Naval Combat 4e

[rusty2667]

I'm running a campaign that may have naval combat.

There doesn't seem to be any standardized rules for this, but I'm willing to bet this quandary has popped up before.

How do you handle naval combat?

[obryn]

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/107068/Admiral-o-the-High-Seas-The-Naval-Combat-Supplement-for-Pathfinder-%26-D%26D-4th-Edition?filters=0_0_0_44294_0

:smallsmile:

[Dimers]

I know that Nightgaun7 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/member.php?u=70399) is running a nautical campaign (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=318466) right now, and he asked for tips-n-tricks himself not long ago. See what he's found to work?

[rusty2667]

@ obryn

Somebody else on another site advised this supplement. I will be checking this out. I'll probably purchase the PDF version.

@ Dimers

I'll read through that thread when I have time tonight.

Thanks to both of you!

[Gavran]

@ Dimers

I'll read through that thread when I have time tonight.

Thanks to both of you!
I'll save you the effort, we haven't done any ship-to-ship or underwater combat yet. I will note the Mariner theme is pretty cool for fighting on a ship though.

[Athistaurr]

While my campaign only had very few naval combats here is how i resolved them:
Most of the time it was a normal combat after one ship boarded the other. I spiced up the battlefield with rough sea, pushing all creatures 1 or 2 fields to the left (or all to the right on the next turn) at the end of turn. (as an example)

When actually the ships itself battled each other i had the whole party operate a ballistae as a skill challenge. Aiming, reloading, draw, estimating the distance, knowing where to aim for etc.
The ship itself was steered by the (NPC) captain who knew what he was doing.

In late paragon in a similar situation the players had enough tricks up their sleeves to sink the enemy ship without any need for naval combat.

[rusty2667]

When actually the ships itself battled each other i had the whole party operate a ballistae as a skill challenge. Aiming, reloading, draw, estimating the distance, knowing where to aim for etc.
The ship itself was steered by the (NPC) captain who knew what he was doing.

This is a very useful since the PCs will probably be under similar circumstances (passengers aboard an NPC's ship). Thanks


Most of the time it was a normal combat after one ship boarded the other.

This where I'd like to have the encounter(s) to eventually lead. What level were the PCs when they sunk the ship from a distance?

Does the "admiral of the high seas" supplement have a layout of ships?

[Nightgaun7]

I'll save you the effort, we haven't done any ship-to-ship or underwater combat yet. I will note the Mariner theme is pretty cool for fighting on a ship though.

I've used the Mariner theme myself in another game, and it is surprisingly handy.

Watershaper is also nice, gives you a swim speed and some other stuff.

More generally, I find the underwater combat rules for 4E unsatisfactory, but then I don't know of a good alternative, either. They're simple enough, but it just feels like fighting on land with a penalty. There's nothing really "watery" about it, you know? You can create some of the feel with environmental stuff, but still.

I'm not sure how I'll handle ship-vs-ship combat - partly it depends on what paragon paths some of the characters decide to take. Fortunately as a naval wargaming nerd I have plenty of systems to steal from inspire me.

[Athistaurr]

What level were the PCs when they sunk the ship from a distance?
They were level ~18 and used phantom steed and some flight to get over there. They used a daily power (i don't remeber which one) to put a hole in the enemys rump, put it on fire with other powers and called it a day. They suffered some counter attacks with ranged weapons, but the main point is that their own ship wasn't involved at all.

[rusty2667]

They were level ~18 (...) the main point is that their own ship wasn't involved at all.

I want to avoid this sort of situation, but the campaign world is capped at 12th level so I don't think I'll have the problem of the PCs just blasting the other ship from afar.

[Elkreeal]

There's probably something useful to take from the book that has the possible vehicles and go from there (Adventurer's Vault).

The vehicles(ships) have HP, defenses and have a minimum limit of crew members for it to work at full steam, they have speed and the space they occupy, so you can get some cardboard cut outs to represent the boats for the entire party to move as the ship moves, there's rules for turning a moving vehicle.

The only thing I think is missing is cannons, they should be Standard to load and standard to fire, so the party needs to cooperate to fire at least one cannon each second turn, they need to have a certain range and require some kind of roll (besides damage roll, maybe 1d20+10 or 2d10+5, something like this). Cannons themselves should have HP to force the boats to turn around for better action economy (using cannons on the other side).

[rusty2667]

There's probably something useful to take from the book that has the possible vehicles and go from there (Adventurer's Vault).

Heh, one of the players lent me his copy of Adventurer's Vault. I thought it was just useful for cool magical stuff. I haven't cracked it open in months.


