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Sir Sanguine
2009-12-04, 10:12 PM
Hi forums!

Okay. I'm trying to write a RPG system and setting. The setting is basically a collision between the real world (as it is right now) and a "fantasy world" which contains every sort of monster and concept humans have ever dreamed up. The fantasy world has magic aplenty, in addition to being stereotypically medieval- people fight with swords and halberds and armor and such. Big portals are opening between that world and this one.

But anyway, the party in this setting are from the modern world. So it stands to reason they would bring along some guns before they go fight the native hydras or whatnot. And that's kind of cool- I like the mythical beast vs. really big guns thing. Buuut, I also want the players to be able to act as more traditional fantasy heroes who have armor and swords and things. I was envisioning a mix of gun guys and sword guys within the party.

Problem: guns are (obviously) better than swords. Quite a bunch of the swords are going to be magical, but not all of them can be. So in a fight against, say, a bunch of orcs, I want everyone to be able to contribute.

Does anyone have any suggestions for balancing ordinary melee with guns?

Kiren
2009-12-04, 10:32 PM
All depends on the era and type of firearm, their is a deadliest warrior episode pirate v.s. the knight which shows firearms v.s. armor and guns.

Guns of the pirate era are slow to reload, so pirates would carry multiple pistols because reloading during battle would likely kill you. I think some carried 5.

Guns of the pirate era are inaccurate and are dangerous *I'm going from memory but I think they can backfire*. However guns can pierce armor when arrows may not, it is also harder to dodge a bullet then it is to dodge a arrow *although maybe if your lucky the bullet will veer off*

Also, the firearms cannot get wet, the gunpowder cannot ignite wet.

Overall I suggest watching the deadliest warrior Pirate v.s. Knight episode, they got plenty of useful information and a deathmatch between the two.

Slayn82
2009-12-04, 10:41 PM
Have you given a look at this?
http://69.8.198.251/default.asp?x=d20/article/msrd

It has the rules for modern weapons in the D20 sistem. They are not "realistic", so that an AK 47 will not do 60 shots per round, but works. The main advantage is that automatic weapons have feats that allow to spray an area, to deal damage in anyone who fails an reflex save ( to find cover, i guess). But they consume a large amount of bullets to do so.

Also, if none of the PCs could make gunpowder, they would be limited to the amount of ammo they originally had. If someone could ( and its not that hard), then there is the fact that they will need Sulfur (somewhat expensive in a historically acurate medieval scenario, but in fantasy could be plenty around), sodium nitrate (guano is your best bet), and vegetal coal (better for the gunpowder).

Repairing modern weapons with magic is easy, but reproducing then from scratch could be a little dificult, because industrial precision is a pain, and most mages would not have a good compreension of such standards. Often a 0.15 mm tolerance can determine if two parts slide freely or jam. So complex weapons, like most semiautomatics or automatics, are ruled out in most cases for reproducing, unless someone has good knowledge of mechanics involved and cares to get a precision instrument around. Shotguns, revolvers and simple pistols could be reproduced ok, in most cases, and you can balance the precision if you think the char could not have made a good work. Deffective fabrication could also justify a redution in the damage of the weapon.

Kiren
2009-12-04, 10:51 PM
A important bit of info pertaining to the production of firearms, up until the industrial revolution and the assembly line/interchangeable parts, firearms could only be constructed by skilled craftsmen, and not mass productive.

LurkerInPlayground
2009-12-04, 10:51 PM
Simple. A lot of monsters are going to be resilient. So even if they're mortally wounded, they just keep on going with blind aggression, unless you have a gun big enough to knock them on their ass or blow out a large bore hole out around their apricot.

Of course, you get the same problem with spears, I suppose, which is why they had to invent boar spears. Basically, the cross-guard on a boar spear stopped the boar from charging up the spear and goring you anyway.

Arguably, maybe guns are just much harder to enchant than melee weapons. Their increased complexity (i.e. moving parts) means that each individual piece has to be custom enchanted separately and enchanting weapons are not an exact science. In mechanical terms, this just means guns with lower enhancement bonuses. You're far more likely to find a +5 long sword than a +3 .45 magnum. It's a longstanding tradition to enchant blades. Guns, not so much.

Kiren
2009-12-04, 10:52 PM
Simple. A lot of monsters are going to be resilient. So even if they're mortally wounded, they just keep on going with blind aggression, unless you have a gun big enough to knock them on their ass or blow out a large bore hole out around their apricot.

Of course, you get the same problem with spears, I suppose, which is why they had to invent boar spears. Basically, the cross-guard on a boar spear stopped the boar from charging up the spear and goring you anyway.

Arguably, maybe guns are just much harder to enchant than melee weapons. Their increased complexity (i.e. moving parts) means that each individual piece has to be custom enchanted separately and enchanting weapons are not an exact science. In mechanical terms, this just means guns with lower enhancement bonuses. You're far more likely to find a +5 long sword than a +3 9mm handgun. It's a longstanding tradition to enchant blades. Guns, not so much.

The bullets would be enchanted, that or the black powder *a little less realistic but hey its magic*.

LurkerInPlayground
2009-12-04, 10:58 PM
The bullets would be enchanted, that or the powder.
Huh?

Not necessarily. A more accurate gun might be able to dissipate excess heat more rapidly and have a chamber which causes gases released from the powder to expand more evenly and consistently from shot-to-shot. The firing pin might be reinforced so that it is harder and less likely to lose durability over time (which causes inconsistent strking of the primer). Basically, any kind of customized technique to lower any undesired entropy in the gun would be desirable (i.e. increase efficiency).

You can also reduce bulk or the cumbersome nature of a long arm by selectively reducing the weight of certain components or attachments of the gun while still retaining durability. The same principle can be applied to enhance overall balance. A rather neat application of this trick would be to help lighten the trigger pull, making a more precise weapon.

Another example would be a magically enhanced red-dot sight. Maybe the lens is enchanted to project an image of the future in one-or-two seconds, which allows the shooter to better anticipate his shot. Maybe it magically highlights aggressors for quick identification.

The ammunition could be enchanted seperately, but even that has several components: cartridge, bullet, powder and primer.

We should also mention that low-grade black powder gave a lot of smoke and tended to foul up guns. So enchantments that make the powder burn cleaner might be a helpful workaround for low-grade powder.

Melee weapons are, for the most part, relatively simple. You don't have as many technologies or problems involved.

Maybe the guys who enchant weapons don't have the faintest idea what mercury fulminate is.

Human Paragon 3
2009-12-04, 10:58 PM
What kinds of guns are you going to use? I had to homebrew a musket once because the ones in the book were too terrible to compete with regular bow and arrows.

Musket Stats:
martial weapon
Damage: 3d8. Crtical x3. full round action to load, standard action to fire. "rapid reload" feat lets you load as a move acation.

This puts them on a par with a bow and rapid shot. I would also allow a variant on manyshot (load multiple bullets).

lightningcat
2009-12-04, 11:10 PM
In my campaign, a spellpunk renaissance style setting, I was using more modern firearms (from about to the Victorian/Wild West era). I balanced firearms with standard weapons with the price of ammunition. The premise was even with gunpowder being rare and hard to make, firearms would continue to develop if only to make the limited supply of gunpowder.

That might not work in your case. Guns are inevitably more dangerous then melee weapons. This of course follows real world history; the range, penetrating power, and level of skill needed to use effectively are simply better. Once you get to the modern era you also have the benefits of mass production and cheap gunpowder.

The benefit of small melee weapons (knives, clubs, etc) are concealment and lack of sound when used, as well as lack of restrictions on ownership.
You might deem that firearms cannot be enhanced with magic, or that they are less then effective when dealing with supernatural creatures (dragons, fey, magical beasts, and monstrous humanoids), so when fighting those types of creatures you need more primitive methods.

Human Paragon 3
2009-12-04, 11:12 PM
Ah, forgot to mention, you can attach a bayonet to the musket, turning it into a short spear.

Sir Sanguine
2009-12-04, 11:13 PM
Er, I neglected to mention that travel between the portals is two-way. So reproducing the guns really isn't an issue, although ammo might be if you end up going a long way from base camp. Also, there's going to be a whole lot of people other than the party coming through the portal- military, for one thing.

But thanks for the link. Looking at it, the main distinction between guns and melee is that you can't use melee up close. And, thinking about it, being shot probably does a similar amount of damage to being stabbed with a greatsword. So I guess it's not that damage that's the issue.

I think it's the automatic firing that's the issue. If I've got an AK-47, why can't I just press the trigger and kill, like, all of the Riders of Rohan as they make their glorious charge? That and the fact that armor is useless. Darn.

Maybe some kind of magical solution. Guns could be less effective in the fantasy world, I guess?

EDIT: Liking the "guns and magic don't mix" idea. But we don't want the gun guys to be badass at first level, when it's assault rifles vs. longswords, and then be awful at level 30 when it's Holy Flaming Bane longswords vs. the assault rifles.

LurkerInPlayground
2009-12-04, 11:19 PM
Er, I neglected to mention that travel between the portals is two-way. So reproducing the guns really isn't an issue, although ammo might be if you end up going a long way from base camp. Also, there's going to be a whole lot of people other than the party coming through the portal- military, for one thing.

But thanks for the link. Looking at it, the main distinction between guns and melee is that you can't use melee up close. And, thinking about it, being shot probably does a similar amount of damage to being stabbed with a greatsword. So I guess it's not that damage that's the issue.

I think it's the automatic firing that's the issue. If I've got an AK-47, why can't I just press the trigger and kill, like, all of the Riders of Rohan as they make their glorious charge? That and the fact that armor is useless. Darn.

Maybe some kind of magical solution. Guns could be less effective in the fantasy world, I guess?
Not really. A sword is more likely to neatly push its way in. (Although I still wouldn't like getting my limbs hacked off on a chop).

Bullets tend to bounce around inside of the wound before jumping out the other side (as with full-metal jacket rounds). If the bullets fragment instead (as with hollow-point rounds) then you get a situation where the point blossoms out into nasty shards.

So we're talking about wound-trauma here.

Really, if PC's are fighting monsters, it's something less of an issue. A Golem or specific forms of undead probably aren't going to be terribly impressed by bullets one way or the other. (Although a Golem is going to have neat holes punched through it by an endless spray of armor-piercing bullets, it's still up and kicking long enough to crump you.)

The Nazgul, from Lord of the Rings, as portrayed in the movies, were just hollow suits of armor anyway. So there's only so much damage you can do to them in the first place.

So guns might just be *relatively* better. But a monster is still quite tough enough to do some damage on the way out. Likewise, guns are rarely (or never) magical. Maybe the few examples of magical guns are not that great, since they're more like muskets than M4A1's.

Sir Sanguine
2009-12-04, 11:23 PM
Yeah, the problem is really orcs and such humanoids. Maybe guns can be good against orcs and swords can be good against big, scary things and that's just the way it is.

LurkerInPlayground
2009-12-04, 11:28 PM
Yeah, the problem is really orcs and such humanoids. Maybe guns can be good against orcs and swords can be good against big, scary things and that's just the way it is.
Actually, I'd say guns are better against big scary things too.

But that's beside the point. The natives that have to live with the monsters are more afraid of the monsters than the PC's are. The PC's have technology and the scientific process to back them up. They're just more heroic than knights.

But that isn't to say that fighting monsters, even with a big-honking gun, is entirely risk free. Fighting a chittering hoard of flying insect-men might be easier with guns but it's still hard (they fly and there are a lot of targets because they breed like crazy). They zergling rush you and start clawing you. It's no gun, but if enough of them are tearing and grappling at you at once, then the point is moot.

And creatures like basilisks/gorgons can still petrify you at a glance. And a dragon still remains an armored tank that flies and has a built-in flamethrower.

And the PC's are still fewer in number than clever warriors who might attack them with a knife-in-the-dark or might otherwise shoot them in the back with a poisoned crossbow. Or kill them with traps (step into a hole full of punji stakes). And besides, what makes you assume that humanoid monsters ought to be the biggest threat?

Even then, not all humanoid monsters are about straight-up fights. A Doppleganger can cause problems for the party without ever getting in a fight. Likewise, the PC's might find it distasteful to throw their weight around even if the mob has torches and pitchforks. You don't shoot away all your problems.

Melee weapons can be useful because that's where all the magical swords of legend happen to fall under. They just have magic that's too useful to ignore sometimes, gun-or-no-gun. And a good back-up weapon isn't a bad idea if you run low on supplies and it's too far from the gate to get more ammo. If the locals see that you're petty tyrants, they'll be reluctant to help you with information and supplies.

Besides. Guns break. You have to maintain them. If you need spare parts, you have to bring them or go back home to get them.

Ouranos
2009-12-04, 11:36 PM
Look up a game called Rifts.

lightningcat
2009-12-04, 11:42 PM
If you don't mind doing a bit or reading there is Hell's Gate and Hell Hath No Fury (Multiverse series) by David Weber. They show a war between a magical world and a science/psionic world. Including a battle between dragons and machine-gun manned pillboxes. They also have the problem of supply lines, as they cross multiple versions of the same world and the gates are not always in the same place.

Latronis
2009-12-04, 11:45 PM
Melee weapons are still more effective than guns in the melee weapons 'range'

And unless you actually have the firearm out and ready a knife man can still close the a decent sized gap and stab you before you can get a shot off.

So melee weapons.. oft enchanted and more effective than a bayonet(which would be comparitively less effective than a dagger) still has a place.

The problem then is other ranged weapons

LurkerInPlayground
2009-12-04, 11:51 PM
Melee weapons are still more effective than guns in the melee weapons 'range'
Meh.

The thing is that guns don't have to control the fight when it can just skip straight to blowing your ass off. You don't parry a gunshot.

So you get a situation that's closer to "cutting each other down." Assuming the gun doesn't knock the other guy on his ass first. (Generally, this amounts to whether you're using a .45 or a 9mm and whether the other guy is hopped-up on drugs or something.)

Also, if the melee weapons come attached to the sorts of creatures that breed fast enough to zergling rush you, who cares if melee is less than optimal? You fire your gun dry and there's still a hoard leftover to get in your face.


And unless you actually have the firearm out and ready a knife man can still close the a decent sized gap and stab you before you can get a shot off.
True enough.


So melee weapons.. oft enchanted and more effective than a bayonet(which would be comparitively less effective than a dagger) still has a place.

The problem then is other ranged weapons
Crossbows are silenced by definition. Still less-than-optimal, but who cares? Game balance is a bit overrated anyway. You just have to make sure the focus of the game is pulled-off.

Sir Sanguine
2009-12-05, 12:06 AM
And besides, what makes you assume that humanoid monsters ought to be the biggest threat?

Not at all! This game is supposed to be more about fighting monsters than humanoids. I just want humanoids to still be *a* threat.


The problem then is other ranged weapons

Yes! That was my other issue. Why use a nonmagical bow ever?


Still less-than-optimal, but who cares? Game balance is a bit overrated anyway. You just have to make sure the focus of the game is pulled-off.

What makes you say that? I don't want the sword-swinging guy to feel like he's useless because the guns are constantly outperforming him. Everyone should get to contribute regardless of what combat style they choose.

