Hello everyone. I'm sorry for posting here in the 3rd edition forum but I couldn't find any message board for the discontinued previous edition, neither from FFG or anyone else.

Hopefully there will be a few veterans about to answer, or some questions might be relevant anyway. So here goes:

1. What is up with firearms in the game? The prices are horrendous (300GC for a matchlock Arquebus?) and aboute the same as a heavy warhorse, yet the Soldier career can start with it. Why would the empire even use it considering it's so expensive, inaccurate, and has a long reload time? The damage is ok I guess compared to other weapons, but even 1d10+4 with Impact (roll extra die discard lowest), it cannot reliably take down even unarmored targets, and against knights in plate armor (who can soak 9-10 damage without being hurt) it will only affect them much on a Fury.

The reason why they were used in the late medieval times/rennaisance was that they were comparably cheap weapons to use, required little training and physical requirments, and could penetrate and kill even heavily armored foes. None of that is true in WHFRP (not sure about this edition).

2. Mounted combat. Although the Lance is an ok weapon it seems to be not much better than a Great Weapon despite the speed and impact of a couched lance charge. Is there supposed to be any damage bonus when charging? Also, how does Tiring weapon quality make sense if you charge, retreat, and charge again?

That's it for now there may be more minor questions about careers and trappings later.

Have you tired the Strike to Stun forums? I would have thought they had a strong 2nd ed community going, where you'd get some detailed disvussions around your questions.

pumpkin said:

Thanks I will try there.

Yes you are right. The firearms are way overpriced in Warhammer rpg. In our games we change the price lists according to inherent logic of the world and do not stick slavishly to the ridicolous list in the rulebook.

I don't think the prices are unreasonable at all, at least for 3rd. I'm not really sure what 300g equates to as I'm not a 2nd edition player.

You've got to remember that historically, guns were quite expensive compared to a bow, and were not widely used for quite some time. I see this as the case in WFRP, where they're expensive and don't impart a bonus that is in keeping with the price increase. They're easy to use, requiring less skill to be effective than a bow, especially over long ranges. This isn't really reflected, but that doesn't concern me greatly, as I assume that a basic character has enough skill to understand how to use a bow, which might negate some of that advantage.

The reason I see the price as making sense is because it's a relatively new weapon, and they are just not that common an item to use. That said, I do reflect the intimidation that a firearm holds over a bow.

It's the image more than the weapon statistics themselves, though your choices of action cards can be affected as well.

Darrett said:

Yeah I get the justification that it's supposed to be somewhat uncommon, but that it's close to the price of a heavy warhorse and more expensive that full plate armor it gets silly - how the heck can the Empire afford these for it's soldiers at all? And according to the tabletop game the Empire uses these weapons on a massive scale - a minority in their armies perhaps but still thousands of them.

I don't know how they are in 3rd ed compared to other items there. Does it still use the 1 GC=20 Shilling, 1 S=12 P?

Friend of the Dork said:

I'm willing to assume that the Empire generally produces poor quality versions of these weapons for use on a large scale, which would bring the price down significantly. Also, the tabletop game does give you a poor indication of what would probably be the "reality" of it; people include things in their armies that would likely be far less common in the WFRP world. That said, I'd still imagine a large town having a unit of Pistoliers, and many cities having both a Pistoliers unit and a unit (or two?) of Handgunners.

I haven't looked at an Empire Army Book since I last played WFB in... 4th edition? Maybe 5th, we played one game in that edition I believe. Based on what I've seen on the tabletop down at the FLGS though, units generally fielded in the tabletop game are very disproportionate to what I would expect actually being present in an Empire army.

Sorry for the double post, but if I remember right, as late as 1776 (Still prior to mass manufacturing days), a flintlock musket cost about a month's pay for a skilled tradesman. If I had my rulebook in front of me I'd look it up, but it would be interesting to see how much a month's pay for a tradesman would be and compare it to the cost of a poor handgun, considering that the time period in the Warhammer world would be the equivalent of about 200 years or more earlier.

Still, it sounds like the 2nd edition prices might have been a bit out of line. I'll check my rulebook for 3rd when I get home, you might houserule your prices a bit lower if they seem out of line in comparison.

Having something available to the military (and not as common as people suggest, despite the frequency of people taking them on the tabletop) is not the same as having them available to everyone.

Remember, this is a time when everything is hand made. There is no mass production. While nearly every blacksmith can make swords and armor, only a few specialists can make blackpowder weapons.

In addition, the nobility and major merchants (the major non-military purchasers of blackpowder weapons) want to keep the prices high because they are prestigious items, and they don't want every Joseph or Heinrich on the street to be able to afford one.

Dvang's point rings true as well; a military armory would be far more capable of producing these items for military use than individual craftsmen could produce them in small quantities for the general public.

My County has a fleet of 2010 Prius, that weren't purchased at anywhere close to MSRP... and I wouldn't be surprised if they were subsidized as a "green" initiative through the State. It's far more economically feasible for them to make this purchase than for the average individual to do so.