Combat on a ship at sea... how?

[Eldragon]

Hmm.... how do people on a ship battle a Kraken? After all, it's mostly underwater.. and they're fighting tentacles.


Thanks again
Chris (lovin this)

I usually treat each tentacle as a separate creature that all move on the same initiative. Divide the Kraken's total hitpoints by the number of tentacles. Thats the HP of one tentacle.

 

[WmRAllen67]

There are very few reasons for a crewmember to be leaning over a side rail...

Last time I went sailing, I had reason to lean over the rail at least once every fifteen minutes...

Of course, such a person is also suffering either from the sickened condition, and takes a -2 penalty on all spot checks, or from the nauseated condition, and can't do much but move to and from the rail to make his offering to the sea gods...

If he's a considerate sort, he'll also be moving to the lee rail only (the side of the ship away from the wind), if you're including that sort of detail...

 

[Umbran]

As long as the sahuagin aren't waiting in line to climb the sides of the ship, what's the problem? Let the PCs and others on the ship spot sahuagin climbing aboard. Now the choice for them is - which of the ten spots where sahuagin are climbing do I go to?

That would be smart of teh sahuagin, to come aboard in a larger rush, at many points.

Even smarter, they stay below the waterline, and scuttle the ship without taking the crew on in hand-to hand combat...

 

[Banshee16]

Why do they have to get up into the ship? Why not bring the ship down to them? You could have a sahuagin with a saw, beneath the ship, cutting a hole into the hold. Heck, they could do that, and be sending troops in through the bottom, to butcher the panicking sailors who are busy trying to figure out why their ship started sinking...

A ship is a big thing. I'd assume that a character couldn't keep his eyes on every foot of the rail...especially at night.

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

Hmm.... how do people on a ship battle a Kraken? After all, it's mostly underwater.. and they're fighting tentacles.


Thanks again
Chris (lovin this)

There are rules in one of the Dragon magazines for fighting creatures in the water, I think. There's a negative penalty to being on top of the water, trying to hit something in it..

I'd assume that things like shipboard ballistae, and greek fire would be good weapons against a kraken..

Banshee

 

[blargney the second]

I had my were-shark pirates use a dire jellyfish as their underwater vehicle. It spat them out on the decks through tubes in its tentacles.

 

[Merkuri]

I usually treat each tentacle as a separate creature that all move on the same initiative. Divide the Kraken's total hitpoints by the number of tentacles. Thats the HP of one tentacle.

So you can defeat the kraken by destroying its tentacles? I find the scary thing about the kraken is that you can't get at its body very easily, so you can perhaps damage its tentacles enough to scare it away, but you can't just kill it.

I'd probably rule very similar to you, but I'd first divide the kraken's HP in half, then I'd divide that half by the number of tentacles to get the HP of one tentacle. That way, even if all the tentacles are destroyed, the kraken still has half its HP and can limp away to return later (though I doubt the kraken would let all of its tentacles get lopped off before it decided to cut and run).

 

[Umbran]

So you can defeat the kraken by destroying its tentacles? I find the scary thing about the kraken is that you can't get at its body very easily, so you can perhaps damage its tentacles enough to scare it away, but you can't just kill it.

Well, usually you don't need to kill it. You need to defeat the challenge. Not the same thing. The question is how many hit points of critter do you want hte PCs to have to go through before tyou say they've won, and the critter has lost?

 

[Janx]

also take note, ship dimensions. I had done a bit of research for my seafaring campaign. I had look up the sizes of scores of ships.

the main details I found was (that I then made formulas in a spreadsheet):
a ship is 4-6 times longer than it is wide
The ship height (not counting masts) was about 2/3 it's width
The ship's draft was about 1/2 it's height (actually varies based on load, but for simplification).
Divide the ship's height by 6, and that's about how many decks you'll have.

What all this math means, is that a 100 foot ship, has a height of 16 feet, or so, with a draft of 8'. That means the badguys only gotta climb 8 feet to get over the rail.

 

[thundershot]

Does anyone know of any really good ship maps? B&W ones, not the fancy ones with too much detail. I loved the maps of the old Spelljammer ships.. some deck plans like that. It'd be better than winging it.



Thanks
Chris