Update:
I keep track of loot. Its under my character sheet, heading "Party Bucket"
Update:
The slayer can use medium armor right? He could use the breastplate
The following rules take effect once naval combat is inevitable, either because both ships want to engage in combat with each other, or because an evading ship was caught by a pursuing ship. Pursuit and evasion is done as per the Skulls and Shackles Player’s Guide pg 11-12
“Evasion and Pursuit
On the wide, open sea, one ship can spot another from miles away, making it virtually impossible to surprise another ship. If both ships want to engage in combat, the ships close with one another and begin ship-to-ship combat normally. If one ship wants to avoid combat, however, a chase ensues. At the GM’s discretion, a faster ship can always catch a slower ship, but even slow ships can take advantage of favorable winds, currents, or coastal terrain to make good their escape.
When two ships first encounter one another, the pilots of the two ships must make three opposed sailing checks. Whichever pilot wins at least two out of three of the opposed checks is victorious. If the pursuing ship wins, it catches up to the fleeing ship and ship-to-ship combat begins. If the fleeing ship wins, it escapes. If the result is a tie, the pilots should begin a new series of three opposed checks.
Such chases can take days, as one ship struggles to outmaneuver the other. At the GM’s discretion, roll 1d4 to determine the number of days a chase lasts.”
Once Naval Combat begins, the captain attempts to maneuver into a good position to start the battle. Conceptually this plays out as the captain gambling for more successes by risking more failures. The first gamble begins by the captain (or his designated pilot) making an “Upper Hand” check, which is a Sailing check against the opposing ship’s CMD. After this first check, all other PCs MUST take an action. If, after these actions, the number of Upper Hand successes or failures equals three, combat starts, with the parameters as noted below. If the number of Upper Hand success or failures is two or less (including 0), the captain decides to continue maneuvering, or allow the battle to start. If the captain decides to keep maneuvering, another Upper Hand check is made and the process repeats itself until combat begins.
The starting set-up of the battle is determined by whether or not the PC’s have any failures, and the PC’s number of successful Upper Hand checks:
1+ failures and any number of successes- The opposing ship gains a massive advantage. If the opposing Captain wants to ram, he can ram. If he wants to try and sink the PC’s ship, he sets the range when initiative is rolled. Regardless, the NPC captain decides the relative orientation of the ships (at broadsides, broadsides to stern, etc). Prior to initiative being rolled, all of the NPC captain’s siege engines or other shipboard weapons get free attack rolls against the PCs. The PCs then place their figures on their ship. After the PCs place their figures, the opposing captain places the NPC tokens on the map (if the NPC captain rammed or wanted to board, he can place NPC tokens on either ship). Combat begins with the NPCs having a surprise round.
1 success, 0 failures- The ships come together on roughly even terms. Roll 1d6, 1-3 they start at broadsides, on a 4 the PC’s broadside is to the NPC’s stern, on a 5 the NPC’s broadside is to the PC’s stern, on a 6 the two ships are bow to bow or stern to stern (PC choice). If the PC’s are trying to sink the other ship, they decide what range to start at. If boarding is in order, they start close. Roll initiative. Whichever side’s combatant rolls the lowest initiative, places their figures on their ship first. Then the other side places their figures on their ship. Combat then begins as normal with the top of the initiative order.
2 successes, 0 failures- The PCs start with a significant advantage. The PCs decide the relative orientation of the ships (at broadsides, broadsides to stern, etc). The NPCs place their figures on their ship, after which the PCs place their figures on their ship. The PCs then gain one additional advantage from the following list:
A) Free volley with all siege engines or other shipboard weapons
B) Place the PC’s figures on any square on both maps, not just on their ship.
C) Gain a surprise round
D) Can Ram the opposing ship
3 successes, 0 failures- As above, except the PCs gain all advantages from the list.
