So you wanna put guns in your D&D5e game

[@Zedrinbot]

ey I replied to comments, for that vid check here! kzbin.info/www/bejne/iJiXqX1jjtGcfdE edit: Just to summarize some points people keep bringing up that are also mentioned in the response video: This video covered multiple approaches because no one approach is going to work for every table or will adequately capture every single type of theming that exists. It's more meant to get you thinking about how design decisions impact both the fantasy you want and the mechanical balance, picking and choosing what aspects of realism and gameplay best fit your goals. "This is the best way to implement firearms" couldn't be further from the goal of this video. I also re-recorded for it 4 times because I kept being unsatisfied with my points and kept starting over, so there's some things that I missed or omitted or ran out of space for. -"Just play [Other system]" Systems that already have good firearm rules don't *need* a video like this. 5e kinda does need help though. It's disingenuous to suggest people to learn an entirely new system or move their games to another system entirely just for the sake of one facet of equipment. Trying new systems can be worthwhile but dismissively suggesting it like that does far more harm than good. (I should know, I've played plenty of pathfinder 1 and 2 and know firsthand how evangelical its fans can be, despite how much of a different experience Pathfinder offers over 5e.) -"Guns weren't all that lethal" Yeah, but I'm referring to the kind of fantasy people want to implement. Games are an abstraction of reality, so trying to quantify damage like that is kinda moot. No human can survive 40 sword stabs anywhere near as effectively as your adventurer can, for comparison. "High damage, limited use mcguffins" for firearms for instance are _mechanical_ decisions that are meant to embody certain elements that people often want to capture and encourage specific kinds of gameplay. Likewise if you want your guns more reasonable like other weapons, then you tool their strength to give them parity and optionally give them some unique interactions, as described in the latter half of the video. (I personally prefer the latter option, but there's definitely merit in the mcguffin approach.)

[@user-sv5kt8qz3v]

first repyl

[@tommothedog]

Guns arent that lethal.

[@Rundvelt]

If you really want to use firearms in D&D, you're going to have to consider using a different system to keep it balanced. Unfortunately, it's silly to compare the damage of an arrow or sling pellet to a firearm, it's just not going to work. Core Concepts: A) Firearms are precision weapons and should reflect this. B) Firearms should be bulky and difficult to use when in close combat. C) They should be difficult to reload during combat. How do we build in firearms to D&D then? 1) We need to think of a firearm's damage not based on the slug, but rather the shot placement. For this reason, the damage of a firearm should be directly proportional to the hit roll for the weapon. This means that there SHOULD BE NO CRITICAL HITS. It's precision only. 2) We need to penalize damage based on the distance to the target. Anyone who's shot a firearm can tell you that while you can HIT something that's a good 60 yards away, hitting it in a good spot is sketchy at best, especially if it's moving. 3) We need to make reloading a move action equivalent. The shooter must be planted and unable to move to use their weapon optimally. So, let's take a look at a weapon profile that someone may use! Rifle - 30/60 Hit: 1d20 + Dex Damage: Hit Roll - Targets AC Reload: Move Action Special: You may not shoot the rifle at a target that threatens your square. What does this mean? Well, if you have a Dex of 18, roll a nat 20 and are shooting a Goblin with AC 2, you're gonna hit it for 18. Pretty nice. However, if you're shooting an Orc, with the same character and roll a 12, you're going to be doing 6 points of damage. This means that firearms rarely miss, which is how it should be, but it may not hit the sweet spot you're looking for. Now, you can play with the rules, however this is a far more interesting, unique and fairly easy way to incorporate firearms into your campaign. That's my off the cuff explanation.

[@jmd9402]

I know you already did your response to comments but I just thought of this idea recently and I wanted to ask someone about it. If you make a full auto machine gun, give it multiple extra attacks when in use, that way you could simulate rapid fire in a turn base game. this is probably a bad idea that ruins balance but I thought I'd give the idea

[@higueraft571]

Gonna be real... That concept for "shitloads of damage in one turn, otherwise useless after" would be PERFECT for a Pirate PC. Have 4-6 pistols strapped to your chest, fire them off one after the other (if any of them dont fire, oh well), then draw steel and get in close...

[@DarkTruth666]

Guns being lethal always suffers from 1 major misconception. You are not your character. You are a commoner, with 4hp. So something that does 1d10 damage, will on average kill your ass dead. So the idea of making them 'realistic' would mean addressing the fact that some characters could face tank a nuke and then regenerate that damage over a cup of tea.

[@pinguin4898]

people forget that HP in dnd isn't just physical wellbeing but also mental fortitude and straight up stamina, it could be just narrowly dodging a bullet before it hits you, it could be getting talked down to by a bard and lying on the floor crying, it could be just barely getting nicked by an arrow in the neck and the adrenaline keeping you going. don't think that a gun will always be lethal, legit bears irl can take a bullet to the forehead and keep shambling your way

[@bankasai3120]

@@pinguin4898 Poison, Fall Damage, AoE Damage, and damage weaknesses DO NOT work with this kind of thought process. Plus, Meat Points is accurate to real life anyways, the shit people survive and stay conscious through would surprise you: stuff like having a railroad spike go through your skull, getting shot _sixteen_ times, and my personal favorite, getting struck by lightning ing three times in one minute. These are all things that people not only have survived, but stayed conscious and functional through EDIT: I feel I should clarify, by 'this' thought process I mean the 'near miss' arguments you see all over the internet. Not exactly what you said, but I see it often enough that I always feel the need to point it out

[@mrosskne]

Have you tried not playing garbage systems for idiots?

[@mrosskne]

@@bankasai3120 Every damage type you listed works with that thought process.

[@pinguin4898]

@@bankasai3120 I didn't exclude meat points from possibilities, besides, poison and aoe is likely about your pain tolerance as well

[@oxybe]

"Firearms and Kevlar doesn't belong in D&D" You're right. Let's all use laser blasters and power armour instead, as our 1e Barrier Peak ancestors intended.

[@orrorsaness5942]

😂 Lmao

[@foxyreads]

I love that module

[@Stavol2Dual]

Its true use magic for railguns

[@milktenders6219]

For the Emperor, for mankind

[@getthegoons]

I wish freaky SciFi stuff showed up more in modern dnd..

[@ComicalRealm]

"The most difficult part of DnD is finding a day when everybody can play. " - Master Oogway

[@Zedrinbot]

schedules are the highest CR monster in all of D&D

[@master0fthearts894]

“The second most difficult part is making sure that everyone who has agreed to play can show up.” -Master Oogway

[@thetruegoldenknight]

@@Zedrinbot And not just D&D. It also applies to RPGs across the board!

[@Kaadjoisanavaliwithtoomuchtime]

i swear to god your everywhere

[@ConfusdTarz]

Wise words old turtle person

[@inquisitorkobold6037]

There's an old saying. "If you want to train a man to use a bow, start with his grandfather. If you want to train him to use a musket, start Tuesday." Guns became popular because they were significantly easier to use than bows were, and also tend to have much greater range.

[@Zedrinbot]

man that's a good quote.

[@nevisysbryd7450]

Well, they developed a longer range. Early firearms lost half of their power at like sixty feet of travel distance.

[@AlbinoAxolotl1993]

Same with crossbows.

[@inquisitorkobold6037]

@@AlbinoAxolotl1993 Crossbows have other issues, like requiring a cocking aid such as a crank or lever to reload with any reasonable speed.

