Do you allow primitive firearms in your setting? How do you balance them so they don't greatly outclass bows/crossbows?

No need to balance. It's going to be shittier than a bow/crossbow. Same damage, shorter range, no need for proficiency to use

>even a "modern" flintlock musket isnt firing more than once every 30-45 seconds
lolwut

Prussian drill was a shot every 12 seconds, the main european powers could sustain 4 shots a minute and 3 shots a minute was good.

Also a crossbow that hits as hard and as far as a flintlock took nearly a whole minute to set, while the best shooting for a longbow was barely faster than what the prussians could pull.

I just treat a primitive longarm as a Superior Crossbow and have the fluff be different.

>tfw your DM is a passive aggressive tolkienfag who ensures the arquebus is unrealistically shit so people keep using unrealistically strong bows instead

Nobody's forcing you to play. You can leave and DM your own game any time now.

I'm a 99% forever DM already,

One shot every 12 seconds is impossible with a full length musket. You may be thinking of the Dreyse Needle Rifle.

They are just slightly buffed heavy crossbows. They have a similar accuracy, more damage, but slower fire rate.

>impossible
Maybe for the kind of unathletic, undrilled person who does reenactment as a hobby.

Again, Prussian drill was timed at 5 shots a minute. The prussian army under frederick II could keep that rate of fire up for about 5 minutes before going to the more typical 4 rounds a minute that was used for musketry in late 18th century european armies.

3 shots a minute was already the standard towards the end of the 30yw with the Nassau drill.

>Do you allow primitive firearms in your setting?
I built my current setting around powder fantasy
>How do you balance them so they don't greatly outclass bows/crossbows?
I play a system with decent early guns
But if you want actual advice, niches
Bows can co-exist with guns real nice and easy, look at japan during its wacky civil wars, dutch guns on the same fields as traditional bows. The guns volley fired, while the bowmen tried to get at commanders specifically. Bit hard to represent training for years though in most rpgs, that's more on you and representing npcs than something you can force on players

Nobody wants to use a weapon with a -billion penalty to shot, makes things too swingy, usually because people make guns have fuck huge damage, so they end up with a lotto ticket. Don't do that, but consider the theme it creates
You get a shot off in a fight, maybe two if you reload (depends on how quick fights go in your system, I'm thinking 2-4 rounds of quick and dirty lethal system here). Were as the bow is loosing arrows every round. Sometimes custom arrows. Vs what are you going to get from a gun? A strong brute opener, and maybe ball and shot if you're allowing creative ammo
If you want to improve firearm rate of fire you buy another gun

Crossbows are the issue in terms of niche, not bows.
Because crossbows are loud, they aren't gun loud but they're loud.
The powerful ones also have roughly gun reload times, and good luck juggling a windlass around in a dungeon (not that any rpg actually remembers that crossbows need specialty equipment to load, especially the strong ones)
So really guns kind of push them aside

There is a video of a re enactment handgonner firing a shot every 16 seconds in a light drizzle. The comments make it pretty clear it wasn't the safest thing he could be doing, don't pretend like those old things have rifled musket reload times. It's a lot quicker to ram a ball down a 6 inch barrel than one 4 feet long

>The guns volley fired, while the bowmen tried to get at commanders specifically.
You get a reverse situation in Europe where bows were for inaccurate volley fire (the bow was never dominant on the battlefield in medieval Europe tbw, it just seems that way because of how anglocentric historiography of the HYW is); the japanese figured out volley fire for muskets earlier than the euros.

So then what do you do to balance guns and crossbows, and how do you deal with guns now having fuck huge damage.
Time to answer the questions I posed myself

The damage is the easier one to handle. Now the basic difference between being shot and being hit with an arrow is the difference between a projectile punching its way through you, and a projectile stabbing into you. That ball also has a good deal more penetration, plenty of reports of those nearly 1 calibre ye olde guns punching through one guy only to wound the guy behind him

Now that said, how do we represent that? Well more damage for one. The rate of fire balances that out. If a gun does 2x the damage of a bow but fires 1/4th as much, then it has a niche. You want to punch out a monster quick? Use the gun, you want consistency? Use the bow.
Now the real question is do you want to represent the gun punching bits of your uniform into your horrible teared up wound? Easy enough with penalties to heal gun wounds, but if you aren't also using arrows with tips only secured by honey or beeswax (so the tip stays inside the target), or buried in the ground or corpses already, probably not necessary

Now the crossbows. The crossbows, the crossbows. Well if bows get custom arrows so should crossbows. Arrows are big, bullets are small, if you want to get into the realm of alchemical munitions that's a good enough excuse to limit those as well. Guns ruined the elegance of war. Made it unchivalrous (har har), that theme can be captured in their inability to deliver the fantastical magical munitions. They're peasant weapons

Draw the same parallel between the sword and spear. A crossbow is a nobel's toy, a gun is some peasant levy's reason to exist

You could also have crossbows with the simple and quicker goat's foot, be a stopgap between guns and bows. Reloads quicker than a gun, does more damage than a bow

>it just seems that way because of how anglocentric historiography of the HYW is
That's something I never got: why are the English so obsessed with the most humiliating defeat they were ever dealth, while the French barely care about it outside of the figure of Jeanne d'Arc?

because they don't remember the part where they lost. just muh crecy, muh agincourt, muh peasants knifing franch knights

Depends on the setting. I'm beginning to wanna run/play with early age of sail tech.

Kill yourself you unhelpful discussion ignoring waste of fucking space.

>So then what do you do to balance guns and crossbows
Why bother? Why do you even need both?

The gun ended the crossbow, it was a crossbow that doesn't need heavy tools to reload to do its job of punching through plate. They only coexisted for a century at best.

Get mad about it faggot.

The problem with primitive firearms is that it takes almost nothing but meta knowledge to immediately develop non-primitive firearms. Unless you have a max int of 10 for everyone in your party, anybody with metal casting skill can develop at the very least a smoothbore musket, if not a primitive rifle. And no form of bow can compete with a rifle: you can take cover while shooting at longer range with the same if not higher accuracy.

>Want to run a late Renaissance fantasy setting with guns, trains and all that on
>Wanted to run a fantasy game in gurps and of course that shit would handle like ass
>with no real way to balance it.

>Do you allow primitive firearms in your setting?
Yes
>How do you balance them so they don't greatly outclass bows/crossbows?
By making them primitive

For the option. Are you saying you don't like unwinding with a good old rock bow, trying to hit birds on your property? That you wouldn't coat the quarrel of a pistol crossbow with poison like an asshole? The use of alchemical substances and shit like launching grappling hooks gives the crossbow utility. It may not be the best forever option, but it is still an option, and it can still have theme.

Also you can always give bows a minimum strength, another thing systems seem so want not to do. So crossbows allow a weaker character to make use of special arrows, now they're more tactical equipment than mainstay weapon, but they have a niche.

Also because people like crossbows, why not let them have one?

it takes forever to load

Primitive guns were more powerful for their psychological effect than for penetration or killing power. A block of archers loosing a cloud of arrows at you is terrifying, but a block of arquebusiers firing what's essentially a bunch of thunderbolts at you is enough to break any group of fighters that hasn't been trained to deal with that. Primitive guns won't be accurate, but in a block they don't need to be, because the terrific roar and the smoke and sensation of your friend getting his face caved in are enough.

This doesn't track well to two things: fantasy settings and skirmish-level encounters. For the former, monsters and magic and alien psychologies make purely terrifying your enemy into submission not that effective. For the latter, the lack of precision makes it frustrating for players to handle. The experience of shooting and missing isn't that fun.

I do several things:

> Firearms in this setting developed to prioritize accuracy and rate of fire rather than penetration. A pistol will deal about as much damage as a longbow, and will be accurate within ten paces, with little chance of hitting anything beyond that. The average user can fire as many as ten rounds per minute (!!!).
> Development of firearms is tightly restricted. Independent research might build a better musket, but you're not going to revolutionize warfare in a single night.
> The most advanced rifle on the planet probably resembles a flintlock musket.
> They deal both piercing and bludgeoning damage on a hit.

All in all, they're like crossbows, only more so -- easier for the layman to use, but with lower accuracy AND they're more expensive.

>And no form of bow can compete with a rifle: you can take cover while shooting at longer range with the same if not higher accuracy.
Arquebuses and hand-gonne were notoriously inaccurate past 30 feet and to point out: heavy. They we're usually just turned into effective clubs after the first shot.

Also it requires more than just a int roll, you must understand metallurgy, physics, gunsmithing and if you fail once well fuck you lad the thought only comes to you, trying to bullshit your way to power with your meta.

>late renaissance
>trains
NANI?!

You're free to use crossbows for poison and shit.

Hand crossbows as they show up in D&D are already unrealistic (they'd barely puncture the skin) so knock yourself out.

In the real world the arquebus was a crossbow+ from the word go.

>it takes almost nothing
It took centuries and thousands of artisans and scientists advancing our awareness of metallurgy and chemistry to a sufficient point where we could even make something like the caplock. The industrial precision needed for reliable muzzle loaders and air rifles wasn't remotely available when they were first conceived.

"It seems so simple" isn't just metagaming, it's nerds being woefully ignorant of the history of sciences and thinking it's just about having a clever idea.

Yeah wow why did I think trains had anything to do with the renaissance???

>Also because people like crossbows, why not let them have one?

I think your entire stream of posts is basically just rationalisations for "Player wants, player gets" principle. If you want to play it that way, fine, but don't try to pass it off as something that keeps the setting consistent.

People like crossbows. People also like hoplites, war chariots, and lightsabers and FTL-travel. You can give them everything they want for variety and options but this doesn't make a cohesive setting and more power to you if you don't care, it's just this is a non-issue if you've statistically tweaked the hoplite to be able to take lightsaber hits to the face to ensure "balance and variety" at the cost of common sense.

>Arquebuses and hand-gonne were notoriously inaccurate past 30 feet and to point out:
1. Arquebuses were generally accurate to at least a hundred yards
2. Matchlock musket drills were done at 200, we still have the drill manuals
3. The warbow wasn't a precision shooting weapon. It was a "shoot in the air in the general direction of the enemy" indirect fire weapon

Handgonnes can reach up to 80% accuracy at 25 paces (125 steps, generally considered between 75 and 125 ft).
Actual proper long barreled firearms were much more accurate, and a rifled musket is still considered responsible for one of the 10 longest confirmed kills in history.

>"Player wants, player gets" principle
Haha ha no.
My entire string of posts is about throwing out ideas for guns, crossbows, and bows to coexist without being dumb, like they did it real life. Hell I even mention how certain themes need to be shown to players via how you handle npcs as a gm. What do you think I'm making options that I cannot use myself?

>People like crossbows. People also like hoplites, war chariots, and lightsabers and FTL-travel. You can give them everything they want for variety and options but this doesn't make a cohesive setting

Oh you're a retard trying to strawman my posts because you're a small minded cunt. Should have read through you're entire post before responding,now I just feel like I've wasted a whole minute or two of my morning. Such a shame. That's disappointing user, I thought you were better than that.

They coexisted in real life for the same reason chain, scale and plate did in 15th-16th century Europe, because technology isn't linear and sometimes regional fashions and inertia win out.

>hey coexisted in real life for the same reason chain, scale and plate did in 15th-16th century Europe, because technology isn't linear
But they should be in rpgs, if one option isn't the standalone best, how will people min/max?
Gotcha bud.

I would sincerely be tempted to just give scale, chain and breastplates nigh identical stats as "Medium armor" just to annoy people who demand a superior option exists

> Unless you have a max int of 10 for everyone in your party, anybody with metal casting skill can develop at the very least a smoothbore musket, if not a primitive rifle.

You're like one of those people who thinks that Primitive Technology guy blows Africans the fuck out, since he's been in the jungle for a couple months and managed to cook iron oxide into pig iron, as opposed to the nigger-tier Africans, who first did it in 1500 BC instead of the superior white aryan Anatolians who did it in 2500 BC.