I think an important thing is that you can't parry with a gun. So swords would be important for defense, if not able to dish out tons of damage.

LurkerInPlayground
2009-12-05, 12:18 AM
What makes you say that? I don't want the sword-swinging guy to feel like he's useless because the guns are constantly outperforming him. Everyone should get to contribute regardless of what combat style they choose.

I think an important thing is that you can't parry with a gun. So swords would be important for defense, if not able to dish out tons of damage.
Maybe you should think less in terms of "specialized shticks" and more in terms of what the PC's ought to adapt to in the setting.

You seem like you're setting up a stranger-in-a-strange land scenario here.

Of course, one of the more obvious solutions is that supplies are very limited. And that the players are not soldiers so much as they are lost or on expedition. (So a player might still have a fireaxe on hand for some reason. Which is still likely a better weapon than what most people in a primitive setting will have.)

Solaris
2009-12-05, 12:38 AM
What makes you say that? I don't want the sword-swinging guy to feel like he's useless because the guns are constantly outperforming him. Everyone should get to contribute regardless of what combat style they choose.

The PC sword-wielder is likely to have a high-powered magic sword, so it's really not all that much of a concern whether or not swords can beat firearms. Just don't let the recent arrivals play with magic guns.
Alternatively, simply don't let the advanced gunpowder and percussion caps we use in our modern automatic weapons work in the fantasy world. Just allow black powder weapons to work. They could be more technologically advanced than muskets, but of less power and slower firing rate than our modern weapons. Call a rifle 2d8 damage with a firing rate similar to a bow - way better than a sword, but it's not a machinegun by any stretch and an platoon of archers could still beat a squad of riflemen. Matter of fact, I think you could have a lot of fun with modern-era, mundane troopers adapting to a world whose physics enforce a low-tech approach.


I think an important thing is that you can't parry with a gun. So swords would be important for defense, if not able to dish out tons of damage.

Er... Not so much, and not so much. See, I've actually done fights where a guy came at me with a melee weapon and I used my M4 (training with full contact and simunition - we play hardball in my unit). Starting from across a ten-by-ten room, I still won. It fires on burst, and burst fire > sword. At hand-to-hand range, all you have to do is avoid letting the guy get a hold on you. Don't forget, most melee weapons still operate mostly from about a pace away. At that range, a gun is lethal and can still cross the distance faster than a melee weapon.
Not to mention that an M4 would be better for catching/blocking a blow than a sword would be, considering all the fiddly bits it has. Polymer buttstocks and thin sheet metal magazines won't like it, though. I imagine the black powder weaponry the modern-mundanes who invade would be constructed of tempered steel with wooden furniture intended for roughing it with people who still insist on bringing swords to a gunfight.

Latronis
2009-12-05, 12:40 AM
Meh.

The thing is that guns don't have to control the fight when it can just skip straight to blowing your ass off. You don't parry a gunshot.

So you get a situation that's closer to "cutting each other down." Assuming the gun doesn't knock the other guy on his ass first. (Generally, this amounts to whether you're using a .45 or a 9mm and whether the other guy is hopped-up on drugs or something.)

But you have to get the shot off without being disarmed, disabled.. stabbed whatever. You are trying to get a firearm have the business end pointing at your adversary before you fire, your adversary has to stay out of the line of death.

Go for the gun, *stab*

Aim with the gun, *Wrist block, step etc, stab*

Though it is not an everyday situation when we talking about PCs and appropiate challenges that inherent advantage melee has in melee range should be enough to use as a balancing point.

So using a firearm should provoke an attack of oppurtunity. That keeps them deadly within maximum range; But risky to use whenever you are in someone's threatened area. Keeping Melee weapons useful and effective, and letting the firearms really shine at range.

Rising Phoenix
2009-12-05, 01:11 AM
This may interest you, by Monte Cook:


http://www.malhavocpress.com/images/Technology.pdf

Cheers,

R.P.

Demented
2009-12-05, 01:20 AM
Does a gun trump everything on the contemporary battlefield?

Of course!

Do you find zombies, golems, ghosts, and physiological paragons with immunity to critical hits on the contemporary battlefield?

Hm, no. :smallamused:

A gun is basically a repeating crossbow with better stats and the same disadvantages. It'll suffer far less at a distance, but you'll never get to use your herculean strength modifier... Unless you throw it at someone, of course.

Swordguy
2009-12-05, 01:59 AM
Here's the thing: swords never need reloading.

Now, under normal d20 rules, people don't think about the inaccuracy of firearms. Yes, that's right...inaccuracy. Look for a moment with Teh Google at accuracy statistics by FBI, police, and military members for close-range encounters. They're terrible. A 15% hit rate is excellent, even at point-blank ranges. It's a lot harder to hit when you're moving and the other guy is moving. Physics demands this.

If you're 3 feet from the other guy and swinging a sword through the space where he is, he has to vacate his entire body from that space or be struck. If you're 3 feet from the other guy and pointing a pistol at him (say, firing from the hip), you have about a 15-20-degree arc window where the muzzle can move from side to side before you miss him completely. It's not at all like it is in Modern Warfare 2 or something - it's actually very difficult to shoot at and hit a person and anything more than room width. There's plenty of eyewitness accounts from Iraq and the Stan where an insurgent would hose down an entire room with full-auto fire (30 rounds from an AK-47/AK-74) and hit nobody. A bullet travels in a straight line (minus bullet drop), and that line is the diameter of the slug. If it doesn't intersect something, it's not going to hit it.

Unfortunately, what we see in the d20 system is unbelievably accurate fire. It's just so easy to hit, and even worse when you do what most people do and make firearms touch attacks (or use the "Armor as DR" variant). It is harder, full-stop, to hit somebody with a bullet than a sword swing. The trick is that you have a much larger engagement window (as Solaris rightly points out, the window in which you can shoot somebody is roughly 500 yards on down to 1 inch, while the window you can stab somebody is the length of the weapon plus your natural reach). Because it is so accurate, we never really see the disadvantages of firearms - namely wasted actions from not hitting, wasted actions from having to reload, and running out of ammo. Not to mention we never see the range issue (it gets geometrically harder to ht something the further away it is) because d20 engagement ranges are comically short.

So, if you're building a system from scratch, make sure to actually touch on these things. Guns should be less accurate (and primitive guns even MORE so). Reloading takes time (assuming a modern weapon, it's a free action to release the magazine, a move action to retrieve a fresh magazine, and a move action to reload the weapon...there's a full round gone). Bullets hit hard, but pistol or light rifle (5.56mm or less) actually wound people less than a sword or axe swing - modern weapons tend to overpenetrate and leave a small wound channel, while a sword swing will remove a limb without much effort (those tatami mats that samurai use for cutting practice since they mirror the resiliency of the human limbs? Yeah, a dull longsword will cut through one cleanly. Source (http://www.videosift.com/video/Blunt-European-Longsword-cutting-a-tatami-mat)). The cool thing with bullets is that their critical damage effects tend to be huge - they destroy important organs in the body, so you're looking at a huge critical hit modifier. This mirrors what we see in modern combat operations - it's not uncommon at all to hit a guy with several rounds and have him run away to get bandaged up with no issue (no critical hits), while the guy next to him will take a single bullet either go into shock and bleed out or die quickly from destroyed hearts, lungs, or nervous systems.

The last and most horrible thing for gunbunnies here is that what bullets really do isn't massive tissue damage. They ideally (as mentioned) do critical damage, or, FAR more commonly, send a person into shock, where they bleed to death while they're incapacitated. But shock tends to be a function of amount of damage vs size. All things being equal, a physically larger creature is harder to send into shock than a smaller one, given a wound channel of the same size (not always true, but true often enough to count for virtually "always", and true enough to form a mechanic upon). Thus, since bullets are generally made just big enough to do their job (incapacitate a man-sized target), they're going to be far less likely to do their job against a larger target. Just as a .22LR is fine against a woodchuck and will just piss off a deer, so too will a 7.62x39 be just fine against a man (or orc) and just piss off a troll or dragon. The bigger the bullet, the harder it is to carry ammo, resupply, manufacture, and control the shot while you're firing. So a sword will "scale" better against larger creatures, since they'll still be carving impressive wound channels (like here (http://www.thearma.org/spotlight/TestCutting/TestCuttingEvent2.htm)), while a bullet isn't going to generate a larger wound just because it's hitting a bigger creature. So the guy with the light-caliber rifle who can engage Orcs or goblins isn't going to do much at all against the Ogres and trolls. And it's VERY difficult to carry multiple weapons - there's a reason almost nobody in the real world carries more than 1 long weapon and one sidearm.

So, I can completely see where swords are still useful. Close-quarter battle situations. Extended or furious combat (who wants to be vulnerable for a round+ while you reload?). Combat against larger-than-man-sized creatures. People who want to hit more than 1 out of every 4-5 attacks. And that's not even taking magic into account (magic doesn't "take" on guns or bullets, for example).

Solaris
2009-12-05, 06:02 AM
But you have to get the shot off without being disarmed, disabled.. stabbed whatever. You are trying to get a firearm have the business end pointing at your adversary before you fire, your adversary has to stay out of the line of death.

Go for the gun, *stab*

Aim with the gun, *Wrist block, step etc, stab*

Though it is not an everyday situation when we talking about PCs and appropiate challenges that inherent advantage melee has in melee range should be enough to use as a balancing point.

So using a firearm should provoke an attack of opportunity. That keeps them deadly within maximum range; But risky to use whenever you are in someone's threatened area. Keeping Melee weapons useful and effective, and letting the firearms really shine at range.

Uh, what? No. Drawing a firearm is as quick and easy as drawing a sword, even moreso if you have it on a sling. If you train with your weapon for any appreciable length of time, it's second nature. It's expected for a trooper to be able to take his weapon from amber to red-direct in about the time it takes for most normal people to think "Oh, crap! That's a-".
Not to mention we walk into a fight with our rifle already at the high-ready. The military is surprisingly genre-savvy about these action movies.
Aiming for a guy at point-blank? That takes less than the time it takes to blink an eye with a trained fighter. It's a reflex literally drilled into us from hours and hours and hours of training. When the guy's expecting the fight, like I said, he walks in at the high-ready and is in effect already aiming at the swordsman. All he has to do is pull the trigger. You really can't say that, all other things equal, someone with a sword would be able to step in and attack a rifleman faster than the rifleman would be able to start shooting at him.
Bear in mind, I'm talking about military carbines here. Rifles are a bit more awkward and ungainly, but even the M16 (which we 'affectionately' dubbed "the Musket") can be short-stocked into what I would consider a Medium firearm. The M249 and the M240B... Well, I wouldn't place bets on the gunner getting it aimed before the dude with the sword gets his choppa on. They're both heavier than the M4/M16.

You're better off arguing game balance if you want to provoke AoOs. Pistols and carbines should only take penalties to-hit on account of their sights not being particularly great for point-blank melee range (it's hard to look down a sight when you need your peripheral vision) and general nature of their function, but they don't aren't any riskier to use than a sword or an axe. You definitely got a good argument for rifles and crew-served weapons, though.


Does a gun trump everything on the contemporary battlefield?

Of course!

Do you find zombies, golems, ghosts, and physiological paragons with immunity to critical hits on the contemporary battlefield?

Hm, no. :smallamused:

A gun is basically a repeating crossbow with better stats and the same disadvantages. It'll suffer far less at a distance, but you'll never get to use your herculean strength modifier... Unless you throw it at someone, of course.

True, but you can't put armor-piercing, incendiary, or explosive rounds in a repeating crossbow.


Here's the thing: swords never need reloading.

Now, under normal d20 rules, people don't think about the inaccuracy of firearms. Yes, that's right...inaccuracy. Look for a moment with Teh Google at accuracy statistics by FBI, police, and military members for close-range encounters. They're terrible. A 15% hit rate is excellent, even at point-blank ranges. It's a lot harder to hit when you're moving and the other guy is moving. Physics demands this.

If you're 3 feet from the other guy and swinging a sword through the space where he is, he has to vacate his entire body from that space or be struck. If you're 3 feet from the other guy and pointing a pistol at him (say, firing from the hip), you have about a 15-20-degree arc window where the muzzle can move from side to side before you miss him completely. It's not at all like it is in Modern Warfare 2 or something - it's actually very difficult to shoot at and hit a person and anything more than room width. There's plenty of eyewitness accounts from Iraq and the Stan where an insurgent would hose down an entire room with full-auto fire (30 rounds from an AK-47/AK-74) and hit nobody. A bullet travels in a straight line (minus bullet drop), and that line is the diameter of the slug. If it doesn't intersect something, it's not going to hit it.

Unfortunately, what we see in the d20 system is unbelievably accurate fire. It's just so easy to hit, and even worse when you do what most people do and make firearms touch attacks (or use the "Armor as DR" variant). It is harder, full-stop, to hit somebody with a bullet than a sword swing. The trick is that you have a much larger engagement window (as Solaris rightly points out, the window in which you can shoot somebody is roughly 500 yards on down to 1 inch, while the window you can stab somebody is the length of the weapon plus your natural reach). Because it is so accurate, we never really see the disadvantages of firearms - namely wasted actions from not hitting, wasted actions from having to reload, and running out of ammo. Not to mention we never see the range issue (it gets geometrically harder to ht something the further away it is) because d20 engagement ranges are comically short.

So, if you're building a system from scratch, make sure to actually touch on these things. Guns should be less accurate (and primitive guns even MORE so). Reloading takes time (assuming a modern weapon, it's a free action to release the magazine, a move action to retrieve a fresh magazine, and a move action to reload the weapon...there's a full round gone). Bullets hit hard, but pistol or light rifle (5.56mm or less) actually wound people less than a sword or axe swing - modern weapons tend to overpenetrate and leave a small wound channel, while a sword swing will remove a limb without much effort (those tatami mats that samurai use for cutting practice since they mirror the resiliency of the human limbs? Yeah, a dull longsword will cut through one cleanly. Source (http://www.videosift.com/video/Blunt-European-Longsword-cutting-a-tatami-mat)). The cool thing with bullets is that their critical damage effects tend to be huge - they destroy important organs in the body, so you're looking at a huge critical hit modifier. This mirrors what we see in modern combat operations - it's not uncommon at all to hit a guy with several rounds and have him run away to get bandaged up with no issue (no critical hits), while the guy next to him will take a single bullet either go into shock and bleed out or die quickly from destroyed hearts, lungs, or nervous systems.

