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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Benjamin Olson" data-source="post: 8752015" data-attributes="member: 6988941">I'm generally a big 5e fan but I do feel like any time they do a combat subsystem (be it mounted combat, underwater combat, mass combat, or ship combat) the designers go for a level of simplicity that just doesn't simulate anything in a way that is remotely satisfying.I think one solution to the captain problem is to give siege weapons disadvantage attacking anything that is not a huge object (or whatever). Even better, would be to give them some sort of penalty other than disadvantage, because they will often be firing from a disadvantaged range already at which point we would be right back in the situation of it being just as easy to hit the captain as the ship. A -10 penalty doesn't seem unreasonable.Another solution is to stick with the RAW and just adapt the narrative reality to fit the game rules. In a world where individual crew members could be targeted just as easy as the broadside of the ship, captains probably wouldn't parade around on decks in fancy captain hats. Such things were worn in part because in an age when weapons weren't really accurate enough to target officers with much consistency the morale benefits of seeing officers stand tall in the face of danger could outweighed the probability of them being shot. In a D&D weapon scenario it makes a lot more sense for them to be A) below deck, B) above deck but dressed like any other crew member, or C) on deck and clearly the captain but fully armored up (because in D&D plate armor and a shield will save you from a canonball).Clearly the rules presented do not facilitate the narrative you want (or that most people would imagine) for ship combat. Ultimately the core decision is to what extent you want to rework the rules to fit the narrative you want and to what extent you want to rework the narrative to fit the rules presented.</blockquote>

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