Yes, KNOWING WHAT WE KNOW NOW a metal caster could probably make a smoothbore musket. But even with that knowledge, what does your 14 INT metallurgist have to work with? Does he have unrestricted access to a furnace? Where does he get his materials? Who is his patron? Can he justify spending X amount of gold on making one smoothbore musket that only he knows how to use, when the opportunity cost is the dozens of axes, spears and arrows that he could use to equip dozens of others? How is the rest of his time spent -- is he relaxing in a den in Australia, or is he fighting for his life somewhere in a medieval setting? What's the guarantee all that money and time won't literally blow up in your face? There are reasons why firearms didn't come out of nowhere.

Expecting your 20 INT wizard to revolutionize warfare with guns in a night is the worst kind of metagaming -- and narcissism, because it associates your high-intelligence character with your misinformed ass, who thinks that because the chemical properties of saltpeter haven't changed in 700 years that means he's going to Army of Darkness his way through a setting. You're not as smart as you think you are. Smarter people have approached the problem you think you've solved and failed. You are not Rick Sanchez.

Given enough time, some dipshit in the 31st century is going to try to metagame particle ray cannons into a 21st century GURPS game, since "they had nuclear reactors back then." Fuck you.

Ideally you optimize for a specific function, so one option will always be better than another for whatever specialty is being aimed for.

>You are not Rick Sanchez.
tbf, he might be, Rick is borderline a morality tale on academic genius being ultimately kind of useless at actually doing more than toys taken in isolation

Yeah I've got them around in my 5E setting as rare imports from the far west countries.

Basic 5E rules for flintlock weapons is good if a little underpowered, so I have a few rules homebreded for my party.

>Proficiency must be learned unless character is from the Western Countries, until then prof bonus doesn't apply
>with proficiency pistols can be drawn and fired as a bonus action
>reload takes a player's entire turn (including movement) to reload if they wish to reload it in combat, to stop them being reloaded and fired again every turn
>Blunderbusses exist. Rules are 2d10 damage in 30ft cone, dex saves required to avoid damage, any character within 5ft (including user) is deafened for one round, mostly for RP effects.
These are the rules I can remember off the top of my head. I have them written down in my book somewhere. I really wanted them to be pirate-style combat accessories. Something that a player would draw, use for shock and awe, and then drop to the floor and keep fighting with their other weapons.

If anyone can see some issues with my rules let me know. I've not run into any, but it's really just my RP groups who use them.

>Oh yes, multiple sapient creatures all of which codeveloped on the same world, and can still coexist with near identical levels of technological and cultural progress without one having already wiped the rest out in prehistory.
That's cool.
>Guns, crossbows, and bows coexist and are each fun to use.
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I have never heard of five shots a minute for the Prussians. Ever. What account or manual of arms are you sourcing this from? And three shots a minute standard by the end of the 30 years war?!

I've watched the forging and making of a smoothbore musket.

You cannot do that without years of training and practice because if you fuck up one part, it's all useless - and it takes no effort at all to fuck up any one part.

A couple of books discussing politics of pre-revolutionary France and the obsession of Louis XVI's cabinet with emulating Prussia, this seems to come up in their bungled reforms of the french army.

Even then, 4 shots a minute is faster than 2, which afaik is what was feasible from matchlocks with tight balls.

I thought it was a morality tale about moral nihilism versus existential nihilism, and how even if nothing matters the connections between individuals and families are still important.

Also that 99% of the problems Rick has to face are self-inflicted, and how brainpower isn't a substitute for wisdom or a kind soul.

A S&S turn is 6 seconds. If you could only fire once every 2 turns at best then I can hardly see guns being useful beyond the first shot unless you give them death ray stats some folks like.

D&D*

If you were realistic about it, you would also never be able to shoot a crossbow more than once every few rounds, and you would barely be able to squeak an arrow every round with a shortbow (not a longbow) unless you were just firing randomly and too weakly to go through armor.

>some dipshit in the 31st century is going to try to metagame particle ray cannons into a 21st century GURPS game, since "they had nuclear reactors back then."

