I'm working on a campaign where there's technology in the world but it's ancient, very rare, and super expensive. I want firearms to be a part if this world but most people have no idea what they even are.
My issue is, how do I represent the awesome power of a firearm without breaking the game should a PC acquire one and know how to use it? Do I just make bullets limited and equally rare?
Bullets and explosives are easy to make. Guns are really easy to make. The reason guns won in our world is because they're far easier to make than bows or crossbows and can be churned out in huge numbers cheaply. You want realistic guns, they (especially early guns) should be on par with a crossbow, but way cheaper, have terrible range, and a tendency to need replacement parts after almost every skirmish.
You want magical cinematic guns you should take the ones in the DMG and dial their damage down a little so they're a slightly better option than a crossbow. We took our rifles from 2d10 down to 2d8 and they haven't been game-breaking at all.
I use the Critical Roll Gunslinger pdf guns. There are also stats for other guns and cannons in the DM Manuel. As far as ammunition goes I set the cost to make the ammo at double that of arrows provided they have the needed ammo molds and access to a forge. They also may need to make a tinkering check to see if they have success; the amount made I have either predetermined or a dice roll (d6, d10, d12) depending on what is predetermined normally a d6. 2.5 times the cost of arrows for a shop that can make them if you can find one.
As far as ammunition goes I set the cost to make the ammo at double that of arrows provided they have the needed ammo molds and access to a forge. They also may need to make a tinkering check to see if they have success; the amount made I have either predetermined or a dice roll (d6, d10, d12) depending on what is predetermined normally a d6. 2.5 times the cost of arrows for a shop that can make them if you can find one.
You may need a forge to make a bullet press for a 1200s-1800s style musket but you can make bullets with a single press, a mess kit pan, some lead and pewter, and a campfire. A single arrow could take hours. You can make a bullet in seconds.
If you have access to charcoal and donkey urine, you can make explosives, and alchemists in the BCEs even knew how to make explosives from these things (on that note, Hero was designing steam trains, combat robots, vending machines, and pressurized fire-fighting gear around 50 AD, but Caligula wouldn't let him make them, like a dork, because he was worried about what that might do to the slave economy).
Guns should be dirt cheap but break constantly, depending on the era you're trying to emulate. Most D&D is trying to emulate a period after Columbian contact (presence of large amounts of platinum seems to indicate this, and most peoples' campaign settings have potatoes), and that's how guns in that period do. Cheap, easy to use, but highly unreliable.
As far as ammunition goes I set the cost to make the ammo at double that of arrows provided they have the needed ammo molds and access to a forge. They also may need to make a tinkering check to see if they have success; the amount made I have either predetermined or a dice roll (d6, d10, d12) depending on what is predetermined normally a d6. 2.5 times the cost of arrows for a shop that can make them if you can find one.
You may need a forge to make a bullet press for a 1200s-1800s style musket but you can make bullets with a single press, a mess kit pan, some lead and pewter, and a campfire. A single arrow could take hours. You can make a bullet in seconds.
If you have access to charcoal and donkey urine, you can make explosives, and alchemists in the BCEs even knew how to make explosives from these things (on that note, Hero was designing steam trains, combat robots, vending machines, and pressurized fire-fighting gear around 50 AD, but Caligula wouldn't let him make them, like a dork, because he was worried about what that might do to the slave economy).
Guns should be dirt cheap but break constantly, depending on the era you're trying to emulate. Most D&D is trying to emulate a period after Columbian contact (presence of large amounts of platinum seems to indicate this, and most peoples' campaign settings have potatoes), and that's how guns in that period do. Cheap, easy to use, but highly unreliable.
In the critical roll gunslinger pdf the are misfire scores. most small arms and simple guns have a misfire score of 1 or 1-2, and rifle and special guns have a misfire of 1-3 on a attack roll. If it is rolled it takes an action and a tinkering check to fix it (DC 8+ Misfire); if failed it have to be fixed out of combat at half the cost of the for the gun.
Wasn't there a section in the DMG that detailed some simple firearms and even a couple of laser weapons? I can't seem to find it in the DnD Beyond version.
Wasn't there a section in the DMG that detailed some simple firearms and even a couple of laser weapons? I can't seem to find it in the DnD Beyond version.
Correct. p268 of the DMG has a chart for Firearms and related items which I've used as an inspiration for making my own firearms for my current campaign. I suppose that if you want to use the more modern variants as "ancient tech" you could even treat them as magical weapons for the sake of handing them out and providing ammunition for them.
