I don't know that the captain would jump into the water since the command spell states that The Target will not comply with the command that is directly harmful to it. Any sailor understands that jumping in the ocean while the ship is underway is really bad. So I think the captain would either run and cower by the railing, flee below decks, or if it's in range run to the tiller and force the ship to use his action to move away from yours.
@@franklyanogre00000, in the age of sail, jumping overboard was very close to a death sentence; and was certainly one if you wore any metal armour. I think Rob Kinney's point stands. Even if we discount that, just catching the rope slung from the side of a ship that is heaving and rolling with the waves should require a dexterity check, followed by an dexterity (acrobatics) check with disadvantage to climb the side. And you would only get one shot at it, for with any breeze, the ship would easily outpace a swimmer.
One rule I would add: If a creature is in the water, it moves X feets against the wind at the start of its turn. Where X is dependant on the wind strength: Calm weather: 20ft Windy day: 40 ft Strong wind: 60 ft (Or some other, actually balanced values) This allows to simulate the fact that the ships are in reality moving the whole time, althought at the same speed so moving them on the battlemap is pointless. It also add some consequences to falling overboard, and diversify ship combat. On calm weather it's annoying, as you will need to use movement to get back to safety. On stormy weather, falling overboard means you are out of the fight, or the ship has to make sacrifices to turn around and get you. So the fighter may think twice before jumping ship (ha) in a storm and focus on other things, and some crew compositions will try to fight in specific weather to gain an advantage.
That's a good basic idea, but it assumes the ships are moving with the wind. On a tabletop battlemap you might need to calculate how far objects and creatures move relative to the movibg ships, but online just moving the ships is probably easier (with the DM moving all tokens back to the center of the map every so often).
@@MalloonTarka don’t care about wind at all, its completely relative to the ships. Moving the ships is much harder on a vtt, because it’s way easier to bake them into the background static than it is to token them properly, making it much easier to move all tokens not on the ship.
The idea doesn't work if you have more than one ship, which will move relative to each other. And given that, and the undesirability of two sets of rules (one for a single ship, and another for multiple ships), this is a non-starter.
Watching this reminds me of FTL, i'm already thinking about different groups/ship builds to beat enemies in different ways like a full on boarding crew so you do as little damage as possible to the enemy ship so you can capture it in good condition for a good sale.
The obvious thing to add to the ship would be 20 passengers with heavy crossbows. If one or two of them could sling firebolts (which start fires) instead, that would add to the mayhem.
@@tom_curtis I think if you are putting combatants on your ship, you might have to pay them instead of them paying you. I would make these kinds of hirelings quite expensive, and make ship combats quite sparse (in terms of time spent sailing), to discourage this. Best idea would be to abuse the action economy by damaging the crew, or setting fires. It also seems that you would want to attack the back of their ship with your ship side on. That way you would be within 60ft of their mangonel, keeping their ballista out of range, while keeping both your weapons in range.
@@Zahnpuppy, you are correct, thought the cost of the hired passengers is not very much greater than the cost of the crew to begin with for most ships. One, probably sensible solution for PCs is to not become officers on the ship, but to merely hire them; thereby freeing up their action economy to devastate the opposing ship and crew. Another option (if your crew is capable of individual ranged attacks) is to simply not move and used the freed up crew to make individual ranged attacks at the enemies officers. This would not work for sail ships, but would work for warships and galleys. However, if you are running a naval campaign, the tactic of taking on board fighters as 'passengers' was typical in the age of sail. Warships typically left port with about 20% over complement to compensate for losses due to disease and battle. Pirate ships and privateers sometimes left with as much as three times their regular complement both to be able to overwhelm their targets in boarding actions, and in order to provide prize crews for captured ships (which were typically, far more valuable than the cargo they carried). I suspect that my underlying point is that if you want a genuine naval campaign, ie, one where ships are used for more than point to point transits with the occasional encounter, the Ghost's of Saltmarsh rules are not very good. You would be far better getting a copy of the rules of one of the many excellent rules for Napoleonic era Naval combat and adapting them. My favourites were Avalon Hills "Wooden Ships and Iron Men" for a board game, and "Heart of Oak" for miniatures. But if you are just doing point to point transit, the Ghost of Saltmarsh rules are certainly adequate, provided you are aware of the flaws and ensure nobody exploits them.
Great video, Chris! Thanks for putting this together. The crew details are awesome tools to jump into a nautical setting. Naval detail: The role of bosun came as a shortening from “boatswain” and hence sounds like “bow-sun” . 🤓
My concern here is eldritch blast. With every (ship) combat taking place at range on small boats within 10 feet knock-back range EB seems stupidly good.
I think a short series of character builds based around optimizing for different roles that might come into play during naval combats would be really interesting. I don't think I'm familiar enough with these rules yet myself to even consider optimizing, but that's something I'd watch for sure.
I've wanted to play an eldritch sniper for some time for a sea based campaign. Sorlock that snipes with Spell Sniper and Distant Spell from the crows nest with EB against creatures and FB against ship parts. Use invocations like Forceful Blast to force enemies off their ship or burn their sails with Fire Bolt.
Wow! We really are synced up! I am posting a video on Ship Combat too! But its air ships lol. Thanks for the AAA shout out and I really do love working with ya man. Always love your videos!
With the those alternate AoE damage rules, I think the one of the best things you could do initially is to upcast a spell like moonbeam to take out lots of crew so they can only take 1 ship action each turn.
Thank you for making this! I have been writing a navel campaign but have been struggling to visualize how the combat would play out. This was perfect for me. Great stuff dude :)
I'd seen such mixed reviews of Ghosts of Saltmarsh that I'd held off on picking it up. I think you just sold me on it. I wonder how much the Spelljammer rules will resemble these?
I'm playing through Saltmarsh right now. Joined late, so I started with the lizardfolk lair. The module seems very dungeon heavy (clearing room to room, lizardfolk lair has like 90 rooms and there's very slim chance of combat) so it can get slow. The other quest I've been on was awesome, very cinematic and brought positive challenges
This helps a lot. One pitfall is if you start combat at a long distance. The way you run ship combat here runs much closer to the #of rounds in more typical DnD encounters. Thanks for the demo.
