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Pirate Weapons?


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Re: Pirate Weapons?

 

Historically speaking (which' date=' since there is going to be magic in the game, is not necessarily a huge requirement), how would that be working out in about 1690?[/quote']

 

Hmm... the transition was pretty much complete by then, although you would still find some bow armed troops in Eastern European armies. Plenty outside Europe as well.

 

The transition between matchlocks and flintlocks was well under way, but not yet complete. Pikes were on the way out too. Bayonets were coming in.

 

On the other hand, the metal ramrod was uncommon, if anyone was using it at all, so the rate of fire wasn't that fancy. Incidentally, matchlocks were every bit as lethal as flintlocks. They were just a bit more awkward to use.

 

Body armour was pretty limited in Europe, although you could find some more heavily armoured types elsewhere. None of this armour would be much use against guns.

 

OK, so... I think the main thing would be that you had drilled, disciplined infantry with muskets against generally less well trained troops.

 

Oops, but that doesn't apply if your Europeans are pirates! Then you get a very different situation... Basically, you would expect a ragged volley and a fierce charge with cutlasses, half-pikes, axes, knives and pistols. If the enemy stand their ground you get a sprawling brawl, or if they don't you get a pursuit.

 

You would have a few half-decent marksmen, and lots of people whose idea of using a musket is to point it in the general direction of the enemy and hope for the best.

 

How does this compare in effectiveness with decent bowmen? Well, actually, the right kind of bowmen could massacre the pirate rabble. Or vice versa, depending on the range.

 

The choice between bows and guns at this stage is a choice between the weapons you know how to use and the weapons you don't. I'd simply tell them that they don't know how to use bows, unless they've got a really funky origin.

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Re: Pirate Weapons?

 

*shrug*

 

It's the term I've seen used all over for US Civil War muzzle-loaders.

 

We've probably segued into the 'not technically correct but everybody's said it that way for so long that it's impossible to reverse' kind of way.

 

Kind of like getting people around here to say 'MissourEE' rather than 'MissourUH'. Or, one of my personal recent pet peeves, 'Extry'.

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Re: Pirate Weapons?

 

We've probably segued into the 'not technically correct but everybody's said it that way for so long that it's impossible to reverse' kind of way.

 

Well, I figure if they were saying it in 1861, and giving the name to actual weapons produced back then, it might actually be technically correct.

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Re: Pirate Weapons?

 

Hmm... the transition was pretty much complete by then, although you would still find some bow armed troops in Eastern European armies. Plenty outside Europe as well.

 

Oops, but that doesn't apply if your Europeans are pirates! Then you get a very different situation... Basically, you would expect a ragged volley and a fierce charge with cutlasses, half-pikes, axes, knives and pistols. If the enemy stand their ground you get a sprawling brawl, or if they don't you get a pursuit.

 

How does this compare in effectiveness with decent bowman? Well, actually, the right kind of bowman could massacre the pirate rabble. Or vice versa, depending on the range.

 

The choice between bows and guns at this stage is a choice between the weapons you know how to use and the weapons you don't. I'd simply tell them that they don't know how to use bows, unless they've got a really funky origin.

 

The scenario you describe is exactly what I'm thinking should happen. Segment 12, most people draw and fire; on successive actions, people draw cutlasses and the like and close, swinging from ropes and all that swashbuckling stuff, except for the 'dedicated shooters' who use a brace of guns to fire two or three times.

 

Perhaps shifting bows to the Uncommon Missile Weapons category (since I think they're now Common)? Admittedly, 1 point isn't exactly a frightful expenditure, but I feel more comfortable asking for a rationale for something that's uncommon.

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Re: Pirate Weapons?

 

"A Blunderbuss" would translate as ett muskedunder. Blunderbuss sounds way more Dutch that Swedish. :P

Indeed. Blunderbuss came into English from Dutch. According to my Webster's New Collegiate:

 

"[by folk erymology fr. obs. D donderbus, fr. D donder thunder + obs. D bus gun]"

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Re: Pirate Weapons?

 

I'm torn on the reload times' date=' really. I understand the concept to at least pay lip service to reality, but I would actually like to make the guns useful enough to actually replace bows and arrows* (even with giving armor the 'half effect vs guns' limitation**).[/quote']

The reason guns displaced bows was not the rate of fire, but the fact that training a decent gunner is much simpler and quicker than training a decent bowman. Personal firearms made massed banks of "missile weapon fighters" possible.

