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Kuje
Great Reader
USA
7915 Posts |
 Posted - 10 Aug 2005 : 17:28:38
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quote:
Originally posted by Xysma
Firearms are unreliable, one of my players really wanted to use a gun, so I let him. The first time he used it, it backfired on him. Guns take as long to load as a heavy crossbow, but a heavy crossbow won't misfire and blow up in your face. I see firearms as nothing more than a novelty that magic users look down upon as inferior, and warriors look down upon as a sign of weakness. As far as smokepowder itself is concerned, I make it illegal and extremely expensive (except for Gondites who know how to make it), which makes it a rarity in our campaigns.
WOTC did away with the misfire in 3/3.5e. :) |
For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet and excite you... Books are full of the things that you don't get in real life - wonderful, lyrical language, for instance, right off the bat. - Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
Scribe for the Candlekeep Compendium |
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webmanus
Learned Scribe
Sweden
338 Posts |
Posted - 10 Aug 2005 : 18:30:27
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| If I recall corectly, Gond did come with gifts to Cyric ... and those gifts were firearms ... Crucible: The Trial of Cyric the Mad. |
Link to my homepage: http://user.tninet.se/~bsu242v/ |
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Jamallo Kreen
Master of Realmslore
USA
1537 Posts |
Posted - 10 Aug 2005 : 19:23:49
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quote:
Originally posted by Jaysen Darclyght
(snip)
There is also the repeating crossbow. Take smokepowder away and leave a civilization with a need for an advanced mode of killing its enemies, and the crossbow will evolve. For my adventure, I had the antagonist race use automatic crossbows. They work with the use of springs and locking mechanisms attached to the bow arms and allow (in theory) for a clip to be rapidly used without much difficulty. So guns are not necessarily the only problem FR might encounter. There are other alternatives, given the chance any of them might equal firearms in destructive and political power.
If there are any flaws in my argument, please point them out for me to improve upon.
I have recently debated allowing a Bow of Storing into my campaign. A 50-round magazine in a bow which can be fired repeatedly with no danger of hanging fire or backfiring represents as much or more killing potential than two companies of musketeers. A few crack shots with such bows could decimate a legion, particulary if one disregarded the crippling limitations on range and rate of fire in 3E and reverted to the far more realistic standards of 2E. If the arrows were tagged as vectors for Lightning or Fireballs they would be as devastating as cannon.
With weapns like that in a campaign, the only advantage which firearms have over them is that it takes less than a day's training to teach someone how to load, aim, fire, and clean a gun, but many years to train an archer, who is therefore an extremely valuable and difficult to replace resource (unlike gunners). Assassinating a few of a ruler's best archers might cripple his military, but dozens or hundreds of gunners would need to be eliminated to deal a comparable blow.
The gunne debate also overlooks the possibility that someone will eventually realize that smokepowder explosives have non-military uses. Mining and roadbuilding is vastly easier if explosives precede musclepower. Even in magic-loving Thay explosives will catch on as soon as the tharcions realize that they can extract far more gold (and far more quickly) with explosives blasting tunnels than with slaves digging them. Explosives won't take long to impress the people of the Underdark with their usefulness as a means to make tunnels -- or to destroy them; and it isn't difficult to imagine Kossuth and Gruumbar taking an interest in explosives as soon as they start showing that Smokepowder and alchemical concotions can be as effective as a large elemental. |
I have a mouth, but I am in a library and must not scream.
Feed the poor and stroke your ego, too: http://www.freerice.com/index.php.
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Edited by - Jamallo Kreen on 10 Aug 2005 19:39:51 |
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Xysma
Master of Realmslore
USA
1089 Posts |
Posted - 12 Aug 2005 : 14:36:41
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quote:
Originally posted by Kuje
quote:
Originally posted by Xysma
Firearms are unreliable, one of my players really wanted to use a gun, so I let him. The first time he used it, it backfired on him. Guns take as long to load as a heavy crossbow, but a heavy crossbow won't misfire and blow up in your face. I see firearms as nothing more than a novelty that magic users look down upon as inferior, and warriors look down upon as a sign of weakness. As far as smokepowder itself is concerned, I make it illegal and extremely expensive (except for Gondites who know how to make it), which makes it a rarity in our campaigns.
WOTC did away with the misfire in 3/3.5e. :)
Not in my world!  |
War to slay, not to fight long and glorious.
