Gunplay
v. 1.0
By Robert Sullivan
Copyright 2011
Published by Robert Sullivan at Smashwords
“Bang bang, you’re
dead.”
–Anonymous
This booklet provides a discussion and rules for including firearms, of various types, in a 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons Game. This includes an argument supporting the inclusion of firearms in a game, details of a shop selling the weapons, about a half dozen weapons and a discussion of the thought process. Content here first appeared on Nevermet Press site during 2011.
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Table of Contents
Chapter Two: The Gunsmith Shop
Chapter Three: Showing Your Work
Chapter One: An Argument
A reoccurring question in terms of fantasy gaming is whether to include firearms. Objections include: problems in terms of game mechanics, historical inaccuracy, thematic inaccuracy, dealing with general problems and matters of taste. The first three objections break down upon examination of the game, real world history and a determination to turn “problems” into advantages that permit greater game play. However, objections based upon issues of game taste are usually intractable. If then the objections, to permitting firearms as a part of game play, in a particular group arise from the first few issues, then it is something potentially negotiable. If the objection is one of aesthetics then it is in the best interests of the group to drop the issue (1).
Objections to including firearms based on game mechanic concerns should be a non-issue. The mechanics of a game are not the laws of physics; they do not operate on their own, but only to the extent that the players and the game master (2) employ them. The game mechanics are only as broken as they are allowed to be by the participants. Most editions of Dungeons and Dragons have provided rules for creating, developing and expanding weapons, and troubleshooting problems (3). There should be nothing about firearms that make them incompatible with the properly adjudicated mechanics of a game (4).
An objection to including firearms based on concerns of historical accuracy is nonsensical. There were no firearms in Europe in the 10th century and there was a paucity of elves and wizards (5) as well. Firearms appeared in China at the end of the 13th century (6) and in Europe during the 14th century (7). The Mongol and Turkish invasions of Europe and Asia did much to disseminate the weapon. Firearms did signal a sea change, albeit a gradual one, to the world but they did not stop the period from being dark, dangerous and violent - nor did they signal an immediate end to sword fights and the use of bows and arrows.
The issue of historical accuracy is probably actually an issue of thematic accuracy. When someone objects to including firearms, they are not objecting to their appearance in Europe in the 10th century, but in world like 10th century Europe, only with fantastic elements. A world where magic (for whatever reason) prohibits technological advancement. However, if one is going to be strict about this rule, then the setting should not include: beer with hops (8), liquor (9), chess (10), buttons (11), trebuchets (12), combined arms tactics (13), steel crossbows (14), full plate mail (15) or the longsword (16). This is to say nothing of including scimitars, cutlasses, rapiers and katanas (17) in a game. There is no logical reason for magic to inhibit the development of firearms and not to inhibit other areas and to select firearms in particular is inconsistent and even hypocritical.
There is a business adage that states, “turn every disadvantage into an advantage.” None of the problems above are unsolvable… and drama comes from tension. A bold player will ask for firearms (and a bold GM will allow it) because it is a game changer, something which will make people uncomfortable and “change things.” This should be less problematic than introducing an artifact level item into a game, as firearms are not unique and do less damage to the world than any self-respecting artifact. Lastly, no weapon or item, no matter how powerful, is a replacement for being quick on one’s feet and personal integrity and only the weak act as though this is not true.
However, all these objections and dealing with them leads to the issue of aesthetics, which is an intractable issue in terms of firearms in role-playing games. A magic wand in a fantasy setting, a blaster in a science fiction setting and a pistol are all ranged weapons that are relatively simple to use, though for some the firearm is the deal breaker. It is not an issue of chocolate and peanut butter (18) but chocolate and caviar (19). Dealing with game preferences is dealing with someone’s personal tastes and thus dealing with someone’s personality rather than something as easily addressed as rules mechanics or historical trivia. If the objection to including firearms in the game is one of aesthetics, then drop the issue rather than allow it to disrupt the group.
Firearms are perfectly adaptable to game mechanics and suitable, in those terms, to a role-playing game. Given the presence of elves and dragons in a game, it is silly to protest firearms as historically wrong. Thematically firearms may be wrong, but to exclude firearms while permitting many other anachronistic elements is being consistent only in hypocrisy. Firearms are indeed a game changer because their purpose is to be a game changer – the bold will grab this and run with it. However, role-playing games are about a group having fun and if including firearms becomes disruptive, because firearms offend someone’s aesthetics sense of the game, then drop the subject. One more in-game knickknack is not worth damaging the group.
