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AnBe
2016-08-07, 03:42 AM
Guns have always been a bit of a question mark for me in a medieval fantasy setting. In Pathfinder, they have an entire class devoted to it (though I'd just rather play a Ranger with Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Firearms) and the Gunsmithing Feat).

In my own setting, I have guns, but they are so rare that you'll never see entire armies wielding them in battle. With gun rarity, I feel that guns become more special, which I like. The story behind it is that guns are kind of like holy relics (not necessarily magical) that are occasionally gifted to great heroes worthy to use such powerful weapons. Should anyone try to design and craft their own guns, they are quickly stopped by Those Who Dwell Above.

Still, I can't help but feel that guns don't quite belong in a medieval fantasy setting, because it's usually supposed to be about swords, bows, crossbows, spells, etc. I fear that guns may ruin the proper feel of the setting.

So how do you guys feel about guns in a medieval fantasy setting? Should I keep guns in there as is? Should I get rid of them entirely? Should I make them more widely available? I would enjoy your thoughts.

Dalinale
2016-08-07, 03:47 AM
In the case of guns present in otherwise 'normal' fantasy settings, I see them as acceptable if one treats them similar to other 'special powers' found in limited quantities in typical fantasy settings, such as psionics or magic gained from, say, dragons. In this case, having them be the 'quirky' weapon in local high tech societies, such as dwarves, would entirely acceptable in the greater scheme of things.

Honest Tiefling
2016-08-07, 03:49 AM
In your setting, I would get rid of them. You, as the DM, don't like them, and you feel strongly enough to post here. Or you're really bored, but still.

The fact that guns are given to special heroes is weird, given that early guns were crap but easy to use and were great to give to untrained people. Those Who Dwell Above sounds a bit too ham-fisted for most games. Either they are all powerful, or the PCs see a challenge in recruiting and building a gun based army. Maybe your players are different, but I know a few people who would go about contacting devils to get a supernatural ally to give the middle finger to Those Who Dwell Above just to build this army. I am really not a fan of divine intervention when it comes to stamping out technology.

I think guns have a place in a setting, but you can't just drop it in and call it a day. Guns and mounted knights did exist side by side for a while, I think? Someone please correct me or elaborate if I'm wrong.There's also the problem that if one region has both and another has neither, I'd really like to know how that works, thank you very much. But guns and gunpowder puts very destructive power in the hands of pyromanics called player characters.

In essence, I don't think there's a problem with either approach. Doesn't the pathfinder book even tell you to ban the Gunslinger if you don't want guns around?

Regitnui
2016-08-07, 04:34 AM
I think Gond the tech-god specifically bans guns in the FR, except for his/her/its priests.:smallconfused:

Anyway, I play Eberron, which is a bit further up on the tech ladder and still doesn't have guns. I've heard of a number of people putting guns in, because "they make sense". I'd argue that they don't, and not just because I think guns are a poor addition to D&D in general. In Eberron, at least, they've just come off a hundred-year-long war so vicious it's called the Last War, much like WW1 was called the Great War until WW2 came along. People use the WW1 analogy to claim guns have a space. After all, it was the two world wars and the Cold War that boosted technology to it's modern level.

However, the world of Eberron will not have guns. Why? Because wands full the same space already, The artificers of Khorvaire specifically developed eternal wands that will never run out of charge. The wands of Eberron are not Harry Potter-esque sticks that wizards gesture with. They're really more akin to a rifle stock (http://www.ershawbarrels.com/images/common/stock_laminate_wood_nutmeg.png) or a hand crossbow without the bow. Between eternal wands of magic missile or fireball and the hand crossbow, there's no reason to develop gunpowder and therefore no reason to develop guns.

icefractal
2016-08-07, 04:48 AM
Personally, I feel like the typical fantasy setting is ahistorical enough that guns aren't going to make it any less accurate to an existing time period. So I'm generally in favor of having them. But YMMV.

Lorsa
2016-08-07, 05:00 AM
It's all about the setting/theme/feel you want out of the game.

Guns add tech level to the game, but more than that I feel it adds a theme of "tech progression" into the setting.

Most fantasy settings are very static in its tech level. Things are they way they are, it's been that way forever (or possibly better in the past), but new inventions doesn't really happen. With guns, steam engines and railroads are not far behind. After that comes the machine gun, tanks, airplanes. Not to mention industrialization, computers etc, etc. Soon enough you have Shadowrun.

While it certainly doesn't have to be so, to me guns in a fantasy setting represent a change from "technology is unimportant" to "we're constantly inventing new things". I have the same aversion to steampunk elements for the same reason. I mean, I do like steampunk, but I don't want it in my medieval fantasy setting, because then I see no reason why we wouldn't end up at 21th century technology within the lifespan of a typical elf.

So uhm, yeah, I do like my static-tech settings. It does require some suspension of disbelief however, and I find that the higher up the tech-tree the setting moves, the harder it is to hand-wave lack of progression away and suspend it (the disbelief).

TheTeaMustFlow
2016-08-07, 05:50 AM
I think Gond the tech-god specifically bans guns in the FR, except for his/her/its priests.:smallconfused:

Anyway, I play Eberron, which is a bit further up on the tech ladder and still doesn't have guns. I've heard of a number of people putting guns in, because "they make sense". I'd argue that they don't, and not just because I think guns are a poor addition to D&D in general. In Eberron, at least, they've just come off a hundred-year-long war so vicious it's called the Last War, much like WW1 was called the Great War until WW2 came along. People use the WW1 analogy to claim guns have a space. After all, it was the two world wars and the Cold War that boosted technology to it's modern level.

However, the world of Eberron will not have guns. Why? Because wands full the same space already, The artificers of Khorvaire specifically developed eternal wands that will never run out of charge. The wands of Eberron are not Harry Potter-esque sticks that wizards gesture with. They're really more akin to a rifle stock (http://www.ershawbarrels.com/images/common/stock_laminate_wood_nutmeg.png) or a hand crossbow without the bow. Between eternal wands of magic missile or fireball and the hand crossbow, there's no reason to develop gunpowder and therefore no reason to develop guns.

The Eternal Wand plays a completely different role to a firearm. It is expensive (around 800gp for a first level one, IIRC), can only be used by a caster, and only has two shots per day. This is not something you can equip an army with.


It's all about the setting/theme/feel you want out of the game.

Guns add tech level to the game, but more than that I feel it adds a theme of "tech progression" into the setting.

Most fantasy settings are very static in its tech level. Things are they way they are, it's been that way forever (or possibly better in the past), but new inventions doesn't really happen. With guns, steam engines and railroads are not far behind. After that comes the machine gun, tanks, airplanes. Not to mention industrialization, computers etc, etc. Soon enough you have Shadowrun.

While it certainly doesn't have to be so, to me guns in a fantasy setting represent a change from "technology is unimportant" to "we're constantly inventing new things". I have the same aversion to steampunk elements for the same reason. I mean, I do like steampunk, but I don't want it in my medieval fantasy setting, because then I see no reason why we wouldn't end up at 21th century technology within the lifespan of a typical elf.

So uhm, yeah, I do like my static-tech settings. It does require some suspension of disbelief however, and I find that the higher up the tech-tree the setting moves, the harder it is to hand-wave lack of progression away and suspend it (the disbelief).

The first handheld firearms were used in the 12th Century AD, half a millenium before the first steam engine. They no more represent rapid technological development than plate armour (which firearms predate) does.

Lorsa
2016-08-07, 06:31 AM
The first handheld firearms were used in the 12th Century AD, half a millenium before the first steam engine. They no more represent rapid technological development than plate armour (which firearms predate) does.

Wikipedia seems to disagree with you slightly, especially as far as Europe is concerned (which is what most "medieval" settings are based on).

In any case, if it was not clear, I was making a statement of personal emotion. It's not logical, nor can it be treated as such. To me, guns (or, in specific, flintlock weapons, which again is what springs to my mind when someone say "gun" in reference to a "medieval fantasy" setting) represented technology in general and in extent technological development.

If we're talking about simple hand-held tubes with a black-powder powered projectiles, then it's a slightly different story. It still doesn't quite feel right, but not wrong enough to spark aversion.

Honest Tiefling
2016-08-07, 06:43 AM
The first recorded Steam Engine is, according to the wikipedia from the FIRST century AD (it just wasn't used for anything). Tangential, but it does represent a problem with using history as a basis for tech levels. Some technology is surprisingly early (or late) in certain forms, especially if you start casting the net outside of Europe. (I am looking at YOU, China).


Personally, I feel like the typical fantasy setting is ahistorical enough that guns aren't going to make it any less accurate to an existing time period. So I'm generally in favor of having them. But YMMV.

That is why I agree with this. Unless you are going for a very well fleshed out, well researched campaign world set in a very particular region and era...Why not just pick and choose? I would rather have the ahistorical setting where the tech represented is fleshed out and thought out then attempts at complete accuracy most of the time anyway.

Different techs will also give different feelings to the setting, regardless of historical fact as well. It doesn't matter if the Romans had a steam engine, the steam engine is going to conjure up certain themes and genres to people. You could try to break that down, but unless the DM is very invested in this, it'll probably be a waste of time and be an overall headache.

Regitnui
2016-08-07, 06:58 AM
The Eternal Wand plays a completely different role to a firearm. It is expensive (around 800gp for a first level one, IIRC), can only be used by a caster, and only has two shots per day. This is not something you can equip an army with.

But hand crossbows and other bows are. And I said "between the eternal wand and hand crossbows", you're not going to need guns. Why should someone risk an army on a metal tube spitting metal with an explosion when you can equip one person in every squad with a magewright and an eternal wand with more traditional wands used as a 'fire and forget' method for more destructive spells? Hell, equip ten people with one each, and that's 20 fireballs (for example) that can be fired during the battle.

I'm not going to claim that eternal wands on their own replace guns in a 1-to-1 way, but that they, alongside more traditional bows, are far better in Eberron than a firearm.

LudicSavant
2016-08-07, 08:12 AM
Guns have always been a bit of a question mark for me in a medieval fantasy setting. In Pathfinder, they have an entire class devoted to it (though I'd just rather play a Ranger with Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Firearms) and the Gunsmithing Feat).

In my own setting, I have guns, but they are so rare that you'll never see entire armies wielding them in battle. With gun rarity, I feel that guns become more special, which I like. The story behind it is that guns are kind of like holy relics (not necessarily magical) that are occasionally gifted to great heroes worthy to use such powerful weapons. Should anyone try to design and craft their own guns, they are quickly stopped by Those Who Dwell Above.

Still, I can't help but feel that guns don't quite belong in a medieval fantasy setting, because it's usually supposed to be about swords, bows, crossbows, spells, etc. I fear that guns may ruin the proper feel of the setting.

So how do you guys feel about guns in a medieval fantasy setting? Should I keep guns in there as is? Should I get rid of them entirely? Should I make them more widely available? I would enjoy your thoughts.

The real medieval world had access to firearms. If guns feel inappropriate for a medieval setting, that's only because some people have misguided expectations of what the medieval world was. (Oddly, I almost never see such posters complain about actual anachronisms, such as platinum being considered more valuable than both gold and silver)

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Analysis/FantasyGunControl

That said, I've yet to hear a single person say that, say, Princess Mononoke (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcr4AyvFSrQ) had its feel ruined by the inclusion of firearms. Quite the opposite.

I do find the idea of guns as "holy hero superweapons" to be rather strange, because the main advantage of early firearms, as I understand it, wasn't in the hands of very highly trained people (who could probably do more with the difficult-to-use bows).

Beleriphon
2016-08-07, 08:58 AM
The real medieval world had access to firearms. If guns feel inappropriate for a medieval setting, that's only because some people have misguided expectations of what the medieval world was. (Oddly, I almost never see such posters complain about actual anachronisms, such as platinum being considered more valuable than both gold and silver)

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Analysis/FantasyGunControl

That said, I've yet to hear a single person say that, say, Princess Mononoke (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcr4AyvFSrQ) had its feel ruined by the inclusion of firearms. Quite the opposite.

I do find the idea of guns as "holy hero superweapons" to be rather strange, because the main advantage of early firearms, as I understand it, wasn't in the hands of very highly trained people (who could probably do more with the difficult-to-use bows).

One has to keep in mind that a European medievalish fantasy setting usually sets itself somewhere around the 11th or 12th century CE. Full blown firearm equipped armies weren't a thing until the 15th and 16th centuries, even then it was only around 1/4 to 1/3 of soldiers were equipped that way. Incidentally the best book on this is 1634 and alt-history novel involving time displaced Americans from 2005 ending up in 1634 during the 30 Years War. Here's a hint an M60 light machine gun is a nasty thing to use on pike formations, and pump-action shot guns firing solid slugs are way better than early firearms.

LudicSavant
2016-08-07, 09:05 AM
One has to keep in mind that a European medievalish fantasy setting usually sets itself somewhere around the 11th or 12th century CE. And you're basing this on... what exactly? Plate armor? Rapiers? Dragons? Cities of towers with airship cabs? :smallconfused:


Full blown firearm equipped armies weren't a thing until the 15th and 16th centuries, even then it was only around 1/4 to 1/3 of soldiers were equipped that way.

As I said, firearms were around for quite a while without making bows and the like disappear from the battlefield. The idea that firearms appeared suddenly and made everything else obsolete right away is a myth.

Malimar
2016-08-07, 09:32 AM
Seems to me most D&D settings are pastiches of the mid-Medieval era all the way up through the Renaissance. As others have said, handheld firearms predate plate armor, especially if you're not talking just Europe. (Somebody mentioned China, but I, having played Age of Empires II, am thinking of the Ottomans.) If it's historical accuracy you want, guns are fine. I think most people aren't actually interested in historical accuracy in their game with magic and dragons.

I think Regitnui is correct, about Eberron in particular and about fantasy settings in general: there's not much reason to invent guns if wands, better and cheaper and more powerful than early guns, already exist. For that matter, there's not much reason to invent gunpowder grenades (an important, albeit oft-ignored, step on the road to guns) if alchemist's fire already exists. There's no reason to invent the printing press if the amanuensis cantrip exists; no reason to invent the steam engine if trapped elementals already exist; in short, no reason to invent technology if magic already exists. And just like that, we've justified complete technological stagnation -- the Industrial Revolution never gets off the ground because its predecessors don't get invented because magic already does everything better.

That said, I did once play in a setting where magic-based technological stagnation happened, but one city single-handedly invented the Industrial Revolution anyway because it was plagued with random large anti-magic fields that made magic unreliable and impractical. So it's not hard to justify guns if you want them in your setting and put your mind to it.

Lord Raziere
2016-08-07, 09:49 AM
I just allow it on the PC's no matter what and include it in the campaign however I want. Its their choice to have one, and its my choice to determine whether the rest of the world to have it.

being "authentically medieval" or "mystical" or whatever is overrated in my book. and I love themes of tech progression anyways. Much better than themes of nostalgia and pining for lost golden age you'll never get back, and really? probably never actually existed to begin with.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-07, 09:52 AM
The first handheld firearms were used in the 12th Century AD, half a millenium before the first steam engine. They no more represent rapid technological development than plate armour (which firearms predate) does.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't plate armour partially adopted because it was more bulletproof than mail?


That said, I've yet to hear a single person say that, say, Princess Mononoke (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcr4AyvFSrQ) had its feel ruined by the inclusion of firearms. Quite the opposite.

I loved the firearms in Princess Mononoke, and I actually like early firearms in general. Sure, they were a bit of a pain, you were unable to use them in the rain (...why are you fighting a battle in the rain?), I believe they were unreliable when it was damp, they could take a long time to reload, they weren't accurately or particularly deadly at long ranges, but the variety that appears among the earliest models is cool and the fact that they let you train armies quickly made them awesome weapons (even better if you could keep decent control of either the guns themselves, the bullets, or the black powder, as then they can't be used against you).

EDIT: I should clarify that I allow guns in most of my fantasy settings, and allow PCs to cart around a barrel of muskets if they want to get around the loading time issue (although they can't have them in town, the same as polearms). I'm slightly more restrictive when it comes to pistols, although they are generally allowed.

Beleriphon
2016-08-07, 10:45 AM
And you're basing this on... what exactly? Plate armor? Rapiers? Dragons? Cities of towers with airship cabs? :smallconfused:

The general social structure many settings describe, but never actually do. Again roughly based, D&D is much more a mishmash than other settings seems to use. Obviously non-fantastic architecture tends towards late 13th century early 14th century in most RPG art, since its what people see as being the oldest European architecture that isn't Roman.


As I said, firearms were around for quite a while without making bows and the like disappear from the battlefield. The idea that firearms appeared suddenly and made everything else obsolete right away is a myth.

Oh it sure is. In fact one of the most overlooked aspects is that finding gunpowder based siege equipment given that's really what early militaries ended up using gunpowder for, at least early on in development of the technology.

LudicSavant
2016-08-07, 11:00 AM
The general social structure many settings describe, but never actually do.

I think that's quite the generalization to make; the social structures described across published D&D settings are very diverse. Eberron is very different from Forgotten Realms is very different from Spelljammer is very different from Ravenloft and so forth.

hymer
2016-08-07, 11:12 AM
So how do you guys feel about guns in a medieval fantasy setting?

Gunpowder, steam power and changeable type printing are entirely banned in any and all fantasy campaigns I've GMed. They go entirely against my conception of fantasy, and they grate on my sense of fun. I'm okay with the occasional magical substitute, but these should be quite impossible to mass produce.

Spiryt
2016-08-07, 11:13 AM
The fact that guns are given to special heroes is weird, given that early guns were crap but easy to use and were great to give to untrained people.


No one was 'giving' anything to untrained people, most of the time. Not how medieval/renaissance armies, or societies in general, were working.

Guns would usually be soldiers own thing. Being untrained with them was obviously undesirable. People hiring soldiers were usually going to check if potential recruit can handle whatever pipe he had dragged with himself.

Of course there were town arsenals, nobles buying guns their retinues etc. Reality was always complex, but the point is that guys conscripting x people and 'giving' them y guns thing started in late 17th century in general. Particularly in ridiculously militarized Prussia.

Of course, one may create otherwise Medievalish setting, where soldiers are forced conscripts drilled with sticks like in 18th century Prussia, would be quite interesting, I guess.


I think guns have a place in a setting, but you can't just drop it in and call it a day. Guns and mounted knights did exist side by side for a while, I think? Someone please correct me or elaborate if I'm wrong.There's also the problem that if one region has both and another has neither, I'd really like to know how that works, thank you very much. But guns and gunpowder puts very destructive power in the hands of pyromanics called player characters.

Evolution of guns, like with other stuff, depends on GM, it can happen at any rate, and still be plausible. No problem with it.

In Europe it was, like most thing, rather quick, especially after industrial revolution in general was starting.

In Japan, and in many other places, matchlocks that Europeans had brought evolved many interesting local quirks, but then generally stayed unchanged for many years.

So in a setting working like that one can have armored knights and guns coexisting with each other as long as one only wants.

Hell, look at Europe's examples where polish Hussars managed to stay relevant all the way to around ~1700.

And got rendered irrelevant not so even much by obsolete arms and tactics as by extinction of culture of riding in armor and lance jousting, just as it had happened earlier in Western Europe, removing lancers from equation.

Jay R
2016-08-07, 11:19 AM
Guns existed, but were rare, in medieval battles. Cannons are more common in late medieval battles, particularly sieges.

But the prevalence of guns on the field feels much more renaissance to me. I would include enough guns to form a significant part of the army only if I wanted a Renaissance or post-Renaissance feel.

Someday, I want to run a musketeers era game with magic (based in part on The Cardinal's Blades by Pierre Pevel).

Regitnui
2016-08-07, 11:55 AM
I think Regitnui is correct, about Eberron in particular and about fantasy settings in general: there's not much reason to invent guns if wands, better and cheaper and more powerful than early guns, already exist. For that matter, there's not much reason to invent gunpowder grenades (an important, albeit oft-ignored, step on the road to guns) if alchemist's fire already exists. There's no reason to invent the printing press if the amanuensis cantrip exists; no reason to invent the steam engine if trapped elementals already exist; in short, no reason to invent technology if magic already exists. And just like that, we've justified complete technological stagnation -- the Industrial Revolution never gets off the ground because its predecessors don't get invented because magic already does everything better.

The Industrial Revolution is arguably just around the corner in Eberron. It'll just be powered by magic as opposed to technology, likely sponsored by House Cannith.


Oh it sure is. In fact one of the most overlooked aspects is that finding gunpowder based siege equipment given that's really what early militaries ended up using gunpowder for, at least early on in development of the technology.

At least in Eberron, spells cover this too. While individual spellcasters are as effective against fortifications as a normal human might be, flight is a lot easier to come by: Aundair has dragonhawk battalions, Cyre had warforged raptors, and many sides hired harpy mercenaries. There's less need to break down fortress walls, but they're still a significant factor in a battle.

LaserFace
2016-08-07, 12:17 PM
OP:

You should do whatever fits the world you and your players are trying to create. My campaign mainly takes place in what could be described as a dark-ages germanic kingdom that gets bits of other cultures that I sprinkle in to make it interesting or more accessible to the other folks at the table.

Guns wouldn't be appropriate for this place, although I loosely define neighboring lands where it wouldn't be so weird; so basically I just never bring up firearms, but players have an avenue to get them (and other ideas I didn't really consider). I personally don't like firearms in these games but it wouldn't ruin my immersion for them to exist, and I don't mind bending things if it's for player enjoyment. Barring any abuse of my policy I would just try to make it work.

Beleriphon
2016-08-07, 12:40 PM
At least in Eberron, spells cover this too. While individual spellcasters are as effective against fortifications as a normal human might be, flight is a lot easier to come by: Aundair has dragonhawk battalions, Cyre had warforged raptors, and many sides hired harpy mercenaries. There's less need to break down fortress walls, but they're still a significant factor in a battle.

Nevermind Breland's floating fortresses, not much a siege when the fortress can just up and float away. I think my point (I've actually forgotten what it was) was that if one wanted to include gunpowder weapons bombards and mortars without necessarily having handgonnes/aquebuses/muskets.

Regitnui
2016-08-07, 01:08 PM
Nevermind Breland's floating fortresses, not much a siege when the fortress can just up and float away. I think my point (I've actually forgotten what it was) was that if one wanted to include gunpowder weapons bombards and mortars without necessarily having handgonnes/aquebuses/muskets.

Yeah, if Eberron had a use for gunpowder, it would have been cannons. Though there's a part of me that says there's some sort of elemental-binding tool that can produce charges of flame without having to use gunpowder at all.

Martin Greywolf
2016-08-07, 01:28 PM
Oh c'mon people, if you're gonna make a claim about historical gunpowder weapons, do your bloody research. Actual research, nto Wikipedia or Google.

1) Brief history of gunpowder

First gunpowder weapons were used in Europe during the battle of river Sajo, and they were used by the Mongolians against Hungarians. These weren't guns, these were rocket launchers, google hwacha for what they looked like. Alongside these, gunpowder grenades and petards were known but rare, we have references to them in alchemical treatises, but these weren't usually used in actual battles because they sucked, and sucked hard - short range, useless when wet, volatile, etc etc. You were far better off using a bow, a catapult or a ram in most cases.

Actual guns came around slowly at first, but rapidly spread once they started to actually be useful. First picture of a cannpn in Europe comes from 1326, earliest gunpowder references are around 1250s at the earliest. By the 1400, they were commonly used, as were the cannons. They weren't adopted on a universal scale, but nothing at the time was. A good army had to have cavalry (light and heavy), spearmen/pikemen (depending on the era), halberdiers, heavy infantry, archers/crossbowmen (preferably both), artillery (both catapults and cannon) and so on. None of the weapons dominated the field in a way musekts would in later eras, but that doesn't mean they weren't useful.

Gunpowder had its first overwhelming tactical success during the Hussite crusades, when czechs beat back several Crusades thanks to gunpowder and tactics. Full account of how this was done is a long story, but this marks the era where gunpowder would start to dominate the field of battle. It took about two canturies for that to fully happen, though.

2) Tactical role of gunpowder

Every single game I saw has got guns wrong. Every. Single. One. For the record, I'm going to talk about Hussite-era (1450s at most) guns in the following part, alter guns are very different from these.

Guns aren't expensive - they are cheap, that's their advantage. Once you got the infastructure to make them, it becomes easy to churn them out, and more importantly, ammunition is significantly cheaper than arrows to mass produce. So your guns costing 800 gold when swords go for 30 is, to put it quite frnakly, wrong at best.

Guns aren't deadlier than swords. Getting stabbed or shot through the lung does comparable damage (well, with military swords, smallswords and their ilk are not around yet, though, and rapiers are hell of a lot bigger and ehavier than you think).

Guns aren't harder to dodge than arrows. An arrow shot from a proper bow (at least 90 lbs, rarely as high as 160 lbs) cannot, I repeat, cannot be actively deflected or dodged. You may stick a sword/shield in front of you and hope the arrow hits it and bounces, but that's about it.

Guns don't have a better penetration than bows or swords. It really depends on the specifics (what armor, what metarial, is it heat treated, munitions grade or more expensive, hwat weapon, what distance, what weather etc etc), but for the most part, a gun has about the penetration of a crossbow or a bow - it can't get through full plate harness unless it hits a weak spot, but it can wreck weaker stuff (e.g. mild steel or iron) and utterly destroys chain mail (if it is worn alone).

Guns aren't rare. Even in 1350s, there's a guy who had 4 000 of them stored, just because. They are exact opposite of rare actually, as was seen in Hussite wars, where they were so popular specifically because you could make a lot of them really quickly, unlike crossbows.

Guns are easy to use. Again, that was the reason why they were popular during Hussite wars, bows are just as easy to make (possibly easier), but you need to train for about a year to be good with it - please, no bull about needing two generations, we do have people today that can match feats of English (actually, they were originally Welsh, but good luck finding anyone who knows that) warbow archers, and some of them started shooting pretty late in their lives, and they do so as a hobby.

3) Guns alongside armor

Battle of Sajo is in the era of just mail. Once we get to 1350s and first guns/cannons, we also start to see first plate components, i.e. globos plate, which evolved from coat-of-plates (1300s) and brigandines. They wweren't a response to cannon, they were a response to better armor piericng melee weapons (warhammer, flanged mace, differently shaped swords) and a feature that people wanted for quite some time (plate cuirass can deflect a lance the way a chain mail shirt simply can't).

Hussite wars see arquebus used alongside partial plate, or what DnD calls plate mail - you have a mail shirt with plate components on top. By the 1500s, guns are getting longer and slowly moving towards muskets, and armor ditches chain mail shirt and keeps only small bits of mail in the gaps, becoming full plate.

So, 12th century era shouldn't have guns, but also shouldn't have any plate armor at all save for helmet and maybe foreleg and forearm protection (even that should probably be just splint).

4) Feel of guns

A gun should be a worse crossbow. That's it. It has slower reload and can't shoot as far, but that's about it. It should also be a lot, lot cheaper than a crossbow.

As for psychological effect, eh, maybe a little one, but once guns exist, people will quickly catch on to what they are - just look at Americas or New Zealand and how quickly natives adopted firearms once they got hold of them. Horses are also only scared of them only until they get used to them, and that tended to happen very, very quickly.Warhorses had no problems charging against both cannon and infantry lines.

