Does Magic and Sea-Based Adventures Mix?

[Scalenex]

Now, I have always seen a great appeal in sea based D&D adventures. I guess it's because I used to be a huge fan of Greek mythology and that's what a large portion of their adventures entail. Also I like pirates, a lot.

That being said, I don't a D&D world works too well for sea epics. Unless you modify it for a low magic or non-magical world or boost the magic up to even greater levels with ships that are supernaturally durable or invent transmutation spells that instantly repair damage (making a lot of profession and craft skills far less important).

Think about it. A hard fight with a monster on land and you have to rest and replenish supplies and heal up afterwards. A hard fight with a sea monster and you are sinking. If you survive you lost a giant investment of your ship.

Sea monsters capable of wrecking ships is just one element of the potential for imbalance and I'm talking about spell casters, particularly arcane casters. All you have to do to take a large warship down is puncture a hole in the hull and/or set it on fire. I suppose you could simply have wizards on ships being the norm and have them be the "cannons" of naval warfare though I think sea battles revolving around dueling wizards ruins the swashbuckle feel. Less so for airships since airships need a lot of magic to fly, but I'm going to assume that magic isn't prevailent enough that even the mightiest empires can afford more than a small handful of airships.

[Darrin]

Think about it. A hard fight with a monster on land and you have to rest and replenish supplies and heal up afterwards. A hard fight with a sea monster and you are sinking. If you survive you lost a giant investment of your ship.

From a mythological standpoint, very few fights in the Odyssey or Argonauts involved monster-to-ship battles. Mostly it involved the ship transporting the hero+redshirts to whichever island was featured in the next part of the story. Most of the islands sported a local enchantress that wanted to 1) kill the redshirts/transform them into tasty snack food, and 2) have sex with and/or kill the hero, who cleverly outwits her and rescues the remaining redshirts so they can move on to the next island/enchantress/etc.

So, no real problem there... in fact it makes the DM's job a little easier, he doesn't have to justify why there are so many ancient ruins/dungeons/wizard towers overflowing with monsters and treasure within easy walking distance of the rest of civilization. Each island "dungeon" can be designed as a self-contained chapter without worrying too much about continuity or geography. PCs killed the One True King? Collapsed the economy? Destroyed the Great Temple? No problem, just get in the boat and move to the next island.

Most of the ship-based encounters while actually sailing are environmental hazards, such as the bag of foul winds or Charybdis (technically a monster but navigationally a giant whirlpool), so those might be easily handled mostly with skill checks and "don't sail the boat in that direction" kind of rolls. The two monster encounters that spring to mind (Sirens and Scylla on the other side of Charybdis) are treated more like environmental hazards than combat encounters with CRs/init rolls/etc. And they're easily adapted to the "land on island, kill everything that moves, strip everything valuable, move on to next island" kind of scenarios. Sirens ran off with half your crew? Land on their island, go through the whole daring rescue in the underwater siren tunnels, get your men back and continue. Scylla can destroy the boat with just a little pinkie-flick? Hey, let's land on the backside of her island, sneak into the cave Scylla's guarding, maybe there's something in there that can get rid of the darned thing.

Essentially its very similar to running an Enterprise+Away Team campaign. Very few episodes will involve ship-to-ship combat. If there is a significant risk to the ship, then it's something an Away Team can fix by going to the planet/island/dungeon.

[mikeejimbo]

Darrin's advice is awesome, so I can't really elaborate. Just be sure to have a druid on board to mess with the winds and stuff.

[tarbrush]

Also, with the wonderful world of magic available to you, your party aren't limited to playing D on the high seas. Water walking, the various breathing underwater things and freedom of movement etc means that you can quite easily take the fight to the watery lair of the beasties.

I don't know if you have lords of madness, but one of the horrors in there are some bizarre fish monsters, and they have a few samples of underwater combat and hazards

[Gamebird]

That being said, I don't a D&D world works too well for sea epics.
...
Sea monsters capable of wrecking ships is just one element of the potential for imbalance and I'm talking about spell casters, particularly arcane casters.

I agree. I would say Darrin's advice is excellent - to run a logically consistent sea adventure you have to design a specific sort of campaign and remove the vast majority of sea monsters and boat-to-boat conflict.

Maybe have the campaign center around the PC's discovery and ownership of a magical boat that can't be sunk, or that has a lyre of building built into it that repairs otherwise fatal damage to the boat once a week. Come to think of it, having a lyre of building on a boat would make it nearly unsinkable except in cases of damage sustained over a period of time longer than an average D&D combat (ie, longer than a few rounds).

