Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 darth_serenous Apr 07, 2009 17:35:25	Yeah I have an idea about creating a campaign set in a very modern world where everything evolve. I can already see FR in the future. Lots of cities where people use cars to move, where the local militia use swords, spells and some of them firearms. In the wildness, temples with ancient swords and mystery await anyone who is willing to explore them. Prob is that I would like to use d20 Modern firearms (some of them). Their damage is very VERY scary used with DnD powers that grant 3[W] when you know that all firearms in d20 Modern have at least 2 dice as base damage. What you guys suggest to balance this? Increase cost and rarity of the item and ammo? Make the weapons damage dice lowered at one maximum (2d10 would become 1d10)? What do you suggest?
#2 Rustmonster Apr 07, 2009 17:53:37	Just balance them out as if they were new weapons. Use the old ones as a guide, but even more importantly look at the power level of current weapons. Hand Crossbow? Hand gun? How different can they be!
#3 darth_serenous Apr 07, 2009 19:42:34	Just balance them out as if they were new weapons. Use the old ones as a guide, but even more importantly look at the power level of current weapons. Hand Crossbow? Hand gun? How different can they be! Prob is, that Guns is logically far more powerful than a hand crossbow. A pistol have more range than a hand crossbow..and it deals more damage than a hand crossbow.
#4 SteelMirror Apr 07, 2009 19:59:32	Prob is, that Guns is logically far more powerful than a hand crossbow. A pistol have more range than a hand crossbow..and it deals more damage than a hand crossbow. Be wary of the "logical" approach to game design, by which I assume you mean applying real-world logic to D&D rules. If I misunderstand you then I am very sorry. "Logically" by that standard, 1 shot from a gun should incapacitate if not kill most mortal humanoids . . . but that's not fun, so you shouldn't do it. Even though guns should "logically" be vastly superior to crossbows, it preserves better gameplay and therefore is more fun to use crossbows as a reasonable example of about where guns should be. Guns can be more powerful, of course, and there is another [thread=1172985]thread[/thread] that was just started that is exploring ways to make balanced firearms that are fierce without requiring a redesign of the basic system. I agree that it would be very cool to implement, so don't take this comment as anything but encouragement! I just wanted to warn you of what I see as potential pitfalls on the way to cool guns in D&D. This idea has been so popular on the forums that I hope Wizards realizes how cool it is and puts up a 4E Urban Arcana article on DDI soon, kind of like they did back in 3.0 in Dungeon for a few issues.
#5 darth_serenous Apr 08, 2009 17:45:13	Be wary of the "logical" approach to game design, by which I assume you mean applying real-world logic to D&D rules. If I misunderstand you then I am very sorry. "Logically" by that standard, 1 shot from a gun should incapacitate if not kill most mortal humanoids . . . but that's not fun, so you shouldn't do it. Even though guns should "logically" be vastly superior to crossbows, it preserves better gameplay and therefore is more fun to use crossbows as a reasonable example of about where guns should be. Guns can be more powerful, of course, and there is another [thread=1172985]thread[/thread] that was just started that is exploring ways to make balanced firearms that are fierce without requiring a redesign of the basic system. I agree that it would be very cool to implement, so don't take this comment as anything but encouragement! I just wanted to warn you of what I see as potential pitfalls on the way to cool guns in D&D. This idea has been so popular on the forums that I hope Wizards realizes how cool it is and puts up a 4E Urban Arcana article on DDI soon, kind of like they did back in 3.0 in Dungeon for a few issues. You perfectly understood my way to see logic applied to DnD. I also read this thread before. I don't like it, because I want guns to be exactly, if not even cooler, than our real world guns. This idea is set for an anime-ish Urban Arcana with 4E rules campaign I had in mind. I just want to know how to balance them in 4E.
#6 umcorian Apr 08, 2009 18:13:26	Yeah I have an idea about creating a campaign set in a very modern world where everything evolve. I can already see FR in the future. Lots of cities where people use cars to move, where the local militia use swords, spells and some of them firearms. In the wildness, temples with ancient swords and mystery await anyone who is willing to explore them. Prob is that I would like to use d20 Modern firearms (some of them). Their damage is very VERY scary used with DnD powers that grant 3[W] when you know that all firearms in d20 Modern have at least 2 dice as base damage. What you guys suggest to balance this? Increase cost and rarity of the item and ammo? Make the weapons damage dice lowered at one maximum (2d10 would become 1d10)? What do you suggest? Few options. 1. Make it so you can only use powers with conventional weapons, like standard rifles and pistols. If a weapon deals 2d6 damage, 4d6 at 11 and 6d6 at 21 is okay. Basically, when the character picks up the Bazooka that deals 6d10x2 damage, or whatever it is... it's just a standard Ranged Attack. heh 2. Make it so any weapon that adds more than 3dsomething or more damage from the getgo instead becomes more accurate rather than powerful. A +2 to hit at 11 and a +4 at 21 would work. This sorta reflects the "skill cap" involved in using certain weapons... really not going to be much difference damage-wise between a level 1 blanketing a bunker in a flamethrower's blast and a level 30... but the level 30 is better at it, and has a better chance of hitting more people.
