Ideas/Advice for a Sea Adventure (3.5)

[Zancloufer]

So in the current game I am running the party is going to be involved in a long and arduous trip along the water. As I have never run any games with a serious emphasis on anything nautical I was wondering if any one had any advice.

Available modules that are related to the sea. Any books that are a must read about sea fairing. Etc.

Final note: Party is level 2 atm and decently sized.

[Efrate]

Go over the rules for drowning, swimming, and underwater combat with a fine toothed comb. Stormrack is a great resource. Pay attention to wind effects as well, and rain, fog and concealment. Weather plays a much larger role than normal. Try to prohibit heavier metal armor, if your party fighter in in chainmail he goes overboard he is probably dead with little recourse.

Weight in general needs to be tracked really carefully because of the penalty to swim checks is acp plus a certain amount per weight. Use rope is actually pretty important for rigging, as is climb. Food and fresh water store also bears looking at.

[rel]

If the challenge IS the odyssey then an encounter table and a well thought out resource management minigame is the way to go.
Enough has been said on that upthread.


If the challenge is whatever happens AFTER the journey then the journey itself has a different purpose;

Providing information, conveying theme and tone of the game and world and offering a few interesting encounters for the players to enjoy.

providing information is best handled by the inclusion of appropriate friendly NPC's but objects also work. Treasure map in a bottle maybe?

Theme and tone is best conveyed with general descriptions, vignettes and encounter choice.

as for interesting encounters consider:
The big(ish) sea monster
pirates
diving to loot the sunken ship
explore the small island
negotiate with the sea dwellers for passage / supplies / info / etc
survive the big(ish) hazard (storm, whirlpool, waterspout)
fight the sea dwellers

[PoeticallyPsyco]

As mentioned above, Stormwrack is a great resource for all things aquatic and/or naval. They have some sample adventures, but they're higher ECL than your group.

In particular, if your players are interested in ship-to-ship combat (and at least one of them has ranks in Profession (sailor)), definitely check out the "Narrative naval combat" rules. They greatly simplify the whole thing, compared to keeping track of turn rates, wind speed, and all that.