Footnotes;
1. It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss good game etiquette and group dynamics.
2. This includes things as simple as forgetting rules and misinterpreting, therefore incorrectly applying, the rules.
3. In the current edition of the Dungeons Master’s Guide, chapter two addresses trouble shooting, chapter three addresses tailoring combat encounters and chapter 10 provides a general toolkit.
4. The design and assignment of levels and damage capacity of the firearms in “Gunplay and Powder Weapons II” followed these rules.
5. Do I really need to offer proof for this statement?
6. The earliest verifiable firearm dates to approximately 1288 in the modern-day Acheng District of Heilongjiang, China.
7. The army of Edward III of England employed a ribauldequin, or a medieval volley gun with many small-caliber iron barrels set up parallel on a platform, in 1339 in France during the Hundred Years War. Muscovite forces used canon’s in defense of the city during battles in 1382 against the invading forces of the Golden Horde.
8. The earliest verifiable inclusion of hops in beers is in the 11th century.
9. The earliest verifiable liquor in Europe, which got the technique from the Islamic world, was in the 12th century. Drinks like vodka, gin and brandy developed in the 14th century.
10. The game dates to 6th century Indian but did not develop into its contemporary form until the 15th century.
11. Buttons developed in Germany no earlier than the 13th century.
12. These weapons appeared in the 12th century.
13. This, as a military tactic, appeared in the 14th century.
14. These weapons, and the crossbows described in most role-playing games are closer to this model than previous versions, appeared in the 15th century.
15. This type of armor appeared in the 15th century, partly as a response to the longbow.
16. Longswords, as they are described in most role-playing games, did not appear until the 12th and 13th centuries and partly as a response to the development of armor.
17. None of which can be placed in the Middle Ages of Europe, so arguably they have no place in a game which attempts to be thematically true to a Middle Ages of Europe setting.
18. Two great tastes that, reputedly, go great together.
19. Two great tastes that no one would plausibly combine.
Chapter Two: The Gun Shop
A recent addition to the city is Schwarz’s Gunsmith Shop, owned by a controversial wizard, which sells firearms.
What People Know
A character knows the following information about Schwarz’s Gunsmith Shop with a successful Streetwise skill check.
DC 14: Several months ago the wizard Bernadette Schwarz, who practices a curious kind of magic, opened a shop which sells various kinds of firearms.
DC 15: The shop is doing a brisk business.
DC 16: Schwarz herself supposedly practices a kind of magic that combines clockwork technology and magic to produce interesting results. The firearms she sells are some of the results – while not magic the firearms are not magic themselves; magic went into the research and creation of the weapons.
DC 17: The city’s military is bullish on the use of the weapons, the city guard is ambivalent (because they want the weapons legally limited to themselves and the military) and the established wizards of the city are opposed, though they lack the influence to close the shop and stop Schwarz.
DC 18: Schwarz is part of an alliance of wizards who practice similar magical techniques and sell similar magical clockwork items. The alliance is called the “mechamancy guild.”
DC 19: A minor skirmish several months ago saw a unit of the city’s military trashed. Their enemies were using firearms. As a result, the city made a deal to equip its own military with firearms. Part of that deal allowed Schwarz to establish her shop.
DC 20: Schwarz and apprentices Kotter or Zoller sell dangerously advanced weapons to people they sell.
DC 21: The established wizards of the city dislike Schwarz and the shop, however they lack the influence or unity for force the issues legally. They seek an “extralegal” solution.
The Firearm Shop
Schwarz’s shop occupies a large building, with thick walls, at the boundary between the city’s commercial district and warehouse area. It is a former foundry Schwarz and her apprentices converted for use of the forge and the security offered by thick walls. The shop is unadorned, has bars over the windows and includes an indoor shooting range.
Kotter (male dwarf, 5th level Wizard, unaligned) and Zoller (female human, 7th level Wizard, good) are in the shop on most days, working on firearms and attending to customers while Schwarz (female human, 18th level Deceptive warlock, unaligned) is out assuring the “powers that be” she is not bent on world domination. Kotter is more personable than Zoller, who prefers to tinker with the weapons, though both are adequate salespeople.
