Ship to Ship battles without gunpowder in low-magic campaign

[FrancisBean]

I've got a pre-gunpowder campaign going where most of the world is low magic. At some point the party will find themselves on shipboard dealing with ship-to-ship conflicts, with ships roughly equivalent to the 16th century except without the cannons. Most of it should be small groups -- more piracy than massed naval battles. I don't know enough about historical seaborn conflict to know what the major tactics would be. I'm guessing that since gunpowder and cannons came about pretty early in naval history that I won't be able to rely on real-world tactics. That is, my world would have evolved totally different approaches than the real world, since cannons never existed and magi with equivalent spells are rare.

Does anybody have a good idea what tactics would be common? Naval rams? Board-and-storm? Particularly with piracy, I'm assuming the latter. I'm guessing some sort of ranged grappling hooks would have evolved, maybe ballista-driven. Beyond that, I'm out of my depth. And since 3 of my players are US Navy veterans, I want to avoid harshing their immersion.

[Kane0]

Are you going to be using any naval combat rules?
Boarding will be the most common tactic, followed by ramming then ballistae/catapults and fire. Note I have no credentials on the subject.

Edit: Some good sources would be Greek, Viking, Polynesian and Chinese/Japanese/Korean seafaring conflict as there would be items there from before gunpowder weapons were used.

[Maan]

Naval warfare in the Middle Ages was pretty much the same under the Roman Empire: that is, galleys with rams, some siege equipment (I think romans mostly used ballistas) and boarding actions (either with hand-thrown grappling hooks or harpoons shot by ballista (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpax)).

Mind you, galleys were in use until the early Modern Era but we are talking about the Mediterranean Sea: that is, a closed and thus relatively calm sea, were a ship with low freeboard and mostly powered by oars would make sense. If the sea in your setting is an open ocean that kind of ship wouldn't be feasible, as it would be much more likely to sink in rough waters, wouldn't be capable of using the stronger winds you would have, etc.

[Pandamonium]

Well, it kinda depends on what the purpose of the combat is.

Pirates would probably use ballistas to target components or attach themselves grappling hook/harpoon style so that the ship remains intactish and boardable.
Alternatively Ram them and then board.

Military would probably use Ballistas, Rams and small-ish onagers/catapaults to sink the vessels from a safe distance, staying at range whilst moving in circular movements.

Ghosts of Saltmarch has some pretty cool rules on naval combat as well as statblocks for boats if you want to get your hands on some :)

[Martin Greywolf]

So, quick and dirty primer on naval warfare.

You can't destroy the ship at range

You need reliable cannons to do that, and you need them in high numbers, one cannon is not enough.

Catapults and siege machines are useless in this role for a plethora of reasons, mostly to do with low rate of fire, accuracy, difficulty in hitting moving target from a moving target when the targets aren't moving in parallel and ammunition requiring massive amounts of storage space.

Propulsion is slaves

Well, either that or free men that have to paid hell of a lot. Galleys and ships in pre-age of sail are all mostly oar powered, and that means a ship with 100 soldiers needs several times that number of oarsmen. You also need several shifts of oarsmen to boot, and all of these people need to eat. And that's why you can't sail across an ocean in a galley, the requirements for food storage are vast.

For a ballpark estimate, you need a crew of ~40 to sail by wind alone, which will be slow because these sails are inefficient, and that means ~100 oarsmen. In battle, these oarsmen will either stay chained to the oars if slaves, or arm themselves and help out in fighting if they are free men. Or, make them skeletons, they don't need shift changes and can work all the time.

Goals of engagement

So, with all of that in mind, you can take out an enemy vessel in a few ways.

1) Mobility kill

Shear off their oars, damage their rudder, destroy their sails if in windy weather. THat will make the ship unable to move effectively, making it a sitting duck, and they will likely surrender on account of not wanting to be sunk.

2) Boarding action

Approach the enemy ship, drop the planks between them, swing over on rope if you are a PC, take out enemy crew until they surrender. Some smaller ballistae and archers on the mast or fore and aft castle are helpful, otherwise, run this as a standard ground battle.

Grappling hooks are, in fact, useful here, and yeah, if you have some ballistae, this would be somewhere to use them in. Don't forget that you have an option of cutting the ropes, which is harder than it sounds.

3) Ramming

Ram them with your ram, then pull back, watch them sink. Simple, but not easy.

Age of sail ship is a bad idea

If you look at those 3 ways to get rid of a ship, you will notice they have something in common - they all require quick, rapid movement and turns, much quicker than a sails only ship is capable of. Moreover, ramming itself requires you to reverse on a dime, lest the rammed ship drags you down with it. Literally.

That means an age of sail ship would be at a horrific disadvantage in this fight - and indeed, we see this in real life, where first sails only ships were meant for exploration and couldn't stand up to galleys of the time. That's one reason why galleys were used for much longer in Mediterranean sea, no super long distances were involved and the coastline was often rugged enough to give a ship that could manuever quickly an advantage.

