Would dumb but strong races like orcs or beastmen be able to cope with evolution of guns or would they go extinct?

So, they end up getting them from the USA, because we have a bad habit of funding people who later turn into terrorists that attack our shit for some reason?

Done.

Just look at Africa.

Or Brits. Or Dutch. Or Chinese. Or French. Or Saudis.

The difference is Africa wasn't a great enemy humanity was fighting for thousands of years. Meanwhile in most fantasy settings orcs are a hated enemy.

They survived. Plus, orcs and beastmen have a few advantages over people.

You do realise guns replaced bows and crossbows because guns were so easy to use and maintain that even a fucking retard could use them?

Guns would probably tip the balance of power from races like dwarves and elves towards orcs and beastmen.

And the enemy of my enemy is a good place as any to dump some guns to get them to do the fighting for me.

>but what if they turn them on you

With what ammo and artillery?

Until you enemy gives them ammo and artillery to use against you.

You need to be able to produce them. You need real industry to produce firearms and ammo.

And just try to imagine orc line infantry calmly loading muzzleloaders.

What sort of philosophies would different races have towards gun designs. Like would elves prefer marksmanship and accuracy with a few powerful hits? Would dwarfs like short, rapid fire guns with penetration, maybe with a bullpup design?

>You need real industry to produce firearms and ammo.

The existence of rifles does not automatically mean the implementation of line infantry that developed in Europe. Hell, the timeframe between the beginning of gun manufacture and the implementation of the stereotypical disciplined line infantry formation is fairly long.

You do know that even those AK-47 you see so often are not produced in Africa right? They are either Chinese or Russian.

You need precision equipment to produce guns.

My current setting actually has most of the world dealing with the explosion of the industrial era and new, better technologies for armies. About the only race not modernising is the fucking Dwarves, who live in mountains too much of a bastard to run roads or the really early-model railroads through. Even then, about half of the Dwarves are making mad bank supplying iron, coal and other essentials to the industrialising nations and pioneering inventions such as a steam pump for clearing waterlogged mines. Of course it helps that they've had the coke blast furnace for about 300 years more than anyone else...

The Orcs and other 'savage' races had easy pickings at first, as the increased wealth of the kingdoms and republics they bordered made for profitable raiding. Goods could be sold on to other nations; rivals would hire Orc mercenaries with their increased wealth; and greater crop yields from windmills, crop rotation, common land enclosures and so on made for greater populations, which the Orcs could then enslave.

The target kingdoms however, soon had had enough of the Orc problem, along with each other and professional standing armies came into being, first with traditional weapons and then with muskets. The Orc tribes suffered hugely for the first 30-50 years after professional armies really hit their stride and they retreated into the frontier territories they had traditionally held. Orcs were only occasionally seen in 'civilized' lands for the next generation or so and usually in more lawless areas. Then the nations started expanding, seeking more resources and wealth, both on other continents and in the frontiers of their own. That's when they realised the Orcs had not been sitting idle in the meantime.

Here's the thing:
Guns are a really, really dumb weapon to use. If you know how to clench the muscles in your finger, you know how to fire a gun.

Now the truth is that races with no infrastructure will not have the same abundance of firearms, and not having the proper education on how to handle a firearms will usually leave them neglect of maintenance and lead to many accidental deaths and injuries. As such, a firearm will be considered a magical thunderstick with a violent mind that must be appeased first before operating it, and thus be reserved to a small circle of nobility if not outright religious figures.

As such, they would still be forced to live a life at the edge of civilisation. Now if nations with infrastructure and engineering knowledge supplied them with weaponry, chances are orcs would lay waste to entire empires within weeks.

Over the intervening years, the tribes had formed into three large power blocs, each ostensibly republican and industrialised thanks to black-market machines, manuals and slaves they'd purchased in the meantime. The Orcs were in fact, the first real nation-states and reacted poorly to the settlements in their territory. After ransacking the initial border forts and townships, they went on the offensive. An Orc's size allowed them to employ larger weapons; heavy shields and other innovations that the other kingdoms and the like simply hadn't developed. Overall, their technology was no more advanced, but the Orcs natural advantages as shock troopers basically made them the scourge of the world. Many of their enemies collapsed into civil war as they attempted to reform to counter the Orc threat and those that did not faced a highly-organised and talented foe, armed with similar weapons to them, rather than the savage and disunited tribes they had expected.

My players are a collection of Chosen Men from a predominantly Elven kingdom, trying to blunt the Orcish advance into their homeland by any means necessary. They aren't expected to fight in the line of battle, but then given Elves don't much like to do that anyway, the whole army is mostly focused on fire-and-maneuver tactics, skirmishing, dragoons and horse artillery. The players operate mostly behind Orcish lines, sabotaging bridges, pillaging supply trains, assassinating leaders and ambushing small patrols to try and buy their lords time to bleed the enemy dry. Really it's a race to see what runs out first; the Elven space to fall back, or the Orcish will to pursue the war.

