That part about reloading doesn't bother me much. I was even considering picking up Rasputin Must Die to see the more modern firearms and their magazine quality. I just don't like everyone can dodge bullets and large creatures start losing their scare factor is all.
No. We in fact do not know this. It is momentum that is conserved in collisions and explosions.
Momentum is mass multiplied by velocity. Kinetic Energy has mass multiplied by velocity squared. The exponent makes a big difference.
See? Not a physicist. :)
It just seems odd to me that a primitive firearm ignores armor, but a +5 adamantine arrow fired by someone with a strength of 25 does not. But I can demonstrate no rational basis for this feeling.
Historically speaking, jousting was horrendously dangerous. You could pierce a breastplate and instantly kill someone.
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TBH, I think its a weird sort of purist issue. Frankly I don't see guns as anymore dangerous than some creatures, a poison arrow, or a powerful spell, so as a GM, its just the same thing with a different skin. The only difference between a Mark VII blaster and a wand of scorching ray to me is one works in an Antimagic field. My players OTOH have VERY strong feelings about anachronistic items in their happy little fantasy world :)
I had a character in my KM game from Numeria, and I let him find a space hand grenade (1-use 3d6 AOE damage item). I thought several players at my table would stage a walkout they were so upset about non-fantasy things in the game. I asked them what the difference was between that and a pellet that cast flaming sphere or minor fireball. Apparently it was night and day. No one can explain it except its NOT fantasy and upsetting to their pysches LOL...
I did get them to agree to black powder if we ever play Skull and Shackles, which I thought was a big concession on their part, and really the only scenario I would argue over whether guns had a place in the world.
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Historically speaking, jousting was horrendously dangerous. You could pierce a breastplate and instantly kill someone.
Historically speaking, everything was dangerous.
Flavor - As already detailed above, there’s a lot of beloved fantasy source material which excludes or minimizes guns. Even in stuff like Howard’s Solomon Kane stories guns are present but swords and other melee weapons still play a big role. This is also true in maritime and “pirate” style adventures where “fire and forget” pistols are often just a prelude to a desperate battle with rapiers, cutlasses, or even just belaying pins. Besides maintaining the tropes of Sword & Sorcery, portraying early guns as not immediately replacing melee weapons or even other projectile weapons seems historically accurate to me. Cavalry units especially went on using sabers and lances for quite a while even after firearms were well established.
Mechanics - I can imagine why Paizo wanted to present options to reload early firearms far more quickly than they could be reloaded in real life. Crossbows in the game seem to get reloaded pretty quickly too, and they still can’t hold up to bows in game balance terms. I can also imagine why Paizo wanted to represent the armor piercing capabilities of firearms and use them to help define what makes a firearm special. Unfortunately, I think they went too far.
With the right combinations the practical DPR against most foes can get even more excessive than that of the TWF Fast Bombs Alchemist, which I think is already excessive itself. Slowing down reloading might help a bit, but if it were too restrictive players would simply go “Blackbeard Style” with pistols and Quick Draw. I think the problem ultimately comes down to the touch attacks.
I was thinking one or some of the rules below might help better balance guns and maybe touch attacks in general:
1 - Allow shield bonuses vs touch attacks (or at least guns)
2 - Allow enhancement bonuses to armor vs touch attacks (or at least guns)
3 - Cap the ability of guns to ignore a target’s total armor and natural armor bonuses. This could be either a flat cap of -10 or a variable cap based on the base damage of the gun (pistols ignore -8, muskets -12, etc)
Idea #3 in particular wouldn’t affect the power of guns at early levels much but could change things significantly at higher levels, where a tough monster might have +24 natural armor. I kind of prefer #3 to #2 since it addresses concerns for targeting monsters as well as PCs and NPCs. These aren’t pronouncements about the absolute best way to fix firearms, just thoughts on some possible methods.
I’ve begun to question the entire touch attack mechanic in general. Guns simply exacerbate the problem due to their potentially high number of attacks, their unusual compatibility with Deadly Aim, and their potentially high damage due to other add-ons like Dex bonuses and the Up Close and Deadly deed.
