A question about Black Powder

My sincerest apologies if this has even been touched on before, but I did a search and didn't find anything come up.

In terms of blackpowder weapons, do they all suffer from "long range" modifiers as well? I've never truly played with these types of weapons but in my upcoming campaign I decided that for some warband members they'd be good to have.

I'd think that if a weapon has a 10" or smaller range, there's not really a "long range" -1 modifier with it, because shooting someone at 5" with a 10" range weapon instead of charging was just strange to me.

So while I might use a house-rule that "any weapon with a range of 10 inches or less does not suffer from long range penalties", I was curious if there was any official answer.

Many thanks for reading and input.

Asp says yes

Yes. Long range is a standard rule that applies always. It has to be specifically overruled in order for it to not be in effect.

we also houseruled that pistols of any sort do not suffer from penalties due to long range.

Okey doke, thanks for the feedback. I might end up using my house rule, but I was curious to any official rulings. Many thanks to everyone!

Pistols are effective with the rules as written. I don't think you need a house rule that makes them better. There are multiple skills that make them even more effective.

Mind you, my lot almost always save up and buy dueling pistols. A guy with a brace of dueling pistols has an effective range of 14, since he can move 4 inches and fire, with the DPs' +1 to hit canceling out the penalty for moving and shooting. If the fellow has eagle eyes, he has an effective range of 20 inches. If he also has pistolier, he has effectively two range 20 shots, with no penalty for moving and (with your house rule) no penalty for range.

I use pistols - mostly dueling pistols - a lot. They are nicely balanced as written.

Of course, the most important point, as always, if you and your friends are happier with this rule, than go for it!

@mweaver:

I must admit that this houserule has been made "out of the blue" in the sense that we did not use any pistols in our group yet. I guess I should have mentioned this in the first place. But still:

I wonder if pistols are balanced as you say. I agree that duelling pistols are good as they are, but normal pistols seem rather slightly underpowered to me.

The example you mention has two "restrictions". Namely that you do not always want to walk those 4" as you need to keep staying in cover / in a strategic position etc. Further you can only do this every other turn.

To pull off what you mentioned takes two skills - pistoliers, eagle eyes, and you need two pistols for it - so it costs you at least 30 gc. Further you can only do this every other second turn. So you have one shot per round on average.

With a crossbow and quickshot you have a better result to a even (slightly) better price. Longer range and 2 shots EACH turn. The range is so much higher that you don't even have to walk 4" and are still at better range.

With throwing stars and knife fighter (maybe weapons expert as well) you can fire three shots per turn (with no penalties except for cover) for only half the price of a brace of pistols that can only fire two shots every other turn and still at the same range.
admittedly, you need S4 to make knives really effective. But as soon as a warrior does hit S4, there aren't too many reasons left (in my eyes) why he should use a pistol in favour of another weapon - be it cc or ranged.

I don't say that pistols are useless but I think they could need a little boost. But as you think them to be balanced I would like to hear why you do think this is so (as said apart from duelling pistols).

anyway, I agree that the most important rule is to have fun with your group. So if a rule works out for your group, everything is fine

Look at it as a hand-to-hand weapon: for people of S3, it's a Morning Star that cuts like an axe, that lets you use a second weapon AND deal a S4 on a model 6 inches away every other turn... FOR THE SAME PRICE.

In later game, when S4 is a little more common, normal pistols are less effective without the heaps of shooting skills. Starting game, however, they're not bad.

(Also, if using the Blackpowder misfire, be sure to use the reduced prices.)

Not all games are stagnant. Indeed, if you are facing a warband heavily armed with crossbows, than you move, so they have to.

Crossbows are great weapons. So are pistols, just different. Advantages to pistols over crossbows are you can move and shoot, you can use them (two of 'em) in hand-to-hand, and they are -2 to armor saves compared to a crossbow's -1. The disadvantage? Only that they have shorter range.

I tend to be fairly conservative with changing the rules/adding house rules. Many of the changes/house rules I see people implement or discuss on the forums alter the balance of the game, and generally lead to a cascade of other changes to restore the balance.

It looks like I'll be giving it some work, as I'm basically running a ten-warband, one-man campaign, so I have plenty of time to mess with it. Since I've NEVER used blackpowder weapons like pistols in any warband I've played before (since I mostly play Undead or when not them, Middenheimers) the rules seemed to be just a little underwhelming to take them over a crossbow or even bow (w/ the range). But since I'm trying to play WYSIWYG and many of the human mercenary figures have pistols on them, I'm working them in.

And while I was planning on using the misfire chart, I completely forgot about the discounted price... lol.

This is what happens when you take a few years off.

That's a big campaign. Good luck!

Thanks, I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to try and get started in the next week, do battle reports, the whole nine yards. And with quite a few mercenary warbands, there's going to be a lot of gunfire, lol.

One man campaign? Wouldn't it be boring playing yourself for a whole campaign?

Generally, when it comes to houserules, we found it best to 1) implement them with everyone's permission, 2) make sure everyone knows it's a houserule, to avoid conflicts with other groups, and 3) consider it on "probation" until the end of the campaign. Before you start the next campaign, ask everyone, "did it work?"

For example, ye olde armor debate. Our group used to play with shields = 6+ save, but the Strength reduction for armor starts at S5 instead of S4. Last campaign, we added the "shields grant +2 as in combat" rule... it was good, but too strong with the S5 modifier. Now we're trying it with modifier at S4. Like any scientist, you isolate the different components, and eliminate X factors one at a time.

Yeah, one man campaign might get boring, but I've got the urge to play again and there's no one here in AZ...

And yeah, house rules are always fun especially when you have to kind of figure out a good balance. When my friends and I would use to game, we adopted the Shield/Handweapon +1 armor save, which would help sometimes when one guy would play Possessed or Beastmen, and later in the campaign he'd make one of his Beastman a three armed, super strong (wielding double handed weapons in one hand), 3 weapon wielding monster. When you're fighting S5 or S6, you need all the armor save you can get... even if it ends up only being a 6.