Firearms in D&D: Thoughts?

[CatharzGodfoot]

I'm pretty sure that fireballs deal full damage all the way out to the edge.

Ergo, fireballs are not point-source explosions. Batshit flies out, evokes a 30' wide flash of twisted flame sheets from the elemental plane of fire, everyone within is burnt equally. Hot air wafts away after.

A fireball spell is an explosion of flame that detonates with a low roar and deals 1d6 points of fire damage per caster level (maximum 10d6) to every creature within the area. Unattended objects also take this damage. The explosion creates almost no pressure.

You point your finger and determine the range (distance and height) at which the fireball is to burst. A glowing, pea-sized bead streaks from the pointing digit and, unless it impacts upon a material body or solid barrier prior to attaining the prescribed range, blossoms into the fireball at that point. (An early impact results in an early detonation.) If you attempt to send the bead through a narrow passage, such as through an arrow slit, you must “hit” the opening with a ranged touch attack, or else the bead strikes the barrier and detonates prematurely.

[*]You can stab with a longsword, it just does less damage than swinging with it, as you'll note when the monster has DR 5/piercing and you stab with your longsword.

Please let me know where the rules for this are!

DR 5/piercing, longsword does less damage. What's the problem?

The problem is that the sword isn't actually doing piercing damage. No effect which keys off piercing damage will work with it. It becomes particularly obvious when you compare using a sword to 'stab' a creature with DR 5/piercing with doing the same to a creature with DR 15/piercing (or immunity to piercing damage), or when you compare 'stabbing' an enemy with a longsword to 'stabbing' them with a club.

A "glaive" (slashing only poleaxe) is apparently just as effective in a tunnel as a longspear.

Glaives are a chopper, you lift the head a little, and bring it back down again, over and over. Chop, chop, chop. Very small frontage.

It's something that wasn't well understood in the early '70s when EGG wrote them up first time, but melee weapons mostly stay between you and the other man, no matter how long or edged they are. You don't twirl them around your body like Conan. Also, shields are awesome, and fragile, and better armour makes big shields less useful.

Is that supposed to be relevant? A glaive is still significantly harder to use in confined spaces than a spear.

Anyway, GURPS 4 has good rules for multiple projectiles, steal that. Shouldn't be too hard to convert.

What? Fine, I'll do it myself.

Shotguns are about negating range penalties against small targets. Also, they have trouble against armour at any range. D&D can't handle both of those paradigms at once, so use no range penalties, short maximum, with fine grade shot getting a bonus to hit but a limited armour bonus it can hurt at all. A bit like a whip. You'll need to make the numbers suit your imagination, some people think shotguns are amazing, but mostly they're just really scary.

And now the shotgun is useless and overly complicated, just like all of the firearms in the DMG.

[PoliteNewb]

some people think shotguns are amazing, but mostly they're just really scary.

Used properly, shotguns are pretty amazing. For killing thin-skinned animals (including people) at under 10 yards, they're about the best hand-held arm you could ask for.

Yeah, I've heard that decent weight sweatshirts, and delivery pizza are capable of stopping shot at the right range.

Unless this is hyperbole or "the right range" is 400 yards, this is also bullshit. Also depends on what kind of shot load you're talking...there is massive difference between a .410 target load and a 3 1/2" 12-gauge magnum load.

[Maxus]

Or buckshot and a slug...

[Prak]

I think it's part hyperbole, part gun nut's reaction to "SHOTGUNS R TEH AWESUMS!" mentality.

[Eikre]

I think Hernan Cortez maps pretty well to a D&D character's exploits. He crushes Classical societies, he knocks over their temples of doom, he wins fights against enormous throngs of competent hostiles by being an unscrupulous little fuckhead. Does everything you need in a D&D hero. We've got extant manifests from his campaign which recount his assets; Rapiers, full plate armor, crossbows, and harquebus are all accounted for. So I feel pretty receptive to a 15th century style inclusion of gunpowder weapons.