[Vance_Nevada]

I'll point out that high level mages have much less reason to go on sea-based adventures than other characters. The basic reason - get from point A to point B - can be done faster and more effectively with any number of transport spells (teleport, shadow walk, etc).

For going exploring generally, why sail when you can fly? Why take a ship when you could Wildshape into a blue whale and swim much faster and more effectively?

Ships and sailing are for lower level characters, like caravans and roads. Past a certain point of magical capability, they simply cease to matter.

[mikeejimbo]

There's plenty of good reasons a high-level mage would be on a ship.

Money, moolah, coin, cash, dough, payment!

[goken04]

I am currently running a pirate DnD campaign and am thoroughly enjoying it. I made it clear to my PCs that the typical pirate ship in my world is equipped with at least one arcane caster and one divine caster. The Arcane casters are the equivalents of cannons and the divine casters are to heal the crew and ship after battle. I told them their ship would stand little chance without these important niches filled.

Stormwrack has great rules for this stuff. If you can get your hands on it, do so. Not all [Fire] spells set fire to a ship. Each section of the ship has HP and it's going to take more than a couple of fire balls to see that any sea-faring vessel would sink. The simple low-level spell Make Whole can do a lot to fix a ship in danger of sinking. Finally, once the ships close range (which happens fast), boarding actions are taken and the swashbuckling begins. If the enemy's arcane caster contiues to try to sink your ship instead of aiding their allies in melee (most don't), that's okay. Just kill the other crew and take their ship.

It takes a lot of learning and thinking about the rules (if you don't have Stormwrack), but it's more than doable and a lot of fun!

[Viscount Einstrauss]

I'm actually planning on a lot of ship-to-ship combat in my campaign right now, but it's also starting to grow beyond simple party ventures into larger army battles. The ship battles won't be one-on-one. It'll be fleets.

Pity this is when I choose to introduce the Tarrasque, huh? I made up an aquatic variant. Besides being a capable swimmer, it can also inhale seawater quickly to pull in people/ships and shoot regrowing horns like torpedoes. Bwahaha, and this all when the party's level 8! Oh man, I can't wait to see their faces. They're gonna need those cannons/NPC army fodder.

[Scalenex]

Good call on both the island hopping and giving different sections of the ship hit points! Yes, high level mages are often above petty concerns such as sea travel but mid and low level ones aren't. Particularly when naval warfare is concerned. In my world the major kingdoms will subsidize people through wizard schools. The weekend wizards get their tuition paid in exchange for a couple years of service at first and then something akin to two weeks a year, one week a month. Join the Wizard Reserves!

[Jack_Simth]

I'll point out that high level mages have much less reason to go on sea-based adventures than other characters. The basic reason - get from point A to point B - can be done faster and more effectively with any number of transport spells (teleport, shadow walk, etc).

For going exploring generally, why sail when you can fly? Why take a ship when you could Wildshape into a blue whale and swim much faster and more effectively?

Ships and sailing are for lower level characters, like caravans and roads. Past a certain point of magical capability, they simply cease to matter.

Oh, any number of reasons. Getting treasure somewhere you can exchange it for goods (ships can carry a LOT, and not all treasure is as easily transported as platinum pieces. Iron, for instance, is valued at 1 sp per pound. If you give the party a X,000 gp worth of Iron, they're going to either have to leave it there, or find some way to transport a full X0,000 pounds of stuff. With a ship and a bunch of redshirts, that's not too much of an issue. If you're teleporting, you're going to have to make quite a lot of trips.

A comfortable place to rest up while exploring (as long as it isn't readily saleable, what's inside the ship doesn't much affect the game, so you can have a cusioned bed, an unspecified large amount of prepareable food, a good cook, et cetera without hurting game balance).

A storeage location (after a point, you can't really put up any defenses that a skilled rogue can't eventually bypass while you're away. With a ship, you don't have quite as much of an issue, what with being hard to find).

Minion transportation (e.g., redshirts).

I could go on... but there's not too much point.

[Wehrkind]

Also, keep in mind fire, while dangerous, is not quite so horrific in the short term. A fireball does not necessarily vaporize your clothing if you fail your save (unless you are playing that sort of game), and you can assume that salt water drenched decks and ropes are not going to burn well either. Even if they do light up, you have a good deal of time before it becomes a more pressing problem than the mage casting fireballs itself.

The era you are playing in also will affect things. Putting a hole in the side of a large masted ship of the 18th century doesn't do much, unless it is at or below the waterline, at which point you have a serious problem. A hole in a Greek trireme? Who cares? The entire boat is boyant, so other than tossing over some weighty treasure to maintain boyancy, you are just gimped a bit.

