Diagoras

The throwing axe/pistol on the far right is my favorite.

Speaking of combo weapons...

Now that's a beauty, even though I've always had a place in my heart for the more outlandish, early models. See below:

There's precedent. Civ 4 had not only an in-game clock that could be turned on, but also an alarm you could set. Same's true of MOO3. Both games where it's easy to spend six hours in a blink of an eye. Not advocating this, just noting that there's precedent.

The classes explicitly have no major equipment restrictions, ie. heavy armor wizards are in. But even if there were...so what? Fighters, rogues, paladins, rangers all have obvious firearm uses.

That's pretty cool stuff. Where can I read about it? (Eastern European vampire folklore that is) I just jumped on Wikipedia.

You guys realize that there are more kinds of vampires than the ones from Dracula, right? And that the myth has taken many forms throughout history? As just an example: Eastern European vampires start as shadows, use the blood they drain to turn into boneless masses, and eventually congeal into a human form. They also take wives and mistresses, and, IIRC, their children's part vampire nature makes them excellent vampire hunters. It just seems like any vampire myth that's not straight out of Victorian England is being shot down.

I think we can agree that it should be mandatory that the following weapons be in Project Eternity: Wheellock pistol/dagger. Wheellock pistol with mace bayonet. Wheellock pistol/axe. The one on the far right is a throwing axe pistol, unless I'm mistaken

Just wanted to say that I'm loving this thread so hard. These pictures are amazing! Thanks for everyone who posts them. Edit: Don't know if these have been posted yet, but: Wheellock firearms were the tools of the wealthy or elite military forces, and this holds especially true for pistols. The two weapons above are examples of what you 16th century knights would have wielded on the battlefield, using volleys of pistol fire to soften up enemy infantry as they charged before impact. As personal firearms, let alone high quality wheellocks, were so expensive, most would be as much works of art as tools of war.

Problem is, if weapons have high chances of critical failures and do it often, it's hard to make them fun to use. Though I could see taking a note from reality helping here - critical chance escalating the longer you go without cleaning the barrel, and depending on the charge used.

To answer the OP's question: it all depends on the rules of magic, as many posters have said. Widepread and mechanistic magic (spell A has effect B every time and can be learned in three days) is hard to understand as not having a signifigant effect, but the more rare and spiritual magic is the less of a change to society as a whole you'd see.

Again, most Late Medieval heavy armor development post-1450 was driven by protection from gunfire, as that was the major threat to armored soldiers (other than having your head bashed in with a warhammer or being shot with a longbow/crowssbow at point-blank range). This is why you see the use of various kinds of metal armor (including plate for quite a long time) all the way through the Late Medieval period and most of the Renaissance. In fact, armorers used to shoot at the armor at close range to test it, and the dent was kept in to show its ability to deflect shot.

Depends on what you mean. The rounds were less affected by wind, and could track a moving target much easier than a bowman could. It also depends on what you compare it too: obviously longbows were famous for being both long ranged and accurate, but I wouldn't be surprised if a rifled musket wielded by a skilled gunman couldn't give them a run for their money when it came to lethal killing distance, specifically against armored targets. Muskets: in real battle situations: -hitting a target about 100meters away: 2% chance -hitting a target 30 meters away: 20-30% well that is also because soldiers rarely recieved real training with firearms... theoretical accuracy with muskets and early pistols is shockingly high, but the human body can't hold it steady... not to mention the recoil... gunpowder was also very dangerous and there was always a possibility that your gun would blow into your face google is my friend :D http://sellsword.wor...../09/firearms/ That's an excellent source you linked, but it sort of makes my point for me: The issue wasn't with the design of firearms themselves, it was with the quality of the shooters and, to some extent, the individual quality of the weapon, shot, and powder. But a legendary gun in the hands of a legendary marksman would be capable of legendary feats - and that's the sort of scale we're interested in with an adventuring party. Most PCs wielding muskets or arquebuses would be closer to 16th century sharpshooters than conscripted Spanish soldiers. So the figures you have, while okay for badly-trained soldiers with inferior, cheap weapons under combat conditions, aren't what we'd look at for modeling a skilled adventurer with a rifled wheellock with a tremendously strong barrel, and thus firing at full charge (with high quality gunpowder). As I noted in the "Magic and Muskets" thread, the range of combat performance for gunners in our world was arguably way larger than with many other weapons, especially if you only consider the equipment side of things. Just the ability to fire your weapon at full (or one-and-a-half, or twice) charge would change your accuracy, range, armor penetration, etc. a whole lot.

The devs have made it clear that the firearms in the game will be modeled on the guns that actually existed in that period, the same way that the bows are modeled on the ones that existed in that period, swords are, etc. Depends on what you mean. The rounds were less affected by wind, and could track a moving target much easier than a bowman could. It also depends on what you compare it too: obviously longbows were famous for being both long ranged and accurate, but I wouldn't be surprised if a rifled musket wielded by a skilled gunman couldn't give them a run for their money when it came to lethal killing distance, specifically against armored targets.

Thanks Josh, that makes sense. I can't wait to see the eventual update on weapons in your combat system - though if you're putting half as much thought into it as you did for armor, I don't envy the task that lies ahead of you. Can you drop a teaser as to how you think firearms might fit into the system? As secondary weapons to open an engagement, wielded by dedicated "gunner" builds for an entire battle, etc. Of course, there's a good chance that pre-production hasn't even skimmed that topic yet, but it costs me nothing to fish for updates. My understanding is that this thread was started before the dev's decision was made.