>AK
>precision equipment

lol

And you do realize people been making firearms with simple tools for the better part of the 20th century. Khyber Pass is just one place where simple tools are used to make shitty copies of guns.

To produce a modern rifle, sure, but i'm getting the feeling lots of people are getting very different ideas from the OP. The earliest depiction of a gun is from the early 12th century I think. Orcs can usually smith at least to a functional degree in plenty of settings, can they not? Who is making all those double ended orcish axes if not orcs? Unless other races are producing weapons specialised just for orcs and selling them to them, in which case manufacture of guns isn't the issue anyway.

arcanum makes me feel like an idiot.

any tips to an idiot trying to progress in acanum

i cant even combine thing to craft? nothing happens when i click anything do i need a recipe or something?

>pic related

this and i love it

A+ good sir

Crafting is largely a waste of time

aa okay thanks i'll just ignore it then, any other tip?

You obviously know nothing about guns. You do realize every bullet and casing must be exactly the same size right? Or how hard it is to produce a rifled barrel?

You fucking retard. You obviously don't know anything about guns.

Do you think people just suddenly invented machine guns when they discovered gun powder?

We've been able to make modern metal cartridges for almost 200 years and rifling for way longer than that.

Muskets are not hard to produce. But when we get to even early breechloaders it becomes much harder. They are actually more expensive to produce than most modern rifles designed for easy mass production.

Magic is overpowered.

Kill every *halfling you see, without exception.

And we needed industrial revolution and precision equipment for that.

Before that rifled guns were so expensive only nobles could afford them.

I was in the army and studied a year to be a gunsmith, so no, I don't know shit. I also haven't read anything about all the various shops that have made counterfeit guns with very simple tools around the world.

>we needed industrial revolution and precision equipment to make rifled barrels
>before that rifled barrels also existed, making my point kind of hard to decipher

LOL casual halfling genocide, i'll keep that in mind.

also i bought an old flintlock but i cant equip it and the game doesnt tell me why? my half-ogre hands to big maybe my perception is to low? my str is 12 so i should be fine

Those very simple tools still need to be accurate down to less than 0.5mm.

Something easy for chinese farmers of today, but not an orc who only knows how to make a crude axe.

They existed but were insanely hard and expensive to manufacture. And you really need precision equipment to make cased ammunition. There is no way around that.

At least with kobolds it leads to a bloody communist revolution against their dragon rulers.

At least with tolkien, orcs were associated with the mechanisation of war and guns would probably fit for them more than anyone else.

You do realize that the Afghans were famous for their rifles barrels right? It's part of why they made such a mess of the British colonial forces who had smooth bore guns.

Not him, but Tolkien orcs only vaguely resemble the "standard" fantasy orcs anyway. They certainly don't fit OP's "dumb but strong", since they're generally closer to hobbit sized than human sized, even "huge" orcs are "Almost" as big as humans.

pffff ahahahaha no.

rifling a barrel wasn't that hard if you had access to an ancient piece of lost technology known as the auger. The problem with rifles was before people became less stupid and figured out the minie ball they thought you had to pound the bullet down the barrel to force it into the rifling grooves, which made the rate of fire for rifled guns hot garbage. Smoothbores were used by everyone because they fired several times as quickly.

The Zulu managed to figure out guns, at least partially. Orcs are generally less intelligent.

Don't pretend that Jezails were common mass produced weapons. Especially rifled ones.

It depends. Are their intelligence levels in literal retard level or are they able to use and maintain firearms?
Most settings have them being able to make their own metal equipment, so simple firearms like handgonnes could be used.
Handgonnes are also durable enough and conveniently shaped to use as a bludgeon.
Hell, being stronger than average, they could use ridiculous calibers and single handedly carry small cannons with grapeshot.
Bombs would be also cheap and simple things. An orc grenadier could be a thing.

Of course if dumb races are so dumb they can't forge a tube (or carve one from wood, yes you read that right), or use metal at all, and being incapable of mixing saltpeter, charcoal and sulfur, they would be in deep shit, unless supplied by some more intelligent evil race.

So you classify anything more complex as making a crude axe "real industry"?

>tools still need to be accurate down to less than 0.5mm

And what sort of laser guided, computer driven machinery do you think that is? You think a modern casing factory machines each shell individually?

>They existed but were insanely hard and expensive to manufacture.

Yes, and?

>And you really need precision equipment to make cased ammunition.

So basically anything we had around Napoleonic era is "precision".

>moving the goalpost

And people like Shaka still refused to use them because they preferred spears.

>Napoleonic era
>cased ammo

Sure thing dude.

The first mass produced cased rifle cartridge is from 1867. And it had tremendous reliability problems in the first two decades of it's use.

user, you do realize cased ammo is not a new thing, just because it didn't see widespread use, right? Breechloading cartridges were patented in 1812. First rimfire metallic cartridge invented in 1845. .22 short was made in 1857.

>it had tremendous reliability problems in the first two decades of it's use

Specifically due to the lack of precision in making the casing?

The modern "standard" fantasy orc is fundamentally inspired by tolkien. Before him it was all just various non-specific ogres and shit instead of a specific group of creatures.
Stuff like warcraft has inspired the whole "noble savage" element though.

>would natives be able to cope with firearms or would they go extinct?

Guns killed warrior cultures. They were the great equalizer. Suddenly your veteran knight could easily get killed by a peasant.

What fucking fantasy setting has gun tech above muzzle load and blunderbusses?

If muzzleloaders exist so do breechloaders. Breech loading existed since the early days of firearms it was just too expensive for mass production.

>0.5mm anything
>requiring laser guides or computer aided manufacturing

Just stop arguing, you can get 0.5mm tolerances easily by hand.

Warhammer?

Tolkien only really inspired the "universally bad martial race" part of Orcs. Pretty much everything about how orcs look and fight comes from Warhammer or Warcraft. Tolkien orcs aren't green, they aren't bigger than humans, they're not physically stronger than humans, they're quite capable of using magic, maybe even better than humans; they're mechanically adept, and they're mostly ambush type warriors, not chareg and fight frontally warriors.

Only if it's a precision hand of modern industry.

W-what?

Possibly. Could be cool, giving most fantasy races firearms that suit them, though getting rid of (or even coexisting with) bows would probably annoy some people

I'd imagine halflings would use something like a coil spring gun to fire random shit at people and gnome weaponry would be...well...gnome weaponry.

Depends on what you mean by "warrior culture". The Japanese loved matchlocks, but are generally people's first go to "muh honour/warrior culture" nation historically, although that's generally based on romanticised misconceptions of the samurai anyway. Besides, that's not really true, plate armour was service-ably resistant to firearms for a long time.

The real problem is that OP actually asked a really broad question that could ahve just been answered with "depends on the setting" like usual. Depends on the technology and use of firearms on the battlefield we are talking about, depends on the political, economic and cultural idiosyncrasies of the setting, depends on just how big and dumb we are talking about. A setting defined by huge war between "civilised races" and orcs/beastmen/whatever where one side developed firearms would have a very different response to a setting where these "dumb but strong" races are free to move about, or perhaps serve as mercenaries for or simply exist on the fringes of states that manufacture and use firearms.

If you want colonial forces employing beastmen auxiliaries as grenadiers then you can write a setting to support that, and if you want a "focres of good with gatling guns vs tides of greenskins" you can write that too. All you are going to learn from real world examples of exposure to firearms is that a lot of different shit can happen.

Elves would probably like lighter calibers and sniping. Probably would be the first to work on repeating guns too.

Dwarves would probably like close range guns like shotguns or lever action heavy rifles because tunnels.

Magic wins the game. Hard. Level 1 Necro spell plus turn based and high Dex. can take you from start to finish, if you wanna be cheap.

Crafting requires you to learn recipes, either through leveling (in your character sheet, click the little gear button in the upper right area), or by picking up and learning recipes in-game. And once you learn a recipe, you can't just click on the items to craft, you have to open the crafting menu from the button on the bottom bar on your screen. It's the most fun option, because why the fuck else are you playing a steampunk game? But it's not the strongest. Molotovs can carry you through early game, and dynamite is fun to play with. Also, the endgame area has a bunch of tech recipes that you can't get anywhere else, and if you get there on a cheap-ass mage build (like I did my first time through), you won't get to play with any of it.

Also, if you haven't yet, get Drog's Unofficial Patch. Fixes a lot of buggy shit that Sierra never bothered to deal with. Also, if you want to go tech, try out the Carcanum mod, which gives you a car for fast-travel. As a techie, you don't get access to teleport (you can't even use scrolls if you invest too much in tech), and even with the map, walking to each destination is tedious and annoying.

Why repeating guns for elves?

I'd think the dwarves would be among the first to develop explosives (because mining and petards), but guns might be a while - firing in a tunnel is really not ideal.

okay thanks alot man! i'll do just that, and i rather go tech and maybe replay again with magic

Elves love rapid fire.

Lighter calibers and sniping don't really go hand in hand.