Without cannon broadside, which is a hell of a scary weapon and doesn't work well with galleys (oars take up cannon space, cannons take up oar space - basically, you loose an entire gun deck), you will probably see galleys used for general naval combat, possibly with more advanced rigging to use the wind better if there is any, and sails only ships used rarely for exploration and long voyages.

Piracy game plan

Best bet is to first mobility kill the enemy ship, approach them from front or back, get up to high speed and retract your oars at the last second. If your approach looks like an attempt to ram, they will not be able to retract their oars in time, hopefully, and loose a half of them as your ship's hull breaks them.

You could try damaging the rudder, but that is a bit of a tough call.

Damaging the sails is done with arrows with broad heads, be thay launched from bows or ballistae, shoot it full of holes, if you can get a shot alongside the sail's surface to tear a large gash, all the better.

https://medievalbowsandcrossbowshub.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/%E0%AE%85%E0%AE%AE%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%81%E0%A E%AE%E0%AF%81%E0%AE%A9%E0%AF%88%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%B3% E0%AF%8D-300x169.jpg

After that, they either give up or have to be boarded. You can delay boarding if you have more archers to pepper them and either kill them or make them hide - that creates a sort of a beachhead? Deckhead? Enemy free space where you can consolidate after hopping over. The hopping over is done either by actual jumping after ships are close enough, or by lowering planks - sometimes, you see a specialized boarding planks, sometimes called ravens, with a spike on them to make them stick better - although these are only seen on dedicated fighting ships.

https://www.livius.org/site/assets/files/5733/corvus.jpg
https://frm-wows-us.wgcdn.co/wows_forum_us/monthly_2019_04/corvus.jpg.2c1381d6bedf62c4dc563492556a64cc.jpg
Note that it is on a pivoting mount

Incendiaries

Greek fire, alchemist fire, grenades, fireball. Be careful with them, they weren't used that much because you are in serious danger of setting fire to your own ship. If that incendiary shot is in a ballista or a crosbow and its operator gets shot, you may be in trouble. You also need an open fire on a ship somewhere to touch them off. Open fire. On a wooden ship.

Yeah, not the safest of weapons, and it destroys your loot as well. And the burning enemy ship may well decide to ram you and them you can catch on fire as well, and wind can carry it over, and you can't really board while the fire is still going...

Yeah, incendiaries are limited to wartime actions, and even then kinda rare. If it is a wartime action close to harbor of one side, though, you can see fireships, ships filled with incendiaries and already on fire that are rammed into the enemy vessels, with crew bailing shortly before impact. This is done next to a harbor because you need to 1) recover the crew and 2) cheapo ships to convert into these, the kind that is a fishing barge and can't take long voyages.

Underwater shenanigans

First recorded use of combat divers is from 1053 in Battle of Bratislava, where a guy from Bratislava swam up to the ships of Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich III and drilled holes in them. You can do a lot of shenanigans with critters that have a swimming capability, and if they are common, you will have some sort of very specialized marines (undermarines? even wetter marines? super salty sailors?) on every warship meant to deal with these.

[Isaire]

For a later period (14th century) battle fought at sea before gunpowder, check the battle of Sluys. IIRC, the English built taller forecastles on their ships and filled them with archers, and otherwise fought with a mixture of ramming and boarding - though Wikipedia suggests the archer boats and boarding boats were in fact separate.

[Mastikator]

Considering piracy you don't want to harm the ship, lest you sink their booty. And you want to maximize their incentive to surrender peacefully, lest you lose crew trying to get gold. You also need to be able to out-speed them otherwise they'll flee. You wanna pretend to be a normal ship until you get too close.

CGP Grey did a great couple of youtubes about piracy, one from the perspective of the captain and the other of the quartermaster. The whole "no firearms and almost no magic" makes the video relevant IMO, I think the strategy outlined would still make sense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YFeE1eDlD0 (captain edition)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0fAznO1wA8 (quartermaster edition)

However I will say that it's entirely possible that your three navy veterans may not be experts on early medieval piracy. People often have wrong ideas about the past and doing a "historically accurate" game will often ruin their immersion.

[da newt]

"Beyond that, I'm out of my depth. And since 3 of my players are US Navy veterans, I want to avoid harshing their immersion."


Option 1: Have your Players make the ship battle rules. They will most likely believe they know all about ships, and you don't (I'm basing this assumption on my 24 yrs in the Navy). Put their 'expertise' to work. They probably won't know much about sail / oar and historical tactics etc, but they will understand the ocean and ships and how a modern crew functions.


Option 2: KISS - Let them know from session Zero, all ship combat will be resolved crew vs crew, we will roll initiative when the ships are within 100', all ships will have a combat movement speed of 30' per round. You don't fight the ship - you fight the crew.

[stoutstien]

I could see the use of beasts as a primary tools in a setting like this. From large flying sail rippers and Ariel advantages to underwater beasts used as siege engines stranding a boat until they run out of supplies or just forcing them to run aground.

