Ship Stuff

Various rules dealing with ships.

Boating Rolls

Whenever a boating rolls is required for a ship (dealing with a storm, sailing in ship to ship combat), draw a card to determine who makes the boating roll:

Spade or Clubs: Captain

Diamond or Heart: Crew (average rounded down to next die of the boating skill of all crew members, including PCs.)

The group not making the roll (captain or the crew) can make an assist roll to help the primary roller.

Hiring Crew

The maximum skill level for hiring crew is set by the GM based on your port (a small village might have a d6 max, a big city a d10). A successful Streetwise role will let you find crew that is one higher, while a raise will let it go 2 higher.

Each crew mate has a monthly cost equal to the total of their skills x 2. Eg A crew mate with d6 Boating and a d6 fighting costs (6+6) x 2 = 24 per month. Specialized crew mates (Healer, Cook, etc.) cost x4 rather than x2.

For named henchman that get full stats, they get a full share of the plunder.

Time at Sea

Navigation: For simplicity, a ship can move in a day a distance on the Shackles map equal to it’s top speed. Figure out the total days required for the planned trip and then make a boating roll. On a raise, the trip takes 25% less time. On a failure it takes 25% more time. Modifiers to this roll (staying close to shore, bad weather, GM dickishness).

Morale: Each week spent at sea requires the First Mate to make a morale roll for the crew (Persuasion or Intimidate). Any ship entertainment may assist this roll (a musician can make a performance, cook makes a cooking roll). This roll is at an additional -1 for each week at sea and other factors (no wind, low on food, GM dickishness).

On a failure, the crew loses morale and all boating rolls are at -1 (this affects both crew and captain boating rolls). At -3 morale, the crew mutinies. A level of moral is healed by spending 2 days in port or paying the crew montly fee as a bonus.

Finding Prey

Each week at sea, a boating roll is made to see if any suitable ships can be found. A success finds 1, a raise finds 2.

A Notice roll can be made by the lookout to gauge number of crew on board. A Knowledge (Ships) or Common Knowledge at -2, can be rolled to recognize the ship, it's home country, and get some gauge on their cargo and fighting abilities.

Ship to Ship Combat

Making Contact

Ships spot each other at a long distance and it can take many, many hours to close that distance. Ship to ship combat begins in the "making contact" phase.

Rounds: Each round of Making Contact takes 8 hours - 2 daytime phases and 1 nighttime phase. In daytime rounds, both ships make a boating roll. If the pursuer wins by 4 or more, they have made contact and we go to the "Closing" chase. If the fleeing ship wins by 4 or more, they have escaped. In nighttime rounds, the pursuing ship has to make a boating roll at -2 to continue the pursuit. A success means the chase continues the next day while a failure indicates the other ship escaped during the night.

(Probably needs some modifiers for ship speed, magic (gusts of wind type stuff), encumbrance of the ship)

Closing

Once a ship successfully makes contact, a chase ensues to Close the distance between the ships. Each round of closing takes 1 hour. The closing chase has 5 zones:

Escape

Long - 96 squares

Medium - 48 squares

Short - 24 squares

Boarding

The Closing chase starts at Medium range. The boats make opposing boating rolls. On a success (4 more than the other boat), the range increases/decreases by 1 (so if the pursuer wins, they chase moves to the next shorter zone. If the fleeing ship wins, the chase moves to the zone farther out). If you beat the opposing boat by 8, the chase moves two zones.

If the chase reaches the boarding zone, a boarding action can start. If the chase reaches the escape zone, the fleeing ship has escaped.

A ship or character on a ship can attack each round as well either before or after doing movement. Normally, only the front or rear mounted weapons can be used. You can take a -2 to the boating roll to bring your side mounted weapons to bear instead. A character that is part of the crew (or the captain), can’t attack - they are busy doing all the boating.

Damage to a ship that equals toughness requires a boating roll or take -2 on next boating roll. Each raise above toughness also applies a wound to the opposing ship & a critical hit is rolled (1d6):

1-3: Hull or other non-special location.

4: Sails. Top speed is reduced by 2 until repaired.

5: Rigging. Boating rolls are at -1 until repaired.

