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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5819336" data-attributes="member: 22779">Considering the cost of a ship, not having a caster would be suicidal.  We're talking a several thousand gp investment in a single merchant ship.  Why on earth wouldn't you have a wizard and a cleric on board?  That would be like expecting a castle to not have a wizard and cleric.I used to think that too.  Until I realized that Dispel Magic has a range of Medium (100 feet+10/caster level) and fireball has a range of Long (400 ft+40 feet/caster level).  There's no way that you're going to be able to counter spell with dispel magic.And, at the ranges we're talking about, actual counter spelling is virtually impossible too.  You need to make a Spellcraft check - but, you also need to actually SEE the enemy caster as well.  Good luck seeing that enemy caster in the middle of a ship 700 feet away using a wand.  And that's hoping you actually have the right spells memorized to effectively counterspell.Umm, no?  That would be like a Captain banning cannons on his ship.  Never mind that the actual owner of the ship might have a lot more to say about this than the individual captain, but, also, fireball is likely the least of your worries when an enemy caster can drop Call Lightning from MILES away (depending on edition), summon water or air elementals to absolutely devastate your ship, or simply drop a Wall of Ice in front of you ship and watch your smash into the resulting iceburg.See, that's where it becomes a problem.  As Celebrim rightly points out, D&D magic is not balanced for this kind of game.  The arms race goes into high gear as soon as you put PC's on a ship.  Because, even if you want a low magic game, the PC wizard is going to have an absolute field day because no one else has any defenses against what he can bring to the table.</blockquote>

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