Ye Olde Inn

The past two weeks have really been exciting for me.

Not only have I started running my new HQP campaign on Roll20, but over on Google+, someone discovered my work for HQP and full-on dove in headfirst. He had an idea for a supplement that would include some new stuff that would be compatible with HQP. I thought this was actually fantastic work!

I got him to join here at Ye Olde Inn. At the time of this writing, he is currently awaiting his confirmation email. (Username: thelasthobbit).

The very first thing he shared with me was this splat called "Firearms & Black Powder" that introduces new weapons, a new keyword, and a new class.



That's not all!

When I say he dove headfirst, I really mean it. He took it upon himself, in about a day and half of work, to compile practically all of HQP's rules, in addition to the entirety of the original rulebook (with some light massaging for HQP's frame), and put it together into a digest format PDF with a beautiful cover!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-l2Yi ... 9LUEE/view



THERE'S EVEN MORE!

This morning he told me that he's also working on his own Quest Book! It will feature Ratmen or Skaven. We'll see how this one shapes up. I'm excited!

gratz! Very good job.

I'm so jealous. Congratulations to your first fan.

knightkrawler wrote:I'm so jealous. Congratulations to your first fan.

I was thinking about this and I realized it's actually false without further qualification. He isn't my first fan. I think my first fan would be Devin Night (the celebrity artist who did the tokens and character card art), followed by Joe & Sarah Bilton, the folks of Heroic Maps who have helped me immensely in getting the Quest Book completed.

This guy is the first fan to put together a supplement, however.

Sorry for overthinking it, kk <3

Hey, that's a pretty nice set of materials your friend put together!

As is typical for me on this forum, I come to comment on math - in this case, the Black Powder rules. I'm always in favor of people breaking Fantasy Gun Control, and on first glance the drawback to using powdered weapons make sense. However, the garden variety Crossbow has a higher expected damage than these weapons, no matter how many Attack Dice you roll. I was going to post a table with the results, but Firefox crashed and I lost my progress, so I won't. Suffice to say, Black Powder weapons with this drawback reach their peak efficiency at around 5-6 attack dice (with 1.21 expected skulls) and decline in use for higher numbers of dice. Of course, if you manage to fire one successfully, they can do a lot of damage, but that's the trick, isn't it?

Count Mohawk wrote:Hey, that's a pretty nice set of materials your friend put together!

As is typical for me on this forum, I come to comment on math - in this case, the Black Powder rules. I'm always in favor of people breaking Fantasy Gun Control, and on first glance the drawback to using powdered weapons make sense. However, the garden variety Crossbow has a higher expected damage than these weapons, no matter how many Attack Dice you roll. I was going to post a table with the results, but Firefox crashed and I lost my progress, so I won't. Suffice to say, Black Powder weapons with this drawback reach their peak efficiency at around 5-6 attack dice (with 1.21 expected skulls) and decline in use for higher numbers of dice. Of course, if you manage to fire one successfully, they can do a lot of damage, but that's the trick, isn't it?

Does your math account for the extra die that the Handgunner gets to apply?

As a black powder shooter and hunter I must protest the range rules for the musket. (the pistol I am ok with)
A properly loaded musket that is of average quality can be accurately shot up to a maximum effective range of 75 yards in a qualified gunners hands. In the hands of an expert 100 yards is doable.
Now with a standard issue MODERN bow the maximum effective hunting range is about 50 yards, with most bow hunters unwilling to take a shot further than 40 yards. The 30 yard or closer shot is preferred.
Now the way your rules will work is that bows will be more effective of a weapon for range than a musket, and I can confidently speak to this as being patently false.
With only 3 Attack dice you severely underestimate the usefulness and power of the original guns. The match lock and the doglock flint guns were not less powerful than the musket in my safe. They were just as dangerous as my musket... Just with my percussion caplock I have a small advantage on it going off when called on.
Old school military muskets shot balls that were about .65-.85 inches with .72 being very common. (12 gauge) Now this ball is traveling at about 1000-1600 FPS and it will go right through a steel hauberk like a hot knife through butter.
So I would suggest that the musket have a damage rule as such:
Defenders are at a -2 Defend dice penalty when defending against a gun, with a minimal of 1 Defend dice to be rolled.
Or...
Muskets roll 6 Dice damage.

Also...
I suggest that a loading action be required to prepare the firearm after shooting. Giving the gun more damage dice is not a major worry if you add in 1-2 loading actions required.

Teldurn wrote:Does your math account for the extra die that the Handgunner gets to apply?

It does. The wording on the Handgunner's ability implies that the extra die rolled is also subject to the rules of Black Powder. Therefore, the Handgunner with a Musket rolls 4 dice to attack, hoping not to get any Walruses. The math for just the items listed in your friend's rules supplement is as follows:

Now, don't get me wrong, the Handgunner's ability is still a net positive for his use of firearms and explosives. It's just that, even with the extra die, blackpowder guns are statistically inferior to their medieval alternatives (the increased damage does not make up for the high chance to misfire).