In regard to the missing surgeon, I think it would be fair to have an NPC officer, particularly with a small party or if none of the players are interested in filling the role. They could also come along with their own story hooks and goals, a la Stephen Maturin in Patrick O'Brian's novels.
Treantmonk, I can’t thank you enough for this content! Sorry it took me a couple of weeks to catch up on life but I absolutely love this. It also sends my head spinning with character builds and adventures to use this in.
I've wanted to play an ice Sea witch forever!!! It's the only reason I ever could think of playing a monk with elemental focus always able to craft an iceberg ship out of her ki using water whip and flaming sphere. Watching videos about how bad monks suck made me want to build an awesome monk character. And this is the one I came up with but never found anyone with ship based combat... So thankful for you!!!! You're the Man!!!
I really love your contents, as they are always informative and without amenities... But i think this is actually one of your best video. Also... I haven't seen many creator this kind of informative content. I can understand that this didnt perform well but i hope to see more of actual strategy and informative content
good job as always. to answer your last question (what is the best strategies in combat between boats) I think it all depends on the context. If your policing the water against pirates, you might make sure they dont flee and so the sail is the best. If you are the pirates, it might be the same, but to flee yourself. If you need to capture the ship for what's inside, you might not want to damage the hull, but want to damage the crew so it is easier for you to go inside, etc etc
what's the surgeon doing to help the crew fight the fire that's so important that we get an auto-failure on the crew without them are they doing surgery on people to replace their hands with fire extinguishers
When I first got Saltmarsh, I was just hoping for some decent coastal settings encounters to poach for whatever amalgam I happen to run. I did get that, but the ship combat section was so much more. I'd already run a small bit of it prior to Saltmarsh, and what the book gave me was very much in line with my gut instincts. Lots of fun, and I hope everyone else gets to enjoy it too. One thing I did differently, that I think is worth mentioning... Falling overboard is akin to an instakill for anything that can't breath underwater. Getting back to the ship and back on board should require skill checks and actions, and failing whatever you determine is the threshold should result in at least one level of exhaustion, which kind of inevitably results in more failing. Overboard at sea is no small thing.
I wonder how these rules hold up in Ship vs. Monster combat or Ship vs. Aquatic Boarders (ie: sahuagin), also how disruptive they could be to standard land-based adventuring if you remain in range of the boat's weapons. I can see this needing much more rigorous party building than a standard campaign. In normal 5e play, you can basically show up to a game blind and whatever character you happen to have with you will work well enough. With ship combat I can easily see that sort of character building leading to players having nothing to do every turn. The early stages of combat seem like they'd be far less enjoyable to play in-practice. A single player controlling everything has a good number of options, but as a crewmate (especially a quartermaster, surgeon or cook) you're basically at the mercy of the captain unless you're playing the right sort of caster. Cook seems the worst off as their key scores don't incentivise playing a caster, so there's a decent chance you're stuck acting as a turret every turn. AoE spells that deal sub-4 damage being wasted and/or a pain in the arse to track seems like it would feel bad. I'd be inclined to roll the commoner's hp on the spot to see if any got killed. I'd be annoyed at myself for being inconsistent but I prefer that to the damage just vanishing into the ether. Or use 4e minion rules for them (1hp but never killed on a successful save). I feel like a lot of on-the-fly rules adjudication would be required with even a mildly creative party. The ship is the thing making the attacks and it is immune to being blinded, but what if all the crew are blinded/the weapon has a Darkness dropped on it? What if just the captain is blinded? What about an officer using the Take Aim action? Likewise, there are plenty of ways to start fires mid-combat, but resolving a fire takes 50 turns, 4 officers and all the crew(?). It feels like fire should be an urgent issue in-combat, but it seems like the correct call is to ignore it until combat ends. Bandit Captains and Nobles give the NPC ship pretty poor odds of fighting a fire, so helm-sniping, starting a fire then leaving seems worryingly viable.
Yeah. A couple guys with Firebolt and Spell Sniper, on a small and fast boat would be a serious threat to any sized vessel. Likewise for Eldritch Blast with Repelling Blast. Starting a fire, fleeing, then coming back to knock the officers overboard, would be a devastating tactic.
I think you were spot on with the Sails, if you pull away so they can't hit you but you still can after picking off the sails and crew, leaving the meat of the enemy vulnerable to you since they'd only be able to get a few attacks on you (ship weapons), thereby getting a serious advantage in the action economy. Ship weapons would be pretty vulnerable to something like Cutting Words, since that single ship attack does huge damage, so you could relatively cheaply make it miss and get huge bonuses for it. Something like Fog Cloud or Darkness for cover and making it harder to target specific things would be nice. Since starting a fire on the ship was such a dangerous hazard, imagine setting a fire to the ship mid- or post- fight, possibly as retaliation from a losing enemy or as a deterrence from boarding (if you board the ship then you aren't going to be able to put out the fire on it, even though you have 5 whole minutes to do something and can probably handle an auto-failure or two). Overall, this could have been a really interesting system to have been fleshed out even more, and to take a break from the usual stuff
I definitely would add a couple more rules relating to movement on a ship's turn verses the position of the sails. First, the position of the sails should represented in three stages: full mast, half mast and fully lowered, which affects the speed a ship can move on its turn. Secondly, a ship should have to move on each of its turns with the cost of a mandatory action, and the stage of the sails affects the speed it moves: Full mast = the ship moves its full movement Half mast = the ship moves half its movement Fully lowered = the ship doesn't move Finally, there should be an additional special officer action to command the crew to raise or lower the sails by one stage.
Interestingly, sailing vessels are slower sailing with the wind than sailing at an angle of around 90° to the wind. Also, hind-rigged vessels can sail up to about 30° on either side of the wind, while square-rigged ships (basically, the big ones) can only sail up to around 60° (though I read that vessels with only one square-rigged sail, like the Viking longships, can manage to go further). No ship can sail into the wind, obviously, though ships can move their bow through the wind to change direction. Hind-rigged ships and prefer to move their bow through the wind (going from an angle to the wind to the opposite angle), since moving their stern through the wind caries the danger of the mainsail's boom suddenly crashing from port to starboard or the other way around, endangering the crew and equipment. Square-rigged vessels on the other hand prefer moving their stern through the wind, since the bow being symmetrical makes sure there's not danger of it crashing, while moving the bow though the wind means the sail needs to suddenly go from one extreme angle to another, again endangering equipment.
