Firearms yay, or nay

[Fatty Tosscoble]

I wanted to introduce flintlock firearms into my game. By the look of them they don't seem to be in anyway overpowered, compared to bows, slings, and crossbows. They do a lot of damage per shot (the blunderbuss is a great crowd disperser), but they have the drawback for needing at least 5 turns to reload without the musketeer feat, and based on the fact that most people don't use firearms, they are probably even more expensive than their already high listing price (not to mention gunpowder).

Just wonder how flintlock firearms have turned out in campaigns, or how the rules look like fire arms would turn out in a game. Feel free to give an opinion.

[Regitnui]

There was a long discussion about this in the parent Roleplaying forum. I think it boiled down to the general opinion being "fine, but unnecessary". Firearms aren't much more powerful than bows or crossbows, but the progress of armour and warfare during the Middle Ages and Renaissance gradually phased out the bow in Europe. Plate armour was harder for arrows to penetrate, and the time needed to train a decent archer promoted slower, higher-speed crossbows any bloke could use. The same progression led to the easier, faster firearm becoming the weapon of choice, even though it was competitve with the older technology for most of recent history. Only with the World Wars did the gun begin to do things bows could not, and now we see them as inordinately powerful because they completely replaced guns.

Feel free to correct me, history buffs.

My overall opinion of firearms in D&D? Eh. They're not worth the trouble that comes with explaining that one bullet doesn't always instakill anything and that the enemies still have HP and AC.

[Sabeta]

snip

No major corrections, but I wanted to add a bit. While the west was busy solving wars with more soldiers and stronger steel. The Chinese were solving wars by trying to remove their soldiers from them, and putting the enemy soldiers in them. This was mostly achieved by trying to find increasingly creative ways to set people on fire (funfact: first flamethrower was Chinese ~600 CE, iirc). My personal favorite was the Flaming Bull. They would lash two spears to the side so that the Bull would gore anything it ran into, and then set its tail on fire. It would run from its own tail, into enemy camps, setting things on fire and goring soldiers.

In a culture like that, it comes as no surprise that they would invent guns first (another fun fact: They thought they were creating a Philosopher's Stone when they invented Gunpowder), but they were understandably primitive. The Fire Lance is the earliest recorded Firearm (~900 CE), and was little more than a spear with an attachable bamboo tube filled with shrapnel and gunpowder. Fast forward a few years to the world of "renaissance" Firearms. The Japanese have adopted them as the weapon of choice, because you could give them to a Farmer and he'd be just as good as a trained Marksmen. That didn't stop the well-trained Yumi from being able to fire 10 arrows per single bullet, but you make do with what you've got.

The difference here was in Culture. Despite what you said, British Longbows were actually quite good at piercing Plate Armor (it was Chainmail they struggled with), and their culture and warfare tactics meant they had literal hundreds, potentially thousands of trained Bowmen at any given time. There was simply no need for Guns in a world where your Archers were ten times as effective as their Gunmen.

However, that all changed during the American Civil War/Industrial Revolution (At this point, we'd been using Guns for quite a while. Rifles had been developed with superior range and stopping power, but were slow to load, hence the three-line formation during the Revolution). Two key inventions pushed the Guns from "Kind of okay" to "Completely changed warfare forever"

1) Mass Production Techniques: By using a mould to cast gun parts, you could make them faster, and if a single part broke you could just replace the part rather than the entire gun. Compare that to carving a block of wood and bows went the way of the dodo.

2) The Milliere Ball (sp?): A French bullet which was crafted with Hard point and a soft lead "skirt". The problem with rifles was that the Bullet needed to be perfectly sized to fit the bores, which took a long time to reload. The Milliere Ball had no problems with that. It was a tiny hard ball with a soft lead skirt. When the gunpowder detonated the skirt would expand and fill the bores, allowing it to engage the rifling and fly straight. A gun had finally been invented with the accuracy of a Rifle and the speed of a Musket.

TLDR: Use Guns if it fits your story, otherwise there's no really mechanical benefit to taking them or leaving them. The guns provided in the DMG are weaker than the Crossbow I believe because they can't take Crossbow Expert, if memory serves correctly.

[Fatty Tosscoble]

My overall opinion of firearms in D&D? Eh. They're not worth the trouble that comes with explaining that one bullet doesn't always instakill anything and that the enemies still have HP and AC.They do out power most ranged weapons shot for shot, which if you have high dexterity, and a rifled hunting musket, could result in some one shot kills from a far distance.

It could be house ruled a bit to make firearms more advantageous against armoured targets, or have some firearms come with the added benefit of being doubled barreled. Including a selection of specialty bullets could also help make the flintlocks damage be worth the time in reload, such as hollow balls, spiked balls, and pointed shot, for armour piercing.

