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Originally Posted by martinl
Right. IIRC, the knowledge was spread around after the ToT by gnomish followers of the god of invention and clockwork who's symbol is a gear. I'm also quite sure that wheellocks were on a list of 2nd ed FR guns in a book I had and probably still have somewhere. Not the rare/magic items section, the equipment section. (Aside, I also recall they were 'balanced' by doing crap damage. Sigh.)
Ofc, this is a DnD setting, and internal consistency is not a strong point. If you have different equipment reference you prefer, that's fine. However, keep the Gondites away from the guns - putting the two together will result in better locks than matchlocks in a few weeks at most. It may take a few years for the clockwork golems with Gatling cannons for arms.
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Gondites do build them, indeed. But they are master craftsmen, inventors and ideas-men, not pragmatic merchants.
The church of Gond zealously attempts to enforce a divine monopoly on the sale of smokepowder and smokepowder weapons. This means a variety of things, but for starters, they sell small amounts of powder at x20 of the prices that more business-minded alchemists demand. And they only sell their weapons to those who support their monopoly.
This is actually canon, btw.
Quote:
Originally Posted by martinl
Spike damage. If your adventurer model doesn't include a fair amount of DR, this isn't relevant.
However, if I was going to translate the feel of DnD mid to high level adventurers to GURPS, a lot of the DnD AC would become DR, even on the lightly armored ones. Heavily fortified light armor of high quality and materials + some misc enchantments will probably bring even the wizards to DR 6+ by the time they are equivalent to mid level DnD adventurers. DR in the 5-10 level is only so so vs giant monsters, but very important vs. mook hordes. It also serves to model the traditional DnD "peasants can only hurt you by wrassling you to the ground" paradigm.
If your 'crunchies' are relying purely on good defense rolls and luck instead, more power to them. Be careful around for mook hordes.
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I rely mostly on defence rolls and luck, yes. I don't want humans with skin that can make knife stabs irrelevant without some form of in-setting justification.
Many adventurers have magical items which provide DR and DR 6+ is not uncommon, though. But militia armed with heavy spears or polearms can do 1d+2 imp pretty reliably and even the occasional 1d+4 cut. And having sixty attacks per minute instead of one shot makes a difference.
If peneration is the goal, large crossbows (even with my rules that are closer to reality than the RAW) can deliver two shots for every one bullet at 2d-1(2) imp for a lot less cost per shot. That's an average penetration of DR 11, which is not all that bad considering that heavy muskets only penetrate an average of DR 15.
I think that most small towns would simply be too strapped for cash to adopt this technology. It's expensive enough to be confined to specialists, rich people and the largest and richest cities.
Quote:
Originally Posted by martinl
Significant suicide bombers are easy to do with traditional spells? OK, what have I missed?
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There are spells such as Firetrap, Explosive Runes and others which can be triggered by a given set of conditions. If you want to be nasty, you can specify your own conditions by casting a metamagic spell and then tying any other spell to it, up to and including the most powerful attack spells.
Cast one on a summoned monster or a piece of its equipment.
Et voila!