And this is relevant how???
Read the thread. The question of charging lances was mentioned.
My take is somewhat similar to many of the other posters. But I will go ahead and state anyway (I’m bored at work).
- It is not always out of place. Some of our campaign worlds have them. But some of our campaign worlds do not.
- If you start to allow one item of moderately modern technology, how do you limit others of the same or simpler tech level? Or worse yet, other applications of the exact same technology. If you have gunpowder it becomes ridiculously easy to make a cheap satchel charge that is basically un-survivable by anyone in medium sized room. Why don’t you give level 3 characters access to nice and cheap 15d6 fireballs that can be used by anyone?
- How do you explain limited proliferation? Why did armies switch to guns? The early ones were probably not actually a lot more dangerous than arrows from a long bow (from what I’ve seen the testing and records are fairly inconclusive). They were pretty cheap and stupidly easy to use. So how come everyone in your campaign doesn’t have one?
- If there are guns, why not cannons? They were actually easier to make with early tech levels than a handgun.
- I’m not going to enter the thieves guild. We’ll just have some horsemen gallop by and throw a satchel charge in each window. The building will collapse on all those dead bodies.
- It drastically changes the game (or should if you are being consistent). Without them, your high level fighter can take on a small army. With them a few squads should be able to kill him in a round or 2.
- I know you didn’t want to discuss mechanics. But that is part of the problem for many of us. I will say the PF version of mechanics is better than most I have read. But is still gives results that just don’t feel right.
Plate armor would not be the same protection as a t-shirt. Yes, a bullet can go through plate if it hits right. But an arrow can also go through plate if it hits right. A bullet (even an early firearm bullet) does go through plate easier than an arrow. But not nearly as much easier as the mechanics indicate.
A muzzle loader getting 5 shots in a round is just silly. They weren’t as slow as many people believe, but they were nowhere near as fast as the rules allow (no matter how experienced the shooter).
The records would indicate that early firearms had much more common explosive misfire’s (often fatal). The units with the earliest guns were tantamount to suicide units.
I can shoot through +5 full plate armor at 15 feet, but at 20 feet I can’t hit anything. Etc…
- Yes, I’m also one of the people that the ‘fanboy’ reaction sets my teeth grinding.
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That part about reloading doesn't bother me much. I was even considering picking up Rasputin Must Die to see the more modern firearms and their magazine quality. I just don't like everyone can dodge bullets and large creatures start losing their scare factor is all.
The everyone dodging bullets is a perspective problem. Due to turn based combat you may be assuming you are firing on a target who is standing still. Touch AC is an abstraction that accounts for movement.
Phaser Pistol- Pistol Shaped Wand of Magic Missile/Wand on Handcrossbow-the bow
Lazer Cannon- Wand of Searing Ray on Heavy Crossbow Body (because it has to look Bad arse with 2 hands)
Grenade Launcher- Wand of Fireball on bottom of Lazer Cannon (for awesomeness)
Im just going to leave this here...
My take is somewhat similar to many of the other posters. But I will go ahead and state anyway (I’m bored at work).
[list]
[Lots of variations on how gunpowder weapons are super deadly]
Everything you're mentioning (except for armor vs. bullets and arrows) falls under the point I was making back here-
What it really comes down to, as best I can tell, is that we live in a culture which creates a massive gulf in our perception of guns vs. more or less any other kind of weapon. Guns still see regular use. You see/hear/read about real-world deaths caused by guns pretty regularly, establishing them as highly effective killing tools in your mind. Swords on the other hand, you really only tend to see in PG-13 fiction where nobody's going to die, and games (Like D&D, Pathfinder, Final Fantasy, WarCraft, etc. etc.) where it can take a good ten solid whacks from a sword to put someone down. Totally unrealistic, but you don't really have the basis of comparison for it to jump out at you as wrong. Throw guns into the same situation though, and your real world practical knowledge causes you to expect them to be just as deadly as they really are, leading to a massive disconnect.
