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PostPosted: Tue May 28, 2019 3:56 pm 
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Just want to throw this out. Maybe not so relevant in the lands of legend, but if someone decided to play dragwars at a slightly later era, why not gunpowder weapons? What kind of stats would you give it? Like 5 round loading times? d20,5 or something like that? What about the changes from match lock to flintlocks? Wheelocks? Did I miss some kind of lock?

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PostPosted: Tue May 28, 2019 4:21 pm 
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An extract from my personal rulebook. This is from the 'Renaissance' section which also covers some different weapons and armour for the period. It was written an awfully long time ago and never play-tested, so it probably needs revision... I am more than happy to accept suggestions or criticism. (At the time I wrote this, I clearly didn't understand how a matchlock cord worked... Hmm. That might need changing if nothing else.)

One interesting idea, for example, would be to have armour be ineffective at short range (as done in the Pathfinder game, where short range attacks with gunpowder weapons are resolved against the character's 'touch' armour class).


Gunpowder Weapons

Despite advances in the manufacture of gunpowder over the years, these weapons are still notoriously unreliable and are subject to Misfires (see below). Cannons have been around for almost two centuries, but muskets and pistols are a much more recent invention and it is these guns that are described here.

There are two types of gun in use at this time; matchlock and wheel lock. The matchlock is the older design and operates by using a slow-burning match cord held by a serpentine. Wheel locks use a serrated wheel rubbing on pyrite stones to produce sparks to ignite the powder. Although lighter and more efficient, wheel locks are complicated devices which makes them expensive and as a result, matchlocks are still commonly used.

The advantage of guns is that they do not require a lot of specialised training to learn how to use them. Anyone can learn to use a firearm, and all the adventuring professions except Barbarians start with the basic knowledge needed to use one.

Barbarians who wish to use guns must learn the skill during the game. The barbarian must be trained by an instructor. At the end of a week’s training the character must roll against his Intelligence. If he rolls equal to or less than his Intelligence, then he has mastered the skill and can stop training. If he fails the roll, he must train for another week before attempting another roll. Each roll after the first has a cumulative bonus of +2 to Intelligence reflecting the effects of extended training. The barbarian will automatically acquire the skill to use guns after one month of training.

Pistol
(d10, 4)
Range: Short / Medium / Long
0 - 10m / 11 - 25m / 26 - 50m

A hand-held matchlock or wheel lock gun. Both types of pistol take four Combat Rounds to reload before they are ready to fire.

Pistols require one charge of gunpowder to fire.

As the wheel lock relies on friction rather than a slow match to fire, it can be loaded and held ready to fire (like a crossbow). The matchlock must be fired after it has been loaded as the match is already lit.

Pistols are subject to Misfires.

Musket (Arquebus, Hackbut)
(2d6, 5)
Range: Short / Medium / Long
0 - 30m / 31 - 80m / 81 - 250m

A heavy, long-barrelled version of the pistol. The musket uses either matchlock or wheel lock firing mechanisms. A matchlock musket (or arquebus) is a heavy weapon that requires a firing prop; normally this takes the form of a metal stand though in emergencies a wall or a friend’s shoulder could be used. An arquebus with its stand count as two items for encumbrance purposes.

Wheel lock muskets are lighter and do not require a firing stand, though if one is not used, the gun’s recoil gives a -1 penalty to the firer’s ATTACK.

Both types of musket require two charges of gunpowder to fire.

Muskets take five Combat Rounds to reload before they are ready to fire. As with pistols, a wheel lock musket can be held ready to fire at a moment’s notice once it is loaded. The matchlock arquebus must be fired after being loaded.

All muskets are subject to Misfires.

Misfires

All gunpowder weapons are subject to misfires. Any unmodified Hit Roll of 20 indicates a misfire. A second d20 is rolled and the result is checked on the table below:

Die Roll Result
1 - 10 Charge fails to ignite; no need to reload, fire as normal next Round (matchlocks need to spend a Round changing matches).
11 - 19 Charge fails to ignite; must reload to fire.
20 Charge explodes causing 1d6 Health Points damage to the user (armour does not protect; the gun has exploded in his face) and destroying the weapon.


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PostPosted: Thu May 30, 2019 1:39 pm 
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I think maybe intelligence should be automatic at 6+. Now I'm thinking, how does greek fire get used, its mentioned in old book 6 but no rules that I'm aware of.

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PostPosted: Thu May 30, 2019 10:48 pm 
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Quote:
I think maybe intelligence should be automatic at 6+.

If you wish. Personally, I was thinking it was a matter of experience rather than intelligence. The 'barbarians' of the gunpowder era would probably not be familiar with guns and may see them as very scary things - hence the need to train.

Quote:
Now I'm thinking, how does greek fire get used, its mentioned in old book 6 but no rules that I'm aware of.

Yes, it is mentioned as "Emphidian Fire" in DW6, page 246.

How it is used is a tricky one, as we don't really know a great deal about the historical "Greek Fire." Here, however, it appears that "Emphidian Fire" is contained in pots and flung at a target. Thus, you could use missile rules for the pot (use thrown rock; DW1, page 39) and then you could extrapolate from the effects of the Warlock spell Hellfire (DW6, page 196) for its effect. Personally, as Hellfire is a powerful Level 5 spell, I'd be inclined to tone down the effects a little bit; perhaps causing 2d6 damage every Round, and only 1d4 damage to those within 2m of the victim. Obviously, it can't be Dispelled, but other rules (involving panic and putting out the flames) would apply as normal.


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PostPosted: Sun Jun 02, 2019 10:39 am 
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Kharille wrote:
Just want to throw this out. Maybe not so relevant in the lands of legend, but if someone decided to play dragwars at a slightly later era, why not gunpowder weapons? What kind of stats would you give it? Like 5 round loading times? d20,5 or something like that? What about the changes from match lock to flintlocks? Wheelocks? Did I miss some kind of lock?

With any game design change, consider what you want to achieve. Rules inform play, so if you want players to be delving into dungeons with lots of gunpowder weapons, then the rules need to be convenient and demonstrate their superiority to traditional delving. However, if you want gunpowder weapons to be available in the background of your campaign without too much expectation that the players will choose to wield them, make the downsides of such weapons outweigh the benefits. And I'm not just talking about misfires, availability of ammunition, weight, reload times, ABR/damage, range, etc., all of which can be tweaked to suit, but also consider the social constraints of such weapons, the flammability of gunpowder, the availability of the mechanical skills required to assemble and repair such weapons, etc.

I like how Warhammer FRPG deals with gunpowder weapons - they're available; they're powerful; they're no substitute for a wizard's fireball or traditional weapons. They make a great complement to an adventuring party but are not suitable for all characters. It's a good model, in my opinion, for how the balance could be struck in Legend. An adventuring party without gunpowder weapons won't easily be overrun by gun-toting bandits any more than gun-toting adventurers are going to easily clean out every nest of beastmen across which they stumble.

I like Starkad's rules (not that I'd ever need to use them) and DW has enough anachronistic that gunpowder weapons wouldn't be out of place with the right tweaking, so I'd have no qualms with guns in Legend, should that suit your campaign. For me, though, magic items provide the necessary risk and punch that might otherwise be filled by gunpowder weapons - for now, my players will just have to get by with crossbows and dragonbreaths :).

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PostPosted: Sun Jun 02, 2019 10:47 am 
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Starkad wrote:
Here, however, it appears that "Emphidian Fire" is contained in pots and flung at a target. Thus, you could use missile rules for the pot (use thrown rock; DW1, page 39) and then you could extrapolate from the effects of the Warlock spell Hellfire (DW6, page 196) for its effect. Personally, as Hellfire is a powerful Level 5 spell, I'd be inclined to tone down the effects a little bit; perhaps causing 2d6 damage every Round, and only 1d4 damage to those within 2m of the victim. Obviously, it can't be Dispelled, but other rules (involving panic and putting out the flames) would apply as normal.

Its effects should be commensurate with its availability - just as Hellfire is rare because it requires such a powerful warlock to cast, maybe Emphidian Fire is rare because it requires such a powerful <insert character type here> to make. I'd probably just treat Emphidian Fire as a type of potion that sorcerers can prepare with their alchemical skills or maybe fire elementalists can prepare it (if so, you'd probably want to balance the elementalist with something useful the other elementalists can prepare, too)?

If you want something more chemistry than alchemy, then you need a skill, to learn the ingredients, source those ingredients, and have a prepared space in which they can be mixed safely - these kinds of constraints should keep Emphidian Fire from becoming too prevalent and unbalancing the game.

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PostPosted: Sun Jun 02, 2019 2:08 pm 
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Hey, if a character wants to carry around a fragile pot of liquid fire in their backpack while they go delving or get into a scrap...

The phrase "give 'em enough rope..." comes to mind.


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PostPosted: Sun Jun 02, 2019 3:08 pm 
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Heh... it worked on Subotai. Short of DRAGONBREATH I'm not sure how to resolve some incendiary or grenade attack. Maybe a grenade can have a weak FIRESTORM effect, smaller area of effect, knockdown (no knock down rules now are there?) and temporary DAZZLE effect.

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PostPosted: Sun Jun 02, 2019 5:43 pm 
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Quote:
I'm not sure how to resolve some incendiary or grenade attack.

Who makes these grenades? Historically, the secret of 'Greek Fire' was so jealously guarded that all knowledge of its manufacture has been lost to history. Something similar would probably apply to 'Emphidian Fire'... (See the comments about such things only being prepared by Sorcerers or Elementalists - I feel that would be likely in the world of Legend.)

Grenades were a relatively late invention (and somewhat unreliable); they only appear around the late 17th and early 18th Centuries (although cast iron 'bombs' where known in the late 15th Century). Whether these things exist in your world of Legend is up to you. Personally, I've avoided them.

Quote:
Maybe a grenade can have a weak FIRESTORM effect

'Firestorm' is a very powerful spell - Level 9 - which blasts anything not protected by magic. If you really want to use grenades, I would suggest giving them a damage rating (Xd6), a blast radius (X metres) and have the damage reduced by AF. Note that 'grenades' until the 19th century would be awkward things, made of easily-broken pottery and lit by a fuse; so the user would first need a source of fire, then they'd need to light the fuse, then they'd need to fling the grenade/bomb (q.v. missile rules for 'rock')...

The bigger the damage rating and blast radius, the bigger the bomb (and the more it would cost). As with guns, I would suggest such items also have a 'misfire' chance (they may not go off, the fuse might go out, they may explode in your hand).

See also Wimlach's comments about fragile pots. While black power will not explode without a spark (i.e. a lit fuse), the container could easily break, it can be affected by damp, &c. If a character wanders around with fragile black powder grenades/bombs they're going to have to take good care of them and decide how they're stored.
Anything that's designed to ignite on impact (e.g. Emphidian Fire) would naturally explode if broken...

Quote:
no knock down rules now are there?

No, there aren't.


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PostPosted: Mon Jun 03, 2019 1:39 pm 
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Starkad wrote:

Quote:
no knock down rules now are there?

No, there aren't.




Maybe its time we invent them! I figure people should only use EVASION when they can move, which is not the case if you're hanging on a rope and some twit hurls a FIREBALL at you, which is not covered in dragwars rules. I figure EVASION should only be applied when a character moves which may include hand to hand manoeuvring. If people are caught in a FIRESTORM they should 'move' out of the edge of the radius, and thus not remain in combat. Easy to evade DRAGONBREATH but not easy to evade an area effect spell. Just like if I dropped a 3m diameter boulder, at least the players should 'move' out of the area of effect.

That is unless you have a shield big enough and resilient enough to fend it off.

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