The last and most horrible thing for gunbunnies here is that what bullets really do isn't massive tissue damage. They ideally (as mentioned) do critical damage, or, FAR more commonly, send a person into shock, where they bleed to death while they're incapacitated. But shock tends to be a function of amount of damage vs size. All things being equal, a physically larger creature is harder to send into shock than a smaller one, given a wound channel of the same size (not always true, but true often enough to count for virtually "always", and true enough to form a mechanic upon). Thus, since bullets are generally made just big enough to do their job (incapacitate a man-sized target), they're going to be far less likely to do their job against a larger target. Just as a .22LR is fine against a woodchuck and will just piss off a deer, so too will a 7.62x39 be just fine against a man (or orc) and just piss off a troll or dragon. The bigger the bullet, the harder it is to carry ammo, resupply, manufacture, and control the shot while you're firing. So a sword will "scale" better against larger creatures, since they'll still be carving impressive wound channels (like here (http://www.thearma.org/spotlight/TestCutting/TestCuttingEvent2.htm)), while a bullet isn't going to generate a larger wound just because it's hitting a bigger creature. So the guy with the light-caliber rifle who can engage Orcs or goblins isn't going to do much at all against the Ogres and trolls. And it's VERY difficult to carry multiple weapons - there's a reason almost nobody in the real world carries more than 1 long weapon and one sidearm.

So, I can completely see where swords are still useful. Close-quarter battle situations. Extended or furious combat (who wants to be vulnerable for a round+ while you reload?). Combat against larger-than-man-sized creatures. People who want to hit more than 1 out of every 4-5 attacks. And that's not even taking magic into account (magic doesn't "take" on guns or bullets, for example).

Dude's right, but I'd call reloading a move action for a trained trooper. I'm on the slow end, and I can do it in about four seconds (this is dropping the old mag, not sticking it in the pouch). Most guys I've met can swap out magazines in approximately two-three seconds without taking their eyes off their targets.

The two biggest points people should take from SwordGuy are the inaccuracy and the bad scaling damage. The military's change in paradigm from large, accurate rounds to a mass of fire came about in part because of recognition of the fact that it's often hard to nail your target - so spraying him with a burst of bullets helps your odds tremendously.
I got a peashooter M4 carbine, and I gotta put a couple of rounds into a guy if I want him to go down. There are very few armored vehicles you can kill with an M4 (vehicle gunners, on the other hand...), as the little bullet simply lacks the stopping power to do significant damage to something mechanical. Sure, you might get lucky, but I'd bet on the APC before I'd bet on a squad of riflemen armed with 5.56mm carbines.

blackseven
2009-12-05, 06:39 AM
The mistake most people make about D20 Modern firearms' lethality is that they look solely at weapon stats, see that a pistol is 2d6 and a rifle is 2d8, and go "that's weak, you can't one shot anyone but a mook."

The thing is, in D20 Modern, your Massive Damage Threshold (MAS) is equal to your CON score, instead of 50 like in D&D. With things that increase weapon damage (mostly feats like Burst Fire or Double Tap), or a crit, you have a great chance of putting someone, even high level with full HP, down with a single shot (unless they have really high CON or took MAS increasing abilities). OTOH, if you fail the Fort save for taking MAS, you don't die, just drop to -1 (unless the shot's damage dropped you lower).

You also have to realize that by the rules, you're squeezing off 1 shot per 6 seconds. That's a good amount of time to steady, (re)aim, and squeeze, even with movement before. This explains the "accuracy" compared to real life (a police officer will probably have emptied way more shots by 6 seconds.)

Finally, a fighter with high (16+) STR and a Greatsword still outdamages a gun user (assuming D20 Modern Gun stats and Feats), even discounting magic.

At level 1, the Gun user (let's say with a Rifle - 2d8 damage, and 80ft range increment) probably has the advantage. He does 9 damage average, and the fighter needs to get to him.

As the Fighter's level rises, gun user's advantage falls. The fighter's damage and HP scale up: the gun user's damage rises a little (couple feats) and his HP goes up, but thanks to the wonders of Power Attack and 2H weapons, the fighter quickly gets to one-shot damage. It becomes a matter of Fighter HP out pacing gun damage increases.

Sir Sanguine
2009-12-05, 10:36 AM
Day-um, Swordguy. That's really extraordinarily helpful and I could see all of that applying in my game. My thoughts were that if you wanted to hit something right next to you with a melee weapon, you can: it's automatic. (Unless the target actively tries to parry the blow or its armor negates it) Having automatic hitting not be the case for firearms would be a great way to balance them. Also, it's great that there is actually a scientific reason to use swords rather than guns against a big thing like a dragon.

In conclusion, I think I'll just incorporate the whole of your post into my game. :smallsmile:

Waargh!
2009-12-05, 11:46 AM
Nope. In melee range a gun would also hit automatically. I can even hit somebody within 5 meters with a modern gun. Imagine a trained guy. Yes, it is not that easy hitting somebody from far away in the middle of a battle while he is running, but you wouldn't even get the chance to attack him with a sword... Seriously there is no comparison.

What swords offer (and many games forget)? The offer defense. You can parry and block attacks with a sword. Or keep enemies at bay. If a monster jumps on you then you are dead if you cannot block its attack. A sword will be more useful for that. Cut it in the air, even a little to ruin its attack. And shields and armor are useful even today. They are used. Armors not so much on humans but they are used for vehicles (tanks). The idea is a same. If the monsters are huge and could crush your armor, then you wouldn't wear one. If there attacks can be stopped by armor, everyone would wear one.

As for killing a dragon or a troll. Just put some explosive bullets or use a bigger diameter bullet and say goodbye to them. Launch a heat seeking missile on that fire breathig dragon and kaboom. Were a sword would have more difficulty cutting through. And consider fighting a stone golem which is practically immune to swords. Plus dragons...you know...fly. But will characters be able to have big guns or just small diameter pistols?

But even still, swords were evolved after the medieval era. So characters would bring more modern swords if they had to. They would bring modern armor as well. All kind of technology that would give them a much greater advantage. Why limit the equipment to firearms?

So, what you can do is make modern fighters in a fantasy world. They will use modern melee and ranged weapons. And of course, modern armor. Imagine if batman had to resort on using plate armor. No. They would still act as fantasy heroes because they would use melee weapons. Maybe the would be enhanced or much ligher and much more effective. But the fighting style would be the same. The would parry, block, evade attacks as they did back then. They would use big guns and firearms when they had the chance.

Remember at all eras that melee weapons were used, ranged-based fighters used them as well. If somebody charges you with a sword and you are holding a bow he would cut through you. Musketeers in the beginning fired a couple of shots and charged in others. Most casualties were in the melee part.

Even worse, warfare has changed. What people would do today is find were the dragon lives and bomb its nest. Or use a sniper rifle to take it out while it flies proudly in the sky. The destructive power of modern weapons is much greater. Killing anything is so much easier.

But all of this can be fixed by planning exactly what equipment you will allow...

Cursedblessing
2009-12-05, 02:01 PM
True, but you can't put armor-piercing, incendiary, or explosive rounds in a repeating crossbow.


Actually you can. Brilliant energy Flaming Explosive Crossbow bolts. Costs 98K for 50 but why do that when you could be a wizard and screw the rules.

LurkerInPlayground
2009-12-05, 02:50 PM
But you have to get the shot off without being disarmed, disabled.. stabbed whatever. You are trying to get a firearm have the business end pointing at your adversary before you fire, your adversary has to stay out of the line of death.

Go for the gun, *stab*

Aim with the gun, *Wrist block, step etc, stab*

Though it is not an everyday situation when we talking about PCs and appropiate challenges that inherent advantage melee has in melee range should be enough to use as a balancing point.

So using a firearm should provoke an attack of oppurtunity. That keeps them deadly within maximum range; But risky to use whenever you are in someone's threatened area. Keeping Melee weapons useful and effective, and letting the firearms really shine at range.
Not even. A man with a submachine gun will just keep spraying at you.

And you're deliberately comparing it in a way that is invalid. I'm stepping back. You are stepping forward. Sorry, but I can do more damage to you with a gun than you can with a sword in an equal amount of actions.

You're still full of holes, regardless of whether you hit me or not. If I'm using hollow-points, the shock of the hits are likely to drop you mid-stride. (I should qualify my previous statement by saying that I don't necessarily have to reach you in order to control you.)

If I'm holstered, then you might have a point. Although chances are, if I'm an explorer, I have my long-arm in hand.

The only valid way that melee works is if I'm surprised or outnumbered, which wouldn't be hard in a stranger-in-a-stange-land scenario. That might also mean that, as a civilian, I won't have a bazooka, white phosphorus grenades, an assault rifle or whatever.

More like, I'd have a hunting rifle (possibly a breech loader) or a handgun. Which means that I can fend off a few bandits, but not anything I can rely on to keep me alive against anybody really determined. It's irrelevant how lethal I am to a few guys if I die at the hands of the mob in the process.

THIS IS NOT D&D. IT IS HOMEBREWED. So stop thinking in terms of attacks of opportunity. A better assumption is that the players are technologically superior, but poorly supplied, by default. And are usually going to be going up against tougher or numerically superior enemies. And that's assuming there are no social challenges either that can't merely be gunned down. They're explorers in a foreign and primitive land.


Here's the thing: swords never need reloading.
Swords break.

What movies or books won't tell you is that swords are very easy to chip. Especially if you're hacking bones or armor all day. Generally, you avoid this if you can, but it's not always possible. (Magic swords being different, of course.)

You definitely wouldn't strike it edge-on-edge on another blade. And you definitely don't want to strike sparks with your blade. Doing either will damage your weapon.

The thing about guns is that they do break. They just happen to be made of interchangeable parts and can make a number of reproducible (if expendable) attacks at little cost to the gun itself.

I'd be more likely to think of swords as a convenient backup to conserve ammo more than anything else (or a source of a particularly useful piece of magic -- maybe it's the only way to wound the vampire in the absence of any burning phosphorus).

lesser_minion
2009-12-05, 04:12 PM
At no range would a firearm ever hit automatically. That includes barrel-in-the-small-of-back against an active opponent, and against a sleeping one the DM might still impose 'miss on a 1' if the weapon was poorly maintained (including rules for stoppages in RPGs generally isn't worth it as long as the weapon and ammunition are well-maintained and of a 'military' specification - while I have encountered ammunition that misfires as often as it doesn't, armies tend to avoid that kind of thing).

Remember that an average US gunfight is fought at under seven feet. No more than three shots are fired, and I'd actually be unsurprised to find that as many as 90% of those ended in one side 'bottling out' (i.e. surrendering or fleeing) without anyone being injured.

When outnumbered three-to-one, a platoon-sized position generally takes several hours to clear, with an insane amount of ammunition expended (this is the single biggest reason for the move from 7.62mm to 5.56mm weapons - you can carry two or three times as much ammunition in 5.56mm, and while you don't have an 'elephant gun' any more, you do still have an effective weapon). Films, books and even games often underestimate how hard warfare actually is.

The sole advantage a firearm has over any other weapon - including no weapon at all - is range. Stand next to a competent opponent and if you're lucky the weapon will merely not be a liability. If you've lined up a 'contact shot' and your opponent tries to get out of the way, there is actually a very good chance of them succeeding. A gunman in melee with an unarmed guy doesn't have any advantage (except, possibly, if the weapon is designed with melee combat in mind - either by being hardcore enough to survive being swung into someone, or by having an attachment).

There is a reason people are advised to maximise the distance between themselves and any attacker.

A melee opponent across a room from you can kill you without you having any chance to react. Further away, you might have more of a chance, provided you can neutralise your opponent before they get to you. Unless you are both a decent shot and understand how to survive in combat, that won't happen. The majority of people are neither of those. If someone appears to fall after being shot, the default assumption is that they dived for cover - the response is to put rounds into anything they could be hiding behind.

You aren't going to wipe out the Riders of Rohan with an RPK-47 (and an AK has no chance). Go rock-and-roll and the only thing you'll threaten is low-flying aircraft.

The only time when fully-automatic fire is not a waste of ammunition in most cases is when there is literally no time to aim. If your opponent is more than 4m, this is generally not the case (there is another exception, when using a larger machine gun which has been prepared for sustained fire, although those are actually commonly used to hose down opponents who are still 2km away).

Demented
2009-12-05, 04:16 PM
Actually you can. Brilliant energy Flaming Explosive Crossbow bolts. Costs 98K for 50 but why do that when you could be a wizard and screw the rules.

I don't know how you can expect to get armor-piercing incendiary explosive bullets into an assault rifle, but with crossbows you can do it with mundane tech, too. Albeit, anything heavy and not well-counterbalanced would probably require arcing volley fire.

lesser_minion
2009-12-05, 04:36 PM
I don't know how you can expect to get armor-piercing incendiary explosive bullets into an assault rifle, but with crossbows you can do it with mundane tech, too. Albeit, anything heavy and not well-counterbalanced would probably require arcing volley fire.

My understanding is that API rounds don't come in anything smaller than 12.7x99mm, which has been used in some sniper rifles. Those weapons weigh something like 10kg (twice the weight of an assault rifle). They are usually bolt-action with a five round magazine.

A 12.7x99mm API round will kill almost anything that isn't a tank or a ship, however.

Some numpty probably has developed an assault rifle chambered for 12.7x99mm, and it might even be viable, but I don't see anyone actually using it. It would be illegal outside of law enforcement, where it would be pointless because police generally don't fight against armoured fighting vehicles and military helicopters.

Solaris
2009-12-05, 05:29 PM
I don't know how you can expect to get armor-piercing incendiary explosive bullets into an assault rifle, but with crossbows you can do it with mundane tech, too. Albeit, anything heavy and not well-counterbalanced would probably require arcing volley fire.

Who said I was talking about assault rifles? Da big guns, the stuff that fires bullets the size of your thumb. Those do a whole lot more damage than any sword could ever hope to. The Browning M2, for example, blows people apart.
I'd like to see someone design a functional crossbow bolt that had any kind of decent range that could do damage to a tank's armor. This is barring magic, of course. Making magic ammunition simply isn't cost-effective, and given general assumptions about wizards being rare I'd think one would not want to play around on the battlefield when there's a tank that can one-shot him if it wins initiative.

Generally speaking, (and this is why I said 'or') you don't have a round that's both explosive and incendiary. It's one or the other.

By the way? My M4 was loaded with armor-piercing rounds. The black-tipped kind - regular bullets (ball ammunition) are green-tipped, and tracer rounds are orange- or red-tipped. One tracer on top of the mag so the enemy could see my warning shot, then twenty-four armor-piercing rounds, then three more tracers so I could see when I was running out. Just in case you thought we couldn't have armor-piercing rounds in an assault rifle. Incendiary rounds? Whaddya think a tracer is? Tracers just don't have the white phosphorous payload to really make it worthwhile, but it sucks to get shot by one. The main reason we don't have explosive rounds in our rifles is because they're illegal under international law, not because they're impossible to make. The secondary reason is because we don't fight enough tanks to make their manufacturing cost-effective.


My understanding is that API rounds don't come in anything smaller than 12.7x99mm, which has been used in some sniper rifles. Those weapons weigh something like 10kg (twice the weight of an assault rifle). They are usually bolt-action with a five round magazine.

A 12.7x99mm API round will kill almost anything that isn't a tank or a ship, however.

Some numpty probably has developed an assault rifle chambered for 12.7x99mm, and it might even be viable, but I don't see anyone actually using it. It would be illegal outside of law enforcement, where it would be pointless because police generally don't fight against armoured fighting vehicles and military helicopters.