At that stage of development, you start seeing 30-year-wars and pike-and-shot formations emerge, but I don't think the material reality is fundamentally different enough from Ye Olde Medieval Faire to disturb anyone's conceptions about how their characters should look. Bows become marginalized on the world stage, but they're not any less effective on an individual basis. Player characters can and should still use them. They're fast, quiet, logistically cohesive with an adventurer's lifestyle, and the high learning curve compared to a firearm is not conceptually at odds with a PC's extraordinary nature.

I'm not really amiable to implementations where firearms take a long sidestep out of the basic schematics that constrain every other weapon. Giving them areas of effect or touch attacks strains the combat abstraction, I think. I don't know how much worse the earliest hackbuts were than post-rifle smoothbores, but a musket in the 17th century could hit reliably at a distance covered by maybe 30 or 40 game squares. You pop a couple extra 10s on the top of that to establish the maximum if you get really lucky and the increments you're looking at really aren't even a problem.

If this was 4E we were talking about, with single-attack actions every turn and the weapon table that is particular to that edition, I would establish the crossbows as the weapons that come with a +3 prof. bonus, the firearms as the weapons that come with +2 prof. but a step up on the dice size to compensate, and bows would become Exotic weapons with the intersection of the two. I dunno, there are a couple discrepancies there, not going to bother working it out, though; I think people would end up comfortable with whichever anachronism they ended up playing.

A couple things about a 3E-style system that would be nice to mollify before working in the firearms would be a viable sniper option to make a one-shot-per-round archery option tenable, and a way to run around with braces of pistols shooting them off and discarding one every turn without being at a disadvantage compared to someone who got to consolidate all their enchantments on just one bow with free-action reloads. That way you could maintain the distinction that makes the bow the gold-standard in quickfire ranged weapons without making everyone think the guns are just a worthless inclusion.

I think the neatest thing about having crossbows, conventional bows, and firearms all in the same place, though, is playing the armyman minigame with massed NPC troops. But obviously only if you have some good rules for that sort of thing. I think the general idea of how those scenarios played out is better accounted for than how little four-dude skirmishes went, and I think it's kind of neat that the heart of your fantasy elf-and-ogre system could be things that Clausewitz and Napoleon said about Agincourt or whatever. Something about the armchair soldier thing always made me feel a little repulsed. It's not enough to keep me from joining in, but I stop and imagine pages and pages of pseudonewtonian proofs backing ridiculous assumptions, links to that History channel show where they try to use math to decide whether Ninjas or Vikings would win in a fight, and not a single citation from the Scienza d'Arme. You guys know what I'm talking about.

[Parthenon]

I really like that idea of Cortez and D&D.

A couple things about a 3E-style system that would be nice to mollify before working in the firearms would be ... a way to run around with braces of pistols shooting them off and discarding one every turn without being at a disadvantage compared to someone who got to consolidate all their enchantments on just one bow with free-action reloads.

Isn't that really easy? You just cost pistols like you would ammo. So you have 50 or so magic pistols in a magical brace of storing like the Haversack and handwave reloading them between combat. If you're shooting more than 50 times a combat then you have a problem anyway.

[nockermensch]

I really like that idea of Cortez and D&D.

Yeah, it's really pertinent and helps to put what a classical "adventure" actually is. Besides, the starting description a step removed from "I think Cortez is a pretty cool guy. eh crushes classical societies and doesnt afraid of anything." which is a big plus.

[Prak]

So, been doing a bit of thinking about Dragon Breath Guns.

