Ships Overview

Sailing is quite different from most other parts of a campaign due to the fact that it must take place on a ship. Sailing ships take place on a hexagonal map wherein each hex represents a 50 foot radius area. Instead of controlling individual characters while sailing, players instead collectively control the ship they are aboard. Ship exploration, ship combat, and ship downtime are important parts of adventuring in Orentia and the rules for ships and sailing are detailed below.

Ship Stats and Terms

You can think of a sailing ship as you would a normal character in that its attributes and abilities are defined by its race (crew) and its class (hull class), and that it carries equipment (outfitting) to enhance its abilities. A ship may act differently when in and out of combat, and has different skills and statistics than a PC would. Keep in mind that in place of a proficiency bonus, a ship adds its grade modifier, representing its size, to some calculations.
Strength: A ship’s Strength determines the effectiveness of its ramming attacks, ramming defense, grapples, and boarding.
Dexterity: A ship’s Dexterity determines the effectiveness of its ranged weapon attacks, and contributes to its AC against ranged attacks.
Constitution: A ship’s Constitution determines its maximum hitpoints, repair thresholds, and cargo capacity.
Intelligence: A ship’s Intelligence determines its ability to navigate accurately, take accurate readings and measurements, study and identify its surroundings, and cast arcane spells from a focus.
Wisdom: A ship’s Wisdom determines its ability to observe and reconnoiter ships and locations, provide medical care to its crew, procure and protect its supplies, and cast divine spells from a focus.
Charisma: A ship’s Charisma determines its ability to hide or disguise itself, signal other ships effectively, persuade and intimidate other vessels, and cast occult spells from a focus.

In addition to these attributes, a ship’s class, grade, and outfitting will contribute to the following additional stats. A listing of avaliable ship hull classes is avaliable on the Hull Classes page.
Grade Factor: Many aspects of a ship increase alongside its grade, and some outfitting, abilities, or statistics may ask you to use a ship's grade factor in calculations. Your grade factor is determined by your ship's grade as shown in the table below.

Ship Grade	Grade Factor
Lugger	-1
Sloop	1
Brigantine	2
Frigate	3
Titan	4

Hp: A ship's structural stability is measured in Hull Points (Hp). Think of Hull Points as the Hit Points of a ship. When a ship becomes damaged, it loses Hp. When a ship is repaired, if it is repaired at a shipyard it regains as much Hp as the repairs specify, otherwise it regains Hp up to the next repair threshold. If a ship loses all of its Hp, it sinks below the waves and is destroyed at the beginning of its next turn. Ships make no death saving throws and cannot be revived by mortal hands like a character might. When a ship loses all of its Hp and sinks, it is lost for good. For more details on how Hp works, check out our Ship Combat article.
Armor Class: A ship's Armor Class is 10 plus its current speed divided by 4 rounded down. Eg. A ship with a current speed of 3 has an armor class of 10, a ship with a speed of 5 has an armor class of 11. Ship AC can also be increased by its outfitting. Usually this comes in the form of an enhancement with "Reinforced" in its name. Note that only one "Reinforced" enhancement can be outfitted to a ship at once.
Size: The size of a ship represents its size in a line of hexes. This is determined by the ship’s grade. A Sloop grade ship has a size of 1 hex, and a Titan grade ship has a size of 4 hexes.
Mounting Site: Mounting Sites are designated sections of the ship that have been designed to accept large structures, weapons, and additions to the ship. Mounting sites come in three types: Enhancement Sites, Light Sites, and Reinforced Sites. Each site can be outfitted with different weapons and gear to outfit a ship. The number and type of mounting sites on a ship is determined by its class.

• Enhancement Sites generally accept utility structures geared to support the ship on a passive basis.
• Light Sites generally accept ship weapons, and can sometimes have passive structures that support the actions of the ship.
• Reinforced Sites generally accept heavy weaponry, spell foci, and some passive structures that change the fundamental operations of a ship.

