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4 years ago ::
Oct 22, 2009 - 4:55PM
#11
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So for the most part, the ships in Io'mandra are controlled magically. We get bonuses* for piloting ships through a magic circle you can pay to have inscribed in a wheelhouse. Or you could do it yourself, if you had the ritual. Chris doesn't have us spend a lot of time making checks for piloting, and I'm really, really thankful for that. I'm the ship's navigator (my character started life as a Star Pact warlock, and while I'm a chaos sorcerer now, I kept his fascination with stars and navigation as a fun character hook), and we've had to do some basic Nature checks and Int checks for navigating between islands. I'm not trained in Nature, but I think Chris might treat me as trained for the purpose of navigation checks, simply because of my background. I don't know that for sure, though.  If not, that's a pretty good idea... Anyway, in combat, we also tend to ignore piloting rolls, mostly because of the magic circles, I think. And also because none of the folks in the game are realist gamers. We'd rather focus on other aspects of the game than whether we're tacking properly. Chris makes simple speed comparison checks between vessels to see who can catch who in a chase, and if something unique comes up, he's used skill challenges. There is one case where we make regular checks aboard ship: Firing the awesome ballistas and the double catapult (all fire magic ammunition so we don't need to carry any) that we shelled out 50k for. I love this system. We focus on the parts of ship to ship combat we're interested in, and hand wave the rest.
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4 years ago ::
Oct 22, 2009 - 6:25PM
#12
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Date Joined:
Aug 17, 2007
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Thanks for your help! The arcane ritual of controling the ships sounds interesting. I could see using a Arcana as the key skill to control the ship. A Nature skill check for mundane ships without the arcane helm is fine too. Just wondered how you could do a version of Han Solo piloting through an asteroid belt theme with ships chasing through a maze of coral heads and debris? Perhaps using a combo of Pirates of the Crimson Coast pocket models and table top maps for boarding actions for the visual effects. Now how to handle the rules should a ship not have an enchanted circle???
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4 years ago ::
Oct 23, 2009 - 9:55AM
#13
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Date Joined:
Aug 10, 2005
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I'd think a skill challenge would be in order for something like that. Failures (i.e. the TIE fighters in the movie blowing their skill attempt) would result in damage (since they had no shield and were fairly fragile...) Another resource you might want to look at is the Scales of War adventure Garaitha's Anvil. It has a really awesome sounding aerial battle that might help give ideas for use in a naval battle (since it involves astral craft). I think this adventure is the one that made me say I absolutely want to run this adventure path and I want to start as soon as the rest of the group allows me to Currently about to start adventure 3 so that's still a ways off.
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4 years ago ::
Oct 23, 2009 - 1:34PM
#14
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Date Joined:
Aug 17, 2007
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Great suggestion! I will check out the Avil and see what I can gather!
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4 years ago ::
Nov 15, 2009 - 2:19PM
#15
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Date Joined:
Oct 25, 2006
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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.
The rules for vehicles are in the Adventurer's Vault pages 15-17. To operate the ship you simply have to be in control of the pilot/driver postion and use a move action - no feat required.
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3 years ago ::
Jan 31, 2010 - 10:24AM
#16
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Date Joined:
Aug 17, 2007
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I suppose if the vehicle is magic you could use an Arcana check to say avoid a series of coral heads during a combat. If the ship is non-magical perhaps a Wisdom check to avoid a hazzard?
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