>My setting doesn't need gunpowder! Ships and fortifications can just mount ballistae instead of cannons, right?
>It doesn't need guns either! I just include hand crossbows, automatic crossbows, sniper crossbows... hmm... shotcrossbows?
>A-anyway, it doesn't need guns at all! See?
Can they shoot bolts through walls? No? Then they are inferior to guns.
Cool greentext bro. You sure pwned that imaginary person!
I dislike guns in DnD so obviously gunpowder had to go. Instead of canons on ships, they have mage casting fireballs and shit.
I don't know what peoples aversion towards guns in fantasy is. Well, you also don't need gunpowder for guns, steam and compressed air works too!
>>47649350
what is even your point
>>47649475
>they have mage casting fireballs and shit.
I feel like that has inherent dangers when you're on a structure made of wood sometimes hundreds of miles from land.
>>47649554
There isn't one. /tg/ just has a thing where they'll take a randoms statement, make it sound like the guy saying it's a retard, and put it in greentext next to a random image.
Ignore it, you'll get used to it.
>>47649569
No less than the presence of any other explosives or fires if the mage knows what they're doing.
The idea of ship mounted ballistae is actually pretty intriguing to me. Admittedly it would take up more space for ammo than cannonballs would, but it would be pretty freaking sweet looking
>>47649528
Is that written in the black tongue?
>>47649350
>Hating on Van Helsing
It's like kicking a puppy man. Not fair.
>>47649617
Pretty sure the elvish word for Friend is in there somewhere
>>47649606
It would also be far harder to use a lot of them (since a ballista anywhere near useful is fucking huge) and not actually be all that effective at breaking ships compared to a cannonball.
>>47649569
It definetly is. But as long as gunpowder doesn't get ''discovered'' that's the only thing they can use.
Most pirate-casters are storm sorcerers though so they're naturally good with sea stuff. Pirates are pretty rare in the setting though, it's not really a viable way of making a lot of money. Given the world is fairly young, unexplored and most of the islands with viable communities for trade are yet to be discovered
>>47649617
Well if it IS Da Vinci, he would write backwards so no one but him could read his notes. Also it's probably written in an older form of Italian.
>>47649617
>>47649654
Da Vinci is Sauron, all is made clear.
>>47649654
It is Da Vincis writing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_navy#Armament_and_tactics
>In the Hellenistic period, the larger navies came instead to rely on greater vessels. This had several advantages: the heavier and sturdier construction lessened the effects of ramming, and the greater space and stability of the vessels allowed the transport not only of more marines, but also the placement of deck-mounted ballistae and catapults.
What's wrong with ship mounted ballistae, again?
>>47649592
>No less than the presence of any other explosives or fires if the mage knows what they're doing.
I'm just thinking about how fire is used differently in a fireball than a cannon. A cannon is large metal tube the explosion happens in, launching a ball made of metal at a structure made of wood.
A mage shooting a fireball is a human being in cloth robes, presumably standing on the ship, with nothing surrounding him, shooting a projectile made of fire at another structure made of wood, all while at sea in uncertain conditions of stability.
>>47649350
>My setting doesn't need gunpowder! Ships and fortifications can just mount ballistae instead of cannons, right?
yes
>It doesn't need guns either! I just include hand crossbows, automatic crossbows, sniper crossbows... hmm... shotcrossbows?
yes, yes, sniper crossbow..maybe a crossbow that takes a animal hitched to it to pull, so it has extreme range? and shotcrossbow, fletchettes
>A-anyway, it doesn't need guns at all! See?
correct, no setting needs guns.
all said, you sound like a retard, and guns are no problem if the dm handles them right and the player dosent expect a black powder pistol to shoot like a revolver and be as accurate
>>47649350
Sounds cool.
>>47649736
IMHO, a setting without guns is no problem, crossbows are no problem, but when they're used in such a way that it's clear the GM had guns in mind and just didn't want to break some imaginary "no guns" rule it's annoying.
>>47649668
Saruman was pretty much evil wizard Da Vinci
He's also a diplomancer
>>47649690
Yeah but it's magic fire so it's cool.
>>47649569
explosive powder and armaments pose the same issues. I trust the Mage more than the drunk pirate to not blow me up though.
>>47649380
Yes. Siege of Dover in the 11th century. And you have trebuchets and catapults for that kind of task, too.
Besides, you're not gonna go through a star fort with a black powder gun.
>>47649831
> magic fire
> cool
Anon, I'm afraid you don't quite grasp how fire works.
>>47649852
What about drunk mages?