[Foxhound438]

Only with the World Wars did the gun begin to do things bows could not

Guns as early as flintlocks and such had one advantage, being faster projectiles- meaning, less correction for drop and windage is needed for the operator, allowing proficiency to come a lot quicker than for crossbows and longbows.

Moreover, repeating arms were fielded well before WWI, in the american civil war. Faster firing means less punishment for poor accuracy, meaning even less training required for efficacy.

Those could be viewed as more or less "subjective" as to how beneficial they are, but advantages they are.

To the OP: there's nothing too game breaking about them. Getting bigger damage rolls for ranged attackers is a decent quality of life improvement, albeit expensive.

[Regitnui]

Thanks for the corrections. I'm not much of a history buff. The question that any DM should ask the player that wants a gun is whether they'd be willing to face enemies with the same. If the player isn't willing to face gun-toting goblins and cannon-wielding giants (in other words, fair odds), then they shouldn't get a firearm.

[Lawful Good]

No major corrections, but I wanted to add a bit. While the west was busy solving wars with more soldiers and stronger steel. The Chinese were solving wars by trying to remove their soldiers from them, and putting the enemy soldiers in them. This was mostly achieved by trying to find increasingly creative ways to set people on fire (funfact: first flamethrower was Chinese ~600 CE, iirc). My personal favorite was the Flaming Bull. They would lash two spears to the side so that the Bull would gore anything it ran into, and then set its tail on fire. It would run from its own tail, into enemy camps, setting things on fire and goring soldiers.

In a culture like that, it comes as no surprise that they would invent guns first (another fun fact: They thought they were creating a Philosopher's Stone when they invented Gunpowder), but they were understandably primitive. The Fire Lance is the earliest recorded Firearm (~900 CE), and was little more than a spear with an attachable bamboo tube filled with shrapnel and gunpowder. Fast forward a few years to the world of "renaissance" Firearms. The Japanese have adopted them as the weapon of choice, because you could give them to a Farmer and he'd be just as good as a trained Marksmen. That didn't stop the well-trained Yumi from being able to fire 10 arrows per single bullet, but you make do with what you've got.

The difference here was in Culture. Despite what you said, British Longbows were actually quite good at piercing Plate Armor (it was Chainmail they struggled with), and their culture and warfare tactics meant they had literal hundreds, potentially thousands of trained Bowmen at any given time. There was simply no need for Guns in a world where your Archers were ten times as effective as their Gunmen.

However, that all changed during the American Civil War/Industrial Revolution (At this point, we'd been using Guns for quite a while. Rifles had been developed with superior range and stopping power, but were slow to load, hence the three-line formation during the Revolution). Two key inventions pushed the Guns from "Kind of okay" to "Completely changed warfare forever"

1) Mass Production Techniques: By using a mould to cast gun parts, you could make them faster, and if a single part broke you could just replace the part rather than the entire gun. Compare that to carving a block of wood and bows went the way of the dodo.

2) The Milliere Ball (sp?): A French bullet which was crafted with Hard point and a soft lead "skirt". The problem with rifles was that the Bullet needed to be perfectly sized to fit the bores, which took a long time to reload. The Milliere Ball had no problems with that. It was a tiny hard ball with a soft lead skirt. When the gunpowder detonated the skirt would expand and fill the bores, allowing it to engage the rifling and fly straight. A gun had finally been invented with the accuracy of a Rifle and the speed of a Musket.

TLDR: Use Guns if it fits your story, otherwise there's no really mechanical benefit to taking them or leaving them. The guns provided in the DMG are weaker than the Crossbow I believe because they can't take Crossbow Expert, if memory serves correctly.

Flaming bulls, haha.

IIRC, Crossbow Expert can be utilized with firearms like spellcasters can. They don't have disadvantage in melee, which is potentially useful for a shotgun wielder.

[Nerdynick]

2) The Milliere Ball (sp?): A French bullet which was crafted with Hard point and a soft lead "skirt". The problem with rifles was that the Bullet needed to be perfectly sized to fit the bores, which took a long time to reload. The Milliere Ball had no problems with that. It was a tiny hard ball with a soft lead skirt. When the gunpowder detonated the skirt would expand and fill the bores, allowing it to engage the rifling and fly straight. A gun had finally been invented with the accuracy of a Rifle and the speed of a Musket.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minié_ball

This is what you're referencing. It actually didn't have the "hard point" you describe, but the mechanics of engaging the rifling are correct.

