I'm planning to make a ship-campaign, inspired by Skull and Shackles.
So I'm looking for decent ship-combat rules.
Of course Skull & Shackles Player Guide has some in them, but I heard they're not as good, even though I haven't playtested them yet.
But I heard comparisons to the Jade Regent Caravan rules, where it's usually 1 roll of the GM vs 1 roll of the party, till one side has no HPs anymore. It was horribly boring and none of us had fun with it.
Is that true?
UC has Vehicle rules, but the way I understand it, S&S just uses them in a slightly modified form, so not sure they're really any better.
So is there anything out there that makes ship combat work. My criterias on that are:
a) It's fun for everyone (I know fun is relative...)
b) Everyone got something to do each round and has a chance to affect the outcome.
c) They're relatively easy. Sure some new rules have to be learned, obviously, but the more intuitive they are, the better.
No idea if such a thing exist...
I run Skull & Shackles and usually the only person that needs to make a sailing skill check is the captain, this can be given bonuses by up to 3 player using the skill. If you have anybody with profession siege engineer they can use that, and spellcasters have loads of options. It is not a perfect system, but it works for the d20 system. That being said, I've heard that frog god games Razor Coast setting has some alternate rules that work better. I just haven't taken a look at them.
Normally I just skip a lot of the chase scenes from Skull & Shackles as it gets boring fast, I have a player that min/maxed for profession sailor so I just say he's that good and they catch up to the other ship. The party enjoys it a bit more than 20 minutes of setup, dice rolling etc.
I run Skull & Shackles and usually the only person that needs to make a sailing skill check is the captain,
That's more or less what I want to avoid.
That being said, I've heard that frog god games Razor Coast setting has some alternate rules that work better. I just haven't taken a look at them.
Hmm... that seems to be this here: http://paizo.com/products/btpy8yfr?Razor-Coast-Fire-as-She-Bears
Has anyone tried that one yet?
Normally I just skip a lot of the chase scenes from Skull & Shackles as it gets boring fast, I have a player that min/maxed for profession sailor so I just say he's that good and they catch up to the other ship. The party enjoys it a bit more than 20 minutes of setup, dice rolling etc.
Thats pretty much what I did in Jade Regent with the caravan after the first two books. But considering that ship combat is far more important to a sea-campaign than caravan combat ever was, I don't really want to do that.
Well ship combat is split up between ship to ship (not very practical as the current rams deal maybe 10d8, and ballistae only do 3-4d8 against a ship that has 1600+ hp) and it really depends on what you want to do. Shipboard combat, such as jumping onto the opponents ship and fighting on the decks is handled like regular combat, and can get really fun if anybody in the party took levels in the pirate rogue.
Make every fight about boarding. It's much for fun than straight sinking a ship.
I'm currently playing Skull and Shackles, and I can tell you ship-to-ship combat pretty much always turns into a boarding attempt. It might take 5 rounds after you make "contact" to close into boarding range on average. That's 5 rounds to cast spells, use siege equipment, so forth.
When were talking about objects that have 800+ hp, you just can't practically destroy a ship. And they don't start sinking till 0 hp. Overall, destroying a ship just isn't practical.
I'm not saying I want rules for sinking ships. Well ok, yes rules, but not rules that result in that. I know that most ship to ship combat eventually turns into a boarding fight, and then it's personal combat scale again.
But I want decent rules for the ship combat in front of it, and not rules where everyone thinks "Oh no, not again!"
I'm not saying I want rules for sinking ships. Well ok, yes rules, but not rules that result in that. I know that most ship to ship combat eventually turns into a boarding fight, and then it's personal combat scale again.
But I want decent rules for the ship combat in front of it, and not rules where everyone thinks "Oh no, not again!"
I will admit that the current rules are kind of boring, and my group is mostly just waiting until we can board. We do get excited though, because it does mean combat and loot, which everyone enjoys. We just have a few rounds of build up first. Tell your players to think of this as buff time (even though they wont really need to act as you wont be at that level of resolution during ship-to-ship combat).
It will also help if your players have things to do during ship-to-ship like firing siege weapons or casting buffs, or anything at all really. Because for everyone who isn't the pilot, it could otherwise be pretty boring.