Sailing a ship without the right skills.

[Stabbald]

Say for example you have 10 characters trapped on an island with a folding boat a days travel from the mainland. They want to leave the island but don't have a single rank in profession sailor among them and they have no idea how to navigate via the stars or even know which direction the mainland is in.

How would you deal with this situation? What are the chances that they would run into anything and how long would it take? Food in my case isn't a problem as they have a cleric.

[TuggyNE]

Say for example you have 10 characters trapped on an island with a folding boat a days travel from the mainland. They want to leave the island but don't have a single rank in profession sailor among them and they have no idea how to navigate via the stars or even know which direction the mainland is in.

How would you deal with this situation? What are the chances that they would run into anything and how long would it take? Food in my case isn't a problem as they have a cleric.

If they can literally sail indefinitely by virtue of the Cleric, they are essentially certain to run into something by the nature of random-walk patterns. It might not be the mainland, and it will probably take a long time, but they'll get there eventually.

Also, of course, if they work at it long enough they'll probably figure some of it out and be able to navigate more purposefully.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Assuming one of them can fly or levitate, they should be able to find the mainland. Failing that, 1 rank of knowledge geography + guidance of the avatar should do it. Failing that, augury or divination is semi-reliable.

Given the above, my suggestion is to swim there using Water Breathing (cleric spell, 2 hr/level) and Swim (sadly only 10 min/level) in as many slots as possible. One might hope there is another caster who can cast 2nd level spells to help with swim. Obviously it's going to take longer than a day this way, so they need a place to rest. Option 1 is rope trick, if they have it. Option 2 is figure out how to use an anchor, and use the folding boat as a portable rest area (and that's it).

There may be better solutions based on party level and the other party members.

[Ashtagon]

If it is a day's travel away, a fly spell is sufficient to gain enough altitude to see the coast. After that ends and he rejoins the team, dead reckoning should be good enough to hit the coast, although they'd be unlikely to hit a specific point on that coast.

[ramrod]

I suppose it really depends on how difficult you want the task to be. If you really want them off of the island then simple guidance spells from the cleric should keep them on course.

With no training in how to use a sail boat, it would sure take longer, but not be impossible. Although they have no specific training in handling a sailing boat, it is fair to assume that at least some of those characters would have grown up around lakes, rivers, seas (most settlement are by water...) and so understand the basic principles from observation/discussion or as a passenger.

I'm not the most intelligent or wisest person in reality, but I have figured out how to use a sailing boat big enough for 15 people (as part of an orienteering weekend that I take my school students on).

You could also consider subbing in other skills that may be useful, as a group contributing from knowledge nature (wind directions, stars etc), survival (navigating by the stars is a fairly rudimentary survival skill).

Summoning creatures that can communicate with the party, even basic images are useful enough to direct the party to land.

If the party makes it across easier than you had hoped, just throw in a little encounter that will shake them up a bit, a water elemental upturning the boat etc.

[Maginomicon]

1. Fly straight up as far as possible allowing a means to land safely (such as feather-fall).

2. While up there, look for the mainland. If you don't see any land, either look for or try to somehow detect any birds (as they had to come from somewhere).

3. Since you have a cleric you can use guidance of the avatar (skill check +20) to at least get a good start, or barring that, deftness + aid another (each provides +2).

4. Survival checks can be used to tell which direction is north. DC 15 to avoid getting lost, and 5 ranks ensures the ability to determine north regardless.

[Ashtagon]

http://www.ringbell.co.uk/info/hdist.htm

At an altitude of 385 feet, you should be able to see a coastline 24 miles away, assuming your world follows normal Earth curvature rules. The party are a single fly spell away from being able to hit land in their boat by dead reckoning.

[Stabbald]

Okay, I'll be a bit clearer on my situation...

I'm running a modified version of Tammeraut's Fate. The party were shipwrecked on the island after a ghost ship attacked them and have since, mostly due to bad luck, barely survive the resulting zombie attacks.

They are heavily injured, stat drained, or otherwise totally incapacitated, and they have correctly assumed that their chances of surviving another night on the island are remote.

There is a rescue ship on the way but it won't get there until noon and I suspect the team is going to try to escape before then. The problem being, if they are within a ten mile radius of the island when night falls, they will get owned by the ghost ship again.

If they think about using Fly it might just work, but what are the chances of them staying on course even if they pick the correct direction? I guess they could recast the fly spell if they think about memorizing it multiple times, but I doubt it'll make the trek easy.

I'm guessing a days travel by a competent vessel is about 50 miles (this is a complete guess, please correct me if I'm wrong).

Guh, why can't PC's just make life easy. :smalleek:

[Ashtagon]

Okay, I'll be a bit clearer on my situation...

