Spellcasting in the Age of Sail

[SiderisAnon]

*ponders what a 2nd level "Protect Ship from Fire" spell would look like*

That's simple. Have alchemists be able to brew an oil that when rubbed into wood and cloth protects it from fire. The oil would have to be renewed every so often. It could be combined with whatever oil you use to keep the wood from getting dry rot or whatever else. It doesn't have to be magical, just alchemical. (So you wouldn't have to be a spellcaster to create it and it wouldn't have to cost zillions of gold to protection a whole ship.)

 

[AuraSeer]

That's simple. Have alchemists be able to brew an oil that when rubbed into wood and cloth protects it from fire. The oil would have to be renewed every so often. It could be combined with whatever oil you use to keep the wood from getting dry rot or whatever else. It doesn't have to be magical, just alchemical. (So you wouldn't have to be a spellcaster to create it and it wouldn't have to cost zillions of gold to protection a whole ship.)

I remember a protective oil like that in 2E. Treating with it granted fire resistance for weeks, but it also causes the wood to dry out, making it even more flammable after the effect wears off. I think it was in a Dragon article about magic items for Spelljammer; I'll see if I can find it.

Come to think of it, Spelljammer sources might be a good place to look for ideas, because a spelljammer had many of the same problems as a sailing ship. There was magic for preserving food and water, helping sailors with their jobs, helping with ship-to-ship combat maneuvering, and so on. Fire protection in particular came in lots of types and methods, as spelljammers had to travel through the highly flammable "phlogiston" for months on end.

 

[SiderisAnon]

I remember a protective oil like that in 2E. Treating with it granted fire resistance for weeks, but it also causes the wood to dry out, making it even more flammable after the effect wears off. I think it was in a Dragon article about magic items for Spelljammer; I'll see if I can find it.

Mine is not nearly so complicated or destructive after it wears off. You spend about 5% of the total cost of the ship on buying this stuff each year. It grants your ship 5 points of fire resistance, which should be enough to stop most mundane fires and at least slow down anything bigger like flaming tar. You have to keep up the applications or you don't get the benefit. If you have an alchemist character, you can create it at DC 25 and it costs 1/3 of what you'd have to spend. (Just like anything else you Craft with.)

I developed this stuff because in a world where people are going to fireball ships, someone would have come up with it sooner or later because it's just too useful.

 

[Tonguez]

Oddly, the 0 level spells are mostly the more useful ones until you get into mush higher levels. Other spells don't have the range or area of effect to be that much use outside of combat.

not that odd really a society would develop simple utilitarian spells first and that these would be widespread as useful tools. Also considering that a lot of technology in the real world was developed for military application the number of combat spells at higher levels isnt so strange either.

I've played a Cleric-Navigator in a seafaring campaign and most of the spells already mentioned came in handy. I also think Druids are very effective aboard ship as are Sea Rangers (I have a homebrew Sea Ranger so thats even better)

 

[Hussar]

The single biggest affect magic could have on ships is a Lyre of Building.

If the proper chords are struck, a single use of this lyre negates any attacks made against all inanimate construction (walls, roof, floor, and so on) within 300 feet. This includes the effects of a horn of blasting, a disintegrate spell, or an attack from a ram or similar siege weapon. The lyre can be used in this way once per day, with the protection lasting for 30 minutes.

The lyre is also useful with respect to building. Once a week its strings can be strummed so as to produce chords that magically construct buildings, mines, tunnels, ditches, or whatever. The effect produced in but 30 minutes of playing is equal to the work of 100 humans laboring for three days. Each hour after the first, a character playing the lyre must make a DC 18 Perform (string instruments) check. If it fails, she must stop and cannot play the lyre again for this purpose until a week has passed.

Faint transmutation; CL 6th; Craft Wondrous Item, fabricate; Price 13,000 gp;Weight 5 lb.

You could build ships practically instantly with this, and, at sea, make your ships entirely indestructible for a short period of time. 600 man days of labour/hour. That, right there, would make this item very, very valuable.

Compared to the price of an English Ship of the Line, you're talking pocket change. I could bang out another ship in a week!

 

[Destil]

The main worry for fire related spells won't come from 0-2nd level spells, because they all have very limited range. The real winner is the long range pyrotechnics, which is something of a 1-2 punch if you have some other source of fire available and offers a lot of versatility on top of that. After that you have flaming sphere (druid wizard 2) with 130-140 ft. and produce flame (fire 2 druid 1) with a 120 ft. range.

Now if you give every ship a standard issue wand of fireball at 5th caster level things look very different...

Mage armor wands are likewise great for boarding actions. Flare makes a great signal. True strike for sighting the cannons...