[LordVonDerp]

I wanted to introduce flintlock firearms into my game. By the look of them they don't seem to be in anyway overpowered, compared to bows, slings, and crossbows. They do a lot of damage per shot (the blunderbuss is a great crowd disperser), but they have the drawback for needing at least 5 turns to reload without the musketeer feat,


What? A musket deals 1d12 + Dex and reloads as fast as a crossbow. It's a bit more powerful, but it should be fine.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Honestly, I think the best approach to guns in D&D is to just reflavor crossbows. You get the same basic feel without any added complexity or balance issues.

[Arkhios]

Honestly, I think the best approach to guns in D&D is to just reflavor crossbows. You get the same basic feel without any added complexity or balance issues.

But if/when they co-exist, reflavored crossbow is statistically same as a crossbow. In that case it's justifiable that guns have rules that differ - even slightly - from crossbows.

[RulesJD]

The problem with Firearms in D&D isn't guns.

It's gunpowder.

With that, suddenly walls aren't really a barrier anymore regardless of magic. Hand grenades, cannons, et al.

This is even worse when you start combining magic and gunpowder. Suddenly you have easy ways of wholesale destroying cities with very little effort, such as using Giant Eagles to airdrop barrels of gunpowder with a fuse on entire cities, setting them ablaze.

[BW022]

3.x Arcanis had firearms. Their 5th-edition ruleset (http://www.paradigmcampaigns.com/DefaultLivA.aspx) also has firearms. Probably a good place to look for their rules and balance.

The issue with firearms is that you need to really specific campaign limitations on it. Gunpowder itself can easily mean relatively low-level NPCs/PCs can do insane amounts of damage for only money. Roll a barrel of gunpowder into a room and BOOM! no more dragon problem.

[Sabeta]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minié_ball

This is what you're referencing. It actually didn't have the "hard point" you describe, but the mechanics of engaging the rifling are correct.

Thank you for the correction, I knew I was at least a little bit wrong there but I was tired and excited at the same time (Pokemon Sun & Moon released last night)

Anyways, Flint/Matchlocks if I recall were the type of gun which where quicker to reload, but were smooth bore and therefore incredibly inaccurate. Also keep in mind that while lethal, bullets back then didn't have the same stopping power they do now. A gunshot wound was perfectly survivable IF they had access to out understanding of medicine. Often times the gunshots themselves wouldn't kill you, but the bleeding, infection, and/or lead poisoning would. All of which falls neatly into D&D's world where you can quite literally drop Meteors on some people and expect them to live through it. Just assume that all nonlethal bullets hit a designated none lethal zone, such as the stomach, an arm, or a leg (Yes, I'm aware that the stomach houses many vital organs which would quickly lead to death from a bullet, but here we need mechanics to take precedence over fluff)

Flintlocks are fine since their version of reloading doesn't work with Crossbow Expert, if memory serves (AFB). Crossbows can coexist because a trained Crossbowmen can put out much more DPR than someone handling a Tanegashima, but the Tanegashima is cooler and more damage/bullet. Oh, and there's also not much need to worry about the introduction to Gunpowder in the world either. There's a pretty good reason medieval warfare never thought to move much farther than Chinese Rocketry until well past the Revolution. Simply don't allow players to acquire enough gunpowder to detonate a city and everything should move about as intended.

The Flintlocks provided in the DMG should be fine. If you have a fluff reasons to include them then go ahead.

[Malifice]

No major corrections, but I wanted to add a bit. While the west was busy solving wars with more soldiers and stronger steel. The Chinese were solving wars by trying to remove their soldiers from them, and putting the enemy soldiers in them. This was mostly achieved by trying to find increasingly creative ways to set people on fire (funfact: first flamethrower was Chinese ~600 CE, iirc). My personal favorite was the Flaming Bull. They would lash two spears to the side so that the Bull would gore anything it ran into, and then set its tail on fire. It would run from its own tail, into enemy camps, setting things on fire and goring soldiers.

In a culture like that, it comes as no surprise that they would invent guns first (another fun fact: They thought they were creating a Philosopher's Stone when they invented Gunpowder), but they were understandably primitive. The Fire Lance is the earliest recorded Firearm (~900 CE), and was little more than a spear with an attachable bamboo tube filled with shrapnel and gunpowder. Fast forward a few years to the world of "renaissance" Firearms. The Japanese have adopted them as the weapon of choice, because you could give them to a Farmer and he'd be just as good as a trained Marksmen. That didn't stop the well-trained Yumi from being able to fire 10 arrows per single bullet, but you make do with what you've got.

