The Dungeons and Dragons 2024 core rulebook now contains the rules for firearms that were previously published in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, making gunpowder a core part of the DnD experience. But the rules are so slight and uninspired I have to wonder why Wizards of the Coast bothered to make the change.
To be clear, the new DnD firearms rules are functional. The stats are identical to the renaissance firearms printed in the previous Dungeon Master’s Guide. The Pistol is a one-handed ranged weapon with poor long range that does D10 piercing damage. The Musket has similarly bad range, does a mighty D12 damage, and is two-handed. Both guns have the Loading property, meaning there’s no way to attack with them more than once per turn, no matter how many Extra Attacks you have.
Like all DnD Weapons, both guns have gained DnD Weapon Mastery properties in the new rules. In the hands of a trained wielder, the Musket can Slow its target, while the Pistol has the Vex property. The thing is, none of the DnD Classes with access to Weapon Mastery have much incentive to use a firearm.
The DnD 2024 Rogue is now best friends with the Nick weapon mastery property; the DnD 2024 Fighter, with its multitude of attacks, doesn’t want a Loading weapon; Paladins and Barbarians don’t usually prioritise Dexterity; and none of the Fighting Styles available to the Fighter, Ranger, or Paladin give any benefit for using guns.
There isn’t even a janky weapon-specific DnD 2024 feat for gun lovers. If your character has the cash for it, you could go into battle covered in loaded Pistols like a historical pirate, and have a few jolly turns firing off D10 damage shots with each attack. That’s neat, but it’s not the gun-kata ideal.
This lack of support for firearms leaves them feeling tacked on to a ruleset that is otherwise totally devoted to making sure your character is a cool badass.
Yet for weirdos like me who enjoy old-school dungeoneering, these firearms rules feel gamified, because (for balance reasons) they’re fundamentally interchangeable with the other weapons. They’re just another skin for a character’s ability to deal damage.
The short ranges of the new guns at least capture their inaccuracy, but damage dice don’t represent a weapon that was roughly as good at killing humans as the bow, yet much better at piercing armor. The limitation of the Loading property is still far quicker than the torturous reality of packing an early blackpowder weapon. And there’s nothing like the catastrophic misfire table from older versions of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay which turns firearms into powerful but utterly untrustworthy weapons.
But what’s most fascinating about early firearms – and which DnD 2024 totally misses – is that even though they were inaccurate and unreliable, they still reshaped the landscape of war and conquest. The big ones were really, really deadly, and the little ones took weeks, not years, to learn to use proficiently.
There are interesting stories to be told about knightly orders and supernatural DnD races suddenly introduced to history’s most violent equaliser. You don’t even need to use flavor text to do this – just comparing the damage from a cannon against a dragon’s hitpoints, or the cost of hiring untrained musketeers against the wages for skilled elven archers, can bring to life a world filled with interesting conflicts and technologically-driven changes.
Maybe something coming up on the DnD release schedule will give me what I want. The new Dungeon Master’s Guide promises to have a whole section devoted to building Bastions, the perfect place for rules on castle-cracking artillery and musket-armed mercenary companies.
For more fully formed thoughts on the new version of DnD, make sure you check out our DnD 2024 Player’s Handbook review.