Do you want firearms in Project Eternity?

[Gorgon]

A name like 'Eternity' kinda suggests that you would be able to time travel, or sleep for a 1000 years like a vampire. In that context there would be guns.

[Monte Carlo]

Check out this bored Hungarian dude firing a Wheellock Musket.

 

http://youtu.be/qgPV7iXqtWQ

 

This brings to mind a number of issues... which are tactically interesting.

 

1. Even if we increase the ROF to make the weapon not completely useless (we do it in RPGs for crossbows all the time, so there is ample precedent) it is still going to be slow.

 

2. So do you:

 

(a) Fire it, dump it and draw your melee weapon (cool, it's like a spell really in some respects)

 

or

 

(b) Have one guy who is the gunner in your party, uner-maxed out at muskets and always stays at the back, protected by the rest of the party so he can interdict enemy casters etc

 

All I'm saying is that muskets don't mean the sky just fell in. They are entirely consistent with a faux-medieval setting (in r/w Aztecs were still running around in the stone age whilst the Spanish had firearms). Just think of one as a very long, slow-firing wand of magic missiles useable by fighters...

[J.E. Sawyer]

(a) Fire it, dump it and draw your melee weapon (cool, it's like a spell really in some respects)

This is how they worked in Darklands, for the most part. You could have someone with a Brass Handgun continue to fire during combat, but typically you used them immediately as party/volley fire to mangle the most heavily armored target. The guns simply took too long to reload to use continuously, so party members would usually switch to melee immediately after.

[Karranthain]

(a) Fire it, dump it and draw your melee weapon (cool, it's like a spell really in some respects)

This is how they worked in Darklands, for the most part. You could have someone with a Brass Handgun continue to fire during combat, but typically you used them immediately as party/volley fire to mangle the most heavily armored target. The guns simply took too long to reload to use continuously, so party members would usually switch to melee immediately after.

 

Hope it works the same way in Eternity!

 

Makes firearms unique and opens up interesting gameplay options.

Edited September 19, 2012 by Karranthain

[Camaris]

No, medieval only....unless they are very rare and can be used by specific races ie: Dwarfs, gnomes.

[Nivenus]

didnt see that J.E. Sawyer post before

well, if this is done deal then i just hope you guys have some really, really good explanation for existence of mechanical firearms (if they are indeed mechanical and powered by gunpowder, instead of more more appropriate magic based "guns") in your high fantasy setting.

and i really hope they are indeed very uncommon, hopefully unusable by protagonist or any party member.

 

I don't know why this should come as a surprise. If you'd been reading the thread you'd know myself and several other posters said that Sawyer had made a similar comment back in the "What we know..." thread.

 

They made it possible, that a relatively untrained, unprofessional fighter could easily shoot down a high trained, heavy armored knight.

 

They certainly made it easier, but guns were hardly the first weapon to disrupt the elite warrior class. The longbow, while requiring more training, similarly disrupted the effectiveness of heavy cavalry, especially on sloped terrain as in Agincourt. The crossbow, centuries before the gun, provided an easy to use projectile weapon that could penetrate a knight's armor. The pike, while hefty and unwieldy as a personal weapon, when used by a peasant militia, could provide serious stopping power to enemy troops.

 

The point is, yes, the gun, more than any of the above, brought an end to the "age of the knight." But the age of the knight was a lot less knightly than most people assume to begin with. Similarly, guns and samurai coexisted for quite some time and their ban during the Tokugawa regime was only effectual on non-Tokugawa forces: the Tokugawa themselves still used guns as a part of their military power.

 

In any case, elite soldiers hardly disappeared from the field with the introduction of guns, as the existence of units like the grenadiers, hussars, and janissaries demonstrate. Nor did the nobility (if that's what you mean) evaporate all of a sudden - republicanism didn't advance significantly until more than four centuries later.

 

Cannons with case shots (canister shots?), which were first used in the 15th century, were devastating on the battlefield. Not only were they able to kill a lot of enemies with one single shot, but many victims were maimed (mutilated?)

 

In other words, a fireball spell. Or ice storm. Or chain lightning.

 

The use of cannons during a siege made many of the older castles obsolete. Their firepower forced the military to build new fortifications which didn't look like the castles that I would expect in a fantasy setting at all, since the walls of a "classic" medieval castle could not withstand the new artillery.

 

You're correct that the introduction of gunpowder artillery changed the way fortresses were designed. But, like a lot of the changes you mention, that took time and refinement of the primitive cannons at the end of the Middle Ages into the more efficient artillery of the Gunpowder Age. The star fort did make its first debut in the 1400s in Italy, but most fortifications were still castles during the period.

