spearing a ship until it sinks

[Saeviomagy]

I don't see what the problem is: the rules say that ships and other objects are not enemies, allies or creatures. Powers and effects only work on enemies, allies or creatures.

Hence, if you say "I punch the ship to death", the DM says "your power doesn't work on the ship".

Admittedly it gets a little silly when people want to burn a ship with flaming sphere and the DM says no. But the DMG advises that he should probably say yes if the specific case warrants it.

There's almost no danger of your players punching the dungeon down unless the DM thinks it's cool and allows it. And even then, there's no guarantee it will work a second time.

 

[OnlineDM]

Attacking objects has come up three times so far in my current online campaign.

The first time, the party wanted to blast open a locked sewer grate, and I ruled that casting Magic Missile over and over could do it in about a minute. Pew pew, grate is open.

The second time, the party was trying to bash a door to get into a stronghold. This one is covered pretty well by the DMG and I used the rules pretty much as written.

The third time, a warlock wanted to blast the hinges off a locked chest. She was using more powerful attacks than Magic Missile that required attack rolls (and she was trying to do it quietly, so I required stealth checks with the attack rolls). I decided for myself how many hit points and what defenses the wood around the hinges would have, and off we went.

The only time I really used rules as written was for attacking the door. In the other cases, I went with what felt reasonable to me. That's what I recommend other DMs do, too - go with what seems reasonable to you. No one questioned me on it. No one complained.

If my party wanted to shoot arrows or stab spears at the side of a ship, I would rule that they could deal the ship a little bit of damage if they kept hitting in the same spot again and again, because that feels reasonable to me. If you're a mighty archer or spearman, I think you could probably damage a ship's hull given enough time. But it would take quite a while and would attract attention. If they really wanted to go through each attack roll, I would allow it, but it would probably be boring. I'd probably have the party get attacked after a couple of rounds, mainly to avoid the monotony!

 

[Joshua Randall]

Ah, yes, the "You're abusing the system because you're playing by the rules as presented!" approach to DMing. Attacking inanimate objects is perfectly fine up until some secret magic threshold; then it becomes abuse and you get smacked down it.

The mark of a good player/DM is knowing the line between use and abuse of the rules. Also, it's not a secret threshold; it's whatever the players and DM agree on. Make it explicit and if you're not sure, ask your fellows how they want the game to work.

The rules are not a straightjacket.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Adding any resistance is a mistake, because as soon as someone is optimized enough, he can dela enough damage with a dagger.

Just saying the dagger is ineffective to do any damage to the ship is the right way to do it.

Stone has hardness 20 btw. Look at the condition chart.

 

[TerraDave]

I think we have two issues, the general rules to attack stuff, the most updated version of which are in the RC, and the more specific vehicle rules in the AV.

For the RC rules, I think the missing sentance is something like "The DM can also decide that certain kinds of attacks will not damage certain objects, so a dagger may not be able to smash through a wooden wall or a normal sword may not harm a stone statue."

But the much bigger problem is in the AV...

So ... basically I'm just echoing most of the points here, but will add a personal anecodote. This thread reminded me a 4e campaign I ran from dec-08 to aug-09. It was based heavily around rules for the 4e airships.

I took the rules quite literally and that made the battle between airships pretty lethal.

I did add special qualities for defense, speed, offense, and utility for certain airships, but the mainline airship was straight from AV1.

In retrospect, that model failed the campaign because the PCs were usually only on one airship -- their own. They on more than one occaision had to fight off air-pirates on multiple attacking airships.

About half-way into the campaign, I realized that the seeming elegance and simplicity of 4e's vehicle combat system was funked. It required a lot of ad hoc DMery.

I had started to tinker with a system based on Star Wars SAGA rules at the time, but the campaign abruptly ended.

My new campaign's going much better. Sep-09 to present.

C.I.D.

See, this is the thing, AV is presenting a full vehicle system that could, in theory, play a big part in the campaing. With a first reading, it seems pretty slick. But in practice, DM hand waving might be the better system.