The Beowulf. It's a PoS. 12.7x99mm is more commonly known over here as .50-cal ammo, the kind we use in our most common anti-vehicle weapon.

That reminds me. Will the moderns be bringing along vehicles, or no? The way troops fight changes dramatically based on whether or not they're mounted or dismounted.

lesser_minion
2009-12-05, 06:03 PM
Well, as the Beowulf is 12.7x42, the distinction is apparently quite important.

I like the idea of developing a bullet specifically to penetrate something that can't actually stop a bullet though. It sounds like a brilliant move. :smallamused:

I know that .50 calibre and 12.7 x 99 are the same thing, but I'm European, so I don't like measuring things in inches.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned that a 12.7 x 99 armour-piercing round will kill most vehicles though - the only APC I can think of that might survive a shot is the Spartan. And not for long if it was actually up against an M2 or similar.

Also, the ammunition fired by a Browning M2 is not "the size of one's thumb". I'm pretty sure that's closer to 7.62x56, which is a lot smaller (although the width of the round is about right).

Solaris
2009-12-05, 06:16 PM
Well, as the Beowulf is 12.7x42, the distinction is apparently quite important.

I like the idea of developing a bullet specifically to penetrate something that can't actually stop a bullet though. It sounds like a brilliant move. :smallamused:

I know that .50 calibre and 12.7 x 99 are the same thing, but I'm European, so I don't like measuring things in inches.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned that a 12.7 x 99 armour-piercing round will kill most vehicles though - the only APC I can think of that might survive a shot is the Spartan. And not for long if it was actually up against a Browning M2 or similar.

Also, the ammunition fired by a Browning M2 is not "the size of one's thumb". I'm pretty sure that's closer to 7.62x56, which is a lot smaller (although the width of the round is about right).

Oops, my bad on the Beowulf. It's not a weapon I've used, just one I've heard about.

Hey, I used the AP rounds in my M4 because they were exotic, not 'cause they were actually more useful than the ball rounds. Assuming you were talking about the armor-piercing small-arms rounds, that is. They're exotic for exactly the reason you gave: They're worse at killing unarmored people than ball rounds are. It never came up because I've never had to shoot somebody (having to shoot their car was a far likelier scenario). If we start fighting dragons and suchlike, I imagine we'll bust out with the better bullets.

Fair enough. It was a notation for the benefit of the Americans in the crowd.

Ayup. Tanks are about it for things that can survive the M2.

Are you talking about the bullet itself or the bullet and brass cartridge? The bullet itself is about the size of your my thumb, measuring from the tip to the next-to-last joint. It's a little thinner, but much denser. The comparison between a 7.62mm NATO round and the .50-cal bullet is pretty good. The bullet is still wider than the complete 7.62mm round. The complete .50-cal round is a helluvalot larger than that.

imp_fireball
2009-12-05, 06:24 PM
All depends on the era and type of firearm, their is a deadliest warrior episode pirate v.s. the knight which shows firearms v.s. armor and guns.

Guns of the pirate era are slow to reload, so pirates would carry multiple pistols because reloading during battle would likely kill you. I think some carried 5.

Guns of the pirate era are inaccurate and are dangerous *I'm going from memory but I think they can backfire*. However guns can pierce armor when arrows may not, it is also harder to dodge a bullet then it is to dodge a arrow *although maybe if your lucky the bullet will veer off*

Also, the firearms cannot get wet, the gunpowder cannot ignite wet.

Overall I suggest watching the deadliest warrior Pirate v.s. Knight episode, they got plenty of useful information and a deathmatch between the two.

From that, pistols could be like hand crossbows but with slightly higher damage die. Also, +4 to hit an enemy unless they are behind cover. Any significant boundary defined by the GM in front of the line of effect might negate the +4 bonus.
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I like the idea of developing a bullet specifically to penetrate something that can't actually stop a bullet though. It sounds like a brilliant move.

In 'halo: fall of reach' they had 'shredder rounds', rounds that essentially fragmented into little razors upon impact. Good for fleshy targets. :smallcool:


I'd be more likely to think of swords as a convenient backup to conserve ammo more than anything else (or a source of a particularly useful piece of magic -- maybe it's the only way to wound the vampire in the absence of any burning phosphorus).

Speaking of which, the OP should make an attempt to science up the fantasy creatures. A common one is that vampires are vulnerable to UV rays, not just sunlight (done in Underworld).

lesser_minion
2009-12-05, 06:36 PM
99mm seems a lot longer than my thumb, at least, measuring from web to tip. I'm pretty certain that it refers to the length of the entire cartridge - about 4", for the Americans. 12.7mm is a little thinner

I was actually pointing out that I didn't really see the point in making a bullet specifically for going through car doors. Car doors won't stop 9mm parabellum, let alone 5.56mm.

You're right though, armour-piercing rounds don't do to well against a normal person. That's also why pistol rounds can be more lethal than rifle rounds - they are much more likely to stop, and transfer all of their energy into the target, instead of going straight through them without them even noticing. And why .357 magnum is better than .44 magnum.

I'm pretty sure 'safety rounds' are actually deadlier than rifle rounds as well, as counter-intuitive as that appears (frangible ammunition is designed to damage to things behind what it hits, such as electrical or electronic components on an airliner, or innocent bystanders).

Solaris
2009-12-05, 07:01 PM
In 'halo: fall of reach' they had 'shredder rounds', rounds that essentially fragmented into little razors upon impact. Good for fleshy targets. :smallcool:

They have those in real life. I know the Army was testing out flechette rounds in response to soldiers complaining about the 5.56mm's lack of stopping power. Naturally, they never came into widespread use.
This is, of course, saying nothing about the hollow-point rounds.


99mm seems a lot longer than my thumb, at least, measuring from web to tip. I'm pretty certain that it refers to the length of the entire cartridge - about 4", for the Americans. 12.7mm is a little thinner

I was actually pointing out that I didn't really see the point in making a bullet specifically for going through car doors. Car doors won't stop 9mm parabellum, let alone 5.56mm.

You're right though, armour-piercing rounds don't do to well against a normal person. That's also why pistol rounds can be more lethal than rifle rounds - they are much more likely to stop, and transfer all of their energy into the target, instead of going straight through them without them even noticing. And why .357 magnum is better than .44 magnum.

I'm pretty sure 'safety rounds' are actually deadlier than rifle rounds as well, as counter-intuitive as that appears (frangible ammunition is designed to damage to things behind what it hits, such as electrical or electronic components on an airliner, or innocent bystanders).

I believe it refers to the full length of the cartridge, 'cause otherwise we got us some seriously wonky .50-cals in every unit I've run across.

Ah. Most of the car-shooting we do isn't through the door, it's through the engine. If you wanna kill everyone in a car, you shoot through the windshield. If you wanna stop the car, you shoot it in the engine until it dies.

Yes, despite what certain History Channel specials will tell you about the full metal jacket versus frangible. FMJ pokes deep holes, but frangible fragments and turns a guy into hamburger.

lesser_minion
2009-12-05, 07:22 PM
Apparently, one of the arguments for 5.56mm (apart from being able to carry three times the ammunition) was that injuring an opponent was more useful than killing them - the idea being that an opponent who falls over screaming is more likely to cause another opponent to stop shooting and try to help them.

Or basically, the difference between neutralising someone with a 7.62mm and a 5.56mm is that the 5.56mm is more likely to neutralise an additional enemy, while the 7.62mm (or 7.92mm) just neutralises the first enemy a bit more.


As for the cars thing, the only parts of a civilian vehicle that are usable as cover are the wheels and the engine block. All other parts will fail to stop a bullet. Oh, and while firing prone from behind a wheel is fine, don't crawl under the vehicle.

Obviously, this is very different for military vehicles, although those tend to be a bit more dramatic when they fail to stop something.

Solaris
2009-12-05, 07:27 PM
Apparently, one of the arguments for 5.56mm (apart from being able to carry three times the ammunition) was that injuring an opponent was more useful than killing them - the idea being that an opponent who falls over screaming is more likely to cause another opponent to stop shooting and try to help them.

Or basically, the difference between neutralising someone with a 7.62mm and a 5.56mm is that the 5.56mm is more likely to net another enemy neutralised, while the 7.62mm neutralises one guy a lot more.

Yeah. The logic kinda fell through once we started running into enemies who liked to get high on hashish before they picked a fight. The end result was that we needed three bullets to stop one guy. Another argument was that the 5.56mm round had better penetration power, and could thus kill armored vehicles. Feel free to chuckle at that one.
Personally, I prefer my enemy to be stopped. I don't want to have to spray him with bullets to make him stop shooting me, I want to nail him once or twice and move on to the next one.

lesser_minion
2009-12-05, 07:37 PM
Yeah. The logic kinda fell through once we started running into enemies who liked to get high on hashish before they picked a fight. The end result was that we needed three bullets to stop one guy. Another argument was that the 5.56mm round had better penetration power, and could thus kill armored vehicles.

In the first Gulf War quite a few Brits apparently went back to using the SLR, and I can see where you're coming from.

The BIG argument really is that being able to carry three times as much ammunition is kind of nice, as the ammunition isn't that much worse. I can also see why dropping one GPMG for two LSWs increases your flexibility a lot - even with less firepower in total, being able to engage targets at 800m is a plus (this being the UK, I don't think anyone really cared that each rifle section now had, in essence, six assault rifles and two bigger assault rifles.).

This is turning into a thread derail now, so it might be better to take the rest of this to real world weapons and armour. :smallamused:

Demented
2009-12-05, 08:20 PM
Who said I was talking about assault rifles?

You were talkin' to me, I wasn't talkin' to you. (Translated: You replied to my post, therefore my post sets the subject if your post doesn't explicitly change the subject.) I said "guns", and proceeded to compare them to repeating crossbows for presumably medium-size creatures. I intended that to mean small arms, not artillery, and certainly not 5" guns on battleships.
Though, for a brief mental diversion, I would be quite entertained by titans wielding gargantuan-sized heavy crossbows with hellfire warheads mounted on the tips of their quarrels.

I took the 'armor piercing (and) incendiary (and) explosive bullets' thing a bit far for effect (especially on the presumption that it's a 5.56mm bullet. However, the important point is that a crossbow CAN do incendiary, or explosive rounds. It can do armor piercing as well, at least in DnD. In reality, you'd probably need a different bolt-type for cloth, ceramic or steel plate.


The secondary reason is because we don't fight enough tanks to make their manufacturing cost-effective.
Now you've got me thinking about 5.56mm explosive rounds versus a tank.
My gut speculation says it would be more pyrotechnically pretty than it would be effective.

lightningcat
2009-12-05, 09:26 PM
Apparently, one of the arguments for 5.56mm (apart from being able to carry three times the ammunition) was that injuring an opponent was more useful than killing them - the idea being that an opponent who falls over screaming is more likely to cause another opponent to stop shooting and try to help them.

Or basically, the difference between neutralising someone with a 7.62mm and a 5.56mm is that the 5.56mm is more likely to neutralise an additional enemy, while the 7.62mm (or 7.92mm) just neutralises the first enemy a bit more.

This of course supposes that the injured individual has others that care about him. It is unlikely that goblins, hobgoblins, or even orcs would stop for an injured companions, unless they had good reason (such as them having an item they wanted). Even in some human societies, an injured individual might not get any more then a mercy killing at best. Human Modern social norms do not always apply when dealing with creatures from D&D.

Sir Sanguine
2009-12-06, 12:30 AM
That reminds me. Will the moderns be bringing along vehicles, or no? The way troops fight changes dramatically based on whether or not they're mounted or dismounted.
Hmmmm. That's actually a pretty good point I hadn't considered. I guess that yeah, they would be in a car of some sort. However, roads are almost nonexistent and you'd have to carry all of your fuel with you. Pity if you get hit by a fireball.

(That's just the party. If the actual military wants to take out a dragon for some reason or another then they can use whatever they have.)

I was thinking that all technology would function the same except for one thing: out beyond a certain diameter from the portal, all radio and other types of instantaneous communication fail to work because of a spell cast by the plane's more powerful inhabitants. This seems like it would be necessary in order to preserve any sense of the unknown.


Speaking of which, the OP should make an attempt to science up the fantasy creatures. A common one is that vampires are vulnerable to UV rays, not just sunlight (done in Underworld).

Actually, a major theme of this setting is going to be that science and magic are not two different ways of saying the same thing. Magic is fundamentally unknowable, and it works for reasons that we, at least, just can't explain. You can study the DNA of a basilisk from start to finish and not find any part that accounts for its ability to turn you into stone.
So the vampires aren't vulnerable to UV rays, just sunlight. No midichlorians! Just the Force!

Iamyourking
2009-12-06, 03:06 AM
There's still the fact of Outsiders; which none of you seem to be considering. Lots of spell-like abilities, god-like intelligence, and esoteric resistance to mortal weapons. I've got a sizable text explaining how Devils could conquer modern earth without too much difficulty if you want to see it.

Solaris
2009-12-06, 03:38 AM
In the first Gulf War quite a few Brits apparently went back to using the SLR, and I can see where you're coming from.

The BIG argument really is that being able to carry three times as much ammunition is kind of nice, as the ammunition isn't that much worse. I can also see why dropping one GPMG for two LSWs increases your flexibility a lot - even with less firepower in total, being able to engage targets at 800m is a plus (this being the UK, I don't think anyone really cared that each rifle section now had, in essence, six assault rifles and two bigger assault rifles.).

This is turning into a thread derail now, so it might be better to take the rest of this to real world weapons and armour. :smallamused:

Feh. I gotta get some use out of my 8 ranks of Derail Thread somehow.


You were talkin' to me, I wasn't talkin' to you. (Translated: You replied to my post, therefore my post sets the subject if your post doesn't explicitly change the subject.) I said "guns", and proceeded to compare them to repeating crossbows for presumably medium-size creatures. I intended that to mean small arms, not artillery, and certainly not 5" guns on battleships.
Though, for a brief mental diversion, I would be quite entertained by titans wielding gargantuan-sized heavy crossbows with hellfire warheads mounted on the tips of their quarrels.
Yes, but gun doesn't refer to small-arms in the specialized sense. A gun is an artillery piece, while an assault rifle is a weapon. It's... Army humor. Humor even we don't find terribly funny.
(Translated: I knew what you meant, I was making the point that we have bigger shootin' irons than the dinky ones we carry.)
My PCs will hate you for providing that enemy, you know.


I took the 'armor piercing (and) incendiary (and) explosive bullets' thing a bit far for effect (especially on the presumption that it's a 5.56mm bullet. However, the important point is that a crossbow CAN do incendiary, or explosive rounds. It can do armor piercing as well, at least in DnD. In reality, you'd probably need a different bolt-type for cloth, ceramic or steel plate.
Right, but it's cheaper to manufacture than it is to enchant.
Speaking of, a buddy of mine was speculating about a high-level caster producing disintegrate-based ammunition for cannons/crossbows for taking down castles and enemy ships.


Now you've got me thinking about 5.56mm explosive rounds versus a tank.
My gut speculation says it would be more pyrotechnically pretty than it would be effective.

My gut says the best you could hope for is to annoy the tank to death disable the tank's treads.