[@redstonewarrior0152]

@@inquisitorkobold6037 You can hold the crossbow down with one foot while you pull the string back and set it with your hands.

[@cr0wnin]

For anyone brining up the point of realism, may I remind you that the raven has a flight speed of 50 feet per turn. If each turn is 6 seconds, that translates to about 8.3 feet per second, or 16.6 feet per second, if you're dashing. That translates to about 10 miles per hour when dashing. At max speed.

[@williamchristy9463]

That's ridiculously slow. They move twice to three times that, for anyone curious.

[@estoericaferret]

That's combat speed, though. D&D rules have always distinguished between combat speeds and travel speeds.

[@williamchristy9463]

@@estoericaferret But surely, combat speed should be faster, and not twice as slow.

[@cr0wnin]

@@estoericaferret Combat speed is still a speed though. If a raven attempted to fly at this speed in real life, it would fall. Granted, I can see why it's not fair for combat for a raven to fly at ~200 feet per second per turn without dashing, but still.

[@estoericaferret]

@@williamchristy9463 actually combat speed is always slower. It's the careful movement of combatants jockeying for a tactically advantageous position. Even when dashing with your action (or bonus action if you're luck enough to have that ability), you move slower in combat than out of it.

[@drahydra]

My favorite use of firearms thematically, is that they're a direct response of commonfolk keeping up with spellcasters. Rather than evolving to defeat plate mail, they were invented to match and even directly hunt magic users. To this end, I treat them a lot like reskinned wands of spells like burning hands, magic missile, etc.

[@pretzelbomb6105]

I’m now imagining an oversized party popper that fires magic missiles.

[@glassofwater281]

Un-magics your missile

[@SuzuXIII]

guns that are effectively anti-mage weapons is a really cool idea

[@iCarus_A]

So kind of like Arknight's concept of originium-powered firearms/spellcasting units vs casters who can channel the same power with their body

[@incrediblyangryskeleton]

Commoner to sorcerer: I cast alacablam!

[@brandongalvan6603]

Zedrin: "The only other weapon that has a d12 for its damage die is the greataxe." Me: *glares angrily in **_LANCE_*

[@JackPhoenixCz]

*laughs in superior 2d6 damage die*

[@MikePhantom]

you think e5 scrubs know about lances?

[@loadeddice4696]

@@MikePhantom The Lance is a weapon in the 5e PHB so yes, 5e scrubs absolutely do know about lances. Go cry about it, grognard.

[@llewelynshingler2173]

Lances have a really weird limiting factor, where you have Disadvantage against those with five feet.

[@brandongalvan6603]

@@llewelynshingler2173 Hardly an issue if you're a Barbarian or have access to flight.

[@princezuko8100]

If you wanna homebrew guns in your game, the most important thing to ask yourself first is: what

[@MercenaryX21]

From muskets and footlocks all the way to revolvers I think are your best bets in terms of allowing technology eat while still keeping the I'll still keep in the fantasy aspects. I think going as far as revolvers and nothing more makes the best sense because it gives you that reload time disadvantage which balances things

[@HouseLyrander]

I like to have at least flintlocks available, if only to justify having so many people wearing plate armor

[@Kaadjoisanavaliwithtoomuchtime]

id say matchlock muskets is good

[@mongodroid4842]

@@HouseLyrander I'd say it would be hard to justify wearing plate armor if someone has a once/minute death machine that can pierce plate armor at certain ranges if anything, this is a good excuse as to why every adventurer isn't dumping all of their gold in heavy armor, sometimes not being seen in the first place is better

[@HouseLyrander]

@@mongodroid4842 Actually, plate was fairly good at stopping bullets up until the Napoleonic era. The term "bulletproof" comes from how armorsmiths would shoot the armor they made to leave a dent to act as proof that it could stop bullets. Chain however, while making you pretty much invincible against swords, was far less effective against guns and only persisted because plate was so much more expensive and difficult to make. But then, you make a fine point about adventurers. They're not fighting in the open field surrounded by mean with spears like landed knights and only the most successful and famous of heroes have patrons willing to shell out for whatever gear they want, so cheap and discreet linens and leathers would be much more viable for them. And even if they had the cash for it, the fact that they regularly have to hike long distances means they might not go for the hot and sweaty metal armor unless they're specially conditioned for it like a Fighter might be.

[@Potoaster]

With guns in my steampunk 5e game, I replaced hp with luck. Every “hit” with a gun is a miss/graze, but as your luck runs out, the next shot may just be that fatal blow. So no complaining about realism for tanking 8 bullets to the head or anything. Essentially, guns become flavored bows. The luck idea plays nice with the idea of getting stabbed multiple times, too.

[@Specter_1125]

HP is explicitly described as including your luck in 5e (luck, stamina, pain tolerance, will to live). If the attack doesn’t take you below 0 HP, the attack doesn’t cause a significant injury.

[@Hazel-xl8in]

reminds me of when i heard someone say “HP stands for Hero Points. they’re a measure of how long you can continue being a hero.”

[@SusCalvin]

The various grit/flesh systems use two layers of hp. Grit which is the more nebulous luck, weariness, pain tolerance, stamina etc. Flesh which is actual wounds cutting into you. Flesh is rapidly capped while grit keeps shooting away. Grit is easily recovered, with a cup of tea and a sit-down or some vodka or a group prayer. Flesh requires healing magic, slow bed rest etc. Certain things can bypass the grit layer. Sneak attacks, poison, falling off a building, lucky 20 hits. Then characters drop fast.

[@m0j026]

Ooh, isn't this exactly what they did in Uncharted? People were complaining about realism because "how can the protag get shot multiple times and then do parkour and shit" so the devs just told them that his hp is just his luck and when he dies is because someone actually got a clean shot on him

[@TheReZisTLust]

Ah the Uncharted solution. Fair enough lol

[@falkyrie5228]

_"D&D 5E isn't my favorite game, I just play it because it's what everybody else plays..."_ I relate to this on a personal level.

[@teseutressoldi3972]

Me and my friends and kids still play 3.5 , you dont need to play if you dont like

[@falkyrie5228]

@@teseutressoldi3972 I run BECMI, but I've been in more 5E tables that I would like because... Well, because that's what everybody else plays and - although I would still prefer to play something else - I don't mind playing 5E.

[@sirlionheart4614]

Bashes on dnd, still plays dnd. Typical hasbruh fangurl

[@danksterdan1682]

"You can just limit how many guns you give your party" Literally any party member with Smith's Tools proficiency: I missed the part where that's my problem

[@kingfail3819]

Firearms are expensive, so crafting one will take a long time, 2 months for a single musket using the PHB crafting rules, 1 if you have help. The campaigns where taking even a 1 month sabbatical from the narrative is possible, let alone permissible, are few and far between.

[@HenriFaust]

Making a gun or cannon also requires special metallurgical techniques. The first manufacturers of guns and cannons were bell makers, not regular smiths.

[@danksterdan1682]

@@kingfail3819 *laughs in Fabricate*

[@danksterdan1682]

@@HenriFaust Considering that "bellmaker's tools" aren't a thing in 5E, it gets folded into Smith's.

[@HenriFaust]

@@danksterdan1682 It isn't the tools that are different, so much as how the tools are used. Bells must be much more study than swords to withstand daily use and exposure to the elements. It is these special smelting and machining techniques that made bell smiths ideal for creating the first firearms. Given a fantasy setting, it's not implausible for regular smiths to build firearms, but it would be beyond the skill of the average smith, unless they were a firearms specialist.

