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Sarquion
2010-06-07, 03:46 PM
Hey I'm the DM of a game and I need help about how gunpowder could be created and the value of it as well as potential craft uses (for the Pc's if they decide to take a craft skill in it) has any one else used gunpowder in their campaigns how so? and did you make stats for it or was it just a sideline thing?

Starbuck_II
2010-06-07, 03:48 PM
I've been in a campaign that used the Warcraft Gunpowder rule. We were playing Warcraft d20.

They are simple rules. It isn't broken. It fits setting.

Sarquion
2010-06-07, 03:51 PM
what are the warcraft rules on gunpowder? or where can i find em?

Raiki
2010-06-07, 04:24 PM
There is actually a dragon magazine (I tried to find the number but my Google Fu has failed me) that has the stats for all sorts of different guns. I'm fairly sure it also has the price and craft DC for gunpowder.

~R~

Altair_the_Vexed
2010-06-07, 04:32 PM
The DMG has guns and so on - pg 145.

Stormwrack also has rules for gunpowder, and its relative rarity according to DM/player taste.

Ashtagon
2010-06-07, 04:33 PM
There is actually a dragon magazine (I tried to find the number but my Google Fu has failed me) that has the stats for all sorts of different guns. I'm fairly sure it also has the price and craft DC for gunpowder.

~R~

Nope. That issue merely had stats for many guns, and a price for gunpowder and bullets. It wasn't something you could specifically craft as a regular alchemical item. Although the default crafting rules should still work.

Raiki
2010-06-07, 06:24 PM
Nope. That issue merely had stats for many guns, and a price for gunpowder and bullets. It wasn't something you could specifically craft as a regular alchemical item. Although the default crafting rules should still work.

Ah. Well, to be fair, I haven't read that issue in quite some time. Not since our demonic western game ended. On that note, did you know that if you dual-weild blunderbusses (blunderbi?), you win D&D?

~R~

Harperfan7
2010-06-07, 08:21 PM
Faerun has smokepowder, which is exactly the same as DMG gunpowder except it requires arcane spellcasting and alchemy to make, 9 ranks I think.

I think the pathfinder campaign setting book has the best gun rules and prices. I use house rules with smokepowder and the pathfinder gun rules, but I don't have rules for when gunpowder explodes, like how much is exploding/the radius/the damage.

Altair_the_Vexed
2010-06-08, 02:43 AM
Um... hello?
The DMG has guns and so on - pg 145.
You can just apply the usual craft DCs to make the gunpowder.

(Sorry for quoting my own post, but it seems it needed restating.)

Taffeta
2010-06-08, 04:19 AM
Gunpowder weaponry can be found all over these boards, as well as making extensive appearance in 1st and 3rd party material. From the DMG, to Dragonmech, to Ptolus and Iron Kingdoms, plus many others I'm sure.
The scale of power for light gunpowder weapons tends to run from 1d8 or 2d6 to 2d8 and 2d10. Blunderbuss and similar full-size weapons range from 1d10 to 3d12.
Crit ranges are assigned as appropriate the power level of the weapon. I personally use 2d8 20/x3 pistols, but it's really all a matter of taste.
Exotic weapon proficiency or minimum skill ranks in an appropriate craft skill are some of the most common limiters on gunpowder I've seen. Also quite common are extensive reload times, and severe failure penalties on a natural 1, ranging from simple weapon jam, to lethal backfire, or weapon destruction. Also note that these weapons are commonly rather expensive, averaging as much as a suit of mundane full plate, often considerably more, or requiring that the character craft it themselves.

Ammunition... I will admit has gone the way of the wizard's component pouch, in my own play. Ptolus lists it at 5gp for a powderhorn worth ten shots, and an additional 5gp for ten bullets appropriate to a specific firearm. Scattershot and Dragonbreath shot (both cones) are also listed as mundane effects, which may be of interest.
10gp per 10 shots. Compare to the arrows or bolts of PHB1, which cost 1gp per 10. Adjust to suit your tastes, I feel this cost is a bit much.


Now, the other point you made, which I feel has probably not gotten enough attention, is other applications of gunpowder. Craft(Alchemy) is an obvious option for creating the stuff in the first place, as mentioned previously in the thread. But what else can you do with it?

