Alcino
2008-10-08, 08:16 AM
I'm implementing a naval warfare system in my campaign and I'm looking for inspiration and feedback. These forums have always been a nice place for that.
My campaign world is pretty well-defined, so I need to do this by the numbers if I don't want my players to revolt or something. Here are the Core Assumptions of my world (DMG 4E p. 150):
The World Is a Fantastic Place. Pretty much as written. Magic is quite common.
The World is Ancient. Well... not really. There are no "ancient civilizations" to unearth and any artifact or crumbling ruin comes from this era, and probably this millenium.
The World Is Mysterious. Parts of it still are, but the campagin-relevant parts of the world are quite well-mapped and "great empires cover huge stretches of countryside, with clearly defined borders between them".
Monsters Are Everywhere. Not really. About half of the campaign-relevant world is safe and most of it has settlements.
Adventurers Are Exceptional. They're not that much. The players have met a few. There's even an international Adventurers' Guild whose membership provides legal benefits.
The Common Races Band Together. They pretty much do. Racism situational and wars are fought over religion, ideology and expansionism.
Magic Is Not Everyday. Nah. Some towns are ruled by mages and magic item shops exist, usually part of a larger organization.
Gods and Primordials Shaped the World. Yes, but it's far from a concern.
Gods Are Distant. Quite. Their business is dealt with by their followers and the only celestial creatures are summoned ones.
The campaign is more than three years old but has been converted to 4th edition with little trouble and great benefit. Having all classes on equal footing makes all of my players relevant and the monster categories (role and worth)... anyway, that's not the point.
My campaign revolves around an ongoing war between two small nations, one united under the Church of Heironeious and the other under the Church of Hextor (respectively equivalent to Bahamut and Bane in 4E). They've been at war for over 150 years, back when the Heironeious representatives were a bunch of adventurers and the Hextor ones were an expanding cult.
(WARNING: OPTIONAL BACKSTORY EXPOSURE)
The players are firmly in the Heironeious camp. The Heroic stage ended with them being given titles by the King and the Paragon stage is underway and should end along with the war. An Epic continuation is planned from the beginning but carefully kept under wraps. You know, major plot twists and the like. I'm patient.
Very early in the campaign (like, three years ago in real life), the players, setting off from the capital, had not even reached the war and were busy getting the trust of a Thieves' Guild. They were sent on a mission to recapture a stolen ship prototype from enemy pirates in a hidden base. Anyway, they succeeded, kept the loot and left the ship with the trading-hub-coastal-city-based Guild. Shortly after, they left for the war front.
Some time ago (what, 1 year in real life?), the players passed by the coastal city on their way elsewhere and paid a visit to their Guild friends. The Guild had pretty much kept the prototype hidden in the old pirate base so as not to attract to much attention. The Guild is in good terms with the local authorities, but the ship could potentially be recognized by a foreign fleet and cause trouble, so they're not using it.
At some point since then, one of the players (as a mutual agreement, for story purposes) has been dominated out of the blue by who-knows-who and no one in the party noticed anything out of the ordinary, the domination being very subtle in execution. A few weeks later (and by a random dice roll to determine target), that player was coincidentally possessed by a ghost, prompting a protection from evil spell from the party sorcerer. This revealed the domination as the player frantically explained what it entailed and how they should never tell him about it, instead waiting for an opportunity to reverse it. He then drank a potion that erased his last 5 minutes' worth of memory.
Right now, things have taken a turn for the worse as the plot unfolded. The dominated character, well-trained in Perspicacity, anticipated his party's move. The initiative-boosted mage rolled poorly (twice) while the (usually last) dominated character went first, easily escaping. In less than one day, he was back at the main army encampment with "proof" of the party's "treason" (solid, too). The (remaining) party (with a story-relevant replacement) escaped to the only teleportation circle not in either allied or hostile territory, one north of the front in a big neutral city that supplies both armies with magic items. Unfortunately, within one hour, they had to escape that city too as the authorities turned against them for some reason (all will be made clear...).
The party decided they'd just go west for one day and a half, reaching the also-neutral and teleportation-circle-deprived coastal city where their old Thieves' Guild friends keep a boat prototype.