Dragon Breath Guns
Decades of research have finally paid off, wizards and sages have discovered the function of the Fundamentum Gland. The mysterious organ which generates the draconic breath weapon in some previously unknown way. It has been determined that what it does is convert precious minerals directly into energy, the breath weapon. Further experimentation has given the humanoid races a potent weapon, where gouts of flame and storms of frost were previously the province of long years of study, genetic quirk, or being a dragon, now every man, woman, and child can carry Draco verus' most potent weapon on a belt. The Fundamentum gland, when attached to a frame much like that of a crossbow which allows aiming and manipulation, and a direct feed of precious minerals, such as gold coins, bars, or gems, allows exact replication of breath weapon of the colour and age of dragon the gland was harvested from. For example, the Fundamentum of a Black Wyrmling fires a 30' line of acid capable of dissolving a short sword in a single blast. The downside, however, is that such an attack can only be used as often as a dragon can use it's breath weapon, and so firing the full force possible can only be done once every 12-30 seconds. However, by varying the pressure one applies to the trigger, greater or lesser energy can be used. Half force allows continuous use, while 3/4 force requires a mere 12 seconds to recharge. It is also possible, though inadvisable, to overexert the weapon, channeling much more energy than a dragon of the gland's age would be capable of doing itself. This is inadvisable, because the energy forms a backlash, damaging the weapon itself, and, should the weapon be broken, damaging the wielder, and nearby allies.
Finally, most curiously, the glands remain alive in a very real sense, somehow, and are able to "grow" in age. It is unknown how this functions, precisely, as of yet, but it seems that the weapons form a symbiotic relationship with their carriers, and grow as their owner increases in power.
------------

So, basically, take a dragon fundamentum, affix it to a crossbow stock, and feed a gold bar into an attached coupler. You can do 1 die of damage per age category of dragon continuously, 2 dice every 1d4+1 rounds, or 1 1/2 dice every 2 rounds (round down). Each die of damage costs 1 silver worth of material, so a gold piece gives you 10 dice of damage. You can overfeed the gland, but every die of damage you deal in excess of the age max damages the weapon, and if this breaks it, the weapon explodes, dealing 2 dice of damage for every silver piece of ammo remaining in the weapon in a radius equal to 1/2 the weapon's range. Dragon's Breath guns cost 100g per die of max damage, and White and Brass Wyrmlings cost 50g because they can only be fired full bore for 1 die.
The weapons increase in age category such that they deal 1 die per two character levels you have. It takes 1 month, or 1 level for this bond to form.
While the ammo is measured in silver pieces, you can seriously put any valuable mineral in any form or shape in, and value from working, such as cutting a gem, counts. The ammunition coupler will accommodate coins, bars, raw or cut gems, hell, put art object in, I only care as an artist. So long as it's a precious mineral, it'll work. Copper doesn't work. Basically silver, gold, platinum, gems, adamantine, etc.

Now, have fun tearing it apart/telling me I've over complicated shit so I can refine it.

[Eikre]

Isn't that really easy? You just cost pistols like you would ammo. So you have 50 or so magic pistols in a magical brace of storing like the Haversack and handwave reloading them between combat. If you're shooting more than 50 times a combat then you have a problem anyway.

Nothing is stopping you from loading the guns with special ammunition and paying the same rates that the archer would, but the archer gets a whole extra set of enhancements which he applies to every shot regardless of the quality of the ammunition. His +1 Brilliant Energy Forceful Cockpunching Longbow (effective enhancement bonus: +10) maps to only about a dozen or so +3 throwaway pistols. This isn't a new thing though, people with throwing weapons get the shaft in the same way.

It's not enormously difficult to compensate for this kind of thing, but it deserves consideration.

[Prak]

Just treat the bandolier as the weapon (the +1 brilliant energy forceful cockpunching) and the pistols as ammunition.

[John Magnum]

That seems really dumb.

[Prak]

that seems amazingly useless

[OgreBattle]

How does World of Warcraft differentiate bows, crossbows, and guns

[Parthenon]

So, been doing a bit of thinking about Dragon Breath Guns.

Dragon Breath Guns
...

Now, have fun tearing it apart/telling me I've over complicated shit so I can refine it.

You've overcomplicated shit. I'm trying to understand what you're on about with Dragon Breath guns, and I sort of think I'm getting it. But its still way too complex- you have:
[*]Four different ways to shoot it,
[*]A unique and frustrating method of ammunition where you shove money into it,
[*]Extra complexities from the age of the dragon,
[*]The weapon itself possibly blowing up and hurting yourself,
[*]Only getting to that after reading through some big TL;DR.
It can definitely be cut down. I've redone it simpler:

---

Dragon Breath Gun:

This gun shoots an attack based on a dragon with an attack action which requires a ranged attack to hit. You can also shoot a special attack with a Standard action which is more like the dragon's attack, but it takes 1d4 rounds to recharge. Once you have more than 5 BAB (you have an extra attack from BAB) you can still do a basic attack as a Standard action while recharging. The damage done is affected by your character level and no ammunition is required.