Fireworks, flares, small sapping charges, smokebombs, firestarters, noisemakers, large sapping charges, fuses, traps, bangsticks (spear-like weapon with a shotgun shell at the tip, used in the modern day for hunting sharks), very large sapping charges, and mildly toxic tea that 'invigorates the fighting spirit'. These the sort of ideas you're looking for?

Xuc Xac
2010-06-08, 10:20 AM
Most iterations of gunpowder and gun rules that I've seen have made the same mistakes. They assume that guns are super powerful and need to be "controlled" to keep them from getting out of hand. They give them huge damage ratings and high crits and make the ammo really expensive. Apparently the designers think something along the lines of "A longsword only does 1d8 damage but if you shoot someone they DIE!" If you run someone through with a longsword they also die, but it's still only 1d8 damage in D&D.

Gunpowder doesn't need to be made by high level wizards who charge obscene amounts for it. Real gunpowder is made from charcoal and manure. If a wizard can buy spell components, then there are raw materials for making gunpowder available "off the shelf". The recipe is so easy that it could be made by someone with only a couple ranks of Alchemy.

Guns replaced bows because they were simpler to use. Bows are "martial" weapons, so guns should be "simple". Turning a peasant into an archer took a decade of daily target practice with a longbow. Training an arquebusier took an afternoon of instruction to get the basics down and a couple days of practice.

Another common problem with guns in D&D is that the designers insist on applying a lot of "realistic" restrictions that are stricter than what bows and crossbows have to deal with. Gun users that get targeted by a fire spell explode but bow users never break a string. Guns are not that fragile. Gunpowder is not that volatile. Longbows can fire much faster than is realistic, but guns are strictly limited to realistic rates of fire.

My advice is either have guns or don't. Don't allow guns in an overly nerfed form out of some sense of "balance". Just be as fair and realistic to the guns as the rules are to bows and crossbows.

I would say guns are more expensive than crossbows but not by orders of magnitude (maybe double or even triple the price but don't go nuts and add a bunch of zeros on the end of the price). Guns are slower to reload but do a little more damage. Guns have the advantage of being able to be kept loaded. Make them simple weapons (or martial if they are a recent invention that is still used by "elite" troops).

With rules like that, who will use guns? Armies will use guns for their peasant conscripts. Melee-focused adventurers will carry a gun as a ranged weapon because it's more compact than a bow or crossbow. It's easy enough to pull out a flintlock and fire a shot into an enemy to soften them up in the first round of combat before wading into melee with your primary weapon. Non-melee characters might carry a gun just in case (I really like the image of a mage or cleric with a "book" that has hollowed out pages with a pistol hidden inside). Characters who specialize in ranged combat will still use bows for the rate of fire and the archery feats. Bows as a combat weapon will be for dedicated experts (although hobbyists and backwater hicks may still use them outside of battle). Guns will have a definite effect on the setting but they won't drastically alter the balance of adventuring encounters (at least not until the age of rifles and brass cartridge ammunition).

Poppatomus
2010-06-08, 10:27 AM
good explanation Xuc Xac

Sarquion
2010-06-08, 10:30 AM
Ok thanks guys some of it's been quite useful. I reckon it'll git the campaign quite well and the idea is that it has just been invented so not many people will have guns

Ashtagon
2010-06-08, 10:49 AM
It's worth thinking about the technology level of gun you want to play with. handgonnes are quite different from arquebusses, which are different again from percussion cap muskets and rifles and guns that use magazine clips.