So, to get proper medieval guns feel, throw them in as they were and your players will quickly realize that they are a farmer's weapon, not really suited for professionals in the murder department.

As for cannon, they should have the same feel as trebuchet - pretty cool toy, but how are you supposed to hit anything that isn't a wall (if that) with it?

That said, you can wave reality good bye and do what you want, but ask yourself why. If you think steampunk dwarves are cool as hell (and let's face it, they are), then go right ahead.

5) Magic and guns

Most people said that gunpowder doesn't have a place in a world with magic - it depends. If the magic is even a little bit rare, then it will never be useful where gunpowder is, because the sole advantage of guns is that you can effectively arm a paesant mob of 5000 with them on the cheap. If your magic really is that common, then sure, it will replace gunpowder for quite a while - right until someone will need to explode a thing in the middle of an anti magic field.

Arbane
2016-08-07, 01:49 PM
Guns aren't deadlier than swords. Getting stabbed or shot through the lung does comparable damage (well, with military swords, smallswords and their ilk are not around yet, though, and rapiers are hell of a lot bigger and ehavier than you think).

Guns aren't harder to dodge than arrows. An arrow shot from a proper bow (at least 90 lbs, rarely as high as 160 lbs) cannot, I repeat, cannot be actively deflected or dodged. You may stick a sword/shield in front of you and hope the arrow hits it and bounces, but that's about it.

Guns don't have a better penetration than bows or swords. It really depends on the specifics (what armor, what metarial, is it heat treated, munitions grade or more expensive, hwat weapon, what distance, what weather etc etc), but for the most part, a gun has about the penetration of a crossbow or a bow - it can't get through full plate harness unless it hits a weak spot, but it can wreck weaker stuff (e.g. mild steel or iron) and utterly destroys chain mail (if it is worn alone).


(Warning: D&Disms follow)

Repeated for emphasis here. A lot of people who are perfectly OK with a greataxe to the face doing 1d12 + str bonus or arrows doing 1d8 damage will suddenly insist that even the crudest arquebus MUST do 2d12 damage with a x4 crit multiplier because REALISM.

Guns are not Magic Wands of Death. (At least monsters would get spell resistance against those...)

Beleriphon
2016-08-07, 02:07 PM
(Warning: D&Disms follow)

Repeated for emphasis here. A lot of people who are perfectly OK with a greataxe to the face doing 1d12 + str bonus or arrows doing 1d8 damage will suddenly insist that even the crudest arquebus MUST do 2d12 damage with a x4 crit multiplier because REALISM.

Guns are not Magic Wands of Death. (At least monsters would get spell resistance against those...)

Eh, its a myth based on Victorian Era idiocy and exceptionalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exceptionalism). Just like how full plate somehow turned a knight into the medieval equivalent of a Life Alert commercial (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27ve_fallen,_and_I_can%27t_get_up!), and everybody was an illiterate dolt until the British conquered most of the world and they made everything awesome.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-07, 02:29 PM
(Warning: D&Disms follow)

Repeated for emphasis here. A lot of people who are perfectly OK with a greataxe to the face doing 1d12 + str bonus or arrows doing 1d8 damage will suddenly insist that even the crudest arquebus MUST do 2d12 damage with a x4 crit multiplier because REALISM.

Guns are not Magic Wands of Death. (At least monsters would get spell resistance against those...)

Eh, assuming your average peasant has 10hp I say a musket should have a chance of taking him out in one shot, so 1d10 damage would be reasonable. Assuming D&D again 1d10+dex is theoretically overkill, as long as we assume that a musket's range is an advantage (at the distances D&D fights happen at the maximum range of most ranged weapons is 'long enough').

Now, when I do use guns in D&D I generally assign damage based on crossbows. I'll give pistols 1d6 and muskets 1d8 (occasionally 1d10 if I want powerful guns) under the assumption that in-world pistol charges are smaller, and then allow the user to add their Dexterity Modifier to damage. In general I see little reason to give ranged weapons a major damage downgrade to one-handed melee weapons, their range is theoretically balanced by having to track shots (although not everyone enforces that). If anybody trys to argue for metal magic wands of death (MMWD for short) I'm ready to point them towards facts, they're as bad as the katana fanboys.

Jay R
2016-08-07, 02:56 PM
The crucial issue isn't that guns didn't appear in medieval Europe; they did.

It's that guns don't appear in medieval legend, myth, or heroic saga, which is the real root of D&D. People aren't trying to make history in D&D, they are trying to tell stories, or to pretend to be heroes.

SethoMarkus
2016-08-07, 03:01 PM
Eh, assuming your average peasant has 10hp I say a musket should have a chance of taking him out in one shot, so 1d10 damage would be reasonable. Assuming D&D again 1d10+dex is theoretically overkill, as long as we assume that a musket's range is an advantage (at the distances D&D fights happen at the maximum range of most ranged weapons is 'long enough').

Now, when I do use guns in D&D I generally assign damage based on crossbows. I'll give pistols 1d6 and muskets 1d8 (occasionally 1d10 if I want powerful guns) under the assumption that in-world pistol charges are smaller, and then allow the user to add their Dexterity Modifier to damage. In general I see little reason to give ranged weapons a major damage downgrade to one-handed melee weapons, their range is theoretically balanced by having to track shots (although not everyone enforces that). If anybody trys to argue for metal magic wands of death (MMWD for short) I'm ready to point them towards facts, they're as bad as the katana fanboys.

That sounds reasonable enough to me for a quick fix, but I do have questions on two points.

First, most commoners would have HP closer to 2-6 range. A d4 hit die (assuming a nax hit die for first level on NPCs which is not the norm) would be 3-5 depending on their Con score (average for NPCs is recommended at 8-12, so +/-1 modifier). I think 1d6 for damage is enough, maybe 1d8 if you really insist.

Second, why the Dex to damage? I assume you are using that to represent precision, but there is already sneak attack/precision damage to take care of that, along with critical hit multipliers. Guns weren't even more accurate than bows, so unless you were also giving +Dex to damage on bows and crossbows, I don't see the need to add it.

nomotag
2016-08-07, 03:02 PM
I think Gond the tech-god specifically bans guns in the FR, except for his/her/its priests.:smallconfused:

Anyway, I play Eberron, which is a bit further up on the tech ladder and still doesn't have guns. I've heard of a number of people putting guns in, because "they make sense". I'd argue that they don't, and not just because I think guns are a poor addition to D&D in general. In Eberron, at least, they've just come off a hundred-year-long war so vicious it's called the Last War, much like WW1 was called the Great War until WW2 came along. People use the WW1 analogy to claim guns have a space. After all, it was the two world wars and the Cold War that boosted technology to it's modern level.

However, the world of Eberron will not have guns. Why? Because wands full the same space already, The artificers of Khorvaire specifically developed eternal wands that will never run out of charge. The wands of Eberron are not Harry Potter-esque sticks that wizards gesture with. They're really more akin to a rifle stock or a hand crossbow without the bow. Between eternal wands of magic missile or fireball and the hand crossbow, there's no reason to develop gunpowder and therefore no reason to develop guns.

I wanted to include guns in Eberron, so the justification I came up with was that guns and gunpowder were developed by humans before they migrated to Khorvaire and started useing magic. They are still used in places like Lhazaar. (The whole idea was to let me do a pirate game with cannons and flintlocks.)

RazorChain
2016-08-07, 04:13 PM
Oh c'mon people, if you're gonna make a claim about historical gunpowder weapons, do your bloody research. Actual research, nto Wikipedia or Google.

1) Brief history of gunpowder

First gunpowder weapons were used in Europe during the battle of river Sajo, and they were used by the Mongolians against Hungarians. These weren't guns, these were rocket launchers, google hwacha for what they looked like. Alongside these, gunpowder grenades and petards were known but rare, we have references to them in alchemical treatises, but these weren't usually used in actual battles because they sucked, and sucked hard - short range, useless when wet, volatile, etc etc. You were far better off using a bow, a catapult or a ram in most cases.

Actual guns came around slowly at first, but rapidly spread once they started to actually be useful. First picture of a cannpn in Europe comes from 1326, earliest gunpowder references are around 1250s at the earliest. By the 1400, they were commonly used, as were the cannons. They weren't adopted on a universal scale, but nothing at the time was. A good army had to have cavalry (light and heavy), spearmen/pikemen (depending on the era), halberdiers, heavy infantry, archers/crossbowmen (preferably both), artillery (both catapults and cannon) and so on. None of the weapons dominated the field in a way musekts would in later eras, but that doesn't mean they weren't useful.

Gunpowder had its first overwhelming tactical success during the Hussite crusades, when czechs beat back several Crusades thanks to gunpowder and tactics. Full account of how this was done is a long story, but this marks the era where gunpowder would start to dominate the field of battle. It took about two canturies for that to fully happen, though.

2) Tactical role of gunpowder

Every single game I saw has got guns wrong. Every. Single. One. For the record, I'm going to talk about Hussite-era (1450s at most) guns in the following part, alter guns are very different from these.

Guns aren't expensive - they are cheap, that's their advantage. Once you got the infastructure to make them, it becomes easy to churn them out, and more importantly, ammunition is significantly cheaper than arrows to mass produce. So your guns costing 800 gold when swords go for 30 is, to put it quite frnakly, wrong at best.

Guns aren't deadlier than swords. Getting stabbed or shot through the lung does comparable damage (well, with military swords, smallswords and their ilk are not around yet, though, and rapiers are hell of a lot bigger and ehavier than you think).

Guns aren't harder to dodge than arrows. An arrow shot from a proper bow (at least 90 lbs, rarely as high as 160 lbs) cannot, I repeat, cannot be actively deflected or dodged. You may stick a sword/shield in front of you and hope the arrow hits it and bounces, but that's about it.

Guns don't have a better penetration than bows or swords. It really depends on the specifics (what armor, what metarial, is it heat treated, munitions grade or more expensive, hwat weapon, what distance, what weather etc etc), but for the most part, a gun has about the penetration of a crossbow or a bow - it can't get through full plate harness unless it hits a weak spot, but it can wreck weaker stuff (e.g. mild steel or iron) and utterly destroys chain mail (if it is worn alone).

Guns aren't rare. Even in 1350s, there's a guy who had 4 000 of them stored, just because. They are exact opposite of rare actually, as was seen in Hussite wars, where they were so popular specifically because you could make a lot of them really quickly, unlike crossbows.

Guns are easy to use. Again, that was the reason why they were popular during Hussite wars, bows are just as easy to make (possibly easier), but you need to train for about a year to be good with it - please, no bull about needing two generations, we do have people today that can match feats of English (actually, they were originally Welsh, but good luck finding anyone who knows that) warbow archers, and some of them started shooting pretty late in their lives, and they do so as a hobby.

3) Guns alongside armor

Battle of Sajo is in the era of just mail. Once we get to 1350s and first guns/cannons, we also start to see first plate components, i.e. globos plate, which evolved from coat-of-plates (1300s) and brigandines. They wweren't a response to cannon, they were a response to better armor piericng melee weapons (warhammer, flanged mace, differently shaped swords) and a feature that people wanted for quite some time (plate cuirass can deflect a lance the way a chain mail shirt simply can't).

Hussite wars see arquebus used alongside partial plate, or what DnD calls plate mail - you have a mail shirt with plate components on top. By the 1500s, guns are getting longer and slowly moving towards muskets, and armor ditches chain mail shirt and keeps only small bits of mail in the gaps, becoming full plate.

So, 12th century era shouldn't have guns, but also shouldn't have any plate armor at all save for helmet and maybe foreleg and forearm protection (even that should probably be just splint).

4) Feel of guns

A gun should be a worse crossbow. That's it. It has slower reload and can't shoot as far, but that's about it. It should also be a lot, lot cheaper than a crossbow.

As for psychological effect, eh, maybe a little one, but once guns exist, people will quickly catch on to what they are - just look at Americas or New Zealand and how quickly natives adopted firearms once they got hold of them. Horses are also only scared of them only until they get used to them, and that tended to happen very, very quickly.Warhorses had no problems charging against both cannon and infantry lines.

So, to get proper medieval guns feel, throw them in as they were and your players will quickly realize that they are a farmer's weapon, not really suited for professionals in the murder department.

As for cannon, they should have the same feel as trebuchet - pretty cool toy, but how are you supposed to hit anything that isn't a wall (if that) with it?

That said, you can wave reality good bye and do what you want, but ask yourself why. If you think steampunk dwarves are cool as hell (and let's face it, they are), then go right ahead.

5) Magic and guns

Most people said that gunpowder doesn't have a place in a world with magic - it depends. If the magic is even a little bit rare, then it will never be useful where gunpowder is, because the sole advantage of guns is that you can effectively arm a paesant mob of 5000 with them on the cheap. If your magic really is that common, then sure, it will replace gunpowder for quite a while - right until someone will need to explode a thing in the middle of an anti magic field.


Excellent post. There is a lot of systems out there that use guns in fantasy settings like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I have used guns in fantasy settings but players usually find out they are crap. Yes they only exist as fire and forget weapons. Who wants to spend the next 20 seconds or so to reload? What is the combat round in D&D? 6 seconds? Ok you fire once and then you spend the next 3 rounds loading. Also plate armor, shield bosses and solid steel helmets could stop bullets. This is why most soldiers would have backup weapons...like the musketeers, they are more famous for swordfighting than shooting muskets. Even in the 18th century most soldiers would either have backup weapons or bayonets. IIRC Suvorov even said that charging with bayonets was more decisive than shooting it out.

So unless you are giving your players semi automatic weapons they won't unbalance the game in any way.

veti
2016-08-07, 04:14 PM
Personally, I feel like the typical fantasy setting is ahistorical enough that guns aren't going to make it any less accurate to an existing time period. So I'm generally in favor of having them. But YMMV.

I agree with this. Guns are not that different from magic. (A very, very limited form of magic.)

If you're trying to be vaguely historical about it, then the earliest guns would be some kind of cannon. There's really no point in early handguns as heroic weapons - any hero worth their salt would get better results with a bow. (Much faster to load, much better accuracy, much more reliable.)

But I have played in a D&D-based campaign that had guns, and we're not talking flintlocks and arquebuses here, we're talking M-16s and magnums and miniguns, and I have no idea where the ammunition came from. And believe it or not, that was just as much fun.

BayardSPSR
2016-08-07, 04:29 PM
IIRC Suvorov even said that charging with bayonets was more decisive than shooting it out.

Some context on this: in Suvrov's day, Russian infantrymen spent painfully little time actually firing their muskets in training, based on the ammunition supplied to them in peacetime, relative to every other country in Europe. So while Russian infantry may have been more effective with the bayonet than the musket ball, that's not representative of the other militaries of the period.

nomotag
2016-08-07, 04:40 PM
Oh c'mon people, if you're gonna make a claim about historical gunpowder weapons, do your bloody research. Actual research, nto Wikipedia or Google.

1) Brief history of gunpowder

First gunpowder weapons were used in Europe during the battle of river Sajo, and they were used by the Mongolians against Hungarians. These weren't guns, these were rocket launchers, google hwacha for what they looked like. Alongside these, gunpowder grenades and petards were known but rare, we have references to them in alchemical treatises, but these weren't usually used in actual battles because they sucked, and sucked hard - short range, useless when wet, volatile, etc etc. You were far better off using a bow, a catapult or a ram in most cases.

Actual guns came around slowly at first, but rapidly spread once they started to actually be useful. First picture of a cannpn in Europe comes from 1326, earliest gunpowder references are around 1250s at the earliest. By the 1400, they were commonly used, as were the cannons. They weren't adopted on a universal scale, but nothing at the time was. A good army had to have cavalry (light and heavy), spearmen/pikemen (depending on the era), halberdiers, heavy infantry, archers/crossbowmen (preferably both), artillery (both catapults and cannon) and so on. None of the weapons dominated the field in a way musekts would in later eras, but that doesn't mean they weren't useful.

Gunpowder had its first overwhelming tactical success during the Hussite crusades, when czechs beat back several Crusades thanks to gunpowder and tactics. Full account of how this was done is a long story, but this marks the era where gunpowder would start to dominate the field of battle. It took about two canturies for that to fully happen, though.

2) Tactical role of gunpowder

Every single game I saw has got guns wrong. Every. Single. One. For the record, I'm going to talk about Hussite-era (1450s at most) guns in the following part, alter guns are very different from these.

Guns aren't expensive - they are cheap, that's their advantage. Once you got the infastructure to make them, it becomes easy to churn them out, and more importantly, ammunition is significantly cheaper than arrows to mass produce. So your guns costing 800 gold when swords go for 30 is, to put it quite frnakly, wrong at best.

Guns aren't deadlier than swords. Getting stabbed or shot through the lung does comparable damage (well, with military swords, smallswords and their ilk are not around yet, though, and rapiers are hell of a lot bigger and ehavier than you think).

Guns aren't harder to dodge than arrows. An arrow shot from a proper bow (at least 90 lbs, rarely as high as 160 lbs) cannot, I repeat, cannot be actively deflected or dodged. You may stick a sword/shield in front of you and hope the arrow hits it and bounces, but that's about it.

Guns don't have a better penetration than bows or swords. It really depends on the specifics (what armor, what metarial, is it heat treated, munitions grade or more expensive, hwat weapon, what distance, what weather etc etc), but for the most part, a gun has about the penetration of a crossbow or a bow - it can't get through full plate harness unless it hits a weak spot, but it can wreck weaker stuff (e.g. mild steel or iron) and utterly destroys chain mail (if it is worn alone).

Guns aren't rare. Even in 1350s, there's a guy who had 4 000 of them stored, just because. They are exact opposite of rare actually, as was seen in Hussite wars, where they were so popular specifically because you could make a lot of them really quickly, unlike crossbows.

Guns are easy to use. Again, that was the reason why they were popular during Hussite wars, bows are just as easy to make (possibly easier), but you need to train for about a year to be good with it - please, no bull about needing two generations, we do have people today that can match feats of English (actually, they were originally Welsh, but good luck finding anyone who knows that) warbow archers, and some of them started shooting pretty late in their lives, and they do so as a hobby.

3) Guns alongside armor

Battle of Sajo is in the era of just mail. Once we get to 1350s and first guns/cannons, we also start to see first plate components, i.e. globos plate, which evolved from coat-of-plates (1300s) and brigandines. They wweren't a response to cannon, they were a response to better armor piericng melee weapons (warhammer, flanged mace, differently shaped swords) and a feature that people wanted for quite some time (plate cuirass can deflect a lance the way a chain mail shirt simply can't).

Hussite wars see arquebus used alongside partial plate, or what DnD calls plate mail - you have a mail shirt with plate components on top. By the 1500s, guns are getting longer and slowly moving towards muskets, and armor ditches chain mail shirt and keeps only small bits of mail in the gaps, becoming full plate.

So, 12th century era shouldn't have guns, but also shouldn't have any plate armor at all save for helmet and maybe foreleg and forearm protection (even that should probably be just splint).

4) Feel of guns

A gun should be a worse crossbow. That's it. It has slower reload and can't shoot as far, but that's about it. It should also be a lot, lot cheaper than a crossbow.

As for psychological effect, eh, maybe a little one, but once guns exist, people will quickly catch on to what they are - just look at Americas or New Zealand and how quickly natives adopted firearms once they got hold of them. Horses are also only scared of them only until they get used to them, and that tended to happen very, very quickly.Warhorses had no problems charging against both cannon and infantry lines.

So, to get proper medieval guns feel, throw them in as they were and your players will quickly realize that they are a farmer's weapon, not really suited for professionals in the murder department.

As for cannon, they should have the same feel as trebuchet - pretty cool toy, but how are you supposed to hit anything that isn't a wall (if that) with it?

That said, you can wave reality good bye and do what you want, but ask yourself why. If you think steampunk dwarves are cool as hell (and let's face it, they are), then go right ahead.

5) Magic and guns

Most people said that gunpowder doesn't have a place in a world with magic - it depends. If the magic is even a little bit rare, then it will never be useful where gunpowder is, because the sole advantage of guns is that you can effectively arm a paesant mob of 5000 with them on the cheap. If your magic really is that common, then sure, it will replace gunpowder for quite a while - right until someone will need to explode a thing in the middle of an anti magic field.

That is good for being realistic I guess, but why would a player ever use a gun when they seem to be worse in every way that matters to them?

VoxRationis
2016-08-07, 04:55 PM
That is good for being realistic I guess, but why would a player ever use a gun when they seem to be worse in every way that matters to them?

A feature doesn't have to be useful to players for them to appear in a setting, or to make an impact on a world. Why would a player ever use a plowshare? Why would they ever be a peasant?

Player characters won't ever use them; they aren't particularly good for their purposes. But they'll probably fight one or more enemies with them, and they may see them or see references to them.

nomotag
2016-08-07, 05:00 PM
A feature doesn't have to be useful to players for them to appear in a setting, or to make an impact on a world. Why would a player ever use a plowshare? Why would they ever be a peasant?

Player characters won't ever use them; they aren't particularly good for their purposes. But they'll probably fight one or more enemies with them, and they may see them or see references to them.

But players want to use guns. It's often the players that brig it up in the first place.

Morty
2016-08-07, 05:10 PM
I'd see a player using a gun for much the same reason they'd use a crossbow - they want a slow-firing weapon with a more modern and pedestrian feel to it than a bow. It also fits a character who isn't a dedicated archer, like a thief, scholar, magician et cetera.

SethoMarkus
2016-08-07, 05:27 PM
I'd see a player using a gun for much the same reason they'd use a crossbow - they want a slow-firing weapon with a more modern and pedestrian feel to it than a bow. It also fits a character who isn't a dedicated archer, like a thief, scholar, magician et cetera.

A pistol, even flint-lock, will be more concealable than a crossbow, as well.

But really, if the players want guns in the setting, design a setting where guns are both effective and fit the PCs needs while still making sense. Maybe this means the guns are a gift from the gods, maybe it means the PCs built the guns, maybe it means guns are common. You decide. If you (and the players) want a setting where guns are generally historically based and "realistic", then you run into the issues mentioned above.

Really, I'm in the camp of guns being a sign of technological advancement. If I want guns in the setting, guns will be a new technology still in the prototype phase. If I don't want guns in the setting, they do not exists, or it is a one-of-a-kind invention of a madwoman.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-07, 05:32 PM
First, most commoners would have HP closer to 2-6 range. A d4 hit die (assuming a nax hit die for first level on NPCs which is not the norm) would be 3-5 depending on their Con score (average for NPCs is recommended at 8-12, so +/-1 modifier). I think 1d6 for damage is enough, maybe 1d8 if you really insist.

I play 3.X anymore, and don't run D&D if I can get away with it, but I give everyone full HP at 1st level and assume most people are 2nd level by their mid 20s. PCs begin at 3rd level or more. Your average peasant comes out at 9hp because I think they're hardy enough for d6 hit dice.


Second, why the Dex to damage? I assume you are using that to represent precision, but there is already sneak attack/precision damage to take care of that, along with critical hit multipliers. Guns weren't even more accurate than bows, so unless you were also giving +Dex to damage on bows and crossbows, I don't see the need to add it.

I have 5e on my mind, because it's what I'm currently playing. All ranged an finesse weapons there get +dex to damage

Of course I plan to run The Dark Eye next, where I'll just be replacing guns with crossbows and I'll rule that a handful of countries discovered a way to make them quickly. The setting doesn't support guns, but it'll be nice to try running a world without them.

Morty
2016-08-07, 05:38 PM
Isn't the Dark Eye stuck in a pseudo-medieval stasis just like D&D, with only guns being made by dwarves?

SethoMarkus
2016-08-07, 05:38 PM
I play 3.X anymore, and don't run D&D if I can get away with it, but I give everyone full HP at 1st level and assume most people are 2nd level by their mid 20s. PCs begin at 3rd level or more. Your average peasant comes out at 9hp because I think they're hardy enough for d6 hit dice.



I have 5e on my mind, because it's what I'm currently playing. All ranged an finesse weapons there get +dex to damage

Of course I plan to run The Dark Eye next, where I'll just be replacing guns with crossbows and I'll rule that a handful of countries discovered a way to make them quickly. The setting doesn't support guns, but it'll be nice to try running a world without them.

Well, there you go, questions answered! I do apologize for committing the Playground's fallacy of assuming D&D 3.x, but in my defense Pathfinder was referenced in the OP :smallbiggrin:

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-07, 05:58 PM
Isn't the Dark Eye stuck in a pseudo-medieval stasis just like D&D, with only guns being made by dwarves?

No guns to my knowledge, and I intend to avoid the gun analogs. I'm having dwarves mass produce heavy crossbows and investigate gunpowder explosives, but I'm keeping to the basic setting (pseudo-medieval status with no guns).


Well, there you go, questions answered! I do apologize for committing the Playground's fallacy of assuming D&D 3.x, but in my defense Pathfinder was referenced in the OP :smallbiggrin:

It's fine, I always forget to specify.

Lord Raziere
2016-08-07, 06:28 PM
The crucial issue isn't that guns didn't appear in medieval Europe; they did.

It's that guns don't appear in medieval legend, myth, or heroic saga, which is the real root of D&D. People aren't trying to make history in D&D, they are trying to tell stories, or to pretend to be heroes.

Yes, and?

I don't see why I can't make any of those with guns around.

the difference between a romanticized cowboy and a romanticized knight-errant or ronin is pretty much what weapon they are holding. Nothing else.

VoxRationis
2016-08-07, 07:09 PM
Yes, and?

I don't see why I can't make any of those with guns around.

the difference between a romanticized cowboy and a romanticized knight-errant or ronin is pretty much what weapon they are holding. Nothing else.

They fill similar niches in their respective cultural spheres, but try putting a romanticized cowboy in feudal Japan or medieval Europe and see how well he fits in there. Genre includes cultural milieu. I'm not going to have a knight-errant who speaks with a Texas drawl and wears a poncho unless I'm going for comedic effect.

comk59
2016-08-07, 07:41 PM
They fill similar niches in their respective cultural spheres, but try putting a romanticized cowboy in feudal Japan or medieval Europe and see how well he fits in there. Genre includes cultural milieu. I'm not going to have a knight-errant who speaks with a Texas drawl and wears a poncho unless I'm going for comedic effect.

I dunno, putting a ronin in the wild west seemed to work okay, if you like popcorn flicks...

LudicSavant
2016-08-07, 07:43 PM
They fill similar niches in their respective cultural spheres, but try putting a romanticized cowboy in feudal Japan or medieval Europe and see how well he fits in there. Genre includes cultural milieu. I'm not going to have a knight-errant who speaks with a Texas drawl and wears a poncho unless I'm going for comedic effect.

Ogami Itto had guns, and he's pretty much the romanticized samurai (the direct inspiration for Samurai Jack and tons of other stuff).

AnBe
2016-08-07, 08:02 PM
I thank you for the input, fellow Playgrounders.

In my setting, the reason the Aeons (they're kind of like gods) intentionally limit the people's access to guns is because they try to limit the people's technological advancement in general. They believe that if the people are allowed to advance beyond the medieval stage of technology that they will eventually become so advanced that the people won't need them anymore and may even start a war against them. Not all Aeons agree with this theory, but the majority of them do and work very hard to "keep the people down." It's not out of cruelty, but out of self-preservation and the desire to maintain a servant-master relationship with those lesser humanoid beings down there.

