Futuristic Weapons

[Caelestion]

I would suggest explicitly including the base weapon to which you're applying these various damage types.

[D&D_Fan]

The whole thing is a dynamic rework of the futuristic weapons in the dmg. I don’t know if Age of Warriors is using those weapons, and I don’t know if this project is still linked to AoW. I will find out more

[loky1109]

A bladed laser is supposed to be a lightsaber. If lightsabers aren't laser, does it matter?

Of course it does!
Lightsabers are Plasma Weapons.

And fun is an important gameplay element.

There is no fun if there is no suspension of disbelief.

Yes you can have antimatter and atomic firearms. I was inspired by the Fatman from Fallout.

Fatman from Fallout isn't a firearm. It is a missile launcher.

Both could exist, so why not, you can snipe an enemy and watch them be destroyed in a massive explosion.

Antimatter maybe (let's not even mention tech lvl of it), but atomic - No. There is minimum mass of fissile materials.

And... What do you think, why nobody manufactures hand-held firearms with explosive bullets?

[D&D_Fan]

OAnd... What do you think, why nobody manufactures hand-held firearms with explosive bullets?

There are war agreements about explosive and incindiary bullets

[loky1109]

There are war agreements about explosive and incindiary bullets

War agreements regulate only war weapons, not civilian or hunting weapons.

And I was wrong. Explosive bullets are manufacturing.

[D&D_Fan]

I think laser should be Wounding Electric.
Or Searing Fire.
Maybe just Untyped.
Which one would fit best?

Plasma is Searing Fire.

For antimatter, Constitution since it is annihilating entire chunks of target on a hit.

Is this good?
Any damage types you would change?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

There's not really a good reason to go inventing a bunch of new damage types for these weapons, or to make the weapons ridiculously lethal. It's not an issue of them being "OP," just a matter of not fitting in with similar effects already in 3e.

Lasers and plasma shouldn't be searing or untyped; fire elementals, red dragons, and other (Fire) creatures can go swimming in lava with no ill effects, and lasers and plasma aren't all that scary by comparison. Scorching ray is basically lasers, and those are just 4d6 fire.

Antimatter shouldn't do tons of Con damage; a disintegrate that isn't instantly lethal merely does 5d6 damage and even a commoner with a few levels under their belt can theoretically survive that. The antimatter rifle in the DMG just does 6d10 untyped--impressive, yes, and the most damaging nonmagical weapon ever printed, but not "minimum 16d6 untyped + 4d6 sonic + 4d6 fire, no save" impressive. Similar objections apply to gauss and atomic weapons; they're just not that ridiculous level of scary to deserve all the extra dice and Con damage.

As for the attack penalties, those don't make sense at all. A gun, to a D&D character, is basically a wand that you can trigger like a crossbow. Crossbows gained popularity due to how easy they were to operate, and anyone familiar with a wand would know how to aim a "crossbow" without any projectile drop, so futuristic ranged weapons should fall under Simple proficiency with no special penalties, or Martial at worst if they have considerable recoil or something. Futuristic melee weapons would have different handling and safety considerations compared to normal ones, but a flaming longsword or brilliant energy greatsword is as dangerous to touch and awkward to wield as any plasma or laser sword, and since the magic versions don't impose any sort of attack penalty, neither should the technological ones.


In short, this entire project seems to be written assuming a setting of Stone Age primitives with no experience with magic or any weapons more complex than clubs and whose strongest warriors are as durable as real-world civilians, not a D&D setting where an antimatter rifle isn't the weirdest "magic item" an adventurer has seen in the past week much less a lifetime and powerful adventurers can take a rift in spacetime to the face and walk it off.

I think you should go back to the drawing board and figure out why you want to rework the DMG versions of these weapons. If it's just "OMG a reailstic antimatter weapon would totally obliterate everything!!!" then all you're doing is throwing big numbers and special snowflake damage types at the wall and there's not much point. If it's "I want nonmagical weapon options that scale like magic weapons and 'future tech' is a good rationale," then all the extra constraints and wonkiness are more harmful than helpful. If it's something else, you should figure out what unique thing the futuristic weapons bring to the table and focus on that.

[Sinner's Garden]

I think laser should be Wounding Electric.
Or Searing Fire.
Maybe just Untyped.
Which one would fit best?

Plasma is Searing Fire.

For antimatter, Constitution since it is annihilating entire chunks of target on a hit.

Is this good?
Any damage types you would change?

Lasers should do fire type damage. Plasma should also do fire type damage. If you really need it to be untyped for some reason, then don't give it a type at all (lightsabers, notably, are described as "pure energy" at least once, which is just magic), but a standard fire fire gun deals fire damage and gets waffled by anti-fire magic. That's not a design flaw for you to work around by inserting enough words that you can baffle the rules. Antimatter, for that matter, does probably untyped damage. It doesn't do CON damage. It just doesn't work as well (that is, as an instant kill) against supernaturally tough freaks of nature like anyone you'd read about in a fantasy story.

I mean, do you think Roland who could literally kick cattle over mountains in the buff, or Gawain who would get into slug-out matches where he traded sword wounds from dawn to dusk (or even dusk to noon) would be significantly hampered by that when they're fine sailing through the afterlife and getting stomped on by giants? I'm hammering this point home here because I think you're under a strange impression that future tech should be vastly more powerful than magic because it's more advanced or something.

[D&D_Fan]

@SG why don’t you try to make some templates?

[D&D_Fan]

If you want to focus on mechanics, this is my upcoming plans.

All future weapons:
Ignore resistance and immunity. - Future Damage
Run on energy cells. - Ammunition
Not considered magic. - Amagical
Expensive to enchant. - Amagical
Extra bonuses and damage. - Future Damage
Susceptible to break/malfunction.
Weapon restrictions.

Lasers:
Shoots only in straight lines. - Laser
Shots reflect off of certain surfaces - Laser
Easy to track. - Laser
Can cause blindness. - Future Damage

Plasma:
Can light things on fire. - Future Damage

Antimatter:
Some sort of extreme damage?ability to instakill - Future damage

[D&D_Fan]

Well, I updated the page, and did a complete rewrite.
Page here.

[D&D_Fan]

Anyone have ideas for rules for weapon malfunction, and how that could work?

[D&D_Fan]

I updated the doc with an explanation of how to use the templates, and some weapons made with the templates:
Statted weapons:
Flamethrower
Gauss rifle
Laser pistol.

[D&D_Fan]

I felt like making this
Gauss Shotgun Cannon
Damage
4d6 (small) - 4d8 (medium)
Damage type
Piercing (armor cutter, exit wound)
Critical modifier
×2
Range increment
150 ft.
Weight
7 lb.
A shotgun is most effective at close range;
on any successful attack, a –1 penalty is applied to the damage roll for each range increment of the attack.
It can fire six times before it needs reloading (which requires a full-round action).
The weapon uses shotgun shells.
Alternate Fire
Slashing (armor cutter, exit wound)
The cannon fire flechettes instead of shells.

This one feels fun and not broken.