Seafaring in Fifth Edition

[RocksInMyDryer]

I'm running a pirate campaign and my party didn't like how minimalist the seafaring rules are in 5E. So, I spent a week and a half making a handbook. I know there are a couple of them out there already. But I found that of the two most well-known, one is still quite minimalist and the other was needlessly complex for my tastes.

So, I started with Stormwrack from 3.5 as a guideline and built from there. My intent was to make the rules comprehensive, so that a DM can choose which parts they want to use. But also to keep it simple enough that any given rule isn't complicated, nor does it require a lot of cross-referencing (I hope).

Hopefully someone else finds these rules useful for their naval and pirate campaigns! Here they arrr.

[thegreatone5224]

Thanks for the document!

[Argothair]

This is really, really cool! The wind/weather/gales mechanic is spot on, from the idea of prevailing winds, to the problems of being knocked prone or blown away, to tacking against the wind, all the way through the dual risk/benefit idea that strong winds can make you go faster, but if you don't manage them well or if they're too strong, then instead you'll just be driven before the wind. All of this is incredibly elegant, accurate, and fun.

I also like the idea of separating rigging HP from hull HP, with rigging damage stranding you and hull damage threatening to sink you. I'm not sure that rigging should have a typical AC of 13 on all ships -- a densely rigged sailing ship like a frigate or a galleon would probably have an AC of 10 or lower; if you're sending cannon balls anywhere near the ship at all, you're going to damage the relatively delicate ropes and cloths and spindly wooden towers.

I think my biggest concern is probably about the gold piece costs and HP totals for ships. I'm not sure where you're getting the prices from or that they translate smoothly into anything else. 20 gp just to repair 1 HP? And 150 HP for a rowboat?? So a rowboat is notably tougher than a troll or ogre or an elephant? That doesn't seem right. Pretty sure if an elephant stepped on a rowboat, the rowboat would be splinters, but if you dropped a rowboat on an elephant's back, the elephant would be fine. Also: repairing the rowboat fully would cost 20 * 150 = 3000 gp. But the rowboat only costs 50 gp brand-new? That can't be right. You've got the 'launch' priced out at 500 gp, which represents roughly one full year of skilled labor (2 gp / day). But the hobbyist community seems to think you can build a good large sturdy wooden canoe that might seat about 8 people in only 100 to 200 hours of work.

All in all this is a really useful resource, and I plan to send it to my GM as soon as we get back out of these damn caves and close to a shoreline. :-)

[JestingManiac]

this looks pretty good to me. imma gonna petition my DM to allow these in our game

[Arkhios]

This is awesome! Subscribed to this thread and will likely use these rules at some point.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

I have been trying to do/find something like this since 5e came out. THANK YOU!

[Beechgnome]

These are really well done.

I love the favored/unfavored rules for ship motion and am excited to try it in action and the rules for wind/weather and ship speed.

I'm a bit curious how favored/unfavored interacts with initiative if, while the ships are in motion, a flying creature or PC also acts, but certainly in isolation it feels right.

Concerning spells and repairs to ships, you mention Mending and Creation, but wondered how you see Fabricate interacting in terms of HP healed.

Thanks again. This is really an amazing piece of work.

[DerficusRex]

Hopefully someone else finds these rules useful for their naval and pirate campaigns!

Very, very cool! I have a couple of different adventures coming up that I think will benefit from this. Thanks for posting it.

I'm a bit curious how favored/unfavored interacts with initiative if, while the ships are in motion, a flying creature or PC also acts, but certainly in isolation it feels right.

If I'm reading it right, you'd first resolve turns in initiative order like a normal round, then after all the individuals have acted the vessels turns occur as described in Maneuvering (assuming the pilots declared on their turns that they were going to use an action to steer the ship).

I suppose if you had more than two vessels you could just rank them from most favoured to least favoured.

[NRSASD]

Thank you! This is exactly what I'm looking for in my upcoming campaign! Any suggestions on where to find good naval encounter ideas? Specifically with a more mythic feeling, like Voyage of the Dawn Treader?

