If your d&d-or-similar game has either of these in it, you're in the 1500-1600s at least, man. The arquebus is already on the field and has been taking heads for like a century. Rifling is either here or on its way. It's guns & glory time, baby.
Comments
Log in with your Bluesky account to leave a comment
Yeah and I'm like the forgotten realms has gunpowder and gears, why do only the ilithids have cannons? Like by the time we had things like rapiers and polearms, the field cannon and siege cannon were a few hundred years old.
For anyone who doesn't know me, because this post may be one of those that gets Unfamiliar Eyes upon it: I'm not arguing for historical accuracy in fantasy, but pointing out it's an anachronistic pastiche. It's deeply silly to argue about, and if you really want to, you're already fighting uphill.
In my experience, the biggest reason why people object to guns in D&D-like games is because they believe that period firearms just passed through armor like it wasn't there or instantly kill people.
Which isn't true to start with, and is even less true when you consider magic and magical materials!
One other difference is that guns are dramatically asymmetric weapons. You can block a sword with another sword. Movies have people clashing with swords for minutes at a time. You don’t parry guns with guns. Gun duels in Westerns are one shot, one kill. Etc
(They don't always know that this is their objection, but it seems to me that the root cause is usually their lack of understanding of period firearms/armor, and also often a lack of understanding of melee weapons and modern firearms go to with it.)
Armor, and people's misapprehensions about it, is wild to me. I understand it brings up questions like "what does HP actually represent" that most people who have This Problem REALLY hate fessing up to, but realistically full plate should make you basically immune to most d&d-viable forms of attack.
Yeah. The way to kill people in full plate was not 'hit them until you break through'. It was 'knock them down and poke a dagger through the eye slits'.
Really big weapons, big monsters like dragons, high level quasi-magical fighters; ok, hit them. Normal people, find a way around it.
I had to address this recently and my joy has been saying "You get one shot and then you cannot reload because you're not in Shape's Rifles and combat is violence. Bring multiple pistols if you want to go full Saltzpyre."
Comments
I think designing them more like fire-and-forget damage spells is a good move.
Which isn't true to start with, and is even less true when you consider magic and magical materials!
Really big weapons, big monsters like dragons, high level quasi-magical fighters; ok, hit them. Normal people, find a way around it.
Thus one shot, or take a cleaver while futzing with your powder and shot.