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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Radiating Gnome" data-source="post: 5819502" data-attributes="member: 150">A couple of thoughts:1.  On the subject of building ships: Back in the dark ages, when I did a year of Navy ROTC and was taking naval science classes, there was a concept that I had a terrible time understanding because it wasn't intuitive to me.  But it's a basic law of physics:  the maximum speed of a ship is determined by it's length(it has to do with the bow wave -- the faster you go, the bigger the bow wave you make -- but the bow wave can't be longer than the beam(length) of the ship, or the ship falls in the trough).  The longer the ship, the faster it can potentially go.  That's why clippers were so long and skinny -- that was how they managed to push for greater speed.  I was a kid who had grown up on star wars and wanted small, sprightly ships that could sail circles around bigger ones -- and it's still possible if the bigger ship is not designed for speed -- but if you want a ship to be fast, you make it as long as you can, then pack on as much sail as you can (so you drive it as close as possible to it's limit).  I have no idea if that detail helps in any way. I just can't help myself.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  But in a game where you're still traveling on water -- even with some sort of magical propulsion, if ships are expected to sail on the water then their speed should still be limited by their length -- unless you find a way to circumvent those physical limitations (hyroplanes, hovercraft, etc -- ships that get the hull up out of the water and away from those limitations). 2. I'm a huge fan of the age of fighting sail -- I've read tons of histories, biographies, the Hornblower/Aubrey/etc books and a lot more.  I'd love to set a game in this world.  Having said that, if this supplement includes a ton of player options and new rules -- new feats, new skills, etc -- I'll probably havea very difficult time finding a way to use it in my game.  IMO (and probably just mine) a supplement like this is best as a DM resource -- help the DM create the skill challenges and narratives and encounters and so on -- help him create the game -- but as much as possible do it without requiring new PC options.  Use existing skills, spells, rituals, and so on, as much as is possible.  It's a hard line to take, but the reality is that my game is heavily dependent upon the Character builder (4e game).  If the players need a bunch of custom content from a supplement like this, that means that we can't use the builder to create characters.  And that means that I need to manually check all their hand-made characters. And, call me a lazy good-for-nothing if you like, but that's probably enough of a drag to keep me from using the resource.  Of course, that's probably not going to satisfy most of your readers -- but in that case, you might want to add a section to the book that addresses alternatives to the new player content you create that will suit DMs like me who are too lazy to break away from digital crutches like the character builder. -rg</blockquote>

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