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<blockquote data-quote="77IM" data-source="post: 7614421" data-attributes="member: 12377"><p>Great questions!</p><p></p><p>1. My intention was that the <strong>sloop</strong> statistics would handle all small sailboats of this type (even though many such sailboats are technically not "sloops"). It's like how you can use the statistics for a glaive to represent a wide variety of polearms.</p><p></p><p>If we want to differentiate ships further, we can do it with minor tweaks, rather than entirely new stat blocks. You know how some monsters in the <em>Monster Manual</em> have sidebars with variations? The <strong>swarm of insects</strong> is a good example: you can turn it into a spider swarm, wasp swarm, etc. just by adding or removing a few traits. So if a cutter is substantially different than a sloop, we could have a sidebar that says something like, "<em>Cutter:</em> Reduce the passenger capacity to 1, decrease the hit points to 50, and increase the speed to 35 feet." (I am just making those stats up: I don't really know how a cutter, or any other pilot ship, differs from other small sailboats. Although I do suspect that it doesn't need to be super "fast" because I'm guessing most ships don't come racing into the harbor at top speed.)</p><p></p><p>2. For turning radius: My favorite system for this that I've ever seen was <em>Star Wars d20 Revised</em>. Every ship had the exact same turning radius, acceleration, etc. But you could overcome those limitations with a piloting check, and each ship had a maneuverability modifier to this check. I love it because it was very easy to remember (each ship gets a number -- a modifier -- instead of a new set of turning rules) and because it was extremely flexible (any wacky move a pilot wanted to try -- it was way easier to do with a tie fighter than a star destroyer).</p><p></p><p>For ships, I'm planning to adopt a similar system. Simply applying the ship's Dexterity modifier to such checks would be good, except that ships have very little variation in their Dex mods (they cluster tightly around -3). It make sense to base these checks on the ship's length, since longer ships should be harder to turn, and ship lengths are generally multiples of 20 (DC 5 per 20 feet of length works well). Or, we could give some ships a special trait, probably as part of the helm/tiller: "<em>Maneuverable.</em> When you make an ability check or saving throw for this ship to turn sharply, avoid an obstacle, change its speed suddenly, or perform a similar fancy nautical maneuver, you make the check or save with advantage."</p><p></p><p>What makes the most sense to everybody else? I'm really trying to avoid "retconning" the statistics from <em>Ghosts of Saltmarsh</em>, but I'm open to doing that as a variant/optional thing, if it works.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="77IM, post: 7614421, member: 12377"] Great questions! 1. My intention was that the [B]sloop[/B] statistics would handle all small sailboats of this type (even though many such sailboats are technically not "sloops"). It's like how you can use the statistics for a glaive to represent a wide variety of polearms. If we want to differentiate ships further, we can do it with minor tweaks, rather than entirely new stat blocks. You know how some monsters in the [I]Monster Manual[/I] have sidebars with variations? The [B]swarm of insects[/B] is a good example: you can turn it into a spider swarm, wasp swarm, etc. just by adding or removing a few traits. So if a cutter is substantially different than a sloop, we could have a sidebar that says something like, "[I]Cutter:[/I] Reduce the passenger capacity to 1, decrease the hit points to 50, and increase the speed to 35 feet." (I am just making those stats up: I don't really know how a cutter, or any other pilot ship, differs from other small sailboats. Although I do suspect that it doesn't need to be super "fast" because I'm guessing most ships don't come racing into the harbor at top speed.) 2. For turning radius: My favorite system for this that I've ever seen was [I]Star Wars d20 Revised[/I]. Every ship had the exact same turning radius, acceleration, etc. But you could overcome those limitations with a piloting check, and each ship had a maneuverability modifier to this check. I love it because it was very easy to remember (each ship gets a number -- a modifier -- instead of a new set of turning rules) and because it was extremely flexible (any wacky move a pilot wanted to try -- it was way easier to do with a tie fighter than a star destroyer). For ships, I'm planning to adopt a similar system. Simply applying the ship's Dexterity modifier to such checks would be good, except that ships have very little variation in their Dex mods (they cluster tightly around -3). It make sense to base these checks on the ship's length, since longer ships should be harder to turn, and ship lengths are generally multiples of 20 (DC 5 per 20 feet of length works well). Or, we could give some ships a special trait, probably as part of the helm/tiller: "[I]Maneuverable.[/I] When you make an ability check or saving throw for this ship to turn sharply, avoid an obstacle, change its speed suddenly, or perform a similar fancy nautical maneuver, you make the check or save with advantage." What makes the most sense to everybody else? I'm really trying to avoid "retconning" the statistics from [I]Ghosts of Saltmarsh[/I], but I'm open to doing that as a variant/optional thing, if it works. [/QUOTE]
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