Zyme86
2010-06-08, 11:35 AM
I have been running a homebrew world of this kind for the better part of a year and I have found one thing. The guns in DnD suck. They try and balance the weapons way too much. I created my own system for them because I thought that they just did not reflect enough historical accuracy.

please excuse the offcenter nature of this post, I have tt tags the actual forum that keeps it looking correct

Personal firearms (exotic weapon [firearms])
Name Cost size Damage Crit Range Weight Reload Magazine Useage
Pistol 200 1-handed 2d4 X3 50ft 3 lbs 6 move 1 HE,D,G,H
Revolver 250 1-handed 3d4 X3 50ft 5 lbs 6 moveˆ 6 HE
-cap and ball
Revolver° 350 1-handed 3d4+2 X3 60ft 5 lbs full 6 HE
Shotgun,DB°400 2-handed 4d4-X* X3 20ft 12 lbs 9 Moveˆ 2 HE,D,G
Musket 300 2-handed 3d4 X3 120ft 12 lbs 9 move 1 D,G
Blunderbuss300 2-handed 6d4-2X* X3 10ft 10 lbs 9 move 1 D,O,H
Rifle° 800 2-handed 4d4+2 X3 120ft 15 lbs full 15 HE
-leaver action repeating
Rifle 600 2-handed 5d4 X3 150ft 12 lbs 9 move 1 HE
Carbine 750 2-handed 5d4 X3 120ft 10 lbs 7 move 1 HE
Rifle° 1000 2-handed 5d4+2 X3 170ft 13 lbs move 1 HE
-trapdoor breechloader
Rifle 1500 2-handed 5d4+2 X3 200ft 15 lbs 10 move 1 HE
-Sniper's
Rifle° 1250 2-handed 5d4+2 X3 170ft 15 lbs full 5 HE
-Mouser's

*damage is reduced by the modifier per range increment for shotguns and the blunderbuss
°Can fire the self contained round
ˆfor each barrel

Pistol: Your standard 1-shot medieval pistol. It is a common sight even among human kingdoms.


Cap and ball revolver:
Pistol that is loaded similar to a muzzle loader, but it has 6 cylinders that each can hold powder and a ball. You may also load this weapon with paper cartrages. These cost the same as a round and decrease the loading time to 1 full round.


Revolver: Pistol with six chambers contained within a revolving cylinder. The newest innovation is the break-open action, where the gun breaks in half for easier loading.


Shotgun/Rifle, double barreled: how do you make a weapon that take so long to reload better, double the time before needing to reload and add a second barrel. The gun can be loaded with different ammunition in each barrel. In addition, both barrels may be fired at once. Treat this as having the rapid shot feat (fire twice, taking a -2 for each shot).

Can be sawed off and used as a 1-handed weapon, but it incurs a -2 accuracy in addition to 2-weapons fighting penalities. Also, the range increment of the weapon is halved (10ft).

Depending on where the weapon is manufactured, the weapon may be cartridge based if made in Half-Elf lands, or elsewhere it is simply powder and ball. When found in its cartridge form, the reload time is 1 move action.



Musket: Earliest muzzle-loading weapon. Powerful, but slow to reload.


Blunderbuss:
If you take a large bore barrel and pour gunpowder in. Then follow it with every bit of scrap metal you can find and you get the blunderbuss


Rifle, leaver action: Early rapid fire rifle. Using the cocking handle, the spent shell is ejected while a new one is loaded.



Rifle: first true "rifled" weapon. still a muzzle-loader it is inexpensive to make but still slow to reload.


Carbine: By shortening the length of the barrel of a rifle, though the range is decreased, you make reloading much easier.


Rifle, trapdoor: Eveloution of the rifle for faster reloading. With the advent of the self contained round, the trapdoor rifle became viable. A hole open up in the breech to allow the rifle to be loaded from the rear, making reloading much faster. Standard rifle of the half-elven combined armed forces (HECAF).


Rifle, sniper's: By using primitive telescoping sights and with advances in the bullet technology, the sniper rifle was born. Deadly accurate at long ranges, this rifle can reach out a touch their target with ease. The penalties for range are decreased to -1 per range increment.


Rifle, mouser's: The latest innovation in the rifle technology, by combining the self contained round with the newly designed bolt-action technology, the rifle is rapid to reload because it contains a internal 5-round box magazine (esepcially when using stripper clips). When using a stripper clip, this weapon reloads with one move action.


Guns in Melee:
While a gun is good at range, once fight gets close, a gun can become a liability. A pistol is considered a 1-handed weapon, a Rifle is considered a two handed weapon. A rifle that is enchanted, the rifle but does enjoy the magical bonuses, but any bayonet must be enchanted separately.