Firearm Rules
Botch (Optional): A firearm explodes on a botch, inflicting its normal damage on the operator, with no saving throw permitted. Refer to the individual weapons for specific damage and this destroys the weapon.
Encounter: A firearm functions as encounter weapons for the sake of simplicity. It is not possible to reload a firearm during combat, but the character reloads the weapons between combat encounters.
Feats: Firearms are simple ranged weapons and do not require special feats to operate.
Fire Attacks: A loaded firearm will explode, as per a botch, if targeted by fire based magic and the operator fails their save and takes fire based damage.
Flintlock: A flintlock mechanism has a piece of flint on the end of a short hammer. When released by the trigger, the hammer moves forward, the cover of a pan with the priming powder opens and the flint to strikes a piece of steel, creating a spark which falls into the pan, igniting the otherwise protected powder.
Gunpowder: This dark colored powder is highly combustible and is used to fuel firearms by providing the motive force for the projectile.
Making Powder: Making powder for a firearm requires a Nature or Arcana skill check, DC 20. It is possible to Take 10. A success creates enough powder for 10 shots.
Matchlock: A matchlock firearm holds a wick, match or taper in a clamp at the end of a small curved lever. The clamp drops down if the trigger is pulled, lowering the smoldering match into the flash pan and igniting the priming powder.
Rifling: This is the process of making spiral grooves in the barrel of a firearm, which imparts a spin to a projectile around its long axis. This spin serves to improve the bullets aerodynamic stability and accuracy and is reserved for advanced weapons.
Short Firearms and Long Firearms: Short firearms may be operated with one hand and long firearms require two hands top operate.
Wheellock: Is a mechanism for firing a firearm. It was the next major development in firearms technology after the matchlock. The mechanism is so-called because it uses a rotating steel wheel to provide ignition.
Firearms
Note: It is beyond the scope of this booklet to provide rules for canons or barrels of gunpowder.
Matchlock Pistol Level 2
A short firearm operated by a matchlock mechanism.
Lvl 2 520 gp
Weapon: Ranged Simple.
Enchantment: None
Critical: +1d6 plus
Power (Encounter • Firearms): Ranged 15/30; attack vs. Reflex; 1d10+3 damage and if a medium sized or smaller targets fails a Dex check (DC 16) they are knocked prone.
Matchlock Arquebus Level 3
A long firearm operated by a matchlock mechanism.
Lvl 3 680 gp
Weapon: Ranged Simple.
Enchantment: None
Critical: +1d6 plus
Power (Encounter • Firearms): Ranged 20/40; attack vs. Reflex; 2d6+3 damage and if a medium sized or smaller targets fails a Dex check (DC 16) they are knocked prone.
Wheellock Pistol Level 4
A short firearm operated by a wheellock mechanism.
Lvl 4 840 gp
Weapon: Ranged Simple.
Enchantment: None
Critical: +1d6 plus
Power (Encounter • Firearms): Ranged 20/40; attack vs. Reflex; 1d10+4 damage and if a medium sized or smaller targets fails a Dex check (DC 16) they are knocked prone.
Wheellock Musket Level 5
A long firearm operated by a wheellock mechanism.
Lvl 5 1,000 gp
Weapon: Ranged Simple.
Enchantment: None
Critical: +1d6 plus
Power (Encounter • Firearms): Ranged 21/42; attack vs. Reflex; 2d6+5 damage and if a medium sized or smaller targets fails a Dex check (DC 18) they are knocked prone.
Flintlock Pistol Level 7
A short firearm operated by a flintlock mechanism.
Lvl 7 2,600 gp
Weapon: Ranged Simple.
Enchantment: None
Critical: +1d6 plus
Power (Encounter • Firearms): Ranged 18/36; attack vs. Reflex; 2d6+5 damage and if a medium sized or smaller targets fails a Dex check (DC 18) they are knocked prone.
Flintlock Rifle Level 8
A long firearm operated by a flintlock mechanism.
Lvl 8 3,400 gp
Weapon: Ranged Simple.
Enchantment: None
Critical: +1d6 plus
Power (Encounter • Firearms): Ranged 23/46; attack vs. Reflex; 2d8+5 damage and if a medium sized or smaller targets fails a Dex check (DC 18) they are knocked prone.
Blunderbuss Level 8
A medium length firearms operated by a flintlock mechanism which produces a blast effect.
