D&D 5E Of Ships and Sea: The Problems

[Zardnaar]

Going back as far as 2E we have done the naval thing both at sea and in space including a roll over into 3E with the Seafarers Handbook which was a 3pp detailing naval combat for D&D.

The main problem IMHO is that D&D is not really equipped for this and you're really getting into a different genre which is a naval tactical game. The time period is also pushing it for what PCs tend to want to run it which is basically using gunpowder weapons which D&D also struggles with.

D&D technology basically tops out at the mid 16th century and as late as the Battle of Lepanto (1571) naval combat was not that drastically different than the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC- ramming, boarding and archery. Things started to change around 1588 and the defeat of the Spanish Armada but you're getting beyond the tech levels of the average D&D game at this point (AD&D 2E did have books covering the Elizabethan era).

Having two ships of the line do naval broadsides at each other came centuries later and D&D has generally had problems with very slow reload speeds on cannons even in 5E which is actually generous compared to real life.

Even Spelljammer which added a hex based tactical rules of it I don't think they thought it out that well. For example we had a tricked out Elven Man O War (speed+ manoeuvrability) which was basically a Battlecruiser as manoeuvrable as a TIE fighter. Get a decent spellcaster to jam in it and the basic idea was to one shot an opposing ship via a high speed ramming attack they could not dodge (A manoeuvrability class when C was considered good). They could outfight anything fast enough and agile enough to catch them and they could outrun/avoid anything bigger than them. Spelljammer made the battlecruiser concept work.

The other problem from games like Star Wars and D&D is the ship often becomes a centre point of the game and it can turning D&D the Accounting and having a character sheet for the ship. The ship in effect is a home based, stronghold and/or is used for smuggling which tends to distract from traditional D&D adventures the DM may or may not to run. It can work but the DM has to fully on board. See the Skull and Shackles AP for Pathfinder a few years ago.

Spellcasters are also difficult to work in as Fireball is a great crew killing spell, in the 2E days the crew were probably level 0 and even in 5E getting a crew of CR2+ mooks is a bit unrealistic and can be a pain to keep track of. For example perhaps the PCs want to recruit 20 odd veterans the DM either says no or has to deal with it when the PCs want to run 20 odd CR 3 veterans into combat. Every opposing ship needs to have a spellcaster on board to counter fireball in some way or cast meteor swarm 1st before the PCs do and blow them all to hell.


The final problem I have noticed is ranged PC often want to snipe with longbows and/or artillery (Ballista through to cannons) which leaves non ranged characters bored. In an extreme case we had a long bow user who could fire out to close to a half mile to a mile in range IIRC in 3E. The other PCs were useless if he wanted to snipe. Works great if you are reading a book with Martin in it from the Riftwar Saga, not so good for a DM to deal with at the table.

And the above problems are from before you consider the rules themselves. From Of Ships and Sea, Spelljammer, Stormwrack, The Seafarers Handbook and some other 3pp book I have never seen any D&D regarding naval combat that are actually that good. Ships are best used as low level floating Dungeons where the idea IMHO should be to get close and board ASAP or as a way of travel from point A to B with adventures along the way. We have tried everything from an Age of Heroes ancient Greek type galley though to magitech airships and ironclads and beyond into fleet battles in Star Wars (D6, d20, Saga). D6 Star Wars may have done it the best as it covered things like scale.

One good game we did have in the 90's took a lot of work and the PCs basically became merchant/pirate princes and they ended up owning hidden shipyards in the equivalent of fantasy American colonies.

TLDR version.

1. Numerous problems logistically speaking/genre wise.
2. The rules usually suck (to fast, slow, wrong genre etc)
3. Requires a lot of work and buy in from both players and DM.

 

[Caliburn101]

Good lord - the rules as written are terrible.

Imagine trying to narrate multiple sneak attacks with a knife wielded by a higher level rogue turning a 130ft GALLEY into flotsam...

... which is possible...

... with these rules.

Most ships should be immune to piercing from anything but siege weapons or huge+ creatures for instance. It doesn't matter how many masterfully shot arrows you fire into a warship, or how many times you stab it expertly in the 'vulnerable bits' - it shouldn't take any damage at all, no matter what level the shooter/stabber is.

Damage thresholds should be higher in many cases with vulnerabilities (like fire and acid) making up for this where is makes sense.

 

[Zardnaar]

Good lord - the rules as written are terrible.

Imagine trying to narrate multiple sneak attacks with a knife wielded by a higher level rogue turning a 130ft GALLEY into flotsam...

