Pirates... YARR

[Stormcrow]

I'm working on a nautically themed campaign and I'm looking for feedback/advice from people who _have_ run one previously on how to work around the "a level six sorcerer can demolish a ship" issue and the like. To make matters worse I'm thinking Gesalt so how do I keep my powerful players from destroying the world?

[Knight_Of_Twilight]

What spells are being used to destroy ships? If wizards or other casters are a big enough problem in your world, maybe ship builders somehow imbue their creations with SR.

[Quietus]

I'm working on a nautically themed campaign and I'm looking for feedback/advice from people who _have_ run one previously on how to work around the "a level six sorcerer can demolish a ship" issue and the like. To make matters worse I'm thinking Gesalt so how do I keep my powerful players from destroying the world?

Why? If they're on a boat, then perhaps it might be a good idea not to Fireball your main mode of transportation?

One option : Built-in Mending effect in the higher end ships. The rules don't actually say this would fix the ship if it was seriously damaged, but who's to say that a ship couldn't have, say, what amounts to fast healing 1 on all portions of the ship that are still attached?

Another option : Some cheap alchemical substance that gets used to swab the decks each time the boat is moored. This substance allows the wood's natural hardness to resist fire damage normally. This means every bit of fire damage dealt to an area of the ship is reduced by 10 due to the hardness. Assuming planks are used that are as thick as 2x4's, that means each section of the ship also has 20 hit points. 6d6 damage averages to 21, means it can take a couple of average fireballs before buckling. Give it a little extra thickness for more hit points if you like.

::Edit:: I actually really like that second idea - it's the kind of thing that you could reasonably expect someone to come up with, being that fire is generally a terrifying idea on a ship. With this substance, you could have an open fire on the ship's deck and the 1d6/round wouldn't matter to it - an EXTREMELY good investment if you risk fires on-board often.

[Morrandir]

Ships made of asbestos!

More seriously, look into other materials, as well as having the opposing crews have casters of their own. Nothing quite like a broadside fight with 5 or so sorcs/wizards on each ship, hurling fireballs, lightning bolts, and counterspells to and fro.

[Emperor Tippy]

Read Stormwrack

[Icewalker]

Well...

I am currently constructing an entire campaign in a sea-based world.

I am making a system for ship-to-ship combat, although it does involve some serious reworking of the world. I am mostly removing the sorcerer/wizard classes, and replacing them with the Seamage class. Everybody on a ship takes a minimum of 2-5 levels of Sailor. Normal sailors continue in my sailor class. Seamages switch at level 5 into the Prc and select 'ship mage' which is protective and things like volley bonuses, ship health bonuses, move, that kind of thing. The second kind of seamage is Combat mages. These are the ones hurling meteors at the other ship. However the combat mage class involves different forms of improved counterspelling, as well as a new spell feature: depletion. You can only cast a super ship-destroyer spell every few rounds, and it's up to the other ship's combat mage to counter spell, or if that fails, the ship mage has to stop it.

It's pretty complex and hard, but I'm making good progress.

[Emperor Tippy]

Seriously people, read Seawrack. It has excellent rules for ship based combat. It is one of the best D&D books made and is especially good if doing a seafaring campaign.

[Dervag]

One suggestion I heard on this site (I can't for the life of me remember where, or I'd link to it) was a material called 'nullstone'. The stuff had the effect of making harder to affect an area with nullstone in it with magic; I forget exactly how. I think it forced a caster level check that increased in difficulty per ten pounds of nullstone within the area of effect. If anyone has more specific memories of this idea, please bring them up.

But the effect was that fixed constructions such as ships and fortifications could come with enough built-in nullstone to make it practically impossible to cast area-of-effect spells on them. However, because it took many pounds of nullstone to confer any serious resistance to spells, it is not practical to carry lots of nullstone into an area to protect yourself, individually, from spells; though you could slip a chunk of it into each of the soldiers in an army so that they could fight in formation without getting crisped by area-of-effect spells.

[Macrovore]

Seriously people, read Stormwrack. It has excellent rules for ship based combat. It is one of the best D&D books made and is especially good if doing a seafaring campaign.
ditto, edited for spelling. The rules do favor damage casters (warmage pirates ftw), but it is relatively easy to shore up holes, and to keep the ship from foundering. Also, it has a feat, Ship's Mage, which prevents your spells from damaging your own ship.

and, no offense, but I'm sure it's much simpler than Icewalker's system.

[Emperor Tippy]

Thank you. Thats what I get for posting while tired.

[Mike_Lemmer]

I gotta agree with reading Stormwrack. Among its many useful features, it spends 2-3 pages discussing specific spells and their effect on ships.

[Raltar]

I love Stormwrack. Easily the best of all the books.

[Dementrius]

Creating Zombie Tuna with Animate Dead ... 50gp per HD

Adding Glyphs of Warding that do sonic damage to their mouths ...1 spell slot per tuna

Using a barrage of Zombie Tuna Torpedoes (ZTT's) to sink opposition shipping from a range of 20 miles ... priceless.

You can love and hate your PC's at the same time sometimes...

[Stormcrow]

I've got stormwrack at home. Was at work, wanted to write a bit on my break. :) Thanks for the advice guys. Ship will have a Gesalt witch (probably druid/wizard) so I'm not _too_ worried about fireball... uh... though she might be worse :P

[Skyserpent]

I am also, planning a Pirate campaign that, due to many difficulties, has taken WAY too long to get off the ground.

I'm just ruling that most ships are constructed of woods that resist fire more readily than others... though storms and the like are extremely useful tools, many higher end ships will actually have shields a la spell resistance... Long Live MAGIC!