As for the actual tech-level of the guns I mentioned earlier, I am sorry I did not to specify. The guns that are typically found are around the Wild West era of guns, so there are Cowboy Repeaters, Revolver Six-Shooters and the like. There's even mounted machine guns, but those are extra rare. In the opinion of the Mechanical Angel, the greatest gift he can give is the temporary usage of these weapons. Some of the guns are specially blessed and can shoot with holy magic.

goto124
2016-08-07, 08:57 PM
I'm not going to have a knight-errant who speaks with a Texas drawl and wears a poncho unless I'm going for comedic effect.

New character idea.

VoxRationis
2016-08-07, 09:09 PM
@LudicSavant: I'm not arguing against the concept of "samurai with guns"; I am aware that the samurai class took quite fervently to them historically until the Edo period. I was arguing against Raziere's thesis that the primary difference between the archetypal cowboy, ronin, and knight-errant was in choice of weaponry.

RazorChain
2016-08-07, 09:19 PM
A pistol, even flint-lock, will be more concealable than a crossbow, as well.

But really, if the players want guns in the setting, design a setting where guns are both effective and fit the PCs needs while still making sense. Maybe this means the guns are a gift from the gods, maybe it means the PCs built the guns, maybe it means guns are common. You decide. If you (and the players) want a setting where guns are generally historically based and "realistic", then you run into the issues mentioned above.

Really, I'm in the camp of guns being a sign of technological advancement. If I want guns in the setting, guns will be a new technology still in the prototype phase. If I don't want guns in the setting, they do not exists, or it is a one-of-a-kind invention of a madwoman.

Well guns can be useful, dependent on the system. One player in fantasy renaissance setting I was running in Gurps was a pistoleer. In the end he had 6 pistols strapped to himself and used fast draw and dual wielding to unload his guns before he drew his sword :)

Jay R
2016-08-07, 09:20 PM
Yes, and?

I don't see why I can't make any of those with guns around.

the difference between a romanticized cowboy and a romanticized knight-errant or ronin is pretty much what weapon they are holding. Nothing else.

Yes, exactly! Thank you for explaining it so well.

If I'm playing a romanticized cowboy, he needs a gun. If I'm playing a romanticized knight-errant or ronin, he should carry a sword.

Exactly correct. This is why guns feel wrong to me in D&D.

Lord Raziere
2016-08-07, 09:34 PM
Yes, exactly! Thank you for explaining it so well.

If I'm playing a romanticized cowboy, he needs a gun. If I'm playing a romanticized knight-errant or ronin, he should carry a sword.

Exactly correct. This is why guns feel wrong to me in D&D.

.....Um, this is why guns feel right to me? They're all the knight-errant archetype. I'm perfectly ok with those three all existing in the same setting. :smallconfused:

@ VoxRationis:
The difference of them would be pretty much the same "someone larger-than-life from outside our village, coming in and displaying fantastic skills at (WEAPON), beating up bad guys while displaying a strange code of behavior that common people do not share and might eventually conflict with the establishment, corrupt or not, but probably corrupt"

To common villagers, everyone outside the village is a foreigner who might've done something bad or ticked off the authorities. Heck, wuxia heroes fall into the knight-errant archetype to, and Sun Wukong is pretty much a guy who beat up all of Heaven.

While a knight-errant and a cowboy can be equally stoic and mysterious in how they ride on a horse and deal out justice according to their own judgement.

that and knight-errants are travelers anyways and their journeys often take them to strange cultures and people others normally don't see. It makes perfect sense for a traveling warrior going on their aimless journey to be a righteous guy who saves all the people to eventually encounter strange cultures they never met before, interacting with them and such. all these archetypes are pretty much outcasts who can't live a normal life anyways, so the foreigner aspect really makes no difference. DnD is basically Knight-Errant: The Game. thats why you have monks with martial arts, gunslingers and mounted warriors all in the same game of PF.

LudicSavant
2016-08-07, 09:36 PM
@LudicSavant: I'm not arguing against the concept of "samurai with guns"; I am aware that the samurai class took quite fervently to them historically until the Edo period. I was arguing against Raziere's thesis that the primary difference between the archetypal cowboy, ronin, and knight-errant was in choice of weaponry.

I agree with you, which is why I provided an example of an iconic ronin (one of the genre-defining giants, at that) who has a gun in his arsenal. Ogami Itto is definitely not a cowboy, and he has a gun. Ergo, wielding a gun (let alone having guns wielded by others in the setting) does not stop someone from being an iconic, genre-defining ronin hero.

When someone tells me that ronin don't have guns in their settings, my first thought is that that person hasn't been exposed to much fiction about ronin.

comk59
2016-08-07, 09:43 PM
.....Um, this is why guns feel right to me? They're all the knight-errant archetype. I'm perfectly ok with those three all existing in the same setting. :smallconfused:

Yeah, same here. Unless it goes against explicit setting canon, guns are fine by me, especially if they fit the character.

Martin Greywolf
2016-08-08, 02:11 AM
A couple of things.

1) Guns and knights

Well, you're wrong in that the guns don't appear in knightly stories. They are rare in England and France thanks to Arthurian obsession, but they do appear frequently in countries that had their heyday in the times they were used. Czechs like to tell stories of Jan Zizka as much as English like to tell Arthurian ones.

Thing is, remember when I said they were weapon of commoners? Yeah, they appear as just that, not as heroic proper weapon for a noble knight, not until we get to British imperial era and Age of Sail.

Also, Three Musketeers. Go read the books, they used firearms there quite a lot, actually, it's just that movies like them to swordfight all the time because until we had Equilibrium and John Wick, gunfights on screen weren't exactly flashy.

2) Guns as new tech

Well, if you want to go for this, sure, why not, but why the hell do you use guns then? There is a number of things that could serve this role without immediately standing out to anyone who knows anything about guns.

What was hot new tech in the period and is sufficiently useful to the players is plate armor - specifically heat-treated, fitted steel plate, i.e. the metallurgy necessary to make one. Have the gods limit that and enjoy the players loosing their mind. And learning a thing about medieval tech.

3) Get your tech levels straight

High medieval, Crusades and chain mail can only have primitive hand cannons at most, since it ends in about 1300. Even that is a stretch and historical inaccuracy, but a pretty close one.

1300 to 1450 is era of hand cannons, pistols do exist, but look like This is called píšťala in czech, translation is whistle. If you wondered why pistol is called a pistol, this is why. This era also sees a transition from pure mail to coat-of-plates to partial plate.

1450 gives us first matchlocks, first depiction dating to 1475, and matchlocks continue to be used until 17th century hen they become utterly obsolete. 1500 is also the era of true full plate armor, chain mail starts to disappear except as gussets. Matchlocks start to look like modern guns for the first time, by the by.

Next are wheellock (1500), snaplock (1540) and snapchance (1560). They are comparatively expensive when compared to matchlock, and are used for pistols of officers, and people who can afford them in general. Development of fulll plate reaches its apex in this period, giving us famou suits like Maximillian armor (1515 to 1530) and Greenwich armor (1550 to 1570).

1610 marks the era of flintlock, which starts to be used for firearms almost exclusively, and armor starts to decline. Leg and arm plates are the first to go, next are visors. Cuirass survives in various forms until WW1 where it is used in cavalry action.

Last one is percussion lock, patented in 1807, and perfected only a few years later. This is the type of lock you see in pirate movies, problem is, it was also used in first revolvers - revolvers even pre-date it, technically, though the flintlock version weren't very popular.

4) The hard truth of tech levels

You can only have pistols that you pull out and fire immediately with percussion lock. All previous models require you to pour a bit of gunpowder on the firing pan, so no dual-wielding (unless you're a naga or something... hm, character idea right there). You can have pistols stored in reserve in pouches once you get to wheellock, but not matchlock, that one requires a burning piece of string (the match in name).

5) But we can work with it

If the players really want a gun, go weird. There were crossbows with a gunbarrel in them - load it with shrapnel and give it spread and boom, a historical gadget with good effect players can use. Or take a gander at triple gun + mace abomination, allow it to make three attacks at a penalty and then be used as a mace and there you go.

And if your players insist on having percussion guns, you have two options. 1) Allow it, you have magic for defense after all, and damn the history, or, and better IMHO, 2) suggest that medieval setting is probably not what they want to play and go for Age of Sail adventures.

Edit: I'm not a smart boy and derped hard. You can pull out a gun and fire with wheellock, you don't need to wait for percussion lock for that. Wheellock is expensive as all hell, though.

RazorChain
2016-08-08, 03:03 AM
Well I just tend to have fun with some guntech. Four barrelled muskets, double barrelled pistols and blunderbuss.

In my current campaig I have the clockwork crossbow, double decker crossbow and more.

Why not sprinkle some weird tech in there

Jallorn
2016-08-08, 03:41 AM
Something that I haven't seen come up in the half page I read is the psychology of guns, perhaps more accurately: the psychology we have about guns (primarily in the west, especially the USA). Guns are power, and as such they are empowering. This is especially true in our democratic, populist society, because the gun is so relatively simple to use. The concept is easily understood: point and squeeze (though obviously there's more to it, it still stands that the basic premise is simple.) As such, the gun is the ultimate weapon of individual expression. Here I'd like the cite the Extra Credits episode on the Myth of the Gun. Ultimately, guns are seen as powerful, accurate, and relatively simple weapons that, as has been said, "God made men, Sam Colt made them equal." The gun is ultimate equalizer, though some can use it with more skill, anyone with enough mettle and determination can pick one up and make a stand for what they believe. This is, admittedly, mostly true of guns of the last century, maybe two, compared to the much longer history when they were much less effective, but it is such a powerfully ingrained perception that it feels wrong if it doesn't match, and feelings are often more important to the reception of a fiction than facts.

But that quality of the gun is a direct contradiction of a lot of the elements of fantasy, and particularly one of its most core qualities: that some individuals are capable of feats far beyond that of ordinary men. Guns and fantasy require one or the other to bend in some fashion to exist together. Either guns bow to the might of the fantasy, letting those special heroes and monsters stand unbowed by their might, at least for a time, or else forcing the nature of those special heroes to adapt to the limitations guns create.

In the former, the question often is: why have guns at all? If you employ older period guns in a medieval/renaissance fantasy, what does that add to the experience? They are no better than bows or slings, save that they require less training, and the heroes are, by definition, superior to the ordinary man and so gain nothing new from guns. Guns are to equip the conscripts so they can be somewhat more effective, to terrify the enemy with their sheer racket, perhaps to have canons which the heroes may care about because they tear down fortresses. But only the last really changes the story, and while there may be space for a tale of early guns, it does not belong in an RPG where the players are fantasy heroes, because in an RPG the story is about the PCs.

If, on the other hand, you have more powerful, modern weapons, but allow the heroes to survive them, then they feel cheapened, not as powerful or egalitarian as they should. They may also, or alternately, edge out other kinds of weapons. Shadowrun, for instance, is a modern fantasy with guns, and while physical combat exists in that, it is certainly less emphasized than the guns. But also, this topic is mostly the reconciliation of guns with medieval fantasy, where I think most would find modern guns overly anachronistic, barring some decent justifications that would require significant worldbuilding around the presence of guns in the setting.

In the latter, you limit the possibilities of characters, such that the big tough guy is far less feasible. Instead, you have to have more proactive cover taking, more agile, hard to hit heroes. This can create a very Western feel, but that isn't quite the fantasy setting.

These aren't necessarily irreconcilable conflicts, of course. Many would say that Shadowrun is a well constructed fantasy with guns, albeit not a medieval one. The crux of my point, however, is that the myths and psychology of guns is such that it empowers anyone, while the core of fantasy is that the heroes are in some fashion chosen, special, above the ordinary man. These two themes are rather difficult to reconcile, and so most settings don't have room for guns.

I think guns, therefore, are something you'd have to plan for and build in from the very seed of the setting. They become an important theme, perhaps deconstructing the myth of guns or the myth of the fantasy setting (though in the latter case, you may need a sort of reconstruction before the end of any adventure as well).

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-08, 04:35 AM
Genre includes cultural milieu. I'm not going to have a knight-errant who speaks with a Texas drawl and wears a poncho unless I'm going for comedic effect.

Only because I suck at accents :smalltongue:


Also, Three Musketeers. Go read the books, they used firearms there quite a lot, actually, it's just that movies like them to swordfight all the time because until we had Equilibrium and John Wick, gunfights on screen weren't exactly flashy.

Well duh, look at the emphasis. How can you be a musketeer without a musket? I loved the end of the Three Musketeers film where D'Artagnan becomes a musketeer and gains his own musket (if people are confused, this is the film which had the sequel 'The Four Musketeers').

However, I just assumed that they preferred swordfights because they wanted mainly fast paced action, I remember one scene where one of the musketeers has just fired a shot and asks D'Artagnan to reload his pistol, and it actually takes a while. I think most of them carried around pistols in that film actually, it's just as I said swordfights are just faster paced then gunfights would have been.

Beleriphon
2016-08-08, 08:27 AM
However, I just assumed that they preferred swordfights because they wanted mainly fast paced action, I remember one scene where one of the musketeers has just fired a shot and asks D'Artagnan to reload his pistol, and it actually takes a while. I think most of them carried around pistols in that film actually, it's just as I said swordfights are just faster paced then gunfights would have been.

They're also easier to choreograph since there's a long history of stage fighting, not so much with guns since prior to modern action movies in the vein of the Matrix as most gun fights were cowboys at high noon.

Floret
2016-08-08, 08:52 AM
Isn't the Dark Eye stuck in a pseudo-medieval stasis just like D&D, with only guns being made by dwarves?

Since my RPG "career" grew up on the Dark Eye, I feel like pitching in, if derailing the thread by a litte:
In short, no. Dark Eye is only semi-stuck in its pseudo-medieval statis, with technological advancement actually being made during the (ongoing, if so far only in Germany, but given that the system wasn't actually distributed much without it...^^) Metaplot. (A Pocketwatch being one of the more recent additions)
Dwarves are technically really advanced, favouring crossbows over bows, but no guns even amongst them.

Guns are explicitly not part of the setting though, in large part due to a lack of gunpowder, which simply isn't possible to make in-verse. I would have to read through a LOT of books to find a reason why.
There are Arbalests though (No idea of the official english name), basically crossbows shooting Lead balls. Do not ask me on how they figure these things work though, I tend to not play around too much in the areas of the world where they are actually present (Quite Baroque in culture, actually, and intentionally so, the "main" culture of the Middenrealm being somewhere between Middle ages and rennaissance (tending heavily toward the latter in higher circles and southern regions)

Jay R
2016-08-08, 09:11 AM
Well duh, look at the emphasis. How can you be a musketeer without a musket? I loved the end of the Three Musketeers film where D'Artagnan becomes a musketeer and gains his own musket (if people are confused, this is the film which had the sequel 'The Four Musketeers').

However, I just assumed that they preferred swordfights because they wanted mainly fast paced action, I remember one scene where one of the musketeers has just fired a shot and asks D'Artagnan to reload his pistol, and it actually takes a while. I think most of them carried around pistols in that film actually, it's just as I said swordfights are just faster paced then gunfights would have been.

No, they prefer swordfights because in 17th century Paris, people often carried and fought with rapiers, but not guns. In most more-or-less accurate versions, they correctly carry muskets at war (at the siege of La Rochelle) along with the rapiers they carry in Paris.

In a modern story about off-duty modern soldiers, they won't be carrying rifles into bars. For the same reasons, musketeers did not carry muskets into taverns.


Well, you're wrong in that the guns don't appear in knightly stories. They are rare in England and France thanks to Arthurian obsession, but they do appear frequently in countries that had their heyday in the times they were used. Czechs like to tell stories of Jan Zizka as much as English like to tell Arthurian ones.

Red herring acknowledged. I don't claim to know about every story ever told.

I'll stick with my point. Guns are still not used in the medieval stories that were the inspiration for D&D. I've met many D&D players who talked about Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, but nobody has ever mentioned Jan Žižka at a D&D game to me.

Besides, Žižka's exploits were in the 1400s, in the very late medieval period. Most of the stories about him would be Renaissance or later, when I specifically said guns would be likely to appear in stories.

And the biggest difference between Arthur and Žižka is that Žižka is a historical figure. I was speaking of legends, myths and stories. (Yes, there was probably a chieftain who was the basis of the Arthurian mythos, but he didn't have a round table, seek the grail, or have a knight named Lancelot. These are legends, not history.)

The stories of Arthurian knights are an essential part of the vision that led to D&D. The history of Jan Žižka is not.


Thing is, remember when I said they were weapon of commoners? Yeah, they appear as just that, not as heroic proper weapon for a noble knight, not until we get to British imperial era and Age of Sail.

Yes, of course. I can't imagine anybody suggesting that they were ever restricted to the nobility.

Guns are not so much peasants weapons as the start of the change that would eliminate that distinction. But I certainly agree that they are weapons that a peasant was allowed to carry. Not specifically a commoner's weapon, but, unlike some (not all) swords, a weapon that wasn't restricted to the upper classes.


Also, Three Musketeers. Go read the books, they used firearms there quite a lot, actually, it's just that movies like them to swordfight all the time because until we had Equilibrium and John Wick, gunfights on screen weren't exactly flashy.

Hollywood is in the American West; they've always been able to make compelling gunfights. There have always been far more movies with gunfights than with swordfights. It would be more accurate to say that swords are often used early on because of the fencing direction of Fred Cavens, first used in the 1920 film The Mark of Zorro with Douglas Fairbanks, and which pretty much established the swashbuckler as a film genre.

Most competent versions of Musketeer movies use swords where swords are appropriate and guns where guns are appropriate. For instance, consider the first big melee in most movies, the three musketeers and D'Artagnan vs. Jussac and the Cardinal's Guards. Every film version that includes that scene uses swords and no guns. But that's not a film choice. It was a fight with swords in both Dumas's novel and in the original by Courtilz de Sandras.

I've read the Musketeers books - the Memoirs of D'Artagnan by Courtilz de Sandras and Dumas's three books based on it, as well as many later versions. They are set in the 17th century, in the non-medieval period that I said stories about guns came from. In fact, I specifically added that:

Someday, I want to run a musketeers era game with magic (based in part on The Cardinal's Blades by Pierre Pevel).

I trust you aren't suggesting that the musketeers books are part of the inspiration for D&D? If so, I see no evidence for this. The best musketeers era game I know is Flashing Blades, by FGU. If I ever run my musketeers era game with magic, I'll probably add magic to Flashing Blades, not try to run a post-Renaissance D&D game.

The medieval flavor stories that formed the basis for D&D really don't have guns, and our image of the sword-and-sorcery story doesn't include guns. (Even if you find an earlier version than Jan Žižka, this will still remain pretty much true.)

Joe the Rat
2016-08-08, 09:30 AM
Pellet crossbows. ball is cup like a sling, bull back and release. Like a weaponized pinball launcher. Or better yet, a slingshot, replacing elastic strands with 'bow staves.

Crossbows are more difficult to make, but easier to learn. Black powder weapons are easier to make (depending on firing mechanism... wheellock), and easier to learn to shoot, but horrible in terms of long range accuracy and rate of fire. Cartridges and breach-loading weapons get faster, with a little more technical witchery. They also get more reliable in the "powder isn't wet/spoiled" department. The Magazine finally starts you into better-than-bows territory.

If you are serious about your musketeering (or handgonne-ing for the early "baby cannon on a stick" variants), look at a reasonable rate of fire. I'm pretty sure muzzle loading anything will take an entire six second round (rate of fire 1/2 rounds, roughly). Unless you have cover or an attachment to formation slaughter, these are opening weapons, then switch to proper arms. But you will also have cannon as siege weapons.

If you have cartridge ammunition, even in single shot breech loading rifles, you are getting up to "normal" D&D rates of fire. And a developed alchemy/chemistry and manufacturing technology for standardized bores. (There's a magic item: a firearm that can resize firing mechanisms to a variety of cartridges). If firearms are present but not common, ammunition becomes your limiter. You save your casings and carry molds and tools for making more cartridges, or hope one of the 'smiths in town has the tools (about any metalsmith should be able to cast lead). Or magically replenishing ammo. Skull Kickers goes this route.

Grenades and Bombards are where I'd introduce powder first - as an explosive, then as a propellant. But I do have a love for Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight type characters.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-08, 09:30 AM
Since my RPG "career" grew up on the Dark Eye, I feel like pitching in, if derailing the thread by a litte:
In short, no. Dark Eye is only semi-stuck in its pseudo-medieval statis, with technological advancement actually being made during the (ongoing, if so far only in Germany, but given that the system wasn't actually distributed much without it...^^) Metaplot. (A Pocketwatch being one of the more recent additions)
Dwarves are technically really advanced, favouring crossbows over bows, but no guns even amongst them.

Guns are explicitly not part of the setting though, in large part due to a lack of gunpowder, which simply isn't possible to make in-verse. I would have to read through a LOT of books to find a reason why.
There are Arbalests though (No idea of the official english name), basically crossbows shooting Lead balls. Do not ask me on how they figure these things work though, I tend to not play around too much in the areas of the world where they are actually present (Quite Baroque in culture, actually, and intentionally so, the "main" culture of the Middenrealm being somewhere between Middle ages and rennaissance (tending heavily toward the latter in higher circles and southern regions)

Spring guns and airguns would be possible, although probably named something like springbows and airbows. They work on the same basic idea as firearms, use force to propel your projectile, it's just that spring guns use a spring and air guns use pressurised gas. These would both give an easy way to propel a bullet, although explosives are slightly better.

For what it's worth you could theoretically create a crossbow that launched a metal ball, although that would be by attaching a small plate to your bowstring and putting it inside a metal tube with the sides cut out, so at that point you might as well just use a spring (which also frees you to compact your weapon quite a bit).

For what it's worth, black powder is fairly lacklustre as an explosive in the grand scheme of things, although it's a great starting point. DSA also does have black powder according to my research, they just never seem to have had a need to try propelling a small metal ball with it (which is actually reasonable, there are alternative avenues for weapon development our world decided not to use for various reasons).

EDIT: @Jay R I wasn't talking about muskets, but rather pistols. The scene I was remembering was also outside of Paris, but also wasn't fast paced, the swordfights would have an 'attack' every few seconds while this had waiting behind cover for at least the better part of a minute. I fully understand that they wouldn't have carried muskets while off duty, but a pistol alongside their sword would be useful when travelling the countryside.

Note though that The Three Musketeers happens in the tech level I'm least interested in, I lose interest between the 1600s and Victorian England. I actually agree with you that they generally used the appropriate weapon in most adaptions.

Floret
2016-08-08, 09:45 AM
The stuff existing is Fire powder, which is somewhat similar in effect, but insanely inefficient for anything outside of fireworks, impossibly expensive to actually be considered as a weapon and also heavily frowned upon by the church of Rondra. So maybe on a technicality Black powder exists, it just isn't anything that can really be used for much of anything and its makeup is in some respects different from real gunpowder.

As far as the weapons go... As I said, no clue. Might be those are the Torsion weapons, which would give a clue to how they work, might be I am mixing things up. While I am rather well-versed in Dark Eye lore in general, this is not exactly my main area of expertise :smallwink:

Regardless, I personally find The Trope of Fantasy Gun Control a bit outdated in many respects. It has been used so extensively that I feel like one could make more interesting storys if one was willing to break it. Or at least consider not having it, as it has grown somewhat of a "don't use guns because Fantasy", as is to say something that gets used merely because of tradition.

Berenger
2016-08-08, 10:36 AM
There are Arbalests though (No idea of the official english name), basically crossbows shooting Lead balls. Do not ask me on how they figure these things work though

The authors don't need to "figure out" how these things work, they are not fantasy weapons:


English version:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbalest
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet-shooting_crossbow


German version:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbalest
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balester

Jay R
2016-08-08, 11:22 AM
If you are serious about your musketeering (or handgonne-ing for the early "baby cannon on a stick" variants), look at a reasonable rate of fire. I'm pretty sure muzzle loading anything will take an entire six second round (rate of fire 1/2 rounds, roughly). Unless you have cover or an attachment to formation slaughter, these are opening weapons, then switch to proper arms. But you will also have cannon as siege weapons.

In the Napoleonic wars, an average well-trained soldier could fire 3-4 shots per minute, while five times per minute was considered excellent. So it should be 1 shot in 3 D&D rounds until you've had a lot of practice, then up to once every other D&D round.

[This would be easier to talk about if a single shot wasn't also called a "round".]

LibraryOgre
2016-08-08, 11:54 AM
As always, what role do you want them to play? How do you want them to relate to other technologies?

A place firearms run into trouble in D&D? The ubiquity of tactical use of fire. How are you carrying your powder? How is your powder secured from fire? If you are loading your weapon and hit by a fireball, what happens to you weapon, even if you survive?

Satinavian
2016-08-08, 12:04 PM
Since my RPG "career" grew up on the Dark Eye, I feel like pitching in, if derailing the thread by a litte:
In short, no. Dark Eye is only semi-stuck in its pseudo-medieval statis, with technological advancement actually being made during the (ongoing, if so far only in Germany, but given that the system wasn't actually distributed much without it...^^) Metaplot. (A Pocketwatch being one of the more recent additions)
Dwarves are technically really advanced, favouring crossbows over bows, but no guns even amongst them.

I think, i need to pitch in too.

The Dark Eye is a RPG with a long history and seen the very same guns-in-fantasy discussion that D&D had for decades. There were various authors trying to solve it and relics can be seen.

TDE does also not really have the well known fantasy stasis, there is scientific development, but it tends to be slower and technology trade somehow is really slow so many reagions are inspired by very different time periods. That can sometimes be a bit jarring.


Yes, Aventuria has no guns and no gunpowder. But in 1996 they released a big setting box which moved a subsetting from being basically Rennaissance Italy in direction of early 17th century France. (Not completely but it seemed a bit like a mix now) The obvious intend was to make place for a musketeer setting. In this box they also included 4 kinds of "arbalests" which actually were more standins for early firearms. Arbalests already existed in the setting but those new and improved versions and the musketeers arbaleteers coming with them were obviously made to represent something different. Well, it wasn't recieved too well. Most groups ignored the existance of those weapons altogether a small number of groups simply replaced them with guns.
in the 2000s they decided that this had been a bad idea, the newest regional book for that region resembles Italy a little bit more than France again after a civil war that weakened the local ruler and did away with most absolutist gouvernment structures and those special arbalests were declared rare (something about needing senews from a certain dragon type to be strong enough)

But well, the game world is not only Aventuria. there are two other big continents with official stuff. One, Myranor, is the place for more exotic creatures, cultures, items, and also experimental rules and less conventional ideas. The first box for that continent had already flying and aquatic PC races. The continent has seen rules for ghost PCs, a magic system that is inspired by Ars Magica and yes, one culture with early gunpowder weapons. Really early and not particularly practical that is. In addition to guns they also have cannons. And as those were already mentioned, the continent has also airguns somewhere. As the gods limit travel between Myranor and Aventuria, it is unlikely that any of the more exotic stuff will ever be used officially on the more down-to-eartzh continent, but all that techincally exists on the same world and travel is only difficult, not impossible, so a DM could include it easily. Unfortunately no rules for this continent exist so far in the 5th edition. Those will only come when the main rule body for this edition is done.

