I've just read a pretty good post about firearms on Pseudo's blog (link).

My brief (but intense) bout with trauma surgery led me to believe that modern assault weapons are on a league of their own, and probably justify whatever crazy punishing mechanics the GM feels like. However, the difference one observes between gunshot wounds and stab wounds is less pronounced when lower energy projectiles, like a .22 or .38 revolver are involved. I am inclined to extend this reasoning to black powder weapons, which is why I don't usually buy into "exploding dice" or very large dice for black powder weapons (like Iron Kingdoms' 2d8 for a long rifle). I tend to think of low-energy weapons as being close to melee weapons in terms of sheer tissue damage. Say (in B/X or BECMI terms), 1d6 for a pistol, 1d8 for a blunderbuss or musketoon, 1d10 for an arquebus or musket?

Unless of course one argües that the highly abstract nature of hit points in D&D (i.e. accounting for defensive maneuvers, luck, etc.) allows for very damaging guns, by dint of bullets being all but impossible to defend, and therefore being more likely than a sword or a dagger to land a meaningful blow. I don't know.

What do you people think?

When I created firearms rules for my lotfp campaign, I made muskets/long rifles equivelent to heavy crossbows in all respects except damage; I made that 1D10. Pistols are 1D8 and are the same mechanically as light crossbows. Shotguns/Coachguns damage starts at 1D10 and decreases with range.

I didn't want firearms to outshine melee weapons (since the likelyhood of death from getting axed in the chest or shot in the chest are both pretty good), nor did I want the players to say, "why not use a crossbow, instead?"

Edit: Also, wasn't the longsword's damage made purposefully the same as the Fighter's hit dice because the idea is that it can kill in one hit?

Quote from: The Butcher;532155I've just read a pretty good post about firearms on Pseudo's blog (link).

My brief (but intense) bout with trauma surgery led me to believe that modern assault weapons are on a league of their own, and probably justify whatever crazy punishing mechanics the GM feels like. However, the difference is less pronounced when lower energy projectiles, like a .22 or .38 revolver are involved. I am inclined to extend this reasoning to black powder weapons, which is why I don't usually buy into "exploding dice" or very large dice for black powder weapons (like Iron Kingdoms' 2d8 for a long rifle). I tend to think of low-energy weapons as being close to melee weapons in terms of sheer tissue damage. Say (in B/X or BECMI terms), 1d6 for a pistol, 1d8 for a blunderbuss or musketoon, 1d10 for an arquebus or musket?

Unless of course one argües that the highly abstract nature of hit points in D&D (i.e. accounting for defensive maneuvers, luck, etc.) allows for very damaging guns, by dint of bullets being all but impossible to defend, and therefore being more likely than a sword or a dagger to land a meaningful blow. I don't know.

What do you people think?

Funny thing, I used to do a "exploding die" thing for firearms, but Pseudo's post talked me out of it.  Now that just do comparable damage to other missile weapons in my campaign.

I have little knowledge in the area of firearms, but I expect you and Pseudo are basically correct.
 
My 2c would be that a) exploding dice are a bit wonky (although I enjoy Savage Worlds as much as the next guy) and b) historical firearm superiority over more primitive weaponry, leading to the swashbuckler/ musketeer kind of era, may be in part more to it having better armour penetration (hence why plate armour etc. went obsolete), rather than greater damage per se.

I have pistols at 1d6 and rifles/coach-guns at 2d4.  No exploding dice.  In my campaign, pistols and rifles are a cosmetic affectation, not an exploration of world-shaking technological advancement.

I also let every class use firearms; that's the revolution, that they're easy to use.  Plus, you get pistol-slinging wizards, and that's just badass.

Well, I can't say I am an expert on guns, but due to being friends with few for quite a long time (3 years in school then 3 and ongoing years of gaming together), I gained some of the knowledge through intellectual osmosis.

Given how really bizarre DnD mechanics are when it comes to combat, if we think about it (yes yes, Hit Points as also luck & skill of the adventurer etc. etc.  - it's still unrealistic as hell), there's really no logical difference to be made without crashing some of the mechanic's internal logic.

Crossbow has no armour penetration, and it damn should have, especially the heavy one - in fact, crossbows were much more effective at that then early gunpowder weaponry.

Early gunpowder's weaponry main strengths were:

1) First of all - big calibre. Very, very big - 10 to 20 mm on average, going as far as over 0.75. For comparison, here's the picture with modern bullets, the biggest is .50 calibre, which is used in anti - armoured vehicle weaponry:


Of course, it's only the tip that matters, but you get an idea still. It was not unusual for a bullet to kill someone without piercing armour or even skin - bones would be shattered because of the impact. This is why armour was not much of use against it.

2) Again, big calibre - if the bullet did pierce, it usually went out the other side. A well - loaded musket is easily capable of piercing through typical police kevlar vest.

3) Psychological effect - namely, horses were scared hells out of it. Sure, later warhorses were trained to resist that - but gunpowder weaponry eliminated the yeomen or patrician cavalry, for example, out of the medieval/renaissance equation because their horses were rarely trained for war.

4) A very common cause* of death from bullets were not the wound itself, but dirt (usually from clothes) pushed into the wound by force of impact, which caused later gangrene.

5) Relative cheap costs and ease of training - Warhammer is a bit false in this aspect. Cheap gunpowder weaponry was much easier to produce and to school someone in, then heavy crossbow. After all - they were effectively just tubes with a place where to put the smouldering fuse in. You point, it shoots. Unlike crossbow - which not only flies at more ark, but also demands certain strength to pull the bowstring (still, it was more effective then strength & training needed for a professional archer, hence crossbow's domination). At great loss of efficiency, of course - but peasants are only good for dying, after all, and it's their damn duty to die if the feudal demands.