#7 SteelMirror Apr 08, 2009 22:02:41	You perfectly understood my way to see logic applied to DnD. I also read this thread before. I don't like it, because I want guns to be exactly, if not even cooler, than our real world guns. This idea is set for an anime-ish Urban Arcana with 4E rules campaign I had in mind. I just want to know how to balance them in 4E. Fair enough, far be it for me to influence what you and your players enjoy. A final thought, though. One of the oft-cited problems with 3.x was the high number of save or die effects, which make the game really annoying for some people if their character can go instantly from healthy to dead because of a 5% roll on a save. The parallel here is that "real-world" guns that maim or kill in possibly a single shot could get really old really fast. Even if the shots are wildly inaccurate when used on the PCs, the sheer number of times they engage in combat means eventually someone will be SoL. How many times is the average adventurer attacked in a campaign- 1,000? More? Every single one of those attacks has a 5% chance to be a critical hit . . . so yeah. That's about 50 head shots over the course of a campaign, which "logically" means 50 instakills against each player. No fun. If you make lethal guns, limit their occurence and give players some kind of out to avoid dying outright from a lucky shot. Good luck, I hope you find something that is satisfying and a lot of fun!
#8 bartleby42 Apr 09, 2009 1:36:29	I'm a little confused as to why renaming the hand crossbow a pistol isn't still a viable option. Sure you can shoot a gun further, but it's effective range (especially in a combat situation) is about the same. As far as them being "more powerful" the first question that should come to mind is "than what?" If you don't have crossbows readily available in your world (which would be the case for most modern settings) no-one will know that a hand crossbow does just as much damage as a pistol.
#9 gavin_silverstream Apr 13, 2009 0:45:26	The idea I'm going with in my futuristic 4e campaign setting is increasing the damage die by one of their counterparts. (Don't have the PHB in front of me, its just an example.) Crossbow does 1d8 damage = Rifle does 1d10. Crossbow Range 15/30 = Rifle 30/60 Also I'm adding properties like accurate (bonus to hit within first range increment) and tactical (doesn't provoke opportunity attacks in melee.) Also since most powers give additional dice to damage, it just shows what the class can do with the weapon. Wizard picks up a pistol, pow, 1d6 damage...Ranger picks up same pistol, pow pow, 2d6+dex modifier and ignores cover bonuses...(Wanted's curve bullet anyone?) I think it helps put alot of things in perspective. Also, don't forget that if a player shoots some random pedestrian, it's easier for the DM to explain that it was just a business suit....Minion stats applied.
#10 deadlogic Apr 13, 2009 21:57:41	try taking the primal classes and tweaking all their powers so instead the classes and class powers are geared toward technology vines become electrical lines spirits are robots and ai and so on. Take a druid and change the class to a cyborg in normal mode his control powers are tech based and instead of a shape shift make it a war form mode or something. shaman is a robot manipulator instead of spirits. Warden is a defense based cyborg and defends an urban district or neighborhood. Barbarians are cyborgs who have become more machine than man and prefer the company of machines over man as well. keep the others the same martial, divine, and arcane. with equipment use modern equivalents bows become guns and you make superior weapons like an executioners axe becomes a mono-molecular edged axe or a khopesh and kukuri become chainsaw swords and daggers, a mordenkrad is a jet powered pneumatic power hammer. anyways thats my take. oh and zombies are Humans with wiped brains being controlled by an AI hive mind. and martial characters are assumed to be chemically and biologically enhanced. guns normally would kill or maim a normal being but not genetically enhanced, protected by magic, protected by a divine being, or half creature half machine.this is my take on the topic.
#11 deadlogic Apr 13, 2009 22:11:11	try taking the primal classes and tweaking all their powers so instead the classes and class powers are geared toward technology vines become electrical lines spirits are robots and ai and so on. Take a druid and change the class to a cyborg in normal mode his control powers are tech based and instead of a shape shift make it a war form mode or something. shaman is a robot manipulator instead of spirits. Warden is a defense based cyborg and defends an urban district or neighborhood. Barbarians are cyborgs who have become more machine than man and prefer the company of machines over man as well. keep the others the same martial, divine, and arcane. with equipment use modern equivalents bows become guns and you make superior weapons like an executioners axe becomes a mono-molecular edged axe or a khopesh and kukuri become chainsaw swords and daggers, a mordenkrad is a jet powered pneumatic power hammer. anyways thats my take. oh and zombies are Humans with wiped brains being controlled by an AI hive mind. and martial characters are assumed to be chemically and biologically enhanced. guns normally would kill or maim a normal being but not genetically enhanced, protected by magic, protected by a divine being, or half creature half machine.this is my take on the topic. oh and the warden instead of polymorphing would apply different tech modification packages mimicking the primal power behaviors like Storm Eagle form would be something like a flight pack mod or something.