 

More importantly though, very few works of fiction actually try to replicate a honest to goodness, old fashioned medieval siege where you starve the castle out for months or years. So I'm not sure that cutting to the chase of knocking its walls down really is something people will be all that upset about.

 

Not only I really hate the clothes of those Landsknecht bastards , but these men were brutal slaughterers who were, for example in the Thirty Years War, capable of unspeakable bestialities, which, again, in my opinion do not fit in the fantasy setting, I would expect from PE.

 

You seem to be implying that knights were somehow more civilized. I don't believe that. Raping and pillaging is an honored tradition of pre-modern warfare . In fact, during the Hundred Years War (1300s-1400s), it was standard English policy to practice a scorched earth campaign against the French. Rape in war was, while discouraged by the Church and moral authorities, widely considered proof of a soldier's masculinity and valor in battle. So I'm not sure where you got your impression that somehow war crimes originated with the Landsknecht.

[Kopi]

Ok, I thought about this for a bit, and I changed my mind a after that.

 

The main problem people have with guns is: They are too powerful. They completely changed everything on the battlefield. Armor became obsolete ... and so on.

 

Now, what does Project Eternity have that the medieval world didn't? Yes, exactly right:

 

 

Magic.

 

 

Now what can magic do to stop a gun? Many things, for example:

 

1. A gun cannot fire when it is wet - cast a water spell (you have to be quick of course)

2. What stops a bullet? - Sand - cast sand armor

3. Does the mechanic work when its rusty? No - cast rust on the gun

4. What triggers a gun? A person - cast stun spell

 

The list can go on and on, and I'm sure obsidian has many great minds with a lot of cool ideas on how to stop a gun, so I'm actually excited about this.

 

 

Changed my mind. There you go ...

[Yst]

I enjoy Pathfinder's treatment of black powder weapons and think I'd certainly enjoy something like it in Project Eternity. Perhaps at the very rare guns level of rarity, with Early Firearms only.

 

I don't find that the Gunslinger class detracts from the "medieval fantasy" flavour of Pathfinder, for those who value that.

 

Non-magic ranged DPSers (whether bowmen or wielders of powder weapons), as DPS specialists who are to a large extent dependent on a party for CC/tanking, are a role which I enjoy the presence of, as a contribution to the variation and complexity which can exist within an RPG party. It's also, from a flavour point of view, one among many solutions to the problem of a vaguely defined 'magic' (rather than something with a stronger connection to material culture and personal narrative) becoming the answer to everything, in an RPG universe. Sometimes, magic makes for interesting lore. But too often, it's simply the laziest solution available for explaining any given cause and effect, in an RPG.

 

More creative minds come up with things like Morte's Teeth (in Planescape: Torment). A weapon with a magical element, but a material cause and effect, and a personal history behind it, which still allows for the story to see it change over time.

 

Or a gunsmith's prized (if messily jury-rigged) musket, perhaps, in a medieval fantasy game with a gunslinger-like archetype?

 

If Project Eternity is to be a game which benefits from the depth which a party-building focus can provide (as IWD did, for example), I think these specialist classes are all the more appealing. Building a system around the premise that every class should have enough CC, enough tanking ability, enough healing, enough DPS, etc., etc., to fight on its own so utterly deprives one of options for interesting party building, by putting aside questions of party chemistry for the sake of allowing everyone to 'solo together'.

[Ausir]

I wouldn't want it to go full Steampunk, but I don't mind some early renaissance firearms.

[Nivenus]

Ok, I thought about this for a bit, and I changed my mind a after that.

 

The main problem people have with guns is: They are too powerful. They completely changed everything on the battlefield. Armor became obsolete ... and so on.

 

I know the rest of your post goes on to more or less say something entirely different, but this stuck out to me. Because, as I've already pointed out, that's not really true.

 

Even barring the fact that we still use body armor (though it's made of ceramics and kevlar instead of steel), metallic body armor didn't disappear with guns. Plate armor, in fact, only really came into popular use after the invention of guns.

 

So no, guns didn't make armor immediately obsolete - they simply changed the design of armor.

[Vulee]

Well then, we'd have to agree that we each have those viewpoints, and to live and let live. Me, i love that feeling, that the old is about to be replaced by the new, that the world is about to change. Sure, we must spare some feelings for the world about to be left behind, but that is progress. As things change, so do our possibilities expand!

You might see it that way, rest of us might see it differently. For me "progress" means death of romance and wonder. We no longer have a world of high adventure and mystery, instead we have a boring place ruled by cold science. You know, the same place from which many of us are trying to escape through books and games.

