It always amuses me when I see arguments over the relative damage output of firearms in D&D because "realism" but the same people never discuss the fact that muzzle-loading firearms in the game can fire at a ridiculous rate.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
If we are going to "Realism" it then we would 3E the weapons list into entire catalogs, cause oh boy the ballistic characteristics are different between 762x39 and NATO standard 556, let alone between a muzzle loader and G36, then we got to talk if the muzzle loader is smooth bore, or rifled, are they balls or are they more shaped? Black powder, Smokelss powder, modern enhanced smokeless with the fancy oxidizers? I could go on and on until that Longsword looks like a great option for getting me to shut the Hells up!
We really don't want to open this can of worms. I have many a time and regretted it all of them. The arbitrary numbers are there for game balance and simplicity. (And to keep caliber arguments from escalating into someone getting bludgeoned with the monster manual. Yes that happened at one of my tables, I meant it when I said I regretted starting these kind of discussions.)
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He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player. The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call To rise up in triumph should we all unite The spark for change is yours to ignite." Kalandra - The State of the World
crossbows are bad enough, firearms are a reality train wreck. The reality is every army switched to firearms as soon as they could because you can train someone to shoot a gun in 6 weeks. Longbows take a lifetime, crossbows are slow as molasses in January.
crossbows are bad enough, firearms are a reality train wreck. The reality is every army switched to firearms as soon as they could because you can train someone to shoot a gun in 6 weeks. Longbows take a lifetime, crossbows are slow as molasses in January.
Definitely not 'as soon as they could,' unless you count firearms as only those that were actually better than bows. It was about 200 years from the first uses of firearms in Europe to them replacing bows and crossbows.
Also, this is a fantasy setting, where every martial weapons trained character is fully and equally proficient in all of the above, including all melee weapons, so the training times are not the same issue. Characters who have only learned, say, the longbow, are rare exceptions, not the common soldier.
Lets not forget as well that while we're arguing "realism" that no ranged weapon in the game is realistic. Crossbows take ages to reload but in D&D you're firing off a shot at leat every six seconds and sometimes twice every six seconds. With that as an in game reality a better question would be why would any army ever switch to guns that have significantly less range and only do around the same damage?
My character's only does 1d6, which is what the DM gave me. He also claims that increasing it to a d8 or d10 doesn't really do much for my actual damage output and has encouraged me to work on upgrading its range or other capabilities.
He's also like, a hobbyist when it comes to researching this stuff. Like he knows how old school flintlocks are constructed. Also In theory, a bullet has the potential to plug a wound which technically may do less damage than being slashed by a sword and just bleeding out right then and there.
Anyway as others have said it's a little bit arbitrary.
My character's only does 1d6, which is what the DM gave me. He also claims that increasing it to a d8 or d10 doesn't really do much for my actual damage output and has encouraged me to work on upgrading its range or other capabilities.
He's also like, a hobbyist when it comes to researching this stuff. Like he knows how old school flintlocks are constructed. Also In theory, a bullet has the potential to plug a wound which technically may do less damage than being slashed by a sword and just bleeding out right then and there.
Anyway as others have said it's a little bit arbitrary.
Well except for the fact the bullet is still in the wound as a foreign object, still doing damage nearly any time that part of the body moves.... The bigger issues historically were accuracy issues and gunpowder availability. In theory, any soldier could learn how to make arrows, but not sure how many would be that into refining down bat poop to get the nitrates for gunpowder.
. You are way more likely to survive a bullet than a halberd blow.
Ok quick info. Depends on the caliber of the firearm. What D&D doesn't have are small caliber personal firearms, which probably would do 1d4 with a range of 5/10. Seriously try and shot a derringer more than 10' not going to hit anything you aim at. Sure getting hit by small arms weapons aren't as devistating as a heavy melee weapon. Ironically in the USA they account for about 47,000 deaths. But lets look at what weapons are used in D&D offical.
Musket - 1d12 - usually between 38 to .90 caliber with .45 and .50 being the most common. If you got shot with one, it was almost always fatal, even if you got shot in the hand. As the mussle velocity was not great yet the rounds had a lot of kinetic energy plus the rounds were made of lead and the wounds got infected because the low speed high impact allowed bacterium and other things into the wound. The classic knocking a person back with a gun is more possible with a musket than any other type of firearm except bigger caliber military weapons.
The pistol in D&D is a mussle loader aka the famous pirate pistol. 1d10 - Now you would think the pirate weaponof choice was much smaller than a Musket even if they used the same technology. The ironic thing due to size, and that they used musket calibers although .38 to .45 were the most common sizes, they also sometimes used some really wicked loads. Once again if you get shot odds are you would die.