[KorvinStarmast]

Edit: Some good sources would be Greek, Viking, Polynesian and Chinese/Japanese/Korean seafaring conflict as there would be items there from before gunpowder weapons were used.Good suggestion. Lepanto (Suggest to the OP to read up on that camaign, it was significant) was a huge turning point in sail/cannon overtaking (finally) 1571.

Well, it kinda depends on what the purpose of the combat is.

Pirates would probably use ballistas to target components or attach themselves grappling hook/harpoon style so that the ship remains intactish and boardable. Roman Corvus would be a decent tool, or a large grappling hook launched by a ballista.
Ghosts of Saltmarch has some pretty cool rules on naval combat as well as statblocks for boats if you want to get your hands on some :) Yes they do.
"Beyond that, I'm out of my depth. And since 3 of my players are US Navy veterans, I want to avoid harshing their immersion."

Option 1: Have your Players make the ship battle rules. They will most likely believe they know all about ships, and you don't (I'm basing this assumption on my 24 yrs in the Navy). Put their 'expertise' to work. They probably won't know much about sail / oar and historical tactics etc, but they will understand the ocean and ships and how a modern crew functions.
{snip} You don't fight the ship - you fight the crew. For sure on the bolded point, and Amen to that last point.
Men mean more than guns in the rating of ship ~John Paul Jones~

Lastly: use "gust of wind" to get that last burst of speed as you close with your opponent. :smallbiggrin:

[Scarytincan]

Ghosts of saltmarsh I believe is the book with all the seafaring and ship battle rules and full ship stat blocks etc, in case you aren't aware

[Martin Greywolf]

Good suggestion. Lepanto (Suggest to the OP to read up on that camaign, it was significant) was a huge turning point in sail/cannon overtaking (finally) 1571.

It wasn't. Lepanto was fought entirely with galleys as were the battles after it, and Venice lost the war Lepanto was part of, despite winning the battle. The first battle where the brand new galleons - first age of sail ships - defeated galleys was battle of Cape Celidonia in 1616 (almost half a century after Lepanto), where 5 Spanish galleons beat the tar out of 55 Ottoman galleys. This was achieved by chaining the galleons together and opening up with their broadsides from long range, which the Ottomans couldn't match, sinking 10 of them and damaging 22.

In its time, Lepanto was seen as a sort of a definite proof of "the galley thing we have going on is working and we should build more", with particular attention being given to Venetian galeasses.

[Doug Lampert]

AFAIK: Pre gunpowder, propulsion of a war galley was effectively never slaves. Merchant galleys and pirates could use slave rowers, but a serious warship needed to be able to turn quickly to get the ram to work, and rowers coordinated enough for that needed lots of training, and were highly paid freemen.

I'm going to ditto someone's comment that you can't sink someone with pre-gunpowder ranged weapons (other than really effective incendiaries like Greek fire). But a ballista shot that hits a rower can cripple an entire galley for half a minute or so, plenty of time to ram it. Because the oar of the hit guy fouls other oars. You have to stop the oars on that entire side, and take the time to clear the oar of the guy who's out (or clear and replace him, but you're already using all rowers in a battle).

Rowers aren't in armor, but they do have cover against lighter missile weapons. All those fancy pre-gunpowder siege weapons are anti-personnel weapons designed to be heavy enough to smash through light cover. The actual structure of ships and walls is effectively immune. The ram is the only weapon that has any real chance of actually sinking a ship (again, baring a really amazingly effective incendiary).

Edited to add: When the captain of a galley yells "Ramming Speed!" The rowers slow down and may even back oars. Pre-gunpowder galleys are pretty lightly built, you could wreck your own ship by ramming at full speed.

Speaking of armor, marines were often the most heavily armored soldiers in existence. NO ONE expected to live through falling off a ship in combat. Hypothermia, drowning, the near impossibility of climbing back up onto a ship and the fact that you're a sitting duck for anyone with a ranged weapon means that not being in armor was largely seen as a slightly slower death sentence. But if an entire ship goes down, there will be lots of survivors for a reasonable length of time, because the ship itself provides plenty of flotation devices. (The Athenians had a big political fuss once about whether or not to execute some admirals for pulling out immediately after a battle due to a threatening storm rather than sticking around for SAR on the survivors.)

[LumenPlacidum]

Can I just give kudos to Martin Greywolf for a stupendous post about pre-cannon naval combat? Bravo.

[Sigreid]

Historical piracy has also always been more about making the prey too afraid to fight, while promising that if you surrender you won't be harmed. The best act of piracy occurs without any bloodshed. After all, you don't want the prize damaged and the cargo hold's loot does you no good on the bottom of the ocean.

[jjordan]

Good stuff above, particularly Greywolf's material.

