Ship Combat
During combat a ship may take a movement and a number of actions. A ship also has a reaction that function the same as player reations in that they must be triggered and used by specific abilities.
In initiative between players and NPCs, a round is six seconds in length, and ten rounds is one minute. In initiative between ships however, each round is one minute in length, and ten rounds is ten minutes in length. It is important to note that with regards to damage in combat, the ratio from character context to ship context is 1:10. A character attacking a ship must deal 10 hitpoints worth of damage to deal one Hull Point worth of damage, and a ship weapon that deals one Hull Point of damage to a character deals 10 hit points worth of damage. A monster with 100 hitpoints can be treated as having 10 Hull Points, and a sortie with 5 Hull Points can be treated as having 50 hit points outside of ship combat.
Because actions can only be performed by the order of a relevant officer, it is recommended that every ship have a Captain and Quartermaster aboard in order to ensure that any action can be performed in a pinch. An action can only be performed without the required officer, sufficient ABS, or both if the ship takes no other actions during its turn - including actions taken during movement. Even then, some actions such as Make Repairs and Heal Wounded must be performed by certain officers, and this officer requirement cannot be avoided in the above manner. Crewmembers wounded in combat or misadventure (but not outright killed) become Wounded Sailors rather than Able Bodied Seamen, and cannot be used to pay the cost to perform actions. More details about how ABS are wounded and healed can be found on the Crews page. INSERT WHERE DOES THIS ACTUALLYP GO Eg. The Goodfellow is engaged in combat with a sea serpent. It is normally crewed by 50 ABS, but in a previous fight 11 ABS were wounded and one was killed, so the Goodfellow currently has 38 ABS. The Goodfellow's Master Gunner (who is only able to order the Fire Weapon action) orders the Fire Weapon action, spending 24 ABS (the cost of the weapon) to fire its double heavy cannons at the beast. The Goodfellow’s Captain (who is able to order any action during combat) then orders the Look Alive action, spending 10 ABS (the cost of that action) to put out the fires that have broken out upon the deck and remove the burning condition. The 3 remaining ABS aren’t enough do anything else, so the Goodfellow takes its movement, moving forwards a number of tiles equal to its current speed, and ends its turn. The ABS cost of actions is determined by the class of ship you sail and its outfitting. Some ships may have access to actions that other ships do not. To recap, An officer must order an action, and a number of ABS equal to the action's cost must be spent to perform it. Officers can only order actions relevant to their station, and some actions can never be performed without the relevant officer. The full list of officers and the actions they can order is listed below.
A ship can perform certain actions on its turn. It is important to note that each action, with the exception of Fire Weapon and Look Alive, may only be performed once per turn. These actions may be taken in any order during the action phase and are entirely under the control of the officer, be they player or NPC, who orders them:
Board Enemy Vessel: Grapple the enemy ship with hooks, ropes, and bridges, and send your crew to attack the enemy crew directly aboard their ship. Choose a ship with a tile directly adjacent to one of your ship's tiles to attempt to launch a boarding attack upon. Both the attacking and defending ships make opposed strength checks. If the attacking ship's check is greater than or equal to that of the defending ship, the boarding is successful. If the attacking ship's check is less than that of the defending ship, the boarding attempt is repelled.
When a ship is successfully boarded, ship combat ends, and boarding combat begins using the PCs and NPCs on the ships at the conventional 5ft per square combat scale. For more details, see the Boarding Combat section below. ABS Cost: 10 x Grade Factor. Cast Spell: Cast a spell from the magical focus outfitted to your ship. This action may only be taken by a ship outfitted with a Spell Focus. Each magical foci is a large and powerful artifact which contains a number of charges of certain spells. In order for these spells to be cast from the foci, certain rituals must be performed by either by the ship's Chaplain, Arcanist, or Witch or by another character capable of casting spells from the same magical tradition as the foci. Wizards and Sorcerers can cast from Arcane Foci, Clerics and Druids can cast from Divine Foci, and Bards and Warlocks can cast from Occult Foci. The amount of ABS required to perform the spell depends on the spell being performed.