I'm running a modified version of Tammeraut's Fate. The party were shipwrecked on the island after a ghost ship attacked them and have since, mostly due to bad luck, barely survive the resulting zombie attacks.

...

If they think about using Fly it might just work, but what are the chances of them staying on course even if they pick the correct direction? I guess they could recast the fly spell if they think about memorizing it multiple times, but I doubt it'll make the trek easy.

I'm guessing a days travel by a competent vessel is about 50 miles (this is a complete guess, please correct me if I'm wrong).

Guh, why can't PC's just make life easy. :smalleek:

(SRD says a sailing ship can go 48 miles a day, with a 24-hour travel day implied from comparing with the per-hour rate).

How big is the large land mass on the other side of that 50-mile stretch? Unless it is merely another island, even by dead reckoning they should be able to make landfall *somewhere* along a 100-mile range of coast simply by trying to go in a straight line. A single day isn't really long enough to go that badly off course. A second fly spell to scout at a distance/altitude might be useful to cast halfway through the journey, but other than that, landfall is pretty much assured.

The bigger question is, do they have fly spells at all?

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Stabbald
I'm guessing a days travel by a competent vessel is about 50 miles (this is a complete guess, please correct me if I'm wrong)....

It completely depends on the vessel and its crew, and on favorable winds and currents. A tautly handled frigate with a good wind can run off two hundred miles between one noon observation and the next, and a Baltimore schooner can do even better.

I don't know how well a folding boat matches up to a frigate or a Baltimore schooner, but even with the SRD's absurdly lowball estimate, fifty to a hundred miles is easy with good winds and currents.

And you control the winds and currents.

:smallamused:

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, but the GM wants you to go to the right port, all winds are favorable.
-If Seneca was a gamer

It seems like their top priority is to leave the island before it consumes them. They might not be able to travel in a straight line, but they should probably be able to get the ship going in a vague direction kinda towards their destination long enough to avoid the ghost ship (which, I assume, only attacks at night or some such.) At that point, navigation-wise they're at worst in the same situation, and they can anchor down and take their time since there aren't constant zombie attacks. They can still augury/fly/etc. their direction (avoiding the island of course), and with a few days of Restoration and its Lesser cousin be able to swim the rest of the way if need be.

Or, if you don't want to rely on players coming up with the right tools, a lesser demon or devil could show up on the island and offer to rescue them... for a price.

[Slipperychicken]

If the GM wants you to go to the right port, all winds will lead to that port.
-If Seneca was a gamer


Fixed that for you.

[Telok]

I don't know how well a folding boat matches up to a frigate or a Baltimore schooner, but even with the SRD's absurdly lowball estimate, fifty to a hundred miles is easy with good winds and currents.
:smallamused:

A Boat, Folding (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#boatFolding) has a (large version) length of 24 feet and an 8 foot beam. The boats you are comparing it to are four times as long, can have close to 20 times the sail, and represent an additional couple hundred years of technological sailing improvements.

For an oversized rowboat with a single sail 48 miles a day is a decent average speed. If they have a map (or a good memory of one) of the coast and know which direction the sun came up they should be able to easily get to the mainland. A take 10 on an untrained profession: sailor skill check should easily get them far enough away from the island to be safe.

[ArcturusV]

The one thing I could see really screwing with their ability to get out of the trouble zone would be a storm. During a clear day, they can probably hold a direction. Using the time of day and position of the sun if nothing else, least on open water. And of course until they're out of sight of the island that gives them a handy landmark to hold course. But during a storm, visibility would drop, you wouldn't have access to the sun. The wind, rains, and waves would be whipping you about and with their lack of skills I could see handling a boat troublesome there. By the time the storm dies down, you're not sure which way you're going or which way you came from.

Course, if you don't want there to be a storm, not a problem. If you're evil and use randomized weather, or just want it to be a bit harder... then yeah.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Telok
A Boat, Folding has a (large version) length of 24 feet and an 8 foot beam. ...For an oversized rowboat with a single sail 48 miles a day is a decent average speed.

That's about the size of a ship's boat, such as a frigate's cutter. Bligh and his men sailed a boat that size across more than 4100 miles of the Pacific in 47 days, which works out to roughly 88 miles per day.


Originally Posted by ArcturusV
During a clear day, they can probably hold a direction.

This is one point I don't see in the OP or later on--whether or not the PCs actually know there's mainland out there at all. The OP mentioned they have no idea which way it is, and if it's more than a few dozen miles away, fly-spells might not be much help.


Originally Posted by TuggyNE
If they can literally sail indefinitely...they are essentially certain to run into something by the nature of random-walk patterns.