A quick primer on the logistics of piracy:
Piracy takes place close to land at chokepoints and places where the wind is prone to changing. Pirates don't need to disable ships and generally want to avoid doing so. They run down their prey using superior mobility, typically achieved by having small ships which are rowed by large crews or by slaves. They board the ships and kill the relatively few people on board the ship who will actually resist them. They flee from military ships (see superior mobility), retreating to bases on land (see close to shore) from which they are able to use basic fortifications as a force multiplier.

In the setting you have outlined the pirates will prowl areas where ships have to pass through or pass by and, hopefully, the wind is liable to dying down. This may happen on a daily basis or it may happen periodically. They will signal to other ships when they find prey and they will close under oar-power to engage. You'll be able to treat the targets as floating islands in most cases. If the wind comes up they'll be able get away pretty easily. If the pirates have larger ships (still smaller than the ships they are preying on) with sails then just pick a direction the wind is coming from, compare the speeds of the ships, and have the pirates give chase. If they catch up then it's grapples and boarding.

Last note, most pirates are not ideologically motivated. Which is to say this is a business. They want to get in, steal some stuff, and get out alive. They will only attack targets they believe they can defeat with relative ease.

[Naanomi]

Even in a low magic setting, some basic player tools can really change things... Mending would absolutely modify how naval combat played out. A single level 6 storm sorcerer with no spell casting can still drastically change the maneuverability of a ship.

Also, as mentioned: species with swim speeds and water breathing can drastically change what boarding looks like (especially surprise boarding), making he whole thing more like a castle siege in practice, even if they are not directly attacking the ship from below. Flying species as well. Or magic to provide either

[XmonkTad]

First off: thank you Martin Greywolf for that post.


I could see the use of beasts as a primary tools in a setting like this. From large flying sail rippers and Ariel advantages to underwater beasts used as siege engines stranding a boat until they run out of supplies or just forcing them to run aground.

Absolutely this. Animals in D&D can be trained to do really impressively accurate things. An owl doesn't need to be able to do a ton of damage to tear a sail. An animal companion such as a dolphin (if this is a primarily ship/water based campaign) or a vulture could give a serious mobility to a PC who wouldn't necessarily have a lot of other ways to gain those mobility options. Heck, even moving over a very diplomatically-minded face could bring down a ship if they were persuasive enough.

[BRC]

You're going to have to describe "Low magic" a bit better.


"Low Magic" as in as close to real world as possible, or as in "higher level spells are super rare".

Is low-level magic common, but high level is very rare, or is almost all magic very rare.

Greywolf's post above talks about the use of Galleys, and he is correct, but it sounds like you're looking for Age Of Sail style ships.


So, with no Cannons, or magical equivalents, you're looking at Boarding Actions being the primary way things are handled. The two sides shoot some arrows or what have you at each other to soften the other one up, the pirates get within grappling range, and they start to board.

Also, remember, the goal of a pirate isn't to win a battle, it's ideally to get the other ship to surrender.

Traditionally, this would be done by pointing your cannons at the poor merchantman and saying "Stop and let us board or we shoot". That won't work here, so you're looking for ways for Pirates to cripple an enemy ship, or otherwise catch it by surprise, unless pirate ships are able to reliably be fast enough to get within grapple range of a ship.

If low-level spells are common enough that a pirate crew could have SOME magic available, that changes things a lot. You're looking for spells at low level, which a single casting can disrupt the enemy ship enough to let the Pirates close in. You're looking for anything that has a decently long range, and will disrupt the other ship, with the goal being the better-armed pirates get aboard and take the ship, or scare the crew into surrender.

For example, if the pirate can get within 60 feet, casting Grease on certain parts of the enemy ship can be a good way to disrupt it's manuvering, allowing you to further close the distance.

Sleep has a 90 foot range, and can put a decent chunk of the enemy crew to sleep (assuming low-level sailors), thus preventing the target ship from manuvering.

Finally, any spell that would help intimidate another ship into surrendering, even if it's just a Silent Image to add a couple more burly pirates standing on your deck before you board would be useful.


Alternatively, you see sneak attacks, pirates wait on shore near good natural harbors, rowing out at night to board ships that pull in to take water or shelter from storms.

[Wizard_Lizard]

One word, Triremes. Do it.
but also bows and things!

[Mystral]

I've got a pre-gunpowder campaign going where most of the world is low magic. At some point the party will find themselves on shipboard dealing with ship-to-ship conflicts, with ships roughly equivalent to the 16th century except without the cannons. Most of it should be small groups -- more piracy than massed naval battles. I don't know enough about historical seaborn conflict to know what the major tactics would be. I'm guessing that since gunpowder and cannons came about pretty early in naval history that I won't be able to rely on real-world tactics. That is, my world would have evolved totally different approaches than the real world, since cannons never existed and magi with equivalent spells are rare.

Does anybody have a good idea what tactics would be common? Naval rams? Board-and-storm? Particularly with piracy, I'm assuming the latter. I'm guessing some sort of ranged grappling hooks would have evolved, maybe ballista-driven. Beyond that, I'm out of my depth. And since 3 of my players are US Navy veterans, I want to avoid harshing their immersion.

I've got one word for you: ramming.

[KorvinStarmast]

It wasn't. Lepanto was fought entirely with galleys Galleases armed with cannon figured in Lepanto being Papal League victory. Mostly galleys, yeah. The OP said 16th century, and Lepanto nicely closed out 16th century Naval Warfare (in the Med) with a signal victory and the opening of a new era in Naval Combat - and the cannon armed galleases were a significant pivot point.
But don't ask me, maybe ask the author of this seminal work on the history of Sea Power (https://www.amazon.com/Sea-Power-Naval-History-Second/dp/0870216074).

[Kane0]

Looking at just cantrips and racial features that would substantially change how naval combat plays out, you have Firebolt, Control Flames, Mending, even Shape Water coupled with Breath weapon, Fire resistance, Swim speeds (either holding breath or breathing water) and/or Flight.

Historic ramming & boarding might not be standard or even recommended under these circumstances.

[LumenPlacidum]

The ultimate weapon is a 4 elements monk with Shape the Flowing River. The amount of water this controls is huge.

[Kane0]

The ultimate weapon is a 4 elements monk with Shape the Flowing River. The amount of water this controls is huge.

Oh wow yeah you're right. That and the Storm sorcerer control Wind ribbon are both gamechangers if they qualify as 'low magic'

Oh and there's acid, poison and alchemists fire of course, which can be Catapulted or Catapulted.

[FrancisBean]

M. Greywold's dissertation on the subject is stellar, and is the best thing I've ever seen on this subject. It's exactly what I need, too! There are a few things I want to call out.


Underwater shenanigans

First recorded use of combat divers is from 1053 in Battle of Bratislava, where a guy from Bratislava swam up to the ships of Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich III and drilled holes in them. You can do a lot of shenanigans with critters that have a swimming capability, and if they are common, you will have some sort of very specialized marines (undermarines? even wetter marines? super salty sailors?) on every warship meant to deal with these.

As it happens, my campaign world has a healthy population of some of the aquatic races, and the party actually includes a sea elf. That has more implications than just the shenanigans. The mariners of this world haves a strong taboo against harming sea elves, because if word gets out, they know they'll never sail safely again. Sea elves who choose to ship as crew can get a guaranteed berth on just about any ship they please. But somehow I'd overlooked the obvious possibilities of hopping overboard and latching on to the enemy hull from below and going to town with an axe, or even just an auger! Simple brilliance.


Age of sail ship is a bad idea

If you look at those 3 ways to get rid of a ship, you will notice they have something in common - they all require quick, rapid movement and turns, much quicker than a sails only ship is capable of. Moreover, ramming itself requires you to reverse on a dime, lest the rammed ship drags you down with it. Literally.

That means an age of sail ship would be at a horrific disadvantage in this fight - and indeed, we see this in real life, where first sails only ships were meant for exploration and couldn't stand up to galleys of the time. That's one reason why galleys were used for much longer in Mediterranean sea, no super long distances were involved and the coastline was often rugged enough to give a ship that could manuever quickly an advantage.

The discussion of pure sail vs. galleys is an important one, and I'm not sure how it works out here. Most of the maritime action takes place in a gulf about 1200 miles (east/west) by 2000-2400 miles (north/south) which divides most of the continent. (That's in statute miles, not nautical.) There's an archipelago of volcanic islands strewn along the north-south axis near the mid-point, the result of a plate moving over a hot spot. Prevailing winds are such that there's reliable wind along the coasts but winds get unpredictable or can disappear near the middle. Hurricane season can be rough throughout the region.

Given that there's plenty of economic incentive to trade across the 1200-mile span, there's plenty of shipping. The islands provide stopover ports, but also a lot of hiding places for galleys to come out and menace cargo ships. Would I be right to assume that cross-gulf cargo would mostly be sail-based (2/3rds of the route has reliable winds), and that piracy via galley would become a bit of a cottage industry in the islands in the middle where the winds can fail? With a lot of coastal transport via galleys for short haul jaunts? There's also a very healthy freshwater barge system in this world, but I'm guessing interaction between the systems is very limited.


You're going to have to describe "Low magic" a bit better.

"Low Magic" as in as close to real world as possible, or as in "higher level spells are super rare".

Is low-level magic common, but high level is very rare, or is almost all magic very rare.

Looking at just cantrips and racial features that would substantially change how naval combat plays out, you have Firebolt, Control Flames, Mending, even Shape Water coupled with Breath weapon, Fire resistance, Swim speeds (either holding breath or breathing water) and/or Flight.

Historic ramming & boarding might not be standard or even recommended under these circumstances.

Spells up to 2nd level are generally known, but casters are uncommon, and access is out of the price range of most people. It's sort of the way we view private jets. Sure, we all know that they exist, but only the super-wealthy actually have them. For the common folk, magic is just plain inaccessible. Spell levels 3-5 are very rare. Misinformation and superstition are rife. Spells above 6th level are legend and fantasy, and most people think they're just used for stories.