A ship's spell save DC is equal to 10 plus the ship's relevant ability modifier plus the ship's grade factor. The relevant ability modifier is intelligence for arcane spell foci, wisdom for divine spell foci, and charisma for occult spell foci. ABS Cost: Depends on the spell cast. A list of ship spells and their details can be found on our Ship Spells page. Drop/Weigh Anchor: Dropping the anchor keeps the ship from moving (much) by giving it the Anchored condition, and Weighing the anchor removes the Anchored condition and allows the ship to get moving again. ABS Cost: 1/2 of the ship's crew capacity. Fire Weapon: Fire one of the ship’s mounted weapons at a target, rolling a ranged weapon attack against the target’s current Armor Class. While this action can be taken multiple times per turn, each mounted weapon can only be fired once per turn. ABS Cost: Depends on the weapon fired. Launch Sortie: The ship sends gryffon riders to fly across the waves and scout their surroundings or attack enemy vessels at great range. This action may only be taken by a ship outfitted with a Gryffon Runway. Choose which sortie to launch, Scouting, Strafing, or Bombing. The sortie cost of a sortie is the number of crew sent as riders, and they are not regained as ABS on subsequent turns until the sortie has returned to the ship. The sortie immediately takes its turn the same turn that the Launch Sortie action was taken and it continues to act until it returns to the ship or until it runs out of energy and is forced to return. Details on sorties can be found on the Ship Outfitting page. ABS Cost: 2 x the sortie cost. Look Alive: Send your ABS to work removing a condition affecting your ship. Choose an ongoing condition currently affecting the ship. The ABS cost of this action is chosen by the quartermaster, and more ABS means more chances to succeed in removing the condition. Different conditions are removed in different ways, and should be consulted when performing this action. ABS Cost: Any multiple of 10. Make Repairs: Spend a pallet of repair supplies to make repairs to your ship. Roll the repairs for the expended pallet of repair supplies and add the ship's constitution modifier to the amount repaired. A ship without a carpenter cannot take this action in combat. ABS Cost: 10 x Grade Factor. Submerge/Emerge: The ship mounts or sheds its submersible veil slipping beneath the waves, or bursting forth from the water's surface. This action may only be taken by a ship outfitted with a submersible veil. Submerging grants a ship the Submerged condition, and allows it to make an immediate stealth check to become hidden. Emerging removes the Submerged condition and allows the ship to immediately perform any actions made impossile by the submerged condition. ABS Cost: Submerge - 1/2 of the ship's crew capacity Emerge - 5 x Grade Factor.
Normal actions cannot be taken during the ship's movement, the exception are the raise/lower sails and turn rudder actions which are movement actions. Like all actions these actions must be ordered by an officer and paid in ABS, but are only performed during movement. Raise/Lower Sails: Increase or decrease a ship's speed by hoisting or lowering its sails. This action can adjust a ship's current speed to anywhere between 0 and its top speed, and is always taken at the beginning of a ship's movement. The cost of this action is dependent on the ship's Speed Change Cost and how much the ships speed is being changed at once. The ship adds or subtracts X to/from its current speed where X is the number of times the Speed Change Cost was paid when taking this action. Turn Rudder: Move a ship’s rudder to turn the ship during movement. During the ship's movement, after each tile of movement, the ship may take this action. The cost of this action is equal to the ship's Turning Cost. The ship may take this action multiple times during its movement and requires only one officer's order to do so. Each time the ship turns it may change the direction it is facing by 1 tile face. Note that a ship must move a tile before each turn and cannot make consecutive turns without moving a tile in between without the Streamlined Outriggers enhancement.
If the ship rolls a natural 20 on its attack roll, it lands a critical hit which is guaranteed to hit the target. A critical hit rolls its damage dice twice. If the target hit is a ship, the second set of damage dice damage the crew, causing that many ABS to become wounded sailors.
If the ship rolls a natural 1 on its attack roll, it has made a critical failure and the weapon malfunctions, damaging the ship's crew. Roll the damage dice of the weapon, adding no modifiers. That many ABS become wounded sailors.
If a ship collides with another ship however, both ships take damage equal to half of Xd6 damage where X is half of the ship's current speed rounded down when it hits the other ship. If the acting ship has a Ramming weapon equipped, they may immediately make a weapon attack against the other ship with one such weapon.
A ship as a complex and delicate machine which begin to fail when damaged. A ship's cripple threshold is equal to half of its max Hp, rounded down. If a ship's Hp is below its cripple threshold, it has the Crippled condition. This condition remains until the ship's Hp is brought back above this threshold, and makes it weaker during boardings.