I might assume as well that if magic is fairly prevalent, technological advances would account for it. Simply washing the decks down with sea water would go a lot way to help avoid fireball issues, and perhaps treatments can reinforce the wood to be more resistant to fire. Lord Dupont's Unflammable Ungent?

[Jack_Simth]

Well, if a ship qualifies as an attended object, simply having *someone* on board with a ring of fire resistence would go a long way towards stopping fireballs.

[FdL]

I'll be the one then to bring the example of what happens in the last book of the Legacy of the Drow Trilogy (sorry if Drizzt is a four letter word in these forums, it shouldn't).

In the first part of the book a lengthy sea adventure takes place, complete with ship to ship fight, magic AND wizards on board. I don't want to spoil you on the plot, but it's only common sense to bring a wizard or other spellcaster to the ship, for attack, defense or utility.

So there's a FR antecedent.

[A Pointy Object]

The swashbuckler base class (Complete Warrior) and the Dread Pirate PrC (Complete Adventurer) add awsome flavor for characters who feel the need to embrace their inner pirate. The Spell Compendium also has some amazing sea-based spells as well (swirling vortex, tsunami, standing wave).

Besides that, magical seige weapons (like cannons and stuff) can be found in Heroes Of Battle.

I thought that might help.

[Thrawn183]

The swashbuckler base class (Complete Warrior) and the Dread Pirate PrC (Complete Adventurer) add awsome flavor for characters who feel the need to embrace their inner pirate. The Spell Compendium also has some amazing sea-based spells as well (swirling vortex, tsunami, standing wave).

Besides that, magical seige weapons (like cannons and stuff) can be found in Heroes Of Battle.

I thought that might help.

I'd really like to see a profession: seafaring check or something to make a save for the ship against spells like those. It'd be kind of like a ride check for your mount, but for an entire ship instead.

[Bears With Lasers]

I don't see the problem. The ship gets damaged? Repair it. With magic. Isn't that what Ship's Wizards (or Druids or Clerics) are for?

Not every wizard knows Teleport. Those that do can't or won't teleport to places they aren't very familiar with. Teleport can't transport mass amounts of goods. Besides which, spellcasters help a ship fight monsters, fight pirates, weather storms, navigate, etc. etc.

[goken04]

I'd really like to see a profession: seafaring check or something to make a save for the ship against spells like those. It'd be kind of like a ride check for your mount, but for an entire ship instead.

Stormwrack helps with that, Profession: Sailor. It's an invaluable source if you're running a sea campaign.

[Vance_Nevada]

There's plenty of good reasons a high-level mage would be on a ship.

Money, moolah, coin, cash, dough, payment!

OK, but who's paying the mage? Any ship owners or captains wanting to hire a high level mage for protection would find it cheaper to pay the mage by the spell, to transport their goods by teleport (or teleport object, or teleportation circle, depending on how much needs to be moved).

If it isn't economically feasible for them to do so, then it's even less feasible for them to hire the mage for the weeks or months necessary for the voyage to occur. Even the multiple teleports required for larger amounts of goods are cheaper to hire by the spell than by hiring the mage - and of course they save you even needing the cost of the ship in the first place!

The higher level the mage, the more ridiculous it gets (particularly the suggestion that a ship is a good place to rest - it's easily locatable by scrying, and high enough level mages will have their own private Planes they keep their Magnificent Mansion on instead - much harder for a rogue to break into).

[axraelshelm]

because the captain needed the extra fire power but can't afford one so he asks around in a tavern and then there you are.
A low level wizard not even a magic item to his name and adventure in the high seas means anciant forgotton lore or items waiting to be handled by a wizard such as yourself who is on his way up.

[axraelshelm]

[quote=Vance_Nevada;1807389]OK, but who's paying the mage? Any ship owners or captains wanting to hire a high level mage for protection would find it cheaper to pay the mage by the spell, to transport their goods by teleport (or teleport object, or teleportation circle, depending on how much needs to be moved).

Teleport? teleport is dangerous if you didn't know the terrain your goods can end up the otherside of the world and that mage has to be pretty sure of himself to cast that spell and a wizard at high level would go out to adventure because of the spells he has cost expensive spell ingredients and focus.
The don't come cheap and he may just do it for fun wizards get bored too I know mine does, all my great spells and no one/monster/object to use it one hmmmm.

[axraelshelm]

[quote=Vance_Nevada;1807389]OK, but who's paying the mage? Any ship owners or captains wanting to hire a high level mage for protection would find it cheaper to pay the mage by the spell, to transport their goods by teleport (or teleport object, or teleportation circle, depending on how much needs to be moved).

Teleport? teleport is dangerous if you didn't know the terrain your goods can end up the otherside of the world and that mage has to be pretty sure of himself to cast that spell and a wizard at high level would go out to adventure because of the spells he has cost expensive spell ingredients and focus.
The don't come cheap and he may just do it for fun wizards get bored too I know mine does, all my great spells and no one/monster/object to use it one hmmmm.

[axraelshelm]

[quote=Vance_Nevada;1807389]OK, but who's paying the mage? Any ship owners or captains wanting to hire a high level mage for protection would find it cheaper to pay the mage by the spell, to transport their goods by teleport (or teleport object, or teleportation circle, depending on how much needs to be moved).

Teleport? teleport is dangerous if you didn't know the terrain your goods can end up the otherside of the world and that mage has to be pretty sure of himself to cast that spell and a wizard at high level would go out to adventure because of the spells he has cost expensive spell ingredients and focus.
The don't come cheap and he may just do it for fun wizards get bored too I know mine does, all my great spells and no one/monster/object to use it one hmmmm.

[Thomas]

Teleport? teleport is dangerous if you didn't know the terrain your goods can end up the otherside of the world and that mage has to be pretty sure of himself to cast that spell and a wizard at high level would go out to adventure because of the spells he has cost expensive spell ingredients and focus.

Dangerous compared to what? Overland travel? A controlled, precisely known risk of teleportation mishap is much preferrable to the uncontrolled, unknown, probably much, much higher than 3% risk* of an extended journey on land. (Sea journeys are likewise sure to be much more dangerous.) And that error is assuming the 5th-level teleport spell or the 7th-level teleport object spell, not the 7th-level greater teleport. (And smart wizard will teleport people carrying their maximum load with the 5th-level spell. That's the wizard and 3 people at minimum.)

* Achieved by studying the target location for one hour with scrying. That's a few minutes of work daily over a week.

The going price for the teleport spell is 450 gp per casting, minimum. That racks up to some pretty impressive gold pieces for less than an hour of work, if you can arrange enough contracts to cast all your teleport spells each day. For teleport object or greater teleport, it's 910 gp, minimum. And that's sure to be a lot cheaper than outfitting a caravan (including hiring all the necessary people) or a ship, so it's a far more attractive option for the merchants.

Smart mages don't go adventuring. They stay home and use their magic to become filthy rich.

[paigeoliver]

In my world most ships have mages but almost none have one capable of casting teleport. Usually 5th to 7th level casters are the standard for ship's mages. Higher level casters usually are not interested in the pay a ship's mage can expect. Some ship's wizards are as low as first level.

There are plenty of reasons for a mid-level caster to take a shipboard position. It is a MUCH safer endeavor than adventuring. Plus it allows mid-level spellcasters to really fill up their spellbooks by visiting exotic ports (who will have all different high level casters around and thus different scrolls for sale), and by copying any spells that might exist in spellbooks belonging to the ship.

As far as teleporting goes. The teleport object spell requires a 13th level wizard to cast it (or a 14th level sorcerer), and most 13th level wizards won't even know the spell. You would probably never meet a sorcerer with it at all, and it isn't exactly on the short list of spells most high level mages are wanting to learn either.

Even a "Metropolis" sized city is only going to have 4 wizards capable of casting the 7th level spells. There are 35 7th level wizard spells in the player's handbook, if each one knows 5*** of them, then you have decent odds that there won't even be a wizard capable of casting the spell in a metropolis, much less a wizard for hire to cast it for you.

Also, fantasy ships can carry A LOT more cargo than real world ships can. At least they can if they have portable holes on board. If your world's magic goes that direction then you can probably bet that there are much bulkier (but cheaper) extra-dimensional crates available that can really up the capacity of any ship. I know back in BECMI D&D my player group had a ton of stuff stowed away in a scroll of shelter (Old edition magic item, it was a scroll with a picture of a room, you could go inside the room if you hung the scroll on a wall).

*** I based the number of spells known off my own experience as a GM, in that wizards tended to know very few of the higher level spells just because the scrolls were massively expensive to purchase and spellbooks with high level spells in them are not common finds. Scrolls of 7th level spells rival a lot of permanent magic items in price. I couldn't imagine most players spending 2975 GP to get teleport object in their spellbook when they would probably never memorize it and would be unlikely to scribe any scrolls of it, since those cost 1137 GP to scribe.