... which is possible...

... with these rules.

Most ships should be immune to piercing from anything but siege weapons or huge+ creatures for instance. It doesn't matter how many masterfully shot arrows you fire into a warship, or how many times you stab it expertly in the 'vulnerable bits' - it shouldn't take any damage at all, no matter what level the shooter/stabber is.

Damage thresholds should be higher in many cases with vulnerabilities (like fire and acid) making up for this where is makes sense.

yeah that is something the old Star Wars d20 had to deal with. Jedi with lightsabre can hack apart a Star Destroyer. Star Wars D6 had a scaling rule where character scale damage did sod all to say capital scale things and Spelljammer had some common sense rules. A Dwarf with an axe could not really damage a Galleon in any significant way but could maybe cut down the mast (DMs discretion on the weapon used). Basically you needed siege weapons and they also had a list of how the PHB spells worked in that setting.

 

[Baldurs_Underdark]

Don't forget that a high level player can be compared to the best athletes on Earth.

I imagine that if one of these guys was let loose on an old fashioned wooden warship, then it would be falling apart rather fast. If you ignore the motorized chainsaw, then these guys cut through 3 thick tree trunks in a matter of just 1 minute (i.e. 10 rounds of combat in D&D). A team of 5 high level adventurers could therefore realistically cut through 15 trunks in a minute, which is a hole big enough to sink any old fashioned (single hulled) warship.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6anrCO1iqXk

 

[Imaculata]

I'm running a 3.5 pirate campaign at the moment, which uses the rules from Stormwreck. Its a clunky system, so we've had to make a lot of homebrew adjustments. First of all we added dozens of flintlock weapons and cannons to the game, with misfire rules to balance things out. But in 3.5 naval combat is mostly about progressing the battle to a boarding action as soon as possible, because ship against ship isn't as interesting, thanks to the clunky rules. I came up with an alternative system that borrows some rules from Mass Combat for Pathfinder. It allows us to simplify the naval combat, so we can easily play out huge battles between many ships.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Don't forget that a high level player can be compared to the best athletes on Earth.

One of the more interesting articles I remember reading back in the day pointed out that in the 3.x rules, the pinnacle of normal human physical ability was well-represented as a 6th level character. So realistically, character with a level higher than 6 was superhuman.

I think that's an important fact to keep in mind when evaluating rules. I don't know how the 3.x mechanics scale to 5e, but whether we look at normal human physical peak as 6th level or 3rd level or whatever, many (most?) characters pass that point relatively quickly. So judging the resilience of normal objects, whether they be ships or castles or Tupperware or whatever, by how long they can hold up against PCs is maybe not the best measure.

I like the new ship rules. They are very 5e: fast, light, versatile, and have a lot of flexibility. You can build on the easily and add more grit and detail to taste. Are they perfect? No. There is definitely room for improvement. But then, improving the idea is the point of play testing, isn't it?

EDIT: for anyone who is interested, I found the article: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/587/roleplaying-games/dd-calibrating-your-expectations-2

It's long, but it's a pretty fascinating analysis of (3.x era) D&D mechanics as a model of real-world capabilities

 

[Lanefan]

The main problem IMHO is that D&D is not really equipped for this and you're really getting into a different genre which is a naval tactical game. The time period is also pushing it for what PCs tend to want to run it which is basically using gunpowder weapons which D&D also struggles with.

For the same general effect but without gunpowder, use 'tween-decks mounted ballistae with metal tips on the ammunition (or flaming tips, whichever).

D&D technology basically tops out at the mid 16th century and as late as the Battle of Lepanto (1571) naval combat was not that drastically different than the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC- ramming, boarding and archery. Things started to change around 1588 and the defeat of the Spanish Armada but you're getting beyond the tech levels of the average D&D game at this point (AD&D 2E did have books covering the Elizabethan era).

I have no problem at all imagining Trafalgar-era ships of the line in a D&D setting, only using ballistae instead of cannons. The technology to build the actual ships isn't that much of a jump from the renaissance era, where much of D&D play often seems to occur.

Having two ships of the line do naval broadsides at each other came centuries later and D&D has generally had problems with very slow reload speeds on cannons even in 5E which is actually generous compared to real life.

The blame here falls squarely on the recent-edition mechanics of having combat rounds be so short. In 1e, where a combat round was a minute, ship-v-ship combat could work not too badly.

