D&D General If you could put D&D into any other non middle ages genre, what would it be?

[Lanefan]

Seriously, though, hardly any, you would need to add some sort of specialized combat system for ship battles, depending on how historical you want to get with them.

This is the one bit of design I've actually already done...well, sort of, anyway...ship-v-ship combat using mounted tween-decks ballistae to replace cannons.

Good point [MENTION=19675]Dannyalcatraz[/MENTION] regarding weather magic; that would have to be reined in (though not necessarily eliminated). In fact, most ranged spells become problematic sooner or later in this milieu - even a simple Hold Person on another ship's helmsman could ruin its whole day, along with that of the third ship it then crashes into.

Is the answer then to somehow make casting from shipboard very difficult - e.g. a very high chance of failure unless the spell targets only the caster or something the caster can reach out and touch?

The other aspect that really gets in the way here is non-standard PC means of travel - flight, teleport, dimension door, etc., particularly by device rather than spell.

If you just want to do a Pirate Movie kinda Age of Sail, though, the action will usually come down to boarding, anyway, and the kind of relatively small-scale combats already familiar in D&D.

Yes - things like ramming, boarding, and on-deck combat are already easy to handle. It's the ship-v-ship stuff, and somehow being able to break resolution out to that scale (which for one thing is much slower - each ship-v-ship combat "round" might well be several minutes long) while at the same time being able to account for PC actions.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Is the answer then to somehow make casting from shipboard very difficult - e.g. a very high chance of failure unless the spell targets only the caster or something the caster can reach out and touch?

That'd've been the 1e answer, as I recall, casting from the back of a moving mount or a pitching ship's deck was out of the question. A stately walk or a perfectly calm sea at best, /might've/ allowed casting.

Yes - things like ramming, boarding, and on-deck combat are already easy to handle. It's the ship-v-ship stuff, and somehow being able to break resolution out to that scale (which for one thing is much slower - each ship-v-ship combat "round" might well be several minutes long) while at the same time being able to account for PC actions.

Nod. I did run a long campaign that started with the PCs acquiring a pirate ship (actually I just got back to it, some of 'em just hit 26th level, the ship has wings now, and they're 'sailing' through the elemental chaos), but the ship-to-ship maneuvers and combats I handled as a skill challenge, each turn representing several minutes - enough time for a crew-served gun to complete it's full clear-load-fire cycle - with success either meaning escape (if that was the goal) or brining it to a boarding action, which would be handled as an ordinary combat.
The 'guns' were magical contrivances, and they attacked ships (or Gargantuan creatures) at off-the-map ranges, doing a lot of damage, and then making much-lesser secondary attacks on the crew.

 

[Derren]

Ship combat works as long as everyone, instead of using the tools available to him, only uses what is "age of sail" appropriate.
But when you pull out all stops ship combat needs to transform so much in order to function that it would be unrecognisable.

That includes the overabundance of fire which you can also target at range, the possibility of staying underwater and thus be completely immune to every weapon a ship has allowing you to destroy if from below, flight magic, etc.

 

[Oofta]

Hold Person on another ship's helmsman could ruin its whole day, along with that of the third ship it then crashes into.

Would it really? I guess it depends on whether or not you care much about realism (and I admit I haven't read the Saltmarsh naval rules) but ships don't turn on a dime. It lasts at most for a minute, presumably someone would notice the helmsman wasn't doing their job and stop anything too dramatic from happening. Of course real world and D&D don't always mix so I guess it depends on the implementation of ships. You could always just make concentration checks saying that being in a naval battle is equivalent to the "storm tossed ship" mentioned in the PHB.

Spells would change combat so it depends on the genre you're trying to emulate and how closely. At a certain point if you're going for a feel of historical simulation you're going to have to pretty much get rid of magic altogether, but that has a lot of ripple effects.

 

[Beleriphon]

Spells would change combat so it depends on the genre you're trying to emulate and how closely. At a certain point if you're going for a feel of historical simulation you're going to have to pretty much get rid of magic altogether, but that has a lot of ripple effects.

At a certain points flying wizards launching off the deck of a large vessel dedicated to caring and providing for said wizards and supported by a flotilla of smaller ships starts to make sense. Actually engaging in ship to ship combat is silly if you can just send some Fight Wizards to attack from above, plus it lets you strike in land with your FW-18 groups.