Floret
2016-08-08, 12:17 PM
Thanks Satinavian on the historical side - While I do not feel I said anything that contradicted your info, I joined Dark Eye as the current book on Horasia was already out - and it certainly enhances the perspective. (Doing your namesake proud :smallwink:)

Through Dark Eye having one consistent world for its game throughout all incarnations (Extensions of that world to Myranor and Tharun still being technically one consistent world) the discussion of the guns does take on a somewhat different perspective though imho: There is one setting, that either has or hasn't got guns (As it stands, it doesn't. Really. Mostly. Myranor is weird. Also aren't they somewhat powered by magic and that was the explanation for why they work over there? Not that well-versed in Myranor-lore sadly. Waiting for 5th Edition rules, since I cannot stand 4th anymore.). DnD and Pathfinder at the very least have multiple settings they supply - and the discussion there needs to kinda be done for each of them seperately, an issue TDE doesn't face.

In some ways I like the way L5R deals with guns: Yes, they exist, but they are explicitly forbidden because they go against the technological stasis enforced in-world. Of course, that explanation only works for very specific settings.

nomotag
2016-08-08, 12:19 PM
In the Napoleonic wars, an average well-trained soldier could fire 3-4 shots per minute, while five times per minute was considered excellent. So it should be 1 shot in 3 D&D rounds until you've had a lot of practice, then up to once every other D&D round.

[This would be easier to talk about if a single shot wasn't also called a "round".]

Don't bows and cross bows take a lot longer in real life then in the rules?

Still the reloading aspect is something players will expect to be there and a lot of guns were all about trying to mitigate that reload time. (double barrels, revolves, ect) Rules wise, I think a skill check might be what I want. It gives the player something to roll when they have to reload and you can get inventive with different weapons having different rolls and different fail states

RazorChain
2016-08-08, 12:51 PM
Don't bows and cross bows take a lot longer in real life then in the rules?

Still the reloading aspect is something players will expect to be there and a lot of guns were all about trying to mitigate that reload time. (double barrels, revolves, ect) Rules wise, I think a skill check might be what I want. It gives the player something to roll when they have to reload and you can get inventive with different weapons having different rolls and different fail states


English longbowmen shot about 10-12 arrows per minute, they could have shot faster individually but they were shooting as a group. So you could realistically expect every 3 or 4 seconds though some individuals have shown you can shoot much faster. Just look up Lars Andersen on youtube.

The Crossbow depends on the power of the weapon, if you can't **** it with your hands and need a prod and goatsfoot or a winch then you will probably take up to 10 seconds to reload. Then you have slurbows that can fire up to 5 quarrels at once and they will take longer to reload as well.

Edit: Well the censorship is about cocking a crossbow

The musket you could fire about 3 times a minute, though the prussians were known for their discipline and fast reloading and could fire 4 times a minute. Individually you could probably fire and load a little bit faster as this was firing in ranks.

LibraryOgre
2016-08-08, 01:17 PM
The Crossbow depends on the power of the weapon, if you can't **** it with your hands and need a prod and goatsfoot or a winch then you will probably take up to 10 seconds to reload. Then you have slurbows that can fire up to 5 quarrels at once and they will take longer to reload as well.


I wound up, in AD&D, giving every crossbow a Strength rating. That strength rating applied to hit and damage, but also determined if it was a light or heavy crossbow for you. A light crossbow had a rating equal to your strength or lower, and could be fired once per round. A heavy crossbow had a rating greater than your strength, and could be fired once every other round.

Satinavian
2016-08-08, 01:33 PM
The Crossbow depends on the power of the weapon, if you can't **** it with your hands and need a prod and goatsfoot or a winch then you will probably take up to 10 seconds to reload. Then you have slurbows that can fire up to 5 quarrels at once and they will take longer to reload as well.The number for chinese repeating crossbows is commonly given as 10 shots in 15 seconds and the design is said to come from around 200 AD.

Regitnui
2016-08-08, 01:38 PM
I wanted to include guns in Eberron, so the justification I came up with was that guns and gunpowder were developed by humans before they migrated to Khorvaire and started useing magic. They are still used in places like Lhazaar. (The whole idea was to let me do a pirate game with cannons and flintlocks.)

Ironically, I'd actually put guns in Sarlona, in the hands of the Inspired's most elite and trusted human and changeling agents. They're a highly guarded state secret, so their manufacture and deployment is tightly regulated. A gun is also used execute dissidents; it's far easier to disguise a bullet wound under claw or teeth marks. They were developed by psionic artificers under such secrecy that even the Adarans and Tashanan duergar don't know about them, or how to replicated them if they found one.

They're the Riedran equivalent to crossbows and wands; operating off a 'shardlock' system, where a Khyber dragonshard containing a Tiny fire elemental (in the same way a golem contains a piece of elemental energy) is used to propel the shot when ordered. The elemental has just enough intelligence to recognize an individual's psionic signature, and so won't fire for a stranger.

Tiktakkat
2016-08-08, 01:56 PM
Don't bows and cross bows take a lot longer in real life then in the rules?

The numbers I regularly come across are that muskets should fire about 3-4 rounds/minute, which is half the sustained rate of fire of longbowmen, who fired at twice the rate of crossbowmen.

Faster fire by archers was possible, but restricted by both ammunition supply and how long they needed to keep firing.
Most of the speed contests check rate of fire in 1 minute, without considering sustained rate of fire for 1 hour or 4 hours, which would be just as relevant in a field battle.

VoxRationis
2016-08-08, 01:58 PM
I wound up, in AD&D, giving every crossbow a Strength rating. That strength rating applied to hit and damage, but also determined if it was a light or heavy crossbow for you. A light crossbow had a rating equal to your strength or lower, and could be fired once per round. A heavy crossbow had a rating greater than your strength, and could be fired once every other round.

That's a good idea. I'll have to use that in the future. My father and "uncle" have talked my ear off about how it's silly that you can't have a +2 Str crossbow in D&D. This will satisfy them nicely.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-08, 02:14 PM
Thanks Satinavian on the historical side - While I do not feel I said anything that contradicted your info, I joined Dark Eye as the current book on Horasia was already out - and it certainly enhances the perspective. (Doing your namesake proud :smallwink:)

Through Dark Eye having one consistent world for its game throughout all incarnations (Extensions of that world to Myranor and Tharun still being technically one consistent world) the discussion of the guns does take on a somewhat different perspective though imho: There is one setting, that either has or hasn't got guns (As it stands, it doesn't. Really. Mostly. Myranor is weird. Also aren't they somewhat powered by magic and that was the explanation for why they work over there? Not that well-versed in Myranor-lore sadly. Waiting for 5th Edition rules, since I cannot stand 4th anymore.). DnD and Pathfinder at the very least have multiple settings they supply - and the discussion there needs to kinda be done for each of them seperately, an issue TDE doesn't face.

In some ways I like the way L5R deals with guns: Yes, they exist, but they are explicitly forbidden because they go against the technological stasis enforced in-world. Of course, that explanation only works for very specific settings.

I'm planning to convert once the new English version comes out in hardback, I've snuck a peek at the pdf and liked it enough that I'm going to convert, I just need a physical book for the table.


The number for chinese repeating crossbows is commonly given as 10 shots in 15 seconds and the design is said to come from around 200 AD.

Repeating crossbows generally have issues with being weaker than standard ones. It is possible to make a repeating crossbow that has stronger shots, but the tradeoff is rate of fire. Repeating crossbows aren't particularly practical, at least without relatively high tech.

GladiusVCreed
2016-08-08, 02:29 PM
I tried to read all the replies here, but wow there is a lot...

The way I chose to handle guns in my Fantasy setting was to make it rare. The rarity was because no one really knew about it. The first ones to discover it in my world were the dwarves, because they mined the black powder up (unknowingly). Since the dwarves in my world are strict mountain dwellers and prefer mining, few know about the black powder and even fewer have access to it. The dwarves have not weaponized it into guns yet, but use it to mine. There are two individuals who have weaponized black powder, but one died from an accident with it and the other lives in seclusion after people pushed him out of town in fear of what he was doing.

VoxRationis
2016-08-08, 02:34 PM
Repeating crossbows generally have issues with being weaker than standard ones. It is possible to make a repeating crossbow that has stronger shots, but the tradeoff is rate of fire. Repeating crossbows aren't particularly practical, at least without relatively high tech.

Well, they're practical (the design has been around and used for so long, it's got to be worth something, but not in quite the same way as a regular crossbow is practical. Lower force means shorter range and less penetrating power, but there are situations where that's not an issue (facing unarmored opponents in close quarters, for instance). Being able to fire a second shot without fumbling with a quiver or trying to nock another bolt is also useful, if you don't think you'll land the first shot.

LibraryOgre
2016-08-08, 06:32 PM
That's a good idea. I'll have to use that in the future. My father and "uncle" have talked my ear off about how it's silly that you can't have a +2 Str crossbow in D&D. This will satisfy them nicely.

I'd also toyed around with coming up with different mechanisms and assigning various speeds and strength mods to them (so, using a goat's foot lever might let you handle a crossbow 4 points higher, at a speed of 2/3 attacks), but it got more complicated than I cared to deal with. Might be worth it in Hackmaster...

Jay R
2016-08-08, 09:01 PM
I'd also toyed around with coming up with different mechanisms and assigning various speeds and strength mods to them (so, using a goat's foot lever might let you handle a crossbow 4 points higher, at a speed of 2/3 attacks), but it got more complicated than I cared to deal with.

That's pretty much the history of all attempts to improve realism in D&D. The reductio ad absurdum is Chivalry and Sorcery.

AMFV
2016-08-08, 09:53 PM
Well the key thing to remember is that "Fantasy Gun Control" is a trope, in fiction and otherwise, so if you do include guns, people will notice. Because we're bad at realism, we'll assume that this is a deliberate stylistic affectation. I think that as Jay R was discussing, the fantasy books that D&D is based on typically don't include guns at all. I wouldn't say King Arthur so much as Tolkien though, including guns means that you're moving away from Tolkien and towards something else. People will assume things about your setting based on this, regardless of how true or not it is.

The first is that the setting is darker. Guns and firearms are a very real world concern for many people, swords are generally less so. Because it's a real world concern, people will be more likely to see it as grittier and darker. Case-in-point, many fantasy settings with guns in them tend to get pretty dark (Warhammer Fantasy, for example, although that's dark in general.) The inclusion of things that people are afraid of in real life, often signals that other such topics are on the table. Not that they necessarily aren't for D&D standard settings, but the inclusion of one thing that may be troubling indicates that others may also be on the table.

Another thing is that it may be a symptom of a mixed or anachronistic setting. Typically this involves cowboys being put places they don't belong. Pathfinder uses this approach. Essentially Gunslingers are cowboys (right down to the archetypes) who are shoved into a fantasy setting. So I'd might readjust the earlier assumption if it's cowboys pushed into the setting rather than weapons in general.

I don't see a reason not to include guns in a setting, even one that isn't darker, but those are the sort of things I might assume if I saw guns being inserted into a Fantasy setting.

fusilier
2016-08-08, 11:03 PM
To add a bit to the excellent posts on the history of firearms:

Medieval firearms were very primitive indeed. A short metal tube on the end of a pole, formed what is usually referred to as a "hand gonne", although the larger ones are sometimes referred to as "hand cannons".

In operation they were first loaded from the muzzle, then to fire them a heated metal wire would be thrust through the vent (touchhole). This, of course, meant the weapons were mostly used from a stationary position where braziers to keep the metal wires hot could be kept handy.

Around the end of the 1300s matchcord was developed -- this is like a slow burning fuse. Matchcord allowed hand gonnes to become field weapons, but complicated firing: now you had to pour some powder around the vent hole (not in it), and then touch that off with the matchcord. The match smolders, and created ash that was hot enough to set off gunpowder -- accidental explosions did occur. Gunpowder was often expensive until sometime in the late 1400s (? -- I'll need to check my sources, they had difficulties "farming" saltpeter).

That's just to illustrate the issues with a medieval firearm. You can see pretty quickly why it was not typically a nobleman's weapon. The matchcord gives you away at night, and can be smelled during the day. Hand gonnes lacked a true shoulder stock and were usually tucked under an arm when fired, or rested *over* the shoulder for better aiming. Aiming was further complicated by not having a trigger (let alone sights), and having to try to watch the target, while paying attention to the hand with the matchcord. In terms of penetration, they were probably on par with a crossbow, although there are tons of factors to consider. (Reloading times would depend upon what kind of crossbow is used as a comparison)

Things like pistols could be made with a matchcord weapon, but didn't become truly practical until the Wheellock, which was a very expensive mechanism.

If you want a medieval feel, keep in mind the drawbacks (including potential explosion), but otherwise they weren't much different than a crossbow -- in battle/siege they filled a similar niche. If you want nice firearms then things like wheellocks will need to be present. Those can easily be expensive. If you want typical handgonnes, they can be cheap (gunpowder might be relatively expensive), but will have a lot of drawbacks.

Martin Greywolf
2016-08-09, 03:07 AM
So, let's discuss rates of fire.

1) Lars Andersen is a lying bastard

Title says it all. Don't believe a single word he says, his videos have more bull**** in it than a cowboy's career.

2) Bows

10 arrows a minute for rapid volley fire, about as much for aimed fire. In volley fire, you don't worry about aiming much, in DnD combat you kind of need to. You can Andersen your bows and shooting techniques to shoot faster, but then the arrows will have trouble getting through normal clothes, let alone gambesons or animal hides, and your range will be pitiful.

This rate of fire is also consistent across most normal bows (Chinese footbows come to mind as an exception), which is a neat feature for RPG design.

3) Crossbows

Oh boy, this one is complicated as all hell. You have several basic types:

a) Direct draw - slightly less than a bow, about 8 arrows per minute.

b) Stirrup, Goat's foot and belt hook - slightly less than direct draw, maybe 5 arrows per minute.

c) Cranequin - maybe three arrows per minute on weaker ones

d) Full spanner - once a minute or less, these are meant for sieges and piercing of attacker's pavaises, being essentially small siege weapons, when deployed to field battles, pavaise is necessary, and crossbowmen were known for having assistants to reload their other two crossbows while they fired one.

4) Guns

A lot depends on the gun in question, but generally it takes too long to be practical to reload the damn thing. I was able to reload and fire a handgonne after about 40 seconds, but we were two-man team, so your effective rate of fire was 1 bullet per 80 man-seconds. We could maybe take the time down to 30 seconds or so if we really trained, but that's still painfully slow.

Muskets achieve higher rates of fire with the improvement of loading methods, the ones cited here with several bullets per minute used paper pouches that already had a ball and powder in them, and were a pretty late invention, reloading with just 12 Apostles takes longer, if you just have a gunpowder pouch it's those 40 seconds.

5) DnD terms

DnD round makes no sense. If it is 6 seconds long, you should be able to make at least 18 attacks with a sword at about level 10 - one proper strike with a step takes 300 ms. If you wanted to scale ranged weapon RoF to this, longbow would fire once every 5 or so rounds.

Assuming that we do have 6 second round and ignoring the sword use problems, bows should fire about once a round, crossbows once every two rounds, heavy crossbows and guns once every three or four at best. This is in the hands of professional soldiers.

Garimeth
2016-08-09, 09:48 AM
So, let's discuss rates of fire.

3) Crossbows

Oh boy, this one is complicated as all hell. You have several basic types:

a) Direct draw - slightly less than a bow, about 8 arrows per minute.

b) Stirrup, Goat's foot and belt hook - slightly less than direct draw, maybe 5 arrows per minute.

c) Cranequin - maybe three arrows per minute on weaker ones

d) Full spanner - once a minute or less, these are meant for sieges and piercing of attacker's pavaises, being essentially small siege weapons, when deployed to field battles, pavaise is necessary, and crossbowmen were known for having assistants to reload their other two crossbows while they fired one.


5) DnD terms

DnD round makes no sense. If it is 6 seconds long, you should be able to make at least 18 attacks with a sword at about level 10 - one proper strike with a step takes 300 ms. If you wanted to scale ranged weapon RoF to this, longbow would fire once every 5 or so rounds.

Assuming that we do have 6 second round and ignoring the sword use problems, bows should fire about once a round, crossbows once every two rounds, heavy crossbows and guns once every three or four at best. This is in the hands of professional soldiers.

I have the crossbows in my setting use the goat's hook method so they could fire once a "round". In general the problem with most of these weapons is not how effective it is in real life, its how the time it takes interacts with the game mechanics. I have not actually introduced crossbows to my PCs yet, but I imagine I will treat them as realistically (in terms of fire rate) and they would choose not to use them all on their own.

The simple version would be goat's hook crossbow can be fired every round, normal bow may be fired every round (even though really that doesn't make a ton of sense), crank crossbow may be fired once per battle, gun may be fired once per battle. Reloading any of these except the bow would provoke an opportunity attack.

In general I'm of the opinion everything is easier without including them all, including crossbows. To be honest I'm more interested in the tech level of agriculture, the ability to tell time, literacy levels, the printing press, and sailing than I am in crossbows and guns. Then again, that's probably why I'm DMing, not playing.

Joe the Rat
2016-08-09, 09:53 AM
5) DnD terms

DnD round makes no sense. If it is 6 seconds long, you should be able to make at least 18 attacks with a sword at about level 10 - one proper strike with a step takes 300 ms.Step, strike, ready to strike again. Is that a sustainable rate?

Tiktakkat
2016-08-09, 01:47 PM
So, let's discuss rates of fire.

2) Bows

10 arrows a minute for rapid volley fire, about as much for aimed fire. In volley fire, you don't worry about aiming much, in DnD combat you kind of need to.

So aiming takes absolutely no time?


4) Guns

A lot depends on the gun in question, but generally it takes too long to be practical to reload the damn thing. I was able to reload and fire a handgonne after about 40 seconds, but we were two-man team, so your effective rate of fire was 1 bullet per 80 man-seconds. We could maybe take the time down to 30 seconds or so if we really trained, but that's still painfully slow.

Muskets achieve higher rates of fire with the improvement of loading methods, the ones cited here with several bullets per minute used paper pouches that already had a ball and powder in them, and were a pretty late invention, reloading with just 12 Apostles takes longer, if you just have a gunpowder pouch it's those 40 seconds.

Which is a very different standard than you are asserting for archers.
You have people capable of rapid volley fire there, who apparently don't require time to aim, versus people with the absolutely worst possible equipment here.
That's hardly a reasonable comparison.


5) DnD terms

DnD round makes no sense. If it is 6 seconds long, you should be able to make at least 18 attacks with a sword at about level 10 - one proper strike with a step takes 300 ms.

I'd like to see a full attack swing 3 times in 1 second.
Managing 3 unarmed strikes in 1 second is impressive.
Moving a weapon that fast?
Sure you can time one individual strike that fast, but recovery, consideration of opponent actions, and other elements are going to make keeping that up constantly far from reasonable.


Assuming that we do have 6 second round and ignoring the sword use problems, bows should fire about once a round, crossbows once every two rounds, heavy crossbows and guns once every three or four at best. This is in the hands of professional soldiers.

Or, with the standard of 3-4 musket rounds per minute, crossbows the same, and longbows twice as fast, you'd have a musket or crossbow fire every 2-3 rounds, and a longbow fire every 1 or 1-1/2 rounds.

fusilier
2016-08-09, 03:46 PM
3) Crossbows

Oh boy, this one is complicated as all hell. You have several basic types:

a) Direct draw - slightly less than a bow, about 8 arrows per minute.

b) Stirrup, Goat's foot and belt hook - slightly less than direct draw, maybe 5 arrows per minute.

c) Cranequin - maybe three arrows per minute on weaker ones

d) Full spanner - once a minute or less, these are meant for sieges and piercing of attacker's pavaises, being essentially small siege weapons, when deployed to field battles, pavaise is necessary, and crossbowmen were known for having assistants to reload their other two crossbows while they fired one.

You haven't addressed fatigue -- longbowmen can belt out 8 to 10 shots in a minute, but if I recall after about 8 shots they would be exhausted? Crossbows, depending upon spanning method, were probably less fatiguing . . . firearms the least. Although they run into fouling problems instead!



4) Guns

A lot depends on the gun in question, but generally it takes too long to be practical to reload the damn thing. I was able to reload and fire a handgonne after about 40 seconds, but we were two-man team, so your effective rate of fire was 1 bullet per 80 man-seconds. We could maybe take the time down to 30 seconds or so if we really trained, but that's still painfully slow.

Sounds like you were using one of the larger handgonnes designed for two people. I've got experience with matchlocks but not handgonnes. I would guess that a small handgonne (like the .50 caliber ones here: link (http://www.handgonne.com/arsenal.html)) could probably be reloaded and fired in about 40 seconds, but I would lean more towards a shot a minute. Priming probably has to be done very carefully prior to the introduction of priming pans.

One of the awkward things about a matchlock is the time it takes the put the match in the serpentine (c0ck) -- apparently, when pressed, arquebusiers and musketeers, would simply open the pan and manually touch off the charge with the matchcord in hand.



5) DnD terms . . .

Unless you want to use something like GURPS, then it's best just to assume the system is very abstract. In which case reload times are either abstracted to make it more playable (takes one full turn to reload), or you can treat firearms as one-use weapons. The latter is basically how they end up in GURPS when you have single-shot firearms mixed with swords: people fire one shot from the firearm, then pull out hand weapons.

Jay R
2016-08-10, 09:16 AM
So aiming takes absolutely no time?

That's correct. Volley fire is an entire unit firing at an entire unit. You just point it at pretty much the right elevation for it to hit somewhere in that large block of soldiers, without choosing a specific target.


Which is a very different standard than you are asserting for archers.
You have people capable of rapid volley fire there, who apparently don't require time to aim, versus people with the absolutely worst possible equipment here.
That's hardly a reasonable comparison.

He is comparing medieval archery to medieval gunnery, which is to say, archery at its peak of performance vs. very early and undeveloped gunnery. This is indeed a reasonable comparison, especially in the context of a medieval-themed game.

Nobody would claim that archery is more effective than 19th century muskets, as is proven by the fact that archery units pretty much disappeared when muskets became available.


I'd like to see a full attack swing 3 times in 1 second.

Here you go (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCcN7qy4go4). Count the shots after the spin at the 0:30 mark. A three-stroke combo in one second isn't that unlikely.

But you're correct that it isn't sustainable.



Managing 3 unarmed strikes in 1 second is impressive.
Moving a weapon that fast?
Sure you can time one individual strike that fast, but recovery, consideration of opponent actions, and other elements are going to make keeping that up constantly far from reasonable.

Correct. I may spend a few seconds, or over a minute, deciding when and how to do a three-strike combo in one second. The D&D system only works if you accept that it's not modeling actual strokes, but possibilities in a short period. A "miss" might represent a six-second period in which you never saw an opening, and therefore never threw a shot.

[I also drop the absurd idea of exactly six seconds. I assume that rounds are fluid. One round might be a second or two of furious action, while the next one is two minutes of circling warily. But we need to assume some sort of round in order to model continuous action as a set of discrete choices.]


Or, with the standard of 3-4 musket rounds per minute, crossbows the same, and longbows twice as fast, you'd have a musket or crossbow fire every 2-3 rounds, and a longbow fire every 1 or 1-1/2 rounds.

Sure, with a 19th century flintlock musket. With a 15th century matchlock, you can't possibly shoot that fast.

A good (if incomplete) way to compare the value of a musket vs. a crossbow or longbow is to measure how many of them armies with access to them are actually using. There are very few musket units in the 14th century because bows work better. In the 15th century bows are more common, and in the 16th century muskets are starting to be common. There are essentially no archery units in the 19th century, because muskets work better.*

[*The West in the U.S. is a technological anomaly. Native Americans used bows because they had no access to guns. Once they had gotten enough rifles, they used rifles by choice.]

Therefore it's a reasonable conclusion that 13th century musket units are inferior to archery units, and 19th century musket units are superior to archery units.

Thrudd
2016-08-10, 09:51 AM
Grenades and Bombards are where I'd introduce powder first - as an explosive, then as a propellant. But I do have a love for Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight type characters.
Lol, The Mad Bomber What Bombs at Midnight!

He says "you wanna be BAD baby?" and I says "Yeah baby YEAH!"

Âmesang
2016-08-10, 10:30 AM
I'm not going to have a knight-errant who speaks with a Texas drawl and wears a poncho unless I'm going for comedic effect.
Or you're playing a WORLD OF GREYHAWK® paladin of Murlynd with the Secret of the Firebrands feat from DRAGON Magazine #306. :smallcool:

(I've also some notes jotted down for a FORGOTTEN REALMS® Lantan gnome who'd be a cross between "The Man With No Name" and "The Rifleman.")

EDIT: I also figure someone with a big enough Knowledge (architecture and engineering) modifier would do something with it above-and-beyond the ordinary, or is it like Forgery and nobody ever bothers to put ranks in it?

I'm also reminded of Outlaw Star and it's blending of tech and magic in the form of the caster gun; somehow spell-infused bullets/shells feels more flavorful to me than spell-infused arrows/bolts, but that might be the depths of my mind harkening back to some sort of vampire/werewolf/monster story where the hero is granted a handful of special ammunition to combat the threat—the first example of that in relation to bows that I can think of is Bard against Smaug in The Hobbit.

Prime32
2016-08-10, 11:18 AM
Ironically, I'd actually put guns in Sarlona, in the hands of the Inspired's most elite and trusted human and changeling agents. They're a highly guarded state secret, so their manufacture and deployment is tightly regulated. A gun is also used execute dissidents; it's far easier to disguise a bullet wound under claw or teeth marks. They were developed by psionic artificers under such secrecy that even the Adarans and Tashanan duergar don't know about them, or how to replicated them if they found one.

They're the Riedran equivalent to crossbows and wands; operating off a 'shardlock' system, where a Khyber dragonshard containing a Tiny fire elemental (in the same way a golem contains a piece of elemental energy) is used to propel the shot when ordered. The elemental has just enough intelligence to recognize an individual's psionic signature, and so won't fire for a stranger.I would assume that guns exist in Khorvaire, but are seen as more of a novelty than anything else. The only people using them are either eccentrics or have highly specific requirements (e.g. House Kundarak operatives might carry a gun in case they need to fight inside an antimagic field). Cannons might exist, but with magical firing mechanisms (and maybe magically-cooled barrels to allow for a greater rate of fire).

That's gunpowder weapons though. I imagine Conductor Stone technology could be applied to create some kind of coilgun (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun).

EDIT: On the topic of AMF-use weapons, I guess you could also create a gun-shaped device that launches projectiles through a telekinesis spell, and include some kind of lead-lined "airlock" mechanism around the magical components so that they're never exposed to the AMF. Though that sounds really difficult to manufacture.

Regitnui
2016-08-10, 01:50 PM
I would assume that guns exist in Khorvaire, but are seen as more of a novelty than anything else. The only people using them are either eccentrics or have highly specific requirements (e.g. House Kundarak operatives might carry a gun in case they need to fight inside an antimagic field). Cannons might exist, but with magical firing mechanisms (and maybe magically-cooled barrels to allow for a greater rate of fire).