I'm sorry but I do not want that kind of "fantasy".

[Nivenus]

You might see it that way, rest of us might see it differently. For me "progress" means death of romance and wonder. We no longer have a world of high adventure and mystery, instead we have a boring place ruled by cold science. You know, the same place from which many of us are trying to escape through books and games.

I'm sorry but I do not want that kind of "fantasy".

 

This is kind of subjective, but I have a particular distaste this point of view. I think it's very erroneous (and potentially harmful) to look on scientific advancement as somehow "bad" and the medieval world as somehow "good."

 

Don't get me wrong, I love swords and knights as much as the next guy and medieval history is one of my (many) academic interests. But I generally prefer fantasy that doesn't sugarcoat the old days with the idea that they were somehow better than our modern world, what with its "unromantic" advances like germ theory, democracy, or electricity. Because honestly... they weren't.

[Kopi]

Ok, I thought about this for a bit, and I changed my mind a after that.

 

The main problem people have with guns is: They are too powerful. They completely changed everything on the battlefield. Armor became obsolete ... and so on.

 

I know the rest of your post goes on to more or less say something entirely different, but this stuck out to me. Because, as I've already pointed out, that's not really true.

 

Even barring the fact that we still use body armor (though it's made of ceramics and kevlar instead of steel), metallic body armor didn't disappear with guns. Plate armor, in fact, only really came into popular use after the invention of guns.

 

So no, guns didn't make armor immediately obsolete - they simply changed the design of armor.

 

Didn't know that, I did some reading on wikipedia (The german article about plate armor is very extensive). Plate armor, according to the article, was able to withstand an arcebus shot (predecessor of a musket) and some were even able to withstand a musket.

Edited September 19, 2012 by Kopi

[KenThomas]

It all comes down to how the idea is executed. The same people saying "no" could be like "this is amazing" once they see the implementation. This topic is about blanket judging something without knowing anything about it beyond the merest of surface characteristics. Essentially, prejudice. When you have a discussion like this it's based on all the associated baggage of your assumptions and what you know about how firearms work in OUR world. This game doesn't take place in our world, so essentially this topic is about nothing whatsoever.

[Shadenuat]

The guns simply took too long to reload to use continuously, so party members would usually switch to melee immediately after.

 

 

Problem solved lol. Special dwarven magic.

Did't they actually put large metal spheres at the handle of pistols or made them massive to be able to hit with them?

 

Plate, armor, according to the article, was able to withstand an arcebus shot (predecessor of a musket) and some were even able to withstand a musket.

Well after guns became more common I believe they tested plate chest-pieces by shooting at them. A good one had to withstand shot from specific range.

[trulez]

You might see it that way, rest of us might see it differently. For me "progress" means death of romance and wonder. We no longer have a world of high adventure and mystery, instead we have a boring place ruled by cold science. You know, the same place from which many of us are trying to escape through books and games.

I'm sorry but I do not want that kind of "fantasy".

 

This is kind of subjective, but I have a particular distaste this point of view. I think it's very erroneous (and potentially harmful) to look on scientific advancement as somehow "bad" and the medieval world as somehow "good."

 

Don't get me wrong, I love swords and knights as much as the next guy and medieval history is one of my (many) academic interests. But I generally prefer fantasy that doesn't sugarcoat the old days with the idea that they were somehow better than our modern world, what with its "unromantic" advances like germ theory, democracy, or electricity. Because honestly... they weren't.

You're unable to differentiate a fantasy world from our own history. This is NOT a game set in medieval history, it's HIGH FANTASY, it means completely made up world and rules. In THIS world the advancement of science could very well be evil, unlike in ours, so your stance that those who wish to delve into the known sword&board fantasy without firearms are somehow longing after our own medieval history is completely incorrect.

[Troller]

"Gun is the supreme weapon on the battlefield, until swords clash—then it becomes useless" book of Five Elements

[Nivenus]

You might see it that way, rest of us might see it differently. For me "progress" means death of romance and wonder. We no longer have a world of high adventure and mystery, instead we have a boring place ruled by cold science. You know, the same place from which many of us are trying to escape through books and games.

I'm sorry but I do not want that kind of "fantasy".

 

This is kind of subjective, but I have a particular distaste this point of view. I think it's very erroneous (and potentially harmful) to look on scientific advancement as somehow "bad" and the medieval world as somehow "good."

 

Don't get me wrong, I love swords and knights as much as the next guy and medieval history is one of my (many) academic interests. But I generally prefer fantasy that doesn't sugarcoat the old days with the idea that they were somehow better than our modern world, what with its "unromantic" advances like germ theory, democracy, or electricity. Because honestly... they weren't.