So... the players are about to acquire that very boat prototype. As established three real-life years ago, it's a residuum-fueled ship with one paddle wheel on each side. It's somewhere between 3 and 5 squares large and 8 to 16 squares long (can't find the three-year old map). Anyway, it's big enough to serve as a base of operations, it's faster and especially more maneuverable than other ships and has enough place for some artillery. While such an acquisition can be campagin-changing, I intend to go with it for three reasons:
1. It's cool. Getting your own boat in any RPG is a thrilling moment. It's even more thrilling if your ship has something special and if there are game rules to make sure you're in full control of its capabilities (so no random story-based shipwrecking).
2. It's... needed. The party has just made a powerful enemy and has nowhere it can stay while remaining relevant to the story. The last, like, seven games have been quite hectic, so it's about time to release some tension. A fast ship that can keep them away from threats for a small while will be welcome.
3. It'll be totally useful. The party has know for a while that the allied army (that now considers them traitors, but anyways) is planning an attack on a peninsula held by the enemy. The attack should start in four days, but the party has learned that the enemy has secretly allied with sahuagin to repel the invaders, making the assault potentially doomed to failure. Having their very own war-ready ship will allow the players to go to the front and make a difference there even though both the ally and enemy armies will be against them.
(END OPTIONAL BACKSTORY EXPOSURE.)
After thinking about it a while and reading about others' implementation of naval combat in their campaign, I decided I want a full-fledged system. I want ship speed, maneuverability, artillery and all that. I want encounters where the players only control their ship, firing on enemies and maybe closing in for boarding. I want them to take enemy artillery and install it on their ship; if they're up to it, even take whole ships.
Here's what I have in mind. Some of it is pretty much set in stone as far as my campaign is concerned, but I'm really open to discussion and criticism.
Stats
Ships should have the obvious stats, like speed and defenses, However, for those who have looked at the vehicles in the Adventurer's Vault, I think that the official rules on boats are entirely inappropriate. A swarm of archers could down the biggest boat in rounds. Also, ships do not nearly have the maneuverability depicted in those rules. Something the rules do quite well, though, is the crew requirements.
So I need different stats. One's that's easy to implement is acceleration/deceleration. Every round, a ship's speed can be increased or decreased by its acceleration value. Some emergency maneuvers, like dropping the anchor, can bypass that value. The players' ship might even have a once-per-encounter "boost".
I figure a maneuverability stat might make ship-to-ship battles more interesting, but as of now, I'm not sure how to implement it. Ships will obviously have facing, so maybe the stat could dictate what angle a ship can turn in a round. Heavy ships could even have to "prepare to turn" by spending a round getting ready to turn in a particular direction. Maneuverability could also be influenced by speed, but that might be taking things too far.
While less important, ships should also have a measure of draft. Probably just a category. Low-draft ships can access shores while high-draft ships can access the open ocean.
Each ship has a crew requirement for maximum efficiency. Most ships will lose maneuverability and perhaps speed if they're not fully crewed.
While I fully endorse that player HP has little impact on their fighting capability, I think that ships should be affected by HP loss. Until the ship is "Bloodied", which I will call "Leaking", there are no adverse effects. A Leaking ship, hoever, could take ongoing damage unless a certain amount of crew members are assigned to preventing this. A ship could also have something that has to do with its propulsion damaged, such as a mast for sailing ships or a wheel for the players' ship. Historically, ships were incapacitated by crew deaths and propulsion damage more often than otherwise.
A ship at 0 HP is "Dying", i.e. "Sinking": it's not irreversibly damaged. At this point, it is taking lots of ongoing damage unless many crew members are working against it and is probably slowed down, but again, maybe not.
I don't think that ships should be easier to hit from the side than form, say, the front. While in real life, it's obviously that way, shots to the front ro rear were also more damaging if they hit, which could even out in the rules as a welcom simplification.
A stat which I'm still working on is reliance on wind. I think it is entirely possible to devise a clean system that provides realistic wind rules, but at worst, wind will simply be a "forced movement" that applies at the end of sailing ships' turns.
Ship classes
Anything medieval goes, I suppose, but I would probably scale them down. Late galleons could carry up to 74 pieces of artillery, which is slightly deadly and maybe inappropriate. Not to mention the crew size of bigger ships, which would make them a very big threat to players.
I'd go with smaller ships, probably with caravels, cogs and carracks as the main sizes. Caravels were small, maneuverable coastal ships. Cogs were early medieval ships with small crew requirements that were not confined to coastlines. Caracks were pretty much their direct evolution, with new engineering that allowed for bigger ship sizes and thus better open ocean faring. Both were quite war-worthy, with optional fore and stern castles.
