HYPERBOREA / Firearms Rules

**Posted by lige** 8/25/2021 4:44 pm

So my campaign is entering a land where there are some early modern type fire arms. I'm thinking of using the rules from the 2E sourcebook HR 4: A Mighty Fortress (I've used these rules before and thought they worked fine) but just wondering if any one else had any rules recommendations that would mesh well with Hyperborea.

**Posted by BlackKnight** 8/25/2021 9:09 pm

That sounds like it could work... I loved the Setting books in 2nd Ed...

**Posted by lige** 9/01/2021 12:04 pm

Well I ended up using the HR4 rules - only hand weapons so far. I'm thinking I'll mash up the Catapult rules from Hyperborea if cannons ever get used. The party set up a pretty great ambush and managed to get a surprise round in on the 20 or so musketeers they faced and took out most of them with magic and missile weapons. Since not many left to shoot the damage inflicted by the firearms was minimal except for one errant round that hit the exploding dice number 3x in a row (Roll 20 - sometimes I'm not sure about your randomization algorithm)! The charging fighter it hit survived though, much to the chagrin of his opponents.

**Posted by lige** 9/24/2021 12:23 pm

Well cannons have been in play! In the next to last session one of the players rode up to a fortress to draw the enemies fire while the rest of the party executed the rest of their plan (causing some discussion of the first scene of Dances with Wolves and then the rest of Kevin Costner's oeuvre). Unfortunately for him they had a small cannon and got a shot at him as he was riding away. I've decided to go with the 10x10 area of impact from Hyperborea combined with the HR4 save vs parylyzation (I used a straight avoidance save in this case) or take big damage. Well it hit and he failed his saved but survived! His horse wasn't so lucky. He ended up sending out this clip to the group after the game(thanks wind!):

I've attached my rules, they're basically a mash up of the DMG, HR4 and Hyperborea. I really liked the area of effect concept but I didn't want to have to roll to hit everyone within it. I also wanted a resolution that would work ok with a TotM sort of setup. I added some mishaps to discourage the casual use of these powerful weapons (who am I kidding we're talking about PCs!). My wild shots table is a first cut. I'd love to hear if anyone has any thoughts.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6vm37cozt2pbji9/Cannons%20%26%20Catapults%20Rules.pdf?dl=0