What would you want in a book of naval rules?

[Mercutio01]

This is by no means polished, but I did try to cobble together my own naval ship-to-ship combat rules that were neither too granular nor too abstract. Ship-to-Ship Combat - Online-Roleplaying.community

 

[RangerWickett]

These are some really great comments. They're very helpful. Let me respond to a few.

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.

That's the easy stuff.

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

[MENTION=59816]FitzTheRuke[/MENTION], thanks for the offer. Send me an email at ryanznock@gmail.com, if you could please?

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.)

One thing I'm definitely shooting for is to have the seas and ships be dynamic. Active environments are interesting, and the big benefit of D&D is that our special-effects budget is unlimited.

If you want low-fantasy, fairly-realistic ship adventures where the only 'environmental effects' are smoke and reefs, that's easy, but I also want to cater to groups that desire epic scenes like trying to rescue a ship of souls going down rapids along the Styxian falls, while skeletal sea serpents try to pull you under.

An added wrinkle to all of this is putting in some sort of guideline so GMs can know "is this stuff going to horribly kill the party, provide a daring challenge, or just add some flavor"? I'm not really looking to 'balance' the rules, but just to let the GM understand what 'unbalanced' looks like so he can decide what he's okay with.

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

That would be worth a mention. I imagine most groups would prefer 'high adventure' a la Sinbad or Odysseus, but some guidelines for how to handle privateers and more mercenary parties would be good. I hadn't thought of that. Thank you.

Is this edition specific?[/QUOTE]

What I'm shooting for is a subsystem that is fairly system independent, but which can link into 4e or PF (or 5e?) easily. Ships won't have HP on the same scale as PCs, so you just need a conversion guide to say "1 hull damage is equivalent to X in 4e, Y in PF."

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

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?
9) How long does it take a ship to sink?
11) What sort of spells exist to defend against ship wrecking problems like magical fire?
12) How do ship scale weapons interact with individual creatures?

Some of the ones you list I hadn't thought of, but I do have rules planned for the ones above. And hopefully with the aid of some local naval historians those rules won't be wildly inaccurate. I've done some reading, but I'm hardly an expert.

 

[RangerWickett]

The use of deck plans in boarding actions.

Not sure what you mean about this, other than 'have maps for PCs to look at.'

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.

Got it.

Wind actually having an effect on ship movement.

Ehhhh, this is one of those 'more trouble than I think it's worth' situations. In the span of a normal combat, ships won't move much. The wind will be abstracted for the 'close to combat' and 'chase' rules.

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.)

Good points. Again, I've so far mostly focused on the 'adventure' side of things, and less on the financial. But as motivation and backdrop for adventure, trade's important. And while it's hard to make endurance challenges particularly exciting in an RPG, some guidelines for morale and starvation are in order.

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

I have ideas for this. Similar to how 4e characters have 'weapon' and 'armor' and 'amulet' item slots, I'm pondering giving ships 'weapon' and 'figurehead' and 'masthead' slots, to let you mount items and enchant the whole ship as if it were a character. A typical fishing vessel probably won't have anything, but most merchant vessels would probably invest in fire protection.

The trick is to have rules that protect classic tropes of high seas adventure without going to far. It's not classic to fireball an enemy ship from 800 feet away and kill everyone on deck, but it is classic to occasionally set an enemy ship aflame and battle beneath its burning sails.

 

[SiderisAnon]

I have ideas for this. Similar to how 4e characters have 'weapon' and 'armor' and 'amulet' item slots, I'm pondering giving ships 'weapon' and 'figurehead' and 'masthead' slots, to let you mount items and enchant the whole ship as if it were a character. A typical fishing vessel probably won't have anything, but most merchant vessels would probably invest in fire protection.

I like the slot system.

I created a number of ship-specific magical items during one of my campaigns. Don't forget things like sail enhancements (more speed, fireproofing, weatherproofing), magical wheels or rudders, and things like enchanted cargo holds. Something as simple as keeping the cargo hold from leaking could make a huge difference to a merchant's profits.

This may lead to a ships captained by PCs starting to look like a Christmas tree to Detect Magic, but then so do the PCs so it's probably good that they match.



EDIT: I wanted to add that one of the things that drives me nuts about many supplements is that they focus purely on the PCs and combat. My players and I are all about what would exist for the rest of the world too, especially when it comes to magic. For every +3 Cannon of Fire there's probably several Cargohold of Holding on a merchant vessel so there's taxes to pay for the upkeep of that warship.

 

[Loonook]

I kind of like the idea of "Women and bad luck on the ship"... But I don't think it should be in that manner . Crews should give benefits to their ships based on their overall prowess, unique members, etc. A living magic item mechanic would be fantastic as it gives the ship a unique type of modifier based on its inhabitants, or makes the ship gain an bane or boon based on its trappings. I also think that, rather than individuals, the Crew should be their own character, as they move and act like a Swarm and should be affected by Morale. Crews dissipate whenever a ship sinks, but a Captain may Raise his crew as long as he survives and pays the fee to raise a crew of the same level in any port that can raise such a crew.

