I've just been reading over Sea Wyvern's Wake and noticed a few factual errors regarding aspects of seamanship and navigation in the adventure. If my criticisms seem overly pedantic, please forgive me - after 20 years as a naval officer I'm probably more inclined than other people to notice these things.
1. Navigating. The adventure recommends an increasing DC after each successive navigation check failure while in the open sea. This isn't realistic. It is no more difficult to recheck the ship's position after a failure than before it. I suggest keeping the DC the same regardless of previous check results. Furthermore, each character is allowed a Survival check to notice if the expedition has become lost. Any area of open sea looks exactly like any other. No one, other than the navigator, has any chance whatsoever of noticing that the ship is not on track. Before the ship sets sail the navigator plots tracks on a nautical chart from point of departure to point of arrival. The ship's position is frequently checked against these tracks to ensure that the ship is where it should be. In the open ocean, without landmarks to navigate by, the only way of doing this is by celestial navigation. This is done three times per day: the sun's position is checked at zenith (noon), and three stars are triangulated once at evening twilight, and once at morning twilight. If the sky is overcast then it isn't possible to get a fix, and you must wait until the sky clears. If overcast conditions last for several days running it is possible to get seriously off track (having been set by current and wind) and the ship could hit a shoal or seamount. Other than that there is no real danger in being off course and as soon as the weather clears the navigator can easily fix the position and get back on track. It really isn't possible for the exedition to become lost unless either the charts or the navigator's sextant are lost or destroyed. Navigating seems awfully complex to the uninitiated, but like most things in life its pretty simple once you know how.
2. Rowyn's plan to cut the rope supporting the net chair is doomed to fail. The method of transfering people between ships proposed in the adventure is called a jackstay transfer. What happens is two ships position themselves alongside one another while underway and maintain station. (This is a very tricky bit of shiphandling and should require the officer of the watch or helmsman to make a DC 15 profession (sailor) check to succeed). A heaving line is sent from the supplying ship to the receiving ship and the end of the heaving line is tied to the heavy jackstay hawser. The receiving ship hauls the hawser onboard and passes the end through a pulley attached to the mast then ties the end to a hardpoint on the deck. The supplying ship keeps the hawser in hand (not attached) so that slack can be given or taken up as need to keep the line taut during the transfer. The rope chair is attached to a pulley with two light lines attached (one end held by either ship so the chair can be pulled back and forth between the ships on the jackstay hawser). Once the evolution is complete the jackstay is disassembled and hauled back onto the supplying ships and the equipment is stowed. The adventure assumes that the equipment is left set up, which is simply not done. It is completely impractical for the ships to maintain such precise station-keeping for the duration of dinner, and the supplying end of the hawser cannot be safely tied off while the ships are under way. Any wave or gust of wind could seperate the ships, causing the hawser to part under strain, quite possibly maiming or killing crewmen on deck (decapitations have been known to occur this way). No bosun or ship's captain would ever tolerate ropes and gear lying around on deck and would require them to be stowed between evolutions. So, in fact, the jackstay will be re-established after dinner. Rowyn could cut the hawser after its been stowed in the cable locker, but this would almost certainly be noticed when the hawser is layed out on deck in prepartion for the jackstay (say DC 5 spot check to notice). Even if the crew somehow fails this check, then they will definitely notice when the hawser is passed, hand over hand to the receiving ship (DC 0). Rowyn may, indeed, attempt this, not knowing how nautical transfers are performed, but the end result will be to alert the crew to the presence of a sabateur onboard. The jackstay would be called off, and the diners transfered via ship's boat.
Of course most players will never notice the difference if you run these events as written, so you may not want to bother with my suggestions, but I can't bring myself to not run things correctly if possible.
Hey, good stuff, Sean! I was thinking the same thing myself about the navigation issues, but solely from a logical perspective as I have no experience in sailing/navigation.
The jackstay scenario you lay out actually might be a great way to help the players out (in discovering Rowyn) if they're having difficulty.
Hey, good stuff, Sean! I was thinking the same thing myself about the navigation issues, but solely from a logical perspective as I have no experience in sailing/navigation.
The jackstay scenario you lay out actually might be a great way to help the players out (in discovering Rowyn) if they're having difficulty.
