Ship to ship combat

[RangerWickett]

Who here has played in games where ship combat, or any sort of vehicle combat, played a major role?

I've been enjoying a Rogue Trader game (space capitalism in the grimdark future) for the past year, and it has huge ships where each PC can take one action every 30 minutes to do stuff like rally the crew to load the weapons faster, or jam enemy communications, or lead a swarm of shuttles in a boarding action to sabotage the other ship's components.

I've only recently started having ship-to-ship encounters in my D&D games, and they play very differently because the players want to fight the enemy crew using D&D tactical rules, not sink the enemy ship with special ship combat rules. For ZEITGEIST I'm working on mechanics to cover both ends of the spectrum, but I'm curious what experiences other folks have had.

 

[adwyn]

Vehicle combats tend to be hard regardless of genre because the vehicle usually acts as a single NPC under the control of a single player.

Rogue Trader and FASA's old Star Treck are good examples of breaking the phenomenon, so look to see what you can do to give each player a meaningful job. A meaningful job doesn't mean just rolling for your weapon when your turn comes up, there needs to be some sort of decision making involved.

One way to do that is to treat each vessel as multiple targets; Crew, forward hull, mid hull, aft hull, masts, that sort of thing so any players who are manning ship board weapons can choose where they are targetting.

Likewise someone can command their own ship's response team to put out fires and repair holes. By having to allocate resources differently each turn to prevent further damage and maybe even repair some it becomes a traditional healer role.

 

[jedavis]

We had two instances of space combat in my Mongoose Traveller game last semester. In the first, the PCs were horribly outgunned; they had a far trader with one beam laser and 1g acceleration, and were being chased by a corsair with a plurality of pulse lasers and 3g acceleration... they managed to jump out of system right as it was closing, escaping with a scorched hull and a fused turret.

In the second, the PCs were trying to hijack a ship for its cargo. They tried some shenanigans in port, but failed, and ended up going after it in deep, uninhabited space. It turned out the merchant vessel was mounting equivalent armament to theirs in a pop-up turret, but they sabotaged the engines (they had an insider), got out of the firing arc of the turret, and subsequently plinked away at it until the crew jumped ship (they left a present in self-destructing form, though... fortunately, the PCs' explosives specialist disarmed it after they boarded but before it went off).

In both cases, we had a pretty good division of roles. There was a ton of skill overlap, but also more things to do than the party had people, so there was actually an interesting resource allocation problem. Against the corsair, the scout was piloting, the agent was astrogating furiously, the medic / engineer / merchant was engineering for extra speed, and I think the psion may have been manning the guns, actually... In the second case, the engineer was routing power and taping systems back together, the scout was flying, the agent was gunning I believe, and the psion's replacement (slain by automatic grenade launcher) was running sensors to boost the gunner's rolls (or occasionally penalize them...). Combat turns were actually very quick; it was pretty nice.

 

[Aeolius]

Not an RPG, but I still miss:

 

[Celebrim]

I played in a 1e AD&D campaign heavily influenced by the great age of sail, using modified rules from Dragon Magazine (after we'd discovered the original rules had never really been play tested and needed work). Eventually mass naval combat became something of a sub-game of the campaign.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I've played in several of them. My preference, by far, was Star Wars:Saga Edition.

The ship is the combatant. The ship's weapons and functions are controlled by the characters. The ship has the hit points, movement speed, weapon attack values, etc.. The characters modify the ships systems with their own skills (or lack of same). This works very well and "feels" right. It also gives each PC something to do during the combat so it does not all devolve into just one PC doing something. They PCs are ALL making rolls each round.

From a RPG perspective -- SW:Saga Edition is the best "base model" to use to add modifications to, imo. As 4E used SW:SE as its own base, you will find a lot of the assumptions between the systems will work for you. They will work well for Pathfinder, too.

Now, going a little deeper into your line of thinking, if I may be so bold - you appear to be thinking along the lines of rules for naval warfare in the Age of Sail -- or at least -- Sail and Sandals (slaves at some oars, too).

If you are inclined to have ranged combat between vessels via spells, cannon or large weapons, inevitably, facing is going to come into your consideration in terms of how fast the ship can move, turn and so forth.

You will wonder whether hexes make more sense than squares and if that will make it too "wargamey".

Hexes are not superior for simulating Sail and Sandals/Age of Sail. They are, in fact, inferior and more limiting than squares.

