Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Sareld 04-27-07, 09:03 PM	The benefit of a black powder rifle over, say, a light crossbow seems nearly non existant to me. It costs a feat, has only a moderate range advantage, +1 average damage, noisier, incredibly expensive, and it can be a pain to find ammo for. Is there a reason at all why anyone in a d&d world would want to trot around with a rifle when they could have a light crossbow instead? There must be some obivous advantage that I just dont get, or rather I hope there is. Would you get a rifle for any of your characters for reasons other than style?
TheDarkPrince 04-27-07, 09:21 PM	If there is a specific class for them, or if you change the stats from how they appear in the DMG. Make them cheaper, and maybe give them a chace for back fire (for balance, if nothing else.) But mainly I think they were just for flavor. Like special campaigns and such.
Kursk 04-28-07, 09:49 AM	The benefit of a black powder rifle over, say, a light crossbow seems nearly non existant to me. It costs a feat, has only a moderate range advantage, +1 average damage, noisier, incredibly expensive, and it can be a pain to find ammo for. Is there a reason at all why anyone in a d&d world would want to trot around with a rifle when they could have a light crossbow instead? There must be some obivous advantage that I just dont get, or rather I hope there is. Would you get a rifle for any of your characters for reasons other than style? The weapon was listed for historic reasons only. Yes, they suck (and did suck) in the early stages of development. No reason to take except flavor.
draconic_swine 04-28-07, 11:41 AM	No reason to take except flavor. Agreed. Unless you use stats that make firearms much more powerful than other ranged weapons (in which case it would be unbalanced) the only reason to take them is if it fits your character concept. In my campaign there are firearms (which are balanced with crossbows), and no one in my group uses them since they doesn't fit their characters.
Clutchbone 04-28-07, 04:14 PM	I'm my homebrew campaign, I retitled firearms as "Gnomish blackpowder rifles" and "Gnomish blackpowder pistols", which Gnomes could use as martial weapons instead of exotic weapons. Also, the crossbow Rapid Reload feat worked with firearms.
T_K 04-30-07, 05:50 PM	My paladin carries around a pistol to look cool. He also used it to smash a lock once. It does reasonable amounts of damage compared to other one-handed ranged weapons. To represent its historic usefulness, you could let it halve AC granted by metal armour. The "costs a feat" bit makes no sense at all, since the very reason firearms were introduced was their ease of use.
strahd99 04-30-07, 06:37 PM	The reason that they were considered so easy to use I believe due to the common military tactics. They would line up and and shoot at each other. The tactics changed when the weapons improved. The earliest firearms were not something you could pick out a single target and shoot unless you are using the rifled barrel versions.
Devlonir 05-01-07, 10:05 AM	Also.. the halving of AC isnt historically correct as well. The Welsh Longbow could pierce armor sooner and BETTER than early gunpowder weapons. Armor was still worn well into the 'gunpowder era'. Rifling is what really ruined it for armor, as well as it being bulky and not useful for large musket using armies anymore because of the weight of the musket and ammunition/gunpowder that would have to be combined with the weight of armor, encumbrance is a 'woman of few moral values starting with a B'
hecknoshow 05-15-07, 11:29 AM	The musket has 150ft range increment. Thats a max range of 750ft. aginst a longbows 500ft. :teach: Not the best reason in the world, but it's something. The exotic weapon thing always bugged me. Tried a pistol weilding rogue, didn't work out very well.
Clawhound 05-15-07, 11:37 AM	My understanding is (for what little it's worth) that early on, blackpowder weapons and crossbows used much the same tactics. These were mass-attack weapons, used by formations against formation. Guns must have had some use over crossbows, otherwise no one would have bothered using them. Most likely, if a bolt hits you and doesn't penetrate, it does nothing. A glancing bullet likely kicked you off your feet, so even if it didn't penetrate, it disrupted a line. (I have no proof of that.) FYI, disrupting an enemy line is an extremely useful tactic.
Kn1ves 05-15-07, 12:58 PM	Honestly, the only reason to use a black powder firearm as written in the DMG is for style and flavor. I'm currently designing a character for a friends campaign that is a Hellbred Wizard/Sorcerer who carries a wheel lock musket around for when magic just doesn't cut it. He also carries around a small, pocket sized, book with the recipe, formula and notes for creating black powder as well as instructions and notes for taking care of his firearm. I could spend the feat that I'm using for the musket on rapid reload and just use a crossbow to greater effect but I think it'll be more fun to have a fairly rare weapon that'll be more impressive visually in game. Besides I think it'll be fun to eventually carry around a +4 Clouting Splitting Musket.