After each Upper Hand check all other PCs MUST take an action from the following list*:
1) Attack- make a ranged attack with an available weapon. The distance defaults to 50 feet if the Upper Hand check result was even, and 100 feet if the result was odd. Only one PC per round may choose to use a siege weapon for this attack.
2) Cast a Spell- cast an available spell. Must make a concentration check for the spell to succeed. If range is a factor, distance defaults to 50 feet if the Upper Hand check result was even, and 100 feet if the result was odd.
3) Rally the crew- Use diplomacy or intimidate to get the crew working harder. Success grants +2 to the next Upper Hand check. Only one PC may do this per round.
4) Exploit a critical weakness- PC describes how they notice and use their opponent’s weakness against them. This cancels one Upper Hand failure. Only one PC may do this per round.
5) Coordinate- The PC describes how they help their team work better together, and makes an appropriate skill check. If they succeed, they allow one PC to repeat an action that can usually be done only once per round. Only one PC may do this per round.
6) Deception Plan- Describe how you confuse, trick or taunt the opposing ship. Success imposes -2 penalty on the CMD and AC for all checks and attack rolls next round except the Upper Hand check. Only one PC may do this per round.
* Skill check DCs default to CMD. Attack rolls are against the AC or CMD of whatever was targeted.
Danger Points!
As the ships are maneuvering into position, each failure on a skill check or attack roll grants the GM a “danger point.” The GM can use a danger point to oppose the players with an immediate, delayed, or after action.
Immediate Action- The GM spends a danger point immediately upon gaining it to do one of the following.
1) Attack- a member of the opposing ship makes an attack against a PC or other crew member. The distance defaults to 50 feet if the Upper Hand check result was even, and 100 feet if the result was odd.
2) Cast a spell- a member of the opposing ship casts a spell. If range is a factor, distance defaults to 50 feet if the Upper Hand check result was even, and 100 feet if the result was odd.
3) Discombobulation- the PCs crew gets out of synch. Apply a -2 penalty to the next Upper Hand check. Only one Danger Point may be spent in this way per round.
Delayed Action- The GM may spend a danger point to take one of these actions any time after initiative has been rolled.
1) Outmaneuver- Move any figure to any square on either ship (may only move figures between ships if the ships are within boarding range). This may only be done prior to the first round of combat.
2) In a spot- The GM puts a PC in a tough position that requires a save or skill check to get out of. Maybe a grappling aboard attempt goes wrong and the PC is stuck between ships, a heavy wave might send the PC sprawling or overboard, or a cut sail falls atop the PC.
3) Shifting Tides- The GM gains a free move action to grant a single NPC.
After Action- The GM may spend a danger point to do one of these actions after combat ends.
1) Out of Ammo- The PCs expended all of their siege engine ammunition of one type. They will need to re-stock before they can fire their siege engines again.
2) Supply shortage- Either supplies were damaged/lost in the fighting, or the PCs and were so exhausted from the fight that they overindulge afterwards. In either case, the PCs and crew suffer a -2 to all checks in combat until they resupply at port (or use up a portion of their plunder).
3) Structural damage- Some piece of the ship was damaged in the fighting, GM choice. It needs to be repaired before it will function again.
Naval Combat Example
The Piranaha (P) finds itself facing off against the Silver Spear (SS), a mighty warship. It will be a tough battle, but reward much booty if the crew succeeds.
Round 1
The P’s fearless Captain Art, leads, making an Upper Hand check (UHC) against the CMD of the opposing Captain, Captain Dastardly Dew-Badyr (DD). Art rolls Profession (Sailor) gets a 17, but DD’s CMD is 18, starting the P off at a disadvantage with 1 failure. This grants the GM a Danger Point. The GM uses it to make an immediate attack. He has an archer on the other ship fire at Ko, but the attack misses.
With the UHC done, all the other characters MUST take an action:
• Ko Attacks, firing his crossbow, striking an opposing sailor.
