Here is an unquestionably valuable source for anyone wishing to get into waterborne adventures:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pYqXrFx6S8&t=1306s
Showing posts with label Waterborne Adventuring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Waterborne Adventuring. Show all posts
Monday, October 28, 2024
How a 16th Century Explorer's Sailing Ship Works
Friday, February 22, 2019
Carracks & Caravels
Two and a half years ago, I was working on a naval combat system, when I was interrupted by life changes and other things. At the time, the project was ballooning in size and keeping track of the wiki pages, as well as what content went on which page, was getting out of hand. I could feel I had bitten off more than I could chew, and that I would have to retreat and reorganize.
This week, between other projects, I've been reviewing my original content and figuring out a better way to manage the complexity of rules and details associated with naval waterborne adventures. It isn't straight forward stuff; there are so many elements at play. But I feel I have a management scheme in place and I have tentatively begun making new pages on the wiki. This Naval Combat page would be the new opening index.
Anything that is tagged "naval warfare" is the old work. The new work is tagged "naval combat." For those visiting the wiki, you may find numerous blank pages; that is because, to keep track, I am creating files in word that mirror files in the wiki, so that I can more easily manage the rules as a single concept as well as isolated wiki pages.
It would seem to be slower, but I think I've got that problem licked also.
I hope to have a practical, rational naval combat system built that anyone can use within a few months, if I can keep my focus. I have built the frame; mostly, at this point, I just need to translate it into a D&D setting.
Somehow, I doubt that anyone would ever use it; or that I will use it. Though I do plan on figuring out how to run a test playing session on the blog at some point.
Working on stuff like this is therapy. We've been going over our financial situation, the money we saved over the last six months and the help we're receiving from Patreon, plus book sales, plus isolated donations and another project I'm not ready to unveil, and it looks like we're going to be fine. So long as nothing goes horribly wrong.
I have you, dear readers, to thank.
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
Ship Movement Over Water
Yesterday, when I said I could move on to other things, I'm sorry if the reader got the impression that I meant I was done with ships.
After much consideration, I have decided that the best method for determining the movement of ships during combat, with respect to battles and naval warfare, is to adopt a simultaneous ship movement chart. It is a convenient fact that a ship moving at 1 knot of speed covers a distance of 20 feet in the space of a combat round (see Naval Hex). This means that a ship moving at 5 knots in a round will travel a distance of 5 naval hexes - which will also mean that combatants taking part in combat between ships will find themselves in situations where they may be very close to an enemy at the beginning of a combat round and 80 feet away at the end of that same round.
Where two ships are moving in relationship to one another, turn-based movement such as is found in ordinary D&D combat simply can't represent the orientation of combatants with respect to one another. Therefore, some sort of simultaneous movement is warranted. This will help manage the ranges between combatants in moving ships.
Moreover, it will also help control problems that arise in "real time" with respect to the manner in which rounds are divided up in my game (see Action Points). The captain gives an order - this is one action point in the game. However, following that order requires the use of every action point the crew has thereafter in order to make the ship turn. At the same time, combatants with action points are as bound during ship combat as any other time by the rules regarding the loading and firing of weapons, with additional time-based rules regarding grappling, ungrappling, reloading siege engines and so on.
Therefore, the "simultaneous" movement of the ship cannot be based upon merely the ship's movement, but upon the one-fifth increments of the combat round in which participants are bound by how much they can do in a set amount of time.
Another aspect of combat that must be managed is initiative. Since the movement of ships precludes the convenience of turn-based combat that usually occurs in D&D, where both the party and the enemy's combat movement (which should be happening simultaneously) can be glossed over for the sake of convenience. Such is not the case with ship combat, since the surface of the combat is itself moving (in multiple directions). Whereas boarding battles can still be worked out according to the turn-based system (since the surface isn't moving for the combatants) - for simplicity - outside influences on those battles and missiles fired between combatants have to be staggered through the round. See below for an explanation for this.
Let's look first at the movement chart for ships each fifth of a round, based on the ship's movement according to it's attitude (the direction of the ship in relation to the direction of the wind). This is the sort of chart well known to table-top wargamers.
The numbers on the right indicate the number of naval hexes that all ships move in the AP segment of the round. Thus a ship with a speed (whatever that might be according to the ship's attitude) of 4 knots would not move during the first segment; it would then move in every segment of the round thereafter. A ship with a speed of 7 knots would move 2 naval hexes in the 3 AP segment and 1 naval hex in the 4 AP segment and so on.
Where determining the initiative between combatants hurling or firing missiles against each other, the starting segment of the two sides is staggered. Whereas the combatants who have won initiate begin counting their movement (and firing of missiles) from the first column (1 AP), the enemy begins counting from the 4th column (4 AP). Here is a comparison between the two groups:
Imagine that we have two ships moving towards one another and that it is the first segment of the initiative-winning party. Caleb, aboard one ship, has just finished loading his light crossbow (which took all the previous round) and now intends to fire. He cannot fire in the first AP, however, because it requires 2 AP for him to pick his target and fire his weapon (see the action point page again). By then, the ships will likely have changed their orientation with one another; therefore, when the 2 AP column for ship movement has been resolved, Caleb may say that he'd rather wait: the other ship may be moving closer or the turn of a ship may be bringing his ship into a better line of sight with an artillerist crew on the other ship vigorously working to load a ballista. He may therefore hold off on firing until the 3rd AP, the 4th AP or even the 5th AP. However, just as the actions of one round are never carried over into the next round (all rounds are separate and distinct actions), adopting this staggered rule does not change any previous rule of combat engagement. Caleb cannot hold his shot over until the 1 AP of the next round! If he does not fire his weapon in the time he has, he is judged to have lost his focus and not fired at all, meaning that he must begin the next round exactly as all rounds have always begun since the beginning of turn-based combat: from scratch.
Players are very likely to argue this rule: but I am adamant that they understand that the staggering of the combat rounds has nothing whatsoever to do with breaking all future combats into segments for a grittier management of time (which I can do without). It is strictly intended to compensate for battle fire during ship movement. Period.
If Caleb does hold off until the 5th segment of his round to fire, it should be noted that this will be the 2nd segment of the enemy - and that it will appear that the enemy will be able to fire simultaneously with Caleb. Again, no. Fundamentally, I don't intend to change the turn based system with regards to the order of combat - only with regards to the movement of the ships. Therefore, no matter what comparisons may be made between the one staggered set of combat rounds vs. their opponents, all attacks for one side should be considered to have happenedbefore the other side's fire is resolved. Yes, this will mean that an enemy that waits until AP 5 will be considered to have happened before a player firing in AP 2. This is not a result of travelling back in time - but in making the best of a difficult system that we don't want to solve by making it grittier still. For the most part, since we are only talking about missile combat, we can simply assume that both missiles are in the air at the same time, with the power to designate which one hits its target first.
At the same time, it must also be acknowledged that, in normal turn-based combat, when players choose not to use their AP in the time they have remaining to them in a given round, those AP are lost. This should not change with regards to combat at sea.
See Naval Warfare for the complete status of my ship rules so far.
The numbers on the right indicate the number of naval hexes that all ships move in the AP segment of the round. Thus a ship with a speed (whatever that might be according to the ship's attitude) of 4 knots would not move during the first segment; it would then move in every segment of the round thereafter. A ship with a speed of 7 knots would move 2 naval hexes in the 3 AP segment and 1 naval hex in the 4 AP segment and so on.
Where determining the initiative between combatants hurling or firing missiles against each other, the starting segment of the two sides is staggered. Whereas the combatants who have won initiate begin counting their movement (and firing of missiles) from the first column (1 AP), the enemy begins counting from the 4th column (4 AP). Here is a comparison between the two groups:
Players are very likely to argue this rule: but I am adamant that they understand that the staggering of the combat rounds has nothing whatsoever to do with breaking all future combats into segments for a grittier management of time (which I can do without). It is strictly intended to compensate for battle fire during ship movement. Period.
If Caleb does hold off until the 5th segment of his round to fire, it should be noted that this will be the 2nd segment of the enemy - and that it will appear that the enemy will be able to fire simultaneously with Caleb. Again, no. Fundamentally, I don't intend to change the turn based system with regards to the order of combat - only with regards to the movement of the ships. Therefore, no matter what comparisons may be made between the one staggered set of combat rounds vs. their opponents, all attacks for one side should be considered to have happenedbefore the other side's fire is resolved. Yes, this will mean that an enemy that waits until AP 5 will be considered to have happened before a player firing in AP 2. This is not a result of travelling back in time - but in making the best of a difficult system that we don't want to solve by making it grittier still. For the most part, since we are only talking about missile combat, we can simply assume that both missiles are in the air at the same time, with the power to designate which one hits its target first.
At the same time, it must also be acknowledged that, in normal turn-based combat, when players choose not to use their AP in the time they have remaining to them in a given round, those AP are lost. This should not change with regards to combat at sea.
See Naval Warfare for the complete status of my ship rules so far.
Tuesday, June 7, 2016
Hiring the Ship's Crew
None of this describes hiring a crew, however, or what quality the crew will be. It can be annoying to go through the process of making up individuals for a ship one by one, trying to figure out how a collection of 20 or 30 people determines what a "green" crew is versus a "poor" one.
So, in the interest of making players happy, I suggest these two tables:
So, in the interest of making players happy, I suggest these two tables:
Here I am arguing the principle that the difference between finding a good crew member (or hireling) and a bad crew member is a matter of choice. Taking a longer period of time to look over prospects, being more diligent in finding people and letting the word spread that there are serious ship-owners looking for good people helps spread the word around, enabling the ship owners a greater variety of possible crew members - and consequently, a higher quality of crew and individuals. It is recommended that the player roll on the bottom table to find the overall crew's quality . . . and then, as necessary, individual members of the crew can be determined from how long it took to find them.
I am somewhat reticent about there being any chance of finding a hireling with +5 in all personality traits, even with a year of searching. There's only 1 such person in 46,656. In my world of 237 million in population, that's only 5,019 persons. How many of those are ship captains? Still, we are talking about 36 continuous years of searching in order to ensure odds of finding such an individual and this is a fantasy world - some concessions can be made for party luck and unusual benefit. As such, even though it defies logic, I'm letting it stand.