[@travisgravelle7687]

I like what I am hearing. One thing people tend to skip over in this discussion is sword and pistol style. With one or the other as a primary weapon.

[@penguinlordalan]

Historically with early firearms this was pretty much always the case, firearms were always pared with some melee weapon as otherwise short range your near useless. I think the best use of firearms in DnD would be like a opening attack paired with melee after, but even having multiple guns with a sword works great

[@travisgravelle7687]

@@penguinlordalan in most game settings you encounter this is rarely the case. It all one or the other. Especially in systems that over emphasize off hand penalties.

[@francez123456789]

The one time i played the warhammer fantasy rpg my character trained the noble PC in firearms use and he actually adopted that style... kinda want to play it again but something tells me the GM got super turned off by it because it devolved into PvP by the end...

[@Zedrinbot]

Maybe I should've made the "maybe try other systems too if you want guns in your game" message less implicit cause it's going way over a lot of commenters heads.

[@pavelowjohn9167]

Yeah, it seems like a lot of people are in the "I play D&D and only D&D" frame of mind these days. In the beginning, if you're still learning the rules, I get it, you don't want to confuse yourself by jumping into another system. But if you are at the point where you're wanting to add advanced technology to your game, you're probably ready to try another game entirely. So just grab one and give it a shot (pun intended), you'll probably enjoy it. Honestly, looking back at all the table-top games I've played over the years (D&D and the Pathfinder offshoot, Starfinder, Savage Worlds, Call of Cthulhu, Gamma World, the old Victory Games James Bond 007 RPG, and various historical wargames), the vast majority had firearms in them, so there are plenty of settings and systems to choose from if you're wanting to play something with firearms.

[@Zedrinbot]

@@pavelowjohn9167 it's more I'm getting a lot of comments of "if you wanna use guns just play a different system" like bruh did you see my conclusion but also that'd be a bad and condescending video if i just left it at 'play something else'

[@suspiciouscheese4518]

I think the big issue is convincing my friends to learn a new system. As a DM it also seems like kind of a pain too. That’s why I want to keep the bulk of 5e in place so I can minimize the new learning. Also, I’m looking to implement them into an existing 5e campaign so there’s that too.

[@lhtyeehaw1319]

Unrelated but if your fantasy world has guns AND dragons, then AA guns should be commonplace

[@mrosskne]

@@Zedrinbot like anyone's gonna sit through a 20 minute fuckin video lmao

[@samiamrg7]

I’m sure many of you know about the “peasant rail gun,” but what about Counter Marching, aka the “medieval machine gun?” Unlike the peasant rail gun, this one is actually a real tactic that doesn’t require exploiting game logic. You just get a big line of guys who each have a gun, have the front one fire and then move to the back of the line. Then the next guy fires and goes to the back. And on and on until the first guy is back at the front having reloaded his weapon in the time he was waiting in line, ready to fire again.

[@harloweboggin2222]

So just normal kneel fire line infantry tactics

[@samiamrg7]

@@harloweboggin2222 Counter marching was developed a century or two before line infantry tactics when infantry formations still tended to be deeper and had a lot of pikemen. Tactics and training were such that they couldn’t spread out into a line without over-exposing themselves, so they developed counter marching to try and get the most out of their gunmen.

[@22beesjustvibin67]

I raise you this beast kzbin.info/www/bejne/qHTYh4Cuas1krpI

[@mennoltvanalten7260]

@@harloweboggin2222 No because when it was designed reloading still took a lot longer, so you needed much more ranks than the 3 ranks that system uses. Which means marching around to not impede others firing line.

[@cooperdavis9663]

@@mennoltvanalten7260 which is why the first row has to kneel to reload while the second row fires

[@justas423]

I think combining the "Deal 1 damage to enemies withing 5 feet of your target" and "Treat 3/4 cover as 1/2 cover and 1/2 cover as no cover, but enemies count as full cover" is the perfect synthesis necessary to make shotguns both feel realistic but also make them work nicely.

[@mrosskne]

But that isn't how shotguns work. They're not nearly inaccurate enough to actually hit multiple targets.

[@PilotTed]

@YourDaddy (; *loads blunderbuss with nails, rocks, and tacks with malicious intent.*

[@Christopher-eq1rn]

Thats more blunderbuss than shotgun

[@Blast335pokemineblox]

I've always liked the idea of a magic user who uses a break-action pistol or rifle that fires spells contained within bullets. Think Sharla from Xenoblade Chronicles

[@onlirier2993]

"gUnS iN d&d ShOuLd Be SuPeR lEtHaL tO bE rEaLiStIc" Me: Uses gun that deals, say, 1d8 damage, which is an OHKO to a peasant with 4 hp 50% of the time and is otherwise a very big wound

[@kekkres]

The thing that always gets me is, getting shot is way less lethal than an axe blow or what have you

[@zacheryeckard3051]

@@kekkres I think the difference is that it's easier to avoid the axe blow. Whether you consider HP to be meat points or stamina, I think it can be a bit of both. More of the Axe's damage represents running down the stamina of your opponent before getting the killing blow. Whereas with the gun, it might be more about actual hits, if only grazing, and accumulated damage.

[@thekinginyellowmessiahofha6308]

I have them use two damage dice so they always roll more damage on average but take an action to reload (promoting blast and smash)

[@X4Alpha4X]

the thing with guns is that they are the great equalizer, they allow a peasant to kill a king but can be harder to aim accurately than youd think. My homebrew would simply be: flintlock rifle: 2d12 no modifiers to damage, dex to hit with a 15/300 ft range. 1 attack per action reload takes 1 bonus action. if you have proficiency with the weapon you add proficiency to hit, and range goes to 200/400 flintlock pistol: 3d6 no modifiers to damage or hit with a 10/150 ft range. 1 attack per action reload takes 1 bonus action. if you have proficiency with the weapon you add proficiency + dex to hit, and range goes to 30/200ft Bolt Action Rifle: Legendary item; 3d12 no modifiers to damage, dex to hit with a 20/300ft range. +2 to hit. 5 attacks per action, reload takes 1 action. if you have proficiency with the weapon you add proficiency to hit, and range goes to 300/600ft, Crits now also have advantage.

[@zacheryeckard3051]

@@X4Alpha4X The whole point of guns is proficiency is easier than with anything else.

[@vaulthunterfromterra4053]

“But how am I supposed to parry a gun” By...blocking the bullets? Or by typical club/bat style block if they’re out of ammo. Problem solved.

[@gorillaguerillaDK]

Catching the bullet between your teeth....

[@xenogorwraithblade2538]

*laughs in monk*

[@loadeddice4696]

Winston Churchill said that the only sure defence against an atom bomb is to be somewhere else when it goes off That's actually quite easy when it's a bullet.

[@SkoomaGodDovahkiin666]

Cover. The COG would have a field day.