Therefore, to give gunpowder weaponry it's due in DnD, you'd need to introduce armour piercing for crossbows, and either give great AP to gunpowder weaponry, or just make it ignore armour all - together.

*This actually generally as the most common causes of deaths in warfare.

Ah, and one more point -

6) On the issue of relatively high survival rates from modern handguns - medicine plays a very strong role here. From statistics, there's about 70 - 80% chance of surviving a "critical" shot if medical help is administered within an hour or two, if I remember (I'd need to google a bit for that, and I can't right now). Without medical help (of our modern standard, mind you) within that hour - two, that chance falls down to about 10%. Furthermore, remember that nowadays a lot of ammunition is covered by the war conventions - not so much back in those days. I know I posted about gangrene already - but again, remember that it was not uncommon to load the rifle with just...anything, if you had to. Which only added infection damage to the wound.

I like lehal systems, so my feeling is just abut any deadly weapon shouldat least have a chanceof killing you in one hit. I have often wondered about the exploding die thing myself. In a game like D&D i think it doesn't quite fit (where you are supposed to be able to take a blow from a claymore and keep fighting). No gun expert. I imagine the big advantage over a sword is the precision, the number of attacks you can squeeze out at a time and range. But D&D firearms are all pretty primitive.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;532222I like lehal systems, so my feeling is just abut any deadly weapon shouldat least have a chanceof killing you in one hit. I have often wondered about the exploding die thing myself. In a game like D&D i think it doesn't quite fit (where you are supposed to be able to take a blow from a claymore and keep fighting). No gun expert. I imagine the big advantage over a sword is the precision, the number of attacks you can squeeze out at a time and range. But D&D firearms are all pretty primitive.

Actually neither is correct when we're talking about pre- XIX century gunpowder - based weaponry (and even then, only the precision rather then rate of fire). The only advantage was the strength of the blow itself.

The weapons were very unprecise by modern standards - again, there was no aiming system save the skill of the shooter, and a slightest slip when loading gunpowder could change quite a bit the strength of the bullet.

As for the number of attacks - a typical loading time for a gunpowder rifle was "trzy zdrowaśki", or about 40 - 50 seconds. A well - trained shooter, with prepared paper cartridges, could get that time down to about 25 - 30 seconds. And still yet - at some point, he simply had to stop firing, because of overheating and the rifle being blocked by "garbage" - gunpowder and wads' remains - sure you could clean that out a bit, but only so far, and you could do little against overheating. The relatively fast pace of cannon firing on sea warfare was due to easy access to water for cooling, as well as training - and improved methods of smelting of the cannons so that they'd not break (so much) when cooled with water (which was a major problem with early cannons).

Quote from: Rincewind1;532223Actually neither is correct when we're talking about pre- XIX century gunpowder - based weaponry (and even then, only the precision rather then rate of fire). The only advantage was the strength of the blow itself.

The weapons were very unprecise by modern standards - again, there was no aiming system save the skill of the shooter, and a slightest slip when loading gunpowder could change quite a bit the strength of the bullet.

As for the number of attacks - a typical loading time for a gunpowder rifle was "trzy zdrowaśki", or about 40 - 50 seconds. A well - trained shooter, with prepared paper cartridges, could get that time down to about 25 - 30 seconds. And still yet - at some point, he simply had to stop firing, because of overheating and the rifle being blocked by "garbage" - gunpowder and wads' remains - sure you could clean that out a bit, but only so far, and you could do little against overheating. The relatively fast pace of cannon firing on sea warfare was due to easy access to water for cooling, as well as training - and improved methods of smelting of the cannons so that they'd not break (so much) when cooled with water (which was a major problem with early cannons).

I was thinking about modern firearms.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;532225I was thinking about modern firearms.

D'oh, sorry then .

(Sorry I think I probably started the tangency into black powder weapons, although the post that inspired the OP seems to include more modern weapon discussion).
 
On the armour penetration, I think 1st Ed.'s "weapons vs. armour" table gave crossbows a bonus to hit; one reason they had lower damage ratings than bows. This carried over into 2nd Ed. despite the armour table being dropped.
 
Combat & Tactics later on did give the x-bow extra armour penetration as a special ability (reduce AC by 2 at medium range, and 5 points at short). For the arquebus it gave the ability to ignore armour at close range, with a penalty of 5 at medium and 2 at long range.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;532228(Sorry I think I probably started the tangency into black powder weapons, although the post that inspired the OP seems to include more modern weapon discussion).
 
On the armour penetration, I think 1st Ed.'s "weapons vs. armour" table gave crossbows a bonus to hit; one reason they had lower damage ratings than bows. This carried over into 2nd Ed. despite the armour table being dropped.
 
Combat & Tactics later on did give the x-bow extra armour penetration as a special ability (reduce AC by 2 at medium range, and 5 points at short). For the arquebus it gave the ability to ignore armour at close range, with a penalty of 5 at medium and 2 at long range.

Damn, I always forget the weapon vs armour table. But yeah - you'd need to use it to do the weapons justice, so to speak.

"Do the weapons justice"?

In a system where "to hit" and "AC" and "hp" are all abstractions?

In a world where most non-PCs have less than 4 hit points?

Meh, so much work for so little payoff.  If it floats your boat, go for it.

Quote from: VectorSigma;532239"Do the weapons justice"?

In a system where "to hit" and "AC" and "hp" are all abstractions?

In a world where most non-PCs have less than 4 hit points?

Meh, so much work for so little payoff.  If it floats your boat, go for it.

HP in D&D does make this a huge challenge. I once had a wizard die (while at full hp) from a splinter gained by knocking on a old door (d2 damage according to the module). Obviously the writers didn't anticipate a lethal splinter, they just wanted to add a bit of texture to the envirnoment. But the HP system is such that these things happen.