AlHazred

Martians

Would you like my War of the Worlds adaptations?

I recently purchased a book called the The Illustrated Book of Guns, primarily for its visual value. It's got something like a thousand different guns, with pictures, a few statistics and a paragraph on each one. I figured I could let players of a more modern game look through the book when choosing firearms.

Anyway, I was working up the game statistics for the weapons in a spreadsheet and ran into an interesting little foible; the black powder pistols in the book seem to have extremely low muzzle velocities. I noted all of them as being in the range of 350 fps to 550 fps, a considerable sight lower than modern handguns, which are typically in the 900 to 1400 fps range. Since I'm working up the Hero damage in a spreadsheet, these numbers are really cooking the results.

Now, I know ball bullets shed velocity much slower than cased rounds because of aerodynamics, but I'd thought to model this as Reduced by Range. But if the muzzle velocities are that low, the damage will be 1/2d6 at most anyway. Can anyone tell me a good source for statistics on black powder weapons?