A ship that becomes heavily damaged fails to remain seaworthy, and will sink even before it is fully destroyed. If a ship's Hp is below its flooding threshold, it has the Flooding condition. This condition remains until the ship's Hp is brought back above this threshold. While flooding, the ship fills with water at the beginning of each of its turns. A ship in this state should be repaired quickly to remove the Flooding condition, or it will likely sink.
Ships can be fully repaired in shipyards where the ship can be pulled up onto dry land, parts can be replaced, and the hull is made accessible for treatment and repair. Without the tools, room, and resources of a shipyard, a ship must consume ship supplies to be repaired. In addition, each time a ship takes damage, it loses 1 max Hp until it can be given full service repairs at a shipyard. This means that the longer a ship adventures without stopping for repairs, the more battered and bruised it will become. Eg. The Goodfellow is fleeing from a dangerous encounter that has reduced its Hp to 16, below its flooding threshold of 25 and well below its cripple threshold of 50. The Goodfellow is flooding, but it has spent the last two rounds ignoring the flooding in an attempt to escape its foes. At the beginning of this turn, the Goodfellow's flooding adds a third level to the ship's Flooded condition and the ship's carpenter decides they can't afford to put off repairs any longer. The Goodfellow spends its turn taking the Make Repairs action: spending INSERT FIX and makes 11 HP worth of repairs. This hits the Goodfellow's lowest repair threshold of 25 Hp, leaving the ship at 25 Hp and removing the flooding condition. At the beginning of its next turn, the Goodfellow is no longer Flooding, and so does not accumulate more levels of the Flooded condition. The Goodfellow then spends its turn taking the Look Alive action with 30 ABS to bail water. It rolls one success and a critical success on its rolls to remove Flooded, and so is able to remove all three Flooded levels. Now that the ship is no longer taking on water and flooding, the Goodfellow continues fleeing. Eg. The Goodfellow took some damage in battle and is at 70 of its 100 max Hp. After combat, the ship's trusty carpenter uses the repair supplies in the hold to repair 16 Hull Points to the Goodfellow. However, since the Goodfellow has taken damage 20 times, its hitpoints are reduced to 80 until it can be repaired at a shipyard and it is only able to recieve 10 points of Hp repairs, leaving it at 80 Hp. Later the Goodfellow has taken more damage and is at 40 Hp. The Goodfellow finally finds a shipyard that will repair her, and after the repair fee is paid the Goodfellow is repaired from 40 Hp all the way back to its maximum Hp of 100!
In initiative between players and NPCs, a round is six seconds in length, and ten rounds is one minute. In initiative between ships however, each round is one minute in length, and ten rounds is ten minutes in length. It is important to note that with regards to damage in combat, the ratio from character context to ship context is 1:10. A character attacking a ship must deal 10 hitpoints worth of damage to deal one Hull Point worth of damage, and a ship weapon that deals one Hull Point of damage to a character deals 10 hit points worth of damage. A monster with 100 hitpoints can be treated as having 10 Hull Points, and a sortie with 5 Hull Points can be treated as having 50 hit points outside of ship combat.
Actions
A ship's actions can only be performed by the hard work and cooperation of the men and women aboard it. To take an action, a ship first needs a relevant officer aboard to order the action. Then the ship must spend Able Bodied Seamen (ABS) from the crew to perform the ordered action. The number of ABS required to perform the action is equal to that action's cost. Until the beginning of the ship's next turn this officer and these ABS are considered "expended" and cannot be used to order or pay the cost for another action.Because actions can only be performed by the order of a relevant officer, it is recommended that every ship have a Captain and Quartermaster aboard in order to ensure that any action can be performed in a pinch. An action can only be performed without the required officer, sufficient ABS, or both if the ship takes no other actions during its turn - including actions taken during movement. Even then, some actions such as Make Repairs and Heal Wounded must be performed by certain officers, and this officer requirement cannot be avoided in the above manner. Crewmembers wounded in combat or misadventure (but not outright killed) become Wounded Sailors rather than Able Bodied Seamen, and cannot be used to pay the cost to perform actions. More details about how ABS are wounded and healed can be found on the Crews page. INSERT WHERE DOES THIS ACTUALLYP GO Eg. The Goodfellow is engaged in combat with a sea serpent. It is normally crewed by 50 ABS, but in a previous fight 11 ABS were wounded and one was killed, so the Goodfellow currently has 38 ABS. The Goodfellow's Master Gunner (who is only able to order the Fire Weapon action) orders the Fire Weapon action, spending 24 ABS (the cost of the weapon) to fire its double heavy cannons at the beast. The Goodfellow’s Captain (who is able to order any action during combat) then orders the Look Alive action, spending 10 ABS (the cost of that action) to put out the fires that have broken out upon the deck and remove the burning condition. The 3 remaining ABS aren’t enough do anything else, so the Goodfellow takes its movement, moving forwards a number of tiles equal to its current speed, and ends its turn. The ABS cost of actions is determined by the class of ship you sail and its outfitting. Some ships may have access to actions that other ships do not. To recap, An officer must order an action, and a number of ABS equal to the action's cost must be spent to perform it. Officers can only order actions relevant to their station, and some actions can never be performed without the relevant officer. The full list of officers and the actions they can order is listed below.
| Officer | Related Attribute | Relevant Action(s) | Duties Onboard |
|---|---|---|---|
| First Mate | Strength | Board Enemy Vessel | Rolls all melee ramming attacks, boarding rolls, and, initiative. |
| Cook/Steward | Strength | Set Guard | Protects and keeps track of supplies. Protects the ship while in harbor. |
| Master Gunner | Dexterity | Fire Weapon | Rolls all ranged weapon attacks. |
| Hemsman | Dexterity | Raise/Lower Sail, Turn Rudder | Controls ship movement and orders ABS for all movement actions. |
| Carpenter | Constitution | Make Repairs | Rolls all repair rolls, tracks ship HP. |
| Boatswain | Constitution | Look Alive, Prepare/Weigh Anchor, Drop/Stow Anchor | Manages anchors, sails, and ropes. Rolls all other Str/Dex/Con checks. |
| Navigator | Intelligence | Take Readings, Plot A Course | Tracks ship's position and manages direction. Rolls all other Int/Wis/Cha checks. |
| Quartermaster | Intelligence | Any Action Outside Combat | Controls ABS for any task outside of combat. |
| Chaplain/Arcanist/Witch | Wisdom | Cast Spell | Casts all spells from the ship's spell focus |
| Doctor | Wisdom | Heal Wounded | Rolls all crew and PC healing out of combat and handles daily care. |
| Captain | Charisma | Any Action During Combat | Controls ABS for any action in combat and controls ABS groups during boarding combat. |
| Musician/Bunting Tosser | Charisma | Signal Vessel | Maintains and tracks crew morale during voyage. Sends and receives inter-ship messages. |
When a ship is successfully boarded, ship combat ends, and boarding combat begins using the PCs and NPCs on the ships at the conventional 5ft per square combat scale. For more details, see the Boarding Combat section below. ABS Cost: 10 x Grade Factor. Cast Spell: Cast a spell from the magical focus outfitted to your ship. This action may only be taken by a ship outfitted with a Spell Focus. Each magical foci is a large and powerful artifact which contains a number of charges of certain spells. In order for these spells to be cast from the foci, certain rituals must be performed by either by the ship's Chaplain, Arcanist, or Witch or by another character capable of casting spells from the same magical tradition as the foci. Wizards and Sorcerers can cast from Arcane Foci, Clerics and Druids can cast from Divine Foci, and Bards and Warlocks can cast from Occult Foci. The amount of ABS required to perform the spell depends on the spell being performed.
A ship's spell save DC is equal to 10 plus the ship's relevant ability modifier plus the ship's grade factor. The relevant ability modifier is intelligence for arcane spell foci, wisdom for divine spell foci, and charisma for occult spell foci. ABS Cost: Depends on the spell cast. A list of ship spells and their details can be found on our Ship Spells page. Drop/Weigh Anchor: Dropping the anchor keeps the ship from moving (much) by giving it the Anchored condition, and Weighing the anchor removes the Anchored condition and allows the ship to get moving again. ABS Cost: 1/2 of the ship's crew capacity. Fire Weapon: Fire one of the ship’s mounted weapons at a target, rolling a ranged weapon attack against the target’s current Armor Class. While this action can be taken multiple times per turn, each mounted weapon can only be fired once per turn. ABS Cost: Depends on the weapon fired. Launch Sortie: The ship sends gryffon riders to fly across the waves and scout their surroundings or attack enemy vessels at great range. This action may only be taken by a ship outfitted with a Gryffon Runway. Choose which sortie to launch, Scouting, Strafing, or Bombing. The sortie cost of a sortie is the number of crew sent as riders, and they are not regained as ABS on subsequent turns until the sortie has returned to the ship. The sortie immediately takes its turn the same turn that the Launch Sortie action was taken and it continues to act until it returns to the ship or until it runs out of energy and is forced to return. Details on sorties can be found on the Ship Outfitting page. ABS Cost: 2 x the sortie cost. Look Alive: Send your ABS to work removing a condition affecting your ship. Choose an ongoing condition currently affecting the ship. The ABS cost of this action is chosen by the quartermaster, and more ABS means more chances to succeed in removing the condition. Different conditions are removed in different ways, and should be consulted when performing this action. ABS Cost: Any multiple of 10. Make Repairs: Spend a pallet of repair supplies to make repairs to your ship. Roll the repairs for the expended pallet of repair supplies and add the ship's constitution modifier to the amount repaired. A ship without a carpenter cannot take this action in combat. ABS Cost: 10 x Grade Factor. Submerge/Emerge: The ship mounts or sheds its submersible veil slipping beneath the waves, or bursting forth from the water's surface. This action may only be taken by a ship outfitted with a submersible veil. Submerging grants a ship the Submerged condition, and allows it to make an immediate stealth check to become hidden. Emerging removes the Submerged condition and allows the ship to immediately perform any actions made impossile by the submerged condition. ABS Cost: Submerge - 1/2 of the ship's crew capacity Emerge - 5 x Grade Factor.
Movement
A ship’s movement is more or less automatic. As long as there is wind, the ship will be propelled by its sails forwards a number of tiles equal to its current speed, changing direction only when the rudder is turned. Movement can be taken at any time during a ship's turn, but cannot be skipped or split up between actions. A ship cannot perform some movement, then actions, then the rest of the movement or vice versa. The ship must move its full current speed during its movement. While movement does not require any officers or cost any ABS, the raise/lower sails and turn rudder actions do.Normal actions cannot be taken during the ship's movement, the exception are the raise/lower sails and turn rudder actions which are movement actions. Like all actions these actions must be ordered by an officer and paid in ABS, but are only performed during movement. Raise/Lower Sails: Increase or decrease a ship's speed by hoisting or lowering its sails. This action can adjust a ship's current speed to anywhere between 0 and its top speed, and is always taken at the beginning of a ship's movement. The cost of this action is dependent on the ship's Speed Change Cost and how much the ships speed is being changed at once. The ship adds or subtracts X to/from its current speed where X is the number of times the Speed Change Cost was paid when taking this action. Turn Rudder: Move a ship’s rudder to turn the ship during movement. During the ship's movement, after each tile of movement, the ship may take this action. The cost of this action is equal to the ship's Turning Cost. The ship may take this action multiple times during its movement and requires only one officer's order to do so. Each time the ship turns it may change the direction it is facing by 1 tile face. Note that a ship must move a tile before each turn and cannot make consecutive turns without moving a tile in between without the Streamlined Outriggers enhancement.
Ranged Weapon Attacks
When a ship takes the Fire Weapon attack with a mounted weapon, it rolls 1d20 + DEX against the target's Armor Class. If it hits, it deals damage by rolling its damage dice and adding its DEX and applies any Special effects of the weapon. As ship weapons take considerable effort to reload, a weapon cannot be fired more than once per turn.If the ship rolls a natural 20 on its attack roll, it lands a critical hit which is guaranteed to hit the target. A critical hit rolls its damage dice twice. If the target hit is a ship, the second set of damage dice damage the crew, causing that many ABS to become wounded sailors.
If the ship rolls a natural 1 on its attack roll, it has made a critical failure and the weapon malfunctions, damaging the ship's crew. Roll the damage dice of the weapon, adding no modifiers. That many ABS become wounded sailors.