>>47649878
>magic
>>47649852
What if it's a drunk pirate mage?
>>47649894
> fire
>>47649887
is that like drunk monks?
>>47649907
>m a g i c
The setting exists such that the chemistry of the world contains a substance which hinders the effects of gunpowder, however there is an abundance of magic to the point that it is cost effective to enchant hundreds of bolts at a time with various enchantments ranging from speed, explosive, and weight.
There is a specialized industry for enchanters who focus primarily on being able to mass produce these enchanted bolts, or develop highly explosive ballistae bolts as effective artillery (the larger the bolt, the greater the ability to enchant).
A knight in steel will find that a peasant weidling a crossbow could fire an explosive bolt that would knock him off his horse with a hole the size of a fist in his chest, or a speed enchanted bolt that uses pure kinetic force to rip a hole the size of a pinky through his armor and through several trees behind him.
Heavy ballistae range in size and shape from small mortar like devices to those with the capability of matching howitzers.
One of the more elaborate pieces are "Thunder Bolts". These are fired from special all steel ballistae, with enchantments that launch the bolt at Mach 2. This creates the characteristic sonic boom noise when fired, and the payload of the enchanted tip is such to be able to tear asunder castle walls as well as a 150mm howitzer shell.
Although the speed at which the individual infantry can fire is notably less than a proper machine gun, the speed at which ballistae can reload and shoot far surpasses that of conventional artillery.
>>47650015
Or you could just save yourself the bullshit and use guns if you want guns.
>>47650036
Really.
I will never understand the hate guns get in fantasy settings.
>>47649994
> f i r e
>>47650075
>m a g i c
What are some cool naval weapons if you wanted to steer away from guns and ballistae? Something high fantasy.
I always had a fun idea of captured fire breathing lizards chained to the boat but I want to hear some new ideas.
>>47650162
Arcane focus arrays. Cast any ray spell into them and they'll shoot out a version of it at the enemy with a higher caster level and a shitload of metamagic.
>>47650162
You could probably make something way worse than greek fire if you throw in some alchemism or magic.
>>47649606
I've heard the Greeks mounted some on their own ships, but ramming and boarding actions were more effective tactics combined with regular archers onboard to hit soft targets.
Though against the Persians the Athenian fleet took Spartans onboard to use as marines, turning the sea battle into a land battle through boarding and very effectively slaughtering the Persians before they made landfall.
>asshole player keeps pestering me to allow him to invent gunpowder so he can metagame cannons and guns out of nowhere and blow all his enemies up with 30 kegs of gunpowder
>add magical laser guns instead and credit some nerdy research mage with their invention
>this dweeby mage becomes one of the most important figures in the setting overnight
I did the right thing, right?
>>47650316
Well, you seem to have derailed your entire setting just in order to spite a player, so depending on your philosophy as a GM you're either "awesome" or "awful".
>>47650162
Undead galley slaves that never tire.
>>47650498
Gunpowder isn't that cool. Lasers are cool.
>>47650162
Ramming.
>>47650311
You don't know what you're talking about.
>>47650243
>spoken like a true 3.PFaggot
>>47649689
Nothing, OP is just trying to make a point about how a lot of people have an aversion to include guns in fantasy campaigns in the most convoluted way possible
>>47649784
Exactly. It's the same problem with extensive magitech: if you want to run a medieval fantasy game, run medieval fantasy. If you don't want to run medieval fantasy, run something else. Just don't try to force your medieval fantasy world into something it isn't just because you can't be bothered to learn any non-medieval fantasy system
>>47649350
The problem with gunpowder is that players always want to use them, and expect them to be amazing, because guns of all times were amazing, right? That, and some people just don't like it thematically. Least, that's my opinions on the matter for most generic fantasy. I'm also a sucker for the age of pike and shot, but I feel like that age is a bit too advanced for "generic fantasy." If you have in mind that you're going to run in an age when they're prevalent, as I sometimes like doing, that's perfectly fine, but you have to be aware of the circumstances of the time.
>>47650695
5E, actually.
>>47649350
My wizard's just gonna give all his wands pistol grips then.
Spellguns are sweet.
>>47650871
Warhammer fantasy pulls this off perfectly fine.rip
>>47649350
sounds cool DM, infact I always wanted to try this large double crossbow vital strike build, can I show you some of my notes and see if it would be ok?
>>47650955
Warhammer fantasy's Empire is more of a pike-and-shot army. Hence the rules for supporting units.
>>47651117
I like that also other races are not complete inept when it comes to gunpowder weaponry. Sometimes even better.
if your having late middle ages then you can have historically accurate guns with no accurate that shoot rocks into the air and hopefully land near or on the enemy formations.
