Tempest Rising ship race and Raker Shoals


Skull & Shackles


I'm reading through the race trying to see how I can make some kind of sense of it and I am utterly confused with the Raker Shoals.

I understand the whole plotting a course bit that's easy but its the distance, perception checks and speed which is really confusing.

It says:The PCs encounter five uncharted reefs while sailing through Raker Shoals. Allow the PCs to make Perception checks to spot a reef before encountering it. The base DC of this check is 5, modified by +1 for every 10 feet of distance. What distance? is this the ships speed? there is no other distance listed so do you just make something up?

But then later is says this: The result of this check determines the distance of the reef from the PCs’ ship when it is spotted. For example, a result of 23 on the Perception check spots the reef 180 feet away. This again has me stumped as I have no idea where 180 feet has comes from and why suddenly the result of 23 becomes 180ft

Added to this later on it says this: For example, if the ship is traveling at a speed of 90feet, a DC 41 Perception check is required to spot a reef 360 feet away, again where the duce has 360ft come from? and what in the heck is this dc 41?

My head really hurts is there anybody that can explain this in a really simple manner so I can understand it? ie suppose the players ship speed is 90ft and give me a simple break down of the perception check needed to spot the reef and where/how the distance away from the ship is worked out?

I just don't get it......

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ferrinwulf wrote:

I'm reading through the race trying to see how I can make some kind of sense of it and I am utterly confused with the Raker Shoals.

I understand the whole plotting a course bit that's easy but its the distance, perception checks and speed which is really confusing.

It says:The PCs encounter five uncharted reefs while sailing through Raker Shoals. Allow the PCs to make Perception checks to spot a reef before encountering it. The base DC of this check is 5, modified by +1 for every 10 feet of distance. What distance? is this the ships speed? there is no other distance listed so do you just make something up?

But then later is says this: The result of this check determines the distance of the reef from the PCs’ ship when it is spotted. For example, a result of 23 on the Perception check spots the reef 180 feet away. This again has me stumped as I have no idea where 180 feet has comes from and why suddenly the result of 23 becomes 180ft

Added to this later on it says this: For example, if the ship is traveling at a speed of 90feet, a DC 41 Perception check is required to spot a reef 360 feet away, again where the duce has 360ft come from? and what in the heck is this dc 41?

My head really hurts is there anybody that can explain this in a really simple manner so I can understand it? ie suppose the players ship speed is 90ft and give me a simple break down of the perception check needed to spot the reef and where/how the distance away from the ship is worked out?

I just don't get it......

The result of the PCs' Perception checks determines the distance of each reef. For example, if a PC rolls a 23 on the check, the reef is 180 feet away (base DC 5 + 1 per 10 feet of distance: 5+18=23). If the PC only rolled a 15, the reef would be 100 feet away (base DC 5 + 1 per 10 feet of distance: 5+10=23).

The speed of the ship is only important for the sailing check to avoid a reef, not to spot it. In the example, the speed of the ship is 90 feet. A PC rolls a 41 on the Perception check, so the reef is 360 feet away (base DC 5 + 1 per 10 feet of distance: 5+36=41). If that PC rolled a 23 instead, the distance would be 180 feet (base DC 5 + 1 per 10 feet of distance: 5+18=23).

In the first example (DC 41, 360 feet), the reef's distance is at least 4 times the ship's current speed (4x90=360), so no sailing check is required. In the second example (DC 23, 180 feet), the reef's distance is twice the ship's current speed (2x90=180), so the base sailing check DC is 5.


Ahhh thanks Rob I got it :)))

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