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Old 10-31-2009, 11:22 AM   #48
Icelander
 
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: Emerging smokepowder weapons in my fantasy

Quote:
Originally Posted by Asta Kask View Post
I think that a huge disadvantage is that it is dishonorable. It doesn't require bravery, like lances and swords, because you are at a safe distance. It doesn't require training, like archery or magic. It is a weapon for peasants, and we don't want them[ to be too well armed.

Historically, this was a major stumbling block. It was not unknown for nobles to kill anyone found carrying a crossbow or a firearm.
Well, in the Forgotten Realms, there are nobles, but they wield nowhere near the amount of power they did in historical medieval period.

The people to whom the PCs are demonstrating the weapons are mostly common-born and have their power by virtue of the support of the merchant class and/or demonstrated military competence. At least one of them has displayed willingness to use magical means to flood goblin warrens with poison gas, which is considerably less honorable than firearms, so I guess he'd get behind anything that killed enemies efficiently.

And there's no risk that peasants will ever use smokepowder weapons, mostly because what makes them peasants is that they don't have any money. This isn't a weapon for peasants, it's a weapon for merchants and their well-funded military forces dedicated to keeping the tradeways open.

That is, if it is practical as a weapon system at all. With the cost of the smokepowder, I'm not at all convinced of that.

For the cost of keeping a regiment of musketeers in the field for a month, you could equip one-third of a regiment of crossbowmen or a whole regiment of light spearmen. That's a pretty hefty operational cost.
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