Basically, the HP of absolutely anything in Pathfinder, next to the damage any weapon does, is completely and utterly unrealistic. Everything should be much much more damaging than it is if you're going for realism, but we're not. We're going for ridiculous high fantasy scenarios where lots of people crowding around a single target swinging deadly weapons still take a while to bring it down. At a certain point you really just need to accept it as either a lot of abstraction or just full on wrong but in service of game mechanics.
As for some of the other points here...
Sure, why not cannons? They're neat, there's rules support for them in the same book, and I'm pretty sure they can also be found anywhere in Golarion where guns are available.
Why use melee weapons when guns are cheap and easy to use? That's just plain not the case. Guns didn't really take off in the real world until we had enough industrialization to mass produce them with interchangeable replacement parts and other sorts of standardization, and they really weren't easy to use back when they were all muzzle-loaded. It's much easier to just use, say, a crossbow. This is reflected mechanically on both counts.
The touch AC bit- I'm pretty sure it's less about penetrating the armor at close range, and more about being able to aim at a bit not covered by the armor when you get a good luck, what with your stupidly fast-moving projectile following a nearly straight path. As for why that's exclusively a property of guns, and not true for arrows, spear tips, etc.... that's just one of those things you need to chalk up to "adding mechanical variety at the expense of realism."
For myself, there's two kinds of guns in fantasy. Swashbuckling and Gunslinger.
Swashbuckling guns are the "novelty" effect. Guns in the setting are most likely used in the "really crappy aim, but shooting a squad of military" style. Long reloads, blow-up-in-your-face, really bad aim, that kind of stuff.
Pirates sending off a salvo or two before whipping out the cutlass and getting into melee.
Gunslinger guns are the "this is my thing" effect. The gun is very capable in personal combat use. Between rifling, revolver loading, and dual action triggers, these things are intended to be used as a primary ranged weapon day in, day out. Dual wielding pistols, sniping long shots with rifles and trick shots in general make it a versatile weapon with a lot of gameplay options.
There's also a third "super novelty" option, that is basically the "hand canon" style of gun, that's more of an alchemist item than an actual weapon, which would emulate super early guns. But that just feels like an item tossed into the game, rather than a campaign flavour change.
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Personally, I think both Swashbuckling and Gunslinger guns can work in my Fantasy without any problems. Both indicate a slightly more industrial era than the older medieval era fantasy trope, but I don't care.
With how much comfortable living and economics that magic brings to the table, I feel the game is already far closer to 1920s than 1320s.
For the Swashbuckling guns, Pathfinder's rules are already pretty good. Take out the Gunslinger class, make reload times excessive (3-5 rounds?) and remove any mass production (each gun/bullet/powder is hand-made, etc) to make repeat fire nigh impossible (or at least really high level stuff).
Keeping touch AC on this kind of weapon (I'd go so far as to allow full rage touch AC, tho low range pistol), gives it that desire to be used in that initial volley.
For Gunslinger guns, just make the gun a normal weapon using normal rules. No touch AC, no flatfooted AC. Bullets are uniform, powder is safe and "smokeless". Make it a "super" crossbow (good damage, good crit, reliable).
Gunslinger class adds precision damage (or Dex to damage or something) and some neat tricks, like rebounding shots, or winging targets to set them off balance.
Don't want to affect the campaign world too much? Make every gun a prototype (hand-made for *this guy* and *this guy* knows how to use *this gun* properly), and ammunition is still handmade instead of mass produced. Caring for the weapon requires skill to prevent jams (no explosions), so exotic proficiency means reliability rather than accuracy. Now it makes sense that the Gunslinger dives through the air firing off double revolvers, while the army still isn't heavy on the gunpowder.
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Anyways, that's my 2 cents.
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2. It encourages missile weapons - which discourages chivalry and honor by definition.
So, every standing armed force in the world today is honorless by definition? Note, I did not say army.
One of the biggest advantages of guns is that they require less skill and less personal risk to use... indeed, that's part of why they're so popular. So yes, classic medieval notions of chivalry and honor are violated (or at least hampered) by a switch to gunplay, just as they're violated by the use of poison.
