On Guns

[FabulousFizban]

I don't know why I feel compelled to post this, but I do. Whenever a player in my game asks if they can have guns, I say sure, you have to get them from dwarves and there are 3 types: pistols, rifles, and muskets. They function identically to hand crossbows, light crossbows, and heavy crossbows respectively. I'll get some sideways looks, but they accept it, as they get their guns and I don't have to do anything extra. Is this a good solution? Leave artificer out of it please.

[Morty]

It's probably as good a solution as you're going to get in 5E. Trying anything fancier is going to be more trouble than it's worth, given how weapons work in it. So I wouldn't change anything about your approach.

[Kvess]

I was thinking it would be interesting to give a character a Revolver without bullets as a trinket at the start of a campaign. By the time martial characters begin getting their hands on rare and powerful weapons, you could make a source of ammunition available.

[Kane0]

They function identically to hand crossbows, light crossbows, and heavy crossbows respectively.

Leave artificer out of it please.

Yeah thats basically what I do, they're basically crossbows except loud, expensive and sometimes prone to misfire in exchange for higher damage dice. They use tinker's tools to maintain.

But I also have an extra thunder cannon infusion for artificers which was inspired by a previous incarnation of the Artificer in UA, so those that want to really focus on firearms can go further than just the crossbow mastery feat (or gunner, same thing in my eyes).

[Luccan]

Firstly, if your players are satisfied that's all that really matters. However, IMO if you're not going to give a meaningful distinction between different weapons, there isn't a reason for them to exist. This applies to several weapons in the PHB and also to this. Corollary to this, if the weapons are made distinct but strictly worse, you still didn't increase the breadth of options in a meaningful way. Tridents suck because they're less convenient/useful than spears in some ways and otherwise identical in all others. These gun rules, to me, seem similar: they're crossbows but with ammunition that can only be obtained from one group of people. They may also (idk how you run this part) be much louder.

[Warder]

I think I've said this before, but if I ever include guns in 5e it's likely because I'm running Spelljammer, and if so my guns will probably function more similar to a magic wand or something. Expensive, unreliable, high-damage, slow-to-reload one-shot items you're meant to fire once and then switch to something else, not something you build your character around. That's how they work in Spelljammer fiction, so that's how I'd have them work in my game.

[quindraco]

I don't know why I feel compelled to post this, but I do. Whenever a player in my game asks if they can have guns, I say sure, you have to get them from dwarves and there are 3 types: pistols, rifles, and muskets. They function identically to hand crossbows, light crossbows, and heavy crossbows respectively. I'll get some sideways looks, but they accept it, as they get their guns and I don't have to do anything extra. Is this a good solution? Leave artificer out of it please.

On the one hand, it's good to give PCs access to reflavoring things in ways that don't mechanically matter. Letting a PC choose the body shape of their weapons is intrinsically flavorful and a good idea - it's like how you should let PCs choose between having their swords be straight, curved, wavy, etc. There's absolutely no need to get bogged down in enforcing purely cosmetic rules. This is explicitly supported in the rules, where WOTC explains why the weapons table hasn't got katanas in it (and then they expect you to believe they're consistent when they include weapons like the trident).

But on the other hand, why bother with a rule like the above in the first place? You're breaking immersion (dwarves wouldn't bother inventing pistols, rifles, or muskets - they'd just use hand crossbows, light crossbows, and heavy crossbows) for no apparent gain. You could do the same thing with Star Wars blasters, and the same phenomenon of breaking immersion for no benefit would arise.

I would work it one of three ways:
1) If your setting is pseudo-modern or pseudo-futuristic, so everyone carries guns, and you just want 5E to serve as a framework, get rid of crossbows and shortbows and so on and replace them with (possibly "silenced") firearms, so the framework can work but flavorwise everything is guns.
2) If it's pre-Black Powder, just say no to all guns. They have no place in the setting.
3) If it's during the Black Powder era, just say yes to guns, since they fit in the setting.

[Sigreid]

It's fine, but in the DMG there are some guns, including renaissance pistols and rifles. They're about the equivalent of light crossbows and heavy crossbows with more expensive ammunition.

[Jophiel]

I have a historical fiction/fantasy game where firearms do a fair bit more damage than crossbows but can only be fired every other round, requiring a reload in between. So they make for a good opener but, after that, tend to fall into the True Strike issue of "I could have just attacked twice". I allow for up to three pistols to be carried since they're the least damaging and still cost more (weapon & shot) than a heavy crossbow would. The system gives the setting an early 17th century feel without taking over combat from traditional melee.

