The DMG has stats for firearms, but not Renisance-style cannons... any websites cover stats for these (and yes, I apologise for posting a question that is strictly about Planescape, but...)
Stats for Cannons?
Wed, 2008-01-09 17:31
#1
Stats for Cannons?
Thu, 2008-01-10 13:47
#3
Stats for Cannons?
Get D20 Past, I believe they had cannons doing damage ranging from 2d12 to 10d12 depending on size.
Thu, 2008-01-10 15:09
#4
Stats for Cannons?
Not to try and hijack the thread, but I could also do with some cannon stats for the Ortho Project. Not least for this one:
Cannon, Big Preacher
Availability: n/a
Cost: ?
Wgt: ?
Exotic Weapon (solarium artillery) – uses the chief artillerist’s INT modifier rather than Dex when rolling to hit. “Rate of fire” is 1 per hour, assuming a large trained crew is present.
The Big Preachers are the largest and most powerful cannons that the Harmonium can build. Cast in a special alloy called black bronze, each weapon is 50ft long and weighs 17 tons. The Preachers normally fire stone shot (a sphere weighing 700lb), but occasionally use projectiles of adamantine for destroying particularly tough (usually magical) targets.
Each Big Preacher is named after a famous patriarch of one of the Lords of Order, and whole Provinces sponsor their construction. Even the shot they fire is blessed by priests before going into service, and is named and numbered as well as inscribed with prayers.
(Its based on The Dardanelles Gun)
Fri, 2008-01-11 01:32
#5
Stats for Cannons?
Were cannons covered in the seige weaponry section along with ballista? Would make sense if they were...
*goes to check*
Hm. Not there - but damage on a ballista: 3d6 and on a heavy catapult: 5d6
It does damage that a 3rd level character could do?? Worse, damage a well crafted 3rd level character could take to the face and keep ticking? And that's before hardness is taken into account? Uh. No. (Ok, maybe I have a lot of munchkins in my party, but still, that's low.)
Against... city walls with hardness of at least 8 or more with no break DC (str check doesn't apply to ranged weapons) so you just have to pound them down... someone wasn't thinking.
My own game would houserule that siege weaponry against fort walls bypasses hardness, and on soft targets auto crits damage. Cause really - a ballista bolt to the chest oughta slow you down at least a little.
Let's see other options here:
A renaissance hand bomb does 2d6 (DMG pg 162). That's before reflex save for half. Dynamite 3d6.
Frag grenade 6d6... hey who knew, a frag grenade does more damage than a heavy catapult to a castle wall. Then again, so does a 6th level sorcerer and they reload faster.
Ok wow - this is just poorly designed stuff in the DMG.
It reads like the designers didn't want to auto-kill PCs with siege weaponry. But really, if I took a cannon ball to the chest I'd expect to be dead regardless of level.
I suspect wieshen is onto something with his guesses at the damage involved, something in the 10 to 20d something.
Anyone have D20 Past?
Re: The Big Preacher - since we are at this point looking at a ballistic trajectory weapon, then we could calculate damage as if falling damage or as if telekinetic thrust damage if we want to be really mean.
Fri, 2008-01-11 01:51
#6
Stats for Cannons?
"Cannons? We have 'em. We just call 'em mages!"
Fri, 2008-01-11 05:58
#7
Stats for Cannons?
I don't have d20 past, put I flipped through the book (and I have the d20 modern and future books). Same problem applies. WOTC is concerned with not killing PCs not logic. The D20 future book is by far the worst in this regard, because of scale, though (a PL8 gravity weapon for mechs does the same ammount as the tank gun for an M1 Abrams tank (10d12) and a much smaller amunition capacity and shorter range increment. That's bad, really really bad.), but it applies across the board
Mon, 2008-01-14 13:32
#8
Stats for Cannons?
d20 Past has two categories of cannon: field and siege. Field cannons fire 1- to 12-pound shot, and deal (1-4)d12 damage. Siege cannons fire 18- to 60-pound shot, and deals (5-12)d12 damage. Grapeshot, anti-personnel ammo, attacks a 10-foot square and deals d6s.
Mon, 2008-01-14 14:20
#9
Stats for Cannons?
Re: The Big Preacher - since we are at this point looking at a ballistic trajectory weapon, then we could calculate damage as if falling damage or as if telekinetic thrust damage if we want to be really mean.
mmm, so basically about 20d6 either way - oh well, I was going to go with "splatDdead" as the damage code (with the addendum "not enough to Raise but enough to Reincarnate - don't gets multiple peoples' bits mixed up"), but thought I'd at least ask. You know how D&D players can be...
Mon, 2008-01-14 17:28
#10
re
Really, determining damage against an individual for a cannon is just, well, pointless. If you are being struck by a cannon ball there really should only be two possible outcomes - either you somehow avoid a direct hit and live, or you don't and die. Thus I'd make it a Save or Die effect - with a possible addition of 1d10 Dex in damage to reflect the crippling even being clipped by a cannon ball would cause.
As for damage to objects such as walls - saves vs crushing blow (or whatever the equivalent is in 3+) seem most efficient.
Sometimes damage can't be reasonable determined by a measure of hit points.
Tue, 2008-01-15 21:06
#11
Cannons...
I was thinking about cannons used onboard a ship, in ship-to ship combat, not something to use to squash my PCs/NPCs! (I find it kind of odd to let characters use handheld gunpowder weapons, yet use balistas and cataputs against ships and castles... guns and cannon kinda go together (were there cannon in Spelljammmer, I wonder? Hmm...)
Tue, 2008-01-15 21:27
#12
Stats for Cannons?
Considering ships and the like also use a hitpoint system and somethign vaguely like a DR one in terms of 'hardness' you're probably still going to need to boost the damage - or none of the cannon is going the damage the other ship.
Tue, 2008-01-15 22:02
#13
Stats for Cannons?
Yes, there were cannons in Spelljammer they also deal with ship to ship damage and ship to personnel damage (It's still far too low). I can post them when I find them.
Thu, 2008-01-17 17:55
#14
Why I want the Cannons/Bombards
The reason I ask about cannons (AKA "Bombards") is that I'm planning on running a Mage:The Sorceror's Crusade game using D&D rules, and the Order of Reason uses cannons and guns a lot, it being a game set in the Renesance time period (darn, spelled that wrong!) I treat World of Darkness "True Mages" as being of the D&D Sorceror character class, with "Hedge Wizards"/"Static Mages" being D&D Wizards (with the limitations that non-True Mages suffer in that game setting)...
What kind of cannons, how big, and when? Regardless, the realistc answer is varying degress of a Hell of a lot.
This is my 2 cents, it's not fair (edit: to the PCs
), It's an attempt at a logical and realistic estimate without wasting time finding any numbers on the web.
Smaller cannons were usually capable of completely killing a horse or person (as in capable of consistently passing through or disfiguring most of the body). A warhorse has 30 HP, so it'd be a safe bet that a fairly typical cannon (not a huge siege gun) could do more than 40 points of average damage every hit. Somewhere between 10 and 12d6 with a considerable amound of splash damage from shrapnel. My best guess is about 4d6 in a 10' radius with a reflex save for 1/2 damage (enough to put a 1st level warrior in the negatives, which is reasonably accurately).
This is balanced to some extent by extreme penalties to hit in most cases, cannons aren't easy or quick to aim unless they are mounted on a pivot (that's one majorly scary adamantine pivot).
Bigger guns have brought down sloped reinforced mortar walls several feet thick, etc, etc. Don't do that to your PCs.