A major shipping concern might be able to afford a few casters, but nothing high level. A caster who opts to go into shipping could do very well. The fact that the PCs break that mold is sort of the point: they're exceptional heroes, after all. They should be the deciding factor in most naval conflicts. But for most crew, magic is something they only wish they had. They're stuck with the mundane tactics.

[Kane0]

Spells up to 2nd level are generally known, but casters are uncommon, and access is out of the price range of most people. It's sort of the way we view private jets. Sure, we all know that they exist, but only the super-wealthy actually have them. For the common folk, magic is just plain inaccessible. Spell levels 3-5 are very rare. Misinformation and superstition are rife. Spells above 6th level are legend and fantasy, and most people think they're just used for stories.

A major shipping concern might be able to afford a few casters, but nothing high level. A caster who opts to go into shipping could do very well. The fact that the PCs break that mold is sort of the point: they're exceptional heroes, after all. They should be the deciding factor in most naval conflicts. But for most crew, magic is something they only wish they had. They're stuck with the mundane tactics.

Do PC races with cantrips also have NPCs with cantrips?

Even if not, Tiefling and Dragonborn pirates would be nasty. They can be a lot more liberal with fire given their natural resistance. Doubly so if winged tieflings can do bombing runs with alchemists fire

[FrancisBean]

Do PC races with cantrips also have NPCs with cantrips?

Even if not, Tiefling and Dragonborn pirates would be nasty. They can be a lot more liberal with fire given their natural resistance. Doubly so if winged tieflings can do bombing runs with alchemists fire

As I recall, the usual treatment of commoners of typical humanoid races is that they get the MM Commoner entry, not the PC racial benefits. I'm sure there are exceptions and that those exceptions do very well for themselves, but they aren't commoners at that point! As for the Tiefling and Dragonborn, there are a couple other oddities in this campaign world: Dragonborn are unknown (available for PCs, but you'd better have a good backstory!), and Glasya's Tiefling variant is the dominant form. That still comes with fire resistance. As for Winged Tieflings, funny thing: I already have one as an NPC ship captain. Everyone thinks he's actually some sort of devil, and he's been playing that bluff for years. :smallbiggrin:

In other words, those cases aren't common, but they do arise and could be devastating when they do. It's a good point for me to bear in mind!

[Kurt Kurageous]

Well, it kinda depends on what the purpose of the combat is.

Pirates would probably use ballistas to target components or attach themselves grappling hook/harpoon style so that the ship remains intactish and boardable.
Alternatively Ram them and then board.

Military would probably use Ballistas, Rams and small-ish onagers/catapaults to sink the vessels from a safe distance, staying at range whilst moving in circular movements.

Ghosts of Saltmarch has some pretty cool rules on naval combat as well as statblocks for boats if you want to get your hands on some :)

Ixnay on the ammingray. Pirates want the ship intact as a prize and the treasure in the hold.

One of the greatest fears of the sailor is fire. If you are looking to kill/destroy, fire will do it. Pull alongside or get in grapple range, then don't grapple. Launch/throw medieval molotovs.

[Naanomi]

and the treasure in the hold.
You can always have your water breathing crew pull the good stuff from the bottom if necessary

[FrancisBean]

You can always have your water breathing crew pull the good stuff from the bottom if necessary

There's a reason sailors don't offend the Sea Elves in this world!

[CapnWildefyr]

Another point: Decide who the villains are. Some groups will eat you, others will rob you, some will do both. "Shanghai'd" is a verb for a reason - sailors would volunteer for pirate duty by lying on the ground with their eyes closed (Yellowbeard quote - great movie). Ships would sail with huge numbers of crew and not enough food. If hunting was bad, they'd eat some of their new recruits. ("long pork")

Along those lines, you have low magic, but are there seafaring ghouls, skeletons, etc, not to mention sahaugin, seafaring hobgoblins (or at least there used to be -- is that still a thing?), kua-toa, etc? While in many cases, the ship itself is the greatest booty, worth more than the cargo, if the pirates can breathe water, they may not care if they sink the ship as long as their goal is to eat the crew and steal stuff. The stuff will sink and can be mostly recovered, and swimming crew are easy targets. Some of these groups could even work with monsters like giant squid that can haul the ship to the deeps.

In fact, a great tactic for "normal" pirates, if they could pull it off, is get a monster/giant squid to simply hold the ship, then board it. Don't need a fast ship, then. Just a big one.

Just trying to get monsters involved. It's DnD after all.

[JackPhoenix]

First recorded use of combat divers is from 1053 in Battle of Bratislava, where a guy from Bratislava swam up to the ships of Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich III and drilled holes in them. You can do a lot of shenanigans with critters that have a swimming capability, and if they are common, you will have some sort of very specialized marines (undermarines? even wetter marines? super salty sailors?) on every warship meant to deal with these.

