Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ZeronHitaro 07-14-06, 02:14 AM	This is more of a general topic as it covers more than just combat, more or less batting an idea around than hashing out mechanics. ;) Here's my thought (sure it's been done to death before) Mana Gun 1d10 Crit 20 x3 Range: 50 ft. Here's the general idea, in a backwater town lives a man people refer to as "That crazy old gnome on the hill". The gnome is a bit of an absent minded magical scientist. The mana gun is a little invention of his, still in the prototype stage. It works by loading a crystal (that has absorbed raw magical essance from the earth) into the barrel and simply pulling the trigger. The gun draws all the energy from the crystal and converts it into a short range energy burst (a new type that has no way of being blocked by DR or SR), however the prototype is unstable and has a bad habit of giving major recoil, not firing at all, or blowing up in the inventor's face. As a quest option, the PCs can go into a nearby cave to fetch crystals for mroe experiments (he'll pay more for rarer ones), problem is the cavern is Kobald infested. :D For later plot hooks, if they help him out enough, he'll get a working version of this gun and be avaliable should they need an extra NPC to help with a large quest. So does this idea sound too much outside of D&D flavor?
Ashanti 07-14-06, 05:18 AM	Nice idea mate, I came up with a similar 'Force Gun' for Shadowrun many moons ago. I would say that it does stretch the typical D&D setting somewhat unless your world is something like the books of China Mieville set in Bas Lag (spelling?). This was arcane steam punk and worked really well for a gritty victorian/fantasy setting. If you just drop it in your campaign everyone will either love it or hate it. Both are problems. In your shoes I would use it as a plot device (a bit like and artifact) with many antagonistic parties struggling to take control of it. The gnome could be sought after to mass produce it for counties or political entities in your world and the heroes would need to protect him or capture him. In short if you turn the idea of the gun into a campaign it might serve you very well indeed. If you make it just another piece of equipment you may as well not bother. I once made flint locks availible in a standard sword and sorcery D&D game after reading the David Gemmel books. I thought they would work very well but I found after a while it become just like any other weapon. Use it as a plot device is my advice. This makes it special for when the characters get to uses it, but keeps it out of there hands on a day to bases so it does not become common place.