PDA

View Full Version : Naval combat systems



Tsotha-lanti
2009-03-21, 08:45 AM
I need recommendations for good naval combat systems - or, really, any games that have any kind of naval combat system - to use as references for a homebrew system. Individual ships or fleets, doesn't matter; the systems should handle approach and evasion, possibly catapults and arrow-fire, and definitely boarding action.

I've got the d20 Conan's system from Pirate Isles and the system in GURPS 3rd edition's Compendium II, so far.

TheThan
2009-03-21, 12:30 PM
There is the call to arms rules, which is used for both the fantastic “Babylon 5: a call to arms game”, and the equally fantastic WWII naval game “victory at sea”. Both are miniatures ship to ship combat games. You can find rulebooks for both games at http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/. I believe that Babylon 5 has unfortunately died, so keep that in mind if you make purchases.

Fax Celestis
2009-03-21, 12:37 PM
Perhaps the most elegant method is to treat ships as Huge to Colossal mindless Constructs and just use the standard D&D rules. Stormwrack has more in-depth ones, but I find that the aforementioned method works just fine.

Triaxx
2009-03-21, 02:29 PM
I guess it depends on what kind of naval battles you're thinking of. If you're talking British Empire age ships of the line, then pulling back on the battlefield, and expanding squares to 50' for ship to ship combat works pretty well. If you're talking Roman-era, you can get away with 100' squares then zooming back to 5' squares since Roman tactics were basically to turn naval battles into land battles.

Ascension
2009-03-21, 02:38 PM
The only naval game I've played is a pretty good little (American) Civil War era game called Brown Water Navies.

EDIT: Oh, and I haven't looked at them, really, but Mazes and Minotaurs has Ancient Greek-ish naval rules, and all of its material is free.

Artanis
2009-03-21, 02:59 PM
It might be worth looking at Heavy Gear. Its core dice system, Silhouette, has ridiculously thorough vehicle creation rules, and if you strip out HG's sci-fi aspects, you might be able to get some ideas out of that as well.

Dragonsdoom
2009-03-21, 04:34 PM
I think d20 modern has some sort of space combat mechanic on the 500 foot square that acts like boats in space, you might find it somewhat helpful or at least moderately interesting.

RTGoodman
2009-03-21, 05:25 PM
WotC also has Axis and Allies: War at Sea, a tactical WWII naval miniatures game. It's not an RPG at all, but I think the rules are REALLY good. If you could find a starter set (I think it's only $20-25 or so), you can get all the rules (plus, you know, the ships and mats) in one little package. From there, you'd just have to stat up the kinds of ships you wanted and go from there.

BlueWizard
2009-03-21, 07:42 PM
Stormwrack has some good stuff.

Thane of Fife
2009-03-21, 07:50 PM
While I cannot comment on the quality of the ones presented here, you might check:

http://www.btinternet.com/~david.manley/naval/rulesonline.html


It could also be worth looking at the old rules for Spelljammer combat, which basically treated spelljamming ships as naval vessels, though you'd need to modify the speed rules to deal with sailing/rowing as opposed to spelljamming, as well as rules for sinking.

Those I can distinctly comment on as quality rules. They certainly use catapaults and ballista and such.