Some questions about naval combat for newbie DM

[Mederig Halgand]

Hello everyone,

So i might be overthinking about it but as i reade for the fifth time the naval combat rules from Player's guide here is what i understood :

1- Everyone who wants to act in the ship to ship combat has to roll initiative.
2- The ship moves when the pilot turn in initiative comes and do almost all the job.

First question : can you aim with a siege engines even if the ship is way farther than the range increment ?

Let's imagine this scene :
The PCs, importants NPCs got their initiative. Now one of the PCs is acting before the pilot so he goes for one light ballista on board. (imagine you don't have to aim for this example).
Next the two pilots make their ships move.
Here can the PC fire with the light ballista during the ship movement or does it have to wait his initiative count ?
Also now there is a second light ballista on board controlled by nameless NPCs, when can they fire ?

I know maybe i'm just looking for problems where there is not but as the system is pretty well designed (even with all critics it got), i really want to use it as a sub system of a personal one and those questions matters a lot for my work. And if you can tell me how the attack bonus for siege engine is calculated that would be awesome.

Thanks for any help ^^

[Cevah]

You will find a wealth of information on the SRD under Naval Siege Engines.

The ship and it's NPCs usually go on the Pilot's turn.

Siege engines need sufficient standard/full-round actions to load aim and fire. If there are enough helpers, each can do part allowing it to fire each turn. PC's firing will usually be better than crew due to level bonus to BAB. They also are more likely to have relevant stat boosters.

If you have enough crew, (and weapons) all PCs other than the Pilot can fire each round.

Aiming based on where you expect to be is as easy as delaying you aiming in the initiative count. You still need the listed number of full round actions spent to aim. [Light Ballista needs 0 full round actions.]

The range increment comes into play when fired. Not when aimed.

Mederig Halgand wrote:

Let's imagine this scene :

The PCs, importants NPCs got their initiative. Now one of the PCs is acting before the pilot so he goes for one light ballista on board. (imagine you don't have to aim for this example).
Next the two pilots make their ships move.
Here can the PC fire with the light ballista during the ship movement or does it have to wait his initiative count ?
Also now there is a second light ballista on board controlled by nameless NPCs, when can they fire ?

If the PC uses a move action to get to the ballista, they can ready a fire action for later, when appropriate.

The other ballista is manned by the crew, so it goes on the Pilot's initiative. [That lets him 'attack' on his turn.]

Pay attention to the non-proficiency penalties, the size penalties, and the way Knowledge(Engineering) helps, as does the extra crewing.

/cevah, Pirate-Lord