I myself use the following Table and associated Feats and Items, inspired by technology available around 1500 for dealing with firearms:
A firearm requires gunpowder to be used in addtion to any amunition fired. A powder horn (see DMG) contains 30 shots worth of ammo, a keg of gunpowder contains 300 shots worth of gunpowder.
Improvised Amunition
A ranged weapon with this rule can be fired by loading other things than the bullets that were intended to be loaded, such as a handful of nails, a sack of ball bearings, a bundle of arrows or other appropriate alternatives.
When fired in this way, the shot does not consume a unit of regular ammunition, but instead consumes whatever the user has loaded in the weapon. A shot fired using this special rule has disadvantage on the attack roll, but deals damage as normal if it hits.
A weapon with both this special rule and the Firearm special rule still requires a shot worth of gunpowder to be used. The DM has a final say on whether or not the improvised ammunition is appropriate for the weapon in question, and if not which effects, if any, "inappropriate" ammunition has.
Excessive Recoil
A weapon with this special rule has a heavy kick. When fired, a person using this weapon needs to make a strength saving throw (DC=10). If the saving throw is failed, the creature firing the weapon is knocked prone. If the creature is already prone they take 1d4 damage instead. If the save is failed by 5 or more points, the creature is moves 1d4 feet away from the direction it was firing in.
Other Items
Fork Rest
A Fork Rest is a pole with a spiked end on one end and a forked end on the other. It can be used to brace a gun or crossbow before firing. Bracing the weapon takes an action and results in the weapon being ballanced on the rest, which is either spiked into the ground or propped up against something sturdy. As long as the user doesn't move, the weapon counts as braced. While braced the weapon does not suffer from the Heavy and Excessive Recoil special rules.
Pavise
A pavise is a large shield which can be placed on the ground to provide additional protection. It is particularly popular amongst crossbowmen and arquebusiers participating in sieges. A pavise takes an action to deploy or pick up. While it is deployed it can provide Half Cover to a single creature that takes up position behind it.
Custom feats:
Firearms Expert
Thanks to extensive practice using firearms you gain the following benefits:
Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn't impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls when you attack using a blunderbuss or a pistol.
When you use the Attack action and attack with a one-handed weapon, you can use a bonus action to attack with a pistol you are holding.
When you attack using a weapon with the firearm special rule, you may choose to expend two shots worth of gunpowder instead of one, in order to double both the long and the short range on the firearm.
Guns aren't better than other weapons because a bullet does more damage; they're better because it takes less effort to transfer force into a target with a bullet from a gun than a muscle-powered weapon. Would someone really be worse off after taking a slug from a rifle than they would be after getting slashed with three feet of sharpened steel with a barbarian's rippling thews behind it?
The Old West inspired game that I'm running puts firearm damage at around 2d4 for handguns and 2d6 for longarms. Where guns get good is that if they have another shot (revolvers, lever guns, and double barrels), the wielder can make another attack as a bonus action but skip out on adding the ability mod to damage, same as melee dual weapon fighting.
Technically the crossbow expert feat , and sharp shooter feat would cover most what your trying to accomplish in the Fire arms expert feat. Also be a fighter (gunslinger archetype) or just fighter in general would cover most of the rest. The custom fire arms and rules relating to them seem fine as a custom campaign variant. Although the heavy recoil is a little weird to me you should be able to have fun with it if the character is a size class of small, and has a normal sized gun. I like the inclusion of a pavise it reminds me of my old 2.5 campaign where my dwarf cleric (with a tower shield) and the human paladin were tanking up to become more or less living half cover for the rest of the party; good times. My current character being a glorified engineer and inventor, with tinkering and blacksmithing would most likely use fabricate to fuse a pavise and fork rest together; so he could save himself some trouble when he doesn't need a shield.
Guns aren't better than other weapons because a bullet does more damage; they're better because it takes less effort to transfer force into a target with a bullet from a gun than a muscle-powered weapon. Would someone really be worse off after taking a slug from a rifle than they would be after getting slashed with three feet of sharpened steel with a barbarian's rippling thews behind it?
[...]
