Greetings, so in my once per month home game we are having a nautical adventure. In the past during naval combat I noticed that players would let one person be in charge of the ship and occasionally say what they wanted to have happen. So since this campaign will have a decent chunk of naval combat I decided to come up with my own change to naval combat which would allow each player to act.
Some of the actions are heavily tweaked from actual actions (piloting) and some are changed from official actions for fun or balance.
If anyone has any ideas for further actions or ways to tweak this let me know.
Initiative - Each player will roll their initiative as per normal, each enemy will roll initiative a number of times equal to the number of players minus the number of enemy ships (minimum of 1) (note: For combats of a CR +2 higher than the players, lower the number of initiative rolls the enemy has by a further 1 or 2 (minimum of 1))
Ship stats - Most of the ship stats will remain the same, however there is two exceptions.
HP/BT - Ship combat will have more attacks being used per round, so increase the ship hp by 2-3x Example: Longship, base HP/BT 140/70 new hp 280/140
It is also suggested to add in a new ‘sinking threshold’ at the original broken threshold, where ships will start to sink at that threshold.
Speed - Ships will also wind up moving far more often so suggest adjusting the speeds down. This adjustment is more on a GM by GM basis. Halving the speed is the recommendation but speeds could be reduced by 10 or 20 instead.
Each ship can only use actions with the move trait a number of times equal to 2x its number of initiatives in one round. Each action with the move trait counts as 1 use per action used (so a 3 action maneuver counts as 3 uses for this limit)
On each round all players and enemies will have their initiative. On each of their turns they have the following actions.
Skills for actions can be adjusted as GM feels. (sailing lore instead of driving lore etc)
Sail - One action - Move - Move the ship up to its speed in a straight line, or half its speed while turning up to 90-degrees (modified by the ships features, manuverable ships can turn without slowing down, sluggish ships move at a quarter of its speed, etc)
Maneuver - Two-Three Actions - Move Reckless - Attempt a piloting check (medium difficulty DC for your ships level) with the following successful options (chosen when declaring the action)
Uturn - 2A: Turn the ship fully 180-degrees. 3A: Turn the ship fully 180 degrees, at any point during this maneuver move the ship up to its speed.
Full Speed - 2A: Move the ship up to three times its speed in a straight line. 3A: Move the ship up to four times its speed in a straight line.
Evasive - 2A: Move the ship up to twice its speed, at any point during this movement the ship can turn 90-degrees, continuing its movement at its new heading. 3A: Move the ship up to three times its speed, at any point during this movement the ship can turn 90-degrees, continuing its movement at its new heading.
Ramming Speed - One Action - Move Attack - Move the ship up to its speed in a straight line. During this movement if the ship would collide with anything roll an attack roll against the targets AC. On a success deal your ships collision damage to the target, your ship then takes half the dealt damage and stops moving.
Barrel Through - Two-Three Actions - Move Attack Reckless - Attempt a piloting check. On a success the ship moves up to its speed in a straight line twice, or three times with three actions. During this movement if the ship would collide with anything roll an attack roll against the targets AC. On a success both the target and your ship takes your ships collision damage. If the target was your ships size or smaller your ship continues its movement, if not your ship stops moving. If you spent Three Actions and the first target did not stop your movement you can collide with a second different target, however your movement ends if you do so.
Brace for Impact - Two Actions - Concentrate - Call out for your allies to brace for an incoming attack. Until the start of your next initiative all incoming damage dealt to your ship is halved.
Aim - One Action - Concentrate - Aim the ships weapon at a target, focusing on the target. If your next action is to attack with that weapon at that target, that attack has an additional +2 to hit and deals an additional die of weapon damage on a hit.
Citadel Aim - Two Actions - Concentrate - Aim the ships weapon at a target, gaining all benefits of the aim action. If you crit improve weapon damage dice by one step, if weapon damage is already at d12 the dealt damage ignores the targets hardness.
Fire - One Action - Attack - Fire one of the ships (loaded) weapons at a target
Broadsides - Three Actions - Attack - Fire all of the ships (loaded) weapons on one side of the ship at a target. Roll an attack roll, if the attack hits the opposing ship can roll a basic fort save. Roll all of the firing weapons damage dice, combining all damage for the purposes of resistances/hardness.
Reload - One-Three Actions - Manipulate - Start/continue/finish the process of reloading the ships weaponry. The number of actions required varies by the weapon being reloaded. Multiple actions can be spent reloading multiple weapons. Example: Weapon A needs only one action to finish its reload process while weapon B needs two more actions, a single Three Action reload would finish reloading both weapons.
Relocate Weapon - Two Actions - Manipulate - Move a weapon to a new side of the ship, enabling the weapon to be used in firing and broadside actions for that side of the ship but losing its ability to be used for its original sides actions.
I will mention that Starfinder2e has promised to have rules for starship combat. Which would be very adaptable to naval combat in Pathfinder2e.
Starfinder2e release is still a ways out though.
yea, I had originally been making this for starfinder 2e but when my sf game fell through I decided to remake it for pathfinder.
As for the official rules, considering that won't be until late this year it would be too late.