Is there a way to make guns feel like high risk high reward weapons?
Let's say you've got a pistol. Guns are easy to use, just point and click. Point your pistol at a guy, bang, he's dead, no matter how armored he is. Even a dragon's scales are no match for a lead ball... many wyrms have died to a single pistol shot... that's the power of SCIENCE, no skill needed...
But if the pistol explodes... well, that's another story. Your entire hand gets blown off, no save. Better hope you can find a cleric to cast Regenerate... no wait, that's a level 7 spell... good luck with that when you're never hitting level 13...
>Point your pistol at a guy, bang, he's dead, no matter how armored he is
That's not how guns work, moron.
I sort of achieved some balance about this in a game i was running last year.
It's nothing new or novel exaclty. In short:
- Everyone and their mothers know how to fire a gun (reloading takes actual proficiencyand time).
-Guns are expensive. You probably looted yours.
-They use explosive dice. On max damage, they deal even more.
-On misfire, that explosive die deals damage to you.
-There are different gun with pros and cons each to spice things up.
Thats it. Players kinda figured that in most cases, these guns are best used on a 1st round when enemy is at a distance, then you change to melee or whatever is it you do.
missfire dosent mean they always explode dumbass no gun mf
I like the idea that guns have extra stopping power, and that even if they aren't one-shotting people they have a very high chance of winding/disrupting targets.
You type like a 60 year old, why the frick did you decide to post before reading some other posts?
To answer your question: Stop playing dnd. GURPS does all of this.
I have a Skyrim mod that adds guns. Basically, make the ammo cost prohibitive. The ones in the mod had special effects on firing which justified the cost.
why do people act like gunpowder weapons are some super weapon?
Early renesance guns are just heavy crossbows that is loud and produce smoke and pistols have problems with penetrating plate
>Even a dragon's scales are no match for a lead ball
You have no reason to assume this beyond some very silly stupidity around wanting guns to be the most powerful weapon ever, in an utterly ahistorical way.
And then trying to balance this by making the weapon commonly explode in a way that is also ahistorical and unlike guns from any time period.
Your taking the guns into the two extremes it can have and thinking this is a good idea, instead of the absolute fricking moronation only a complete moron would think up.
>Early renesance guns are just heavy crossbows that is loud and produce smoke
This. Its why Pathfinder 2es Guns are literally balanced against crossbows by making gun crits powerful but otherwise deal crossbow damage.
>No animal with scales in the world is much more protected than any other. Why wouldn't a bullet penetrate a dragon's hide?
Dragon scales are magically reinforced by their nature of being on A FRICKING DRAGON, a creature that does not exist and thus any appeal to real world scales is meaningless. Dragon scales are as tough as iron, able to deflect swords and arrows and especially bullets.
>Dragon scales are as tough as iron, able to deflect swords and arrows and especially bullets.
No, because dragons don’t exist. Maybe in some settings they can, but seeing how many settings and stories are about guys with mundane weapons killing dragons their scales aren’r much different than scales of any other reptile of the same size.
Fantasy of the common mass has for a long while been well past the point of even pretending the guys involved on their front covers who dragons get fed to as bosses to slay are anything less then McU superhuman.
Dragons are now as likely to exist a narrative niche that in ages past would have been the place of Norse giants or Greek titans. A kind of pantheon for primordial and elemental powers just a step under the main gods after some kind of god war.
Only fantasy fiction where normal-passing people predominate are mudcore GoT stuff which for all the grief that comes with that can of worms it at least has the sense goes back to the much needed fantasy basics where monsters are ‘just’ embelished predatory animals again.
What the frick were you even trying to convey with that random salad of buzzwords?
>guys with mundane weapons
Complete fricking bullshit. Dragonslaying is treated as a joke in like webnovel shit, but both popular fantasy and myth they're battled through use of magic/enchanted weapons, heavy artillery, or just plain demigods. Even if you wanna go the Tolkien route, Smaug was basically invincible to normies aside from one tiny spot that was missing a scale.
Also, you don't fricking need magical scales to deflect bullets, even some IRL animals can take an AK unloading into them and keep going long enough to maul you.
>seeing how many settings and stories are about guys with mundane weapons killing dragons
Name one
> their scales aren’r much different than scales of any other reptile of the same size.