The difference here was in Culture. Despite what you said, British Longbows were actually quite good at piercing Plate Armor (it was Chainmail they struggled with), and their culture and warfare tactics meant they had literal hundreds, potentially thousands of trained Bowmen at any given time. There was simply no need for Guns in a world where your Archers were ten times as effective as their Gunmen.

However, that all changed during the American Civil War/Industrial Revolution (At this point, we'd been using Guns for quite a while. Rifles had been developed with superior range and stopping power, but were slow to load, hence the three-line formation during the Revolution). Two key inventions pushed the Guns from "Kind of okay" to "Completely changed warfare forever"

1) Mass Production Techniques: By using a mould to cast gun parts, you could make them faster, and if a single part broke you could just replace the part rather than the entire gun. Compare that to carving a block of wood and bows went the way of the dodo.

2) The Milliere Ball (sp?): A French bullet which was crafted with Hard point and a soft lead "skirt". The problem with rifles was that the Bullet needed to be perfectly sized to fit the bores, which took a long time to reload. The Milliere Ball had no problems with that. It was a tiny hard ball with a soft lead skirt. When the gunpowder detonated the skirt would expand and fill the bores, allowing it to engage the rifling and fly straight. A gun had finally been invented with the accuracy of a Rifle and the speed of a Musket.

TLDR: Use Guns if it fits your story, otherwise there's no really mechanical benefit to taking them or leaving them. The guns provided in the DMG are weaker than the Crossbow I believe because they can't take Crossbow Expert, if memory serves correctly.

From a weapon effectiveness perspective firearms did have one big advantage over other ranged projectiles. They possessed both high killing potential (equal or superior to that of bladed or piercing weapons) and high stopping force.

An arrow or knife wound would kill you (piercing something you need to stay alive like an organ or artery) but it would take time for you to die or bleed out. Often a lot of time. (This is why no-one ever gets stabbed the once - its often several times, even dozens - plus 'defensive wounds' as the victim fights for his life).

Modern day knife fighting martial arts teach this. Your goal is to step in, deliver one or two deep downward stabs to a persons throat and neck area, and then back off and watch them and wait for them to bleed to death. Getting stabbed is probably going to (eventually) kill you, but it doesnt affect your ability to fight back for some time (until you weaken from blood loss, or if a nerve or muscle gets damaged)

Contrast this to a weapon with high stopping force but limited lethality (a club). Getting whacked with a club breaks bones or sits you down on your backside, stopping you from fighting back effectively, but is (compared to a knife or arrow) far less lethal (you've generally gotta bash in the skull to kill a man with a club).

A bullet (even from an early firearm) at close range carries aneven higher killing power than a knife wound, and also carries a higher stopping power than a club. Getting shot with a pistol at close range, is not only likely to kill you, but also likely to take you out of the battle almost straight away. Copping one to the skull and your brains get turned into scrambled eggs, if not blown out of your skull entirely.

A close range shot from a heavy pull crossbow can do similar, but the bolt tends to create a clear linear wound and seal itself with the bolt itself lengthening the time it takes to die. Plenty of people wore arrows that penetrated the skull and into into the brain, and carried on fighting for some time afterwards (removing the arrow was a different question entirely however).

A bullet on the other hand leaves a nice little channel as it passes through the body for blood and other fluids to pass through, and hits with enough force that organs it passes through are literally shaken loose of their anchors or simply destroyed. It also rarely travels in a straight line, bouncing off bones inside the body and causing even more trauma (thats why you always look for the exit wound to try and piece together where the thing went as it travelled though the body, and with modern hollow points and supersonic rounds because the exit wound is always worse than the point of entry to the body).

Couple this with the psychological effect of having a pistol drawn on you, and as weapons, they had their uses.

There is no doubt firearms were (and are) incredibly effective weapons, its just the limitations (cost, manufacturing, slow reload time, poor reliability earlier on etc) were massive marks against them. It wasn't until the advent of the rifled barrel, advanced manufacturing techniques and the ball round you refer to in your post above that they really overcame most of these problems.

[Regitnui]

The real strike against firearms in a D&D setting is that it's both fairly easy to learn one or two magic spells and wands can be produced that are just as effective and easy-to-use as a gun. In 5e, any human can take the Magic Initiate feat and know ray of frost, burning hands and... Pfff... I don't know, another damaging cantrip. Though weak individually, pair a few of these and give them some normal soldiers as front-line fighters, you've a pretty effective analog to a squad of riflemen with bayonets. Supplement with wands of cure wounds and it's even better. That, basically, is why after a century of war and an entire Megacorp devoted to new inventions, standard Eberron has still not invented the firearm. Instead, wands and staves fill their role.