Lol, I just finished a fight between my party on a flying ship and a phoenix possessed by the spirit of an hobgoblin warlord! In the end the ship was saved by the skin of their teeth and everyone had a good time. I'll definitely look into more detailed rules that will capture the same feeling
Running a nautical campaign now with the players likely to get a ship soon, this is really helpful with internalizing how the rules interact! The biggest problem I notice is that the best strategy seems to be attacking crews and officers (in my opinion so far). Any suggestions on how to balance around characters higher than level 3 or so? It seems like one fireball would horrendously cripple an enemy ship's crew count, let alone higher level area of effect spells. Or a well-placed Sharpshooter fighter picking off enemy officers rapidly. I'm trying to think of the best way to keep the focus on the ships (while still occasionally having moments of solo-heroics) instead of devolving into "drive the enemy to extinction without damaging their ship and sell it back at port!" Maybe attacks against enemy crew are made with disadvantage, or AOE spells do half of 1d6 (rounded down) per spell level instead (and have to choose between attacking generic crew-count or officers)?
a few questions. Why recast the moonbeam? Was is not active still? Could druid just have moved it around to affect more crew members? Would the shatters cast damage other parts of the ship as well? They werent targeted at the crew, they were targeted at something, the 2d6 was to see how many crew members were around that point. I believe it should have damaged sails, helms, weapons, or at worst case, the hull (which would have taken 0 damage due to its DR)
I started a naval campaign a couple months ago and yours is the first video I’ve ever been able to find that actually shows tactical naval combat instead of just explaining the rules of it. There are still no videos that come up when searching for an actual play example, but thank you for at least this. I’m still not sure if tactical naval combat is worth it over just theater of the mind until boarding… My main problem with the GoS rules is that there doesn’t seem to be any reason to ever target the hull until everything else has been destroyed. Also, adjudicating the effects of spells like Fireball or Flaming Sphere seem to be complicated. Does the boat catch on fire? How much extra damage would that do? If you have any sort of AOE, it seems like the best strategy is to just try to kill crew, especially if they only have commoner statblocks…
Fireball solves everything! Would catch so many things on fire and do significant damage to main crew members, the hull, the sails and a weapon as well as kill lots of regular crew so they can only do 1 action. Lightning Bolt could be similar as well as hit both weapons.
I'd definitely allow diagonal movement. Given that the only turn is 90 degrees I think diagonal movement feels realistic and makes closing and disengaging not completely ridiculous.
I looked at the other npc options for a ship crew encounter and I found the pirate bosun really interesting. I wouldn’t mind using that stat block to play some quick games as a expert or warrior side kick.
I'm interested to see if these ship combat rules will be similar to what we will get in the Spelljammer setting book. I expect there will be at least some minor changes and additions due to the obvious differences between naval and spelljammer ships, but I'm curious to see what they salvage from these rules.
hmmm... seems that targetting crew with spells is very efficient - especially as an early strategy. Also, could you not use ship weapons to target creatures? - then they would be very dangerous for your level 3 characters?
I think it would mark sense for PCs to assume a flexible offer roll for skill challenges and combat… That way you are not forced into failing because you did not assign a roll or if the person assigned a roll has something more useful to do they can allow someone else to assume the roll for the encounter… So if the “Captain” had the cantrip Control Flames they might be better off handing command to someone else and just put out the fire themselves. Or if the “Cook” was trained in the skill the “Surgeon” needed then have them fill that roll. Just make sure that if a PC assumes a roll then they have it for the full encounter.
Great Video, as always, Thanks! Only one objection: the command "flee": if I were the DM, It would have make them flee under deck, but not drown themselves. However this was a nice fast-forward-naval-combat encounter simulation. Great! Considering the movability of a ship in a two dimensional space (you corrected yourself), well, how will they realize all this in a three dimensional travel in the upcoming spelljammer?
@@TreantmonksTemple From the short adventure on dnd beyond, I think it will indeed be 2d, but you can go above or below the enemy ship freely instead of just ramming into them like in pure 2d
You could make a very limited set of rules for 3d which wouldn't be too bad. Maybe make above or below possible and give it something like the prone condition ( i.e., disadvantage to hit and for its own attack rolls) + the possibility others have mentioned with being able to pass hostiles space above or below them.
Hey Chris, great series on naval combat!! One question regarding your first example: is it necessary to have an appointed officer with the role of Surgeon on board, or any character with proficiency in Medicine could make the hazard roll? The second option would make sense to me. Maybe roll with disadvantage if not a full-time crew member?
hey prime optimancer, please save the ascendant dragon monks :( i really enjoyed your previous video discussing the general monk, and even my DM allowed it. sadly, the video came out before the asscendant (heh) dragon subclass came out so they didn't get the same fixes that you did for every other subclass. please.
I’ve been using limithron’s guide to naval combat for my naval campaign. I works much better regarding wind in my opinion. However, it also assumes cannons which doesn’t always fit.
For the captain role I think a arcane trickster would he very good. 16 int and even if cha can only be 10 expertise in persuasion and intimidation more than equalize. Only issue is if the role requires straight charisma checks but I don’t believe those came up in the rules video or this one
[34:34] "And I think they're going to do another Moonbeam, so they cast Moonbeam again" Moonbeam is a concentration spell, with a duration of one minute, and can be moved in each round using a Bonus Action. Is there something special about ship's combat that requires it to be cast again each round? If so, I missed it in Ghosts of Saltmarsh.