[Darrin]

I'll point out that high level mages have much less reason to go on sea-based adventures than other characters. The basic reason - get from point A to point B - can be done faster and more effectively with any number of transport spells (teleport, shadow walk, etc).

One of the things that's not very well explored by most D&D campaigns is how hugely disruptive magic might be to the economy. Teleport is an obvious example, but it's actually the lower-level spells that would be much more devastating.

Cure Light Wounds, for example... would you ever see any medical science or any professional doctors when 99% of all injuries can be fixed by a basic spell available to five out of eleven base classes?

The havoc wrought by Continual Flame would be monumental. Serfs and slaves could be forced to work after sundown to maximize production. The industrial revolution and urbanization of cities would start centuries earlier... workers would migrate towards the factories in the cities lit 24/7, you'd see two 12-hour shifts or possibly three 8-hour shifts. Unsafe conditions/Workers Comp? Doesn't exist with CLW.

One single druid with Plant Growth could turn a backwater nation into a military powerhouse by increasing their food production by 33%. Even worse, get enough casters together to feed an army with Create Food and Water... imagine Napoleon with armies that can feed themselves and don't have to depend on logistical support, reserve units, or cannibalizing their agricultural production to supply the war effort.

So, when you say "magic trumps conventional sailing ships"... well, yes it does. Which is why, if you wanted to run a campaign based around a sailing ship, you'd have to put a lot of thought into which spells you might want to put on a "restricted" or "banned" list. Teleportation or Fly is obviously much more expedient than getting on a boat, but economics-wise there are some serious limitations to the amount of mass you could transport that way. It would be horrendously expensive to teleport or fly a few tons of coal/wool/grain/lumber to the markets they need to go.

It'd also be fairly easy to say "Teleport isn't available in my campaign", or "the max duration for all Fly spells is 10 rounds, so no flying off the island".

Ships and sailing are for lower level characters, like caravans and roads. Past a certain point of magical capability, they simply cease to matter.

That depends a great deal on what kind of campaign you want to run and what sort of magic level you prefer. If the NPC mages starts demanding a 100,000 GP "material component restocking fee" or "spell failure insurance premium" for that six-person Teleport spell, even a high-level group might put "hoofing it" back on the table.

[mikeejimbo]

I suppose this is a bit off topic, but Darrin, isn't it possible that the industrial revolution would occur centuries later? Why have steam engines when you have golems? Why build railroads with teleport?

Of course, with Plant Growth one person could probably run a whole farm, so it's not like you'd need everyone to be growing food...

Hmm, magic seems to ruin the economy completely, but maybe, just maybe, the fact that it's so wide-spread would balance it out? Sure, your military nation has plenty of food, but so do the people you're attacking.

[General_Ghoul]

Think how much cargo can be stored in the hold of a standard galley. About 4 tractor trailer loads. Now how many teleports is that going to take. Thats why caravans and shipping still takes place in these fantasy setting. Plus adding the cost of teleporting adds an incredible about to each item. For a 25000 gp magic item no big deal, for a 2cp item, well its not cost prohibitive. Shipping expensive, hard to replace items might go MagicEx, but everyday mundane stuff still has to go regular mail. So a mid level caster on board for a few gps a day, plus expenses for any spells cast, might make sense, just like the captain might hire extra warriors for pirate infessed waters. Same for overland caravans, and those are in every other adventure.

[Scorpina]

There are plenty of reasons why a spellcaster might be on a ship, aside from basicly being payed to be there by the captain:

-She likes the sea, and want's to spend her time there.
-The captain happens to be his close friend, lover or immediate relative.
-She lost a loved one out at sea and is looking for them.
-He is a worshiper of Umberlee, Valkur or another appropriate sea god*
-She's interested in sea based magic, of the kind that might be found on mysterious islands.
-He's not yet powerful enough to cast Teleport and is running away from something.
-She's fallen in love with an aquatic elf, and so wants to stay near the ocean but obviously needs some means of support, and is so willing to accept less pay for Ship's Maging.

*Yes, I suppose that's more apt for a Cleric, but Wizard's and Sorcerer's can have faith too, damn it.

[Orzel]

My friend's DM used huge, dispelling, caster eating pelicans, sharks, and turtles. All With SR. Every pirate captain keep them as pets.
Not too mention cannibals with anti-magic villages.
Flight and teleports was suicide.

"...And the main villians were orca-like beings who were all sorcerers. Every ship needed wizards to counterspell them when they jumped over the ship while casting spells. Sometimes they just land on you."