Spelljammer has always featured pseudo-science fiction themes with ray guns and blasters and the like
Not to mention the gun-toting hippo people.
And yeah, while the core fantasy of D&D is a pseudo-medieval European, people have been mixing in lots of stuff, including guns, since the beginning.
Also, it's a third-party class presumably attached to heir setting, so I'm not sure why it's worth getting all bothered about. If you don't want it, don't buy it.
D&D is ahistorical and pulls from all time periods. That's a big part of what makes it fantasy.
True there have been those rare cases, but generally since D&D began the setting has always been in a medieval or earlier time period with no guns, rifles or phasers
Not really
Forgotten Realms is proximal to the Renaissance era, a time of firearms and riflery. It features several characters that wield guns
Greyhawk literally has a gun toting cowboy god
Eberron is a setting of magic proxying technology with wand slingers and eldritch cannons
Spelljammer has always featured pseudo-science fiction themes with ray guns and blasters and the like
Expedition to Barrier Peaks features ray guns, rifles, and robots
D&D has been an ahistorical melting pot of all things fantastic and fanciful---including firearms---for much longer than it hasn't. The closest thing we have to a medieval setting today is Dragonlance, even including Greyhawk. D&D pulls from more non-medieval time periods than medieval ones.
None of the disputes what I already said. D&D has always been a medieval fantasy game at it's core, based in part on Chainmail. Sure there are some cross over for those who like that.
It used to be medieval fantasy at it's core, but it's long since evolved beyond that
It's funny how people get hooked on firearms being "anachronistic" for the setting but ignore that D&D has always had wildly anachronistic mixes of weapons and armor. I mean, the rapier only dates to the 16th Century, where's the outrage about it being in the game?
Someone comes at my character with a +1 pistol, the only thing they're going to say is "you have a magic gun, where'd you purchase that?"
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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.
Gunpowder came before plate armour. It's an ahistorical fiction that we hold that knights in plate armour we're running around with guns being completely absent. The image we have of that time is quite...odd, when you compare it to real history. Regardless, you can regulate your games to your liking.
Specifically though, this class was part of Valda's that was already partially released. I'm unsure why they decided to release it piecemeal.
While I agree with the sentiment, as I love a mix of knights and firearms, the truth is full plate armor goes back a few thousand years. The Ancient Greeks used full plate with their hoplites.
See:
Just recently the Greek Army tested this Armor for science, and historic reasons.
Yes, but the Gothic plate armor we normally think of when we hear the term (and what's usually depicted in D&D artwork) wasn't developed until about a century after firearms started showing up in European battlefields. The term "bulletproof" even comes from it, to describe plate armor that was strong enough that bullets couldn't penetrate it.
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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.
The idea of Eurocentric concerns for authenticity is already questionable. Even with 5th Edition's permeable version of the crystal spheres, there simply aren't the same factors in MULTIPLE DND worlds' history to even BE Europe, even if they're based on Victorian London.
The biggest one being the lack of even surface-level successful supermassive monotheistic imperialist powers.
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DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
It's funny how people get hooked on firearms being "anachronistic" for the setting but ignore that D&D has always had wildly anachronistic mixes of weapons and armor. I mean, the rapier only dates to the 16th Century, where's the outrage about it being in the game?
Someone comes at my character with a +1 pistol, the only thing they're going to say is "you have a magic gun, where'd you purchase that?"
Yeah, it's mostly because they have images of LotR and Arthurian legend (and similar type of stuff) in their heads, which lack gunpowder (sort of) However, they were set way earlier than some of the stuff that is accepted in D&D (although Lord of the Rings has its own anachronisms), and they often reject those things we accept in D&D. Also, our images of them times are also anachronistic (I certainly had images of Arthur on plate armour!).
Speaking as someone who used to be resistant to the Artificer and having been guilty of it too - I think it's more about resistance to that bubble bursting and changing the mental image than anything else.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Honestly, resistance to the Artificer is questionable enough, given that Kwalish is in the name of the Apparatus of Kwalish.
A lot of resistance to non-stereotypically feudalism-era items is also due to the confusion over whether the novels are still canon or not(They aren't), because of Gond.