@@TreantmonksTemple, granted - though it is an optional rule. However, as an optional rule it seems to me to be a very bad one, and it massively restricts the effectiveness of some AOE spells. Taking Moonbeam as an example, a tactically astute Druid would cast Moonbeam, placing it at the bow of the enemy ship, directly over the ballista. That, firstly attacks and probably kills any crew assigned to that ballista; and any crew coming to take their place, thereby denying use of the weapon. At the same time, if the enemy ship attempts to move in a straight line, two thirds of the ship (the entire bow and midships) will pass under the Moonbeam, thereby, in all probability, killing two thirds of the ships crew. If the normal practise in naval board wargames is followed, and ships turn by pivoting at the bow, that damage could not be avoided except by stopping. Even if a turn by pivoting at the midpoint is allowed, further areas of the deck will be effected. This tactical triumph is reduced by the optional rule to a mere 2D6 crew effected. Similar points could be made about any ranged, concentration AOE spells, though Moonbeam is particularly useful because it can be repositioned every round at the cost of a Bonus Action. Suitably placed wall spells could also devastate an opposing ship with one cast if properly placed. Fireball is similarly underrated. It can be cast so as to effect 40% of a Sail Ship, for which the 3d6 crew effected might seem appropriate; but Fireball "...ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried." So after casting Fireball, the entire surviving crew plus officers (except for 1) of the opposing ship would need to spend the entire next, and probably subsequent rounds quenching the fire; or watch their ship rapidly burn beneath them. (Firebolts are similarly dangerous, though without destroying 50% of the crew, on average, beforehand.)
Quick question: Is there any rule stopping the ship's weapons from targeting the crew on the other ship? Like using the mangonel to hit the opposing captain or the opposing ship using their ballista to target the pcs?
I have seen many people wing it but never have I seen someone actually read and use the book for a naval battle. ( in any version of any roleplay game)
what I don't like about these ship rules is there are no rules for engaging a ship or having a ship escape, or grappling a ship with ropes tied to ballista bolts, swinging on ropes to board other ships. which is what is most likely will happen when you encounter a ship say with a pirate flag. your goal is to take down the pirates or get away from them. Another issue is using player abilities and attacks to take down the enemy ship, this becomes very significant at mid to high levels. Just imagine Extra attack and sharpshooter. you could easily overcome the damage threshold 15 of the ship and start bashing the hull... now action surge. 1d8+14 damage per hit with a longbow. Minimum 60 damage, just from one PC. These massive overly complicated rules for combat are not something you would want to deal with every other session as you may in a very ship focused game. Especially at higher levels when PC's can destroy ships with there own powers and you may need multiple ships to threaten PC's. Now in your example here you recast moonbeam to do it's effect again... but wouldnt it do it's effect every round since it is a concentration spell?.. Now imagine what a spell like Cloud kill would do to another ship. It would kill everyone swiftly.. without damaging the ship... good spell for pirates. Now I worry this is what we will get for spelljammer
Thumbs up for the vid but thumbs down for 5e naval combat. The problem I have is it tries to reflect the 'Age of Sail' without cannons and gunpowder. Do a little reading and you will find that prior to around 1600 ship combat was mostly melee's on floating platforms with some ramming. There is a reason why sailing ships did not use ballista or mangonels (if they were ever used in the way D&D suggests) it's because you cannot fire these mechanical devices accurately from a pitching deck. I believe the only recorded instance of a mangonel being used was during a Chinese siege and not in ship to ship combat. If you want to play in a classic pirate campaign you need cannons and there are tons of 3rd party rules much better than Ghosts of Saltmarsh.
Hi, can your recommend me one or two of those 3rd party naval rules? I just began a campaign where my PC's will be sailing a lot. Two of them are even pirates.
For a good crew officers I would put the casters as quartermaster and cook, since in combat they do not have abilities to use, and casting spells is better. The for the other roles I could see fitting any class, so that they can take special actions and still have utility, more than what I'd say having a barbarian hitting with a +4 light Crossbow the sails,and still have the players engaged like this. And even for any events that may happen during the travel, like you could have a cook artificer that can cast create or destroy water in barrels to maybe help the crew with the fire, or whatever shit ND artificer could do.
Chris, we all wish we could roll like that in our games hahahahahahhaha amazing, this video by itself will help so many tables have a lot of fun doing sea shenanigans, the community appreciates you so much
I don't know that the captain would jump into the water since the command spell states that The Target will not comply with the command that is directly harmful to it. Any sailor understands that jumping in the ocean while the ship is underway is really bad. So I think the captain would either run and cower by the railing, flee below decks, or if it's in range run to the tiller and force the ship to use his action to move away from yours.
@@franklyanogre00000, in the age of sail, jumping overboard was very close to a death sentence; and was certainly one if you wore any metal armour. I think Rob Kinney's point stands.
Even if we discount that, just catching the rope slung from the side of a ship that is heaving and rolling with the waves should require a dexterity check, followed by an dexterity (acrobatics) check with disadvantage to climb the side. And you would only get one shot at it, for with any breeze, the ship would easily outpace a swimmer.
@@tom_curtis except the ship doesn't move unless it takes the move action
Which is weird, yeah, but how the mechanics work here
@@crownlexicon5225 That's when we ignore mechanics.
One rule I would add:
If a creature is in the water, it moves X feets against the wind at the start of its turn. Where X is dependant on the wind strength:
Calm weather: 20ft
Windy day: 40 ft
Strong wind: 60 ft
(Or some other, actually balanced values)
This allows to simulate the fact that the ships are in reality moving the whole time, althought at the same speed so moving them on the battlemap is pointless.
It also add some consequences to falling overboard, and diversify ship combat. On calm weather it's annoying, as you will need to use movement to get back to safety. On stormy weather, falling overboard means you are out of the fight, or the ship has to make sacrifices to turn around and get you.
So the fighter may think twice before jumping ship (ha) in a storm and focus on other things, and some crew compositions will try to fight in specific weather to gain an advantage.
i did this in a few river battle scenes during my campaign's mini sailing arc. added some nice tension without breaking anything.
That's a good basic idea, but it assumes the ships are moving with the wind.
On a tabletop battlemap you might need to calculate how far objects and creatures move relative to the movibg ships, but online just moving the ships is probably easier (with the DM moving all tokens back to the center of the map every so often).
@@MalloonTarka don’t care about wind at all, its completely relative to the ships. Moving the ships is much harder on a vtt, because it’s way easier to bake them into the background static than it is to token them properly, making it much easier to move all tokens not on the ship.
The idea doesn't work if you have more than one ship, which will move relative to each other. And given that, and the undesirability of two sets of rules (one for a single ship, and another for multiple ships), this is a non-starter.