The question then is "Would the Dreaming Dark see more benefit in letting guns be known than by keeping them secret?" Personally, I like the idea of gunpowder being a novelty considered of less worth than fire spells, 'guns' are more like rail- or coilguns powered by magic or psionics, and wands or crossbows are the go-to ranged weapon of mayhem.

Crossbows work just as well in an AMF as a gun. Kundarak security is likely to employ the time-tested solution over some newfangled foreign weapon. Also, I imagine dwarven crossbows being an arbalest or ballista by weaker (read: everyone else except for half-orcs) races' standards. A dwarf in armour has enough stability to absorb recoil that would put an ordinary person on their backs with a bruised shoulder.

If anyone on Khorvaire has guns, or the ability to make them, it's House Cannith. Even then, it'd be in Metrol, hidden in top security, isolated by the Mourning, and with more than a few animated by magic in the same manner of Flying Swords or Animated Armour. There's a reason they aren't known, in my opinion.

Tiktakkat
2016-08-10, 02:05 PM
That's correct. Volley fire is an entire unit firing at an entire unit. You just point it at pretty much the right elevation for it to hit somewhere in that large block of soldiers, without choosing a specific target.

That is directed at the follow on that aimed fire is the same speed as volley fire.


He is comparing medieval archery to medieval gunnery, which is to say, archery at its peak of performance vs. very early and undeveloped gunnery. This is indeed a reasonable comparison, especially in the context of a medieval-themed game.

Nobody would claim that archery is more effective than 19th century muskets, as is proven by the fact that archery units pretty much disappeared when muskets became available.

So as I said, not a particularly valid comparison.
Further, he is comparing HIS time with a first generation firearm to medieval archery at the peaks of its performance.


Here you go (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCcN7qy4go4). Count the shots after the spin at the 0:30 mark. A three-stroke combo in one second isn't that unlikely.

But you're correct that it isn't sustainable.

Rattan weapons against someone on their knees.
And real weapons against someone standing?


Correct. I may spend a few seconds, or over a minute, deciding when and how to do a three-strike combo in one second. The D&D system only works if you accept that it's not modeling actual strokes, but possibilities in a short period. A "miss" might represent a six-second period in which you never saw an opening, and therefore never threw a shot.

Yes, I know. Gygax said that back when a round was 1 minute, and an "attack" included the various counters and feints, with the roll representing the one strike with the potential for serious injury.


Sure, with a 19th century flintlock musket. With a 15th century matchlock, you can't possibly shoot that fast.

Speed firing with a matchlock:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-lGCtbg580

For that matter, speed firing a handgonne (without bullet):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD6SbAzdvc8


A good (if incomplete) way to compare the value of a musket vs. a crossbow or longbow is to measure how many of them armies with access to them are actually using. There are very few musket units in the 14th century because bows work better. In the 15th century bows are more common, and in the 16th century muskets are starting to be common. There are essentially no archery units in the 19th century, because muskets work better.*

Except that is using "musket" to refer to everything from a handgonne to a matchlock to a wheellock to a flintlock, not to mention including rifled muskets.
At that rate, why not include a comparison of 60 lb. self bows to 180 lb. Welsh longbows to recurved composite Mongol horsebows to fowling prods as well?
I'm pretty sure a 14th century musket was a much better weapon that a 60 lb. self bow on the battlefield.

VoxRationis
2016-08-10, 02:42 PM
@Tiktakkat: His point is that given that the topic of this thread is guns in medieval fantasy settings, it makes more sense to look at actual medieval guns, rather than 19th century weapons. "Peaks" of a technology aren't really relevant; if you compare the "peak" of chariotry to the "peak" of electric cars to determine which one you're using in a setting, you're not going to end up recapitulating the Bronze Age. Realistically, we haven't really reached the "peak" of firearm technology yet; we're continually producing newer, more improved weapons.
It makes as much sense (that is, not at all) to compare 19th century firearms to medieval bows as it does to compare 21st century firearms to medieval bows. Ergo, we're comparing medieval firearms to medieval bows.

Arbane
2016-08-10, 03:46 PM
Yes, I know. Gygax said that back when a round was 1 minute, and an "attack" included the various counters and feints, with the roll representing the one strike with the potential for serious injury.


Which sounded reasonably sensible... until you look at the rate of fire of a bow in that '1 minute'.

Tiktakkat
2016-08-10, 04:44 PM
@Tiktakkat: His point is that given that the topic of this thread is guns in medieval fantasy settings, it makes more sense to look at actual medieval guns, rather than 19th century weapons.

Except I'm not talking about 19th century weapons, which are breech loading rifles with cartridges and percussion caps.

And of course when people say "guns in medieval fantasy settings", they invariably wind up wanting 17th century flintlocks, and not just 16th century wheellocks, 15th century matchlocks, or 14th century handgonnes, all of which feature in multiple "medieval" settings, along with full plate armor, elaborate clockworks, and other gratuitous anachronisms.

Of course even that overlooks that the critical factor in rate of fire is not the firing mechanism but the loading mechanism - those are all muzzle loaders and not breech loaders, and definitely do not have magazines.

Nor does focusing on the rate of fire for only a 14th century muzzle loader include the very relevant differences between 14th century mixed powder and 17th century corned powder, especially when semi-magical/alchemical "smoke powder" is used in a setting, or the difference in reliability between an open touch hole handgonne, a fixed match, a spinning wheel, or a simple flint.

So no, in point of fact it does NOT make sense to try and artificially restrict the discussion to only 14th century handgonnes and their rate of fire without considering all of the other factors of firearms in general, as well as Renaissance firearms.


Which sounded reasonably sensible... until you look at the rate of fire of a bow in that '1 minute'.

You mean 2.
Going up to 4 with high level "iterative" attacks.
Or 5 or 6 with specialization or mastery.
Which is about 3 every 2 6 second rounds.
Or . . . estimated average sustained rate of fire.
Hmmm . . .

Aeson
2016-08-10, 06:39 PM
Except I'm not talking about 19th century weapons, which are breech loading rifles with cartridges and percussion caps.
Muzzle-loading rifles and smoothbore muskets continued to be manufactured and used well into the 19th century, and percussion caps were not widely used until the middle third of so of the century.

Tiktakkat
2016-08-10, 07:18 PM
Muzzle-loading rifles and smoothbore muskets continued to be manufactured and used well into the 19th century, and percussion caps were not widely used until the middle third of so of the century.

So that means all muzzle-loading smoothbore muskets are only 19th century weapons, even if they first appeared in the 15th century?
As it goes, some people use muskets today. Are they actually 21st century weapons?

BayardSPSR
2016-08-10, 09:23 PM
So that means all muzzle-loading smoothbore muskets are only 19th century weapons, even if they first appeared in the 15th century?
As it goes, some people use muskets today. Are they actually 21st century weapons?

No, because they aren't characteristic of 21st century warfare. They are characteristic of early 19th century warfare, if also 18th century warfare, being in relatively infrequent use prior to the late 17th century, which is far out of what most people consider to be the medieval period even if they're something that comes to many people's minds when you say "early firearms."

That said, OP has specified what kinds of guns they're talking about, and it's definitely weapons I consider characteristic of the late 19th century:


As for the actual tech-level of the guns I mentioned earlier, I am sorry I did not to specify. The guns that are typically found are around the Wild West era of guns, so there are Cowboy Repeaters, Revolver Six-Shooters and the like. There's even mounted machine guns, but those are extra rare.

Tiktakkat
2016-08-10, 09:49 PM
No, because they aren't characteristic of 21st century warfare. They are characteristic of early 19th century warfare, if also 18th century warfare, being in relatively infrequent use prior to the late 17th century, which is far out of what most people consider to be the medieval period even if they're something that comes to many people's minds when you say "early firearms."

Muskets were frequent enough in the early 17th century to have one of the most well-known and popular swashbuckling stories named for them.


That said, OP has specified what kinds of guns they're talking about, and it's definitely weapons I consider characteristic of the late 19th century:

Indeed.
Which goes to my point that people say "medieval" but usually mean something else.

Aeson
2016-08-10, 09:49 PM
So that means all muzzle-loading smoothbore muskets are only 19th century weapons, even if they first appeared in the 15th century?
As it goes, some people use muskets today. Are they actually 21st century weapons?
It depends on the type, materials, and manufacturing tolerances of the weapon, as well as the date of the design. A musket made to a design first created in 1770 isn't a modern weapon, but if it's made using modern materials and methods with modern manufacturing tolerances, it's also not an 18th century weapon; a musket made to a design first created in 2010 which takes advantage of modern materials, manufacturing processes and tolerances is a 21st century weapon even though muskets are a relatively obsolete type of weapon and are unlikely to be used by a modern military. There are modern muzzle-loading smoothbore weapons used by today's armies; if the design is recent enough and they take advantage of modern science, there is no reason to classify them as anything but 20th or 21st century weapons.

Furthermore, I did not say that all muzzle-loading smoothbore muskets are 19th century weapons, only that some are. You, however, said that 19th century weapons are breech-loading percussion lock rifles, which is blatantly false; some of the most common infantry weapons in the US Civil War were muzzle-loading percussion lock rifles of designs dating to no more than a decade or two prior to the war or to designs brought into production during the war, and that was in the 1860s. Some 19th century weapons are breech-loading percussion lock rifles, but others are muzzle-loading wheel lock smoothbore muskets, and yet others are somewhere in between.

Whether or not the bore is rifled, the type of firing mechanism used, the length of the barrel, the manufacturing tolerances, the materials used, the date of the design, the type of sights (if any), all of these things are things which help determine the period to which a weapon belongs. There is no single attribute or subset of attributes which completely determines the period to which a weapon belongs, nor do all weapons of a given period necessarily share a common set of attributes. It may be nice to say that "all muskets are 18th-century weapons" or "all 19th century weapons are breech-loading percussion lock rifles," but such gross generalizations are typically false (as the examples given are).

Tiktakkat
2016-08-10, 11:02 PM
Furthermore, I did not say that all muzzle-loading smoothbore muskets are 19th century weapons, only that some are.

. . .

Some 19th century weapons are breech-loading percussion lock rifles, but others are muzzle-loading wheel lock smoothbore muskets, and yet others are somewhere in between.

Where did I say that all 19th century weapons are breech-loading percussion lock rifles?

Maybe you should check the context of my statement, which was in reply to an assertion that muskets are 19th century weapons that should not even be mentioned when discussing medieval weapons, when clearly muskets appeared well before that.
Thus my contrasting developments that only appeared in the 19th century with development that appeared beginning in the 15th century, and why I asked if we were to classify weapons by the latest date of their use rather than their first appearance.

BayardSPSR
2016-08-10, 11:27 PM
Muskets were frequent enough in the early 17th century to have one of the most well-known and popular swashbuckling stories named for them.

Ah, I was assuming flintlocks but foolishly didn't say so. Fair enough; I was being unclear.


Where did I say that all 19th century weapons are breech-loading percussion lock rifles?

Speaking of which, you did seem to imply that muskets, in comparison, weren't 19th century weapons.

Tiktakkat
2016-08-11, 12:28 AM
Ah, I was assuming flintlocks but foolishly didn't say so. Fair enough; I was being unclear.

This goes back to something I had mentioned earlier:

"A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smoothbore firearm, fired from the shoulder. Muskets were designed for use by infantry. A soldier armed with a musket had the designation musketman or musketeer.

The musket replaced the arquebus, and was in turn replaced by the rifle (in both cases, after a long period of coexistence). The term "musket" is applied to a variety of weapons, including the long, heavy guns with matchlock, wheel lock or flint lock and loose powder fired with the gun barrel resting on a stand, and also lighter weapons with a snaphance, flintlock, or caplock and bullets using a stabilizing spin (Minié ball), affixed with a bayonet."

(That's Wikipedia to save time.)

"Musket" covers pretty much everything between "arquebus" and "breech-loader", from the 15th century to the 19th century.
And note, the snaphance and similar mechanisms appeared in the 16th century, are essentially early versions of the flintlock, and definitely more advanced than matchlocks or wheel locks.


Speaking of which, you did seem to imply that muskets, in comparison, weren't 19th century weapons.

A statement was made about rate of fire with a 15th century matchlock.
I produced a reference to rate of fire of a 15th century matchlock.
A statement was made about rate of adoption from the 14th to 17th centuries.
I noted the relevance of the different firing mechanisms over that period.

And VoxRationis declared I was talking about 19th century firearms.

If someone is going to confuse matchlocks for Minié ball firing rifled caplocks, then clearly some significant distinction has to be made about what firearms were available in the 19th century.

rrgg
2016-08-11, 01:18 AM
I feel like many people in this thread are greatly underestimating the effectiveness of early firearms. Back before the firearms industry really took off they weren't cheap weapons, you had to find specialists to manufacture barrels that wouldn't explode and mix powder that burned well. You also needed to find specialists who knew how to load and handle the weapons properly to serve as gunners (serpentine powder in particular generally required a lot of care to make sure the ingredients hadn't separated and that it was packed in the barrel just right).

On the subject of power; early handguns came in a huge variety of designs and sizes. It's true that a small caliber gun which was only made to handle a small powder charge might even be worse at penetrating armor than a heavy siege crossbow (although there's a good chance that the short-barreled handgun will actually reload faster (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD6SbAzdvc8) than the windlass-cranked crossbow). Although a 1-inch+ barrel stuffed with a 1:1 ratio of shot:powder is generally going to completely wreck anything it hits.

On the subject of range; Bullets fly much faster and will travel much farther than arrows do, especially the heavier shots. A huge selling point for early firearms was always the fact that they could easily throw a bullet much farther than the strongest archer or crossbowman could. For an enemy army to have invisible bullets wizzing past their heads and even causing the occasional casualty from hundreds of yards away had a huge psychological impact. Eventually tactics changed to favor preserving their firepower for a devastating close range volley, but it's still really annoying whenever a game decides to include a "nuh uh, you can't shoot guns any farther than this magic line" rule which just so happens to be shorter than the magic line for bows and crossbows.

On accuracy; medieval handgonnes were not very accurate. They were hard to aim, and awkward to shoot. Over the course of the 15th century they slowly improved with longer barrels, more ergonomic styles, and matchlock firing mechanisms until the italian wars of the early 1600s when matchlock arquebuses and muskets finally proved to be more than a match for bows and crossbows. But until then they definitely weren't doing much to single targets except at point blank range. Alternatively of course there was always the option of loading a handgonne with smaller bullets and turning it into a big shotgun.

Edit: to sum up, if your guns just feel "like a crossbow but worse" you're doing it wrong.

Kami2awa
2016-08-11, 02:24 AM
In the description of firearms for Pathfinder, it is pointed out that guns feature heavily in much early fantasy such as the stories of Solomon Kane or John Carter of Mars. Much early fantasy is a bit of a complex mesh of adventure stories set on Earth with paranormal elements (Solomon Kane), "portal fantasies" where the heroes get transported to a fantasy world (Narnia, Three Hearts and Three Lions), fanciful prehistories of our own world (Conan the Barbarian, and even Middle-Earth), and even dreamworlds (HP Lovecraft's Randolf Carter stories).

rrgg
2016-08-11, 04:47 AM
Guns aren't harder to dodge than arrows. An arrow shot from a proper bow (at least 90 lbs, rarely as high as 160 lbs) cannot, I repeat, cannot be actively deflected or dodged. You may stick a sword/shield in front of you and hope the arrow hits it and bounces, but that's about it.

A very powerful bow or crossbow is still only shooting at a velocity of around 50-60 m/s. Assuming 1 second is sufficient time to doge out of the way then a person with good reflexes at 50-100 meters could theoretically dodge a single archer or crossbowman all day. A firearm on the other hand would be bound to hit them eventually.

Regitnui
2016-08-11, 05:21 AM
A very powerful bow or crossbow is still only shooting at a velocity of around 50-60 m/s. Assuming 1 second is sufficient time to doge out of the way then a person with good reflexes at 50-100 meters could theoretically dodge a single archer or crossbowman all day. A firearm on the other hand would be bound to hit them eventually.

You can say the same thing reversed. A longbowman or crossbowman is also likely to hit a dodging target eventually. A gunman can also miss every shot at point-blank. It's the weapon, not the user, that's under question here.

LudicSavant
2016-08-11, 06:52 AM
A very powerful bow or crossbow is still only shooting at a velocity of around 50-60 m/s.

I am by no means an expert, but I was under the impression there are some very powerful bows and crossbows getting as much as twice that.

rrgg
2016-08-11, 10:34 AM
You can say the same thing reversed. A longbowman or crossbowman is also likely to hit a dodging target eventually. A gunman can also miss every shot at point-blank. It's the weapon, not the user, that's under question here.
Whether the archer can hit someone at 100 m who is watching for where the arrow is going to land and then stepping out of the way or blocking it with his shield relies entirely on the target making a mistake, which is a limitation of the weapon. A bullet is almost impossible to see in flight and arrives at 100m a split second after the flash.

It depends what you mean by point blank, there are close ranges where a skilled shooter with a handgonne will hit just as often as a skilled crossbowman. And there are longer ranges where a handgonne stuffed with small shot will rarely miss completely assuming a good aim.


I am by no means an expert, but I was under the impression there are some very powerful bows and crossbows getting as much as twice that.

Powerful maybe isn't the right word. Specially designed bows made for flight archery shooting very light arrows can achieve much higher initial velocities (although still not close to the 200-500 m/s early black powder weapons can achieve). Military bows tend not to improve in velocity much as power goes up and instead rely on shooting heavier arrows to do more damage.

Tiktakkat
2016-08-11, 11:59 AM
In the description of firearms for Pathfinder, it is pointed out that guns feature heavily in much early fantasy such as the stories of Solomon Kane or John Carter of Mars. Much early fantasy is a bit of a complex mesh of adventure stories set on Earth with paranormal elements (Solomon Kane), "portal fantasies" where the heroes get transported to a fantasy world (Narnia, Three Hearts and Three Lions), fanciful prehistories of our own world (Conan the Barbarian, and even Middle-Earth), and even dreamworlds (HP Lovecraft's Randolf Carter stories).

Yep.
The lines between "fantasy" and "science fiction" were nearly non-existent back before WWII. Even after the genres started settling down into more formal subgenres, things like Post Apocalypse and Steampunk constantly blur them.
People just plain love guns with their swords.

Âmesang
2016-08-11, 12:42 PM
Especially Cervantes de Leon from SoulCalibur: loves 'em so much he built a gun into the hilt of a sword. :smallcool:

RazorChain
2016-08-11, 01:25 PM
Which sounded reasonably sensible... until you look at the rate of fire of a bow in that '1 minute'.

Or you had that unarmed wizard cornered and could only strike him once a minute. Or watch the most boring boxing match ever.....

Spiryt
2016-08-11, 04:05 PM
I am by no means an expert, but I was under the impression there are some very powerful bows and crossbows getting as much as twice that.


Really pimped out modern compound bows can indeed get well over 100 m/s, people just assume that for Medieval Fantasy setting we assume more 'traditional' bows.

snowblizz
2016-08-11, 05:11 PM
Especially Cervantes de Leon from SoulCalibur: loves 'em so much he built a gun into the hilt of a sword. :smallcool:
Which has been done historically very frequently. Axepistols, swordpistols, knife and fork pistols...

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-11, 05:21 PM
knife and fork pistols...

Wait, those aren't the standard versions of cutlery across the pond? MY AMERICAN FRIENDS HAVE BEEN LYING TO ME! :smalltongue:

nomotag
2016-08-11, 06:24 PM
I would assume that guns exist in Khorvaire, but are seen as more of a novelty than anything else. The only people using them are either eccentrics or have highly specific requirements (e.g. House Kundarak operatives might carry a gun in case they need to fight inside an antimagic field). Cannons might exist, but with magical firing mechanisms (and maybe magically-cooled barrels to allow for a greater rate of fire).

That's gunpowder weapons though. I imagine Conductor Stone technology could be applied to create some kind of coilgun (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun).

EDIT: On the topic of AMF-use weapons, I guess you could also create a gun-shaped device that launches projectiles through a telekinesis spell, and include some kind of lead-lined "airlock" mechanism around the magical components so that they're never exposed to the AMF. Though that sounds really difficult to manufacture.

I kind of doubt Eberron artificers have a good working knowledge of physics. They are more magic focused, so if they were to use a set of conductor stones it would be more about binding together their magical energy to create bolts of lighting rather then throwing heavy rocks.

Overall I tend not to be a fan of using magic to recreate guns. It feels forced when you could simply include guns. also magic can take so many shapes why make it gun shaped?

wumpus
2016-08-11, 06:28 PM
Note that the inclusion of cannon to a medieval setting *certainly* has a huge effect: no more castles.

Old castles may exist (and be in use), but their defensive value isn't all that useful. Those that still stand in use no longer have curtain walls (think stone walls keeping about 3m (10'*) of earth in place) and are mostly concerned with maximizing the lines of site of the protecting cannon.

While handguns/long-guns may have never been the "magic deathrays". A cannon certainly was feared as such (in the early days with the old-style castles). Taking a castle went from season-long sieges to however long it took to drag a cannon up to it and a quick defeat or surrender. I'd expect that cannon didn't exist just for the background detail.

You can debate muskets vs. longbows all day, but the debate typically centers on a level 1 NPC (possibly higher in places like FR, but assume a low-level NPC). The catch is that there really is no way to be any more accurate with a musket than said level 1. For the limits of human ability with a bow, just look up what is happening in Rio (note that such might represent a 5th level fighter thanks to an attempt to maintain balance with the wizard, but it should be useful for some sort of calibration). Make sure you fighter/rogue/ranger has a +3 bow of minty death and supply your (the paladin's/bard's/sorcerer's) level 1 followers with muskets (and powderhorns of speedy loading).

nomotag
2016-08-11, 06:32 PM
The question then is "Would the Dreaming Dark see more benefit in letting guns be known than by keeping them secret?" Personally, I like the idea of gunpowder being a novelty considered of less worth than fire spells, 'guns' are more like rail- or coilguns powered by magic or psionics, and wands or crossbows are the go-to ranged weapon of mayhem.

Crossbows work just as well in an AMF as a gun. Kundarak security is likely to employ the time-tested solution over some newfangled foreign weapon. Also, I imagine dwarven crossbows being an arbalest or ballista by weaker (read: everyone else except for half-orcs) races' standards. A dwarf in armour has enough stability to absorb recoil that would put an ordinary person on their backs with a bruised shoulder.

If anyone on Khorvaire has guns, or the ability to make them, it's House Cannith. Even then, it'd be in Metrol, hidden in top security, isolated by the Mourning, and with more than a few animated by magic in the same manner of Flying Swords or Animated Armour. There's a reason they aren't known, in my opinion.

That is the thing that always guns me about gun talk in D&D. Why do people make guns new high tech devices? They don't have to be. It's a lot easier if they are old because it means they could have gotten around. You can put them in treasure easier, they can have more spins and variants, and they don't requite as much story focus to be introduced.

Mr Beer
2016-08-11, 07:34 PM
I dislike the aesthetic of guns in D&D, so they simply don't exist.

BayardSPSR
2016-08-11, 07:34 PM
That is the thing that always guns me about gun talk in D&D. Why do people make guns new high tech devices? They don't have to be. It's a lot easier if they are old because it means they could have gotten around. You can put them in treasure easier, they can have more spins and variants, and they don't requite as much story focus to be introduced.

Because of misconceptions about the novelty of firearms in medieval Europe?


Wait, those aren't the standard versions of cutlery across the pond? MY AMERICAN FRIENDS HAVE BEEN LYING TO ME! :smalltongue:

Where I live, rifle-chopsticks are more common.

nomotag
2016-08-11, 07:45 PM
Because of misconceptions about the novelty of firearms in medieval Europe?



Where I live, rifle-chopsticks are more common.

What is the misconception your referring too?

BayardSPSR
2016-08-11, 07:55 PM
What is the misconception your referring too?

People assuming that firearms were always a novelty in medieval Europe, when in reality at the time of this battle...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/SiegeOfOrleans1429.jpg/800px-SiegeOfOrleans1429.jpg

... this had existed for more than a century:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7a/EarlyCannonDeNobilitatibusSapientiiEtPrudentiisReg umManuscriptWalterdeMilemete1326.jpg/800px-EarlyCannonDeNobilitatibusSapientiiEtPrudentiisReg umManuscriptWalterdeMilemete1326.jpg

While they were new at some point, they didn't stay new.

That said, they were continually improved over time, so an old cannon wouldn't have been remotely useful compared to a new one - and heavily-used firearms tend not to be the most reliable.

fusilier
2016-08-11, 09:33 PM
On the subject of power; early handguns came in a huge variety of designs and sizes. It's true that a small caliber gun which was only made to handle a small powder charge might even be worse at penetrating armor than a heavy siege crossbow (although there's a good chance that the short-barreled handgun will actually reload faster (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD6SbAzdvc8) than the windlass-cranked crossbow). Although a 1-inch+ barrel stuffed with a 1:1 ratio of shot:powder is generally going to completely wreck anything it hits.

. . .

Edit: to sum up, if your guns just feel "like a crossbow but worse" you're doing it wrong.

Thanks for the video -- really short barrels do make it quicker to load, and that guy definitely has his drill down. Four shots a minute is impressive! I would like to see it done with period equipment, but still cool!

LudicSavant
2016-08-11, 09:46 PM
Note that the inclusion of cannon to a medieval setting *certainly* has a huge effect: no more castles.

Castles existed for hundreds of years after the development of early cannons. The idea that they immediately made castles obsolete is as much a myth as the idea that firearms immediately made bows and swords obsolete.

fusilier
2016-08-11, 10:22 PM
Castles existed for hundreds of years after the development of early cannons. The idea that they immediately made castles obsolete is as much a myth as the idea that firearms immediately made bows and swords obsolete.

I was going to say something similar -- early cannons (early 14th century) were too light, and were often better for defending castles and city walls than attacking. Cannons became larger and more effective in sieges in the late 1300s. Then by the mid 15th century they had huge cannons like the Ottomans used at Constantinople. However, until more mobile cannons came along at the end of the 15th century it took a long time to emplace a large cannon.

However, they did have an effect on fortress design earlier -- by the mid 15th century a style of artillery castle developed. These had tall walls like castles, but the walls were much thicker and the towers were lowered and wide. They were better at resisting cannon fire, but also provided better platforms for mounting artillery itself. The designs evolved into the trace-italienne style over the next century.

BayardSPSR
2016-08-12, 12:05 AM
Castles existed for hundreds of years after the development of early cannons. The idea that they immediately made castles obsolete is as much a myth as the idea that firearms immediately made bows and swords obsolete.

Context:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Deal_Castle_Aerial_View.jpg/1024px-Deal_Castle_Aerial_View.jpg

And cannons in use centuries prior:


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/SiegeOfOrleans1429.jpg/800px-SiegeOfOrleans1429.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7a/EarlyCannonDeNobilitatibusSapientiiEtPrudentiisReg umManuscriptWalterdeMilemete1326.jpg/800px-EarlyCannonDeNobilitatibusSapientiiEtPrudentiisReg umManuscriptWalterdeMilemete1326.jpg

Regitnui
2016-08-12, 02:24 AM
Overall I tend not to be a fan of using magic to recreate guns. It feels forced when you could simply include guns. also magic can take so many shapes why make it gun shaped?