Well, since we're all playing classic medieval chivalrous and honorable characters, it's a good thing that there are no other such dishonorable class features. Like Poison Use. Or Sneak attack. Or Bows. Or standing way in the back, and throwing fireballs with the power of cosmic math. Or... you get the picture.
In fact, your entire point makes no sense for the gun mechanics presented. Guns require a great deal of skill (Exotic Weapon Proficiency), and have a great deal of personal risk to use (Can only hit Touch AC in the first range increment, Can misfire, possibly causing it to explode in your hands).
And even further, causing me to scratch my head, is the fact that the proprietary setting for the system is far from classic medieval. It has some of that, but it's far more closely related to the periods ranging from late Renaissance to the age of imperialism, roughly. Sure, technologically, it's not to that point, but that's more due to presence of magic. But in terms of society and global politics, it's not really all that medieval.
In a setting where plate armor and rapiers are common firearms should not feel out of place.
I think one problem with guns in Pathfinder or any d20 system is the game mechanics.
Guns don't fit,especially automatic rifles and similar weapons, when you are going by number of attacks instead of rate of fire. It's very hard to bring an automatic weapon into a fantasy game where you are limited to a maximum number of four attacks (without two-weapon fighting or magic qualities).
I think early rifles (muskets) and pistols fit much better than any modern day firearm in a d20 game, so I don't see a problem with those, but automatic rifles and machine guns just don't feel right.
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Current gun mechanics in Pathfinder target touch AC (well, at ranges which are usually absurdly close for a ranged-focused character, anyway, but I digress), but that doesn't mean gun mechanics *have to* target touch AC.
Guns do not 'guarantee an instant kill', at least no more so than someone getting an axe buried in them does. There are countless people alive today who have survived gunshot wounds, and we don't have the amazing curative powers available to high-fantasy settings like Golarion.
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Bows are not guns. Bows require more skill to use (note that they target regular AC, not touch AC) and do not generally guarantee an instant kill.
Bows were not considered honorable, either, and was usually not allowed for use by commoners and such. The only time I've seen guns get an 'instant' kill was via a crit (and we already hit the creature several times).
And no, Sneak Attack is not honorable, which is why rogues are seldom held up as examples of honor and chivalry. Was this news to anyone? Because really, the name "rogue" is kind of a giveaway.
What's with the chivalry standard? The only classes that'd support chivalry would be the paladin and some Cavalier orders.
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Bows are not guns. Bows require more skill to use (note that they target regular AC, not touch AC) and do not generally guarantee an instant kill.
And no, Sneak Attack is not honorable, which is why rogues are seldom held up as examples of honor and chivalry. Was this news to anyone? Because really, the name "rogue" is kind of a giveaway.
And I never said Pathfinder was a medieval setting. I said that it violated the medieval standard of honor, which many players start from in deciding how to play their characters and culture.
You do know that besides the Double Hackbut and Culverin, which, due to their restrictions, are for the most part never used outside of NPCs, Guns cap out at 1d12 damage, most dealing less, mostly 1d6-1d8. That's an average of 6.5 for the Musket, and 3.5-4.5 for the others. A longbow wielded by a bowman with 16 strength will do 1d8+3 damage, aka 7.5 on average. And it can be reloaded as a free action. Neither will guarantee an "instant kill" but if either one were to do so, I'd put my money on a Longbowman. Likewise, with a longbow, you don't have to worry about standing within 20-40 feet, in order to get an accurate shot in. Sure, you're going against AC, rather than Touch AC, but if your attack bonus is at all good, it shouldn't matter much, overall. Also the added bonus of not accidentally breaking 5-10% of the time (and then risking blowing up, afterwards), and the fact that you can take advantage of iterative attacks and all the feats that let you attack multiple times. But, no, guns guarantee an instant kill.
Onto your other points, yes, a rogue is not held up as chivalrous. But why must a gunslinger be held to that standard. Or any class, really. Even the Paladin doesn't need to be 'chivalrous' beyond what little it says in the Paladin's code. In fact, of all the paladins that I've seen played, the two best RPed ones I've witnessed weren't anything I'd call 'chivalrous' Lawful? yes. Good? yes. Chivalrous? no, not really. So, this brings me back to my main point: So what if it's not chivalrous?
