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Hey guys,

I have an idea for a Renaissance-era Vatican occult/demon-worshipping murder mystery that I want to do with my gaming group, and while re-skinning most of the classes for the era is fairly simple, I could use some thoughts on how to do gunpowder weapons.

I was thinking of replacing just the names of the Long/Short bow with Musket and Flint-lock, respectively, and requiring a standard action for reload, to keep things simple, but still not sure how to implement blunderbusses and grenades.

The D&D wiki has some ideas, but they're more complicated than I would like (my gaming group doesn't like excessive number crunching).

I could explain how to do it on 2e rules.

But I know nothing of the last two rule systems.

Just be sure that reloading is very slow. At least x3's as slow as a bow. What ever the damage die is for a musket, if the roll is the top number for the die roll again, and if they keep rolling the top number, keep adding the scores up until they roll off the top score. So it could be 1d10, and every 10, rolls again. Muskets are one shot an encounter weapon, but with a series of lucky rolls could drop a dragon.

Ooh, good addition. I was debating adding high crit as a weapon quality, but treating firearms as an encounter power would let me get away with something like what you suggest without making it too complicated.

I'm new to 4e, but would grenades be something like a Daily burst (blast? I keep getting them confused) damage weapon?

For grenades, treat them like alchemical grenades, something similar to range 5/10 thrown item, +4 vs REF, does force damage and deafens on a hit, half damage on a miss; burst 1.

For the musket weapons, try giving them a recharge value, you spend a minor action you get a recharge roll, you make the roll you successfully reload the item. I would give it HIGH CRIT, and let it crit on a 19-20, and have it ignore untyped resistance 5. That would make it devastating on a hit, but rarely able to fire. I also wouldn't give the weapon a good proficiency bonus, maybe +1.

This guy knows all ----^

It would definitely be an area burst 1 or 2 weapon, and probably 1d4, but I'm not sure how to keep the flavor when determining hit/miss. With other AoE abilities, as far as I know, you roll hit on targets in the area individually, which works for magic, but doesn't quite work with explosives.

EDIT: Ooh, very nice suggestions, HCGLNS! Thanks very much!

HC mentioned half damage on a miss, which might be good enough to still be explosive-like.

To help with level creep, you can increase the superiority of the weapon. 4E assumes all weapons start out equally made, but it doesn't need to be. Give them an OK weapon first with a +1 proficiency bonus, then later on find weapons that are better quality makes and have improved prof bonuses/ranges/damages.

Also make you first wave of bad guys minions so the pc's blow them away and waste the musket shot

Blunderbuss needs to be treated as a cone effect, a really narrow one at first with random hits with in the cone. It can only hit up to 6 targets. Don't fire it at the NPC fighting your tank...
Added at: 03:25
Actually firearms of the time should have a negative check. They were far more miss in a hit or miss situation. There is a reason that the King's Musketeers and Grenadiers were the greatest swordsmen and Halberd-men respectively.

I miss cones

Blunderbuss = close blast 3?

Maybe 2. 3 seems like a lot, at least for starting weapons.
Added at: 22:35

sixpackshaker said:

Actually firearms of the time should have a negative check. They were far more miss in a hit or miss situation. There is a reason that the King's Musketeers and Grenadiers were the greatest swordsmen and Halberd-men respectively.

Click to expand...

It would help make up for higher damage potential in a standard weapon...

Make sure you make rules for treating them as melee weapons.

I was thinking of treating them as clubs.

A close blast with a single adjacent square diagonal to the character would be kind of like a cone...? That was hard to type out. I imagine it makes no sense to read it.

Personally, I'd make any sort of long range weapons like rifles have a recharge value as well. I also recommend you can sacrifice a MOVE action to get a +2 to hit bonus, this is only for the long bow types. They'll like it and curse you nicely when you attack them with lurker units.