1. Magic/Greater Magic Siege Weapon, plus Abundant Ammunition on some special alchemical cannonballs.
2. A lot of domain spells
3. Blade Barrier (cast it in front of the ship, the whole thing moves through it in a round or two and takes massive damage along with everyone on board
4. Wall of Blindness/Deafness (same sort of effect)
5. Wall of Stone (how maneuverable is your ship with 10,000 lb of rock sitting on the deck?)
6. Silence (cast it on their ship's deck, and nobody on that ship can cast spells)
7. Summon Monster (Fire Elemental)
8. Command, Greater ("Jump overboard")
From Skulls & Shackles:
Control Water (Cleric 6) forces the ship to take the uncontrolled action for the entire duration (10 min/level).
Produce Flame (Fire Domain 2) starts fires on the ship
Fireball (Fire Domain 3) starts fires on the ship
Wall of Fire (Fire Domain 4) starts fires on the ship
Fire Seeds (Fire Domain 6) starts fires on the ship
Incendiary Cloud (Fire Domain 8) starts fires on the ship
Disintegrate (Ash Domain 7, Destruction Domain 7) does 2d6/level damage to ship.
Freezing Sphere (Ice Domain 7) can trap a ship in ice for the duration.
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Fire domain is useful, but of course requires fire domain.
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Animate Objects on their cannons.
- Floatsam vessel conjured in the way of the other ship.
- Hydrophobia
- Insect plague
- Rift of ruin: If you cast it around the ship's steering wheel it's gone. "Unattended objects or structures fully engulfed by the rift automatically fall into it."
- Submerge vessel: If you have to flee do so under water. Or hide while your spells you cast earlier do their work.
So I have some thoughts on other people's thoughts...
1. Magic/Greater Magic Siege Weapon, plus Abundant Ammunition on some special alchemical cannonballs.
2. A lot of domain spells
3. Blade Barrier (cast it in front of the ship, the whole thing moves through it in a round or two and takes massive damage along with everyone on board
4. Wall of Blindness/Deafness (same sort of effect)
5. Wall of Stone (how maneuverable is your ship with 10,000 lb of rock sitting on the deck?)
6. Silence (cast it on their ship's deck, and nobody on that ship can cast spells)
7. Summon Monster (Fire Elemental)
8. Command, Greater ("Jump overboard")
1) Enhancing siege weapons is not effective. The ship still has too much hp. Lets assume you add +5 damage per hit. The ship still has 1600 hp. Even if you have 20 siege engines and enchant them all it still takes a few minutes of barrages of siege engines to actually do anything significant to a ship.
3) Blade barrier damages the ship once. It will also damage the crew, which is semi-useful.
5) You can't cast wall of stone where there isn't stone. Also, you would have to make up penalties that apply that don't exist within the rules. Remember, most of these ships have room for tons of cargo. Several of them specifically say 50 tons, which is 100,000 lbs. Assuming you could make the rock wall, it doesn't do much.
Also, @Rainy Day Ninja, it's worth noting that cannons are extremely uncommon in the Shackles (at least in Skull and Shackles campaign) as only one ship has them. They can be obtained, but most ships are using ballistae and catapults. You could animate those, but still it was worth noting.
Honestly, after playing through the Skull and Shackles AP, the single most effective tactic when encountering an enemy ship is ramming right into them, boarding their ship, and killing their captain/pilot.
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Yeah the 1600 hp are the biggest issues when it comes to ships. Yeah there are many of them, so flying in and killing the crews is going to be the most effective way to do it? Alright.
I do know that the crewmembers are evil at least. There are at least 6 or 7 big ships (Galleon sizes the ones with 1600 hp)+ Some longships (600 hp or so). They are heavily armed, so I expect cannons on all of them and a lot of blackpowder. (I do have the 0 level spell spark prepared for this rare moment, where I can just ignite some powder).
My cleric is CG and do have summon good/sacred summon, so guess Holy Word might actually be useful this time on ships' decks.