Watching this reminds me of FTL, i'm already thinking about different groups/ship builds to beat enemies in different ways like a full on boarding crew so you do as little damage as possible to the enemy ship so you can capture it in good condition for a good sale.
The obvious thing to add to the ship would be 20 passengers with heavy crossbows. If one or two of them could sling firebolts (which start fires) instead, that would add to the mayhem.
@@tom_curtis I think if you are putting combatants on your ship, you might have to pay them instead of them paying you. I would make these kinds of hirelings quite expensive, and make ship combats quite sparse (in terms of time spent sailing), to discourage this.
Best idea would be to abuse the action economy by damaging the crew, or setting fires.
It also seems that you would want to attack the back of their ship with your ship side on. That way you would be within 60ft of their mangonel, keeping their ballista out of range, while keeping both your weapons in range.
@@Zahnpuppy, you are correct, thought the cost of the hired passengers is not very much greater than the cost of the crew to begin with for most ships. One, probably sensible solution for PCs is to not become officers on the ship, but to merely hire them; thereby freeing up their action economy to devastate the opposing ship and crew. Another option (if your crew is capable of individual ranged attacks) is to simply not move and used the freed up crew to make individual ranged attacks at the enemies officers. This would not work for sail ships, but would work for warships and galleys.
However, if you are running a naval campaign, the tactic of taking on board fighters as 'passengers' was typical in the age of sail. Warships typically left port with about 20% over complement to compensate for losses due to disease and battle. Pirate ships and privateers sometimes left with as much as three times their regular complement both to be able to overwhelm their targets in boarding actions, and in order to provide prize crews for captured ships (which were typically, far more valuable than the cargo they carried).
I suspect that my underlying point is that if you want a genuine naval campaign, ie, one where ships are used for more than point to point transits with the occasional encounter, the Ghost's of Saltmarsh rules are not very good. You would be far better getting a copy of the rules of one of the many excellent rules for Napoleonic era Naval combat and adapting them. My favourites were Avalon Hills "Wooden Ships and Iron Men" for a board game, and "Heart of Oak" for miniatures. But if you are just doing point to point transit, the Ghost of Saltmarsh rules are certainly adequate, provided you are aware of the flaws and ensure nobody exploits them.
Artificer seems quite good here as an intelligence based class with guidance and tool expertise for the skill checks.
and flash of genius!
No one:
Me: I want to add a little bit of ship stuff in my campaign
Treantmonk: I got you fam
Great video, Chris! Thanks for putting this together. The crew details are awesome tools to jump into a nautical setting.
Naval detail: The role of bosun came as a shortening from “boatswain” and hence sounds like “bow-sun” . 🤓
Thank you! That was painful to hear over and over and over. My captions even showed it as "boston," so it made zero sense.
My concern here is eldritch blast. With every (ship) combat taking place at range on small boats within 10 feet knock-back range EB seems stupidly good.
I think a short series of character builds based around optimizing for different roles that might come into play during naval combats would be really interesting. I don't think I'm familiar enough with these rules yet myself to even consider optimizing, but that's something I'd watch for sure.
This Please!
I've wanted to play an eldritch sniper for some time for a sea based campaign. Sorlock that snipes with Spell Sniper and Distant Spell from the crows nest with EB against creatures and FB against ship parts. Use invocations like Forceful Blast to force enemies off their ship or burn their sails with Fire Bolt.
Don't forget Eldritch Spear invocation
Also don't forget your spy glass to allow for those head shots at the opposing ships while having full to 3/4 cover in the crows nest.
Don't forget the 'SEA SORCEROR' extra knockback, I played it once but it turned out to be 90% dungeon crawl and didnt get much use :- (
All this has really helped bring some clarity to all the rules in the Saltmarsh sourcebook.
Get your copy of Alkander's Almanac of All Things: thedungeoncoach.com/products/alkanders-almanac-of-all-things
Wow! We really are synced up! I am posting a video on Ship Combat too! But its air ships lol. Thanks for the AAA shout out and I really do love working with ya man. Always love your videos!
Treantmonk! You are the best!
With the those alternate AoE damage rules, I think the one of the best things you could do initially is to upcast a spell like moonbeam to take out lots of crew so they can only take 1 ship action each turn.
Thank you for making this! I have been writing a navel campaign but have been struggling to visualize how the combat would play out. This was perfect for me. Great stuff dude :)
I'd seen such mixed reviews of Ghosts of Saltmarsh that I'd held off on picking it up. I think you just sold me on it. I wonder how much the Spelljammer rules will resemble these?
That's a good question, I wouldn't be surprised if this is the template they use.
I'm playing through Saltmarsh right now. Joined late, so I started with the lizardfolk lair. The module seems very dungeon heavy (clearing room to room, lizardfolk lair has like 90 rooms and there's very slim chance of combat) so it can get slow. The other quest I've been on was awesome, very cinematic and brought positive challenges
@@TreantmonksTemple This aged poorly
@@engineertf2-v6i PAIN
This helps a lot. One pitfall is if you start combat at a long distance. The way you run ship combat here runs much closer to the #of rounds in more typical DnD encounters. Thanks for the demo.
In regard to the missing surgeon, I think it would be fair to have an NPC officer, particularly with a small party or if none of the players are interested in filling the role. They could also come along with their own story hooks and goals, a la Stephen Maturin in Patrick O'Brian's novels.
Treantmonk, I can’t thank you enough for this content! Sorry it took me a couple of weeks to catch up on life but I absolutely love this. It also sends my head spinning with character builds and adventures to use this in.
I've wanted to play an ice Sea witch forever!!! It's the only reason I ever could think of playing a monk with elemental focus always able to craft an iceberg ship out of her ki using water whip and flaming sphere. Watching videos about how bad monks suck made me want to build an awesome monk character. And this is the one I came up with but never found anyone with ship based combat... So thankful for you!!!! You're the Man!!!
I really love your contents, as they are always informative and without amenities... But i think this is actually one of your best video. Also... I haven't seen many creator this kind of informative content. I can understand that this didnt perform well but i hope to see more of actual strategy and informative content
good job as always.
to answer your last question (what is the best strategies in combat between boats) I think it all depends on the context. If your policing the water against pirates, you might make sure they dont flee and so the sail is the best. If you are the pirates, it might be the same, but to flee yourself. If you need to capture the ship for what's inside, you might not want to damage the hull, but want to damage the crew so it is easier for you to go inside, etc etc
Yes!! Great expansion from the Dungeon Coach. Also like your take on ideas in that you go through ideas bs practice
I'm running a pirate game right now, and they've been on shore adventures so I could figure this stuff out. Thanks for this! It'll help me a ton
Very welcome!