There's still the fact of Outsiders; which none of you seem to be considering. Lots of spell-like abilities, god-like intelligence, and esoteric resistance to mortal weapons. I've got a sizable text explaining how Devils could conquer modern earth without too much difficulty if you want to see it.

They'd also conquer your standard D&D world without too much difficulty. Your point?

Demented
2009-12-06, 06:08 AM
My PCs will hate you for providing that enemy, you know.
Sounds like more fun than a Ravid in a munitions depot!
Wait, that's not possible. :smalltongue:


Right, but it's cheaper to manufacture than it is to enchant.
Speaking of, a buddy of mine was speculating about a high-level caster producing disintegrate-based ammunition for cannons/crossbows for taking down castles and enemy ships.
I wasn't talking about enchanting the crossbow bolts. :smallconfused:
Rather, I was talking about jury-rigging something mundane onto the end of the crossbow bolt. I.e. A glass vial of fuel or a nugget of plastic explosive, with detonator.
......
The disintegrating ammunition is a practical idea, but I think cannonballs that summon fiendish tyrannosaurs would be much more fun at parties.

Owrtho
2009-12-06, 06:10 AM
I was thinking that all technology would function the same except for one thing: out beyond a certain diameter from the portal, all radio and other types of instantaneous communication fail to work because of a spell cast by the plane's more powerful inhabitants. This seems like it would be necessary in order to preserve any sense of the unknown.

Actually you wouldn't need a spell to prevent communication. The fact that there are no satellites or radio towers in the magic world (at least I assume there aren't any), would take care of that on its own. You would still be able to use some forms of communication (like Walkie Talkies and two way radios), but the former can only communicate with specific other ones and a usually close range, and the later requires knowing the frequency on which to communicate.

Also, one thing to note. Most guns (at least most hand guns and guns civilians would have access to), won't penetrate plate mail (using normal bullets at least). Crossbows will. A crossbow bolt has better penetration than most bullets (again, armor piecing rounds are likely an exception).

Owrtho

lesser_minion
2009-12-06, 06:59 AM
My understanding is that plate armour wouldn't stop a bullet any more than a car door would. It's just a few millimetres of iron.

A 9mm round at close range would be able to punch through, although I'll agree that it wouldn't do to well. A rifle round - 5.56mm or 7.62mm - is probably enough, however.

Not that civilians would have easy access to either of those.

Brother Oni
2009-12-06, 07:40 AM
One thing caught my attention - it's been mentioned that an assault rifle is unlikely to gun down the Rider of Rohan on a battlefield, but surely in that sort of situation, you'd be wanting a crew operated weapon instead?

I'm not that up to date with modern weaponry (and some people here show far experience than me), but if something invented in 1912 (the Vickers machine gun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers_machine_gun)) can sustain that sort of fire for that long, wouldn't modern weaponry be even better?

The caveat though is supplies - even if the weapon can fire uninterrupted, keeping it stocked up with ammunition, gun barrels, spare parts, other consumables, etc, is going to be the issue.


My understanding is that plate armour wouldn't stop a bullet any more than a car door would. It's just a few millimetres of iron.

A 9mm round at close range would be able to punch through, although I'll agree that it wouldn't do to well. A rifle round - 5.56mm or 7.62mm - is probably enough, however.

If you've ever seen plate armour close up or worn it, it's a bit thicker than a couple millimetres. :smallbiggrin:

In the program Deadliest Warrior, they put up a late medieval period armoured knight against a 18th century era pirate.

The knight's plate armour stopped a flintlock pistol shot (which I understand to be a 19mm lead ball black powder weapon), but the blunderbuss (the long arm version) managed to put 1 or 2 shot though the armour.

With regard to modern weaponry, I'd agree that a 9mm round would probably penetrate at close range (would a hollow point though?) and larger weapons would basically ignore it, although Wikipedia mentions that some WWII Soviet troops wore steel breastplates that could stop small arms fire.

Latronis
2009-12-06, 07:51 AM
Not even. A man with a submachine gun will just keep spraying at you.

Assuming you can. You still need the hole in front in line with the target.

If you are in reach of a trained opponent that may not happen.


And you're deliberately comparing it in a way that is invalid. I'm stepping back. You are stepping forward. Sorry, but I can do more damage to you with a gun than you can with a sword in an equal amount of actions.

Because real life people have hitpoints right? A sword can dismember, behead, impale.. It is a dangerous weapon, arguable moreso on a hit vs hit basis.

Don't forget melee won't just ignore your weapon and try and hit you, trained melee combatants have pretty much always been trained to not get hurt by an opponents weapon aswell.

Far more so than modern soldiers.


You're still full of holes, regardless of whether you hit me or not. If I'm using hollow-points, the shock of the hits are likely to drop you mid-stride. (I should qualify my previous statement by saying that I don't necessarily have to reach you in order to control you.)

And you don't think losing a hand or having 3 feet of sharpened steel through your midsection won't stop you?


If I'm holstered, then you might have a point. Although chances are, if I'm an explorer, I have my long-arm in hand.

True but i was specifically talking about using a firearm againest a person already in melee range. It may be difficult to get into melee range againest someone with a firearm (from a fair distance and aware of you) But the TC wanted a way of balancing guns and swords, and when it comes to melee melee weapons have enough of an advantage to base a mechanic off.


The only valid way that melee works is if I'm surprised or outnumbered, which wouldn't be hard in a stranger-in-a-stange-land scenario. That might also mean that, as a civilian, I won't have a bazooka, white phosphorus grenades, an assault rifle or whatever.

Or you know you are in melee combat and don't already have the business end pointing right at the other target. Because once you make a move your opponent is going to move too, and his weapon unlike yours has more than one 'business end'


THIS IS NOT D&D. IT IS HOMEBREWED. So stop thinking in terms of attacks of opportunity. A better assumption is that the players are technologically superior, but poorly supplied, by default. And are usually going to be going up against tougher or numerically superior enemies. And that's assuming there are no social challenges either that can't merely be gunned down. They're explorers in a foreign and primitive land.

1) D&D is universally well-known enough on the forum to get the point across.

2) The TC wanted to balance swords and guns. Fighting individuals above an appropiate encounter or endless hordes is not an assumption i'd rather make.

Latronis
2009-12-06, 07:57 AM
My understanding is that plate armour wouldn't stop a bullet any more than a car door would. It's just a few millimetres of iron.

A 9mm round at close range would be able to punch through, although I'll agree that it wouldn't do to well. A rifle round - 5.56mm or 7.62mm - is probably enough, however.

Not that civilians would have easy access to either of those.

Armour takes more of beating worn than not worn. The flesh underneath absorbs some of the impact. So plate armour is better protection than standing behind a sheet of plate otherwise identical.

Unfortunately penetration demonstrations didn't include plate armour(brick walls, stumps, sandbags sure! medieval armour.. not so much) so I don't know how well it would fair.

lesser_minion
2009-12-06, 08:19 AM
One thing caught my attention - it's been mentioned that an assault rifle is unlikely to gun down the Rider of Rohan on a battlefield, but surely in that sort of situation, you'd be wanting a crew operated weapon instead?

I'm not that up to date with modern weaponry (and some people here show far experience than me), but if something invented in 1912 (the Vickers machine gun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers_machine_gun)) can sustain that sort of fire for that long, wouldn't modern weaponry be even better?



The modern counterpart to the Vickers machine gun is the FN MAG, which is designed to be a lot lighter (the Vickers needed a four-man crew just to transport it).

In reality, the heavier machine guns haven't developed much since World War II, however. The FN MAG doesn't have the same kind of firepower as a Vickers gun or a Browning M2, but it can be moved around, and is also quite easy to use in the light role. Since the 1980s, there has been a general shift in doctrine towards lighter weaponry such as the FN Minimi and the LSW.

In the first world war, cavalry would still be able to take down infantry who weren't fortified, but they would suffer heavy casualties. Against fortified infantry, they would have little or no chance - one of the points behind modern fortifications is to slow down the enemy while you turn them into sushi.

There are ways to take on dug-in infantry, but they don't involve the Riders of Rohan. They involve a night attack by the Parachute Regiment with support from the Navy.

Brother Oni
2009-12-06, 08:33 AM
Armour takes more of beating worn than not worn. The flesh underneath absorbs some of the impact. So plate armour is better protection than standing behind a sheet of plate otherwise identical.


Well it's less the flesh and more the gambeson (quilted padded armour) worn underneath. :smallbiggrin:

Bear in mind that plate armour is shaped such that blows striking it are deflected away from critical areas, much like a tank's sloped frontal armour, so it provides better protection than the apparent thickness may indicate.



In the first world war, cavalry would still be able to take down infantry who weren't fortified, but they would suffer heavy casualties. Against fortified infantry, they would have little or no chance - one of the points behind modern fortifications is to slow down the enemy while you turn them into sushi.

How about something bigger than man portable weapons? I'm sure there's a point where the weapon's rate of fire and calibre would make any massed infantry/cavalry attack pure suicide?

Isn't that the main point of any fortifications - to buy you time so that you can turn the attackers into sushi, be it with guns, arrows, boiling oil or anything equally unpleasant?

Latronis
2009-12-06, 08:37 AM
Yeah that is true, but i was just pointing out that metal around something survives more than metal with nothing inside. Otherwise it has too much give, not enough take.

lesser_minion
2009-12-06, 08:43 AM
Well it's less the flesh and more the gambeson (quilted padded armour) worn underneath. :smallbiggrin:

Bear in mind that plate armour is shaped such that blows striking it are deflected away from critical areas, much like a tank's sloped frontal armour, so it provides better protection than the apparent thickness may indicate.



How about something bigger than man portable weapons? I'm sure there's a point where the weapon's rate of fire and calibre would make any massed infantry/cavalry attack pure suicide?

Isn't that the main point of any fortifications - to buy you time so that you can turn the attackers into sushi, be it with guns, arrows, boiling oil or anything equally unpleasant?

Anything bigger than a GPMG would either be fitted to a vehicle or fall into the category of fortifications, so I didn't count it.

Thane of Fife
2009-12-06, 08:55 AM
Completely ignoring the discussion going on in most of this thread:

One of the great tropes of fantasy is that iron inhibits magic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_in_folklore). This can be your excuse. Bullets aren't iron, whereas swords (and such) are. Therefore, swords are drastically more effective against creatures made of or protected by magic.

If you think that the players will want to make bullets out of iron, then you can try to tie its properties to its being held by a mortal creature, as opposed to fired from a gun.

Brother Oni
2009-12-06, 09:19 AM
One of the great tropes of fantasy is that iron inhibits magic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_in_folklore). This can be your excuse. Bullets aren't iron, whereas swords (and such) are. Therefore, swords are drastically more effective against creatures made of or protected by magic.

If you think that the players will want to make bullets out of iron, then you can try to tie its properties to its being held by a mortal creature, as opposed to fired from a gun


Except that most weapons aren't made out iron, they're made of steel as it's much tougher and has better corrosion resistance. Whether that's still close enough is debatable, but the reference is still to iron rather than steel.

There's also the increasing suspension of disbelief - even if they're less vulnerable to bullets, a modern 9mm round will still put a substantial force into the target. If you're going to handwave that away, you'll need to be consistent with other types of non-iron physical impacts.

If you want to tie in the properties to being held by a mortal creature, you've taken all ranged weapons out of the equation, which may or may not be what the OP's goal is.
For the people arguing that bullets can't be enchanted - if sling stones can, I'm sure bullets can as well.
There was a HK action movie I saw once; in Chinese mythology, ghosts and the like can be touched and hit with things imbued with yang energy, so they made a gun with a syringe which drew blood from the shooter and coated the round as it exited the barrel, thus allowing bullets to harm ghosts. :smallbiggrin:

Finally, if I'm not mistaken, wasn't that trope specifically linked with fairies and the fey in general? I'm sure they didn't mean for your standard D&D troll to be included.

lesser_minion
2009-12-06, 09:42 AM
Demons and witches weren't supposed to be fans of iron either - pinning a witch to the ground with a pitchfork was supposed to keep her from coming back because demons wouldn't take the body.

In some cases, fairies just didn't like iron as opposed to being harmed by it. They'd punish you for bringing iron or steel into their forests, even though it did no harm.

Trobby
2009-12-06, 09:46 AM
Okay, a few things to balance guns in a DnD setting where Swords and Armor need some time to shine.

1: Limited Ammo. Just as it prevents your players from relying on archery, so too will it prevent them from relying on bullets. This extends beyond carrying capacity though. Make sure that your player understands that unloading an empty clip and loading a new one is at least a standard if not a full-round action, and thus deprives them of an attack on the round they need to reload. For more archaic weapons, you can even increase the time it takes for reloading.

2: Limited Resupply/Maintenance. Swords should be kept in good condition, but guns are even more important to keep well-supplied and well-maintained, because not doing so increases the chance of misfire. If they are in a fantasy setting where guns are rare, the more modern a gun is, the harder it should be to get ammo, up to the point where gun clips are outright impossible to get.

3: Misfire Chance. Obviously older but less safety-explicit guns will be doing more damage due to the explosive ammo that they tend to carry, but carry a chance for misfire as well. In these cases, you may want to set up a chart that explains specifically the damage a gun does in a shot (remember: Some guns have rapid-fire or autofire options, and some, like the shotgun, are specifically designed to have a spread pattern on firing) and how likely it is that the gun might misfire. (A precent die roll helps here).

4: Harder to magic. If your fantasy characters can't comprehend how a gun works, they probably have trouble giving it magical enhancements. To do so, they would have to have a special feat that allows them to enchant guns, and then a feat beyond that to enchant modern weaponry, and both of those would raise the price of enchantment considerably. Magical swords and bows should be more common, though the obvious advantage of a gun will still be there (greater damage, and possibly more rapid delivery of bullets).

5: Remember damage Resistance? Many enemies have a little handy thing called "DR/Magic", or "DR/Slashing", or any number of DR types that can render the damage from a gun less effective. Feel free to ramp these up a bit to prevent your PCs from overcoming it with sheer force of gun. After all, the point of DR/Magic is that these creatures are so powerful, only a magical weapon can do real damage to them.

Hope that helps.

ericgrau
2009-12-06, 09:48 AM
Early guns were worse than swords an longbows except that they were simple and great against armored opponents.

IMO let guns be simple weapons granting touch attacks against most creatures and good damage but give them a poor range increment and a slow reload time. Like maybe a full round action to reload, or two if that's not enough. That'd make them great for rogues and non-melee to hit big creatures like hydras at close range, but against goblins they'd be so-so.

IMO make cannons basically Huge guns, or whatever size ballistas are. Adjust attack penalty to hit and damage accordingly. That makes them only good against even easier targets.

