D&D General PCs vs Ships

[GrimCo]

For more classic pirate themed games using 5e (specially 5e24), imho, best thing to do is cap it at 6th level.

 

[TheSword]

Book 1 addons and conversion notes attached.

Wow! Just wow. I had a good read through.

If I wasn’t sure about running again, I am now. So much good stuff in there to bring it to life. Inspiring.

Really enjoyed reading that. Thanks for sharing.

 

[TheSword]

For more classic pirate themed games using 5e (specially 5e24), imho, best thing to do is cap it at 6th level.

I think some groups/DMs would find that solution unsatisfying.

 

[AlViking]

I think some groups/DMs would find that solution unsatisfying.

I also think it's unnecessary. As you get higher levels the amount of treasure you receive from standard ships doesn't increase. Pretty soon you're the equivalent of a high end professional athlete working for B league wages if you only go after the easy merchant ships. It wouldn't be much different than 8th level characters doing caravan escort duty. Fine when you're low level, not at higher levels.

As important or more so is that your notoriety and infamy level is going to increase. You will be hunted, scrying will be used to locate your ship. You will become a target.

It's one of the conceits in D&D that there's always more level appropriate challenges out there with higher stakes and typically higher rewards. I don't see why that would change. It may require a bit of change to the campaign at levels above 8th, but perhaps there's a war with fiendish enemies across the sea and you have to join the battle. Perhaps you pissed off a forgotten god of the sea somehow. Maybe some archfey decided it would be fun to gather their cronies and mess around with mortals for a while.

I don’t limit the options to what could happen in the real world when running campaigns on land, why would anyone do so just because you're at sea?

 

[TheSword]

For those pirate fans out there. I guess the point is at level 10 you’re not going after wool and tabac merchants… you’re hunting Urca de Lima.

If you think about the great pirate stories. Only a fraction of time is spent in ship to ship combat. Even Master and Commander only has two combat scenes… and that’s a film about two dueling ships!

 

[touc]

Wow! Just wow. I had a good read through.

If I wasn’t sure about running again, I am now. So much good stuff in there to bring it to life. Inspiring.

Really enjoyed reading that. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks! My last bit that helped was NPC cards (a blank set for the PCs). Same for any other adventure with an NPC cluster like Out of the Abyss.

 

[GrimCo]

I think some groups/DMs would find that solution unsatisfying.

Sure. But one of the trademarks of any high seas adventures is peril of the sea itself. Peril that becomes trivial once you start getting spells of levels 4+ cause your lower level spell become cheap and you start getting some nasties for ship to ship combat. Control Water, Sleet storm, Fly, Teleport, Disintegrate. Water breathing/ walking become cheap spells to cast.

It boils down to what kind of game you wanna run. You mentioned Master and Commander. That is low level game, tier 1. When your characters are in late tier 2, they are leaving Pirates of the Caribbean fantasy territory (say up to levels 6-7) and slowly entering One Piece. Tier 3-4 are full on One Piece territory. Ships are trivial to deal with, specially if you have caster heavy party.

 

[AlViking]

Sure. But one of the trademarks of any high seas adventures is peril of the sea itself. Peril that becomes trivial once you start getting spells of levels 4+ cause your lower level spell become cheap and you start getting some nasties for ship to ship combat. Control Water, Sleet storm, Fly, Teleport, Disintegrate. Water breathing/ walking become cheap spells to cast.

It boils down to what kind of game you wanna run. You mentioned Master and Commander. That is low level game, tier 1. When your characters are in late tier 2, they are leaving Pirates of the Caribbean fantasy territory (say up to levels 6-7) and slowly entering One Piece. Tier 3-4 are full on One Piece territory. Ships are trivial to deal with, specially if you have caster heavy party.

If your mid-to-high level characters are still facing the same challenges you did at low levels it doesn't matter what the theme of the campaign is.

 

[touc]

All this is convincing me that by our levels (8+), ships need to be a bit more. So, at the docks this last session, the party dropped by to see what was being built. The old shipwright talked about the old days where fighting was honest, but there's now glyph-infused construction (no need for a fire pump and honest labor), the new "livewood" from the deep mainland jungles (being plundered, to the chagrin of the ancient beings that live there, wood that has sentience, like Robin Hobb books), and the Hurricane King style ships like one made out of dragon bones that supposedly can fly or go underwater for periods of time.

The nation of Cheliax (Asmodeus is the lead religion) makes pacts with devils, so their warships will be accompanied by flying scouts and all sorts of nasties. It just doesn't seem fair for the poor pirate starting out and just trying to make their way...

 

[TheSword]

All this is convincing me that by our levels (8+), ships need to be a bit more. So, at the docks this last session, the party dropped by to see what was being built. The old shipwright talked about the old days where fighting was honest, but there's now glyph-infused construction (no need for a fire pump and honest labor), the new "livewood" from the deep mainland jungles (being plundered, to the chagrin of the ancient beings that live there, wood that has sentience, like Robin Hobb books), and the Hurricane King style ships like one made out of dragon bones that supposedly can fly or go underwater for periods of time.

The nation of Cheliax (Asmodeus is the lead religion) makes pacts with devils, so their warships will be accompanied by flying scouts and all sorts of nasties. It just doesn't seem fair for the poor pirate starting out and just trying to make their way...

Some ideas could be…

• Angled blades below the waterline, level with the forecastle and aftcastle.
• A fiendish ship’s bell that rings of its own accord when hostile foes come near the ship
• A prow that bestows an effect similar to a Mordenkainen’s Sanctuary on the ship - no teleporting or scrutiny.
• Alchemically treated sail cloth to be resistant to fire.
• Elemental gems. That can be used to either speed the ship (air), attack a opposing ship (fire), or smoother fires/attack sea boarders/slow opposing ships (water)

Most warships and pirate ships of stature (pirate lords definitely) should have a divine caster and an arcane caster. Possibly a bard/chantyman aboard too. Similar to the Wyrmwood.