I've used the DMG entry on firearms (p.268) as an baseline for these firearms. The biggest ballancing factors are the combination of the cost (both of acquisition, and of use (powderhorns are quite expensive, 30 uses of a firearm (being what the smallest amount of gunpowder provides) costs close to 50 gp), and the fact that a single firearm can fire no more than once per turn, which means the martial classes that can use it the easiest don't benefit from multiple attacks while using them. (So the Barbarian is still going to be doing more effective damage, by virtue of being able to bring that sword down twice or even thrice in the time that the gunman takes to reload the muzzle loaded weapon, bring it to bare, and fire. Still firearms should not be underestimated, there's a good reason body armour became less prevelant as firearms became more prevelant and active, until Kevlar was invented at least.)
In the end it's up to personal taste and how prevelant these weapons are going to be. In my campaign these weapons aren't getting used that often (yet) by either the PCs or NPCs, especially not at lower levels. But I imagine that if you're running a wild west type game where firearms are going to be one of the main weapons used from the get go (and where loading times aren't as long as long), or if you're playing a game where ammo consumption isn't tracked or where the DM rewards a lot of money, toning them down a bit makes sense from a ballance perspective.
Technically the crossbow expert feat , and sharp shooter feat would cover most what your trying to accomplish in the Fire arms expert feat. Also be a fighter (gunslinger archetype) or just fighter in general would cover most of the rest. The custom fire arms and rules relating to them seem fine as a custom campaign variant. Although the heavy recoil is a little weird to me you should be able to have fun with it if the character is a size class of small, and has a normal sized gun.
[...]
I took a lot of inspiration from the crossbow expert feat for the firearms expert feat. I figured that firearms and crossbows would have sufficient differences in their operation to warrant making a feat specifically aimed at firearms use. (Besides the XBow Expert feat spefically mentions crossbows). I also wanted to avoid the "all crossbows ignore the reload rule" bit of the crossbow expert feat in order to give firearms more of a drawback. A firearms expert/sharpshooter could lead to some interesting long range sniping with an arquebus or a musket even, as they could push the effective ranges closer to what bows and crossbows can achieve. - I'm also trying to stay clear of a gunslinger archetype on purpose, as firearms are supposed to be common enough in my current setting that I feel they should not be limited to single class to be used effectively. But if one of my players expresses interest in using a gunslinger fighter archetype or class, I'd be willing to work something out with them for sure.
The ecxessive recoil was originally intended as exactly what you mention: a quirky trait for the gnome ranger's customized blunderbuss, as she felt it'd be hilarious for her gnome to get knocked around by her own gun. My main reason for adding it to the arquebus was in order to give medium or larger creatures a reason to use a fork rest with it, as they were historically used together. Considering I already had this special rule, it made sense to use it instead of adding yet another special rule specifically for the arquebus.
Having an engineer character combine the fork rest and pavise sounds like a great idea btw. I'd definitely let your character spend a few nights tinkering to get that to work if he were in my campaign.
Wasn't there a section in the DMG that detailed some simple firearms and even a couple of laser weapons? I can't seem to find it in the DnD Beyond version.
Correct. p268 of the DMG has a chart for Firearms and related items which I've used as an inspiration for making my own firearms for my current campaign. I suppose that if you want to use the more modern variants as "ancient tech" you could even treat them as magical weapons for the sake of handing them out and providing ammunition for them.
I myself use the following Table and associated Feats and Items, inspired by technology available around 1500 for dealing with firearms:
*spoiler*
This was so well done I've got to use it in my current game!
I've got this kind of rock-paper-scissors handling of firearms, melee weapons, and spell casting for my magical western-genre campaign.
Essentially, guns dominate the battlefield because they ignore all AC effects from non-magical, non-dexterity bonuses. So in addition to their high damage dice, they hit much easier against heavily armored characters with low agility. However, magic users have access to the Shield spell which blocks bullets the same as Magic Missile (no chance to hit), and have a variety of defensive spells they can use that bump their AC against bullets. Lastly, melee fighters that still use armor and blades are particularly effective against spellcasters because I grant advantage to any melee attack done against a creature wielding a ranged weapon, a smaller weapon (e.g. dagger vs spear), or a simple weapon against a better designed martial weapon (e.g. club vs. longsword).
It all boils down to this: firearms gun down melee fighters -> melee fighters cut down squishy, non-martial spellcasters -> spells can stop or hinder bullets from gunners.
Gunslingers and spellcasters become the most generally useful characters, and melee fighters are situationally useful as witch hunters or when bludgeoning or slashing damage is required.
i'm making a western fantasy camping with a lot of shootouts and role play, any suggestions for kingdoms or characters? i have a outlaw the is the not-so-bad-bbeg
I'm working on a campaign where there's technology in the world but it's ancient, very rare, and super expensive. I want firearms to be a part if this world but most people have no idea what they even are.
