Café de Nuit

In Dragon Magazine issue 249, there was an article on using Alternity rules in the American Old West, with a rather extensive list of firearms. About eight months ago, I spent some time converting them to AD&D 2e stats and posted them to The Piazza. I figured I'd do a little formatting clean-up and also post them here.

The guns are a mix of flintlocks, percussion firearms, and cartridge firearms. The cartridge guns would be modern production for a Masque campaign, but plenty of the older firearms would still be in use by people without access to modern guns (either for geographic or financial reasons).

General rules:
1. Any firearm with a Speed of 2 or less has a Speed of 1 if loaded and ready. Any firearm with a Speed of 3 or more has a Speed of 2 if loaded and ready.
2. Any of these firearms that roll a 6 or more on a damage die roll add another damage die. This continues until a die rolls 5 or less. Yes, the buffalo rifle is terrifying.
3. The ROF for each weapon is its Rapid Fire rate of fire (see page 69 of Masque of the Red Death).
4. Weapons marked with an asterisk (*) double all range modifiers.
5. For weapons marked with two asterisks (**), each attack with that weapon makes 1d4 attack rolls against a target at close range, 1d3 against targets at medium range, and 1d3-1 against targets at long range.

Ammunition prices
1. All flintlocks are $0.25 for 25 rounds.
2. All percussion cap firearms except the 12-gauge shotgun are $0.25 for 25 rounds. The shotgun is $1.00 for 25 rounds.
3. The .50 buffalo rifle is $1.00 for 25 rounds. The 12-gauge repeating shotgun is $1.25 for 25 rounds. The .57 single-action revolver is $1.50 for 25 rounds. All other cartridge firearms are $0.50 for 25 rounds.

Flintlocks
Misfire rule: Flintlocks misfire on an attack roll of 1 and roll 2d6 on the misfire chart on page 136 of Combat & Tactics.
Reloading: Reloading a Size S flintlock requires 2 rounds per shot. Reloading a Size M flintlock requires 3 rounds per shot.
.32 cal four-barrel pistol* – ROF 2, Rng 4/8/20, 4 Rnds, Size S, Type P, Spd 5, Dmg 1d6, $12.00
.50 duelling pistol – ROF 1, Rng 6/12/30, 1 Rnd, Size S, Type P, Spd 5, Dmg 1d8, $70.00
.38 plains rifle – ROF 1, Rng 30/60/120, 1 Rnd, Size M, Type P, Spd 7, Dmg 1d8, $10.00
.52 long rifle – ROF 1, Rng 30/60/150, 1 Rnd, Size M, Type P, Spd 8, Dmg 1d10, $18.00
.69 musket* – ROF 1, Rng 20/40/100, 1 Rnd, Size M, Type P, Spd 7, Dmg 1d10, $15.00

Percussion firearms
Misfire rule: Percussion cap weapons misfire on an attack roll of 1 and roll 1d10+2 on the misfire chart on page 136 of Combat & Tactics.
Reloading: Reloading a Size S percussion cap weapon requires 1 round per shot. Reloading a Size M weapon requires 2 rounds per shot.
.22 pepperbox* – ROF 3, Rng 4/8/12, 4 Rnds, Size S, Type P, Spd 2, Dmg 1d4, $20.00
.36 Navy revolver – ROF 3, Rng 4/8/30, 6 Rnds, Size S, Type P, Spd 3, Dmg 1d6, $15.00
.44 Army revolver – ROF 3, Rng 4/8/40, 6 Rnds, Size S, Type P, Spd 4, Dmg 1d8, $20.00
.41 derringer* - ROF 1, Rng 2/6/10, 1 Rnds, Size S, Type P, Spd 2, Dmg 1d6, $5.00
.52 carbine – ROF 1, Rng 40/80/240, 1 Rnds, Size M, Type P, Spd 6, Dmg 1d8, $20.00
.36 revolver rifle* – ROF 3, Rng 30/60/120, 6 Rnds, Size M, Type P, Spd 6, Dmg 1d8, $45.00
.58 rifle-musket – ROF 1, Rng 50/100/300, 1 Rnds, Size M, Type P, Spd 7, Dmg 1d10, $22.00
12-gauge double-barrel shotgun** – ROF 2, Rng 6/12/30, 2 Rnds, Size M, Type P, Spd 6, Dmg 1d6, $30.00