Unfortunately this might be a while. One small boat of survivors from the whaleship Essex spent 59 days on the open ocean, in the far southeastern Pacific, before they were finally picked up not far from the Chilean coast.

[TuggyNE]

Unfortunately this might be a while. One small boat of survivors from the whaleship Essex spent 59 days on the open ocean, in the far southeastern Pacific, before they were finally picked up not far from the Chilean coast.

Yeah, I was assuming potentially very long trips. (Technically, unbounded, but with rapidly dropping probability for increasing total times.) Two factors make it practical, though: first, that they mostly need to leave where they are, and second, that they can't really starve/parch on their trip. Of course, there's a hidden hazard here: random walk patterns tend to take you back around near the start a fair bit, so you're going to need to look sharp to avoid too much ghost shippage.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by TuggyNE
Two factors make it practical, though: first, that they mostly need to leave where they are, and second, that they can't really starve/parch on their trip.

Very true, especially the second part. Having that cleric is a tremendous safety net.

(Even if he evidently wasn't much help against the hordes of undead coming after the party....)


Originally Posted by TuggyNE
Of course, there's a hidden hazard here: random walk patterns tend to take you back around near the start a fair bit....

This is why I'm wondering if the PCs even have any idea there's mainland nearby. Assuming they do, I'd think they could choose any one heading, sail as true as they can manage for a couple days, and then try to describe an expanding spiral around the island's position.

This would be a bear of a task for people with no seafaring skill, since it would mean tack upon tack when you're going against the wind, with all the opportunities to go far off course; and as you point out, ghost-shippage is an issue. The distance and direction of the mainland, the ghost ship's cruising radius, it all depends on things the PCs apparently have no way of knowing.

Really, I think their best bet is the summoning option that ramrod mentioned, and maybe Guidance of the Avatar. Without some way to communicate with friendly (and living) natives, they could be a long time on the open ocean.

[Mutazoia]

I don't suppose ANYBODY took a rank in Navigation? Or can use it untrained? If they can at least find North they should be able to make their way home. Depending on where they got this folding boat they would possible also get a few extras. Now I'm assuming that the folding boat was on board the ship they were originally on, and it was part of the ships gear (maybe the captains back up life boat). If that's the case it probably safe to assume that, as objects can be stored inside the boat like a normal box, there would be a compass, a sextant and possible a chart of the area. Any decent captain would have those things in an emergency kit..and the folding boat would be an emergency kit itself. Even if they can't use the sextant, just knowing what direction to head in via the compass should be super easy. SO if they can at least attempt to use the navigation skill, have a compass and a chart they can get to the mainland pretty easily.

[Slipperychicken]

there's a hidden hazard here: random walk patterns tend to take you back around near the start a fair bit, so you're going to need to look sharp to avoid too much ghost shippage.

Not to mention, that much sea-travel is like slapping the DM with a rubber glove and daring him to throw a random encounter at you.

[TuggyNE]

Not to mention, that much sea-travel is like slapping the DM with a rubber glove and daring him to throw a random encounter at you.

A bit of leveling would not go amiss in their quest to a) escape/avoid/defeat the ghost ship and b) navigate somewhere interesting. :smallwink:

[Stabbald]

Thanks for the advice guys, I'm running this game soon and it's helped me clear a few things up.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Slipperychicken
Not to mention, that much sea-travel is like slapping the DM with a rubber glove and daring him to throw a random encounter at you.

Wait, land travel isn't?

:smalltongue:


Originally Posted by Stabbald
Thanks for the advice guys, I'm running this game soon and it's helped me clear a few things up.

Be sure to let us know how the next session turns out.

[Barstro]

Sailing a boat isn't too hard. The PCs should easily be able to keep it afloat and in a general direction

The problems are;
1) Getting the ship away from the island in the first place.
2) Actually maintaining the correct heading. While they can keep going westward; without any skill, they will keep alternating between NW and SW and add many hours to their travel time
3) Change in wind direction or currents will have a large effect (see #2)
4) Any bad weather will stop them, send them in the wrong direction, or capsize them.
5) They have no chance of coming to port safely.

Basically, they are like one of us using a flight simulator for the first time.

As long as they know a certain direction and have even a basic understanding of stars, they can maintain a general direction at night. It isn't too hard to remember that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Most people can find whatever passes for the north or south star depending on where they live. Problems will come up at noon, when the sun no longer gives a direction, and dusk, when stars are not out yet and the sun is gone. But allowing for a moon or an inner planet should take care of the dusk problem.

Then you just need the PCs to have a particular direction to travel.

OR: allow the ship to be more than ten miles away from the island at night, but be forced to turn back in the morning. Then the rescue ship can find them.