Musket

Game Stats

• Maximum Range: 150 yds.
• Damage: 2d6+1 (impaling)
• Reload time: 2 rounds
• Secondary: may be used as a truncheon with -1 damage and no more than 1 attack per round.
• Concealable: no
• Civilian Carry: no

Description

The musket is a black-powder flintlock long gun with firing a spherical lead shot.  It is distinguished from the arquebus by its longer barrel, which gives it greater range and somewhat greater firepower.  Like arquebuses, muskets are hand-crafted by expert gunsmiths, and no two are exactly alike.  It is even uncommon for guilds to have standard musket patterns.  These are rare, unusual weapons.  They are most often used for hunting large game, as they are too large for home defense and considered impractical by the Harkanian military.

Method of Operation

A musket is loaded and fired in precisely the same manner as its smaller cousin.  It shares all of an arquebus' foibles and proclivities, including the tendency for the barrel to become fouled with repeated firings and the large amount of smoke created by discharge.  Many muskets fire somewhat larger shot than an arquebus, up to 0.77 inches in diameter.

Advantages

A musket's longer barrel traps the gases created by exploding gunpowder behind the ball for a longer period of time.  This gives a musket greater range and slightly more power than an arquebus.

Disadvantages

All of a musket's disadvantages compared to an arquebus relate to its size.  As the musket is longer than an arquebus, it is naturally heavier and more unwieldy in close confines.  These disadvantages are the reason the musket has not been widely adopted by the Harkanian military, despite the fact that it offers somewhat greater firepower than the ubiquitous arquebus.  The Harkanian army relies on artillery to provide long-range fire, while the infantry are intended primarily to support the artillery and engines of war at shorter ranges.  Moreover, Harkania's foes tend to be equipped for melee combat, and have learned to charge Harkanian infantry once they are in the "kill zone" of an arquebus' effective range.  A musket is no faster to load than an arquebus, and thus even musket-equipped infantry would have time for only one shot against charging foes, despite the musket's greater range.  This leads the Harkanian army to view the musket for the most part as an unnecessary encumbrance.  An army equipped with muskets in large numbers could probably overcome Harkanian infantry equipped with arquebuses, but no such force presently exists.  The armies of Sevilla and Nuscovy have experimented with musketeer infantry, but for reasons of tradition and lack of manufacturing expertise neither nation fields large numbers of muskets.

Variants

Like other black-powder weapons, muskets can take advantage of alchemical powder and shot.  Because of their greater range, muskets are also the weapons most commonly modified by rifling.

Party Associations

Monica Jasmine uses a musket with a muzzle in the shape of a skull that she took fromAvicenna Banecaller.  In Thorvahld, she had its barrel hand-rifled by Elizabeth Gregson.

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