[GeneralVryth]

I have a historical fiction/fantasy game where firearms do a fair bit more damage than crossbows but can only be fired every other round, requiring a reload in between. So they make for a good opener but, after that, tend to fall into the True Strike issue of "I could have just attacked twice". I allow for up to three pistols to be carried since they're the least damaging and still cost more (weapon & shot) than a heavy crossbow would. The system gives the setting an early 17th century feel without taking over combat from traditional melee.

Would a musket/pistol actually be more damaging that a heavy crossbow though? I would think a crossbow bolt or arrow is making a much bigger hole than a musket ball, but I could be off. It actually seems to me like the advantage of muskets/black powder pistols is they should be a similar reload time, but it's easier to carry more ammunition because it's a lot smaller per shot.

[Jophiel]

Would a musket/pistol actually be more damaging that a heavy crossbow though?
Who knows. System works for us and gives people a reason to picture firing off that silver pistol shot at a werewolf :smallsmile:

From a balance issue, bows/crossbows weren't used militarily by the early-mid 17th century but they did still exist (obviously). So I wanted to give a game balance reason for why firearms would be superior and adopted and make them the more attractive option over everyone anachronistically carrying crossbows around without making any non-firearm combat untenable. It works at the table so far and that's what really matters. But the table also has buy-in from the players about the setting which probably helps a fair bit. 5e isn't much good at realistically modeling weapon effectiveness anyway so a system that "works" is worth more to us than one that's realistic on a granular level.

[Sorinth]

On the one hand, it's good to give PCs access to reflavoring things in ways that don't mechanically matter. Letting a PC choose the body shape of their weapons is intrinsically flavorful and a good idea - it's like how you should let PCs choose between having their swords be straight, curved, wavy, etc. There's absolutely no need to get bogged down in enforcing purely cosmetic rules. This is explicitly supported in the rules, where WOTC explains why the weapons table hasn't got katanas in it (and then they expect you to believe they're consistent when they include weapons like the trident).

But on the other hand, why bother with a rule like the above in the first place? You're breaking immersion (dwarves wouldn't bother inventing pistols, rifles, or muskets - they'd just use hand crossbows, light crossbows, and heavy crossbows) for no apparent gain. You could do the same thing with Star Wars blasters, and the same phenomenon of breaking immersion for no benefit would arise.

I would work it one of three ways:
1) If your setting is pseudo-modern or pseudo-futuristic, so everyone carries guns, and you just want 5E to serve as a framework, get rid of crossbows and shortbows and so on and replace them with (possibly "silenced") firearms, so the framework can work but flavorwise everything is guns.
2) If it's pre-Black Powder, just say no to all guns. They have no place in the setting.
3) If it's during the Black Powder era, just say yes to guns, since they fit in the setting.

How is it immersion breaking? Guns were inferior to crossbows/longbows yet they still got invented and were used despite longbows being superior. The main reason guns became dominant wasn't because they were a superior weapon it was cost and ease of use. And that's the problem with D&D and firearms, guns are more useful for NPCs then for PCs since cost & needing to be highly skilled isn't a detriment to PCs.

If I were to integrate guns and didn't want to just reflavour crossbows like the OP I'd be tempted to make guns use dex saving throws with the DC based on the gun itself. A cheap common gun might be a DC 11 Dex save, whereas a gun made by a master gun smith might be a DC 15 dex save.

[quindraco]

How is it immersion breaking? Guns were inferior to crossbows/longbows yet they still got invented and were used despite longbows being superior. The main reason guns became dominant wasn't because they were a superior weapon it was cost and ease of use.

Did you not read OP's post? OP wants to have guns, bows, and crossbows in the same setting - but guns are identical to the other two (depending on the gun; the "rifle" co-existing with the musket is particularly offensive) in every way except for a reskin and being dwarf only. As you yourself just said, in the real world, guns were not the same as the other two, which is what helped propel their development.

Incidentally, guns having a gun-based static dex save would get you something that would disobey both real world *and* 5E physics - those are the mechanics for a magic wand, not a weapon. Far better to just have widespread wand production in your setting than to introduce a weapon that ignores the competence of the firer.

[Gurgeh]

the "rifle" co-existing with the musket is particularly offensive
Not exactly; rifled and smoothbore guns coexisted for about a century, and filled different niches. Rifles offered superior accuracy and range, but their rifling meant that they were slower to reload (since the ball had to be tight against the barrel, you needed more force to load it) and more difficult to maintain (as the grooves made them more prone to fouling with black powder residue). Black powder also produced enough smoke that the rifle's greater range would quickly cease to matter in a pitched battle.