Though I did read somewhere that gunpowder has only ever been invented once in human history (nobody's made it without learning the recipie from somewhere else, except the Chinese who stumbled on it), so it's entirely possible we could have proceeded up the tech ladder to where we are today without it. Anyone else heard something similar?

[Knaight]

An arrow or knife wound would kill you (piercing something you need to stay alive like an organ or artery) but it would take time for you to die or bleed out. Often a lot of time. (This is why no-one ever gets stabbed the once - its often several times, even dozens - plus 'defensive wounds' as the victim fights for his life).

Of course, there are the numerous other weapons in effect at the same time which left much bigger wounds with a lot more stopping power. See: swords, axes, etc.

[Malifice]

In 5e, any human can take the Magic Initiate feat and know ray of frost, burning hands and... Pfff... I don't know, another damaging cantrip.

NPCs dont have feats. Or class levels. The PCs do because they're special.

You can stat up your NPCs as PCs of course, but the default game doesn't bother or assume this to be the case.

Im actually glad this is the case. Its so darn nice to not have to spend 8 hours of prep time during the week adding class levels and templates to critters and NPCs and assigning them feats and so forth.

[Malifice]

Of course, there are the numerous other weapons in effect at the same time which left much bigger wounds with a lot more stopping power. See: swords, axes, etc.

A firearm (even a primitive firearm) has more stopping power than a sword.

Dont get me wrong; copping a full on swing with a longsword to the top of your head and you're cactus more or less instantly. With a firearm however, getting shot anywhere in the chest or head and its goodnight Irene. Even a bullet in the leg or arm is going to stop you in your tracks and severely hinder your ability to fight (and probably kill you from blood loss).

Most swords arent big heavy things remember. Sabres and so forth dont have that much 'sit you on your backside after getting cut or stabbed' about them. I mean, you're going to freak out if you get hacked with one, and have some pretty bad (and likely permanent) nerve and muscle damage and be leaking a lot of blood, but if you're fighting for your life, you can keep going for a while after most sword cuts or stabs. Brring getting donged square on the head or getting something hacked off (or close to it) or having a major organ skewered, you can keep fighting for at least a little while yet.

And an axe sacrifices killing power for stopping power. Just like a club, most people killed by an axe, had their skull bashed in. You basically get all the advantages of a club, with higher lethality (far more likely to bleed a guy out with an axe, even if internal injury rates are about the same as a club due to lack of penetration, and you only really have to hit a guy in the noggin once with an axe to both drop and kill him, unlike with a club or mace which generally requires a couple of good hits to do the job properly) and requiring a little more finesse to use.

When it comes to the size of wounds, dont let the small size of a bullet throw you off. The internal damage they do to a persons body is extreme. It aint just a hole. They tend to destroy whatever organ(s) they hit. If an organ other than the heart or brain cops a bullet, it takes about a few seconds of shock for your body to catch up and realize it needed that organ to function before you to collapse.

If the bullet hits the brain, heart or spinal cord (more likely with a bullet than a sword by the way) you're down and out pretty much straight away.

[Sabeta]

NPCs dont have feats. Or class levels. The PCs do because they're special.

I disagree with this notion. There wouldn't be Monk Monasteries and Paladin Orders if PCs were the only special ones. You're just the only ones the story cares about. Hell, Volo's has Druids with 18th level Spellcasting, so you can't even argue that PCs are the only ones making it to end-game. Uncommon perhaps, but certainly not unique.

[Sir cryosin]

The flintlock firearms in the dmg are fine I have played a shield and pistol fighter. I got around the reloading with firing and dropping then redrawing next turn. My DM let me work on making a dragoon pistol. But it took time, a lot of high tinker checks. It had 5 shots and I had to spent a action to reload it. It felt powerful with heavy armor shield and a d10 weapon dice. But I had a bad range and had to work around reloading. I was using the unearth arcana close quarters shooting style to combat my disadvantage in melee. The fighting style seem to be a bit powerful. I'll keep the part of getting rid of disadvantage and maybe the +1 to attacks.

[JackPhoenix]

I disagree with this notion. There wouldn't be Monk Monasteries and Paladin Orders if PCs were the only special ones. You're just the only ones the story cares about. Hell, Volo's has Druids with 18th level Spellcasting, so you can't even argue that PCs are the only ones making it to end-game. Uncommon perhaps, but certainly not unique.

But they don't have 18 level of Druid class. They are NPCs with some similar abilities and level 18 spellcasting, but they are not using PHB class progression and leveling. Just because NPC is called a Paladin doesn't mean it's got any level in Paladin class... see OOTS comics where Miko explained how her Samurai title works. The archdruid, despite being level 18 spellcaster, is CR 12 and never had to earn single XP in his life.

