ITT we discuss the awesomeness of arquebus, hand cannon, musket, and blunderbuss. We also discuss the absolute miserable failure of fantasy games to include them, and how to fix it.
i just want to be an arquebusier /tg/. is that too much to ask?
>>48075978
Because you have a group that is afraid that the inclusion of firearms; antiquated or otherwise, would ruin the "feel" of it.
Oddly, you have some who will unironically say something stupid like it's not historically accurate but then let something else slide because it fits their personal taste
>>48075995
>muh feels
do these people actually exist? i hate them so much.
>>48076068
Imagine when you see a topic about firearms in fantasy settings and people go to ridiculous lengths to justify the coexistance of melee weapons and firearms like saying the very chemical compounds to make gun powder don't exist or something stupid like that. They come up with these ideas as a way to maintain internal consistancy and yet how can the rest of life exist if the core chemicals that make gunpowder doesn't exist? Magic aint gotta splain shit?
Nevermind the fact that, from a mechanical perspective, let's take D&D for example there is really no difference between getting shot with a bullet versus being shot with an arrow which also sparks the sort of people who say that guns have to have ridiculous reload speeds to "balance" them out against other weapons.
In all, I just think it's people being stupid about it.
>>48075978
The one good argument I can see against allowing an arquebus is that it's not really a good weapon for an adventurer fighting what are essentially skirmishes in small groups.
Now a brace of custom wheel locks? That would be more thematically and mechanically appropriate for an adventurer.
>>48075978
Song of Swords will let you be an arquebusier in a fantasy game anon, and do it awesomely.
>>48075978
>not just playing a game set during a fantasy equivalent of the Napoleonic era
Those heroes of antiquity
Ne'er saw a cannon ball
Or knew the force of powder
To slay their foes withal.
But our brave boys do know it,
And banish all their fears,
Sing tow, row, row, row, row, row,
For the British Grenadier.
>>48076624
I need this
On guns, Well personally I would make a gun a LOL STEALTH? WHAT THAT? Comically cheap and slow reloading aldernative to a bow and arrow with slightly higher damage.
You can use a brace of guns, or use it as an opening shot in a battle before inevitably switching to melee. Guns about match swords in terms of damage dealt to the body I think.
>>48075978
In 5e, I've been using the firearm profiles in the DMG with the following additions:
>Natural animals and non-warhorses have to make a Wisdom Save (DC 10) or be panicked for 1 minute or until calmed by a rider.
>Add feat:Musketeer
>Ignore the loading property of smoothbore muskets & pistols you're proficient with. Note that this doesn't affect rifled weapons, which naturally load slowly.
>Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn't impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls.
>When you use the attack action and attack with a one-handed weapon, you can use a bonus action to attack with a loaded pistol you're holding.
Firing in a dungeon also imposes a visibility penalty until the combat round ends and forces a Wandering Monster roll.
>>48076144
>and yet how can the rest of life exist if the core chemicals that make gunpowder doesn't exist? Magic aint gotta splain shit?
Well, that much at least is actually pretty legitimate. The whole idea of biochemistry was totally unheard of until the late 19th century; life being more magical than chemical is in fact perfectly reasonable for a fantasy setting.
Coming up with convoluted reasons to exclude primitive firearms is still dumb though.
>>48077982
And that would be fine were it not selectively applied when it suits that person's particular wants.
"You can't just say it's magic because blah blah using real life as a basis!"
For me, the problem is less a PC being overpowered by bringing a musket, and more the elder dragon and demons that are supposed to be world scale threats that only the high level with skill way beyond anything a real person could achieve can stop, are handled by trivially by cannons, no matter what power I give to the non gunpowder powered forces to stop that.
>>48076624
Isn't that basically Warmachine?
>>48078157
Mechanically would the gun be any more effective then the bow and arrow? I suppose I could say I could just cheese a dragon with arrows and never risk getting up in its face but mechanically there's nothing that says it can't shrug off non magical arrows any more then non-magical bullets.