The damage done is 1d6 / level for two-handed guns, or 1d6 / two levels (rounded up) for handguns. There are no shotguns. A special attack's damage is maximised with half again (like being maximised and empowered) but has a different effect.

As examples, a level 4 Black Rifle does 4d6 acid damage to a single target as an attack action, or 24+2d6 in a 60ft line with a Standard action that requires a 1d4 round recharge. A level 4 Red Handgun, on the other hand, does 2d6 fire damage as a basic attack, or 12+1d6 fire damage in a 60ft cone.

Gun	Damage	Critical	Range Increment	Type	Special Attack
Black Rifle	1d6 / HD	-	50ft	Acid	Line of Acid, with range 20ft + 10ft/level
Black Handgun	1d6 / two HDs	-	30ft	Acid	Line of Acid, with range 20ft + 10ft/level
Red Rifle	1d6 / HD	-	50ft	Fire	Cone of Fire, with range 20ft + 10ft/level
Red Handgun	1d6 / two HDs	-	30ft	Fire	Cone of Fire, with range 20ft + 10ft/level
White/Gold/etc	as above	-	as above	Fire/Cold/etc	Cone/Line/etc of element, with range 20ft + 10ft/level

---

So basically its balanced on the Warlock's basic attack- people liked that he was throwing around his level in d6 worth of damage and it wasn't unbalancing at all. The main difference is that the Warlock uses a Standard action and only needs a ranged touch attack, whereas this requires an attack action and requires a ranged attack so is harder to hit. Maybe the damage could be reduced to d4s if people bitch.

Shooting a specific element that you can choose is probably a bit more powerful, but does it really matter?

The main problem is what the hell are these people going to do for the 1d4 rounds while it is recharging? For BAB 6 and up they are limited to a single shot per round, but that still leaves the lower levels useless for up to 4 rounds, or the rest of the combat. Some possibilities for alternatives are the recharge should be a single round, or the gun does half damage for the duration. Maybe both.

It may want something to stop someone getting a Black Handgun and walking straight through the walls of the dungeon, but whatever.

[Foxwarrior]

Prak Anima's version lets you kill basically anyone for 150 gp, provided you have a henchman stupid enough.

All Parthenon has is a squirtgun of death which does damage that you then stack with Sneak Attack or Death Attack dice. Oh, and you keep some Red Rifles in your pocket for when you need to burn everything in the room.

Both of you should remember that any cooldown on a cheap item longer than a move action doesn't matter.

[Parthenon]

All Parthenon has is a squirtgun of death which does damage that you then stack with Sneak Attack or Death Attack dice.

Wait, what? You may as well say that all a bow has is a rifle of death which does damage that you then stack with Sneak Attack or Death Attack dice. In fact you can say that about any ranged weapon, or pretty much any weapon at all.

In reality you use flasks of acid for sneak attack since rogues have 3/4 BAB and flasks get to use touch attacks instead of regular attacks like that gun does. What this does is give full BAB guys who don't have sneak attack a more level appropriate damage weapon without having to cheese everything, with the bonus of an occasional special attack.

I agree about the fact that having a cooldown as written here is useless since you can swap out the gun for a new one, but with an alteration that you can only have one rifle or two handguns attuned at once it becomes much more reasonable. The problem is coming up with a way to do that which allows looting, swapping a gun out between combats, and not giving a level appropriate gun to your cohort so he has a gun better than he should.

In fact its a problem with magic items in general, and would be aided by an item limit in general. In which case the damage for handguns would go up slightly to make it worthwhile passing up another item to have two weapons.

[Foxwarrior]

No, a bow is a twig tosser. It is not rifled. Your dragon rifles are squirtguns: they squirt little gobs or streams of acid or fire long distances.