Going through it like this helped it make a lot more sense. Thank you
what's the surgeon doing to help the crew fight the fire that's so important that we get an auto-failure on the crew without them
are they doing surgery on people to replace their hands with fire extinguishers
When I first got Saltmarsh, I was just hoping for some decent coastal settings encounters to poach for whatever amalgam I happen to run. I did get that, but the ship combat section was so much more. I'd already run a small bit of it prior to Saltmarsh, and what the book gave me was very much in line with my gut instincts.
Lots of fun, and I hope everyone else gets to enjoy it too.
One thing I did differently, that I think is worth mentioning...
Falling overboard is akin to an instakill for anything that can't breath underwater. Getting back to the ship and back on board should require skill checks and actions, and failing whatever you determine is the threshold should result in at least one level of exhaustion, which kind of inevitably results in more failing.
Overboard at sea is no small thing.
I wonder how these rules hold up in Ship vs. Monster combat or Ship vs. Aquatic Boarders (ie: sahuagin), also how disruptive they could be to standard land-based adventuring if you remain in range of the boat's weapons.
I can see this needing much more rigorous party building than a standard campaign. In normal 5e play, you can basically show up to a game blind and whatever character you happen to have with you will work well enough. With ship combat I can easily see that sort of character building leading to players having nothing to do every turn.
The early stages of combat seem like they'd be far less enjoyable to play in-practice. A single player controlling everything has a good number of options, but as a crewmate (especially a quartermaster, surgeon or cook) you're basically at the mercy of the captain unless you're playing the right sort of caster. Cook seems the worst off as their key scores don't incentivise playing a caster, so there's a decent chance you're stuck acting as a turret every turn.
AoE spells that deal sub-4 damage being wasted and/or a pain in the arse to track seems like it would feel bad. I'd be inclined to roll the commoner's hp on the spot to see if any got killed. I'd be annoyed at myself for being inconsistent but I prefer that to the damage just vanishing into the ether. Or use 4e minion rules for them (1hp but never killed on a successful save).
I feel like a lot of on-the-fly rules adjudication would be required with even a mildly creative party. The ship is the thing making the attacks and it is immune to being blinded, but what if all the crew are blinded/the weapon has a Darkness dropped on it? What if just the captain is blinded? What about an officer using the Take Aim action? Likewise, there are plenty of ways to start fires mid-combat, but resolving a fire takes 50 turns, 4 officers and all the crew(?). It feels like fire should be an urgent issue in-combat, but it seems like the correct call is to ignore it until combat ends. Bandit Captains and Nobles give the NPC ship pretty poor odds of fighting a fire, so helm-sniping, starting a fire then leaving seems worryingly viable.
Yeah. A couple guys with Firebolt and Spell Sniper, on a small and fast boat would be a serious threat to any sized vessel. Likewise for Eldritch Blast with Repelling Blast. Starting a fire, fleeing, then coming back to knock the officers overboard, would be a devastating tactic.
I know you said this video is a flop but this is one of my personal favorite
This is perfect for a new campaign I'm only a couple sessions into that I want to include naval travel/combat in.
I think you were spot on with the Sails, if you pull away so they can't hit you but you still can after picking off the sails and crew, leaving the meat of the enemy vulnerable to you since they'd only be able to get a few attacks on you (ship weapons), thereby getting a serious advantage in the action economy.
Ship weapons would be pretty vulnerable to something like Cutting Words, since that single ship attack does huge damage, so you could relatively cheaply make it miss and get huge bonuses for it. Something like Fog Cloud or Darkness for cover and making it harder to target specific things would be nice.
Since starting a fire on the ship was such a dangerous hazard, imagine setting a fire to the ship mid- or post- fight, possibly as retaliation from a losing enemy or as a deterrence from boarding (if you board the ship then you aren't going to be able to put out the fire on it, even though you have 5 whole minutes to do something and can probably handle an auto-failure or two).
Overall, this could have been a really interesting system to have been fleshed out even more, and to take a break from the usual stuff
I definitely would add a couple more rules relating to movement on a ship's turn verses the position of the sails.
First, the position of the sails should represented in three stages: full mast, half mast and fully lowered, which affects the speed a ship can move on its turn.
Secondly, a ship should have to move on each of its turns with the cost of a mandatory action, and the stage of the sails affects the speed it moves:
Full mast = the ship moves its full movement
Half mast = the ship moves half its movement
Fully lowered = the ship doesn't move
Finally, there should be an additional special officer action to command the crew to raise or lower the sails by one stage.
That type of combat sounds like so much fun!!
Interestingly, sailing vessels are slower sailing with the wind than sailing at an angle of around 90° to the wind.
Also, hind-rigged vessels can sail up to about 30° on either side of the wind, while square-rigged ships (basically, the big ones) can only sail up to around 60° (though I read that vessels with only one square-rigged sail, like the Viking longships, can manage to go further). No ship can sail into the wind, obviously, though ships can move their bow through the wind to change direction.
Hind-rigged ships and prefer to move their bow through the wind (going from an angle to the wind to the opposite angle), since moving their stern through the wind caries the danger of the mainsail's boom suddenly crashing from port to starboard or the other way around, endangering the crew and equipment. Square-rigged vessels on the other hand prefer moving their stern through the wind, since the bow being symmetrical makes sure there's not danger of it crashing, while moving the bow though the wind means the sail needs to suddenly go from one extreme angle to another, again endangering equipment.
Lol, I just finished a fight between my party on a flying ship and a phoenix possessed by the spirit of an hobgoblin warlord! In the end the ship was saved by the skin of their teeth and everyone had a good time. I'll definitely look into more detailed rules that will capture the same feeling
Running a nautical campaign now with the players likely to get a ship soon, this is really helpful with internalizing how the rules interact!
