SSgt Baloo

Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

Re: Firearms in fantasy? Actually that appears to be some kind of snaplock action (probably flintlock, but I'm no expert), but that revolver is a great find, nevertheless, and a beautiful example of the gunsmithing arts. The following is not to be construed as an EXPERT OPINION, only the opinion of someone who once owned and used muzzle-loading firearms and has read a lot about the things he hasn't actually done, related to that subject. If anyone has better information or corrections to the text below, just post them. Accurracy with muskets (or any smoothbore firearm, for that matter) could be rather... iffy. The main reason muskets were fired in volleys was that if you put a whole lot of balls downrange, you were bound to hit something, if only by accident. Usually you were firing your volley into a crowd (row of opposing soldiers) so even if the ball went astray, there was bound to be some poor fool standing in its path. Early rifles were a bugger to load quickly and were significantly more expensive than muskets, so they weren't issued to regular troops until the Industrial Age. The bore of a musket was larger than the ball it shot, both to facilitate loading after it had begun to foul and to speed up the reloading process. If you were hunting with a musket, you'd use a greased patch of cloth to make the ball fit the bore more tightly and thus somewhat increase its accuracy. A rifle bullet was either as large as the bore or slightly larger. This ensured that the ball would engage the rifling grooves. This means that, unlike a musket, you must use a "starter tool" in addition to the ramrod. Black powder leaves a residue in the barrel of a weapon approximately equal to half the amount of powder used. This means that only the first shot with a black powder weapon will be as accurate as you can get, provided you start with a clean bore to begin with. I suggest a -1 cumulative penalty to OCV per shot without cleaning (after the first), and a similarly increasing likelihood of a misfire as powder residue accumulates in the barrel and especially the touch hole. Matchlocks and wheel-locks should have some sort of activation roll (better for wheel-locks than matchlocks, with modifiers for humidity, rain, snow, etc.), while flintlocks, if allowed, should be relatively unaffected by weather as long as it was loaded under dry conditions. If you stored your weapon loaded overnight, the cooler night temperatures would tend to cause condensation in the barrel, and we've all heard about keeping one's powder dry. If you look up the subject online, a lot of folks nowadays leave their black powder weapons loaded overnight without care, but I suspect that modern black powder substitutes (relevant entries at this link) aren't as hydroscopic or corrosive as the real McCoy. I have heard that every morning Wild Bill Hickok discharged, cleaned and reloaded his pistols every morning to keep them at maximum accuracy and reliability. Note: there were only two ways to unload early black powder weapons. The first (and easiest) was to just shoot it. The second involved an auger-like attachment on the end of one's ramrod and a lot of fiddly work. Cleaning: Fortunately, if your character has a supply of water, a pot and a funnel, cleaning your firearm is pretty easy, but the only cleaning solvent available to a fantasy setting are likely to be water (hot water works best). Modern cleaning instructions are listed below, but if any of our friends here are historical reenactors or active hobbyists, they will be able to explain the traditional methods used to keep one's firearm ready to use and safe from corrosion. Typical charges (IME -- YMMV) are ~30-50 grains of powder for a pistol, and 40-100 grains for a rifle. This works out to (only very) approximately 1/16 oz. of powder for a pistol and 1/8 oz. of powder for a rifle. A pound of black powder fills a container (once again, very) approximately the size of a one-quart jar. I suspect powder containers would be made of wood and/or brass, to avoid creating sparks (say, if they were dropped on flagstones or something). Useful, or at least relevant articles: How to Clean a Black Powder Firearm How To Load a Traditional Muzzleloading Black Powder Rifle Blackpowder to Pyrodex and Beyond Black Powder Arquebus Musket Rifle Matchlock Wheel lock Flintlock

Re: Supervillains Who Know Their Limitations And who wasn't boggled by Ballerina-Man? Oh, my stars and garters, that's a goldmine of the truly odd you have presented us with. Repped.

Re: A Thread for Random Videos Two songs, the second a parody of the first:

Re: What labs are in your wallet? I'd rep this but I still gotta spread the love. Taco-flavored ice cream?!?

Re: A Thread for Random Videos A better compilation of much the same kind of thing:

Re: A Thread for Random Videos ETA: Spoilered after I finished watching the whole thing and found some language that might not be worksafe.

Re: A Thread for Random Videos Norad Shoots Down Intercepts Santa

Re: A Thread for Random Videos

Re: Cool Guns for your Games ...And now an example of what can happen when you don't have a clear idea of when enough is enough: [ATTACH=CONFIG]34460[/ATTACH]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games These guns should make it through security: Steampunk Nerf Guns: Cool-looking pPaintball guns:

Re: Hero System Good Idea/Bad Idea... They gave him EBS (Exposed Brain Syndrome) and it doesn't look good on him.

Re: The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon

Re: Cool Guns for your Games ...But only if it was funny!

Re: Supervillains Who Know Their Limitations

Re: A Thread for Random Videos New, Must-Have Product

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Watched: Pedigree Dogs Exposed (on BBC America -- thank you Britain, for intelligent programming ), Collapse: When Structures Fail, and a couple episodes of Animal Cops: Philadelphia.

Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See? Ask and Ye Shall Receive

Re: "Neat" Pictures Well, that explains the mysterious atmospheric disturbance that frightened the hell outta me and several friends when I was 10 years old. My buddies and I had been playing our version of "stick ball" thought it might be the start of a nuclear attack so we all went home. ISTR reading something about a missile launched from Vandenberg AFB in the paper but I had no other confirmation. It looked just like that.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

Re: Faith, Courage and Humble Obedience

Re: Locating IHA members What's this IHA thing? Is it the International Hats association? Why would they need robots?

Re: Supervillains Who Know Their Limitations Sure, why not?