Never get on the boat.

In my experience nothing lights the evil glimmer in a DM's eye so much as the characters boarding a ship: storm clouds gather, pirates sharpen their swords and seaborne menaces leap off the pages of the Monster Manual. As a player I never expect my character to safely sail from Point A to Point B, and as a DM I have wreaked absurd amounts of havoc upon characters who venture into the open sea.

What sort of nautical adventures have you experienced? When you're a player do you expect a higher level of craziness on sea voyages, and when you're a DM do you go out of your way to meet such an expectation?

Yeah, pretty much anytime a PC sets foot on a ship, bad things are about to happen.

I have started not one, but TWO campaigns with a fight on a pirate ship. One was for the Savage Tide AP, and the fight didn't turn out well for the PCs (due to some very poor rolls, only one PC was able to make it on the ship, with the other three trying to climb aboard and failing while eight rogues surrounded the lone PC on deck).

The other was in my "Roman Style Look in an empire based off Ten Kingdoms China" campaign. The PCs started off fighting against a bunch of slaves revolting, on a slaver barge, during a storm. It was a really cool fight, with the PCs kicking butt (as they should, in the first encounter of a campaign), and it really set the tone for everything.

I prefer to let players gain a sense of confidence. Whether over sea or over land, I let them get to their destinations unhindered most of the time.

That way, when you spring the kraken god on them and the horde of undead pirates, they only have themselves to blame

i haven't run a boat-based encounter/campaign in a long, long time, but last time i did they were attacked by a huge sea serpent to theme of JAWS as they saw it approaching. I dunno, the ocean scares the hell of out of me in real life, i guess it's natural for me to try and convey that kind of fear in a game. If i were to do it again they would meet hordes of awful, awful things.

I haven't had any nautical D&D experiences, though I would wager part of the reason behind the DM whipping up such menaces is that there are several aquatic monsters that generally cannot be used, and so they jump on the opportunity when they are a viable addition?

Unless my PC is some kind of heavy armor type, I'd jump on a boat in a heart beat. And if my PC is the heavy armor type, I'd buy some lighter armor (or some magic), and then jump on the boat.

If sailing is a sure way to encounter monsters and adventure, it's no different than going down into a dungeon. And I love going down into a dungeon.

Dungeons and ships -- it's where the adventure is.

Bullgrit

Generally, I try not to overwhelm the PCs when they travel. I like to give them a thematic encounter or two, just for fun, though.

Once my PCs got boarded by pirates who just stripped the crew of all the valuables they could find, and left without much fight. Another time, it was the excisemen who did the seizing, claiming the captain didn't have the proper tax-seals on his goods. Since they missed the really valuable smuggled goods in the secret hold, nobody complained too much!

Krakens are for when you go LOOKING for trouble. Although I think I did once have the PCs get attacked by fish-men once, when they camped on the beach (which they'd been warned was dangerous).

Nebulous said:

i haven't run a boat-based encounter/campaign in a long, long time, but last time i did they were attacked by a huge sea serpent to theme of JAWS as they saw it approaching. I dunno, the ocean scares the hell of out of me in real life, i guess it's natural for me to try and convey that kind of fear in a game. If i were to do it again they would meet hordes of awful, awful things.

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i Have a fear of heights in real life, in my D&D games falling damage is 1d6 per 10' for each 10' fallen.

Let's see, the last two times the PCs in my group got on a Ship I ran the modules Ship of Horrors and Mysteries of the Razor Coast. Before that I did a treasure diving adventure from one of the cardstock quick adventures in the City of Greyhawk boxed adventure and before that there was an uninterrupted river cruise aboard a Rhenee barge. So its not always a guaranteed encounter.

One of our campaigns began with the group forming during the boat trip (a coming together while fighting off pirates). I bonded with the wizard as, after he blew the masts off the pirates ship, I summoned an elephant onto the deck, convincing a large number of crew members to abandon ship soon afterwards

I also recall being boarded by Sea Trolls. One member of our party had the ingenious idea of tossing the corpses overboard ... d'oh!

After shipwrecking (the boat were we on sank quickly, so we had to take over the pirate ship, which was in pretty bad shape as well) we got to an island, but did some deep sea diving in search of treasure in the bottom of boats ... which ended up getting us into some trouble with an intelligent underwater humanoid group.

The situation worked well as a means of getting the party together, and for my character allowed for extra fun. As a bard on the cusp of becomming a chameleon, I met each of the party members in the guise of a different class [I convinced the rogue I was a fellow rogue by breaking into my own cabin; I convinced another party member I was a druid thanks to my ability to summon animals ... with a magic item; fighter, wizard and cleric were relatively easy after that] and each thought these other personas were on board ... meaning once I joined the party as a 'simple' bard Jack of all trades, no questions were brought up about the other guys they met as they simply died during the pirate battle.

Bullgrit said:

Unless my PC is some kind of heavy armor type, I'd jump on a boat in a heart beat. And if my PC is the heavy armor type, I'd buy some lighter armor (or some magic), and then jump on the boat.

If sailing is a sure way to encounter monsters and adventure, it's no different than going down into a dungeon. And I love going down into a dungeon.

Dungeons and ships -- it's where the adventure is.

Bullgrit

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I concur. A PC who avoids getting on a boat, because the GM might throw some danger at him, might as well stay home in the safety of PeaceVille where nothing bad ever happens.

When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The PC is the hammer. Go pound on some stuff.