Antique firearms

[Gwain]

I've often wondered about this for existing ingame items or for application renames. I know that in the real world, firearms have existed in small dosages for over one thousand years, the earliest being from China and in the form of hand cannons. Flint locks appear to have come about in the late 1400's. In 3rd edition, there is mention of smoke powder weapons that were developed by the gondars beginning to enter into Faerun. My question would be if these weapons were a possibility for fk as either area items or renames. Probably the closest weaponry we have coded is slings, which you can batter an opponent with physically or load with a projectile and fire. In essence its sort of like a Blunderbuss, a more recent weapon with a handle that could be used as a club or load and fire.

I'd love to see these made available in the game, though they should be expensive, unreliable when fired and heavy. I'd love to get opinions on the question of the availability of firearms in the game though either through application or as a builder adding them as weapons for mobiles or area rewards or loot or even sales. Thank you.

[Selveem]

Firearms exist in 3.5 D&D, too. In fact, so do cannons. There's even a prestige for Dwarves that allows them to become a Cannoneer. I have never used it in any of my campaigns; I feel it cheapens the fantasy. I don't know why I feel this way, but I do.

I wouldn't like to see them on FK, either, but since I can't substantiate why I am so against the idea, I am not sure it's fair for me to be so opinionated on the subject.

Besides, who needs a mage when I can just Civil War-style chain two cannonballs together and fire them at a large mass of enemies?

[Harroghty]

In order to make a firearm realistic and balanced among other weapon choices it would, I believe, require a hard code change. A firearm of this period would have a delay between flash and bang (as the fuse burns), a high chance of malfunction (the weapon not operating as intended), and a huge risk (Shakespeare did not just make up "hoisted on his own petard").



I do not believe that this is a necessary change. I believe that the problem (beyond the inherent logistics) is that firearms require the wit of a DM to manage appropriately in this setting and it could be world-changing to release them for independent use.

[Algon]

I am not really sure how the hard code works for ranged weapons, so what I am about to say might be completely impossible. But would it be possible to just do something like a rename on a bow and arrow? Maybe add some kind of echo when "shot" saying something about the flash and bang of the weapon, maybe even having an echo in the nearby rooms about hearing the boom. You could add a little +dam to the "bullets" since they would technically do more damage than an arrow. Just a thought!

[Xryon]

If Algon's suggestion is deemed acceptable, I'll happily write up any desired oprogs for the weapon. Could easily incorporate a heavy fail rate, with possibility for backfire/malfunction, or even outright destruction of it.

[Gwain]

Smaug had something like pea shooters at one point. But I'm with Harroghty on this, firearms seem to unstable for the game. Every few years I like to test the water on this as the game evolves, but we're probably still not there just yet.