The only thing I think is missing is cannons

There's no access to gunpowder, so no cannons. Your comment motivated me to google "Naval Battles Pre Gun Powder". There's some interesting images. Especially like the ancient looking pic of the greek fire.

I also found an interesting thread on the subject at rpg.net titled "Ship battles without gunpowder". Not sure if I should leave a link, so I won't.

[Nightgaun7]

Cannons themselves should have HP to force the boats to turn around for better action economy (using cannons on the other side).

I should point out that of all the things you could do to screw up naval combat, this is the worst. Historically speaking, naval vessels rarely fired both broadsides in an alternating fashion. For one, they almost never had enough crew to an both broadsides at the same time. Second, assuming you are using sailing ships and not some weird things powered by water elemental jets that turn on a dime (and if you are, why are you still using crappy cannon) then you have to deal with wind direction, turning time and radius, risk of ramming other ships, exposing yourself to the enemy, confusing your own line, etc... It's much easier to simply reload the cannon on the engaged broadside than to do loops in a 200+ foot sailing ship.

This is not to say that there are never situations where you can use both broadsides in rapid succession, but it is certainly rare.

One historical incident along these lines featured a British ship sailing between two Spanish ships at night and firing off both broadsides and going merrily on its way. The Spanish, naturally assuming an enemy ship had pulled alongside, both began firing broadsides at each other in the darkness for a while until things were eventually sorted out (iirc they heard yelling from the other ship in Spanish).

[Nightgaun7]

There's no access to gunpowder, so no cannons. Your comment motivated me to google "Naval Battles Pre Gun Powder". There's some interesting images. Especially like the ancient looking pic of the greek fire.

I also found an interesting thread on the subject at rpg.net titled "Ship battles without gunpowder". Not sure if I should leave a link, so I won't.

Naval combat before gunpowder has three main components, depending of course on what tech you have and the environmental factors.

You've got ramming, which is usually done by ships with large crews of rowers. This is the classic Greek, Roman, and Persian tactic, with the ships dependent on relatively calm seas and proximity to land. You can either ram the enemy ship and try to sink it, or shear off the oars and leave it wallowing around.

You've got boarding, which can be done by just about anybody. Greeks and Romans did this from their triremes and later larger ships such as quinquiremes all the way on up to the hilariously overcompensation of Ptolemy's tessarakonteres, with 4000 rowers, 400 deck crew, and about 3000 marines (which was little more than a show boat, but God help you if it ever managed to board you...although at that point you deserve it). Countries on the Atlantic and North Sea had more of an emphasis on sailing and grappling than ramming and lowering corvii (boarding gangways with large spikes dropped on to the deck of an enemy ship).

And third, you've got artillery, mainly torsion engines like ballista. Plus archers, javeling-throwers, slingers, crossbowmen, etc. And of course things like greek fire, pots of wasps, all kinds of fun stuff. This went in and out of vogue, with its heyday towards the time of Octavian and Marc Antony. Later, with the advent of cannon, you started getting a few large guns mounted along the bow which fired forward while closing. These things could get silly large and do horrific damage if they hit, but were slow to load and fire and difficult to keep on target. Especially since you then usually rammed the other guy.

Bear in mind that what tactics you use will depend on the goals of your organization. Pirates, for example, will try to use light artillery and board, to avoid damaging the ships they attack too much. Naval vessels might have quite a lot of artillery and a small contingent of marines to protect the archers and weapon crews. And so on and so forth.

[Elkreeal]

I should point out that of all the things you could do to screw up naval combat, this is the worst. Historically speaking, naval vessels rarely fired both broadsides in an alternating fashion. For one, they almost never had enough crew to an both broadsides at the same time. Second, assuming you are using sailing ships and not some weird things powered by water elemental jets that turn on a dime (and if you are, why are you still using crappy cannon) then you have to deal with wind direction, turning time and radius, risk of ramming other ships, exposing yourself to the enemy, confusing your own line, etc... It's much easier to simply reload the cannon on the engaged broadside than to do loops in a 200+ foot sailing ship.

This is not to say that there are never situations where you can use both broadsides in rapid succession, but it is certainly rare.

One historical incident along these lines featured a British ship sailing between two Spanish ships at night and firing off both broadsides and going merrily on its way. The Spanish, naturally assuming an enemy ship had pulled alongside, both began firing broadsides at each other in the darkness for a while until things were eventually sorted out (iirc they heard yelling from the other ship in Spanish).