I'm using this example whenever metagame shit comes up in the future (it always does, fuck)

When you say primitives did you mean Flintlock? because if I do not see problem

> high damage 2d10 or higher

> critical damage, 17-20

> long distance, 20 meters or more

> good as melee weapon

The negatives

it is heavy

> no finesse she is ridiculously noisy and has a strong smell of powder

> is a complex weapon of reloading, at least 2 dedicated turns to reload

> imprecise,

> it is affected by the weather, it does not shoot when it gets wet

it would be cool to use, you could build a class around that weapon

>it does not shoot when it gets wet
bows and crossbows don't either

A wet musket fouls, you dry and clean
A wet bowstring just dies.

you could just restring it, user.

The problem of this type of weapon is not the effective distance of the projectile, it is to aim, it basically explodes in the face of the operator,

> "youtube.com/watch?v=eA8vZxJslgw"

>Hit Penalty at long ranges
>Damage Penalty at long ranges
>High Damage at short to mid ranges
>Full action to load rifles
>Gun Jam checks

How many spare strings do you keep around?
Not to mention restringing a crossbow requires specialist tools and a good deal of work.

>>Damage Penalty at long ranges
You mean one of the key advantages of guns except in complete reverse? Arrows and especially the smaller and lighter crossbow bolts, lost penetration way faster than the low profile lead ball.

That didn't stop people from being accurate to 200 yards before the adoption of loose balls for ease of reloading in the 18th century

You're more likely to be able to shoot a musket in a light drizzle (especially wheellocks, some models of which were almost proof enough to handle serious rain) than you are to restring a crossbow in the field. Also the staffs also got fucked up by rain.

We got a hothead over here

dunno user. What would a rainy country with famed longbowmen do? Bring the one string per archer for their army and not keep any in the supplies? Anyway, they had waterproof covers for their bows. If it was a problem then I'm sure even you could come up with a solution if you wanted to. And you can bet I'd bring more string if I had a DM that made it an issue, maybe dozens of strings, hundreds even :o

Primitive guns did not outclass bows and crossbows. If they do, they're not primitive.

Wew

Way to miss the point entirely, while also using military logistics as an example of a reasonable response from a pc.

weren't we talking about primitive firearms? In any case, I'll just take your word for it.

Something with a front sight and a back sight is bound to be more accurate than a curved stick with a string.

>The warbow wasn't a precision shooting weapon
Not entirely true, there are warbows designed for precision close-range shooting. English warbow is likely one of these, given that its design (long, heavy limbs, heavy arrows, long fletching on arrow etc) really isn't optimized for long range shower shooting.

You'd want something like the Turkish bow for shower shooting.

That rainy country with famed longbowmen lost the goddamn war.

Also they kept the strings under their hat. They also didn't fire an arrow every six seconds, their arrows were gigantic, heavy things that requires huge cumbersome bags to carry, and their accuracy was in minutes of battlefield, none of which is reflected in D&D bows so why do people get autismal about what they *believe* is realistic about matchlocks (which is often just so stories peddled by yewaboos)

>You'd want something like the Turkish bow for shower shooting.
Except english tactics in the field were entirely shower shooting.

Well, I mean, while adventurers have a reputation for being dumb, some simple innovations can come from simple but experienced people. Like putting the fuzzy bit at the end of the pole they use to poke a bullet into the gun so it cleans the gun at the same time. Every ranger who has been out in the wild should know about the risks and consequence of wet bows and a lot of warriors are ex-soldiers.

Level 1 adventurers really shouldn't be that dumb.

The thing is, you're not going to want to use a bow in weather that would make guns unusable so it doesn't really matter how you keep it. You can also keep powder dry.

>Primitive Firearms
>Good at long range

Oh, I'm not here to compare the two weapons, I'm not this guy user saying there's nothing you can do about wet string was all I was arguing against.

Not good but better, the damage falloff from a bow at long range was ridiculous.

The scottish chiltron at Flodden literally didn't die of a single arrow, they barely even pierced the plate.

I never said the damage penalty of the firearm would be worse than a bow/crossbows

>Guns vs. Bows
>This whole thread

So why are we comparing the usefulness of guns in regards to armies versus a rag-tag group of people who arn't held to any sort of standard?