[@crowsenpai5625]

“Obviously you grab them out of the air and thrown them back at the gunman.” -Party Monk

[@TITAN_101]

If games or anime (like Final Fantasy's medieval-themed ones to anime like Fairy Tail) can pull of guns in a semi-believable & immersive way, from magic-fueled muskets to clockwork Metal Gears, I think anyone can if planed correctly. note: I don't play D&D just know someone who does

[@dXQuarionXb]

This vid has some great points on homebrew in general, not just guns. Decide what you wanna accomplish and adjust the item accordingly without being too complex. Good watch 👌

[@Twisted_Logic]

All this seems pretty reasonable. Something I'd like to add to the conversation is the use of enchanting on firearms. Something I never hear about, but would 1000% be possible with magic is a powderless firearm. Just pull the trigger and a rune or something explodes in the chamber, allowing you to skip arguably the most time consuming part of the loading process. Let's say you're using the system towards the end where loading your weapon eats your movement because you've gotta stop to put the powder in. With the magical powderless firearm you could cut that down to a bonus action to ram a ball in, allowing you to move, load, and fire in the same turn, making you much more of a threat to mobile enemies. Seems like it would make for a pretty cool and flavorful piece of loot for a musketeer/gunslinger when they start falling behind in the party's action economy.

[@Sillymonkey-or1zo]

Fun idea for a gun that players could find or earn. An old, unassuming flintlock pistol that has a faint magical aura, that reveals that it reloads a new shot every time the gun is successfuly spun in a circle in the players hand. (use a dexterity check every time this happens.) But, if the player fails the dex check, the gun does not reload and is unusable till the next turn. Base damage could be pretty normal, (think regular arrow from a bow), but if the player decides to do a trick while spinning the weapon, it gets a damage multiplier. However, this will cause the dex check to be much harder to pull off.

[@h4xorzist]

Firearms are rater perfect in a timetable from ancient China to Japan, topping off at European Fuse-, Wheel-, and Flintlocks. As one might notice, that completely overlaps with the historical equivalent of pretty much any fantasy equivalent. During these times you get firearms with interesting mechanics and that is before you add some warpstone to them yes-yes.

[@SingingToast652]

If it could've been used against a samurai, it's good enough for the campaign

[@NothingYouHaventReadBefore]

Good point-idea yes-yes.

[@JoeElJalapeno1810]

"You mean in a figth rigth" My Dude was to Based for this world

[@datassassin9643]

"it's totally unrealistic to use guns in DnD due to too much damage." Continues to take a double edge battle axe in the chest and walk away like nothing happened.

[@samiamrg7]

The biggest part of training with early firearms was getting faster reload speeds and moving/firing in formation. There was some experience needed to keep the rods and powder and bullets all organized on your person in the middle of battle.

[@Draeckon]

Yeah, but that still takes far less time to reach reasonable competence than the years, sometimes decades, of training needed to become reliably competent with a bow.

[@Skymoc4]

Zedrin: _Creates Spider-Bayonetta_ Me: *So spider have gun gun?* (Could also look cool on Spiser-girl ngl)

[@rgdgfd2281]

First gun appeared 1300, century. First actual plate armour in 1300 as well. Deal with it!!!!

[@illuminati5664]

"Cuz' after all, you wouldn't use a shotgun to rescue someone in a hostage situation... I Hope" part about hope feels very in place xD

[@johnathanaltizer3333]

Here’s an idea: make reloading have concentration! This works especially well with gunpowder guns, as you’d have to go through the whole rigmarole of pouring powder, putting in the bullet, tamping, etc.

[@thekinginyellowmessiahofha6308]

Yes. Again though, you could blast and smash an reload out of combat.

[@Aerowarrier]

I like how guns are done in Grim Hollow, especially with the highwayman subclass for rogues that’s designed around riding a horse with rifles which is super cool

[@daltooinewestwood6380]

Spider bayonetta sounds like a cool character archetype to try out once for fun

[@Quincy_Morris]

A more reasonable saving throw wouldn’t be noise but the kick of the gun.

[@zackcook5123]

For me in my setting I use guns to represent the dawning of technology as well as a bygone era. Their are two types of firearms in my setting. Powder guns and rivet guns. Powder guns are slightly more powerful than traditional weapons, but are limited in range and need an action to reload. Some operate like the blunderbuss, others are multi barrel and the masterpieces are closer to revolvers. With simple and martial variant, some stronger guns have a simple extra rule for jamming, these are exotic for thematic purposes. They also cost more to get and for ammo. But my issue with guns is players, often firearms attract Mary/Marty sue/stue players that want assault rifles that annihilate dragons in one shot. Or to have sniper rifles that can shoot for miles, and heaven forbid an enemy uses any of these weapons However for my group I'm going to be redoing 5e weapon system a bit. Simply adding universal traits. I love 5e but it has its faults that could be easily fixed in many cases.

[@destroyer1667]

> want assault rifles that can annihilate dragons in one shot Aside from such a weapon realistically being almsot useless against a creature that big, the obvious balancing action is to give the dragons modern weapons too. Good luck parrying that air launched ballistic missile carrying a nuclear warhead.

[@zackcook5123]

@@destroyer1667 yeah I made that point it was never countered with anything of substance "but that's overpowered". It was just a crap group "well this is a gun and flintlocks technically fired 50 cal so that means the gun should be instant death" Or "I made a pirate so I get guns" "Flintlocks are gay I want a Magnum"

[@charlottewalnut3118]

Actually given that the scales on most dragons are at least as hard as steel and tend to be multiple inches thick most assault rifle rounds would not just bounce off of them but proceed to shatter exploding on the user and their allies

[@beywheelzhater8930]

@@zackcook5123 if we were going by realistic stuff like a .50 cal bullet leading to instant death, basically everything should lead to death. Your party member just got stabbed by a rusty, dirty sword from a skeleton in a dungeon, they now gains an infection. Their choices are now getting another party member to amputate the limb with a DC 20 medicine check less you die of blood loss or dying over time as the infection spreads

[@kevingriffith6011]

The inclusion of a slow-reloading, high damage weapon adds a bit of a kink in 5e's combat that I don't think a lot of DMs account for in their combats: They make the first turn of combat significantly more deadly. This has all kinds of tactical implications, but in general it gives an even greater advantage to the side that goes first, and makes the already deadly ambushes of 5th edition even deadlier. I don't have a lot of advice to give to counteract this, other than adding more enemies (which is dangerous thanks to action economy) or relying less on powerful singular enemies (which is something that 5e is already bad at, even with legendary actions/resistances)

[@cryamistellimek9184]

I think if you’re worried about you’re big bad guy getting gatted first then, you could just have his mobs ambush first turn then have him move in once you’ve expended their firearm options.

[@h3lblad3]

D&D table of 9 musket users in infantry square formation.

[@zacheryeckard3051]

@@h3lblad3 Unironically how cool would that be, though?

[@GinLuna]

I like the guns in 5e, and implement them into all of my campaigns. Having ranged enemies that can murk players quickly can make the combat very dynamic and tense so long as you properly implement cover

[@ericadams1446]

Love the idea of using movement as the reload requirement. One shot per round and movement to reload. Add bayonets and you get a spear that shoots pretty cool weapon.

[@AJBernard]

"How dare you disagree with me, I am right, you are not!" The line that got me to subscribe. =) Thanks for the great content!!

[@thelonelypilot]

I think the best way to balance guns would be to: Make them hybrid weapons, like the Polish Cavalry shotgun-axe. Remove any stealth property. Deal heavier damage than a bow or crossbow, but lack the ability to be enchanted. Use early breachloading tech (no auto) and struggle against heavy armor.

