D&D 4E Seamanship in 4e

[D'karr]

I think that these kind of "professions" would be best handled as character backgrounds and feats.

If there was a character background that involved sailing this background would allow +2 to any checks that involved sailing. For example, if the character needs to climb a rigging he gets a +2 to his athletics roll. He needs to determine if a storm is coming, he gets a +2 to his Nature roll. He needs to swing from ship to ship on a rope, +2 to acrobatics, etc.

If a player wants to add this at a later time than at character creation he takes the feat "Sea Legs" or whatever, and that feat provides some of the same benefits but maybe at a lower rate. But are limited to things that are used on ship.

 

[Regicide]

Meh, all logic chopping aside, seamanship is a skill set. It is just as much a skill set as dungeoneering (and there is really a lot more of an argument for it than for dungeoneering, whatever that is).

It's also as much a skill set as crafting, and we all know where that went and why. Boats are to get places, pirates and sea monsters are what 4E is for.

 

[keterys]

Player: I want to help them with sailing the ship.
DM: Okay, they're short handed and could use some help - are you any good at it?
Player: Hmm, based on my background I'm probably not as skilled, but I'm stronger than anyone on board so that probably helps.
DM: Sounds good - at first a couple of them distrust you, but once the mate figures out how to best use your strength, you quickly become a regular member of the crew.

I mean, uhh, let me add 'I roll Seamanship... uhh, 15' to that, to improve things

 

[Irda Ranger]

Look, it really depends on how involved you want it to be. If the boats are just ways of getting to places and don't really interact with the players (rather than the PC's) than you don't need any rules for that. Just hire a crew and you're off for Tortuga.

But if you want to make manipulating the ship, and weathering the storms, charting a course and handling ship-to-ship combat part of the challenge the players are supposed to overcome ... then you're going to need rules. And here's my suggestion: Do NOT make it a Feat or Skill. Feats and Skills are part of the class system, which is really just the small-arms tactical combat system of the D&D world. If you make people take feats or skills to manipulate a ship they're now worse at their classes. Fighters are less fightery, etc.

What you should do is make a new sub-system of Shipboard Roles (as opposed to Combat Roles), and each PC just layers this on top of their race & class. It's "in addition" and it's balanced because everyone has it and because you can't use both your class and your shipboard role at the same time (e.g., if you're Fighting you're not Sailing). Some good roles might be: Sailor (ropes, sails, oars - in charge of shipboard maneuver), Navigator/Pilot, Captain (the Shipboard Leader), and Ordinance or Marines Officer (commands the canons, Greek Fire catapults, etc. & repels boarders).

If this new Ship Role system has Feats and Skills they should advance separately from the class system of feats and skills. I probably wouldn't develop it in this level of detail (excessive for my needs), but if I really wanted to make a pirates & navy campaign this is how I'd go about it. Basically each PC should fulfill the role of one of the primary officers on a ship (except Quartermaster). Each contributes the the effectiveness of the ship concurrently, just like how each Combat Role contributes to the effectiveness of the group as a whole in combat.

 

[Webby140]

IMO...

If you really want to make a skills challenge out of every SINGLE trip to somewhere using a boat, you can just follow the guidelines in the DMG, fluffing it as you go - but if your parties good enough they will tell you the skills they want to use.
Quick skills and related fluff I can think of, off the top of my head:
Athletics: rigging etc.
Nature: Knowing the waves/steering
Perception: lookout/navigation
(Basically, use stuff that's feasible...)

Either that, or I just used to work out how far they could travel in a day (the Vault gives you rules at the beginning of the book.) and rolled randomly for pirates, random islands etc.

 

[MarauderX]

PHB II:
-- Backgrounds
-- -- Occupation
-- -- -- Mariner

I have a campaign that is also laden with ships & seas (I have a nice Maiden from Worldworks games). One of the PC's had this in his background before we switched to 3.5. Before the PHBII came out, I was using a homebrewed method of applying skills, and now it works out very well.

 

[Negflar2099]

Personally I'd break it down by what skills are needed on a ship and what you intend to accomplish. If you're navigating a course, predicting the weather, or attempting to steer your ship towards a specific point (which is like plotting a course on a smaller scale) I would use Nature. If you're attempting to command a crew I'd use Intimidate or Diplomacy (depending on how you're doing it). If you're climbing the rigging, wrestling with the sails, steering in rough water or bad weather or pulling the main mast I'd use Athletics. You get the idea. You could grant a bonus to those people who are skilled at that stuff as part of their background or character concept but I think that should cover it.

Of course that doesn't the game couldn't have benefited from a Seamanship skill. Yes it can be broken up but so could Dungeoneering. I think the designers left it off because most games won't need it since traditional D&D takes place in Dungeons and not the open ocean but then again you could say the same thing about Nature. I personally think a Seamanship skill might have come in handy. No reason we couldn't add it though.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Are you going to have seagoing characters AND non-seagoing characters involved in sailing a ship? If the answer is no, don't bother with more rules.

Is it going to be crippling to the performance of a character to not be able to take part in sailing challenges (to the point where they should just sit out the challenge every time)? If the answer is yes, don't bother with more rules. If you're going to use skill challenges with the existing skill set, you're ok here.

Otherwise, I'd recommend taking a leaf out of the feat jack of all trades. Since we're going to make the scope of the feat more limited, it's fair increasing the bonus. I'd say "+3 to all untrained skill checks involving a seagoing vessel and +2 to defenses against sea-related hazards (not including monsters)" would cover it. You're the DM, so you should have no worries about abuse.

That said, I personally agree with regicide: D&D sea travel is about pirates and monsters. Getting lost, washed overboard, failing to maintain the rigging etc are all for the DM to weave the plot with, and you don't need rules for them.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Personally I'd break it down by what skills are needed on a ship and what you intend to accomplish. If you're navigating a course, predicting the weather, or attempting to steer your ship towards a specific point (which is like plotting a course on a smaller scale) I would use Nature. If you're attempting to command a crew I'd use Intimidate or Diplomacy (depending on how you're doing it). If you're climbing the rigging, wrestling with the sails, steering in rough water or bad weather or pulling the main mast I'd use Athletics. You get the idea. You could grant a bonus to those people who are skilled at that stuff as part of their background or character concept but I think that should cover it.

The problem is: what happens when the party fail at these things? If you fail to navigate, the players are lost. What then? Your only real option is to write an adventure for where they end up... If they fail to predict the weather, you have an exciting encounter. Do you really want a skill check to decide whether or not you have an exciting encounter? If you fail to command your crew... do they mutiny? Or just ignore you? If they mutiny, your players will most likely kill them all. How is that a good thing for the game?

The problem with a skill like seamanship (or survival or navigation) is that they act as decision points between an exciting choice and a boring choice. As a DM, you never want the boring choice to happen, so why leave it up to the dice?