The biggest problem I notice is that the best strategy seems to be attacking crews and officers (in my opinion so far). Any suggestions on how to balance around characters higher than level 3 or so? It seems like one fireball would horrendously cripple an enemy ship's crew count, let alone higher level area of effect spells. Or a well-placed Sharpshooter fighter picking off enemy officers rapidly. I'm trying to think of the best way to keep the focus on the ships (while still occasionally having moments of solo-heroics) instead of devolving into "drive the enemy to extinction without damaging their ship and sell it back at port!"
Maybe attacks against enemy crew are made with disadvantage, or AOE spells do half of 1d6 (rounded down) per spell level instead (and have to choose between attacking generic crew-count or officers)?
about the chef and the surgeon conundrum, to quote "Our flag means death":
"Meat is Meat, Knives are Knives"
Naval one shot with the Dungeon Dudes and D4 dnd deep dive? With magic ships upgrades and high level spells
a few questions.
Why recast the moonbeam? Was is not active still? Could druid just have moved it around to affect more crew members?
Would the shatters cast damage other parts of the ship as well? They werent targeted at the crew, they were targeted at something, the 2d6 was to see how many crew members were around that point. I believe it should have damaged sails, helms, weapons, or at worst case, the hull (which would have taken 0 damage due to its DR)
Druid creates bonfire over and over to destroy the ship
I started a naval campaign a couple months ago and yours is the first video I’ve ever been able to find that actually shows tactical naval combat instead of just explaining the rules of it.
There are still no videos that come up when searching for an actual play example, but thank you for at least this. I’m still not sure if tactical naval combat is worth it over just theater of the mind until boarding…
My main problem with the GoS rules is that there doesn’t seem to be any reason to ever target the hull until everything else has been destroyed. Also, adjudicating the effects of spells like Fireball or Flaming Sphere seem to be complicated. Does the boat catch on fire? How much extra damage would that do?
If you have any sort of AOE, it seems like the best strategy is to just try to kill crew, especially if they only have commoner statblocks…
Great lil walk through!
Fireball solves everything!
Would catch so many things on fire and do significant damage to main crew members, the hull, the sails and a weapon as well as kill lots of regular crew so they can only do 1 action. Lightning Bolt could be similar as well as hit both weapons.
I would love to see videos with optimized combat gameplay!
I'd definitely allow diagonal movement. Given that the only turn is 90 degrees I think diagonal movement feels realistic and makes closing and disengaging not completely ridiculous.
great pair of videos, but geez the non-euclidian measurements rattle my cage haha
I looked at the other npc options for a ship crew encounter and I found the pirate bosun really interesting. I wouldn’t mind using that stat block to play some quick games as a expert or warrior side kick.
I’ve been running waterborne campaigns for a couple of years and they’re a ton of fun!
I'm interested to see if these ship combat rules will be similar to what we will get in the Spelljammer setting book. I expect there will be at least some minor changes and additions due to the obvious differences between naval and spelljammer ships, but I'm curious to see what they salvage from these rules.
hmmm... seems that targetting crew with spells is very efficient - especially as an early strategy. Also, could you not use ship weapons to target creatures? - then they would be very dangerous for your level 3 characters?
I believe you can
I think it would mark sense for PCs to assume a flexible offer roll for skill challenges and combat… That way you are not forced into failing because you did not assign a roll or if the person assigned a roll has something more useful to do they can allow someone else to assume the roll for the encounter… So if the “Captain” had the cantrip Control Flames they might be better off handing command to someone else and just put out the fire themselves. Or if the “Cook” was trained in the skill the “Surgeon” needed then have them fill that roll. Just make sure that if a PC assumes a roll then they have it for the full encounter.
Great Video, as always, Thanks! Only one objection: the command "flee": if I were the DM, It would have make them flee under deck, but not drown themselves. However this was a nice fast-forward-naval-combat encounter simulation. Great!
Considering the movability of a ship in a two dimensional space (you corrected yourself), well, how will they realize all this in a three dimensional travel in the upcoming spelljammer?
Good question, my guess is they'll assume a 2d plane
@@TreantmonksTemple From the short adventure on dnd beyond, I think it will indeed be 2d, but you can go above or below the enemy ship freely instead of just ramming into them like in pure 2d
except moving up or down doesn't actually move you away from the caster it just changes your elevation so i don't htink that would count
You could make a very limited set of rules for 3d which wouldn't be too bad. Maybe make above or below possible and give it something like the prone condition ( i.e., disadvantage to hit and for its own attack rolls) + the possibility others have mentioned with being able to pass hostiles space above or below them.
I wonder how useful the mending and prestidigitation cantrips would be, for putting out fires and repairs.
Good question
I'm doing a series of pirate one shots and this will be perfect for next week!
Really helpful, thank you
Hey Chris, great series on naval combat!! One question regarding your first example: is it necessary to have an appointed officer with the role of Surgeon on board, or any character with proficiency in Medicine could make the hazard roll? The second option would make sense to me. Maybe roll with disadvantage if not a full-time crew member?
Makes sense to me as well
hey prime optimancer, please save the ascendant dragon monks :( i really enjoyed your previous video discussing the general monk, and even my DM allowed it. sadly, the video came out before the asscendant (heh) dragon subclass came out so they didn't get the same fixes that you did for every other subclass. please.
I’ve been using limithron’s guide to naval combat for my naval campaign. I works much better regarding wind in my opinion. However, it also assumes cannons which doesn’t always fit.
For the captain role I think a arcane trickster would he very good. 16 int and even if cha can only be 10 expertise in persuasion and intimidation more than equalize. Only issue is if the role requires straight charisma checks but I don’t believe those came up in the rules video or this one
you must add captain's prof in the ship's AC/saves.
Wouldn’t a sail be resistant or immune to piercing damage ? And couldn’t you use command to tell the captain to “surrender” ?
Great video, thanks for the overview.
But bosun rhymes with "Know Sun".
Looking at history, you should definitely invest in -Greek- Alchemist Fire
[34:34] "And I think they're going to do another Moonbeam, so they cast Moonbeam again"
Moonbeam is a concentration spell, with a duration of one minute, and can be moved in each round using a Bonus Action. Is there something special about ship's combat that requires it to be cast again each round? If so, I missed it in Ghosts of Saltmarsh.