I feel the need to point out that individuals of the -5 shell are not the same as the +5 shell. The shells are arranged (see the previous post) so that a person with traits of +3, +4 and -5 would be in the -5 shell because the minimum trait they possess is -5, and not because all their traits are at -5.
This settles my needs for crew acquisition for the present. The players have a means of obtaining a particular crew, they have a clear idea of what the individuals might be like, they know what a crew of various levels can accomplish and we have the necessary details for managing the rules I've made for naval warfare so far. I can now move onto other things.
Monday, June 6, 2016
Hiring Hirelings
Next problem.
I think I've got a fair handle on the effectiveness of crew quality on the turning of ships. This brings us to the question of how to determine the crew's quality? How do characters know how qualified their crews are? It isn't enough to just say that a captain knows what weaknesses and failings the crew might have, because that is provably not true. Outright mutinies are rare, admittedly, but individual discipline for individual crew disobedience or incompetence is not, nor is it rare that either causes the loss of equipment, time, battles and life. Often it can be quite innocent: consider the message of this folk song.
At best, we can guess at the quality of a crew and accept that often we have to take those with less than ideal skills/personalities because of circumstances - i.e., not enough of the kind of labour we'd like.
Let's come back around to the database of traits I had proposed last week. I was screwing around this morning with combinations this morning, starting from a premise that created this table:
Remember from the earlier post, if we set the number 7 on 2d6 as zero, then the best possible result is +5 with boxcars and -5 with snake eyes. Taking 3d6 to determine our x, y and z axes (regardless of what personality traits those three rolls give us), then we have 46,656 possible combinations that, together, will add up to a number between -15 and 15. On the table, the numbers show the possible combinations that get a positive or negative result in that range.
It's interesting, but it also means that someone whose first two traits are +4 and +5 can have a trait that's -5 . . . which produces a sum of 4 overall but doesn't make that person a desirable person. Such a person is potentially capable and cheerful, but they might be intensely dishonest; or they might be a very positive person and be scrupulously honest, yet be hopelessly unqualified at everything.
For the record, I am rethinking the original three traits that I proposed with my first post on this plotting traits' concept. I think perhaps we can wrap competency and experience together; we can take honesty as a second axis; this then gives room for the person's nature: are they, by and large, positive or negative? Friendly or taciturn? Genuinely helpful or self-serving. A person may easily be completely honest and yet unfriendly; or a person could be very positive and yet profoundly dishonest. This eliminates the conflicting ideas of a person being experienced and yet unskilled (which happens, but seems 'wrong' at first glance).
What's really wanted are three traits that can't be accounted for in the character's ability stats. Are intelligent people necessarily capable? Are charismatic people necessarily friendly? Are wise people necessarily honest? I don't think so. There are familiar associations we make between these things, but it is easy to imagine an educated dishonest person or a hateful, charismatic demagogue, and certainly a smart person who seems to fuck up all the time (personally, I only need a mirror for this last one).
So I reconsidered the organization of the personality traits, to get a better handle on who might hold a given position/role/responsibility in a vocational framework. Towards this end, I imagined that we might organize these traits as a series of "shells." The first shell would be occupied by the 1 in 46,656 persons who had +5 on all three axes. Progressing outwards, each successive shell would include those persons who had a minumum of +4 in each axes, +3 in each, +2 in each and so on (always including those of the smaller shells). This produced this table:
Note that persons without any negative traits consists of less than 20% of the total population. This makes it virtually impossible to run any sort of entity without at least a third of your people having negative traits and another third having really bad negative traits - that you have to take on because you can't run a big concern without having to hire a lot of people. If we consider that 10% of the population being unemployed is a bad thing, from the numbers above we have to consider that more than 10% of the working population are people with a -4 personality in something: either they're incompetent, dishonesty or naturally cruel, vengeful, jealous or greedy (pick the deadly sin). This is a sobering thought.
We need 30 or 40 sailors to serve aboard our frigate; we don't know the market city where we're hiring our crew because, like most adventurers, we're far from home. It's a port town and most of the town already has a job. Those that don't, who are trying to get on as sailors, have probably worked for someone before if they're at least competent enough to know one end of a rope from the other. Some of those will be looking for work after visiting their poor, dear mother for a month inland, but most of them are going to be people who were turfed when the ship they served aboard reached port. And now they want to hire on with us.
In the last few posts, I've used the Wooden Ships & Iron Men designations of poor, green and average designations for crew. It's very important that we don't see "poor" as meaning less experienced or able that "green." A green crew has an excuse: they haven't shipped out together, not for long anyway, they're young, they haven't had a chance to become experienced. A poor crew are a bunch of miserable, brooding, unscrupulous malignant and potentially hostile misanthropes, whose miserable speed at turning the ship around has less to do with inability as it does with willful disobedience or apathy.
And these are the sort that will get hired, even if we don't want them.
Thing is, for the interview, they'll trick us into thinking they're merely second-rate and not third-rate hirelings. We need a table that a) determines how many of these we'll get; b) how likely we'll be able to detect them with our own experience; c) how spells like penetrate disguise or know intent will work in this context; and d) how much will such people of each personality shell will cost.
As yet, I don't have this table. I'm thinking on it. I know that morale will figure in the mix . . . and I'm also thinking about practical rules for changing people's personalities and behaviours.
I know that last will seem, well, inappropriate. But there are some institutions that specialize in making persons see the world in a different light, adapting them to becoming more decent, more reliable, more effective as participants in ventures of every kind. Some of these institutions fail miserably at it, but it seems to me that evidence of some success means that success is possible. Therefore, rules ought to exist that will enable us to redirect an individual's cynicism, clumsiness and calumny to make them a more effective hireling.
I think I've got a fair handle on the effectiveness of crew quality on the turning of ships. This brings us to the question of how to determine the crew's quality? How do characters know how qualified their crews are? It isn't enough to just say that a captain knows what weaknesses and failings the crew might have, because that is provably not true. Outright mutinies are rare, admittedly, but individual discipline for individual crew disobedience or incompetence is not, nor is it rare that either causes the loss of equipment, time, battles and life. Often it can be quite innocent: consider the message of this folk song.
At best, we can guess at the quality of a crew and accept that often we have to take those with less than ideal skills/personalities because of circumstances - i.e., not enough of the kind of labour we'd like.
Let's come back around to the database of traits I had proposed last week. I was screwing around this morning with combinations this morning, starting from a premise that created this table:
Remember from the earlier post, if we set the number 7 on 2d6 as zero, then the best possible result is +5 with boxcars and -5 with snake eyes. Taking 3d6 to determine our x, y and z axes (regardless of what personality traits those three rolls give us), then we have 46,656 possible combinations that, together, will add up to a number between -15 and 15. On the table, the numbers show the possible combinations that get a positive or negative result in that range.
It's interesting, but it also means that someone whose first two traits are +4 and +5 can have a trait that's -5 . . . which produces a sum of 4 overall but doesn't make that person a desirable person. Such a person is potentially capable and cheerful, but they might be intensely dishonest; or they might be a very positive person and be scrupulously honest, yet be hopelessly unqualified at everything.
For the record, I am rethinking the original three traits that I proposed with my first post on this plotting traits' concept. I think perhaps we can wrap competency and experience together; we can take honesty as a second axis; this then gives room for the person's nature: are they, by and large, positive or negative? Friendly or taciturn? Genuinely helpful or self-serving. A person may easily be completely honest and yet unfriendly; or a person could be very positive and yet profoundly dishonest. This eliminates the conflicting ideas of a person being experienced and yet unskilled (which happens, but seems 'wrong' at first glance).
What's really wanted are three traits that can't be accounted for in the character's ability stats. Are intelligent people necessarily capable? Are charismatic people necessarily friendly? Are wise people necessarily honest? I don't think so. There are familiar associations we make between these things, but it is easy to imagine an educated dishonest person or a hateful, charismatic demagogue, and certainly a smart person who seems to fuck up all the time (personally, I only need a mirror for this last one).
So I reconsidered the organization of the personality traits, to get a better handle on who might hold a given position/role/responsibility in a vocational framework. Towards this end, I imagined that we might organize these traits as a series of "shells." The first shell would be occupied by the 1 in 46,656 persons who had +5 on all three axes. Progressing outwards, each successive shell would include those persons who had a minumum of +4 in each axes, +3 in each, +2 in each and so on (always including those of the smaller shells). This produced this table:
Note that persons without any negative traits consists of less than 20% of the total population. This makes it virtually impossible to run any sort of entity without at least a third of your people having negative traits and another third having really bad negative traits - that you have to take on because you can't run a big concern without having to hire a lot of people. If we consider that 10% of the population being unemployed is a bad thing, from the numbers above we have to consider that more than 10% of the working population are people with a -4 personality in something: either they're incompetent, dishonesty or naturally cruel, vengeful, jealous or greedy (pick the deadly sin). This is a sobering thought.
We need 30 or 40 sailors to serve aboard our frigate; we don't know the market city where we're hiring our crew because, like most adventurers, we're far from home. It's a port town and most of the town already has a job. Those that don't, who are trying to get on as sailors, have probably worked for someone before if they're at least competent enough to know one end of a rope from the other. Some of those will be looking for work after visiting their poor, dear mother for a month inland, but most of them are going to be people who were turfed when the ship they served aboard reached port. And now they want to hire on with us.
In the last few posts, I've used the Wooden Ships & Iron Men designations of poor, green and average designations for crew. It's very important that we don't see "poor" as meaning less experienced or able that "green." A green crew has an excuse: they haven't shipped out together, not for long anyway, they're young, they haven't had a chance to become experienced. A poor crew are a bunch of miserable, brooding, unscrupulous malignant and potentially hostile misanthropes, whose miserable speed at turning the ship around has less to do with inability as it does with willful disobedience or apathy.
And these are the sort that will get hired, even if we don't want them.
Thing is, for the interview, they'll trick us into thinking they're merely second-rate and not third-rate hirelings. We need a table that a) determines how many of these we'll get; b) how likely we'll be able to detect them with our own experience; c) how spells like penetrate disguise or know intent will work in this context; and d) how much will such people of each personality shell will cost.