1) Enhancing siege weapons is not effective. The ship still has too much hp. Lets assume you add +5 damage per hit. The ship still has 1600 hp. Even if you have 20 siege engines and enchant them all it still takes a few minutes of barrages of siege engines to actually do anything significant to a ship.
3) Blade barrier damages the ship once. It will also damage the crew, which is semi-useful.
5) You can't cast wall of stone where there isn't stone. Also, you would have to make up penalties that apply that don't exist within the rules. Remember, most of these ships have room for tons of cargo. Several of them specifically say 50 tons, which is 100,000 lbs. Assuming you could make the rock wall, it doesn't do much.
Also, @Rainy Day Ninja, it's worth noting that cannons are extremely uncommon in the Shackles (at least in Skull and Shackles campaign) as only one ship has them. They can be obtained, but most ships are using ballistae and catapults. You could animate those, but still it was worth noting.
Honestly, after playing through the Skull and Shackles AP, the single most effective tactic when encountering an enemy ship is ramming right into them, boarding their ship, and killing their captain/pilot.
Ever played Sid Meier's Pirates? Sinking enemy ships is often a lot harder than taking their crew below the minimum necessary to sail.
1. A decent siege weapon at this level can reliably do 6d8-8d8 damage per round to a single target, plus half that in a 30' splash radius. You're not enchanting for extra damage; you're enchanting for extra chance to hit when you're aiming at the other ship's captain from 2,000' away. (My Skull & Shackles Lore Oracle can reliably hit with an 8d6 heavy trebuchet at 2,000-4,000 feet, but we haven't yet found a sufficiently powerful telescope to pull this off)
3. Same idea. Blade barrier damages every single member of the crew, which is a big darned deal (and it hits the ship more than once, because the ship is a multiple-square obejct). How many other situations let you turn a Wall spell into a "hit everything in a 100'x100' area" spell?
5. Hmm, always thought that bit on Wall of Stone was flavor. My bad.
Ever played Sid Meier's Pirates? Sinking enemy ships is often a lot harder than taking their crew below the minimum necessary to sail.
1. A decent siege weapon at this level can reliably do 6d8-8d8 damage per round to a single target, plus half that in a 30' splash radius. You're not enchanting for extra damage; you're enchanting for extra chance to hit when you're aiming at the other ship's captain from 2,000' away. (My Skull & Shackles Lore Oracle can reliably hit with an 8d6 heavy trebuchet at 2,000-4,000 feet, but we haven't yet found a sufficiently powerful telescope to pull this off)
3. Same idea. Blade barrier damages every single member of the crew, which is a big darned deal (and it hits the ship more than once, because the ship is a multiple-square obejct). How many other situations let you turn a Wall spell into a "hit everything in a 100'x100' area" spell?
5. Hmm, always thought that bit on Wall of Stone was flavor. My bad.
1) Assuming the captain is an enemy combatant of roughly your level...this tactic may or may not work. Generally speaking when we played S&S we never operated at a range of more than a few hundred feat because of table size limitation with the grid (even with changing each square equal to 30ft). Also, we didn't want enemies to do this sort of tactic to us (what's good for the goose is good for the gander). So we had a gentleman's agreement not to do this. But, I did use my archer to snipe the pilot or captain from a distance of a few hundred feet.
3) To be pendatic, blade barrier doesn't even actually effect objects because of the description of the spell. Of course, that interpretation is stupid. However, there is nothing that specifies that because the single object (ship) is large it takes damage more than once. Larger than medium creatures don't take damage multiple times. Neither should the boat. You would need to find a rule stating that it should take damage multiple times. Just like a fireball doesn't deal damage multiple times to the deck of the ship because it encompasses 20ft, blade barrier doesn't deal damage multiple times to the ship passing through it. Also worth noting that creatures inside the hull would be undamaged, no line of effect.
3) To be pendatic, blade barrier doesn't even actually effect objects because of the description of the spell. Of course, that interpretation is stupid. However, there is nothing that specifies that because the single object (ship) is large it takes damage more than once. Larger than medium creatures don't take damage multiple times. Neither should the boat. You would need to find a rule stating that it should take damage multiple times. Just like a fireball doesn't deal damage multiple...
