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4 years ago ::
Oct 12, 2009 - 8:07PM
#1
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Date Joined:
Aug 17, 2007
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Curious as to what sort of rules you would use to address when a PC takes the helm of a ship. Perhaps a PC needs to steer a ship into a harbor choked with the debris of several wrecks. A PC may need to a handle a ship in a storm or in the event of a battle. And how about rules for the pursuit of ships... The party leaves one of the islands in a hurry and has to run a gauntlet of enemy ships to reach open sea.
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4 years ago ::
Oct 14, 2009 - 6:35AM
#2
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Date Joined:
Dec 13, 2008
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If I am not mistaken, the Manual of the Planes and PHB together discuss how to adress this. It doesn't cover naval BATTLE rules, but simple movement and control of the ship; things like that are covered.
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4 years ago ::
Oct 14, 2009 - 7:10PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Aug 17, 2007
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I own the PHB and hunted for suggestions but found nothing. Maunal of the Planes I do not own. I downloaded a WOTC adventure using arcane Dwarven submarines (can't recall the name just now) and hoped it would shed some light on PCs as pilots of assorted vessels. No luck! I suppose an NPC could always act as pilot of a ship but it makes it much more fun if the PC can grab the wheel and save the day!
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4 years ago ::
Oct 16, 2009 - 8:02AM
#4
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Date Joined:
Sep 19, 2007
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Adventurer's Vault has vehicles, and im pretty sure vehicle rules.
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4 years ago ::
Oct 16, 2009 - 5:02PM
#5
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Date Joined:
Aug 17, 2007
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I have Adventures Vault but I don't recall it provided rules for the operation of vehicles just the vehicles themselves. I also noticed that the Iomandra setting is using old Spelljammer ships! Now in the days of Spelljamming these vehicles had a "helm" that required the pilot to be a spellcaster. Control of the vechicle used spells as a power source. Now of course these clever ships need not have the same power source in the Iomandra setting. I am curious to discover what powers them be it spells, rituals, devices or just mundane forces. Jim Holloway created such wonderful art with these ships!
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4 years ago ::
Oct 17, 2009 - 1:21PM
#6
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Date Joined:
May 26, 2009
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As I recall, I think the Adventurer's Vault and the Manual of the Plans are the two books you can use to consider vehicle movement.... I don't believe there is really anything too coordinated, as far as the rules go, for running ship/vehicle battles. But then again, does there need to be? If there were cannons in the game then perhaps... Actually that is a question I have, is there supposed to be gun powder and cannons in this nautical adventure? Or was it intended to be more Conan-esque, with arrows being fired from both ships until they meet and board one another's ship, where they have melee battle on the high sea? ...hmmm...
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4 years ago ::
Oct 18, 2009 - 8:14PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Aug 17, 2007
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Can anyone site pages and WotC book reference for me? I don't have access to all the books but do own a good number of 4E texts.
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4 years ago ::
Oct 19, 2009 - 8:08AM
#8
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Date Joined:
Dec 13, 2008
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I can once I get home; my books are in my catalogue case. I do believe that the Adventurer's Vault does cover how vehicle travel rules work. It does not address vehicle battles per se. If the GM and players choose to operate the combat as ranged combat, its somewhat doable, but melee players are rather less useful. Otherwise, you might treat vehicle combat as using ballistae, cannons, Greek fire, or something similar as a skill challenge.
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4 years ago ::
Oct 19, 2009 - 5:09PM
#9
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Date Joined:
Aug 17, 2007
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Thanks! I remeber reading that section and it seemed to me that no metion of steering or piloting the craft was offered. In a way it seemed like just everyone could take the helm and control the ship. Of course I read it when it first came out and could be wrong.
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4 years ago ::
Oct 22, 2009 - 10:52AM
#10
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Date Joined:
Jun 12, 2007
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I think you're right in that they removed using a skill to pilot a ship for the most part, so I don't think you're going to find that in the book. I believe the suggestions made for anyone looking for Profession: Sailor type skill from the past editions is to just have the ship sail without any dice checks, but to use skill checks when extraordinary circumstances come along. I think there's an example of such a skill check in the Ashen Crown module for Eberron - sorry, it's been awhile since I skimmed it.
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