Shotguns don't really make ideal primary weapons. And at short ranges and enclosed spaces, getting to shoot and getting to shoot a lot is priority, which is why SMGs and carbines are more favorable. I've seen arguments for the Israeli use of the Tavor being the enclosed spaces needing a short weapon, while a bullpup still retains a long barrel for shooting outside of cities. With armour (if you're fighting in enclosed spaces with limited cover) penetration is also a thing to consider. While big boom guns might be iconic to dwarfs, following their environment and fighting style, adopting a short gun that shoots fast and is capable of penetrating armour, seems more up their alley than a pump/lever action guns with big bullets. I could imagine early automatic weapons era dwarfs making heavy use of Soviet style SMG platoons, and US style trench shotguns for specialized assault troops, while short repeating carbines might be the favorite of regular infantry. With a folding bayonet that is not attached to the barrel, enabling its used without hindrance to accuracy.

Elves in their quality over else mentality would probably prefer full length battle rifles for precision shots over distance and larger caliber bullets would also work in forests, as foliage would have less effect on the trajectory of the shot. Their training would most certainly put emphasis on individual marksmanship and they'd probably be among the first to adopt low power optics and DMRs.

I could almost see halflings doing German style machine gun centered squads. Their basic guns are mostly for self-defence while majority of the squad's firepower is in their machine gun that everyone in the squad takes part in carrying and supplying with ammo. Makes up for their shorter stature and inability to use big, powerful weapons on their own. Light mortars would also be a good way to increase the firepower of a halfling unit.

Large bore early cartridges were not very good for long range shooting. Elves would probably quickly go down to something around 7mm.

That doesn't mean an individual has to rapid fire. Brits were very skilled with their SMLEs (which also was quite fast to fire, since the bolt locked at the back, meaning shorter bolt travel, meaning faster cycling, and you didn't have to move your head out of the way, enabling you to keep a sight picture while cycling). I've read remarks that a disciplined British unit could provide suppressing fire on a target equal to a machine gun.

>orcs produce no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones
I think they'd do just fine.

Orcs never produce anything clever. It's goblins who do that.

>orks produce no beautiful things, but they make many cleaver ones

FTFY

>warcraft
LEL

And Warhammer. And DnD. And almost every other fantasy setting.

That is most certainly bullshit. The claim that they could fire suppressive fire comparable to a machine gun. Not the other stuff.

>implying this isn't the peak of military technology

>beastmen with guns
Well, gnolls will scavenge and use anything from their slain targets, so it's not unlikely that they'd probably adapt to using firearms pretty quickly.

He never mentioned the size of the unit or model of machine gun.
I'd easily believe that a few dozen brits could outperform a fairly poor machine gun.

Gnolls and orcs goibg plains indian seems idea. Skilled riders firing with rifle from mount, with back up side arms, even a bow and hatchets.

>non-tolkien/tolkienoid fantasy
LEL

Pathfinder goblins are gibbering idiots, and other editions aren't much better.

Because Tolkien orcs were so good at technology.

Melkor was kidnapping elves for slave labor because his orcs were trash at more complex stuff.

Someone doesn't know his Tolkien.

They don't get penalties to Int though. Orcs do.

Go read Silmarillion again because obviously you forgot a lot.

Like the part where the Sindar need to have the dwarves come in to even up their tech of "ironworking" with the orcs, and how the Silvans never make it that far and get the shit stomped out of them, and the only elves who are "technologically" advanced are the ones who got lessons from the Valar?

>Melkor was kidnapping elves for slave labor because his orcs were trash at more complex stuff.
[citation seriously needed] Melkor always seemed to be kidnapping elves and enslaving them for the Evulz, not because he actually needed their efforts.

Meanwhile, in things like the Fall of Gondolin, Orcs have fucking mechanized tranpsorts. Even if you don't count that as canon, they have metalworking, mining, and tunneling at least on par with anyone else.

We'll. Okay. That's fair. But that seems like the infantry combat equalivant of 100000 lions vs the Sun.

Probably off topic but Shaka himself did try to acquire plenty of firearms for the obvious reasons. Then he died and it was his brothers or something that started that war with the british.

>The claim that they could fire suppressive fire comparable to a machine gun.

Brits trained on rapid firing their guns with accuracy, hitting a 12" target at 300 yards 15 time in a minute. Record is 38 hits. In 1914, during the Battle of Mons, advancing Germans thought they were under fire from machine gun batteries due to the volume of fire from British rifles.

>Arms are easily traded for natural resources in impoverished countries
>People inevitably turn against perceived colonial powers
Shit's pretty easy to understand, user.

>Gnoll plains indians
They would be a terror with lever guns

To make them good guns yes, in general no. If you go to some museums you can find home made guns which are not as accurate but can still be used to kill people if used correctly.