 

I was considering a bit more damage (Flintlock pistol equal to Matchlock rifle' date=' Flintlock rifle 1 DC higher), with 13- activation, Concentration (1/2 DCV) and buying the ammo as clips of 1 charge (for a single Full Phase reload). Then again, I creep into 'don't want to kill EVERYBODY' levels at that point.[/quote']

Flintlocks didn't do much more damage than wheellocks or matchlocks, they were just more reliable and easier to reload.

 

BTW, I wouldn't go for charges, unless you want to make guns more expensive (point-wise). People could (fairly) easily carry enough powder and shot for dozens and dozens of shots, and at that level Charges becomes an Advantage. Also, on board a ship it would be easy to get more powder and shot, with no need to wait overnight, so Charges isn't a good model.

 

That's my take on it; YMMV.

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Re: Pirate Weapons?

 

Oops' date=' but that doesn't apply if your Europeans are pirates! Then you get a very different situation... Basically, you would expect a ragged volley and a fierce charge with cutlasses, half-pikes, axes, knives and pistols. If the enemy stand their ground you get a sprawling brawl, or if they don't you get a pursuit.[/quote']

That's true in the rare case where there's a battle on land. Other than Henry Morgan's attack on Panama, and a few other "take the town" attacks, it's not how pirates operated. They usually fought on board a ship, and on a 17th century ship there isn't anywhere to form a "line of battle," so the fight was destined to be a brawl, in knots of fighting.

 

You would have a few half-decent marksmen' date=' and lots of people whose idea of using a musket is to point it in the general direction of the enemy and hope for the best.[/quote']

Indeed, most ship-bourn fighters used pistols, as anything longer was unwieldy on a ship, and even more so in a brawl. Most pirates carried a "brace" (a pair) of pistols, 2 brace if he could afford it. Blackbeard, IIRC, carried 4 or 5 brace of pistols. Guess he didn't want to run out at the wrong time. ;)

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Re: Pirate Weapons?

 

One tactic favoured by pirates (and by American Civil War Cavalry for that matter) which I have used myself playing "7th Sea" is to carry several pistols. Start the battle by firing a couple, then decide if you have time to fire a couple more, if not draw steel and charge ! "Blackbeard" is described as having a sash with a dozen pistols in it worn across his body if you want a historical precedent for this !

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Re: Pirate Weapons?

 

That's true in the rare case where there's a battle on land. Other than Henry Morgan's attack on Panama, and a few other "take the town" attacks, it's not how pirates operated. They usually fought on board a ship, and on a 17th century ship there isn't anywhere to form a "line of battle," so the fight was destined to be a brawl, in knots of fighting.

 

 

Indeed, most ship-bourn fighters used pistols, as anything longer was unwieldy on a ship, and even more so in a brawl. Most pirates carried a "brace" (a pair) of pistols, 2 brace if he could afford it. Blackbeard, IIRC, carried 4 or 5 brace of pistols. Guess he didn't want to run out at the wrong time. ;)

 

Recalling that this will also be quite varied based on your pirates and the time periods you're simulating. Early bucanners were famous for being crack shots with muskets, and used the skill to good regard in taking ships at anchor.

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Re: Pirate Weapons?

 

BTW, I wouldn't go for charges, unless you want to make guns more expensive (point-wise). People could (fairly) easily carry enough powder and shot for dozens and dozens of shots, and at that level Charges becomes an Advantage. Also, on board a ship it would be easy to get more powder and shot, with no need to wait overnight, so Charges isn't a good model.

 

People almost never carried more powder and ball than was needed for a dozen shots. Twelve was such a common number, in fact, that the powder bottles used to carry an individual charge were often called Apostles.

 

As for getting more from the ship's stores, that's a special effect of re-Charging.

 

Oh yeah, here's a picture of a bandolier and its charges.

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Re: Pirate Weapons?

 

BTW, I wouldn't go for charges, unless you want to make guns more expensive (point-wise). People could (fairly) easily carry enough powder and shot for dozens and dozens of shots, and at that level Charges becomes an Advantage. Also, on board a ship it would be easy to get more powder and shot, with no need to wait overnight, so Charges isn't a good model.

 

That's my take on it; YMMV.

 

Well, it's a heroic game, so the point expenditure isn't really an issue; they don't pay character points for gear. It was mostly for the idea of the one full phase 'reload', since you had a clip of one charge ... I'm one of those GMs that gets all up in arms over having everything 'just so' rules-wise. Rather anal retentive, truth to tell. (Fine then, Recoverable Charges. :D)

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Re: Pirate Weapons?