And lastly, on the "many players start from [the medieval standard of honor] in deciding how to play their characters and culture" point. If you can't play your character because there are rules for guns in a supplement book, that says a lot more about the quality of your roleplaying ability than it does about guns.
Likewise many legendary characters associated with honor, such as Hercules and Odysseus, were both associated with massively powerful bows.
This is more as the exception to the rule than anything else. While I agree for the most part that it's stupid to look at guns or bows or anything like that through the lens of "honor" because different cultures had different views on the sort of thing, in the case of Greek myth, Bows were by and large not associated with honor. That was one of the reasons Odysseus was so different than other Greek heroes was that his chosen weapon of the Bow showed a sort of intelligence and pragmatism above the reckless stupidity of a lot of the contemporary Greek heroes.
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Oh.. we were saying the same thing. oops. ^_^'Commoner' might be a expansive
term, but the point that I'm driving at is notions of chivalry and honor can wildly from culture to culture, and I don't see why the inclusion of single-shot firearms and a class that revolves around that item destroys that notion somehow.
No probs, I could have articulated better. :P
Oh I just gotta chime in on this one. This is just an awesome dialogue going on here.
First: How are people dual wielding guns? You need two hands to reload one.
Second: Tolkien is boring as paint drying so I don't buy into the "traditional" version of fantasy world, after all we use the word fantasy so why tie yourself down to one idea?
Lastly: Touch AC might not be super logical but it has never broken my games. If you can hit the dragon every time good for you, he's still a dragon or a T-Rex, or a Balor, etc, etc. You have fun when you piss off the Big bad giant monster who now needs to deal with the biggest threat first and using the most violence he can muster.
Tolkien had guns so don't worry, even in his world guns are cool with him.
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I like the western fantasy feel. It gives Pathfinder its own flavor.
But I really grow irritated with people who say guns shouldn't exist at all in the game. Golerion was designed to be a campaign setting of campaign settings so there's a place to fit every taste. If you want lawless wilderness and feuding kingdoms, you got River Kingdoms. If you want a pirate adventure, you got the Shackles. If you want an Arabian adventure, you got Katapesh. If you want an Egyptian adventure, you got Orision. If you want an African jungle adventure, you got Mwangi. If you want magitech, you got Nex and the Mana Wastes. If you want science fantasy, you got Numeria.
If guns aren't your taste, that's fine. But to say that firearms and western themes don't belong is to spit in the face of what makes Golerion a great setting.
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I don't think I'm going to ad much to the conversation that has not already been said.
I guess to answer the OP's question: "What is wrong with guns Exactly?". All i can really say, as a matter of preference I don't like them and I don't want them in my "sword&sorcery fantasy" games.
When I run a home game set in Golarion, I let people know that there was a terrible accident in Alkenstar......they blew themselves up.... Poof so no guns.
I do like the "Kitchen Sink" design philosophy of Golarion. you can add and subtract elements with relative ease. So while I do not like guns and won't have them in games I run, If one of my friends wants to run a game and include guns, it is very easy to do so....Poof, in his reality Alkenstar never blew up.
On the other hand, if i was playing in a "skulls and Shackles" campaign, with pirates etc, then I would not mind guns at all.
But I probably am not saying anything that hasn't already been said. I hope this helps.
As long as Tribe A has wanted to steal Tribe B's stuff, people have used dishonorable tactics in battle (for good effect). Survival and winning will almost always win out over any concerns about "honor"
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2. It encourages missile weapons - which discourages chivalry and honor by definition.So, every standing armed force in the world today is honorless by definition? Note, I did not say army.Guns are not honorable. Any self respecting force is aware of this and focus on efficiency - the reason you want better training and better guns is BECAUSE it becomes a dis-honorable/unfair fight. They use surprise and misdirection. Even combat training is purposefully dishonorable now - eye gouges, throat and nut strikes etc
Nowadays we have copied the techniques of others we once saw as dishonorable. No more lines of men (or gunners) facing each other and best/lucky man wins. Surprise/misdirection/fake outs/explosives/cheap shots is the nature of the modern beast. Anyone in the armed forces that says otherwise is pullin your leg, hiding facts from civvys or surprisingly self deluded.