As yet, I don't have this table. I'm thinking on it. I know that morale will figure in the mix . . . and I'm also thinking about practical rules for changing people's personalities and behaviours.
I know that last will seem, well, inappropriate. But there are some institutions that specialize in making persons see the world in a different light, adapting them to becoming more decent, more reliable, more effective as participants in ventures of every kind. Some of these institutions fail miserably at it, but it seems to me that evidence of some success means that success is possible. Therefore, rules ought to exist that will enable us to redirect an individual's cynicism, clumsiness and calumny to make them a more effective hireling.
Sunday, June 5, 2016
Ship Turn Management
Fun, fun, fun.
Answering suggestions on this post about turning ships, I have created an excel generator. It can be downloaded from the wiki.
Basically, it does what was proposed. We take a random number of total rounds needed to adjust the ship's attitude to the wind (turning it) and separate the die from the base number. For example, d12+12. We then assume the ship will need at least 12 rounds before it has any chance of making the turn; then, each round after that, we make a random roll, based on the d12 roll we were originally going to add to 12.
Only, I made the generator so that the yare and the crew quality can be chosen and the table works out the remaining calculation automatically:
I've then set it up for at least two ships, the Wastrel and the Markwor. More ships can be added by copying the columns. It's a bit tricky, because the index function has to be updated - copy and paste alone won't work - this video will help acquaint the reader with the match and index functions.
In the example, the Wastrel has a yare of B and an average crew. Its minimum rounds to turn before adding a random die is 4; it is guaranteed to finish its turn in 6 rounds - and the way I've highlighted the table shows that it has already tried three times without success (highlighted orange). The Markwor is a big slow vessel that's going to have trouble on account of its crew: it has tried once to make a turn. Still, as suggested, we have the chance of the Markwor making that critical turn and the Wastrel failing.
For those who insist on using paper, the tables can always be printed up and then the turns crossed off as attempted.
I trust this works for the gentle reader.
Answering suggestions on this post about turning ships, I have created an excel generator. It can be downloaded from the wiki.
Basically, it does what was proposed. We take a random number of total rounds needed to adjust the ship's attitude to the wind (turning it) and separate the die from the base number. For example, d12+12. We then assume the ship will need at least 12 rounds before it has any chance of making the turn; then, each round after that, we make a random roll, based on the d12 roll we were originally going to add to 12.
Only, I made the generator so that the yare and the crew quality can be chosen and the table works out the remaining calculation automatically:
I've then set it up for at least two ships, the Wastrel and the Markwor. More ships can be added by copying the columns. It's a bit tricky, because the index function has to be updated - copy and paste alone won't work - this video will help acquaint the reader with the match and index functions.
In the example, the Wastrel has a yare of B and an average crew. Its minimum rounds to turn before adding a random die is 4; it is guaranteed to finish its turn in 6 rounds - and the way I've highlighted the table shows that it has already tried three times without success (highlighted orange). The Markwor is a big slow vessel that's going to have trouble on account of its crew: it has tried once to make a turn. Still, as suggested, we have the chance of the Markwor making that critical turn and the Wastrel failing.
For those who insist on using paper, the tables can always be printed up and then the turns crossed off as attempted.
I trust this works for the gentle reader.
Sailing Questions
Are there any sailors in the audience today? If there are, I'd like to ask some questions please. I have my theories but sailing is not my thing and I'd like some confirmation if it is available.
We are in a sailboat that is reaching to port. We'd like to change the attitude of the vessel so that it is reaching to starboard. I think it is called 'through the eye of the wind.'
I apologize for not having the right terms or for being too vague, if that's the case. These are questions to which I cannot find answers on the net.
We are in a sailboat that is reaching to port. We'd like to change the attitude of the vessel so that it is reaching to starboard. I think it is called 'through the eye of the wind.'
1. Does this require setting the sail/boat more than once, or is it a single change to make the sailboat come about?
2. Is this more difficult than changing from close-hauling towards port to close-hauling towards starboard?
3. Does it require more than one adjustment when doing it with a much larger sailboat? Do mistakes get made when passing through the eye of the wind that leaves the sailboat - I don't know the term - 'stranded' with its head to the wind?
4. If a good crew aboard a big sailboat requires ninety seconds to tack from port to starboard, how much less time would it take to change the boat's attitude from reaching to closehauling on the same general heading or from running to reaching?
I apologize for not having the right terms or for being too vague, if that's the case. These are questions to which I cannot find answers on the net.
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Wind & Turning
I think I've solved the wind problem. My copy of Wooden Ships & Iron Men (WSIM) refers to a "Wind Effects Table" that is supposed to explain the effect of various windspeeds on ships. That table does not exist anywhere in the rules booklet. I downloaded the pdf booklet from Hasbro and nope, not there. Publisher error.
So I've built my own. This enables me to get a different number of knots for ship movement under full sail and battle sail, running, reaching or close-hauling the wind (it's always zero against a headwind). Here's my table for my basic ship types:
We can just say the minimum time, 10 seconds, equals 1 round. Using my system, 8 minutes is equal to 40 rounds.
We can then couple this information with the five melee strengths from WSIM's system: Elite, Crack, Average, Green and Poor. A ship wants to make a port turn: the order is given and the crew jumps into action. How long does it take?
We can establish a "poor"crew as one that takes 21-40 rounds to succeed in making the turn. Then, in turn, we can say that a "green" crew takes 11-20 rounds, an "average" crew takes 6-10 rounds, a "crack" crew takes 4-5 rounds and an "elite" crew can do it in 1-3 rounds.
We can overlap these: poor, 21-40; green, 11-22; average, 6-13; crack, 4-7; elite, 1-4. Or whatever adjustment to those numbers that works for us.
The yare of the ship can then affect these numbers. We can establish a yare of A as 60% of these numbers we've already given; a yare of B at 80%; a yare of C as 100%; and a yare of D as 120%. That gives us this potential table:
That is simple enough. It's going to take about the same amount of time for a crack crew to drag the frigate around than an average crew with a yawl. There's enough play in the comparison, even between a green crew that could get lucky with a sambuk or a yawl to outmanueuver a crack crew with a frigate - remembering that if a yawl, a baghla or a sambuk can get their attitude to the wind right, there's no way a frigate can catch them at any speed.
On the other hand, if that frigate - with even an average crew - is bearing down on a yawl with a poor crew that's already close-hauling into the wind (see image below), that's a full turn the yawl has to make before it can sail faster than the frigate. If the frigate is coming at it more or less head on, the yawl has to swing around 180 degrees - which is three full ship turns: somewhere between 39 to 72 rounds, during which time the frigate can cover a distance of a mile and half. How is a frigate going to catch a very fast ship? Coming from around a headland or in bad weather, picking its target.
But, all this is to propose a question.
Everyone hates having to keep track of this sort of thing in a game. The ship is going to turn in 9 rounds? Jeez. Annoyance, much?
Should I just change the above table to a set of percentages? A yawl with an average crew has a 1 in 7 chance of turning a ship this round; a caravel with a green crew has a 1 in 22 chance. And so on. Then there's no tedious record-keeping. The characters roll and if the roll comes out, the ship turns.
It isn't "better." In a lot of ways, it's way worse. Injecting luck to this degree into the system will mess with it in a number of ways. But it is far, far easier to manage in game.
Thoughts?
So I've built my own. This enables me to get a different number of knots for ship movement under full sail and battle sail, running, reaching or close-hauling the wind (it's always zero against a headwind). Here's my table for my basic ship types:
I have it sorted out that I can expand this table if I want to add more ships (ketches, bigger frigates, galleons, whatever).
I'm adding "yare" (a ship's speed and ability) in order to establish what the crew is fighting against with regards to moving the ship from one direction to another. If I go back to the Broadsides link (I really have no other source at all), I find this description under Commands: Turn to Port:
"Ship turns to port after a delay of 10 seconds to 8 minutes of game time. For the Arcade version the delay is 50 seconds. For the Tactical version the standard delay can be set anywhere between 10 seconds and 8 minutes. See sections 5.3 and 2.4 for more informa tion. Excessive damage to the rigging or hull will slow a ship's turning speed (over 50 hull points lost or 50% rigging damage). Additional damage will continue to slow a ship's turn rate."
We can just say the minimum time, 10 seconds, equals 1 round. Using my system, 8 minutes is equal to 40 rounds.
We can then couple this information with the five melee strengths from WSIM's system: Elite, Crack, Average, Green and Poor. A ship wants to make a port turn: the order is given and the crew jumps into action. How long does it take?
We can establish a "poor"crew as one that takes 21-40 rounds to succeed in making the turn. Then, in turn, we can say that a "green" crew takes 11-20 rounds, an "average" crew takes 6-10 rounds, a "crack" crew takes 4-5 rounds and an "elite" crew can do it in 1-3 rounds.
We can overlap these: poor, 21-40; green, 11-22; average, 6-13; crack, 4-7; elite, 1-4. Or whatever adjustment to those numbers that works for us.
The yare of the ship can then affect these numbers. We can establish a yare of A as 60% of these numbers we've already given; a yare of B at 80%; a yare of C as 100%; and a yare of D as 120%. That gives us this potential table:
That is simple enough. It's going to take about the same amount of time for a crack crew to drag the frigate around than an average crew with a yawl. There's enough play in the comparison, even between a green crew that could get lucky with a sambuk or a yawl to outmanueuver a crack crew with a frigate - remembering that if a yawl, a baghla or a sambuk can get their attitude to the wind right, there's no way a frigate can catch them at any speed.
On the other hand, if that frigate - with even an average crew - is bearing down on a yawl with a poor crew that's already close-hauling into the wind (see image below), that's a full turn the yawl has to make before it can sail faster than the frigate. If the frigate is coming at it more or less head on, the yawl has to swing around 180 degrees - which is three full ship turns: somewhere between 39 to 72 rounds, during which time the frigate can cover a distance of a mile and half. How is a frigate going to catch a very fast ship? Coming from around a headland or in bad weather, picking its target.
But, all this is to propose a question.
Everyone hates having to keep track of this sort of thing in a game. The ship is going to turn in 9 rounds? Jeez. Annoyance, much?