[@gryphonbotha1880]

Real firearms were one of the few reliable ways to punch through heavy armour, even in the early days. Their weakness was that they could only do this from relatively close range. A bow or crossbow had only a tenth of the kinetic energy, but could carry it much further, allowing it to stay lethal at longer ranges against less armoured targets. Firearms lost their energy quickly but, unlike arrows which would just bounce off well-made plate, the bullets would go right through at short distances.

[@z3r070000]

I'mma be that guy and say this, as some one who has used the fire arms from the DMG, "Acktually" the Renaissance fire arms in the DMG are pretty fair and maybe even weak in comparison to other options. Sure they bump up one damage die and rival great axes and heavy crossbows, or eldritch blast, but they quickly fall behind in other ways. for example if you're a fighter or ranger, the musket or pistol might seem good at level one, but once you reach level 5 or get your first feat the one shot per turn musket falls behind in terms of just about everything including damage since you can make multiple attacks with bows, or take the crossbow expert feat which will give you a bonus action to fire another shot. sure you could take tasha's gunner feat, but you'll still find you're just behind crossbows most days, or have used that feat to take sharp shooter instead. do the math assuming you have a 18 dex for both and a hand crossbow and crossbow expert feat that's 3d6 + 12 or 21 damage on average which is on par if not more than musket with gunner feat 2d12 + 8 which is an average of 20 damage. In terms of a rogue which gets one attack anyway. it still falls behind crossbows in terms of range, which will often cost you advantage and sneak attack unless you're absolutely right on them, or take the sharpshooter feat, but even then its still much less than if you just used a crossbow or hand crossbow. This forces you to have closer positioning and can limit your hiding spaces. meanwhile the damage you gain is barely noticeable as you stack sneak attack on it. and 2d6+Mod+Mod is more damage than 1d12+mod no matter how you cut it. And you could even argue in terms of roleplay are rogue with a loud musket is much less sneaky. Not to mention switching from crossbow to musket or vice versa, you'll barely notice the difference in damage, but you will feel the range difference. Some other problems you might encounter if you live in the Sword Coast like Neverwinter or Waterdeep or storm giants thunder is that guns and ammo are illegal and/or expensive, making them a chore to hide and carry and a huge risk to use without alerting authorities. And another thing, while you might be able to retrieve arrows you fired after combat, or loot them off enemies, and easily buy them in town or make them, good luck doing any of that with a gun. If the DM is a nice guy, he'll let you know the recipe for gunpowder/smoke powder or have a black market selling it. But if you run out in the field you're done, and you'll be counting your shots the whole way. Honestly if you can go through the effort of character building, in character paying for, and combat positioning yourself in the right place to be in effective range to use your Renaissance pistol or musket you deserve the cool factor and next to negligible and mediocre damage increase if any.

[@Synetik]

Oddly enough I think monk's make the best use of firearms. With the tasha's optional stuff you can make firearms your dedicated weapon(monk weapon_ and as long a you use 1 ki you can attack with your monk weapon as a bonus action. You basically get the hand crossbow stuff with a higher damage die.

[@Emohawk707]

Have you ever run the modern weapons? I did for a whole campaign, and they were fun, but they were clearly busted since they made cantrips at low levels obsolete and made melee combat pointless (which, I guess is what guns did in real life as well). It's fine if everyone is into it, but I had players who also wanted to play modern day wizards, druids and barbarians and I didn't want to nerf the ranger and rogue who already had 2 dice firearms I feel like 1 die of damage is fine, I don't think a handgun is necessarily "more lethal" (per shot) than a crossbow, but when it comes to automatic weapons, I've been struggling to think of a way to include them, have them be fun, and not make them be the meta option (I think the burst fire mechanic in the DMG that represents automatic fire is pretty lame and my players agree with me. They spent the whole campaign taking single-shots from AKs and it wasn't "action movie" cool)

[@egoalter1276]

A few notes on realism, worldbuilding and being appropriate for a setting. Firearms have existed in some form for over a millenia, including the last two centures of the middle ages, as well as all of early modern history, on which most fantasy settings actually tend to be patterned on. They are completely settung appropriate, and as a matter of fact a mine to bring down hornburgs wall even features in lotr. The bigger concern in regards to worldbuilding, is weather lines of battle and musketeers should replace the levy spearmen and knights in the professional armies of the setting. Well, I have good news, infantry pike formations fearured as the primary form of fighting force until the 1750s, and melee cavalry existed in a useful form well into the second half of the 1900s. Bicorns and tschakos are optional, you get to have your knights and city guards even with guns in a setting, whilst remaining faithful to reality. And lastly, lethality, which was mhch of the reason guns took so long to replace melee. They are piss poor at killing people. Early smoothbores may have a high rate of lethality on a solid hit to a vital area, but they are so inaccurate as to be nigh useless unless massed by the company, and even then, have much shorter effective range than bows and crossbows. Their primary advantage over the former is ease of use, and ability to pierce armour over the latter. And by the time you get fast firing and accurate firearms, the individual lethality of their shots drops massively. Modern pistol bullets inflict lethal wounds less than a third of the time someone is shot, and even then it can take minutes or hours to kill. So really, unless you have rifle caliber, cartridge firing, self loading weapons, melee remains relevant. (And looking at trench raiding in ww1, even those may not be sufficient to make a good old billy club obsolete)

[@petersmythe6462]

Worth mentioning but D&D has heavy crossbows and full plate which were definitely not around yet but the time of the first guns, so anyone saying "no firearms because fantasy setting" is literally forgetting that firearms ranging from firelance to arquebus coexisted with real life settings of equal or lower tech for 600 years.

[@justas423]

11:46 Misfire actually outweighs the benefits of Deadly, despite both of them being 1/20 chances,.since you get +dX damage if you score a crit, but if you score a misfire then you miss out on damage AND the potential bonus damage. It also aggressively cuts off your actions in the same way multi-turn reloads do.

[@Zedrinbot]

Yeah, that's intentional. If fixing a jam takes an attack, at base, it's a small difference. You give up roughly 1 attack per 1 critical hit you get, in exchange for that crit having one extra die. You'd be short a bit average damage per round, which you can actually tool from a designer standpoint (use that to justify a slightly higher damage die, for instance). I like using 'attack' for this since it prevents characters like fighters from getting progressively worse the more attacks they can make in a round, and keeps the scaling even. Misfire would hurt more if you have any external forms of damage bonuses, though you can also carry a backup gun to sidestep the matter entirely, and there are a few ways to prevent rolling nat 1's (e.g. halfling luck, advantage, etc.) that would look attractive for players; but these all are factoring in external factors too. Plus, you could make it a feature for a gun-focused subclass, giving them a means to rapidly clear a weapon jam in exchange for a resource. (Like how Pathfinder does it for gunslingers.)

[@Deadsphere]

Pathfinder 1e did firearms decently well, the issue was when you could suddenly get a second attack in the form of Rapid Shot. This was of course only something (as far as I know) Gunslingers could take, and it usually came with Deadly Aim to boot. You could do both at the same time, Deadly Aim applied to pretty much both attacks (and if you took 2 levels in bard, you could "juggle" the guns, though this is just a fancy way of saying "dual weilding pistols", therefore giving you three attacks). Depending on level, doing both would put you at like a -2 or -4 to hit, but given the fact you weren't even targeting normal AC, but instead Touch AC, which is usually far lower and with the Gunslinger BABs, is nearly always a hit. It made Gunslingers really fucking OP, but I continue to think with some changes to the system, you could make it work a bit better. Thank you for this video, Zed. Been trying to figure out how to go about gun rules for a weird west campaign I've been trying to work on.