Steal a page from an innovative design which appears in an old SPI magazine game. It is called Fighting Sail.

Fighting Sail used squares, not hexes, in a SPI wargame! This was nearly heretical at the time, until Joe Balkoski seized upon the idea that the square, if you use the diagonal points in the corners to represent a separate / facing direction, gives you eight points to work with, not four. Eight is MUCH better than the six directions that hexes provide as it then allows you to match the 8 primary points of the compass (NSEW + NE, SE, SW, NW) using a square grid. This little touch adds greatly to the "naval" feel of the game.

For minis, please remember that there are a BOAT LOAD of simple ship minis from the Pirates of the Spanish Main constructible strategy game that can be picked up for a ridiculously small amount of money. A few dollars of this on eBay and any gamer will have more ship minis then they can EVER use. Touch up the edges of the white plastic card by quickly running a brown or black Sharpie along each edge and they look much better than the shots below. I've tried this "Sharpie trick" I borrowed from papercraft modeling and it is FRIKKIN AWESOME.

End Result: (1) Assume PotSM minis; (2) 8 points of the compass for movement directions on a square grid battlemat; (3) PCs to modify ship's abilities when fighting the ship-as-a-ship and you are GOLDEN.

When the matter progresses to the point where ships are alongside and its time for a boarding action -- you revert back to the default combat rules of the game (or you switch to a mass combat system if there are a LOT of combatants). Either way -- that should not prove any sort of a problem for you.

 

[Ahzad]

I have played in a lot of Spelljammer ship to ship combats. We always had a blast playing those combats.

 

[jonesy]

You will wonder whether hexes make more sense than squares and if that will make it too "wargamey".

I say bah! to both hexes and squares. I loved GW's Man O' War, and it didn't need no lines anywhere. And it still had facing, distances, wind direction, currents, and everything else you needed without being bogged down by the rules.

Too bad the game got cancelled. It was really turning into something special. Now what remains is just a promising game with horrendously unbalanced fleets. And the full rules are scattered across old issues of White Dwarf.

 

[Celebrim]

I say bah! to both hexes and squares.

This. Positioning in Naval warfare is simply too important to leave to a grid. There are subtle differences between how ship rigged and fore-and-aft rigged ships perform relative to the direction of the wind that you just can't capture on a grid. The eight points of the compass are likewise meaningless. What you really care about is whether you can go 8 degrees closer to the wind, and whether you get a speed bonus for a beam reach or for running free.

Come to think of it, I'm not nearly familiar enough with rules for ship to ship sailing combat myself. My knowledge based on writing and rewriting rules based on experiencing the failures of other systems.

So, does anyone know a system where?

1) There is no grid.
2) Armor provides damage resistance; the weight of shot is compared against the thickness of the ship's armor.

 

[RangerWickett]

I'm sure it's possible to make a game sufficiently complex to represent the actualities of naval combat, but I personally would just want something that captures the feel of maneuvering without requiring, y'know, hours of work to get two ships close enough to trade fire.

Using Star Wars Saga as an inspiration, what sorts of things can crew do on a sailing ship? Trim sails, navigate, watch your opponents' actions, yell at the crew, shoot cannons? How would you handle stuff like shooting arrows, casting spells, etc.?

 

[Iron Sky]

Rogue Trader had just enough character action mixed with broader scope fleet battle stuff for our group. We have some people in our group who really like tactical combat systems and others who immediately lose interest if they scope leaves 1st person.

In 4e, I did ship combat by making ships elites about 10 levels higher than the party. Each ship got actions like a normal creature, but PCs could use one of their ship's minor actions to use one of their own powers (requiring some on-the-fly adjudicating for some powers). Each PC got their own ship.

You could also do this for military units the PCs are commanding.

The attached ships are the ships the PCs could choose from before a massive airship battle. The Godshields are impenetrable, opaque but permeable shields that can withstand any amount of damage. They explode like nukes when their failsafes are disabled and purposely destroyed.

There were some fighters involved too for which I just used swarms with close-burst 1 attacks.

 

[jonesy]

So, does anyone know a system where?
1) There is no grid.
2) Armor provides damage resistance; the weight of shot is compared against the thickness of the ship's armor.

Man O' War, and the very similar Uncharted Seas. Both do their best to have fast paced combat, and both are straight up fantasy, so realism takes the hit.