Even if that were true, you certainly can't expect to take out a full grown crocodile with your shitty matchlock weapon when they've been known to shrug off 5.56 like beestings.
Bitch, gunpowder weapons couldn't even penetrate plate armor. A lot of lower calibers today still can't. Anything short of a cannon wouldn't even hurt a dragon.
>Anything short of a cannon wouldn't even hurt a dragon.
Scales aren't armor. No animal with scales in the world is much more protected than any other. Why wouldn't a bullet penetrate a dragon's hide?
Because he's thinking of nu-dnd, where even a baby dragon can knock down walls and shit.
Because dragonscales are supposed to be extremely tough. At the very least, they easily repulse swords and arrows.
And even if the scales *didn't* stop them, look at Elephants - they sure as hell don't get stopped by a simple pistol, and they're much, much smaller than a dragon.
tru. anything dragon size would not be appreciably slowed down unless it penetrated into the heart or brain. even if you made it through the armor, you may kill the dragon but it will have killed you and everyone you love before it dies unless you hit vitals (probably with more than one projectile)
A cannon might kill a dragon, but it would take like a pretty sizable unit of soldiers to kill it at any real speed by shooting it with small arms in all likelihood, especially w/o modern ballistics and stuck with early gunpowder reload speed.
Not sure if a cannon would be better agaisnt a dragon. Their scales basicly act like uber-chainmail so a bigger projectile with bigger mass and thus, lower speed would have most of its energy spread between a ton of scales instead of just one.
A Canon, but with a steel tipped, cast-iron dart in a sabot.
or just big enough shot so that even if it can't pierce skin it still breaks bones underneath
>so a bigger projectile with bigger mass and thus, lower speed
That's not how cannons work, you dumb no-gun
Newton's second law of motion: Acceleration = Force / Mass
Hey, here's an idea. You know know how the cannon is bigger than a handgun, right? And a cannonball is bigger than a bullet? Now stay with me, this is the bit that you didnt get, how about you use a bigger charge of powder? You see? The cannon ball will travel just as fast if you do that, or even faster, as the cannon is thicker than a pistol so can take a bigger bang. Do you get it now? Nod if you do.
in addition to this
guy's explanation, here's another consideration.
Bigger cannonballs that still move at cannonball speed, as you increase projectile size, will increase in mass faster than they increase in surface area. The result is that bigger projectiles will hit harder than their increased surface area of contact will spread the energy among the dragons scales. Much more than the square cube law would suggest because only the half of the surface area facing the dragon will count.
I've homebrewed rules where dragons can tank sidewinders and bursts of 20mm API because they're fricking dragons
You should go to a gun range (or a gun club in yurop) and try firing a few rounds. Your "no training needed" mind will explode.
Pick a period you want guns first.
Medieval?
Renesaince?
Later?
All these threads about guns are so fricking stupid on /tg
I say you all kys, and leave fantasy games to the real players
would you rather be gut shot with a deagle or get your head Gallagherized with a bec-de-corbin?
What is Galla ger hism?
I normally don't like much of matt mercers homebrew, but the basic mechanics for Gun Slinger, actually does what you are asking pretty well. Up the Critical fail chance and give it a high damage. Maybe add exploding dice. exactly how much damage and how high a critfail chance you would have to balance for the game you wanna play.
I also think everyone being proficient makes sense, but you need training to load them, that is a big advantage of firearms (tho arguably also crossbows). Status effects also make a lot of sense, losing a finger, poisoned well the bullet is still inside, shattered bones when it bounces around inside, exit wounds leave big holes.
>matt mercers homebrew, but the basic mechanics for Gun Slinger,
stolen wholesale from the Pathfinder 1e gunslinger class and then simplified for 5e. Like quite literally, its got everything the class has but the mechanics have been turned into 5e versions, and not well.
fare enough
I think people focus WAY too much on missfires. Yes, they did happen but not as often. People already took care to not put too much gunpowder in guns.
If we go with that logic we should also simulate bowstrings snapping or swords breaking.