>>47649902
>>47649887
Depending on how magic works in the setting, a drunk mage can be completely harmless.
>>47650015
And then a rival division of abjurers is formed to counter the enchanters developing arcane dampening armor that reduces the effects of magic bolts for men, and placing stronger wards on castle walls to reduce impact from advanced siege weaponry.
>>47649784
sounds like a shit DM
>>47650072
its not the hate of guns in high fantasy but in a historically accurate low fantasy like when i was in a game about the war of the roses i didn't want rifled marksmen who could knock some one off a horse at over 100 yards vs a modern day magic is real and demons are invading the world. it depends on your setting
>>47650498
'Exploding gunpowder barrels' leads to the worst kind of PC bullshit.
Like people who let them fuck around with fire. Suddenly they're demanding to be able to burn down a forest with a flint and steel.
>>47650316
30 kegs of gunpowder wouldn't do anything because its a low explosive so it would just smolder. you need it to be in a confined space to work. Granadas were large and fairly effective compared to modern (dating back to WWI ) grenades.
>>47651243
what this guy said
>>47651505
>>30 kegs of gunpowder wouldn't do anything because its a low explosive so it would just smolder
That's not what happened in Pirates of the Carribean. Don't base your expectations of what your players will do on reality, because they're generally out of touch with reality.
>>47650631
not the guy you were talking to and cant confirm this but i know at the height of the egyption empire there ships had baristas
This seems like the right thread for an unrelated yet explosion-related question.
Bat guano.
Explosive? Flammable? Or neither?
I've got a player trying to persuade me that it explodes due to the saltpeter content.
>>47651550
Hipster fucks.
>>47650843
it all depends on your lvl of fantasy and time period
>>47651576
Tell that fuck to refine it first
>>47651576
saltpeter is just an oxidizer not an explosive. it needs to be mixed with a fuel
>>47651714
not to mention its a low explosive
>>47651505
>>47651243
role a d20. <20 nothing happens >20 they kill 1 guy no save no questions asked
>>47649569
Yea, it might go up like a powder keg!
>>47649475
>Once again, the mage does everything
>>47651756
1 it blows up in there face and they take 2 d20 damage in a 5ft radius
>"guns down fit into this setting"
>uses other assets liberally that are much younger than rifles/guns
>Wands of Fireball exist
>b-but guns will destroy my setting!
>>47651809
>Literal chronology is the only factor involved in what degree the inclusion of an anachronism will alter the setting
>>47651728
>>47651714
Cheers guys. He found a couple of references in dodgy caving manuals to explosive guano deposits and ran with it.
On topic, period-appropriate guns are top shit.
I go with slow to reload and inaccurate at range but armour piercing in my game.
Not super historically accurate since we get the word bulletproof from period armour, but balanced enough compared to bows and crossbows that I'm ok with it.
>>47651423
Have you considered using a comma, m80?
Honestly, I think it's because of plain ignorance. Some people just have a realy vague idea of what the fuck firearms are. Like, they don't even know what the difference between, let's say, an arquebus and modern firearms is, other than that the modern ones are supposedly better. Somehow. They're not sure.
In their worldview the entirety of human history can be neatly divided into five parts: the Stone Age, the Ancient World, the Middle Ages, World War 2 and Today.
>>47651817
Modern firearms potentially could if you make them widespread for some reason
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP6MwwiMjFs
>>47651848
comas are for people who have time to stop. not one step back
>>47649350
I played in a setting where gunpowder never took off beyond fireworks and modern weapons were derived from crossbows, magic gauss rifles that fired bolts designed to penetrate and shatter in the wound, or worse. The sniper rifle equivalent shot a meter long rod of sharpened tungsten rebar through just about anything put before it.
>>47649350
They had shot crossbows in the 1500s, they were called stonebows or pellet bows.
>>47650121
....um...
>f i r e
>>47650162
Traditionally, you'd use grappling hooks to lash the ships together and if you weren't fighting in a boarding action you were tossing spears and insults at enemy ships.
>>47650862
And if you want to run medieval fantasy with extreme magitech run that as well. Sometimes the goal is not "let's do something else but force it into a medieval fantasy world" but rather a genuine interest in the thing you are mistaking for shoehorned.
>>47650871
There is nothing wrong with wanting an option presented to be at least on par with other options. If your guns aren't as viable an option mechanically as your bows and your swords why bother having them in the first place?