PC's and NPCs use fundamentally different mechanics in 5e. Character class is a metagame construct that doesn't necessarily have any specific meaning IC, it's just a bundle of abilities player characters have access to, and the NPC statblocks are the same.

[Regitnui]

But they don't have 18 level of Druid class. They are NPCs with some similar abilities and level 18 spellcasting, but they are not using PHB class progression and leveling. Just because NPC is called a Paladin doesn't mean it's got any level in Paladin class... see OOTS comics where Miko explained how her Samurai title works. The archdruid, despite being level 18 spellcaster, is CR 12 and never had to earn single XP in his life.

PC's and NPCs use fundamentally different mechanics in 5e. Character class is a metagame construct that doesn't necessarily have any specific meaning IC, it's just a bundle of abilities player characters have access to, and the NPC statblocks are the same.

And it's entirely possible to train up a number of NPC Evokers/Mages and have them act as the ranged component to a military squad. That's not including any magic items they could be equipped with, like the wand of cure wounds I mentioned.

[Malifice]

And it's entirely possible to train up a number of NPC Evokers/Mages and have them act as the ranged component to a military squad.

In your game world perhaps. In my world, magic is only usable by special people, and the cost and effort in training a squad of mages would be prohibitively expensive.

Only a large 'modern' commercial mega city city like Waterdeep with an advanced economic system of tarrifs and taxes and a huge central population, and massive law and order issues might have a standing army of no more than a thousand or so (mainly as security) and a small force of spell casters providing magical security, likely primarily through an assorted bunch of adventurers on permanent retainer.

Standing salaried armies of any sort dont really happen. Local lords have a small force of men at arms and retainers and minor lords and knights (one of whom might be the court wizard or something similar), who basically round up as large a peasant militia if and when required. They supplement this with mercenaries and political allegiances.

For more specialized jobs they hire one of the many bands of adventurers roaming the lands.

[Herobizkit]

I say yay, with a caveat. Maybe two.

Firstly, due to their (likely) superior damage, they will be in higher demand than bows/slings et al, and so their pricing may be higher than Joe Blacksmith can afford... UNLESS... remember the (romanticized) Wild West? Someone went through the trouble to mass-produce these guns for the common man.

In Forgotten Realms (2e, anyway), those men were priests of Gond, aka Wonderbringers.

In order for guns to be prevalent in your campaign, I'd suggest having at least one campaign area where Guns Are The New Bows. "Yeah, slings are cheaper, but only lowly humanoids and Wild Elves still use 'em. You wouldn't wanna be caught dead with one of them. Nope, real men use the Starwheel."

For my own campaign, I basically up the die for each crossbow listed in the game and call it a Pistol or Longarm or whatever fancy name you want. Mechanically, guns work practically the same as cantrips, but not everyone can be a spellcaster, now, can they... Blunderbuss could be equivalent to Acid Splash by way of hitting two adjacent targets, too, if you so desired.

But anyhow, yeah, up with guns. :)

[Regitnui]

In your game world perhaps. In my world, magic is only usable by special people, and the cost and effort in training a squad of mages would be prohibitively expensive.

I stay in Eberron. It's more fun there...

[Malifice]

I stay in Eberron. It's more fun there...

Do they have whole battalions of mages in Eberron?

[Regitnui]

Do they have whole battalions of mages in Eberron?

More like one assigned to a squad. The 3.5 book Forge of War went in depth on the whole thing, for each nation in the Last War, but the general rule was that while there weren't battalions solely of mages, the armies of Khorvaire had strong magical backing. Thrane favoured divine magic, Breland preferred citizen casters, and Aundair had almost their entire army equipped with some form of arcane magic. Karrnath's army is still supported by necromancy and skeleton warriors, and Cyre... Well, Cyre had the best artificers and magical items. And those were the main five, not counting lesser countries.

[Chaosvii7]

NPCs dont have feats. Or class levels. The PCs do because they're special.

You can stat up your NPCs as PCs of course, but the default game doesn't bother or assume this to be the case.

Monsters and NPCs are definitely not made the same as PCs, but they're absolutely designed esoterically by comparison, and allowed to operate in similar ways because of the flexibility of the typical monster creation method. There's a medium-sized revenant that they published in one of the adventure books that does 8d6 damage with it's greatsword in some cases, just because - and a lot of monsters have bits and pieces of class features and feats, like Goblins with bonus action disengaging that rogues and monks get.

I definitely don't think NPCs and monsters should be 1:1 with PCs like in 3.5, but if there's an ability you want that a PC gets, then you're totally allowed to give it to a monster. I'm sure there's a few monsters out there with abilities that PCs get in the form of feats - perhaps not entire feats, but one or two bullet points.

