The Campaign Builder's Guild

Quote from: Scholarwhatever you do, please don't give a musket the reload time of heavy crossbow (even that is a little too short), because there is no way without the aid of magic for someone to do this in 6 or seconds:
add podwder to the pan, lock and clean the pan, set musket upright on the ground, clean the muzzle, fill in powder, load bullet, push it down with the rod, replace the rod, take reset key and rewind the whellock.

While that's true, as you mention it's probably also takes a lot more than 6 seconds to hook up and span a heavy crossbow with a cranequin.  If heavy crossbows in D&D took longer, nobody would use them - and the same is likely true of guns.  All this about braces of pistols and bandoliers aside, if you're enforcing any kind of encumbrance rule at all, a player is probably going to go for a bow and quiver instead.

I think the basic problem is that the advantage of early guns (and here I mean the stuff before flintlocks) was that they could be used by the unskilled (even if, as you say, the skilled could get more use out of them), and player characters are assumed to be among the ranks of the skilled - the kind of people who could get more mileage from a longbow than an arquebus.  If you want players to use guns alongside bows, any solution you come up with will probably have to be unrealistic in some respect.  The question is how you want to do that, and I'm not sure there's any one definitive answer to that.

Quote from: Polycarp!I think the basic problem is that the advantage of early guns (and here I mean the stuff before flintlocks) was that they could be used by the unskilled (even if, as you say, the skilled could get more use out of them), and player characters are assumed to be among the ranks of the skilled - the kind of people who could get more mileage from a longbow than an arquebus.  If you want players to use guns alongside bows, any solution you come up with will probably have to be unrealistic in some respect.  The question is how you want to do that, and I'm not sure there's any one definitive answer to that.

you're right, there is no optimal solution. in my original proposition, i tried to balance gun and bow by having both deal 3d8 damage over the span of three rounds, feats excluded. in the end, it depends on the style of play you're going for. if you want action/heroic adventure, shorter reload times and lower damage are all right. if you want a more realistic, deadlier game, up the damage, but make sure the gunner knows he'll end up in melee sooner or later.

This reminds me of that bit in Sharpe's Regiment with the whole "all you have to do is stand and fire three rounds a minute. Now, I know you can fire three rounds a minute.... but can you stand?" skit. Good times.

are you going to use explosives in this campaign?

I think i'm going to use an altered version of  D20 Past rules,

A musket takes two full round actions to reload (I consider that well-trained loading, as that would mean, counting the attack round that a character would be able to fire 3 (technically 3.33) times in a minute, the average for a british soldier was just that)I want to make it possible to go faster, so a fast loading feat will become available allowing pc's to eliminate a round from that, making it 5 times a minute.

This is assuming the use of cartridges in a musket. Without cartridges or with an arquebus you must take 3 rounds to load, which effectively reduces the firing rate to twice a minute.

Guns will be simple weapons, but you multiply the amount of rounds it takes to reload by 2 if you do not have martial proficiency and you will be unable to use your dex bonus. Ex. A conscript (com 1) reloads an arquebus in 8 rounds, a musket in the same w/o cartridges and a musket w/ cartridges in 4 four rounds. A soldier (War 1) would be able to fire at the listed rates and has the ability to take a fast loading feat.

Damage (all crit 20)
Musket 2d8
Arquebus and Horse Pistol 2d6
Calver and Belt Pistol 2d4
Custom Rifled Wheellock 2d10