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AlacLuin
Learned Scribe
131 Posts |
Posted - 13 Aug 2005 : 00:13:55
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quote:
Originally posted by Jamallo Kreen
In the Realms, Gond needn't be the only Power interested in smokepowder weaponry.
Why spend thousands of gold pieces on a cannon when free-lance mages are available for a fraction of that price to hurl fireballs and lightning bolts? Cheap rockets, fire spears, and bombs and grenades are a different matter, but their usefulness is primarily as weapons of "shock and awe" or as incendiaries in a siege.
Ok, I sniped a bit.
Unapproachable East pg 55, Thayan Bombards
The only mention I have of them in 2rd material had them as smokepowder cannons.
UE does not mention the smokepowder though.
Smokepowder Cannons in the hands of the Red Wizards... hmmm.
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Jamallo Kreen
Master of Realmslore
USA
1537 Posts |
Posted - 13 Aug 2005 : 19:55:15
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quote:
Originally posted by Xysma
(snip)
As far as smokepowder itself is concerned, I make it illegal and extremely expensive (except for Gondites who know how to make it), which makes it a rarity in our campaigns.
That's sensible. I can imagine governments large and small joining together (openly or not) in INTERPOL-type organizations to eradicate the illicit smoke powder trade. Somewhere or other, though, there will be some state or organization (maybe Lantan or some cult or secret society or other) manufacturing it in secret and then unleashing an army of smoke powder armed troops on its neighbors, a threat which might or might not be met by some grand alliance of otherwise enemy states, united by a desire to resist the incursions of smoke powder. There could be a lot of high level role-playing involved in such a scenario, whether for the secretive powder makers or their more conservative enemies. In a long-term campaign this could be used by a DM to explain the formation of some new league or alliance or the transformation of an existing one into a permanent confederation or imperium.
On the other hand, if an island country like Lantan broke the ban on powder and used it to eradicate piracy, would any of the continental nations fight them? They might take a laissez-faire attitude ... until the powder-using country showed up off their coasts with a fleet of cannon.
Smoke powder use is extremely hazardous in the Phlogiston (the area between the crystal spheres). Some space-going society which doesn't use smoke powder may be called upon by countries fighting the spread of smoke powder to attack a "rogue state" from above -- a hard direction to defend. One ought also to remember that the Celestial Empire uses smoke powder and also has an airborne navy; they could be a major spoiler in anything which Faerun does, if they choose the T'ang path of empire in the West. (There would also be a wealth of role-playing opportunities in a Shou dynasty which decides to take the late Ming and Tokugawa path of turning inward and "giving up the gun.")
I think the cork is out of the genie's bottle as far as smoke powder is concerned. Even if one decrees that it simply doesn't exist in one's own Realms, one might be faced with a situation I have in my campaign -- an Earthling who knows enough about gunpowder to make it (but who doesn't at present because that would threaten his own high-powered magery) may gate or otherwise be transported to one's Realms. A DM under whom I played years ago dealt with that by decreeing an alteration in the physics of his own game world -- gunpowder didn't work there, and there was a possibility that knowledge of it might be erased from the mind of an off-worlder going planet-side.
My personal preference (if it isn't already obvious!) is to deal with smoke powder, allowing it to appear and then either incorporating it into a military campaign or role-playing attempts to eradicate it. That's my preference, but let each DM determine his or her own path. As it is written, "It's your Realms." |
I have a mouth, but I am in a library and must not scream.
Feed the poor and stroke your ego, too: http://www.freerice.com/index.php.
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Jamallo Kreen
Master of Realmslore
USA
1537 Posts |
Posted - 13 Aug 2005 : 20:00:02
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quote:
Originally posted by AlacLuin
quote:
Originally posted by Jamallo Kreen
In the Realms, Gond needn't be the only Power interested in smokepowder weaponry.
Why spend thousands of gold pieces on a cannon when free-lance mages are available for a fraction of that price to hurl fireballs and lightning bolts? Cheap rockets, fire spears, and bombs and grenades are a different matter, but their usefulness is primarily as weapons of "shock and awe" or as incendiaries in a siege.
Ok, I sniped a bit.
Unapproachable East pg 55, Thayan Bombards
The only mention I have of them in 2rd material had them as smokepowder cannons.
UE does not mention the smokepowder though.
Smokepowder Cannons in the hands of the Red Wizards... hmmm.
I finally got the Spelljammer boxed set and was confronted by a marvelous magical answer to mortars: reverse gravity cast upon a cannonball! |
I have a mouth, but I am in a library and must not scream.
