My players have started their career as pirates with a string of humiliating defeats, as their victims outmanouvered them and fled the scene. I'm playing with the standard naval battle rules, and so far that's quite allright.
Now, after a visit in Bloodcove, they've upgrade their ship with a couple of catapults. And that seems awfully broken:
First of, the rules for aiming catapults make them very easy to use.
BAB + knowledge (engineering)-4 for non-proficiency. For the party wizard, with high int and maxed knolwdge (engineering) that adds up to +6.
The main issue is that the rules state they catapult makes aiming checks vs. DC 15 (light catapult) instead of attacks against the targets AC. They are using chain shots, and targeting the opponents sails... but as I read the rules, I can't find any modifiers for that kind of caled shots. If they were using ballistas, everything would be fine, as they would then target a higher AC for shooting at the sails, but I can't find any mention of that being the case with catapults.
Am I missing something here? Or is it that simple to take down the opponents sails with chain shots?
Yes, it's broken, but not in the way you think.
Chain shot fired from a standard catapult deals an average of 42 damage to sails.
If your wizard has a +6, he is only going to deal that damage approximately 35% of the time.
The sails on your typical sailing ship have 360 hit points (according to the player's guide at least).
That means, it will take you an average of 25 attempts to destroy the enemy ship's sails. I don't know about your group, but my group will be bored to tears by the time that happens.
With a light catapult, it becomes easier to hit, but you do less damage. The same wizard can deal an average of 28 damage, but only hits 60% of the time. Takes you ~22 attempts.
I hope you have more than one catapult...
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You need to inflict half the damage to the sails to get them a broken condition and halve the speed of a ship, making it a sitting duck for boarding.
360hp that's a sailing ship, I assume. I also assume that we have a sailing ship facing a sailing ship. So, up to 4 catapults firing, you need 180 damage. Do the math.