Yes the dnd system has sneak attack, poison and spells but their not honorable either. Rogues and casters think martials are stupid for fighting man-to-man/face-to-face. Martials think the others cheap cowards. That is standard in fantasy/in vietnam/in ancient battles/in gladiator matches.
Society changes and games adapted but that's not relevant.Its like sport - drugs are considered cheating but as time goes on younger generations just assume its a given and don't care. Boxing, MMA, olympic events, rugby, footy etc etc - first person to poison the other team, 'sneak attack' tackle, use telekinesis or pull a gun will likely be dis-honorable.
One of the reasons elves were hated by some - cowardly bow use.
One of the reasons samurai were considered honorable (unlike the mongols who were considered dis-honorable) is when dueling individually or in small groups they didn't just pull out their bows (they were good at) and gallop away shooting.
Honor here is warrior honor - not sexual etc etc. As such it is not specific to a culture. ALL warrior cultures had honor and it was in essence a form of moral relativism arising from universal concerns for material circumstance and status...basically no point being a good warrior if any idiot can poison you unpunished or any fool ..or even a choking fish in its death throes.. can kill you just because it happens to be on the trigger of a gun pointed in your direction!
First of all, I would like to once again ask the question that you still haven't answered: Even if I were to accept the premise that guns are not honorable, why does it matter? Why does "honor" matter, when only two classes even pay lip service to it, and even in doing so, it's left so ill-defined, that it really doesn't preclude much more than not using poisons? Sure, if you want to play a character with a certain ideal of honor which precludes gunfighting, then don't play a character that uses guns. But it still doesn't preclude anyone else from picking up a gun, because their idea of what it means to be honorable, or even the value of honor is different from yours.
Also, with regards to the whole "rogues and casters think martials are stupid for fighting man-to-man/face-to-face. Martials think the others cheap cowards" BS, who are you to make blanket assumptions to what all martials or all casters think?
And lastly, honor is definitively culture and time-period specific. It is largely influenced by the technology and society of the time. You may have a specific view on what is "honorable" but it is not a universal ideal.
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But seriously, I talked around here somewhere before about how it just feels weird to me that everyone in the world can, theoretically, dodge bullets. I'd rather have sturdier armor than give everyone with a DEX or Dodge bonus to AC into Neo.
I think this issue goes away when we stop thinking about it so much as dodging bullets and more as avoiding the shooter.
Any self defense course will tell you to run from someone with a gun in any way but a straight line, because it'll make it very hard for the shooter to hit you. While bullets do indeed move very fast, aiming is not nearly as simple a business as it seems, especially with the less accurate firearms of the time (represented by the generally lower range increment and the touch leaving the weapon by the first one). We've seen plenty of examples in fiction and video games, and even heard of examples in real life. A bullet isn't necessarily dodged, but certainly moving away is a superior tactic to tanking fire.
That said: I've always been on the side that shield AC should count towards touch AC. Shields are bulkier than your typical armor, and it's always struck me as weird that it doesn't work, especially since the image of the knight using his shield against the fire breath of a dragon is so iconic.
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Regarding shields, a bullet might punch through them, but it also might be deflected or bounce off, especially if we're talking about a relatively low velocity shot from an antique black powder weapon as opposed to one from a modern rifle. Regarding touch attacks in general, I've always found it extremely odd that shields don't count against them. The idea of a vampire or wight draining your levels through your shield never sat well with me.
Some folks say that sword and board PCs need some help, and some folks say that touch attacks are very powerful. Applying shield bonuses to touch AC would help both situations a bit. It seems like a good house rule to me, and it seems like the sort of thing that would trickle down to subsequent supplements pretty elegantly if it ever got changed in Core.