I know. I'm just trying to reconcile "guns have just been invented" with "they're using guns from 100 years after the invention of firearms". Obviously, technology could be faster there than in our time. I'm just curious. They've explicitly stated that they're not employed extensively by military forces, though I guess that all depends on the definition of the word "extensively", doesn't it? I'm curious as to why anything else would be effective against flying/invisible/super fast opponents if arquebus aren't? You'd think that the main limitation on the weapon would be similar to 16th century Europe's, mainly its inability to fill a bunch of important battlefield roles. That update seems to imply that their weakness is invisible enemies as opposed to rate of fire. That makes sense, as armor penetration was always a big advantage of firearms. I wonder how gunners close to effective range against wizards, considering that wizards are usually depicted as long-range? Does this mean that we'll see development of sniper tactics earlier than usual, due to the added function of picking off magical targets as well as volley firing? Rifled weapons were constructed during the late Medieval ages, but never got far as they were too expensive for too little gain for widespread use. Be interesting if that all changed because accuracy became far more important for musket or arquebus wielding snipers. Ha! Fair enough. Adventurers would certainly go for wheellocks, if they could afford the ridiculous rates.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that if you have wheellocks, you have matchlocks, but I'm not seeing them being mentioned which is strange considering how much cheaper and more common matchlocks were, due to their easy-to-produce nature. Though if black powder firearms are really recent, then it still is weird. Matchlocks (ie. the first true black powder firearms) pop up around 1420, but we don't see wheellocks until around 1517. That's 100 years of firearm development. I commented that on another thread, but in short, unless there are a lot of monstrous, flying, and invisible people on the battlefield, it seems weird that matchlocks wouldn't be as widely used as they were on the battlefields of the 1500s. I can't think of a better Medieval weapon to take out a monstrous foe than a musket firing at full charge, and flying/invisible enemies aren't going to be reachable by any weapons, let alone firearms. Hell, at least with guns you can volley fire in their general direction and hope to get a kill. What magical conditions are going to make matchlocks useless, but keep swords, pikes, and bows relevant? Though I guess I should rephrase that as: what magical conditions that aren't hopelessly contrived are going to do that?

Here's a question: if black powder firearms are recent then why are they using the relatively advanced wheellock weapons? Where my matchlock arquebus at? As it stands now, I'm afraid that Obsidian will neglect the historical role of firearms in late Medieval battlefield in an attempt to placate people, resulting in the same annoyingly anachronistic battlefields you see in a lot of high fantasy (plate armour without guns, for example). Give me gunners holding the center in major battles, and wheellock wielding assassins gunning down monarchs. The 16th century, essentially.

You realize that steel plate armor after about 1400 was manufactured with the specific purpose of deflecting bullets? Matchlock and wheelock arquebus are not modern firearms.

I read that, but was hoping for some additional clarification on the matter. That guns are single-shot seems a given (you're not getting revolvers any time soon), and I assume that when wheellocks are mentioned, widespread matchlocks are implied. I was just wondering if matchlocks had been confirmed, or if it's really the case that the much more complicated and expensive wheellocks are the only ones that exist. That update could be read either way. Though unless there are a lot of monstrous, flying, and invisible people on the battlefield, it seems weird that matchlocks wouldn't be as widely used as they were on the battlefields of the 1500s. I can't think of a better Medieval weapon to take out a monstrous foe than a musket, and flying/invisible enemies aren't going to be hurt by any weapons, let alone firearms. Hell, at least with guns you can volley fire in their general direction and hope to get a kill.

That's not a very accurate or enjoyable solution. Modeling the weapons in-game on existing early 16th century weapons would work fine. In fact, I'd say that early firearms would meet the conventions of high fantasy better than many other weapons of the time. The huge gap between the effectiveness of an ill-maintained, cheap, matchlock arquebus and a top-of-the-line, lovingly cared for, and incredibly expensive wheellock pistol (excluding not only anarchonistic magical modifications but also rare enhancements which we see even in the 1400s, like rifling) is arguably far greater than the equivalent divide in crossbows, longbows, and even melee weapons. ie. Awesome, unique, and powerful guns crafted by sage and reclusive gunsmiths that were way better than their mass-produced equivalents were an actual thing in the 16th century. Excalibur should have been a pistol. On the note of sources, this SCA site not only has good descriptions of the various firing mechanisms, but also shows exactly how they worked and in what time periods they operated. If you want a good demonstration of the difference between matchlock and wheellock weapons, check out the animated pictures in their links on both.

For starters, I'd like to link to the episode on wheellocks of Ruger's Youtube series on firearms: It's a good introduction. I'd also suggest watching the rest of it, especially the episode on matchlocks. If anyone else knows some good sources for learning about 16th century firearms, please link them. I was wondering if people know if it's only wheellocks in the setting, or if there are also matchlocks? The reason being that historically speaking, the two existed at the same time and in fact filled very different roles in warfare. As the matchlock is somewhat simpler of an idea, and far more mechanically simple, it'd be surprising if only wheellocks were around. At the very least, I'd expect hand cannons to exist. And as for fantasy and guns...I've never understood Fantasy Gun Control. The Medieval conventions, armors, and warfare that dominates works of high fantasy are all affected by and dependent on the existence of firearms and ordinance. Why don't they drop crossbows? Or metal armor? Why that one technology from the Late Medieval age? It's not like the standard fantasy setup is going to be seriously altered by its existence. I'd say that magic is usually far more cognitively dissonant, with everything from healing to resurrection to weather control being shown as having no effect on Medieval society when in fact it would have huge ones.

I agree. My pledge is hiring Obsidian to make me an awesome game. I'm not hiring any of the other backers to do it - I'm hiring Obsidian to do it.