[@RockmariomkiZX]

Well, Gunslinger as a class itself isn't that OP. But as a dip it's insane due to it not only giving gun proficiency bit also Dex to damage with guns. Its actual class features leave a bit to be desired, otherwise.

[@Deadsphere]

@@RockmariomkiZX With the right combination of classes (hence why I said bard, so you could make three attacks), you could make it really strong.

[@Zedrinbot]

i feel like a lot of PF1's classes were built in a vacuum, and the unlimited free actions you can take can mean a lot of BS with certain combos if you start combining specific builds. PF1 is super fun for how many options you have but there's already so much customization with how it uses archetypes, traits, and feats that I feel that multiclassing (outside of like, prestige class requirements) gets to be way too much. Conversely, god I love PF2's archetype system so much.

[@RockmariomkiZX]

@@Zedrinbot It mostly gets that way with purely martial classes (to an extent) and when Gestalt and other systems get involved. The vast majority of classes are highly discouraged from actually engaging from multiclassing due to features being put at strange levels that force a compromise for BAB, saves or similar. 3.5 had it far, far worse with multiclassing since WotC's writers at the time blatantly had no sense of design at all (including a few outright hating Sorcerer for no good reason and thinking literally useless classes were at all comparable to MtG's timmy cards)

[@durk5331]

@@Zedrinbot Feck 2e and its Featclassing >_< I never multiclassed more than 2 Classes, and balancing them properly was really fun, but feat classing in 2e really makes me feel like Im taking away from the one class to get the second... I know that's how it always worked but when its replacing class feats, the things I'd be getting with my levels in said class, instead of the levels themselves it just feels Entirely different and wrong to me.

[@suspiciouslysoup5647]

One concept that I love to use in my games is to view magic and technology as diametrically opposed like in the RPG Arcanum, so devices like rifles misfire when used by magic users and are only used by non-magic average people to stay up to par with magic users. Coupled with the fact that Muskets are typically quite heavy they have little to no armor to balance it out.

[@Deko304]

My rule for muskets is u can reload as a bonus action but it takes 3 turns, (kind of like a cool-down) or if you’re impatient u can use one full action to reload it

[@Superbug-tf8zy]

"Any game that incorporate firearms goes against everything dnd stands for" I'm sorry sir, have you heard of the artificer artillerist class with the tiny size eldritch cannon, WHICH IS LITERALLY A GUN.

[@KoishiVibin]

Me creating powered armor:

[@insertnamehere916]

There are legit people who say that Artificer itself was a mistake that should have never happened I say sic em F-160

[@aaronrio8929]

Thank you so much for this video! I've been trying to implement 16th and 17th Century firearms into my D&D 5e Homebrew and you have been extremely helpful. I appreciate you.

[@McReebl]

Putting guns, in an RPG is waaay easier than this. Just gotta find the path

[@comandantegorrion7271]

I think my favorite DND campaign I’ve taken part in in the last few years was one set in approximately the early to mid 1500s, so the initial colonization of the New World, where I played a fire Genasi Cavalier fighter from the setting’s equivalent of France, flavored as a disgraced cuirassier, so medium armor, with a DM‘s guide musket with pistol range, a broadsword (a long sword without the versatile tag), and my mount was a wingless griffin (The DM stole a lot of stuff from Warhammer fantasy). We realize that the DM had forgotten to make a setting equivalent of Spain, so we all just sort of agreed that we were going to head down to fantasy Central/South America and kick it with the Yuan-ti and lizardmen. It was very open world, lots of focus on exploring and survival, unfortunately it ended up falling apart because there was only myself and one other player who could consistently make it to sessions, so it was just us two and a rotating cast of secondary players, which wasn’t helped by the fact that the DM was a new DM and would OK basically every homebrew out in front of him, and, at a few points I had to actually tell him to tone down some of the homebrew gear that he was giving us.

[@MintyVoid]

yo seriously feel 100% platonically parasocially proud of you that you finished this despite having that good ol executive dysfunction. I know how painful it can be to get anything done, let alone something that's then recorded,video edited,posted online, and maybe even sharing it on social media. I know that any one of those steps or in between or even before can halt progress indefinitely and It's inspiring and awesome that you were able to work through it all and post this.

[@Natalie_the_Fae]

When I implement guns in a campaign, I like to classify their damage as a completely different type known as ballistic damage. This way I can give certain creatures ballistic immunity, resistance, or weakness as so I can balance them easily. If the Creature is built like a tank with lots of fatty tissue, then they have ballistic resistance. If the creatures body is mainly composed of a steal like material, then they have ballistic immunity. If they’re a thinly build creature with nothing but fur or clothing to protect themselves, then they have ballistic weakness.

[@thekinginyellowmessiahofha6308]

OK here’s the thing though guns are very good at going through armor. If it’s immune to ballistic damage bun not normal slashing and piercing that makes 0 sense .

[@Natalie_the_Fae]

@@thekinginyellowmessiahofha6308 I was more talking about constructs or other robotic creatures, dragons larger then adults, or any large scaly creature like the tarrasque. Thing where a bullet would be generally ineffective in slowly it down. It was also relatively rare for a creature to have ballistic immunity.

[@ultimaterecoil1136]

@@thekinginyellowmessiahofha6308 yet ballistic vest can’t handle a knife or a arrow since they are designed to use a bullet’s high speed against them. Though not many creatures would have such properties in their natural armor it’d be reasonable for there to be low ac armors that specifically are only good vs bullets depending on the setting.

[@LucidDreamexe]

Can't forget that moment at 0:42 where Zedrin just wanted to draw sexy goblin girls. Seems like they were all rescued from towers too. I like thy taste ser.

[@anonymouskitten4715]

My solution for my Forsaken West setting was to make then rare magic items, essentially like getting a +2 crossbow

[@SomeBody08150]

This was a good an nuanced take. I've Seen multiple GMs and Players to try and brew it with similar added weapon properties and so far it seemed to be a Hit for the Players. Also in that Last comment about liking 5e is an absolut mood.

[@obsidiansiriusblackheart]

Considering Spelljammer being just announced, I could DEFINITELY see buccaneer-syle combat, ie one pistol shot followed by some sword duelling

[@SusCalvin]

When the players get their hands on weapons with punishing reload times, that is how they start using them. A weapon that fires every second or third round or more will in practice have a firing rate of once every skirmish. The hobos and their foes shoot once, and are either legging it, clashing or overrun before anyone would have a chance to reload. In the old rules, the turn went missile, magic, melee/movement. Anyone with a readied missile weapon acts first. It doesn't matter if you rolled high initiative, you are still going to get shot if you run into three cops holding SMGs. Characters have carried braces of pistols. They will strap on one or two pairs of pistols and use them one after another during a running battle. The most ludicrous I have seen was a one-armed wizard with six pistols. The PCs currently have access to revolvers, pistols and automatic rifles etc. Even a flame thrower. Things are balanced because so does their opposition.

[@starmada105]

Another way of realistically limiting your parties access to firearms is limiting their access to gunpowder. While bullets were not the most difficult to make, gunpowder was pretty difficult to produce, and you probably wouldn’t find it anywhere outside of a city with a specialized manufacturer, or a military armory.

