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Old 11-15-2019, 10:03 PM   #1
hcobb
 
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pacheco, California
Default Arquebus as wheellock

Flintlocks are too advanced for the overall tech level, reload too quickly, and cost too little to match the Arquebus numbers. (Compare widespread adoption of the Brown Bess by American colonists.)

Wheellocks match the given stats better and also fit in with the Master Mechanician as Clockpunk.

Crossbow is mentioned both under Mechanician and Master Mechanician. Does this mean that a Master Mechanician uses the Master Armourer build times (ITL 123) for crossbows and guns?
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Old 11-16-2019, 04:37 AM   #2
larsdangly
 
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Default Re: Arquebus as wheellock

The blunderbuss presented in TFT matches later period flint lock and wheel lock guns better than it does any historical match lock. Whatever you call such devices, the default setting contains a gun that can be loaded prior to use, carried loaded, and readied as a normal action. Whether you call them wheel locks or flint locks doesn't matter much, provided they work that way. So, the question is why the game doesn't contain other guns that fire solid slugs and also can be carried loaded and readied in one turn.

In my house rules there are (these were distributed some weeks ago on this site). I don't think they are terribly unbalancing because the 1 in 6 chance of misfire still applies with Cidri gun powder. But it is a close thing, as any high damage attack that does not require high ST can be a game changer. A flint lock musket is functionally equivalent to something like a lightning bolt spell (though with a lower IQ requirement).

I suppose a risk-loving person who wanted to use a flint lock or wheel lock gun to create a munchkin combatant would be able to deliver a prepared first attack better than most other things in the game (say, ST 8, DX 15 (18), IQ 9, Guns, Missile Weapons III, flint or wheel lock musket doing around 3d damage).

Whatever you make of this, It is much less crazy than an exploding gem + a sling so it isn't the wildest thing in the game.
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Old 11-16-2019, 08:38 AM   #3
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Default Re: Arquebus as wheellock

By the way, casual internet research suggests wheel locks were invented about 1515, and the simplest flint locks around 1540, which makes them para-contemporaneous with the invention of the rapier, the era of widely distributed 'proper' plate armor in Europe (i.e., what Fine Plate is probably meant to represent), and the Sengoku era in Japan (roughly what people have in mind for samurai and ninja sorts of characters). So, I don't think there is any tech-level argument against any of the quick-ready black powder guns in TFT.
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Old 11-16-2019, 08:56 AM   #4
hcobb
 
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Default Re: Arquebus as wheellock

The Miquelet lock is about the earliest gizmo that might be useful for a tripwire gunpowder trap.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miquelet
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Old 11-16-2019, 09:15 AM   #5
larsdangly
 
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Default Re: Arquebus as wheellock

Roughly contemporaneous, similar device:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snaplock
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