For a fight at close quarters, using line infantry tactics, smoothbore muskets would offer a significantly higher volume of fire, and the close-order nature of their targets meant that the difference in accuracy tended not to matter much.

Rifles weren't in a position to replace smoothbore weapons until black powder had been replaced by propellants with less residue (making the fouling issue less pertinent) and a reliable breech-loading mechanism had been devised (which eliminated the difference in reloading difficulty and allowed infantry to fire and reload while prone).

On one level - yes, you can't just treat a "rifle" and "musket" as two broadly-equivalent weapon options with only a minor difference in range and damage dice - but at the same time it's entirely reasonable for a setting to have both.

[Hytheter]

The Renaissance Firearms from the DMG are basically balanced for use with the other weapons and crossbows in particular. They do more damage but they have lower range. They're pretty pricey, though, and since you need two hands due to Ammunition property there's no real reason to use a pistol over a musket unless you're an artificer. They also require the Gunner Feat to use with multiple attacks but it's a half-feat at least.

[Morty]

It's already of questionable utility to even have crossbows as separate weapons. They're marginally better than bows for characters without extra attacks and need a feat to be useful at all to characters who do have them. At which point they work exactly like bows except with slightly more damage. And I think a shorter range if you compare a heavy crossbow to a longbow, but I'm not sure. Either way, I don't see much of a reason not to have a two-handed d8 weapon that can be a bow, crossbow, gun or crank-operated walnut launcher. 5E just doesn't have the granularity of rules to distinguish between them.

[KorvinStarmast]

a bow, crossbow, gun or crank-operated walnut launcher. Please don't give my artificer player ideas! :smalleek: :smallbiggrin:

[Tanarii]

I don't know why I feel compelled to post this, but I do. Whenever a player in my game asks if they can have guns, I say sure, you have to get them from dwarves and there are 3 types: pistols, rifles, and muskets. They function identically to hand crossbows, light crossbows, and heavy crossbows respectively. I'll get some sideways looks, but they accept it, as they get their guns and I don't have to do anything extra. Is this a good solution? Leave artificer out of it please.
Personally I'd say add in a rule that they are automatically heard by creatures within 300ft as a reason why they are not commonly used, and you've got a winner.

[Sorinth]

Did you not read OP's post? OP wants to have guns, bows, and crossbows in the same setting - but guns are identical to the other two (depending on the gun; the "rifle" co-existing with the musket is particularly offensive) in every way except for a reskin and being dwarf only. As you yourself just said, in the real world, guns were not the same as the other two, which is what helped propel their development.

Incidentally, guns having a gun-based static dex save would get you something that would disobey both real world *and* 5E physics - those are the mechanics for a magic wand, not a weapon. Far better to just have widespread wand production in your setting than to introduce a weapon that ignores the competence of the firer.

Yes I read the OPs post. How is it any more offensive then all the other weapons that are basically re-skins of each other or how the sling is so weak compared to other ranged weapons?

As for using Dex saving throws it doesn't defy realism because smooth bore firearms were notoriously inaccurate so hitting the target had very little to do with the competence of the firer to begin with. I'd also point out classical armor wasn't all that effective against things like muskets which fits into having it be saving throw better then an attack roll does. There are plenty of examples where attack rolls vs saves are basically interchangeable, for example pretty much all "ray" spells are attack rolls except sometimes like instead make them saving throws like Disentegrate, why is that a saving throw when pretty much all other "Ray" spells are attack rolls.

And as for why not mass produce wands, that's extremely dependent on the campaign world. It might make sense for a super high magic world, but for regular 5e mass producing wands would be massively expensive.

[JackPhoenix]

As for using Dex saving throws it doesn't defy realism because smooth bore firearms were notoriously inaccurate so hitting the target had very little to do with the competence of the firer to begin with. I'd also point out classical armor wasn't all that effective against things like muskets which fits into having it be saving throw better then an attack roll does.

Right... do you know where the term "bullet-proof" comes from? People used to shoot the armor they were about to buy to make sure it can stop bullets. When you're about to get with an early firearm, you're better off wearing plate than trying to dodge a bullet.

And the lack of user's skill is represented by the fact you don't have proficiency with firearms without a feat. Maybe. It's somewhat confusing. They are normal simple and martial weapons in DMG, but every other mention suggest you'll need to get proficiency with them elsewhere.


And as for why not mass produce wands, that's extremely dependent on the campaign world. It might make sense for a super high magic world, but for regular 5e mass producing wands would be massively expensive.