Bayonets
Name Cost Damage Crit Range Type Useage
Pistol Whip N/A 1d4 X2 Melee B all pistols
Rifle Butt N/A 1d6 X2 Melee B all rifles

Bayonets
Name Cost Damage Crit Range Type Useage
Bayonet 30 /1d8 X2 Melee S/P all rifles
-Plug
Bayonet 50 /1d10 X2 Melee P all rifles
-socket
Bayonet 50 /1d8 19-20X2 Melee S/P all rifles
-bladed
*All bayonets impose a -1 penalty to accuracy of firing the rifle while attached

Bayonet, plug: Earliest form of bayonet. Basically a knife stuck into the barrel of the gun. Prevents the user from firing entirely when this type of bayonet is attached.

Bayonet, socket: early form of bayonet. Makes the rifleman capable of using his rifle in melee combat. Using this type a bayonet, the weapon is treated as a spear or a rifle butt, but not both at the same time. Takes a full round action to attach.


Bayonet, blade: evolution of the bayonet. The socket has recent lost favor in its stead the more blade-like bayonet. The weapon with this attachment can be used as a double weapon. Takes a move action to attach.


Ammunition and accessories
Name Cost Quantity Weight Compatible arms
Flint 2 50 shots 1 lb muzzleloaders
Powder Horn 70 2 lbs (32 oz) 2 lbs muzzleloaders
Powder Keg 500 15 lbs (240 oz) 20 lbs Muzzleloaders
Buckshot 6 10 loads 2 lbs Muzzleloaders
Bullets 6 10 balls 2 lbs Muzzleloaders
-ball 10 10 balls 2 lbs Muzzleloaders
-mini
Cartrage
-Paper 26 10 rounds 2 lbs Muzzleloaders
-Round 30 10 rounds 1 lbs Cartrage firearms
Clip 50 5 rounds .5 lbs Mouser's rifle
-stripper

Flint: your standard flint striker necessary to fire a weapon. Good for 50 uses before wearing out an needing to be replaced


Powder: Basic gunpowder, useless if wet and explosive if exposed to a flame. Takes 2 ounces of powder to fire a bullet from a rifle and one from a pistol.


Bullet: Your standard round lead ball, similar to what was in use for the sling for years.


Bullet, mini: The first true bullet. Conical in shape and flouted at the bottom, it deforms as it is fired to fill the barrel and deals much more nasty wounds. Adds a +2 to the damage.


Paper Cartrage:Even as guns came on the scene, it was quickly found that when on the battlefield, fiddling with loose powder, ball and patch can be a liability and a damp powder horn could be fatal. The solution early on was to put a premeasured amount of gunpowder into a paper cartrage atop the ball coated with boar or bid grease. By biting off the end, priming the pan and then only having to ram this whole piece down the chamber. (careful to get the right end or you'll learn the meaning of biting the bullet!!!) This reduces the reloading time of all muzzleloading firearms by two move actions due to decreased number of steps needed for loading.


Round: one of the most important evolutions in bullet design. By putting together a primer, powder and bullet into a brass cartrage, the awkward reloading of the gun is all but eliminated. This allowed guns to now be used in the rain without risk of the powder caking.


Stripper clip: Makes loading the new mouser's rifle a breeze. By taking a specially machined slide, the rounds can be fed into the internal box magazine with a single motion. It takes a full round action to replace the 5 rounds into the clip.


Siege Firearms
Name Cost Damage Crit Range Crew Type Reload Magazine Powder Useage
Lt Bombard 2000 5d10 X3 250ft 4 Dir/Indi 5 full 1 5 lbs D,H
Hv Bombard 8000 8d10 X3 350ft 8 Dir/Indi 9 full 1 8 lbs D,H
Lt Mortar 4000 6d10 X3 400ft 6 Indirect 6 full 1 6 lbs D,H,HE
Hv Mortar 10000 10d10 X3 500ft 10 Indirect 11 full 1 10 lbs D,H,HE
Howitzer 8000 7d10 X3 300ft 6 Indirect 6 full 1 7 lbs D,H,HE
Cannon 12000 12d10 X3 600ft 8 Dir/indi 3 full 1 4 lbs HE
-rifled breechloader
Cannon 8000 5d4+2 X3 170ft 5 Direct full 40 N/A HE
-gatling

Direct fire for cannons can only be used within 2 range increments, you attack the target in question, not the square.
When using indirect fire the gunner or commander makes a special attack roll plus her INT modifier against AC5 plus relavent range modifiers (ranged penalities are doubled). If the attack misses, for every 5 the attack was missed by the projectile drifts d10 feet in d10 direction (see drift in phb combat section).