• Kiltem tries to Exploit a Critical Weakness, trying to use Perception to spot how DD is tacking so they can cut him off. He rolls 15, failing to hit DD’s CMD. This grants the GM a Danger Point. He decides to keep it for later.
• Not wanting to let the round end in failure, Slappy decides to Coordinate, rolls Profession(Sailor) and succeeds with a 21. This allows Lucky to try to Exploit a Critical Weakness.
• Lucky decides to Bluff DD so he can Exploit a Critical Weakness, and has Art tack straight towards the SS. Lucky rolls Bluff and gets 22. Success!! The UHC failure is removed.
This brings the total number of UH successes/failures (S/F) to 0, meaning the battle can’t start yet.
Round 2
Art’s UHC succeeds, granting the P its first success.
With the UHC done, all the other characters MUST take an action:
• Ko Attacks, firing his crossbow, striking an opposing sailor.
• Kiltem tries to Rally the Crew and succeeds, granting +2 to Art’s next UHC.
• Slappy decides to Cast a Spell, and uses his bardic performance to use Inspire Competence on Art, granting +2 to his UHC.
• Lucky decides to implement a Deception Plan, using Bluff again, having Art start to make a tack away, only to tack back. He succeeds, causing the CMD and AC of DD and the SS crew to suffer a -2 penalty next round.
The P stands with 1 success, 0 failures. This brings the total number of UH successes/failures (S/F) to 1, meaning Art has to decide to initiate battle or continuing maneuvering for a better spot. If Art decided to start the combat now he would roll a d6 to determine the ships’ relative orientation, and then both sides would roll initiative. Whichever side had the lowest initiative roll would place figures on ship’s first. However, since Art has a +4 to his UHC for the coming round, he decides to keep maneuvering.
Round 3
Art’s UHC succeeds, granting the P its 2nd success.
With the UHC done, all the other characters MUST take an action:
• Ko Attacks, firing his crossbow, missing an opposing sailor. This grants the GM a Danger Point. He immediately spends this cause Discombobulation causing Art to suffer -2 to his next UHC.
• Seeing battle fast approaching, Kiltem decides to Cast a Spell, and casts Barkskin.
• Slappy decides to Cast a Spell, and uses his bardic performance to use Inspire Competence on Art, granting +2 to his UHC.
• Lucky Attacks, firing his crossbow and striking an opposing sailor.
The P stands with 2 success, 0 failures. This brings the total number of UH successes/failures (S/F) to 2, meaning Art has to decide to initiate battle or continuing maneuvering for a better spot. If Art decided to start the combat now he would determine the ships’ relative orientations, the SS would place their figures on their ship first, and the PCs would gain one of the following advantages: A) Free volley with all siege engines or other shipboard weapons, B) Place the PC’s figures on any square on both maps, not just on their ship, C) Gain a surprise round, D) Can Ram the opposing ship. However, Art decides to live dangerously and goes for the 3rd success.
Round 4
Art’s UHC fails, causing the P to have a failure, suddenly putting the P at a significant disadvantage. This also grants the GM a Danger Point, giving him a total of 2. He immediately uses 1 to make an attack, firing at Lucky and hitting him for 8 damage.
With the UHC done, all the other characters MUST take an action. They need to prioritize removing that failure, because if they end this round with 2 successes and 1 failure, that brings the total UHC to 3, meaning combat MUST start, and with even 1 failure, the PCs will be at a significant disadvantage:
• Ko tries to Exploit a Critical Weakness, using Diplomacy to get the crew working in tandem. However, he fails, granting the GM a Danger Point. He decides to keep it, bringing him to a total of 2.
• Kiltem decides to Coordinate, and rolls Profession(Sailor), granting a success.
• Since Kiltem used Coordinate, this gives Slappy another opportunity to try to Exploit a Critical Weakness. He decides to throw a wild Performance, distracting DD from his Captain duties. Success!! The failure is removed!!