I grudgingly acknowledge that rogues and such would actually have to consider the pros and cons of dragon rifles versus flasks, especially in campaigns where enemies don't have AC that scales really poorly.

If you want to solve the cooldown problem with attuning, don't call it a cooldown, make it a cool-up: something like "Holding this gun for 1d4 rounds charges its Special Attack. When the Special Attack is used, it needs to charge up again."

[Prak]

Basically you have a weapon that gives attacks of varying level-appropriateness:

• Level Appropriate as a side shtick-continuouslyy
• Level Appropriate as a main shtick-every 2 rounds
• Full Dragon Breath Weapon-as a dragon breath weapon
• Lets Take All the Fuckers Out Now-risk blowing yourself up

Using wealth as ammo is little different from buying ammo, it just means you don't need to find a merchant, just jam the wealth directly in. You can envision the gun as having something like a paintball reservoir that can be removed to allow bars as clips.

At the very least, I want it to give a dragon's full breath weapon as basically a once/combat thing, and a continuous area-energy attack, though I'd be ok with the continuous just being a more standard ranged attack.

Hm... a simplified version...

	Continuous Damage	Blast Damage (1/5 rounds)	Blast Shape	Price
Black (Acid)	1d4/2 Char. Levels	1d4/Char. Level	Line
Blue (Electric)	1d8/2 Char. Levels	1d8/Char. Level	Line
Green (Acid)	1d6/2 Char. Levels	1d6/Char. Level	Cone
Red (Fire)	1d10/2 Char. Levels	1d10/Char. Level	Cone
White (Cold)	1d8/4 Char. Levels	1d8/2 Char. Level	Cone
Brass (Fire)	1d6/4 Char. Levels	1d6/2 Char. Level or Sleep	Line
Bronze (Electric)	1d6/2 Char. Levels	1d6/Char. Level, or Repulsion Gas	Line
Copper (Acid)	1d4/2 Char. Levels	1d4/Char. Level or Slow	Line
Gold (Fire)	1d10/2 Char. Levels	1d10/Char. Level or Weakening Gas	Cone
Silver (Cold)	1d8/4 Char. Levels	1d8/2 Char. Level or Paralyzing Gas	Cone

Dragon Breath Guns are constructed by manipulating the energy generating gland of dragons, namely putting them in a proper interface, allowing them to bond with a wielder, and feeding them precious materials. A Dragon Breath Gun has an adapter that will accept anything from coins, to bars, to gems, and even swords made of an appropriate material. Each shot literally costs 1 sp of value of the item, disintegrating a small amount of it, and using it to generate the energy for the shot.
A Dragon Breath Gun has two firing modes, Continuous Fire, and Blast. Continuous mode deals less damage per shot, but, well, is continuous. Blast mode replicates a Dragon's Breath Weapon, and leaves the gun useless for 5 rounds. Metallic dragon guns have an alternate, non-lethal blast mode, but it follows all the same rules. The size of the Blast areas are dependent upon the wielder's size. Small creatures shoot 40' Lines, Medium creatures 60' lines, Large creatures 80' lines and Huge creatures 100' lines. Cone lengths are always half the line length.
Weapon Descriptions
Brass: Creatures within the cone must succeed on a Will save or fall asleep, regardless of HD, for 1d6 rounds plus 1 round per 2 Character Levels of the wielder.
Bronze: Creatures within the cone must succeed on a Will save or be compelled to do nothing but move away from the wielder for 1d6 rounds plus 1 round per 2 Character Levels of the wielder. This is a mind-affecting compulsion enchantment effect.
Copper: Creatures within the cone must succeed on a Fortitude save or be slowed for 1d6 rounds plus 1 round per 2 Character Levels of the Wielder.
Gold: Creatures within a cone of weakening gas must succeed on a Fortitude save or take 1 point of Strength damage per 2 Character Levels of the Wielder.
Silver: Creatures within a cone of paralyzing gas must succeed on a Fortitude save or be paralyzed for 1d6 rounds plus 1 round per 2 Character Levels of the Wielder.