Feed the poor and stroke your ego, too: http://www.freerice.com/index.php.
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Kuje
Great Reader
USA
7915 Posts |
Posted - 13 Aug 2005 : 20:13:43
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Well gunpowder doesn't work in FR, so says the 1e and 2e campaign box sets. Other items from earth don't as well. Smokepowder isn't the same as gunpowder either, since one is magical and the other isn't.
Ed, I think, came up with that no earth tech rule because some of his PC's have been to earth. The Knights of Myth Drannor have, for example. :) Plus Elminster, Laeral, Qilue, etc, have as well. |
For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet and excite you... Books are full of the things that you don't get in real life - wonderful, lyrical language, for instance, right off the bat. - Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
Scribe for the Candlekeep Compendium |
Edited by - Kuje on 13 Aug 2005 20:14:52 |
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khorne
Master of Realmslore
Finland
1073 Posts |
Posted - 11 Sep 2005 : 20:13:25
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quote:
Originally posted by Jamallo Kreen
quote:
Originally posted by AlacLuin
quote:
Originally posted by Jamallo Kreen
In the Realms, Gond needn't be the only Power interested in smokepowder weaponry.
Why spend thousands of gold pieces on a cannon when free-lance mages are available for a fraction of that price to hurl fireballs and lightning bolts? Cheap rockets, fire spears, and bombs and grenades are a different matter, but their usefulness is primarily as weapons of "shock and awe" or as incendiaries in a siege.
Ok, I sniped a bit.
Unapproachable East pg 55, Thayan Bombards
The only mention I have of them in 2rd material had them as smokepowder cannons.
UE does not mention the smokepowder though.
Smokepowder Cannons in the hands of the Red Wizards... hmmm.
I finally got the Spelljammer boxed set and was confronted by a marvelous magical answer to mortars: reverse gravity cast upon a cannonball!
That sounds really brutal. I can imagine their faces when the cannonball suddenly turns back towards them....... |
If I were a ranger, I would pick NDA for my favorite enemy |
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Just
Acolyte
Portugal
32 Posts |
Posted - 26 Dec 2005 : 19:02:46
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I must congratulate you for the theme, it's very interesting!
As for my opinion I must say the only reason I wouldn't want weapons of this type in the FR it's because, many rules would have to be created to deal with weapons of this type!
As in the other aspects, I would say that being whatever the world, Mankind is always looking to develop new technologies! And I see smokepowder weapons in Faerun as only a new technology! But one would say that this being a world where magic rules the development of technology may be done differently! Magic take's much of the effort of most sages in Toril and it's considered a technology by itself!!!
My reasons are only metagaming one's! Most of all as from my experience, these weapons are not so much powerfull as swords, bows or any other weapon that already exist in faerun. A bomb of smokepowder would be in my belief not as powerfull as a wizard's fireball. Second the example of the musket, in my belief for a peasant it would be much easier to master a bow or crossbow, where a musket, requires much more training, like knowing how to load a musket(The correct amount of powder, how the powder works, the bullet, the cover, the fuse, the push of the fire, etc...) In one of my campaigns the character would always have to have different feats to use such a weapon(for example Point blank shot would not work etc)... So this would mean that a new set of rules would have to be created for this kind of weapon, which would complicate things! Then would come another question, how would magic interect with this type of weapon. Most spellcasters would have to come about with new spells to counteract or to enchant this type of weapons. At a whole beside the clear need for a new batch of rules, this type of weapon, wouldn't change much the face of faerun. Wizards and wise rulers being cunning would come up with clever ways to discourage the use of this weapon, but the fact that these weapons exist can give room to some interesting campaign opportunities!! |
Brainstorming Paladin under the shadow of a rock shaped Abyss General |
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Elrond Half Elven
Learned Scribe
United Kingdom
322 Posts |
Posted - 14 Mar 2006 : 22:46:17
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I was reading through anxiously expecting what kuji posted to have been posted much earlier... i.e. smokepowders magical (at least in 2nd Edition).
I cannot see Commoners walking around with smokepowder weapons; mainly because the smokepowder it's self is so expensive iirc 3000gp for 10 shots... hmm if a Giff cannot afored enought them a commoner certianly cannot... saying that Giffs never have enought!
Hanx
Elrond |
Once upon a midnight dreary, while i pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-
While i nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
-The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe |
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The Church of Gond and Firearms