Collisions and Ramming
When a ship collides with something, even another ship, it takes serious damage. When a ship hits a stationary obstacle like a rock or iceberg, it takes Xd6 damage where X is half of the ship's current speed rounded down when it hits the obstacle.If a ship collides with another ship however, both ships take damage equal to half of Xd6 damage where X is half of the ship's current speed rounded down when it hits the other ship. If the acting ship has a Ramming weapon equipped, they may immediately make a weapon attack against the other ship with one such weapon.
Saving Throws
Whenever a ship must respond to an environmental effect or an affliction that does not constitute a direct attack, it must make a saving throw. These saving throws function in the same way as with characters, and their modifiers are calculated the same. A Strength saving throw tests the ship's ability to inflict or weather direct hits with or against its hull. A Dexterity saving throw tests the ship's ability to move and turn quickly, usually to dodge a foe or obstacle. A Constitution saving throw tests the sturdyness of the ship's materials and the robustness of its construction. An Intelligence saving throw tests the ship's crew's ability to predict changes in the environment or the trajectory and destination of incoming spells. A Wisdom saving throw tests the ship's crew's ability to percieve details around it and avoid misdirection and manipulation. A Charisma saving throw tests the ship's crew's ability to cooperate, organize, and defend themselves against effects and abilities that target them specifically.Hull Points (Hp)
A ship's maximum HP is equal to its base HP + (4 * Constitution Modifier * grade factor) + other modifiers. The ship's base Hp is determined by its Grade and Class upon construction as seen on the Ship Construction page, but simply is determined by rolling a number of hit dice. Then, multiply the ship's constitution by the ship's grade factor (caravel = 1, brigantine = 2, frigate = 3, titan = 4), multiply this number by 4 and add this number to the HP total. Lastly add any Hp bonus granted by pieces of outfitting or special effects. A ship's Hp is divided by 2 thresholds: the Cripple threshold and the Flooding threshold. These thresholds may be modified by some outfitting, but generally exist at 1/2 and 1/4 of the ship's max Hp respectively.A ship that becomes heavily damaged fails to remain seaworthy, and will sink even before it is fully destroyed. If a ship's Hp is below its flooding threshold, it has the Flooding condition. This condition remains until the ship's Hp is brought back above this threshold. While flooding, the ship fills with water at the beginning of each of its turns. A ship in this state should be repaired quickly to remove the Flooding condition, or it will likely sink.
Ships can be fully repaired in shipyards where the ship can be pulled up onto dry land, parts can be replaced, and the hull is made accessible for treatment and repair. Without the tools, room, and resources of a shipyard, a ship must consume ship supplies to be repaired. In addition, each time a ship takes damage, it loses 1 max Hp until it can be given full service repairs at a shipyard. This means that the longer a ship adventures without stopping for repairs, the more battered and bruised it will become. Eg. The Goodfellow is fleeing from a dangerous encounter that has reduced its Hp to 16, below its flooding threshold of 25 and well below its cripple threshold of 50. The Goodfellow is flooding, but it has spent the last two rounds ignoring the flooding in an attempt to escape its foes. At the beginning of this turn, the Goodfellow's flooding adds a third level to the ship's Flooded condition and the ship's carpenter decides they can't afford to put off repairs any longer. The Goodfellow spends its turn taking the Make Repairs action: spending INSERT FIX and makes 11 HP worth of repairs. This hits the Goodfellow's lowest repair threshold of 25 Hp, leaving the ship at 25 Hp and removing the flooding condition. At the beginning of its next turn, the Goodfellow is no longer Flooding, and so does not accumulate more levels of the Flooded condition. The Goodfellow then spends its turn taking the Look Alive action with 30 ABS to bail water. It rolls one success and a critical success on its rolls to remove Flooded, and so is able to remove all three Flooded levels. Now that the ship is no longer taking on water and flooding, the Goodfellow continues fleeing. Eg. The Goodfellow took some damage in battle and is at 70 of its 100 max Hp. After combat, the ship's trusty carpenter uses the repair supplies in the hold to repair 16 Hull Points to the Goodfellow. However, since the Goodfellow has taken damage 20 times, its hitpoints are reduced to 80 until it can be repaired at a shipyard and it is only able to recieve 10 points of Hp repairs, leaving it at 80 Hp. Later the Goodfellow has taken more damage and is at 40 Hp. The Goodfellow finally finds a shipyard that will repair her, and after the repair fee is paid the Goodfellow is repaired from 40 Hp all the way back to its maximum Hp of 100!
Comments