>Guns are easy to use, just point and click.
no
>Point your pistol at a guy, bang, he's dead, no matter how armored he
no
>dragon's scales are no match for a lead ball
no
>many wyrms have died to a single pistol shot
not even one in the history of the universe
>But if the pistol explodes.
its not a plasma pistol from 40k
>Is there a way to make guns feel like high risk high reward weapons?
the reward is that its a pistol the high risk is that its only a pistol. Its stopping power is inferior to an axe blow, a spear thrust a sword slash.
Against many monsters its a very inferior weapon when compared to a melee weapon that is supposedly primitive.
shooting a zombie does little usually unless its at a very specific spot with a big bullet
the same for many other creatures, only thing you get at best is a little hole with your pistol. Its not a modern gun with special bullets and even then you may not achieve much.
the characters will go up against monsters mostly.
It feels useless typing this out since we have this thread every other week, but unless you have a super fancy and/or enchanted gun there's no reason it should be particularly effective against armored enemies or large monsters unless it's a proper musket (the 1500/1600s type) that requires a shooting stick and weighs like 20 lbs., and in that case it balances itself
Yes, a pistol or arquebus could and should do very high damage to unarmored or otherwise weak enemies, but most "normal" or "traditional" weapons would too.
Any gun capable of being "OP" would be balanced by its rarity or other downsides, such as a musket being fricking gigantic and unwieldy and requiring setup to use, or an enchanted gun being, well, enchanted.
Also, why the FRICK do 90% of the "DnD with guns" iterations use 1700s or even 1800s guns? Like yeah, no shit if you're giving the player a gun from over a hundred years in advance of the rest of the setting's tech it's gonna be unbalanced. Literally just use appropriate, 1500-1650ish firearms and you'll be fine.
I feel like a majority of the popular (or unpopular) ideas for adding and balancing guns in DnD and other games are made out of spite and are purposefully designed poorly just to poison the well, because I genuinely can't understand why anyone would consider some of them a good idea.
Good post. Why do people seem to think medieval guns worked similar to current guns is beyond me.
WFRP 4e.
Reloading a gun during the 16th century took anywhere from 20 seconds to a minute under the most ideal conditions
Andrade, Tonio (2016), The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-13597-7
so unless pre-loaded its utterly fricking useless and guarantees your death by getting your head bitten off or getting clawed to ribbons
>20 seconds to a minute under the most ideal conditions
A turn and a round are both 6 seconds
the time to reload those old type muskets, pistols etc is from 3-4 rounds to 10 under the most ideal conditions
if I recall correctly during the height of the ball and musket era professional soldiers who trained daily were expected to get 2 to maybe 3 shots a minute like you are implying. this quick reload stuff would be impressive in modern weapons
I've always thought it weird how games refuse to acknowledge the long reload times. it would help set guns apart for bigger damage tradeoffs. during the golden age of sail pirates were known to carry multiple pistols (up to like 6), when you shot all of them it was melee time. hiding in the back for 10 minutes while you reload wasn't a thing.
have the feats or whatever in the game for people who would want to focus guns be for slowly increasing their reload speed.
*points gun at you*
You best tell me which system to use for Arcanum or I'll open fire.
why, dungeons and dragons 5th edition of course. the worlds greatest roleplaying game!
GURPS if you feel like hand-crafting everything (and there is a frickload to hand-fit here)
OVA if you don't feel like it and would rather get shit done post-haste
Hollow Earth eXpedition with its first expansion if you want the comfortable middle ground between "lots of crunch" and "fast gameplay loop"
Guns sucked in Arcanum, IIRC. Though that may have been vanilla, haven't played in ten years.
>Pure Magic gets reality warping powers, pure tech just gets some meme weapons
>Magic makes it so Sneak builds don't actually need to invest in any sneak skills, well Tech doesn't really assist sneaking at all beyond the schematics giving you something worthwhile to actually steal.
>Charisma/Tech can deck out his squad with insane tech gear, but Charisma/Magic can do the with enchanted gear AND can revive his dead companions
>The only build that are effectively equally busted are Magic Knights and Tech Fighters
W-well, atleast Gunners get the Looking Glass Rifle, 40/40 damage is pretty neet...
... in what fricking setting, you fricking moron?
... in what fricking game, you dumb pinhead?