• Lucky Attacks, firing his crossbow, missing an opposing sailor. This grants the GM a Danger Point. He decides to keep it, bringing him to a total of 3.
With this round’s failure removed, the P stands with 2 success, 0 failures. This brings the total number of UH successes/failures (S/F) to 2, meaning Art has to decide to initiate battle or continuing maneuvering for a better spot. Art really wants to get that 3rd success, but with the close call this round, he decides to initiate battle. Art decides to start the battle at broadsides, with the ships close for boarding. Art decides to take benefit B), Place the PC’s figures on any square on both maps, not just on their ship. The GM places his figures. Then the PCs place theirs, moving Art, Kiltem, Ko and Lucky onto the SS with Ko and Art flanking DD, while Lucky and Kiltem flank DD’s 2nd mate, Mr. Smee. However, just when the PCs are feeling good, the GM spends a Danger Point to Outmaneuver, moving DD out of flank and adjacent to Ko. He then spends another Danger Point for Shifting Tides, granting one of DD’s marines a free move action, and moves the marine to flank Ko with DD.
The battle commences and after much bloodshed and derring do, the PCs are victorious. However, GM spends his final Danger Point to add a Pyrrhic element to their victory, giving them a Supply Shortage, meaning the the PCs and crew suffer a -2 to all checks in combat until they resupply at port, unless they use up a portion of their plunder to resupply.
Copied from Slack
CMD Sidebar
At low-mid levels the standard ship CMDs should work well. However, the PC skill checks will quickly outstrip the base, ship CMDs. Since, in these rules, CMD is a proxy for the NPC ship’s sailing check, the following modifications are suggested.
1) If a NPC ship’s Captain (or other relevant crew officer) has a sailing check that is higher than the ships CMD, for the purpose of these rules, the PC’s Upper Hand check DC equals 10 + sailing check bonus (this includes any sailing check bonuses from ship modifications).
2) Add a CMD bonus if the GM judges the NPC ship’s crew to be of higher than average quality. For a good crew add +1 and +2 for a crack/elite crew. If the crew is both crack/elite and 5 or more levels higher than the PC’s average level, add +5 instead.
3) Per GM discretion, may give a circumstance modifier to the NPC ship CMD (generally limited to a -2 penalty or +2 bonus). Modifying the CMD for circumstance may be easier than modifying PC checks, as it is mechanically equivalent, but has fewer points of failure (i.e. Players don’t need to remember the penalty/bonus for each roll).
Like, I don't think it would be strange for a NPC Ship CAPTAIN at our level to have a +10 or +12 sailing check. The GM can always give them one if they don't a DC 20 is not a guaranteed success for Slappy but, also, given the rules, even if Slappy can't fail, Art still HAS to succeed for that to be meaningful.
If Art, succeeds, fails, succeeds, fails, and Slappy keeps canceling his successes, it still balances because of Danger Points. We can't just sit around making checks forever until we rack up 3 successes and 0 failures without consequence
That whole time the GM can pelt us with attacks for each failure or, the GM can save them and turn our perfect 3 success set-up into a mess.
If he has 4 danger points, he start us all in a tight spot, make us make check to get into the fight or, rearrange our characters before combat begins or, just save them all to after the fight and f our supplies, damage us, etc
We already have 3 danger points, none of which the GM has spent (meaning f us for later), so, regardless of if Slappy can cancel failures to the end of time, we might want to just take the first opportunity of 1 success and 0 failure to start the fight on even terms instead of gambling to let the GM rack up danger points
Now, my use of the CMD as the baseline for the ship's DC might have been off base. Looking through the player's guide, the CMD's seemed to be in the high teens, so, I figured that with some increases should do us well
If the actual ships in the book have CMDs all sitting in the high 20s to low 30s, I think that would make this system too punishing
So, we should use something else for the DCs. For my money, I would just have the GM set a level/challenge appropriate DC if we can't find a game stat that scales better than GM discretion
So, I would suggest if DMS would reset our current status with a post wrapping up what has happened in this combat so far with results from the corrected DC's.