Lvl 8 3,400 gp
Weapon: Blast Simple.
Enchantment: None
Critical: +1d6 plus
Power (Encounter • Firearms): Ranged Weapon (blast 4); attack vs. Reflex; 2d6+5 damage and if a medium sized or smaller targets fails a Dex check (DC 18) they are knocked prone.
Normal Bullet
Level N/A
Ammunition 1 gp
32 bullets, 2 lds, simple lead bullets without enchantment.
Thunder Bullet
Level 3
Ammunition 260 gp
Power (Arcane * Ammunition) Special: +1d6 thunder damage, target pushed 4 squares.
Black Powder
Combustible Material 20 gp
Powder (Combustible * Ammunition) This is enough powder, for a firearm, for 10 shots.
Chapter Three: Showing Your Work
In school, math teachers teach students short cuts to get to the solution of a problem. However, while using the short cuts is not technically cheating, students are required to “show your work” in a step-by step manner on mathematics work.
This column “shows the work” in an effort to answer questions and address objections raised in the comments of the previous two articles when they first appeared.
In terms of game design philosophy, firearms should be available for those who wish to use them and be easy to employ. Firearms are not magical, though dangerous enough to be game changers. They need not be realistic, but should not be silly. The material generated must comply with 4E rules, SRD license requirements and a reasonable word count.
Moving a Target: Having the firearms potentially knock people around is an attempt to give them a cinematic feel. In movies, gunshots often knock victims off their feet. It is arguably silly to have large and heavy targets moved by a gunshot. However, similar text in the PHB does not take size or weight into account on these issues and the purpose of the Gunplay articles was to provide firearms, not to correct oversights in the rules in the PHB. That said, the text has been modified to read “medium sized or smaller targets” to clarify this issue.
Powers with Weapons: Owning and using a firearm does not automatically inhibit or aid any other existing power anymore than owning and using a normal sword inhibits or aids powers… except for those requiring a martial weapon in the case of swords or requiring ranged weapons in the case of firearms. Does it need to expressly written out firearms are usable with powers requiring a ranged weapon? Descriptions of swords do not include the statement they are usable with powers requiring a martial weapon.
Proficiencies and Feats: Firearms are usable by anyone, so feats are not required and the weapons are in the simple ranged class. However, this does not mean anyone is automatically a good shot – so there is no proficiency bonus.
Weapon Damage: The table at the bottom of page 42 of the DMG provided the damages and while not a perfect fit, it is “close enough for government work,” to coin a phrase. Firearms are dangerous. Further, the brutal descriptor for weapons is not part of the 4E SRD. It is perfectly acceptable for a home game to use the term.
Ammo: The cost of bullets is included to be complete. By comparison, the PHB includes the cost for 30 arrows (1 gp) and the weight of that bundle (3 lpds). Keeping track of this in a regular game is up to the individual player and DM.
Explosions and Botches: Not all rules for firearms have included this feature, that the weapons explode on a botch (a natural 1 on a d20 roll), but the majority of them do. It is a traditional way of creating the weapons in terms of game mechanics. This is now an optional rule. Even so, it does not make sense for a loaded firearm not to explode if it suffers fire damage. Firearms are not actually magic items and thus are not subject to any spell, power or what-have-you which would alter a magic item. Making loaded firearms magically resistant to fire would, by definition, make them magical and thus defeat much of the purpose of writing them as definitively not magical. However, adding an enchantment to resist fire, which means they do not explode on a botch or when hit by a fire attack, is simple though it increases the weapon’s cost by 560 gp.
Realism v. Verisimilitude: These are not realistic firearms and the rules are relatively simple. There are no rules for getting the powder wet, the amount of smoke generated by a shot, bullets ability to puncture armor, having the gunpowder in your powder horn explode if you are hit by fire magic, cleaning firearms and so forth. Related to this is the question of reloading firearms. Reloading firearms in combat at least opens one to an attack of opportunity and arguably could require a special skill challenge. Designing them as encounter weapons is not realistic, though it does keep things simple and hopefully moving quickly in the game.
Chapter Four: Legal
Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition is copyright Wizards of the Coast.
This book is being released and distributed free of change. Gravesites by Robert Sullivan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License and is considered Open Game Content.
Gunplay is developed and written by Robert Sullivan
Gunplay is edited by Dr. Jonathan Jacobs and Cassie Toi.
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