Name a better shape for "point and shoot" weapons. The average wand in my campaign is shaped more along the lines of a gun than Harry Potter sticks. Also, crossbows had the gun shape years before guns took over, considering they were essentially the same device; one used strings, the other explosive powder, but they both propelled a missile at incredible speeds with a minimum of effort on the wielder's part.


That is the thing that always guns me about gun talk in D&D. Why do people make guns new high tech devices? They don't have to be. It's a lot easier if they are old because it means they could have gotten around. You can put them in treasure easier, they can have more spins and variants, and they don't requite as much story focus to be introduced.

Well, in the average D&D settings, magic is far more reliable and safer at most of the things we, in our mundane reality, use gunpowder for. If someone did invent the gun, it's ether a society without magic or its been invented and lost many times over the centuries. By all means, put a "sparksling" or handgun in the treasure pile of the Bronze Dragon. It's then lost technology. But since most D&D settings were built without the possibility of guns, adding them does require some thinking as to how they may impact the world. As an example;

I explained to my group the possibility of "shardslings": an object similar to a gun but built with existing Eberron magitech, and they were quite interested. One player even seemed interested in respeccing to be an artificer so he could wield and make them.

The Riedran "shardsling" is a device discovered in the hands of Riedran agents and Lhazaar pirates. It seems to be made out of Riedran Crysteel with a Khyber dragonshard at the end of a narrow barrel. There's no obvious firing mechanism, though artificers have noted the presence of an elemental in the dragonshard. It is believed, after rigorous testing, that the elemental would propel the spherical stone out of the barrel at a high speed when bade to do so.

Attempts to parley with the bound elemental were fruitless, as the small size of the dragonshard appears to leave the elemental with little comprehension beyond the most basic commands. Zilargo binders have expressed interest in disassembly, proposing that we'd learn much from the miniaturization of elemental binding exhibited here, while House Cannith has put forward a request to have the object remanded to the care of the Twelve for greater study of its properties, including that of the crysteel.

And there's also the feeling of swords and sorcery that may be undermined somewhat by tech and gunpowder.

PersonMan
2016-08-12, 04:47 AM
Name a better shape for "point and shoot" weapons.

Something that popped into my head when I read that was a thing you attach to your forearm - you literally point your arm at something, extend your finger and zap (or boom).

snowblizz
2016-08-12, 06:47 AM
However, they did have an effect on fortress design earlier -- by the mid 15th century a style of artillery castle developed. These had tall walls like castles, but the walls were much thicker and the towers were lowered and wide. They were better at resisting cannon fire, but also provided better platforms for mounting artillery itself. The designs evolved into the trace-italienne style over the next century.

Yeah. The pic below, (click for bigger) shows how you could try and upgrade a medieaval castle. The round turret on the left is a cannonturret, and has *very* thick walls (it has since been retrofitted as the castle was turned into an administration and not defensive building though). It was a very expensive operation and wasn't exactly ideal either, this particular castle had mostly lost it's strategic importance so they stuck with this one upgrade.
http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff120/ang_h_ri/castle/th_WP_20131116_083.jpg (http://s238.photobucket.com/user/ang_h_ri/media/castle/WP_20131116_083.jpg.html)

Also I wasn't kidding about the fork and knife pistols (though I'm not sure how anyone can insist that was a secret weapon, I'd leave the dinner if the host had those, no matter hw rud eit would seem):
http://www.themontrealeronline.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/IMG_6812-Musee-Stewart-610x335.jpg

Jay R
2016-08-12, 07:09 AM
Castles existed for hundreds of years after the development of early cannons. The idea that they immediately made castles obsolete is as much a myth as the idea that firearms immediately made bows and swords obsolete.

The key word here is "immediately"

We live in a time of rapid technological change, and have the vague idea that if one person has an iphone in 2007, then everyone will have them in 2016.

That was not true in the medieval era.

Guns existed, but were rare. They changed how warfare happened, but relatively slowly.

Cannons were becoming part of the business of seige warfare. As that advance slowly became recognized, it didn't make castles obsolete; it meant castle design had to change. That began the building of star forts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_fort), which make it much harder to shoot cannons squarely at a wall in relative safety. So yes, old square castle walls became "obsolete - but note that many of them still stand today.

Guns existed then, but clearly didn't make bows obsolete by the time of Agincourt (1415). In the 1500s, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I both encouraged archery practice. But by the early 1600s, elite soldiers in the French army were musketeers. Here's a fairly reasonable description of archery fading out (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_archery#Decline_of_archery).

Archery did fade out after guns were widely available, but "widely available" doesn't happen immediately after their introduction. A kingdom or nation can't field musket units until they can make muskets and have a large enough gunpowder industry.

rrgg
2016-08-12, 07:36 AM
Thanks for the video -- really short barrels do make it quicker to load, and that guy definitely has his drill down. Four shots a minute is impressive! I would like to see it done with period equipment, but still cool!

The fact that he's doing it in the rain makes it even more impressive!

To be fair Tiktakkat posted the same video a few posts above mine, along with a cool video of a Japanese reenactor speedloading an arquebus (although I'm not sure if he's using a ramrod or not).

Regitnui
2016-08-12, 08:27 AM
Something that popped into my head when I read that was a thing you attach to your forearm - you literally point your arm at something, extend your finger and zap (or boom).

Show me that being used practically, and I'll admit you have a point. Until then, the pistol/rifle shape remains my default for "this end at enemy" designs.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-12, 09:22 AM
Something that popped into my head when I read that was a thing you attach to your forearm - you literally point your arm at something, extend your finger and zap (or boom).

I see a few problems with the design:
-Fatigue, that design is going to be uncomfortable to wear for long periods, as you're putting extra weight on one arm.
-The firing mechanism is going to have to be rather complex, to relay whatever motion you have to do back to the mechanism used to launch your 'projectile' (including whatever fireball or lightning bolt you could use).
-Bracing issues. If doing anything with recoil you're going to have consequences from 'now I have to straighten my arm before firing again' to 'shooting literally damages my arm'. Going just by rifles, I believe you rest the stock against you're shoulder, which is better at absorbing shock than your arms.
-It restricts usage of your (probably primary hand). You effectively lose at least one finger while wearing it, and you're going to need to take it off to use your hand, compare to just putting your gun down. Even if it sticks on by magic, you still need to use your other hand to take it off (even if you can unstick it mentally).

Now, the closest I can design to something practical along these lines would be a bracer with a 'tube' on top of it (to make aiming easier or fire the projectile, depending on what it does) linked to a touch sensor on your palm. It fires when you clench your fist. The problem is that the recoil and hand use issues aren't solved, and the fatigue one is still probably there, but it at least works as a proof of concept for the basic design. The problem is, if we have magic staffs or hand gonnes then the design is just all-round worse than to developing a 'stock and tube' design that looks like a rifle or crossbow.

@Regitnui, I like the idea of magic wands/staffs shaped like rifles, it's inherently appealing to me. Especially as holding your magic staff like a gun would make aiming easier to just holding the end out anyway, I might steal it slightly (of course, it makes using the staff as a quarterstaff slightly more awkward, but I assume that weapon schools would learn to compensate for it).

Regitnui
2016-08-12, 09:59 AM
@Regitnui, I like the idea of magic wands/staffs shaped like rifles, it's inherently appealing to me. Especially as holding your magic staff like a gun would make aiming easier to just holding the end out anyway, I might steal it slightly (of course, it makes using the staff as a quarterstaff slightly more awkward, but I assume that weapon schools would learn to compensate for it).

Not my original idea. I saw it on this picture from the Eberron Explorer's Handbook. Check the warforged in the back of the boat. That looks like a staff to me..

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQBnC-OQMsir2NqBS_67Z6fcxgbaQdP74SPSw6pQj_pPKzt6qatSOaO_ D9d

snowblizz
2016-08-12, 10:06 AM
Show me that being used practically, and I'll admit you have a point. Until then, the pistol/rifle shape remains my default for "this end at enemy" designs.
I ran across this while looking for the knife and fork pistols.
http://media.liveauctiongroup.net/i/8690/9965232_1.jpg?v=8CD4E3CC2A97E00
Practical? But man does it look aweseom.:smallbiggrin:

Regitnui
2016-08-12, 10:15 AM
I ran across this while looking for the knife and fork pistols.
http://media.liveauctiongroup.net/i/8690/9965232_1.jpg?v=8CD4E3CC2A97E00
Practical? But man does it look aweseom.:smallbiggrin:

It's a punch dagger. It's immensely practical... As a punch dagger, not as a gun. Look at the size of the guns an imagine that being any use in combat or adventuring. It's basically "You thought I was disarmed, ha!, not "This is my Boomstick".

PersonMan
2016-08-12, 10:25 AM
Show me that being used practically, and I'll admit you have a point. Until then, the pistol/rifle shape remains my default for "this end at enemy" designs.

I don't follow. You want me to show an imaginary design being used practically?

This isn't going to go anywhere, since the 'design' (which is really just a mental image that's still somewhat vague) is going to look different to both of us until someone draws what they mean (and I'm too bad at that to do it well).


I see a few problems with the design:

I don't think we're operating with the same assumptions, expectations, etc. and that we have very different images of what this looks like.


-Fatigue, that design is going to be uncomfortable to wear for long periods, as you're putting extra weight on one arm.

Doesn't have to be much heavier than, say, a thick or armored sleeve.


-The firing mechanism is going to have to be rather complex, to relay whatever motion you have to do back to the mechanism used to launch your 'projectile' (including whatever fireball or lightning bolt you could use).

It's magic. There is no firing mechanism. You point, you think 'zap', you get zap. The projectile is created when you fire.


-Bracing issues. If doing anything with recoil you're going to have consequences from 'now I have to straighten my arm before firing again' to 'shooting literally damages my arm'. Going just by rifles, I believe you rest the stock against you're shoulder, which is better at absorbing shock than your arms.

What recoil?

This is what I'm talking about. My image is someone just extending their arm, doing a finger gun, and (here's a variant) using a bracer/ring thing that sends bolts of lightning from their fingertips when they think 'zap'. Nowhere in that does recoil come up - but clearly the image of it you have does have recoil.

An in-depth discussion about an idea one has and tosses into a conversation seldom ends well, in my experience. Either I'll solidify the idea as we discuss, or it stays this vague thing that shifts based on new issues.


-It restricts usage of your (probably primary hand). You effectively lose at least one finger while wearing it, and you're going to need to take it off to use your hand, compare to just putting your gun down. Even if it sticks on by magic, you still need to use your other hand to take it off (even if you can unstick it mentally).

You only point the finger to shoot. It doesn't restrict your movement.

Why are you taking it off?


Now, the closest I can design to something practical along these lines would be a bracer with a 'tube' on top of it (to make aiming easier or fire the projectile, depending on what it does) linked to a touch sensor on your palm. It fires when you clench your fist. The problem is that the recoil and hand use issues aren't solved, and the fatigue one is still probably there, but it at least works as a proof of concept for the basic design. The problem is, if we have magic staffs or hand gonnes then the design is just all-round worse than to developing a 'stock and tube' design that looks like a rifle or crossbow.

I don't see why it's more complex than just a wand?

Plus: it's a lot harder to drop, get disarmed, lose, etc. and it has the ambush advantage. You have to pull out a wand, but you're probably going to have your arms with you most of the time.

---

To clarify, I'm thinking of something like this (http://orig07.deviantart.net/49ca/f/2010/276/7/0/bracers_of_the_void_by_orangemoose-d3003wk.jpg), that shoots out bolts of [element] when you point your arm/hand at the target and will it to fire.

A variant (one that came to mind in response to some of these points) would be a bracer + ring on a finger, that channels and leads the bracer's energy to the direction pointed / thought at.

And since we're discussing magic, we run into the issue of differing thoughts on how it can / does / should work. My bracer/ring design might fall under 'that's not how magic works' for you, whereas your expectations of how magic works may fall under 'that's just silly' (see: recoil) for me. We're not comparing apples to oranges - we're comparing unobtanium combustion engines to psychic drive propellers.I hope that analogy works as an explanation?

---


It's a punch dagger. It's immensely practical... As a punch dagger, not as a gun. Look at the size of the guns an imagine that being any use in combat or adventuring. It's basically "You thought I was disarmed, ha!, not "This is my Boomstick".

If the guns fire lightning or fire, do they need a large caliber?

Tiktakkat
2016-08-12, 11:12 AM
Guns existed then, but clearly didn't make bows obsolete by the time of Agincourt (1415). In the 1500s, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I both encouraged archery practice. But by the early 1600s, elite soldiers in the French army were musketeers. Here's a fairly reasonable description of archery fading out (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_archery#Decline_of_archery).

Said link including the following note on ROF:
"Although early firearms were inferior in rate-of-fire (a Tudor English author expects eight shots from the English longbow in the time needed for a "ready shooter" to give five from the musket),"

Note "Tudor English author", which is late 15th century matchlocks, not "late 18th/early 19th century author" which is a Brown Bess with cartridges.
Account for the "ready shooter" meaning one with his weapon already loaded for the first shot, and we get the basic 2:1 fire ratio I initially referenced for an ongoing encounter.

Bohandas
2016-08-12, 11:22 AM
However, the world of Eberron will not have guns. Why? Because wands full the same space already, The artificers of Khorvaire specifically developed eternal wands that will never run out of charge. The wands of Eberron are not Harry Potter-esque sticks that wizards gesture with. They're really more akin to a rifle stock (http://www.ershawbarrels.com/images/common/stock_laminate_wood_nutmeg.png) or a hand crossbow without the bow. Between eternal wands of magic missile or fireball and the hand crossbow, there's no reason to develop gunpowder and therefore no reason to develop guns.

they only fire twice a day though

wumpus
2016-08-12, 11:30 AM
Context:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Deal_Castle_Aerial_View.jpg/1024px-Deal_Castle_Aerial_View.jpg

And cannons in use centuries prior:

So is that the type of place the PCs will go and visit the "Lord of the Castle"?

If you have cannon, you aren't going to have a "castle" that looks like anything described in the "B2: Keep on the Borderlands", and especially nothing with outer baileys made of curtain walls. "Castles" like the one in the picture quoted were used into at least the nineteenth century, and I wouldn't be surprised if the above was used in WWII (the "Star Spangled Banner" describes an attack on one in 1814, one of the most spectacular weapons procurement fails in US history: make sure your defensive shore cannon have at least the range of existing naval cannon).

In AD&D, Gary Gygax went at long lengths to describe the "AD&D setting" as being like a gold rush. Presumably a period of great social upheaval, largely powered by adventurers bringing heaps of gold out of dungeons. In such an setting, it might make a lot of sense to have castles with curtain walls, but don't expect sieges to be the order of the day (to be honest, traditional castles are unlikely to be built once evocation magic is developed: it could easily replace cannon as the means of dropping castle walls. Transmutation might be even more effective, sapping the foundation by turning it to water and washing the rest away.

In the "tippyverse" thread, I quoted the bit in 5e where it says "specific rules trump general". If you like this rule and want to appropriate it, you can add guns (and presumably magic) with the modification that they aren't allowed to obliterate the social order laid out in the rules (perhaps enforced by the Shogun). If cannon would be a problem and the PCs aren't likely (or wanted) to be in a largescale battle that would involve cannon, simply declare that the metalurgy isn't capable of such weapons (historically/tech minded DMs might also remove bells and belltowers, as the coppersmiths who cast bells were the original cannon makers).

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-12, 11:50 AM
I don't think we're operating with the same assumptions, expectations, etc. and that we have very different images of what this looks like.

Yeah, sorry, I was working from an engineering standpoint and trying to assume as little as possible.


Doesn't have to be much heavier than, say, a thick or armored sleeve.

Yeah, that's a decent point, although wearing it will make you use more energy I don't really expect it to be significant.


It's magic. There is no firing mechanism. You point, you think 'zap', you get zap. The projectile is created when you fire.

Yeah, you're assuming more than I am, and also working from different ideas. I assumed a physical trigger as it's less likely to get triggered accidentally, and potentially more reliable.


What recoil?

How the heck do I know what you're firing? But in general, the more mass and energy you chuck one way, the more is likely to move in the opposite direction (I think? This isn't my area of expertise). So things that shoot fire or lightning might not have a lot of recoil, but I can see a variant that uses telekinesis to launch a bullet (not to replicate guns, but to make a wound more likely to become infected). It all depends on exactly how this stuff works.


This is what I'm talking about. My image is someone just extending their arm, doing a finger gun, and (here's a variant) using a bracer/ring thing that sends bolts of lightning from their fingertips when they think 'zap'. Nowhere in that does recoil come up - but clearly the image of it you have does have recoil.

An in-depth discussion about an idea one has and tosses into a conversation seldom ends well, in my experience. Either I'll solidify the idea as we discuss, or it stays this vague thing that shifts based on new issues.

Yeah, sorry, I'm not going to end this discussion by choice, I'm actually very interested if a semi-realistic version of this could be practical at all. I also included recoil because I wasn't sure how this is working, and I have no idea of the side effects of magic. It could be a non-issue, or it could be one that can be worked around, all depending on how they work.


You only point the finger to shoot. It doesn't restrict your movement.

Why are you taking it off?

The difference is I'm imagining a triggering mechanism, while you're imagining 'a wizard did' it for how to fire it. So to me there has to be some sort of physical component that senses your movements, and if you want to be able to fire it quickly it means that some simple hand gesture isn't open to you (assuming you want aiming), while means while you're wearing the thing you can't make that gesture. You're right, it's different assumptions because we're approaching this from different mindsets.


I don't see why it's more complex than just a wand?

Oh, using it is likely simpler than using a wand. I'm imagining something that a fighter could pick up, strap on, and use easily, and doesn't require any knowledge of spellcasting (as a D&D wand does).


Plus: it's a lot harder to drop, get disarmed, lose, etc. and it has the ambush advantage. You have to pull out a wand, but you're probably going to have your arms with you most of the time.

I'll admit you're right here, I can say anything other than that.


To clarify, I'm thinking of something like this (http://orig07.deviantart.net/49ca/f/2010/276/7/0/bracers_of_the_void_by_orangemoose-d3003wk.jpg), that shoots out bolts of [element] when you point your arm/hand at the target and will it to fire.

A variant (one that came to mind in response to some of these points) would be a bracer + ring on a finger, that channels and leads the bracer's energy to the direction pointed / thought at.

And since we're discussing magic, we run into the issue of differing thoughts on how it can / does / should work. My bracer/ring design might fall under 'that's not how magic works' for you, whereas your expectations of how magic works may fall under 'that's just silly' (see: recoil) for me. We're not comparing apples to oranges - we're comparing unobtanium combustion engines to psychic drive propellers.I hope that analogy works as an explanation?

Agreed here, I'm looking at this wanting to handwave as little as possible, while you just want a fire shooting bracer. Both are acceptable viewpoints, although you couldn't run a game with both.

Bohandas
2016-08-12, 02:20 PM
It's magic. There is no firing mechanism. You point, you think 'zap', you get zap. The projectile is created when you fire.


The verbal and somatic components performed b6 the caster are the firing mechanism, which brings up another point which is that wands are pretty much limited to spellcasters and rogues

snowblizz
2016-08-12, 03:55 PM
If you have cannon, you aren't going to have a "castle" that looks like anything described in the "B2: Keep on the Borderlands", and especially nothing with outer baileys made of curtain walls.


This is a medieaval castle upgraded with batteries... (the raised area behind the first low wall would have cannon emplacements)
http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff120/ang_h_ri/castle/WP_20131116_005.jpg (http://s238.photobucket.com/user/ang_h_ri/media/castle/WP_20131116_005.jpg.html)

... and a "cannon tower".
The round thing on the right.
http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff120/ang_h_ri/castle/WP_20131116_003.jpg (http://s238.photobucket.com/user/ang_h_ri/media/castle/WP_20131116_003.jpg.html)

It only has the batteries and cannon tower on the one side facing the main channel of the river. Could build them on the other side too if you were serious.

This is another example, it was built specifically with round cannontowers in the late 1400s.
http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff120/ang_h_ri/QFRD9PD7KYN7B8IHJ2A6KG0MCLIODCRU.jpg (http://s238.photobucket.com/user/ang_h_ri/media/QFRD9PD7KYN7B8IHJ2A6KG0MCLIODCRU.jpg.html)

Tiktakkat
2016-08-12, 04:09 PM
The verbal and somatic components performed b6 the caster are the firing mechanism, which brings up another point which is that wands are pretty much limited to spellcasters and rogues

So just make it a use activated wondrous item instead.

Sure it is more expensive, but you can probably claim some minor cost reductions by requiring the item to be "loaded" in some fashion with a material component, possibly requiring one or more move actions for such.

SorenKnight
2016-08-12, 06:24 PM
Yeah, sorry, I'm not going to end this discussion by choice, I'm actually very interested if a semi-realistic version of this could be practical at all.

You might want to look at the Aeronaut's Windlass book series, depending on what you mean by realistic. The aetheric gauntlets function by magic, but the gauntlet setup makes sense within the setting.



Agreed here, I'm looking at this wanting to handwave as little as possible, while you just want a fire shooting bracer. Both are acceptable viewpoints, although you couldn't run a game with both.

I don't see why you couldn't, especially if they belong to different factions or cultures. The elves have elegant magic bracers, the dwarves have bulky steel gauntlets with a pair of hand gonnes built in.

AslanCross
2016-08-12, 08:45 PM
It's ultimately the DM's choice if guns have a place in a fantasy setting or not. That said, if anachronism is the only reason they don't fit...

http://blog.helion.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Hazelriggs-Lobsters-a-regiment-of-Curiassiers-were-destroyed-at-Roundaway-Down.jpg

Cuirassiers used firearms along plate armor.

On the other hand, the sword-board style being used together with full plate (which one can see everywhere in fantasy settings and art) was more anachronistic. Full plate was effective enough to make shields obsolete and were more typically used with two-handed longswords. (One-handed swords couldn't slash into plate; two-handed swords had better leverage for slipping into vulnerable joints).

That said, the Pathfinder gunslinger does borrow tropes from Westerns, but actually warns against using the high-tech firearms (rifles and revolvers) due to them being too powerful. Matchlocks and wheellocks were contemporaries with full plate for a while.

Bohandas
2016-08-12, 09:05 PM
That is the thing that always guns me about gun talk in D&D. Why do people make guns new high tech devices? They don't have to be. It's a lot easier if they are old because it means they could have gotten around. You can put them in treasure easier, they can have more spins and variants, and they don't requite as much story focus to be introduced.

In the Greyhawk setting they're a lost technology that was semi-recently rediscovered by the White Paladins of Heironeous

Bohandas
2016-08-12, 09:13 PM
It's probably also worth noting that in real world southeast Asia they had gunpowder by the 9th century, rockets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_arrow) by the tenth century, artillery by the 12th century, and MRLs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwacha) by the renaissance

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-13, 02:18 AM
I don't see why you couldn't, especially if they belong to different factions or cultures. The elves have elegant magic bracers, the dwarves have bulky steel gauntlets with a pair of hand gonnes built in.

Because hand waving as little as possible is a world building principle that makes the hand wavy fire gauntlets impossible.

rrgg
2016-08-13, 04:00 AM
Because hand waving as little as possible is a world building principle that makes the hand wavy fire gauntlets impossible.

Oh, "fire arms", I get it now. That sound like it would be fun.

PersonMan
2016-08-13, 05:08 AM
Yeah, you're assuming more than I am, and also working from different ideas. I assumed a physical trigger as it's less likely to get triggered accidentally, and potentially more reliable.

I'd think a mental trigger to be more easily kept from misfiring, myself. It's not often one accidentally thinks "time to make that thing over there die".



How the heck do I know what you're firing?

Exactly my point. :smalltongue:


But in general, the more mass and energy you chuck one way, the more is likely to move in the opposite direction (I think? This isn't my area of expertise). So things that shoot fire or lightning might not have a lot of recoil, but I can see a variant that uses telekinesis to launch a bullet (not to replicate guns, but to make a wound more likely to become infected). It all depends on exactly how this stuff works.

Emphasis mine.

For me, I'd expect recoil to not be a thing when using magical gear that does something wand-like (or spell-like) because the magic making a lightning bolt appear from a small device made of metal and wood and gems is either going to bypass physical laws like that, or take care of it as part of the activation.


Yeah, sorry, I'm not going to end this discussion by choice, I'm actually very interested if a semi-realistic version of this could be practical at all. I also included recoil because I wasn't sure how this is working, and I have no idea of the side effects of magic. It could be a non-issue, or it could be one that can be worked around, all depending on how they work.

I'm happy to continue, I just don't want it to be unclear what this is. :smalltongue:


The difference is I'm imagining a triggering mechanism, while you're imagining 'a wizard did' it for how to fire it. So to me there has to be some sort of physical component that senses your movements, and if you want to be able to fire it quickly it means that some simple hand gesture isn't open to you (assuming you want aiming), while means while you're wearing the thing you can't make that gesture. You're right, it's different assumptions because we're approaching this from different mindsets.

Exactly. I've always imagined stuff like wand use to be primarily about 'tapping in' to the magic in the wand via some sort of mental link, then using that mental connection to direct it - probably connected to physical motions, but only because the user associates the two. You don't need to grip the wand more tightly and thrust your arm forwards for the lightning to shoot out, but it feels right, so you do.


Agreed here, I'm looking at this wanting to handwave as little as possible, while you just want a fire shooting bracer. Both are acceptable viewpoints, although you couldn't run a game with both.

It also depends a lot on one's definition of 'handwave'. For me, "the mental link to the magical energy lets you unleash it as long as you're physically connected to the item, the energy release doesn't seem to create recoil which is because the magic of the item absorbs it back into itself" isn't more handwavey than "the wand stores magical energy".

I can see a game running with both mindsets in play, actually. You'd have different cultures of magic users, and part of the setting could be the lack of perfect knowledge of magic - by the accounts of the archmages of A-land, the B-land lightning gauntlets should do nothing but kill their users in a flash of magical energy, even though B-land archmages will happily explain the precise mechanics of their lightning gauntlets for hours (said explanations presumably begin with 'forget the A misconception that magic works like this, it's actually...'). So it's unknown if they're using different types of magic*, if the magic conforms to expectations of users, or what exactly is going on.

*A DnD example would be something like a wand vs a wondrous item with a similar effect - mechanically very different, but in-world just different designs.

rrgg
2016-08-13, 07:35 AM
On the other hand, the sword-board style being used together with full plate (which one can see everywhere in fantasy settings and art) was more anachronistic. Full plate was effective enough to make shields obsolete and were more typically used with two-handed longswords. (One-handed swords couldn't slash into plate; two-handed swords had better leverage for slipping into vulnerable joints).



Sword and shield with full plate isn't that anachronistic. Some men continued to prefer sword and target even in full plate.

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4163/8801/

When Cortez came to the Americas the majority of his troops were Spanish rodeleros armed with swords and target, so it's a loadout which fits an adventurer pretty well.

In the second half of the 16th century sword and target men would also often carry a pistol.

Jay R
2016-08-13, 07:44 AM
It's ultimately the DM's choice if guns have a place in a fantasy setting or not. That said, if anachronism is the only reason they don't fit...

http://blog.helion.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Hazelriggs-Lobsters-a-regiment-of-Curiassiers-were-destroyed-at-Roundaway-Down.jpg

Cuirassiers used firearms along plate armor.