Galleons were even bigger and more maneuverable, which is why they pretty much replaced everything else. I don't want that. Maybe an enemy flagship could be an early galleon, giving players a long-term objective.
I also thought about galleys, but I don't want to deal with the moral implications about killing possibly innocent oarsmen when sinking their ship. I prefer when everyone aboard an enemy ship is evil, leaving moral choices for other, specific situations. Anyway, oars take out space better used by artillery.
I am considering giving my campaign's ships modern names even though they are based on medieval designs. Thus, corvettes and frigates would be the main sizes.
That's for realism, anyway. D&D being fantastic, there are tons of other options.
Flying mount carriers. Not nearly as big as aircraft carriers, but same general concept. Big, slow, bad handling, need a support fleet, bring a lot of utility.
Submersibles. Any campaign where the players don't own a ship is ripe for them. Hopefully, the armadas of the world have developed countermeasures. I don't intend to include submersibles in my world because of the hassle they represent to the players.
Sea mounts. I haven't given them much thought, but they certainly have their uses.
Sea monsters! Those are totally cool. A giant squid solo encounter with individual tentacles has so much potential.
Magic-propelled ships. I don't want to go overboard with them and make the players' magic-paddle-wheeler obsolete, but a few of them can make ship-based encounters more dynamic, especially if they have some kind of advantage over the player's ship but an exploitable weakness.
Airships... nah. Maybe in the Epic tier.
Armament
Ship-to-ship (and ship-to-coastal settlement) armament is an obvious consideration. I don't think D&D worlds are quite ready for typical pirate volleys, with tons of retractable cannons on multiple bridges. After all, ballistas are still in vogue in D&D. My world has developed gunpowder, but it's more of a niche because of magic.
So I'm inclined to go with ballistas. They have a base attack to which the user adds half his level and their damage rolls are fixed. They can be magick'd the same way normal weapons can be, although special properties are specific to them. I see them in two sizes: regular ballista and bigger scoprion, with slower reload but higher damage and range.
Ships should be highly resistant to piercing damage, so cheap alchemical bolts that explode on impact should do the job as a main projectile.
I've thought about high-priced more potent alchchemical bolts but decided against them. Some players would always use the cheapest munitions and otehrs would only use the costliest. If you ask me, the best solution would be munitions that require a daily magic item use.
Obviously, ships are limited in capacity by crew size and space. They carry most of their artillery fixed on each side and sometimes install some at the front and rear, for chases.
Most of the artillery in the times of cogs and carracks was carried on-deck, but that makes the artillery users vulnerable. I prefer not worrying about individuals in long-range engagements. Let's just pretend cannon traps already exist and put ballistas on the lower decks.
Fire ships and explosion ships are cool but to be used with moderation. Don't know if they'd be appropriate.
Exotic artillery can be quite interesting. A "magic cannon" that can canalize arcane spells would probably be welcome, as are other forms of magic artillery with different properties than ballistas.
Scale
There's no way I'm using normal-sized squares for ship-to-ship encounters. Instead, if each square represents ten "normal" squares, every small-sized ship can have its own square. Medium ships can occupy four and big shiips nine, at worst.
Time should also be scaled. I think each naval round should correspond to 5 normal rounds. That way, every even ship speed is perfectly represented on the grid and base ballistas can fire, say, once per naval round.
Or each naval square could represent 20 normal squares, with one-minute rounds. I'm not entirely sold. I might even use hexes.
PC involvement
I don't think artillery use should be affected by PC skills, and the official rules seem to agree with me on this. I see, however, how a stronger PC could reload a ballista faster.
Same thing for control. Simply maneuvering a ship should not require special ability, although again, points may be made for strength or dexterity.
There are ways in which PCs can directly get involved, though, like a ritual to repair the boat, the firing of a spell through a magic cannon or perceiving an underwater hazard.
Typically, the trained crew will simply be doing its job, and the PCs' role will be to decide the course of action.
Engagements
Ships can be seen from really far away and usually have very similar speeds, so historically, there were no skirmishes, only full-fledged naval battles. No side would commit to a losing battle. This has many impacts. Every naval fight in which the players participate is likely a fair battle, for example, and chase scenes are easy to implement.
Engagements will happen when two sides are committed to battle. Sometimes, a ship's crew will try to board another ship, in which case the battle will switch to normal D&D rules for 5 rounds or more.