Thanks! Yeah, I was thinking that having the crew and characters realize that there is a sabateur might be a really cool way to go. She could launch the mephit attack while the crew is busy launching the sea-boat, which might wreak great havoc. An unexplained mephit attack following the discovery of a cut hawser should definitely raise the character's suspicions and lead to a thorough search of the ship. I should have mentioned that in order for Rowyn to cut the hawser, the Sea Wyvern will need to be the supplying ship for the jackstay.
Creative Director
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Taking the second one first... it's not really an error, as much as it is an oversimplification. Space issues being such a premium all the time in the magazine, we summarized the sabotauge of the transfer. As you point out, from the PC's viewpoint, there won't be much difference. That said, thanks for posting this more detailed description here; it'll certainly help DMs seeking more realisim in their game!
As for the first issue, again, it's not necessarilly realistic, but it is the way that Stormwrack handles navigation. As an official D&D product, we're pretty much stuck with it. If in your game you'd prefer to use a different method, cool. But in the end, it's probably even best to assume that as long as the ship has a competent navigator on board that there are no problems navigating. After all, navigation failures won't help the adventure stay on course!
also she does have mage hand and I doubt it will take 5 lbs of force to cut a rope.... (especially with a sharp, serraded blade)
The jackstay scenario you lay out actually might be a great way to help the players out (in discovering Rowyn) if they're having difficulty.
Could she perhaps utilize the "Use Rope" or "Disable Device" skills to either impair the pulley or rope to make it seem as though it's stable but will fall apart? Admittedly it equates to the same ends, but then there's the further sense of realism for your campaign? Failing that, perhaps opening the mephit first and then hurling a dagger in the confusion?
One option would be to give her a scroll of shatter, which she uses whilst invisible to shatter the rope or pulley. Since it's non-magical and unattended it'll break automatically, and since it's not a direct attack against a creature, the spell won't break her invisibility.
The downside is that the PCs get no chance to spot a fraying rope.
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Creative Director
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One option would be to give her a scroll of shatter, which she uses whilst invisible to shatter the rope or pulley. Since it's non-magical and unattended it'll break automatically, and since it's not a direct attack against a creature, the spell won't break her invisibility.
The downside is that the PCs get no chance to spot a fraying rope.
Another option is animate rope.
Rowyn's rope-cutting tactics are all to the side. The "let's go swimming, my love" combined with the summon shark scroll gambit is quite deadly enough if the other PCs aren't near enough to immediately intervene (5th level character, in the water, with no equipment, no weapons or armor, and no spell components = shark food). Ouch!
yup.. that tactic is so ultimately nasty.. LOL!
So few characters come out alive from that.. a monk or rogue might do it (climbing up), but others?
Well a warlock might try blasting the shark aswell.. but a sorc of wiz trying to fireball it. Ouch..
I was personally wondering just how the navigators would fail a check in the first place. The adventure claims that the ships need to make a daily navigation check in the form of a Knowledge (Geography) check. If your expedition is hugging the shoreline (roughly 2000 of the 3000 miles of the voyage) and anyone with ONE rank of geography takes ten, the ships will never become lost (according to the adventure, pg 22, it is a DC 8 ckeck).
Even after the expedition turns from the sight of land it is only a DC 17 check to make the daily piloting roll. Normally, I would think that a DC 17 check is a fair indicator, but the navigator on the Blue Nixie and Urol Forol both have a +12 modifier to thier rolls. If they take ten, then again the expedition will never get lost.
Was this intended to streamline the voyage or unintentional and the PC's should have to also worry about their stores of food and such.
If this is the case (the PC's need to worry) then I will have Rowyn poison some of the stores with her arsenic and, coupled with some creative charm person effects, suggestions, and invisible occurances, this should put the ever superstitious salty crew in an almost mutinous state.
...Or is that going too far...
Celric
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Creative Director
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The journey is intended to be an easy one to navigate. For sake of space, we didn't include complications like storms and fog and the like. In addition, the sea charts that Lavinia's mother made and that Lavinia uses are actually quite well detailed, and are the primary reason the DCs aren't higher.
In any case, the point of the adventure isn't to have the PCs get lost at sea; the point is to give them a unique set of encounters and a chance to get to know some of the NPCs that'll be part of the campaign's next several adventures. If you use Stormwrack in your game, there's all sorts of things in there you can draw upon to make the trip less or more dangerous, as you see fit.
Having Rowyn mess with their food is a good plan, in any event. She didn't bring that arsenic along for nothing, after all!