Oh, come on. Look at the gun, the boots, the pants, the saddle, and the style of armor. This image represents the Battle of Roundway Downs, in 1643. This is well past the medieval period, even past the Renaissance. The musketeers are in full swing in this period.

It's definitely anachronistic for a game set in a medieval culture.

You don't have to set your game in a medieval culture, of course. I've already talked about someday wanting to do musketeers with magic.

But this plate does not serve as counter-evidence against the idea that a preponderance of guns is anachronistic in a medieval setting.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-13, 08:27 AM
I'd think a mental trigger to be more easily kept from misfiring, myself. It's not often one accidentally thinks "time to make that thing over there die".

Really, in both cases it depends on sensitivity, and depends. I tend to let my thoughts wander so I see myself activating a mental trigger by accident very easily.


Emphasis mine.

For me, I'd expect recoil to not be a thing when using magical gear that does something wand-like (or spell-like) because the magic making a lightning bolt appear from a small device made of metal and wood and gems is either going to bypass physical laws like that, or take care of it as part of the activation.

Yeah, I tend to assume magic creates some form of recoil and that somatic components are partially to compensate for this. It's probably a very uncommon assumption, but it's just something that makes sense to me.


I'm happy to continue, I just don't want it to be unclear what this is. :smalltongue:

Let me be honest, I never expected you to have any more than a very vague idea after replying to your first post :smallsmile:


Exactly. I've always imagined stuff like wand use to be primarily about 'tapping in' to the magic in the wand via some sort of mental link, then using that mental connection to direct it - probably connected to physical motions, but only because the user associates the two. You don't need to grip the wand more tightly and thrust your arm forwards for the lightning to shoot out, but it feels right, so you do.

Yep, whereas I've generally seen the motions as required to activate the wand. I like to avoid having 'mindreading' items if I can help it, so things tend to be activated with a word or a motion (so my Dragonborn recently got magic glasses that can cast Charm Person three times today, and the GM let me pick the activation procedure. I picked a command phrase that shouldn't be too hard to work into conversations, 'would you like a cup of tea').


It also depends a lot on one's definition of 'handwave'. For me, "the mental link to the magical energy lets you unleash it as long as you're physically connected to the item, the energy release doesn't seem to create recoil which is because the magic of the item absorbs it back into itself" isn't more handwavey than "the wand stores magical energy".

I can see a game running with both mindsets in play, actually. You'd have different cultures of magic users, and part of the setting could be the lack of perfect knowledge of magic - by the accounts of the archmages of A-land, the B-land lightning gauntlets should do nothing but kill their users in a flash of magical energy, even though B-land archmages will happily explain the precise mechanics of their lightning gauntlets for hours (said explanations presumably begin with 'forget the A misconception that magic works like this, it's actually...'). So it's unknown if they're using different types of magic*, if the magic conforms to expectations of users, or what exactly is going on.

*A DnD example would be something like a wand vs a wondrous item with a similar effect - mechanically very different, but in-world just different designs.

Yep, I wouldn't mind that sort of campaign, but it to me feels like handwaving everything. I tend to try and have laws of magic that everyone follows, some cultures may be able to do different things, but they are all bound by the laws. I'll probably have decided somewhere how magic actually works and allow PCs to discover this if they want to try.

wumpus
2016-08-13, 10:39 AM
Sword and shield with full plate isn't that anachronistic. Some men continued to prefer sword and target even in full plate.


Full plate is typically anachronistic in the sense that it is introduced into 12th century (and earlier) campaigns, not that it is used "too late". It presumably gave protection in a battle that was a three way "rock-paper-scissors" battle between musketeers, pikemen, and cavalry (mostly against pikemen and cavalry). It also was great protection in signalling "rich guy: ransom, don't kill".

Bohandas
2016-08-13, 11:01 AM
Oh, come on. Look at the gun, the boots, the pants, the saddle, and the style of armor. This image represents the Battle of Roundway Downs, in 1643. This is well past the medieval period, even past the Renaissance. The musketeers are in full swing in this period.

Well how about this thirteenth century drawig in which you can see a hand grenade being thrown at a samurai?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/19/M%C5%8Dko_Sh%C5%ABrai_Ekotoba.jpg/800px-M%C5%8Dko_Sh%C5%ABrai_Ekotoba.jpg

Or this diagram of an eleventh century rocket launcher?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/39/11th_century_long_serpent_fire_arrow_rocket_launch er.jpg/404px-11th_century_long_serpent_fire_arrow_rocket_launch er.jpg

Shinizak
2016-08-13, 11:25 AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_firearm

Guns were present during the middles ages, most people just don't realize it. so honestly it's fine in my book so long as we don't have players running around with AK-47's.

Jay R
2016-08-13, 03:05 PM
Guns were present during the middles ages, most people just don't realize it. so honestly it's fine in my book so long as we don't have players running around with AK-47's.

They were rare in medieval history, and more importantly, absent from medieval legends, myths, and stories.

We will each make our own decisions, for our own reasons. I won't include guns as a common element in any game unless it's explicitly late Renaissance or post-Renaissance (like the magic and musketeers game I keep suggesting).

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-13, 03:50 PM
We will each make our own decisions, for our own reasons. I won't include guns as a common element in any game unless it's explicitly late Renaissance or post-Renaissance (like the magic and musketeers game I keep suggesting).

I really need to do more research on the late Renaissance, I keep wanting to make muskets a big feature of my fantasy games (actually inspired by picking up GURPS and seeing that they were statted out). Both from city guards using them and from them being a semi-viable option for players (even if it gets to the point of carting around barrels of loaded muskets). I was wondering if you had any advice for generating such a setting.

Morty
2016-08-13, 04:35 PM
The real problems with early guns in D&D, as opposed to other systems, would be the same as with crossbows. The only way to do decent damage with a ranged weapon in any edition other than the fourth is to fire a bunch of shots each round. So either a crossbow or hand-cannon are useless once your character has more than one attack, or you fire them like an automatic rifle.

Jay R
2016-08-13, 06:00 PM
I really need to do more research on the late Renaissance, I keep wanting to make muskets a big feature of my fantasy games (actually inspired by picking up GURPS and seeing that they were statted out). Both from city guards using them and from them being a semi-viable option for players (even if it gets to the point of carting around barrels of loaded muskets). I was wondering if you had any advice for generating such a setting.

From GURPS:
Hot Spots: Renaissance Florence (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/hotspots/renaissanceflorence/) (This may be a little early for you.)

From Flashing Blades:
Parisian Adventures (https://www.amazon.com/Parisian-Adventure-Flashing-Blades-RPG/dp/B000FJVNU2)
Cardinals's Peril (https://www.amazon.com/Cardinals-Peril-Flashing-Blades-RPG/dp/B000FJVRE4)
AmbassadorsTales (https://www.amazon.com/Ambassadors-Tales-Flashing-Blades-RPG/dp/B000FJS9AY)
High Seas (https://www.amazon.com/High-Seas-Flashing-Blades-RPG/dp/B000FJQYTW) (set in the Caribbean)

I can vouch for the Flashing Blades modules. I've played them, and they're great. I looked up GURPS setting just because you mentioned GURPS. I've never seen it, and have no idea how well it plays

Cealocanth
2016-08-13, 07:33 PM
Well, for my games at least, guns do exist, but the very nature of them keeps them from being used very often.

Guns in these games tend to be a relatively new invention. They are muskets, flintlocks, and other varieties of early firearm - pre-rifling. They are finicky, unreliable, prone to exploding, expensive, and very slow to reload, all things considered. There do exist some more advanced models out there built by the most dedicated and mad of dwarven engineers, but for the most part, a gun isn't much more than just a miniature cannon.

Unless you're pulling some serious flavor-text, playing a ranger with a gun is probably not going to work. The accuracy on these weapons is laughable compared to a bow or crossbow. Unless you happen to be using one of the aformentioned dwarven engineering weapons, which may as well be considered minor artifacts, good luck standing toe-to-toe with any elven bowman worth his salt.

In the real world, guns were used primarily for military purposes and by sailors, for different reasons (at least until rifling was invented). Muskets were easy to learn, relatively easy to use, and if you get enough people standing in a line with them, they basically form a wall of high-speed lead that can really tear into the enemy lines. It's a mundane way to make a moving Wall of Blades. Hand-crossbows weren't really all that popular where they existed at all because the penetrating power and accuracy was laughable. Flintlocks have about the same amount of accuracy, but boy do they hurt when they hit. For sidearms or duels, flintlocks work pretty well.
On the high seas, weapons that rely on strings like bows and crossbows, and weapons with untreated metal were much more likely to break. Seawater does a real number on a bowstring, and makes it get crusty and snap when you draw it. Guns were the next best thing. While wet powder and wet fuses makes your weapons pretty much useless (except as a club), at least they can be semi-reliable when fired, compared to bows, which didn't work at all after a week at sea.

But this is a fantasy game. We have magical materials and cheap and easy incantations that can make the corrosive properties of seawater meaningless, so bows can be used at sea just as easily on land. Armies don't really have a use for muskets because, while they are very loud, they are pretty much useless in comparison to the deadly effectiveness of your back lines of wizard artillery. Fireballs > muskets. This results in a world where people will ask why anyone would invent a weapon like a gun, as things that already exist are so much better. It's just like laser weaponry today. Why would anyone invent a weapon that draws a lot of power and takes minutes to melt through a target when we can do the same thing in a second with an AK47?

VoxRationis
2016-08-13, 08:59 PM
As Tiktakkat has pointed out, the OP listed the weapons they meant by "guns": American Civil War-era repeaters, revolvers, and even machine guns. And that's where the incompatibility with "medieval fantasy" crops up. If guns are presented are repeating weapons, probably rifled, and firing with percussion or firing pin sorts of ignition mechanisms, a medieval military system will collapse rather quickly. Even a revolver will tear apart medieval cavalry and infantry in an open field battle, and will probably do well against archers (I'm not sure how Civil War-era revolvers stack up in terms of effective range and accuracy, but I'd bet they're competitive with archery). This means that sword- and lance-bearing knightly cavalry won't be able to dominate the battlefield, and the aristocracy won't be able to dominate society in the same way. It's possible that the aristocracy would artificially restrict the availability of such weapons, perhaps only making them for nobles, but that would be highly unstable, as any commander would be tempted to give their non-noble forces a few guns to make up for a lack of aristocratic numbers on their part. Armor won't be too useful against repeating late 19th-century firearms, and swords won't end up being used as anything but fallback weapons, since a melee charge against someone who can rapidly fire 2-3 shots into a charging enemy in a few seconds is self-destructive.

Addressing the "they're special, rare artifacts" point: The problem with gun-artifacts, as opposed to sword-artifacts, is that firearms are dependent upon a certain degree of infrastructure. Shelled cartridges with pre-measured powder charges and fulminate-based firing mechanisms don't really work in a vacuum. A sword can exist in a setting where literally no one makes swords and still continue to do its function. A gun can function for one or two firefights in a setting without its surrounding infrastructure. (Unless it has magically-replenishing magazines or something to that effect, but if it's got that sort of heavy magic, why bother with the gun? You could do something better.)

Bohandas
2016-08-13, 09:38 PM
Addressing the "they're special, rare artifacts" point: The problem with gun-artifacts, as opposed to sword-artifacts, is that firearms are dependent upon a certain degree of infrastructure. Shelled cartridges with pre-measured powder charges and fulminate-based firing mechanisms don't really work in a vacuum. A sword can exist in a setting where literally no one makes swords and still continue to do its function. A gun can function for one or two firefights in a setting without its surrounding infrastructure. (Unless it has magically-replenishing magazines or something to that effect, but if it's got that sort of heavy magic, why bother with the gun? You could do something better.)

Different from sword artifacts but very much like the Book of Infinite Spells and Talisman of Ultimate Evil.

Plus, since it's a fantasy setting why couldn't the gun also be magic in addition to being a gun. Like Dante's handguns in Devil May Cry that never run out of ammunition. It would be better than infinite bolts in a crossbow. You wouldn't have to wind it.

Tiktakkat
2016-08-13, 10:25 PM
As Tiktakkat has pointed out, the OP listed the weapons they meant by "guns": American Civil War-era repeaters, revolvers, and even machine guns.

Actually that was BayardSPSR while we were digressing on which century muskets were in use.


And that's where the incompatibility with "medieval fantasy" crops up.

Pretty much I agree with that.


If guns are presented are repeating weapons, probably rifled, and firing with percussion or firing pin sorts of ignition mechanisms, a medieval military system will collapse rather quickly. . . .

We actually have a number of battles that reflect this, including a few where the "medieval" forces won.
Isandlwana is probably the best known:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana
Naturally it is contrasted with Rorke's Drift:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rorke%27s_Drift

Next would be the Siege of Khartoum and the death of "Chinese" Gordon:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Khartoum
Which gets contrasted with the Battles of Tamai and Abu Klea:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tamai
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Abu_Klea

On the fully modern end talking about cavalry charges we of course get the Charge of the Light Brigade:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_of_the_Light_Brigade

"Technically", the lower tech forces don't always lose.
Functionally, there are easier and more reliable ways of throwing troops away.


Addressing the "they're special, rare artifacts" point: The problem with gun-artifacts, as opposed to sword-artifacts, is that firearms are dependent upon a certain degree of infrastructure. Shelled cartridges with pre-measured powder charges and fulminate-based firing mechanisms don't really work in a vacuum.

That is an even bigger issue in my view.
Gunpowder can be fairly easily managed, even in an otherwise fully medieval context. Indeed there is a rather significant segment of science fiction that includes such things, including one of my favorites, Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. (Going recent, there was the movie Doomsday, which had as a core concept "medieval knights plus modern firearms".)
But brass cartridges, percussion caps, and, for real repeaters, smokeless powder, is a whole other thing, and even Eberron level magitech is really not going to be able to account for it.


Overall, it is a very different sub-genre from the more typical "medieval fantasy", even when the "medieval" part is actually heavily Renaissance, and would likely be better approached from that starting point for anyone interested in it.

VoxRationis
2016-08-13, 10:40 PM
Plus, since it's a fantasy setting why couldn't the gun also be magic in addition to being a gun. Like Dante's handguns in Devil May Cry that never run out of ammunition. It would be better than infinite bolts in a crossbow. You wouldn't have to wind it.

Because there's better applications of that magical ability. You have a magical device that can either create precision-manufactured items spontaneously or teleport material from one or more places to within its own confines (possibly working them after teleportation or teleporting already-manufactured items). Why waste that on a comparatively mundane projectile? Why not go for infinite explosive rockets, custom-made to curve in particular arcs according to the current tactical needs? Why not have a weapon which teleports away pieces of its target to make the projectiles it fires?

(Even this is assuming that these are the only magical effects the device's creators were capable of, which is unlikely. A simple wand of fireball or similar effect would do better for pure damage. Depending on how teleportation works, one might be able to make a wand that gives targeting information for a spell effect that teleports ordnance directly into or onto a target.)

Âmesang
2016-08-13, 10:57 PM
That reminds me! Did anyone watch the film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, specifically the scene of Saruman preparing his explosive powder, and think, "…gee, that looks like it was lifted off of Army of Darkness!"

I'm well ware of how old the book is, I'm referring strictly to the direction of the scene on film; in fact, as I recall, Saruman's explosive in the book was far less obvious.

Trask
2016-08-14, 12:08 AM
I sort of like the idea of guns in a fantasy setting that are perhaps left over as relics of an ancient and advanced civilization. Perhaps maybe Industrial civilization that collapsed and the world reverted to the dark ages. With this guns would be powerful indeed, easy to use, but rare, prone to disrepair and with limited ammo. I would liken them to something like wands. Things that anyone can pick up and use but its to be used sparingly, more like a powerful resource than a main mode of attack.

I never really like when settings make guns holy and unobtainable or some other contrivance because it simply doesnt make a lot of sense. Guns were easier to use than bows, they gave power to the peasant and serf to defend his lands with ease. Very early firearms were actually quite inferior to crossbows in combat and not even more expensive but were quite a bit easier to use and that is what led to the rise of guns.

Regitnui
2016-08-14, 02:29 AM
even Eberron level magitech is really not going to be able to account for it.

Which is why I spent some time thinking of a way guns could be developed within Eberron's existed infrastructure and tech. It's all good and well to put guns into a setting without them, but you've then got to ask why the world isn't radically different. Guns have a massive impact on our manufacturing and research, arguably being one of the major drivers of the modern age. Fo example, ships and aeroplanes would likely have taken a different path were gunpowder weapons not as available as they were and are.

Tiktakkat
2016-08-14, 11:04 AM
Fo example, ships and aeroplanes would likely have taken a different path were gunpowder weapons not as available as they were and are.

That is something I find very annoying in most attempts to do ships in FRPGs that exclude gunpowder.
They want swashbuckling pirates, and think they can get that by handwaving ballistae and catapults as stand-ins for broadsides of cannon, completely ignoring how the requirements and potential of cannon affected ship design in the first place.

Bohandas
2016-08-14, 11:47 AM
Which is why I spent some time thinking of a way guns could be developed within Eberron's existed infrastructure and tech.

You could probably make a gauss gun out of conductor stones

fusilier
2016-08-14, 12:04 PM
They were rare in medieval history, and more importantly, absent from medieval legends, myths, and stories.

Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, written in the early 1500s but set in the "Charlemagne" period, includes a firearm that's considered an infernal device used by a tyrant (if I remember correctly). A hero eventually defeats the tyrant and dumps the weapon in the ocean.

While we debate the effectiveness of firearms vis-a-vis other available weapons, there does seem to have been some feeling in the Renaissance that their introduction had an effect on traditional social structures, and were seen as "unfair" in that regard. That may have been due to coincidence (guns being developed at a time when feudal systems were weakening), but that feeling did seem to be present.

fusilier
2016-08-14, 12:14 PM
I really need to do more research on the late Renaissance, I keep wanting to make muskets a big feature of my fantasy games (actually inspired by picking up GURPS and seeing that they were statted out). Both from city guards using them and from them being a semi-viable option for players (even if it gets to the point of carting around barrels of loaded muskets). I was wondering if you had any advice for generating such a setting.

GURPS Hot Spots: Florence is good but the military section is probably a little early for muskets. I don't know if they ever made a 4th edition version, but GURPS Swashbucklers would have good information for the period. I mainly run GURPS 3rd edition, but I've found the books from either edition can be used together with a minimal amount of conversion (most of the books are just details on worlds).

For my GURPS games set in the late Renaissance, I've found that I needed both Low-Tech (for armor and swords), and High-Tech for muskets and pistols. In practice the players would typical fire one shot from their firearms, then get into hand-to-hand. Unless you structure the combat for ranged fire, the reload times are just too long to be used with hand-to-hand combat. It is possible to structure it -- firing from siege works, or fortress walls, a ship firing on another ship, etc. In that case you can take "long rounds" so that reloading can be "fast-forwarded". :-)

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-14, 12:45 PM
Plus, since it's a fantasy setting why couldn't the gun also be magic in addition to being a gun. Like Dante's handguns in Devil May Cry that never run out of ammunition. It would be better than infinite bolts in a crossbow. You wouldn't have to wind it.

First, that's supposed to be a power of Dante's (at least in the original good series, not sure about DmC), and apart from a couple you could argue that he's not making an actual bullet as much as a fairly close substitute. But I digress, and Dante's power is literally a handwave so you don't have to scavange ammo (although that would make for an interesting DMC spin-off, play a character with stronger than normal ranged attacks who has limited ammunition, and then have them switch between the various guns whenever they can't use melee attacks. It would feel very different to playing as Dante though*).

* Although let's be fair, DmC's chain grabs made it so you didn't feel like you were playing as Dante, more like Dante and Nero had been thrown into a blender and spread on a longcoat.


From GURPS:
Hot Spots: Renaissance Florence (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/hotspots/renaissanceflorence/) (This may be a little early for you.)

From Flashing Blades:
Parisian Adventures (https://www.amazon.com/Parisian-Adventure-Flashing-Blades-RPG/dp/B000FJVNU2)
Cardinals's Peril (https://www.amazon.com/Cardinals-Peril-Flashing-Blades-RPG/dp/B000FJVRE4)
AmbassadorsTales (https://www.amazon.com/Ambassadors-Tales-Flashing-Blades-RPG/dp/B000FJS9AY)
High Seas (https://www.amazon.com/High-Seas-Flashing-Blades-RPG/dp/B000FJQYTW) (set in the Caribbean)

I can vouch for the Flashing Blades modules. I've played them, and they're great. I looked up GURPS setting just because you mentioned GURPS. I've never seen it, and have no idea how well it plays

I'll have a look, what is Flashing Blades? I've heard the name but never actually encountered the systems.


GURPS Hot Spots: Florence is good but the military section is probably a little early for muskets. I don't know if they ever made a 4th edition version, but GURPS Swashbucklers would have good information for the period. I mainly run GURPS 3rd edition, but I've found the books from either edition can be used together with a minimal amount of conversion (most of the books are just details on worlds).

For my GURPS games set in the late Renaissance, I've found that I needed both Low-Tech (for armor and swords), and High-Tech for muskets and pistols. In practice the players would typical fire one shot from their firearms, then get into hand-to-hand. Unless you structure the combat for ranged fire, the reload times are just too long to be used with hand-to-hand combat. It is possible to structure it -- firing from siege works, or fortress walls, a ship firing on another ship, etc. In that case you can take "long rounds" so that reloading can be "fast-forwarded". :-)

I'll see if I can grab those books, and I understand that it's probably going to end up as you say. I own 4e because I got it quite recently, but 3rd edition books will mainly require a slight reworking of points values before using them. I should definitely get Low-Tech though.

Xuc Xac
2016-08-14, 01:06 PM
King Arthur supposedly lived in the early middle ages, but most of the stories about him were written down much later, which is why the knights of the round table wear plate instead of chain. In some versions, Mordred lays siege to Camelot with big cannon, because that was the late medieval idea of attacking a castle.

I've yet to see any argument against guns in a fantasy setting that makes any sense other than "it just hasn't been discovered yet". The ingredients are very simple and it could have been made in the Neolithic age, but it can only be discovered by accident. In the real world, it was found by a bunch of Chinese alchemists looking for immortality. Intentionally inventing it would require so much knowledge of chemistry that you wouldn't make gunpowder at all. If you knew enough chemistry to make gunpowder intentionally, then you would also know enough to make better things like guncotton or smokeless powder, which are superior products and just as easy to make. If you don't want guns because they don't fit the aesthetic you want for your setting, then just say nobody discovered it yet.

"Why would they invent gunpowder if they have magic?" Let's ignore the fact that it's really hard to raise an army of thousands of wizards. Nobody was doing R&D to find a replacement for the bow. Gunpowder was discovered by accident and it wasn't weaponized until much later (probably after someone lost an eye when teenagers started launching fireworks at each other). And, in fact, the people who discovered gunpowder thought they did have magic. They were trying to make an immortality potion and got gunpowder by accident.

"Wizards could just fireball artillery and blow up all the powder!" Because a fireball to a catapult wouldn't slaughter the crew and set fire to the wooden engine just as well. If your artillery crews are getting fireballs thrown at them, they're dead no matter what weapon they were shooting.

"If you have a bunch of ammo on you when you get fireballed, you'll get blown up!" If you get hit with a fireball, you won't even notice your paper cartridges fizzling. That's like worrying about lead poisoning when you're getting shot. And when is the last time an archer worried about breaking a bow string when getting blasted by fireballs? Why do we allow all kinds of hand waving for archers to overlook all the limitations of bows in favor of fun, but we have to be extra strict and harsh to control guns?

"Guns would be too powerful!" Too powerful for whom? Fighters? I don't see anyone banning wizards from casting spells of level 3 or higher. Power isn't the issue. And why would find be super powerful? It's like gamers think guns gave to be statted to allow instant kill headshots or something. Swords are statted based on heroes getting nicks and scratches, but not on mooks getting cut down and run through left and right. Guns are statted based on henchman going down in one shot, but not on heroes getting "grazed" on the shoulder or "it's just a flesh wound". It's a weird double standard. If a sword that can cut a man in half only does 1d8 damage, then a bullet that can be deflected by a bone doesn't need to be 3d12 with a 16-20/x4 crit.

"PCs would just use a big wagon load of gunpowder to blow stuff up!" They can try, but gunpowder doesn't just explode by itself. It's flammable but if it isn't tightly contained, then it goes "poof" instead of "BOOM!" If they have a store of powder, do they know how to make grenades or petards with it? And gunpowder isn't free. By the time PCs can easily buy a lot of it, the wizards are going to be throwing fire and lightning around. If they want to use it to breach a dungeon wall, they can't just set a barrel against the wall and light a fuse. They'll need mining tools to set a proper charge. If they aren't planning to excavate a long tunnel, it would be easier just to use a pick or sledgehammer.

wumpus
2016-08-14, 01:17 PM
The real problems with early guns in D&D, as opposed to other systems, would be the same as with crossbows. The only way to do decent damage with a ranged weapon in any edition other than the fourth is to fire a bunch of shots each round. So either a crossbow or hand-cannon are useless once your character has more than one attack, or you fire them like an automatic rifle.

The biggest similarity to a crossbow bolt and a longbow arrow is that the bolt only has stabilizing feathers for pitch. A musket shot has no stabilization at all, and an arrow is stable in all directions. In other words, a musket ball pretty much flies like a "knuckleball" and is going to be inaccurate regardless of your BAC, dexterity, or other bonuses (this *should* be true of crossbows, but I haven't heard about the lack of a vertical feather. I suspect that the feathers are slightly curved for spin stabilization).

A Robin Hood or William Tell has a place in Fantasy Settings. A "crack shot" needs an anachronistic rifle (they *might* have existed fairly early, but I think the first effective military use was the US revolutionary war. Widespread use of rifles was more like the Crimean War.

It should be trivial to convince your PCs to avoid muskets if you don't want them to have them (just kill any accuracy bonus). "Draw and drop" pistols might be a different story, they seem like the ideal weapon for more roguish PCs (and probably aren't *that* worse modern than snub-nosed pistols at close range).

Jay R
2016-08-14, 01:25 PM
I'll have a look, what is Flashing Blades? I've heard the name but never actually encountered the systems.

Flashing Blades is a rpg from FGU, set in France in the time of the musketeers. They are pretty straightforward that it is "designed to capture the adventurous and light-hearted spirit of swashbuckling adventure stories and movies".

You can buy the pdf here (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/585/Flashing-Blades?it=1).

It has no magic (although one of the adventures is a supposed haunted chateau, and voodoo comes up in one of the Caribbean adventures). But it's a pretty well-developed culture. The classes are actually mostly about class - Noble, Gentleman, Soldier, and Rogue, with Sailor and Pirate added in the Caribbean supplement.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-14, 01:39 PM
Flashing Blades is a rpg from FGU, set in France in the time of the musketeers. They are pretty straightforward that it is "designed to capture the adventurous and light-hearted spirit of swashbuckling adventure stories and movies".

You can buy the pdf here (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/585/Flashing-Blades?it=1).

It has no magic (although one of the adventures is a supposed haunted chateau, and voodoo comes up in one of the Caribbean adventures). But it's a pretty well-developed culture. The classes are actually mostly about class - Noble, Gentleman, Soldier, and Rogue, with Sailor and Pirate added in the Caribbean supplement.

