You can restart a vessel’s movement by making the same skill checks required for turning (see below).
When you halt a ship, it stops sailing, and will drift 100 feet in the direction it is facing each turn. Halting requires no skill checks to perform. Characters may only take one action per round. Navigational Actionsĭuring its turn, a ship is always assumed to move a distance equal to its speed in the direction it is facing. If neither does, then the average Speed of each side determines turn order (the side with the higher average speed goes first). If one side surprises or ambushes the other, then that side takes its turn first. The Combat RoundĮach round of Combat has two turns: Friendly turn and Enemy turn (if there are more than two sides to a battle, then this number increases, as each side has its own turn). Large ships occupy a 300 x 200 foot area (3×2 squares). Medium ships occupy a 200 x 100 foot area (2×1 squares). Small ships occupy and control a 100 x 100 foot area (a single square). So if your vessel has a combat speed of 500 ft, it can more 5 squares per round.Įach vessel also has a size, which determines how many squares/feet it takes up. On the grid, a single square represents 100 ft. Liberties were taken and adjustments were made in order to make sure combat was more exciting in the scale we will be playing in. Note that these speeds are not meant to be perfect conversions from miles per hour to feet per 3 minutes. The following chart converts the DMG’s mph speeds to Combat speeds. A round of Naval Combat is roughly 3 minutes. In combat, Speed measures how far a ship moves per round. Speed, when measured for combat purposes, is different from the speed listed in the DMG. However, if it takes 17 damage, then that damage is subtracted from HP as normal. For example, if a ship has DT of 15, and it takes 12 damage, then that damage is considered superficial and nothing is subtracted from the HP. DT represents a target number for damage rolls. AC represents the target number of an attack roll made against the ship, much as it does for normal creatures. HP measures how much damage a ship can take before it sinks. Ships possess the following Combat relevant stats: Hit Points ( HP), Armor Class ( AC), Damage Threshold ( DT), and Speed. The Dungeon Master’s Guide lists a number of rules for using ships, and I will happily pilfer from those rules and incorporate them into these ones. 3) Mechanically, I am taking inspiration from 4e’s Skill Challenge rules. 2) This system may not necessarily require a grid-map, but it makes it much easier. My primary inspiration is the naval combat in Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. 1) This is not a historically accurate system.
In this post, I’ll be writing down an untested Naval Combat system for use with 5e. Now, The Endless Sea is a naval-based campaign, and as such there needs to be ship-to-ship combat at some point. If you are one of the two people who reads this blog, you may be aware of my Dungeons and Dragons campaign, the Endless Sea.