[@cbl1199]

When I was GM for a fantasy pirate homebrew setting, I made it so that the only firearms were ship cannons and puckles gun turrets. Cannons needed a whole turn to load but would do ludicrous amount of damages, but would rarely if ever be found out of a context where there wouldn't be a more viable target for it (ie a boat loaded with pirates taking potshot with their own puckles guns), so the players rarely used it against npc and if it did it was understandable because even some big monsters going to be wrecked by a 1 feet wide ball of steel going across their chest. But I made the puckles turret guns work in a special way: the players could choose between two types of round; either Rifle round, or Grape rounds, 8 times in total before the turret was emptied, the rifle bullet a 1d10 with was quite precise so it could be used reliably, but the grape shot were 6d4 where the player had to roll a d6 to see how many of the shots actually hit the target, and I rolled a dice where if it were to hit 1 on a 6 face die, it would catastrophically misfire and explode in the user face, causing 1d8 damage. So while it could produce insane damage, it could backfire quite dramatically and I tried to use them in situations where there were a lot of enemies going about so they couldn't just camp and spam it, having to do some target prioritization as to make the most out of it, especially when the grape shots ended up barely doing any damage. They were basically high risk, high reward long range weapons with a limited amount of uses, wish I had more opportunities to use them but alas the group fell apart after I did a bad session following a few awful day of sleeps, which still annoy me a lot to think about because I had invested a lot of time into the world building. Still have all that stuff laying about in Tabletop simulator, so if anyone want to copy my set pieces and props bag or whatnot, just ask and ill provide. It was my first time doing dnd stuff too, so it may not have been the most balanced stuff, but it was great fun the few times I used them.

[@Butter_Warrior99]

My medieval firearms and pole: Lol, gun stick go bang.

[@harrystuart7455]

A fun feature from Call of Cthulhu is that firearms have a chance of jamming. You could have this happen on a nat 1, and then players will have to improvise and think on the spot to find something useful to do

[@DTux5249]

"You mean in a fight, right?" *Metal intensifies*

[@HackMcMack]

This was an excellent video, i only wish it had come out earlier in my DMing career so I wouldn't have had so many missteps implementing guns into my own games before arriving at some of these ideas! What ended up working for my group is using firearm rules from the 3rd party books by Mage Hand Press for our wild west/turn of the century era game! I find it interesting that a lot of their ideas are the same as ones you propose here (specifically not adding ability mod to damage but guns all deal an extra die, and shotguns doing upgraded dice of damage at point blank!)

[@-Bile-]

Some specialized units like Ottoman Janissaries or the snipers of Afghani tribes were trained to reload in combat. Reloading mid-fight was also a staple of napoleonic line warfare, although this was a pretty late development.

[@scrapyarddragon]

Haha this video sort of feels more like advice for building a system from scratch rather than cramming it into an existing one. As someone who's been putting together my own ttrpg system, I like it.

[@emryso.6508]

"Only other weapon with a d12 damage is the great axe" Lance has left the chat

[@goreobsessed2308]

I've been on both sides of this argument. You've got to give em a good niche my favorite was my buddies game with muzzleloading muskets their range was less than a crossbow but they did 1d20 damage and took 2 rounds to reload. I liked the huge damage range with short range

[@your_SecondShadow]

The goblin layer ha!

[@TheSkiingDragon]

I read an article for dnd that talked about how large quadrupeds, like buffalo, take multiple shots to take down, so there’s no releasing why an owlbear or anything stronger isn’t as resistant or doesn’t have as much will power to keep fighting as a wild bull might. Guns could be as powerful as 1d12 ranged weapons, but even then it takes multiple shots to take down most creatures. Also, I suspect that most purests and gun exploiters are arguing about modern AR’s and high tech advanced weaponry. If you want something that feels like dnd, give your players 1800’s hunting rifles. They take time to load, don’t hold many bullets, and can’t be fired automatically, so you need a full action to aim, cock, and fire one

[@LinkDing]

honestly, watching this video made me have my own sudden ideas for how to implement guns better into my games. Great vid

[@questingbeast7926]

The DMG renaissance guns might be a little weird, but I feel their high damage and extremely low range make them super unique compared to other ranged options. I use them in my Spelljammer campaign, and my 3/4 party of full casters still love them!

[@herobizarre6010]

Imagine a Pokémon Version of D&D, going around a fantasy setting, using the first ever Poke Balls to be made to battle others and do D&D stuff, but with Pokémon. It'd be like a Legends Arceus type deal, or Legends Arceus meets Skyrim.

[@anamusingidiot2565]

I really vibe with that "50 goblins at once" dude in the beginning.

[@Terrahex1]

One thing I'd like to note: instead of controlling the scarcity of bullets, control the scarcity of gunpowder, considering that's much harder to make and requires specialized knowledge

[@Uncle-Jay]

I have a flint lock pistol, it's basically the same as the crossbow but uses different ammo. It can hold a single round and then I have to use an action to reload it. It's mostly a flavor thing for me but my DM decided to make it so characters who haven't seen a gun before have to roll after I fire it as the sound has an intimating factor. It's been fun seeing a group of NPCs scatter after I shoot it.

[@thebarefootadventurer8467]

Funnily enough, almost every property you suggested I've come up with and compiled into a doc

[@EinsamPibroch278]

When I introduce guns in my campaign, guns are considered incredibly rare magical artifacts that require complex rituals to craft ammo and parts. For example, bullets need to be individually blessed with fire magic for propulsion, plus any additional elemental buffs you want for the enemy you're facing. If your magic can't hold your gun together, the gun is basically a pipe bomb unless professionally serviced by a Gunsmith. Things like that. Once all these requisites are met, the payoff of going full-auto in a shooting spree is definitely worth it.

[@TheIronArmenianakaGIHaigs]

0:42 can you release this art on your Twitter? :3

[@Zedrinbot]

ah i knew i was forgetting something

[@aesthetics8230]

I think. When you want to Use Firearms in your setting, its easier to use a different System than DnD. Just my Opinion.

[@arcticwulf5796]

Firearms work as a reflavored heavy crossbow and hand crossbow and can be treated as such. Damage 1d12 bigger gun or 1d8 for a pistol type. Removing loading property requires extra feat and it can take plusses from dexterity to determine accuracy. Anything extra require game sense and balancing.

[@ВиталяКекс-ц6е]

Well that depends, 5e is passable on renaissance guns, it does crumble when faced with modern weaponry, but that’s irrelevant most of the time

[@deadknight1402]

Something that could help to alleviate the underutilization of Str would be to give bows the Finesse property, which would theoretically open them up to use with Str, giving Str builds a reliable and effective ranged weapon option by using their historic usage a go. Also, guns did exist in late medieval Europe, albeit in a very primitive form.