Should I just change the above table to a set of percentages? A yawl with an average crew has a 1 in 7 chance of turning a ship this round; a caravel with a green crew has a 1 in 22 chance. And so on. Then there's no tedious record-keeping. The characters roll and if the roll comes out, the ship turns.
It isn't "better." In a lot of ways, it's way worse. Injecting luck to this degree into the system will mess with it in a number of ways. But it is far, far easier to manage in game.
Thoughts?
More Ship Notes
On the last post, there were a number of concerns brought up about ship travel, particularly with regards to DM fiat and the lack of clarity where ship rules were concerned. Samuel Kernan brought together a bunch of points and I'd like to address them positively, one by one:
Let me start by saying that waterborne adventures are definitely the thing for high-level characters - and it should be. Using my own group as a template, there are assorted magical items among the group like boots of levitation, wings of flying, potions of water breathing and so on that would help tremendously in times of crisis. Moreover, most of these characters can produce a kind of signal and can be located and saved through spells . . . and if anyone is really in trouble, the 11th level druid can turn into a great big animal of some kind and pull them out of the water, even during the worst storm. In a fantasy world, we must begin by acknowledging that once characters have achieved a certain level, most of the traditional horrors of total-party-kills at sea are highly improbable.
But let me address Kernan's concerns, because they do apply to everyone.
Sea Lanes versus Pirate Waters. Here, once again, my trade tables come to the rescue. I have already created sea lanes for ships in my world - and in doing so I was immediately struck by the potential for identifying encounters at sea. However, I couldn't argue that a sea lane would be "pirate free" - it follows that the pirates will go where the plunder is. Still, a good captain should know what ships are going to be taking that route both ahead and behind the player's ship, so that the ship can catch up with naval patrols or hang back to ride close to the convoy that should have left a day later. Player ships can even join convoys, perhaps free or for a fee, if players are prepared to wait for the right day. Those things would be true of sea lanes and would provide protection.
Off sea lanes, however, one shouldn't suppose they're particularly dangerous. After all, pirates won't be hunting there, since they have no expectations - and it is a lot like being a mugger and targeting people who have money. If you dress in a particular way, have a particular walk, show particular signs of being too much trouble while probably not having a lot to be stolen, you can walk right by a mugger and they'll even say hello. A ship that is off route, even one sitting low in the water, is probably carrying grains or mineral ores that don't make good plunder. That might be mitigated if the ship is known to the pirates (they do their research too) or if it has been damaged in a storm, so that it is plain why the ship is off-route. But it isn't as simple as trade-route good, non-route bad. There are many factors to consider.
Storms. Yes, I am adamant about building rules that will force crew to manage the ship at all times, not just during battle (and not just during storms, either). But I've been arguing that about land travel, too. I'm just waiting for the necessary epiphany that will give me the formula that will combine everyday travel damage with character agency (decision making) so that it isn't just arbitrary damage. It is easy enough to punish people for entering a wilderness (including an open sea) - it is much harder to build those rules so that the players have some control over the results. It is in the mental planning stage.
I really want to get rid of the "randomness" that Kernan refers to in sea travel. This phrase: "Sometimes a big storm catches you in the right place and it is all over" is telling. Truth is, storms that swallow up whole ships without a sign are really, really rare. Even a yawl is a profoundly big mass of wood and air bubble, making it very hard to sink. Storms have always come along that were able to completely decimate ships as big as a Spanish galleon - but ten thousand ships could brave a hundred storms each and only one or two actually go down with all hands. That is why tales of specific ships that did go down gain status. It sounds appropriate, but a game table that describes the storm effects on a vessel shouldn't even include "ship sinks." The ship probably won't. The real danger is that a lone person will be swept off and no one will even know that it has happened - that is where most loss of life actually occurred. Yet this can be controlled if the party is high level, as I've said.
The chief concern the players should have with storm damage isn't a TPK but rather the cost of repairing the ship afterwards. Everyone of high level will probably survive the storm; they will probably limp into the nearest port on three sails they had stored below decks. But they may also be stuck for months in some backwater like Liberia or Nicaragua while they wait for their ship to be repaired, with devastating cost with local materials and poor skills (which may require another refit once they've reached a proper port). A really bad storm could cost then tens of thousands of gold pieces - which is upsetting but not on the level of everyone is now dead.
Kernan has the right idea: we want the players to have choices like changing their route, choosing the season, dumping cargo and so on. This only works, however, if the consequences are equal to the decisions. If I had a rule on land that if a character decided to go off-road, there was an automatic 1 in 100 chance that they would trip on a root and spike themselves in the throat on a young tree that had been chewed off by a beaver, no one would ever think that was deserved. We should always view anything we put on a random table, no matter how unlikely, as something we intend to do to the party. If there is any chance that the time comes and we realize that, no, that's not a reasonable consequence in a game, making us forego using it and rolling the die again, we shouldn't put in on the table.
I may conceivably drown a whole party with a ship - but it will happen because thing after thing went wrong, making it so obvious that it has to happen that we're all nodding our heads around the table: "Wow, can you believe this actually happened?" It won't be a random result on a table.
Winston Rowntree made a really good point about this with air travel, regarding a 'perfect storm' that came together with the runway collision at Tenerife in 1977:
So, yeah. It does come back to the arbitrariness of DMs, who if they were creating a role-playing game based on world air travel, would be sure to include on their d100 table that "00" = "Runway collision - everyone dies." This is the sort of extremely poor understanding of odds that insists that the most interesting result possible must have a reasonable chance of occurring in an RPG. This leads to Kernan making the very reasonable observation that he doesn't want his whole party dying at sea.
That observation, however, is a learned experience from playing too many RPGs and video games, repeated from older grognard to green DM from decade to decade. Sometimes the apprentice system really chokes.
Friday, June 3, 2016
Ship Notes
In a few hours I'm going to be doing my first class in Dungeon Mastering. To fill up the time until then, I'm going out some of my recent thoughts regarding sea battles and how I'd like to shape the system to fit D&D.
To start with, yesterday I was asked in a comment about fire aboard ships. I've looked through the rules for wooden ships and iron men and there are no rules for fire. There are rules about explosions, but that is because the game is meant to account for ship battles between 1770 and 1825, when everything is cannon and gunfire. I'm building a ship system that makes no sense historically, as some features in it will be based upon the pre-cannon era while others are completely 17th century. Still, it works for my world and for my magic-based D&D. That's all that matters.
Obviously, there are a number of mages able to set a ship ablaze - so fire is bound to come up. Thankfully, I wrote rules for fires spreading about a year ago, when I invented the 4th level druid spell, create wildfire. I talk about that with this post. From those rules, we can start with a 5-foot wide fire and work out the destruction in short order.
But the reader should stop and think, first: do you really want to start a fire on board an enemy ship? Yes, undoubtedly it will have the deleterious effect you're looking for, but it will also burn up property that is potentially worth 10s of thousands of gold pieces to you.
In an all out ship battle, involving dozens, even hundreds of ships, this makes sense. When the Byzantines employed "Greek fire," it was at times when the Empire was fighting for their lives, usually against a much more powerful foe. Most D&D ship combats would not be mass ship battles, however. It will be the players acting as pirates and seeking plunder or it will be players defending their ship against a pirate.
If the players are pirates, there's a very good chance that the quarry will try to burn the player's ship: they are not seeking plunder, but only to get away, so if the pirate's vessel burns and goes down, no great loss. But the reverse? Try to imagine that your first strategy in stealing a car is to pour gasoline all over it and set it alight. The more pristine the ship that the players take, the greater the treasure. That is why pirates preferred to board, rather than to blow the hell out of their quarry.
Now, I wrote on the wiki that boarding is a very bad idea most of the time. You grapple with the enemy ship and in the process you expend crewmembers in killing crewmembers. Worst of all, while you're boarding, there's always the chance that a brilliant sailor on your side will be killed by some dumb thug on their side. Of course, this is never a consideration in a war game: in a war game, every participant in the battle has the same value. You count your sailors, you count what your ship and the plundered ship need to be sailed and you divide up.
But I'd like a crew quality system for D&D that doesn't work like a war game. War games like Wooden Ships & Iron Men, which I'm melding with D&D, usually work on a time-based system where one turn would take minutes. I can't figure out how large a hex is supposed to be in WSIM, but given the actions that are taken in the game and the size of the ships, I would guess somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 meters. I want a ship-battle system that takes place in the same time frame as ordinary combat in D&D (I use 12-second rounds). This creates problems.
I found out that - with serendipity - that a ship moving 1 knot will travel 20 feet in the space of 12 seconds. That is simply . . . wow, just convenient. Therefore, I plan to move my ships on a 20-foot hex map, while employing a 5-foot hex map when ships grapple and straightforward combat ensues. The 5-foot hex is the same map I used for this goblin battle. This makes it easy to work out the range of game missiles from daggers to bows and apply them to the 20 foot hex; so that when ships are three hexes apart, they're actually near enough that a dagger can be thrown between them (with a -5 to hit and a probability that the dagger will end up in the sea, but what the hey).
However, because a ship doesn't have minutes to turn, it has only 12 seconds to make up its mind to do so, part of the game I'm planning is to create limitations on how effectively and speedily a ship can change its direction. Right now, I can't even find out how long it takes for a modern ship to swing from port tack to starboard; I have no idea at all how long it takes a Constitution class ship to do it or a 15th century caravel. I'm able to find comments like, "tacks may be required every few minutes," but nothing whatsoever about how long it takes to tack. I may be reduced to making guesses based on bad movies like Wind, which includes scenes where tacking is accomplished. I was able to find this post about a video game called Broadsides, but I don't know how accurate it is.
I know virtually nothing about sailing from a technical standpoint; I would guess that a small boat could probably change tacks in a few seconds. Somehow I think a many masted vessel would require more time than one combat round. More importantly, I think there would probably be some doubt as to whether the tack would take this round . . . or the next.
Here's the real horrorshow of the system I imagine, from a player's point of view. To me, it isn't just a matter of skipping around on a battlefield that happens to be made of water. On land, the characters can turn and pivot, even using a horse (compare rules about horseriders having to travel so many hexes before turning with this display - remembering that part of the difficulty in this sport is that there is a tendency to turn too tight). A ship, however, is not nearly as precise an instrument as our feet. The ship itself is the obstacle that has to be overcome and managed throughout the combat.