There's a good comparison of the two here:
The Drunk Dwarves Man o War Vs. Uncharted Seas: The Gauntlet Thrown

 

[Mark CMG]

I haven't played Man O' War though I have played many games with tall ships over the years. My wargaming and tabletop miniatures gaming has rarely strayed beyond Medievals and Ancients but when it does it is usually for Tall Ships systems of various kinds. If you could find a reasonably priced copy, I do like -

Age of Sail | Board Game | BoardGameGeek

1) There is no grid.

I agree that this makes a game with Tall Ships better for the granularity in positioning it provides.

2) Armor provides damage resistance; the weight of shot is compared against the thickness of the ship's armor.

I'm not sure I think DR for Tall Ships works for me. If someone is hit, they are hit, IMO, and after so many hull hits you start to sink. Most systems I have played that I have liked have score cards with check boxes for hit locations with each section being able to sustain a certain number of hits before it becomes critical to the whole (which is effectively like DR, I suppose). Also, such systems often have other factors to consider when particular sections are hit including: (all applicable to period, of course) % of crew lost, proximity to powder storage/ammo, possible mast damage, potential rudder damage, oar damage, cannon damage, passngers and freight damage or destruction, etc. Hull and sail damage also affect speed and maneuverability. In games with fleets, there is communications ability to consider and what the loss of it entails. I particularly appreciate systems that take into account drifting and how the wind affects speed, distance, and drift even while sailing at full speed. Wind and deck pitch also affecting ranged combat is a factor not many systems manage to integrate if they even try. Systems with simple, flat movement rates don't capture the feel of sailing for me. Anyway, that's about all I can think of right now on the subject. If I have more, I'll pop back in.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm not sure I think DR for Tall Ships works for me. If someone is hit, they are hit, IMO, and after so many hull hits you start to sink.

The problem with that, is that it doesn't match IRL in the slightest. A 14 gun sloop-of-war armed with a mixture of say 8 and 12 lb cannons is virtually useless against a 72 gun ship-of-line because a 8 or 12 lb cannon would have pretty much zero penetration on its armor belt. You have to remember, the SOL's had armor belts of 24in. thick oak. Small cannon balls literally bounced off of them. Sure, you could fire some chain shot and maybe tear up some sail, but that's about it. On the other hand, the SOL's 32 lber's would smash clean through the sloop. Any one direct hit could potentially sink her.

Before the introduction of torpedo's and guided missiles, the interaction of the ship's armor belt and the caliber of the guns they fired was the dominate factor in combat. Post age of sail, ships were classified according to the size of the guns and their intended invunerability to guns carried by the smaller class. So, a light cruiser might carry 6" guns and be designed with armor that could not be pierced by the smaller classes 4" guns. Whereas, a heavy cruiser might carry 8" guns and be designed with armor that could not be pierced by 6" guns. And so forth. The small was basically true through the age of sail. Throughout the age of cannon, the dominate strategic consideration was whether you could bring the most ships capable of carrying the largest class of cannon. If you have a game where a fleet of small ships can threat by gunfire a larger warship, then you might have an interesting game but it doesn't really capture the reality of naval warfare.

Of course, you could always apply a D&Dism and simulate DR through penalties to hit, but I would think that getting this to work out right would be difficult. Not saying it couldn't be done, and if it was done well (compare cannon size class to target's armor and come up with a to hit penalty maybe) then it would satisfy my minimum realism requirements.

In games with fleets, there is communications ability to consider and what the loss of it entails. I particularly appreciate systems that take into account drifting and how the wind affects speed, distance, and drift even while sailing at full speed. Wind and deck pitch also affecting ranged combat is a factor not many systems manage to integrate if they even try.

All of that is true, but at some point you have to put it on a computer. I think you have to decide which details you consider most important to prevent the complexity from overwhelming the game play. Deck pitch due to weather is a fairly straight forward modifier, but things like drift is something I'd probably give up in favor of critical hits or some other complexity. Very few systems, land or sea, really have good systems for handling realistic limitations in the coordination between units. I suppose DBM maybe might provide a example of how to make it work, but unlike combat on land, you can't really assume unit remains motionless without orders. Maybe assume unit stays on course without orders? Not sure.

Your point is well taken about flat movement rates not in the slightest capturing the feel of sailing. I probably should have added a third requirement.

3) Speed of movement depends on the points of sail (varying according to rigging), and differences in how close a vessel can haul to the wind according to the rigging are accounted for.

