By: Jared B.
Ah, the smell of cordite in the morning…. Oh, this is a fantasy game? So, you have Fireball, Firebolt, Scorching Ray, and multitudes of other spells that go boom or catch things on fire… but you want more?
You want your Dwarf Ranger player to be able to carry the musket while his Bear pet charges ahead to engage the target. Your rogue wants to be able to lob grenades into the fight…
Of course they do. So how does one handle all these possibilities? You could Google it, sure, or you can look at what you already have. My reasoning for this kind of thing is: if it is a cantrip level damage or effect, just make it that. Give it some material components and cost that make sense and make it available.
Some examples I can give:
Basic grenade,
Thrown range of a dagger 20/60
A DC for a dex save to dodge completely or take half damage, usually as a flat amount or you can base it on the Dex of the thrower. Flat amounts are easier in most instances.
Damage would be equivalent to a cantrip.
Grenade:
Range: Thrown 45ft
AoE from point of impact to: 5-10ft
Dex Save DC 11 for half damage
1D4 bludgeoning and 1d6 piercing(shrapnel) Damage.
Cost: Say 20gp or half if they have an alchemist’s toolset to make them with.
Smoke Grenade is basically the same, but with no shrapnel and the smoke cloud grows every turn until it reaches a maximum and hangs around for say 10 or rounds.
For muskets and the like… They have a firearm in the book for 5th Edition D&D but it feels a little strong to me in a game where you are mixing the firearms with bow and arrow and the like.
I normally take something like a heavy crossbow and re-flavor it. It already has the reloading attribute and 1d10 is a reasonable amount of damage. And the cost for ammo doesn’t really need to be more than crossbow bolts. If you want to limit the use of such arms but still make them available, cost is where I would start, but I would also throw the players a boost in damage. Say 1d12 but the gun itself is two times the cost of a crossbow, maybe more and the ammo is two to three times as much per shot as the crossbow bolts. This makes them think about every shot. Keep in mind the average musket round is not recoverable.
Note: If you go for hyper realism you could also separate it into them having to load the powder and ball separately or spend more money to have a paper or otherwise all-in-one shot load. If you have them load everything separately, I would at least make it a bonus action or a full action to reload the firearm.
Of course, you can get really detailed and varied on the type of firearms and explosives that you have available to your players. The differences could be gas cloud smoke bombs that create deadly gas or a type of shell that lights the target on fire for ongoing fire damage. The easiest way I’ve found to come up with ideas and give some variety, as I said at the beginning, is find a spell effect, or class ability, that you want them or the NPC’s they are fighting, to have and make it into a single-use item via a grenade or firearm ammo type.
What are your ways of giving your PCs and NPCs special effect abilities, of an explosive nature, that you want to be limited but fun? Let us know in the comments and on the Discord!
As always, find ways to have fun at the game table! Happy New Year! Game On!
About the Author
Jared “Martel” B has been GMing and playing in several TTRPG’s since late 2013. Enjoys the challenge of bringing his players worlds and stories straight from his mind in the moment that it happens. He is one of the Founders of RPGCounterpoint, happy husband to an active historian wife, and father to two puppers and newborn!
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