for a weapon with no armour penetration, and add 5% per point of AP, and assume the target wears enough armour for you to gain full benefit of the AP)...

longbow - 1.75
musket - 2.4
pistol - 1.7875

For the Napoleonic era, this is rather poor performance for a firearm. They barely out-perform a bow when used against a heavily-armoured target, and are consistently out-performed against an un-armoured target.

Cespenar
2009-09-17, 04:03 AM
I had an ongoing idea for crossbow and pistol/musket damages. See, if you can add your strength to the damage rolls with a mighty bow, these weapons should get an existing static damage bonus.

Just off the top of my head:

Hand crossbow: 1d4+2
Light crossbow: 1d8+3
Heavy crossbow: 1d10+4

Pistol: 1d10+6, low range increment, like 50 ft.
Musket: 1d10+8, a greater range increment, 120 ft. maybe?

These would go well with that armor as damage reduction option. If that's not used, armor penetration "light" seems like a good idea to add to this. Note that the higher damage will be balanced out by its low reload rate.

letdragonslie
2009-09-17, 05:16 AM
WotC's d20 Past has a good set of rules for early firearms.

The DPS for your guns is pretty weak, btw. Assuming everything hits, the pistol does 2.75 hp/round, the musket 3 hp/round, and a longbow 3.5 hp/round.

If we do a little re-jigging (assume a base 50% chance to hit per shot for a weapon with no armour penetration, and add 5% per point of AP, and assume the target wears enough armour for you to gain full benefit of the AP)...

longbow - 1.75
musket - 2.4
pistol - 1.7875

For the Napoleonic era, this is rather poor performance for a firearm. They barely out-perform a bow when used against a heavily-armoured target, and are consistently out-performed against an un-armoured target.

just curiuos where are you getting your numbers?

I see a longbow doing 4.5 per shot without the use of str provided just one arrow hits....

you stated "assuming everything hits"

long bow everything hits.. D8 damage average 4.5...(how many attacks? 2? ) average would then be 9?...

jw how you are coming up with your averages?

Ashtagon
2009-09-17, 05:25 AM
oops. My eye skipped a column, and I was looking at the Small damage column for the longbow. This only makes these firearms even more inferior compared to the longbow.

I made my assumptions on the basis of low-level combatants (ie. bab +0 to +4; no iterative attacks), fighting an average level-appropriate opponent (ie. typically needing to roll 11+ to hit, for a 50% chance). Damage was divided by 2 for the pistol, to reflect that half the rounds will be spent reloading rather than firing, and by 3 for the musket, again due to the downtime spent reloading.

I use low-level warriors as the base for comparison, because the vast majority of soldiers will be low-level, so that should be the basis that any ruler should consider when making economic decisions about how his army should be equipped. As written, the firearms are inferior for low-level soldiers.

Fwiw, since they can't benefit from iterative attacks due to reload times, the disparity only gets worse at high levels.

letdragonslie
2009-09-17, 05:40 AM
I agree the reload time really throws off the DPS.

However, the range can definatly be abused. Another thought is that in games i run i typically allow "str" crossbows with a cap at +4... which in turn make them better than bows... (however i do make crossbows more expensive to improve).

Considering the increased die for the wp's he has listed and the increased range there should be some offset...

I do agree the full round action reload times can become quite tedious. The real question is does he want them balanced. or slightly better than the alternatives?

comparativly speaking however, None of the wp's are great at low level... except perhaps the great axe....

DragoonWraith
2009-09-17, 05:45 AM
Well, for one thing, firearms might be treated as simple weaponry. That was the appeal, they didn't require much training to use. Maybe make everyone who uses one be treated as if they have one better type of BAB (1/2 -> 3/4, 3/4 -> 1)for the purpose of determining the shot?

You could also maybe do automatic Dex-to-damage on them, but considering how difficult that is to get usually, that might not be a good idea.

Really, though, I like your initial idea pretty well. That's a good idea. I just figured I'd offer some other ones.

BRC
2009-09-17, 07:35 AM
I agree the reload time really throws off the DPS.

However, the range can definatly be abused. Another thought is that in games i run i typically allow "str" crossbows with a cap at +4... which in turn make them better than bows... (however i do make crossbows more expensive to improve).

Considering the increased die for the wp's he has listed and the increased range there should be some offset...

I do agree the full round action reload times can become quite tedious. The real question is does he want them balanced. or slightly better than the alternatives?

comparativly speaking however, None of the wp's are great at low level... except perhaps the great axe....
When calculating the Dps, did you remember that most dedicated firearm users will probably take the Rapid Reload feat? Cutting their reload times in half (so Pistols will fire once a round and Muskets will fire every other round)

Edit: Also, I imagine Firearms as mostly used by NPC's. My ranged-combat PC's will likely stick to bows so they can do itinerative attacks at higher levels.

Amadi
2009-09-17, 07:55 AM
>> Musket
>> Dex to damage.

The early muskets fired at random angle between 0 and 90. There was absolutely no way to shoot accurately with them, DEFINITELY not accurately enough to apply dex or sneak attack damage.

That, of course, means that they practically suck, which isn't really far from the truth considering the early incarnations of firearms. For a good while, longbow *was* the better choice, because of better accuracy and due to arcing shots, better range. Crossbows weren't too shabby either.

"An antique 17th century matchlock was tested in Austria against a man sized silhouette. The gun was aimed and fixed directly onto the center of the targets chest. At 100 (~110 yards) meters it hit 50% percent of the time. The same test was done with a pistol from the same period with the result of 98% accuracy at 30 (~30 yards) meters. "

Effectove range for pistols and rifles from the 17th century would be ~30 yards, maybe ~50 for rifles. Point blank range would be well below that, ~20 and ~30 for example.

The point why firearms were "good" was not because of their accuracy. It was because firing at a group of enemies, it war hard to miss. Still: "In an 18th century test flint locks hit a target simulating an infantry line 75% percent of the time at 100 yards."

It is fair 25% chance to fluke, even if you are doing everything right, and firing to a line of warriors. This means that horizontal "misses" still hit, and the percentage goes back to a bit over 50% hit chance.

Meanwhile: "A exceptionally skilled modern longbow archer can hit a man sized target three out of five times at 100 yards. "

60% chance for a longbow. However, the problems arise when you understand that shots with the longbow are very much reliant on the archer's skill, but the shots with the musket? Not so much. Still, even the approximation that D&D gives for long range shots is very illogical, as the range increment penalty should easily be more than -2, probably at least -4, and this is not counting weather.

For good and quite realistic conversation in the matter, I suggest This Thread (http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=76715) in MyArmoury.

BRC
2009-09-17, 09:24 AM
I'm more worried about getting it balanced than historically perfect, and I'm not too worried about making them underpowered in small numbers vs small numbers. That actually makes sense, Musketeers kitted out to be shooting at large masses of troops in large scale battles can't be expected to be super effective in your standard DnD engagement.

What do people think about the Double Loading rules. Overpowered? Useless? Ridiculous?

Dragonus45
2009-09-17, 10:59 AM
There should be risks involved in that sort of thing. You play with gunpowder loads and bullets and you make handy hand grenades. :smallbiggrin: