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BlacKnight
2017-02-25, 06:33 AM
There are plenty of discussions on the Internet about the changes that D&D style magic could cause on warfare. But the argument of naval warfare is rarely adressed.
So let's suppose we have a fictional Mediterranean like sea. We could consider 3 historical periods based on:
-classical era (Persian wars or Punic wars)
-medieval era (age of Maritime Republics)
-early modern era (Lepanto, Spanish Armada)

And there could be 3 levels of power, based on the maximum D&D level that can be reached.
-max lv 5
-max lv 10
-max lv 20

So what could happen in the various combinations of the above conditions ? Would the tactics and the ships change ? There would even be warships, or they would be considered too vulnerable ?

5ColouredWalker
2017-02-25, 07:21 AM
And there could be 3 levels of power, based on the maximum D&D level that can be reached.
-max lv 5
-max lv 10
-max lv 20

Max level 5, you're looking at 3rd level spells, like fireball and Favorable Wind being available to those with wizards. These people also wouldn't necessarily be uncommon.
But, better yet, True Strike is possible.

Combat Ships load up with Bolts of Fireball for their Ballistae, which out-range cast fireballs, and the (Class) fires the Ballistae while under the effects of True Strike. Ships were notoriously flamable for a reason, and it's likely that until the modern era when ships started becoming steel that standard procedure is 'Get the longest range weapon you can, be ready to shoot first, and do your best to stay out of range of the other guy'. Fights become a lot of maneuvering around with ships much faster and more nimble than ever in real life when it's needed due to magic, trying not to be forced into the other guy's range unless you can guarantee you out-range them, at which point you place your shot and then wait while their ship burns down.
Early Modern Era? Ships are still wooden, however now people use these new fangled cannons with cannonballs of fireball manned by people with Truestrike.

Now, max level 10 is level 5 spells. Varieties of scrying is available, as is Planar Binding for imps that can always be invisible and carry fire starting tools and daggers. Ships need access to constant true seeing, otherwise their ships suddenly have their sails holed, rigging fouled, and fires started in the cargo. Like normal, the kingdom with the smartest/most powerful/best equiped adventurers wins.

Level 20? Bound Pit fiends have Greater Teleport and Fireball at will with CL 20, they don't quite out-range Ballistae, but they don't need to with their HP and the sheer power of their fireballs. 3rd Verse same as the 2nd.

Jay R
2017-02-25, 11:22 AM
In a 2e game in which my wife and I were both wizards, our plan was to coordinate a Gust of Wind followed by a lightning bolt. The wind would rock the enemy boat enough that the lightning bolt would blast a ten-foot hole in the hull, in a spot that would be below the waterline as soon as the wind spell ended.

It seemed like the fastest way to sink an enemy ship with 3rd level spells.

ellindsey
2017-02-25, 01:35 PM
At level 20, ships are obsolete. Greater Teleport, Teleportation Circle, and similar spells mean you don't even bother actually moving people or material over the water. Armies just appear in enemy cities, or just outside if the cities are somehow warded against that.

Jay R
2017-02-25, 05:11 PM
At level 20, ships are obsolete. Greater Teleport, Teleportation Circle, and similar spells mean you don't even bother actually moving people or material over the water. Armies just appear in enemy cities, or just outside if the cities are somehow warded against that.

This doesn't happen at level 20. It would only happen if everybody had reached level 20.

Just because there are some people at level 20 doesn't mean that every merchant can teleport his stock across the ocean.

There would still be ships, for the same reason that we still have cars even after humans have been to the moon, and still have knives in combat after the invention of nuclear bombs.

Darth Ultron
2017-02-25, 05:25 PM
Of course, no matter the ''level'' a lot of other things matter, like how common magic is and how much it could be weaponized.

*Food and Water-5L-create water, create food and drink, purify food and drink spells and related magic items can provide a crew needs. 10L-The higher level spells and magic items can do this with ease.

*Unseen Servants-5L-the spell, and related items provide a great crew member 10L-You get access for all the greater unseen servant variant spells, like unseen crew and unseen siege engine operators.

*Animated Objects-5L-Not much can be done at this level to any great effect 10L-animated objects can make up large parts of the ship, especially the weapons.

*Constructs-1L-Constructs don't need food or water or other such things and can make some or all of the crew. 10L-the ship can be a construct.

*Animal Spies-5L-countless air and sea animals can scout and spy

And more...

Braininthejar2
2017-02-25, 06:11 PM
Elementals are a terrible weapon at sea, either because they're in their element or because the enemy isn't.

Magic can also be used to augment ships, make them non-flammable, and at higher levels make them into submarines or even flying ships.

Commanders need to be high level according to their rank, because any "smart but feeble" officer will be instantly sniped. (which probably explains One Piece universe)

Making a whole ship invisible would likely require a group effort, but it would be a really dirty trick, as most spells that see through invisibility have fairly limited range.

BlacKnight
2017-02-26, 06:30 AM
So ships could be largely automated, weapons could be unmanned, crew could be in a control room in the middle of the ship, you can have flying and submarine reconnaissance assets, you can have submarines and divers... basically just like modern warfare !
There are rules in any edition about the toughness of the ships ? Would they be one-shotted like today or would they be able to take hours of punishment like in the Age of Sail ?

Frozen_Feet
2017-02-26, 07:34 AM
I don't know about D&D, but Lamentations of the Flame Princess has bare-bones naval warfare rules which are convertible to d20 and you can get the art-less version of the Grindhouse rules for free on the game's website.

The basic rule for ship durability is: one Ship Hitpoint is equivalent to 10 normal hitpoints. Any damage below 10 is ignored. In d20, you could have the Ship have Hardness value based on what it's made of (IIRC 5 hardness for wood), and multiply LotFP SHP by 10.

So at low levels and using light weaponry, ships can indeed take quite a lot of punishment before going down, especially large ones. With some optimization and at higher levels, small vessels go down in single strikes and even large vessels can be one-shotted by a lucky damage roll from a Fireball or some such. Then there's Disintegrate & stuff.

Clistenes
2017-02-26, 08:54 AM
At level 5 ships are just big piles of wood waiting to be burnt with Flaming Sphere and Fireball spells. You don't need to kill the crew or blast the ship to bits, just throw a Fireball, the wood will catch fire and all you have to do is to wait, and maybe shoot arrows at the sailors trying to put off the fire. And if you have enough resources you can have Wands of Fireball and Wands of Flaming Sphere, and have enough firepower to burn whole fleets.

If you are a 3.5 Bard, you have access to Confusion, so instead of burning their ship, you can have them kill themselves and take their ship afterwards...

5 lvl Wizards have Protection from Arrows, Fly, Invisibility and Fireball, so not even using cannons from a large distance will save you. They arrive, throw their Fireballs and Flaming Spheres and go away.

From that point upwards, it only becomes worse for the ships.

BlacKnight
2017-02-26, 09:45 AM
If flying wizards are so effective they could take the role of aircraft... thus we could have aircraft carriers (or maybe wizard-carriers ?)
Somebody mentioned magic to make things not flammable. What spell is that ? In alternative it could be possible to use Animate objects or similar to make iron ships ?
I'm also thinking about submarines. How would they be propelled ? Animated propellers ?

Braininthejar2
2017-02-26, 11:40 AM
If flying wizards are so effective they could take the role of aircraft... thus we could have aircraft carriers (or maybe wizard-carriers ?)
Somebody mentioned magic to make things not flammable. What spell is that ? In alternative it could be possible to use Animate objects or similar to make iron ships ?
I'm also thinking about submarines. How would they be propelled ? Animated propellers ?

You do know I now have a mental image of a large carrier ship with robed wizards planking on the deck?


as for submerging a ship, there is a spell in spell compendium specifically for that.

VoxRationis
2017-02-26, 11:51 AM
If wizards capable of casting fireball or magic items that replicate fireball are common, it might be best to make small, nimble watercraft, akin to those old motor-torpedo boats. Only the largest of wooden ships will survive a fireball without being effectively put out of the fight (after all, even if it doesn't destroy the hull outright, it'll set everything on fire and absolutely immolate rigging), and even those ships will get picked apart by a couple of additional fireballs, so they're not really worth the resources to build.

As mentioned, the logistical needs of ships will be greatly lessened by having a ship's mage or cleric with create water, mending, purify food and drink, et al. In particular, galley-type ships with large crew sizes per foot of length will be more practical for longer voyages. Combined with the above need for small, non-sailing ships of great speed and maneuverability, we can expect small cataphract galleys with armored compartments to house wizards to become common.

At least that's for around 5th level. I don't really do a lot of thought about higher level spells than 3rd, because they don't feature heavily in my games.

Darth Ultron
2017-02-26, 02:56 PM
There are rules in any edition about the toughness of the ships ? Would they be one-shotted like today or would they be able to take hours of punishment like in the Age of Sail ?

D&D 3X has hardness and spells to increase the hardness, plus making ships out of materials other then just 'Earth' wood.


If flying wizards are so effective they could take the role of aircraft... thus we could have aircraft carriers (or maybe wizard-carriers ?)

Aircraft carriers are easy in D&D. There are tons of flying mounts available. It would be easy enough to get a whole stable of flying mounts. And there are plenty of classes that get a special mount bond too that make for a great air force.

And there are a dozen humanoid flying races too that can make a very effective air force. Plus potions of flying, brooms of flying, carpets of flying and more make for an instant air force for many creatures.

Flying, animated objects are easy enough, plus flying constructs and even undead.

Plus small, one or two man, flying boats are easy too...





Somebody mentioned magic to make things not flammable. What spell is that ? In alternative it could be possible to use Animate objects or similar to make iron ships ?

You can make iron and metal ships with no magic (hint:we have them in the real world). Protection from fire or flames is a spell in most editions of D&D (except 4th, of course). Flameproof, fire resistance and so on. And plenty of creatures like water elementals are great at fighting fires.




I'm also thinking about submarines. How would they be propelled ? Animated propellers ?

An animated object or construct can just have a ''swim'' speed. Propellers work, as to water jets.


I'd note that once you get close to 10L or so, fireball as a low level spell will loose it's usefulness. Siglis of Suppersion can block all 3rd and lower spells, for example.

Fey
2017-02-26, 03:17 PM
By level 9, one simple spell makes any other listed tactics pointless and obsolete:

Control Winds

A Druid or Cleric with the Air Domain can control winds in a 40' per level radius cylinder. At level 9 that's an AoE with a 360' radius. That would easily envelop several ships in a fleet, and according to the 3.5 SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/controlWinds.htm), even a level 9 caster could create "A windstorm (51+ mph)" which "drives most flying creatures from the skies, uproots small trees, knocks down light wooden structures, tears off roofs, and endangers ships." "Endangers ships" is open to interpretation (the description says the next stage up, which a level 12 caster could do, "founders most ships," so the lower level version might depend on the ship's crew making sailing checks to stay afloat). A higher level caster could create a tornado and do even more damage.

With a casting time of 1 standard action (much easier to work with than Control Weather (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/controlWeather.htm)), a caster could create several of these windstorms back to back, each one striking a different part of the fleet to maximize the spread. Before getting into scrolls and staves, a level 9-10 Druid could easily cast two or three of these in a day. A level 12 Druid, using their 6th level spell slots for more 5th level spells, could cast anywhere from five to eight in a day, depending on their Wis. And that's just a single Druid. A dozen of them could destroy hundreds of ships within minutes.

To give some real world historical context, during the Battle of Thermopylae (http://www.historynet.com/battle-of-thermopylae-leonidas-the-hero.htm), which was the basis for the movie 300, the Persians had "a massive fleet of about twelve hundred warships." But due to "a combination of Greek boldness and disastrous weather (the gods of the winds, it was said, favored Greece) reduced the Persian fleet by nearly half." In D&D terms, when "The Gods of the Winds" favor you, that means the clerics or druids of those gods brought some serious wind magic down on you.

Honest Tiefling
2017-02-26, 03:46 PM
Am I the ONLY one thinking that putting grease on the deck of a ship of normal people hilarious? I imagine that spell alone would force sailors to actually know how to swim a bit more. I don't know much about ships, but I wonder if using spells to make food would make them be able to be faster and smaller, as well as increase morale.

Then again, given how many people are willing to light ships on fire on this forum, I could easily see a death-worshiping cult with a bit of a sea theme raising undead to serve on ships because it's too dangerous for actual living people.

As for the Control Wind spell, Japan was saved from the Mongols due to winds twice. England got saved from Spain for pretty much the same reason.

Beleriphon
2017-02-27, 10:26 AM
Am I the ONLY one thinking that putting grease on the deck of a ship of normal people hilarious? I imagine that spell alone would force sailors to actually know how to swim a bit more. I don't know much about ships, but I wonder if using spells to make food would make them be able to be faster and smaller, as well as increase morale.

Creating food and water would allow ships to be smaller. If you take into account that you need enough food for a crew to travel weeks, if not months before landfall when dealing with oceanic travel like crossing the Atlantic.

CharonsHelper
2017-02-27, 10:28 AM
There are rules in any edition about the toughness of the ships ? Would they be one-shotted like today or would they be able to take hours of punishment like in the Age of Sail ?

I haven't played it - but I believe that Pathfinder had some rules for it in their Skull & Shackles adventure path.

BlacKnight
2017-02-27, 11:58 AM
An animated object or construct can just have a ''swim'' speed. Propellers work, as to water jets.

But you need to make a permanent animated object, or to craft a magic object with similar features. I don't know if it could be done with a reasonable cost.


I'd note that once you get close to 10L or so, fireball as a low level spell will loose it's usefulness. Siglis of Suppersion can block all 3rd and lower spells, for example.

I haven't find any spell that is named Sign of Suppression. Maybe you mean Globe of Invulnerability ? That has a very small area of effect.


Control Winds

This could potentially be a game changer. But can't an enemy caster simply dispel it ?

Darth Ultron
2017-02-27, 01:02 PM
But you need to make a permanent animated object, or to craft a magic object with similar features. I don't know if it could be done with a reasonable cost.

I guess it depends what is a reasonable cost. At 10th level or so a character has a ton of money in most editions of D&D (except 4E, of course). And it's easy enough for a wizard to make money by casting spells. Even as little as a week of spellcastings for hire can get a wizard a ton of gold.




I haven't find any spell that is named Sign of Suppression. Maybe you mean Globe of Invulnerability ? That has a very small area of effect.

Sigils of Suppression are a magic item, you can find them in the Stronghold Builders Guide. They are ''Globe of Invulnerability ''. Most editions of D&D have the rule where you can make large immobile magic items cheap, often half the price of a normal magic item. They also cover a large area, but you might need more then one for a big ship.




This could potentially be a game changer. But can't an enemy caster simply dispel it ?

This is true of most magic. It would be quite the game of ''tag''...

Beleriphon
2017-02-27, 04:13 PM
This is true of most magic. It would be quite the game of ''tag''...

Rocket tag, sounds like submarine warfare.

BlacKnight
2017-03-03, 10:59 AM
So I was thinking about the various proposals suggested in this thread.
It seems to me that trying to armor a ship is an exercise in futility. Ironwood is lv 6, as well as Hardening. To make a steel ship you need a propeller, that requires Animate Object to move. Or you can use Submerge Ship to gain swim speed. But all of this is after lv 10. Before of it you are stuck with vulnerable wood ships. After it caster power has reached such a level that I doubt those defenses could be useful.

Maybe anti air weapons can help ? I doubt it. Their crew is to vulnerable to magic AoE. You can't make them automatic without Animate Siege Weapon (Cleric 7 from Heroes of Battle) and I'm not sure the weapon can follow invisible targets on its own. You can make turrets to protect the crew, but you can't move them without Animate Object (and they won't be more resistant than the rest of the ship anyway). All of these again are unavailable at low levels, and probably useless at high levels.

Thus ships would only be targets. Battles on sea would be fights between adventurers and other medium-high level beings that jump from one ship to the other. Having a secure base would still be useful, but here comes Detect Ship (Bard/Sorc/Wiz 3 from Stormwrack), that allows to detect ships from miles. With this magic radar ships would have to stay at hundreds of miles from the battlefield, thus making the aircraft carrier the only type of military ship that has a real role. Submerge Ship would also be very important, but its main purpose would be to grant propulsion to the ship. This would allow to make a steel, submersible base for casters and maybe flying mounts.

This ship would stay always at great depth, coming to 10 feet from the surface only to launch and recover its casters/mounts. These magic aircrafts would then travel for hundreds of miles and search for targets with Detect Ship. The submarine base could also be traced with this spell (it says nothing about ships beneath the surface, so I assume it works on them too). Submerge ship is the best defense: the enemy would have to come underwater to harm the ship, that would be made of steel and won't sink for a few holes (the text says that water doesn't enter until the spell works). Dispel Magic would be the biggest threat, but the spell lingers for a number of rounds equal to caster level, so there's plenty of time to cast it again.

Before level 13 ? It would be a mess, probably people would avoid battles on the high seas (that were uncommon in real life too) and they would try to have a shore where to land in the case things go wrong.

Jay R
2017-03-03, 12:09 PM
You're assuming a huge number of high-level characters, and an impossibly large amount of high-level magic in the world.

The average ship in the D&D world won't have much magic, just like the average boat around today doesn't have nuclear missile launchers and fighter planes on its deck, even though the technology exists.

BlacKnight
2017-03-03, 12:53 PM
You're assuming a huge number of high-level characters, and an impossibly large amount of high-level magic in the world.

The average ship in the D&D world won't have much magic, just like the average boat around today doesn't have nuclear missile launchers and fighter planes on its deck, even though the technology exists.

Infact I'm talking about warships. That won't even exist if there aren't lv 13+ casters in the world. And above that the submergible caster carrier would be an expensive toy, just like aircraft carriers are in our world.

Darth Ultron
2017-03-03, 02:36 PM
So I was thinking about the various proposals suggested in this thread.
It seems to me that trying to armor a ship is an exercise in futility. Ironwood is lv 6, as well as Hardening.

Seems like your giving up after only two spells?




To make a steel ship you need a propeller, that requires Animate Object to move. Or you can use Submerge Ship to gain swim speed. But all of this is after lv 10. Before of it you are stuck with vulnerable wood ships. After it caster power has reached such a level that I doubt those defenses could be useful.

A decanter of endless water, set to geyser, pushing a waterwheel can work. Undead can also ''power a ship'' Scroll of CL6 animate dead + brown bear corpse. Str 29 zombie. Try also bison: CL5, Str 24(if your squeamish they can be built inside the engine). Also effigys and other constructs.




Maybe anti air weapons can help ? I doubt it. Their crew is to vulnerable to magic AoE.

You can hire a crew of non humans. Undead and constructs come to mind. Also a couple of clerics can protect the crew too.



Thus ships would only be targets.

And powerful weapon platforms and many other things.



Before level 13 ? It would be a mess, probably people would avoid battles on the high seas (that were uncommon in real life too) and they would try to have a shore where to land in the case things go wrong.

Things are harder at low levels...of course. It takes more work, but you can get around the limits. Remember also if your talking about a kingdom, there is no stupid ''kingdom WBL'' or anything like that. And even at a low level, a spellcaster can make plenty of gold casting spells.

EvilCookie
2017-03-03, 03:03 PM
Its actually not that easy to light a ship on fire. Ever tried lighting a log with a lighter? Its possible but it does take time, and mages with create water or resistance to fire and such could make that task very hard. The most flamable things are the sails, the ropes, and the gunpowder. No sails needed because you can propel ships by magic, no powder needed because you just hurl magic.

I would assume the most dangerous things would be summoned critters and control of wind/sea. If you flip the ship suddenly lightning spells become very powerful.
On the other hand walls of force, infinite supplies and greater speeds would make merchants much more efficient.

But someone askes a good question related to the very concept of ships in such a world.
Even if small merchants dont have the means to teleport, merchant guilds would form and would probably have some strong enough members, or at least sufficient means to buy some teleportation spells.
As long as teleporting is more efficient (no ship cost, no travel time, no chance of raiders, no supply cost, traver over land and sea, no passing throught hostile territory) merchants would do it.

MrStabby
2017-03-03, 05:34 PM
I wonder is some of the spells of issue are justified.

Fireball is great against wooden ships with lots of crew and sails and rigging. Is that really needed?

Sails and rigging seem a liability more than an asset when instead you can use animal handing skills, summoning spells, wildshapes and polymorphs to get creatures with a swim speed to pull the craft.

Building ships out of materials other than wood becomes easier if someone in the kingdom has discovered something like the fabricate spell.

ka_bna
2017-03-03, 05:49 PM
Why does naval warfare even exist?
1. To assault an area from the sea/river. Or to prevent such an assault.
2. To protect your supply lines or to attack enemy supply lines.

When attacking: A wizard or a group of adventurers can attack an area much easier than a big visible ship. Mount the wizard/adventurers on a small flying carpet, animal or birds (on higher level: let them fly by themself) and they will be less visible and detectable, while they can do much more damage from afar (esp. at higher levels). They do need a base of operations, as their spells will run out and they need some healing. That is what the ship is for. When defending or attacking the attackers, this still applies. It is much easier to attack warships with a small wizard that is difficult to detect than a looming warship cruising towards you. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Sheffield_(D80) . Mentally replace the Exocet with a wizard.

Yes, I think high-level magic will turn naval warfare into a game of aircraft carriers. And once the magic is sufficient, we will enter a new phase of naval warfare: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/c7/ec/4c/c7ec4cb563b91c01b4482145bccbb89f.jpg

Mechalich
2017-03-03, 07:49 PM
And there could be 3 levels of power, based on the maximum D&D level that can be reached.
-max lv 5
-max lv 10
-max lv 20

In a max 20th level world you reality has either evolved into whatever psychedelic Tippyverse-analogue you find appropriate or been blown apart into a post-apocalyptic hellscape that makes Dark Sun seem to be all rainbows and unicorns, so that leaves the other two scenarios.

Max 10th level is going to be tricky. While in that scenario 8-10th level casters will be rare, lower level casters will be very common, as will low-level magic items such as wands. This makes ships very vulnerable. They may not be viable at all, especially when you consider that not only are they vulnerable to spells, they are vulnerable to attack from above by flying monsters and from below by aquatic monsters. In fact, with proficient use of Dominate Animal and Charm Monster it might make sense to replace ships entirely with large aquatic animals like whales and plesiosaurs to haul cargo on aquatic routes and be able to submerge and avoid airborne attackers. Additionally, you have to consider that overland shipping may be much more efficient in the context of D&D, since even relatively low-level casters can charm extremely powerful low-will save animals like Sauropod dinosaurs or the Immense Tortoise (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary4/tortoise.html#tortoise-immense) to use as pack animals for overland trade as opposed to being limited by the capabilities of oxen to carry heavy loads. The use of flight and teleport to transport high-value cargo at high speeds also reduces the viability of the naval route as well. In such a scenario, depending on how you constructed it, naval trade might never develop at all. Any ships that do exist are incredibly vulnerable and are probably entirely peaceful and rely on laws and patronage to protect them, not actually trying to defend themselves.

Max 5th level is the most interesting because naval trade retains the greatest viability against the backdrop and is not overwhelmingly vulnerable to attack from above (though it's still pretty vulnerable to attack from below - Charm Animal has to be horrible for the navy) or from spells and isn't competing with teleportation and only barely with flight (since 5th level casters will be rare and flying mounts have strict cargo limitations). Fire spells are still a problem, but it may be that the same naval conventions that largely prohibited attacks using fire in 'civilized' naval warfare would prevail since ships would remain valuable assets. Even low-level magic makes ships much easier to board - so boarding actions might be the predominant form of naval combat in such a scenario. This is especially likely in the absence of cannon, which require vessels to be built to accommodate them.

Vizzerdrix
2017-03-04, 06:05 AM
I'm also thinking about submarines. How would they be propelled ? Animated propellers ?

Gnome submersables are a thing. Also, their is a spell that lets ships submerge safely, so sinking one may not have the desired effect or even give an advantage.

BlacKnight
2017-03-04, 11:39 AM
Seems like your giving up after only two spells?

What other spells could be used ? I've checked the Stronghold Builder's Guide and I didn't find the Sigil of Suppresion. It's not in the magic items sections. But I've seen the augmentations for walls. Assuming they can be used for ships you can use Magic Warding to give everyone spell resistance 21. But enemy casters could use spells without SR.


A decanter of endless water, set to geyser, pushing a waterwheel can work. Undead can also ''power a ship'' Scroll of CL6 animate dead + brown bear corpse. Str 29 zombie. Try also bison: CL5, Str 24(if your squeamish they can be built inside the engine). Also effigys and other constructs.

Well the decanter of endless water is a silly magic item that I would avoid putting in any serious setting... But I suppose it would work. A bear with strength 29 should be able to move 1400 lb. at 5 feet per second. By my crappy math tis means that to move a ship of 100 tons at the same speed you would need 157 bears. I don't think it's practical.


You can hire a crew of non humans. Undead and constructs come to mind. Also a couple of clerics can protect the crew too.

The problem is how much they cost and how much more tough they are. If you need casters to protect/control the crew maybe it's better to use them to directly sink ships.


And powerful weapon platforms and many other things.

What weapons ? Ballistas and similar can't compete with casters past lv 7-9. And if the ship is sunk by flying attackers they would never have the chance to be used.


Things are harder at low levels...of course. It takes more work, but you can get around the limits. Remember also if your talking about a kingdom, there is no stupid ''kingdom WBL'' or anything like that. And even at a low level, a spellcaster can make plenty of gold casting spells.

I'm using the prices only to compare things with each other. D&D economy makes no sense, so it's pointless trying to fix how much money a character or a kingdom could have.


Max 10th level is going to be tricky. While in that scenario 8-10th level casters will be rare, lower level casters will be very common, as will low-level magic items such as wands. This makes ships very vulnerable. They may not be viable at all, especially when you consider that not only are they vulnerable to spells, they are vulnerable to attack from above by flying monsters and from below by aquatic monsters. In fact, with proficient use of Dominate Animal and Charm Monster it might make sense to replace ships entirely with large aquatic animals like whales and plesiosaurs to haul cargo on aquatic routes and be able to submerge and avoid airborne attackers. Additionally, you have to consider that overland shipping may be much more efficient in the context of D&D, since even relatively low-level casters can charm extremely powerful low-will save animals like Sauropod dinosaurs or the Immense Tortoise (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary4/tortoise.html#tortoise-immense) to use as pack animals for overland trade as opposed to being limited by the capabilities of oxen to carry heavy loads. The use of flight and teleport to transport high-value cargo at high speeds also reduces the viability of the naval route as well. In such a scenario, depending on how you constructed it, naval trade might never develop at all. Any ships that do exist are incredibly vulnerable and are probably entirely peaceful and rely on laws and patronage to protect them, not actually trying to defend themselves.

Using animals instead of ships is interesting, altough Charm Animal is not really reliable and Dominate Animal lasts for too little time.
You are probably right about the patronage thing. High level people would probably be aboard some ship, and would simply fly to the help of any endangered ship (assuming that boat is on the right side).


Max 5th level is the most interesting because naval trade retains the greatest viability against the backdrop and is not overwhelmingly vulnerable to attack from above (though it's still pretty vulnerable to attack from below - Charm Animal has to be horrible for the navy) or from spells and isn't competing with teleportation and only barely with flight (since 5th level casters will be rare and flying mounts have strict cargo limitations). Fire spells are still a problem, but it may be that the same naval conventions that largely prohibited attacks using fire in 'civilized' naval warfare would prevail since ships would remain valuable assets. Even low-level magic makes ships much easier to board - so boarding actions might be the predominant form of naval combat in such a scenario. This is especially likely in the absence of cannon, which require vessels to be built to accommodate them.

There were conventions against the use of fire vs ships ? I assume we are talking about the modern age when cannons made greek fire obsolete, because Byzantines seemed to like it a lot.

Darth Ultron
2017-03-04, 03:06 PM
What other spells could be used ? I've checked the Stronghold Builder's Guide and I didn't find the Sigil of Suppresion. It's not in the magic items sections. But I've seen the augmentations for walls. Assuming they can be used for ships you can use Magic Warding to give everyone spell resistance 21. But enemy casters could use spells without SR.

It is true it will all ways be a continuous battle. But it's not like the attackers will all ways be so all powerful and the defenders will be useless.

You missed the Sigil of Suppression? They are on page 83 of my SBG.



Well the decanter of endless water is a silly magic item that I would avoid putting in any serious setting... But I suppose it would work. A bear with strength 29 should be able to move 1400 lb. at 5 feet per second. By my crappy math tis means that to move a ship of 100 tons at the same speed you would need 157 bears. I don't think it's practical.

The idea is the zombie bear would power a machine to turn a propeller. And you can build them enclosed inside the machine so squish people won't see them. Check out the movie Evin Almighty for an example of type of machine that (might be) like 3,000 years old.




The problem is how much they cost and how much more tough they are. If you need casters to protect/control the crew maybe it's better to use them to directly sink ships.

Sure, you can protect your ships by sinking the foes first...




What weapons ? Ballistas and similar can't compete with casters past lv 7-9. And if the ship is sunk by flying attackers they would never have the chance to be used.

Well, weapons like the casters. But how many navy casters are you thinking of, like 100's?

What about magic weapons? Like magical ship to ship weapons. Like ballista bolts that explode with fireballs or lighting bolts.

And anti air craft things are easy enough, plus you'd have an air force too.

Clistenes
2017-03-04, 07:19 PM
Its actually not that easy to light a ship on fire. Ever tried lighting a log with a lighter? Its possible but it does take time, and mages with create water or resistance to fire and such could make that task very hard. The most flamable things are the sails, the ropes, and the gunpowder. No sails needed because you can propel ships by magic, no powder needed because you just hurl magic.

In 3.5, a torch deals 1 point of fire damage.

Being on top of an oil-fueled fire deals just 1d3 points of fire damage per round, during just two rounds.

A flask of alchemist's fire, burning oil or Molotov Cocktail (in d20 Modern) deals just 1d6 points of fire damage on a direct hit, plus another 1d6 poinst of damage if you don't bother extinguishing the flames (1 single point of damage if you are splashed rather than receiving a direct hit).

Any other mundane fire, including being inside a house in flames, being thrown into a pyre or being cooked alive with burning oil only deals 1d6 points of damage per round.

A White Phosphorus Grenade deals 2d6 of fire damage (20 ft radius).

A M7057 Flamethrower deals 5d6 points of damage in d20 Modern.

A Thermite Greneade deals 6d6 points of fire damage (5ft radius) in d20 Modern (21 points of damage on average)

A Fireball? 5d6 of damage (17,5 points of damage) at caster level 5. And all unatteded objects in a 20 ft radius take that damage.

A Fireball isn't a lighter. It is a flamethrower.

Comparing it to a Molotov Cocktail, if we are talking squares rather than hexagons, a Fireball affects 44 squares rather than four, and the area damage in every square is 17,5 times that of the splashing burning gasoline or oil.

A single Fireball is, at caster level 5, as damaging on average as 192,5 flasks of burning oil, alchemist fire or gasoline (yeah, yeah, I know, gasoline burns hotter, but the game doesn't take that difference into account). That is, 91 liters of oil or gasoline burning on board of a wooden ship...

I know comparing real life physics with D&D rules doesn't work, but my point is, a Fireball is supposed to be f***ing HOT and to do a ton of damage. PCs and powerful NPCs can suvive them because they are monsters able to shrug off being thrown from a plane or rolled over by a locomotive and can kill a White Shark with a table fork...

And even if your foes can make their ships of steel or use magic to protect the ship against fire and to propel it... you are still forcing them to spend resources that could be employed against you otherwise. Even better, a dozen Wizards with a few wands holding 3th level spells can threaten a fleet of hundreds of ships; your foes will have to protect ALL their ships against those few Wizards or hold them back from combat.

BlacKnight
2017-03-05, 07:58 AM
But someone askes a good question related to the very concept of ships in such a world.
Even if small merchants dont have the means to teleport, merchant guilds would form and would probably have some strong enough members, or at least sufficient means to buy some teleportation spells.
As long as teleporting is more efficient (no ship cost, no travel time, no chance of raiders, no supply cost, traver over land and sea, no passing throught hostile territory) merchants would do it.

Yeah, I'm working under the assumption that the setting would still need ships. So any magic/technology that would make ships useless (like the Teleportation Circle) is supposed to be implicitly banned.


It is true it will all ways be a continuous battle. But it's not like the attackers will all ways be so all powerful and the defenders will be useless.

The problem I see is that the defenses of the ship can't keep up with the offensive capabilities of the casters. Damage increases a lot faster than the hardness of the materials. So maybe the answer is to try to block the magic before it works.
Sigil of Suppression + Magic Warding (the wall augmentation) + Augment Object (the spell). We have a ship that blocks any spell of lv 4 or lower, with a SR of 14 (assuming caster level 12) and that grants SR 21 to all crewmen.
That sounds nice, but the problem is that all of this is vulnerable to Dispel Magic, that has greater range that the weapons of the ship. So you need casters to counterspell the dispels or to cast again the defenses dispelled. And you need them also to dispel Cloudkills and similar that can still work their way trough the defenses.

This can seems not so easy for the attackers, but the assuption is that they would have the numerical superiority (otherwise they won't even attack). And once they win the dispel and counterspell game the ship is toast. How does the ship help the defenders ? If it doesn't it means it's useless. You need more casters, no better ships.


The idea is the zombie bear would power a machine to turn a propeller. And you can build them enclosed inside the machine so squish people won't see them. Check out the movie Evin Almighty for an example of type of machine that (might be) like 3,000 years old.

The problem is that they don't have a significant strength advantage over regular rowers. Thus I doubt they can move a steel ship. And I'm not sure Submerge Ship can either. I'm starting to think that using the spell to propel ships that would be unable to move normally is abusing the wording.


What about magic weapons? Like magical ship to ship weapons. Like ballista bolts that explode with fireballs or lighting bolts.

And anti air craft things are easy enough, plus you'd have an air force too.

There are several problems with those weapons:
-limited range, that means you need to survive air strikes before your weapons can reach the enemy.
-limited damage (unless they can be upgraded they will be obsolete by lv 10)
-if you somehow make ships that can survive caster's attacks they would probably be invulnerable to those weapons.

And AAA have other problems:
-most spells have more range that the weapons.
-invisibility.I don't think you can make all the crew able to see invisibility, neither you can slave the weapons to the caster that can. This means AAA can't effectively hit the attackers.

Darth Ultron
2017-03-05, 04:43 PM
Sigil of Suppression + Magic Warding (the wall augmentation) + Augment Object (the spell). We have a ship that blocks any spell of lv 4 or lower, with a SR of 14 (assuming caster level 12) and that grants SR 21 to all crewmen.
That sounds nice, but the problem is that all of this is vulnerable to Dispel Magic, that has greater range that the weapons of the ship. So you need casters to counterspell the dispels or to cast again the defenses dispelled. And you need them also to dispel Cloudkills and similar that can still work their way trough the defenses.

You think Dispel Magic is so good? Ok, well this depends on how your interpreting Dispel Magic. Does ''a ship'' count as ''one object'' for a targeted dispel? Is a house or castle ''one object''? And even if you do say ''one object'' is ''one ship or castle '', you don't effect other magic items ''in'' or ''on'' the targeted object, correct? If you target a magical table, it does not effect the magical plates. So magic items ''on'' the ''one object ship'' would not be effected, correct? You would need to target each magic item by itself as a targeted dispel can only effect one item.

And even if you say a single dispel magic effect an entire ship and every single magic item on the ship, they are still only turned ''off'' for 1-4 rounds. And if your letting one dispel magic effect say 25 magical items ''on the one target ship'', there is a good chance that the higher caster level ones with not be effected as well.

And any ship with have a CAP, a Combat Air Patrol, around it as protection....you know to spot a spellcaster that comes within 200 some feet to even cast the dispel magic. And there are tones of animals and monsters that can do this task, both in the air and underwater. There are even some creatures that can detect invivibility at will...like imps and lots of yougloths.



This can seems not so easy for the attackers, but the assuption is that they would have the numerical superiority (otherwise they won't even attack). And once they win the dispel and counterspell game the ship is toast. How does the ship help the defenders ? If it doesn't it means it's useless. You need more casters, no better ships.

Well, so your talking about a (flying?) army made up of CL 10/CR 10 spellcasters and monsters vs one warship? Kind of an odd thing, no? Like a flying force of 25 10th level wizards? And...for some reason the ship won't have 25 10th level casters on it..plus marines, plus magic items and more?




The problem is that they don't have a significant strength advantage over regular rowers. Thus I doubt they can move a steel ship. And I'm not sure Submerge Ship can either. I'm starting to think that using the spell to propel ships that would be unable to move normally is abusing the wording.

Well, a normal human is Strength 18...zombie dire bear 31 and it never gets tired...ever. Add Corpsecrafting to make that Strength 35!

And Submerge Ship does say the spell moves the ship....



There are several problems with those weapons:
-limited range, that means you need to survive air strikes before your weapons can reach the enemy.
-limited damage (unless they can be upgraded they will be obsolete by lv 10)
-if you somehow make ships that can survive caster's attacks they would probably be invulnerable to those weapons.

So...somehow...the attacked can blow up ships from miles away, but the defenders have to be within 10 feet to fight back? How is that again?



And AAA have other problems:
-most spells have more range that the weapons.
-invisibility.I don't think you can make all the crew able to see invisibility, neither you can slave the weapons to the caster that can. This means AAA can't effectively hit the attackers.

So now it's one ship vs 25 10th level spellcasters all with improved invisibility? And note the whole crew does not need to see invisible foes, just the defenders.

BlacKnight
2017-03-06, 09:32 AM
You think Dispel Magic is so good? Ok, well this depends on how your interpreting Dispel Magic. Does ''a ship'' count as ''one object'' for a targeted dispel? Is a house or castle ''one object''? And even if you do say ''one object'' is ''one ship or castle '', you don't effect other magic items ''in'' or ''on'' the targeted object, correct? If you target a magical table, it does not effect the magical plates. So magic items ''on'' the ''one object ship'' would not be effected, correct? You would need to target each magic item by itself as a targeted dispel can only effect one item.

Yes I was thinking about targeting one individual magic item. You only need to take down one type of barrier. If you remove Sigil of Suppression you can Acid Orb the ship to death. If you remove Augment Object you can use Disintegrate. Those makes enough damage that you won't need more than 1D4 rounds.
Obviously you can have more copies of the defensive items. But the question becomes how much does it costs vs how much costs to the attacker going trough all of them.


Well, so your talking about a (flying?) army made up of CL 10/CR 10 spellcasters and monsters vs one warship? Kind of an odd thing, no? Like a flying force of 25 10th level wizards? And...for some reason the ship won't have 25 10th level casters on it..plus marines, plus magic items and more?

You see what's the problem with this line of tought ? Yes, the defending ship can have its own casters... that would do all the work. So you can remove the weapons and the barriers from the ship and you would have a similar outcome. Then maybe its better to save on the ship side and hire more casters.
It's basically like a battleship vs aircraft carrier discussion. Sure you can have an allied AC to put a CAP over your BB. And you can use its aircrafts to make reconnaissance and to attack enemies outside the range of the BB's guns. And maybe you can scrap the BB and make another AC.



Well, a normal human is Strength 18...zombie dire bear 31 and it never gets tired...ever. Add Corpsecrafting to make that Strength 35!

And the Dire Bear is a large animal that weight 8,000 pounds. They would have more than 10 times the lift capabilities of a normal rower, but they would also require a lot more space. Thus you won't be able to move significantly heavier ships with them.


And Submerge Ship does say the spell moves the ship....

Yeah, but the rules aren't supposed to be a physical model of the world. They are an approximation for the most common situations. I bet the designers were thinking about a spell to submerge normal ships, not to make possible to propel monstrosity that would be unable to move in other ways.



So...somehow...the attacked can blow up ships from miles away, but the defenders have to be within 10 feet to fight back? How is that again?

The range of ships weapons is a lot more than 10 feet (where did I say it was 10 feet ?) but its' still not enough to compete with flying casters that can travel for hundred of miles.


So now it's one ship vs 25 10th level spellcasters all with improved invisibility? And note the whole crew does not need to see invisible foes, just the defenders.

I never said it was 25 casters. It could be whatever number, just enough to have numerical superiority over the defenders.
The ones that needs to see invisible are the crew of the anti air weapons. But considering that Seing Invisibility is only personal that could be hard. Just in the remote case that the enemy enter the range of the weapons.

Darth Ultron
2017-03-06, 01:36 PM
Yes I was thinking about targeting one individual magic item. You only need to take down one type of barrier. If you remove Sigil of Suppression you can Acid Orb the ship to death. If you remove Augment Object you can use Disintegrate. Those makes enough damage that you won't need more than 1D4 rounds.
Obviously you can have more copies of the defensive items. But the question becomes how much does it costs vs how much costs to the attacker going trough all of them..

Well, good to know you don't think ''one ship'' is ''one object''. Now taking out one magic item, will still leave all the others. And the attacker would somehow need to both know about the magic item and know where it is.

And...well,...would not a Sigil of Suppression block the dispel?

And I still think your not taking into account the ship fighting back.




You see what's the problem with this line of tought ? Yes, the defending ship can have its own casters... that would do all the work. So you can remove the weapons and the barriers from the ship and you would have a similar outcome. Then maybe its better to save on the ship side and hire more casters.
It's basically like a battleship vs aircraft carrier discussion. Sure you can have an allied AC to put a CAP over your BB. And you can use its aircrafts to make reconnaissance and to attack enemies outside the range of the BB's guns. And maybe you can scrap the BB and make another AC.
.

Well, were you going for mundane ship vs army of spellcasters? Or more ''two equally powerful kingdoms ''?





And the Dire Bear is a large animal that weight 8,000 pounds. They would have more than 10 times the lift capabilities of a normal rower, but they would also require a lot more space. Thus you won't be able to move significantly heavier ships with them.
.

It's give and take. You could always also levitate the bears too, or otherwise reduce their weight.




Yeah, but the rules aren't supposed to be a physical model of the world. They are an approximation for the most common situations. I bet the designers were thinking about a spell to submerge normal ships, not to make possible to propel monstrosity that would be unable to move in other ways.


Maybe.



The range of ships weapons is a lot more than 10 feet (where did I say it was 10 feet ?) but its' still not enough to compete with flying casters that can travel for hundred of miles.
.

So a group of flying spellcasters that target single ships? They still need to be within a couple hundred feet for most spells...even if they burn lots of slots of extend spell.

And at a couple hundred feet, why would the ships weapons not be to shoot back. And if it's ship vs group of casters, the ship will be using anti caster weapons...not the big ship to ship weapons. Archers, shooting at the spellcasters, for example.



I never said it was 25 casters. It could be whatever number, just enough to have numerical superiority over the defenders.
The ones that needs to see invisible are the crew of the anti air weapons. But considering that Seing Invisibility is only personal that could be hard. Just in the remote case that the enemy enter the range of the weapons.

This is were it will get weird. Sure with just about no real effort a ''large'' group of spellcasters can sink a single ship. And maybe a couple more, but then they will need to land somewhere and rest. And having three shifts of ship obliterating spellcasters is a lot.

But it really comes down to A)how many spellcasters do you have and B) how much time you have. Take just one year. The large team can make a good battleship with one years time with all sorts of magic items and protections and custom spells and effects.

For example....for a sneak trick, the crew of the ship could dispel their own magic protection item at the start of the battle. Then the foes will utterly waste their dispels when they target the non-magical item. Then a round or two latter the item reactivates. Maybe even a ''suppress magic spell that activates the magic items when it is targeted with a dispel''...oh, now that is evil.

And I have not even mentioned illusion yet....where the attacking spellcasters see three ships...and might waste lots of spells on the illusions.

And repairing the damaged ship, round to round too.

Mechalich
2017-03-06, 11:05 PM
You see what's the problem with this line of tought ? Yes, the defending ship can have its own casters... that would do all the work. So you can remove the weapons and the barriers from the ship and you would have a similar outcome. Then maybe its better to save on the ship side and hire more casters.
It's basically like a battleship vs aircraft carrier discussion. Sure you can have an allied AC to put a CAP over your BB. And you can use its aircrafts to make reconnaissance and to attack enemies outside the range of the BB's guns. And maybe you can scrap the BB and make another AC.


This seems like the heart of the issue. Ships are highly vulnerable implements in warfare, because a proportionally very small loss of structural integrity can result in the entire ship sinking to the bottom with the loss of all hands, weapons, cargo, everything onboard. A single bomb hit (if you get lucky) can sink a battleship, while a single bomb hit has no chance whatsoever of dealing an equivalent amount of damage to a land-based fortification of the same size and defenses. Ships are particularly vulnerable by attacks from above - since physics provides advantages for units that are above attacking targets below them, all else being equal. The use of naval vessels as offensive weapons (as opposed to a complex defensive and logistical arrangement to deliver aircraft to a target zone, which is what a modern carrier group happens to be) began to end almost from the moment aircraft became a thing. Worse, the capability of merchant vessels to defend themselves effectively from attack in a world with airborne (and submarine) assault forces is functionally nil.

Critically, a high fantasy world in the D&D style presumes the existence of both airborne and submarine attack capabilities from Level 1. Even stupidly weak flying enemies like Fire Mephits or Arrowhawks are death to ships, and any druid who can find a reasonably aggressive whale (in pre-industrial seas this isn't hard) is one 1st level Charm animal away from going all Moby **** on very expensive sailing vessels.

And sure, you can talk all you want about a magical arms race dealing with protecting or attacking ships, but whenever you do that you have to consider whether it would make more sense to not bother with the ships at all and simply use the magic to find an alternative means of handling your transport needs. At high levels D&D hits the Tippyverse anyway - all long distance transport is handled by some variant of teleportation - and even at significantly lower levels air cargo becomes a viable thing for all sorts of high value transport (a Roc is only CR 9, with a +9 Will save). Ships may remain a viable transport mode, but they'll probably be occupying a niche similar to modern container ships and tankers - bulk transport of high mass and high volume cargo of low individual value - and be similarly vulnerable to attack.

That means fantasy piracy might play out much more like modern piracy where small groups try to take a ship and hold it and its crew for ransom rather than age of sail piracy, where the pirates might destroy the ship, kill the crew and haul the cargo away in their own vessels. That's not a bad thing actually - it means an adventuring party can play the part of Seal Team Six or various modern mercenary groups in deploying to seized ships to take them back from the pirates, like in the beginning of the first Expendables film.

Darth Ultron
2017-03-07, 07:48 AM
I looked through Stormwrack and I wonder how effective magic would even be on a ship.

Both fire and acid to half damage, and a section of a ship has like 50 hit points...and a ship has like 20 sections.

It's not like one fireball will blow up a ship.....

Storm_Of_Snow
2017-03-07, 08:13 AM
And sure, you can talk all you want about a magical arms race dealing with protecting or attacking ships, but whenever you do that you have to consider whether it would make more sense to not bother with the ships at all and simply use the magic to find an alternative means of handling your transport needs. At high levels D&D hits the Tippyverse anyway - all long distance transport is handled by some variant of teleportation - and even at significantly lower levels air cargo becomes a viable thing for all sorts of high value transport (a Roc is only CR 9, with a +9 Will save). Ships may remain a viable transport mode, but they'll probably be occupying a niche similar to modern container ships and tankers - bulk transport of high mass and high volume cargo of low individual value - and be similarly vulnerable to attack.

Depends - how much is that high level mage charging to teleport your goods? By the SRD, Teleport Object is level 7, which means you need at least a 13th level mage to cast it, and will cost you a minimum of 910gp, but you can only move 650lbs/ 39 cubic feet at a time. (And Teleportation Circle only transports creatures, plus it costs 2530gp per casting, assuming you can even find a 17th level mage in the first place).

By contrast, a sailing ship can carry 150 tons, or the equivalent of about 500 Teleport Objects, starting at only about 11 times the cost (although there's the variable running costs of maintenance, crew, stores and so on of course).

Can you even get them to do it, or are they more interested in, say, research? Maybe they're employed by the local ruler and completely preoccupied with state business, or too busy protecting themselves from their equally high level rivals. Or perhaps the nations stevedores, harbour pilots and other interested groups have got together and are paying them either not to cast such spells, or to prevent such spells from being cast, in order to protect their business. Ditto for rival merchants.

And it wouldn't necessarily be bulk cargo only - a vessel might take small packages in addition to their main cargo, or split their hold between multiple cargos. You might also have clippers or fast courier ships with smaller holds.

Teleportation might only be used for extremely urgent transport of small goods.

Pauly
2017-03-07, 08:22 AM
Pre steam technology ships wre made of wood, and waterproofed by tar and pitch. They were extremely and famously flammable even in pre gunpowder era. Once a fire took hold the ship would burn to the waterline.

Given the amount of fire based magic available to wizards, clerics, druids, and creatures naval warfare will quickly end with most/all of the ships burnt out hulks.

So lets say you hand wave the fire problem.
Aquatic druiids become the stuff of nightmares. Summon creature, charm creature, summon winds, electricity and storms. Even tangle getting seaweed wrapped around oars and rudders would cripple the ability to maneouver. If the druid had some aquatic change form, like a giant octopus, then they can cause problems without spellcasting.

Wizards and clerics can summon critters, undead. Spells like meteor swarm can punch holes in the hulls.

D&D magic in a naval setting is playig blind mans bluff with sledgehammers. Whoever gets the first spellstrike in wins.

hifidelity2
2017-03-08, 07:04 AM
If you protect your ship with some form of Anti-Magic shield there are fun ways to get round this

In one adventure we were attacking a fortified town and it was protected so we could not teleport in etc

However we did have a magic carpet, a bag of holding and a wand of polymorph

1. Find a heard of elephant
2. Polymorph into mice
3. Put mice in bag
4. Fly over city to high for them to hit you with normal spells / ballista’s etc
5. Drop mice
6. Mice when they hit the anti-magic barrier become elephants
7. Elephants hit the city

We wanted to do it to whales but were to far from the sea and it was a savanna (hence the elephants

DigoDragon
2017-03-08, 08:23 AM
The price tag on all these arcane goodies and spellcasters limits how much a particular side has in magical weaponry. War is expensive to conduct. I could see a big market in research toward spell protection and utility, so Abjuration and Transmutation would be bigger schools. Protect your investments and utilize buff spells. I think that would be the economical way to conduct warefare--rather than one wizard or druid throwing spells directly at the enemy ship, they'd use a mass spell to buff up 10 sailors that would jump over to the enemy ship as a boarding party. Counterspell or throw up wards against enemy attacks, etc.



If flying wizards are so effective they could take the role of aircraft... thus we could have aircraft carriers (or maybe wizard-carriers ?)

I'm reminded of an early episode of the anime Slayers Try, where a dragon attacks a port. On one ship was half a dozen wizards who all threw fireballs at the dragon in synch. Course being an anime the dragon easily dodged them and then countered with a laser beam breath weapon. :smalltongue:



Well, weapons like the casters. But how many navy casters are you thinking of, like 100's?

Gotta take into account how much it would cost (in time as well as money) to train each spellcaster up to a good level so they can participate in these high-spell attacks. You can train a sailor in a few months for combat, but a spellcaster probably takes a few years.



What about magic weapons? Like magical ship to ship weapons. Like ballista bolts that explode with fireballs or lighting bolts.

Cannonballs of Warp Wood? :3

Storm_Of_Snow
2017-03-08, 08:25 AM
If you protect your ship with some form of Anti-Magic shield there are fun ways to get round this

In one adventure we were attacking a fortified town and it was protected so we could not teleport in etc

However we did have a magic carpet, a bag of holding and a wand of polymorph

1. Find a heard of elephant
2. Polymorph into mice
3. Put mice in bag
4. Fly over city to high for them to hit you with normal spells / ballista’s etc
5. Drop mice
6. Mice when they hit the anti-magic barrier become elephants
7. Elephants hit the city

Smaller, less massive creatures don't drop as quickly as larger, more massive ones - they'd only really have accelerated like elephants once they hit the shield and became them again, so they might only be doing something like 40-50 feet/second at impact, rather than enough to leave a crater.

Secondly, how massively did your DM ding your party into evil alignments for using live animals instead of something inanimate like boulders? :smalltongue:



We wanted to do it to whales but were to far from the sea and it was a savanna (hence the elephants
And you'd likely have wound up bombing them with bowls of petunias instead. :smallamused:

BlacKnight
2017-03-08, 01:48 PM
Well, good to know you don't think ''one ship'' is ''one object''. Now taking out one magic item, will still leave all the others. And the attacker would somehow need to both know about the magic item and know where it is.

And...well,...would not a Sigil of Suppression block the dispel?


Augmentations for building aren't objects. They are the building (or the ship) itself. So I think you only need to target the section of the ship where the augmentation is. That would be the side of the ship.

Globe of Invulnerability doesn't block Dispel, so I doubt Sigil of Suppression can do it.



Well, were you going for mundane ship vs army of spellcasters? Or more ''two equally powerful kingdoms ''?

What the hell are you saying ?


It's give and take. You could always also levitate the bears too, or otherwise reduce their weight.

Unless you can do it permanently or for long time it would be useless.


So a group of flying spellcasters that target single ships? They still need to be within a couple hundred feet for most spells...even if they burn lots of slots of extend spell.

And at a couple hundred feet, why would the ships weapons not be to shoot back. And if it's ship vs group of casters, the ship will be using anti caster weapons...not the big ship to ship weapons. Archers, shooting at the spellcasters, for example.

Most spell have a range of 100ft + 10 per level... while a ballista have 120 and a longbow 100. Fireball and the like strike from 400+.



For example....for a sneak trick, the crew of the ship could dispel their own magic protection item at the start of the battle. Then the foes will utterly waste their dispels when they target the non-magical item. Then a round or two latter the item reactivates. Maybe even a ''suppress magic spell that activates the magic items when it is targeted with a dispel''...oh, now that is evil.

The timing for this tactic would be insane. If you go too late you would have dispelled your own protections, if you go to early they reactivate and you have just wasted Dispels.


And I have not even mentioned illusion yet....where the attacking spellcasters see three ships...and might waste lots of spells on the illusions.

Because they are stupid and don't make a weak attack to check if they are the real thing... and even if they forgot it they would only waste a Dispel.



I looked through Stormwrack and I wonder how effective magic would even be on a ship.

Both fire and acid to half damage, and a section of a ship has like 50 hit points...and a ship has like 20 sections.

It's not like one fireball will blow up a ship.....

I checked Stormwrack too. Interesting rules. They could be set in the right direction, but it seems to me that there are some bugs. A dromon has 60 sections of 80 HP each, you need to destroy 15 of these to sink it. But actually every time you destroy one section the captain has to take a skill check to not let the ship sink (why only the captain ?). The DC starts at 15 and increase of +4 for every other destroyed section. So with a lv 10 captain you probably need 3 sections to have 50% chance to sink the ship and 6 sections to be sure. Every time you destroy one section the adjacent ones go to 50% HP.
This makes ships with many sections far too vulnerable that it would seems at first glance. Altough they would still be more tough that what I previously tought.

These rules make me think that there should be some way to distinguish between single targets an AoE spells. It makes no sense that a Globe of Fire of few cm can destroy a section the same way of a Fireball with an area of meters.

LughSpear
2017-03-08, 02:41 PM
Fireballs.

LongVin
2017-03-09, 01:12 AM
I think something has been overlooked in this thread. And, that is the question of:

Just how common are wizards and other spellcasters?

That is going to be the major deciding factor more than anything to see how magic would change naval tactics and warfare. If we look at it from that scenario we can break down just how useful and common wizards would be in a naval battle and whether or not they are "game changes"(at both ends of the spectrum)

The first scenario - Wizards are very common

This is the scenario I think most of the discussion has been focusing on. That any kingdom would have a ready supply of willing and able wizards to staff their navy in times of war. If this is the case wizards are going to dramatically alter the battlefield and the concept of naval war. If every ship has a wizard, or at least a majority of ships, it will put them at a significant advantage of any ship that does not have access to a wizard. But, with ready access to wizards. Wizards in themselves aren't game changers in the battle. Everyone has a wizard. Everyone is working on the same playing field here. Naval combat doesn't actually change much. Wizards are going to be attacking and countering each other until one screws up or exhausts his magical abilities. The difference in naval combat is you're going to see an active push to kill the other ship's wizard. Knock him out and keep your wizard alive you can foreseeably control the course of the battle if your wizard still has enough spells to allow you ease of movement or additional avenues of attack.

The next step to consider is how powerful these wizards are and the spread of the power ability. At the various power levels they're going to have widely different roles within a battle.

5th level - At this level they are more utility based. The wizard isn't going to have access to a lot of long range hard hitting spells. They're going be using things like gust of wind, fog cloud, animate rope, unseen servant and breathe underwater. They're there to augment the crew in a traditional naval battle. The power level isn't enough for them to be massive game changers, but enough for them to give an advantage to one side or the other based on careful use of their limited spells at the right time and place. Battles at this level won't be much different from traditional naval battles.

10th level - At this point wizards change from being versatile tools into artillery pieces. The focus of the wizard in battle is less about assisting the crew and more about bringing the fight to the enemy. With wizards being extremely common they will be the primary focal point of a ship's offensive abilities. There will still be catapult and ballista but they will take a back seat into helping augment the wizard. The crew is actively going to be protecting the wizard in the battle because once their wizard is knocked out of action they are at a severe disadvantage if the other side's wizard is still alive and has spells remaining.

20th level - It's basically an exchange of nuclear weapons. If the other side doesn't have their own 20th level wizard they lost before the battle even started. If they both have them the ships are merely platforms for them. Anything else in the fight is just a minor distraction between the intense magical battle that is going on around it. A fleet is meaningless at this point. Any high seas battle will just be between 2 ships.

The second scenario - Wizards are very rare

If wizards are rare it also changes how they are used. In my own created world only 1 in 10,000 has the innate talent to become a wizard and even less than that are actually discovered and taught how to use those talents. So if you looked at a kingdom that had 10 million people and even if every single person capable of being a wizard was found and trained you only have a pool of a potential 1,000 wizards to draw on. You also have to figure how many of these wizards can the kingdom get to fight? Not every wizard is going to drop what he is doing to go march off to war. Also, how many of these wizards are even useful for war? A wizard who devoted all his studies to the transmutation school is far less useful than evocation wizard in a battle. In this scenario wizards are game changers at every level. No one is prepared for a wizard on the battle field. The vast majority of ships will not have a wizard and there may only be one wizard per fleet on the capital ship. Naval warfare will be very mundane and traditional and the introduction of a wizard in the battle gives a decisive advantage to that side. Knocking out a wizard once discovered now becomes paramount to restoring parity between the combatants.

5th level - Very similar to a world common with wizards. The wizard here is more useful for his utility purposes giving whatever ship he is on a slight advantage when it comes to maneuvering and repairs. He isn't a checkmate piece, but he will give his side enough of an advantage that they will probably come out ahead.

10th level - The wizard is a shock weapon. Unlike in a world filled with wizards he won't be the center point of the ship's weaponry. You don't want to make your wizard a target for everyone else to try to take out. They're going to engage in a normal battle at first and then wait for the most opportune moment for the wizard to unleash his deadliest spells against the enemy. The wizard's use will be careful and measured. You don't want to lose him and you don't want to burn him out too early before you can press the advantage. The wizard is a game changer. Any side that has a wizard and uses him properly is sure to win.

20th level - Complete and utter destruction. In a wizard rare world a 20th level wizard is going to be the ultimate game changer. No one is going to expect this and entire fleets will be decimated by the power unleashed. If there happens to be two wizards one on each side you'll probably see every ship aside from the ones they're standing on to be destroyed within minutes. Nothing else will matter.

Storm_Of_Snow
2017-03-09, 04:50 AM
Remember, each caster can only really engage one target at a time, plus they're limited in the number of spells they can cast a day, it may be more effective to have them enchant a load of wands of fireball, quench for putting out fires, mending for repairs, water walk, web to tangle oars, magic missile for sniping etc, and putting people with Use Magic Device on your ships.


You also have to figure how many of these wizards can the kingdom get to fight? Not every wizard is going to drop what he is doing to go march off to war.
Chances are a nation would have a cadre of battlemages under their command (as well as for magical espionage), simply because the other side probably does, but even without them, a lot of pressure can be put to bear on individuals, ranging from appeals to patriotism through being paid a lot of money all the way to threats against the person and/or their families.

But basically there's two things to consider - one is conflicts between standing militaries (as above), the other is a pirate or privateer vessel intercepting merchantmen. In that case, the caster is likely to be a much lower level, and they're going to be focussed on disabling the target vessel to capture it, the cargo and the crew, rather than destroying it. And once the merchants know there's a pirate operating in the area, they're either going to bring a caster of their own in, be it someone on staff (maybe they have someone who normally uses remote viewing spells and devices to monitor the price of goods in various cities so they can make greater profits - aka scry-and-buy :smallamused:) or someone hired in, or getting the navy to send a pirate interdiction force, which will naturally include some level of magical support.

hifidelity2
2017-03-09, 06:55 AM
Smaller, less massive creatures don't drop as quickly as larger, more massive ones - they'd only really have accelerated like elephants once they hit the shield and became them again, so they might only be doing something like 40-50 feet/second at impact, rather than enough to leave a crater.

Well the shield (a dome over the whole city high enough to cover the castle and the wizards tower) – so still enough to get a good “splat”



Secondly, how massively did your DM ding your party into evil alignments for using live animals instead of something inanimate like boulders? :smalltongue:

No change to alignment – we were using animals and we try and use medieval morals – so back then it was not an issue. Also increases the chance of a plague

…..it also let us use the term “Carpet Bombing”

- Note this was a long campaign we had travelled at one stage into “modern day” so the fighter had an AK47 and was the carpets tail gunner until we ran out of ammo

Darth Ultron
2017-03-09, 08:27 AM
What the hell are you saying ? .

You seem to be dismissive of the cr/cl 10 defenses, as if the ship would be just a mundane ship vs an ''large number of spellcasters to out number them''.



Unless you can do it permanently or for long time it would be useless..

It is a spell you can make permanent. And something that can be put in a magic item, like a custom one a ''deckplate of levitation''. This would be awesome for hauling cargo too.




Most spell have a range of 100ft + 10 per level... while a ballista have 120 and a longbow 100. Fireball and the like strike from 400+. .

But the range of dispel magic is not that far, so the spellcaster needs to get close to do that....






The timing for this tactic would be insane. If you go too late you would have dispelled your own protections, if you go to early they reactivate and you have just wasted Dispels. .

Not really all that hard with spot checks and even more so, divinations.



Because they are stupid and don't make a weak attack to check if they are the real thing... and even if they forgot it they would only waste a Dispel..

Wasting a dispel does depend on how many dispels they have...they might run out if they are not a ''dispel build'' or something.

Stormwrack also has the nice sails of displacement that they are cheap...so 20% miss chance right there for targeted spells.





I checked Stormwrack too. Interesting rules. They could be set in the right direction, but it seems to me that there are some bugs. A dromon has 60 sections of 80 HP each, you need to destroy 15 of these to sink it. But actually every time you destroy one section the captain has to take a skill check to not let the ship sink (why only the captain ?). The DC starts at 15 and increase of +4 for every other destroyed section. So with a lv 10 captain you probably need 3 sections to have 50% chance to sink the ship and 6 sections to be sure. Every time you destroy one section the adjacent ones go to 50% HP.
This makes ships with many sections far too vulnerable that it would seems at first glance. Altough they would still be more tough that what I previously tought.

These rules make me think that there should be some way to distinguish between single targets an AoE spells. It makes no sense that a Globe of Fire of few cm can destroy a section the same way of a Fireball with an area of meters.

The Stormwrack rules seem incomplete. Like they just had some random ''sea'' stuff laying around and put it all together to make a book. And most of the book does focus on the ''sea PC''.

Note a 10th level expert captain should make plenty of the checks, and that a sinking ship takes a long time to go down..it does not just vanish. And the crew can repair the ship too. Stormwrack does not say what magic can ''fix'' a ship, but does vaguely say it is possible.

I think one of the Dragonlance books has the Ship Mage prestige class, and it has the nice ability of ''casting spells on the ship as if it was a creature'', and any magical navy would need some of them on board.





Just how common are wizards and other spellcasters?


This is a basic problem with D&D. The world, sort of, has magic as, sort of rare. Yet, all powerful magic is everywhere for PC's to encounter, but at the same time that magic is not used for anything in the world.

And the economy makes no sense. A town won't have a single average magic item in it as it's ''way too expensive'', yet the werewolf lord out side of town will have three magic items (so more then three times the ''value'' of the town). So the town can never have anyone sell the three magic items, but, er, step like five feet outside of the town and there are no rules for ''wilderness limits''. Oh and a powerful, high level NPC that is outside of the rules of ''everyone in this town must only be this low level'' can buy or sell the magic items...but they, er, have to ignore everything and everyone in town like it is not there. And a 1st level Nobel has the same ''NPC gear'' as a 1st level commoner. And a ''commoner'' can build a house would thousands of gold, but, er, is still a poor commoner. And on and on and on.

BlacKnight
2017-03-10, 06:23 AM
I made some calculations with Stormwrack rules. A lv 10 caster (loaded in a striker configuration) could have 6 Globes of Force and 4 Fireballs. Against a mundane Dromon with hardness 5 this means 30 damage for each globe and 12.5 damage for each fireball. Each section of the ship has 80 HP and once one of them is destroyed the near ones are weakened (reduced to 50% HP). So the caster can be expected to destroy the first with 2 globes and 2 fireballs, then 1 globe and 1 fireball for the following. We are talking of 3 sections, maybe 4 if he's lucky and starts a fire (altough the table strangely doesn't report the CD for starting fires with immediate fire spells). With Flaming Sphere and other lower level spells more sections could be destroyed.
We know that we need 4 sections destroyed to have an hard enough CD (27). It's feasible, but not granted. Force damage makes the difference, so if we were to ban it the caster would struggle in destroying 2 sections.

Having 6th level spells and Disintegrate would make a world of difference, but past lv 10 it's starts to be possible to use augmentations to protect the ship from magic, so the balance would probably swing in the favour of defense.
So I think that flying casters at lower levels would probably be used for destroying masts or attacking the crew. Sinking a ship would require long bombardments from ship artillery, and considering that a Ballista makes 3D8 while an Heavy Bombard makes 6D10 it would be impractical before gunpowder, just like it should be.
Casters would be used to limit the maneuverability of the enemy ship, or to weaken it by killing part of the crew or forcing them to take shelter under the deck. But they would be part of a combined weapon system.
Past level 10 the importance of casters would increase. Military ships would be even more hard to attack, thanks to their magic protections, but civilian ships would be quite vulnerable and the only way to protect them would be to have your own flying casters.




If every ship has a wizard, or at least a majority of ships, it will put them at a significant advantage of any ship that does not have access to a wizard. But, with ready access to wizards. Wizards in themselves aren't game changers in the battle. Everyone has a wizard. Everyone is working on the same playing field here. Naval combat doesn't actually change much. Wizards are going to be attacking and countering each other until one screws up or exhausts his magical abilities.

While I agree with your whole argument, notice that in war sides are often not balanced and everyone is trying their best to achieve the most unfair advantage they could have. So you are not going to have one caster per ship. You are going to have 6 flying casters attacking a ship with only one caster. Given the mobility advantage granted by flying it would be easy to concentrate forces, meaning that you can't rely on having enough casters everywhere to defend everything. You need tough ships that can take a lot of punishment, so that they can survive until they escape or reinforcements arrive.



Remember, each caster can only really engage one target at a time, plus they're limited in the number of spells they can cast a day, it may be more effective to have them enchant a load of wands of fireball, quench for putting out fires, mending for repairs, water walk, web to tangle oars, magic missile for sniping etc, and putting people with Use Magic Device on your ships.

I was thinking about mass producing magic items. The problem is that rules aren't clear. You have to pay XP, but what are experience points in the setting ? They could be some sort of "life force", but how is gained and lost ? Yeah, using meta-concepts like XP for stuff that can be made by NPC is a bad idea.



You seem to be dismissive of the cr/cl 10 defenses, as if the ship would be just a mundane ship vs an ''large number of spellcasters to out number them''.

Magic defenses can be brought down, especially if the attackers otnumber the defenders (like it should be). Well with Stormwarck rules the rounds of vulnerability won't be enough to make enough damage, but before I was considering the ships much more vulnerable.


It is a spell you can make permanent. And something that can be put in a magic item, like a custom one a ''deckplate of levitation''. This would be awesome for hauling cargo too.

Permanency is costly and a "deckplate of levitation" isn't an official item, right ? For now I want to stick with rules, to understand how stuff works RAW.


But the range of dispel magic is not that far, so the spellcaster needs to get close to do that....

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/dispelMagic.htm 100 feet + 10 per level.


Not really all that hard with spot checks and even more so, divinations.

What divination allows you to know exactly when the enemy is going to cast ?


Wasting a dispel does depend on how many dispels they have...they might run out if they are not a ''dispel build'' or something.

And the caster that made the illusion isn't using his own slots ? Remeber that the attackers have more slots, so you need a better exchange ratio.


Stormwrack also has the nice sails of displacement that they are cheap...so 20% miss chance right there for targeted spells.

If they are the ones at page 134 they cost 120k GP, that doesn't seem that cheap to me. The also works only to ship-to-ship attacks.


Note a 10th level expert captain should make plenty of the checks, and that a sinking ship takes a long time to go down..it does not just vanish. And the crew can repair the ship too. Stormwrack does not say what magic can ''fix'' a ship, but does vaguely say it is possible.

Rules says the captain makes the check everytime a section is holed. Doesn't seem possible to make checks at will. And it wouldn't even make sense, considering how much time a ship needs to sink if you could make a check every turn it would be possibile to save any ship by spamming and natural 20.
Fixing a destroyed section require days and money, so I presume it need to be done at a harbour.


And the economy makes no sense. A town won't have a single average magic item in it as it's ''way too expensive'', yet the werewolf lord out side of town will have three magic items (so more then three times the ''value'' of the town). So the town can never have anyone sell the three magic items, but, er, step like five feet outside of the town and there are no rules for ''wilderness limits''. Oh and a powerful, high level NPC that is outside of the rules of ''everyone in this town must only be this low level'' can buy or sell the magic items...but they, er, have to ignore everything and everyone in town like it is not there. And a 1st level Nobel has the same ''NPC gear'' as a 1st level commoner. And a ''commoner'' can build a house would thousands of gold, but, er, is still a poor commoner. And on and on and on.

Yeah, I decided long ago to consider mundane economy and magic economy to be expressed in different currencies. Depending on how much magic is common in the setting I remove some 0 from the magic prices.

Storm_Of_Snow
2017-03-10, 07:26 AM
I was thinking about mass producing magic items. The problem is that rules aren't clear. You have to pay XP, but what are experience points in the setting ? They could be some sort of "life force", but how is gained and lost ? Yeah, using meta-concepts like XP for stuff that can be made by NPC is a bad idea.

Well, in 3.5, a wand of Fireball would cost a mage 450xp - if they are involved in the next naval battle (say they're on the flagship and the wand's being used from a different vessel), they'd likely get some, if not all of that back, depending on the scale of the engagement. Alternatively, you might house rule an NPC Arcane Artificer class that takes longer to make magic items, but doesn't lose XP, or use 1st edition where there were no XP costs.

Can wands be recharged? If so, the wands could have been made decades, if not centuries ago and just topped up as needed.

Darth Ultron
2017-03-10, 07:41 AM
I made some calculations with Stormwrack rules.

A ''stronghold space is 20x20x10...so lots of ships will have more then one space.....and that is a set of sigils of suppression per space....not just ''one sigil per ship''.







Permanency is costly and a "deckplate of levitation" isn't an official item, right ? For now I want to stick with rules, to understand how stuff works RAW.

Well, the ''cost'' depends. The rules for how much things ''cost'' are based around a small group of insanely wealthily adventurers...and simply make to sense. Take a kingdom, how much is ''a lot'' of gold for the kingdom? Going by ''just'' the rules an army and navy would cost what, a million gold. Is that ''a lot'' for a kingdom?

And the rules here are just broken as the 10 cr/level is artificial...like every single person in the whole kingdom would fit under that limit.

And saying you want to ''stick to raw'' is a problem for the simple reason that there is no ''Ships of D&D'' rule book, so like 90% of what you would need are not in the rules. To just shoehorn the rules you can find will not work.

For example, there should be a spell ''repair ship'' that repairs damage....but this spell does not exist in any rule book...but it makes ''obvious sense'' that the spell would exist. But you will just say ''nope, no such spell''.





What divination allows you to know exactly when the enemy is going to cast ?

Well, lots of divinations can see the future, but somewhere there is an ''anticipate attack'' spell too.





And the caster that made the illusion isn't using his own slots ? Remeber that the attackers have more slots, so you need a better exchange ratio.



Er, why do the attackers have more slots? Are you going back to ''army of 10th level casters'' vs ''1st level commoners''?



If they are the ones at page 134 they cost 120k GP, that doesn't seem that cheap to me. The also works only to ship-to-ship attacks.


Why do you say they only work for ''ship to ship'' attacks?




Rules says the captain makes the check everytime a section is holed. Doesn't seem possible to make checks at will. And it wouldn't even make sense, considering how much time a ship needs to sink if you could make a check every turn it would be possibile to save any ship by spamming and natural 20.
Fixing a destroyed section require days and money, so I presume it need to be done at a harbour.




The rules say repairs can be done in a minute. Fixing does take a bit more time and money.

But also, again, you ignore that the ship will have magic. So yes, a mundane ship...mundane fleet of ships...and really a whole mundane kingdom..can be obliterated by an ''army'' of 10th level spellcasters.


[QUOTE=BlacKnight;21792792]
Yeah, I decided long ago to consider mundane economy and magic economy to be expressed in different currencies. Depending on how much magic is common in the setting I remove some 0 from the magic prices.

That does make sense.

BlacKnight
2017-03-11, 02:10 PM
Well, in 3.5, a wand of Fireball would cost a mage 450xp - if they are involved in the next naval battle (say they're on the flagship and the wand's being used from a different vessel), they'd likely get some, if not all of that back, depending on the scale of the engagement. Alternatively, you might house rule an NPC Arcane Artificer class that takes longer to make magic items, but doesn't lose XP, or use 1st edition where there were no XP costs.

Can wands be recharged? If so, the wands could have been made decades, if not centuries ago and just topped up as needed.

Using only gold prices would be more reasonable than sending artisans to battle to make them gain XP. Depending on the prices wands could compete with artillery.



A ''stronghold space is 20x20x10...so lots of ships will have more then one space.....and that is a set of sigils of suppression per space....not just ''one sigil per ship''.

Sure, infact I said that when Sigils of Suppression become available (level 11) military ships would be quite hard to attack. But can you provide the same protection to all ships ? I have some doubts.


Well, the ''cost'' depends. The rules for how much things ''cost'' are based around a small group of insanely wealthily adventurers...and simply make to sense. Take a kingdom, how much is ''a lot'' of gold for the kingdom? Going by ''just'' the rules an army and navy would cost what, a million gold. Is that ''a lot'' for a kingdom?

What matters is not the absolute cost. What is important is the relative cost to other stuff. If a defense cost much more than better defenses or if there are cheap ways of attack that are too effective... that defense is basically useless.



And saying you want to ''stick to raw'' is a problem for the simple reason that there is no ''Ships of D&D'' rule book, so like 90% of what you would need are not in the rules. To just shoehorn the rules you can find will not work.

Stormwrack isn't that book ?


For example, there should be a spell ''repair ship'' that repairs damage....but this spell does not exist in any rule book...but it makes ''obvious sense'' that the spell would exist. But you will just say ''nope, no such spell''.

I don't see why there should be such a spell. Magic doesn't follow logic.


Well, lots of divinations can see the future, but somewhere there is an ''anticipate attack'' spell too.

I don't know any spell that makes you know the future with such precision... and foresights have some problems coexisting with free will


Er, why do the attackers have more slots? Are you going back to ''army of 10th level casters'' vs ''1st level commoners''?

No, we are still with "caster vs more casters". Because yes, the defender will have casters, but the attacker will have more, otherwise he wouldn't attack.


Why do you say they only work for ''ship to ship'' attacks?

It's literally in the description of the item.


The rules say repairs can be done in a minute. Fixing does take a bit more time and money.

That's for weakened sections. For destroyed sections you need days and money, which makes me think you need to be at harbour. Otherwise who are you paying with that money ?

Tiktakkat
2017-03-11, 04:41 PM
In regards to magic, Stormwrack mentions the Arms and Equipment Guide for a more detailed combat system.

That book contains reference to using mending, make whole, minor creation, and major creation to effect repairs.

Although it does not mention fabricate, that spell had an effect back in Spelljammer days, as did using wall of iron to repair metal ships. True creation would also need to be added to the list.

All of that is before adding any spells above make whole at 2nd level for actual large scale repair, similar to the repair damage spells for constructs. (Otherwise you may as well just build ships as constructs so you can use such spells on them.)

Darth Ultron
2017-03-11, 04:52 PM
Sure, infact I said that when Sigils of Suppression become available (level 11) military ships would be quite hard to attack. But can you provide the same protection to all ships ? I have some doubts.


What reason would you give to not protect the whole fleet? It's not like ''ok, you have an hour to build an awesome thing for the game'', but more like ''you have 25 years to build a navy.'' Even one year is a long time.



What matters is not the absolute cost. What is important is the relative cost to other stuff. If a defense cost much more than better defenses or if there are cheap ways of attack that are too effective... that defense is basically useless.

The real trick is everyone needs to spend time and money on everything.




Stormwrack isn't that book ?

Not by a long shot. Stromwrack is about 75% just for aquatic PC adventurers, with like a couple of pages of ''oh, yea, there are ships on the water."




I don't see why there should be such a spell. Magic doesn't follow logic.

Not sure why you'd say magic does not ''follow logic'', as magic is just a force....it's like saying gravity does not ''follow logic''.

But people, humans, do follow logic. Well, the smart people anyway.

And, ok, sure ''you'' can't see why anyone would make a repair ship spell or I guess any defensive or protective spell, but I'll bet billions of others can.





I don't know any spell that makes you know the future with such precision... and foresights have some problems coexisting with free will

There are lots of divination spells....





No, we are still with "caster vs more casters". Because yes, the defender will have casters, but the attacker will have more, otherwise he wouldn't attack.

Well...ok, then any time the attackers have the defenders out numbered, the attackers will win....this is pretty simple even in mundane warfare.




It's literally in the description of the item.

So your you'd say the sails of displacement ONLY work vs ''ship to ship'' combat? That is an amazing narrow reading of the rules.

It's like saying ''if a person casts fireball they blow themselves up as instantaneous means the fireball explodes as soon as it is cast''.




That's for weakened sections. For destroyed sections you need days and money, which makes me think you need to be at harbour. Otherwise who are you paying with that money ?

Well, you don't want to use logic or common sense, right? And the all mighty rules don't SAY you need a harbor or drydock so you don't need that.


So.....I guess if your question is coming down too:

If a single ship was just out sailing on the ocean blue....and like 100 10th level wizards were to just come out of nowhere and attack the ship....then, yes, they would obliterate the ship.

BlacKnight
2017-03-12, 06:00 AM
In regards to magic, Stormwrack mentions the Arms and Equipment Guide for a more detailed combat system.

That book contains reference to using mending, make whole, minor creation, and major creation to effect repairs.

Although it does not mention fabricate, that spell had an effect back in Spelljammer days, as did using wall of iron to repair metal ships. True creation would also need to be added to the list.

All of that is before adding any spells above make whole at 2nd level for actual large scale repair, similar to the repair damage spells for constructs. (Otherwise you may as well just build ships as constructs so you can use such spells on them.)

Using Mending and Make Whole is interesting, altough from the spell description is seems that it only works for small objects. Sure it's possible to use it on single wooden boards, but it becomes hard to decide how big a ship section is and how many spells you have to cast to repair it.
Similar problem for the Creation spells, that could be used to plug a leak temporarily.



What reason would you give to not protect the whole fleet? It's not like ''ok, you have an hour to build an awesome thing for the game'', but more like ''you have 25 years to build a navy.'' Even one year is a long time.

Civilian ships have to be economically advantageous. If you have to spend enormous amount of money to protect them you risk to go bankrupt.
Unless we are in a very high-magic setting I don't think it's feasible to have any single merchant ship equipped with douzens of sigils of protection.


The real trick is everyone needs to spend time and money on everything.

The real trick is that you want to spend your money more efficiently than your enemy.


Not by a long shot. Stromwrack is about 75% just for aquatic PC adventurers, with like a couple of pages of ''oh, yea, there are ships on the water."

It's still the best we have.


Not sure why you'd say magic does not ''follow logic'', as magic is just a force....it's like saying gravity does not ''follow logic''.

Magic (at least D&D magic) doesn't follow any logic. There are no general rules. You can't make up spells.
Spells are placed arbitrarily at some level because reasons. Why is Cone of Cold 5th level and not 3rd like Fireball ? Why there isn't a Forceball ? Why can we create a permanent Wall of Stone, but Wall of Thorns lasts for a limited time ?


And, ok, sure ''you'' can't see why anyone would make a repair ship spell or I guess any defensive or protective spell, but I'll bet billions of others can.

Spells exists on their own, they aren't made by people. Otherwise I could made a spell that sinks any ship at any distance without allowing any countermeasure. Can't you see why anyone would make such a spell ?


There are lots of divination spells....

None of which does what you have said earlier.


Well...ok, then any time the attackers have the defenders out numbered, the attackers will win....this is pretty simple even in mundane warfare.

The goal of defenses is to allow a limited number of defenders to reject an assault from a bigger number of attackers. The exact ratio can change, but if the defense only works when numbers are even... that defense sucks.
Notice that I'm not saying that a ship with magic barriers described earlier is a weak defense. What I'm saying is that when you test a defense you have to think that attackers would be stronger than defenders.


So your you'd say the sails of displacement ONLY work vs ''ship to ship'' combat? That is an amazing narrow reading of the rules.

"This grants a 20% miss chance to ship-to-ship attacks against
the ship fitted with them, functioning continually."

Bold mine.
It's literally what the rules said.


It's like saying ''if a person casts fireball they blow themselves up as instantaneous means the fireball explodes as soon as it is cast''.

"You point your finger and determine the range (distance and height) at which the fireball is to burst. A glowing, pea-sized bead streaks from the pointing digit and, unless it impacts upon a material body or solid barrier prior to attaining the prescribed range, blossoms into the fireball at that point."

Try harder.


Well, you don't want to use logic or common sense, right? And the all mighty rules don't SAY you need a harbor or drydock so you don't need that.

Rereading the rules they say you don't need a harbour. Ok. they also explicitly says that you make the repair check once per day, so doesn't change the fact you can't do it during battle.


If a single ship was just out sailing on the ocean blue....and like 100 10th level wizards were to just come out of nowhere and attack the ship....then, yes, they would obliterate the ship.

Or maybe you can stop imagine things I've never said and concentrate on what I've really said. The test I did two posts ago was with 1 (ONE !) caster.

Kallimakus
2017-03-12, 08:18 AM
I intended to reply here some days ago but was sidetracked by other stuff.

Firstly, I'm more experienced in Pathfinder, and not D&D 3,5. However, the title is D&D like, which means it still qualifies I think. Anyway, the important deal is that Pathfinder does have rules for naval combat, including for major spells (that were out when the rules were published).

As for the effect of magic, it depends on the needs of the story. Rules allow for magic to be super effective (depopulating ships with fireballs, sinking them with other spells) or just about negligible.
-If you assume that sailors are just level 1 experts or commoners or what have you, treated as individual creatures, many AoE spells will be great.
-Alternatively, you might say that teams of sailors trained to work together are treated as troops. Think swarms but made up of people. Sufficiently powerful AoE will still pose a threat, but 5th level, potentially even 10th level casters are out of luck in that respect.
A few additional points bear mentioning:
On a bigger ship, crew will just take cover below the deck for a few minutes, when the flying spells wear off and the casters withdraw. Most ships outpace Overland flight, and even the faster Fly will need to spend full rounds to keep up, only occasionally being able to fire off spells.
Due to the speed issue, the only way that casters are going to get a drop on a ship if they start on its path, and the ship goes close to them. Or if they are carried on their own ship (which in itself is a drain of resources)
Ship saves are based on Profession (sailor) modifier (not rank) of its captain and the base ship. At level 5, an expert captain on a sailing ship ought to have 5 ranks, 2 Wis, 3 class skill, 3 skill focus, and +6 from the ship, for a +19 on any save. I'd call that pretty impervious to most spells that give a save.
Ships in Pathfinder do not have sections (which might cut down on the realism a little, but rules are approximations). They do have in excess of 1000hp, where around 300+ damage causes enough damage to the sails to be ruined.

As said above, what impact spells have (by rules) is entirely dependant on the needs of the story. If you want to treat wizards like fighter aircraft, that works. If you want to treat an errant wizard or two as a nuisance, that works too.

Myself, I prefer games at levels 5-10, (and worlds to match). At level 10, with planning, a ship is a potential target. Of course, in my setting, gathering a level 10 strike team of wizards is not a practical option.

Addition: Most of the time, a ship's defensive weapons (longbows, crossbows, ballistas) far outrange wizards (as far as maximum ranges go anyway) since the actual max range is 10 times the increment. Sure, the accuracy is going to suck, but that's why you have a bunch of guys.

Other addition: As long as the ship sees the wizards coming (likely, due to the issue of wizard's effective flight range) they will have drenched everything with water to try and make it not catch fire. So it's hardly as flammable as one might think.

Darth Ultron
2017-03-12, 05:21 PM
Civilian ships have to be economically advantageous. If you have to spend enormous amount of money to protect them you risk to go bankrupt.
Unless we are in a very high-magic setting I don't think it's feasible to have any single merchant ship equipped with douzens of sigils of protection.

Right, but if there are insane ship blowing up mages flying around all the time merchants would have to do so, or just do over land travel.

But if ''some'' or even just ''one'' spellcaster did try to disrupt all trade...well they would have the whole world against them, not one ship.




The real trick is that you want to spend your money more efficiently than your enemy.

true



It's still the best we have.

If you stick to D&D 3.5 and only the ''official'' books, yes.





Magic (at least D&D magic) doesn't follow any logic. There are no general rules. You can't make up spells.

Well, again magic as a force like say light or gravity and yes such forces don't ''follow logic''. The same way that wind or fire, for example, don't follow logic. But if your saying D&D magic ''makes no sense'', well then you'd be wrong. D&D magic follows literally tons of rules, or ''laws''. There are plenty of ''general rules'', you can find them in lots of rulebooks, often in a chapter with a title like ''magic'.

And you can make up spells. The rules even say you can make up spells.



Spells are placed arbitrarily at some level because reasons. Why is Cone of Cold 5th level and not 3rd like Fireball ? Why there isn't a Forceball ? Why can we create a permanent Wall of Stone, but Wall of Thorns lasts for a limited time ?

Is this your example of ''spells don't follow logic?'' Because it's like saying ''why does gasoline burn as soon as a flame touches it, but water does not burn?''

There are reasons for somethings, but not everything has a reason....that is how life works.



Spells exists on their own, they aren't made by people. Otherwise I could made a spell that sinks any ship at any distance without allowing any countermeasure. Can't you see why anyone would make such a spell ?

Odd, I guess I could point you to plenty of rulebooks that do, in fact, say people make spells. I don't find anything in the rules that says, um, ''spells exist on their own'' or something.

Well, plenty of spells can sink a ship at a distance, but you can't have one that just arbitrarily does something with no countermeasure possible. That violates the rules of not only magic, but the game itself.




None of which does what you have said earlier.

Well, your assuming a mundane ship, and I'm assuming a magic using one.

If you ''must'' have a spell, Battlemagic Perception, is along the right lines. I'd put it in a magic item (note: the rules say your allowed to make magic items, even custom ones) and extend it's range.





The goal of defenses is to allow a limited number of defenders to reject an assault from a bigger number of attackers. The exact ratio can change, but if the defense only works when numbers are even... that defense sucks.
Notice that I'm not saying that a ship with magic barriers described earlier is a weak defense. What I'm saying is that when you test a defense you have to think that attackers would be stronger than defenders.

Well, it depends, and you won't know until you attack.



"This grants a 20% miss chance to ship-to-ship attacks against
the ship fitted with them, functioning continually."

Bold mine.
It's literally what the rules said.



"You point your finger and determine the range (distance and height) at which the fireball is to burst. A glowing, pea-sized bead streaks from the pointing digit and, unless it impacts upon a material body or solid barrier prior to attaining the prescribed range, blossoms into the fireball at that point."

Try harder.

Eh, go search the rules dysfunction threads, the point is more you can't read every word of the rules like they are carved in stone.

And, even if you wanted to be a real stick in the mud, I can make such sails without that dumb bit of text.

But here is one for you....using only the Core Rules.....the rules never say a vehicle like a ship is an unattended object, so as fireball can only damage such objects, ships are immune to such damage.



Rereading the rules they say you don't need a harbour. Ok. they also explicitly says that you make the repair check once per day, so doesn't change the fact you can't do it during battle.

Well...to use your ''logic'':

First off you can make the repairs during a battle, as nothing in the rules says ''when'' you have to do it.

And, even better, you can do unlimited repairs a day too. Oh, this is so good...follow along. The almighty rules says ''each'' repair crew can make a check once a day. So, if you have five repair crews, that is five checks. But...it gets better as ''the rules'' don't define a repair crew. Now, say my ship only has two repair crews. So, I have repair crew 1 of Tom, Dirk and Harry and repair crew 2 of Sally, Sue and Brunhilda, and in a battle I have both crews make checks to repair. Then...I take Tom, Dirk and Sally and make..repair crew 3 and that repair crew can make a check, as that crew has not made one. Then Tom, Dirk and Sue for repair crew 4 and on and on and on. And I can even have Harry, my 10th level expert craftsman in every single crew, as long as I have more crew....




Or maybe you can stop imagine things I've never said and concentrate on what I've really said. The test I did two posts ago was with 1 (ONE !) caster.

So your saying one caster vs a mundane and defenseless ship?

BlacKnight
2017-03-13, 03:37 PM
On a bigger ship, crew will just take cover below the deck for a few minutes, when the flying spells wear off and the casters withdraw. Most ships outpace Overland flight, and even the faster Fly will need to spend full rounds to keep up, only occasionally being able to fire off spells.
Due to the speed issue, the only way that casters are going to get a drop on a ship if they start on its path, and the ship goes close to them. Or if they are carried on their own ship (which in itself is a drain of resources)

Yeah the slow speed of flying always bugged me. Could work for magic Flying but for birds and other flying animals ? I assumed it was the acceleration, so basically how much flying characters can maneuver in battle. But the total speed was to be higher. Simply the designers tought about a battle between grounded characters and some flying opponent. They didn't think about an air battle when both parties would be moving.


Addition: Most of the time, a ship's defensive weapons (longbows, crossbows, ballistas) far outrange wizards (as far as maximum ranges go anyway) since the actual max range is 10 times the increment. Sure, the accuracy is going to suck, but that's why you have a bunch of guys.

Problem is that the attacker would probably be invisible... and I don't know of a cheap way to make a bunch of guys able to see invisible.



Right, but if there are insane ship blowing up mages flying around all the time merchants would have to do so, or just do over land travel.

But if ''some'' or even just ''one'' spellcaster did try to disrupt all trade...well they would have the whole world against them, not one ship.

Infact I'm talking about war... not crazy murderhobos.


Well, again magic as a force like say light or gravity and yes such forces don't ''follow logic''. The same way that wind or fire, for example, don't follow logic. But if your saying D&D magic ''makes no sense'', well then you'd be wrong. D&D magic follows literally tons of rules, or ''laws''. There are plenty of ''general rules'', you can find them in lots of rulebooks, often in a chapter with a title like ''magic'.

And you can make up spells. The rules even say you can make up spells.

No, there aren't any laws of magic. Infact the rules for spells creation can be summarized in "try to make a balanced spell. Good luck". There are just tables for damage.


Is this your example of ''spells don't follow logic?'' Because it's like saying ''why does gasoline burn as soon as a flame touches it, but water does not burn?''

If I open a chemistry book I can learn the rules of chemistry and understand why water doesn't burn. I can predict if other materials would burn basing on their properties.
Now explain me why Cone of Cold is 5th level. Which law of magic makes it of 5th level ?


Well, plenty of spells can sink a ship at a distance, but you can't have one that just arbitrarily does something with no countermeasure possible. That violates the rules of not only magic, but the game itself.

Again, which rule of magic ?


If you ''must'' have a spell, Battlemagic Perception, is along the right lines. I'd put it in a magic item (note: the rules say your allowed to make magic items, even custom ones) and extend it's range.

Battlemagic Perception makes easier to counterspell, doesn't help in dispelling your own magic items rounds before they get dispelled by the enemy. What do you ask for is basically impossible, because you can't force an enemy to cast dispel. So they would always have the chance to decide when to cast it.


Well, it depends, and you won't know until you attack.

Obviously the attacker can end up in an ambush, but this won't happen always.
Again the assumption is that the attacker would be the stronger side. You don't make defenses hoping that you would always have the upper hand.


Eh, go search the rules dysfunction threads, the point is more you can't read every word of the rules like they are carved in stone.

There's quite a difference between stupid, rigid adherence to the rules and inventing stuff.


And, even if you wanted to be a real stick in the mud, I can make such sails without that dumb bit of text.

Or I can make a Fireball that makes force damage... why shouldn't I ?
And why should that bit of text be stupid ? What is strange in magic that only works on big weapons and doesn't on personal weapons/spells ?


But here is one for you....using only the Core Rules.....the rules never say a vehicle like a ship is an unattended object, so as fireball can only damage such objects, ships are immune to such damage.

The rules said what is the difference between attended and unattended objects. While the classification can be unclear in some cases, ships are not one of them.


First off you can make the repairs during a battle, as nothing in the rules says ''when'' you have to do it.

And, even better, you can do unlimited repairs a day too. Oh, this is so good...follow along. The almighty rules says ''each'' repair crew can make a check once a day. So, if you have five repair crews, that is five checks. But...it gets better as ''the rules'' don't define a repair crew. Now, say my ship only has two repair crews. So, I have repair crew 1 of Tom, Dirk and Harry and repair crew 2 of Sally, Sue and Brunhilda, and in a battle I have both crews make checks to repair. Then...I take Tom, Dirk and Sally and make..repair crew 3 and that repair crew can make a check, as that crew has not made one. Then Tom, Dirk and Sue for repair crew 4 and on and on and on. And I can even have Harry, my 10th level expert craftsman in every single crew, as long as I have more crew....

To be fair rules define the repairing crew in the "repairing a damaged section" entry. It has to be composed of at least 3 men, at least one of them has to be a carpenter. I notice that the mechanic for repairing damaged or destroyed sections is different. In the first case the rules talk about HP, in the second about gold. Considering that it's not clear how much gold correspond to 1 HP it seems that the rule is incomplete. I also notice that the entry for "repairing destroyed sections" seems to refer to multiple sections. So a repairing crew can repairs 100 GP worth of damage, but how many HP on how many sections get recovered ? I think the designer wanted to use the same mechanic for the damaged sections but they forgot to make the conversion.

So let's assume you can make repair checks that lasts for 1 minute. In the case of destroyed sections you are limited by gold, but unless you divide the repair cost for the HP lost I don't know how much.
Assuming you recover 5 HP for check you can rebuilt a 80 HP section in 16 minutes. By rotating multiple crew you can evade the gold limit and you can have multiple crews working on different sections at the same time.
A ship sinks in 1-100 minutes. So it seems that with a douzen of repairing crews you can stay afloat forever, unless you have bad luck on the D%.

So yes, in this case rules don't makes sense. So what do we do ? In this case we should make some HR... but this doesn't mean that we can make HR everywhere, otherwise we won't be talking about D&D anymore.
The goal of this thread is to understand how naval warfare works in D&D. Then it will be possible to make HR to adjust the result to our tastes. But if that outcome is too different from standard D&D it would be useless.
"Ok I wanted to make a setting where naval works looks like X. What HR should I use ? Oh wait, I have to make a bunch of HR only to change another bunch of HR that were put in the experiment because reasons. Wouldn't have been simpler if we had simply stick to RAW in thread ?"


So your saying one caster vs a mundane and defenseless ship?

Sigils of suppression and similar are available from level 11, so in a setting with a level cap of 10 they won't exist. So yes, in that case the ship would be mundane.

Samzat
2017-03-13, 04:21 PM
From what I know of naval warfare, before cannons there were no dedicated ship to ship ranged weapons, after all a ballista or a trebuchet/catapult take up lots of space and weigh too much for any smaller vessel to use. Most medieval naval combat was boarding or bows/crossbows/javelins between ships. So a ship with a few wizards on it would give a tremendous advantage against a ship without. Fireball could be used agaisnt the sails to great effect, causing the enemy to require oars to keep moving. I doubt you could destroy hulls with it, as they are both wet and specially treated to be a naval vessel. Control weather could turn the tide of battles, and illusion could give incredible advantages too. In a ship with cannons, wizards could destroy entire ships with a well placed scorching ray or lightning bolt hitting the gunpowder. Oh yeah and you cant board a ship without good ol' cloudkill to lower defenses.

VoxRationis
2017-03-13, 05:01 PM
From what I know of naval warfare, before cannons there were no dedicated ship to ship ranged weapons, after all a ballista or a trebuchet/catapult take up lots of space and weigh too much for any smaller vessel to use. Most medieval naval combat was boarding or bows/crossbows/javelins between ships. So a ship with a few wizards on it would give a tremendous advantage against a ship without. Fireball could be used agaisnt the sails to great effect, causing the enemy to require oars to keep moving. I doubt you could destroy hulls with it, as they are both wet and specially treated to be a naval vessel. Control weather could turn the tide of battles, and illusion could give incredible advantages too. In a ship with cannons, wizards could destroy entire ships with a well placed scorching ray or lightning bolt hitting the gunpowder. Oh yeah and you cant board a ship without good ol' cloudkill to lower defenses.

Western medieval naval warfare was boarding and arrow exchange, but the Hellenistic period used mounted artillery, and the Chinese actually did put trebuchets on their ships.

Kane0
2017-03-13, 06:19 PM
I haven't seen anybody tackle the 5e perspective yet, so I'll give that a shot.

Lets take a Storm Sorcerer as an example. A variant human can take a feat, so lets use spell sniper for extra range. Metamagic can be distant for more range and empower or heighten for more damage or tougher saves.

At level 5:
Offense: this guy can Firebolt or scorching ray out to 240' or fireball out to 150', doubled five times or more each day using distant spell. True strike can help if using a ship mounted weapon.
Defense: Fog cloud creates a small but conveneient screen. Mending and control flames helps mitigate and fix damage to the ship. Warding wind can have similar effects while also defending against ranged attacks. Counterspell and dispel magic would also come in handy. Wall of water can be very helpful in directing ships and blocking attacks.
Utility: Gust and Gust of Wind can help with moving the ship as well as tossing enemy ships around a bit. Water Breathing and Water Walk provide excellent mobility aid
Note that one wont have access to all of these, but certainly at least half of them.

At level 10:
Metamagic: Taking extend spell is a good choice at this stage since a lot of concentration stuff starts popping up. You can distant or extend 10 times or more each day, heighten/empower less.
Offense: Dominate beast allows you to turn local wildlife to your needs, storm sphere has the same range as fireball and animate objects temporarily animates a huge ship or 5 medium ship mounted weapons. Ice Storm has a more impressive 300' / 600' range.
Utility: The storm guide ability stops rain on your ship and turns any winds in a favourable direction, greatly enhancing mobility. Control winds can further enhance that
Again not all spells can be taken, but at least half of them.

At level 20:
Metamagic: Anything really, though twin and quicken can get very costly. Distant and Extended spell 20 times or more per day, most other things about half as much.
Offense: Disintegrate punches massive holes in ships and Reverse Gravity would utterly demolish a vessel but both are very range limited, Chain Lightning and Circle of Death can clear decks at a much more respectable 150' / 300'. Meteor Swarm is king at a range of 1 or 2 miles capable of hitting four targets in one go plus starting fires.
Defense: Globe of Invulnerability protects you from attack but not your ship, Time Stop allows you to relocate or prepare proper defenses against incoming attacks
Utility: Arcane Gate makes boarding actions very easy out to 500' / 1000', Wish is as useful as it always is in replicating
At this stage you have less than half of these available to you, and even then only 1 spell slot each of 7th, 8th and 9th level. You're still a terror on the battlefield but your nukes are limited.

So going by this then conventional naval combat is much the same at low levels thanks to the limited range and duration of most spells. Even at mid levels if you keep more than 150' away from the enemy you can avoid the worst things they can do to you unless they are specialised. A longbow reaches out to 600' and a heavy crossbow 400', so ballistae, catapults and cannons shouldn't have much issue outperforming most spells in terms of range and firepower.
However mobility and terrain control is a different story. Starting at as low as level 3-6 a mage can seriously turn the tides and winds in their favor as well as provide a means of moving on and in water not available before. At mid levels spells like dimension door, arcane gate, teleport and the like allow for nasty boarding actions and things like wall of water and tidal wave can change the field in the favor of the caster as well as potentially cause further damage. Spells that create food can make smaller ships needing less space for storage and animate objects can lessen the need for so many crewmen.
In many instances other characters might be just as useful as a caster at sea. Warriors can get the Mariner fighting style to swim as fast as they run, barbarians can see for miles using Eagle Totem, a fighter or ranger volley using Sharpshooter can take out dozens of targets on deck more efficiently than a caster at long ranges, etc

So this is a different picture painted than other editions.

Dire Roc
2017-03-14, 01:10 PM
Smaller, less massive creatures don't drop as quickly as larger, more massive ones - they'd only really have accelerated like elephants once they hit the shield and became them again, so they might only be doing something like 40-50 feet/second at impact, rather than enough to leave a crater.


Pedantic Objection!

The acceleration due to gravity of all objects on earth are identical. Things like feathers just seem to accelerate more slowly because they have significant air resistance accelerating them upwards (or decelerating them in more common parlance), while neither an elephant nor a mouse would be likely to have meaningful losses from such resistance. This was demonstrated by Galileo and by the astronauts of Apollo 15: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4_rceVPVSY

I would like to add another item to consider for the mage vs. mage arguments: Spell Turrets from DMGII. Cheaper than many of the items discussed here they could be designed offensively or defensively and target with true seeing. Additionally it seems worthwhile to mention the existence of Lesser Sigils of Supression (blocks spell level 3 and below) and the tactic of using dispel magic on the enemy mages fly spells. With the speed of a ship (I assume its not a sitting duck) the mage will quickly be too far behind to attack. They could prepare a second casting, but thats fewer slots to attack with, or their friends could fly and pick them up, but then their hands will likely be too full for somatic components.

Also the idea of arming crew members with arrows, a medium range spell at CL 10 could target from 200 ft. away, aka. a -2 penalty for someone with a composite longbow or heavy crossbow.

BlacKnight
2017-03-14, 03:23 PM
Oh yeah and you cant board a ship without good ol' cloudkill to lower defenses.

Cloudkill seems to be a very effective spell. A dromon is 100 feet x 20, cloudkill has a radius of 20 feet. Basically it will affect an entire section of the ship, then the ship by simply going on would advance into the cloud. Without a caster to dispel it all the crew on the deck would die and maybe the cloud can even infiltrate under the deck.


Western medieval naval warfare was boarding and arrow exchange, but the Hellenistic period used mounted artillery, and the Chinese actually did put trebuchets on their ships.

I always tought ancient naval warfare was based around ramming and boarding. How effective were the artilleries ? Other than the greek fire I mean.


I haven't seen anybody tackle the 5e perspective yet, so I'll give that a shot.

One of the biggest change of 5e is concentration, that means casters can't fly while invisible (unless they have another caster ally). I also remember that there is no Protection from arrows. So archers would be effective as AA, unlike in 3.5.
That is good because given the (lack of) rules about magic items it should be harder to protect ships. But thanks to concentration, fewer spell slots, bounded accuracy and overall lower power I think that this is the only edition where you can have naval warfare up to lv 20. And you can have mundane ships with decent chance of survival.



I would like to add another item to consider for the mage vs. mage arguments: Spell Turrets from DMGII. Cheaper than many of the items discussed here they could be designed offensively or defensively and target with true seeing. Additionally it seems worthwhile to mention the existence of Lesser Sigils of Supression (blocks spell level 3 and below) and the tactic of using dispel magic on the enemy mages fly spells. With the speed of a ship (I assume its not a sitting duck) the mage will quickly be too far behind to attack. They could prepare a second casting, but thats fewer slots to attack with, or their friends could fly and pick them up, but then their hands will likely be too full for somatic components.

They seems quite interesting, altough if I understand correctly they can be quite light. So even flying attackers can have a bunch of them. But this is easily fixable with HR, if someone wants to do it.


Also the idea of arming crew members with arrows, a medium range spell at CL 10 could target from 200 ft. away, aka. a -2 penalty for someone with a composite longbow or heavy crossbow.

Again, there are cheap ways to see invisibility and go trough protection from arrows ?

Kane0
2017-03-14, 04:00 PM
One of the biggest change of 5e is concentration, that means casters can't fly while invisible (unless they have another caster ally). I also remember that there is no Protection from arrows. So archers would be effective as AA, unlike in 3.5.
That is good because given the (lack of) rules about magic items it should be harder to protect ships. But thanks to concentration, fewer spell slots, bounded accuracy and overall lower power I think that this is the only edition where you can have naval warfare up to lv 20. And you can have mundane ships with decent chance of survival.


Indeed. I'm part of a pirate campaign at the moment and so far at level 6 there's no sign of traditional ships and tactics becoming useless.

Kallimakus
2017-03-14, 04:01 PM
I'm too lazy to go about multi-quoting. Apologies for that.
- Blacknight: Cloudkill is indeed highly effective. It would kill everyone on the top deck as the ship goes through it. As to the artillery, I'm not sure historically, but in terms of Pathfinder (and presumably D&D), it is fairly effective assuming you outgun the opposition. As for the Invisibility and flying at once, as I pointed out earlier, the limited duration of these spells makes it highly unlikely that casters could achieve total surprise (taking off before being seen, or at least suspected). Perhaps I'm assuming oceangoing vessels. I think historically many ships preferred sailing fairly close to land (though still quite far, rendering 5th level flying nearly impossible, whereas by 10th level it is at least doable.

It is also my (uneducated) assumption that boarding was preferred because it allowed the seizing of cargo and the ship, which might be advantageous in some cases.

Invisibility only gets you the first strike, and the next round risks carrying the ship out of range if you started out far. Second, (though this is my opinion) casting a spell with Verbal components breaks stealth. Not necessarily the invisibility, but the target is aware of you before you finish casting the spell. Potentially letting someone quick on the trigger a chance to do something like counterspelling. Though that is strictly my interpretation (namely that spellcasting typically disqualifies surprise round for you. I assume that a standard action takes around 4 seconds out of a 6-second round to complete, or plenty of time for someone to take action between the time a spellcaster starts and finishes the spell).

As for flying speeds, a creature with natural (non-magical) flight can 'run' to move 4x their fly speed. Pathfinder version of fly disallows this, implying that other flight modes have that ability. And while it is true that mobile combats are outside the scope of the rules (AFAIK) I've run a shipboard mobile combat with relative speeds. That typically meant that flying characters had a safety rope so they can't fall behind. Enemies had natural speeds that could outpace (or in this case keep up with) the ship. I find the speeds about right.

As far as estimating costs go, in terms of Pathfinder, a single ballista costs about 500gp, plus the maybe 50gp to hire a competent crew for a voyage. A wizard attack at level 5 (mercenary wizard, because those have a cost) costs 400gp (1 invisibility, 1 fly, 1 fireball). I'd rate the ballista to be far more worth it in the long run.

Kami2awa
2017-03-15, 03:59 PM
One thing to consider is that spell research exists, and those with the resources to field ships and battle-mages (do you "field" ships?) will have the resources to fund spell research and create new magic specialised for naval warfare.

And then, the other side will research counter-spells, leading perhaps to a magical arms race. It also opens the possibility of magical espionage - stealing of powerful new spells from the opposition. This could be a potential adventure seed for a party of stealthy or deceptive PCs.