I guess my perspective on this is from the game mechanic perspective where people often look at it from the narrative persepctive and even then narrativly I don't see various demon lords of hell just getting shredded by bulletsUnless it's Doom of course
>>48078288
I personally have a weird narrative justification for firearms being feybane.
To have a musket is to have a state behind you. Whenever a soldier fires a musket, symbolically the will of a united organised state is behind that shot. The will of Civilisation is behind that shot.
That's a lot more powerful than the symbolism behind iron being representative of humankind taming nature.
So yeah guns for feybusting.
>>48078157
If anything, muskets give armies a fighting chance against dragons. Realistically statted bows are worthless against any dragon with a dash of tactics.
>not being a wheellock-tinkering gunwitch
>not commanding a squad of wall-gun toting ogres wreathed in matchlock smoke
>not firebombing vampires in geomantically augmented power armor from your zeppelin
Magical renaissance fantasy is good and I feel good about it.
>>48078931
I enjoy the thought of all the scenarios you described
>>48078864
I understand that it appeals to you, but for me, THAT IS THE PROBLEM! I want the 6 man PC party to be better at handling the big ass dragon than the army is, that they can handle problems to big for the army. I understand the one man army is not realistic, but it is something I want to play, but firearms and the expectations that go with them get in the way of that.
>>48079122
Have you considered upping PC power levels? IMO, most of these problems occur when (to use D&D as an analogy) people are trying to play level 5 and level 20 simultaneously.
Take a leaf from Malazan and consider letting high-level PCs be one-man armies and having the world react accordingly.
Ironclaw has both guns and bows. Both are viable weapon choices.
- Guns hit for a shitload of damage, but take so long to reload that the only way you'll be firing a second shot in combat is if you're carrying a second gun, when guns are expensive. They also have a chance to misfire.
- Bows do less damage. But with much shorter reloads, you can fire most bows every round, unless you have to use one of your actions for something else.
Do people have a problem with guns, or just with gunpowder?
Because you can make shooty things without gunpowder.
Civil war weapons are badass.
>Not slotting floppies with the same revolver your Great Great Grandpappy fought for slavery with.
>>48076624
I ran a game like that using >>48076614
It wasvery okay.
>>48076624
Powder Mage series tabletop RPG WHEN?
>>48076624
This could be pretty fun! After all, muskets are ideal for fighting in wide open fields, but are less helpful when a Minotaur is charging at you through the forest. Then you'd best pull out your saber!
Though, does armour fit into a setting with muskets? Surely any bullet can punch through plate armour?
>>48079990
Armour persisted in reality alongside muskets for centuries.
>>48078931
I do like leading settings through the renaissance and up to the start of the industrial revolution.
>>48079990
Plate armor was very good at what it was made for. Stopping things from hurting you. This includes early shot. This is likely from musket/arquebus shot.
>>48079990
>>48080847
And this is from a cannonball.
>>48080591
>>48080847
>>48080860
Awesome! I might have a setting brewing...
>>48080860
I still have a sneaking suspicion that the dude died from this one, though.
I kid, I know what you're saying.
>>48079990
>>48080591
Doesn't the widespread use of firearms in Europe predate the invention of full plate?
>>48076144
But firearms and melee did coexist
Largely because firearms were initially fucking shit
Yeah they quickly reached a point where they were fairly consistently effective - IN GROUPS they remained shit as a personal weapon for a very long time. There's a reason bayonets existed, it's so when your shitty commander ordered you to fire too early and you missed 90% of the shots you could run up and stab them in the face.
You can easily justify melee and firearms existing around the early musket/blunderbuss period.
>>48078288
I don't understand why everyone expects guns to just shred magical creatures, a whale can take a bunch of harpoons and live and it's just flesh and blubber not (potentially) tank hard scales that fly around breathing fire.