>>47649350
for a long time I pondered why /tg/ hates guns, and then it finally dawned on me. Guns are the best IRL and /tg/ is for people who want to live in a fantasy world, so they obviously hate guns because they also hate reality.
>>47654884
As long as they aren't presented as being mechanically equivalent, it's fine to have disparity between available options. Flavor is a thing.
>>47654884
>If your guns aren't as viable an option mechanically as your bows and your swords why bother having them in the first place?
That's the issue. A significant portion of players believe that guns and gunpowder are the ultimate weapon in any case they are introduced, even if mechanically they aren't. And then they'll argue they should be the best. And then there's the difficulty presented by trying to balance early firearms. The reason they came into use was that they were cheaper to produce than crossbows, yet didn't require the years of muscle training required to use a warbow. Early firearms were strictly worse in "combat ability" than their contemporary bows and crossbows. With that in mind, players don't think of arquebuses, they think of flintlocks and rifled muskets. Those are not good contemporaries, and implies a level of technological advancement which goes beyond what most fantasy games have.
>>47654915
>implying I hate guns
I just don't like them in fantasy because people automatically assume what you just posted. I like them in meatspace, and own several myself. Don't get to go shooting as often as I'd like, but c'est le vie.
>>47650162
the romans made a spiked bridge that collapses onto the opponents ship so they could engage in melee.
>>47651550
>>47651596
Autocorrect is a beautiful thing.
>>47649350
S.M. Stirling says hello!
>>47649350
Fable and Van Helsing both did it right.
Guns are cool, they're fast, but crossbows are more accurate at a distance and more powerful up close, and repeating (both bolt and gatling) crossbows could also be made with more antiquated technology than semi-automatic guns.
You want to mug people or kill a rival fopfag to steal his grill? Use guns. You want to hunt werewolves and vampires? Bring a crossbow.
>>47649690
Maybe you could put your mage in a specialised emplacement to minimise the risks?
>>47655555
checked
I actually enjoyed the crossbows in the Emberverse books. Don't know if the car jack crossbows would work, but they sound possible to me.
>>47650316
Had a guy in my group do similar thing. Basically metagaming to know how to make gunpowder, then trying to make himself some bombastic bombs. Then he gained several levels and his magic outdid any damage from his homemade grenades, without the inherent possibility of exploding himself. He never realized he could arm the peasantry, because he's too self-centered to think about that. He just wants to win at D&D.
>>47656250
i enjoyed them too, but the new laws of physics are retarded and clearly designed to deliver exactly what stirling wants, and nothing else
>>47649350
You could make it so gunpowder is rare so only a few could afford it
>>47655823
that would be pretty easy, depending on the design of the ship.
If it's a common age of sail ship, just replace the cannons with mages. Place a tube at the gunports for the mages to aim through, and you'd have a pretty fireproof weapon.
A smaller design would require you to place the mages on the deck. A thin metal box on a large lazy susan would seclude the mage from archers and allow them to cast without endangering the rigging or crew. A pair of men could aim the mage, who would cast when given the signal. Placing a mage in the crow's nest would also work, provided his spells arc, or he is careful with aiming
>>47656342
Is that from some Warhammer sourcebook?
>>47649736
Oh, what about an arbalest so powerful you need a steam engine to reload it?
>>47649350
Maybe you should play in a setting that doesn't suck, instead of one made by someone who apparently has Diablo3 as his only window into the fantasy genre.
>>47658696
That would be retarded, since a steam cannon would be more powerful, and you apparently already have steam tech.
>>47651773
Eh, not really. People hate mages in the setting in general so of course only a bunch on sea losers will take a liking to them
>>47656342
>Arquebus is some sort of large pistol.
>>47658726
Weaponizing steam is not as easy as steampunk would think
>>47649350
You forgot the slurbows, triple ballistas, ballistas with six bow arms and composite crossbows made with dragon tendons and bone, elven wood and mithril.
>>47658772
You don't need steampunk for that.
>>47658832
>GUN AT SANDY HOOK, N. J.
Cause that went so well last time.
>>47658853
Well, you shouldn't bring a gun to a gun free zone, that's against the rules.
I personally don't mind guns in a fantasy setting, but they have to be very archaic and cumbersome to use quickly and in succession. I can't deny my love for rifles.
>>47658756
They just got the scale all goofy. Compare it to the pistol besides. It's about "accurate" so far as shape goes, though it's hard to judge with all the ornamentation on it.
>>47658772
Oh sod off.
I'm not talking some kind of steampunk steam chain cannon or mech here.
I'm talking about freaking steam cannons, that's like hundreds of years BC level of tech, and if you have the tech to build a steam engine you're already way ahead of it.
Mind you, the reason they never caught on is that they're not terribly practical or fast, because, you know, you have to have a furnace going to generate the heat, so you either need to keep it going all the time or have a lot of advance notice for when you need to fire it off, but if you're already using a freaking steam engine to reload a giant crossbow, I figured you're not terribly concerned with that anyway.
/tg/ Whats your take on super-high technology being put in a fantasy settings and given a wood, nail and brass make over and some excuse for why such stuff exists and works?
>>47658895
Just use magic man, don't just handwave technology.
I can believe some kind of weaponized walking tank golem, but something like a wooden steam powered mech is levels of stupid I only tolerate in videogames or board games, not anywhere where I'm expected to put myself in the shoes of an actual person.
Advanced tech reskinned as primitive tech without using magic always runs into the problem of "If you're able to build this thing, why does the rest of your setting throw their shit into the streets?"
The technologies and craftsmanship needed to build whatever thing you want would change the face of the world, not just be used to build hilariously complex weapons that are somehow insulated from the rest of the settings technology.
>>47658892
The reason steam never took off back in the bronze age or whatever was that the social and technological "infrastructure" to make it didn't exist. Back in the time, it really was so much more efficient to, say, use a lot of slaves instead that the steam engine was just quietly forgotten as a gimmick for some 2000 years. Not similar to what happened to the Inca with the wheel: they discovered it, but in their context (living high up rocky mountains with no animals strong enough to pull a cart, much less over such a terrain) it was deemed useless.
>>47658932
Not *unsimilar.
>>47658932
I meant more in the sense of why it never took off later. Having to constantly fuel a fire to keep a weapon ready for action is kind of a hassle, compared to a torsion engine or powder weapon that you can load and fire pretty quickly.
But yeah, you're totally right, and it's an important lesson to remember. Inventions are not guaranteed to catch on, they need to be invented under circumstances where you can put them in practice. Which is also a major reason why the history of arms and armor is full of weird stuff like thing A existing alongside thing B, that is better, for hundreds of years.
>>47658932
Also, just for clarity, I was not talking about steam engines, just steam cannon, like the one Archimedes built and that doesn't really need moving parts.
>>47658928
>Not having a setting where kingdoms launch rocket ships made of bricks, resembling castles, into space via steam, where they have space stations made of wood and stone and glass floating above the planet
>Not having your peasants wheel out a massive wagon housing a wooden missile to launch at the flying sky fort, kept aloft by massive wooden propellers
>Not having jets made out of bolted iron and helicopters that are just glass orbs in a wooden frame with glass propellers
Don't you know history anon?
>>47658975
Don't forget that the missiles are guided by putting a trained, clinically depressed monkey with a system of levers and pulleys inside.
>>47658975
HAH, launching castle ships by steam...
Where I'm from we just make really long ropes and rappel down from the edge of the world.
>>47658892
I use those for my ancient times setting, but I always wonder how far you could take this. It's fantasy, but I don't want to include things that are technically impossible and then just say "lol it's magic". Unfortunately I'm not very good when it comes to physics.
>>47659021
>Not hurling your castle ships into space via a trebuchet the size of a small city
>>47659057
If you're curious about something for worldbuilding, there are pretty good subreddits for it, both worldbuilding specific and ones where you can ask historians about stuff.
I know people here puke at the mention of it, but it's actually kind of nice to get advice from people who cite sources, have areas of expertise and generally try to be helpful, instead of shouting sperg and faggot a lot.
>bows
>gunpowder
Why not both?
https://youtu.be/9P3g8N_u7c8?t=1m46s
>>47659130
Oh that's just ridiculous, come on, try to be realistic.
What you do is you first launch your builders into space with the giant trebuchet, then you start launching the bricks, mortar, ale and turnips up there so they can start building your invincible space castle.
>>47649350
OK OP! Your setting doesn't need guns !
>Good for you !
>>47654596
>shot-bow
Sounds like a transporter accident.
>>47654640
you won.
>>47651505
>>47651533
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rEvCf0dH9I
>GUN POWDER CAN'T EXPLODE STONE BUILDINGS
>5/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB
>>47650316
No. You should have let him make them, and the first time he fires a gun or cannon have him roll a Craft:Gunsmithing check. If it fails, the weapon explodes.
>>47659141
Why can't I use those in AoE2?
>>47658928
>"If you're able to build this thing, why does the rest of your setting throw their shit into the streets?"
>>47659149
>Space castle attacking enemy kingdoms by hurling oil covered rocks through the atmosphere, lighting them up, and deploying rotten cow carcasses in wooden containers
>When it's time for battle, the bolted iron ships fly down and deploy their pikemen and knights for battle
>>47659274
That is so incredibly sad and true.
A nation that is failing to get it's people to adopt the fucking toilet, as opposed to shitting in a random field, has a space program.
>>47659355
It's just part of their culture, you shitlord.Pun intended
>>47649350
>tfw both revolvers and repeating ballistae exist in your setting and are viable
>>47659372
You're right, I shouldn't try to impose my views about personal hygiene or not throwing acid at girls on a people with an old and fascinating culture.
That would be poop-imperialism, and frowned upon.
>>47659415
>tfw you realize that saying something is viable doesn't make it less stupid.
>>47659434
luckily, I'm behind 7 repeating ballistae made from 100% steel (folded over 10 gorillion times)
>>47649350
>Oh shit a tool that might actually make fighters relevant
>>47659785
Guns?
In a future game, I was allowed to have a gun at "Renaissance tech level", but I don't know shit about gun. What would that be? Musket?
>>47658954
>having to constantly fuel a fire to keep a weapon ready for action is kind of a hassle
Larger naval ships and coastal fortresses during the age of sail would have furnaces aboard to heat cannonballs so they could start fires and detonate powder magazines.
(Such cannonballs were called hotshot, and that's where the term comes from)
>>47660732
Depends on what he considers renaissance. Things developed quite quickly at times, and a lot of the features that we think of as much more modern (since they didn't catch on at first) are from the 15th and 16th centuries.
I think the timeline for when things first appear is something roughly like this
Handheld guns: ca 1340s
Serpentine lever "lock": late 14th
Spring loaded serpentine, (pic, theoretically allowing one handed use): ca 1400
Breech loading with removable chamber pieces: possibly as early as ca 1400 for cannons, by 1445 at the very latest for handheld.
Proper stocks and matchlocks: late 15th century
Rifling: end of the 15th century
Wheellock: ca 1500
Paper cartridges (no primers!): early 16th
Pepperbox: 1530 at the latest
Snaphance lock: mid 16th was it?
Revolvers (very rarely pistols): late 16th century
Flintlock proper: a bit (mid?) into the 17th century.
With automatic pan covers turning up in a hurry for wheel locks, I guess that if we really wanted we could pass off a six-shot wheellock revolver with a rifled barrel as entirely possible with technology of the late 16th century. Whether such a thing existed historically being quite another matter though.
As for the guns that did exist in reasonable numbers, for the 14th and 15th century you're mostly looking at simple barrels with touch-holes, either strapped down to a straight bit of wood or with a socket at the end and mounted to a shaft much like a spearhead would.
Somewhere ca 1500 we get the first thing that looks like a gun, the matchlock arquebus. Wheellock pistols start spreading around soon thereafter.
The musket first appears as a very large gun complementing the arquebus in the mid to late 16th century (or was it as early as Pavia?) before shrinking down a bit to one-man weapons and replacing the arquebus ca 1600.
Glorious trebuchet
>>47658975
>>47651773
Alchemist's Fire.
>>47649528
>steam
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
I fully support black powder, though. Buffed it in a WFRP game, actually.
Guns only got popular in europe after the 1500s.
Most "sword and sorcery" eras prefer to take their notes from only as late as the 1300-1400s where full plate armor is the most advanced thing in existence.
If you wanna metagame gunpowder into existence, you're gonna need to give me a valid reason why your dude knows that mixing saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal when nobody else has bothered with such an esoteric mixture. And then you'll need to make several engineering checks and a lot of time to figure out that putting it in a tube with a fitted projectile becomes an appreciably lethal weapon. And then many more checks of vastly increasing difficulty to learn that carving an array of spiral grooves into the tube stabilizes the projectile's flight to increase its usability to longer than thirty paces.
>>47660945
Thanks a lot. That's helpful.
Considering my character is some sort of eccentric engineer, I think I can allow myself something a little ahead of its time (whatever time it may be).
We intend to go rules light, I expect it to be destructive but relatively imprecise, relatively short-ranged and firing every other turn, a double or nothing weapon.
Another question, what about munitions? It depend on the period of course, but is it reasonable to make my own munition? My character can have the knowledge needed, but what about the components?
Next I will be looking at grenades and maybe traps.
>>47661382
>Most "sword and sorcery" eras prefer to take their notes from only as late as the 1300-1400s
Nah it mostly looks like a mix of 15th and 16th century shit desu.
>>47661457
Blackpowder is charcoal, saltpetre and sulphur.
Finding charcoal to buy should be trivial. Sulphur deposits in volcanic regions (possibly requiring some refining) can be mined, or you can simply heat pyrite in an oxygen-free atmosphere to get it. Both are within medieval technology. Simply buying it probably gets a whole lot easier once widespread use of blackpowder means there's a large market for it.
Saltpetre was originally mined, with Europe getting it from mines in India. In the latter half of the 14th century people learned to make nitre beds, you pour piss on soil, let soil bacteria make saltpetre, then leech out and purify the saltpetre. As with sulphur, the market for saltpetre before black powder was probably quite limited, though as it's a fertiliser it could easily become a major commodity if people get started on the nitre beds or have enough natural deposits to mine that it becomes economically viable for farmers.
Once you have it all you can simply dry mix and grind it together to amke "serpentine" powder. This is a slow-starting and moisture-sensitive powder, shelf life might be a few days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhIAnid89Rg
Early 15th century people start wet-mixing the components, making "loaves" of it, and then carefully drying those. This helps create a much more intimate mix (saltpetre being soluble), and once done the massive reduction in surface area makes it much mroe moisture-resistant. Grind up, or in worst case just crumble it with your fingers before use (shelf life once ground is like serpentine powder).
A bit into the 16th century controlled grain corning appears. Wet mix, then press the clay-like powder through a sieve or so to get individual grains, the size depending on the holes in the sieve. Almost as moisture-sensitive as serpentine, but by this time people have figured out how to get rid of most of the moisture-attracting impurities in the saltpetre, so the large loaves are no longer necessary.
I actually like anime style firearms where you inexplicably have chainguns and rocket launchers in a setting where arquebus would usually be the norm.
Historic firearms are just so fucking boring and slow to load, which is why I hate having them when you could have some magical bow or crossbow instead.
So if my games have guns, they're rare and overpowered and hyper stylized.
>>47661690
You need to learn your firearms history.
>>47659426
>You're right, I shouldn't try to impose my views about personal hygiene or not throwing acid at girls on a people with an old and fascinating culture.
Hey, we forced them not to burn widows and hunted their bandit murdercult to extinction and that was bad enough.
One thing to keep in mind when grinding components together, even if wet, or just saltpetre on its own is that any sand grains, pebbles, metal shavings, or anything like that can blow the whole thing to hell when struck with the pestle. Be obsessive about purity.
As for ammo otherwise, the bullets are just round lead balls, easily cast in a mould. Or you can make them out of some other metal, or even stone, if lead is in short supply. Lead's the best though. Have a mould made, get a small iron pot, cast away. With the ancient Greeks casting lead sling bullets, this is old tech.
If you use patches, then that's just a bit of paper or fabric. Lube can IIRC just be beeswax and tallow mixed together. A paper cartridge is a paper tube with one end greased up, in which the bullet sits. Then it's filled with gunpowder. Bite off the non-bullet end, pour some in the priming pan, insert the open end into the barrel, let the powder fall down, and then ram the still-wrapped bullet (the greased paper being your wad) down. Catridge-boxes, stylistically based somewhat on crossbow bolt quivers, are around at least by the mid 16th century, maybe earlier.
As an alternative to bullets, you can use bolts. Rather like a crossbow bolt, but with the fletchings further up the shaft so the butt can be inserted into the barrel. Add a small metal plate to the butt so it doesn't get blown to splinters. Bullets will probably work better overall, but it's an option. Pic shows an incendiary bolt from ca 1330 meant for a small cannon.
>>47661757
Stone cannon balls continued to be used for a while, especially in naval warfare. Not as dense as lead or cast iron yet good enough to get through the fighting tops of medieval and early renaissance ships and through the hull of smaller vessels. Since the material is not as dense the cannon ball has a bigger size relative to its weight.
Those crazy ottoman bastards mounted bombards on their ships firing 160-200 pound stone cannon balls, occasionally they sunk ships with a single shot.
>>47661382
I would advise against overscrutinising the gun's mechanics since it makes it way more contrived than it really is. Take for example the construction of the chamber and barrel to focus the force of a gunpowder explosion. The channeling and focusing of air in the directions you want is not new. Air ventilation, bellows, etc have existed a long time and even a caveman would realise that puckering their lips when blowing on a fire sends air towards the fire better than just exhaling with an open mouth.
The real difficulty imo is seeing past the heat and sound of an explosion when seeing for the first time and realising that the "wind" produced can be use to push things at high speeds abruptly on demand. From there on, the idea of weaponising high speed projectiles is trivial at best considering bows, etc already exist.
Once a primitive gunpowder propulsion mechanism is made (ie put gunpowder and an object into a pipe with one sealed end), it pretty much advances in two ways. 1) lots of engineering, physics and chemistry theorycrafting as represented through your increasing difficulty checks, 2) given how borked the income of most adventurers are compared to other professions in many systems, sheer amounts of empirical data through repetition with known variation. Make something bigger or smaller, slap some shit on it and shoot each 20 times or a 100 times if you will, the difference will show itself. No checks necessary unless the character is an absolute moron.
>>47649350
Welcome to Exalted.
It can have giant robots, laser cannons, actual full-on assembly-lines and automated factories, but guns? Preposterous!
This even applies to the entire world made of nothing but machinery, which is also literally the god/incarnate concept of inventing things.
>>47649350
You must be fun at parties.
>>47651550
>>47660732
I believe arquebus
>>47661457
There were some guns ahead of their time, but they were too costly to be anything beyond the toys of kings. You could do rifling and cookson repeaters for example.
A double barreled cavalry pistol with canister shot is very much like a modern shotgun.
There were hand mortars, practically one shot grenade launchers.
Japanese used muskets which fired rocket arrows.
The byzantines had handheld syphons for greek fire. I love roasting knights on Medieval II.
http://firearmshistory.blogspot.com.br/2014/02/the-cookson-repeater.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs4vjq6sW40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6N2IJccZy4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM-lpm74b-s
One technology that could have been but wasn't invented is "quartzlock", using piezoelectricity to ignite the gunpowder.
>>47661662
>>47661757
>>47664112
Well that was informative, probably more than I will use but you can't learn too much things.
Maybe I try to build the grenade launcher along the campaign...The "siphonatores" were quite horrifying.
>>47665229
Hello, Tumblrina. Sorry, every culture has flaws, and some are more flawed than others. Ignoring their problems and infantilising them won't make you enlightened or liked, except in your circles of acidic fucking idiots.
And no, Islam is not a religion of peace, either.
>>47665229
Oh sod off, you daft cunt. The /pol/ posters aren't even present.
>>47661699
If you can't see the obvious differences between the Puckle Gun and an AK-47, then you make me very, very sad.
>>47665387
It's funny that you say that, while using characteristic Tumblr typing patterns, right after calling the people making innocuous jokes in this thread the "KKK". You're doing it right now!
I know it's bait, but I really don't think it's clever or funny. You're a goddamned moron.
>>47665229
Maybe if you concentrated less on spewing shit onto the internet and more on spewing shit into a loo we wouldn't have this problem
>>47665387
I haven't seen shitposting this bad in a very long time.
>>47665458
The only one shitposting here is you, lad.
>>47649350
What exactly are you trying to say here OP?
That every setting should have guns?
>>47665393
It looks like the puckle gun never saw production beyond prototype and demo, since it was pretty much trash, even for its time.
>>47665484
SHALL
>>47665393
The Giradoni rifle was designed in 1779 and it held 20 rounds. Inb4 airgun, it was good enough for the Austrian army to adopt it in the field, and Lewis and Clark killed a bear with one
>>47665484
That it's okay not to have them, but arbitrary and ridiculous to replace them with crossbows when it's clear that it's just guns you really want.
Don't forget the glorious Chinese repeating crossbow.
>>47649690
I always figured the fireball wasn't a projectile so much as it just exploded where the mage wanted it to. After all, there's no mechanic for using them through melee or for blocking them.
Also, this is your daily reminder that the use of greek fire in janky ass ancient flamethrowers dominated naval warfare in the Mediterranean.
>>47665615
If only the damn thing didn't make it near impossible to search for info on moral Chinese crossbows.
>>47665731
Well you've got me there.
>>47665797
>moral
Oh dear.
Time to sleep.
>>47665731
>After all, there's no mechanic for using them through melee or for blocking them.
Assuming you're talking about the Fireball spell from D&D, it used to have exactly those things. It was always a small bead of light that exploded on impact, but in old editions, it'd travel at a fixed speed every round and there was a good chance that it would impact on (And explode on) anyone or anything that got in its way. It would also fill volume, so if you tried to use it in a tight corridor, the backblast would fry the mage and all of his little friends along with everything else in the corridor. Then later they got rid of the movement mechanic, then they got rid of the volume filling and friendly impact mechanics as well.
>>47665879
> Implying Chinese wouldn't shoot morals at their enemies if they could.
> "I've been hit by an ethical dilemma! AAAAARRGGH...."
>>47666008
>Laozhi approves