Okay, I'm out of steam for now. I hope that with help from the forums, a complete naval combat system can be devised.
My campaign world is pretty well-defined, so I need to do this by the numbers if I don't want my players to revolt or something. Here are the Core Assumptions of my world (DMG 4E p. 150):
The World Is a Fantastic Place. Pretty much as written. Magic is quite common.
The World is Ancient. Well... not really. There are no "ancient civilizations" to unearth and any artifact or crumbling ruin comes from this era, and probably this millenium.
The World Is Mysterious. Parts of it still are, but the campagin-relevant parts of the world are quite well-mapped and "great empires cover huge stretches of countryside, with clearly defined borders between them".
Monsters Are Everywhere. Not really. About half of the campaign-relevant world is safe and most of it has settlements.
Adventurers Are Exceptional. They're not that much. The players have met a few. There's even an international Adventurers' Guild whose membership provides legal benefits.
The Common Races Band Together. They pretty much do. Racism situational and wars are fought over religion, ideology and expansionism.
Magic Is Not Everyday. Nah. Some towns are ruled by mages and magic item shops exist, usually part of a larger organization.
Gods and Primordials Shaped the World. Yes, but it's far from a concern.
Gods Are Distant. Quite. Their business is dealt with by their followers and the only celestial creatures are summoned ones.
The campaign is more than three years old but has been converted to 4th edition with little trouble and great benefit. Having all classes on equal footing makes all of my players relevant and the monster categories (role and worth)... anyway, that's not the point.
My campaign revolves around an ongoing war between two small nations, one united under the Church of Heironeious and the other under the Church of Hextor (respectively equivalent to Bahamut and Bane in 4E). They've been at war for over 150 years, back when the Heironeious representatives were a bunch of adventurers and the Hextor ones were an expanding cult.
(WARNING: OPTIONAL BACKSTORY EXPOSURE)
The players are firmly in the Heironeious camp. The Heroic stage ended with them being given titles by the King and the Paragon stage is underway and should end along with the war. An Epic continuation is planned from the beginning but carefully kept under wraps. You know, major plot twists and the like. I'm patient.
Very early in the campaign (like, three years ago in real life), the players, setting off from the capital, had not even reached the war and were busy getting the trust of a Thieves' Guild. They were sent on a mission to recapture a stolen ship prototype from enemy pirates in a hidden base. Anyway, they succeeded, kept the loot and left the ship with the trading-hub-coastal-city-based Guild. Shortly after, they left for the war front.
Some time ago (what, 1 year in real life?), the players passed by the coastal city on their way elsewhere and paid a visit to their Guild friends. The Guild had pretty much kept the prototype hidden in the old pirate base so as not to attract to much attention. The Guild is in good terms with the local authorities, but the ship could potentially be recognized by a foreign fleet and cause trouble, so they're not using it.
At some point since then, one of the players (as a mutual agreement, for story purposes) has been dominated out of the blue by who-knows-who and no one in the party noticed anything out of the ordinary, the domination being very subtle in execution. A few weeks later (and by a random dice roll to determine target), that player was coincidentally possessed by a ghost, prompting a protection from evil spell from the party sorcerer. This revealed the domination as the player frantically explained what it entailed and how they should never tell him about it, instead waiting for an opportunity to reverse it. He then drank a potion that erased his last 5 minutes' worth of memory.
Right now, things have taken a turn for the worse as the plot unfolded. The dominated character, well-trained in Perspicacity, anticipated his party's move. The initiative-boosted mage rolled poorly (twice) while the (usually last) dominated character went first, easily escaping. In less than one day, he was back at the main army encampment with "proof" of the party's "treason" (solid, too). The (remaining) party (with a story-relevant replacement) escaped to the only teleportation circle not in either allied or hostile territory, one north of the front in a big neutral city that supplies both armies with magic items. Unfortunately, within one hour, they had to escape that city too as the authorities turned against them for some reason (all will be made clear...).
The party decided they'd just go west for one day and a half, reaching the also-neutral and teleportation-circle-deprived coastal city where their old Thieves' Guild friends keep a boat prototype.
So... the players are about to acquire that very boat prototype. As established three real-life years ago, it's a residuum-fueled ship with one paddle wheel on each side. It's somewhere between 3 and 5 squares large and 8 to 16 squares long (can't find the three-year old map). Anyway, it's big enough to serve as a base of operations, it's faster and especially more maneuverable than other ships and has enough place for some artillery. While such an acquisition can be campagin-changing, I intend to go with it for three reasons:
1. It's cool. Getting your own boat in any RPG is a thrilling moment. It's even more thrilling if your ship has something special and if there are game rules to make sure you're in full control of its capabilities (so no random story-based shipwrecking).
