The more my Savage Tide campaign progresses, the more it's really turning into a homebrew campaign, using the STAP as a bit of a sandbox, as has been mentioned before.
My players are really into the idea of waging naval battles against fleets of pirates or what have you. I'm thinking of adding at least one big battle sequence like this, using the rules in Stormwrack.
Has anyone else played around with this? I was thinking of having each of the PCs - seven in all - each control a warship and square off against either a contingent of the Crimson Fleet or something else I make up.
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I wish you was my dungeonmaster.
I could see going that direction if I ever ran the thing. When I saw the whirlpool final battle in POTCaribbean III, I said to myself that that would be a good thing for STAP.
(edit) what point did you get to before you decided to go that route, or think about going that route?
I wish you was my dungeonmaster.
I could see going that direction if I ever ran the thing. When I saw the whirlpool final battle in POTCaribbean III, I said to myself that that would be a good thing for STAP.
(edit) what point did you get to before you decided to go that route, or think about going that route?
We just started "The Sea Wyvern's Wake." Everyone was so excited about getting the ship, and they spent a lot of time outfitting it, adding ballistae and everything. I polled the group and everyone is totally into the idea of doing naval combat, so I'm going to work it in at a later point. I figure I have plenty of time to design something really cool.
My favorite fantasy naval battle is in the second Lone Wolf book - the battle against Vonatar's Death Hulks. Really great stuff. I may do something like that, but then I worry about the POTCaribbean rip-off factor.
I may do something like that, but then I worry about the POTCaribbean rip-off factor.
We have a PC in our group named Mad Roger Rackham who is the biggest Jack Sparrow rip-off in existence. The first night I gamed with the group, the player (also named Roger) was dressed in full PoTC costume. Man, does he love those movies.
This led to us *also* having a Davy Jones (and yes, he was an illithid pirate captain), a fight with a kraken, and a duel (just last session) between Roger and Davy that happened *inside* the belly of the selfsame kraken (the spot from where Jones had been astral projecting). We've also played pirate dice in character (as well as three dragon ante), made numerous references to "the Code", and as one of the admirals of the Emerald Crest, I have no doubt that Roger is going to steal one of my ships and force me to hunt him all over the seven seas -- just as soon as we finish this whole pesky saving the world bit. In my own STAP campaign (the one I'm running, as opposed to the one I'm playing in), I've been very tempted to replace Charon with Davy Jones entirely, in keeping with the ferryman of the dead idea.
In short, we've flat-out ripped off the movie a zillion times, and loved every minute of it. I imagine your players may have a similar reaction -- sure, it puts a bit more wink-wink nudge-nudge humor into the game, but that can be a good thing. And those movies resonate with us for a reason, which is part of why all of us saw the first issue for STAP and went "Pirates? Dinosaurs? OMG AWESOME!!!"
In short, though YMMV, I don't know that I would worry about it so much. ;)
I wish you was my dungeonmaster.
I could see going that direction if I ever ran the thing. When I saw the whirlpool final battle in POTCaribbean III, I said to myself that that would be a good thing for STAP.
This scene inspired me. I may try to do something different for the final battle with ol' baboon brains.
In my Savage Tide Campaign, I am Restructuring the entire final Adventure so that it becomes a short trek over land to get to the inland sea to open the Witch Queens portal. The Sea wyvern sails out of the Gates, followed by hundreds of Eladrin ships and demonic hordes. The PCs hop on their ship. Every encounter is going to be ship based.
I may do something like that, but then I worry about the POTCaribbean rip-off factor.We have a PC in our group named Mad Roger Rackham who is the biggest Jack Sparrow rip-off in existence. The first night I gamed with the group, the player (also named Roger) was dressed in full PoTC costume. Man, does he love those movies.
This led to us *also* having a Davy Jones (and yes, he was an illithid pirate captain), a fight with a kraken, and a duel (just last session) between Roger and Davy that happened *inside* the belly of the selfsame kraken (the spot from where Jones had been astral projecting). We've also played pirate dice in character (as well as three dragon ante), made numerous references to "the Code", and as one of the admirals of the Emerald Crest, I have no doubt that Roger is going to steal one of my ships and force me to hunt him all over the seven seas -- just as soon as we finish this whole pesky saving the world bit. In my own STAP campaign (the one I'm running, as opposed to the one I'm playing in), I've been very tempted to replace Charon with Davy Jones entirely, in keeping with the ferryman of the dead idea.
In short, we've flat-out ripped off the movie a zillion times, and loved every minute of it. I imagine your players may have a similar reaction -- sure, it puts a bit more wink-wink nudge-nudge humor into the game, but that can be a good thing. And those movies resonate with us for a reason, which is part of why all of us saw the first issue for STAP and went "Pirates? Dinosaurs? OMG AWESOME!!!"
In short, though YMMV, I don't know that I would worry about it so much. ;)
I have a thing about being overly derivative. I once played in a Warhammer-esque "steampunk" homebrew campaign that pretty blatantly ripped off plots and concepts from China Mieville's Perdido Street Station, despite the fact that the GM insisted that he never read the book. Regardless, for some reason, it really sapped my enjoyment of the campaign.
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This is really bizarre...we have just, and I mean in the last hour, finished testing some rules for naval combat (we will be starting STAP soon). The Stormwrack rules are OK, but we have found a book called Broadsides by a company called Living Imagination (some of their books are on this site, but not this one...bummer).
The rules for naval combat between ships worked really well, they seem to be well thought out.
The rules include things like:
- the effect of the speed and direction of the wind,
- losing crew, and how it effects the ship maneuverability,
- the hit points and hardness of different parts of the ship
- how different ship types work
- and, my personal favourite, seasickness rules, and lots more crunchy goodness.
The rules are a little complex at first but depending on what you are looking for I would recommend them.
Cool ideas, you guys. I am actually ending the AP with a naval battle as well, basically switching around where the climax ends up etc.
My inspiration is partly the Pirates film (in fact the sailor/paladin in the group is modeled by that player's inspiration from Keira Knightley) and partly my own love of naval warfare in the age of sail--Master and Commander, Ben Hur, Cleopatra, Hornblower, etc, also my favourite novels including "A Song of Ice and Fire" (I've pretty much stolen the Greyjoy family to be the Pirates my Pcs Love to Hate) "Elric" and "Conan".
Sounded like a good idea for our group as well. In practice, it didn't work out that well.
It takes a long, long time for ships to close with each other. If you play that out, as suggested in Stormwrack, then you sit around making a lot of Captain skill checks that amount to nothing. During that time, you fire a lot of arrows/ranged attacks back and forth that don't really do anything. Then your wizard summons a monster and everyone sits on their thumbs while that battle plays out.
So while it sounds good in practice, it plays out really tediously.
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Doing any kind of battles/mass combats with D&D rules is tedious in my experience, and I don't know of any wargames that are designed for one player on one side and 4-6 on the others. I've had some great experiences running PCs involved in battles with the victory point system from Heroes of Battle, tho, and it'll hep your players get into the same format used in Tides of Dread. The system is simple enough that you could just sit down with the book in a Borders cafe and get the hang of it: it's not something you'd be consulting at the table if you're not running a military campaign.
Doing any kind of battles/mass combats with D&D rules is tedious in my experience, and I don't know of any wargames that are designed for one player on one side and 4-6 on the others.
Limit the battle to the PCs' perspective. If they stay together (probably the best way to proceed), find out their plan and play their mission, not the whole battle. As the ships close for battle, the enemy won't be sitting still: Keep the whole party busy with summoned horrors, undersea allies, and long-distance duels between archers and spellcasters.
If the PC's split up, give the other players something to do to keep them involved. An excellent example of this is Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu scenario Raid on Innsmouth. In that, each PC is sent with a different team taking part in the military raid on that infamous town. While one PC has the limelight, the other players are given supporting characters to play, soldiers or others assisting the PC. The scenario cuts back and forth between the characters' separate adventures, pausing at various "cliffhangers" to maintain suspense.
Don't play out every detail of fights that don't directly involve the players. Come up with an abbreviated way to fairly decide how these battles play out. I generally use four d10 rolls to resolve distant battles: The first determines how aggressive each combatants' tactics were; the second, how effective they were. High aggression produces quick, decisive results (for good or ill), while low aggression drags out longer. Low aggression with high success may suggest that the combatants didn't even come to blows.
As an example, a ship filled with ogre berserkers rolls two tens against a vessel that rolled one and five. This tells me that the ogre ship's leadership led them in boldly to board the enemy vessel; the enemy tried to evade, damaging the ogres' ship, but was ultimately overwhelmed. If the ogre ship had rolled less aggression, perhaps their captain feared the other vessel was trying to lure them into a trap and stood off, reducing the damage they could do; if the other vessel had been very effective, perhaps their efforts would have crippled the ogres' ship.