Therefore, unlike a standard wargame, I want a system where the player says, "I want the ship to turn right," whereupon we roll dice to determine when it can be done . . . with every member of the crew working crazily to succeed in making the damn ship to go starboard when the pirates are bearing down upon them. What if a green crewmember is in a hurry, slips and falls to the deck, not getting the job done? How many rounds does it take to have some other monkey climb the mast and do it? What if something is snarled? It can take minutes to reset a jib, the triangular staysail that sets at the foremast of a sailing vessel. In those minutes (10, 15 rounds), there's nothing you can do but plow straight ahead, a sitting duck for the enemy raking your ship.
At the same time, it's easy to see how a good crew would outmaneuver a bad crew, even if the pursuing ship were technically 'faster.' If it consistently takes an extra minute to make a turn for the pursuing ship, the slower quarry with a better crew might simply turn again and again, until the pursuer gives up.
This makes the point above about boarding all the more important: for that excellent sailor that's being killed by the thug may be the critical asset that has saved the players' ass again and again. Does it really make sense to put him in danger?
Of course, he might also die from a ballista missile or a catapult hit, from the system I've already posted; there's no real safe option. But it might be that players have to recognize that the quality of their seamanship - and not the strength, size and battering power of their vessel - is the critical element of play.
I really like this idea. I also think it would be a source of immense fury at the gaming table, however - enough that it would keep people from engaging in naval warfare. But then, I have never had players who were terribly interested, not in 37 years of play. Oh, I've had naval combats - but they always occurred when the players were compelled to participate, either because they were travelling from point A to point B or because they were pressed to defend their holdings against an enemy. Once I ran a sea battle between 60 galleys based on the wargame Trireme, the rules of which are fairly compatible with WSIM (so I will be incorporating galleys into my system, as the Ottomans used them into the 17th century). That battle lasted for four runnings and was quite early in my DMing experience (back around 1988-89) - and it certainly didn't have anything like the complexity my combat system has today. In any case, the players only took part because the 9th level mage had been made an admiral by the King of Portugal and they had to do their part in a war against Spain (my world was based on the year 1500 then).
Players wanting to a ship-based campaign? Never heard of it.
Mostly, they're terrified the ship is going to go down and they'll all drown. Or they recognize what a tremendous hassle a ship-to-ship combat is going to be. If there's going to be player agency, a ship battle has to be tactical. Can you imagine running a ship-to-ship combat where the DM says, "Okay, fire your guns; then they fire theirs; now fire yours; okay, the ships grapple and everyone fights."
Jeez. Why bother?
Many people, I understand, don't like tactical movement in a role-playing game. I don't understand those people. I mean, I get it, any battle is a lot easier to manage if we're not worrying about where Albert is standing or where Caleb is moving, or how many exact hexes Bala is from Daniel when she fires her bow. At the same time, however, it explains why so many people in role-playing are so sick to death of melee, and why they spend so much time screeching about how the game needs to be about role-playing and not roll-playing. When you reduce the meaning and value of the rolls to where they're just dice hitting a table, of course it can't compare.
However, looking for a metaphor, it is like someone who thinks 'baseball' is standing in a field, throwing a ball in one direction, then walking over to pick it up so they can throw it again. Oh yes, absolutely in no way is that complicated. And one person can do it! But people who argue the virtues for tactic-free combat are obviously deluded in their understanding of what tactic-rich combat can produce in terms of gaming experience. No doubt, that crowd is composed of personalities who look at little squares on a table like a fresh grade ten student views calculus. "I can't get this," goes the argument. Can't. As in, won't.
Ah, but that's a digression. I was saying that players won't like a combat system that makes them wait and wait and wait before they can make their ship make a left hand turn. On the other hand, I see immense possibilities for tension. Two ships, seven hexes apart, moving in the same direction, one trying to turn into the enemy, the other trying to turn away - the one furiously taking down their sails to obtain the status of cloth called 'battle sails' that will make the ship more maneuverable, the enemy already in a position to do the same on a moment's notice, because they knew before-hand it would be necessary; the party having no one except a young kid to send up into the mizzen-mast to reef the sail. A desperate decision that must be made to hack the sail free with an axe because it's snarled. The enemy's sails snapping full and their ship suddenly making a dive towards the player's vessel. The high level artillerist sitting on the aft-most catapult, deciding whether or not to fire this round or the next, given the attitude of the defending ship against what the attacking ship's raking power will be the next round. The players with bows and crossbows announcing that they're loading this round. The 6th level fighter and the 4th level ranger, infused with jump spells and super-heroism potions, getting ready to make the leap between the ships, to cause as much trouble as they can in the enemy's rigging before diving into the sea, where they expect to be rescued by the druid's pet sea turtle . . . and everything about the two ships themselves being frustrating and dangerous and uncertain.
Sounds like a good game to me. No matter how long it would take to play it out.
To start with, yesterday I was asked in a comment about fire aboard ships. I've looked through the rules for wooden ships and iron men and there are no rules for fire. There are rules about explosions, but that is because the game is meant to account for ship battles between 1770 and 1825, when everything is cannon and gunfire. I'm building a ship system that makes no sense historically, as some features in it will be based upon the pre-cannon era while others are completely 17th century. Still, it works for my world and for my magic-based D&D. That's all that matters.
Obviously, there are a number of mages able to set a ship ablaze - so fire is bound to come up. Thankfully, I wrote rules for fires spreading about a year ago, when I invented the 4th level druid spell, create wildfire. I talk about that with this post. From those rules, we can start with a 5-foot wide fire and work out the destruction in short order.
But the reader should stop and think, first: do you really want to start a fire on board an enemy ship? Yes, undoubtedly it will have the deleterious effect you're looking for, but it will also burn up property that is potentially worth 10s of thousands of gold pieces to you.
In an all out ship battle, involving dozens, even hundreds of ships, this makes sense. When the Byzantines employed "Greek fire," it was at times when the Empire was fighting for their lives, usually against a much more powerful foe. Most D&D ship combats would not be mass ship battles, however. It will be the players acting as pirates and seeking plunder or it will be players defending their ship against a pirate.
If the players are pirates, there's a very good chance that the quarry will try to burn the player's ship: they are not seeking plunder, but only to get away, so if the pirate's vessel burns and goes down, no great loss. But the reverse? Try to imagine that your first strategy in stealing a car is to pour gasoline all over it and set it alight. The more pristine the ship that the players take, the greater the treasure. That is why pirates preferred to board, rather than to blow the hell out of their quarry.
Now, I wrote on the wiki that boarding is a very bad idea most of the time. You grapple with the enemy ship and in the process you expend crewmembers in killing crewmembers. Worst of all, while you're boarding, there's always the chance that a brilliant sailor on your side will be killed by some dumb thug on their side. Of course, this is never a consideration in a war game: in a war game, every participant in the battle has the same value. You count your sailors, you count what your ship and the plundered ship need to be sailed and you divide up.
But I'd like a crew quality system for D&D that doesn't work like a war game. War games like Wooden Ships & Iron Men, which I'm melding with D&D, usually work on a time-based system where one turn would take minutes. I can't figure out how large a hex is supposed to be in WSIM, but given the actions that are taken in the game and the size of the ships, I would guess somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 meters. I want a ship-battle system that takes place in the same time frame as ordinary combat in D&D (I use 12-second rounds). This creates problems.
I found out that - with serendipity - that a ship moving 1 knot will travel 20 feet in the space of 12 seconds. That is simply . . . wow, just convenient. Therefore, I plan to move my ships on a 20-foot hex map, while employing a 5-foot hex map when ships grapple and straightforward combat ensues. The 5-foot hex is the same map I used for this goblin battle. This makes it easy to work out the range of game missiles from daggers to bows and apply them to the 20 foot hex; so that when ships are three hexes apart, they're actually near enough that a dagger can be thrown between them (with a -5 to hit and a probability that the dagger will end up in the sea, but what the hey).
However, because a ship doesn't have minutes to turn, it has only 12 seconds to make up its mind to do so, part of the game I'm planning is to create limitations on how effectively and speedily a ship can change its direction. Right now, I can't even find out how long it takes for a modern ship to swing from port tack to starboard; I have no idea at all how long it takes a Constitution class ship to do it or a 15th century caravel. I'm able to find comments like, "tacks may be required every few minutes," but nothing whatsoever about how long it takes to tack. I may be reduced to making guesses based on bad movies like Wind, which includes scenes where tacking is accomplished. I was able to find this post about a video game called Broadsides, but I don't know how accurate it is.
I know virtually nothing about sailing from a technical standpoint; I would guess that a small boat could probably change tacks in a few seconds. Somehow I think a many masted vessel would require more time than one combat round. More importantly, I think there would probably be some doubt as to whether the tack would take this round . . . or the next.
Here's the real horrorshow of the system I imagine, from a player's point of view. To me, it isn't just a matter of skipping around on a battlefield that happens to be made of water. On land, the characters can turn and pivot, even using a horse (compare rules about horseriders having to travel so many hexes before turning with this display - remembering that part of the difficulty in this sport is that there is a tendency to turn too tight). A ship, however, is not nearly as precise an instrument as our feet. The ship itself is the obstacle that has to be overcome and managed throughout the combat.
Therefore, unlike a standard wargame, I want a system where the player says, "I want the ship to turn right," whereupon we roll dice to determine when it can be done . . . with every member of the crew working crazily to succeed in making the damn ship to go starboard when the pirates are bearing down upon them. What if a green crewmember is in a hurry, slips and falls to the deck, not getting the job done? How many rounds does it take to have some other monkey climb the mast and do it? What if something is snarled? It can take minutes to reset a jib, the triangular staysail that sets at the foremast of a sailing vessel. In those minutes (10, 15 rounds), there's nothing you can do but plow straight ahead, a sitting duck for the enemy raking your ship.
At the same time, it's easy to see how a good crew would outmaneuver a bad crew, even if the pursuing ship were technically 'faster.' If it consistently takes an extra minute to make a turn for the pursuing ship, the slower quarry with a better crew might simply turn again and again, until the pursuer gives up.