The other problem from games like Star Wars and D&D is the ship often becomes a centre point of the game and it can turning D&D the Accounting and having a character sheet for the ship. The ship in effect is a home based, stronghold and/or is used for smuggling which tends to distract from traditional D&D adventures the DM may or may not to run. It can work but the DM has to fully on board. See the Skull and Shackles AP for Pathfinder a few years ago.

Any stronghold or home base inevitably ends up becoming a focus. At least a ship can help get you to the adventures.

Spellcasters are also difficult to work in as Fireball is a great crew killing spell, in the 2E days the crew were probably level 0 and even in 5E getting a crew of CR2+ mooks is a bit unrealistic and can be a pain to keep track of. For example perhaps the PCs want to recruit 20 odd veterans the DM either says no or has to deal with it when the PCs want to run 20 odd CR 3 veterans into combat. Every opposing ship needs to have a spellcaster on board to counter fireball in some way or cast meteor swarm 1st before the PCs do and blow them all to hell.

Yes, this is a problem. Obviously any captain would know the range of these sort of spells and do her best to keep her ship out of said range - here a mechanical solve could be to make the range of naval ballistae considerably more than that of fire spells.

Still doesn't help against PCs who can just fly - or water-walk - closer to the other ship, however, and this is the one I just can't solve.

The final problem I have noticed is ranged PC often want to snipe with longbows and/or artillery (Ballista through to cannons) which leaves non ranged characters bored. In an extreme case we had a long bow user who could fire out to close to a half mile to a mile in range IIRC in 3E. The other PCs were useless if he wanted to snipe. Works great if you are reading a book with Martin in it from the Riftwar Saga, not so good for a DM to deal with at the table.

Even in real life most warships had archers (or, later, musketeers) on board. Keep in mind, though, that the sea is never still and due to this any archer should be at a penalty to hit anything not on the same ship...again true to real life. The shot that felled Lord Nelson was more sheer blind luck than anything resembling intentional aim.

And the above problems are from before you consider the rules themselves. From Of Ships and Sea, Spelljammer, Stormwrack, The Seafarers Handbook and some other 3pp book I have never seen any D&D regarding naval combat that are actually that good. Ships are best used as low level floating Dungeons where the idea IMHO should be to get close and board ASAP or as a way of travel from point A to B with adventures along the way. We have tried everything from an Age of Heroes ancient Greek type galley though to magitech airships and ironclads and beyond into fleet battles in Star Wars (D6, d20, Saga). D6 Star Wars may have done it the best as it covered things like scale.

I've also yet to see anything worth bothering with. I've tried designing my own, for seagoing battles, but as I've never really had the chance to put 'em into action I've no idea if they're any good or not.

But yes, seafaring adventures work best if the PCs are low enough level not to have access to flight and-or heavy blast spells.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Let's imagine a ship throwing a stone with a magic rune of teletransportation to send a lot of dangerous animals, or summoned elementals, to a enemy target. Usually magic is too expensive to be used in mass battles, but sometimes they may make the difference.

Other matter is using the ship itself against a sea monster, for example prince Eric vs Ursula in the final fight of Disney's little mermaid.

This isn't only the possible steampunk technology, more common in the last editions, but also the alchemy like the Greek fire from real life. If Tyrion Lannister orders my PC to shoot a fire arrow to the Valyrian fire or wild over the water (in Blackwater Bay) and enemy fleet is destroyed, For who are the XPs reward and how many?

 

[Caliburn101]

Don't forget that a high level player can be compared to the best athletes on Earth.

I imagine that if one of these guys was let loose on an old fashioned wooden warship, then it would be falling apart rather fast. If you ignore the motorized chainsaw, then these guys cut through 3 thick tree trunks in a matter of just 1 minute (i.e. 10 rounds of combat in D&D). A team of 5 high level adventurers could therefore realistically cut through 15 trunks in a minute, which is a hole big enough to sink any old fashioned (single hulled) warship.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6anrCO1iqXk

With HEAVY AXES... not daggers and arrows...

 

[SkidAce]

I'm running a 3.5 pirate campaign at the moment, which uses the rules from Stormwreck. Its a clunky system, so we've had to make a lot of homebrew adjustments. First of all we added dozens of flintlock weapons and cannons to the game, with misfire rules to balance things out. But in 3.5 naval combat is mostly about progressing the battle to a boarding action as soon as possible, because ship against ship isn't as interesting, thanks to the clunky rules. I came up with an alternative system that borrows some rules from Mass Combat for Pathfinder. It allows us to simplify the naval combat, so we can easily play out huge battles between many ships.

Could you provide your final set of rules? If not, I have access to those rules and will cobble it together.

Either way, thanks for the ideas.