barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
I'm not sure that these rules actually work so well. Or maybe I'm missing something. I'm using them as printed in Green Ronin's Skull & Bones game, so maybe there was a misprint there.
Anyways, recently in my campaign, we fought our first ship-to-ship action -- two sloops. Our heroes perpetrate a ruse by pretending to be friendly and once within a hundred feet, let a broadside go. And when damage was rolled, the enemy vessel had literally ceased to exist.
A sloop is listed as carrying a broadside of 8 culverin -- each doing 2d4 of structural damage. A sloop also has an Armour Class of 10. This means that, at a range of a hundred feet, we expect half of our broadside to strike home. This suggests an average amount of damage of 16 points of structural damage (2d4 (av. 4) x 4 culverin per broadside), with a maximum of 64.
A sloop has 22 structural points. This means that a slightly-above-average broadside from one sloop at close range will completely destroy (not disable, not set to sinking, but completely eradicate from the waves) another sloop.
That seems a little excessive to me. The idea that a sloop carries 16 (18 including the stern chasers) 18-pound guns is likewise out of line to me, and maybe those culverin ought to be changed to demi-culverin (9-pound guns) -- which would halve the damage, though still making it possible (maximum 32 damage) for one sloop to annihilate another in one broadside.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Is there an error in the way I'm reading the rules? It was kind of a startling end to what I'd expected to be a thrilling battle on the high seas. I was expecting, you know, storming at with shot and shell, into the valley of death rode the six hundred and all that. Instead, it was "Bang! You're dead!" and that was that.
Anyways, recently in my campaign, we fought our first ship-to-ship action -- two sloops. Our heroes perpetrate a ruse by pretending to be friendly and once within a hundred feet, let a broadside go. And when damage was rolled, the enemy vessel had literally ceased to exist.
A sloop is listed as carrying a broadside of 8 culverin -- each doing 2d4 of structural damage. A sloop also has an Armour Class of 10. This means that, at a range of a hundred feet, we expect half of our broadside to strike home. This suggests an average amount of damage of 16 points of structural damage (2d4 (av. 4) x 4 culverin per broadside), with a maximum of 64.
A sloop has 22 structural points. This means that a slightly-above-average broadside from one sloop at close range will completely destroy (not disable, not set to sinking, but completely eradicate from the waves) another sloop.
That seems a little excessive to me. The idea that a sloop carries 16 (18 including the stern chasers) 18-pound guns is likewise out of line to me, and maybe those culverin ought to be changed to demi-culverin (9-pound guns) -- which would halve the damage, though still making it possible (maximum 32 damage) for one sloop to annihilate another in one broadside.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Is there an error in the way I'm reading the rules? It was kind of a startling end to what I'd expected to be a thrilling battle on the high seas. I was expecting, you know, storming at with shot and shell, into the valley of death rode the six hundred and all that. Instead, it was "Bang! You're dead!" and that was that.