2. It's... needed. The party has just made a powerful enemy and has nowhere it can stay while remaining relevant to the story. The last, like, seven games have been quite hectic, so it's about time to release some tension. A fast ship that can keep them away from threats for a small while will be welcome.
3. It'll be totally useful. The party has know for a while that the allied army (that now considers them traitors, but anyways) is planning an attack on a peninsula held by the enemy. The attack should start in four days, but the party has learned that the enemy has secretly allied with sahuagin to repel the invaders, making the assault potentially doomed to failure. Having their very own war-ready ship will allow the players to go to the front and make a difference there even though both the ally and enemy armies will be against them.
(END OPTIONAL BACKSTORY EXPOSURE.)
After thinking about it a while and reading about others' implementation of naval combat in their campaign, I decided I want a full-fledged system. I want ship speed, maneuverability, artillery and all that. I want encounters where the players only control their ship, firing on enemies and maybe closing in for boarding. I want them to take enemy artillery and install it on their ship; if they're up to it, even take whole ships.
Here's what I have in mind. Some of it is pretty much set in stone as far as my campaign is concerned, but I'm really open to discussion and criticism.
Stats
Ships should have the obvious stats, like speed and defenses, However, for those who have looked at the vehicles in the Adventurer's Vault, I think that the official rules on boats are entirely inappropriate. A swarm of archers could down the biggest boat in rounds. Also, ships do not nearly have the maneuverability depicted in those rules. Something the rules do quite well, though, is the crew requirements.
So I need different stats. One's that's easy to implement is acceleration/deceleration. Every round, a ship's speed can be increased or decreased by its acceleration value. Some emergency maneuvers, like dropping the anchor, can bypass that value. The players' ship might even have a once-per-encounter "boost".
I figure a maneuverability stat might make ship-to-ship battles more interesting, but as of now, I'm not sure how to implement it. Ships will obviously have facing, so maybe the stat could dictate what angle a ship can turn in a round. Heavy ships could even have to "prepare to turn" by spending a round getting ready to turn in a particular direction. Maneuverability could also be influenced by speed, but that might be taking things too far.
While less important, ships should also have a measure of draft. Probably just a category. Low-draft ships can access shores while high-draft ships can access the open ocean.
Each ship has a crew requirement for maximum efficiency. Most ships will lose maneuverability and perhaps speed if they're not fully crewed.
While I fully endorse that player HP has little impact on their fighting capability, I think that ships should be affected by HP loss. Until the ship is "Bloodied", which I will call "Leaking", there are no adverse effects. A Leaking ship, hoever, could take ongoing damage unless a certain amount of crew members are assigned to preventing this. A ship could also have something that has to do with its propulsion damaged, such as a mast for sailing ships or a wheel for the players' ship. Historically, ships were incapacitated by crew deaths and propulsion damage more often than otherwise.
A ship at 0 HP is "Dying", i.e. "Sinking": it's not irreversibly damaged. At this point, it is taking lots of ongoing damage unless many crew members are working against it and is probably slowed down, but again, maybe not.
I don't think that ships should be easier to hit from the side than form, say, the front. While in real life, it's obviously that way, shots to the front ro rear were also more damaging if they hit, which could even out in the rules as a welcom simplification.
A stat which I'm still working on is reliance on wind. I think it is entirely possible to devise a clean system that provides realistic wind rules, but at worst, wind will simply be a "forced movement" that applies at the end of sailing ships' turns.
Ship classes
Anything medieval goes, I suppose, but I would probably scale them down. Late galleons could carry up to 74 pieces of artillery, which is slightly deadly and maybe inappropriate. Not to mention the crew size of bigger ships, which would make them a very big threat to players.
I'd go with smaller ships, probably with caravels, cogs and carracks as the main sizes. Caravels were small, maneuverable coastal ships. Cogs were early medieval ships with small crew requirements that were not confined to coastlines. Caracks were pretty much their direct evolution, with new engineering that allowed for bigger ship sizes and thus better open ocean faring. Both were quite war-worthy, with optional fore and stern castles.
