Fields of Blood - Naval Combat?

[Tulon]

First Proposals for unit cost:

Light: 100 RP (~10.000 gp)
Medium: 200 RP (~20.000 gp)
Heavy: 300 RP (~30.000 gp)

Of course, these costs can be modified due to the player's decisions of which materials he uses and how he equips his naval vessels. The RP costs mentioned above are just a general synopsis of overall expense for one unit.
(without any crew, that is - it's just the basic ship)

Since I have not seen official ship costs in D&D yet, I had to just make them up by appraising. I think and hope they are quite fitting, however if you have any doubts or better proposals, just tell me please.

 

[Silveras]

Since I have not seen official ship costs in D&D yet, I had to just make them up by appraising. I think and hope they are quite fitting, however if you have any doubts or better proposals, just tell me please.

Galley: 30,000 gp
Keelboat: 3,000 gp
Longship: 10,000 gp
Oar: 2 gp
Rowboat: 50 gp
Sailing Ship: 10,000 gp
War Ship: 25,000 gp

Ship's Passage: 1 sp per mile

In 3.0, these were in the DMG. They got moved to the PH in 3.5.

 

[Tulon]

Hey, I was pretty close to it.
But thanks for posting these!

I will try to make up some rules for the "ship-class-construction-kit", as well as some other basic ideas that currently roam around in my brain.

 

[Silveras]

About the ships, I thought of something like a "toolkit", which provides every player with some basic, easy-to-use rules for constructing ship-classes.
For example:
Step 1: select size and hull-type (determines free "slots" for equipment)
Step 2: select type of movement (rudders, sails, etc.. - determines speed)
Step 3: select onboard armaments (I've got a huge amount of ideas for these...)
Step 4: select additional "Feats" (ramming thorn, troop quarters, cargo space, daughter-ship, ...)
Step 5: select materials (modifies armor class and cost factor)

That's pretty much what is already available in the Seafarer's Handbook. And the rules there are, if I recall correctly, Open Content, so other publishers can use them.

 

[Silveras]

First Proposals for unit cost:

Light: 100 RP (~10.000 gp)
Medium: 200 RP (~20.000 gp)
Heavy: 300 RP (~30.000 gp)

Of course, these costs can be modified due to the player's decisions of which materials he uses and how he equips his naval vessels. The RP costs mentioned above are just a general synopsis of overall expense for one unit.
(without any crew, that is - it's just the basic ship)

Since I have not seen official ship costs in D&D yet, I had to just make them up by appraising. I think and hope they are quite fitting, however if you have any doubts or better proposals, just tell me please.

Basically, a ship is a mobile, water-borne fortification. To keep things balanced with the rest of Fields of Blood, I would suggest you base the RP costs on similar fortifications instead of the gp price listed in the SRD. I say this in part because the gp prices are the "retail prices", the kind someone off the street pays. A government is likely to pay a good deal less.

In that case, the primary determinant of cost is troop or cargo capacity (overall size). A ship large enough to hold 3 units of soldiers (Marines ?) would cost 3x some base price. The base price would would probably not vary much with the speed, maneuverability, and material because faster and/or maneuverable generally means lighter (and thus less hp before a hull breach). The exception would be if you allowed some fantastic material like Mithral to be used as hull plating. That would drive up costs enormously while enhancing the AC bonus and/or hit points of the "module". Most ships, though, would be made of wood and have stats similar to the Palisade.

So, using the Palisade figure of 125 RP per unit... the mobility, hits, and toughness vary a bit from "model to model" of ship, but the cost is basically fixed.

The question becomes "What is the ability to move the fortification worth ?". I think it would add considerably to the cost, but double would be a bit excessive. Using a 60% cost increase on the base of 125 adds 75, for a nice even 200 RP per unit, so that sounds reasonable to me.

If you use that, most ships cost 200 RP per unit of capacity. The Toughness, Wounds, AC, and Speed factors vary up and down a bit to define some design choices, but only the choice(s) of propulsion varies the cost.

