Bullets

[Zhentarim]

How many bullets should I give a level 1 character under the Commonplace Guns setting? I have thought to give as few as 4, as many as 30, or no bullets at all and having them buy bullets later. This is for a slightly modified Reign of Winter Campaign where I replaced what would have been a cold iron longsword with a masterwork gun and X number of cold iron bullets.

Note: Our ranged ranger already has a longbow with 40 bolts.

[Flickerdart]

Musket balls are very easy to make - smiths would just drip molten lead from a height into a pool of cold water. The droplet of lead would naturally form a perfect sphere in flight, and then immediately become chilled (and solid) as soon as it hit water.

40 bullets is fine.

[DrMotives]

I agree with Flickerdart. The sling bullets already present in the PHB are almost the same as musket bullets. Unless you have more modern firearms than the DMG or Spelljammer 3.x conversions suggest, there's no jacketed rounds. Bullets are just round metal balls.

[Stealth Marmot]

I agree with Flickerdart. The sling bullets already present in the PHB are almost the same as musket bullets. Unless you have more modern firearms than the DMG or Spelljammer 3.x conversions suggest, there's no jacketed rounds. Bullets are just round metal balls.

The bullets aren't the hard part. You have to have properly measured packets of gunpowder.

I'm not exactly up on renaissance flintlock pistols (assuming flintlock, Pelor help you if you use matchlock), but the bullets were the easy part.

[Flickerdart]

The bullets aren't the hard part. You have to have properly measured packets of gunpowder.

I'm not exactly up on renaissance flintlock pistols (assuming flintlock, Pelor help you if you use matchlock), but the bullets were the easy part.

Get a sack of gunpowder, and spend some downtime making cartridges. Not exactly rocket science.

[J-H]

How poor are your characters? I was reading some huntin' stories in Foxfire#1 (a book of interviews, skills, tools, etc. put together by interviewing old people in Appalachia in the 1960s-70s, really cool book) last night. A guy was going bear hunting with some dogs and a small group. He only had 4 shots worth of ammo on him.

Going for bear, you'd expect him to have more...but that's all he had.

[Stealth Marmot]

Get a sack of gunpowder, and spend some downtime making cartridges. Not exactly rocket science.

Do you have a ready supply of potassium nitrate and sulfur in proper levels of purity in your back pocket then?

The gunpowder is the hard to get part. The packets aren't too hard to make, especially if you are a gunslinger.

Mind you, being in the commonplace guns setting, it won't be that hard to get, but still a hell of a lot harder to get than balls of iron the size of a marble. Your average large town will probably have it, but your outpost in the boonies probably won't. Unless they are using gunpowder for mining, or ironically mining FOR potassium nitrate.

I would give them a couple dozen at least. You never know when you'll be on a long trek without a major town with a gunpowder salesman.

[Flickerdart]

Do you have a ready supply of potassium nitrate and sulfur in proper levels of purity in your back pocket then?
No, but I don't have arrowheads either. I buy them from a store.