Naval Combat - Fave Rules Why?

[Sigurd]

This can be from any edition, any game system.

I'm planning an adventure that will include the possibility of some piracy between sailing ships. With or without magic. With or without gunpowder.


I was wondering if anyone had a favourite rule system that was light and adaptable for table top play.


Sigurd

 

[1Mac]

I haven't had a chance to try them out yet, but when I was looking for naval combat rules, I really liked the ones from AEG's old-ish Swashbuckling Adventures core rulebook. A lot of the other systems I saw were just a little too detailed, while these were covered in four pages, while still offering enough options to keep things interesting. I changed how skills interacted with the system but otherwise kept the rules unchanged.

AEG must have way overprinted, because you can now get the core book for astonishingly cheap. The Swashbuckling Adventures line also has a dedicated sourcebook for all things nautical, but I haven't checked it out.

 

[Celebrim]

Wrote my own for 1e play based on my unhappiness with rules systems I'd tried. Not light, designed with a wargamer in mind, so would probably come in the 'too detailed' category for you.

If you aren't going to model artillery combat or ramming actions, my advice to you would be not worry about naval combat rules. Instead, do one of the following:

1) If naval combat is period approriate boarding actions, just make the motion of the ships flavor, and fight on the decks in the same way you'd fight on any other terrain. Map the ship's decks and go with it.
2) If the main interest of the action is a chase of some sort, simply use a generic chase system like 'Hot Pursuit' and don't worry about the particular details of sailing a vessel.

You really only need naval rules if the position and orientation of ships relative to each other is very important, and if you need that you are going to find that light weight rules really don't cut it from a simulation perspective. Too many things factor into a good simulation of Great Age of Sail style artillery duels, including the thickness of the hull, lenght of the ship, size of shot, direction of the wind, type of rigging, quality of construction, quality of the crew, etc.

Briefly, my combat resolution system was: <total wieght of metal> - (# cannon * armor value of target) / 10 = number of hits. Each hit then was resolved on a table as to where it struck the ship to apply damage (rigging, hull, mast, critical hit of some sort). Movement was done with a ruler and a compass, and you got a bonus for staying on a particular tack depending on your rigging.

 

[Sigurd]

I'd like the rules to be light but I also think that I have a great situation for naval combat. I'm playing online and I can lay down a hex pattern that doesn't move. I can lock tokens and players can draw arrows etc..... It seems like a good basis for a hex battle and the most appealing thing is naval combat.


I could break out Squadron Leader but thats too modern and doesn't really account for wind. I'd like to account for wind direction and maybe ship speed. I have a few systems already but I wanted to see if there was an enthusiastic reviewer to recommend something.


Sigurd

 

[TheAuldGrump]

For 3.X I have used three related systems - all based on the Open Mass Combat system from Mongoose.

The first is Seas of Blood, by Mongoose publishing, which builds on the Open Mass Combat system that they introduced in The Quintessential Fighter - a major advantage was being able to integrate ground, sea, and siege combat into a single system. There is also a decent trade system - good for those folks who want to live the life of a merchant-adventurer. (Bringing back warm memories of first edition Traveller. )

The system was later expanded in Book of the Sea and Book of Strongholds & Dynasties. (I would recommend getting both if you are going to get either.) Probably my favorite iteration of the rules.

Finally there is Adamant's Corsair, less integrated with land battles, but very nice detail for sea combat. For pirates game, or any all sea campaign, this would be my first choice - lots of detail, and putting in the all important rules for wind and weather gauge.

I would also like to plug a PDF model from World Works Games here - The Maiden of the High Seas is a very worthwhile investment of both time and money, if the party is going to have a ship as home, vehicle, and adventure.

So very pretty. The model is bloody big (over 20 inches long) and dominates the table in a most impressive manner. A more delapidated version is supposedly in the works, for use by undead and evil pirates. Progress is slow, but I am keeping my eyes open for it.

The Auld Grump

 

[Stormonu]

I've built that model - it took me two attempts, as I screwed up on the first. It's a very, very lovely ship. I wish I'd had access to it when I was actually running my 3E pirate campaign

On topic, I've run several pirate games in a few systems (1E, 2E, 3E, 7th sea, WoD, Rolemaster & the CCG pirates game by Wizkids) and thought about using a lot of different systems to represent naval combat. The one that I liked the most was out of 7th sea. It's quick and at the same time allows for a lot of freedom within the rules. It's designed more for 1 vs. 1 ship combat, but it should hold up with up to about 5-7 ships on each side.

If you want to do "fleet" battles, I highly suggest the card ships Wizkids make. They are excellent for tracking ship positioning in a sea battle, even if you don't use the system.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I've built that model - it took me two attempts, as I screwed up on the first. It's a very, very lovely ship. I wish I'd had access to it when I was actually running my 3E pirate campaign

On topic, I've run several pirate games in a few systems (1E, 2E, 3E, 7th sea, WoD, Rolemaster & the CCG pirates game by Wizkids) and thought about using a lot of different systems to represent naval combat. The one that I liked the most was out of 7th sea. It's quick and at the same time allows for a lot of freedom within the rules. It's designed more for 1 vs. 1 ship combat, but it should hold up with up to about 5-7 ships on each side.

If you want to do "fleet" battles, I highly suggest the card ships Wizkids make. They are excellent for tracking ship positioning in a sea battle, even if you don't use the system.

Heh - especially if you don't use the system!

They are quite handy for a naval/pirate game, and I wish that I had thought to mention them. I used the ships to test out Corsair, and had a blast with them. (Corsair is also the only one that I can recommend as a stand alone game.) My two ships against my opponents' three. I left their ships burning in my wake or pinned upon the rocks by wind and tide.

7th Sea is a blast - I would recommend the naval rules out of the core rules over the ones in the later expansion. Swashbuckling cinematic action over realism.

Skull & Bones by Green Ronin is another good pirates game, and again uses a variant of the Open Mass Combat System. I had a great time crossing S & B with D20 Call of Cthulhu - less swashbuckling than 7th Sea, the pirates are a swaggering, wenching, pillaging, and foul smelling mass of ruffians. Good times, good times. (And the reason I built the Maiden.) Works very well with Corsair, written by the same author.

Corsair is still available in PDF form, as part of a bundle. Hopefully it will someday be converted for Pathfinder, but converting by hand is no great difficulty.

The Auld Grump

 

[howandwhy99]

I gotta say: Wooden Ships & Iron Men. Though I have been looking at Close Action a lot lately too. But that probably isn't light enough on the rules for most folks.

I love that miniature boat though, TheAuldGrump. Awesome!

 

[Windjammer]

For extremely simple but functional rules I'd check out Chris Perkins' rules for his homebrew 4E campaign which you can find here. Perkins supplemented these with a catalogue of various ship types (see here), the illlustrations of which you'll find in this gallery.

If you want something more substantial than this, I'd check out the free Battlefleet Gothic ruleset by Games Workshop (see here). Sure it's sci-fi, but the mechancis can be ported to any setting and the write-ups of the ships and cannons can be re-skinned accordingly. If you've never heard of this GW game, Wikipedia has a handy article.

Finally, the naval combat rules published for D&D 3.5 (Stormwrack) never got much positive appraisal, so I'd steer clear of that purchase.