Stormwrack: The Case of the Irrelevant Crew

[roguerouge]

If I'm understanding Stormwrack's narrative combat system correctly, your crew doesn't matter. So long as you have enough of them to man the watch, their skill doesn't matter. Everything's determined by the captain's skills. A crew of pressganged Paizo's goblins are exactly as good as a crew of highly paid experts at maneuvering in naval combat. In fact, ranks in profession: sailor seem to be irrelevant for the purposes of who counts as a part of a ship's watch. You'd be best off hiring sailors based on their melee combat skills.

Anyone got any fixes for this system? I like it's simplicity, but I want to revive the importance of the crew.

 

[Yesminde]

I'm assuming the captain has to make some sort of rolls to maneuver the ship? If you want to keep the simplicity while still having crew quality be important, steal a mechanic from Exalted. In Exalted, when you are in mass combat the army just gives bonuses to the unit leader, instead of the other way around.

Make up a list of different crew qualities like:

Training
Morale
Experience

And assign a bonus/penalty level to different crews for each of those traits. You can have each bonus/penalty to a different type of maneuver or have them all become an overall bonus to all maneuvers depending.

 

[Grymar]

Perhaps you could just do circumstance bonuses...

Assign a minimum crew size for a ship and a basic sailor skill required (2, 4, whatever).

If the crew < required -2 penalty to captain's checks
If the crew doesn't have the required skills -2 to captain's checks
If the crew exceeds the required skills by x amount, +2 to captains checks

 

[Veril]

Very simple rule:

Ever crewmember who makes his Proficiency(Sailor) check (vs DC10) adds a +2 bonus to the captains effective skill. Standard assisting rule.

Use the rules from complete adventurer about high skilled individuals giving a greater bonus (broadly speaking for every 5 points of your total check the cremember adds +1).

This represents the fact that the captain is the most key person, but lets all crew members contribute. Crews with higher skill would produce better results.

 

[Laman Stahros]

Sorry Veril, that is just too many rolls. Some ships from Stormwrack have over a hundred crewmen. Would you want to roll all of those dice?

Grymar, that looks like a good base to build a system on.

 

[Slaved]

Every job on a ship has a certain difficulty. If you have a general list of what the jobs are for ships of different sizes, how many crew it takes to accomplish the goal, and what the difficulties are along with a list of modifiers for conditions such as rain and battle damage then you can easily set up a sheet for your ship which will determine how good or bad your ship is currently doing.

In order to cut down on the rolling you can find the probability of any given piece of the crew succeeding at their task ranging from 0% to 100%. Take your captains skills and divide them up until you either run out of captain skill or you fill up all of your crews tasks to 100%. Anything left over can be used for any situations where the captains come directly into play.

I have no read the actual Stormwrack rules but I hope that this basic setup I have just mentioned would be easily supportable in such a system.

It would mean that a better skilled crew is easier to handle so the captain can do less micromanaging and concentrate on battle strategies along with handle under staffed crews, weather conditions, battle damage, and anything else that might come up in a quick and easy way.


I should also mention, for normal voyages taking 10 should make even a basic, fresh crew be able to succeed at many tasks. I would suggest that people without the appropriate skill count as -2 instead of +0 before adding in their appropriate statistic.

 

[Artoomis]

I'd say keep it simple. In real life, the tall ships were often manned by rif-raff, quite literally dragged off the street.

It truly was the captian who made everything work. It was the captain who required the sail and gunnery drills until the crew was proficient. It was the captain who drove morale, too, limited by some external factors like number of days at sea and things like that.

The captain at sea was (and, to an extent, still is) a god-like character with ultimate authority, power and accountability for everything aboard his ship.

That said, some other key personnel were:

Carpenter, Chief Gunner's Mate, First Mate and Sailing Master (these last three may be well-represented by the First Lieutenant and other Junior Officers and Midshipman, if you like) as well as, to a lessor extent, Cook and Doctor. The skill of each of those also made a difference, and the "+2" to assist may work well to represent that difference.

I's say keep it simple, as in real life it really was pretty much all about the captain's skill. The crew's skill derived dorectly from the captain's skill in training them.

 

[Yesminde]

Grymar, that looks like a good base to build a system on.

What am I, chopped liver? I demand you acknowledge my contribution!

 

[Glyfair]

Sorry Veril, that is just too many rolls. Some ships from Stormwrack have over a hundred crewmen. Would you want to roll all of those dice?

Work out the average and give it a single roll. Maybe allow two rolls (crew & officers).

 

[Laman Stahros]

What am I, chopped liver? I demand you acknowledge my contribution!

Ok. Your contribution was less compilcated then Veril's, but more complicated than Grymar's. I tend to like the K.I.S.S. principle. Keeps the game moving smoother. Better?

Work out the average and give it a single roll. Maybe allow two rolls (crew & officers).

That might work.