Guns
The gun is the great equalizer. Everybody can use one. But not everybody is proficient. Guns are also expensive.
The following rules govern firearms. They are written for gaslamp fantasy, a pre-industrial setting, but they also apply to Weird West and similar genres.
- Unless your class says you are proficient with guns, you do not add a +hit modifier to your attack roll. It is a straight roll. Fighters are presumed to be proficient.
- Guns ignore armor class and instead target 10 + the target’s Dexterity modifier. A monster with AC 17 and Dexterity +2 is therefore targeted at AC 12. This represents the penetrating power of firearms.
- Armor reduces gun damage by type: light armor reduces damage by 1, medium armor by 2, and heavy armor by 3, to a minimum of 1.
- Magical armor is treated normally and forces the gun to target your armor class instead.
- Guns are loud and may trigger an immediate encounter roll. This depends on the situation. If it is a toss-up, roll a decider die to determine whether the shot draws attention.
Up to 100 shot takes up 1 slot.
| Ammunition | Cost |
|---|---|
| Powder & Shot (10) | 1g |
| Silver shot (10) | 5g |
| Weapon | Cost | Type | Range | Damage | Properties |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blunderbuss | 19g | R | N | 1d6 | L, 2H, 2S |
| Carbine | 46g | R | N/F | 1d8 | L, 2H |
| Fowling Piece | 140g | R | N | 1d4 | R(2), 2H, 2S |
| Gun-Cane | 35g | R | N | 1d4 | L, Cn |
| Pocket Pistol | 28g | R | N | 1d4 | L |
| Revolver | 240g | R | N | 1d6 | R(5) |
| Rifle-Musket | 55g | R | N/F | 1d10 | L, 2H, 2S |
| Stutzen | 220g | R | N/F | 1d12 | L, 2H, 2S |
- L = Loading
- 2H = Two-Handed
- 2S = Two Slots
- R(#) = Repeating, the number of shots taken before needing to load.
- Cn = Concealable, passes a casual search, and you can draw it as part of an attack against a target that isn’t expecting it.
These costs & weapons are based on historical guns & rates for those guns in 1850s France & Italy. Why 1850s? Pre-industrial era that I’m building the campaign for. Why France & Italy? They are the reference point for Hubris of Blood & the campaign setting it implies. These rates will be cheaper than guns in weird west settings but they are close enough.
I’m also considering some unique guns like the gun-cane. But the rules first.