You're unable to differentiate a fantasy world from our own history. This is NOT a game set in medieval history, it's HIGH FANTASY, it means completely made up world and rules. In THIS world the advancement of science could very well be evil, unlike in ours, so your stance that those who wish to delve into the known sword&board fantasy without firearms are somehow longing after our own medieval history is completely incorrect.

 

Except you're the one who brought up the idea that adding guns is bad because it doesn't allow you to escape a world of science, which you typified as "cold" and "unromantic."

 

I disagree with that notion.

 

I'm fine with the idea that fantasy can be different from history (Pratchett's fantasy doesn't fit into any particular era, for example - nor does Planescape) - but it sounds to me like you want an idealized medieval fantasy without any of the nasty stuff or any of the real technological advances that were made.

Edited September 19, 2012 by Nivenus

[Wintersong]

Ok, I thought about this for a bit, and I changed my mind a after that.

 

The main problem people have with guns is: They are too powerful. They completely changed everything on the battlefield. Armor became obsolete ... and so on.

Magic makes armors obsolete. The lack of realism in the fantasy settings is the only thing that has allowed mundane amors to coexist with magic. Usually they just add magic stuff to the standard medieval setting, *something*, profit!!

[Zere]

Hmm, yes maybe. Just keep them as old gunpowder type muskets; slow to reload, inaccurate but still viable in some situtations.

Edited September 19, 2012 by Zere

[Nivenus]

Magic makes armors obsolete. The lack of realism in the fantasy settings is the only thing that has allowed mundane amors to coexist with magic. Usually they just add magic stuff to the standard medieval setting, *something*, profit!!

 

Completely correct. The truth is that magic itself - especially as it is usually rendered in fantasy RPGs (reliable, easy to cast, and high power) - would have as significant an impact (or more!) on society as technologies like guns. If a wizard can enchant a sword with flames, there's no reason to imagine he couldn't similarly create magical power plants to generate modern electricity. If (highly-trained) priests could reliably resurrect the dead, there's no telling how much this could change society.

 

The fact of the matter is that few works of fantasy actually follow through on the logical implications of the general assumptions they make about the world. The reason for that, I think, is that too often they become pure escapism from the "cold" and "unromantic" world of the present. A little escapism isn't bad (let's be honest, we all indulge in it), but when it becomes so unbridled I can't help but feel it potentially encourages an unhealthy attitude about the present world and the past.

 

If people want a fantasy that's completely divorced of historical realities they can have that - but it wouldn't be the Forgotten Realms, Middle-earth, or even Greyhawk, which are all fairly obviously (and often explicitly) modeled on the European Middle Ages.

[pedroantonio]

As long as they are not so advanced that they surpass the rest of the ranged weapons, I'm perfectly fine with guns being common in the game. Or, if they are more advanced than the rest, then they should be uncommon, or require a very specific set of skills to be used efficiently, kind of a prestige class weapon.

 

A XVII-XVIII century like level of technological advancement (but with magic, of course), it's perfectly fine with me. Also, if you are having a background with different races and cultures clashing, one of the variables that decides the results of that kind of conflicts is the technological advancement (not only in weaponry, but also in the production areas of society, the spreading of technology sometimes goes hand to hand with aculturation), sometimes accomplished trough circunstancial environmental advantages.

 

So, if the game depicts cultural clashing, variable levels of technology (and weapons) are logical to me; but of course they must not unbalance the gameplay.

[Kopi]

Ok, I thought about this for a bit, and I changed my mind a after that.

 

The main problem people have with guns is: They are too powerful. They completely changed everything on the battlefield. Armor became obsolete ... and so on.

Magic makes armors obsolete. The lack of realism in the fantasy settings is the only thing that has allowed mundane amors to coexist with magic. Usually they just add magic stuff to the standard medieval setting, *something*, profit!!

 

Yes. Considering how powerful magic actually is, guns like the ones obsidian wants to implement simply do not matter that much. If you have "the magic" in your party. I think they will figure out ways to deal with guns through magic. Which, I say it again, makes this actually really exciting!

Edited September 19, 2012 by Kopi

[Elerond]

I would like see one of these in somewhere in the Project Eternity's world. This is only because I think they look cool .

 

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Ribauldequin

 

 

 

 

 

 

[aluminiumtrioxid]

Yes I do... and please, let them be enchanted. How cool would be a growling devil's mouth spewing bullets burning with a black flame, and letting out a fearsome roar any time it's fired?