[Chaos_Laicosin]

A very well written guide. The only thing I might add would be a table of random weather/environment effects. For example, sailing in a storm might cause a swell across the deck that washes crew away, or even capsizes a smaller vessel. Maybe there is a chance of encountering icebergs or becoming icebound in extreme cold. Stuff like that.

[RocksInMyDryer]

Thanks a ton for all the feedback! I'm loving how positive everyone's comments have been.

I also like the idea of separating rigging HP from hull HP, with rigging damage stranding you and hull damage threatening to sink you. I'm not sure that rigging should have a typical AC of 13 on all ships -- a densely rigged sailing ship like a frigate or a galleon would probably have an AC of 10 or lower; if you're sending cannon balls anywhere near the ship at all, you're going to damage the relatively delicate ropes and cloths and spindly wooden towers.

I think my biggest concern is probably about the gold piece costs and HP totals for ships. I'm not sure where you're getting the prices from or that they translate smoothly into anything else. 20 gp just to repair 1 HP? And 150 HP for a rowboat?? So a rowboat is notably tougher than a troll or ogre or an elephant? That doesn't seem right. Pretty sure if an elephant stepped on a rowboat, the rowboat would be splinters, but if you dropped a rowboat on an elephant's back, the elephant would be fine. Also: repairing the rowboat fully would cost 20 * 150 = 3000 gp. But the rowboat only costs 50 gp brand-new? That can't be right. You've got the 'launch' priced out at 500 gp, which represents roughly one full year of skilled labor (2 gp / day). But the hobbyist community seems to think you can build a good large sturdy wooden canoe that might seat about 8 people in only 100 to 200 hours of work.

Good point. The prices and repair costs are ripped off from Stormwrack, but the HP of ships was based on splitting the difference between that and 5E's DMG because ship HP is so needlessly complex in Stormwrack. So I can see it not necessarily making a ton of sense for some of the ships at either extreme of the spectrum. You could use the 5E Rowboat HP of 50 instead.

You could also certainly adjust the repair prices based on what makes more sense for you. Or, you could just think of Rowboats as being much easier to replace than to repair.

EDIT: Forgot to address the rigging AC thing. I mostly standardized the AC of ships and their rigging because I feel that the main difficulty of hitting another ship is determined more by the rise and fall of the waves and the act of hitting a moving target from a moving platform than by the evasiveness of the target.

I'm a bit curious how favored/unfavored interacts with initiative if, while the ships are in motion, a flying creature or PC also acts, but certainly in isolation it feels right.

Concerning spells and repairs to ships, you mention Mending and Creation, but wondered how you see Fabricate interacting in terms of HP healed.

In a ship vs monster battle, I wouldn't use the favored/unfavored system. Instead, at the end of round you would move the ship as you would a creature using its speed and maneuverability as long as a pilot and crew were doing their jobs.

I wish I had thought of Fabricate when I wrote this. I would say that if a caster has a proficiency with the appropriate repair tools and uses Fabricate, they still use the same GP worth of materials and the same amount of manpower, but can repair up to 25 HP of damage with one 10 minute casting, as opposed to the amount of time it would normally take.

A very well written guide. The only thing I might add would be a table of random weather/environment effects. For example, sailing in a storm might cause a swell across the deck that washes crew away, or even capsizes a smaller vessel. Maybe there is a chance of encountering icebergs or becoming icebound in extreme cold. Stuff like that.

Stormwrack has a handful of hazards like that: Colar reefs, ice floes, sagassum, kelp beds, plus 3 paragraphs just on the effects of taking on green water. You could go through some of that for more complex seafaring rules, if you're looking for them.

[Requilac]

I have got a lot of things to say on this, so I am just going to chunk it into smaller pieces