You missed entirely what I was aiming for, If cannons have HP they get destroyed at 0hp, how do you fire non existing cannons on one side if they get destroyed? You'll have to turn around, die or try to escape. If you have 5 cannons on each side and one of the sides now has 1 barely functional cannon why shouldn't they turn around? I said nothing about alternating fire, that's plain stupid.

[Elkreeal]

Also the purpose of cannons was to have various means of high sea fighting to add some variety, If need be they can be magical cannons, it's d&d.
Plus, is alchemy banned? Because it seems to me that someone with an alchemical background can perfectly create a explosive or volatile substance (like they already do).

If the purpose of high sea fighting is "how do I ram ships faster and better or board faster" then I imagine a lot of bored people, as no new elements will be introduced, just a "run for it and fight them as any encounter". The books have HP, speeds, turning radius, defenses, sizes and minimal crew to function, so there's little more to talk about, hence the cannon suggestion.

Strategies can vary from killing of crew members from a distance while guaranteeing the enemy ship is debilitated and moves slower before boarding, or simply sinking the ship from a far. Also, although the ships have HP that doesn't mean it makes sense that a twin-striking ranger could take down a ships with arrows. Or at least I think the ships are missing a resist 15/20 to damage

[Nightgaun7]

Cannons themselves should have HP to force the boats to turn around for better action economy (using cannons on the other side).

That's what made me think you were talking about the boats doing water ballet to fire both broadsides.

[Elkreeal]

I was saying that in the possibility or eventuality of losing most cannons on the side turned to the enemy ship. 5 cannons shooting over just one shooting would result in more actions being used in rapid succession by the crew of the ship and the party in order to neutralize the threat.

[rusty2667]

Also the purpose of cannons was to have various means of high sea fighting to add some variety, If need be they can be magical cannons, it's d&d.
Plus, is alchemy banned? Because it seems to me that someone with an alchemical background can perfectly create a explosive or volatile substance (like they already do).

The PCs won't face this encounter until the take a ship. This will happen after the next session, so I have plenty of time to create this encounter. Right now, I'm trying to create a vanilla naval encounter. Once I have the basic encounter designed, then I'll add more complex ideas (such as magic cannons or pots of wasps). Please keep in mind I've never ran a naval encounter before, this is a bit new to me.

As far as gunpowder, we've never used it (I'm including other campaigns that the other players have DMed). So if I don't explicitly say that there's gun powder in this campaign world, it's a given that it doesn't exist.

If a character decided to focus on alchemy I wouldn't stop him/her, but no one has. Also, if someone decided to focus on the invention and application of gun powder, then I wouldn't stop it. Alchemy is not banned, it just not an issue that has popped up (yet).


If the purpose of high sea fighting is "how do I ram ships faster and better or board faster" then I imagine a lot of bored people, as no new elements will be introduced, just a "run for it and fight them as any encounter". The books have HP, speeds, turning radius, defenses, sizes and minimal crew to function, so there's little more to talk about, hence the cannon suggestion.

I don't think that: No cannon=No fun.

I am trying to add new elements to the campaign though. What I don't want is half the group checking out because I decided to implement something akin to mass combat where I control one ship and the PCs the other because: 1) The PCs are not really in control of the ship, the NPC captain is. 2)One or two PCs will be declaring the actions of the ship while the other four or five players sit back passively. At least, this is what I anticipate happening.

[Elkreeal]

With something to attack from afar they wouldn't have to simply stand by as it takes standard actions to control the cannon there would have to be some good coordinating effort, between party members firing the cannon and the ship navigation.
The cannons don't need to be extremely accurate, they could even be the size close blast 2 (a large creature) inside the area of a area burst 2/3 within *cannon range* and ,depending on the roll, they would hit a certain point inside that area that would deal damage to enemies inside the close blast 2.

The reference to alchemy was to imply that although gun powder doesn't exist there are other rapid expanding components normally created in alchemy. Imagining these components are in a flask they could drop the flask inside the cannon, point the cannon, and then drop the cannon ball and move out of the way as it rolls down the barrel of the cannon and as soon as the cannon ball breaks the flask it's contents expand and shoot out the cannon ball.

[YossarianLives]

I think the only time my group had any sort of naval battle was a random encounter/boss fight. We were just happily sailing along when....

BOOM ancient black dragon.

[Athistaurr]

You can Substitute canons with catapults and ballistae. Very mundane and easy to believe and as such fits the vanilla naval encounter.

[Tegu8788]

Or, replace a cannon with a giant wand. The wand has a number of offensive spells stored in it, reflecting various ammunitions types.

Or a ritual circle that enhances the power of spells, effectively turning the PC caster into a cannon.