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Simple rules for sea travel (feedback wanted)
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<blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9083503" data-attributes="member: 7035894"><p>Looking at the rules from your stated design intent, as a sort of side game, I think you may wish to adjust your numbers to allow for level scaling. As written, they make sea travel of any significant length very challenging and potentially impossible unless the party are high level, wealthy, and in command of the ship, with good skill checks in the three relevant categories (high persuasion/intimidation is likely, medium survival is likely, proficiency with navigator's tools is unlikely, in my experience).</p><p></p><p>Scenario 1 (worst case scenario): low level party (1-4) wants to take a nine day voyage (e.g. the voyage in the free WotC adventure "Frozen Sick"). They acquire passage on a ship. Thus, each daily check is made by the ship's captain, navigator, and quartermaster with +0 proficiency, resulting in a net average of -.75 to the D20 roll; we'll call it -1. So each day there is 55% chance of something bad happening, a 20% chance of something good. And at these levels the bad stuff does a high amount of damage, costs substantial GP, adds travel time, kills crew, or some combination thereof, with a 2.5% chance of the ship being outright sunk each day (technically, slightly less than 2% because we rounded that -.75 modifier). The added travel time adds a cascading effect, particularly combined with the no long rests rule. As a result, a low level party completing a nine day voyage as passengers is almost impossible.</p><p></p><p>Note: if you assume a +5 proficiency for each of those NPCs they will average a +.75%, call it +1, to the daily check, making the voyage significantly safer, though still probably lethal at these levels.</p><p></p><p>Scenario 2 (best case scenario): high level, wealthy party in command of the ship, with plenty of wealth. Fully rested at start of voyage. Let's assume they average +2 to the daily roll, pushing the worst results off the table and making beneficial results more likely. So now there is a 40% chance of something bad happening and a 35% chance of something good, including a 15% chance of attaining a long rest (so they should get one on this nine day voyage). Here the balance works out much better - there will be attrition over time, but the voyage is doable. There are still several results that lose crew and only one that adds a single crew member, so very long voyages (say, months) would eventually wipe out the entire crew, but I doubt you have those sorts of voyages in mind for your campaign.</p><p></p><p>Conclusion: these do not work as universal rules for sea travel but if intended as rules for a fairly high level party in command of the ship (which is what I assume is your goal), then they should get the job done as intended.</p><p></p><p>Edit: Hmmm...thinking about that conclusion further. For the high level party, the only risk is eventually running out of crew. Does the party need a crew at all? If not, then my conclusion is wrong: the high level party is likely at no risk and should be able to complete any voyage without any cost. They will get a long rest about every 6.5 days and can therefore shrug off the nominal damage. In fact, if the voyage is long enough they will make a slight profit off the flotsam.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Clint_L, post: 9083503, member: 7035894"] Looking at the rules from your stated design intent, as a sort of side game, I think you may wish to adjust your numbers to allow for level scaling. As written, they make sea travel of any significant length very challenging and potentially impossible unless the party are high level, wealthy, and in command of the ship, with good skill checks in the three relevant categories (high persuasion/intimidation is likely, medium survival is likely, proficiency with navigator's tools is unlikely, in my experience). Scenario 1 (worst case scenario): low level party (1-4) wants to take a nine day voyage (e.g. the voyage in the free WotC adventure "Frozen Sick"). They acquire passage on a ship. Thus, each daily check is made by the ship's captain, navigator, and quartermaster with +0 proficiency, resulting in a net average of -.75 to the D20 roll; we'll call it -1. So each day there is 55% chance of something bad happening, a 20% chance of something good. And at these levels the bad stuff does a high amount of damage, costs substantial GP, adds travel time, kills crew, or some combination thereof, with a 2.5% chance of the ship being outright sunk each day (technically, slightly less than 2% because we rounded that -.75 modifier). The added travel time adds a cascading effect, particularly combined with the no long rests rule. As a result, a low level party completing a nine day voyage as passengers is almost impossible. Note: if you assume a +5 proficiency for each of those NPCs they will average a +.75%, call it +1, to the daily check, making the voyage significantly safer, though still probably lethal at these levels. Scenario 2 (best case scenario): high level, wealthy party in command of the ship, with plenty of wealth. Fully rested at start of voyage. Let's assume they average +2 to the daily roll, pushing the worst results off the table and making beneficial results more likely. So now there is a 40% chance of something bad happening and a 35% chance of something good, including a 15% chance of attaining a long rest (so they should get one on this nine day voyage). Here the balance works out much better - there will be attrition over time, but the voyage is doable. There are still several results that lose crew and only one that adds a single crew member, so very long voyages (say, months) would eventually wipe out the entire crew, but I doubt you have those sorts of voyages in mind for your campaign. Conclusion: these do not work as universal rules for sea travel but if intended as rules for a fairly high level party in command of the ship (which is what I assume is your goal), then they should get the job done as intended. Edit: Hmmm...thinking about that conclusion further. For the high level party, the only risk is eventually running out of crew. Does the party need a crew at all? If not, then my conclusion is wrong: the high level party is likely at no risk and should be able to complete any voyage without any cost. They will get a long rest about every 6.5 days and can therefore shrug off the nominal damage. In fact, if the voyage is long enough they will make a slight profit off the flotsam. [/QUOTE]
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