What kind of thread do you think this is anon? Why do you think neither of those things have been specified? This is boilerplate /tg/ nerdfight thread and it has succeeded, again. OP's scenario is so hyperbolic and nogames it's embarrassing there's replies.
It's not really embarrassing. It's just a litmus test how dead /tg/ is, with no-game morons replying to themselves, and completely ignoring the fact people point out this is a stale bait. To say nothing about hte fact the thread still exists, unpruned
I don’t know about high risk versus high reward, but you can make them into the devastating single shot death machines people always picture them being. Assuming you’re playing 5th edition. Here’s how:
>Fireable only as a full action. Not compatible with extra attack.
> Roll to hit for your attack. The gun deals 2d6 piercing damage plus an extra d6 of damage for every point you beat the target’s AC by.
> But after this, the firer has to roll 4d6. That’s the number of rounds of rounds it’ll take them to reload the weapon. You also can’t move while you are reloading. But you can stow the weapon and choose to reload later. Including outside combat.
Check the archive
>Even a dragon's scales are no match for a lead ball... many wyrms have died to a single pistol shot... that's the power of SCIENCE, no skill needed...
>But if the pistol explodes... well, that's another story. Your entire hand gets blown off, no save
if this was the case (it's fricking moronic) people would just set up tripods and fire their pistols or rifles or whatever by pulling a string after aiming at the enemy, the idea it could completely blow your hand off on a misfire is moronic but if it one shots a dragon people would still use it, they'd just use these moronic god-mode pistols the way cannons and other artillery were used IRL
Expensive ammunition. If you miss, you're out valuable resources. For bigger firearms, long reload times means you have to carefully consider your shots as well.
>Point your pistol at a guy, bang, he's dead, no matter how armored he is.
There are accounts of pistols being shot point blank to peoples (armoured) heads and surviving, and continuing to fight, from the English Civil War.
The simplest to do this:
>Expensive.
>Perhaps slightly reduced accuracy.
>Heavy damage on hit.
>Reloading literally takes a whole minute: You can do so only outside of combat.
I like how Dominion Rules does it, muskets are slow to use so in context of game the musketeer likely always goes last and the enemy can react to what he is going to do, but they have best change to inflict proper injuries and have the best armor penetration of all ranged weapons.
>Is there a way to make guns feel like high risk high reward weapons?
No, becose a random 5 lvl adventure already superhuman supersolder tier. Higher levels almost invisible to any ordinary weapons becose they has inhuman durability and reaction speed (if this weapons not in the hand of enemies with comparable strength).
There's no way because no matter what they say players hate high risk and consider high reward to be just fine reward.
Make their damage 1d20. They can potentially obliterate a low-level PC in a single shot, while at the same time possibly fail to kill a commoner.
no games homosexuals should just not post threads. nobody likes "high risk high reward"
Clockwork and Chivalry seems to have a good system for blackpowder weapons. They ignore half of armor and make it a common skill to learn while making bows be an advanced skill but have it scale really well if you go all in on it. And if you want to mod your gun get a crazy mechanic to put clockwork mechanic to muck with your gun or an alchemist to give you neat ammo.
Warhammer fantasy 4e also has some cool toys for that, with a chance of making the target run in terror. And especially if you get Engineering weapons like a scuff pepperbox gun or even straight up a hand mortar.
The way I run I run them:
>no proficiencies needed
>ranged touch attack, target is automatically flat-footed and no missile repel stuff like the monk ability works
>range is infinite in practice
>normal or smaller sized targets autodie instantly if hit, large or bigger get fortitude save to simulate bowling ball sized hole not destroying anything instantly lethal
>ignores all and any DRs and immunities
>nat 20 turns shot into a no save autokill beam of sorts, simply draw line from your character to your target, everything in front and behind your target in the whole battlefield is killed instantly no matter what, up to and including gods or god-like creatures
>explodes on natural attack roll 1, killing you and anyone within 1D20*10 feet no save instantly and mangling bodies so you need higher levels rezz than just raise dead/revivify
>takes ten rounds to reload
>Is there a way to make guns feel like high risk high reward weapons?
Roll a D10
2 means that your pistol misfires and you need to attack again
1 means a catastrophic misfire which deals damage to you as well as disabling your weapon until its repaired.
>posts
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