Name
Cost
Damage
Weight
Properties
Pistol, Automatic
--
2d6 Piercing
3 lbs
Ammunition (Firearms), (Range 50/150), Reload
Notes: Reload (15 shots)
Pistol, Automatic ... This one is not as clear or spelled out as well as it should. And the game designers changed this weapons reload to not make as much sense as it did in earlier editions. It is refering to semi-automatic pistols from the early 20th century. Usually 6~7 shots but rules as written increased the loadout to 15. 2d6 - So why is a modern semi-automatic so deadly? The weapon the designers were thinking about is the classic M1911 it was the main military pistol in the USA from the end of the 1st would war until the US military went to 9mm like it's NATO allies in the late 80s. When I was in the USMC in 1990 I was trained on it. This weapon is one of the best weapons ever designed. It has stopping power (something a 9mm doesn't have) the m1911 was designed to penitrate armor used in China and the South Pacific, something the old .38 couldn't do. The stopping power of a modern .45 is nothing to ignore. Yes it does more damage to the body than a sword or most melee weapons could ever do, ironically in a way that leaves a cleaner body. But that has more to do with physics than I am willing to explain. But in short, small hole in front, ugly inside, and usually a big hole in the back. Where a melee weapon does easy to understand damage.
Clearly they were looking at a bear riffle. One shot one kill on a bear. Remington Model 700 with a .308 would be my guess. Basically the classic USMC sniper riffle. Held the record from Vietnam to Afganistan for the longest provable sniper kill. Yes it is that deadly, in a skilled hand anyway.
BTW they added a weapon an unnessessary semiautomatic pistol in 2024 but that was because who ever wrote the rules didn't understand that they already had that with Pistol, Automatic.
Have you ever held a halberd? I've trained with various pole weapons. You are way more likely to survive a bullet than a halberd blow.
Are we talking real life? Everything depends on what kind of bullet. A .357 can wreck a car engine. An AK-47's 7.62mm will do more damage than that. 30mm and higher will shred lightly armored vehicles. Then there are nukes.
RPG's are not supposed to mimic the real world. It's just a game and the damages are not compared to things like 10th level characters, but rather CR0 commoners.
There are far too many factors and unspecified variables for D&D guns to approach realism in any sense. The Arbitrary numbers let the game happen without it being too complicated.
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He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player. The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call To rise up in triumph should we all unite The spark for change is yours to ignite." Kalandra - The State of the World
And we aren't talking about the firearms from d20 Past.
And the firearms from videogames aren't realistic either. For example if you shoot too many bullets the barrel can overheat and deform.
The firearms in D&D aren't designed to be realistic among other reasons because if they could cause too much damage then nobody would want to play with classes like monk or barbarian what are more focused into hand-to-hand combat
There are far too many factors and unspecified variables for D&D guns to approach realism in any sense. The Arbitrary numbers let the game happen without it being too complicated.
Thank you.
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It always amuses me when I see arguments over the relative damage output of firearms in D&D because "realism" but the same people never discuss the fact that muzzle-loading firearms in the game can fire at a ridiculous rate.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
If we are going to "Realism" it then we would 3E the weapons list into entire catalogs, cause oh boy the ballistic characteristics are different between 762x39 and NATO standard 556, let alone between a muzzle loader and G36, then we got to talk if the muzzle loader is smooth bore, or rifled, are they balls or are they more shaped? Black powder, Smokelss powder, modern enhanced smokeless with the fancy oxidizers?
I could go on and on until that Longsword looks like a great option for getting me to shut the Hells up!
We really don't want to open this can of worms. I have many a time and regretted it all of them. The arbitrary numbers are there for game balance and simplicity.
(And to keep caliber arguments from escalating into someone getting bludgeoned with the monster manual. Yes that happened at one of my tables, I meant it when I said I regretted starting these kind of discussions.)
He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player.
The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call
To rise up in triumph should we all unite
The spark for change is yours to ignite."
Kalandra - The State of the World
crossbows are bad enough, firearms are a reality train wreck. The reality is every army switched to firearms as soon as they could because you can train someone to shoot a gun in 6 weeks. Longbows take a lifetime, crossbows are slow as molasses in January.
Definitely not 'as soon as they could,' unless you count firearms as only those that were actually better than bows. It was about 200 years from the first uses of firearms in Europe to them replacing bows and crossbows.
Also, this is a fantasy setting, where every martial weapons trained character is fully and equally proficient in all of the above, including all melee weapons, so the training times are not the same issue. Characters who have only learned, say, the longbow, are rare exceptions, not the common soldier.