Don't either UC or S&S rules have ships taking damage not as single creatures but to individual 20'x20' sections? This is how I've generally played it...
Honestly, after playing through the Skull and Shackles AP, the single most effective tactic when encountering an enemy ship is ramming right into them, boarding their ship, and killing their captain/pilot.
This is crazy talk. What do you think dimension door is for?
(Greater) planar ally, or one of the various summoning spells, to get something to destroy their hull from beneath. If they're not ready to fight through 20' of water and the keel of their own ship, there's nothing they can do about it. (There likely will be something they can do about it, but if you work it right they may not recognize that they need to until something happens.)
Get hold of one of their crewmen in port, then geas/quest him to report all the secret things about that ship and its crew. Make your plans accordingly. (Seriously, clerics have some great scrying spells, plus commune. Use them.)
Fire storm can kill the crew without (hopefully) setting the ship on fire -- note the spell description says it damages creatures in the area of effect, not object.s
Put a symbol on the ship and find some way to trigger it as you enter combat. Wipe out large chunks of enemy crew.
In boarding actions, blasphemy/dictum/holy word/word of chaos can wipe out large chunks of the enemy crew. Just make sure they don't wipe out your crew as well. (This might be a good spell for pirates to use against Chelaxians.)
If you can arrange to cast forbiddance on the enemy ship, you can probably kill off most of their crew, if they're the wrong alignment. Or cast it on your ship to secure it from boarding.
Casting (un)hallow on your own ship can be a useful way of boosting your crew.
If you can arrange to cast forbiddance on the enemy ship, you can probably kill off most of their crew, if they're the wrong alignment. Or cast it on your ship to secure it from boarding.
Oh MAN this is nice. Too bad my S&S siege oracle is CG with a LE party member, but if she ever gets her own ship... boom, ram a ship full of Chelaxians, now they're dead.
Isn't there an option to add a password to the forbiddance spell to allow the differently aligned to enter? Also, does the spell move with the ship?
Don't either UC or S&S rules have ships taking damage not as single creatures but to individual 20'x20' sections? This is how I've generally played it...
Not that I ever recall seeing. I don't think such a rule exists.
planar ally
Get something that CAN cast the spells that you need to wreck ships (though boarding and capturing the ship for sale nets you much more gold in the long run).
The real question with regards to Planar Ally is your god's alignment.
Wrong mindset. Don't kill/destroy. Capture/subdue. You then can ransom valuable crew, sell into slavery unvaluable crew, collect its cargo (plunder) and sell/ransom the ship. Of course, you could also modify the ship to be unrecognizable and claim it as part of your fleet.
/cevah
control weather is always fun, funnel cloud their ship. kill the air if you have oars and they don't, always have the wind flowing the direction favorable for you, etc.
Please don't make blanket statements about disorders
Sorry that was thoughtless of me.
Let me try to make the point is was making without being a @%$#-head.
You should be able to do more damage to a ship (or at least more effective damage) by concentrating your attacks at vulnerable points.
The Ultimate Combat book already has different statistics for attacks on the vehicle Structure, Propulsion Device (eg. Sails), Driving Device (eg. Steering Wheel), Conveyance (eg. Rudder) or Occupants. Thus, destroying one of the weaker components of a ship might disable the ship do a degree that it's no longer a threat (or at least less of a threat.
On top of that, every water vehicle listed in the Ultimate Combat book except the rowboat is listed as being Colossal in size. Given that a character can target something the size of a human with relative ease, it shouldn't be too much of a logical leap to assume that you could target all your attacks at a small area of the ship. For example: If you could do enough damage to cause a breach below the water-line, it would obviously cause problems for the enemy ship. Once again there are rules in the Ultimate Combat book dealing with called shots, but they don't really go into called shots on structures. This would need a little creativity from your GM, so it might depend on their experience level (It's more important to keep the game running smoothly for everyone than to stop and look up rules so that you can try to make that called shot).
Animate Object: helm "all to port!" disables a ship easily, same on the rudder.
Animate it on their sheets/yards and makemthe sails back, stoåping them in the water for a chase.