Bombard: First cannons invented. Basically a barrel with metal supporting bands around the barrel to resist the strain of firing. This weapon can encapsulate everything from an early weapon to a 3 pound light cannon. Heavy Bombard can encapsulate everything up to a medium cannon, about 6 pounder.


Mortar: Indirect fire weapon. Fires a giant solid shot or explosive shells. Small Mortars were around 3


Howitzer: Howitzer is a cross between a mortar and a cannon. While it cannot fire directly as a cannon, it is much more portable than a mortar and can still lob shells into enemy formations or fortifications.


Cannon, rifled breechloader: By putting rifling on the barrel, firing a conical projectile and having a breech loading mechanism, the cannon has been taken to a new level of lethality.


Gatling cannon: Not a true cannon per say, but it is the first machine gun to appear on the scene. By employing a crank-driven, self feeding 6-barreled configuration, the gun can fire faster than any weapon of its time. You can both fire one shot at a time, target with the number of shots allowed by a full attack, or target an area of 25ft by 5 ft in a straight line. Anyone in this area must succeed a DC 15 Reflex save or take damage. This uses 10 rounds of ammunition.


Ammunition
Name Cost Damage Crit Range Blast Radius Type Useage
solid 1/200 of cannon same same same N/A B same
explosive 1/40 of cannon same/2-10X* X2 same 5ft P same
Grape shot 1/100 of cannon same/2 X3 60 ft N/A P Same

*X=damage reduced for every increment away from blast

Solid shot: standard solid ball of lead. When using direct fire, the ball continues to roll after the initial target, continuing to on to roll for d12-1 squares for each range increment before coming to rest. A reflex save for half damage is DC 15 - 1 for every square the ball rolls.

Explosive shot: a ball designed to explode when it reaches its target. Adjusting the fuse takes a profession siege weapons vs DC 15+1 per range increment. Failure by 6 or more means the weapon is a dud, failure by 5 or less means the weapon explode either late or early (d10, 1-5=exploded late by rounds equal to the d10 roll; 6-9=exploded early, no damage; 10=lucky mistake, the weapon explodes on time). Damage done is equal the same number of die, reduced to d8s-10 per 5ft away from blast

Grape shot: The ultimate point defense weapon. Single-handedly ended the final charge of the north at Gettisburk. Fires a shaped charge in a 60ft cone from the cannon like a giant shotgun. The the reflex save for half damage is DC15.

Explosives Weapons (no prof required)
Name Cost Damage Crit Range Blast Radius Type Useage
Powder Keg 500 8d4 X2 N/A 10 ft Fire D,G,H,HF,HE
Bomb 125 3d4+4 X2 10ft 5 ft Fire D,G,H,HF,HE
-fire
Bomb
-shrapnel 125 6d4-2X* X2 10ft 5 ft Piercing D,G,H,HF,HE
Dynamite 200 2d6•Y* X2 10ft 5•1/2Y*ft Fire G,HE

*X=damage reduced for every increment away from blast
*Y=number of Dynamite put together
Useage
HE=half-elves
D=dwarves
G=Gnomes
H=humans
E=Elves
O=Orcs
HF=Halflings

Zyme86
2010-06-08, 11:45 AM
http://rpol.net/game.cgi?gi=29730&date=1276009748

Fenrazer
2010-06-08, 07:43 PM
Those stats are way out there. I think that weapons like that would either have a killer crit range, or killer damage, but not anywhere in the ballpark of 6d4 or whatever. Then your putting a single bullet on the same level as a dragons breath weapon. Just high crit and high crit multiplyer. If we are going by how damaging they are in real life, the less accurate the more base damage.

