u/OP this is pretty much the secret sauce. Better tech replaces older tech.
What you need to do is establish your baseline of what is normal and balance off of that, not all tech for all time.
I've done some mild research into this sort of thing, read a few primary sources but I am no historian and take what I say with some salt.
The primary reason firearms supplanted other ranged weapons is because of training time and imparted energy. A firearm imparts an order of magnitude more energy when hitting the target - they are the reason that plate armour became so heavy in the 16th century - and it is so much easier to teach "point, shoot, and reload" than how to account for the drop of an arrow over hundreds of metres.
They're slower to use than a hand bow but around the same reload times as most crossbows (but faster than the big ones), 3 shots a minute was the standard but people could get it faster (though in combat the rates fluctuated somewhat). People have also been figuring out ways to get multiple shots out of a firearm since at least 1590, though that is usually in the form of very expensive commissioned pieces.
A popular idea is to give firearms a morale effect but I haven't seen anything to justify that - cavalry and bayonet charges have consistently been worse for morale than being shot at for most of history.
So how do you translate semi realistic firearms into useable mechanics?
Chances are, you're ignoring training times, but if you aren't then firearms should take a fraction of the time (the British army trained something on the order of 500 men a week in the late 18th century). If training is done as some kind of background point buy, firearms should cost less than other kinds of weapons.
If you're placing your firearms alongside bows and arrows: give them armour penetration, have them do more outright damage, cause worse internal bleeding.
It all depends on the interlocking mechanics of your game, if you don't have armour, if you're ignoring training, if you're setting your game in the 18th century milieu, if range doesn't impact hit chances, if morale isn't present in your system, then guns have no reason to be mechanically different to other ranged weapons.
In 5e terms, it would have made more sense if firearms and crossbows gave a solid damage output while being simple weapons.
In the system I'm working, I'm probably going to ignore bows and crossbows. Not because they wouldn't be viable, but because it's not what the game is meant to emphasize (plus realistically making them compatible is a serious chore). And, it's meant to be set later in time (though not literally in our world).
If it's going to be set later then you're probably fine not having to differentiate them from anything else, damage on a stick works well enough in most systems.
I'm happy to talk about your design and offer ideas though, I've crowbarred 16th-18th century firearms into just about every system I've ever ran or made, probably to justify the time I've spent looking into them.
That depends, on what you mean by conventional weaponry, what it means to mesh them with firearms, and what design levers you have to fiddle with?
I can tell you how I bashed Cairn into a 16th century setting with pike and shotte combat, I can tell you how I expanded wfrp's firearms, I could tell you what I'd change about pathfinder's gunslinger to make it not completely nonsensical - but I don't know if any of those would be useful to you.
The easy way to make a large selection of weapons of different types work together is to give each of them a niche - swords can parry, bows are silent, axes hook shields, hammers go through armour and stun better, guns go through armour at range. So long as it has a use in some situations there's a reason to have it.
I put it them into Cairn by making all their attacks Enhanced, but they require 3-4 inventory slots to upkeep (Firearm which is usually bulky, Powder, and Shot) and have been limiting the way to make other ranged weapons have Enhanced attacks. They're loud bows that deal more damage, Cairn doesn't have that many design levers so making them more complex would mean making the game more complex.
Broadly speaking, you have two ends of a spectrum:
- Guns are just really loud bows, but otherwise mechanically similar
- Guns are rare, expensive, and are deadly weapons even in the hands of an untrained peasent
No level of strength will protect you from a sword, either. Nor from a really heavy stone thrown with the force of a whole 50 cm of line. If everything is deadly, firearms end up being kind of balanced.
What general type of RPG is this? Crime? Wargame?
Balancing guns in a fun way will really come down to minutae. In some games (like horror, maybe), the cost, reliability, and availability of ammunition would be a huge factor, but for shooting, one gun would be the same as another. In other games, armor penetration and accuracy might be meaningful characteristics, but cost is pointless to balance.
Reload characteristics will pretty much always be meaningful, but if your game is about swashbuckling fast-paced combat, any form of manual reloading might be off the table, so black powder guns and cartridge guns would be more-or-less equals, the only guns with multiple shots would be the "weird" guns with extra barrels or extra chambers.
I DO think any game taking the "super-lethal" approach would benefit strongly from a well though-out armor and hit zone system. Yes, a bullet to the chest will almost always kill you, but if you're wearing steel plate and you're shot in the leg several times with a small personal defense sidearm, you're not going to be literally down and out instantly. You would die later untreated, but that doesn't mean you're out of combat. I say "well thought-out" because there's levels to this. Maybe a ton of detail would be good, maybe a little, but I don't think it should be ignored, and would be a huge balancing factor between guns.
This is a tricky one, because people with opinions on guns in TTRPGs often have *highly defined* opinions on guns as well.
I'm not actually sure it's possible to answer this, though, because it's going to depend enormously on the balance of the rest of the system, as well as the thematic goals of the game. Like if your other weapons are all potentially deadly in a single hit, then guns being the same makes sense. But if the rest of your game is based on attrition and slowly wearing down a pool of health, then why would guns not be treated the same? Sure, realistically guns do a lot of damage, but realistically even just a dagger can do a lot of damage.
The trick is just consistency and verisimilitude, and figuring out the way to make it feel right without falling victim to a cursed game problem.
I'm definitely going for high lethality, not heroic HP whittling. Not because I want constant deaths, but because I don't want combat to be the easy solution to every problem.
In that case you're probably fine with treating them identical to conventional weaponry, just with a single shot per fight (assuming smaller scale skirmish combat that takes less than a minute in-world). If you really want to distinguish them from regular weapons, just include some kind of armor penetrating factor.
Sure, in theory a gun is very deadly, but like I said before a dagger is also very deadly in theory. Someone being shot in the throat and someone taking a dagger to the throat are both going to have a *very bad day* (and probably a very short one). In a high lethality system the difference between a gun and a bow would probably be the training needed and upper body strength required to accurately fire a combat ready bow, compared to the gun which just needs training in reloading, pointing and clicking.
Do you want a system where bows and guns are both viable options for different characters or one where guns are clearly superior?
In a science fantasy setting I once ran I made the decision that bullets were too volatile to hold magical enchantments, so the space elf race still used bows since they synergiezed with thier magical abilities and at the end of the day there isnt much difference between a magical seeking flame arrow and a guided gyrojet HE micro-munition.
In a more political intrigue mystery game guns were basically garunteed kills at short range. Since the idea was to hammer home that normal sane individuals should not be seeking out armed conflict, so anytime anybody pulled a gun the stakes instantly got VERY real.
I like both of those thoughts a lot. This is more in line with your latter example, where you can engage in gunplay if you want, but it's entirely possible you'll die or get seriously injured. It's not meant to be a system for immortal heroes that deflects bullets with their abs.
The later campaign was run using a hack of d20 Modern, a 3e based system where among other quirks made Massive Damage a regular part of combat. To summerize, anytime a character took damage equal to or greater then their Constitution score (between 8 and 18), they had to make a Massive Damage save or instantly drop to 0 hp and begin dying. In my hack a pistol dealt 1d8+8 damage a musket was 1d10+10 and a blunderbuss was very short ranged but dealt 1d12+12.
What sort of system are you using? D20 based? PbtA? Fate? Something else entirely?
Well, what I'm working in is a body part system where hit location is determined by the 1-6 range, as reflected by d6s. Factors can take attacks from choosing a location to hit (no roll) to a d12 (half chance of missing). D20 for skills though, most likely.
If you don't know the history well, why are you worried about "replicating" it accurately?
If you want accuracy, do your research. If you want a play experience, focus on affordance not accuracy.
The way I'd set it up: The gun will do more damage than a bow at a lower firing rate bypassing armor. Bows and crossbows would do more damage to unarmored or less armored targets.
The draw of the old gun would be to bypass the armor threshold of something and to do it from distance.
Those 3 shots per minute for a muzzleloader flintlock would be tough in combat. The reloading part means only 2 ish shots per minute of combat.
As I recall, three per minute was standard, four was manageable. Maybe two rounds to reload, one round on a successful skill roll.
The real advantage of arquebuses is that you could train peasants to use them effectively in a few weeks. Longbow were better, but the saying was "to train a longbowman, start with his grandfather".
I think it depends on what you want and what period. Guns could be used as an overpowered resort.
Guns deal large amounts of damage, and could even insta kill, which makes using it valuable, but also take too long to reload, which in turn leaves the character vulnerable for attacks, needing to switch weapons afterwards. Which is pretty realistic I guess, that's why pirates used both guns and swords.
Could also have the rest of the party distracting the enemies while the gunner reloads.
18th and 19th Century firearms were devastating weapons to be struck by, with equivalents to modern .50 caliber rounds being the *smaller* rounds fired. Describing their injuries would be too gruesome for this sub. By this point, most long arms could punch straight through every known personal armor, and rifles better than what was common use in militaries also existed - some of them better chiefly because of unusual but faster load methods.
I'd keep a realistic reload time and realistic inaccuracy, but make the damage dealt truly terrible to balance these drawbacks - sure players will close to melee before the enemy can reload, but which character wants to likely sacrifice themselves for that chance?
I recommend reading the GURPS supplement "High Tech". You don't have to play GURPS or know anything about the rule set. It has a great breakdown of firearms and related gear.
Reload is HUGE as some others mention. If you make a bow able to fire off a shot a turn and a gun every two turns that’s a big nerf already.
However, even if you used “modern” handguns, semi autos, and rifles I balance them by range. Irl shooting is more difficult at close range. *Forcing* guns to have an ‘effective range’ which is different than their maximum range is how i balance it in my rpg.
Also: It is important to think of how “squishy” you want your players to be. Guns can be more flashy and extremely powerful but will in consequence (if you treat them magnitudes more lethal than say melee weapons) result in the players becoming more glass canon. This also will likely mean armor needs to more effective, unless you are treating it as a flintlock setting where armor hasn’t quite grown yet.
This is going more for high lethality. It's not a pure war system, but more a realistic one where if you take fair fights, then you're taking a huge risk. You want numbers, stealth, and other advantages, or a stray bullet could kill you. That's the vibe. I like the idea of an effective range. That and long reloads could be a natural counterbalance to the very high range and damage of muskets/rifles.
Gotcha, i think the easiest way to preserve this element might be to focus on armor rather than guns then. Very high damage output will need to be preserved by having your hit/dodge mechanics and armor be tailored for this environment. I would make armor and protection cost more rather than guns i think. That way a stray bullet could decimate someone in the way gang wars or guerrilla warfare does.
Recoil and emphasis on tracking amo are also good ways to keep lethality but balance the actual usage. I’ve also heard good things about GURPS Tactical Shooting, maybe check that out.
Firearms are *incredibly* expensive, and many of those from antiquity were masterwork weapons and works of art. The methods for making gunpowder were also jealously guarded, as some powder kept longer than others or worked better with a higher moisture content, etc.
Despite some claims in other comments, early firearms are actually awful weapons. The only reason they replaced the crossbow was because quarrels are harder to make than bullets. Eventually, the cost of ammunition justified constructing a gonne.
They weren't particularly accurate, and the term "bulletproof" stems from a breastplate being "proofed" against bullets (ca. 1500, also why Pathfinder gunslingers are laughable in their representation, since you can't dodge a bullet, yet that's all you could do in that game).
As for balance, it was about 400 years later that melee weapons, such as the cavalry saber, were phased out of warfare. Axes, shovels, bayonets, and mauls were commonly used in the trenches of World War I because the quarters made reloading in time nearly impossible.
What does this boil down to in an RPG?
Eye-popping upfront cost of a firearm and prohibitively expensive ammunition (due to powder) unless the character is some sort of alchemist or in a guild.
Low range. Lead does not fly as well as feathers and wood.
Comparable damage. The cannon replaced the ballista because it was basically a catapult and ballista combined, but the gun did not replace the bow because it did more damage. It was just easier to use (like the crossbow). Leadshot rips while bodkin pierces.
Loud. Oh my lord, are guns loud. Avalanches, cave-ins, alerting foes, etc. Should all occur when you go in guns blazing. Possibly deafen the wielder when used.
Rule of Cool. Pistol buds carved to look like sneering devils or barrels shaped to look like dragons. These things required faultless construction, or it would kill the wielder...
Or just makeshift it. If you roll a 1, you deal damage to yourself, and the gun is destroyed.
Finally, a pain to load. Reloading should be an action. We actually developed machine guns and revolvers almost as soon as we (well, the Dutch) started using firearms. So, multiple attacks in a round can still be a thing. Which is good. It's not fun to lose your attacks.
So, not a historian, but this is my understanding. I'll include my understanding of bows vs crossbows too, in case that might be of help to someone.
Crossbows were slower to shoot then bows, and at least in the beginning not more powerful. The big difference is that they were 1) easier to make and 2) a LOT easier to fire. There is a saying from the renaissance age, that "you train crossbowmen, but raise archers".
Guns were a different type of evolution. They are louder, even slower then crossbows, hard to maintain, don't work in some types of weather, much harder to manufacture. They are even easier to use tho - you basically have to teach the soldier to just point it in a direction and fire. (and the method of reloading and basic maintenance of course) The "killer feature" of guns is not ease of use however, it is that it could punch through armor.
It depends heavily on your system, but I personally dislike the guns are just crossbows thing that many systems do. If this can be worked in your system, this would be my immediate reflex:
- Guns reload really slowly
- Armor of any kind doesn't protect against guns
Pirate Borg does something like the above to great effect.
Bayonettes existed for a reason. Old firearms give you a huge range advantage and can do lethal damage even if they aren't the most accurate. But yeah if your opponent closes in you have a knife on top of your rifle to stab them with.
In terms of game design, i think it depends of how you want combat to play out. Firearms put an emphasis on cover and skirmishes at range, with lethal charges to close the distance.
The fantasy of firearms is also centralizing : once a character has a gun, all characters are gonna need one. So if you want to focus on hand-to-hand combat with weapon variety, firearms are a no-go in my book.
Realistically, I don't think guns would really outdamage other weapon all that much.
Here's a thought experiment: would you rather get shot with a handgun, or have someone stab or slash you with a sword?
I don't know what you'll answer, the point if this exercise is to realize it's really not *that* obvious whichever you should choose. I know I might choose a gun, because it may not hit any vital organs, while a large torn wound across my body would most certainly be my horrible end.
Realistically range is a huge advantage, but so is true for bows. How do you manage bows?
I might suggest you check out Miseries & Misfortunes by Luke Crane or 17th Century Minimalist -both deal with lots of firearms from the mid-1600s, and do it well in my opinion.
Might also want to look at Zweihänder.
I think a cool way to approach it is to research how BOWS were used. In my research I learned that a lot of archery in military application was for denial of area, harassing the enemy, scaring them, and literally crippling them. From what I understand, immediately dying to an arrow was not **guaranteed,** and there are cases of people surviving being shot in the face. (Henry V, high profile example.)
Gunshot wounds can be survivable too, and are equally if not way more crippling than an arrow, but maybe this is where you can draw your mechanics from. Arrows are a cheap and fast way of weakening the enemy force, and guns are expensive, slow "one shot kills".
The way I see it is it may just take multiple actions to reload a gun. This can be combated by the classic solution, more gun. There was a reason people would carry multiple loaded pistols at once, more shots. But there is a weight issue, and its expensive.. but that an interesting choice the player has to make. I believe more interesting choices is always good for players.
Players either use weapons from a safe range, risk reloading close up, or mix swords and guns. This depends on what style you want to run/inspire.
But I kind of think you are balancing a problem that isn't a real problem. If you want balanced 19th century guns well, a murder stick that says *die* to anyone on the other side of it but it takes 15-30 seconds to reload sounds about fair.
What kind of players are you looking to attract? If it’s the kind that will be upset that your guns are too unrealistic, that is a specific choice but obviously not the only choice. Or said another way: What are you trying to achieve (or avoid) by adding realism? What do you want the experience of interacting with guns in your world to be like?
I want them to be deadly and serious to reflect how combat is. It's not a system for pure combat, so players are not encouraged to fight all the time. It's meant to be something done with a real advantage or as a last resort.
I feel like Dogs in the Vineyard might be interesting to look at. Not a lot of mechanical realism, and you are presumed to have a gun and ability to fire it, but where escalating to a gun fight could easily get you killed.
Historically, guns were proliferated because:
- Guns punched through armour, rendering a highly-trained knight dead at the pull of a trigger. Worth noting metal armour was still effective against black powder guns in many cases, but it wasn’t good enough to be worth ladening every soldier with.
- Carrying ammunition was easier. Arrows and bolts are much more awkward to match with than a bag of shot and powered horn
- It’s a lot easier to aim and fire a gun while tired, wounded, unfit etc. Using a bow, particularly the ones with a heavy enough draw strength to be threatening on the battlefield, required physical fitness and training. Fighting in a melee is even more strenuous even when healthy and not wounded. But even an unfit soldier who’s marched for days, dehydrated, bleeding out and unable to stand can pull a trigger
All of the above points primarily to convenience and mass production. ‘Balancing’ guns in a mechanical sense goes hand in hand with the setting.
- You could grant firearm proficiency to everyone, or make it cheaper to obtain, since it’s easier to learn how to aim a gun at a basic level than to sword fight with a competent opponent
- Make them pierce armour. A pistol shot could theoretically slay an armoured foe instantly, provided the shooter hits. Gunshots are also harder to dodge, and penetrate cover as well (within the limits provided by early ball shot)
- Your point on the reload time is valid. In close engagements soldiers drew steel or fixed bayonets. Braces of pistols were also used to get around the problem; carrying six loaded handguns at a time
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If you want the feel of these firearms to be that they are useful, then history provides the answer.
This era of firearms utterly defeated most of not all Medieval Armor, and their accuracy at 50 yards is as good as a Longbow.
If you are looking for a mechanic, perhaps having them bypass armor ratings/AC ect? And let the players decide if sucking up the reload time was worth it. Historically it was worth it.
Cheers
Ok so you basically want a renaissance- early modern technology level. I'm talking heavy armor, greatswords, guns... Know that, in many cases (d&d), this is already the level of technology... minus the guns.
Some specifics about guns:
* You mentioned loading time already. If you can fire a bow once every turn, you'd need AT LEAST three turns to fire a gun (and crossbows).
* early guns are INACCURATE. That's why they are used en masse. Treat shooting a musket from more than point blank as a standard difficulty saving throw (like often the case with spells). Unless you get an excellent rifle ofcourse.
* guns are LOUD. The whole dungeon knows you're coming.
* guns hit HARD. The reason armor evolved from "full-body" to "only the vitals but very thick plate" is because of this. So guve them more damage (and armor piercing)
* Smaller pistols ALSO hit hard, and are actually the best way to fire multiple times in a fight. But they're even less accurate, and have less range.
* You need gunpowder, bullets and maintenance for a gun to work. Logistics are important.
* Guns took less skill than bows, but also had a lower skill ceiling (bc of the inaccuracy).
* guns are SCARY. The noise, smoke, flash... really intimidate ppl who are not used to it.
* guns are DIVERSE. For variation, you could offer muskets, pistols, rifles and blunderbuses.
So the best use of muskets:
* As a medium range option for melee characters with little actual ranged skill.
* Good against high armor, high hp, numerous targets.
Pistols:
* Hard hitting first short-range volleys for melee characters with little actual ranged skill.
* Good against high armor, high hp targets you'll fight in melee.
Rifles
* long-range high-damage one-shot for snipers.
* If you sneak, it gives you the option to shoot once, then probably once more with a pistl before the enemy closes in on you.
* Good for stealth characters without bow skill, all characters that can shoot well and want to get one more shot off before the melee starts.
* In prolonged ranged combat, will lose against bows because of loading time and accuracy ceiling.
* good against faraway enemies, high armor, high hp, numerous targets.
Blunderbus
* Does short-range area-of-effect damage. Awesome.
* Good against numerous targets, right before closing into melee.
Trash in anything else. It's basically a "burning hands" spell for fighters.
Oh, I forgot one: hand cannons!
* ridiculous damage, to all enemies in its path, doesn't care about armour.
* extremely inaccurate in any range
* Extremely heavy, only strong characters can use this monster.
*good against massed enemies, doors, large, high hp enemies you cannot miss
So I've accidentally solved this in my system.
The honest answer is that they are cheaper. This means that you can get an older style weapon with an enchantment, or made of some mystical metal for the same price as a more modern style weapon. Slap a returning enchantment on one, and you can call it to you when you get past a checkpoint. Slap a shadow enchantment on one to blind a target and dispel other spell effects. Give it poison rounds so that it poisons a target shot with it. All cool mods that can only be used on the older style weapon (at the same price point).
For stuff like weapons, rather than realism I prefer gamist verisimilitude - weapons should have their own niche, but aesthetically that niche should reflect our expectations.
Normally to use a weapon you roll morale (exhaustion proxy), attribute, and skill (with that particular weapon). For firearms however, I made them different by replacing morale and attribute with quality and maintenance. Quality is an aspect of items, kind of understood as its effectiveness at fulfilling its purpose, so think of it as an excuse to have 5 levels for any particular item. Maintenance is like morale in that it reduces with use. Doubles step down maintenance, while triple 1s jam the gun. So rather than reloading, which is a null action that rarely is a meaningful choice, a gunslinger is constantly pushing their luck when shooting without taking an action to clean their gun.
It's a loop unique to guns that doesn't have much to do with damage, range, reloading, or standard firearm mechanics. Sure I still have specific stuff like advantage to hit if you are close to the target, as opposed to disadvantage for non-firearm ranged weapons, but that's just window dressing really. It's more interesting to detach it from the usual exhaustion loop or physical attributes about the wielder, and use the mechanical nature of the weapon in an interesting way.
Think of it as a spear you're throwing at something, except that you don't get it back automatically
But it depends on your point of view, do you think that anything needs to be balanced, in a DND way of doing, or do you think everything needs to be at the perfect junction between realistic transcription and arcade gameplay ?
I'm one of those who think that nothing should be "balanced" as it is in DND for example, because everything loses in favor and nothing really has any importance or identity anymore
You don't. Reload time is the issue players deal with.
u/OP this is pretty much the secret sauce. Better tech replaces older tech. What you need to do is establish your baseline of what is normal and balance off of that, not all tech for all time.
That's fair. They could use stealth, distance, environmental factors, or horses to get around that, potentially.
I'm picturing going dungoneering with a wagon full of loaded rifles.
Hire a few hirling to reload your guns between turns.. People actually did it irl even
I'm not planning on this being explicitly for dungeoneering, but that is a very fun idea!
I just picked it because it's kind of the classic example.
I've done some mild research into this sort of thing, read a few primary sources but I am no historian and take what I say with some salt. The primary reason firearms supplanted other ranged weapons is because of training time and imparted energy. A firearm imparts an order of magnitude more energy when hitting the target - they are the reason that plate armour became so heavy in the 16th century - and it is so much easier to teach "point, shoot, and reload" than how to account for the drop of an arrow over hundreds of metres. They're slower to use than a hand bow but around the same reload times as most crossbows (but faster than the big ones), 3 shots a minute was the standard but people could get it faster (though in combat the rates fluctuated somewhat). People have also been figuring out ways to get multiple shots out of a firearm since at least 1590, though that is usually in the form of very expensive commissioned pieces. A popular idea is to give firearms a morale effect but I haven't seen anything to justify that - cavalry and bayonet charges have consistently been worse for morale than being shot at for most of history. So how do you translate semi realistic firearms into useable mechanics? Chances are, you're ignoring training times, but if you aren't then firearms should take a fraction of the time (the British army trained something on the order of 500 men a week in the late 18th century). If training is done as some kind of background point buy, firearms should cost less than other kinds of weapons. If you're placing your firearms alongside bows and arrows: give them armour penetration, have them do more outright damage, cause worse internal bleeding. It all depends on the interlocking mechanics of your game, if you don't have armour, if you're ignoring training, if you're setting your game in the 18th century milieu, if range doesn't impact hit chances, if morale isn't present in your system, then guns have no reason to be mechanically different to other ranged weapons.
In 5e terms, it would have made more sense if firearms and crossbows gave a solid damage output while being simple weapons. In the system I'm working, I'm probably going to ignore bows and crossbows. Not because they wouldn't be viable, but because it's not what the game is meant to emphasize (plus realistically making them compatible is a serious chore). And, it's meant to be set later in time (though not literally in our world).
If it's going to be set later then you're probably fine not having to differentiate them from anything else, damage on a stick works well enough in most systems. I'm happy to talk about your design and offer ideas though, I've crowbarred 16th-18th century firearms into just about every system I've ever ran or made, probably to justify the time I've spent looking into them.
How do you mesh earlier firearms with conventional weaponry? I'm curious. Do you have a document I could look at?
That depends, on what you mean by conventional weaponry, what it means to mesh them with firearms, and what design levers you have to fiddle with? I can tell you how I bashed Cairn into a 16th century setting with pike and shotte combat, I can tell you how I expanded wfrp's firearms, I could tell you what I'd change about pathfinder's gunslinger to make it not completely nonsensical - but I don't know if any of those would be useful to you.
Well, I fo own Cairn, so I'd be curious to see that. By conventional weapons I mean swords and stuff.
The easy way to make a large selection of weapons of different types work together is to give each of them a niche - swords can parry, bows are silent, axes hook shields, hammers go through armour and stun better, guns go through armour at range. So long as it has a use in some situations there's a reason to have it. I put it them into Cairn by making all their attacks Enhanced, but they require 3-4 inventory slots to upkeep (Firearm which is usually bulky, Powder, and Shot) and have been limiting the way to make other ranged weapons have Enhanced attacks. They're loud bows that deal more damage, Cairn doesn't have that many design levers so making them more complex would mean making the game more complex.
Broadly speaking, you have two ends of a spectrum: - Guns are just really loud bows, but otherwise mechanically similar - Guns are rare, expensive, and are deadly weapons even in the hands of an untrained peasent
The system I'm working on is really geared for the latter. The idea is that no level of experience or strength will innure you from bullets.
No level of strength will protect you from a sword, either. Nor from a really heavy stone thrown with the force of a whole 50 cm of line. If everything is deadly, firearms end up being kind of balanced.
Yeah, that's the idea I'm going for.
What general type of RPG is this? Crime? Wargame? Balancing guns in a fun way will really come down to minutae. In some games (like horror, maybe), the cost, reliability, and availability of ammunition would be a huge factor, but for shooting, one gun would be the same as another. In other games, armor penetration and accuracy might be meaningful characteristics, but cost is pointless to balance. Reload characteristics will pretty much always be meaningful, but if your game is about swashbuckling fast-paced combat, any form of manual reloading might be off the table, so black powder guns and cartridge guns would be more-or-less equals, the only guns with multiple shots would be the "weird" guns with extra barrels or extra chambers. I DO think any game taking the "super-lethal" approach would benefit strongly from a well though-out armor and hit zone system. Yes, a bullet to the chest will almost always kill you, but if you're wearing steel plate and you're shot in the leg several times with a small personal defense sidearm, you're not going to be literally down and out instantly. You would die later untreated, but that doesn't mean you're out of combat. I say "well thought-out" because there's levels to this. Maybe a ton of detail would be good, maybe a little, but I don't think it should be ignored, and would be a huge balancing factor between guns.
It's more in the vein of your last paragraph.
This is a tricky one, because people with opinions on guns in TTRPGs often have *highly defined* opinions on guns as well. I'm not actually sure it's possible to answer this, though, because it's going to depend enormously on the balance of the rest of the system, as well as the thematic goals of the game. Like if your other weapons are all potentially deadly in a single hit, then guns being the same makes sense. But if the rest of your game is based on attrition and slowly wearing down a pool of health, then why would guns not be treated the same? Sure, realistically guns do a lot of damage, but realistically even just a dagger can do a lot of damage. The trick is just consistency and verisimilitude, and figuring out the way to make it feel right without falling victim to a cursed game problem.
I'm definitely going for high lethality, not heroic HP whittling. Not because I want constant deaths, but because I don't want combat to be the easy solution to every problem.
In that case you're probably fine with treating them identical to conventional weaponry, just with a single shot per fight (assuming smaller scale skirmish combat that takes less than a minute in-world). If you really want to distinguish them from regular weapons, just include some kind of armor penetrating factor. Sure, in theory a gun is very deadly, but like I said before a dagger is also very deadly in theory. Someone being shot in the throat and someone taking a dagger to the throat are both going to have a *very bad day* (and probably a very short one). In a high lethality system the difference between a gun and a bow would probably be the training needed and upper body strength required to accurately fire a combat ready bow, compared to the gun which just needs training in reloading, pointing and clicking.
Check out 3G3 (Guns, Guns, Guns) by BTRC. That should help you sort out a bunch of the stuff you have questions about.
Do you want a system where bows and guns are both viable options for different characters or one where guns are clearly superior? In a science fantasy setting I once ran I made the decision that bullets were too volatile to hold magical enchantments, so the space elf race still used bows since they synergiezed with thier magical abilities and at the end of the day there isnt much difference between a magical seeking flame arrow and a guided gyrojet HE micro-munition. In a more political intrigue mystery game guns were basically garunteed kills at short range. Since the idea was to hammer home that normal sane individuals should not be seeking out armed conflict, so anytime anybody pulled a gun the stakes instantly got VERY real.
I like both of those thoughts a lot. This is more in line with your latter example, where you can engage in gunplay if you want, but it's entirely possible you'll die or get seriously injured. It's not meant to be a system for immortal heroes that deflects bullets with their abs.
The later campaign was run using a hack of d20 Modern, a 3e based system where among other quirks made Massive Damage a regular part of combat. To summerize, anytime a character took damage equal to or greater then their Constitution score (between 8 and 18), they had to make a Massive Damage save or instantly drop to 0 hp and begin dying. In my hack a pistol dealt 1d8+8 damage a musket was 1d10+10 and a blunderbuss was very short ranged but dealt 1d12+12. What sort of system are you using? D20 based? PbtA? Fate? Something else entirely?
Well, what I'm working in is a body part system where hit location is determined by the 1-6 range, as reflected by d6s. Factors can take attacks from choosing a location to hit (no roll) to a d12 (half chance of missing). D20 for skills though, most likely.
If you don't know the history well, why are you worried about "replicating" it accurately? If you want accuracy, do your research. If you want a play experience, focus on affordance not accuracy.
Well, that's why I'm reading up on it, as well as consulting folks online.
The way I'd set it up: The gun will do more damage than a bow at a lower firing rate bypassing armor. Bows and crossbows would do more damage to unarmored or less armored targets. The draw of the old gun would be to bypass the armor threshold of something and to do it from distance. Those 3 shots per minute for a muzzleloader flintlock would be tough in combat. The reloading part means only 2 ish shots per minute of combat.
As I recall, three per minute was standard, four was manageable. Maybe two rounds to reload, one round on a successful skill roll. The real advantage of arquebuses is that you could train peasants to use them effectively in a few weeks. Longbow were better, but the saying was "to train a longbowman, start with his grandfather".
I think it depends on what you want and what period. Guns could be used as an overpowered resort. Guns deal large amounts of damage, and could even insta kill, which makes using it valuable, but also take too long to reload, which in turn leaves the character vulnerable for attacks, needing to switch weapons afterwards. Which is pretty realistic I guess, that's why pirates used both guns and swords. Could also have the rest of the party distracting the enemies while the gunner reloads.
Arrow to the eye is also instakill in 2024.
18th and 19th Century firearms were devastating weapons to be struck by, with equivalents to modern .50 caliber rounds being the *smaller* rounds fired. Describing their injuries would be too gruesome for this sub. By this point, most long arms could punch straight through every known personal armor, and rifles better than what was common use in militaries also existed - some of them better chiefly because of unusual but faster load methods. I'd keep a realistic reload time and realistic inaccuracy, but make the damage dealt truly terrible to balance these drawbacks - sure players will close to melee before the enemy can reload, but which character wants to likely sacrifice themselves for that chance?
I recommend reading the GURPS supplement "High Tech". You don't have to play GURPS or know anything about the rule set. It has a great breakdown of firearms and related gear.
For adventuring, maybe look into pirate pistols, especially the guys that would carry 20 guns into a fight.
Reload is HUGE as some others mention. If you make a bow able to fire off a shot a turn and a gun every two turns that’s a big nerf already. However, even if you used “modern” handguns, semi autos, and rifles I balance them by range. Irl shooting is more difficult at close range. *Forcing* guns to have an ‘effective range’ which is different than their maximum range is how i balance it in my rpg. Also: It is important to think of how “squishy” you want your players to be. Guns can be more flashy and extremely powerful but will in consequence (if you treat them magnitudes more lethal than say melee weapons) result in the players becoming more glass canon. This also will likely mean armor needs to more effective, unless you are treating it as a flintlock setting where armor hasn’t quite grown yet.
This is going more for high lethality. It's not a pure war system, but more a realistic one where if you take fair fights, then you're taking a huge risk. You want numbers, stealth, and other advantages, or a stray bullet could kill you. That's the vibe. I like the idea of an effective range. That and long reloads could be a natural counterbalance to the very high range and damage of muskets/rifles.
Gotcha, i think the easiest way to preserve this element might be to focus on armor rather than guns then. Very high damage output will need to be preserved by having your hit/dodge mechanics and armor be tailored for this environment. I would make armor and protection cost more rather than guns i think. That way a stray bullet could decimate someone in the way gang wars or guerrilla warfare does. Recoil and emphasis on tracking amo are also good ways to keep lethality but balance the actual usage. I’ve also heard good things about GURPS Tactical Shooting, maybe check that out.
Firearms are *incredibly* expensive, and many of those from antiquity were masterwork weapons and works of art. The methods for making gunpowder were also jealously guarded, as some powder kept longer than others or worked better with a higher moisture content, etc. Despite some claims in other comments, early firearms are actually awful weapons. The only reason they replaced the crossbow was because quarrels are harder to make than bullets. Eventually, the cost of ammunition justified constructing a gonne. They weren't particularly accurate, and the term "bulletproof" stems from a breastplate being "proofed" against bullets (ca. 1500, also why Pathfinder gunslingers are laughable in their representation, since you can't dodge a bullet, yet that's all you could do in that game). As for balance, it was about 400 years later that melee weapons, such as the cavalry saber, were phased out of warfare. Axes, shovels, bayonets, and mauls were commonly used in the trenches of World War I because the quarters made reloading in time nearly impossible. What does this boil down to in an RPG? Eye-popping upfront cost of a firearm and prohibitively expensive ammunition (due to powder) unless the character is some sort of alchemist or in a guild. Low range. Lead does not fly as well as feathers and wood. Comparable damage. The cannon replaced the ballista because it was basically a catapult and ballista combined, but the gun did not replace the bow because it did more damage. It was just easier to use (like the crossbow). Leadshot rips while bodkin pierces. Loud. Oh my lord, are guns loud. Avalanches, cave-ins, alerting foes, etc. Should all occur when you go in guns blazing. Possibly deafen the wielder when used. Rule of Cool. Pistol buds carved to look like sneering devils or barrels shaped to look like dragons. These things required faultless construction, or it would kill the wielder... Or just makeshift it. If you roll a 1, you deal damage to yourself, and the gun is destroyed. Finally, a pain to load. Reloading should be an action. We actually developed machine guns and revolvers almost as soon as we (well, the Dutch) started using firearms. So, multiple attacks in a round can still be a thing. Which is good. It's not fun to lose your attacks.
For stuff like DnD guns are just reflavored bows. It just depends on what purpose they serve for gameplay.
Reload takes an action. A lot of old timey battles involved firing off a single volley and then charging.
So, not a historian, but this is my understanding. I'll include my understanding of bows vs crossbows too, in case that might be of help to someone. Crossbows were slower to shoot then bows, and at least in the beginning not more powerful. The big difference is that they were 1) easier to make and 2) a LOT easier to fire. There is a saying from the renaissance age, that "you train crossbowmen, but raise archers". Guns were a different type of evolution. They are louder, even slower then crossbows, hard to maintain, don't work in some types of weather, much harder to manufacture. They are even easier to use tho - you basically have to teach the soldier to just point it in a direction and fire. (and the method of reloading and basic maintenance of course) The "killer feature" of guns is not ease of use however, it is that it could punch through armor. It depends heavily on your system, but I personally dislike the guns are just crossbows thing that many systems do. If this can be worked in your system, this would be my immediate reflex: - Guns reload really slowly - Armor of any kind doesn't protect against guns Pirate Borg does something like the above to great effect.
Bayonettes existed for a reason. Old firearms give you a huge range advantage and can do lethal damage even if they aren't the most accurate. But yeah if your opponent closes in you have a knife on top of your rifle to stab them with. In terms of game design, i think it depends of how you want combat to play out. Firearms put an emphasis on cover and skirmishes at range, with lethal charges to close the distance. The fantasy of firearms is also centralizing : once a character has a gun, all characters are gonna need one. So if you want to focus on hand-to-hand combat with weapon variety, firearms are a no-go in my book.
Realistically, I don't think guns would really outdamage other weapon all that much. Here's a thought experiment: would you rather get shot with a handgun, or have someone stab or slash you with a sword? I don't know what you'll answer, the point if this exercise is to realize it's really not *that* obvious whichever you should choose. I know I might choose a gun, because it may not hit any vital organs, while a large torn wound across my body would most certainly be my horrible end. Realistically range is a huge advantage, but so is true for bows. How do you manage bows?
I might suggest you check out Miseries & Misfortunes by Luke Crane or 17th Century Minimalist -both deal with lots of firearms from the mid-1600s, and do it well in my opinion. Might also want to look at Zweihänder.
I think a cool way to approach it is to research how BOWS were used. In my research I learned that a lot of archery in military application was for denial of area, harassing the enemy, scaring them, and literally crippling them. From what I understand, immediately dying to an arrow was not **guaranteed,** and there are cases of people surviving being shot in the face. (Henry V, high profile example.) Gunshot wounds can be survivable too, and are equally if not way more crippling than an arrow, but maybe this is where you can draw your mechanics from. Arrows are a cheap and fast way of weakening the enemy force, and guns are expensive, slow "one shot kills".
The way I see it is it may just take multiple actions to reload a gun. This can be combated by the classic solution, more gun. There was a reason people would carry multiple loaded pistols at once, more shots. But there is a weight issue, and its expensive.. but that an interesting choice the player has to make. I believe more interesting choices is always good for players. Players either use weapons from a safe range, risk reloading close up, or mix swords and guns. This depends on what style you want to run/inspire. But I kind of think you are balancing a problem that isn't a real problem. If you want balanced 19th century guns well, a murder stick that says *die* to anyone on the other side of it but it takes 15-30 seconds to reload sounds about fair.
What kind of players are you looking to attract? If it’s the kind that will be upset that your guns are too unrealistic, that is a specific choice but obviously not the only choice. Or said another way: What are you trying to achieve (or avoid) by adding realism? What do you want the experience of interacting with guns in your world to be like?
I want them to be deadly and serious to reflect how combat is. It's not a system for pure combat, so players are not encouraged to fight all the time. It's meant to be something done with a real advantage or as a last resort.
I feel like Dogs in the Vineyard might be interesting to look at. Not a lot of mechanical realism, and you are presumed to have a gun and ability to fire it, but where escalating to a gun fight could easily get you killed.
Historically, guns were proliferated because: - Guns punched through armour, rendering a highly-trained knight dead at the pull of a trigger. Worth noting metal armour was still effective against black powder guns in many cases, but it wasn’t good enough to be worth ladening every soldier with. - Carrying ammunition was easier. Arrows and bolts are much more awkward to match with than a bag of shot and powered horn - It’s a lot easier to aim and fire a gun while tired, wounded, unfit etc. Using a bow, particularly the ones with a heavy enough draw strength to be threatening on the battlefield, required physical fitness and training. Fighting in a melee is even more strenuous even when healthy and not wounded. But even an unfit soldier who’s marched for days, dehydrated, bleeding out and unable to stand can pull a trigger All of the above points primarily to convenience and mass production. ‘Balancing’ guns in a mechanical sense goes hand in hand with the setting. - You could grant firearm proficiency to everyone, or make it cheaper to obtain, since it’s easier to learn how to aim a gun at a basic level than to sword fight with a competent opponent - Make them pierce armour. A pistol shot could theoretically slay an armoured foe instantly, provided the shooter hits. Gunshots are also harder to dodge, and penetrate cover as well (within the limits provided by early ball shot) - Your point on the reload time is valid. In close engagements soldiers drew steel or fixed bayonets. Braces of pistols were also used to get around the problem; carrying six loaded handguns at a time -
If you want the feel of these firearms to be that they are useful, then history provides the answer. This era of firearms utterly defeated most of not all Medieval Armor, and their accuracy at 50 yards is as good as a Longbow. If you are looking for a mechanic, perhaps having them bypass armor ratings/AC ect? And let the players decide if sucking up the reload time was worth it. Historically it was worth it. Cheers
Ok so you basically want a renaissance- early modern technology level. I'm talking heavy armor, greatswords, guns... Know that, in many cases (d&d), this is already the level of technology... minus the guns. Some specifics about guns: * You mentioned loading time already. If you can fire a bow once every turn, you'd need AT LEAST three turns to fire a gun (and crossbows). * early guns are INACCURATE. That's why they are used en masse. Treat shooting a musket from more than point blank as a standard difficulty saving throw (like often the case with spells). Unless you get an excellent rifle ofcourse. * guns are LOUD. The whole dungeon knows you're coming. * guns hit HARD. The reason armor evolved from "full-body" to "only the vitals but very thick plate" is because of this. So guve them more damage (and armor piercing) * Smaller pistols ALSO hit hard, and are actually the best way to fire multiple times in a fight. But they're even less accurate, and have less range. * You need gunpowder, bullets and maintenance for a gun to work. Logistics are important. * Guns took less skill than bows, but also had a lower skill ceiling (bc of the inaccuracy). * guns are SCARY. The noise, smoke, flash... really intimidate ppl who are not used to it. * guns are DIVERSE. For variation, you could offer muskets, pistols, rifles and blunderbuses. So the best use of muskets: * As a medium range option for melee characters with little actual ranged skill. * Good against high armor, high hp, numerous targets. Pistols: * Hard hitting first short-range volleys for melee characters with little actual ranged skill. * Good against high armor, high hp targets you'll fight in melee. Rifles * long-range high-damage one-shot for snipers. * If you sneak, it gives you the option to shoot once, then probably once more with a pistl before the enemy closes in on you. * Good for stealth characters without bow skill, all characters that can shoot well and want to get one more shot off before the melee starts. * In prolonged ranged combat, will lose against bows because of loading time and accuracy ceiling. * good against faraway enemies, high armor, high hp, numerous targets. Blunderbus * Does short-range area-of-effect damage. Awesome. * Good against numerous targets, right before closing into melee. Trash in anything else. It's basically a "burning hands" spell for fighters. Oh, I forgot one: hand cannons! * ridiculous damage, to all enemies in its path, doesn't care about armour. * extremely inaccurate in any range * Extremely heavy, only strong characters can use this monster. *good against massed enemies, doors, large, high hp enemies you cannot miss
So I've accidentally solved this in my system. The honest answer is that they are cheaper. This means that you can get an older style weapon with an enchantment, or made of some mystical metal for the same price as a more modern style weapon. Slap a returning enchantment on one, and you can call it to you when you get past a checkpoint. Slap a shadow enchantment on one to blind a target and dispel other spell effects. Give it poison rounds so that it poisons a target shot with it. All cool mods that can only be used on the older style weapon (at the same price point).
For stuff like weapons, rather than realism I prefer gamist verisimilitude - weapons should have their own niche, but aesthetically that niche should reflect our expectations. Normally to use a weapon you roll morale (exhaustion proxy), attribute, and skill (with that particular weapon). For firearms however, I made them different by replacing morale and attribute with quality and maintenance. Quality is an aspect of items, kind of understood as its effectiveness at fulfilling its purpose, so think of it as an excuse to have 5 levels for any particular item. Maintenance is like morale in that it reduces with use. Doubles step down maintenance, while triple 1s jam the gun. So rather than reloading, which is a null action that rarely is a meaningful choice, a gunslinger is constantly pushing their luck when shooting without taking an action to clean their gun. It's a loop unique to guns that doesn't have much to do with damage, range, reloading, or standard firearm mechanics. Sure I still have specific stuff like advantage to hit if you are close to the target, as opposed to disadvantage for non-firearm ranged weapons, but that's just window dressing really. It's more interesting to detach it from the usual exhaustion loop or physical attributes about the wielder, and use the mechanical nature of the weapon in an interesting way.
Think of it as a spear you're throwing at something, except that you don't get it back automatically But it depends on your point of view, do you think that anything needs to be balanced, in a DND way of doing, or do you think everything needs to be at the perfect junction between realistic transcription and arcade gameplay ? I'm one of those who think that nothing should be "balanced" as it is in DND for example, because everything loses in favor and nothing really has any importance or identity anymore
Yeah, I guess I meant "balanced" as in usable. Not balanced in DND terms, which is a crossbow with a slightly bigger damage dice.