Lets not forget as well that while we're arguing "realism" that no ranged weapon in the game is realistic. Crossbows take ages to reload but in D&D you're firing off a shot at leat every six seconds and sometimes twice every six seconds. With that as an in game reality a better question would be why would any army ever switch to guns that have significantly less range and only do around the same damage?
My character's only does 1d6, which is what the DM gave me. He also claims that increasing it to a d8 or d10 doesn't really do much for my actual damage output and has encouraged me to work on upgrading its range or other capabilities.
He's also like, a hobbyist when it comes to researching this stuff. Like he knows how old school flintlocks are constructed. Also In theory, a bullet has the potential to plug a wound which technically may do less damage than being slashed by a sword and just bleeding out right then and there.
Anyway as others have said it's a little bit arbitrary.
Well except for the fact the bullet is still in the wound as a foreign object, still doing damage nearly any time that part of the body moves.... The bigger issues historically were accuracy issues and gunpowder availability. In theory, any soldier could learn how to make arrows, but not sure how many would be that into refining down bat poop to get the nitrates for gunpowder.
Ok quick info. Depends on the caliber of the firearm. What D&D doesn't have are small caliber personal firearms, which probably would do 1d4 with a range of 5/10. Seriously try and shot a derringer more than 10' not going to hit anything you aim at. Sure getting hit by small arms weapons aren't as devistating as a heavy melee weapon. Ironically in the USA they account for about 47,000 deaths. But lets look at what weapons are used in D&D offical.
Musket - 1d12 - usually between 38 to .90 caliber with .45 and .50 being the most common. If you got shot with one, it was almost always fatal, even if you got shot in the hand. As the mussle velocity was not great yet the rounds had a lot of kinetic energy plus the rounds were made of lead and the wounds got infected because the low speed high impact allowed bacterium and other things into the wound. The classic knocking a person back with a gun is more possible with a musket than any other type of firearm except bigger caliber military weapons.
The pistol in D&D is a mussle loader aka the famous pirate pistol. 1d10 - Now you would think the pirate weaponof choice was much smaller than a Musket even if they used the same technology. The ironic thing due to size, and that they used musket calibers although .38 to .45 were the most common sizes, they also sometimes used some really wicked loads. Once again if you get shot odds are you would die.
Pistol, Automatic ... This one is not as clear or spelled out as well as it should. And the game designers changed this weapons reload to not make as much sense as it did in earlier editions. It is refering to semi-automatic pistols from the early 20th century. Usually 6~7 shots but rules as written increased the loadout to 15. 2d6 - So why is a modern semi-automatic so deadly? The weapon the designers were thinking about is the classic M1911 it was the main military pistol in the USA from the end of the 1st would war until the US military went to 9mm like it's NATO allies in the late 80s. When I was in the USMC in 1990 I was trained on it. This weapon is one of the best weapons ever designed. It has stopping power (something a 9mm doesn't have) the m1911 was designed to penitrate armor used in China and the South Pacific, something the old .38 couldn't do. The stopping power of a modern .45 is nothing to ignore. Yes it does more damage to the body than a sword or most melee weapons could ever do, ironically in a way that leaves a cleaner body. But that has more to do with physics than I am willing to explain. But in short, small hole in front, ugly inside, and usually a big hole in the back. Where a melee weapon does easy to understand damage.
Now lets look at the big hitter here...
Clearly they were looking at a bear riffle. One shot one kill on a bear. Remington Model 700 with a .308 would be my guess. Basically the classic USMC sniper riffle. Held the record from Vietnam to Afganistan for the longest provable sniper kill. Yes it is that deadly, in a skilled hand anyway.
BTW they added a weapon an unnessessary semiautomatic pistol in 2024 but that was because who ever wrote the rules didn't understand that they already had that with Pistol, Automatic.
Someone. Please. Dumb this down for me????
Are we talking real life? Everything depends on what kind of bullet. A .357 can wreck a car engine. An AK-47's 7.62mm will do more damage than that. 30mm and higher will shred lightly armored vehicles. Then there are nukes.
RPG's are not supposed to mimic the real world. It's just a game and the damages are not compared to things like 10th level characters, but rather CR0 commoners.
There are far too many factors and unspecified variables for D&D guns to approach realism in any sense. The Arbitrary numbers let the game happen without it being too complicated.
He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player.
The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call
To rise up in triumph should we all unite
The spark for change is yours to ignite."
Kalandra - The State of the World
And we aren't talking about the firearms from d20 Past.
And the firearms from videogames aren't realistic either. For example if you shoot too many bullets the barrel can overheat and deform.
The firearms in D&D aren't designed to be realistic among other reasons because if they could cause too much damage then nobody would want to play with classes like monk or barbarian what are more focused into hand-to-hand combat
Thank you.