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

[Oofta]

Putting aside magical protections for rigging an sails, do you really want to set an enemy ship on fire? If you're the pirates there goes your reward. If you're defending you've just made a very desperate enemy who will do anything, including taking you down with them. Besides, most pirates preferred to take captives for ransom, piss them off enough and that's not going to be an option. Better to do a significant amount of damage but let them run away.

Or just do what I do and have magical fire retardant for the sails and rigging.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Putting aside magical protections for rigging an sails, do you really want to set an enemy ship on fire?

And if you're navy, very likely you could claim a captured ship (enemy or pirate, though pirates rarely had good ships) as a 'prize,' and you all split a theoretical value of it as it gets pulled into /your/ navy - and you get that because ships were expensive, and gaining one was a big deal. There were "cutting out expeditions" more often then there were fireships deployed into enemy harbors, too, for the same reasons.

Also, wooden ships were surprisingly difficult to sink. I mean, it shouldn't be that surprising...
...but I was surprised when I read about it.

Just makes all the boarding actions that much more relevant, and D&D is well-suited to them.

 

[Beleriphon]

If I could move D&D into another setting, I would choose the Algol system.

Sometimes I just want to hack at evil robots with my laser sword, while traversing a dungeon, in search of cake.

I'm a big fan of sword and planet stuff, D&D is basically already Masters of the Universe without the ray guns and weird technology. The average lich is probably modeled after Skeletor these days, right up to the fact they get beat up by the heroes week after week and their minions are useless.

 

[MarkB]

I have sommoned creatures always appear fairly close to the caster, so no problem there.

It's not just fire elementals, though - any of the classic four elementals will be devastating to an enemy ship. Air elementals can shred the sails and funnel the crew into the ocean, water elementals can swamp the ship or smash through the hull from below the waterline, and earth elementals deal double damage against objects, so they can pulverise the hull or masts.

Summon a water or air elemental on your ship, and they can easily fly/swim out to your opponent.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Summon a water or air elemental on your ship, and they can easily fly/swim out to your opponent.

Wow. It doesn't explicitly say it has to stay within range to maintain concentration. Otherwise, range would have curtailed the crazy, a little.

 

[Fenris-77]

Wow. It doesn't explicitly say it has to stay within range to maintain concentration. Otherwise, range would have curtailed the crazy, a little.

I don't know that "curtailing the crazy" was a prime mover in 5E's design process.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It's not just fire elementals, though - any of the classic four elementals will be devastating to an enemy ship. Air elementals can shred the sails and funnel the crew into the ocean, water elementals can swamp the ship or smash through the hull from below the waterline, and earth elementals deal double damage against objects, so they can pulverise the hull or masts.

Summon a water or air elemental on your ship, and they can easily fly/swim out to your opponent.

Yep!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Putting aside magical protections for rigging an sails, do you really want to set an enemy ship on fire?

Sometimes, yes. Especially if you’re the David battling the Goliath. Especially if they’re all just sitting anchored in a harbor.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Setting ships on fire was used against the Spanish Armada. Mostly to disrupt rather than destroy.

Ship vs ship you would want to keep your prize intact if at all possible, but against a flotilla that becomes less of a priority.