Determine Distance
1d10 per space moved
Determine Rations (Max 20 days).
if no rations, ENDURANCE
+23: You push through another day
-23: Lose healing surge. If you do not have one, 1d6 damage
Determine Air Supply (Max 20 days)
if no air,
NATURE
+23: you spot a small space spore to extend for another 8 hours
+31: you find small asteroid with enough atmosphere to supply ship for another day
-23: you die at the end of the day. Roll encounter.
ARCANA
+23: you are able to pull reserved oxygen from outer hull of ship, for 8 hours more.
+31: you are able to pull reserved oxygen from outer hull of ship, for 24 hours more.
-23: you die at the end of the day. Roll encounter.
ENDURANCE all players must roll
+23: you slow your breathing down enough to allow for 2 more hours of air.
+31: you slow your breathing down enough to allow for 4 more hours of air.
-23: you die at the end of the day. Roll encounter.
Roll Encounter
Chance of Encounter (All modifiers are cumulative.)
=1: Encounter Table
+2: Fly the Ship
Fly the Ship!
Perception
Nature
Dexterity/Thievery
Endurance/Dungeoneering
Arcana
PERCEPTION Surveying from the crow’s nest. Predictably, this task requires a Perception check, since it’s chiefly about watching for changing conditions on the sea.
+31: Your exceptional attentiveness helps the ship to respond quickly to changing conditions, avoiding even minor hazards that might slow the ship’s progress. Your attentiveness subtracts 8 hours from the overall length of the journey.
+23: You do a good, but not outstanding, job as lookout, helping the ship to avoid any obvious dangers. The ship proceeds at normal speed.
-23: You do a poor job as lookout, allowing the ship to blunder into various minor hazards. Your inattentiveness slows the ship’s progress, adding 8 hours the the trip.
NATURE // Navigating based on available information. This task involves observation of the weather, reading nautical charts, and so froth, so it requires a Nature check.
+31: Your sensitivity to small changes in the weather and the flow of the sea and wind currents helps the crew maximize travel efficiency. Your sensitivity speeds the ship’s progress and subtracts 8 hours from the overall length of the journey.
+23: You do a good, but not outstanding, job of tracking changes in variables such as sea currents, windstreams, and the like. The ship proceeds at normal speed.
-23: You misread the signs of nature, the notations on your nautical charts, or both. Your mistakes slow the ship’s progress, adding 8 hours to the overall length of the journey.
STRENGTH // Piloting the ship. This task requires both physical strength to handle the helm and quick reactions to adjust to changing conditions, so I made it a Strength check + Dexterity modifier.
+31: You handle the helm with lightning reflexes and swift, sure responses to all navigational input, speeding the ship’s progress. Your excellent steering subtracts 8 hours from the overall length of the journey.
+31: You manage to keep the rudder under control and respond promptly to all navigational input, which allows the ship to proceed at normal speed.
+31:Your clumsy handling of the helm slows the ship’s progress, adding 8 hours to the overall length of the journey.
DEXTERITY // Trimming the sails. This task involves a lot of manual dexterity, such as the tying and untying of various knots, so Thievery seemed most appropriate.
+31:Your handling of the ropes and mechanisms that control the ship’s sails is quick and sure. Your nimble fingers speed the ship’s progress and subtract 8 hours from the overall length of the journey.
+23: You do a good, but not outstanding, job of handling the ropes and mechanisms that control the ship’s sails. The ship proceeds at normal speed.
-23: Your clumsy handling of the ropes and mechanisms that control the ship’s sails causes the ship to veer off course on more than one occasion. Your bumbling slows the ship’s progress, adding 8 hours to the overall length of the journey.
ENDURANCE // Swabbing the decks. This task mainly requires a strong back and resistance to boredom, so I called in an Endurance check.
+31: Your attention to detail and untiring efforts keep the main and castle decks so neat and tidy that other crew members do their jobs with greater efficiency. Your perseverance speeds the ship’s progress, and subtracts 8 hours from the overall length of the journey.
+23: You do a competent, but not outstanding, job of keeping the decks clear and free of the clutter and debris tossed up by the sea in the normal operation of the ship. The ship proceeds at normal speed.
-23: You do a poor job of keeping the decks clear, actually increasing clutter by your incompetence. The resulting inefficient performance of other crew members’ tasks slows the ship’s progress, adding 8 hours to the overall length of the journey.
DUNGEONEERING // Performing minor maintenance and repair. Dungeoneering for this one, figuring that concepts like “structural integrity” were key to performing this task well. This is probably the poorest fit of skill and task in this challenge, but it seemed a better fit than anything else.
+31: You find and fix problems with the ship’s hull and other structures before they become evident to most observers, helping the ship travel with greater efficiency. Your proactive contributions subtract 8 hours from the overall length of the journey.
+23: You do a competent job of mending rails, replacing worn or rotted planks, splicing ropes, scraping barnacles, mending sails, and similar tasks. You keep the ship running at normal speed.
-23: You make a number of mistakes while performing various maintenance tasks around the ship, fixing things that aren’t broken and, in some cases, making things worse. Your incompetence requires other crew members to redo your work, slowing the ship’s progress and adding 8 hours to the overall length of the journey.
ARCANA Powering the ship.
+31 speed the ship up gaining eight hours
+23 you do an adequate job of powering ship, you stay on schedule
-23 you do a poor job of supplying power, add eight hours to trip "
General Shipboard Actions
The following skills can be applied to nearly any shipboard emergency.
•Arcana: Identify performance capabilities of the ship, operate the aether drive, repair the ship.
