Our party renamed the Man's Promise to the 'Maiden's Promise', based on the legend we created surrounding our ship's captain, but now that we just finished Tempest Rising, one of our party is secretly having a new ship built, 'Maiden's Fury', to be revealed sometime in the Price of Infamy. A lot of our funds are going towards it, so it needs to be spectacular.
We've been trying to figure out some of the costs outlined in the Player's Guide - exactly how much would it cost to have magically treated sails for a 3-masted sailing ship?
Magically treated hulls work out to 4,500 per square of the ship, or 18,000 for a collossal-sized sailing ship near as I can figure. For magically treated sails it lists the costs at 500/5' of sail and lists a 3 masted sailing ship as having 90 'squares' of sails... which would equal 45,000 gp. That seems a little high, especially since in the ship descriptions, a Warship is described as having 40 squares of magically treated sails and the ship's cost being only 25,000 gp. 20,000 of that would be in sails alone!
Am I correctly understanding the proposed cost of treated sails or am I mis-reading something?
Also, Sailing Ships are indicated as having 2, 3 or 4 masts, but no speed differences are applied to those variations - is the speed considered the same regardless of how many sails you have?
Masts actually affect shipboard speed according to tonnage. Bigger ships : you usually need more masts, since the strength of any individual mast is limited. Also, very large sails (reauired by a few masts) are extremely hard to handle, due to the volume of sail to be shifted.Twi masts ===> huge sails, four masts ===> smaller sails, easier to handle.
And yes, masts, their prcise shape and rake, sailing mounted on them and placement onboard do massively affect sailing speed in reality... but not under the ship-building rules.
Simplification for the sake of the game
Masts actually affect shipboard speed according to tonnage. Bigger ships : you usually need more masts, since the strength of any individual mast is limited. Also, very large sails (reauired by a few masts) are extremely hard to handle, due to the volume of sail to be shifted.Twi masts ===> huge sails, four masts ===> smaller sails, easier to handle.
And yes, masts, their prcise shape and rake, sailing mounted on them and placement onboard do massively affect sailing speed in reality... but not under the ship-building rules.
Simplification for the sake of the game
So the presumption for expediency purposes would be 1 giant sail, four smaller sails or something in between but ultimately equaling more or less the same surface area. I can go with that.
Any idea on the seemingly huge expense for magically treated sails?
one fairly obvious boost is hallow/unhallow.
one fairly obvious boost is hallow/unhallow.
I've been thinking of a way to 'fireproof' the ship. Resist Energy is one of the effects you can choose for a 'Hallow' spell - That would basically give the entire ship Fire Resistance:10, no? I'd probably require that they pay double for the spell to get two applications of it to cover the entire vessel, and perhaps a small side quest for the Druid - perhaps for the Master of Gales himself...
wouldnt aid be better? Kinda like instant heal for the crew
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She's really going to be a beaut.
And a brute.
Maiden’s Fury:
(3-Masted Sailing Ship)
Mundane Enhancements:
20 light ballistae, 10/side
Springal (rear-mounted)
Broad Rudder (+1 on sailing checks)
Extended Keel (+1 on sailing checks)
Narrow Hull (+2 on sailing checks)
Silk Sails (+1 on opposed upper hand checks, +10% speed)
Rapid Deploy Sails (+1 on sailing checks)
2 Ship's Boats
Magical Enhancements:
Magically Treated Control Device (x2 Hardness, x2 HP)
Magically Treated Hull (x2 Hardness, x2 HP)
Magically Treated Sails (x2 Hardness, x2 HP)
Silent Image effect (sails on fire - usable at will)
Ship Sentinel (Ballistae Marksman) w/+1 Flaming Light Ballista of Distance(+13 attack, 3d8+2d6 fire damage)
Additional effects:
Hallow spell in reward for a service to the Master of Gales (Resist Energy: Fire)
Jalhazar’s Wheel at the helm
Charts of the Fair Winds (gift from Tessa Fairwind)
Impossible Bottle (gift from Avimar Sorrinash)
All for the low, low price of just 125,000 gold - not counting the additional effects earned rather than bought. A lot of the desired improvements on the Island of Empty Eyes will have to be delayed to pay for her.
Hallow spells is a very good call, since it not only should protect the sails themselves, but also the tarred hemp, blocks of wood, masts and yards themselves up in the rigging... all of which is prone to immolation, resulting in raining burning sticky debris from above onto a wooden ship. Nevermind that with no sails, you are probably dead in the water
Silk sails, btw should not work (looses strength if wet, little tolerance for stretch), but that is a minor quibble... basically you will some other alchemically treated material, filed under "silk" ^^
and then permanent symbols. better have those with a special enchanted tattoo or some such immune (as crew changes over time).
How are you ruling the Hallow spell?
40ft radius is not enough to cover a 3-mast sailing ship with one casting if you are using the default size (30x105-ish)
So, double casting, Widen metamagic, or something else?
Curious for my own ship ;)
Cheers
In our campaign there are plenty of variants on spells, especially divine spells not readily available to the PC's. For our purposes we would have charged the PC's the cost of two Hallowed spells and determined that they were using a variant applicable to ships. I'm sure the cost of a Widened version would have been fine as well (in our campaign we did away with Domain spells but Clerics get access to ALL metamagic feats for free). Instead we had then run a side adventure for the Master of Gales in return for his aid - or rather the aid of another at his behest.
Seriously look into a Ship's Sentinel as well.
I'm going to follow this thread as I'm curious for ideas that my own party might be able to use. We're still on the Wormwood but I've seen those rules in the players guide and have been thinking about what we could do with them. That said, some thoughts/questions.
With two or three castings, I think the hallow would definitely work. Further, if you can cast hallow, you're probably at least 7th level and then your resist energy goes up to 20 -- nice. Unfortunately, resist energy and protection from energy only apply to creatures (at least RAW). May be worth checking to be sure it will also apply to the unattended objects (ie, the ship). I think it's a fair use of the combo myself, but I'd check with the GM to be sure. (Unless I'm forgetting something, which is completely possible.)
Regardless, cool stuff. I'll see if I can't get my party to start thinking about this stuff at some point (right now we're still dying to actually mutiny and break free of Plugg and Scourge but that seems to be coming quickly).
I'm going to follow this thread as I'm curious for ideas that my own party might be able to use. We're still on the Wormwood but I've seen those rules in the players guide and have been thinking about what we could do with them. That said, some thoughts/questions.
With two or three castings, I think the hallow would definitely work. Further, if you can cast hallow, you're probably at least 7th level and then your resist energy goes up to 20 -- nice. Unfortunately, resist energy and protection from energy only apply to creatures (at least RAW). May be worth checking to be sure it will also apply to the unattended objects (ie, the ship). I think it's a fair use of the combo myself, but I'd check with the GM to be sure. (Unless I'm forgetting something, which is completely possible.)
Regardless, cool stuff. I'll see if I can't get my party to start thinking about this stuff at some point (right now we're still dying to actually mutiny and break free of Plugg and Scourge but that seems to be coming quickly).
Very often - in our campaigns at least - RAW often applies a LOT more strictly to players than to NPC's. After all, how often do we see magical effects in campaigns that no PC could possibly duplicate?
The cool thing about the ship is that it will use the danger of fire, particularly that of a Ship's Sentinel with a Flaming Distance Ballistae and then compliment that by having the illusions of burning sails, marking it out in any fight and making it something most ships would be terrified to close with.
To be honest, as I have it figured +1 Flaming Distance Ballistae are about 32K a piece two of those mounted on swivels fore or aft could be a very powerful advantage in any fight, through you'd better have a plan for dousing those fires if you want to take the ship or be able to offload its cargo without burning alive...