>>48081671
>Yeah they quickly reached a point where they were fairly consistently effective - IN GROUPS they remained shit as a personal weapon for a very long time. There's a reason bayonets existed, it's so when your shitty commander ordered you to fire too early and you missed 90% of the shots you could run up and stab them in the face.
It's pretty much the same reason why crossbows aren't a very popular PC weapon in most systems- their main advantage is ease of use. When you start with the assumption that someone is already going to be at least decent with whatever weapon they're using, there aren't many good reasons to use them
>You can easily justify melee and firearms existing around the early musket/blunderbuss period.
You don't really have to justify shit. They DID coexist for most of the time firearms have been around. Melee weapons didn't really fall out of fashion until WWI. Even in the American Civil War, where trains, rifles, and automatic weapons were a thing, cavalrymen armed with sabers were still fairly effective.
>>48081537
Use of cannon, whilst initially rare but certainly know grew to being a major feature of warfare all decades before mail&plate transitioned to full plate harness. Handheld firearms snuck in before full plate but took a while to become widespread, but were certainly present before full plate harness became common.
unless used in mass, muskets are inferior for small, well trained commando groups. there is no need to exclude guns from your group, since the english longbow was considered a superior weapon even during the 1700s. it wasnt until the minnie ball, which allowed muskets to hit as far as a bow, while still being easy to use, did bows become redundant, and even then bows still shot faster on a 1-to-1 basis.
>>48075978
D&D has had them since Second E. in all settings that aren't fucking Forgotten Realms. The no-firearms thing is a meme.
>>48076624
>>48076722
What system would you use for a low magic napoleonic setting for PCs in a milatary/paramilitary campaign?
Any good thoughts for structuring such a campaign/setting? I've read up some of the SWN errata like Skyward Steel and the ground wars one but am looking for other good ideas.
Halp /tg/
>>48075978
My opinion is that early firearms are similar to crossbows, but with more logistical issues and thematic differences.
Personally, I prefer guns for a naval campaign, with crossbows for standard fantasy.
Having guns as rare pieces made by machinists and artificers also isn't as interesting as having those people use fancy repeater crossbows with special bolts.
I just really don't feel like it adda anything to the average setting, other than making some people think they have a way to ignore all armor and one-shot anything because they don't understand the difference between early guns and modern ones, aside from reloading.
>>48083896
For the structure of the campaign, I would advise : make the PC Hussars or Dragoons. Light cavalry, melee and ranged weapons, versatiles, not really on the front line.
It's the kind of "squad" that could face any kind of situation : Reinforce a garrison ? Can do. Hold a bridge ? Yes sir. Take an artillery position ? Consider it done. Try to take out the mage ? We can ram it !
If there is a mage he could be in the squad too.
The individual glory at this times lies in the hand of the cavalry or the officers.
If you want, just read the wiki about Antoine Charles Louis, Comte de Lasalle, "the Hussar General".
>>48083529
>since the english longbow was considered a superior weapon even during the 1700s
This is one of the dumbest truisms that ever took hold. That opinion was voiced by people who had never seen longbows used in war and has somehow been repeated for several hundred years.
>>48084073
I like this idea a lot. Dragoons with the "not proper cavalry" stigma could lead to some interesting brawly type potential between assignments. I'm thinking to try and plan for about 6 sessions ending in a big huge battle.
What do you think about having the group control lordly types at the beginning of a session being presented with a situation, (I'd maybe draw up some terrain maps with the garrison that needs reinforcing, the bridge that needs holding, the arty position etc.) and then spending 10 to fifteen minutes as these 'high officer' characters politicking and deciding which of those objectives they should dispatch their expendable Big Damn Hero dragoons to deal with?
This way the players get to have a little agency in how their main character grunts have to suffer.
>>48081323
I mean, I doubt anyone could survive getting hit with a fired cannonball unless it was on its third or fourth bounce and had lost most of its explosive momentum.
The armor probably just stopped the ball from blowing through the dude's chest and into the next guy.