There's a special rule to determine how many crew members an AOE effects based on it's level, I read that as something that happens once.
@@TreantmonksTemple, granted - though it is an optional rule. However, as an optional rule it seems to me to be a very bad one, and it massively restricts the effectiveness of some AOE spells.
Taking Moonbeam as an example, a tactically astute Druid would cast Moonbeam, placing it at the bow of the enemy ship, directly over the ballista. That, firstly attacks and probably kills any crew assigned to that ballista; and any crew coming to take their place, thereby denying use of the weapon. At the same time, if the enemy ship attempts to move in a straight line, two thirds of the ship (the entire bow and midships) will pass under the Moonbeam, thereby, in all probability, killing two thirds of the ships crew. If the normal practise in naval board wargames is followed, and ships turn by pivoting at the bow, that damage could not be avoided except by stopping. Even if a turn by pivoting at the midpoint is allowed, further areas of the deck will be effected. This tactical triumph is reduced by the optional rule to a mere 2D6 crew effected. Similar points could be made about any ranged, concentration AOE spells, though Moonbeam is particularly useful because it can be repositioned every round at the cost of a Bonus Action. Suitably placed wall spells could also devastate an opposing ship with one cast if properly placed.
Fireball is similarly underrated. It can be cast so as to effect 40% of a Sail Ship, for which the 3d6 crew effected might seem appropriate; but Fireball "...ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried." So after casting Fireball, the entire surviving crew plus officers (except for 1) of the opposing ship would need to spend the entire next, and probably subsequent rounds quenching the fire; or watch their ship rapidly burn beneath them. (Firebolts are similarly dangerous, though without destroying 50% of the crew, on average, beforehand.)
Quick question: Is there any rule stopping the ship's weapons from targeting the crew on the other ship? Like using the mangonel to hit the opposing captain or the opposing ship using their ballista to target the pcs?
of course, how else are you going to give the monk potentially the most epic deflect missile reaction of their career?
And suddenly monk has a use…..
I have a question for those that ran the “of ships and Sea” UA and the Ghost of Saltmarsh appendix A shown here. Are they basically the same?
I would have love to be the bosun of the ship by being an artificier with the Shipwright background.
A moonbeam for 2d6 crew is OP, fam... Amd you knew it! 😂🤣😂🤣 "Optimized" I bet
So sad that the Spelljammer books didn't reach this level of content
Is there a book that is focused on sailing/ naval adventures?
I have seen many people wing it but never have I seen someone actually read and use the book for a naval battle. ( in any version of any roleplay game)
Sorry I'm just not seeing your links to the pdf / pre-order you refer to in the intro. Did you link?
You should see them in the pinned comment (sorry, pin apparently didn't work first time - should be ok now)
what I don't like about these ship rules is there are no rules for engaging a ship or having a ship escape, or grappling a ship with ropes tied to ballista bolts, swinging on ropes to board other ships. which is what is most likely will happen when you encounter a ship say with a pirate flag. your goal is to take down the pirates or get away from them. Another issue is using player abilities and attacks to take down the enemy ship, this becomes very significant at mid to high levels. Just imagine Extra attack and sharpshooter. you could easily overcome the damage threshold 15 of the ship and start bashing the hull... now action surge. 1d8+14 damage per hit with a longbow. Minimum 60 damage, just from one PC.
These massive overly complicated rules for combat are not something you would want to deal with every other session as you may in a very ship focused game. Especially at higher levels when PC's can destroy ships with there own powers and you may need multiple ships to threaten PC's. Now in your example here you recast moonbeam to do it's effect again... but wouldnt it do it's effect every round since it is a concentration spell?.. Now imagine what a spell like Cloud kill would do to another ship. It would kill everyone swiftly.. without damaging the ship... good spell for pirates.
Now I worry this is what we will get for spelljammer
Hey chris! Do you have a reddit account? Because I just saw an account with your channel name there.
is it a website u use for making the water and the ships??
Curiously, still no clarity on how to deal with falling into the water...
Thumbs up for the vid but thumbs down for 5e naval combat. The problem I have is it tries to reflect the 'Age of Sail' without cannons and gunpowder. Do a little reading and you will find that prior to around 1600 ship combat was mostly melee's on floating platforms with some ramming. There is a reason why sailing ships did not use ballista or mangonels (if they were ever used in the way D&D suggests) it's because you cannot fire these mechanical devices accurately from a pitching deck. I believe the only recorded instance of a mangonel being used was during a Chinese siege and not in ship to ship combat. If you want to play in a classic pirate campaign you need cannons and there are tons of 3rd party rules much better than Ghosts of Saltmarsh.
Hi, can your recommend me one or two of those 3rd party naval rules? I just began a campaign where my PC's will be sailing a lot. Two of them are even pirates.
Dude in the thumbnail looks like you, Chris.
Cant you use the 3 actions to fire the mangonel 3 times? I thought you could do that.
You can only do each action once per turn
ב"ה
Can you target characters with the balista and mangonel?
Maybe taking out enemy characters with them is the best move.
whats the software of the maps n tokens?
How did the Bosun Jump 20'?
Think he jumped 15 feet (and had a strength score of 16 so that's all good)
Didi I Miss The warlock revision vídeo?
There hasn't been one. That's a big project that I may or may not do time depending.
@@TreantmonksTemple cool, keep up The Good work
Cook could have grappled the captain.
Hitting 12 people with Moonbeam seems pretty wack.
Ship combat? What is this, 3E??
Not gonna lie. These rules kind of suck.
I really hate to be this guy. Bosun has a long “o,” like “bow-sun.”
For a good crew officers I would put the casters as quartermaster and cook, since in combat they do not have abilities to use, and casting spells is better.
The for the other roles I could see fitting any class, so that they can take special actions and still have utility, more than what I'd say having a barbarian hitting with a +4 light Crossbow the sails,and still have the players engaged like this.
And even for any events that may happen during the travel, like you could have a cook artificer that can cast create or destroy water in barrels to maybe help the crew with the fire, or whatever shit ND artificer could do.
Chris, we all wish we could roll like that in our games hahahahahahhaha amazing, this video by itself will help so many tables have a lot of fun doing sea shenanigans, the community appreciates you so much