This can be achieved with either wizards able to cast the Fly spell, or by providing your attackers flying magic items. I can see a large flying carpet and a bag of holding full of alchemists fire being a problem/solution.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Good point @Dannyalcatraz regarding weather magic; that would have to be reined in (though not necessarily eliminated). In fact, most ranged spells become problematic sooner or later in this milieu - even a simple Hold Person on another ship's helmsman could ruin its whole day, along with that of the third ship it then crashes into.

Is the answer then to somehow make casting from shipboard very difficult - e.g. a very high chance of failure unless the spell targets only the caster or something the caster can reach out and touch?

Not just weather magic- anything vaguely elemental...including summonings. I mean, a fireball is an obvious threat to a classical sailing vessel, even moreso if it has gunpowder. But so are spells like pyrotechnics or any summon spell that unleashes any creature of elemental fire on board.

Couple that Hold Person with a Gust of Wind?

Create a Wall of Ice in the course of a wooden hulled ship?

Warp Wood?

An Everflowing Bottle powering a paddlewheel? Or a steam engine that used a tiny portal to the elemental plane of fire for heat and a similar elemental portal for its water? (Steamjammers?) If you can make an airtight vessel, submarines become possible with a portal to Air.

Non elemental magic is equally problematic: Magic Missile, Web & Sleep wands deployed at the guys manning the rigging? Illusions making sailors see sea dragons or sahuagin...or sirens?

Honestly, if the people inhabiting a standard D&D campaign world were ACTUALLY like us, magic spells would almost preclude the existence of armed sailing vessels.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Special
Wizardry
And
Tactics

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Honestly, if the people inhabiting a standard D&D campaign world were ACTUALLY like us, magic spells would almost preclude the existence of armed sailing vessels.

There's no consensus on what a "standard" D&D campaign world is.

If you start with the observation that armed sailing vessels exist within your campaign world, then you can use that to help derive expectations about how common high-level wizards must be. I mean, they have to be rare enough to not preclude armed sailing vessels, right?

 

[Beleriphon]

There's no consensus on what a "standard" D&D campaign world is.

If you start with the observation that armed sailing vessels exist within your campaign world, then you can use that to help derive expectations about how common high-level wizards must be. I mean, they have to be rare enough to not preclude armed sailing vessels, right?

Or you end up with the wizard carrier RCS (Royal Cormyr Ship) Azoun IV, with its flotilla of support vessels, launching its flying characters/creatures who engage in dogfights (some of which involve with actual flying dogs).

We have armed ships now but if we're being honest about it they don't generally attack other armed ships of the same category. We don't have modern battleship standoffs because we don't need to, that ended once effective aircraft carriers became available during WWII. I might have been making a joke, but if your D&D setting has relatively easy and available flight treating ships to ship combat like an aircraft carrier and its fleet group isn't a bad way to go. Lone ships are still a thing, but just like today a lone frigate to destroyer isn't going challenge an aircraft carrier battle group it however is a real threat to smugglers and pirates.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

There's no consensus on what a "standard" D&D campaign world is.

I’m using that phrase in the sense of PHB/DMG magic is available at the bare minimum, with caster demographics in some range between what DMGs suggest and what is actually implied in official campaign settings, modules, adventure paths, etc.

Homebrews obviously differ. And an “Age of Sail” campaign would basically have to.

If you start with the observation that armed sailing vessels exist within your campaign world, then you can use that to help derive expectations about how common high-level wizards must be. I mean, they have to be rare enough to not preclude armed sailing vessels, right?

Depends on how you define “High level”, doesn’t it? As I pointed out, there’s a host of Lvl 1-3 spells that would be serious hazards to RW “Age of Sail” ships. A single well placed Fireball could destroy a ship equipped with blackpowder cannon. So could a Flaming Sphere.

Pyrotechnics could flood the gunnery deck with choking smoke, silencing its cannons. See also Sleep, Stinking Cloud, Web, etc.

How many properly targeted Magic Missiles would it take to seriously affect a ship’s ability to maneuver? I could easily see an expansive naval power teaching THAT spell to every sailor capable of learning it. Maybe a few others.

Imagine, then, Viking longships or even Roman Triremes with a contingent of sailors just literate enough to cast 1st level spells. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing” indeed. Fast forward to the British, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese fleets of later centuries, learning well the naval tactics of their predecessors.

IOW, D&D magic as written essentially acts like a turbocharger for forces within society creating a world more like ours. Why? Because those spells were written by modern people looking back with at least a partial eye on recreating modern effects in an otherwise archaic world.