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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Terramotus" data-source="post: 423603" data-attributes="member: 7220">Well, I'm actually running a pseudo sea campaign right now.  If nothing else, the ship is the base of operations for the players.  When I was doing prep, I did a lot of looking into nautical mechanics - the best stuff I found was the vehicle combat stuff in Dragon 294 and the Seafarer's Handbook.Now, the first question I think you need to ask yourself is...  how much control do your players have over the running of the ship?  Is one the captain?  If so, you really need to get into the rules of how maneuvering the ship works.  I found Dragon 294 to be most useful in that regard.  The Seafarer's Handbook had some good stuff, but it made up too many new rules that went against the spirit of a lot of d&d rules.  For instance, instead of upping the damage of siege weaponry, it added a rule that siege weapons also get to roll for strength breakage.  To me, it made ships too flimsy.  But anyway...If you don't need to, I would recommend not getting too deep into the ship's movement mechanics.  If the players aren't controlling the ship, don't worry overmuch about it.  Just keep an eye towards realism and just tell the players what happens.  As long as it makes sense, my players haven't had any problems.   Just keep in mind the movement rates and the hit points of various parts of the ship.  The movement rates in Dragon 294 are reasonable (I actually did some research on sailing ships and converted.  I believe they were slightly on the slow side for top speed, but still good enough).  The rules in Dragon are quick and dirty type rules anywayAlso, the Seafarer's Handbook's ship construction rules produced ships remarkably similar to the ones in Dragon, so I've used it as a guideline for creating any ships.Hope this helps some.</blockquote>

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