Ashtagon
2009-12-06, 10:39 AM
The rough gist of my firearm rules:

* guns are divided into sidearms and longarms, depending on whether they need one or both arms.
* longarms suffer a -4 attack penalty at 5-ft range, and a -2 attack penalty at 10-ft range ( I also apply this penalty to almost every launched weapon except the hand crossbow).
* you can fire a burst of up to 5 shots at a target as a standard action, and subject to the actual rate of fire of the weapon. Make one attack roll per shot, and take the single best result only; you don't ever get more than one damage roll from such an attack, although more rolls means a better chance of a hit. (Aside: I use this approach for standard melee iterative attacks too).
* You can ready an action to shoot at someone when something happens, just as you can ready actions to swing a sword or loose an arrow at them. This uses the above rule.
* If the weapon has a high autofire rate of fire, you can lay down suppressive cover fire over a set area (a 90-degree cone that is two range increments long). This entitles you to an attack roll on anyone in that area, and anyone who enters the area before your next turn.

eta:

* reloading a weapon varies, roughly by historical era. most modern guns take a standard action. Older guns often took two or three full-round actions.

Brother Oni
2009-12-06, 11:18 AM
IMO let guns be simple weapons granting touch attacks against most creatures and good damage but give them a poor range increment and a slow reload time. Like maybe a full round action to reload, or two if that's not enough.


It depends on the type of gun.

As Solaris mentioned, he can change a clip on his M4 in under 4 seconds and apparently he's one of the slow ones.
During the Napoleonic era with flintlock rifles, 3 rounds a minute volley fire was regarded to be good.

Obviously you'll need to make a gameplay over realism decision here.

lesser_minion
2009-12-06, 11:47 AM
With most modern weapons, 20 or so 'attacks' per minute would be about as many as anyone could plausibly manage.

The definition of an 'attack' there is a concerted effort to hit an enemy - either an aimed shot or three-round burst from the shoulder, or a short five-six round burst from the hip.

In all of those cases, I'd suggest giving the attack about a 30% chance of succeeding with a trained character (a -4 penalty to hit in D&D terms), and allow multiple hits on a crit, and only a crit.

Also, don't let the weapons grant touch attacks. They need to do a lot more than just hit the enemy in order to be effective, ergo they are not touch attacks.

Firearm damage should be comparable to melee weapon damage - the advice in the DMG to give an assault rifle d10 damage is actually very good advice.

Justification:

Most targets will be between 1st and 5th level. Assuming a d6 hit die, that means that people able to take more than three-four bullets would be exceedingly rare. That mirrors real life - you need to be very lucky not to be neutralised after being shot four times. For many people, one bullet is enough, but it won't kill them instantly - this is also accurate. From 6th level onwards, characters respond cinematically to being shot - not really a problem, it partly mirrors the goals of the game. From 11th level onwards, characters are intentionally so far from reality that a gunshot not damaging them much is neither here nor there.


Overall, the conclusion seems to be that people have massively inflated expectations of what a gunshot should do compared with being stabbed.

Tavar
2009-12-06, 11:58 AM
The might need to be more than touch attacks, but most armor can't stop the bullets, especially if the bullets are armor piercing. Perhaps ignore a set amount of armor and shield bonus.

BizzaroStormy
2009-12-06, 12:03 PM
You could always pit the group against an organization of evil monks who specialize in a certain variant of the Catch Arrow and Deflect Arrow feats. Yes, the Monks of the Lead Fist.

If that doesn't work, submit the group to magic users. See how well their guns work when they're too hot to hold, or a fire spell causes all their ammunition to go off.

lesser_minion
2009-12-06, 12:05 PM
The might need to be more than touch attacks, but most armor can't stop the bullets, especially if the bullets are armor piercing. Perhaps ignore a set amount of armor and shield bonus.

I don't think there's that much point, really. By the time breastplates came back into use, for example, they were actually bullet-tested. The same goes for O-Yoroi armour types quite soon after firearms were introduced into Japan.


You could always pit the group against an organization of evil monks who specialize in a certain variant of the Catch Arrow and Deflect Arrow feats. Yes, the Monks of the Lead Fist.

Actually, the Boxer rebellion was led by monks who believed that they could make themselves immune to bullets. In a part-fantasy game, those techniques could quite easily be effective.

BizzaroStormy
2009-12-06, 12:12 PM
I'm talking more about the monks catching the bullet, then throwing it back at the same velocity. Would definitely make a PC reconsider bringing a rocket launcher.

There's also the fact that before long, some mage would come up with a spell similar to shield, but for bullets. As it's been stated, there's also the fact that a bullet may not drop somebody in one hit. That person can then get into close combat and start putting the hurt on the guy who just shot him.

deuxhero
2009-12-06, 12:58 PM
Magic counters can keep them in check (Dampen or ignite a "flammable" item seems really low level), but magic does that for everyone.

For handling automatic firearms, I say make them martial and give them the free ability to flurry (and if used as an exotic weapon, greater flurry.)

Tavar
2009-12-06, 01:02 PM
I don't think there's that much point, really. By the time breastplates came back into use, for example, they were actually bullet-tested. The same goes for O-Yoroi armour types quite soon after firearms were introduced into Japan.
well, if you're just going to ignore armor, shield, and NA, what's the difference between that and a touch attack?

Swordguy
2009-12-06, 03:12 PM
Dude's right, but I'd call reloading a move action for a trained trooper. I'm on the slow end, and I can do it in about four seconds (this is dropping the old mag, not sticking it in the pouch). Most guys I've met can swap out magazines in approximately two-three seconds without taking their eyes off their targets.

Agreed...but I can make 3-4 sword swings in 6 second (1 round) too. If the sword wielder gets penalized by actions to make things fit easily into "1 round", then it's only fair for the firearm-wielder to take the same penalty. It's 3 distinct and seperate actions to load a firearm - release magazine, retrieve magazine, load magazine (and chamber a round if necessary).

Heck, retrieving and loading (drinking) a potion is even two separate actions in d20, so retrieving a loading a magazine should be identical.


Now, what I'd REALLY like to see out of the OP is a little more info about his planned gameworld. If it's a truly modern world, with industrial mass-production and economies of scale, it's a LOT harder to balance firearms v melee since you can't restrict ammunition or spare parts.

Also, whoever back in the thread who countered the "swords never need reloading" with "swords break"...I suggest you compare rates of guns requiring a reload vis a vis swords breaking. You're making a horrible argument. And let's not even get into jamming rates.

lesser_minion
2009-12-06, 03:38 PM
well, if you're just going to ignore armor, shield, and NA, what's the difference between that and a touch attack?

My point was that bulletproof armour wasn't very far behind firearms, so within a very short time it would be available to the guys with swords.

There's no point ruling that they ignore armour, because they won't do so for very long.

Bear in mind that an 'attack' is a significant effort to hit an enemy, not just one sword swing - that means that at close range, people are probably only getting five 'attacks' out of an assault rifle before needing to reload.

Conveniently, full auto from an assault rifle is only useful at the ranges where stopping and reloading is suicide against a melee opponent...

Sir Sanguine
2009-12-06, 05:11 PM
Now, what I'd REALLY like to see out of the OP is a little more info about his planned gameworld. If it's a truly modern world, with industrial mass-production and economies of scale, it's a LOT harder to balance firearms v melee since you can't restrict ammunition or spare parts.


There are two gameworlds, really. One is just the modern world as of right now, with no changes or alterations (beyond the fact that a few great big portals just appeared). The portals are appearing chiefly in the middle of major cities around the world. New ones open without warning. They're big enough to get whatever you might want through. However the lines to go through are pretty long and it takes a few days to get a permit from your government.
The other world, (plain ol' Earth to the natives, but we call it Gate) is vast and has virtually no civilization. Humans have no cities here: anytime they settle in numbers approaching citylike, a passing dragon or thing with too many tentacles puts and end to that. Travel is exceptionally dangerous, but there are treasures for the taking too. So there are plenty of the stereotypical adventurers roaming around, many of them unprepared for what's actually out there.

So yeah, the world is truly modern. But can't we still restrict ammunition and spare parts if the party is going to be wandering around in the wilderness, away from any gun shops?

Swordguy
2009-12-06, 05:42 PM
Simple solution then. If you've got another world where magic exists, why allow physics (as it pertains to firearms) to work there at all? I mean, magic already violates the world of physics simply by existing, so you've got a built-in argument. Simply rule that stuff with very many moving parts (say, more complicated than a water wheel turning a mill wheel) or that requires a high quality of industrial machining just fails to function.

Even more cruel would be that the "corrupting" element of the Other World (that is, it suppresses real-world physics) would be an "infection" in this world. As creatures appear in this world, they bring their physics-suppression with them, and so you get localized "pockets" where things like guns and bombs simply won't work. The more powerful the critter, the greater (and wider-ranging) the effect. So an Orc can get shot from 10 feet or further away (not a problem), but an Ogre might have to be shot at from 25 feet (which is a real issue for pistol fire), a Troll might have a 50-foot buffer (hit it with SMGs on burst fire or assault rifles) and a Dragon might be 250 yards (ie, long-range assault rifle fire, sniper rifles, or larger weapons). This also provides some automatic conflict between the two worlds, since the "corrupting" effect may be spreading or taking a permanent hold if it "stays" too long (that is, the critter who brought it though the gates stays in one place for a long period of time).

Bang. You now have a VERY compelling reason for swords and melee weapons to exist, and for people to carry them. Got a platoon of Orcs holed up in a house? Get in there with swords and clean em out, since you're more often than not going to have engagement ranges of 15 feet or less.

Sir Sanguine
2009-12-06, 05:49 PM
But I want people to be able to use guns, especially in Gate where they'll be doing most of the adventuring. My ideal is a party with a mix of swords and guns, and everyone's as effective as everyone else.

Maybe guns could just be less damaging in the fantasy world.

Tavar
2009-12-06, 06:01 PM
My point was that bulletproof armour wasn't very far behind firearms, so within a very short time it would be available to the guys with swords.

But will they get current generation anti-ballistic materials? As that seems to be what we're talking about here.

paddyfool
2009-12-06, 06:05 PM
An alternative way to have swords balanced with guns would be in a kind of prequel mission to the big world collision, where one of the first, small portals is discovered, say, somewhere in the US, and the US gvt move in to investigate it. Unmanned probes show that the other side seems to be a survivable world with humans at medieval-level tech speaking some unknown language... and a team is put together, with a mishmash of skills being required (field medic, special forces guy, survivalist type, medieval weaponry expert, linguist, anthropologist, cartographer, diplomat... let the players decide how to put their team together to cover as many of the above bases as possible). The team would have access to guns, but only concealable ones, and be under strict instructions not to use them unless absolutely necessary; if possible, they are to avoid conflict, and to resolve "minor" threats (bandits and suchlike) with medieval weaponry (hence a possibility for players who like swords or bows to play a specialist in such, be they a battle-reenactor, olympic-level fencer, both, or whatever else).

Of course, when the team inevitably get cut off from their support structure, when they discover magic and monsters exist in this world, and all the rest of that (and the varieties of which should be pretty far from standard fantasy to keep the players guessing), the fun can really begin.

----------

But going with what you're actually doing, rather than what I thought up after reading this thread in its infancy some time ago... well, you could have players play a mixed team with people from both worlds. So that if they want someone who knows about magic and monsters, they can't be at all expert in guns or tech etc., and vice versa. Of course, guns are easy to learn, but if you've got access to magic, they're a little less tempting than hitherto, since your magic user will understand how his all-singing, all-dancing magical sword works, but mistrust the strange unknown magic of this lethal machine-made alien artifact called an "assault rifle". Scratch the D&D staple of spellcasters being unable to wear armour or use swords, allow spells designed to protect people from arrows to at least partially work against bullets (at very short range, a properly-made bow and arrow has a lot of penetrating power too; it's just that arrows lose more punch than bullets do at range), and you're good to go.

lesser_minion
2009-12-06, 06:12 PM
But I want people to be able to use guns, especially in Gate where they'll be doing most of the adventuring. My ideal is a party with a mix of swords and guns, and everyone's as effective as everyone else.

Maybe guns could just be less damaging in the fantasy world.

A firearm only needs to do as much damage as a sword would in order to be realistic anyway - possibly a little more to compensate for the strength of the sword-wielder.

If a sword does d8, a firearm doesn't actually need to do more than d12 in order to be realistic.

Being shot hurts, but so does being hit with a sword - and the sword is far more efficient at dealing damage (as in, much more of the kinetic energy of the sword goes into actually hurting its victim).

Your players will have a lot less ammunition than a military force, will probably have less access to vehicles, and won't be able to afford the kind of tactics that render cavalry ineffective (in some places in the world, cavalry are still used for precisely this reason). You don't have as much of a balance issue as you might think.

BizzaroStormy
2009-12-06, 06:14 PM
But will they get current generation anti-ballistic materials? As that seems to be what we're talking about here.

They'll brig the armor with them, then have it magically enchanted. Fear the +2 riot vest.

paddyfool
2009-12-06, 06:36 PM
They'll brig the armor with them, then have it magically enchanted. Fear the +2 riot vest.

Your standard riot vest won't stop a decent knife, sharpened screwdriver or ice-pick, never mind a sword or spear. Making armour that's good against both bullets and blades gets expensive and cumbersome, although such multi-threat armour is a lot better now than it was back in, say, 1990.

lesser_minion
2009-12-06, 06:39 PM
Your standard riot vest won't stop a decent knife, sharpened screwdriver or ice-pick, never mind a sword or spear. Making armour that's good against both bullets and blades gets expensive and cumbersome, although such multi-threat armour is a lot better now than it was back in, say, 1990.

Actually, ballistic armour will still offer some protection from most melee attacks (in the same way that archaic armour will offer at least some protection from guns). Especially the heavier 80s-era stuff (are you honestly telling me that a massive piece of ceramic offers no protection whatsoever from knives?)

Swordguy
2009-12-06, 06:44 PM
Actually, ballistic armour will still offer some protection from most melee attacks (in the same way that archaic armour will offer at least some protection from guns). Especially the heavier 80s-era stuff (are you honestly telling me that a massive piece of ceramic offers no protection whatsoever from knives?)

Of course, once it's been hit with anything bigger than a knife, it won't offer any protection at all against a bullet. Ceramic shatters.

paddyfool
2009-12-06, 07:05 PM
Actually, ballistic armour will still offer some protection from most melee attacks (in the same way that archaic armour will offer at least some protection from guns). Especially the heavier 80s-era stuff (are you honestly telling me that a massive piece of ceramic offers no protection whatsoever from knives?)

Well, vests with the rifle-round blocking ceramic plates do OK, apparently. Vests with metal components do better (but then many of these do worse against bullets). "Soft" vests with neither of these that are designed to be comfortably wearable while also stopping handguns etc. are the ones that really fail versus knives.

EDIT: Incidentally, for those who put forward old-fashioned black-powder weapons as being not too shoddily balanced as opposed to swords etc., Fantasy Craft does this pretty well (as well as quite a few other things).

lightningcat
2009-12-06, 07:20 PM
If you use the d20 modern (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/msrd) rules for firearms they are already fairly well balanced against swords, if not so well agaisnt bows. So rather then reinventing the wheel, I propose a unusual idea: use what is already out there.

Solaris
2009-12-06, 07:22 PM
Assuming you can. You still need the hole in front in line with the target.
For a submachine gun? Dude, easier than lining up a sword. If you're firing from the hip, which I've been known to do from time to time (it's not Army-recommended, but it's quick and effective in close-quarters), a high rate of fire makes up for a reduction in accuracy.


