Musketry Mechanic

[HierophantX]

So, I'm thinking of doing either a one-shot or sort series set in the Aubrey/Maturin or Sharpe settings . But I wonder about a way to represent in-game the advantage of superior training. It's not enough that a Redcoat would have a higher Musketry skill, or the crew of the Melpomene should have a higher gunnery rating than the Naiad. How might one reflect the impact on rate of fire that superior drill and training have on black powder combats? Has anyone considered this previously?

Maybe i'm over-thinking and this really only applies to a mass-combat situation, but it is on my mind.

[filbanto]

The British Army was trained to fire 3 shots per minute and could put up a withering fire in a battle. I'd reduce reload time by 1 if your skill was greater than 50% to reflect it. Others have suggested a "reloading" skill.

There was a thread about this a couple years ago: http://basicroleplaying.com/basic-roleplaying/black-powder-rules-2086/

PM me if you'd like a copy of the firearms I wrote up in that thread. I think I have a word doc of them somewhere that makes it readable:)

[nclarke]

You could also look at the RQ6 firearms rules for information

[rust]

How might one reflect the impact on rate of fire that superior drill and training have on black powder combats?

The usual aim of the musket drill for military units was to achieve a hgh rate of fire

and the ability to sustain "rolling fire" (= different parts of the unit fire at different

times so there is no pause), the precision of the fire was of secondary (sometimes

of no) importance - the aim was to hit the enemy with a permanent hail of as ma-

ny musket balls as possible. A well trained soldier could fire three times per minute,

some soldiers of elite units could even fire four times per minute, but few could con-

tinue at such a speed for more than a few minutes - which was no serious problem,

because muskets were usually fired at a comparatively short distance at advancing

enemy troop formations, and the enemy normally closed in for melee combat or bro-

ke and retreated after a very short time. Naval gunnery fire was different. Naval en-

gagements could last for hours without interruption, and precision could be as useful

as a high rate of fire - while any hit with a musket ball could incapacitate a soldier,

a ship had more and less important targets, and where it was hit was often more

important than the fact that it was hit at all, bringing down a mast and its rigging

or silencing a cannon was a lot more useful than pumping another cannon ball into

a cargo hold.

[Zit]

In the steppe nomads setting I'm working on -hopefully to be published next year- I solved this question for a special ability of the nomads to fire several arrows at high speed by using a kind of "martial Art" skill. So get a "fast reload" musketeer martial art skill, and if the "fire arm" roll is under the "fast reload" roll as well, you can (re)load faster. No extra die roll.

[Mankcam]

In the steppe nomads setting I'm working on -hopefully to be published next year- I solved this question for a special ability of the nomads to fire several arrows at high speed by using a kind of "martial Art" skill. So get a "fast reload" musketeer martial art skill, and if the "fire arm" roll is under the "fast reload" roll as well, you can (re)load faster. No extra die roll.

I actually did something like this with Martial Arts (Dual Wielder); if the PC rolls under their sword skill AND their dual wield skill then they get an extra attack within that same round. Simple. Worked fine back then, I can't see how something similar couldn't work in this instance.