This makes the point above about boarding all the more important: for that excellent sailor that's being killed by the thug may be the critical asset that has saved the players' ass again and again. Does it really make sense to put him in danger?
Of course, he might also die from a ballista missile or a catapult hit, from the system I've already posted; there's no real safe option. But it might be that players have to recognize that the quality of their seamanship - and not the strength, size and battering power of their vessel - is the critical element of play.
I really like this idea. I also think it would be a source of immense fury at the gaming table, however - enough that it would keep people from engaging in naval warfare. But then, I have never had players who were terribly interested, not in 37 years of play. Oh, I've had naval combats - but they always occurred when the players were compelled to participate, either because they were travelling from point A to point B or because they were pressed to defend their holdings against an enemy. Once I ran a sea battle between 60 galleys based on the wargame Trireme, the rules of which are fairly compatible with WSIM (so I will be incorporating galleys into my system, as the Ottomans used them into the 17th century). That battle lasted for four runnings and was quite early in my DMing experience (back around 1988-89) - and it certainly didn't have anything like the complexity my combat system has today. In any case, the players only took part because the 9th level mage had been made an admiral by the King of Portugal and they had to do their part in a war against Spain (my world was based on the year 1500 then).
Players wanting to a ship-based campaign? Never heard of it.
Mostly, they're terrified the ship is going to go down and they'll all drown. Or they recognize what a tremendous hassle a ship-to-ship combat is going to be. If there's going to be player agency, a ship battle has to be tactical. Can you imagine running a ship-to-ship combat where the DM says, "Okay, fire your guns; then they fire theirs; now fire yours; okay, the ships grapple and everyone fights."
Jeez. Why bother?
Many people, I understand, don't like tactical movement in a role-playing game. I don't understand those people. I mean, I get it, any battle is a lot easier to manage if we're not worrying about where Albert is standing or where Caleb is moving, or how many exact hexes Bala is from Daniel when she fires her bow. At the same time, however, it explains why so many people in role-playing are so sick to death of melee, and why they spend so much time screeching about how the game needs to be about role-playing and not roll-playing. When you reduce the meaning and value of the rolls to where they're just dice hitting a table, of course it can't compare.
However, looking for a metaphor, it is like someone who thinks 'baseball' is standing in a field, throwing a ball in one direction, then walking over to pick it up so they can throw it again. Oh yes, absolutely in no way is that complicated. And one person can do it! But people who argue the virtues for tactic-free combat are obviously deluded in their understanding of what tactic-rich combat can produce in terms of gaming experience. No doubt, that crowd is composed of personalities who look at little squares on a table like a fresh grade ten student views calculus. "I can't get this," goes the argument. Can't. As in, won't.
Ah, but that's a digression. I was saying that players won't like a combat system that makes them wait and wait and wait before they can make their ship make a left hand turn. On the other hand, I see immense possibilities for tension. Two ships, seven hexes apart, moving in the same direction, one trying to turn into the enemy, the other trying to turn away - the one furiously taking down their sails to obtain the status of cloth called 'battle sails' that will make the ship more maneuverable, the enemy already in a position to do the same on a moment's notice, because they knew before-hand it would be necessary; the party having no one except a young kid to send up into the mizzen-mast to reef the sail. A desperate decision that must be made to hack the sail free with an axe because it's snarled. The enemy's sails snapping full and their ship suddenly making a dive towards the player's vessel. The high level artillerist sitting on the aft-most catapult, deciding whether or not to fire this round or the next, given the attitude of the defending ship against what the attacking ship's raking power will be the next round. The players with bows and crossbows announcing that they're loading this round. The 6th level fighter and the 4th level ranger, infused with jump spells and super-heroism potions, getting ready to make the leap between the ships, to cause as much trouble as they can in the enemy's rigging before diving into the sea, where they expect to be rescued by the druid's pet sea turtle . . . and everything about the two ships themselves being frustrating and dangerous and uncertain.
Sounds like a good game to me. No matter how long it would take to play it out.
Wednesday, June 1, 2016
Ship's Weaponry
There's no question that I often retreat into game design when I'm depressed, as an escape. I should have written this evening; instead, I worked on what's below. Well, we'll right that lack of good judgment tomorrow. In the meantime, the reader reaps the reward.
I didn't get any response to the naval post on Tuesday; but perhaps this will poke the bear into growling:
Ship's Weaponry
Each ship of a certain size has the capacity to be fitted with either ballistae or catapults, which can be used directly against enemy hulls, rigging, siege engines or crew. These are fitted along the left or right hand sides of the ship (port or starboard), enabling fire to be directed outward. For the purpose of our game, an engine cannot be mounted so that it fires directly forward or backward from a ship - because it wasn't done consistently. I haven't been able to find the reason for this, except perhaps that the up and down movement of the stern and bow make such a mount impractical.
Siege engines aboard a ship are supported by ordinary missile weapons, standard to D&D (bows, crossbows, slings, etcetera). Rules that relate to the use of siege engines and these weapons aboard ship are described below.
Hardpoints
The amount of weaponry that can be placed aboard ship is not limited only by the amount of weight or deck space that a ship possesses. Much of a ship's deck space is required for the movement of the crew and the management of the ship. Thus, the number of weapons is limited by the number of hardpoints that a ship has. A hardpoint is a location aboard the ship in which a ballista or catapult can be placed. Ships will always have an even number of hardpoints, distributed equally to both sides of the ship. There will be two hardpoints (one on each side) for every three points of hull defensive points a ship possesses (see Ships). For example, a caravel has 3 hardpoints on each side of the ship, while a carrack has 4. A frigate has 5. A yawl has only 1.
There are four siege engines that can be mounted aboard ships: the large ballista, the small ballista, the light catapult and the heavy catapult. Large ballista and heavy catapults each require two hardpoints to mount aboard ship. A small ballista or a light catapult requires only one hardpoint. When two hardpoints are wanted for mounting a heavier weapon, they must both be on the same side of the ship.
Therefore, a frigate with 5 hardpoints on each side of the ship (10 altogether) could mount 4 heavy catapults, two on each side, and 2 light catapults. A frigate could not mount 5 heavy catapults, as the two remaining hardpoints are on opposite sides of the ship.
Weapons
The following table gives the basic statistics for missile weapons that can be employed during ship-to-ship combat, with ranges adjusted to the width of naval hexes (for missile ranges in direct hand-to-hand combat, see All Weapons).
As with standard combat, the effect of medium and long range on weapons is the same: all weapons that attack at medium range are -2 to hit; those attacking at long range are -5 to hit. In all cases, the chance of a ballista, catapult or any other weapon to hit a standard combat target (creature) is a d20 against that creature's armor class. In all cases of a missile weapon fired directly at an enemy ship, the ship should be considered AC 5. Note that catapults cannot fire at targets that are close up - and that all catapult attacks are done at either medium or long range.
The rounds to load for a ballista or catapult describes the time necessary for a crew of that number. It is possible for a smaller crew to load these weapons. Note, however, that only the small ballista can be loaded by 1 crew; all other weapons must have at least 2 crew or else the tension cannot be created that will enable the engine to fire. Load times for less crew can be worked out as a ratio. In all cases, round fractions up and always add 1 more to the total as a trouble factor:
The time that takes to load counts as the time between firing; once an engine (or any weapon) is fully loaded, the firing of that weapon takes place on the next round - NOT the round in which the weapon's loading was completed. A bow, therefore, loads 1 round, then fires the next; it loads again in the 3rd round, fires in the 4th and so on.
Note that multiple attacks for high level fighters do not apply to loading siege weapons, unless all members of the crew are able to move as quickly; the same is true if one member of a crew is hasted or has imbibed a speed potion; if others must be waited for, than the overall loading of the siege engine is not improved.
Damage to Creatures
The table above gives three forms of damage: hits (direct hits), skipping and shrapnel. Direct hits cause the most damage.
Catapult balls made of solid stone will 'skip,' even after hitting an opponent, potentially causing damage to creatures. See rules for Skipping.
Catapult balls that are constructed of broken stone and low-grade masonry will shatter when hitting a hard object; ballista bolts will also break apart when hitting a hard object. These will both cause damage to creatures even when a miss has occurred. See rules for Shrapnel.
Engines vs. Ships
Only siege engines may be used to directly attack ships. Note that the artillerist must announce before firing that they are aiming at the enemy ship and not its crew. I have decided not to allow pin-pointing a specific target on the enemy ship - although I know this makes no sense, given that a specific creature on an enemy ship CAN be targeted. After trying and discarding a few tables that would allow targeting, I've come to the conclusion that, on the whole, it would not improve the overall experience of ship-to-ship combat, while it does greatly increase complexity. Therefore, all damage will be relatively random. Note, however, that many of the results below can mean damaging multiple parts of enemy's ship: and in any case, it must also be noted that a direct hit against a large, tremendously massive vessel could quite reasonably have no effect whatsoever (bouncing off a particularly supported surface or passing right through rigging without any effect).
Therefore, the player should suppose that expertise, not player desire, is the determining factor in what part of the ship is aimed at: and that if a hit occurs that causes damage, that is what the character (if not the player) meant to aim at.
Once it has been resolved that the enemy's ship has been hit (a successful hit against AC 5), the artillerist will use the Damage Gauge table below to determine the effectiveness of the siege weapon:
As indicated, the artillerist adds the range modifier to the artillerist's number to hit AC zero to determine the effectiveness of the range weapon against the enemy's ship.
For example, suppose that Albert, the lead artillerist with a light catapult's crew is a 8th level fighter, giving him a THACO of 13. He therefore adds +1 to the "gauge" of damage he can cause. If he did not have an artillerist's skill, he would -1 from that gauge, but let's say he does not. This means that when his crew hits a ship at medium range, the shot's gauge is +1+1, or 2; against a ship at long range, the gauge is 1.
This is then compared with the table below:
Against a medium range ship, Albert rolls 2d6 on the '2' column; his chance of causing damage to the ship's hull, rigging, crew or siege engines is high, 5 in 6. At long range, Albert rolls on the '1' column, reducing his chance of causing damage to 15 in 36.
