Seafaring in the Companion

[haargald]

Overall I liked the seafaring rules in the companion, but I'd like to see a more tactical movement system for combat. Any suggestions?

 

[haargald]

Thank you, you've been very helpful :wink:

 

[Halfbat]

Thank you, you've been very helpful :wink:

It might be worth waiting a bit longer - time zones and work patterns seem very spread on this board.

 

[soltakss]

Well, ships can move forwards and veer right or left. That's about it.

Two ships can move around each other, but opposed Shiphandling rolls should be enough to resolve them. Ships chasing each other is treated the same way as two people running. Ramming and boarding are also handled by opposed Shiphandling rolls to get the ships in position, then an attack roll for the ram or some other roll for the boarding.

Of course, you could go into hexes and relative speeds, but it's not really worth it.

 

[Carrotix]

Maybe here you find some ideas ;-)

http://www.io.com/~sj/PirateGame.html

 

[Quire]

Thank you, you've been very helpful :wink:

Refer to your sig. :wink:

- Q

 

[klingsor]

Until roughly the Elizabethan era naval warfare was either about ramming, getting your men aboard your opponents ship or both. Oared galleys, fast and agile enough to make ramming a realistic tactic, fared rather poorly outside of the Med and the Baltic so that left it pretty much up to boarding actions. Do you really need fancy tactical movement for this?

 

[Halfbat]

The range of ships is pretty wide, so I think we must assume it was meant for a wide variety of naval conditions.

A good set of bireme rules are around, for example Langton Miniatures' are pretty good ( if you want to go into a wargaming set up) but is that what you want or is it ship-on-ship for a roleplaying situation?

 

[Michael Hopcroft]

Here';s one thing I noticed: while there seem to be numerous ships optimized for moving goods by sea, are any of them really suitable for moving people in large numbers by sea?

Longships are decent for mo0ving soldiers -- because soldiers are strong enough that they can double as rowers -- but what if you wanted to send settlers to a new land? What sort of ship should adventurers hire or seek passage on if they want to get to a distant land by sea?

 

[Halfbat]

Longships are decent for mo0ving soldiers -- because soldiers are strong enough that they can double as rowers -- but what if you wanted to send settlers to a new land? What sort of ship should adventurers hire or seek passage on if they want to get to a distant land by sea?

Ignoring real life for a moment and looking at the rules...

Traders, such as knorr, Cogs and rafts were frequently used as settler ships (or variants of them).

I'm pretty sure the passengers on each ship were ignored. For game purposes, you could commit something like half the tonnage to passenger space on a one-for-one basis and (perhaps) double it for cramped space.

I have not done all the arithmetic to see if that's feasible. It would make a cog able to take 37 tons of cargo and 75 settlers (crammed) or the knorr 34 settlers (crammed a bit) and 17 tons.

 

[klingsor]

One of the scariest scenarios I can think of is a bull getting loose on a small ship. You cannot kill it (you have centuries to wait until you can just transport straws of semen), you need it for the colony, you have to secure it again. Realistically it would probably be something simple along the lines of "Bellow, Smash, Splash".

Oddly this is something I have been wondering about – a combination of watching 'Firefly' and playing 'Serenity' (Mongoose, you would have done a far, far better job) and something that came up at a recent Folklore Association meeting. For short distances you can swim the beasts – tie their heads alongside the boat but for long voyages, such as the Icelandic settlers it must have been horrible.

Presumably you take weaned calves (smaller and more manageable) or young heifers and bulls (bigger but tougher) or pregnant cows in the hope that you will get a bull calf though I would wonder if they might abort with the stress and poor diet of the voyage.

 

[klingsor]

People are just cargo, generally quite a profitable one as well. I am not sure what space they take up though but it does not have to be a lot if you are blackbirding or if they are sailors – I think the RN allowed something like 9 inches per hammock.

Just use a figure to convert hold to troop or passenger capacity – ½ or ¼ ton per man or whatever.