Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Of Ships and The Sea

Interesting. There's an old AD&D 2e "blue book" with that title: Of Ships and the Sea

 

[Parmandur]

True that. As soon as I posted that I thought that they could also use the rules for the silt skimmers in Darksun. Air, water, silt, space. Different environments through which ships can sail.

:Heavy Metal intensifying:

 

[robus]

That would render it impossible to easily mix ship-combat with personal combat. I wouldn't be in favor.

I'm not sure that's the case. Generally ship to ship action occurs before boarding action, though there's nothing to stop ranged PCs from trying the occasional long range shot (though it would most likely be at disadvantage...) Once the ships are side by side the action shifts to PC combat and things speed up dramatically.

Allowing the ships time to maneuver (at a larger time scale) sounds more realistic

 

[Bill Winski]

I would have thought that one of the most important persons on a ship would be the one who doled out pay!

 

[Satyrn]

True that. As soon as I posted that I thought that they could also use the rules for the silt skimmers in Darksun. Air, water, silt, space. Different environments through which ships can sail.

Like the shoals of bankruptcy? Singing!

View attachment 103081It can be manly in insurance
We'll up your premium semi-annuallyView attachment 103081
View attachment 103081It's all tax deductible
We're fairly incorruptible, View attachment 103081
View attachment 103081We're sailing on the wide accountancy!

 

[DQDesign]

For you subjectively, but it seems to be working out OK.

sure, if they are happy living like reptilians, they surely can do that XD

or maybe is that their plan, make the supplement about lizardfolk, well... real

 

[Parmandur]

sure, if they are happy living like reptilians, they surely can do that XD

or maybe is that their plan, make the supplement about lizardfolk, well... real

I am sure they are happy making informed decisions based on previous results.

 

[Jester David]

I also don't think an effective Artificer class can work without basic item crafting rules. So I hope that the crafting rules are forthcoming and the Artificer will build upon those.

I'd disagree with that.
I don't think the artificer needs to use the same crafting rules as other characters. Or that they need to make permanent magical items like they did in 3e, with a gp and experience cost. Just letting them "craft" an item as a feature should work.

Plus, magic item crafting, as it was presented in 3e, never really worked as intended. It was too easy to b

Making the Artificer a full caster is a cop-out (at best!) and it seems they are realizing that. The class needs to work and feel differently, and the crafting angle is a huge part of what it requires.

Other than the hasty first proposal when it was a wizard subclass, have any of their attempts been a full caster?

or maybe is a random choice and we try to find a sense on it.
I don't consider them as rational as they seem to be, neither I don't think they have a really detailed plan for the future, but you know, it's just only me as usual

I don't think they have some detailed master plan. I think they had a loose outline for years 3 and onward and are just reacting as needed. (But because of the nature of publishing, the DO need to plan a year in advance.)
But I also don't think they're irrational or just stumbling along pulling things together at the last minute.

 

[DQDesign]

I am sure they are happy making informed decisions based on previous results.

that doesn't sound like a plan, at least not like a detailed one.

my position is more akin the one of [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] , maybe they have a loose plan for a year, with the difference that I believe that on some topics/issues they are very late and stumbling. not on everything, just on something.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I'm not sure that's the case. Generally ship to ship action occurs before boarding action, though there's nothing to stop ranged PCs from trying the occasional long range shot (though it would most likely be at disadvantage...) Once the ships are side by side the action shifts to PC combat and things speed up dramatically.

I have never seen a group of PCs willing to wait for ship maneuvers to finish before taking individual action. They're constantly casting spells, making ranged attacks, in some cases swimming for the other ship. There's simply no solid line of demarcation in my experience.

 

[lkj]

as I said, no reliable plans.

I'm not quite sure what this means. You mean they don't tell us in advance what there plans are? That's true. Or do you mean that they are willing to change their internal plans to ensure that they don't sacrifice quality in order to meet arbitrary deadlines? Probably also true. Is it possible that they don't share all of their plans in advance partly because they don't want to create said arbitrary deadlines? I'd guess that's so. For example, they never actually set a date for the release of the Artificer UA. They just said they were planning to do one.

But as far as I know they do release their actual products on a pretty reliable schedule year after year. I mean, those products do get officially announced and then released in stores. And this operating procedure seems to work pretty well for them.

Is it completely within your rights not to want to support them because they don't detail their internal development schedule? Sure it is. But I wouldn't detail those either if I were them. But that's just me.

AD

 

[Jeff Carpenter]

Keelboat is 20 ft wide and 60 ft long but has a crew of 3 and only holds 4 passagers?

Also what's up with saying ships can "move using thier Helm" under the actions section?

 

[Dessert Nomad]

The rules for owning and making money off of a ship look really ill-thought to me. You get a complication if you roll a 1 on any of the 5d20 you roll for determining how much profit the ship makes in a month, and the best result is that you make no money that month, while you can also lose as much per month as you would 'normally' make for 1D6 months, lose your ship for d4 months, have your ship impounded, have you ship captured and have to recover it, or have your ship run off so you have to recover it, kill the crew, and hire a new crew for about two months theoretical profit.