I'm not sure what are you talking about. While Heinrich III was the Emperor in 1053, there was no battle of Bratislava that year. There was a battle of Bratislava in 907, and another in 1620, and then there's Napoleon's siege from 1809, but while Danube is a big river, it's not big enough for anything resembling naval battle that far from the sea.

[BRC]

Given that there's plenty of economic incentive to trade across the 1200-mile span, there's plenty of shipping. The islands provide stopover ports, but also a lot of hiding places for galleys to come out and menace cargo ships. Would I be right to assume that cross-gulf cargo would mostly be sail-based (2/3rds of the route has reliable winds), and that piracy via galley would become a bit of a cottage industry in the islands in the middle where the winds can fail? With a lot of coastal transport via galleys for short haul jaunts? There's also a very healthy freshwater barge system in this world, but I'm guessing interaction between the systems is very limited.


Quick Googling says a renaissance era Galley could achieve speeds of up to 7 knots for short bursts, but usually averaged about 4, and ships in the 1600s usually went 4-5 knots.

So, open-seas piracy would be basically not a thing unless the Pirates had a powerful spellcaster aboard (So maybe one or two legendary pirates who can cast Lightning Bolt or Fireball, but they're the stuff of legends), a galley can't operate too far from shore anyway, since they need a lot of food and water for their crews.

In the islands, ambush piracy by galleys could very much be a thing. Lurking in good stopover ports on the islands, waiting for a ship to approach, then using a quick burst of speed and better maneuverability to overtake the sailing vessel.

Similarly, if there are areas of shallow water in the Archipelligo, with specific deeper channels that a heavier vessel can go through without hitting reefs, you could see fleets of small, shallow-draft pirate ships zipping out from the islands, using their shallow drafts to go over the reefs and intercept larger merchant vessels which are constrained by the channels, swarming them with boarders.

There are probably protected safe ports in the Islands, but stopping there for resupply is expensive, with high docking fees and a hefty markup for supplies. It's a lot cheaper to just find a free cove to drop anchor, but you run the risk of Pirates.

Another approach pirates take could be, essentially, Mugging by Fireship. Similar to the "Swarm with boarders" approach, the Pirates wait for the target vessel to either pull into port, or head into a narrow channel, and show up with a fireship, raising flags that basically mean "Pay us, or we light this ship on fire and crash it into you".

It's expensive if you actually have to light the ship on fire, but you can probably use it to extort some money out of passing ships, who would rather hand over treasure than run the risk of you actually being crazy enough to go through with it.

[Kurt Kurageous]

So, open-seas piracy would be basically not a thing unless the Pirates had a powerful spellcaster aboard (So maybe one or two legendary pirates who can cast Lightning Bolt, but they're the stuff of legends).

Well, maybe. But if a pirate captain got a hold of a could lightning spell scrolls and zapped a couple ships and turned the crews loose, they would have built a reputation needed to get most to surrender on sight of their colors. Their colors? Perhaps a black flag with a red/yellow lightning bolt.

Just brainstorming based on stuff others said.

[BRC]

Well, maybe. But if a pirate captain got a hold of a could lightning spell scrolls and zapped a couple ships and turned the crews loose, they would have built a reputation needed to get most to surrender on sight of their colors. Their colors? Perhaps a black flag with a red/yellow lightning bolt.

Just brainstorming based on stuff others said.

A lot of piracy is by reputation. "Bluff-Pirates" could very much be a thing. Maybe they only have one, very rare scroll of Fireball, but if you hand over your treasure, they won't use it on YOU.

A savvy pirate with one Wizard level and a scroll of fireball could milk that threat for years. After all, how many captains are willing to risk their ship on the chance the pirate is bluffing.

Similarly, if you manage to steal the scroll and spread the word, that particular pirate is disarmed.

A lot of these might work more like highwayman. Rather than trying to take the ship itself, or demand all the cargo, they simply use threats to extort a payment of some sort before sending the ship on it's way. Less chance of somebody calling their bluff and forcing them to actually use their leverage.

Edit: Scrolls of Fireball or Lightning Bolt could be naval superweapons.

If most combat ships are Galleys, which can't cross the ocean, then a scroll of fireball, along with a single low-level spellcaster, is a concealed superweapon, capable of wiping out an enemy vessel. A fireball would absolutely obliterate a densely packed war galley, even if the ship itself survived, enough crew would be dead that it would be unable to move.

Such scrolls are likely very, very expensive, potentially costing as much as the ship they would destroy. Picture a courier with a case handcuffed to their wrist and a full squad of bodyguards. Too expensive to actually use except in the most critical situations, but knowing that you have a scroll as part of a fleet can be one hell of a deterrent.

[Tvtyrant]

Archers are OP in 5e, so my assumption is that bowmen are going to be more important than they were in RL for ship fighting. Longbows would slaughter flying monsters and enemy crews, I can see two ships just trading volley fire at 600 ft not wanting to get into accurate fire range. Seaborn creatures are great depending on if archers can shoot them in the water.