1. How exactly did you design the random Weather, Wind and precipitation table? There doesn’t seem to be any sort of underlying pattern to it that I can’t observe. And I also really can’t understand it. Do you roll individually for weather, wind and precipitation each or when you roll the percentile do you get all the conditions of the corresponding row? This table is awful confusing.
2. You claim that “snow creates difficult terrain”. This might just be a case of over-pedantry on my part, but you should probably elaborate on this. What type of land is difficult terrain and what isn’t? Are stretches of covered land still difficult terrain? What about ice, is that difficult terrain?
3. I think your fog might be a little too extreme there. I mean fog is of course hard to see through, but people are by no means blinded. Why don’t you just make it so that someone’s vision is reduced to 60 ft or something and they can’t see beyond it?
4. You should probably clarify the severe heat rules by making it so that the save DC resets after a long rest. It might also be a good idea to set a DC maximum, because it is possible for someone to get a DC 29 saving throw if they spend all day exposed to the sun, which seems a little too much. And perhaps you should also mention ways that someone could avoid the full brunt of the heat, such as sitting under shade of wearing proper clothing?
5. I am highly confused over what is going on with the whole favored and unfavored pilot deal is. Are these rules regarding two pilots fighting for control of the same ship, a pilot and a co-pilot working together , or two different pilots on entirely different ships? I want to say the last option, but you at several times mention initiative throughout the guide, and the last option clearly scraps down typical initiative and then it would contradict information in the rest of the document.
6. This might be just me, but I feel like ram damage should be much higher, using d10s instead of d6s.

Over-all though, you did a great job here. Some of the rules are more than a little confusing and oddly vague, but those should all be easily cleaned up. There are some good mechanics behind it. I truly am impressed by the detail of this system.

[DerficusRex]

5. I am highly confused over what is going on with the whole favored and unfavored pilot deal is. Are these rules regarding two pilots fighting for control of the same ship, a pilot and a co-pilot working together , or two different pilots on entirely different ships? I want to say the last option, but you at several times mention initiative throughout the guide, and the last option clearly scraps down typical initiative and then it would contradict information in the rest of the document.

As I read it, favoured/unfavoured is ship initiative that runs parallel to regular combat initiative. Here are a few rounds of hypothetical ship-to-ship engagement (RocksInMyDryer, please correct me if I get any of this wrong):

Alice, Bob, and Charlie aboard the cog Example are facing off against Dave and Ellen aboard the junk Adversary in combat on the high seas.

Initiative is rolled, and the order is:

1. Ellen
2. Charlie
3. Alice
4. Dave
5. Bob

Winds are moderate (so sail speeds are x2) out of the SW, and both ships were heading north at 20'/round with the Adversary 100' off the Example's starboard side when hostilities broke out.

================ First round

Regular turns get resolved:

• Ellen is already at the helm of the Adversary and declares she's using her action to pilot the ship. She rolls 12 on her Vehicle check with no Shiphandling modifier since the Adversary is a junk
• Charlie uses a longbow to take a shot at Dave (who is visible on deck)
• Alice moves to the already loaded ballista at the bow of the Example and uses her action to aim it at the Adversary's hull
• Dave shoots back at Charlie at disadvantage since he only has a shortbow and the ships are currently 100' apart
• Bob is at the helm of the Example and declares he's using his action to pilot the ship. He rolls 13 on his Vehicle check but has to subtract 2 for a total of 11 because the Example is a cog with -2 Shiphandling. That doesn't beat Ellen's roll of 12, so the Adversary is the Favoured vessel

Vessel turns get resolved:

• Bob (non-Favoured) declares the Example is going to keep going north at 25'/round (40'/round is the maximum for a cog in moderate winds, but the cog can only change speed by 5'/round at a time)
• Ellen (favoured) declares the Adversary will start a turn to port to close distance and increase speed to 30'/round (a junk can increase up to 10'/round at a time and 30'/round is its max speed in moderate winds)
• Example is moved 25' N and Adversary is moved 30' NNW. The ships are now about 90' apart
• No one declares any special maneuvers

================ Second round

Regular turns get resolved:

• Ellen still wants to use her action to pilot the ship. She hasn't left the helm, so the Adversary's Favour roll is still 12
• Charlie takes another potshot at Dave
• Alice fires the ballista at the Adversary's hull, hitting it for 3d10 damage
• Dave is still at long range for his shortbow, so he shoots at Charlie with disadvantage
• Bob still wants to use his action to pilot the ship. He hasn't left the helm, so the Example's Favour roll is still 11, and the Adversary is still the Favoured vessel

Vessel turns get resolved:

• Bob (non-Favoured) declares the Example is going to increase speed to 30'/round
• Ellen (favoured) declares the Adversary will continue its turn to port at 30'/round (since it can't go any faster)
• Example is moved 30' N and Adversary is moved 30' NW. Ships are now less than 70' apart.
• Bob declares a special maneuver, saying the Example will come about to port. Example's speed is reduced to 20' and its heading is now NW. Since Bob is the non-Favoured pilot, this forces a re-roll. Bob rolls 14-2 for a total of 12, and Ellen rolls 7+0 for 7. Bob is now the favoured pilot.