Crew Capacity: The crew capacity of a ship represents the maximum number of ABS (See pg. INSERT) that can live aboard the ship at a time and contribute both in ship actions and combat. The crew capacity of a ship is determined by its class. Additional sailors can be transported aboard a ship, but they are treated as passengers and can neither contribute as ABS nor replace wounded ABS.
Officer Capacity: The officer capacity of a ship represents the maximum number of officers that can work aboard the ship at a time and contribute both in ship actions and towards the ship’s six ability scores. The officer capacity of a ship is determined by its grade. Additional skilled personnel can be transported aboard a ship, but they are treated as passengers and can neither contribute as offices nor lend their expertise in an efficient manner. The Office capacity of each grade of ship is shown in the table below:

Ship Grade	Officer Capacity
Lugger	1
Sloop	3
Brigantine	6
Frigate	9
Titan	12

Cargo Capacity: The cargo capacity of a ship represents the amount of supplies, loot, and general stuff that the ship has the space to hold. It is measured in tonnes, and each tonne is represented by a square in the ship’s cargo hold, managed by the Steward or Cook. A ship carrying more than 80% of its cargo capacity loses its highest speed tier. A ship carrying more than 100% of its cargo capacity moves at half speed. A ship carrying more than 120% its cargo capacity has disadvantage on all saving throws, ability checks, and attack rolls that use Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution. A ship carrying more than 150% of its cargo capacity sinks.
Top Speed: The top speed of a ship represents the limit of how fast it can move both in and out of combat. The boat's current speed can be adjusted by use of the raise/lower sails action to anywhere between zero and the Top Speed. It is possible for the ship to temporarily exceed its max speed through outfitting and magic, but this is generally impossible to pull off for a long enough time to be useful out of combat. The top speed of a ship is determined by its hull class.
Speed Change Cost: The speed change cost of a ship is the number of ABS that must be spent in order to change the current speed of the ship by 1 in either direction when taking the raise/lower sails action. The speed change cost of a ship is determined by its hull class.
Turning Cost: The Turning cost of a ship is the number of ABS that must be spend in order to turn the ship 1 face in either direction during movement when taking the turn rudder action. The turning cost of a ship is determined by its hull class.

Playing A Ship

While your crew of PCs is sailing the seven seas, you will not be playing as your characters, rather you will collectively be playing as the ship. You can think of a sailing ship as you would a normal character in that it has movement and actions on its turn, and makes skill checks. A ship makes different skill checks than a player character would. Keep in mind that a ship has no proficiency bonus, and so does not add one to any of its calculations.
In combat, your ship has a movement and multiple actions.
The ship's movement has a set speed and must be performed all at once, the ship cannot take actions other than raise/lower sails and turn rudder during movement, and the movement cannot be skipped or ended early; the sails propel the ship to its current speed regardless.
The ship's actions are determined by what officers are avaliable to give orders, and how many Able Bodied Seamen (ABS) are avaliable to carry them out. The ship can take multiple actions per turn, but only if it has an officer avaliable to order that particular action and the ABS to pay the action's cost that turn.
More information about these mechanics can be found on the Ship Combat and Crew pages.
Outside of combat the ship must make regular checks to successfully navigate the seven seas, manage its supplies, handle conflict between the crew, and weather environmental obstacles. The ship's crew will consume rations, and supplies may be spent on repairs or resolving conflicts.
The ship must dock at a port with a shipyard in order to be fully repaired past its repair thresholds or to be refitted with different outfitting equipment. A ship is both valuable and vulnerable, and must be protected while not at sea. While crew can be ordered to nominally assist the PCs in their land-bound adventures, it is wise to leave a large enough contingent with the ship to protect and maintain it while it is docked.
Resources about historical ships and sailing:
https://www.safe-skipper.com/wooden-boat-hulls/
https://csphistorical.com/2016/01/24/salt-pork-ships-biscuit-and-burgoo-sea-provisions-for-common-sailors-and-pirates-part-1/
https://corsairsandcaptivesblog.com/shipbuilding-in-the-sixteenth-seventeenth-centuries-part-1/
https://youtu.be/3pYqXrFx6S8?si=Yy6-HLXC3z_RWBGu