Emerging smokepowder weapons in my fantasy

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by martinl

I thought a combination of gnomish engineering, Gondish inspiration, higher TL, and adventuring convenience had made wheel locks appear in FR about the same time smokepowder became widespread. Given the cost of the powder, it's worth it to spend more on the gun.

Wheellocks are canonically possible in FR, but not widespread. It has only been 14 years since smokepowder started to become known, after all.

I quite agree that it makes sense to spend more on the gun. Guns, even military models, would probably be quite well made.

Originally Posted by martinl

I'm not sure how much you've integrated the DnD flavor into GURPS, but in traditional FR, any significant town needs an anti-adventurer option, and any significant nation needs an anti-high level adventurer option. The books tended to scatter high level wizards and priests around for this purpose, but a squad of musketeers might be as useful for that purpose as against dragons.

There is definately need for weapons that can defeat magically powerful and unpredictable outsiders with access to heavy armour and dangerous spells.

But what do smokepowder weapons do against adventurers that bows don't? Sure, the knight in his plate is more vulnerable, but the rest are glad to face 10 inaccurate shots per minute instead of sixty more accurate, if less powerful, arrows. Not to mention that the town can afford to shoot a hell of a lot more arrows than shot (which also impacts training, in that few small towns could afford to train with smokepowder weapons).

Originally Posted by martinl

As for smokepowder abuse, well, suicide bombers are much easier with golems, zombies, mind control, and such.

Careful manipulation of air spells and elementals might lead to "smart dust" explosives that seem mere wisps before suddenly condensing and exploding at the target site.

Interesting, but, nothing that can't be done as well or better with traditional spells.