[Malifice]

Monsters and NPCs are definitely not made the same as PCs, but they're absolutely designed esoterically by comparison, and allowed to operate in similar ways because of the flexibility of the typical monster creation method. There's a medium-sized revenant that they published in one of the adventure books that does 8d6 damage with it's greatsword in some cases, just because - and a lot of monsters have bits and pieces of class features and feats, like Goblins with bonus action disengaging that rogues and monks get.

I definitely don't think NPCs and monsters should be 1:1 with PCs like in 3.5, but if there's an ability you want that a PC gets, then you're totally allowed to give it to a monster. I'm sure there's a few monsters out there with abilities that PCs get in the form of feats - perhaps not entire feats, but one or two bullet points.

For sure, but they dont get those abilities in the same rate, manner or even form as PCs. Even things like HD are based on size, not on class (all NPCs have d8 HD, and many far in excess of what their 'approximate' level would be).

I admit I liked the 'everyone is the same' of 3E and disliked the return to 'PCs are different' in 4E.

Unfairly I now realize. Im so happy to be able to never again spend hours statting up a combat encounter with feats, templates, levels, classes, skill ranks and so forth, only for it to only feature for a single combat encounter.

Ive got the ability to add in NPCs built as PCs if I want, but I still to this date havent needed to (or wanted to). I havent encountered a situation yet with a NPC that I cant just use a reskinned NPC from the books, often with no (or minor at best) mechanical changes. Takes a fraction of the time it used to, and in most cases can be done on the fly.

[Regitnui]

Eberron had the best take on it, I think; NPCs and PCs are similar, in the same way a high school physics teacher is to Steven Hawking. A PC fighter can intuitively pick up techniques in weeks (game time) that it would take a NPC years to learn. Hence why the Knight NPC doesn't have the same abilities as a PC fighter of equivalent 'level' or CR. Similarly with wizards: A PC can learn ten or twenty spells as a matter of fact, and cast them often. An NPC caster is lucky to learn half as many, and certainly doesn't have the casting stamina their equivalent does.

Taking that to in-universe, a 3rd-level PC fighter may be able to match up to a career soldier. Full PC classes are the realm of those with great potential; Royalty, Heroes, Savants, Geniuses. The vast majority of people have an NPC statblock, and have to work to earn and keep their skills at their optimum. King Boranel, a man in his fifties-sixties with a background of adventuring and a front line commander who rides a magebred bear and hunts bulettes for fun, is still somewhere around levels 8-10 in the Fighter PC class. Don't ask me for the exact stats, since they're 3.5 and I'm not entirely sure.

[FreddyNoNose]

I wanted to introduce flintlock firearms into my game. By the look of them they don't seem to be in anyway overpowered, compared to bows, slings, and crossbows. They do a lot of damage per shot (the blunderbuss is a great crowd disperser), but they have the drawback for needing at least 5 turns to reload without the musketeer feat, and based on the fact that most people don't use firearms, they are probably even more expensive than their already high listing price (not to mention gunpowder).

Just wonder how flintlock firearms have turned out in campaigns, or how the rules look like fire arms would turn out in a game. Feel free to give an opinion.

In a game of the imagination the only limits are your imagination. Go for it. Put ray guns in if you like.

[DiceDiceBaby]

In a game of the imagination the only limits are your imagination. Go for it. Put ray guns in if you like.

+1 to this. I'd allow it, but I would also force the PCs to constantly find ways to procure ammunition in that world.

I also find the idea of PCs discovering alien technology like ray guns to be amusing enough that I have to try it one of these days...

[Arkhios]

+1 to this. I'd allow it, but I would also force the PCs to constantly find ways to procure ammunition in that world.


At the current stage of design, people in my post-apocalyptic world don't have the knowledge and equipment necessary to craft firearm ammunition. Instead, the only ways to obtain firearm ammunition is to find them out in the wilderness and ruins, or to barter for them with traders, and firearm ammunition are quite valuable considering how difficult it is to get your hands on them in the first place.

Another possibility I'm toying with is to use firearm ammunition as currency, different types collectively of equal value.

Either way, my goal is to have both firearms and archaic weapons simultaneously available.

[Stan]

Go for it if you want. The firearms and gunpowder in the DMG are effectively low level magic items. Guns do a bit more damage than crossbows but cost ten times more. A keg of gunpowder does less damage than a fireball, weighs 20 lb, and costs 250 gp. They'll see some use but you're not likely see whole armies of fire arms or gunpowder blowing up everything in sight.