[blackjack50]

I've got a pre-gunpowder campaign going where most of the world is low magic. At some point the party will find themselves on shipboard dealing with ship-to-ship conflicts, with ships roughly equivalent to the 16th century except without the cannons. Most of it should be small groups -- more piracy than massed naval battles. I don't know enough about historical seaborn conflict to know what the major tactics would be. I'm guessing that since gunpowder and cannons came about pretty early in naval history that I won't be able to rely on real-world tactics. That is, my world would have evolved totally different approaches than the real world, since cannons never existed and magi with equivalent spells are rare.

Does anybody have a good idea what tactics would be common? Naval rams? Board-and-storm? Particularly with piracy, I'm assuming the latter. I'm guessing some sort of ranged grappling hooks would have evolved, maybe ballista-driven. Beyond that, I'm out of my depth. And since 3 of my players are US Navy veterans, I want to avoid harshing their immersion.

Ramming speed, bees, Greek fire, and boarding parties. That is how our ancestors did it.

[KorvinStarmast]

Archers are OP in 5e, so my assumption is that bowmen are going to be more important than they were in RL for ship fighting. Longbows would slaughter flying monsters and enemy crews, I can see two ships just trading volley fire at 600 ft not wanting to get into accurate fire range. Seaborn creatures are great depending on if archers can shoot them in the water. Everyone on either ship, with a few exceptions, can easily get partial or 3/4 cover from long bows at the range ...

Ramming speed, bees, Greek fire, and boarding parties. That is how our ancestors did it. Not sure how "low" low magic is, but cloud kill would certainly clear out a ship's deck force, and fear might get a lot of them jumping over the side ...

[Tvtyrant]

Everyone on either ship, with a few exceptions, can easily get partial or 3/4 cover from long bows at the range ...
Not sure how "low" low magic is, but cloud kill would certainly clear out a ship's deck force, and fear might get a lot of them jumping over the side ...

By hiding behind stuff, meaning they can't be sailors. Which means you have the time and space to knock out their rigging. It's the same problem as dragon vs commoner archers; pure volume of shots will make short work of anyone. The best defense against them is more archers.

[CapnWildefyr]

Archers are OP in 5e, so my assumption is that bowmen are going to be more important than they were in RL for ship fighting. Longbows would slaughter flying monsters and enemy crews, I can see two ships just trading volley fire at 600 ft not wanting to get into accurate fire range. Seaborn creatures are great depending on if archers can shoot them in the water.

Let's not forget:

A sailor's chance to know how to use a longbow -- a martial weapon -- not so good. They're sailors. I mean, you can house rule that "sure they ALL know longbows in this world," but mostly I think probably not. Some, sure, and they'd get bonus pay.

A merchant's chance to get attacked by pirates: 1 in 50? 1 in 100? 1 in 250?

A merchant's chance to have to feed, equip, and pay 25 bowmen (in addition to the crew) for doing nothing 99 trips out of 100? 100%

I doubt every merchant is going to pay for that. Giving up your cargo once in a while may be cheaper in the long run.

2 more facts that might be useful:
Galleys did tend to be used closer to shore, so a sailing ship is fairly safe at sea unless unlucky or near land. (In DnD this can change due to water-breathing pirates, monsters, etc.)
Norse long ships were galleys but also were clinker built and quite seaworthy, unlike their larger Mediterranean counterparts. Let's face it, the Norse made it to North America.

[Garimeth]

OP:

My group consists of myself (Active duty FMF Navy Chief), an active duty Gunner's Mate Chief, a prior service Army Cav Scout, a retired infantry Marine CWO, a prior service MAGTF planner that got put into some interesting situations in Fallujah, and a paramedic. All of us but the GMC and the medic have combat deployments.

Why is that relevant?

I am literally running a desert campaign with a hugely nautical element being played by guys that are OEF/OIF vets or active duty Sailors, lol.

If your Navy vets can't/won't accept that the game is going to by necessity not mirror irl... they are just being jerks. (I'm not saying that your are saying that, just telling you not to stress too much.)

In my own game, sometimes we go down deep tactical rabbit holes. sometimes I can tell the CAV scout, or hell myself, are getting bored and I just interrupt someone (usually the CWO, the GMC or the MAGTF Planner) and say ok, yeah, but i'm not getting that in the weeds. Here's the ruling let's move on.

What I personally have found more important is pacing. Getting way in the weeds with naval combat tends towards... slow action. In general, I recommend making the encounter a boarding action as quick as possible, and also allowing for surrenders.

As a note, the rules in Ghost of Saltmarsh are pretty good, but my group actually uses a PDF I found online called "Seafaring in Fifth Edition" mostly made from modified stormwrack stuff from 3.5. The reason we use this is because there is a mechanic called "favored pilot" that tweaks initiative and action a bit based off who the better vessel commander is. One of my PCs wanted to play a Jack Aubrey style character, and I felt that that mechanic more than any other let him really feel like he was playing the Naval genius. So far we like it, but we have only done 4-5 ship encounters so far.