Fire arm ideas for a D&D campaign.

[Saint of M]

Still working on some of the details, but I am doing a campaign for Dungeons and Dragons 5th ed that will involve a party that were a group of mercenaries frighting for one army when it gets overwhelmed by the opposing armies sudden influx of undead combatants.

The setting will be very very very loosely based off of World War One, except fantasy and set in the equivalent time period of after the Dark Ages and into the Renisounce, so late 1400 to mid to late 1500's.

There will be black powder weapons, will need to figure out seige weapons rules for them, but the side the players are on will have firearms on the leveel of an aquabus while the opposing side, loosely based on Tsarist Russia, the equivalent of a hand cannon.

THese are the rules in the DM guide on adding firearms.

Pistol: 250 gold, deals 1d10pircing, 3 pounds, uses bullets, range of 30/90 and loading.

As a flint lock pistol actually has a much shorter range, so I am thinking 15/30 ft range. Maybe keep the damage dice or drop it to a D8. As most pistols were one and done at this time, I think it should also double as a club as that was what they basically were used for (its why they had a very fat butt). Also able to shoot in close range.

However I will use the pistol rules in the book for the hand cannon, making it a two handed loading weapon with range attacks, and a two handed great club in close combat.

Musket: 500 gp 1d12 Piercing 10 pounds uses ammo, range 40/120. loading and 2 handed.

Considering Muskets were 50 caliber at the smallest, and could be much higher (not always standardize production), I can realisticly see this as a D12 damage weapon, but cold use this for Aquabus rules, if not drop the range to 30/100. Needless to say no aquabus.

Would also add bayoneets tht would make it a 2 handed spear at the price of taking away range capabilities, while being versitile enough to be used as a club otherwise.

Might have something like a Nockgunn for ogres, will have to look at that later.

Thoughts and ideas to make these work without being op.

 

[Asita]

Funny you should mention that. I recently took to listening to narrated D&D shenanigans on my walks and just the other day one of the stories was about someone doing a one-shot for his cousin and friends in which the players all opted to roll what amounted to Wild West outlaws. This used a custom gunslinger supplemental by Matt Mercer (Critical Role), the free version of which can be found here, and includes stats for half a dozen firearms. I can't speak to how well it works, as my actual tabletop experience is limited, but it might be worth looking into for reference.

Similarly, while it's not an exact match for your campaign (being geared more towards Pathfinder), d20PFSRD also has a Gunslinger setup, and more importantly it also has a page devoted to firearms including tweaks to make to the campaign rules based on its tech level (guns being anywhere from very rare to very common), the stats of early firearms, and another page for more modern firearms.

 

[Gordon_4]

Fantasy DnD with a liberal dose of Sharpe? Please continue and tell me where I subscribe to your news letter.

 

[Thaluikhain]

As those are muzzle loaders, people would often put different loads of powder in them, which may or may not be a good idea. Likewise, you could put two musket balls into a musket, (which was done) and in theory I guess pour shot into them instead (but I'm not sure if that was a thing people did much).

 

[Saint of M]

Thanks for the replies.

What are some ideas for artillery pieces such as cannons, mortars, rockets, and volley guns?

Early cannons such as the bombard was made before the mre hand held variety. Not sure when mortars came in, but they were a large artilary peice like the cannon and where the cannon shot strait forward, the mortar shot at an angel, lobbing shells at the enemy (and if its anything like Total War Warhammer, that sheik it makes would be terrifying). Howitzers which can be adjusted, cahnging beween the two as needed, would come later.

Volly guns are guns that shoot multiple rounds either at once or in quick succession after their trigger has been pulled or fuse lit. It was one of many attempts to deal with the slow rate of fire of standard firearms of the time, and some modern variants still used today. Larger ones could be several swivel guns like barrels on the same platform, the Organ gun used in the Brittish civil War, or something reminisent of the Warhammer Hellblaster Volley gun.

Smaller ones could include th handheld Ducks Foot or the infamous Nockgun

The former in this category was a pistole with about 3 barles in three different angles. It was a close range crowd control weapons. Not the most accurate, but p close and personal might as well be a point blank shotgun. Was a weapon you could get in Assassins Creed 3.

The nock gun was almost like a long range shotgun. Sevel long barrels, usually about 50 caliber like a number of muskets, it was originally used for navel warfare where someone up high would shoot at the deck of the enemy ship and kill several enemies at once. It had a number of problems, namly 1. The amount ordered was never fulfilled. 2. SEVEN 50 caliber barrels firing at once could knock someone on their back, off the crows next, or dislocate their arm. 3. THe amount of powder being ignighted at once could produce a 10 foot flame, so the men armed with them sometimes caught their own sails on fire. Because of this I might have this as a weapon of large enemies like ogres or minotaurs.


Need some damage ideas, especially with units but might just use Warhammer rules.

As for loading, it takes about 2 to 2.5 minutes to load a cannon, so I am figreing if they are used I would find a way to incorporate it into the fight.
Each turn in a round represents about 6 seconds, so will use that. 10 turns, 1 minute. 20 turns. 2 minutes. If I am filling generous I could decide if the majority of the enemy artilary are good (2 minutes between shots) middiling (2.5 minutes) or noob (3 minutes) roll d6, nat one sucks.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Multi barrelled firearms aren't really practical, especially early ones, and if you are just going to shoot more at people at the same time, get a bigger barrel and pour more shot down it. Which doesn't apply to games, cause rule of kewl, though.

For rockets, I would recommend looking at the Singijeon and the Hwacha, the latter being something you use to fire a few dozen of the former at once. Also, I think the weight would be less than a cannon, and (as with much later modern multiple rocket launchers) you can fire them all in one go and then run away, rather than sit there loading and firing a cannon slowly.

I'd also recommend perusing the Forgotten Weapons youtube channel, the guy's made hundreds of video, most of which aren't relevant to this question (being more modern), but he also does later blackpowder stuff as well. Fair warning, you'll likely be lost on that channel for hours.

 

[Fieldy409]

Maybe you should take a bow right, double the damage but also make it so you have to spend an action to reload it so you can only fire it once every second turn. It'd be awesome for surprise attacks, but it alerts everyone in the whole damn dungeon if you use it.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Maybe you should take a bow right, double the damage but also make it so you have to spend an action to reload it so you can only fire it once every second turn. It'd be awesome for surprise attacks, but it alerts everyone in the whole damn dungeon if you use it.

Not a bad idea. Though, instead of doubling the damage, it might be more historical to make it easy for randoms to use. Doesn't fit PCs so well though.

 

[Saint of M]

Thank you all.

@Thaluikhain:

The links will be great, thanks.

Multi barreled weapons were not all that great like you said. They were often wildly inaccurate, and took a long time to reload.

In the case of the nock gun example, the only way it would work if there were actual 8 foot tall muscle bound killing machines (ogres or orcs) as 7 50caliber barrels going off either at once or quick succession inevitably lead to men dislocating their shoulders or being knocked on their back. And as this was bought for the navy, and for the guys on the top of the masts, that could be a very, very, very, very, very long drop. That and a 10 foot flame that 7 toobs full of black powder made would catch the sails on fire. If I add something like this, its only for something with a high strength, and for the cool factor.

Will keep the larger cannon sized volley guns as they did quite a bit of damage to regiments.

THere is already some randomness to this, and they will have disadvantage when not shooting into a block of troops.