For a more reformation era game, I've thought about increasing the damage of firearms a bit but requiring actions to load them - maybe a bonus action for a pistol and an action for a musket. Then guns would feel more like historical guns where you're not likely to get a ton of shots off. I'd also add some armor penetration but I'm not sure of the details - maybe ignore 3 pts of armor for a musket, 1 pt of armor for pistol.

[xanderh]

British Longbows were actually quite good at piercing Plate Armor (it was Chainmail they struggled with), and their culture and warfare tactics meant they had literal hundreds, potentially thousands of trained Bowmen at any given time.


This is simply false, and doesn't hold a modicum of truth. The worst part is, it's blindingly obvious to anyone who actually takes the time to think logically about this.
Let's start with the logical argument first, before I move on to empirical evidence.

Chainmail is made of lots of small rings that hook into each other. High end pieces have the rings riveted shut, but early design did exist where the ends were simply butted closed. This means that chainmail has LOTS of small holes. Besides these holes, chainmail doesn't provide a lot of protection against blunt force. It provides some, but not a lot. What happens when an arrow, which has a very fine point, hits an object with lots of small holes in it? Well, the tip is most likely going to hit one of these holes, or at least be redirected to it. At this point, one of two things is going to happen. Either the rings are going to be forced open (unlikely with riveted mail, very likely with butted mail), or basically all of the kinetic energy of the arrow is going to get transferred to the target. Since chainmail isn't great at dispersing blunt force, that's going to be a very concentrated transferrence of energy. Result is that the wearer is going to get hurt. Not necessarily pierced, but definitely very unpleasant. Especially from a 100-150 pound draw strength war bow.
In addition, let's think about the weaknesses of chainmail. Well, first off, let's get one thing out of the way; you can't cut hardened steel with any man-portable weapon. So you can't slice it. Chainmail doesn't protect very well from blunt trauma weapons, so they work well. But if we want to defeat the armor itself, how would we do that? Well, we would force the links in the armor open. How do we do that? Well, we get an object into the middle of a ring, and apply enough force that it breaks the rivet and forces the link open. Something like a sword point. Or an arrow fired from a sufficiently powerful bow.

Plate armor is made of shaped plates of hardened steel, designed to make blows glance off, rather than absorb the force applied to it. It doesn't have an abundance of tiny holes, and it's designed to be deflective, so the arrows are more likely to have the force directed away from the target. Already, plate armor has a massive advantage compared to chainmail. But what if an arrow does hit directly on a plate? Well, a plate of hardened steel has a large surface area to help absorb the impact. It's likely that the plate will be bent, but it's highly unlikely that the plate will actually be pierced. So what were the weaknesses of plate armor? Well, if you could circumvent the plate, that would be lovely. So, you would try to stab into the shoulder, the elbow, the knees, the groin, or the eyes. Archers were accurate, but not THAT accurate. At least not with regularity. Or you would use weapons designed against armor, like the pollaxe or the warhammer. Both of which can generate a LOT more force and actually destroy the joints in the plate armor.

Clearly, the plate armor is going to fare better against arrows than chainmail. If it didn't, why would the French switch to plate when fighting against the English? It simply doesn't make sense.

Now, some empirical evidence. The following has been gathered from the Schola Gladiatoria youtube channel, specifically the videos featuring Tobias Capwell of the Wallace collection. I do recommend watching those videos.
Now, first off, Tobias Capwell has actually been shot with a war bow while wearing a historically accurate suit of armor. He was shot on a breastplate at close range (close enough that a follow-up shot would have been impossible). He was staggered by the impact, the breastplate had a noticeable dent, but Tobias was just fine. The arrow didn't penetrate the plate at all.
Secondly, from the battle of Agincourt: The French knights were nervous whether their armor was going to hold against the barrage of arrows fired by the English. Specifically, they were worried that the arrows might hit their eye slits or penetrate the sides of the visor. That's the part they were worried about. The french weren't slaughtered en masse by the barrage of arrows, but they were staggered by it, their energy was drained by all the impacts, and morale was very poor because of it. By the time they actually reached the English lines, they were exhausted, a fair number had lost their horses, some were even trampled by their friends, and it was just overall a miserable experience. But something that must be noted about this battle was the amount of French knights that were captured and taken hostage. That wouldn't have been possible if the plate armor wasn't effective against arrows from English longbows.

Another example of empirical evidence can be found on the channel Lindybeige, where they actually show a breastplate being shot with a heavy war bow. The arrow simply glances off, barely managing to scratch the armor.


This is a major pet peeve of mine, and I want to stamp it out every time I see it. I have no idea how the misconception first appeared, because the statement simply doesn't make sense.