I'll have a look when I have money. I'm sure that if I need magic I can homebrew a magic system for it, I don't intend to give the PCs access to anything major (I intend to restrict them mainly to utility magic, make combat magic non-existent, and then have stuff like mind control and weather magic be stuff they just haven't had the chance to learn at all).

I do like the idea of classes being about your social class though, I'll definitely have a look.

Regitnui
2016-08-14, 01:46 PM
You could probably make a gauss gun out of conductor stones

That device would probably have to be the size of a cannon at the very least, since the conductor stones would tear the barrel apart were they put too close together. A siege railgun does sound extremely plausible for a weapon, though. I can certainly see Aundair or Breland employing such a thing were the cold war to reignite.

Gnoman
2016-08-14, 02:37 PM
If you knew enough chemistry to make gunpowder intentionally, then you would also know enough to make better things like guncotton or smokeless powder, which are superior products and just as easy to make.


Manufacturing of black powder, even proper corned powder, can be done on a kitchen table, and requires three very common and easily obtained substances, all of which burn readily (in other words, coming up with using them isn't that much of a stretch- saltpetre is a very reactive substance by itself, even). Manufacturing any kind of smokeless powder requires a fair bit of mechanical support, quite a few intermediate steps, and the invention of several precursor chemicals which would require a much higher understanding of chemistry to even conceive of them being useful. It is far from impossible to make guncotton, cordite, or other such propellants with the typical faux-medieval level of technology, but there's a very good reason it took around six hundred years to go from the first crude black powder to even the most rudimentary replacement.


The biggest similarity to a crossbow bolt and a longbow arrow is that the bolt only has stabilizing feathers for pitch. A musket shot has no stabilization at all, and an arrow is stable in all directions. In other words, a musket ball pretty much flies like a "knuckleball" and is going to be inaccurate regardless of your BAC, dexterity, or other bonuses (this *should* be true of crossbows, but I haven't heard about the lack of a vertical feather. I suspect that the feathers are slightly curved for spin stabilization).

A Robin Hood or William Tell has a place in Fantasy Settings. A "crack shot" needs an anachronistic rifle (they *might* have existed fairly early, but I think the first effective military use was the US revolutionary war. Widespread use of rifles was more like the Crimean War.


The first gunpowder rifle (the same principle was experimented with by the ancient Greeks to improve the performance of ballistae and bows) was made in 1520, but was not used militarily for fundamentally the same reason that rifles weren't used on a large scale militarily until the invention of the Minee bullet in the 19th century (the famed American sharpshooters were primarily skirmishing troops, and made up a small portion of the Continental Army) - it took far too long to load them, and after a few shots you're not going to be able to see well enough to take advantage of the accuracy due to the smoke. Rifles were used from the beginning by civilians for hunting, protection against dangerous animals, and the occasional skirmish with bandits or (in colonial areas) hostile natives, as these were applications where only one shot usually needed to be fired. A PC adventurer carrying such a weapon at any time where gunpowder weapons better than a handgonne were available wouldn't skew the timeline even a little bit.

For that matter, it is quite possible to get quite decent accuracy out of a smoothbore musket if it is loaded properly. This takes almost as long as loading a rifle, so it was rarely done militarily, but it is quite possible.

Bohandas
2016-08-14, 03:38 PM
Manufacturing of black powder, even proper corned powder, can be done on a kitchen table, and requires three very common and easily obtained substances, all of which burn readily (in other words, coming up with using them isn't that much of a stretch- saltpetre is a very reactive substance by itself, even).

On a related note, nitroglycerine can be made from a straight 1:1 mixture of two substances which were known to medieval alchemists, aqua fortis (nitric acid) and oil of vitriol (sulfuric acid)


It is far from impossible to make guncotton, cordite, or other such propellants with the typical faux-medieval level of technology

Indeed. Guncotton's arguably even simpler than nitroglycerine, it's just aqua fortis plus any cellulose-heavy material (such as wood, cotton, etc)

Bohandas
2016-08-14, 09:07 PM
That device would probably have to be the size of a cannon at the very least, since the conductor stones would tear the barrel apart were they put too close together. A siege railgun does sound extremely plausible for a weapon, though. I can certainly see Aundair or Breland employing such a thing were the cold war to reignite.

It might be possible to scale down the stones' size and power to get them into a bazooka-sized device

Also, the repulsion itself could be used directly in an artillery piece: A conductor stone is placed into a barrel against another conductor stone that has been fixed in place inside of an antimagic field, followed by wadding and a cannonball, shell, or grapeshot. The antimagic field is then removed causing the non-fixed conductor stone to accelerate down the barrel propelling the payload out. The mobile conductor stone may need to be held by a chain to prevent it from being lost if propellig an insufficiently heavy payload

Bohandas
2016-08-14, 09:23 PM
Alternately, one could take a crossbow and replace the actual bow with a wand of launch bolt as the motive force and with the stock enchanted to extract the spell at a trigger press without full spell completion

VoxRationis
2016-08-14, 09:56 PM
Is a conductor stone something from Eberron?

Bohandas
2016-08-14, 11:01 PM
Is a conductor stone something from Eberron?

Yes. They're the basis of the setting's elemental magic maglev system

VoxRationis
2016-08-14, 11:06 PM
How do they work?

nomotag
2016-08-14, 11:19 PM
How do they work?

Magic monorail. I don't know if it ever explains exactly how it works, but most people seem to view them as big magnets.

AslanCross
2016-08-14, 11:24 PM
How do they work?

They're basically electromagnets that are powered by the air elemental bound inside the lightning rail's engine. The air elemental's energy electrifies the conductor stones on the bottom of the train and the ones that form the "rail," and they repel each other. This was according to the Explorer's Handbook. It is also worth noting that the actual thrust of the train does not come from the conductor stones, but from wind that the air elemental generates to propel the train forward.

Bohandas
2016-08-15, 12:12 AM
Magic monorail.

Actually, page 125 of the Eberron Campaign setting mentions them being "arranged along a route in pairs (emphasis mine)


They're basically electromagnets that are powered by the air elemental bound inside the lightning rail's engine. The air elemental's energy electrifies the conductor stones on the bottom of the train and the ones that form the "rail," and they repel each other. This was according to the Explorer's Handbook. It is also worth noting that the actual thrust of the train does not come from the conductor stones, but from wind that the air elemental generates to propel the train forward.

True, Thouh the effect of the stones is more than just levitation. The campaign setting book also repeatedly mentions the formation of some manner of magical conduit, whose full effects and mechanisms are not adequately described, that allows things to travel through it faster than would otherwise be possible

Regitnui
2016-08-15, 01:24 AM
A lightning rail track has three rows of conductor stones: one main track and two more sparsely placed ones on either side for course corrections. A conductor stone itself is unremarkable. It is only when placed within a certain distance of another that their properties become useful; the elementals bound within repel, with a spark of lightning passing between the two stones. Hence the Lightning Rail, since one of the first things you'd notice if a rail car was heading towards you was the sparks off the bottom and corners.

A Lightning Rail is powered in a similar method to an airship or elemental galleon; a separate air elemental to any in the conductor stones is bound in a ring around the pulling car, with the elemental providing motive force. These elementals are usually controlled by an heir of House Orien who takes hold of lightning reins, letting them control the elemental through the power of their mark. Unmarked individuals may be able to control a lightning rail as well, but it's more difficult and their control is less reliable, one reason why the Lightning Rail remains a House Orien project.

[HR]

Back to conductor stone railguns: The main problem is that unlike the ring of a lightning rail car or airship, a conductor stone can never technically be turned 'off'. It is inert when a sufficient distance from another, but there's no way to stop a theoretical 'conductor bullet' in such a cannon being repelled equally by the stones ahead and behind of it, stalling it in the barrel. It's the same reason the Lightning Rail needs separate propulsion and levitation.

A conductor stone launch mechanism where one stone is used to propel another as ammunition is less likely for the same reason nobody makes cannon with springs or elastic bands. Once a certain distance has been reached, the potential propulsion decreases dramatically. Unless you can enhance that small movement as in a catapult, you might end up with minimal power. Also, a catapult with conductor stones is only more expensive than a normal torsion catapult without offering any other advantages.

All of these devices would be hard to assemble secretly; House Orien is the main buyer of conductor stones, and is already short after the Mournland lines were cut. Anyone else buying conductor stones would attract their attention at the very least, on top of the highly suspicious intelligence servces of the remaining countries and Houses Phiarlan and Thuranni. They'd know you were up to something, if not exactly what, which is just asking for overcautious peacekeepers to take out an assassination contract on your head.

Of course, if it makes a good story, go ahead.

khadgar567
2016-08-15, 01:59 AM
If a sword that can cut a man in half only does 1d8 damage, then a bullet that can be deflected by a bone doesn't need to be 3d12 with a 16-20/x4 crit.


were I can get that pistol with simple optimization you have 50 % chance to crit en each shot
and why are we talking about medieval magitech rail guns

Kami2awa
2016-08-15, 02:10 AM
I'm currently using PF to run a magitech steampunk world - it works surprisingly well. I've added a few new bits of equipment (including cameras and bicycles :) ) but most of the equipment is already there, including guns via the Gunslinger class.

I think we've gathered from this thread that guns can be placed in a medieval world without becoming a huge anachronism. It then comes down to whether or not the GM wants them to be present in the campaign or not.

Regitnui
2016-08-15, 04:49 AM
I think we've gathered from this thread that guns can be placed in a medieval world without becoming a huge anachronism. It then comes down to whether or not the GM wants them to be present in the campaign or not.

Well, not pistols and rifles, though the stats would probably be the same.

hamishspence
2016-08-15, 06:55 AM
Actually, page 125 of the Eberron Campaign setting mentions them being "arranged along a route in pairs (emphasis mine)

Probably to allow two-way traffic. This image comes from an Eberron book - the Explorer's Handbook - and shows single stones for that particular section leading to the station.

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ag/20050812b

http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/exhbk_gallery/90608.jpg

rrgg
2016-08-16, 02:42 AM
Well, not pistols and rifles, though the stats would probably be the same.

Rifles and breechloading weapons both date to the 1400s and it's not clear how early they were actually invented. Fairly accurate, long-barreled, musket caliber firearms were also in use throughout the 1400s for the defense of fortifications (in a sense the real innovation behind the Spanish "heavy" musket in the 1520s was just the idea of giving wall guns to significant numbers of infantry along with wooden rests to support the massive barrel with).

If you want to keep firearms from becoming too overpowered and brreaking the setting it mainly comes down to trusting your players to not use too much outside knowledge or kick off major military innovations centuries before they were due. So no turning your weapons into rifled breechloaders unless you are a master gunsmith who has spent years or decades experimented with that sort of thing (and I would shy away from "hey, town gunsmith. Here are some plans for a new gun I drew up even though I have no experience with firearms and I should have know idea whether any of this is even possible.") To use rifles as an example, aerodynamics were still poorly understood by most people and even in the 19th century N Boswoth was assuming that rifles only performed better because they were bored to a higher standard than most smoothbore muskets. You wouldn't be actively seeking out specific new technologies if you weren't entirely sure wether the worked.

It also might be necessary to limit other "niche" uses of gunpowder and prevent players from digging fougasse everywhere even though they may be simple to make with inside knowledge.

Piedmon_Sama
2016-08-16, 05:59 PM
I like guns, a lot, and the neat thing about guns is they are so much older and more diverse in workings and power than most people suppose. You don't have to sacrifice... pretty much any of your standard Romantic fantasy tropes to incorporate guns, at all. If you want your Knights in Shining Armor to be virtually immune to a handgonne, you can. If you want them to be a unique and terrifying weapon but with some weaknesses than you can push their development to the early industrial stage with and make them able to punch through armor at close range while being inaccurate at longer ranges and impractical to reload in the middle of an engagement. Guns have a storied history and a certain image cachet not just in the American wild west or Early Modern Europe but in Japan, Central Asia and North Africa. The hiss of slowmatch, the wind-up motion of a wheellock, the careful adjusting of the hammer on a snaphance/flintlock, can grant the all-important dramatic pause, as loading and slamming shut a breech-loading firearm or revolver cylinder is so often done in the movies.

I'm largely not a fan of Pathfinder's gunslinger class, or how Pathfinder chooses to use guns at all, but if it did one thing well it's at least gone a long way towards changing how most fantasy roleplaying fans view the "appropriateness" of adding handguns to a fantasy milieu.

wumpus
2016-08-16, 06:46 PM
For that matter, it is quite possible to get quite decent accuracy out of a smoothbore musket if it is loaded properly. This takes almost as long as loading a rifle, so it was rarely done militarily, but it is quite possible.

Any idea how accurate? I know that maybe a decade or so ago there were changes in at least some states regarding limiting the modernization of "smoothbore muskets" (they had gotten to the point where there was no offsetting disadvantage to using them so such hunters had an advantage hunting deer early). I suspect such a musket would be roughly an "ideal musket", but couldn't find much in terms of accuracy (my google results were hitting reproduction accuracy). I still think that a huge bit of the inaccuracy was the lack of spin, but obviously these "super muskets" were bagging enough extra deer for the wardens and such to clamp down.

It should also take an "exotic weapons feat"/proficiency/training to learn the "right" way to load such a weapon as well. It doesn't appear common in most wars, meaning it is more than just "normal training".

snowblizz
2016-08-16, 07:23 PM
Any idea how accurate? I know that maybe a decade or so ago there were changes in at least some states regarding limiting the modernization of "smoothbore muskets" (they had gotten to the point where there was no offsetting disadvantage to using them so such hunters had an advantage hunting deer early). I suspect such a musket would be roughly an "ideal musket", but couldn't find much in terms of accuracy (my google results were hitting reproduction accuracy). I still think that a huge bit of the inaccuracy was the lack of spin, but obviously these "super muskets" were bagging enough extra deer for the wardens and such to clamp down.

It should also take an "exotic weapons feat"/proficiency/training to learn the "right" way to load such a weapon as well. It doesn't appear common in most wars, meaning it is more than just "normal training".
How do you define "accuracy"? Smoothbores were extensively used for hunting (and not just in the shotgun sense). And what's wrong with a good reproduction. We have plenty of historical weapons to make exact replicas of, almost no one is willing to risk a real historical weapon ofc. I seem to recall a Mythbusters experiment "Son of a Gun" they had a ACW reanactor shoot at small patch of material and he hit it bang on every time.

It's not really a lack of spin. It's that most "military grade" muskets were fired with gauge of ball much smaller than the bore, giving windage and the ball sort of "bounces" as it exits, wiki describes it as spin at right angle to direction fired. A Brown Bess was a .75 bore and used .69 balls. I've seen it sourced that e.g. the first few shots was actually less accurate for a good smoothbore, and you improved accuracy after something like 5 shots as the last windage was removed due to fouling. Now for mass volley firing where volume and reloading speeds are the key to your entire strategy that ofc isn't desirable as it gets harder and harder to load.

Regarding training, the things is, there was very little of it. Actual decent training was very lacking. It costs money to have people train. The horse and musket period skimped a lot of personal training, because you worked as a group mainly. Weapons were designed with this in mind too. Loading speed, not accuracy was the the thinn emphasized. A training manual, such as there were, could have a dozens steps or more for realoading, it's just that some of them can sort of be skipped if you are in a hurry.
We've talked about this in Real World Weapon Armour or Tactics thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?493127-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-Armor-or-Tactics-Question-Mk-XXI) in some of the iterations, and I'm not the expert in this field. So it'd be a lto fo working to dig it out. I'd suggest ask there, someone should have the info more easily available.

It's not exactly an exotic training feat, it's what any hunter would do. Though am not an RPGer so amybe that's appropriate for such a chracter.

fusilier
2016-08-16, 09:38 PM
Any idea how accurate? I know that maybe a decade or so ago there were changes in at least some states regarding limiting the modernization of "smoothbore muskets" (they had gotten to the point where there was no offsetting disadvantage to using them so such hunters had an advantage hunting deer early). I suspect such a musket would be roughly an "ideal musket", but couldn't find much in terms of accuracy (my google results were hitting reproduction accuracy). I still think that a huge bit of the inaccuracy was the lack of spin, but obviously these "super muskets" were bagging enough extra deer for the wardens and such to clamp down.

It should also take an "exotic weapons feat"/proficiency/training to learn the "right" way to load such a weapon as well. It doesn't appear common in most wars, meaning it is more than just "normal training".

There was some English authority (can never remember his name), writing in the late 16th century, who claimed he could expect to hit a man sized target at 120 paces with a matchlock arquebus. Others state that arquebusiers should hold their fire until the enemy was about 12 paces away! The reason for the disparity, this is my theory anyway, has to do with being able to choose tight fitting ammo for range and accuracy, or loose fitting ammo for rapidity of fire.

A member of my American Civil War group would go to shooting competitions with his smoothbore musket, and would usually place in the top three against rifles of the era. (Note: this weapon doesn't even have a rear sight).

The basic evidence is that if you have the time to load a tight-fitting ball the accuracy is greatly improved. The problem: it takes time! In the heat of battle careful aiming may not have been done often anyway, so as they started to standardize, and mass produce, ammunition they settled on undersized ammo. It's entirely possible that a musketeer of the late 16th century could be significantly more accurate than one of the late 18th century.

The Minie ball was invented in the mid-19th century and was designed to expand when fired. This allowed muzzle-loading rifles to be loaded almost as fast as smoothbores. Rifles require a tight fitting bullet, otherwise they won't properly impart spin to the projectile. The Minie ball could be made slightly smaller than the barrel's caliber, to allow it to slide down the barrel more easily when loading, then, upon firing, it would expand to grip the rifling.

There's a related but almost forgotten development called the Nessler Ball. It used the same principle as the Minie Ball, but specifically for smoothbore muskets. It increased accuracy enough that elevating rear-sights were added to smoothbore weapons using such ammunition. It was a transitional step, however, and several countries, including the United States, never adopted it.

Bohandas
2016-08-17, 09:59 AM
Quoted from mundane uses for superpowers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?493832-Using-Superpowers-for-Mundane-Work&p=21112155) thread


So, kinda in 5e DnD, you can technically make a 3.5 mile long line of peasants, make them hand off a spear to the other, the total time would be equal to 6s making the projectile travel 3.5 miles x 6 seconds. This equals out to mach 3, or 420d6 damage.

Regitnui
2016-08-17, 11:25 AM
Quoted from mundane uses for superpowers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?493832-Using-Superpowers-for-Mundane-Work&p=21112155) thread

That's assuming that there is no pause in commoners passing and they have the ability to react as the spear accelerates. It is a cool idea, though.

wumpus
2016-08-18, 11:01 AM
How do you define "accuracy"? Smoothbores were extensively used for hunting (and not just in the shotgun sense). And what's wrong with a good reproduction. We have plenty of historical weapons to make exact replicas of, almost no one is willing to risk a real historical weapon ofc. I seem to recall a Mythbusters experiment "Son of a Gun" they had a ACW reanactor shoot at small patch of material and he hit it bang on every time.


"Accuracy" means "similar to longbow or crossbow" since if it couldn't do that, the PCs (and leveled enemies of PCs) would simply use (and train with) those weapons. Typical armies in fantasy settings would be assumed that have an accuracy (and rate of fire) as historical armies.

The point of a "modern musket" is to remove all the imperfections not inherent with the device. Presumably the work of a master dwarven smith (and if the thing used a prepared cartridge, loaded by a PC with all the feats/proficiency/training) as opposed to a reproduction (which presumably shouldn't be made to tolerances better than the original).

The issue that "after several firings accuracy increases" is huge in fantasy role playing games. For nearly all encounters an adventuring party might encounter, a musketeer would be lucky to get off a single shot and then draw his "sidearm". I'd assume that such a character might be involved in a pitched battle (assuming the DM arranged the campaign to fit the characters) but it still would be the exception and not the rule.

PS: I couldn't find anything about that mythbuster episode other than it "busted" a weird myth (insemination by gunfire). There really isn't a reason for a ACW "soldier" to be firing a musket instead of a rifle, which makes things a lot different (often a claimed range of 200 yards as opposed to 50 yards).

PPS: I could see my character bringing a long an overpowered musket for one simple reason: an anti-dragon weapon. Without worrying about over-penetration the weapon would harken back to AD&D rules with separate levels of damage for medium (and small) compared to large (and greater) sizes. Basically the thing would effectively neutralize the dragon's advantage of making multiple passes with a breath weapon (and always bring along a self-standing tower shield to hide behind).

Morty
2016-08-18, 04:36 PM
The biggest similarity to a crossbow bolt and a longbow arrow is that the bolt only has stabilizing feathers for pitch. A musket shot has no stabilization at all, and an arrow is stable in all directions. In other words, a musket ball pretty much flies like a "knuckleball" and is going to be inaccurate regardless of your BAC, dexterity, or other bonuses (this *should* be true of crossbows, but I haven't heard about the lack of a vertical feather. I suspect that the feathers are slightly curved for spin stabilization).

A Robin Hood or William Tell has a place in Fantasy Settings. A "crack shot" needs an anachronistic rifle (they *might* have existed fairly early, but I think the first effective military use was the US revolutionary war. Widespread use of rifles was more like the Crimean War.

It should be trivial to convince your PCs to avoid muskets if you don't want them to have them (just kill any accuracy bonus). "Draw and drop" pistols might be a different story, they seem like the ideal weapon for more roguish PCs (and probably aren't *that* worse modern than snub-nosed pistols at close range).

I'm... not sure what this has to do with my point about the inadequacy of D&D's combat mechanics. :smallconfused:

Knaight
2016-08-18, 06:57 PM
Guns existed, but were rare. They changed how warfare happened, but relatively slowly.
The rarity is a bit overstated. They were rare in England and France, which tend to be used disproportionately in anglophone sources. In eastern Europe guns were ubiquitous while still well within the medieval period.


Manufacturing of black powder, even proper corned powder, can be done on a kitchen table, and requires three very common and easily obtained substances, all of which burn readily (in other words, coming up with using them isn't that much of a stretch- saltpetre is a very reactive substance by itself, even). Manufacturing any kind of smokeless powder requires a fair bit of mechanical support, quite a few intermediate steps, and the invention of several precursor chemicals which would require a much higher understanding of chemistry to even conceive of them being useful. It is far from impossible to make guncotton, cordite, or other such propellants with the typical faux-medieval level of technology, but there's a very good reason it took around six hundred years to go from the first crude black powder to even the most rudimentary replacement.

There are genuine problems with shortages of said substances, and while it tends to take fairly heavy use of firearms for it to be a problem said shortages absolutely have come up. WWI Germany is probably the most famous example, where they were in danger of running too low on gunpowder to keep fighting effectively until the Haber process completely removed the need for some nitrogen sources. Medieval warfare isn't going to go through gunpowder at anywhere near WWI rates, but supply lines are also generally not up to the WWI par.

wumpus
2016-08-18, 07:46 PM
Manufacturing of black powder, even proper corned powder, can be done on a kitchen table, and requires three very common and easily obtained substances, all of which burn readily (in other words, coming up with using them isn't that much of a stretch- saltpetre is a very reactive substance by itself, even).

Note that while you *can* do such, it typically involves milling dry gunpowder in the process. As an old-school DM, I'd make any player roll a d20, and a critical failure involves the whole thing blowing up in their face (presumably the old 6d6 fireball, but should be rated to how much gunpowder they are making, and roll for each group if they do it in groups). I really don't know how [un]safe it is, but *good* explosive experimenters/self taught types are missing arms/fingers and the less good/unlucky types are dead.

fusilier
2016-08-19, 12:41 AM
There are genuine problems with shortages of said substances, and while it tends to take fairly heavy use of firearms for it to be a problem said shortages absolutely have come up. WWI Germany is probably the most famous example, where they were in danger of running too low on gunpowder to keep fighting effectively until the Haber process completely removed the need for some nitrogen sources. Medieval warfare isn't going to go through gunpowder at anywhere near WWI rates, but supply lines are also generally not up to the WWI par.

Indeed. Europe exhausted its natural sources of saltpeter pretty quickly after gunpowder was introduced. They had to learn to "farm" it which turned out to be a fairly tricky process. Many times they ended up with calcium nitrate, which would work but had a tendency to take on moisture. As a result of the difficultly gunpowder was often relatively expensive until sometime in the late 15th century (If I remember my dates correctly, I don't have the sources in front of me).

Even after the problems of saltpeter production had been generally solved, the process was so haphazard that quality could vary considerably. In the mid 18th century the British were considered to have the best saltpeter, but they were importing it from India. It was in the late 18th century when the French applied a much more scientific approach to producing saltpeter (and regulating it closely) that the production of saltpeter became much more reliable.

rrgg
2016-08-19, 01:36 PM
"Accuracy" means "similar to longbow or crossbow" since if it couldn't do that, the PCs (and leveled enemies of PCs) would simply use (and train with) those weapons. Typical armies in fantasy settings would be assumed that have an accuracy (and rate of fire) as historical armies.

The point of a "modern musket" is to remove all the imperfections not inherent with the device. Presumably the work of a master dwarven smith (and if the thing used a prepared cartridge, loaded by a PC with all the feats/proficiency/training) as opposed to a reproduction (which presumably shouldn't be made to tolerances better than the original).

The issue that "after several firings accuracy increases" is huge in fantasy role playing games. For nearly all encounters an adventuring party might encounter, a musketeer would be lucky to get off a single shot and then draw his "sidearm". I'd assume that such a character might be involved in a pitched battle (assuming the DM arranged the campaign to fit the characters) but it still would be the exception and not the rule.

PS: I couldn't find anything about that mythbuster episode other than it "busted" a weird myth (insemination by gunfire). There really isn't a reason for a ACW "soldier" to be firing a musket instead of a rifle, which makes things a lot different (often a claimed range of 200 yards as opposed to 50 yards).

PPS: I could see my character bringing a long an overpowered musket for one simple reason: an anti-dragon weapon. Without worrying about over-penetration the weapon would harken back to AD&D rules with separate levels of damage for medium (and small) compared to large (and greater) sizes. Basically the thing would effectively neutralize the dragon's advantage of making multiple passes with a breath weapon (and always bring along a self-standing tower shield to hide behind).

Accuracy can mean a lot of things. According to Humfrey Barwick it was definitely tied into ease of use. His argument was that longbows were less accurate than crossbows or a Longbow on a tiller and both weapons were less accurate than the arquebus due to the fact that the former weapons were aimed "by guess" and the latter were aimed "by rule".

Barwick happened to be an individual who did spend his whole youth training to use an English Longbow. Then sometime when he was 17 he was given an arquebus and after 6 months of practice with it he concluded he could shoot more accurately than "the best archer in England".


-during the start of the civil war many brigades were still using smoothbore muskets either because there weren't enough rifles or because their officers thought that the buck and ball loads issued to smoothbore weapons would be far more devastating than minie balls at close range.

Bohandas
2016-08-28, 04:30 PM
Cannons were becoming part of the business of seige warfare. As that advance slowly became recognized, it didn't make castles obsolete; it meant castle design had to change. That began the building of star forts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_fort), which make it much harder to shoot cannons squarely at a wall in relative safety. So yes, old square castle walls became "obsolete - but note that many of them still stand today.

My headcanon has Bel operating out of a star fort shaped like a pentagram