Galleons were even bigger and more maneuverable, which is why they pretty much replaced everything else. I don't want that. Maybe an enemy flagship could be an early galleon, giving players a long-term objective.
I also thought about galleys, but I don't want to deal with the moral implications about killing possibly innocent oarsmen when sinking their ship. I prefer when everyone aboard an enemy ship is evil, leaving moral choices for other, specific situations. Anyway, oars take out space better used by artillery.
I am considering giving my campaign's ships modern names even though they are based on medieval designs. Thus, corvettes and frigates would be the main sizes.
That's for realism, anyway. D&D being fantastic, there are tons of other options.
Flying mount carriers. Not nearly as big as aircraft carriers, but same general concept. Big, slow, bad handling, need a support fleet, bring a lot of utility.
Submersibles. Any campaign where the players don't own a ship is ripe for them. Hopefully, the armadas of the world have developed countermeasures. I don't intend to include submersibles in my world because of the hassle they represent to the players.
Sea mounts. I haven't given them much thought, but they certainly have their uses.
Sea monsters! Those are totally cool. A giant squid solo encounter with individual tentacles has so much potential.
Magic-propelled ships. I don't want to go overboard with them and make the players' magic-paddle-wheeler obsolete, but a few of them can make ship-based encounters more dynamic, especially if they have some kind of advantage over the player's ship but an exploitable weakness.
Airships... nah. Maybe in the Epic tier.
Armament
Ship-to-ship (and ship-to-coastal settlement) armament is an obvious consideration. I don't think D&D worlds are quite ready for typical pirate volleys, with tons of retractable cannons on multiple bridges. After all, ballistas are still in vogue in D&D. My world has developed gunpowder, but it's more of a niche because of magic.
So I'm inclined to go with ballistas. They have a base attack to which the user adds half his level and their damage rolls are fixed. They can be magick'd the same way normal weapons can be, although special properties are specific to them. I see them in two sizes: regular ballista and bigger scoprion, with slower reload but higher damage and range.
Ships should be highly resistant to piercing damage, so cheap alchemical bolts that explode on impact should do the job as a main projectile.
I've thought about high-priced more potent alchchemical bolts but decided against them. Some players would always use the cheapest munitions and otehrs would only use the costliest. If you ask me, the best solution would be munitions that require a daily magic item use.
Obviously, ships are limited in capacity by crew size and space. They carry most of their artillery fixed on each side and sometimes install some at the front and rear, for chases.
Most of the artillery in the times of cogs and carracks was carried on-deck, but that makes the artillery users vulnerable. I prefer not worrying about individuals in long-range engagements. Let's just pretend cannon traps already exist and put ballistas on the lower decks.
Fire ships and explosion ships are cool but to be used with moderation. Don't know if they'd be appropriate.
Exotic artillery can be quite interesting. A "magic cannon" that can canalize arcane spells would probably be welcome, as are other forms of magic artillery with different properties than ballistas.
Scale
There's no way I'm using normal-sized squares for ship-to-ship encounters. Instead, if each square represents ten "normal" squares, every small-sized ship can have its own square. Medium ships can occupy four and big shiips nine, at worst.
Time should also be scaled. I think each naval round should correspond to 5 normal rounds. That way, every even ship speed is perfectly represented on the grid and base ballistas can fire, say, once per naval round.
Or each naval square could represent 20 normal squares, with one-minute rounds. I'm not entirely sold. I might even use hexes.
PC involvement
I don't think artillery use should be affected by PC skills, and the official rules seem to agree with me on this. I see, however, how a stronger PC could reload a ballista faster.
Same thing for control. Simply maneuvering a ship should not require special ability, although again, points may be made for strength or dexterity.
There are ways in which PCs can directly get involved, though, like a ritual to repair the boat, the firing of a spell through a magic cannon or perceiving an underwater hazard.
Typically, the trained crew will simply be doing its job, and the PCs' role will be to decide the course of action.
Engagements
Ships can be seen from really far away and usually have very similar speeds, so historically, there were no skirmishes, only full-fledged naval battles. No side would commit to a losing battle. This has many impacts. Every naval fight in which the players participate is likely a fair battle, for example, and chase scenes are easy to implement.
Engagements will happen when two sides are committed to battle. Sometimes, a ship's crew will try to board another ship, in which case the battle will switch to normal D&D rules for 5 rounds or more.
Okay, I'm out of steam for now. I hope that with help from the forums, a complete naval combat system can be devised.