In "regular 5e", Wand of Magic Missile is cheaper than a musket. It doesn't require expensive ammunition, but it's limited to 6 "shots" per day (7 if you want to take 5% of losing it), it doesn't require any proficiency or attunement, has perfect accuracy, same range (but with no long-range penalty), higher damage that work against creatures immune or resistant to non-magic weapons, have the versatility to be able to attack 1-3 targets with every "shot" and can be used with one hand.

You're absolutely better off mass-producing wands than muskets.

[Ogun]

As a player the appeal of firearms is a melee dominate setting would be multi fold:
-The rise of fencing
-The demise of heavy armor
-Fire and forget pistols

From the original post I can guess that the armor/fencing rules aren't changing.
Can crossbows pre Ioaded?
I would gladly strap on half a dozen or more hand cross bows(pistols) if that was a way to avoid reloading.

[Tvtyrant]

I would probably toy around with: Guns take a short rest to reload without a failure chance, action to reload otherwise and you can't hold anything else. Hit targets need to take a con save or be frightened on their next turn. Makes it more piratey, everyone fires off their pistols at the start and then rushes into melee.

[Sorinth]

Right... do you know where the term "bullet-proof" comes from? People used to shoot the armor they were about to buy to make sure it can stop bullets. When you're about to get with an early firearm, you're better off wearing plate than trying to dodge a bullet.

Bullets absolutely pierced metal armour, it's one reason heavy armour fell out of use. If armor was actually bullet-proof, we'd see full plate armour in use today. While armour lasted it started to become more about deflecting the bullet then stopping it.

It's also worth pointing out the vast majority of armour isn't thick metal plates that could potentially stop a bullet. So even if you wanted to do something with plate and it's equivalent, you still have leather armours that should be doing nothing right?



And the lack of user's skill is represented by the fact you don't have proficiency with firearms without a feat. Maybe. It's somewhat confusing. They are normal simple and martial weapons in DMG, but every other mention suggest you'll need to get proficiency with them elsewhere.

Guns are easy to learn how to use. To be realistic they shouldn't require some special feat in order to know how to use, a couple hours of training and you are proficient. Compare that to other weapons that requires years of training to become competent with. That's why it's more of an NPC weapon then a PC weapon, PCs will be highly trained/skilled they don't need to use a weapon whose main selling point is that it's easy to learn how to use.



In "regular 5e", Wand of Magic Missile is cheaper than a musket. It doesn't require expensive ammunition, but it's limited to 6 "shots" per day (7 if you want to take 5% of losing it), it doesn't require any proficiency or attunement, has perfect accuracy, same range (but with no long-range penalty), higher damage that work against creatures immune or resistant to non-magic weapons, have the versatility to be able to attack 1-3 targets with every "shot" and can be used with one hand.

You're absolutely better off mass-producing wands than muskets.

In both the DMG and Xanathar's you require an exotic component to craft the item which is uncosted, so right off the bat no it's not cheaper. The gold cost are for all the other more standard materials needed, you still need that exotic component and it's almost certainly going to cost more just by itself then the 500gp to buy a musket.

On top of that, how much does it cost to hire a wizard for 14-20 days? Did you factor that in when you came up with the cost of producing wands?

And finally there's the fact that things you buy aren't equal to their actual material cost, there's going to be a markup. That markup is already included in buying weapons, armour and firearms, but is not there for crafting.

And really if mass producing wands of magic missiles is a feasible thing for the campaign world, then it would be happening regardless of whether firearms existed or whether they were restricted to crossbows/longbows.

Not too mention if we were going for realism, the prices for firearms are nonsensical anyways since it's a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to produce a musket then it is to make a crossbow, or longbow. Which again is a big part of why firearms became dominant, it was much easier to mass produce them then mass producing other weapons.

[sithlordnergal]

Your method works well enough...though I'm generally not a fan of re-fluffing/flavoring things simply because I don't see the point in refluffing stuff myself. That said, the guns in the DMG are pretty decently balanced. If you are concerned about the damage, just drop the damage dice a bit on the pistol. Have pistols deal 1d8 while being 1-Handed weapons with their lower range.

[sithlordnergal]

Personally I'd say add in a rule that they are automatically heard by creatures within 300ft as a reason why they are not commonly used, and you've got a winner.

You assume much if you think a 300ft alarm shall stop players from using it. >=D There's a reason why I keep Thunderwave prepared at all times, Stealth is not a word in my vocabulary.

[Tanarii]

You assume much if you think a 300ft alarm shall stop players from using it. >=D There's a reason why I keep Thunderwave prepared at all times, Stealth is not a word in my vocabulary.
Oh sure. It just seems like a nice little thing to add on to make them technically a little bit worse, without making them untenable to use.