D&D 5E Which of a captain's stats should modify a ship's initiative? (Or the Ineffable Bond of Captain and Ship)

[RangerWickett]

I'm working on naval combat rules for my next 5e campaign, and I'm trying to keep things light and breezy. One fun mechanic idea I have is for ships to have an ineffable bond to their captain, since after all this is a fantasy setting. What I have in mind:

• Add the captain’s Strength bonus to damage the ship deals when ramming, and to the pilot’s checks to maneuver for boarding. (By default, a ram just deals 1 'structure' damage, and a small ship will have 6 structure points.)
• Add the captain’s Dexterity bonus to the ship’s Armor Class as long as it moves faster than its base speed on its turn. (I.e., if the engineer can push the ship's limits.)
• Add the captain’s Constitution bonus as a buffer of ‘temporary hit points’ to the ship at the beginning of each encounter, negating the effects of the first few strikes.
• Add the captain’s Intelligence bonus to the damage the ship does when it scores a critical hit. (Cannon strikes deal 1 point of structure damage normally.)
• Add the captain’s Wisdom bonus to the crew’s Strength saves to stay on board in rough weather, and to the pilot’s checks to navigate naval terrain.
• Add the captain’s Charisma bonus to the ship’s saving throws to avoid sinking and to keep fire from spreading.

So, out of those, which stat should modify the ship's initiative roll?

I could do something more fiddly, like having opposed Perception checks by lookouts, but I think I want to tie it to the captain. What do you think?

 

[Horwath]

Most of the modifiers to ship would come from Int or Wis.

Either from prelearned knowledge and techniques or with wits and quick thinking in stressfull situations.

Charisma could be called in quastion as rally checks for routed crew to put them back to their stations.

Phisical abilities will play little part. Maybe only as personal checks to go from point A to point B while ship is under attack or as standard(personal) saves that would prevent you from commanding the ship.

No matter how strong you are, you are nothing in comparison to ships mass. And no matter how fast or agile you are, you will not change ships inertia.

 

[RangerWickett]

Well, realistically sure, but this is fantasy. In fantasy, a strong captain's ship rams harder. A nimble captain's ship is harder to hit. A tough captain's ship is more resilient to damage.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Well, realistically sure, but this is fantasy. In fantasy, a strong captain's ship rams harder. A nimble captain's ship is harder to hit. A tough captain's ship is more resilient to damage.

That depends very much on he kind of fantasy you're going for. There's nothing about the Fantasy genre that inherently implies "Hollywood physics"

 

[DEFCON 1]

I probably would do the following:

- Move the bonus to the ship's AC to the captain's Constitution modifier (to symbolize the hardiness of the captain and his ship to resist damage.)
- Use the captain's Dexterity modifier as the bonus to Initiative.

Then I'd just eliminate the bonus "temporary hit points" idea for the ship completely. If ships need more HP to keep from sinking, just give them more HP to start with. But in truth... if you really want naval combat to be light and breezy, you wouldn't want large sacks of HP to have to winnow your way through anyway. And adding Temp HP to the system would just make the winnowing worse.

 

[Luchador]

Fun topic! I've been cruising and racing every kind of sailboat from a dingy to a 50' carbon fiber beast for years.

It's all going to be INT and WIS.

A person's STR won't do squat- even in a fantasy setting. Unless it's a super hero game, then maybe they could pick up the boat and bash somebody. My current sailboat is 24' and weighs over a ton.

DEX- I can see this being added to initiative, sort of. Sometimes being able to undo a spinnaker pole and throw a sheet around something faster than the other guy gives you the edge.

Here are some of my random thoughts-

WIS- perception: spotting upcoming shifts in the wind, knowing when it's ideal to tack or gybe based on the wind.

INT- This would be good for AC bonus because clever captains know all kinds of little tricks to speed up, such as running the rigging in a counter-intuitive way

I would go with WIS for initiative because that is going to be the voice experience anticipating when the other ship is going to tack/gybe and also what the wind is going to do in the next five mins. "They're luffing their main sail, let's tack ahead of them lads!"

Depending on crew size, CHR might go toward initiative or something to represent the team work and crew cohesion under the charismatic skipper.

 

[Derren]

I would use wisdom as it is the only stat which doesn't do anything in battle (unless the weather is rough).

 

[pemerton]

My experience with boats/ships is basically the opposite of [MENTION=6863953]Luchador[/MENTION]'s (= zero). But following on from the premise of [MENTION=63]RangerWickett[/MENTION]'s OP, to me there seem to be 3 options for Init:

* DEX, because that is reaction time and speed - this also makes rogues and some fighters/rangers good naval captains, which seems right;

* WIS, because that is experience and "old sea doggedness" - this makes sense in the abstract, but in play makes clerics the best captains, which perhaps seems odd;

* CHA, because (given the ineffable bond of captain and ship) this expresses the strength of the captain's will, and whether or not the ship dominates the situation in which it is in - this is the least "realisitc" of my 3 options, and I kinda like it in the abstract, but in practice is it good that sorcers, warlocks and maybe paladins make the best captains?​

So, on balance, I would probably go for DEX, but if your game is going to have high-CHA "warlord-y" types who are ship captains then maybe CHA instead.