•Acrobatics: Perform stunts requiring precarious climbing up, down, or through the ship’s masts and rigging. Tumble through falling obstacles to secure a critical piece of equipment knocked loose in the struggle.
•Athletics: Momentarily hold stressed or breaking ship pieces in place. Man the ship’s helm, executing audacious maneuvers or steering the vessel in the face of great resistance.
•Arcana: Pour additional magical fuel into the engines, momentarily (and dangerously) increasing the vessel’s speed or maneuverability (to compensate for missing crew members, for instance). Lose one healing surge.
•Endurance: Perform tasks while battered and nearly destroyed; survive with minimal food and water after supplies are lost or stolen.
•History: Identify oncoming vessels by size and configuration, naming the origin and likely intentions of their crews.
•Nature: Investigate celestial bodies like planets, asteroids, and comets, predict the orbits of celestial bodies (basically, what we call Astronomy in the real world).
•Perception: Spot trouble before it starts, determine the weak point in an enemy’s hull, or see a creature’s vulnerability.
Chase
When the crew of one vessel tries to engage and the other tries to escape, a chase ensues. If you know that a fight will ensue when one vessel catches up to the other, resolve the chase as a single Athletics check by the character at the helm. In instances when the conclusion of the chase won’t necessarily lead to ship combat, run the chase sequence as a skill challenge of its own.
•Arcana: Spot astral eddies to gain increased speed; locate nebulae or other astral bodies to hide behind; find portals allowing magical teleport to another sector of the sea.
•Insight: Determine the intentions of the enemy ship.
•Intimidate: Maneuver the ship aggressively, making the other guy flinch, granting combat advantage (save ends)
•Nature: Spot or avoid schools of astral creatures that impede navigation.
•Stealth: Plot a confusing course while fleeing; identify a confusing course laid in by a fleeing vessel.
Conquering Enemy Vessels
In a skill challenge to board and overrun an enemy vessel, the characters contend for the opportunity to stage a fight on the enemy crew’s deck. If they lose, the targets successfully disengage before a fight can occur. Alternatively, a lost challenge could result in the fight occurring on the characters’ ship. Victorious invaders not only defeat their opponents, but can then seize control of the vessel.
•Arcana: Identify performance capabilities of the enemy ship, operate the aether drive, repair the ship, study the universe and how it relates to planar alignment and the effects of the universe on magic.
•Acrobatics: Use a piece of loose rigging to swing onto the target deck.
•Insight: Determine the intentions of the enemy ship.
•Intimidate: Maneuver the ship aggressively, making the other guy flinch, granting combat advantage (save ends)
•Nature: Investigate celestial bodies like planets, asteroids, and comets, predict the orbits of celestial bodies (basically, what we call Astronomy in the real world).
•Stealth: Sneak aboard from a different direction to achieve surprise.
Allow movement attacks and racial powers to substitute for skills as the logic of the scene permits. For movement powers such as fey step, where no skill modifier pertains, ask for an Arcana check to determine if the character’s "aim" is correct, or treat the use of the power as an automatic success.
Interactions With Rival Crews
•Arcana: Identify performance capabilities of the enemy ship, operate the aether drive, repair the ship, study the universe and how it relates to planar alignment and the effects of the universe on magic.
•Bluff: Fool targets into thinking you're an ally, letting you act unexpectedly and achieve surprise.
•Diplomacy: Pursuade adversaries to not attack you; determine how much to bribe to secure your freedom should things go sour.
•Insight: Determine the intentions of the enemy ship.
•Intimidate: Persuade potential adversaries that it'll hurt them more than it'll hurt you.
•Insight: Identify crews intending to attack you when they're appearing friendly; make an important mental connection about a ship and its tactics.
•Nature: Investigate celestial bodies like planets, asteroids, and comets, predict the orbits of celestial bodies (basically, what we call Astronomy in the real world).
Disable or Destroy Enemy Vessels
•Arcana: Use onboard magical weaponry (if available) to modify arcane ranged and area attacks to damage ships from a distance. This check allows subsequent uses of the attack powers themselves. Expending a daily arcane power grants a +5 bonus to the attack roll.
•Insight: Determine the intentions of the enemy ship.
•Intimidate: Maneuver the ship aggressively, making the other guy flinch, granting combat advantage (save ends)
•Nature: Investigate celestial bodies like planets, asteroids, and comets, predict the orbits of celestial bodies (basically, what we call Astronomy in the real world).
•Religion: Same as above, but for divine powers.
•Weapon Attack: Damage ships using onboard siege engines.
Repulse Boarding Attempts
•Arcana: Identify performance capabilities of the enemy ship, operate the aether drive, repair the ship, study the universe and how it relates to planar alignment and the effects of the universe on magic.
•Bluff: Lure an invader into making a false step or into a trap.
•Insight: Determine the intentions of the enemy ship.
•Intimidate: Maneuver the ship aggressively, making the other guy flinch, granting combat advantage (save ends)
•Stealth: Surprise an invader trying to move between vessels, shoving the target overboard.
Avoiding Navigational Hazards
•Arcana: Operate the ship's instruments to detect the hazards.
•Endurance: Physically shielding an ally from the effects of the hazard and bearing the brunt of the effects yourself.
•History: Reveal the locations of the hazards to avoid.
•Nature: Predict oncoming weather conditions by observing changes in the astral eddies, wind and wildlife. Investigate celestial bodies like planets, asteroids, and comets, predict the orbits of celestial bodies (basically, what we call Astronomy in the real world).
•Religion: Sensing divine energy indicating past or present activities of deities and thei agents; identify mystic runes left over from the Dawn War.