Though it did say how far above the waterline certain ships would be, I found this handy.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

The thing about sapping, mining or vehicle combat is that the caveat that the AC and hit point levels are only if the appropiate tools are used.

e.g. cannon for ship to ship combat or whatever, not hand weapons.

 

[ShadesOfGrey]

Yeah, it's kinda silly sinking a ship by just shooting enough arrows at it or such.
But yeah, it's up to the DM / group what kind of game they want to play.. allow everything in RAW as fairplay or arbit 'common sense' even if the rules allow you to do something.

Also, remember that no rule(system) is ever going to be completly realistic, and in general more realism means more complexity/overhead/bookkeeping.

But yeah, I felt a bit uncertain about the whole thing myself, when I was thinking about doing a somewhat nautical theme in a new game.
Biggest stumbling block for me was how to deal with ship to ship battles. I didnt want to do gunpowder, and archery + siege engines (balista, catapult) like suggested in various sources just doesnt quite feel right.

Then I thought that the whole thing didnt make sense, because this is a world with firebreathing flying dragons & magic being somwhat mundane enough. Especially considering destructive power & general accuracy.

No one would be stupid enough to man a wooden ship or send valuable cargos on such deathtraps, especially if for the cost of operating a ship, you can just get someguy to teleport your cargo a lot safer & faster.

 

[Mallus]

Ok, in AV there are rules in vehicles, including ships. Vehicles have AC, reflex and HP. If I am reading this right, there is no "hardness"/damage resistance for a standard ship.

Yes.

A sailing ship has something like 200-300 hp. And a low AC, so is easy to hit.

Yes.

So low level mooks on rowboats pull up next to the ship, and stab it until it sinks?

No. That's just silly.

I never quite got why some people find it interesting to pretend the DM is a computer which executes the rules-as-code, without the aid of common sense, fuzzy logic, and the rest of the cognitive traits that separate us from the digital computers.

Do we really need a set of procedures to handle this? Can't we just agree to use common sense? Besides, any set of procedures/modeling systems simple enough for use at the table will inevitably have loopholes/exploits which deliver results equally as ludicrous as the mooks with spears holing the ship.

 

[Dausuul]

No. That's just silly.

I never quite got why some people find it interesting to pretend the DM is a computer which executes the rules-as-code, without the aid of common sense, fuzzy logic, and the rest of the cognitive traits that separate us from the digital computers.

Do we really need a set of procedures to handle this? Can't we just agree to use common sense? Besides, any set of procedures/modeling systems simple enough for use at the table will inevitably have loopholes/exploits which deliver results equally as ludicrous as the mooks with spears holing the ship.

What is the intended use of these rules? It looks to me as if the loopholes are bigger than the proper application. PCs will seldom have ballistas and catapults handy when they want to destroy a fortification or sink a ship, but they will almost always have swords and bows. Unless there's something I'm missing, these rules handle a corner case well but fail under normal circumstances, which is exactly the opposite of how RPG rules should work.

If you want a simple broad-based rule to cover the typical situation, with the DM to adjudicate corner cases according to common sense, then don't waste time giving hit points and defenses to stuff that needs siege equipment to destroy. Just say, "Fortifications and large vehicles take no damage from normal attacks," and leave it up to the DM to decide what constitutes a non-normal attack and what effect it might have.

 

[Mallus]

What is the intended use of these rules? It looks to me as if the loopholes are bigger than the proper application. PCs will seldom have ballistas and catapults handy when they want to destroy a fortification or sink a ship, but they will almost always have swords and bows.

That's a good question. I think the implication is that PCs can damage large objects like ships, using things like (their inevitably) enchanted swords and bows, along with (equally ubiquitous) weaponized philosophy and faith, ie, magic powers. Because they're big damn heroes, kin to Lugh, Rama, Conan, and Elric --or Remo Williams, McGyver, and John McClane, if you prefer. But for normal people and mooks, the impossible stays impossible, mostly, unless there's a really good reason.

This could be stated more explicitly, and should be.