If you are in reach of a trained opponent that may not happen.
That's a big frikkin' if there. I wish we could get some demonstrations going down of trained modern soldiers against trained swordsmen. There's no realistic scenario I can think of that the swordsmen come up on top of, save maybe an ambush in a crowd.
... Problem being, soldiers don't allow a crowd to get close. We keep 'em at least ten to thirty feet away, depending on how much we like 'em. If we don't like the crowd, they stay away fifty meters or more. Range is our ally, and we use it well.
Now, human wave tactics might be of some use, but... yeah. We got machineguns for a reason. One soldier out of every four-five has one, not to mention the .50-cals and M240Bs on the trucks.


Because real life people have hitpoints right? A sword can dismember, behead, impale.. It is a dangerous weapon, arguable moreso on a hit vs hit basis.
... But they do in a game. That's a different problem that lesser minion is trying to make sure people remember.
A bullet can also scramble your insides up pretty darn good. Things like the 5.56mm rounds are great for bouncing off the ribcage and turning the vitals into hamburger.


Don't forget melee won't just ignore your weapon and try and hit you, trained melee combatants have pretty much always been trained to not get hurt by an opponents weapon aswell.
They're also trained to stay within the reach of their weapon, which, as it turns out, is approximately two-three feet. You don't grapple with a sword, because you can't get an effective swing from within your reach. Even within a sword's reach, I'd still bet on the rifleman.


Far more so than modern soldiers.
Yes. That's because we can kill from ten feet away, while a sword can only kill from hand-to-hand range. That said, we are trained on resisting a grapple and on going in for a quick unarmed kill. The world's best swordsman? He'd probably win... in melee. Fights don't start from melee range.


True but i was specifically talking about using a firearm againest a person already in melee range. It may be difficult to get into melee range againest someone with a firearm (from a fair distance and aware of you) But the TC wanted a way of balancing guns and swords, and when it comes to melee melee weapons have enough of an advantage to base a mechanic off.
Logic fail. Ignoring the difficulties of a swordsman getting into melee range is ignoring pretty much all of the problems they'll be having.
Modern firearms can handle melee, and they're better at blocking/parrying than are swords. Those fiddly-bits, remember? I may not be able to kill you with a muzzle-punch, but I can darn sure get your attention with it.


Or you know you are in melee combat and don't already have the business end pointing right at the other target. Because once you make a move your opponent is going to move too, and his weapon unlike yours has more than one 'business end'
Wait, what?
Let's look at damage, okay?
Pommel = buttstock
Crosspiece = Pistol grip
Muzzle < Thrusting tip
Bullet < Edge
Problem with using the sword? Bullet has better range than the edge does. You're arguing the wrong points here, Latronis. You should be saying that a sword does better damage at melee, when you're trying to say that a swordsman would be able to get initiative on a trained soldier. Both have reflexes that are pretty much the same, especially modern troops with their being trained to react and act in a highly complex battlefield. It takes a lot more effort to swing a sword (whether to attack the troop or to attack his weapon) than it does to pull a trigger.
Civilians have to aim at a close range. Trained soldiers don't have to - it's reflex. When we start talking about our favorite close-combat weapon, the one that the first man into a room uses - the good ol' shotgun - the swordsman starts losing out even more.


The modern counterpart to the Vickers machine gun is the FN MAG, which is designed to be a lot lighter (the Vickers needed a four-man crew just to transport it).

In reality, the heavier machine guns haven't developed much since World War II, however. The FN MAG doesn't have the same kind of firepower as a Vickers gun or a Browning M2, but it can be moved around, and is also quite easy to use in the light role. Since the 1980s, there has been a general shift in doctrine towards lighter weaponry such as the FN Minimi and the LSW.

In the first world war, cavalry would still be able to take down infantry who weren't fortified, but they would suffer heavy casualties. Against fortified infantry, they would have little or no chance - one of the points behind modern fortifications is to slow down the enemy while you turn them into sushi.

There are ways to take on dug-in infantry, but they don't involve the Riders of Rohan. They involve a night attack by the Parachute Regiment with support from the Navy.

Don't forget, we now like to bring M203 grenade launchers to the party in addition to our M249 SAWs (the US Army's name for the FM Minimi, for those in the audience who aren't machinegunners by profession).


Except that most weapons aren't made out iron, they're made of steel as it's much tougher and has better corrosion resistance. Whether that's still close enough is debatable, but the reference is still to iron rather than steel.

From my understanding, it's because the iron was worked rather than raw. Hence, I'd think steel would be just as good at hurting monsters as iron.


It depends on the type of gun.

As Solaris mentioned, he can change a clip on his M4 in under 4 seconds and apparently he's one of the slow ones.
During the Napoleonic era with flintlock rifles, 3 rounds a minute volley fire was regarded to be good.

Obviously you'll need to make a gameplay over realism decision here.

Yep. I've always done it as a move action, more if you don't have your magazines readily available.


With most modern weapons, 20 or so 'attacks' per minute would be about as many as anyone could plausibly manage.

The definition of an 'attack' there is a concerted effort to hit an enemy - either an aimed shot or three-round burst from the shoulder, or a short five-six round burst from the hip.

In all of those cases, I'd suggest giving the attack about a 30% chance of succeeding with a trained character (a -4 penalty to hit in D&D terms), and allow multiple hits on a crit, and only a crit.
Hmm. It could use some tinkering, but I think it's a good place to start.


Also, don't let the weapons grant touch attacks. They need to do a lot more than just hit the enemy in order to be effective, ergo they are not touch attacks.
Yes. At the most, enable them to ignore some of the armor's bonus to AC. I've always been a fan of having armor grant DR rather than bonuses to AC, though.


Firearm damage should be comparable to melee weapon damage - the advice in the DMG to give an assault rifle d10 damage is actually very good advice.
Yes, I agree, especially if you reduce the massive damage threshold from 50. This game sounds like it might be better running E6 or equivalent (staying below the superpowered levels of play).
I'm thinking firearms would have a x3 or x4 crit multiplier.


Overall, the conclusion seems to be that people have massively inflated expectations of what a gunshot should do compared with being stabbed.

I always did like using the WP/VP system for the lethality of firearms.


Agreed...but I can make 3-4 sword swings in 6 second (1 round) too. If the sword wielder gets penalized by actions to make things fit easily into "1 round", then it's only fair for the firearm-wielder to take the same penalty. It's 3 distinct and separate actions to load a firearm - release magazine, retrieve magazine, load magazine (and chamber a round if necessary).

Heck, retrieving and loading (drinking) a potion is even two separate actions in d20, so retrieving a loading a magazine should be identical.
Sorry, I neglected the point of the magazines being readily available. They're literally strapped to my chest in this exercise - I never make my players take an action to draw a potion in the same manner, either. The argument could really go either way, but I do lean towards just a move action to reload a firearm (including snatching up magazines). After all, you can cover 30 feet in a single move action with time left over to attack.
That said, how many of those swings (for a beginner) are actually effective attacks? At least in older versions of D&D, a fighter was constantly feinting, parrying, and attacking - the roll was just to see if one of his attacks managed to get through and do some damage that round. In 3.X, he gets more attacks in a round as he gets better at landing effective blows.


Also, whoever back in the thread who countered the "swords never need reloading" with "swords break"...I suggest you compare rates of guns requiring a reload vis a vis swords breaking. You're making a horrible argument. And let's not even get into jamming rates.
Yes, let's not. I'd say once per magazine on a poorly-maintained '16-series is being overly generous.


Simple solution then. If you've got another world where magic exists, why allow physics (as it pertains to firearms) to work there at all? I mean, magic already violates the world of physics simply by existing, so you've got a built-in argument. Simply rule that stuff with very many moving parts (say, more complicated than a water wheel turning a mill wheel) or that requires a high quality of industrial machining just fails to function.

Even more cruel would be that the "corrupting" element of the Other World (that is, it suppresses real-world physics) would be an "infection" in this world. As creatures appear in this world, they bring their physics-suppression with them, and so you get localized "pockets" where things like guns and bombs simply won't work. The more powerful the critter, the greater (and wider-ranging) the effect. So an Orc can get shot from 10 feet or further away (not a problem), but an Ogre might have to be shot at from 25 feet (which is a real issue for pistol fire), a Troll might have a 50-foot buffer (hit it with SMGs on burst fire or assault rifles) and a Dragon might be 250 yards (ie, long-range assault rifle fire, sniper rifles, or larger weapons). This also provides some automatic conflict between the two worlds, since the "corrupting" effect may be spreading or taking a permanent hold if it "stays" too long (that is, the critter who brought it though the gates stays in one place for a long period of time).

Bang. You now have a VERY compelling reason for swords and melee weapons to exist, and for people to carry them. Got a platoon of Orcs holed up in a house? Get in there with swords and clean em out, since you're more often than not going to have engagement ranges of 15 feet or less.

This idea, I support completely. I think it could work both ways, too, so that the base encampment hinders magic (but the mundanes, less so). Maybe even give 'em SR that they can't suppress.


But going with what you're actually doing, rather than what I thought up after reading this thread in its infancy some time ago... well, you could have players play a mixed team with people from both worlds. So that if they want someone who knows about magic and monsters, they can't be at all expert in guns or tech etc., and vice versa. Of course, guns are easy to learn, but if you've got access to magic, they're a little less tempting than hitherto, since your magic user will understand how his all-singing, all-dancing magical sword works, but mistrust the strange unknown magic of this lethal machine-made alien artifact called an "assault rifle". Scratch the D&D staple of spellcasters being unable to wear armour or use swords, allow spells designed to protect people from arrows to at least partially work against bullets (at very short range, a properly-made bow and arrow has a lot of penetrating power too; it's just that arrows lose more punch than bullets do at range), and you're good to go.

Aaand you just gave me my next story idea. Curse you.


Of course, once it's been hit with anything bigger than a knife, it won't offer any protection at all against a bullet. Ceramic shatters.

Heck yeah it does. Most disturbing sight I've ever seen? My ceramic plates have, in large letters on the front, "Handle With Care". If a guy's ever tagged in one, he has to change it out because it's useless after that. Aside from the plating itself, I'd call most modern armor on par with cuir boille. Maybe maille. I've heard rumors about them working on a non-Newtonian gel for our armor, something that's supposed to stop pretty much anything you can think of - that, I think, would be pretty good against most melee weapons.

lesser_minion
2009-12-06, 07:33 PM
'non-Newtonian gel'? So, what, Lagrangian gel? Eulerian gel?

I'm pretty sure any futuristic armour is going to use smart materials if possible, and those would be effective in protecting from almost any sort of attack.

As for stoppages - civilian ammunition can be utterly horrible. .22 rimfires seem to misfire almost as often as they work, although I've never seen a dud round (a hang fire is when there is a delay between the pin striking the round and the round firing, a misfire is when the round simply doesn't ignite, and a dud round is when it ignites but fails to leave the barrel).

BTW, I'm not actually a military person, I'm just a nerd.

Solaris
2009-12-06, 07:46 PM
'non-Newtonian gel'? So, what, Lagrangian gel? Eulerian gel?

I'm pretty sure any futuristic armour is going to use smart materials if possible, and those would be effective in protecting from almost any sort of attack.

As for stoppages - civilian ammunition can be utterly horrible. .22 rimfires seem to misfire almost as often as they work, although I've never seen a dud round (a hang fire is when there is a delay between the pin striking the round and the round firing, a misfire is when the round simply doesn't ignite, and a dud round is when it ignites but fails to leave the barrel).

BTW, I'm not actually a military person, I'm just a nerd.

All I heard was 'non-Newtonian'. I'm not actually a nerd, I'm just a military person. :smalltongue:

Swordguy
2009-12-06, 09:18 PM
That said, how many of those swings (for a beginner) are actually effective attacks? At least in older versions of D&D, a fighter was constantly feinting, parrying, and attacking - the roll was just to see if one of his attacks managed to get through and do some damage that round. In 3.X, he gets more attacks in a round as he gets better at landing effective blows.

In my experience, a beginner can make one effective attack in about 1.5-2 seconds. That is, an attack that will do serious damage (register in "hit points" as opposed to scratches) if it hits. An trained user (4-ish months of real training - the same as a guy going through BCT and AIT would get; I figure level 3-4 on a D&D scale) can make one "attack" in about .75-1.5 seconds, but will tend to make 1-3 very fast attacks in succession and then assume a brief defensive posture out of reflex.

Saying that "they spend most of the 6 second round" in feinting and dodging is a penalty given to make the round make sense. It make zero sense not to impose a similar penalty on firearm users. Heck, I could see the argument that firearm users don't get ititerave attacks anywhere NEAR as fast as meleers - they're limited by the action of the weapon and recoil. That would go a LONG way toward
balancing out the two.

I've been to MOUT school too. I still wouldn't want to engage more than 1 guy wielding an effective melee weapon in room-to-room unless I've got surprise and a couple of flashbangs available. Without surprise, you'll get the first guy almost all the time. The second guy is going to get to you for sure...and once you start parrying with a rifle (especially the modern polymer-based ones), you're going to have a hard time finding a moment to actually shoot him. Assuming your weapon still works (or magazine still feeds) after getting hit.

What would I choose if possible, a gun or a sword? The gun, duh. We know that firearms are just better than melee weapons, due almost entirely to their ability to hit the other guy from MUCH further away than they can hit you with the sword. But I think you're seriously underestimating the raw killing power of melee weapons close-up. They're fast and remove limbs with little-to-no effort, something that D&D doesn't model well at all.



Heck yeah it does. Most disturbing sight I've ever seen? My ceramic plates have, in large letters on the front, "Handle With Care". If a guy's ever tagged in one, he has to change it out because it's useless after that. Aside from the plating itself, I'd call most modern armor on par with cuir boille. Maybe maille. I've heard rumors about them working on a non-Newtonian gel for our armor, something that's supposed to stop pretty much anything you can think of - that, I think, would be pretty good against most melee weapons.

Ayup. We swapped out our backplates when/if our frontplates got hit when time-feasible. Since we were usually fighting with backs to Humvees, it made sense. Sucked when taking fire from multiple axis, though. I can think of at least three cases where the plate shattered from a guy dropping prone on a rock.

That gel you're hearing about it a type that hardens when impacted. The harder the impact, the harder it gets, from what I understand. I'm not sure if a melee weapon has a high enough velocity to trigger it.

Also, I still think the most disturbing sight I've seen that that message stamped on the front of Claymores. "Front Toward Enemy". I want to know what happened to make that warning necessary. Some dumb private out there had to have been really dumb.

Latronis
2009-12-06, 11:31 PM
For a submachine gun? Dude, easier than lining up a sword. If you're firing from the hip, which I've been known to do from time to time (it's not Army-recommended, but it's quick and effective in close-quarters), a high rate of fire makes up for a reduction in accuracy.

Granted Automatic fire may throw a wrench in the works.