Like old school Grapeshot is terribly inaccurate, but it'll leave a nasty exit wound. High Damage, sure, but crit would have to stay 20 with maybe a two or a multiplier and no range at all.

Modern guns though aren't made for damage, their made for accuracy. Low Damage, a High crit Range, and High crit Multiplier.

Plus they'd probably do more damage to folks with armor as well cause it would pull chunks of it with it.

PersonMan
2010-06-08, 07:58 PM
Modern guns though aren't made for damage, their made for accuracy. Low Damage, a High crit Range, and High crit Multiplier.

Plus they'd probably do more damage to folks with armor as well cause it would pull chunks of it with it.

Why a high crit range? Is is somehow more likely to hit an important vein or blood vessel or the like with a bullet than an arrow? Also, the crit multiplier would probably be a basic x2. Why? Because in DnD people can take insane amounts of punishment. A high-HP character can survive things that would kill a person a dozen times over, so why should guns have such a high crit range?

For a musket or the like, I'd make it like a crossbow-move action to reload, standard to fire, so that you could fire once per turn. Maybe 1d8 damage, or 2d4, maybe 1d6. Infection was big with them, but DnD isn't big on stuff like that, so probably just stick with 20/x2 or x3 critical, since they were rather inaccurate maybe a range increment of 30 ft.

Fenrazer
2010-07-12, 08:11 PM
Why a high crit range? Is is somehow more likely to hit an important vein or blood vessel or the like with a bullet than an arrow? Also, the crit multiplier would probably be a basic x2. Why? Because in DnD people can take insane amounts of punishment. A high-HP character can survive things that would kill a person a dozen times over, so why should guns have such a high crit range?

I'm sorry but how does them being tough decide the base weapons damage? If that were the case, then why not say that a dagger does more damage to a Wizard, than it would to a Barbarian who is obviously tougher? I don't really see how high HP on one entity would make anything less damaging. Thats bad logic. Still, I am only comparing how much damage a gun would do compared to a sword. Base damage is not nearly as good as a sword, but crit wise is a completely different story. I see whats happening here. I'm basing my ideas on how reality works as opposed to imaginary folks being über invulnerable. If I were invulnerable, that doesn't mean the weapon does less damage, that just means I can take more. I'm happy to explain what I mean.

I'm not saying that they are more likely to hit a vein, but that's not exactly whats happening here. Old fashion guns would do more base damage because they were less accurate and more brutal. It's comparable to an Ork Barbarians fist. Yeah, it will do good base damage, but only because of brute force. Arrows work the same in my opinion. The reason why they were such a pain, according to real life anyway, is not only because of the puncture, but because it was meant to be wedged in, and because of that it would do more damage because eventually it had to be yanked out. So good damage with a decent crit multiplier would make sense for them.

Modern weapons are a completely different story. The reason why I would give low base damage is because the bullets aren't meant to do a lot of damage by getting wedged in like an arrow or grapeshot or even a spear. The reason it would do a high crit is because of a couple reasons, all of which are major. The bullets are lighter and easier to ricochet around a ribcage, so they eviscerate a person through the inside of the body.

More: When shot by arrows, spears, grapeshot, or most other nasty puncturing object, the victim would be able to leave the object in to stem the bleeding. Grapeshot might poison them with lead, but it can still be left in to keep from loss of blood. On the other hand, modern guns are made to fire bullets strait through the body, so regardless of how much base damage was done, you cant keep from a massive loss of blood by leaving it in when there is nothing to leave in, and it already tore a nasty hole through your body so your losing lots of blood. I'm no Physician, but I think it's safe to say that an big hole that is unlikely able to be stemmed and is going from the front of your body to the back is just as bad as an arrow poking the right spot.:smallfrown:

Even More: Exit wound. Can people survive an arrow to the head? Sure. A piece of grapeshot to the head? Possibly. But a modern bullet, which leaves a fist sized hole in the back of the head, then there ain't no coming back.:smalleek:

To understand a critical, we cant really believe that just poking a vein is the only thing that makes one. A fist sized hole in the back of the head could be another form, a hole that has been blown through the body from front to back with no chance of stemming is another.

I very much agree with the reloading style you presented though.:smallsmile: