Open-Ocean Encounters

[Palanan]

For those of you who have run a seafaring campaign, what were some of your most memorable encounters on the high seas?

And for those of you who are planning a seafaring campaign, what encounters would you like to run?

[RatElemental]

It was only one session of a longer campaign, but I had the party run into a band of pirates. After they subdued said pirates, a ghost ship rose from the waters, manned by the former captain of the pirates who had been betrayed by them and risen as a revenant.

[magic9mushroom]

For those of you who have run a seafaring campaign, what were some of your most memorable encounters on the high seas?

And for those of you who are planning a seafaring campaign, what encounters would you like to run?

I had the party encounter a pack of dolphins.

They left the dolphins alone, while we all chuckled.

[Eldan]

The elven customs fleet. Man did I ever annoy my players with those guys. To this day sentences along the lines of "But was this mithril armor forged before King Calandor's Moonsilver Act of 852? Can you prove this sword is a family heirloom?" is the kind of sentence that will make some of my players bite the table in anger. It was glorious.

[emulord]

They randomly encountered a water elemental. Water elementals are undetectable submerged in water, it couldn't climb the side of the boat, and it couldn't damage enough through the boat's hardness.

I just told them "The boat rocks against a wave", they looked for danger, couldn't see any, and Profession(Sailor)'d away from it and were confused at why I was rolling dice.

More memorable as a DM than as a player. :P

[Khedrac]

For me the most memorable was when the pirate ship we encountered summoned a blood kraken to deal with us.
What we didn't know was that it was supposed to grapple the ship, drag us under and then we would awake the other side of the world, which is why when we killed it after a hard (but short) fight the pirates then summoned a second one...

[Tvtyrant]

Ancient Dwarven Battleship: A stone warship/fortress that was a colossal animated object that swam. It had animated siege weapons on its back that fired themselves and various sentry golems and automatons.

Island Turtles: Tribes of Water Orcs living on Island Turtles who would raid islands and towns when nearby and then retreat to their turtles which would move on.

Aboleth: An injured Aboleth fighting for control of a region on land sending successive waves of sea creatures to try and steer the party away from its territory. Lives in a coral reef full of toxic animals.

Sahuagin: shark-rising Sahuagin are at war with a faction of Khopru, mind controlling elder creatures like a more fragile Aboleth. They are losing and in their retreat are moving into Kua-toa territory, pushing them onto land. The party can slaughter the Kua-Toa, the Sahuagin or the Khopru to stop the invasions.

[Psyren]

Can't go wrong with the classics: Sirens, Wyverns, Sahuagin, Kraken, Elementals, Pirates, Amphibious Humanoid raiders (e.g. Merfolk, Adaro, Gillmen etc), aquatic versions of {insert appropriate land encounter here} such as Sea Trolls, Sea Goblins, Sea Giants and Sea Linnorms/Serpents, and another classic staple, Giant/Dire {insert aquatic animal like Octopus, Shark, Whale, Starfish, Crab etc.) And then for added variety, there are undead versions of all of the above. For truly exotic or high-level fights, consider dragons, aberrations, or even Great Old Ones.

You can also throw in some non-fight encounters/hazards - storms, doldrums, whirlpools, sandbars, volcano explodes while you're passing island, blood moon etc.

[Efrate]

Biggest danger is the sea itself. Swim checks are hard, breathing more so.

One of my most memorable was from a random module, some kind of zombies with kelp tentacles who would just grapple folks then fall into the ocean, taking their victim with them. It was great versus the low level party (like level 2).

In another game we went to the graveyard of ships and fought a host of underwater creatures you do not normally. The megaladon ended up TPKing the party but 3d underwater combat was great, and every ghost ship trope etc. was represented.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Efrate
In another game we went to the graveyard of ships and fought a host of underwater creatures you do not normally.

Do you remember what some of those unusual creatures were? I'd be interested to know what kind of curveballs your DM was throwing at you.

[Psyren]

Do you remember what some of those unusual creatures were? I'd be interested to know what kind of curveballs your DM was throwing at you.

Given that he TPKed his party, I'd use a grain of salt here :smallbiggrin:

[Efrate]

I was the DM. Ill look through my notes and get back to you. I know octopus tree and megaladon off the top of my head.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Efrate
I was the DM. Ill look through my notes and get back to you.

Any luck finding your notes? I'd be interested to know what other creatures you used.

[Efrate]

Finally found my notes from like 6 years ago. Most of them at least. Party was EL 7 or 8, and 6 memebers.

Megaladon, Octopus tree, one of the obryths that you can summon with one of the SM spells in a forcecage trap, I forget which one, grindylow, sea tiger, Aquatic vine horror, Enormous floatsam ooze, young adult crested sea serpent, juvenile mist dragon, young topaz dragon, and juvenile latern sea serpents, and maybe a young adult gloom dragon? The gloom dragon is kind of with my notes not sure if it was from the same area or what, I am not an organised notekeeper. Sea serpents are form a dragon magazine, not sure what else was. Maybe flaotsam ooze? I think i lifted that from an AP and advanced it.

Also I think there was a dire shark, and a bunch of ghost and skeletal pirates with various tricks. I had a ghost wielding a lasso to string up people who invade its ship I remember. I have my room by room and my map but I do not have all my stuff. Got to use a bunch of nautical terms, which was kind of neat.