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DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
My take on firearms is this: If you as a GM aren't comfortable with something being in your game for whatever reason it is entirely fair to let your players know that you aren't going to have it during the lead up to session 0. In this way you maintain the feel of the setting that you are going for while also not coming across as arbitrary to your player.
That having been said, in FR I treat firearms of any description as being an incredibly rare and exotic piece of kit; the only two places I'm familiar with that would have a "gunsmith" would either be Shou Lung (IE China) or Lantan (a comparatively isolated archipelego north of chult) and as such I generally warned players who got excited about them that getting one wouldn't be easy and finding munitions (IE smoke powder and shot) was going to be expensive even in the most cosmopolitan cities and unheard of throughout most of the realms.
D&D is ahistorical and pulls from all time periods. That's a big part of what makes it fantasy.
True there have been those rare cases, but generally since D&D began the setting has always been in a medieval or earlier time period with no guns, rifles or phasers.
I'm almost certain that laser guns and blasters came out in D&D before firearms.
Depends on when Barrier Peaks came out vs the article in Dragon Magazine with the Nazis.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
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Not to mention the gun-toting hippo people.
And yeah, while the core fantasy of D&D is a pseudo-medieval European, people have been mixing in lots of stuff, including guns, since the beginning.
Also, it's a third-party class presumably attached to heir setting, so I'm not sure why it's worth getting all bothered about. If you don't want it, don't buy it.
It's also not been restricted to strictly Euro either. Although they've been distasteful, we got places like Kara Tur, Maztica, and a bunch others.
"You're not chaotic evil! You're just chaotic SHIT!"
It used to be medieval fantasy at it's core, but it's long since evolved beyond that
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
It's funny how people get hooked on firearms being "anachronistic" for the setting but ignore that D&D has always had wildly anachronistic mixes of weapons and armor. I mean, the rapier only dates to the 16th Century, where's the outrage about it being in the game?
Someone comes at my character with a +1 pistol, the only thing they're going to say is "you have a magic gun, where'd you purchase that?"
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.
Yes, but the Gothic plate armor we normally think of when we hear the term (and what's usually depicted in D&D artwork) wasn't developed until about a century after firearms started showing up in European battlefields. The term "bulletproof" even comes from it, to describe plate armor that was strong enough that bullets couldn't penetrate it.
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.
The idea of Eurocentric concerns for authenticity is already questionable. Even with 5th Edition's permeable version of the crystal spheres, there simply aren't the same factors in MULTIPLE DND worlds' history to even BE Europe, even if they're based on Victorian London.
The biggest one being the lack of even surface-level successful supermassive monotheistic imperialist powers.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
Yeah, it's mostly because they have images of LotR and Arthurian legend (and similar type of stuff) in their heads, which lack gunpowder (sort of) However, they were set way earlier than some of the stuff that is accepted in D&D (although Lord of the Rings has its own anachronisms), and they often reject those things we accept in D&D. Also, our images of them times are also anachronistic (I certainly had images of Arthur on plate armour!).
Speaking as someone who used to be resistant to the Artificer and having been guilty of it too - I think it's more about resistance to that bubble bursting and changing the mental image than anything else.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Honestly, resistance to the Artificer is questionable enough, given that Kwalish is in the name of the Apparatus of Kwalish.
A lot of resistance to non-stereotypically feudalism-era items is also due to the confusion over whether the novels are still canon or not(They aren't), because of Gond.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
My take on firearms is this: If you as a GM aren't comfortable with something being in your game for whatever reason it is entirely fair to let your players know that you aren't going to have it during the lead up to session 0. In this way you maintain the feel of the setting that you are going for while also not coming across as arbitrary to your player.
That having been said, in FR I treat firearms of any description as being an incredibly rare and exotic piece of kit; the only two places I'm familiar with that would have a "gunsmith" would either be Shou Lung (IE China) or Lantan (a comparatively isolated archipelego north of chult) and as such I generally warned players who got excited about them that getting one wouldn't be easy and finding munitions (IE smoke powder and shot) was going to be expensive even in the most cosmopolitan cities and unheard of throughout most of the realms.
I'm almost certain that laser guns and blasters came out in D&D before firearms.
Depends on when Barrier Peaks came out vs the article in Dragon Magazine with the Nazis.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale