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.
I can see this making sense. Faking the shooter off with some light jukes could make up for that mechanic.
I do wonder if there are any plans to put a "bulletproof" quality on magic armor or shields or something, though. At the moment, the only items I know of that add to AC from firearms are Amulets of Bullet Protection, Rings of Deflection, and the Gunslinger's Poncho. Bit short of a list.
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To answer the OP, I think the issue is that a large subset of D&D players cut their teeth on either the Greyhawk setting (which was very common in 2E and the 'default' setting for 3E), or else Forgotten Realms or maybe Dragonlance. These were the most popular settings at the time, and were all rather Tolkeinesque. Those same players did not necessarily play Eberron, Dark Sun, or Spelljammer, while people who played the latter three almost certainly played some of the former three as well, just because they were more common.
So in essence, a good portion of the 'grognard' gamers really prefer "sword and sorcery" settings, and I have seen this firsthand. It is nostalgic and fun for these folks to play games similar to the ones they have played in decades past, and it is comfortable as well. Eventually, things not typical in these setting just seem to not belong.
Thing is though, Pathfinder (and D&D, etc) doesn't really make sense as an exclusive setting. I mean, somebody decided that half the classes in the game would have access to magic, and that magic could do literally anything. It wouldn't be odd or even unlikely that some 17th Level Wizard with some fun ideas or spells to burn could invent things like the internet. Golarion is realistically a few dozen highly specific Wishes away from 21st Century technology.
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Thing is though, Pathfinder (and D&D, etc) doesn't really make sense as an exclusive setting. I mean, somebody decided that half the classes in the game would have access to magic, and that magic could do literally anything. It wouldn't be odd or even unlikely that some 17th Level Wizard with some fun ideas or spells to burn could invent things like the internet. Golarion is realistically a few dozen highly specific Wishes away from 21st Century technology.
At risk of going off on a tangent, I would give my eye teeth to play an adventure around this concept.
To start, I'd like to point out that I'm not speaking mechanically, I understand that hitting touch AC can feel OP to some GMs.
What I mean is why do I hear people saying they don't "fit?" In a fantasy setting, why is it "normal" that a Wizard should be able to travel to different planes, stop time, and summon a demon before breakfast? Or a paladin to cut down hordes of evil creatures, and shrug off their attacks like nothing, all under the blessing of their god?
But as soon as one guy shows up with a metal pipe that shoots lead balls, what? Immersion is just shattered so thoroughly that no-one can stand it anymore?
In short, I'd like to hear why folks feel guns, specifically, are out of place in fantasy.
I was gonna say I made this exact thread a month prior, but turns out it's actually the opposite.
I don' think guns don't fit into fantasy, they just don't fit into some settings. Some fantasy worlds are not at that technological level, while others are.
Pathfinder- and DnD-wise though It does seem like a bad idea to walk into a dungeon and fire a gun at the first creature you find. Because realistically you should have the entire dungeon's population after you within minutes. Also depending on the acoustics you will deafen your entire party in the process.
Guns don't fit because they undermine the historical mindset that underlies heroic fantasy.
Heroic fantasy is based on the essential belief that heroism and victory in battle are somehow based in superior ability and a greater destiny. Aragorn is victorious over a hundred orcs because he's a noble hero of men, the son of generations of noble men, wielding a sword with its own noble lineage and history, and riding a horse of noble breeding. His skills are honed by personal victory over countless foes. Once he's victorious, he's crowned and rules in the most fantastic castle ever built.
Firearms, on the other hand, especially pre-industrial-revolution firearms, are the weapons of commoners. No particular nobility and very little skill or training is necessary to be part of a line of shooters filling the air with bullets. Dying to gunfire is less personal and more random-seeming than dying to the sword, with no heroic confrontation of your foe involved. Famous guns aren't noble exemplars, but rather mass produced in the thousands or tens of thousands. Cannon rendered castles obsolete as anything but architectural accomplishments.
Heroic fantasy is a story about the myths that powered feudalism, and gunpowder killed feudalism.
Except that is your personal feeling. If u want to go there, then crossbows should be the same way because they are also the weapon of commoners. It doesn't take much skill to fire and reload a crossbow, and they were used in the same method as the gunmen...
And who says that every protagonist needs to be Aragorn? I mean, what if i want to play the everyman who happened to pick up a sword due to tragedy or a guy who learns to fight from bouncers...
Or a sneaky rogue who prefers to poison his foes or slit their throats.
To me guns are not too far out of the norm for example when the book with the slinger and guns came out we did a test run. The gem gave us all an ECL of level 5 and this was purely to see a comparison. There were three players:
Human Witch
Human Ranger (urban specked)
Human Cleric (me)
Human Fighter (used his feats for duel wielding pistols, he might have rolled a slinger though)
To be honest the witch and ranger were the most powerful when it came to battling hands down. I was more of the healer in full plate so while I was key in the mission for locating the target item, I prepared mostly healing spells with some buffs for the party. (for simplicity I’m calling him a slinger) The slinger held his own, his weapons weren’t too over powerful (when compared to the Witch or a Ranger with a long bow urban setting/favorite enemy human) so the group was quite balanced.
Now as the as tech how I justify it in my head is look at World of Warcraft, the early vanilla days had guns in a predominate medieval setting, yes the gnomes and goblins were engineers but not talking about all of that. I Imagine Guns being slower than a bow, not going as far as a long bow and pending on range hitting as hard if not a bit less than a cross bow.
I agree a veteran gun user should be able to reload a pistol as fast as a cross bow user (single shot not multi) with maybe an extra round. What I’d throw in is cleaning the barrel, not a requirement for each shot but each shot that you don’t at least do a quick swab will either be a negative to or increase the critical fumble chance (same concept as chopping paint in paintball, sure you can still play if it happens but your chance to hit what you want all go to s&$+ unless you clean that barrel)
Think of the explosive effects of a fireball. It's not stated but it seems like that should be a lot louder and more dangerous to go off around you than a black powder gun.To start, I'd like to point out that I'm not speaking mechanically, I understand that hitting touch AC can feel OP to some GMs.
What I mean is why do I hear people saying they don't "fit?" In a fantasy setting, why is it "normal" that a Wizard should be able to travel to different planes, stop time, and summon a demon before breakfast? Or a paladin to cut down hordes of evil creatures, and shrug off their attacks like nothing, all under the blessing of their god?
But as soon as one guy shows up with a metal pipe that shoots lead balls, what? Immersion is just shattered so thoroughly that no-one can stand it anymore?
In short, I'd like to hear why folks feel guns, specifically, are out of place in fantasy.
I was gonna say I made this exact thread a month prior, but turns out it's actually the opposite.
I don' think guns don't fit into fantasy, they just don't fit into some settings. Some fantasy worlds are not at that technological level, while others are.
Pathfinder- and DnD-wise though It does seem like a bad idea to walk into a dungeon and fire a gun at the first creature you find. Because realistically you should have the entire dungeon's population after you within minutes. Also depending on the acoustics you will deafen your entire party in the process.
A fireball spell generates a searing explosion of flame that detonates with a low roar
Besides, who uses fireballs?
Thing is, if you want to discuss penetration power, guns come in a long way behind crossbows. Certainly, their speed is much higher, but the mass is far lower. Sum total, a bolt will generally penetrate far deeper than a bullet.
Thing is, if you want to discuss penetration power, guns come in a long way behind crossbows. Certainly, their speed is much higher, but the mass is far lower. Sum total, a bolt will generally penetrate far deeper than a bullet.
We need the Deadiest Warrior team to test this scientifically. Because they know how to do science.
I am actually referring to Mythbusters here. I know some might think that's a questionable source... but their results were pretty clear. Against ballistic gel, no bullet they tried, including one fired from a Barrett light 50, IIRC, penetrated deeper than the crossbow bolt (which blew straight through).
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The real and narrative roles for early fire arms are
One shot, fire and forget weapons
Easy to use (requires no skill)
innacurate as all hell
Painfully/dramatically slow to reload
do a lot of damage in their one hit: its a trump card you keep up your sleeve.
The mechanics are
Fires repeatedly like a six shooter
Requires more training than a fencing sword
Never misses
Do minor damage on their own.
Are the only weapon you need.
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I'm guessing that Paizo felt a "fire and forget" weapon would be pretty tough to build a class around. Maybe having a martial class based around early firearms is part of the "problem" for some of us. If Gunslinger were an archetype of Alchemist maybe it wouldn't stand out quite as much.
