D&D 5E SJ Ship to Ship Battles (& Vehicle Rules in General)

[jasper]

What I did for ship to ship combat was an oppose roll of I forget what. How about oppose roll of the helmsman casting whatever versus the other ship helmsman. Loser gets disadvantage on their ship weapons.
And building on that I would create siege weapons which use less actions to use. SO a one action ballista would be 300 gp plus ammo. A one action mangonel would be 500 gp plus ammo.

 

[overgeeked]

For travel times, even in 2E I just did 2d6 hours to get from the surface of a world to space. Then 2d6 days to get to another planet in the system. Then 2d6 weeks to get from the planet to the crystal sphere. No point in doing all the maths. If it seems low, add a modifier. Something like +3 to +6 seems about right.

 

[overgeeked]

Yeah, it's tricky. When you want to keep it simple, but (for example), in real-world siege warfare (at least, as I understand it), the chance of getting struck by the ammunition was not very high (and very lethal if you were unlucky), but the chance of being harmed by flying debris (cannons famously burst through ship's hulls sending splinters of oak, which were the real killers of a ship's crew).

But how to emulate that simply, 5e-style?

I've thought of ship-to-ship combat before, and I once had a working ruleset. Unfortunately it was 15+ years ago, and I don't remember it. Plus it was based on a % system, which wouldn't be a good fit. So we're starting from scratch here.

I am thinking of houserules, sure, but I'd like to use as much of what 5e has already done with it as possible, and add as little to it as possible.

Still thinking...

Take a page from wargaming and treat indirect-fire siege weapons as scattering AoE. Pick the target spot. Roll 1d8 for the direction (four cardinal directions and four intercardinal directions) and a 1d4 or 1d6 for distance in 5ft squares. Anyone in the initial target spot and anyone in the path of the missile's scatter is subject to an AoE at the listed damage unless they make a DEX save for half. Make the size of the AoE based on the siege weapon used. A ballista or cannonball will not scatter, it will continue in a straight line...but it will AoE where it impacts and along its trajectory. But any of the catapults will definitely scatter. The AoE can be described as a combo of the flying debris and the missile itself.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Missed that I was beaten.

 

[Stormonu]

Ah. Good to know. Funny that that information is in the description of a Spelljamming Helm as a magic item, rather than under "How Spelljamming Works". I was going by the entry on "Speed" which says (important parts bold):

When cruising through space, a spelljamming ship can travel 100 million miles in 24 hours. At this speed, the spelljamming helm makes minor course corrections on its own to avoid collisions with meteorites, other detritus, and space-dwelling creatures. These slight course corrections sometimes cause mild space sickness, which is a harmless affliction common among those who aren’t accustomed to space travel.

A spelljamming ship automatically slows to its flying speed when it comes close to something big enough to have its own air envelope and gravity plane, such as another ship, a kindori, an asteroid, or a planet. The exact distance between the obstacle and the ship is for the DM to decide, but whatever obstacle caused the ship to slow down is usually close enough to be seen by creatures on deck. While moving at its flying speed, a spelljamming ship is generally as maneuverable as a seafaring vessel of a similar size.

This does bring up another thing being glossed over.

Going from 4.1 million mph (100 million per day) to 4 mph upon contact with an air envelope. Not even a Star Trek bridge shake when you got to make a turn or slow down suddenly? How do you even calculate how far away you need to start slowing down?

I mean, unless you've got super-long senses as the Spelljammer pilot or lookout, an object travels about 1,157 miles in a single second at spelljamming speeds. That dot in the distance? What if it's an oncoming ship? Not even time to flinch before its on top of you. And what about those items without an air envelope - like a body floating in space, or a "mine"? The original SJ covered this sort of thing (it'd catch in your air envelope with little to no momentum and slowly drift away or towards the ship), but not a word in the new.

 

[Demetrios1453]

This does bring up another thing being glossed over.

Going from 4.1 million mph (100 million per day) to 4 mph upon contact with an air envelope. Not even a Star Trek bridge shake when you got to make a turn or slow down suddenly? How do you even calculate how far away you need to start slowing down?

I mean, unless you've got super-long senses as the Spelljammer pilot or lookout, an object travels about 1,157 miles in a single second at spelljamming speeds. That dot in the distance? What if it's an oncoming ship? Not even time to flinch before its on top of you. And what about those items without an air envelope - like a body floating in space, or a "mine"? The original SJ covered this sort of thing (it'd catch in your air envelope with little to no momentum and slowly drift away or towards the ship), but not a word in the new.

It's part of the innate magic of the spelljammer helm. It adjusts course for things in the way, and slows down or speeds up virtually instantly as it approaches something larger. It presumably deals with the momentum and inertia involved as well.

 

[overgeeked]

It's part of the innate magic of the spelljammer helm. It adjusts course for things in the way, and slows down or speeds up virtually instantly as it approaches something larger. It presumably deals with the momentum and inertia involved as well.

Right. Traveling 100 million miles a day? It’s magic. What’s the acceleration and deceleration like? Time for real-world physics. Nah. It’s still magic.