 

[Tulon]

200 RP is quite nice, because it fits right into the list I already proposed, and just makes me feel even more I was right.
The 100 RP-ship should just be something like a relatively small Schooner, useful for patrolling or scouting the seas, but nothing that could take up a whole unit of soldiers.
So, the 200 RP-ship is the basic naval vessel, representing a standard Frigate or Clipper, which could hold 100 troops, additional to the standard navy crew.
The 300+ RP-version would be a big Warship, which could hold up to two, maybe three units.
I think of going up to about 500 RP for the largest ship, which can only be built within a metropolis or so.

In order to give the smaller vessels a chance to beat the larger ones, I will try making a simple naval combat rule involving "maneuver stats", so that a small Schooner would be able to outmaneuver a large Warship, even if the Warship could deal out significantly more damage and will take quite much hits until it sinks. The Captain's Command-skill will also be important there.

 

[Silveras]

200 RP is quite nice, because it fits right into the list I already proposed, and just makes me feel even more I was right.
The 100 RP-ship should just be something like a relatively small Schooner, useful for patrolling or scouting the seas, but nothing that could take up a whole unit of soldiers.
So, the 200 RP-ship is the basic naval vessel, representing a standard Frigate or Clipper, which could hold 100 troops, additional to the standard navy crew.
The 300+ RP-version would be a big Warship, which could hold up to two, maybe three units.
I think of going up to about 500 RP for the largest ship, which can only be built within a metropolis or so.

In order to give the smaller vessels a chance to beat the larger ones, I will try making a simple naval combat rule involving "maneuver stats", so that a small Schooner would be able to outmaneuver a large Warship, even if the Warship could deal out significantly more damage and will take quite much hits until it sinks. The Captain's Command-skill will also be important there.

Something to keep in mind is that all of the ships you mentioned are technologically out of reach in a standard D&D world. The Galleon is probably the most advanced design for the most advanced nations. The Longship is probably the pinnacle of Barbarian culture ship design.

Amusingly, the Seafarer's Handbook has a ship design based on the Monitor, one of the first Ironclad class ships (c. 1860). The ship in question is a Dwarven design.

Frigates, Schooners, Clippers... those are all post-Renaissance, gunpowder-era designs. Most ships in the D&D era are not that seaworthy or sophisticated. Most are coast-huggers, and the open sea would be extremely dangerous. The Vikings, historically, were an exception to that rule to some degree; their longships were more seaworthy than ships built by more sophisticated cultures.

 

[Tulon]

Yep, I know. But since at least my FoB-campaign uses a homebrew setting and background, complete with own civilizations and technologies, that is no problem for me. Also, I will have different ship-class names than the ones mentioned above. Those I stated were just for orientation in the size.

To keep things general, I suggest to just refer to the classes as "light", "medium", "heavy" and "superheavy", with the last size being optional whether the individual's campaign setting allows it or not.
The type of movement (rudders, sails or magical, we could even add steam for optional usage) will also be depending on the background of the world where the group plays in. I'm just aiming for a general rule here, which I can then use in my own game.

By the way: Here are the stats I want to use for every ship-class.
The things noted with a "-" are general ones, while the "+" ratings get important if two or more enemy ships engage into combat.

- Speed (the movement rating on the hexes)
- Cost + Upkeep Cost (including all equipment and the basic crew)
- Cargo Space (one "slot" can carry either one unit of troops or food for one week)
+ Maneuver Rating (the ability to outmaneuver enemy ships)
+ Hull Rating (armor and hull ratings, the "ship's health points")
+ Ranged Weapons Ability (how good the crew is able to hit an enemy target)
+ Damage Factor (the overall damage done by the ship's armaments)

All stats should be fully compatible to FoB, meaning ships receive "wounds" when hit. The damage dealt should also be able to be easily converted to damage done to enemy coastal targets, thus a city (see: FoB rules for siege weapons), a fortification or even enemy army units roaming around the beach.