 

Once again, the rough time period you're aiming for could make a huge difference. Apostles were more of an infantry thing, AFAIK, rather than a nautical or cavalry one. I've never seen a woodcut of a sailor or cavalryman wearing a bandolier of apostles. Elizibethean military minds of a literary bent generally agreed that the average rate of fire for infantry shot was around 40 shots an hour, or around 1 1/2 minutes per round, using matchlocks. This time drops down a bit with later lock types (as there are less stages to go through to safely load the gun) but even so they take quite a while. At my absolute fastest, working from a static position with my supplies cleanly arrayed in front of me, and using a post period percussion cap muzzleloader I have been able to get my ROF up to about 1 shot every 40 seconds. Dramatic reality making this a 1 turn reload is, IMO, acceptable, but understand that it's DRAMATIC reality, not anything simulating "real" reality. And as a note... matchfired arms weren't all that popular on shipboard. Nitrated slowmatch is noteworthy for being VERY cranky in wet conditions. Wheellocks were pretty hideously expensive. Snaphaunces were the first form of flintlock, a breakthrough that occured around 1530, but they didn't immediately catch on. Both snaphaunces and doglocks began seeing regional popularity around the end of the 16th century, mainly for pistols (matchlock pistols were never very poular, and as I noted wheellocks were expensive). During the 17th century a gradual increase in the number of long arms with various friction locks occured, till by the end of the 17th century they mostly replaced matchlocks.

 

Bows were still considered a viable form of shot at the beginning of the 17th century, and usually numberd around 1/3 the total shot in an english Company of foot, but they rapidly went away. This is REALLY hard to model in most RPGS (Hero included) as effective archery isn't really handled well. There is a LOT of training and practice involved with using a bow effectively outside of massed formation fire or relatively shrot range flat trajectory fire. I own 3 bows, have been shooting them since I was a kid, and took 6 semesters of archery in college, and I still doubt I could hit a man sized moving target at 100 paces... an easy shot for a trained welsh longbowman. Bows suffer all the same problems guns do with targeting at range, but writ LARGE. Seconds of flight time instead of milliseconds... trajectory drop of feet instead of inches...much greater wind shear and flight stability issues...

It frankly sucks.

IF you were trying to do semi realistic combat archeryt in HERO, and w3anted to show why your average 0-25 point grunt is better off with a gun than a bow, you could do worse than require at least a 5 point skill to reflect all the "instant math" a trained archer has to do in his head to have a hope of hitting a specfic target in motion at range.

"Well, letsee.... he's about a 150 paces away, so it'll take THIS long for the arrow to get there... He's moving to my left at a canter so he'll be about THERE... the wind is about THIS strong, so I have to adjust my point of aim THAT much, and I'll drop about THIS much at THAT range... so to hit that guy I need to aim around oh... THERE."

Then hope he doesn't change direction, stop, or speed up.

 

Oh, yeah... bows suck in wet conditions too.

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Re: Pirate Weapons?

 

I don't know about _present_ sourcebooks, but the old dual-statted ICE Pirates book had stats for a lot of these things.

 

It is a pretty cool book all round.

 

Unfortunately that doesn't do you any good at all. :(

 

It does if Old Man digs out his copy and types in the firearm stats.

 

 

Weapon RMod Dmg StunX STR Reload Notes

Pistol -1 1.5d6 +1 12 4ph abc

Duel Pstl 0 1d6+1 +1 10 4ph abc

Carbine 0 2d6 +2 11 5ph abc

Musket +1 2d6+1 +2 12 5ph abc

Harquebus +1 2d6+1 +2 14 5ph abcd

Blunderbuss +3 2.5d6 0 10 5ph abcef

 

a: 2pts. piercing

b: to hit roll 16-17 misfire; 18 explosion as grenade

c: 2h reload; 1/2 DCV reload

d: requires musket-rest to fire, else -3 OCV

e: rdc pen, rdc by range

 

This is a damn good book, I'd forgotten.

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Re: Pirate Weapons?

 

I'll also recommend On Stranger Tides as campaign inspiration ;)

 

As for stats the old 'Pirates' ICE/HERO supplement has powder weapons all the way up to culverin and cannon. It also has examples of blades but a distinct lack of focus on the fencing martial arts - there are plenty of good online martial arts resources for the period though ;)

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