 

[Steel_Wind]

The problem with that, is that it doesn't match IRL in the slightest.

I agree wit this, especially as it relates to the Age of Sail and penetrating a hull. Though masts and rigging were always vulnerable. It was possible to nibble a SOL to death by ducks, rather than chomp it in two as if by an alligator.

Increased range of the SOL guns made that a daring proposition, however.

3) Speed of movement depends on the points of sail (varying according to rigging), and differences in how close a vessel can haul to the wind according to the rigging are accounted for.

Speed of movement and speed of handling are two different concepts. A smaller ship is more deft and with a decent crew, could usually sail closer to the wind and, at all times, was easier to maneuver. Sloop rigged vessels can sail closer to the wind than a square rigged ship.

That said, a bigger ship is a faster ship when running or on a reach. The maximum speed by a keeled sailing vessel (as distinct from a powered vessel or a ship which can hydroplane either by engine or by sail) may be obtained by this simple formula:

Max Speed (in knots) = 1.34 x [square root of the hull's length of waterline (measured in feet)]

This is a matter of physics and fluid mechanics caused by successive trailing bow waves; it is not possible to violate this law unless the ship can be made to plane out of the water at the bow. Go faster than that and your bow will start to nose into the water and WILL break apart the vessel. If you are ever being towed by another vessel, this is why you stand near the bow with a hatchet to cut the tow line in case the idiot in front goes too fast.

A larger ship is always, by definition, a potentially faster ship. The hull length in contact with the water is the critical element. (This is also why a catamaran or trimaran is potentially faster than a single hulled vessel).

The great sea voyages of the Cutty Sark and the other great clipper ships at the climax of the Age of Sail were fast because they were long and had massively huge sail surfaces.

 

[Mark CMG]

The problem with that, is that it doesn't match IRL in the slightest.

As I recall, the chance to hit larger, heavier vessels with smaller guns was low and the hits were tracked toward places where they could do damage, so I think your concerns were covered in other ways.

All of that is true, but at some point you have to put it on a computer. I think you have to decide which details you consider most important to prevent the complexity from overwhelming the game play. Deck pitch due to weather is a fairly straight forward modifier, but things like drift is something I'd probably give up in favor of critical hits or some other complexity.

Naw. Tables, my friend, and matrices. It's al about distilling the needed information onto an easy to reference card or two (usually a two-sided single sheet of cardstock would serve for most systems I played over the years). As for drift, I've often seen transparent templates used to handle this effect with ever widening arcs for turns. You'd flip the template depending on which way you were turning, and then either use the more narrow or wider arc if a cross wind was blowing. For a head or tail wind, you'd increase speed or decrease speed, and there were various modifiers for rigging, too, some assigned because of ship type. It was all very easy to use and play was quick so you'd limit the time the opponent had to strategize.

Very few systems, land or sea, really have good systems for handling realistic limitations in the coordination between units. I suppose DBM maybe might provide a example of how to make it work, but unlike combat on land, you can't really assume unit remains motionless without orders. Maybe assume unit stays on course without orders? Not sure.

Some systems I have seen required written orders and simultaneous movement, and with multiple players you either were allowed to converse or not depending on proximity, smoke screens, signal flag status, effectiveness of current surviving leadership, etc. In two player games it is just not possible to effectively simulate such things without having fairly extensive rules for which ship in a fleet you control and what other ships will do if you lose communications. Not impossible, but more frustrating, IME, than it is game-enhancing.

3) Speed of movement depends on the points of sail (varying according to rigging), and differences in how close a vessel can haul to the wind according to the rigging are accounted for.

Don't forget currents. In campaign games it was often fun to catch an opponent in waters that you knew and they did not, because knowledge of local currents, obstacles, etc. We mostly played period games/campaigns, so much of what could be done with rigging was limited to what ships were available. I don't recall this being overly complex, as there were plenty of newer players and sons of fathers, both who played, and that level of complexity would likely had made that more difficult.

 

[Mark CMG]

Oh, and I just posted this in another thread but it might prove useful to someone reading this thread, too, so I will add it here -

Mongoose has some old downloads of ship plans for their Seas of Blood, Ships of the Elves, and Ships of the Goblinoids d20 supplements that might do -

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/sotg_decks.pdf

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/elf_ships.pdf

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/sob1.pdf


I used to resize the B&W images, print them out, and glue stick them to foamcore board for some decent d20 ship to ship combat.