NOTE, a result of no damage does not indicate that the ship has not been hit. It has to be understood that these vessels are powerfully built and are able to be struck with weapons like ballista bolts and catapult balls without any appreciable effect. It takes a very excellent artillerist, working with the best weapons at the ideal range to cause considerable damage to enemy shipping. Most artillery crews will not be led by extraordinarily high level commanders and artillerists, greatly increasing the chance that the weapons they are using will often be ineffectual.
Whew. I'm done for now. I'll be working on details regarding the effect of hits against hulls, rigging, engines and crew at some point this week: not tomorrow, I hope. The page on the wiki for the above content can be found as "Ship's Weaponry."
None of this has been play-tested - though it is based on the Wooden Ships and Iron Men system, reworked for D&D. It ought to work; eventually, when I am running games again, I'll give it a shot and see how it plays out.
I didn't get any response to the naval post on Tuesday; but perhaps this will poke the bear into growling:
Ship's Weaponry
Each ship of a certain size has the capacity to be fitted with either ballistae or catapults, which can be used directly against enemy hulls, rigging, siege engines or crew. These are fitted along the left or right hand sides of the ship (port or starboard), enabling fire to be directed outward. For the purpose of our game, an engine cannot be mounted so that it fires directly forward or backward from a ship - because it wasn't done consistently. I haven't been able to find the reason for this, except perhaps that the up and down movement of the stern and bow make such a mount impractical.
Siege engines aboard a ship are supported by ordinary missile weapons, standard to D&D (bows, crossbows, slings, etcetera). Rules that relate to the use of siege engines and these weapons aboard ship are described below.
Hardpoints
The amount of weaponry that can be placed aboard ship is not limited only by the amount of weight or deck space that a ship possesses. Much of a ship's deck space is required for the movement of the crew and the management of the ship. Thus, the number of weapons is limited by the number of hardpoints that a ship has. A hardpoint is a location aboard the ship in which a ballista or catapult can be placed. Ships will always have an even number of hardpoints, distributed equally to both sides of the ship. There will be two hardpoints (one on each side) for every three points of hull defensive points a ship possesses (see Ships). For example, a caravel has 3 hardpoints on each side of the ship, while a carrack has 4. A frigate has 5. A yawl has only 1.
There are four siege engines that can be mounted aboard ships: the large ballista, the small ballista, the light catapult and the heavy catapult. Large ballista and heavy catapults each require two hardpoints to mount aboard ship. A small ballista or a light catapult requires only one hardpoint. When two hardpoints are wanted for mounting a heavier weapon, they must both be on the same side of the ship.
Therefore, a frigate with 5 hardpoints on each side of the ship (10 altogether) could mount 4 heavy catapults, two on each side, and 2 light catapults. A frigate could not mount 5 heavy catapults, as the two remaining hardpoints are on opposite sides of the ship.
Weapons
The following table gives the basic statistics for missile weapons that can be employed during ship-to-ship combat, with ranges adjusted to the width of naval hexes (for missile ranges in direct hand-to-hand combat, see All Weapons).
As with standard combat, the effect of medium and long range on weapons is the same: all weapons that attack at medium range are -2 to hit; those attacking at long range are -5 to hit. In all cases, the chance of a ballista, catapult or any other weapon to hit a standard combat target (creature) is a d20 against that creature's armor class. In all cases of a missile weapon fired directly at an enemy ship, the ship should be considered AC 5. Note that catapults cannot fire at targets that are close up - and that all catapult attacks are done at either medium or long range.
The rounds to load for a ballista or catapult describes the time necessary for a crew of that number. It is possible for a smaller crew to load these weapons. Note, however, that only the small ballista can be loaded by 1 crew; all other weapons must have at least 2 crew or else the tension cannot be created that will enable the engine to fire. Load times for less crew can be worked out as a ratio. In all cases, round fractions up and always add 1 more to the total as a trouble factor:
- 2 persons loading a heavy catapult will take four times as long as 8 persons, +1 trouble factor = 13 rounds.
- 7 persons loading a heavy catapult would require 3.429 rounds; this translates to 4, +1 trouble factor = 5 rounds.
- 1 person loads a small ballista, taking twice as long, +1 trouble factor = 3 rounds.
The time that takes to load counts as the time between firing; once an engine (or any weapon) is fully loaded, the firing of that weapon takes place on the next round - NOT the round in which the weapon's loading was completed. A bow, therefore, loads 1 round, then fires the next; it loads again in the 3rd round, fires in the 4th and so on.
Note that multiple attacks for high level fighters do not apply to loading siege weapons, unless all members of the crew are able to move as quickly; the same is true if one member of a crew is hasted or has imbibed a speed potion; if others must be waited for, than the overall loading of the siege engine is not improved.
Damage to Creatures
The table above gives three forms of damage: hits (direct hits), skipping and shrapnel. Direct hits cause the most damage.
Catapult balls made of solid stone will 'skip,' even after hitting an opponent, potentially causing damage to creatures. See rules for Skipping.
Catapult balls that are constructed of broken stone and low-grade masonry will shatter when hitting a hard object; ballista bolts will also break apart when hitting a hard object. These will both cause damage to creatures even when a miss has occurred. See rules for Shrapnel.
Engines vs. Ships
Only siege engines may be used to directly attack ships. Note that the artillerist must announce before firing that they are aiming at the enemy ship and not its crew. I have decided not to allow pin-pointing a specific target on the enemy ship - although I know this makes no sense, given that a specific creature on an enemy ship CAN be targeted. After trying and discarding a few tables that would allow targeting, I've come to the conclusion that, on the whole, it would not improve the overall experience of ship-to-ship combat, while it does greatly increase complexity. Therefore, all damage will be relatively random. Note, however, that many of the results below can mean damaging multiple parts of enemy's ship: and in any case, it must also be noted that a direct hit against a large, tremendously massive vessel could quite reasonably have no effect whatsoever (bouncing off a particularly supported surface or passing right through rigging without any effect).
Therefore, the player should suppose that expertise, not player desire, is the determining factor in what part of the ship is aimed at: and that if a hit occurs that causes damage, that is what the character (if not the player) meant to aim at.
Once it has been resolved that the enemy's ship has been hit (a successful hit against AC 5), the artillerist will use the Damage Gauge table below to determine the effectiveness of the siege weapon:
As indicated, the artillerist adds the range modifier to the artillerist's number to hit AC zero to determine the effectiveness of the range weapon against the enemy's ship.
For example, suppose that Albert, the lead artillerist with a light catapult's crew is a 8th level fighter, giving him a THACO of 13. He therefore adds +1 to the "gauge" of damage he can cause. If he did not have an artillerist's skill, he would -1 from that gauge, but let's say he does not. This means that when his crew hits a ship at medium range, the shot's gauge is +1+1, or 2; against a ship at long range, the gauge is 1.
This is then compared with the table below:
Against a medium range ship, Albert rolls 2d6 on the '2' column; his chance of causing damage to the ship's hull, rigging, crew or siege engines is high, 5 in 6. At long range, Albert rolls on the '1' column, reducing his chance of causing damage to 15 in 36.
NOTE, a result of no damage does not indicate that the ship has not been hit. It has to be understood that these vessels are powerfully built and are able to be struck with weapons like ballista bolts and catapult balls without any appreciable effect. It takes a very excellent artillerist, working with the best weapons at the ideal range to cause considerable damage to enemy shipping. Most artillery crews will not be led by extraordinarily high level commanders and artillerists, greatly increasing the chance that the weapons they are using will often be ineffectual.
Whew. I'm done for now. I'll be working on details regarding the effect of hits against hulls, rigging, engines and crew at some point this week: not tomorrow, I hope. The page on the wiki for the above content can be found as "Ship's Weaponry."
None of this has been play-tested - though it is based on the Wooden Ships and Iron Men system, reworked for D&D. It ought to work; eventually, when I am running games again, I'll give it a shot and see how it plays out.
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Turning Ships
Sometimes, we just have to scratch an itch. I've had this copy of Wooden Ships & Iron Men sitting on my bookshelf for about ten years, meaning to do something with it . . . and very late last night, while packing a box, I opened it and got started.
This is all on the wiki now. It's fairly clumsy, full of notes that say "I'm going to make better rules for this later." I've only worked on it about four hours (including content in the links). But we have to start somewhere with these things.
UPDATE: I've been adding continuously to linked data on the wiki since putting up this post this morning: so there is more general material for reading, for those who are interested.
Turning
All ships, regardless of size, must make turns in 60-degree angles, as determined by the naval hex map. In Figure 1 below, the master of a gig running with the wind decides to turn right with the beginning of the combat round. The ship's movement at the start of the round is three naval hexes. The arrow shows the intended direction of the turn.
When the turn is made, it is important to remember that while the front of the ship turns to the right, the back of the ship continues to move in the ship's former direction. The stern's momentum is always along the path that the bow has already travelled. In Figure 2 below, the old position of the ship is shown in white, after the ship has changed direction to the right a distance of one naval hex:
Until the stern has occupied the hex where the bow was when the ship began the turn, the ship cannot make another turn. This means that the bow must now continue the turn (in the direction shown by the arrow), until the stern 'catches up.' In Figure 3 below, the ship has completed the turn, with the previous attitude shown in white:
The ship is now free to move straight ahead or again initiate a turn to the left or the right (which would then be completed the following round).
Note that if the ship were to continue turning to the right, it would begin its next turn with an attitude exactly between a close-hauled and a reaching wind. In such cases, always consider the ship's speed to reflect theworst of the two possible options.
A very large ship can take two, even three combat rounds to complete a single turn. This reflects the unwieldy nature of these ships. (Rules that will allow a greater latitude with the movement of ships, that do not require full 60 degree turns, will be given later, along with more precise rules regarding the speed of the ship under various wind directions).
Swinging from Head to Wind
A ship that is pointed directly into the wind has no movement. However, a ship with this attitude can be allowed to swing into or away from the wind. Figure 4 below shows a ship that has swung from having its head to the wind (shown in white) to where the bow has moved one hex to the right (note that the foremast is not considered, only the front of the ship that rests on the water):
Like in the example above, this leaves the ship halfway between head to the wind and close-hauling - and because we are using the worst of the two attitudes, the ship is still treated as though it has its head to the wind. Another round must be spent letting the bow move completely to a 60-degree from the wind attitude:
UPDATE: I've been adding continuously to linked data on the wiki since putting up this post this morning: so there is more general material for reading, for those who are interested.