I wouldn't be opposed to having fairly devastating "fire and forget" firearms. The fact you'd have people Quick Drawing entire braces of them like Blackbeard would at least have some historical precedent and might help prevent the use of all +5 guns or bullets to easily overcome DR. Heck, I'm not even against the idea of a BLAM-BLAM 6 shot per round TWF Colt 45 cowboy in certain games which choose to have advanced firearms. The rules actually warn GMs that advanced firearms will change the game world. There's just not enough distance between early and advanced firearms once you combine stuff like alchemical cartridges with some Gunslinger abilities to get a machine gun like effect of limitless reloads per round. Depending on how you rule the "double shot" of the double-barreled pistol works it can actually have more offensive firepower than the supposedly more advanced revolver (though the revolver catches up a bit due to the weapon cord nerf)
I'd like to have pirates shoot a pistol once in a while. I wouldn't like to have the players not running Gunslingers feel like "Why is my PC here?" Unfortunately the latter is what we got when we had a Gunslinger in the game for a few sessions. Even if the game balance were better there might be some suspension of disbelief problems not only from somebody being able to load and fire a muzzle loading gun 12 times in 6 seconds but from the idea that people in a world with guns which fire at that rate and pierce armor completely would bother to keep using other weapons. Anyhow, I'd like to see early firearms a lot weaker than they are so that including them or not would be almost purely based on the "flavor" the GM wants for a particular game rather than meditations about game balance.
@Calybos1 - When it comes to being tough and gritty, I actually find "gunslingers" such as The Man With No Name from "A Fistful of Dollars" pretty interchangeable with "warriors" such as the samurai from "Yojimbo" (the former was a remake of the latter, after all)
Most people are not aware of when guns actually first came about (or that hand-held single-shot pistols predate full plate armor). So, most people feel guns are out of place, despite how anachronistic it is to have full plate without cannons and handheld firearms also around.
Now, the difference is, gunpowder during the time of most medieval armor was hard to produce and horrible in quality. So the idea of guns piercing medieval armor as well as they do in Pathfinder is also anachronistic. Plus, from a game balance standpoint, troublesome.
Basically, the rules made guns into something they should not have been, when handling them the same as any other weapon would have prevented problems.
Most people don't know this, and even after they find out they won't budge because they have their own idea about that fantasy should be.
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I am actually referring to Mythbusters here. I know some might think that's a questionable source... but their results were pretty clear. Against ballistic gel, no bullet they tried, including one fired from a Barrett light 50, IIRC, penetrated deeper than the crossbow bolt (which blew straight through).
No the Deadliest Warrior guys are better at science. They will shoot each weapon exactly once and won't care if each shot has a wildly different impact angle, passed through bone or not, or regard any other of those pesky "circumstantial factors", thus their science is true and accurate.
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Some players don't like guns because they don't feel it fits within the idiom of the fantasy world they prefer.
That's it. It's not complicated.
I also don't buy guns being that effective and remaining so rare as to not change the world, like they really did. Even with magic.
I don't know. having to keep large barrels of powder on hand to supply your magazine seems like a bad idea when people are tossing around fireballs.
Then again, someting as mundane as a 10th level fighter kinda negates the idea of a conscript peasant army.
Most people don't know this, and even after they find out they won't budge because they have their own idea about that fantasy should be.Most people are not aware of when guns actually first came about (or that hand-held single-shot pistols predate full plate armor). So, most people feel guns are out of place, despite how anachronistic it is to have full plate without cannons and handheld firearms also around.
Now, the difference is, gunpowder during the time of most medieval armor was hard to produce and horrible in quality. So the idea of guns piercing medieval armor as well as they do in Pathfinder is also anachronistic. Plus, from a game balance standpoint, troublesome.
Basically, the rules made guns into something they should not have been, when handling them the same as any other weapon would have prevented problems.
While I have no problems with guns in PF, I feel like this is a bad point to try to make. Golarion (or any setting you choose) is not Earth. It did not develop like Earth. Using Earth as a metric for these things gets you nowhere. What the goal in developing Fantasy settings is, is to represent the feel of a fantastic world. So the question to ask isn't "Are guns contemporary technology to Full plate and dueling swords?" it's "Do guns have a place in this type of fantasy environment?" As the core rules for pathfinder are setting agnostic, this comes down to a question of whether guns belong in enough fantasy settings to devote pages to them (though obviously with a little favoritism to their proprietary setting).
From here, if that answer is yes, the question then comes down to "What does a fantasy gun behave like?" or "How does a fantasy gunslinger work?" in terms of giving them mechanics. While, yes, early guns were nothing like the flintlock pistols or muskets presented in the "early firearms" table, I hold that they behave like I would expect a fantasy firearm to function. They are exotic weapons, with only a few knowing what they are, or how they operate. They can be fired once per six seconds, and don't take longer than most encounters to reload. They aren't fully refined, and can misfire, if you're unlucky. They are not overwhelmingly powerful, but they have their niche. They are innacurate outside of close range, but can pack a good punch if they connect.