My issue is, how do I represent the awesome power of a firearm without breaking the game should a PC acquire one and know how to use it? Do I just make bullets limited and equally rare?
Bullets and explosives are easy to make. Guns are really easy to make. The reason guns won in our world is because they're far easier to make than bows or crossbows and can be churned out in huge numbers cheaply. You want realistic guns, they (especially early guns) should be on par with a crossbow, but way cheaper, have terrible range, and a tendency to need replacement parts after almost every skirmish.
You want magical cinematic guns you should take the ones in the DMG and dial their damage down a little so they're a slightly better option than a crossbow. We took our rifles from 2d10 down to 2d8 and they haven't been game-breaking at all.
Use PF rules lol
I use the Critical Roll Gunslinger pdf guns. There are also stats for other guns and cannons in the DM Manuel. As far as ammunition goes I set the cost to make the ammo at double that of arrows provided they have the needed ammo molds and access to a forge. They also may need to make a tinkering check to see if they have success; the amount made I have either predetermined or a dice roll (d6, d10, d12) depending on what is predetermined normally a d6. 2.5 times the cost of arrows for a shop that can make them if you can find one.
Wasn't there a section in the DMG that detailed some simple firearms and even a couple of laser weapons? I can't seem to find it in the DnD Beyond version.
I myself use the following Table and associated Feats and Items, inspired by technology available around 1500 for dealing with firearms:
_________________________________________________________
Custom Weapons:
Name
Cost
Damage
Weight
Properties
Martial Ranged Weapons
Pistol
250 gp
1d10 piercing
3 lb.
Amunition (Range 30/90), loading, firearm
Musket
500 gp
1d12 piercing
10 lb.
Ammunition (Range 40/120), loading, two-handed, firearm
Arquebus
400 gp
2d6 piercing
20 lb.
Ammunition (Range 40/120), loading, two-handed, Heavy, Firearm,excessive recoil.
Blunderbuss
500 gp
3d4 piercing
10 lb.
Ammunition (Range 25/80), loading, two-handed, Firearm, improvised ammunition
Customised Gnome Blunderbuss
-
2d8 piercing
12 lb.
Ammunition (Range 30/90), loading, two-handed, Firearm, improvised ammunition, excessive recoil
Ammunition
Bullets (10)
3 gp
-
2 lb.
-
Handful of Shot (10)
3gp
-
2 lb.
-
Misc. Items
Gun Rest
5gp
-
4lb.
-
Pavise
30 gp
-
10lb.
-
Special rules:
Firearm
A firearm requires gunpowder to be used in addtion to any amunition fired. A powder horn (see DMG) contains 30 shots worth of ammo, a keg of gunpowder contains 300 shots worth of gunpowder.
Improvised Amunition
A ranged weapon with this rule can be fired by loading other things than the bullets that were intended to be loaded, such as a handful of nails, a sack of ball bearings, a bundle of arrows or other appropriate alternatives.
When fired in this way, the shot does not consume a unit of regular ammunition, but instead consumes whatever the user has loaded in the weapon. A shot fired using this special rule has disadvantage on the attack roll, but deals damage as normal if it hits.
A weapon with both this special rule and the Firearm special rule still requires a shot worth of gunpowder to be used. The DM has a final say on whether or not the improvised ammunition is appropriate for the weapon in question, and if not which effects, if any, "inappropriate" ammunition has.
Excessive Recoil
A weapon with this special rule has a heavy kick. When fired, a person using this weapon needs to make a strength saving throw (DC=10). If the saving throw is failed, the creature firing the weapon is knocked prone. If the creature is already prone they take 1d4 damage instead. If the save is failed by 5 or more points, the creature is moves 1d4 feet away from the direction it was firing in.
Other Items
Fork Rest
A Fork Rest is a pole with a spiked end on one end and a forked end on the other. It can be used to brace a gun or crossbow before firing. Bracing the weapon takes an action and results in the weapon being ballanced on the rest, which is either spiked into the ground or propped up against something sturdy. As long as the user doesn't move, the weapon counts as braced. While braced the weapon does not suffer from the Heavy and Excessive Recoil special rules.
Pavise
A pavise is a large shield which can be placed on the ground to provide additional protection. It is particularly popular amongst crossbowmen and arquebusiers participating in sieges. A pavise takes an action to deploy or pick up. While it is deployed it can provide Half Cover to a single creature that takes up position behind it.