I will summarize, but the DM needs to set the DC to determine success or failure. Remember * Skill check DCs default to CMD. Attack rolls are against the AC or CMD of whatever was targeted.
• 1st Upper hand check:
◦ Art's Upper hand check= 16 vs Opposing Ships Pilot/Captain
▪ Success= Great
▪ Failure=DM receives a danger point to use immediately or place in bank
◦ Kiltem: Cast Spell his concentration check =17 vs Opposing Ship’s Pilot/Captain.
▪ This one requires a bit of adjudication because of his written fiction. He is targeting masts and rigging so this would default to the ship’s AC to hit which would be super easy, but this is why we suggested a concentration check. Now this is a 5’wide 30’ long verticle bolt. So to fit with the “Fiction being presented” I would look at the hardness of the mast (probably 5), the average damage of the lightning bolt (10.5 for the 3d6 version, 16.5 for the 3d10 version) and determine if it is an easy, medium, or hard for it to “fictionally” cause some of the sail guides or runners to malfunction enough to hamper the next upper hand check. The CMD of a Galley is 18, but since the lightning bolt average dmg doubles the hardness I would probably reduce that by 2 for an effective DC of 16.
▪ Success= Excellent apply damge to ship, it has 1,560hp or give some 1 time bonus in accordance with the fiction.
▪ Failure=DM receives a danger point to use immediately or place in bank.
◦ Slappy: Exploit a critical weakness to remove a failure Slappy hits DC 26 (if Art didn’t fail, then Slappy would of course change action to either Deception, or Rally the Crew)
▪ Success= Remove Arts Failure
▪ Failure= DM receives a danager point to use immediately or place in bank. (to be honest I can’t see Slappy failing)
◦ Ko: Rally the Crew he rolled a 17 vs Opposing Ships Captian or Pilot CMD
▪ Success= +2 to Art’s next upper hand check
▪ Failure= DM receives danger point to use immediatelyor place in bank.
This wraps up all the rolls that have been made. If I was a guessing man, I would guess that the DC is 18 which would put us at.
• Upper hand: 0 Successes, 0 Failures (because Slappy removed it)
• DM has 2 danger points to use, probably bank 1, use one
• DM will award a 1 time bonus to aid the Pirannah (maybe a -1 to the DC to Ko’s intimidate because the lightning cracked just in time to add emphisis to Ko’s words) but this would remove one of the danger points I assumed.
The DC math is still wonky. I'd love to find an objective formula for it instead.
I'm going with most of what Sandor posted...
@DMS I wouldn’t worry to much at finding the “correct” algorithm for a DC. This isn’t ever going to be used for society, and I know I feel that you’ve been DMing long enough to set a reasonably challenging DC for us no matter what level we are. So if you say it’s DC 20 then I’m good with it.
Kind of like we trust you not to put us up against an ancient red dragon when we’re level 3 without the ability to run away.
Conversely if you put a Man-O-War with 36 cannons, and two supporting vessels against the Pirannah with no way to escape then I’m going to figure that were either going to be dead and fish food (make new characters, or become undead and give us the black pearl), or captives and have to escape.
So don’t put to much thought into it, just make it a challenge. If we outclass them it’s easier, if we are outclassed it’s harder
The DC math is still wonky. I'd love to find an objective formula for it instead.
Is there a reason just doing the "take 10" value of the opposing captain's profession (sailor) as DC doesn't work? Seems like it would scale pretty well. And, if the book isn't giving the opposing captains many ranks in that skill, seems like an easy fix to give them some more.
That's another solid idea. I'm almost caught up. I'm sorry for the delay everyone.
Still alive?
Alive, but not ready. Sorry, real life threw me a massive curve ball right as I was getting back into things.