Unless I'm missing something, owning a ship is a massive money sink that often takes you away from your own objectives. It's basically impossible for it to actually profit you over the course of a year, and instead of getting to do adventures based around sailing your ship to interesting places, you're burning money probably stuck rescuing your ship over and over again. If you want a campaign based around constantly saving your own ship then this system is for you!

 

[Lanefan]

That would render it impossible to easily mix ship-combat with personal combat. I wouldn't be in favor.

Depends on the situation. If it's just ship-v-ship with nothing else interfering a 1-minute round is probably still in fact too slow, particularly if the ships have to maneuver between each attack. If it's ship-v-ship with combat also going on aboard one or more ships (but contained within each ship) then you can overlay one on the other by having the ship-v-ship stuff happen once every 10 or 20 or whatever rounds of melee combat.

It's when people are trying to cast spells etc. from one ship to another that it gets messy, and here I blame the too-fast combat rounds in 5e (and 3e, and 4e): 6-second rounds just don't translate into a situation where everything else is happening in terms of minutes at a time, meaning the casters and archers would finish the battle before a single cannon or ballista ever got fired. How boring!

And on a side note: if your game doesn't have gunpowder you can still have ship-v-ship combat rules, using ballistae in place of cannons.

 

[Lanefan]

After just a quick read of the article all I can do is congratulate them on their attempt while talking through the palm of my hand covering my face.

"Creature capacity" is far too low on both keelboat (a 60' keelboat can easily carry 12-15 people) and airship.

Their airship stats are completely out to lunch. If the whole thing including gasbag is only 80' long then there's no way it can have a cargo capacity of a ton; and if it's just the gondola that's 80' long then the gasbag is huge (think of something like the Hindenburg) and its carrying capacity is immense! And if they're thinking of something else other than a zeppelin-type vessel they're using the wrong term, as that's what "airship" usually refers to.

And under 'size' they give an example of a vessel that's 10' long by 20' wide? Other than a log raft I simply can't think of any such vessel in existence, so why on earth would they use that as an example?

Their ownership rules are also poor, but that's what houserules are for.

And a ship isn't immune to being prone - if its masts are touching (or in!) the water that sure looks like prone to me!

 

[robus]

Unless I'm missing something, owning a ship is a massive money sink that often takes you away from your own objectives. It's basically impossible for it to actually profit you over the course of a year, and instead of getting to do adventures based around sailing your ship to interesting places, you're burning money probably stuck rescuing your ship over and over again. If you want a campaign based around constantly saving your own ship then this system is for you!

Well you know how to make small fortune? Start with a large one and then buy a boat...

 

[Leatherhead]

And if they're thinking of something else other than a zeppelin-type vessel they're using the wrong term, as that's what "airship" usually refers to.

Not to defend the other quibbles, but they are thinking of these:
http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Elemental_Airship
Which have been around for three editions now.

 

[Azzy]

Not to defend the other quibbles, but they are thinking of these:
http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Elemental_Airship
Which have been around for three editions now.

And then there's the airships in Mystara before that, to boot. So, yeah, D&D has been using "airship" to refer to non-zeppelins for quite a while indeed.

 

[Von Ether]

Goodman Games' Island of Dread comes out next year, and now we know how to get there.

 

[DQDesign]

[MENTION=42037]Ik[/MENTION]j

one time one Italian Prime Minister said: "the difference between a project and a dream is respecting a deadline set in stone since the very beginning". is that a good approach? yes, imo.

Eugen Rochko, the founder and main developer of mastodon federated FOSS social network, regularly asks the users about their needs, and clearly and regularly states what is feasible, what is not, when and why. is that a good approach? yes, imo.

is opacity about deadlines (arbitrary? they choose them without caring about any other input, so they are arbitrary for us, not for them) and about the rational behind the development choices a good approach? no, imo. especially when that opacity is accompanied by a lot of (sometimes false) clues about the future and release dates announcements done when the printers are already rolling (and sometimes they have delays also in that case).

 

[DQDesign]

[MENTION=42037]Ik[/MENTION]j

one time one Italian Prime Minister said: "the difference between a project and a dream is respecting a deadline set in stone since the very beginning". is that a good approach? yes, imo.

Eugen Rochko, the founder and main developer of mastodon federated FOSS social network, regularly asks the users about their needs, and clearly and regularly states what is feasible, what is not, when and why. is that a good approach? yes, imo.

is opacity about deadlines (arbitrary? they choose them without caring about any other input, so they are arbitrary for us, not for them) and about the rational behind the development choices a good approach? no, imo. especially when that opacity is accompanied by a lot of (sometimes false) clues about the future and release dates announcements done when the printers are already rolling (and sometimes they have delays also in that case).