How do you think would firearms evolution differ in a fantasy world?

well, in my setting, higher calibers were popular for a while because the first notion of personal firearms came when a giant got tired of protecting his artillery team who were taking all day, picked up the cannon themselves and shot it point blank at a castle wall and spent the rest of the battle using it as a sort of carbine.

Since giants are incredibly rare, kings still said "I fucking want this" when they heard about ti and tried to figure out how to make man-portable siege engines.

At a 1300's level of tech and with magic being scarce during this era, you can guess how easy THAT was.

Ultimately they had to accept firearms would be anti-personnel weaponry.

The potential of cannons in the setting, FYI, was realized when a sapper team were surrounded by enemy reinfocements and opted to light their powder kegs despite not being clear. In the aftermath of their sacrifice, their commanding officer noticed how the blast had ended up launching debris with enough force to shoot the rocks through a few unfortunate enemy guardsman.

Considering how humans in combat can keep fighting if you use small caliber weapons that fail to get a kill shot, I'd imagine that no, a troll wouldn't reliably go down using normal anti-human sized ammunition. Especially once you take regeneration into account.

So anyone expecting to fight a troll should bring something better suited.

The thing is it would still be 10 times more reliable than shooting it with arrows or trying to fight it with swords.

Few guys firing something like .45-70 should take down a troll without much trouble.

>Orcs get fucked by the early development of firearms
>They get tired of losing so much and start to look into firearms of their own with goblin help
>Eventually Orcs develop and start using massive firearms that would be considered siege weapons by other races.
>Orcs quickly become an even greater threat due to having big, explosive and destructive guns as their basic firearms, all their guns pretty low grade and faulty, but in place of quality all their guns just spew death like no other

So, Warlords of Draenor?

>They get tired of losing so much and start to look into firearms of their own with goblin help

In what DnD settings are goblins known as master craftsmen?

Where was it said that this was a D&D setting. Also I never called them master craftsmen.

I don't know how realistic it would be, but the way firearms work in my setting has been set up by a couple of us in the group, including a couple gun nuts and history buffs.

They've been around for a couple hundred years, but between the difficult spread of information in the world and the fact that there's been no major Renaissance-style scientific revolution in the setting they've not advanced or spread quite the same as they did in reality. Firearms aesthetically resemble the classic designs of the 17th century, but feature a breech-loading mechanism for specially crafted shells, using a paper cartridge and primer similar to a modern shotgun shell, with an alchemical compound based on traditional black powder but altered with a number of compounds, creating a tar-like fluid that's easily ignited and burns with a significant, distinct odor that clings to people who regularly become exposed to it.

Currently they're common enough that the Empire of the setting has issued them to the majority of their soldiers, though they're uncommon among the Imperial Rangers (who are intended to be discrete, not possessing the distinct odor of a soldier and fighting with something that gives off a super loud bang every time you use it). Civilians aren't allowed to own them, but there are a handful of powerful criminal organizations who have gotten their hands on some and nobody really bats an eye at anyone with a significant history of being a former soldier having a smuggled pistol and not getting in trouble for it.

Magically enchanted weapons are rare, with alchemy and simple clockwork being common enough that they've only been able to advance guns to a certain point. If you ever found a magic firearm you could probably expect it to act less like a modern shotgun loaded with a solid slug and more like a miniature railgun.

Cartridges treated with specialized alchemical compounds do exist, however, but mostly just give you the equivalent to explosive ammunition.

Some side notes:
>Noblemen of the Empire have gotten into wearing a perfume that has a bit of the alchemical mixture for ammunition mixed in to appear more manly.
>Many soldiers with a long history of field cleaning their weapons and making heavy use of them have permanent black stains on their hands and fingers. Tarhand is a common term for people of such a quality, and has essentially become a way to indicate someone is nails hard even among people who aren't routine shooters.
>The best description for the compound's odor I have came from one of my players: "imagine cordite with a burnt rubber undertone".
>Clockwork and springs have become pretty prevalent after the Empire adopted the first working models into the military; without these guns the setting would not have many inventions, such as accurate clocks, music boxes, rudimentary suspension systems on wheeled vehicles and some architectural systems.
>Elves have an allergic reaction to the gasses released by expending the ammunition of a firearm; it is a mild euphoric hallucinogen to dwarves. Both wear scarves or masks to prevent hacking up a lung or tripping out (respectively) while using them in the field.

Troll-sized grenades would be a pretty effective weapon.

