D&D General Ships & spellcasters

[Unwise]

In my games, if a magic issue prevents ships from being useful, then people have countered it to some extent, or nobody would invest in ships and associated things.
Every expensive ship has built in runes that put out fires and stop teleportation on deck. There are ways around it, with some good arcana, or simply overwhelming the runes. Think of it like in Star Trek, you have to lower the shields before teleportation can occur. The shields get eaten down by fire that would otherwise spread. Not physical shields, just against specific magics.

 

[SkidAce]

In my games, if a magic issue prevents ships from being useful, then people have countered it to some extent, or nobody would invest in ships and associated things.
Every expensive ship has built in runes that put out fires and stop teleportation on deck. There are ways around it, with some good arcana, or simply overwhelming the runes. Think of it like in Star Trek, you have to lower the shields before teleportation can occur. The shields get eaten down by fire that would otherwise spread. Not physical shields, just against specific magics.

I like this in an Eberron style pervasive low magic setting.

In other campaigns, where magic amongst NPCs is rare but possibly high levels, individuals ships could be protected as such, but the common fleet would not.

 

[aco175]

When you worry about sea combat, just hire/charm/poly/familiar sea monsters or sea elves/devils to attack the ship. Hard for ships to fireball a sea elf with a drill, or outrun a shark. A druid shapechanged into a seagull can spy on the crew easily and learn plans or even speak with animals and talk to the rats.

 

[Lanefan]

I blame 4E for short ranges and that everything had to fit on a table battlemap.

3.5E, 10th level caster fireball is 10d6 at 800ft, add dirt cheap Lesser metamagic rog(enlarge) for 3x a day, you get fireball at 1600ft

That must be specific to 3.xe as I don't recall fireball ranges being anywhere near that long in earlier editions. In 1e as written it's 90 ft + 30 ft / level thus a 10th-level caster has a mere 390 ft range on it; not all that useful at ship-to-ship range.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

That must be specific to 3.xe as I don't recall fireball ranges being anywhere near that long in earlier editions. In 1e as written it's 90 ft + 30 ft / level thus a 10th-level caster has a mere 390 ft range on it; not all that useful at ship-to-ship range.

Fireball :: d20srd.org

Fireball 400 feet +40 feet/level.

 

[toucanbuzz]

So 5E (and the battlemap) seem to solve range issues if using ships with guns or siege engines. You can't afford to try and maneuver your caster into range as you'll likely suffer too much damage in the process.

I do like the cultural idea. Open flames, especially below decks, are taboo on ships, especially when said ships are caulked with tar and pitch. If you have a reputation for having a fire-using caster on your ship, folks from all lands might have incentive to hunt you down and sink you.