Ship-to-Ship Combat and NPCS

[Mavrickindigo]

So this adventure places a lot of emphasis on the crew you will gather, especially in the Wormwood Mutiny. Thing is, ship-to-ship battle is done exclusively between PCS and major players on the other side of the ship. There doesn't seem to be any rules in place for determining casualties on either side when it comes to crew. Anyone have any ideas for good rules I can use. I don't want it to devolve into "well I'll roll a d10 and that's how many members of your crew died"

I was thinking something that would depend on how the PCs did, how quickly they beat the enemies and how much health they had after the fact

[Fitzwalrus]

I think you would be far better off planning the encounter out beforehand than potentially getting yourself into a bind by relying on a particular rule or die roll to resolve this.

Spoiler:

As the module suggests, think of the fight between the NPCs as background color and set dressing. The critical thing is that after the Man's Promise is taken there are enough survivors left (pirates and Rahadoumi) to provide skeleton crews for both vessels. The Wormwood has a bare-bones crew even before the fight, so you can't afford too many casualties unless there are a lot of Rahadoumi to make up the difference (although you can kill as many of them for effect as you like. ;D )

I haven't quite reached this point of the AP with my players yet, but I plan on making up a post-fight crew roster for both ships (minimum 20 hands on both ships to sail without negative modifiers, and a storm is coming...) and then plot out who lives and dies ahead of time. There will probably be a few dead or wounded from both the PC's Wormwood friends and foes (because that needs to stay balanced for the mutiny to come) plus a number from the crew of the Promise, and knowing this before the encounter starts I can use it to give some color to the fight around the PCs and also be ready to describe the aftermath once it's all over.

You certainly can use the relative success of the PCs in their fight to flavor the outcome, but always keep in mind what you'll need for survivors in order to run the later part of the module. Once you're on to the later modules in the AP this becomes less of an issue as you can replace lost crew in ports you may visit, but particularly in the first book you have to be careful in how you handle crew strengths. It may mean a bit more work for you initially, but a little careful preparation should pay off in the long run with less headaches in running the game for you and a memorable conclusion to the voyage for your players.

[ferrinwulf]

Im doing something that is working realy well. I found a really good way of dealing with this problem.

Basicaly you take the stat blocks of the saliors on both sides (use the wormwood pirate stat block for the players ship) and note the attack bonus of each side.

Each round of combat:

Roll oppossed attack rolls, highest wins the fight.

(There is a post on this forum about ship morale but I can't remember whcih one it is sorry, but I stole this idea and implimented it in to this combat system)

There is no damage score just morale points, each side starts at 1 which can be boosetd by 1 the captain giving a diplomacy/intimidate check to gear his crew up with a rousing speech. I think the post also gives mods for moarle based on supplies or lack of, days at sea doing nothing etc so this score could be higher.

The winner of each round gains 1 morale, the loser loses 1 morale, once one side gets to zero they break and surrender.

Players can either aid another to give the crew attack roll a +2 or fight officers/captain or whatever else they do.

Once the fight is over roll 2d6 for the winner and 3d6 for the loser, this is the number of casulties. The 10% of the winning side are dead the rest injured, all cassulties on the losing side are dead.

I find this helps immensly and adds real flavour to the ship combat as the players crew then fluctuates with each battle rather then stay as a a static number or the GM having to just make stiff up. My palyers love it as do I.

[Dazz]

I use a bit of a combination of a dice roll and how well they did. I do roll a die to see how many die (with the exception that no *named* NPCs ever die from random chance, just like in the movies), which is a die higher for every round they take. Going from 1d0 (no deaths), 1d2, 1d3, 1d4, etc.

It does mention that just as many of the opposing crew volunteer to join as die on your crew, so it doesn't *really* matter how many die unless, like my players, they decided to give a name to every random crew member. For the record, if the person didn't already come with a name or if they haven't made the NPC *important*, I still consider them "nameless" crew. I let them decide which Bob, Geoffery, etc dies when I give the number.

[sabedoriaclark]

I created rules for determining crew casualties and such in this thread. Look specifically at the "Boarding Action" spoiler tag.

[ferrinwulf]

ah ha thanks sabedoriaclark that's the rules I stole, apologies for forgetting you're post

:))

Its really good though.

[Riggler]

During Wormwood Mutiny, the PCs interacted with all the crew of the Wormwood. Each NPC I created role-playing notes, accents and personalities for. Of those that "clicked" with the PCs (as far as memorable, not necessarily liked) will not be dying unless the PCs kill them during the mutiny.

I'm sure the crew will eventually fade much more into the background, but if you've established 20 or so NPCs, there it doesn't make sense to me from a dramatic standpoint to use them for dramatic effect.

If I can get an emotional reaction out a slashing down of young, naive Jack Scrimshaw out of the corner of the crew's eye during a ship raid because they know him and like him, that's a much better use than a die roll of how many crew are lost. Or even a reaction to the the hostile (to my PCs) Conchobar getting nearly killed, because the PCs actually like interacting with the cocky, fake pirate that speaks like a Confederate southern Col.

I mean it would be a shame to recycle crew members the PCs know and have interacted with if I can gain some dramatic mileage out of those they know.