Hey, folks. I've started another of my Pocket Campaigns in my inland sea setting, built to run less than twenty sessions. This one is an eighth level expedition centered around combatting a large pirate fleet. "Surely," I chortled to my players as I was starting to prepare, "Surely for ship battles you'd prefer to cover it in a handwavey, narrative fashion rather than suffer through a convoluted separate set of mechanics," to which they cheerfully replied "Oh no, please build us a convoluted maritime combat system!"

So... here's my third draft of my medieval maritime combat rules.

In going for a pseudo-historical tone, I was surprised to have a hard time finding existing systems that fit my goals. Most games that I've come upon focus on trying to replicate gunpowder age-of-sail combat, with siege engines in place of cannons. In contrast, I tried to make a system with a focus on ramming, boarding parties, and volleys of arrows. Additionally, I wanted to provide opportunities for multiple characters to take part in shipboard operations while avoiding the necessity of tracking wind direction, precise ship heading, and turning radiuses in combat. The result is something that I hope is pleasingly abstracted, but I haven't had much of a chance to playtest it - indeed, I expect it'll be a fair few sessions before my players get into open combat on the high seas.

If anyone thinks they'd find such a thing useful, or if anyone is inclined to read through it and offer feedback, I'm pleased to provide a link to it here:

Dr. Paradox's Homebrew Maritime Combat Rules

The document is ten pages, but only the first four or so are "rules," the rest are play breakdowns and sample statistics for crew and ships.

I've also got custom rules for long-distance sailing, rowing, and navigation, paired with homebrew weather tables, but that's all stuff that calls for more DM massaging at the table and requires less mechanical rigor.