Perhaps this could be part of a Crew or Captain based feat. I'm thinking something akin to (pardon my 3.5ish usage and roughing of the idea):

Ship Empathy (Crew, Captain):

Crew Prereq: Crew Level 3, Teamwork: Trusted Hands.
Captain Prereq: Profession (Sailor) 13 ranks, Ship Bond.

Benefit: Any Ship size X or greater gains a Mate Slot. This slot can be filled with anyone who qualifies for a Mate feat.

Ship Bond (Captain Feat):
Prereq: Profession (Sailor) 7 Ranks.

Benefit: Choose one feat (there would need to be some sort of further definition here). If this character is the Captain of the vessel the ship is able to use this feat and assign its bonus to an appropriate item on the ship. The ship must meet all feat prerequisites to take this feat. Ship versions of the same feat take precedence.

Example: The Captain has Toughness. Whenever the Captain is on deck the ship gains Ship Toughness (a feat that gives X HP/size category of the ship or some such).

Teamwork: Trusted Hands (Crew)
Prereq: Profession (Sailor) 3 ranks, Crew Level 1.

Benefits: The Crew provides the Captain with a +2 bonus to Sailing and Survival checks used to navigate. The crew also provides the following options as long as Morale is Fair or better.

Nail the Colors: The Captain may choose to forsake the Ship's Armor Bonus. For every 1 Armor bonus sacrificed in this way the Ship's Damage increases by 1.

Strong Backs/Strong Winds: Once per combat the Ship may make an additional move action. This action moves the Morale decreases Morale by one step if the Crew fails a Profession (Sailor) check (DC: 10 + Current Ship Damage).


Some example Mates:

Brightback, Dolphin of the Iron Sea
(Mate)
Requirements: Alignment: Non-Evil, Wild Empathy OR Born With Gills.
Benefits: Brightback Dolphin of the Iron Seas prevents a Crew from being dissipated if their vessel is scuttled or sunk. Brightback also improves Morale by one rank for every week at sea.


Penny Skyharrow, Mad Weatherwork.
(Mate, Fickle)
Requirements: Crew Level 2, Captain must be able to cast Level 1 Spells.
Benefits: If a ship Penny Skyharrow is placed upon enters combat, it gains Protection from Cannonade on its opening initiative.
Fickle: At any port the Captain must make a Diplomacy check. If passed, Penny Skyharrow will remain. If failed, Penny Skyharrow will stay, but Morale drops by one rank for the next Voyage and may never rise to Perfect.



Morale:
Levels: Perfect, Great, Good, Normal, Fair, Poor, Mutinous.
Treat Morale as the damage the Crew suffers. If the Crew goes to Mutinous all Crew effects are lost, and the Captain must take great care lest he lose his ship... And perhaps more depending on the crew.

Just a microblast... I know it needs some refining but off the top of my head

 

[Nytmare]

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

In a high fantasy game, with an entourage of clerics armed with a silverware drawer full of Murlynd's spoons, would a well funded voyage have to really worry about these things?

 

[Nytmare]

Wickett, it's been a million years since I played it, but did you think about diving into Warhammer's Man O' War to steal bits and pieces? I don't remember much, but the parts that have stuck in my head from 20 years ago were pretty cool.

 

[FreeXenon]

In a higher magic setting this would make sense, however if someone wanted to play a low magic or historical setting (ie viking) stats like that would be very useful.

In a high fantasy game, with an entourage of clerics armed with a silverware drawer full of Murlynd's spoons, would a well funded voyage have to really worry about these things?

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Ehhhh, this is one of those 'more trouble than I think it's worth' situations. In the span of a normal combat, ships won't move much. The wind will be abstracted for the 'close to combat' and 'chase' rules.

Not that I have a useful suggestion on how to accomplish it, but one of my disgruntled reactions to all RPG seafaring rules I have thus far encountered is that they fail to seriously take wind into account. I don't mind it being abstracted and/or stylised somewhat, but I very much want it to be present and affecting decisions--as explicitly wind. (If you want to bundle things like choppy seas into a broader "wind conditions" I can see that working, too.)

I don't see you how keep any fidelity to the romance of sailing fiction without keeping wind at the forefront. Heck, it even affects oared combat, in reality. If you don't have it already, check out "Greek and Roman Naval Warfare" by Rodgers, and/or the companion book covering a larger period in less detail.

 

[zepherusbane]

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.

I think this list covers what I would be looking for too with one more addition. I would like to see character classes/feats/skills etc. too.