I'll admit, not everything they did I liked; I'd prefer if they didn't punch through +5 fullplate like tissue paper, but overall, I think the rules presented represent the type of guns I'd expect in a high fantasy setting, if they exist there. And not every setting needs to have access to guns; many wouldn't, and that's fine. But it's good to have the options be there, rather than have to homebrew the rules for it, if the setting calls for them.
Guns don't fit because they undermine the historical mindset that underlies heroic fantasy.
Heroic fantasy is based on the essential belief that heroism and victory in battle are somehow based in superior ability and a greater destiny. Aragorn is victorious over a hundred orcs because he's a noble hero of men, the son of generations of noble men, wielding a sword with its own noble lineage and history, and riding a horse of noble breeding. His skills are honed by personal victory over countless foes. Once he's victorious, he's crowned and rules in the most fantastic castle ever built.
Firearms, on the other hand, especially pre-industrial-revolution firearms, are the weapons of commoners. No particular nobility and very little skill or training is necessary to be part of a line of shooters filling the air with bullets. Dying to gunfire is less personal and more random-seeming than dying to the sword, with no heroic confrontation of your foe involved. Famous guns aren't noble exemplars, but rather mass produced in the thousands or tens of thousands. Cannon rendered castles obsolete as anything but architectural accomplishments.
Heroic fantasy is a story about the myths that powered feudalism, and gunpowder killed feudalism.
Except the firearms aren't that good. They require extra training (exotic). They aren't mass produced either.
You fear the narrative roles, but the reality is Firearms in games are never like that.
Heck, only Lars Anderson can shoot a bow like PF (10 shots in 4.6 seconds, it takes other famous bowmen 12 seconds).
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Guns are perfect in my setting, though my growing up on the magitech feel of FF6,7,8, Chrono Trigger, and others shaped what I like in fantasy. I didn't really start reading fantasy lit until High School (long after my magitech tastes were solidified, ironically when they announced the LOTR movies I decided I wanted to start reading more fantasy, starting with LOTR), so Tolkein and Brooks and FR were all a post script instead of a formative influence.
Mechanically, the pseudo crossbow mechanics of Paizo's gun rules breaks down into insanity when rapid reload, TWF, and the Touchslinger start interacting. I've tried using Ptolus guns with the gunslinger and that still failed (even more so, thanks multi-capacity guns!), but time and again I have to ban them because I can't house rule the Gunslinger into comparative action economy with the rest of the party. Also, guns have a crit fail mechanism which I don't use.
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They don't like guns because they don't like guns? Brilliant observation.Some players don't like guns because they don't feel it fits within the idiom of the fantasy world they prefer.
That's it. It's not complicated.
That's not what I said. But okay...snark away if it makes you feel good.
I like guns in many of my games. I like them in steampunk games and I like them in swashbuckling campaigns.
But when I'm playing a traditional Tolkien-influenced fantasy campaign I don't want technology that feels out of place.
If that's too difficult to grock then you are beyond help.
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I keep seeing references to the Forgotten Realms as a "Tolkien-inspired" setting. Faerun absolutely has guns, although that fact has been (mostly) ignored as of 3e, I assume since WotC didn't want to spend much time on firearms rules (other than a blip in the DMG that also covers 'futuristic' weapons).
In addition to Gond giving the secret of gunpowder to his faithful during the Time of Troubles, after which one could purchase a high-quality arquebus from a Lantanese merchant, an "incident" in Waterdeep resulted in the introduction of wheel-lock pistols.
In fact, Ed Greenwood himself authored several articles about firearms in D&D in Dragon magazine.
The real issue is that we associate firearms with more modern periods, so some find that to be "immersion-breaking". Yet no one seems to complain when other non-medieval technologies appear in games, such as printing presses (Baldur's Gate has a newspaper!), indoor plumbing, articulated plate armor, literacy (even Barbarians can read these days), alchemical items, and the like.
Why? Possibly because guns are seen as the death knell to the era where armor and the sword were common. I'm sure some people feel that even magic is cheapened when any warrior can shoot someone full of lead shot.
The addition of even uncommonly-available firearms raises questions for a setting that should be answered, but they aren't going to "ruin" a fantasy game by their very existence.
Especially not in a game with sunrods and heatstones available as standard equipment.
For those in the not in my "Tolkien based fantasy" are magic items kept in check, and mages toned downed to appropriate levels.
I could see a grand council of archmages conducting a ritual to render gunpowder inert.
Like the Red wizards of Thay.
In a world dominated by magical power gunpowder would be seen as a major threat.
"We can't have peasants blowing away wizards!"
It would actually make an interesting story.
I don't think the worlds mages would sit by and just let guns proliferate,there would be a major conflict.
