Where are the guns in D&D?

And were they ever there in the first place? Guns have never really been part of any of the classic D&D settings: Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Mystara, Nentir Vale, or the Forgotten Realms. In part, this was due to the insistence of the creators of D&D and their successors. Lots of other people have recorded and commented on Gary Gygax’s and Ed Greenwood’s and other luminaries distaste for guns in medieval fantasy, whether it was to keep 20th century war and culture out of their escapist children’s game, or because it didn’t make sense in setting where it was cheaper and easier to create a fire bolt just as deadly as a bullet propelled by black powder.

One of the unique things about 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, unlike every previous edition of Dungeons and Dragons is that, from early on, guns were not just popular but also somewhat supported by the rules. The Dungeon Master’s Guide has rules for Renaissance, Modern, and Futuristic weapons, including guns and grenades. Popular personalities voiced their thoughts on guns in D&D online, some included it in their campaigns, and one in particular was able to get their Gunslinger fighter subclass recognition from WotC (along with the Bloodhunter and other content) and put in an especial place on D&D Beyond and other official and unofficial platforms.

More recently, the official campaign hardcovers have canonized smokepowder and smokepowder powered pistols in the Forgotten Realms (smokepowder had a precedent in the lore and was included in a novel or two, which was only included after executive decision making for the Forgotten Realms was removed from Ed Greenwood’s hands, but it’s been rare and generally unavailable to player characters). Being the Forgotten Realms, smokepowder is magical and can be rendered inert by dispel magic.

For the most part, this doesn’t effect my games. I mostly run for people who don’t care for firearms in their D&D games and didn’t learn D&D to shoot people in imaginary scenarios. However, as I’m planning my next campaign, I had a bit of a dilemma.

I am running the Lost Lands (https://www.worldanvil.com/w/the-lost-lands ), which is a low-magic setting created for Original Dungeons and Dragons now being published for 5th by Frog God Games. Nonhuman races are few and far between, and having read through most of the sourcebooks I haven’t come across a single dwarf wizard. This is only a problem insofar as freely allowing any race or class or subclass in 5e results in parties where the majority of characters have access to magic (since most 5e character options have magic).

While likely eligible for a blogpost of its own, there is something to be said for a low magic setting without player character restrictions. You essentially remove magic as an option to counter the magic the players wield, making them that much more powerful. Even in groups that don’t do it intentionally, players will find more success with a magic-user in a low magic setting than a high magic one.

Over the past few weeks I’ve had to make a few decisions on how I would rectify this problem. Thankfully I’ve run into it before. While I don’t want to take any individual character option off the table, I’ve gone about tying every magical subclass into the setting (bardic colleges represent specific locations, PC wizards need to pick one of the 2 dozen level 7+ wizards within 1000 miles of the campaign location as their master, only river giants can be Rune Knights, Sun Soul monks come from a specific tribe from Pelshtaria, etc.). This works for a lot of options, but not all of them.

Arcane Archer, for example, is magical in the sort of way that’s problematic: it represents an answer to the question “why aren’t guns a thing?” in a high magic setting. This is a low magic setting however, and a class option that doesn’t have spells and has magical flavor needs to change. In this case, the easiest thing to do is keep the mechanics and change the flavor (I say that, but what I came up with only bears a passing resemblance to the original class).

I call it the Arquebusier Fighter Archetype, and it represents firearms specialists in a historical-fantastical era when guns weren’t part of the normal battlefield, where they might feature on ships or on the walls of castles, but not in many other places. It also makes the assumption that you are only going to fire a gun once or twice during an engagement (as fighter, you’d probably switch into a weapon you can utilize extra attack with). In other words: it’s a non-steampunk/wild west gunslinger without the normal connotations.

Find the full document in downloads.

The subclass is compatible with the Firearms Rules in the 5th Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide. I hope you enjoy!