[@ladnie9454]

I’ve run several games using D&D rules set in a world with no magic and percussion cap/early 20th century firearms (D&D Rules were used purely because it’s the only system my friends and I know) and a few things that I implemented helped make the combat infinitely more interesting than combat in the typical fantasy rules. 1. Reloading was something that took incredible amounts of time to accomplish, for instance: one of the revolvers I had in the game had 8 shots and took a single round to measure the powder, ram home a new ball and patch, and cap the nipple (doubly so if not proficient with firearms). This caused my players to have to play very, very carefully with their shots and make sure they took shots they could hit. Plus it amped up the tension when they had to reload and it made guns that reloaded via a magazine with cartridges so much more dangerous and desirable (I gave two guys tube magazine fed rifles one time and they fucking eviscerated an encounter) 2. MASSIVE damage. Every firearm dealt 2d12+dex piercing damage and a shotgun I had implemented was capable of shooting two shells at once for 4d12+dex damage. Combat became much more tense when every angry bee buzzing around the battlefield could drop someone instantly. It also made those oh-so satisfying one-shot kills much more satisfying. 3. Multi shots. A character proficient with firearms was capable of squeezing off anywhere from 2 shots per action to a gargantuan 55 shots per action (certain machine guns could crank out this amount of lead) on a singular target. This led to my characters considering how many bullets they wanted to expend when trying to drop targets. Often one of my players using a magazine fed submachine gun would just mag dump people to ensure they would die. 4.enfilade/defilade: whenever a target was out in the open and not provoking opportunity attacks by moving the attacker would always have advantage to hit, similarly every person behind cover who wasn’t exposed would have advantage to dodge. There’s other stuff. But this is what I mainly use when writing and running. It’s some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing D&D in recent years.

[@_fedmar_]

Idea for the reload: To reload a firerm (eg musket) a character has to expend all their movement and a bonus action, and all attacks against them have advantage until the start of their next turn.

[@grassman5579]

I have never played dnd, i probably will never play dnd This is probably going to stay in my memory forever

[@hugswanted7954]

The way Ze is just coated in blood for the entire video, guess grognard blood doesnt wash out easy

[@deadgirl1172]

My brother had a spore druid with a gun in our evil hell campaign and used a magic tattoo to make it necrotic damage

[@Sorain1]

A while back, when I was running 4e games, I outright refluffed the Warlock into a form of gun user. The Assault Alchemist's 'Eldritch Blast' was simply them using the most common shell in their 'Caster' firearm, which depending on their particular alchemical specialty, had somewhat different properties. This went all in on the idea with most of their abilities being specialized shells to fire from their gun, and constant maintenance part of their downtime, along with shell production. The explanation for why no one else could use the Caster and Shells was simply that for safety and secrecy reasons, an Assault Alchemist would ensure the proper reaction could only start at one point within the shell. Without that knowledge, it was defacto impossible to use one, even if you were another Assault Alchemist of the same specialty. [I wrote up a side bar about how in theory AA's could share shells, but as I didn't expect more than one in the party I wasn't handling that with rules.] It was a fun time and got the role of guns as 'this exotic thing that better not be proliferated' across. (I mean, imagine peasantry armed with Eldritch Blast en mass!)

[@Local_Lad]

honesty, I like having muskets, one MASSIVE damage hit and then "guess what buddy the reload is so unbelievably long because IT IS A MUSKET. oh things like black powder revolvers that are basically just magic.

[@beywheelzhater8930]

A simple balancing idea is that if you try and use a musket at point blank range, you inact an attack of opportunity since if you slowly pour gunpowder down a tube in front of a goblin, it WILL attack you. This way you can mimic reloading without having people sit down and spend half their time reloading in combat, all the while forcing people to use a ranged weapon as, well a ranged weapon instead of having someone barrel snuff a musket into someone's face. Could have the option to spend an attack action or something to reload and negate the next potential opportunity attack if you want

[@Barb0nius]

Calibur: the gun in the stone Regains 1 shot per day up to a maximum of 6

[@pyeitme508]

Wow & first 🥇! Also firearms 🔫 rules!

[@marginis]

I gave my players a few flintlock pistols to show passage of time (firearms didn't exist in the campaign until a time-skip), and I balanced it by making them and their ammo hyper rare (had to be crafted with supplies bought from, or just crafted by, the near-extinct dwarves who were the only people to have developed gunpowder), so basically magic weapons which would all be powerful anyway. Other than that they were mechanically exactly the same as hand crossbows. Pretty much how the video describes. Super simple and it worked perfectly. It worked well I think because my players really liked the pirate-y flavor of a few sessions and wanted a thematic tie-in, so that's exactly what they were looking for, and the players were all above level 15 being about three and a half years into that campaign, so it's not like flintlock pistols were the most powerful option they had. One of the players was really interested in complicated mechanical objects, and technical modern armaments, but that wasn't something I thought would be good to introduce to the whole group for a number of reasons.What I did is make some specific items just for him, and let guns exist separately, instead of overcomplicating guns just to satisfy that one player's need, because you just know if you used guns for that he'd try to craft his own because he researched guns in real life and thinks a medieval society could figure out an AR-15. For reference, at one point his character's hand got cut off, so after literal years of the campaign I did a one-on-one session where he did a quest to get a handcrafted steampunk chainsaw arm/gauntlet that had a whole host of mechanics, so he could both fulfill his Ash Williams fantasy and satisfy his desire for game mechanic depth. And it didn't complicate the game for anyone but him, so it was a win all around.

[@TheTimbs_]

“You mean in a fight, right?” *commits murder*

[@vernonriedle664]

Muskets and flintlocks or blunderbuss are very fitting with fantasy as it stays to the medieval theme

[@hexbox2182]

I’m the neutral person. Want to fire arms? There are official rules for it so go nuts. Don’t? Sure, your game, your choice.

[@pyeitme508]

Hell yeah 🤣

[@ANONM60D]

Played the intro in slo-mo, do not regret it

[@autumnscontent491]

Who needs guns when you have an elastic-rope powered rock/explosive launching handheld sling/ballista

[@mdbgamer556]

So, one of my favorite pasttimes has been building entire systems from the ground up. One such system was dealing with guns in a Rwby rpg setting, and here's the way we dealt with that, since weapons in general were much more static in their damage, and the stats of the players themselves were rolled: Depending on the type of weapon and the fire rate, the damage dice itself would be rolled for the weapon, and then have a static number added onto it. For fast firing smaller weapons, this would result in a high dice number and low static number. For something heavier that fires less often, like a sniper rifle, this would result in a lower damage dice with a higher static number. We also had a combo rolling system, where if you want to make an extra attack, roll a d100 and if you succeed the DC, that grants you an extra attack and raises the DC for your turn to make a third. We just applied reloading to that action, and since we had automatic weapons, an attack would result in a probable three rolls of damage or something. It's always interesting to go trying to balance things like guns and crossbows and whatnot. :)

[@janschievink1586]

A lot of emphasis on ranged combat given how many characters in RWBY use their weapons as recoil-assisted/powder-boosted cutting and bludgeoning implements. Whole thing sounds a bit try-hard presuming I ever get around to a RWBY themed campaign I'm probably just going to go with Mutants and Masterminds. M&M is already set up pretty good for making weird melee-firearms and even weirder powers it ain't RWBY unless you got weird powers plus the way it handles damage is a lot closer to Aura than any other tabletop RPG I've played.

[@janschievink1586]

How did enemy AC or other defensive stats interact with the rolling for extra attack feature? What systems did you implement for Aura and Semblances if any? How if at all are your Grim different from animals and humanoid NPCs?

[@SchwarzerWolf1000]

Landsknecht with pike and shot: come at me you filthy calvary!!!

[@Callum_Summer0972]

"You would use a shotgun to rescue a hostage" You forgot that slugs exist *loads a slug on my beneli*

[@kitexiroh3741]

All I'm saying is, the second guy you killed had the right idea. Also, thank you for this video. I need more ideas for firearms.