Firearms in Ravenloft

[MichaelTumey]

Additionally, gunpowder gets wet and doesn't want to fire, so using guns in the rain, heavy mist, and snow can be problematic. Of course gunpowder is highly combustable, which means sparks, campfire/torch embers, and similar hazards make gunpowder storage a dangerous situation. Aside from all the possible points in favor and against use of firearms in Ravenloft - gunpowder is inherently problematic beyond weapon capability. In this way, I don't see guns as an overpowering element in any Ravenloft domain.

[IrvyneWolfe]

The way I have it work in my Ravenloft game.
1. Cultural Level 9 domains: Simple weapon proficiency
2. Cultural Level 8 domains: Martial weapon proficiency
3. All other domains: Exotic weapon proficiency

I use pathfinder and Early firearms are all that's available anywhere but Paridon, where you can purchase advanced firearms, but at the full cost listed in Ultimate Combat (so a revolver would cost somewhere in the neighbourhood of 3,000 gold, on par with +1 weapon). These costs really make magical firearms really really expensive. Throw in how often these weapons misfire (in some cases critical failure on a roll of 1-4) and a bow, or crossbow seems a much safer bet for a practical monster hunter like George, especially one who spends his time out in the Western core where firearms are much harder to come by,

[Quinntonia]

In my campaign most of my players came from our homebrew world outside of Ravenloft, but when they entered, they met another guy who was just joining the group, and they were meeting him in Lamordia. So, we looked at Lamordia and thought about a character that would work for that area and decided that he was the eldest son of a merchant family, captaining a steamboat up and down the coast called the "River Schloss" and was considered something of a rebel because he left the family business for a time to work for Baron von Aubrecker's defence forces.

Specifically, he and a partner would pair up with one or two other such teams, armed with pistol, a large arquebus, and a rapier and patrol the borders on snowshoe and skies. Higher ranking guards were provided with muskets, and town armories had a supply of the same for emergencies, but they were far to expensive to let just any soldier off with them.

When he retired form the military, he had the wealth and the training to keep up his interest in firearms, and had several of them, and owing to his excellent Lamordian education, was something of a chemist as well and made his own blackpowder.

It was a great way to really drive home the alien-ness of the new lands the group was in, with a new type of ship and weapon that they had never encountered previously, and I also had the heavily armed and armoured adventurers looked down on everywhere they went as "primitives."

Since then, I have hammered home that guns are available in the areas where technology is higher, but ever there their sale and sale of powder is likely restricted and everything is very expensive.

I had them in Souragne next, and they only found a single gun, a rusted old arquebus hanging over the mantle of the Tarascon Plantation House. The previously mentioned rifleman deemed it unworthy of restoration and left it there. But, I am open to the idea that the local militia in Port d'Elhour is armed with muskets, as they are likely provided with firearm pieces by their wealthy families. (I read in the Gazetteer that the militia are sons of noble families) but basically those guns would account for something like 90% of the firearms on the island.

In fact, the few firearms that the group has are starting to run low on powder and bullets, and the next place they are headed is going to be Har'Akir, where I am going to play this like they have never even heard of such monstrous weapons before.