Cartridge firearms
Misfire rule: Cartridge weapons do not roll on the misfire chart.
Reloading: Cartridge weapons can be reloaded at a rate of 3 cartridges per round.
.32 pocket revolver – ROF 3, Rng 4/8/30, 6 Rnds, Size S, Type P, Spd 2, Dmg 1d6, $10.00
.38 double-action revolver – ROF 3, Rng 4/10/36, 6 Rnds, Size S, Type P, Spd 3, Dmg 1d8, $28.00
.45 single-action revolver – ROF 3, Rng 4/10/40, 6 Rnds, Size S, Type P, Spd 4, Dmg 1d8, $30.00
.57 single-action revolver – ROF 2, Rng 4/8/30, 5 Rnds, Size S, Type P, Spd 5, Dmg 2d6, $60.00
.32 two-shot derringer – ROF 2, Rng 2/6/12, 2 Rnds, Size S, Type P, Spd 2, Dmg 1d6, $15.00
.45 trap-door carbine – ROF 1, Rng 50/100/250, 1 Rnds, Size M, Type P, Spd 6, Dmg 1d8, $20.00
.56 repeating carbine – ROF 3, Rng 40/80/200, 7 Rnds, Size M, Type P, Spd 6, Dmg 1d8, $25.00
.30 lever-action rifle – ROF 3, Rng 50/100/200, 15 Rnds, Size M, Type P, Spd 6, Dmg 1d8, $40.00
.44 lever-action rifle – ROF 3, Rng 50/100/200, 13 Rnds, Size M, Type P, Spd 6, Dmg 1d8, $35.00
.45 trap-door rifle – ROF 1, Rng 60/120/360, 1 Rnds, Size M, Type P, Spd 7, Dmg 1d10, $25.00
.50 buffalo rifle – ROF 1, Rng 80/200/600, 1 Rnds, Size M, Type P, Spd 8, Dmg 1d12, $125.00
12-gauge repeating shotgun** - ROF 3, Rng 6/12/30, 7 Rnds, Size M, Type P, Spd 6, Dmg 1d6, $75.00

Notes:
I am almost certain the ".57 single-action revolver" is a typo that should be .577 in caliber, since the 5 rounds would be consistent with a Tranter. There were licensed revolvers in that caliber with a capacity of 6 rounds.
I would allow fighter-types (at a minimum) to take weapon groups of Handguns and Long Arms for each of the three firing mechanisms, with Handguns covering all type S firearms of a type (e.g. Flintlock Handguns would apply to the .32 four-barrel pistol and .50 duelling pistol) and Long Arms covering all type M firearms of a type.

I could have sworn I saw this via the piazza. But regardless, this is infinitely useful for when I do stuff with MotRD. I could have sworn the original article touched on that, but I guess I'm wrong. Either way, great stuff!

Just to point out that exploding dice are much less threatening than they sound.
Sure, your 1d10 rifle could do say ... 20+1d10 damage... 1% of the time - after you hit. And we ALL know that you would end up doing 29 damage to an enemy with 4 hp left. Because dice are evil like that.

alhoon wrote: Sun Jun 07, 2026 3:22 pm Just to point out that exploding dice are much less threatening than they sound.
Sure, your 1d10 rifle could do say ... 20+1d10 damage... 1% of the time - after you hit. And we ALL know that you would end up doing 29 damage to an enemy with 4 hp left. Because dice are evil like that.

I tried to avoid that by making it "dice explode on a 6 or more" instead of "dice explode on a maximum roll" so that bigger dice have a higher chance to explode instead of a lower chance. That 1d10 rifle has a 50% chance of exploding dice on each roll. The "1% of the time" damage for 1d10 exploding on 6+ is somewhere north of 50.

Here's the AnyDice function for figuring odds:
function: explode N:n {
if N > 5 { result: N + [explode d10] }
result: N
}

set "maximum function depth" to 7
output [explode d10]

I can't get it to run for more than 7 rolls because the calculation takes too long and the program automatically times out.

Ohhh... you turned it to a 50% chance for a 1d10...
Well, honestly, I am a bit... iffy about that. I would prefer "critical on 18-20" or something or "You get one reroll" so that damage would cap on 20 especially for 2e.
How do you deal with armor?