If you want to keep this rule in some form, you might consider altering the rules for Black Powder or the Handgunner's ability. For example, you could...

• ...restrict the chance to fizzle or explode to just the base dice rolled by the weapon. A minor tweak, but it does improve the Handgunner somewhat, since his bonus die can no longer cause his guns to misfire. A Handgunner-held pistol or grenade would then have an expected damage of 1.18 with a 31% failure rate, and a Handgunner-held musket would have an expected damage of 1.33 with a 42% failure rate. (Incidentally, the best way to implement something like this would be to "mark" one or two white combat dice by using a pencil, marker or similar to shade them gray, so they stand out from the rest of the dice when you roll them all at once.)
• ...set the chance of a misfire equal to the result of another roll (i.e., roll one or two dice before attacking, and count a misfire if you get a Walrus). The upside to this method is the ability to reduce the misfire rate of a weapon without also reducing its power. The downside, however, is that you have to roll dice twice to attack with a Black Powder weapon instead of just once. Under this rule, a Handgunner with a Musket has an expected damage of 1.67 if you roll one die before firing, or 1.39 if you roll two dice before firing.
• ...change the Handgunner's ability from a bonus die to a reroll of a die. The flavor of this rule is excellent: "Black Powder is dangerous stuff - only licensed professionals may handle safely!!" The downside, of course, is that pretty much none of the other Heroes will be able to use Black Powder as effectively as him, which makes the stuff sort of a character-exclusive. Under this rule, a Handgunner-held pistol or grenade would then have an expected damage of 1.28 with a 7% failure rate, and a Handgunner-held musket would have an expected damage of 1.68 with a 21% failure rate.

@Cynthia: I have a couple of guns in my armory. The Rifle, the strongest option available for purchase, has the following stat line (in icon-speak, of course):

Rifle - 1,500 Gold Coins
Two Hands
You may attack at range with this weapon, rolling 4 combat dice to do so. Monsters defend with one fewer Combat Die.
After firing this weapon, it must be reloaded, requiring two actions be spent before it can be used again.

Of course, the Heroes can also purchase useful add-ons for their guns, such as a Scope (+1 combat dice) or a Powder Horn (-1 reload action required). Although the entire setup costs something like 5,000 gold to complete, a fully-kitted rifleman is a fearsome Hero indeed...

Good work though. There is obviously a bunch of time and care that went into this.

Original grenades were modest sized balls of copper, iron, clay, wood or bronze, filled with black powder and fixed with a fuse.
When lit it was thrown into enemy positions and it KILLED people fast.
2 Dice is so not a proper damage for this weapon. Especially if we are talking any form of metal as the encasing. Shrapnel...nasty stuff.
Now grenades are dangerous. I would say that when thrown into an area, if the thrower does not net any skulls, and they roll two or more Black Shields...they screw up and drop the grenade too close to their own position.

I suggest this:
Grenade
5 Dice Damage, Defenders are at -1 Defend Dice Effects entire room or hallway.
If the thrower Botches the throw, they will sustain the grenade damage themselves.
(grenades are relatively heavy and a grenadier will have a maximum of 8 Grenades equipped at the beginning of the dungeon)

Problem with grenades is collateral damage.
I would rule any room that is hit with a grenade has any items and furniture in it ruined. Only gold and silver would be recoverable treasures in a room that has had a grenade explode in it.

Black powder muskets and pistols did not/do not have the failure rate you have in your rules. If they were that unreliable, they never would have been used for hunting or military purposes.
I own a military grade flintlock pistol. It is a faithful copy of a pistol that was made over 300 years ago. It has a failure rate of about 1 in 50 shots. (mainly because I am a modern shooter using primitive tech) When that happens, I know I need to either give it a new flint, or to knap and adjust the flint in the jaw. When I set the new flint, or adjust the old flint I misfire the first couple of shots, but a few minor adjustments and it is good to go and will fire 20-50 shots before it fails again. A warrior with a pistol will have that pistol ready to go the second they need it.
With a matchlock gun the failure rate is actually better (except in rain when it rains and you have a matchlock you are screwed), but the danger of open fire of the match around the powder was too dangerous and the matchlock was abandoned by most cultures early on. (some tribesmen in Tibet used the matchlock into the late 19th century).
Wheel Locks are very reliable, but they are expensive and the Flintlock is more of a military friendly choice.

Even an old school harquebus will fire 99% of the time when you do your part.

The myth of failing black powder guns is just that, a myth.
It comes from people used to modern guns who are new to black powder guns and them doing stuff wrong and thus getting misfires. Trust me, a person who knows their stuff will not have misfires as a general rule.