Playtesting: The Isle of Dread

[the Jester]

Er, I'm no sailer, but 18 mph sounds excessive for a sailboat. I have no idea what I'm talking about though.

Also I think you are drastically underestimating how much cargo space you should have aboard, but again, I'm speaking from my gut rather than from any actual knowledge.

 

[Phoenix8008]

Er, I'm no sailer, but 18 mph sounds excessive for a sailboat. I have no idea what I'm talking about though.

Also I think you are drastically underestimating how much cargo space you should have aboard, but again, I'm speaking from my gut rather than from any actual knowledge.

It seems you might be right:
based on my google search for average sailboat speeds. It seems that a slow speed is 4 knots (nautical miles) and a fast speed might be 6-7 knots. Hmmm. I was just extrapolating from the small sailboat example in the module, so it figures that it may not be very realistic.

 

[Phoenix8008]

In fact, looking at another site, lousy trips with unfavorable wind might only be 1 or 2 knots while the max seems to hold at 6. I'm thinking of just tying this into the d6 roll for wind each day as detailed on page 8 of the adventure. Whatever you roll on the d6 is the number of knots average that day. So if wind is a 1, then 1 MPH = 24 miles covered in a day of sailing. If the wind is crazy strong, you might pull off an average 6 mph times 24 hours = 144 miles covered as long as the ship doesn't break under the strain of the storm. This will add some variety into the long (960 miles) voyage from Specularum to the Isle itself for my crew.

 

[Celebrim]

Also a question pertaining to the plans I'm making so far. If the PC's are interested in buying a sailing vessel, what would be an appropriate cost for such a vessel? 500 GP? 1,000 gp? 2,000 GP? What do you think?

How much is gold worth in your world?

D&D economics are nuts because they still maintain the dual economic standard of NPCs living in a silver economy but PCs living in a gold economy.

The answer really depends on what sort of boat that they want to buy.

I'd guess that for something like a 60' used sailing vessel in good condition capable of sailing on the high seas and of average accomodations (not a luxury vessel fit for transporting royalty) the cost should be around 4000 days wages. If your PCs live in the gold economy (that is, almost everything is priced in gold peices), then probably 4000 g.p. is about right. Of course, since sailors live in the silver economy, that means such a ship is probably 40,000 days wages for a common sailor, which is a problem.

Back off that price for a smaller vessel which is consquently more dangerous in open water, or for something a bit more primitive. A viking style longship of similar size might be cheaper, but you'd need a larger crew (40 rowers, for example), and consequently also have provisioning issues. A small 'day boat' might be only a 100 days wages, but you wouldn't really want to try to sail that to the Isle of Dread unless you were a master sailor and it might not be comfortable for the whole party nor be able to transport their gear, animals, etc.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Er, I'm no sailer, but 18 mph sounds excessive for a sailboat. I have no idea what I'm talking about though.

Three words: Rigid wing catamaran.

 

[Schmoe]

If you have access to the Savage Tide adventures from the last year or so of Dungeon Magazine's print run, a bunch of them take place on the IoD and would be fairly easy to adapt, if you want to expand the thing.

I have no idea whether there is any sort of compilation of the Savage Tide AP or anything, though. I like to hope so.

That's a good idea. Savage Tide had a lot of very cool things on the Isle of Dread, although it's been a while since I read it. Sadly, the only adventure path compilation I know of is for the Shackled City.