Also, it really depends on what types of magics are available. If you've got pimped out golems who can use their own magic to do mass murder while also being immune to most conventional weapons, war's going to look a lot different too.

Sure, if you think tiny bullets on a regenerating monster could take it down at all.

Imagining the guys in this pic with guns just doesn't seem it'd do much damage at all. The bullets would be so puny. Certainly not a killing blow or major damage. A creature that doesn't worry about bleeding out wouldn't care about death by a thousand needles. Though you might be able to take down an ogre.

I still say you'd need dedicated monster hunting gear to fight a troll at range, since kiting it and plinking away at it would do nothing but tire you out and waste ammunition. Surely most settings would have enough monsters even larger than trolls that they would have need for such weapons.

>Nun-uh, in my interpretation of fantasy, monsters win
This is why these threads always turn to shit. It's always baseless gun-wankery or magic-wankery

inb4: but my wizard would have a spell that counters guns!

You really underrate how much damage a large bullet can make.

youtu.be/XrhpAZoiqxE?t=4m59s

Early firearms were shooting large and slow bullets not small and fast ones like modern assault rifles.

A couple of those in the head and he will stop moving.

Magic bullets. Dragon-killer cannons.

A basic gun would be inferior to magic and line infantry would be serious fucked up by fireballs which reinvents warfare and heavily restricts early guns as they take a long time to reload and are fairly inaccurate. However, when you add magical enchantments into the mix it becomes a viable weapon: being able to have much more powerful and accurate projectiles is only the beginning bullets that freeze foes, explode, and do most of magic does at an even farther range is incredible, however this would likely be offset by extreme expense an thus gun/ would likely because me a status symbol. Personally I think high caliber lower fire rate guns would be preferred as they would be able to make the most out of their magical enchantments.

wow, cinderblocks
youtu.be/Y7HpGUJxWSA?t=32s

I wonder if a troll could survive a blow to the head from another troll, now I wonder how much impact you think a blow from a troll is.

Too much guess work so I won't bother.

Also, depending on how magical ammunition works, it could give non-spell casters the ability to use simple spells without any knowledge of magical devices, just how to use a gun and load ammo

The difference is the point of impact and the type of bullet. A troll is no doubt durable and can take a bit, blunt hit and some cuts, but bullets have the advantage of small surface area, and a lot of force behind it. If we factor modern ammo into it instead of lead ball ammo, then it would be equivalent of a small cannon ball with the piercing ability of an arrow. Add onto that magic enhancements and you could deliver an explosive fire spell into a trolls guts, or a freezing spell right into their chest cavity, or blast a troll with electricity on any part of it's body.

agreed, special ammunition is the way to go against trolls.

All you need is hitting his skull really. All that energy gets transferred to the brain and at the very least he gets a concussion.

Yes, it won't drop a troll instantly but it sure as hell sounds much better than just running at it with a halberd.

Besides, trolls would be perfect targets for small artillery. A falconet to the head and it's 100% dead.

I feel or this to work we'd have to set some ground rules so we can have a basis of agreement to work from.

So I assume it's a given large creatures like Giants and Trolls (possibly of the 12/15ft variety) are a thing. Orcs are considerably more durable than humans and fighting techniques are more in line with real life rather than having groups of magics pew pew the enemy opposition so, at best, magic is more defensive rather than typical D&D style magic.

Incendiary rounds or some kind of hollow bullet filled with acid would be useful for fighting trolls, I'd imagine.

I think, if guns became readily available in the universe this situation is taking place in, orcs would get their hands on them pretty quickly, as they're not extremely difficult to use. Especially if their enemies used them, as orcs tend to loot weapons and equipment from those they defeat.

DEPENDS ON THE SETTING

Cantrips can be learned within a year and after they are learned they usually don't demand further materials to be spent.

So Firebolt>Firestick.

You need to maintain guns. Early firearms are no AK-47. Without proper cleaning they would deteriorate very fast.

And then you have to produce the ammo.

And I seriously can't imagine an orc calmly loading a muzzleloader.

>Would higher calibers be more popular because the likes of orcs or trolls are common enemies?

Higher calibers were the norm until the development of modern, efficient powders.
Every bullet went more or less the same speed, so the only way to get more energy out of them was to make them bigger.

I would love a "modern" fantasy setting (maybe closer to world war 1 era tech, actually) that just naturally progressed to that level of technology over time, rather than a world that was similar to our own until fantasy elements suddenly sprung up in it, like what happened in the setting of Shadowrun.

Lets get real here, if guns were real and mass produced. Mages would be hunted down and the entire world would turn in a place devoid of magic.

>If Royalty is mage
Only royalty will have access to magic
>If Royalty is a regular human
Peasant army with firearms would hunt down every mage on every corner of the kingdom. Because the age of magic is over.

I think you vastly underestimate the power of magic. Some magic users can stop time, or destroy entire cities with a thought and a gesture. Powerful mages are essentially walking weapons of mass destruction.

Now this is autism.

Magic would never get out of favor. It can do much more things than make people explode.

It would be insanely valuable in the age of firearms just for scouting alone.

And simple spells like calling some mist could change the outcome of battle.

Implying a lot there. When you say "easy access firearms" that's not "suddenly guns are popping into everyone's hands like magic" (unless you are, in which case mages still don't go away because they are making guns), you are saying "people teched the fuck up to mass production".

And you know what? There are parts of magic that can work really well with mass production. Healing magics, item production, enchantments. Demand outstrips supply because all mages double as artificers now. One kingdom kills off all its mages with guns? The kingdom next door conquers it with homing mage powered cannons and mass produced teleported bombs because they killed off all their fucking mages and all their magical defenses.

Anyone stupid enough to think guns means magic is dead is going to vanish when the people with magic guns fuck them up.

gun enchants..
the gun will point itself towards enemies seen and unseen that are in range and capable of being hit

the gun cleans itself

the gun returns to the hands of its owner unless properly put away

and probably one of the cheeset weapon enchants of them all. mass increase.. As the bullet leaves the barrel of the gun the mass and size is increased without losing velocity. upgrades with more powerfull spells. Largest size is the size of a large boulder but only very powerful dragons can grant that type of power. with most mages able to tripple the mass

In my settings there's two variants on guns:

1. Magical Not!Guns that are roughly pistol shaped pieces of wood meant to train mages on how to focus their magic. Some mages choose to specialize in these weapons, able to shoot god knows what out of them, but are often ridiculed for never taking off their training wheels; so to speak.

2. Musket brand muskets that are almost exclusively sport and large game hunting weapons unless they get enchantments or magical engravings in them. Unmodded muskets are incredibly rare in a battlefield setting for obvious reasons, but occasionally a minuteman shows up with stock equipment and still manages to clean house.

Royalty, especially lower nobles, are known to keep both variants around as trophies to LARP about how good they are at guns and how the peasant folk could never revolt because guns are cool and too expensive for them.

I think an interesting thing with this would be new types of creatures that spring up from the creation of gunpowder and firearms.

Imagine fae creatures that eat blackpowder, Fire elementals born from the explosion? Or something like Gogmazios which is a dragon that eats gunpowder and exudes a sticky tar like substance that can explode.

Presumably they would use magic to counter guns, the same way they counter archery. Guns aren't much better when it comes to miss chance, damage reduction, deflection, etc.

This is also assuming royalty would permit peasantry to not only get weapons, but then order armies to hunt down spell casters. Any king worth his salt would never order an extermination of magic users, and any that does, well now every Magi user outside of the kingdom is going to HATE that kingdom, and every other kingdom and force rivaling or opposing THAT kingdom will be at an advantage of employing spell casters AND firearms. The age of magic would still flourish, but the age of that one stupid kingdom would be over.

>Take a bullet
>Slap a simple spell to create or open up holes to other planes
>Shoot dimension bullets that swallows targets whole and throws them across planes of reality

normal gun (powder and slug/ ball) + enchant on the gun
normal gun (powder and slug/ ball) + enchant on the ammunition
magical gun propelling slug/ ball
magical gun propelling slug/ ball + enchant on the ammunition
magical gun propelling magical spells

Bullets are not meant to have amazing external damage.

It's the internal damage that heavily outweighs the size of the bullet. That is what would take down even a troll fairly quickly.
In addition, even if the troll regenerates, they now have solid lead in their body poisoning them.

And I'm sure regeneration does shit once it gets a bullet in the brain.

Bullets have amazing penetrative capabilities, if the skulls aren't bulletproof then simply shooting the brain will bring them down, and even if the bone is bulletproof then simply aim for the heart between the ribcage.

Pretty much.

Poachers kill elephants with 7.62x39 all the time.

If you did use black powder, then "magelock" guns that ignite it through fire magic could well be safer and more reliable than the alternatives.

You could also use magic to keep the barrels cool, allowing for a greatly increased rate of fire.

In a setting like D&D, where extradimensional storage exists, you could probably develop automatic weapons very quickly.

>squad charges in with mag-of-holding fed automatics
>falls into a portable hole trap, causing localized tearing in the material plane and effectively setting off a tactical nuke

A fantasy setting would probably use some alchemical mixture instead of black powder in the first place.

>black powder isn't alchemy
It was a byproduct of research into an immortality elixir.

Yes. But fantasy worlds have real alchemy.

Noblemen of the Empire have gotten into wearing a perfume that has a bit of the alchemical mixture for ammunition mixed in to appear more manly.
>Many soldiers with a long history of field cleaning their weapons and making heavy use of them have permanent black stains on their hands and fingers. Tarhand is a common term for people of such a quality, and has essentially become a way to indicate someone is nails hard even among people who aren't routine shooters.

I really like how you've added these little details to the setting.

As a side note to my own post: enchantment is pretty much one of the first things that people thought of when magic returned 'in force'.

Trouble is, Enchantment works best in my setting be reinforcing/exaggerating the concept behind an object (so you can make armor really damn protective and a bag hold way more, buy jewelry enchanted to do either of those won't be nearly as powerful), so there's only so much you can do with it that would still be effective.

16th century cannons vastly outrange D&D magic. In this, I consider the average mountain, not the Everest. I don't expect to have 10+ level mages available to fight in most battles or even most kingdoms.

My conclusions so far went towards cannons having greater range and destructive power, but magic offers much more than this. Ways to conquer the usual castle brought down feudalism just like cannons did in real life, and even made the advancement of guns slower than in real life.

Falconets became even more standard than they were, for fortresses and ships, both against wyverns/gryphons and to snipe/supress magic users.

The pyromancer kingdom actually created firearms before everyone else, because they went looking for something like gunpowder instead of it being an acidental discovery. They don't fear it because they have spells designed to ignite it from a distance. Because most fire spells and firearms have similar ballistics, this nation also was the first to implement vauban fortifications.

However, firearms aren't that revolutionary in warfare because the setting has enemies with unbreakable morale, like orcoids or skeletons. Being armored and carrying a sword for melee is still just as important as in the 15th century.

This actually reminds me of the time my DM had the BBEG of one modern day game enchant a bunch of assault rifles to have infinite ammo to give to his mooks.

If you duck and cover then at some point the bullets would drown you.

>inb4: but my wizard would have a spell that counters guns!
Man, this was actually an interesting point in the Grunts book.

>steal vietnam era weapons from a dragon that steals things from multiple dimensions
>become a sick parody of U.S. infantry because of a curse on the loot
>roll over mundane soldiers and even wizards because orcs can shoulderfire an M60 like it's a carbine
>guns don't have 'fail weapons' spell protection
>no one realizes this at first, all weapons have this when they're made. literally all of them it's piss easy to do in the forging process
>wizards find out
>orcs can't engage openly without support
>still complete menaces in skirmish warfare, or when they're being backed up

The book was still shit, but the scenes that revolved around the orcs specifically were usually fun. Too bad the end was all about space aliens and gay hobbits.

That would just melt the barrels. He would need to enchant them too.

Well it could be like Tigana where the mage has to be relatively close to the fighting and the support is unspecified buffing like healing, removal of fear and fatigue, protecting and strengthening.

In my game prestidigitation cuts down reload times for muskets from 30-60 seconds to 5-10 seconds. That makes quite a difference.

Depends of the world/system. It would mostly make even harder to get to the big levels because you can die a lot easier before you can reduce or surpass their danger.
Big monsters would require big penetration and more than caliber, but it would make sense the beginnings being the biggest/s dude/s in the party pointing a cannon to the big monsters.
The technology rises everywhere, and being a magical setting why shouldn't armour be like i Warhammer 40K?
Or why can't they travel trough the underground, shadows or teleport on your back anime style?
Fantasy world is too generic to stop anything or point to a direction.

>why shouldn't armour be like i Warhammer 40K?

Because laws of physics exist.

Don't magic systems imply you can make physics your bitch in established consistent ways depending on how they work?

Your average soldier won't have access to that.

But if your elite one does you have all you need.

We need a more defined setting than "fantasy":
In D&D wizards rule the game but you can have an guy who could jump above your opinions and thoughts without magic and use that to become the king of the world; and in Anima Beyond Fantasy superpowers are everywhere once you level up, but you can get so strong that if you can find a way to pick the moon (or earth) you can lift it.

What do you get out of shitposting and attacking strawmen like this?