So how do you like "guns" in your fantasy settings:

There are simple guns. However they haven't discovered black powder. They use advanced alchemy to create a oil infused with magic. Because they have the oil they haven't bothered to try and look at other alternatives. The oil doesn't have an efficient way to make it as it needs an alchemist feeding magic into the reaction. Therefore only the really rich, or alchemists have access to them

Pike and shot. Otherwise, no guns, since every other setting is essentially if Rome started falling around 1060 as opposed to 463.

I homebrewed black powder pistols and muskets into 5e and made them powerful but took like 2 full turns to reload so they were only really good for RP and opening volleys of fire in combat.

Thinking of dropping a gun in my Dark Sun game, Veeky Forums. Talk me out of it. I pretty much just freestyling it with the Athas as a basis for the world, but I've already established that civilization is hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of years old, and many kingdoms have been and gone, so adding in some extremely loow tech gunpowder rifle for our bard doesn't seem too out of place.

Did anyone ever play the game Zeno Clash? Had some pretty cool guns for a far out tribal sort of fantasy game.

Mostly no guns, but I'm toying with a setting in which the discovery of mysterious "magitek" artifact guns kickstarts the development of early firearms and various (mostly unsuccessful) reverse engineering attempts.

Yes, because printing presses and astrolabes cannot exist at all without guns, right?

>tfw my setting/system have guns
>tfw because the system isn't some kind of ultra simulationist's wet dream they are on par with other weapons

Literally the best, how do other approaches even hope to compare

Depends on what I need for the setting
In my current one, it's half-way between your last proposition and
>Actual modern guns

I've got a setting that's just starting to experiment with magic-powered guns, wherein fire element manipulation essentially replaces gunpowder in the design.

One race in particular has gotten much farther in their designs, but I haven't quite nailed what level of progression they're at just yet aside from having rifled barrels.

Yeah I guess it just depends on the system then

I think sort of, yeah. Human knowledge is a vast web of both subtle and unsubtle connections, and the basic ideas and technologies that went into those probably make guns more likely.

Firelances (maybe 1-4 on a spear) & multibarrel handgonnes.
Disposable (6 magic missile then kaput) wands as saturday night specials also appeals.

Magitech. Mage's staff requires energy crystals to fire, has this pump-action shootgun-looking crystal reciever.

>printing press
The wizard in my group uses unseen servant to copy books

Up to 1800's levels, but the monsters are resistant enough to bullets that they largely exist either to stun enemies or finish off already weakened ones.

>that axe
I fell like you would be more likely to accidentally shoot yourself.

Basically something like this, I'd change the plasma to magic, but pretty much this.

The axe is the secondary usage of the weapon once you've expended the primary charge and the enemy is too close for you to reload.

None of the above. I want my guns to retain a sense of mysticism. Not 'magitech' which implies an element of science, but honest to god implements of ritual

Oh I like this... Voodoo/Witchdoctor Gunman.

In my setting, saltpeter was never discovered and so no one ever actually compounded black powder.

As a result, no fireworks and no guns.

Medieval fantasy?
Definitely no guns at all.
The best I'm willing to give is handgonnes

>Never understood why (martial classes) would be made in a setting with magic. Surely a wand of lightning bolt or acid arrow would be more devastating than a (guy with a sword) along with being easier to use

I love me some muskets. Generally for slapdash settings the idea is
>largest/strongest imperial faction has developed gunpowder tech
>all surrounding cultures get hand-me-downs from trade, post-battle, etc
>surrounding cultures develop their own bastardized versions or reform some elements to better fit their needs/tactics
generally this works for any tech, as long as you have a central 'powerhouse' expansionist faction/civ that's been putting a finger in every nearby pie

>Magic/Alchemical bullets
>Magic guns that enhance bullets
>Ball & powder
>Paper cartridges

What do you like best Veeky Forums?

The transitional phase between ball/powder and paper cartridge, where the latter is growing in popularity but the former is still commonplace.

I prefer Low Fantasy not!Napoleon Wars fantasy settings, so naturally there are lots of guns.

1930-esque guns and classy unfirm works perfect for me.

In my rules guns are more of a lifestyle then a weapon.

>ancient shellfish off the coast oozes this clear gel that is explosive

>impossible to predict explosive content per shot, some will have just enough energy to clear the barrel, some will destory your hand and whatever you were pointing at, and other times it will leave you as chunky salsa.

>ultimate risk versus reward weapons

Also, I toned down the overall power of magic, but made it strong in the sense a mage is a living artillery piece, guns are one of the few weapons you can engage something without smelling it's breath.

Pretty much this. Guns are cool and definitely give humans a way to fight big monsters, but at the end of the day I tend to go Witcher style and have enemies require specific substances or rituals to kill, with physical damage only slowing or incapacitating them.

Sure, you might blow that monster off its ass with bullets, but at the end of the day you're either going to have to get in close with a silver dagger or pay out the ass for silver bullets.

I've been cooking up a Wild West setting and have tried to keep guns on par with "medieval" weapons and armor (there's still dudes in full plate with swords and halberds) as well as the more conventional ranged weapons.

Because REASONS, saltpeter and other explosive compounds are rarer and slightly less powerful. This, coupled with the invention of what are essentially magical gauss guns, has meant that early gunpowder firearms were more or less abandoned and no one is keen to dredge them back up.

>early firearms like muskets and black powder

Basically this; my tech level is about 16th century Europe. Guns and such can of course be enchanted, the same as anything else can be.

A deer rifle would be been a difference maker at the siege of hogwarts

>>impossible to predict explosive content per shot,
Couldn't you just mix enough batches together to create a homogenous level of explosiveness?

>early firearms
>muskets
Triggered as fuck.

That's true though. If there were people, even a tiny minority, who could shoot fireballs and magic missiles from their hands, then medieval military technology and tactics would not have developed, everything would instead be centered around those casters.

I mean, they are relatively early. The first rifle dates to about 15th century Europe, so they've been around for 700 years. Muskets started showing up around the 16th century. So 600 years ago.

That's pretty early in the overall lifetime of rifles, if not necessarily firearms as a whole.

I'll include guns as rare inventions created by mad inventors. Cannons, however, are much more common.

Ascensions of power can generally be separate though. Consider that several modern nations have nuclear capabilities, but still develop methods and technology for conventional warfare.

Sure you can have big guns, but who's going to open with those and then have nothing left to defend themselves? Or even soften the enemy with conventional methods before finishing the fight with their bigger arsenal.

Or slice off fingers. My favourite is the top one.
Firelances are from 1000/1100AD...

There'd still be martial advancement, but in the case of your typical mage power level, the martials would be focused on protecting casters, flanking enemies, and providing distractions once it became tradition that casters were the core.

Up to 1870 grade of weapon advancement. Revolvers, flint locks cannon, 'nados, paper cartridges, avancharge rifles, rocket batteries, diseased corpse lobbers,greek fire, anything goes.

I normally go with magic being good for general coverage, while technology is good for precision.

Yeah, you can shoot a fireball, but can you snipe a dude from a hill away, quietly, in the middle of a crowded building filled with people you'd prefer not to kill, on short notice? Nah.

>Firelances are from 1000/1100AD...
>implying a steal plow pulled by an ox is modern farming.

Fuck off noob.
Time to go illuminate some tweets.