 

[Hussar]

Ahh, the age old conundrum of D&D and ships.

It's such a knot of issues that all come together at the same time that makes ship to ship combat - something that SHOULD be pretty common in D&D - such a massive PITA.

Issues for Ship to Ship combat:

1. Scale. Never minding the 5 foot square scale, which really, really doesn't work for ships, and the 6 second rounds, which also don't work, there's the more basic issue that D&D really doesn't work for what I call platoon level combat. When you have 20-30 combatants to a side, D&D just doesn't work worth a damn. It's far too finely grained and there are far too many things to track for individuals. Which then results in all sorts of work arounds - grouping characters together for one - which again, doesn't really work when we're dealing with PC's.

2. The abstract nature of D&D combat. Again, here's something that is baked into the basic DNA of the game. How do you reconcile the fact that the combat system is not built on the idea of specific targeting but, then you need to use this system to specifically target and tell you what happens. It's just not the right system. And you see it in the OP where he's targeting specific targets with a Mangonel. There's such a huge disparity between what the group is envisioning and what the system is telling you.

3. Time. This is a big one. Again, because of the scale of ship to ship combat, combats should be taking hours, or even minutes. Ships just don't move very much in six seconds. So, we start to fiddle about with what a round is. But, then it slams right up against the action economy rules in D&D. A wizard could very well blow most of his entire spell load in a single minute.

4. Spotlight - this is another big one. You've got one player piloting the ship. You've got another player shooting the "guns" (be they archers, or siege weapons or whatever) and three players sitting on their hands watching because there's not really anything for them to do. It's a pernicious problem.

Note, I have zero solutions to offer here. I really don't. Playing a naval campaign has been my white whale in gaming for a very, very long time. I've tried it in pretty much every edition starting in the 80's and it's never, ever worked well. It's one of the main reasons that I'm very reluctant to jump into Spelljammer despite absolutely salivating at the chance another naval based campaign and take another swing at the ball. But, there's this very loud voice in the back of my head telling me that I'm just going to be disappointed yet again. Go too deep into the simulation weeds and the players hate it because it's too dry and boring (unless you can get fantastically lucky and have a table of wargamers) or go totally abstract and you might as well just run a bog standard D&D campaign for all the impact being on a ship has.

I really, really want this to work and I've never found the right balance.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Ahh, the age old conundrum of D&D and ships.

It's such a knot of issues that all come together at the same time that makes ship to ship combat - something that SHOULD be pretty common in D&D - such a massive PITA.

Issues for Ship to Ship combat:

1. Scale. Never minding the 5 foot square scale, which really, really doesn't work for ships, and the 6 second rounds, which also don't work, there's the more basic issue that D&D really doesn't work for what I call platoon level combat. When you have 20-30 combatants to a side, D&D just doesn't work worth a damn. It's far too finely grained and there are far too many things to track for individuals. Which then results in all sorts of work arounds - grouping characters together for one - which again, doesn't really work when we're dealing with PC's.

2. The abstract nature of D&D combat. Again, here's something that is baked into the basic DNA of the game. How do you reconcile the fact that the combat system is not built on the idea of specific targeting but, then you need to use this system to specifically target and tell you what happens. It's just not the right system. And you see it in the OP where he's targeting specific targets with a Mangonel. There's such a huge disparity between what the group is envisioning and what the system is telling you.

3. Time. This is a big one. Again, because of the scale of ship to ship combat, combats should be taking hours, or even minutes. Ships just don't move very much in six seconds. So, we start to fiddle about with what a round is. But, then it slams right up against the action economy rules in D&D. A wizard could very well blow most of his entire spell load in a single minute.

4. Spotlight - this is another big one. You've got one player piloting the ship. You've got another player shooting the "guns" (be they archers, or siege weapons or whatever) and three players sitting on their hands watching because there's not really anything for them to do. It's a pernicious problem.

Note, I have zero solutions to offer here. I really don't. Playing a naval campaign has been my white whale in gaming for a very, very long time. I've tried it in pretty much every edition starting in the 80's and it's never, ever worked well. It's one of the main reasons that I'm very reluctant to jump into Spelljammer despite absolutely salivating at the chance another naval based campaign and take another swing at the ball. But, there's this very loud voice in the back of my head telling me that I'm just going to be disappointed yet again. Go too deep into the simulation weeds and the players hate it because it's too dry and boring (unless you can get fantastically lucky and have a table of wargamers) or go totally abstract and you might as well just run a bog standard D&D campaign for all the impact being on a ship has.

I really, really want this to work and I've never found the right balance.

Sums up exactly my problem.

Worst thing is, I had a working ship-to-ship battle game that I came up with twenty years ago, but 1) it was very much NOT D&D; and 2) I can't remember how it worked and have long since lost any notes on it.

I'd have to start from scratch if I wanted to reinvent it, AND I'd have to do even more work if I wanted it to integrate at all with D&D. I wish THEIRS worked better than it does, so I wouldn't have to.

 

[Hussar]

See I’m not sure I’d blame them for not being able resolve this.

I’ve seen so many d20 takes on this. It’s one of those things that no system will work for everyone.