Back in the day...
.32 caliber pistols were considered "enough" for "social" occasions. Today they are not.
Why?
Because back in the day, there were no antibiotics. Getting shot with anything that could pierce clothing and skin gave an excellent chance of starting a fatal infection that no doctor in the world could treat.
I think most everyone knew that the .32 wasn't going to kill someone dead-right-there most of the time, but it was still a deterrent. Knowing you'd die days later in excruciating pain probably made one hesitant to start stuff.
Back in the day also didn't have much for laws forbidding people from carrying guns (or very little enforcement if they did). Well... if you where white, but that's a different topic.
Is .32 still considered viable in a world with mages who can cast healing and cure disease spells? Magical healing is far superior to anything available today in the real world; where antibiotics, imagery and surgery mean that for many gun shots as long as you don't bleed out before getting to the emergency room, you've got a good chance of living through it (assuming you're not dead-right-there).
The emphasis today is more along the lines of a gun that can stop the fight immediately, because the criminal knows how good trauma medicine has gotten. And it's not as good as magic! Even someone who survives and recovers from a gunshot today is likely to have lasting impairments.
Magic cures injuries like they never happened.
I might also add that magic in nearly every game world is normally cheap and readily available.
If you're rich you can have your underwear enchanted to give it the same DR as 14ga hardened steel. That's DR 5 and that stops pretty much any 1d attack and is excellent protection from most 2d attacks!
.32 caliber pistols were considered "enough" for "social" occasions. Today they are not.
Why?
Because back in the day, there were no antibiotics. Getting shot with anything that could pierce clothing and skin gave an excellent chance of starting a fatal infection that no doctor in the world could treat.
I think most everyone knew that the .32 wasn't going to kill someone dead-right-there most of the time, but it was still a deterrent. Knowing you'd die days later in excruciating pain probably made one hesitant to start stuff.
Back in the day also didn't have much for laws forbidding people from carrying guns (or very little enforcement if they did). Well... if you where white, but that's a different topic.
Is .32 still considered viable in a world with mages who can cast healing and cure disease spells? Magical healing is far superior to anything available today in the real world; where antibiotics, imagery and surgery mean that for many gun shots as long as you don't bleed out before getting to the emergency room, you've got a good chance of living through it (assuming you're not dead-right-there).
The emphasis today is more along the lines of a gun that can stop the fight immediately, because the criminal knows how good trauma medicine has gotten. And it's not as good as magic! Even someone who survives and recovers from a gunshot today is likely to have lasting impairments.
Magic cures injuries like they never happened.
I might also add that magic in nearly every game world is normally cheap and readily available.
If you're rich you can have your underwear enchanted to give it the same DR as 14ga hardened steel. That's DR 5 and that stops pretty much any 1d attack and is excellent protection from most 2d attacks!