Here, I'll clear up some things for you guys

1. How do we-
-First off you don't, at least numbers wise. The best way to "balance" is in terms of availability and usefulness in certain situations. Guns are useful, bows are useful. Not in every situation obviously. Bows didn't suddenly stop existing just because guns do the same way swords didn't go away either. That said, if you're out in the wilds and low on supplies I imagine it's easier to whittle a shitty arrow together out of wood and stone then make gunpowder from scratch.

2. Meta players advancing guns
-Unless you're a pussy bitch faggot of a DM who bends over and opens their assholes to anyone who demands it just say no. Or you can indulge them and say they have to pass series after seires of insane skill checks to even get the very idea and various industries together to even get started which is hard to do as a traveling adventurer I'd imagine. Maybe humor them with an ending where they would be remembered as one of the pioneers of new weapon designs but never get to use or do it in game.

Hey guys lets make this fantasy thing as realistic as possible and argue over it.

M-muh realism and math

Stop having fun!

Not due to longbowmen but due to political instability. Also >Angevin Empire >Country >Talking about modern nation states in the context of 14th century allodial conflicts.

Ideally, my game would only have pistols and throwing weapons in it. I want fun and interesting skirmishes, not players engaging from half a kilometer away and taking pot shots for an hour as the enemy advances.

>due to political instability
The war of the roses started nearly 10 years after the peace treaty that ended the HYW

The english were defeated in the field repeatedly.

>realism and math
I rather call it "mechanical verisimilitude"

Pistols, ironically enough, are most sophisticated constructions than two-handed firearms. Until the wheelock, it was just not practical.

Also
>talking about modern nation states
It's a convenient shorthand. More importantly, in that situation you have to acknowledge that "plucky little England" had massive amounts of lifting done by the duchy of Burgundy and other continental allies tearing France apart internally, none of which validate the feelings of the yewaboos.

Hawkwood had to completely revise his tactics in Italy because nobody was impressed by his longbow shit.

The pistol actually shows up in the middle of the 16th century, and while the Japanese figured out how to make matchlocks down the line (their clockwork was shit), the earliest euro pistols more or less took the wheellock.

They were also the first guns banned because it turns out that having a weapon you can conceal loaded long enough to shoot it at the king from point blank isn't good when there's a war of religion going on.

I literally can't convince my players that plate armour/classic knights and guns co-existed.

>it takes almost nothing but meta knowledge to immediately develop non-primitive firearms.
What right-minded GM lets his players use meta-knowledge? Historically, it took centuries to get from primitive hand-gonnes to rifled muskets. That should give you a clue as to how tricky actually doing the R&D for that is if you don't already know what you need to do. Which the CHARACTERS don't.

The classic knight is an ahistorical mashup to begin with. "Landowning, hereditary aristocratic warrior lord" as a thing was more or less limited to the british isles and the former carolingian empire, and only started in the 13th century more or less, which is when the word nobiles starts representing miles for knights.

Books nigger, go to a library you inbred beta cuck.

Yes, flintlock pistols and muskets have just become available in my setting, gradually replacing the older matchlocks. My setting has about 16th-17th level technology, at least in the not!Europe continent.

We don't use 5E's default ones, because they're underwhelming and overpriced. Instead we just ruled that a pistol, carbine or musket operates on the same principles as a crossbow (hand, light or heavy, respectively) but it deals an extra die of damage, you can't ignore the loading property even with crossbow mastery, and it makes a loud as fuck bang. They're common weapons in the imperial military and rich private forces, but small scale forces and civilians tend to just use bows still.

Our ranger has one, and has figured out how to stun people with the noise by firing it around a corner into a tight corridor or other scenarios where the sound amplifies to the point of rupturing eardrums. He also fashions power and caltrops into clay bombs and lobs them around.

I don't see any reason to not include guns honestly.

I've never shot a musket, but a modern black powder rifle isn't that hard to load and fire in twelve seconds if you practice quick-loading for a while. Most people take 30-45 but they're not going for speed, just fluid motion.

>primitive firearms

>outclassing croosbows

Ehehehe.

Remind them there were WWI soldiers wearing metal cuirasses who survived being shot.