D&D 5E Simple rules for sea travel (feedback wanted)

[woodume]

Adding a mini-game can make the journey more fun without slowing down the main adventure. You might want to think about how the number of crew affects the trip, like fewer crew members making the voyage longer or adding some challenges.
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[Reynard]

I think they are really good mostly, however I think you have to allow long rests. Maybe some of the calamities prevent long rest (most notably storms), but if you dissallow long rests completely PCs will be pretty weak after 3 days at sea and unlikely to be able to adventure once you get to your destination and you will start losing PCs (and crewmembers) to death after 6 days at sea.

I disagree. A party is supposed to be able to handle 5-8 encounters between long rests. This should work fine outside of very long voyages.

On that subject: maybe you can make weekly checks for Very Long Voyages. Or, big empty stretched of ocean have a different "encounter" chart with 80% uneventful and the other results being Bad Weather and Weird Stuff to.See?

 

[Lanefan]

I can't make up my mind regarding the use of exhaustion instead of damage... on one hand, it makes it more level agnostic and it makes sense, on the other hand it could quickly become deadly even for mid and high level characters.

Off the cuff idea: use Exhaustion but put a cap on how Exhausted sea travel can make you - say at step 4 of 6 unless there's negatively-mitigating factors such as a long becalming where the ship is running out of food and water. This way, it can be more level-agnostic, it can't by itself kill anyone, and they still have to spend a bit of time getting their land legs back once in port.