================ Third round

Regular turns get resolved:

• Ellen still wants to use her action to pilot the ship
• Charlie moves to the aft rail and keeps shooting at Dave
• Alice reloads the ballista
• Dave is now close enough that his shortbow isn't at disadvantage. He shoots again, this time targeting Bob.
• Bob still wants to use his action to pilot the ship.

Vessel turns get resolved:

• Ellen (non-Favoured) declares the Adversary will hold course NW at 30'/round
• Bob (favoured) declares the Example will hold course NW at 25'/round (max increase of 5'/round for cogs)
• Example is moved 25' NW and Adversary is moved 30' NW.

[Requilac]

As I read it, favoured/unfavoured is ship initiative that runs parallel to regular combat initiative. Here are a few rounds of hypothetical ship-to-ship engagement (RocksInMyDryer, please correct me if I get any of this wrong):

Alice, Bob, and Charlie aboard the cog Example are facing off against Dave and Ellen aboard the junk Adversary in combat on the high seas.

...

Vessel turns get resolved:

• Ellen (non-Favoured) declares the Adversary will hold course NW at 30'/round
• Bob (favoured) declares the Example will hold course NW at 25'/round (max increase of 5'/round for cogs)
• Example is moved 25' NW and Adversary is moved 30' NW.

This example was pretty complex, but I think I got the gist of it. Two different initiatives are going on here, the individuals’ and the ships’ themself. And the favored and non-favored pilots are two different people on two different ships. Thank you for the clarification.

_______________________

This raises another important question though @RocksInMyDryer, what happens if more than two ships are fighting each-other?

[RocksInMyDryer]

1. How exactly did you design the random Weather, Wind and precipitation table? There doesn’t seem to be any sort of underlying pattern to it that I can’t observe. And I also really can’t understand it. Do you roll individually for weather, wind and precipitation each or when you roll the percentile do you get all the conditions of the corresponding row? This table is awful confusing.

That table I literally copied as-is from Stormwrack, rather then design something from scratch. You roll the percentile dice once, using the row that corresponds to the climate/season. That row will show you the day's temperature (not in exact degrees, so it's really just flavour unless it's severe heat or cold), the wind condition (which tells you which column to roll on using the Wind Strength table), and the level of precipitation.

2. You claim that “snow creates difficult terrain”. This might just be a case of over-pedantry on my part, but you should probably elaborate on this. What type of land is difficult terrain and what isn’t? Are stretches of covered land still difficult terrain? What about ice, is that difficult terrain?

I probably should have elaborated. The intent was basically that any area that's open and exposed to the snow is difficult terrain, due to snow and/or ice. Difficult Terrain in older editions was the shorthand for any area where 2 feet of movement must be used for each 1 foot moved. I forgot that the term isn't really used in 5E when I made this, unfortunately.

3. I think your fog might be a little too extreme there. I mean fog is of course hard to see through, but people are by no means blinded. Why don’t you just make it so that someone’s vision is reduced to 60 ft or something and they can’t see beyond it?

Since there's no rule for fog in 5E, I used the one from the 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide. Since it only comes up 5-6% of the time, I think of it as referring more to being right within extremely heavy fog, rather than the kind of light fog that you'd see most mornings in most climates.

4. You should probably clarify the severe heat rules by making it so that the save DC resets after a long rest. It might also be a good idea to set a DC maximum, because it is possible for someone to get a DC 29 saving throw if they spend all day exposed to the sun, which seems a little too much. And perhaps you should also mention ways that someone could avoid the full brunt of the heat, such as sitting under shade of wearing proper clothing?

The rules for Extreme Heat and Extreme Cold I just copy/pasted from the 5E DMG, but I do regret not adding to it. Though, I feel like most DM's will probably just rule that spending a certain amount of time out of direct sunlight will reset the DC. I do like the idea that if you choose to stay in the heat, working, while a heat wave is happening, you may very well end up dead.

5. I am highly confused over what is going on with the whole favored and unfavored pilot deal is. Are these rules regarding two pilots fighting for control of the same ship, a pilot and a co-pilot working together , or two different pilots on entirely different ships? I want to say the last option, but you at several times mention initiative throughout the guide, and the last option clearly scraps down typical initiative and then it would contradict information in the rest of the document.

DerficusRex nailed it. Basically, each ship's pilot forgoes their action to have a special Initiative at the end of the round.

6. This might be just me, but I feel like ram damage should be much higher, using d10s instead of d6s.

Yeah, the Ram siege weapon in 5E deals 3d10, so you could use that instead if you wanted. The ram damages are also stolen from Stormwrack, so I feel they may be a little high, if anything. But as always, your world, your rules.

Over-all though, you did a great job here. Some of the rules are more than a little confusing and oddly vague, but those should all be easily cleaned up. There are some good mechanics behind it. I truly am impressed by the detail of this system.

Thanks. Mostly I was just trying to put rules into places where they didn't already exist, rather than overwrite anything that was already existent. So it's mostly just a compilation of rules written by Wizards of the Coast; just all from different years.

This raises another important question though @RocksInMyDryer, what happens if more than two ships are fighting each-other?

I would probably have a captain which represents any one fleet or side of the battle roll the Vehicle check on behalf of their side. Perhaps add the combined Shiphandling stat of each ship in their fleet and/or each pilot's proficiency bonus to represent the advantage of having superior numbers and a nimble fleet.

[CircleOfTheRock]

This is really good, RocksInMyDryer, thanks for making this! I’ve been looking for something like this for months!

[Requilac]

That table I literally copied as-is from Stormwrack, rather then design something from scratch. You roll the percentile dice once, using the row that corresponds to the climate/season. That row will show you the day's temperature (not in exact degrees, so it's really just flavour unless it's severe heat or cold), the wind condition (which tells you which column to roll on using the Wind Strength table), and the level of precipitation.

Umm, you sure its supposed to go like that. Because that causes a bunch of weird inconsistencies. There are no storms during severe heat, fog can't occur in any areas hotter than moderate temperature, rain can't fall in cold and severe cold and It somehow can't snow in severe cold. This table hardly makes much sense at all if left as is.

I probably should have elaborated. The intent was basically that any area that's open and exposed to the snow is difficult terrain, due to snow and/or ice. Difficult Terrain in older editions was the shorthand for any area where 2 feet of movement must be used for each 1 foot moved. I forgot that the term isn't really used in 5E when I made this, unfortunately.

No, difficult terrain is used in 5e, my problem was that you did not specifically state which areas where difficult terrain. As is, I cannot tell which areas have been covered in snow and which haven't. All it says is "Snow creates difficult terrain". It is a nitpick I know, but its something that needs to be brought up.

The rules for Extreme Heat and Extreme Cold I just copy/pasted from the 5E DMG, but I do regret not adding to it. Though, I feel like most DM's will probably just rule that spending a certain amount of time out of direct sunlight will reset the DC. I do like the idea that if you choose to stay in the heat, working, while a heat wave is happening, you may very well end up dead.

You should probably mention in the rulebook what exactly one needs to do so they can reset the DC though, otherwise its pretty much impossible for someone who isn't immune to being exhausted to survive a day of extreme heat.

I would probably have a captain which represents any one fleet or side of the battle roll the Vehicle check on behalf of their side. Perhaps add the combined Shiphandling stat of each ship in their fleet and/or each pilot's proficiency bonus to represent the advantage of having superior numbers and a nimble fleet.

What I was referring to when I said "more than two ships fighting each-other", I meant to say more than two sides fighting each-other.

[RocksInMyDryer]

Umm, you sure its supposed to go like that. Because that causes a bunch of weird inconsistencies. There are no storms during severe heat, fog can't occur in any areas hotter than moderate temperature, rain can't fall in cold and severe cold and It somehow can't snow in severe cold. This table hardly makes much sense at all if left as is.