Custom feats:
Firearms Expert
Thanks to extensive practice using firearms you gain the following benefits:
Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn't impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls when you attack using a blunderbuss or a pistol.
When you use the Attack action and attack with a one-handed weapon, you can use a bonus action to attack with a pistol you are holding.
When you attack using a weapon with the firearm special rule, you may choose to expend two shots worth of gunpowder instead of one, in order to double both the long and the short range on the firearm.
Guns aren't better than other weapons because a bullet does more damage; they're better because it takes less effort to transfer force into a target with a bullet from a gun than a muscle-powered weapon. Would someone really be worse off after taking a slug from a rifle than they would be after getting slashed with three feet of sharpened steel with a barbarian's rippling thews behind it?
The Old West inspired game that I'm running puts firearm damage at around 2d4 for handguns and 2d6 for longarms. Where guns get good is that if they have another shot (revolvers, lever guns, and double barrels), the wielder can make another attack as a bonus action but skip out on adding the ability mod to damage, same as melee dual weapon fighting.
Technically the crossbow expert feat , and sharp shooter feat would cover most what your trying to accomplish in the Fire arms expert feat. Also be a fighter (gunslinger archetype) or just fighter in general would cover most of the rest. The custom fire arms and rules relating to them seem fine as a custom campaign variant. Although the heavy recoil is a little weird to me you should be able to have fun with it if the character is a size class of small, and has a normal sized gun. I like the inclusion of a pavise it reminds me of my old 2.5 campaign where my dwarf cleric (with a tower shield) and the human paladin were tanking up to become more or less living half cover for the rest of the party; good times. My current character being a glorified engineer and inventor, with tinkering and blacksmithing would most likely use fabricate to fuse a pavise and fork rest together; so he could save himself some trouble when he doesn't need a shield.
In the end it's up to personal taste and how prevelant these weapons are going to be. In my campaign these weapons aren't getting used that often (yet) by either the PCs or NPCs, especially not at lower levels. But I imagine that if you're running a wild west type game where firearms are going to be one of the main weapons used from the get go (and where loading times aren't as long as long), or if you're playing a game where ammo consumption isn't tracked or where the DM rewards a lot of money, toning them down a bit makes sense from a ballance perspective.
The ecxessive recoil was originally intended as exactly what you mention: a quirky trait for the gnome ranger's customized blunderbuss, as she felt it'd be hilarious for her gnome to get knocked around by her own gun. My main reason for adding it to the arquebus was in order to give medium or larger creatures a reason to use a fork rest with it, as they were historically used together. Considering I already had this special rule, it made sense to use it instead of adding yet another special rule specifically for the arquebus.
Having an engineer character combine the fork rest and pavise sounds like a great idea btw. I'd definitely let your character spend a few nights tinkering to get that to work if he were in my campaign.
Glad I saw this. I almost bought the DMG for Beyond to get firearms added to the equipment option. Will hold off purchasing until they add it.
try looking into grenade launchers or shot guns they are like muskets and cannons.
I've got this kind of rock-paper-scissors handling of firearms, melee weapons, and spell casting for my magical western-genre campaign.
Essentially, guns dominate the battlefield because they ignore all AC effects from non-magical, non-dexterity bonuses. So in addition to their high damage dice, they hit much easier against heavily armored characters with low agility. However, magic users have access to the Shield spell which blocks bullets the same as Magic Missile (no chance to hit), and have a variety of defensive spells they can use that bump their AC against bullets. Lastly, melee fighters that still use armor and blades are particularly effective against spellcasters because I grant advantage to any melee attack done against a creature wielding a ranged weapon, a smaller weapon (e.g. dagger vs spear), or a simple weapon against a better designed martial weapon (e.g. club vs. longsword).
It all boils down to this: firearms gun down melee fighters -> melee fighters cut down squishy, non-martial spellcasters -> spells can stop or hinder bullets from gunners.
Gunslingers and spellcasters become the most generally useful characters, and melee fighters are situationally useful as witch hunters or when bludgeoning or slashing damage is required.
i'm making a western fantasy camping with a lot of shootouts and role play, any suggestions for kingdoms or characters? i have a outlaw the is the not-so-bad-bbeg
For old-west, steampunk, or modern, I'd say use Mage Hand Press's gun rules+Gunslinger.
Mystic v3 should be official, nuff said.