I'm going to start a campaign back up and my players are currently sailing for a New Land across the ocean. I've got a number of monsters, ghost ships, and uncharted islands lined up, but I'm pretty in the dark when it comes to how many squares long and wide a ship should be. I vaguely recall seeing that on the PRD but I couldn't find that information (just ship hp, hardness, speed etc., which isn't really relevant right yet).
The ship in mind is a Sailing Ship by the categorization of the GM's guide. Does anyone have any statistics on this?
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I'm going to start a campaign back up and my players are currently sailing for a New Land across the ocean. I've got a number of monsters, ghost ships, and uncharted islands lined up, but I'm pretty in the dark when it comes to how many squares long and wide a ship should be. I vaguely recall seeing that on the PRD but I couldn't find that information (just ship hp, hardness, speed etc., which isn't really relevant right yet).
The ship in mind is a Sailing Ship by the categorization of the GM's guide. Does anyone have any statistics on this?
The Skull & Shackles Player's Guide is a free download that includes new rules for ship-to-ship combat, including expanded statistics for a variety of ship types. The ships use 30-foot squares for use on a flip-mat or battlemap, but they also include actual dimensions as well.
For an exploring adventuring party, I'd expect something like a caravel (the kind of ship which first explored the New World: the Nina and Pinta were caravels); a one-mast caravel has a length of about 40-50 feet and a beam (its width at its widest point) of about 20 feet, so about 8-10 squares in length and 4 squares wide in the middle.
In some sense, you want a smaller ship to make sea monster, etc. encounters more interesting (ie. subject to capsize), but even a pretty small ocean-going vessel is going to be at least colossal; I suppose smart monsters wait for the longships to deploy and then try to attack those!
For an exploring adventuring party, I'd expect something like a caravel (the kind of ship which first explored the New World: the Nina and Pinta were caravels); a one-mast caravel has a length of about 40-50 feet and a beam (its width at its widest point) of about 20 feet, so about 8-10 squares in length and 4 squares wide in the middle.
In some sense, you want a smaller ship to make sea monster, etc. encounters more interesting (ie. subject to capsize), but even a pretty small ocean-going vessel is going to be at least colossal; I suppose smart monsters wait for the longships to deploy and then try to attack those!
The one I mocked up quickly was actually quite larger than that; 7 squares wide, in fact! Thinking about it now, it does seem awful wide for a ship. I think I was too timid about things getting to crowded when the skeletons and wights attack, but That would probably make for a more interesting scene if it was a bit more cramped.
Also thanks for the skulls and shackles link, I downloaded it and it should help me flesh otu a number of things for this.