As I say, that's just how they printed it in Stormwrack. I would blame Richard Baker.
https://imgur.com/a/qvZtK
Though I can see why they would make those decisions. Generally a heat wave comes with very little wind; fog comes with a cold, wet climate; it's much more likely to snow than to rain below a certain temperate; and when the temperature is cold enough, it doesn't snow. All generalities, but that's what rules usually represent.

What I was referring to when I said "more than two ships fighting each-other", I meant to say more than two sides fighting each-other.

Hm, it hadn't really occurred to me that three or more factions would engage in a free-for-all. The rules I had created for favored and non-favored ships was adapted from Stormwrack's narrative naval combat rules, which didn't have any rules written for that particular scenario. If it did happen though, I would probably do exactly what DerficusRex recommended and have a spectrum of favor to see which ship has to declare their intent first. In terms of special maneuvers, I would say any ship which requires being favored to perform that maneuver can use it on any ship with a worse favor roll. For example:

Ship A scores a 17 and is therefore favored
Ship B scores a 14 and is therefore not favored
Ship C scores a 5 and is therefore the least favored.

Ship A declares their heading and speed after the other pilots and can grapple or ram anyone.
Ship B could grapple or ram ship C, but not ship A.
Ship C can't grapple or ram anyone and has to declare their heading and speed before everyone else.

[Requilac]

As I say, that's just how they printed it in Stormwrack. I would blame Richard Baker.
https://imgur.com/a/qvZtK
Though I can see why they would make those decisions. Generally a heat wave comes with very little wind; fog comes with a cold, wet climate; it's much more likely to snow than to rain below a certain temperate; and when the temperature is cold enough, it doesn't snow. All generalities, but that's what rules usually represent.

This still seems weird to me, but fair enough. Its a minor nitpick after all.

Hm, it hadn't really occurred to me that three or more factions would engage in a free-for-all. The rules I had created for favored and non-favored ships was adapted from Stormwrack's narrative naval combat rules, which didn't have any rules written for that particular scenario. If it did happen though, I would probably do exactly what DerficusRex recommended and have a spectrum of favor to see which ship has to declare their intent first. In terms of special maneuvers, I would say any ship which requires being favored to perform that maneuver can use it on any ship with a worse favor roll. For example:

Ship A scores a 17 and is therefore favored
Ship B scores a 14 and is therefore not favored
Ship C scores a 5 and is therefore the least favored.

Ship A declares their heading and speed after the other pilots and can grapple or ram anyone.
Ship B could grapple or ram ship C, but not ship A.
Ship C can't grapple or ram anyone and has to declare their heading and speed before everyone else.

That works out fine. You have addressed all my concerns, great job here.

[RocksInMyDryer]

I've started adding another chapter that converts Stormwrack's creatures to fifth edition. Does anyone have any recommendations on other 3.5 sea monsters that 5E is lacking?

[CircleOfTheRock]

I've started adding another chapter that converts Stormwrack's creatures to fifth edition. Does anyone have any recommendations on other 3.5 sea monsters that 5E is lacking?

What sea monsters are in Stormwrack?

[Kaskus]

Monsters from Stormwrack...
Anguillian
Archelon
Aventi
Blackskate
Caller From The Deeps
Monstrous Crab
Darfellan
Ichthyosaur
Mosasaur
Plesiosaur
Dire Barracuda
Dire Eel
Aquatic Elf
Coral Golem
Hadozee
Hammerclaw
Hippocampus
Giant Leech
Nereid
Ramfish
Scyllan
Seawolf
Sisiutl
Jellyfish Swarm
Leech Swarm
Piranha Swarm
Uchuulon
Echinoloth
Albatross
Barracuda
Eel
Otter
Sea Lion
Seal
Snapping Turtle
Stingray

[Kaskus]

Some monsters not in 5e (based on SRD)...

Elasmosaurus (Dinosaur)
Water Naga
Sea Cat
Tojanida
Triton
Scrag (Aquatic Troll)

Various Dire & Giant Animals

[RocksInMyDryer]

I got pretty busy for a few months, but I decided I'd come back to tackle the importing of Stormwrack's monsters. Here's the link, which I'll update periodically as I'm working on it.

Here's the link!