Turning
All ships, regardless of size, must make turns in 60-degree angles, as determined by the naval hex map. In Figure 1 below, the master of a gig running with the wind decides to turn right with the beginning of the combat round. The ship's movement at the start of the round is three naval hexes. The arrow shows the intended direction of the turn.
| Figure 1 |
When the turn is made, it is important to remember that while the front of the ship turns to the right, the back of the ship continues to move in the ship's former direction. The stern's momentum is always along the path that the bow has already travelled. In Figure 2 below, the old position of the ship is shown in white, after the ship has changed direction to the right a distance of one naval hex:
| Figure 2 |
Until the stern has occupied the hex where the bow was when the ship began the turn, the ship cannot make another turn. This means that the bow must now continue the turn (in the direction shown by the arrow), until the stern 'catches up.' In Figure 3 below, the ship has completed the turn, with the previous attitude shown in white:
| Figure 3 |
The ship is now free to move straight ahead or again initiate a turn to the left or the right (which would then be completed the following round).
Note that if the ship were to continue turning to the right, it would begin its next turn with an attitude exactly between a close-hauled and a reaching wind. In such cases, always consider the ship's speed to reflect theworst of the two possible options.
A very large ship can take two, even three combat rounds to complete a single turn. This reflects the unwieldy nature of these ships. (Rules that will allow a greater latitude with the movement of ships, that do not require full 60 degree turns, will be given later, along with more precise rules regarding the speed of the ship under various wind directions).
Swinging from Head to Wind
A ship that is pointed directly into the wind has no movement. However, a ship with this attitude can be allowed to swing into or away from the wind. Figure 4 below shows a ship that has swung from having its head to the wind (shown in white) to where the bow has moved one hex to the right (note that the foremast is not considered, only the front of the ship that rests on the water):
| Figure 4 |
Like in the example above, this leaves the ship halfway between head to the wind and close-hauling - and because we are using the worst of the two attitudes, the ship is still treated as though it has its head to the wind. Another round must be spent letting the bow move completely to a 60-degree from the wind attitude:
| Figure 5 |
At this point, the ship is considered to be in a close-hauled attitude, enabling it to move 1 hex the next round (1 knot of speed), most likely ahead or to the right. It can move to the left again (moving forward a hex, not swinging), though this would change its attitude back to what it has in figure 4 - and so it would have to swing again before it could move normally.
Note that when a ship is swinging INTO the wind, it is the stern that swings and not the bow:
See Ship Travel & Movement
Note that when a ship is swinging INTO the wind, it is the stern that swings and not the bow:
| Figure 6 |
See Ship Travel & Movement
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Starting Adventures
Like any other DM, I'm always looking for something different.
Last Saturday, my party not adventuring in Ternketh Keep, but in the African desert, had just finished a disastrous battle that nearly ended in a TPK (only two characters died). Just as they were deciding they were ready to throw in the towel (having retreated from the dungeon), I decided to have the cavalry come over the hill and sort it out for them. This freed the party's imprisoned characters and set the world aright (after a wish the players had made poorly that was dramatically transforming the climate for a 60-mile wide area). This is the sort of thing that gets noticed, so I had a 22nd level party deal with it. Sometimes that's what we have to do when a game goes bad.
So the players wanted a new adventure. And because we can't just wait for players to go over every option in the universe, it helps to ask four direct questions about what sort of adventure they'd like:
1) monster or humanoid?
2) dungeon or wilderness?
3) land, sea, air or other plane of existence?
4) tropical, temperate or arctic.
The trick isn't getting an answer to these questions. Usually, once the choices are reduced, players can settle and agree after a few moments discussion (at least, if they've been trained through playing together over a period of years, as I have ensured). The trick is being able to produce the first stages of such an adventure, on the fly, once the players have chosen.
They said "monster" in unison, without hesitation.
They recoiled at "dungeon" because the recent experience had been bad; the dungeon was just too severe (but appropriate for location and party's quest for the object they wanted) and they felt overwhelmed. Therefore, they chose "Wilderness."
Some deliberation brought the party around to agreeing upon "Sea."
The last question took the longest. The party came out of the desert at Benghazi in Libya. They had tacitly agreed on adventuring in the Indian Ocean, as the Maldives appealed to the players, as well as possible access to the far east and the recent creation of Burma. But when they saw the prices of ships in Benghazi, they decided to go ahead and buy an 86-foot caravel for themselves, price about 22,000 g.p. The party is 9th-11th and they have the means. They hired a captain, a midshipman and one crewman; with the one experienced sailor in the party this allows enough supervision for four inexperienced but fast learners, for a ship that requires a crew of 8. The newbies will have to make a save once in awhile against something going wrong aboard ship.
With their ship, they did not want to go all the way around the Horn of Africa. I answered that I nearly had the Canary Islands finished and that peaked their interest (and this is why I work on my world all the time). So they started across the Mediterranean at the end of the night, reaching as far as Ceuta, in the Saadi Empire (modern Morocco) across the strait from Gibraltar.
Then I went looking for an environment for their "Sea" adventure and found the image above. This I've used as inspiration to make a top down image of what will be the first step of the adventure I have in mind:
I can't say what's on the ship, I'm afraid. I'm really enjoying my new design skills (having reached a higher plateau recently) and I wanted to show off. I do want to point out that the effort I've put into Ternketh Keep certainly comes close to matching this image above: but I am always thinking of some new way to represent things.
My plan is to start the adventure by sending the players to first seek out the above feature - and what they discover here will lead to the next phase. This should be a combat and a bit of a puzzle, and not necessarily in that order.
I have 21 days until I am forced to abandon my home. Please consider making a $25 donation to my Jumpstarter campaign.
Also, according to Blogger, this is my 2000th post.
I have 21 days until I am forced to abandon my home. Please consider making a $25 donation to my Jumpstarter campaign.
Also, according to Blogger, this is my 2000th post.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Swimming
In the 17th century, a rare ability. Most characters able to swim will gain the ability through the character background generator, through their abilities or because their fathers were fishermen, sailors, boatmen, explorers, shipwrights or buccaneers. Some characters, particularly druids and fighter classes specializing in waterborne adventuring, will be able to swim through their sage abilities.
Swimming is not possible while more than 5% encumbered - clothing and magic armor (which still has weight) must be considered in all calculations. More than 5% encumbrance will drag creatures below the water surface, making it impossible to breathe.
Swimming is not possible while more than 5% encumbered - clothing and magic armor (which still has weight) must be considered in all calculations. More than 5% encumbrance will drag creatures below the water surface, making it impossible to breathe.
| Clarification - after sprinting, creatures can begin sustained swimming, then exhausted swimming |
The table above indicates the water speeds for medium-sized humanoids swimming with free hands and feet (see link). Sprinting indicates the speed that can sustained for a maximum distance of 3 hexes per point of constitution. Sustainedindicates the speed that can be managed for a distance of 20 hexes per point of constitution. Exhausted shows the distance that can be covered thereafter.
Sustained swimming with a strength of 3 or less or exhausted swimming requires aconstitution check once the character has covered the maximum distance indicated for six rounds (a 18 strength character would cover 10 hexes in six rounds). The time between constitution checks can be extended by swimming slower than this distance, but a speed of at least 2/3 hexes/round is the minimum forward speed. The distance between constitution checks cannot be extended. Failing this check will indicate that the humanoid's lung capacity/heart/muscles have given out, whereupon the character will slip helplessly below the surface of the water, unable to continue swimming.
Humanoids that are naked and greased may increase their sprinting speeds and endurance (potential distance) by 10%. Transformations that provide fins, flippers or webbed-fingers can increase all speeds and endurance by 30%. Gills or water breathing can increase maximum distances by 100%.
Swimming distances should be adjusted where currents and river flow affect freedom of travel.
Travel speeds will also be affected by wind. Reduce speed and endurance by 33% during a gentle breeze, 50% during a moderate breeze and 75% during a fresh breeze. No meaningful speed may be travelled in a strong breeze, near gale or gale (the swimmer will move about in a helpless path, buffeted by waves).
Treading Water does not allow any travel but will increase endurance by 50%.
See Diving, Free-diving, Swimming Combat.
UPDATE:
I just wanted to express after an offline conversation that the numbers above are supposed to be for any ordinary, untrained, unspecialized person who happens to know how to swim, conscious of the fact that my world takes place in the 17th century, and not the 1980s & 90s when many readers took swimming in school.
How would you swim if you had never been shown the most efficient way to perform the breast stroke or the Australian crawl?
(Australia hasn't been invented yet)
Sustained swimming with a strength of 3 or less or exhausted swimming requires aconstitution check once the character has covered the maximum distance indicated for six rounds (a 18 strength character would cover 10 hexes in six rounds). The time between constitution checks can be extended by swimming slower than this distance, but a speed of at least 2/3 hexes/round is the minimum forward speed. The distance between constitution checks cannot be extended. Failing this check will indicate that the humanoid's lung capacity/heart/muscles have given out, whereupon the character will slip helplessly below the surface of the water, unable to continue swimming.
Humanoids that are naked and greased may increase their sprinting speeds and endurance (potential distance) by 10%. Transformations that provide fins, flippers or webbed-fingers can increase all speeds and endurance by 30%. Gills or water breathing can increase maximum distances by 100%.
Swimming distances should be adjusted where currents and river flow affect freedom of travel.
Travel speeds will also be affected by wind. Reduce speed and endurance by 33% during a gentle breeze, 50% during a moderate breeze and 75% during a fresh breeze. No meaningful speed may be travelled in a strong breeze, near gale or gale (the swimmer will move about in a helpless path, buffeted by waves).
Treading Water does not allow any travel but will increase endurance by 50%.
See Diving, Free-diving, Swimming Combat.
UPDATE:
I just wanted to express after an offline conversation that the numbers above are supposed to be for any ordinary, untrained, unspecialized person who happens to know how to swim, conscious of the fact that my world takes place in the 17th century, and not the 1980s & 90s when many readers took swimming in school.
How would you swim if you had never been shown the most efficient way to perform the breast stroke or the Australian crawl?
(Australia hasn't been invented yet)
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