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Ok wtf...
How the hell are you guys freaking out about guns and "their effect on the world" but you are perfectly fine with Clerics and druids producing infinite water from nothing, bards/wizards/sorcerers/rogues/anyone with even a TINY inkling of magic beng able to randomly pick things up from 30 ft away or turning things pink, and a multitude of other taskes with magic????
Heck, most level 0 spells are pretty society changing... let alone things like level 1 spells...
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Ok wtf...
How the hell are you guys freaking out about guns and "their effect on the world" but you are perfectly fine with Clerics and druids producing infinite water from nothing, bards/wizards/sorcerers/rogues/anyone with even a TINY inkling of magic beng able to randomly pick things up from 30 ft away or turning things pink, and a multitude of other taskes with magic????
Heck, most level 0 spells are pretty society changing... let alone things like level 1 spells...
"This is Jimmy, a most devout cleric of Abadar, who spends all day every day casting create water to quench the thirst of the masses. Because of him, we were able to move our fair kingdom to the middle of the desert with only minimal difficulties."
"This is Jimmy, a most devout cleric of Abadar, who spends all day every day casting create water to quench the thirst of the masses. Because of him, we were able to move our fair kingdom to the middle of the desert with only minimal difficulties."Ok wtf...
How the hell are you guys freaking out about guns and "their effect on the world" but you are perfectly fine with Clerics and druids producing infinite water from nothing, bards/wizards/sorcerers/rogues/anyone with even a TINY inkling of magic beng able to randomly pick things up from 30 ft away or turning things pink, and a multitude of other taskes with magic????
Heck, most level 0 spells are pretty society changing... let alone things like level 1 spells...
Or heck... it could be a multitude of clerics. You could have a bunch of adepts... Like, it could be a chore for the "monks" (Read clerics/disciples) to create water for an hour or so while focusing on his prayer as a way to help the community and attract people to the church (create a huge pool in the church courtyard to hydrate the peoples of the town)
I mean, level 0 spells in the sense of a "Midevil" society is actually rather world changing...
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Guns don't fit because they undermine the historical mindset that underlies heroic fantasy.
Heroic fantasy is based on the essential belief that heroism and victory in battle are somehow based in superior ability and a greater destiny. Aragorn is victorious over a hundred orcs because he's a noble hero of men, the son of generations of noble men, wielding a sword with its own noble lineage and history, and riding a horse of noble breeding. His skills are honed by personal victory over countless foes. Once he's victorious, he's crowned and rules in the most fantastic castle ever built.
Firearms, on the other hand, especially pre-industrial-revolution firearms, are the weapons of commoners. No particular nobility and very little skill or training is necessary to be part of a line of shooters filling the air with bullets. Dying to gunfire is less personal and more random-seeming than dying to the sword, with no heroic confrontation of your foe involved. Famous guns aren't noble exemplars, but rather mass produced in the thousands or tens of thousands. Cannon rendered castles obsolete as anything but architectural accomplishments.
Heroic fantasy is a story about the myths that powered feudalism, and gunpowder killed feudalism.
Except the firearms aren't that good. They require extra training (exotic). They aren't mass produced either.
You fear the narrative roles, but the reality is Firearms in games are never like that.
Which for me is a lot of the point. Firearms in the game aren't like that. They're not like they were in reality. More importantly, they're not like they are in fantasy literature or any other source material.
I can't think of any sources where guns are treated as expensive, not mass produced, requiring extra training and are still anywhere near as effective as personal combat weapons (quick enough to be fired more than once in a fight, but not used in large scale battles?)The closest would be stories where the...
I don't see how their unique status in the world of Golarion is detrimental to their validity in the setting. I was under the impression that a large part of what makes a setting compelling is how it does things differently from other settings. From the games I've played the the info I've gleaned from the inner Sea World Guide I find that they fit in perfectly well with the setting.
I can understand the complaints that their unpopularity makes no sense, but I've been able to brush that under the rug of narrative convenience that you often do with dozens of aspects of any campaign. At least the fact is acknowledged and hand waved, almost lamp-shaded even
My two cents. I wouldn't mind any table disallowing guns if there was a mutual agreement that they should be avoided. But I don't find my personal idiom of fantasy disrupted by many things in general.
I like realism in RPGs.
I don't think realism has anything whatsoever to do with Pathfinder, where a 7th level fighter (around 65 HP) won't be injured by falling off of a 100' castle wall (35 points of damage, on average).
What I do expect from Pathfinder is that the gun-using class won't render entire levels worth of combats monotonous. On that metric, they fail. Badly.