What would you want in a book of naval rules?

[RangerWickett]

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E.N. Publishing plans to release a book of naval rules, and I want to make sure we have everything people want in order to have adventures on the high seas.

The approach we're taking is not to have grid-based ship maneuvers. Instead of 'tactical ship combat,' we're trying to have rules to cover events like closing for combat, boarding actions, chase sequences, and so on. Then once the ships are close enough, you switch to normal D&D tactical combat rules.

For instance, the party decides to fight some pirates. While a real scenario with two ships closing and angling for the perfect boarding action could take hours of tacking and feints and clever uses of currents and winds, the possible final states are pretty limited -- face to face, side to side, back to front, etc. Add in cannons and fireballs and things get a bit more complicated -- sinking, on fire, etc. -- but most D&D games will want to get to the point where two ships are adjacent and people start swinging swords.

That in mind, though, I'd be willing to put effort into making a more rules-heavy option for people who like that sort of thing. And I've got options for designing ships with all sorts of fun additions and special powers. And there are plenty of ways for PCs to contribute to a naval encounter so everyone's involved.

But what, in particular, would you like? If I could promise something in this product that would get you to buy it (or illegally download it) and use it in your game, what would that be?

 

[Nytmare]

In general, what I look for in a resource book are maps (or rather deck plans), new special equipment/spells, different applications for existing equipment/spells/skills, and lists and lists and lists of things that can/will go wrong.

Or are you specifically asking about ship to ship combat rules?

 

[RangerWickett]

No, that is just the sort of stuff I want to know about. Thanks.

 

[enrious]

I would want something to allow a more narrative method, akin to the 3e Heroes of Battle.

Or, opposing card manuevers or whatnot. I'd like anything but a miniatures wargame in my non-miniatures, non-wargame. Something that could quickly hash out a ship combat, that is basically a quick mini-game with the results giving modifiers in the standard fight.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Size and placement of lint ... oh, you meant naval rules!

A good way to simulate tactical ship-to-ship combat, from the age of oar to the age of steam. Needs to cover chases, maneuvering, and boarding, as well as ship-to-ship fire.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I have a lot of opinions on this subject and heaploads of knowledge. Feel free to chat with me about it.

A few ideas: You might want to throw in some potential natural hazards to make closing with the enemy more interesting:

Reefs, squalls, a lee-shore.

Fighting (even during the boarding action) in a rolling sea.

Story ideas for the GM like having the PCs fight both a chase and an escape at the same time (fleeing from a larger ship while snapping up a smaller prize.)

Prize money? I dunno how historical and how fantastic you wanna go.

Is this edition specific?

 

[Celebrim]

I was in a fairly long naval campaign. I remember all the following questions coming up:

1) What sort of trees can be used to build a ship?
2) How long does it take to build a ship, and how expensive is it?
3) How do ships from different naval eras compare?
4) How long can a ship stay at sea?
5) How long before they need to be replaced?
6) How far can a ship travel in a day?
7) What happens when a ship suffers a 'critical hit', like a large hole below the water line, the rudder being splintered, or the main mast falls down?
8) How far does a ship go off course under different conditions of travel, or different skills of navigator?
9) How long does it take a ship to sink?
10) How long does it take to repair a ship?
11) What sort of spells exist to defend against ship wrecking problems like magical fire? (We personally found it necessary to assume low level rituals were available for making wood and cloth relatively and permenently fireproof, otherwise, romantic ship combat based on sailing vessels just didn't really make sense.)
12) How do ship scale weapons interact with individual creatures? This is important, because you want to be careful that the broadside of a 'ship of the line' whether it be of cannons or mangonels not be something easily trained on a single NPC or medium sized monster. Warships are powerful items to put in the hands of PC's, but they shouldn't be too powerful. First edition had relatively little tools for grappling with this issue, and it was one of the several problems that led me to modify and then abandon the system. Third edition has some obvious tools to pull on. I'm not sure about 4th.

I think abstracting the manuever phases of ship combat is fine, because otherwise you've got to get out protractors, rulers, compasses, and so forth and do some occasional math. 'Hot Pursuit' style abstract chase or combat rules that lend themselves to narration seem ideal for most gaming scenarios. I personally think that you need to approximate 'armor as damage resistance' for sailing vessels regardless of system, as one of the most key elements of pre-guided missile/torpedo naval combat is that larger vessels are relatively immune to the weapons carried by vessels of a smaller class.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The use of deck plans in boarding actions.

Incidental damage to crew/PCs during battle - a cannonball hitting the side of a ship fills the air with shards of broken board, beam, and scantings. Being hit by the ball itself is not much fun either.

Wind actually having an effect on ship movement.

Ditto for the use of skill to come closer to the wind, so that a skilled crew can out maneuver/out distance an identical ship with a less skilled crew.

Morale on ship - with failure leading to desertion or, at an extreme, mutiny.

Long voyages taking a toll on the crew. (A truly astonishing number of crewmen would become ill or perish.)

The use of currents to establish sea routes. (Which leads in turn to triangular trade.)

Trade.

The Auld Grump, the galleon was as much freighter as war ship....

 

[kitsune9]

I'd like to see a good treatment of how spells can be really effective against ships and how ships can defend against them.

When facing off against pirates, an evoker who is armed with fireball will finish off a ship of 1st level warriors or even barbarians from a maximum distance of 600 feet. Actually, the mage doesn't need to target the ship's occupants, just its masts. Cripple the ship and then just circle it while peppering it with other long range spells.

 

[SiderisAnon]

I have run several heavily ship based campaigns. There are a number of things I found lacking in many of the books. To entice me into buying this book, I would suggest making sure you cover the following:

1) Include player magic in the rules completely. Too often naval combat for D&D seems to forget how much damage a single fireball or lightning bolt could do. (Worse are the ones that use a special scale for the ships and include siege weapons for that scale, but then forget to give you any rules for converting spells.)

1b) Include in there things for handling what happens when specific targets are used, like fireballing the sails or lightning bolting the rudder.

2) Have the ships travel at at least semi-realistic speeds and cover semi-realistic distances per day. Bonus if you include some information so that the GM can figure major trade currents in their world.

3) Include some rules to help players modify ships; even better if there are rules for designing and building ships.

4) Include pictures of the ships and accurate descriptions. I can't tell you the number of supplements I've seen where they say something like, "Caraval," and don't include a picture or description so that people are talking about the same type of ship.

5) Include a variety of ships. When there's only three to choose from, things get annoying for the GM. Make sure to include a variety from small fishing to large war or trade galleons.

6) Include realistic canons. Players always want to put canons on their ships for some reason and several rules systems I've bought either ignored them completely or did them in a way that didn't not feel at all satisfying.

7) Information on crew compliments and minimum crews would also be good. I've seen hour long arguments between players on how many people would be aboard a ship; historical references don't agree because it varied so much by time period, so a written rule would simplify things.


Of course, I'd also like to see things like some info on booty from pirated ships, cargo capacity for merchant ships, ideas on how many passengers a ship can hold, and what it costs to keep a ship maintained and supplied, but that's probably asking too much for basic naval rules.