6: Crew member hit. Roll randomly for everyone on deck.

Ship Weapons

Catapult: 50/100/200, 4d6, AP10, Heavy, RoF 1/3

Ballista: 25/50/100, 3d8, AP4, RoF1

Most ships are Heavy Armor. A non-heavy weapon can damage sails or sailors on deck, but can't hurt the ship itself.

Ship Locations

1:

2:

3:

4:

5:

6:

Repairs

Damage suffered in combat may only be repaired at a dry-dock. There are dry-docks in all of the major ports.

This typically takes 1d4 days per wound or critical hit to be fixed and both wounds and critical hits must be repaired separately. The cost is 10 times the ship’s base Toughness, per wound or critical to be repaired.

Boarding & Combat

Once the Closing chase gets to the Boarding distance, you can board and attack the other ship. This will be carried out using the normal mass battle rules. The Master Gunner (or whichever character has the highest Knowledge(Battle) skill) makes the rolls. There are a couple tweaks:

• • The initial Boarding action is dangerous. The Knowledge (Battle) roll is made at -2 for the attacker.

  • The difference in fighting die between the crews will be a minus to the weaker fighters.eg. If the attackers average a d8 on fighting while the defenders have a d6, the attackers would get +1.

  • Morale is only rolled for a side that is losing by 3 or more tokens. Otherwise, they fight on. Since the crew doesn’t have spirit, the First Mate makes his Intimidate/Persuasion.

  • I find the consequences to characters to be too severe. Change to 2d6 damage on a failure, 2d6 on a success, 1d6 on a raise, no damage on double raise. This can still explode though.

Heroic Captain: Some ships are captained by mundane NPCs and the battle is over when the mass battle is done. Other ships are captained by heroic NPCs that the PCs will have to personally defeat (all PCs versus whatever GM NPCs are worthy) to win the battle. At the top of the round, the mass battle round is resolved and the PC/NPC actions are resolved in initiative order. A PC can join the mass battle or the heroic battle - not both in the same round. A bonus benny is awarded to whichever side does better each round in the mass battle which the PC/NPCs can then use that round.

Infamy

As a group, your reputation in the Fever Seas influences how people react to you and pirates with more infamy enjoy certain spoils.

Just one infamy score is tracked for the group and works the same way XP does for a character. To gain infamy, you have to do worthwhile pirate things (for simplicity, we’re not going to allow lying about your reputation) and you have to go to a port to brag about those things. In a port, you make a Streetwise roll to brag about your exploits (assist with perform, spending money, other ideas?). On a success, your infamy gets an advance.

Limitations: You can only get one advance per rank per port (like ability score advancements). At higher infamy, you need to be bragging at bigger ports. At higher infamy, you need to do more impressive things. A group’s infamy cannot exceed the captain’s XP.

Things you can do with infamy:

• • Get edges for your ship. See Pirates of the Spanish Main. (Limit 1 per rank I’m thinking, does not require players to use an edge)

  • Reputation point in a port (usable for streetwise, persuasion)

  • Favored fence in a port - +10% to your plunder sales

  • Crew benny

  • Other ideas?

(What other ports in the Fever Seas exist? Need more on the map.)

Plunder

We won’t worry about specific goods or any supply/demand economy. Ships simply have a “cargo space” rating that can be filled with plunder. In a port, you sell units of plunder for a set amount - usually $500 per unit. A Streetwise roll is made in port, on a success you get +10%, +20% with a raise. (We’ll see if this math works out)

Limitations: Some ports may have higher/lower costs. Smaller ports might not be able to buy all you have for sale.

Underwater Combat

Pace: Half your swimming die. Choppy water is rough terrain. Can’t run.

Holding Your Breath: Vigor die x 4 if relaxed, x2 in combat. Halve that if you went in unprepared. After that Vigor roll each round, cumulative -1, gaining fatigue each failure.

Armor: Any armor bonus is subtracted from swimming rolles, in addition to weight penalties. Discarding armor takes armor bonus x 2 rounds.

Weapons: Ranged don’t work. Thrusting weapons have no penalty. Other weapons lose 1 die type of strength and 1 die type of damage (so a Str d8 + Axe d6 weapon would be d6+d4 underwater).