This is my Boom Stick!

Ah, guns. Where would games be without them? It's not possible (well, not easy...) to do any kind of post-apocalyptic game without the smell of gunpowder in the imaginary air, and if having a squad of orcs with machineguns is wrong, I don't want to be right.

Of course, guns need rules. Fortunately, D20 already has good rules in D20 Modern, so they can be moved over fairly easily. Only a few minor tweaks are necessary. Still, the game designer in me is itching for more complexity. We're talking about guns which have been in active use for 20 years now, without any industrial complex behind them. Well made, well maintained guns can be kept in a fireable state for centuries, but cheap guns left in the rain and mud (or even well made guns left in the rain and mud) can be much less...safe. This is one of those things where the rules lawyer, the world builder, and the actual DM in me all get into a fight. Writing this, now, the Rules Lawyer wants to write "The Complete Guide To Post-Apocalyptic Guns", with all sorts of cool tables for misfires, gun condition, ammo rarity, reloaders, and all that other gun porn. The World Builder is thinking about the social/economic issues and wants to write another essay. And the DM is thinking "Hey, we're actually going to be playing this in under two weeks, and your 'opening scenario' consists of one NPC, a paragraph of plot, and a link to Google Earth showing the rough area of the game. And did I mention you have a cleric character and no deities statted out for him? Or any 'townsfolk' NPCs? Or...."

Probably, the DM is going to win and I'll be fudging the details of guns for now, not going much beyond this little bit of rule mods:

Knowing how to use guns requires "Firearm Proficiency". Classes which gain proficiency in all martial weapons gain this automatically as a bonus feat; other classes must select it. Heavy military weapons, artillery, etc, all require an Exotic Weapon Proficiency; "Firearm Proficiency" covers single-shot or semi-auto pistols, shotguns, and rifles. Full-auto weapons and black powder weapons each require a seperate proficiency. (Black Powder weapons are starting to come into vogue as they can be manufactured more easily than modern firearms, but they are less common than 'legacy' weapons from pre-Crush Earth.)

Double-Tap is replaced by Rapid Shot and Manyshot. All D20 feats applicable to bows have 'twin' feats which apply to guns. These feats must be learned separately for each class of ranged weapons -- that is, you can have Point Blank Shot (Bows) and Point blank Shot (Guns). Each applies to all weapons in the category that you are proficient with -- you do not need PBS (Pistols) and PBS (Rifles), for example.

If there are similar or overlapping feats between D&D and D20M, the D&D feat is the one which will be used.

Profession (Gunsmith) covers the maintenance of weapons and reloading cartridges, as well as evaluating the worth of a gun and its condition. Craft (Guns) allows the manufacture of guns from scratch. Five ranks in one grants a +2 Synergy bonus to the other.

At this point in the campaign world, it is not possible to enchant guns or bullets; there are no +3 Flaming rifles around. There are a few exceptionally well-made weapons which have the equivalent of an Enhancement bonus, but this is not magical and does not detect as such. However, bullets do tend to overcome magical DR; pistols can overcome DR x/+1, while rifles can penetrate DR x/+2. Heavy weapons (LAWs, etc) can penetrate DR x/+3. DR against specific damage types is not ignored by bullets, unless, of course, they do the specific type of damage to which the creature is vulnerable. Likewise, abilities such as Deflect Arrows or spells such as Protection from Arrows do not affect bullets.

All gun-related feats from D20 modern can be taken as fighter bonus feats.

Sharp-eyed readers might note weasel phrases like "At this point in the campaign world...". Lizard can't think small or local. It's my weakness, one which keeps me from ever really completing anything. When I started thinking about Shattered World, my first real decision was '20 or 200?' -- that is, set the game 20 years after the disaster, or 200. Both had promise and problems. I decided on 20 (reasons for that in an upcoming post), but in the back of my mind, I'd already decided that 200 would be the setting for any 4e games I needed to run -- the massive changes in the world (as reflected by massive changes in the rules) would be the result of the final merging of two worlds. At the same time, as Arith comes together, the urge to define it at some point in its past -- probably about 1,000 years pre-Crush -- and use that as a future campaign world is also strong. So one world spins into three, albeit with two no more than 'placeholders'. Point being, I figure that, in 200 years, there will be magic guns. But for now, I really, really, want to keep away from 'magitech', except for very steampunky things that are artifacts of Skallidane. Partially, this is because I'm coming out of a D20 Modern game which was hip-deep in magical cell phones, guns, binoculars, and 8-balls, and I want this game to have a very different feel, despite some overlap in the sense of "21st century, and there's orcs running about".