That's a big frikkin' if there. I wish we could get some demonstrations going down of trained modern soldiers against trained swordsmen. There's no realistic scenario I can think of that the swordsmen come up on top of, save maybe an ambush in a crowd.

... Problem being, soldiers don't allow a crowd to get close. We keep 'em at least ten to thirty feet away, depending on how much we like 'em. If we don't like the crowd, they stay away fifty meters or more. Range is our ally, and we use it well.
Now, human wave tactics might be of some use, but... yeah. We got machineguns for a reason. One soldier out of every four-five has one, not to mention the .50-cals and M240Bs on the trucks.

Hmm we had 2 f89 minimi's to the standard infantry section of 9 men. Though I think that make up has changed to 4-men teams more recently, still the numbers match. But that's hardly relevant, you are talking military tactics not the hypothetical firearm vs melee weapon matchup, when it comes to melee range. It's not like a lone archer in DnD can't work at keeping a distance as it is anyway. Not every firearm vs melee situation is likely to be military based. TC even said it's going to be more like some characters using melee and some using guns, so it's potentially even more likely to result in a gun character staring into the face of a melee character.

A mechanical disadvantage in melee has little effect on it's effectiveness out of melee range, it will even promote trying to maintain a range.



... But they do in a game. That's a different problem that lesser minion is trying to make sure people remember.
A bullet can also scramble your insides up pretty darn good. Things like the 5.56mm rounds are great for bouncing off the ribcage and turning the vitals into hamburger.

That was a response to bullets dropping your opponents. Basically calling firearms deadly.. which is true.. but ignoring the lethality of a functional melee weapon. Getting shot sucks. Getting hit with a melee weapon designed to put things down still sucks, potentially more so.

Granted unlike a bow (and weapon depending less cumbersome than a crossbow) it's not useless at point blank ranges


They're also trained to stay within the reach of their weapon, which, as it turns out, is approximately two-three feet. You don't grapple with a sword, because you can't get an effective swing from within your reach. Even within a sword's reach, I'd still bet on the rifleman.

You don't honestly think a swordsman only holds the grip do you? Holding a blade is effective for closer ranges and there's no real minimum range for a thrust.


Yes. That's because we can kill from ten feet away, while a sword can only kill from hand-to-hand range. That said, we are trained on resisting a grapple and on going in for a quick unarmed kill. The world's best swordsman? He'd probably win... in melee. Fights don't start from melee range.

So now tell me how fights don't start from melee range has absolutely any bearing whatsoever on a mechanic(provokes an AoO) that by neccessity requires the two foes to be in melee range? It is afterall entirely possible that a fight may END UP in melee range. In which case the better melee combatant has the advantage.


Logic fail. Ignoring the difficulties of a swordsman getting into melee range is ignoring pretty much all of the problems they'll be having.
Modern firearms can handle melee, and they're better at blocking/parrying than are swords. Those fiddly-bits, remember? I may not be able to kill you with a muzzle-punch, but I can darn sure get your attention with it.

I'm not ignoring the problems

DM: The bandits see you reloading and charge.

Player: Now what happens?

DM: Dunno.. Solaris only ever considered firearms in a military controlled situation, not a party alone in the wilderness with only one wielder of boomsticks. What happens when melee closes in on you was never considered.

They are irrelevant once it comes down to melee range, and in a game that's likely to happen. It's also a good way to make melee weapons appealing over firearms. And I'm not just randomly throwing out a rule.

A blade can still manipulate a barrel and the blade is better for counter attacking.

And you can't be killing someone while the weapon is busy dealing with another weapon, and the melee weapon is more dangerous to you, than the unfired weapon is to the other opponent. Providing you don't already have a line on the other person moving that weapon into line may be all the opening needed. Likewise they need to be aware of that line of death that comes from the barrel, but on the other hand they are more adept at manipulating another's weapon than you. And something like a sidearm removes most of your chances while a shotgun or automatic fire may lessen the melee's chances.

I was talking about the mechanics of a melee weapon in melee range.


You're arguing the wrong points here, Latronis. You should be saying that a sword does better damage at melee, when you're trying to say that a swordsman would be able to get initiative on a trained soldier. Both have reflexes that are pretty much the same, especially modern troops with their being trained to react and act in a highly complex battlefield. It takes a lot more effort to swing a sword (whether to attack the troop or to attack his weapon) than it does to pull a trigger.

You have to get the weapon pointing at your opponent before you can fire it.

I'd even say melee training has a tendency to improve reflexes more, but I'll ignore that argument.

The firearm still only has one lethal line, a sword has many more.

I think a melee focused character should do more damage hit by hit, and a firearm should be more devastating when it crits. The firearm is still going to have the range advantage, but a trained melee character in melee is better at melee than a predominately ranged character trying to survive in melee. Initiative and Damage rolls don't adequetly portray that, especially since the firearms are likely to be slightly more damaging and more harmful with crits than the base damage of a melee weapon.


From my understanding, it's because the iron was worked rather than raw. Hence, I'd think steel would be just as good at hurting monsters as iron.

The idea behind it if i recall correctly was a natural element (iron) imposed into a pattern being anathema to the inherently chaotic fae.

So it could actually go both ways.. Steel is less 'natural' being alloyed, but on the other hand it is still made up of natural component parts with the pattern imposed.


Yep. I've always done it as a move action, more if you don't have your magazines readily available.

I agree, though you could make it a full round action for someone non-proficient in the weapon. IE untrained. Though considering the amount of shots you can get off before you need to reload it might be worth a feat investment to go to a move action.

Quieteus
2009-12-07, 12:53 AM
Folks who are arguing which is better using real world arguments are missing the point. This isn't the real world. This is getting guns to fit in with a DnD context.

I would say a pistol round should do 1d6 percing and x4 crit and a rifle round should do 1d8 piercing and x4 crit. Both weapons are exotic. In essense, getting shot is just as damaging as getting cut with a sword or battle axe. All three are going to kill your average commoner. But when the rifle crits it REALLY crits, like hitting an eye or a heart.

Two, just me but I'd cap the design at revolvers and bolt action rifles. I'm a sucker for the old west. Once you hit the realm of automatic you reach this thing called the maxim machine gun and that just ruins everyone's day. Reloading the former is a full round action but offers six shots. Reloading the latter is a move equivalent action.

Three, both weapons provoke attack of opportunities against melee opponents. This keeps them on par with other ranged weapons. Like crossbows, you get no damage bonus for str as opposed to mighty bows. Weapon specialization damage and ranged sneak attacks apply as normal. For dual wielding pistols use the rules for dual wielding hand crossbows. The difference is you can fire 5 more times.

Fourth, monsters should have a -20 DC for listen checks for weapons. If you want to make magical silencers available that's up to you. Personally I'd count that as a +2 enchantment equivalent but that's just me. I think that enchanted firearms should offer a bonus to hit and ammo a bonus to damage.

Swordguy
2009-12-07, 03:03 AM
Folks who are arguing which is better using real world arguments are missing the point. This isn't the real world. This is getting guns to fit in with a DnD context.

Except that part of the OPs post was "assume that a good half of my game is the real world".

Moreover, the purpose of rules is to allow the players to portray the setting desired. Since part of the setting is the real world, AND the GM presumably wants the real world portrayed to a reasonable degree of accuracy, AND we're writing the firearm rules from scratch to balance them out against melee weapons (and thus not limited by the D&D firearm paradigm)...discussion of real-world firearm capabilities vis a vis melee implements is entirely within the realm of appropriateness in this thread.

QED. :smalltongue:

(Note to OP: power attack shouldn't be able to apply to firearm damage. That should go a LONG way toward balancing combat when the sword-wielder can do 50 damage a swing and the firearm user can do 10-ish per attack from 150 feet away. Firearm user puts 2 attacks in/round (20 dmg/round), and the meleer spends that time charging in for 2 rounds, then does 50 damage on the charge in the third round and deals more damage than the firearm thereafter. Firearm damage should not scale.)

Brother Oni
2009-12-07, 03:17 AM
Two, just me but I'd cap the design at revolvers and bolt action rifles. I'm a sucker for the old west. Once you hit the realm of automatic you reach this thing called the maxim machine gun and that just ruins everyone's day. Reloading the former is a full round action but offers six shots. Reloading the latter is a move equivalent action.

Depends on whether you allow speedloaders or pre-loaded swappable cylinders for revolvers. If you do, then I suggest letting them reload as a move action as well.

paddyfool
2009-12-07, 06:32 AM
Aaand you just gave me my next story idea. Curse you.


We aim to please :smallbiggrin:.

blackseven
2009-12-08, 05:26 AM
(Note to OP: power attack shouldn't be able to apply to firearm damage. That should go a LONG way toward balancing combat when the sword-wielder can do 50 damage a swing and the firearm user can do 10-ish per attack from 150 feet away. Firearm user puts 2 attacks in/round (20 dmg/round), and the meleer spends that time charging in for 2 rounds, then does 50 damage on the charge in the third round and deals more damage than the firearm thereafter. Firearm damage should not scale.)

Again, if we're using D20 as a baseline, this is exactly how it works in D20 Modern.

Rifles do about 2d8 - deadly at low levels, pathetic at higher levels.

lesser_minion
2009-12-08, 07:00 AM
Again, if we're using D20 as a baseline, this is exactly how it works in D20 Modern.

Rifles do about 2d8 - deadly at low levels, pathetic at higher levels.

Neglecting the reasonable chance of doing damage equal to the victim's Constitution score and possibly dropping them in one shot. While d20 modern does inflate firearm damage in comparison with swords (for low level guys, at least), I actually quite liked the idea of trying to make injuries dangerous throughout the entire game.

blackseven
2009-12-08, 07:10 AM
Swords do FAR MORE damage at anything past the first few levels. (Assuming high STR and PA.)

Heck, even at level 1, with 15 STR (elite array?) and a greatsword you're doing 2d6+3 damage (10 average), compared to the 2d8 of a rifle (9 average).

I respect edged weapons as incredibly deadly threats, but I have trouble believing that swords should be *that* much deadlier than firearms.

lesser_minion
2009-12-08, 07:29 AM
The big advantage of the firearm is that it can kill an opponent at range, and that most early armour was weakest against 'piercing' attacks (although bulletproof armour wasn't that far behind firearms).

The advantage of the modern firearm over other ranged weapons is basically rate of fire, as well as range - a World War I-era bolt-action rifle has an effective range of as much as 1,000m, and professional soldiers were expected to be able to engage an enemy at that range with 25 aimed shots a minute (obviously, they wouldn't be all that accurate using iron sights, but it was still scared the Germans).

Bear in mind that any strength score above 13 reflects something at least faintly inhuman, so firearms don't really need to do that much more damage to be comparable. I'm not going to be particularly concerned about the damage done by some immortal champion with a sword being greater than that done by a guy with a rifle.

I'll agree that the damage might be worth increasing a little, although I think 2d10 would be enough (in fact, 2d10 represents one of the heavier rifles, like the FN FAL - there have been several posts earlier mentioning that 5.56mm rifles have been known to just make their targets angry)

dsmiles
2009-12-08, 07:47 AM
Sounds like a d20 version of Shadowrun.

banthesun
2009-12-08, 08:08 AM
A hit from a bullet deals less flesh damage than a sword, it's just that it's generally enough to kill you. But in D&D, you can take a couple nice hits from swords and still keep swinging. Let bullets deal less damage than swords (but better penertration).

Alternatively, just make the players from the modern world civies. Without military equiptment things get a lot simpler for the balancing.

lesser_minion
2009-12-08, 08:37 AM
A hit from a bullet deals less flesh damage than a sword, it's just that it's generally enough to kill you. But in D&D, you can take a couple nice hits from swords and still keep swinging. Let bullets deal less damage than swords (but better penertration).

Alternatively, just make the players from the modern world civies. Without military equiptment things get a lot simpler for the balancing.

I think the second point has already been implemented.

Waargh!
2009-12-08, 07:20 PM
The formula is rather simple.
Melee range -> melee weapons are better
Further than melee range -> fire arms are better

In d20 modern this is simulated by giving an AoO against ranged attacks. This can be skipped with tumble, 5ft step, feats, class features. The solution is too simply not allow this tacticts that cannot actually be done. Just give the melee fighters a huge bonus on their AoO against ranged attacks. So when they are enganged in melee combat they are superior.
On the other hand make modern firearms deal a lot of damage, far more than in d20 modern.

The result is more towards reality. If a guy with a sword is running towards you he can be shot down. If he has a way to avoid attacks (super agile, magic, super armor, very high HP, resistances) then he can survive and close in melee. Then the range attacker should be in a very difficult situation.

Finally, you can make cover negate damage, like taking half damage when behind cover against ranged attacks. So ranged fighters will not kill each other very quickly. The idea should be in the end:

melee vs range (melee range) --> high chance of winning
melee vs range (range) --> high chance of losing
melee vs melee (melee) --> normal battle
range vs range (behind cover) --> normal battle

Slayn82
2009-12-13, 10:03 AM
That gel you're hearing about it a type that hardens when impacted. The harder the impact, the harder it gets, from what I understand. I'm not sure if a melee weapon has a high enough velocity to trigger it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Newtonian_fluid

Probably yes, they will be resistant enought to resist a piercing knife at your chest, and should be not much more thick than your current armor. A layer of starch in a pool is resistant enought to support the weight of a muscular man (around 120Kg) walking fast over it, and can easily stop a knife. Also, some Carnivourous plants have a kind of nectar that behaves in this way. The insects that try to escape are entangled, but unconscious insects droped in the fluid simply floats to the top. Cool stuff really.

hamishspence
2009-12-13, 04:54 PM
40K had something a bit like that for Eldar armour- armour that hardens to block blows- guess sometimes tech catches up with fiction.

gnownek
2009-12-17, 12:15 AM
I had a take on this in another thread "4e modern". Search for gnownek as user if you want it.

Problem with the d20 modern- 2d8 damage for guns is that 4e has abilities that multiply damge to 2[W], 3[W], 4[W]. that 9 expected damage from 2d8 is huge. Especially when you realised criticals maximize damage.

In the end I made guns +3 to hit, 1d10 damage +2 bonus damage where the +2 was not multiplied. I also made old-school armor partly damage resistant and partly AC.. then made much of that obsolete against guns.

The expected damage of 7.5 compared against a low caliber 2d6 firearm from d20 modern.

The 7.62 mm did 1d10 +3 bonus damage. expected v of 8.5, 0.5 less than 2d8. I did get something that seemed to work in the end.

Also had to create a lot of fire options as weapon features or feats (firing double taps, short bursts, 25 round bursts for heavy machine guns) to reflect options once I started thinking machine guns. Bursts were -2 to hit, +1d6 bonus damage. Damage not multiplied but powers but maximized on a critical hit.

Critical hit with a bust of 7.62 mm did 22 damage on a critical hit for level 1 character on a ranged basic attack (assuming +3 dex bonus)
Critical hit with sword (assuming +3 str bonus) would be a 13 damage

dsmiles
2009-12-18, 07:33 AM
If you're using 4e, you can check out my homebrew firearms rules here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=135268). They're designed more towards 16th century firearms, though.