Sup Veeky Forums. My friend and I are having an argument and you'll probably be able to help end it for us...

I've actually asked him that. I left out earlier that he wants to make the gun himself, and his reasoning is that he wants to "build a better gun". Ignoring the fact that he doesn't have the tools or skills to do so. Ignoring the fact that he already is a better gun. Ignoring the fact that he could have just played a Gunslinger. I'm clearly having more than a little bit of trouble seeing things from his point of view.

To kill another wizard.

yes.

>Gandalf channels magic into his sword and staff to fight the Balrog

>Kicks it's ass, sword much stronger filled with magic, still has to get up close and personal, gets pulled off ledge cuz he's so close, takes a million falling damage, probably regrets that part

>Gandalf channels magic into his blunderbus

>Blows big magic chunks out of the center mass of the Balrog, falls to it's doom, Gandalf did it in one strike with an extra 20 feet of distance, doesn't get hooked off the bridge.

Cut better sword magic would probably translate to explosive grenade launcher blunderbus. That could be useful since not everyone has the magic muscle to throw fireballs around.

At any rate, there are more than a hundred reasons a wizard would have a gun, let alone a person in general. It seems like what you're really asking is 'does it make sense for this character to want a gun?', and we really can't answer that any better than the two of you can.

But 'to build a better gun' is a perfectly valid motive, even if it will only end in failure. Maybe he sees the potential in a new technology and wants to refine it. Maybe some defect in a firearm caused him trouble earlier in life, and he wants to correct it. Maybe it's just because guns are cool and go boom and he wants to make them make a bigger boom. Sure, this COULD just be typical 'that guy-ish' behavior, but you haven't really given a strong argument for it. Is there absolutely nothing in the character's backstory/personality/goals that you could see justifying wanting a gun?

>Is there absolutely nothing in the character's backstory/personality/goals that you could see justifying wanting a gun?
His character has a gimmick. This is the same character he plays in any new campaign. When he dies (or a new campaign starts), he just sort of "wakes up" in a new setting, and depending on how he passed on he may or may not bring things with him that change to fit the setting. His most recent life was from Shadowrun, so he has a crossbow that used to be a sniper rifle (he agreed to this at the time, knowing that guns exist in my setting) and a familiar that used to be a drone. He wants a gun because he remembers using one in Shadowrun. I'm kinda making him sound like That Guy, but he's really not, this gun thing is the only real point of contention because I'm trying to run a high fantasy, sword and sorcery type game, and he's trying to play like he's still in Shadowrun.

Let's expand further on this guy's point.

Spell slots may not exist in a particular setting, but there's always going to be some limitation on magic. Perhaps it has a cost in energy. Perhaps it has a failure risk. Perhaps it's shut down by an antimagic field or a charm, etc. Perhaps it takes a long time to cast or requires involved material or somatic components. Perhaps it's Tolkienesque magic that's long on powerful but subtle effects and has few or no quick-and-dirty direct attack spells.

Point being that most settings balance magic SOMEHOW vs other roles. Having a very high damage attack that you can unleash at the push of a button is always going to be useful. I'd have a brace of pistols, a horn of powder, and some shot and paper. Maybe four pistols, even, depending on how likely I think combat is.

The Age of Sail pirates who stereotypically used these weapons faced many of the same problems as medieval wizards. They aren't wearing much or any armor, they need to keep their hands free, and the demand for firearms is for short, brutal, very close range combat. At musket ranges, the pirate has his cannon and the wizard switches to spells, so neither have much use for longarms.

Pistols don't require a lot of physical conditioning. Yeah you need some skill and technical proficiency... a wizard is likely to already have that. Wizards are already carrying spell components and are familiar with handling dangerous and fragile material components. At the ranges where a wizard might abandon his spells and reach for his gun, the limited accuracy of weapons of that era is mitigated. And as an emergency backup weapon, a wizard need not worry too much about reloading in combat.

>Age of Sail pirates

In the definitive pirate vs ninja combat scene of all time (from the novel Shogun), Blackthorne holds off the ninja clan long enough to save Mariko's honor using his two pistols. The ninja are furious, because they consider pistols dishonorable (?!).

The scene itself is hair-raising, because having fired both his pistols, it takes an agonizing amount of time to reload them while the ninja assault team hacks away at a barricaded door.

Blackthorne kills one when they try to jump them while getting to the door. Then when they start chopping at the door with their breacher tools, he sticks his other pistol up to the first hole to appear and fires, killing another. He reloads, forcing himself to be calm, while they renew their attack. Another is killed, another pause in the breaching. He's reloading again, with them nearly through, when he sees that his allies are into the fortified sanctuary so he abandons reloading and runs there.

So the pistols give him a quick, concealable source of right-now burst damage. They allow him to fight in very tight quarters. And they're perfectly adequate for dropping highly trained troops with little effort (and while the ninjas weren't armored, it wouldn't have helped vs the pistols).

tl;dr pistols are an excellent complement to a wizard's magical abilities, even with their limitations.

OP here, those are some pretty good points about pistols, and as a fan of Solomon Kane and his two pistols I agree. However, he doesn't want to make a pistol probably because I suggested it and I'm the bad guy at this point.

Well i'm not familiar with D&D5, but if he's got a longarm then he's asking for a world of hurt.

You've got shitty accuracy at long range, and if you've time to reload and aim then why not cast a spell instead? At melee ranges, you have no concealment, it's easy to interfere with your shot... there's basically no advantage for it.

Basically a musket has more in common in terms of its tactical niche with a mortar or other man-portable artillery (except it's not indirect fire) than it does with a modern firearm like you get in shadowrun.

If he was a sniper, then he'd probably want a bow. Automatic or semiautomatic weapons have no direct equivalent, at least among realistic weapons of the period.

His problem is that he's taking the reincarnation too literally. Does he want the same equipment or the same tactical role? IMO your choices are to ask him to reimagine the character, not autistically translate it, on one hand. On the other hand, you can let him have his gear and then put him in typical combat situations where you make no attempt to shield him from his own stupidity. At which point he dies and rerolls somehting less stupid.

Yes you'll be accused of gunning for him (ha!) or railroading or deus ex machina or whatever, but from what you're describing about what he's trying to do and how he's going about doing it, you're in for that no matter what.

I'd personally lean towards letting him do it if it's already permitted in the setting. Then do nothing to shield him from the consequences of his choice. OTOH if it were my game he'd have been weeded out of the group long before. I have no patience for guys like this.

Like I said before, he's not normally like this. I guess I'll just let him do it and suffer the consequences, but he still needs to get the necessary skills and tools in game. Thanks Veeky Forums, you guys are a huge help sometimes.

sounds like he's that guy m8

if he doesn't have the tool proficiencies or supplies to craft a gun, he can't. Plain and simple.

I want a lightsaber. I'm not proficient in lightsaber making tools, and I lack force crystals and shit. I can't make a lightsaber.

Powder Mages. Read the books, good times. One of the forms of magic is the ability to telepathically manipulate black powder. They can make shots go farther, curve, explode powder kegs with rheir minds and shit like that.

Then thise books are also in a very Napoleonic era as far as war and weapons.

You're in quite a bind here. If you let him do it and then suffer the consequences, then he'll be pissed for sure because things won't work out like he wants them to and he'll blame you. Either you did it on purpose, or you had a duty to roll with it in his case, or whatever. Or you didn't adequately warn him, which is always pretty ripe but people think it anyway.

People like this get "revenge" by starting to fuck up the game and it's easy to have your whole gaming group fucked up before you can bring yourself to kick him out.

You're saying he's not normally like that. I'd take a hard look at him. Is something going on in his personal life? Is he souring on gaming or your group? Often playstyle can be strongly affected by some kind of other root cause.

The point being that normal people don't start playing this way out of the blue.

one word- beholders

or more specifically, the simon baz mentality. in case your magic fails for some reason, best to avoid being completely defenseless

Magic is very slow, and while loading a gun is also slow, pointing and pulling a trigger is fast.

If his normal magic > magical bullets then there's no reason to take one.

Unless you have a spell that's cast instantly, I would think having a gun as backup for anyone trying to get the jump on you or when a spell might be too dangerous to use at such a close range would be beneficial.

Why waste energy casting a spell which may hurt you as well as the guy you're trying to hurt when you can give him a face full of lead for his trouble?

You might also find yourself in a situation where magic won't work for whatever reason, so a gun would be practical.

Guaranteed magic works everywhere? Or are there low-mana zones, or anti-magic fields?

t. Americuck

Allow me to introduce you to Shadowrun.

Fuck your medieval fantasy bs

I'm not him, and not an americuck either, but he's right. There's never a reason not to have a gun if you can afford one.

So wizards have staffs, right? His could have a built in rifle. You get sword canes after all.

Staves*

Except, you know, when you live around people who could easily get hurt by a gun. Like children. Americuck by heart.

Yes, in America there are gun-toting wizards. Everything you heard is true. All roleplaying advice designed to apply to fictional magic-slinging murderhobos applies equally well to a bunch of NEETs living in the United States in real life.

Then maybe you 1) keep the guns out of kids' reach, 2) actually educate your offspring or 3) be glad they're gone, because it's Darwin hard at work.

> This is what europoors actually believe

Guns are for hunting and fighting your government.

SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED!

GET FUCKED YOU COMMIE CUNT!

Spell focus. Maybe to increase range of attack, or as personal defense if no offensive spells prepared. Maybe wizards can transmute gunpowder into a more powerful propellant.

you don't get to look down on medieval fantasy when you're touting the 21st century DnD game

It only needs guns to be more effective and reliable than whatever magical attacks the wizard is capable of, which is pretty easy to imagine.

Sure it probably doesn't make sense for the guy who shoots fire from his hands all day, but lots of wizards are just book nerds who can do the odd divination or transmutation.

Ease of use? Depending on the magic system, a singular spell could be a few minutes in the casting.

Economy of use? You load it in seconds and its ready to fire, unlike having to prepare your spells in advance and having to spend 10 minutes remembering the process for throwing lightning at 1 dude.

Offensive power? Depending on the magic system, there may be no directly offensive spells or, even if there is, the wizard may find support, control or other non-offensive spells to be more useful (or even cool) but he may still want to have something to protect himself with

If the wizard can run out of mana/get fatigued it is a good idea to have an emergency ranged weapon