Shipboard weapons

[strega]

I've just started a new game and the PCs have decided upon a life on the high seas. No problem I thought, I have MRQII Arms and Equipment and I know there are rules for naval stuff in there. So i started looking today and find much stuff about ships and gunpowder weapons but a lack of data about springals, ballistae, siege arbalests and other pre-gunpowder weapons. Smaller arbalests are covered in the base rules which I can adapt, but not springals or ballistae. So what am I to do?

Suggestions for rules/details of these weapons that I can use for Legend/MRQII naval warfare - defending against pirates etc would be appreciated.

 

[rust]

MRQ II Arms and Equipment has short descriptions of typical
shipboard weapons (arbalest, ballista, springal), but it seems
that the game mechanics data are missing. In Arms of Legend
the table for these weapons looks like this:

 

[strega]

Thanks a bunch, now my players can sail the seas in style.

 

[Olaus Petrus]

There's official 8 pages long Arms & Equipment errata .pdf which includes those ship weapon stats and it also fixes several other mistakes in weapon stats. Arms & Equipment doesn't seem to be officially supported anymore, but you can still find that errata with google. (Current product Arms of Legend is basicly just an errated version of Arms & Equipment)

 

[strega]

The Legend version seems to have had the naval stuff removed AFAIK. Thanks to 'rust' I have enough to give the players something to defend themselves against pirates, sea serpents or a kraken.

 

[Olaus Petrus]

The Legend version seems to have had the naval stuff removed AFAIK. Thanks to 'rust' I have enough to give the players something to defend themselves against pirates, sea serpents or a kraken.

All of the naval stuff is in the Arms of Legend except the part which was errated out:

Naval Warfare Rules
The naval warfare rules on page 69 are clearly incomplete and were erroneously included. They should be ignored. Ship combat will be dealt with more fully in a future RuneQuest II supplement.

 

[havercake lad]

Just make sure you have enough rope to hang all the pirate scum you encounter !

 

[strega]

I rather think that my characters may be doing a little freelancing once they get outside sight of land.

 

[Olaus Petrus]

Piracy sounds like fun.

Which reminds me, does any RQII or Legend book contain detailed rules for sea battles or do we have to wait Pirates of Legend (I don't have Vikings so, I don't know if it had any rules for battles on the open sea)?

 

[strega]

IIRC Pirates doesn't use the MRQII system so may not translate to the 'of Legend' format as easily.
It does have ship to ship combat but mostly with cannon as appropriate for the period.

Someone who actually has original Pirates could tell you more.

 

[rust]

The copy of Runequest Pirated I have uses the MRQ I system instead
of the MRQ II / Legend system, and it is written for campaigns in the
Golden Age of Piracy, not for Medieval campaigns. I am not sure whe-
ther there is a MRQ II version of this supplement, but it would certain-
ly also cover the Early Modern age, which would make it difficult to mo-
dify for campaigns of an earlier age (e.g. no rowed ships, no ramming,
much more advanced sailing rigs and therefore much higher mobility of
ships, etc.).

 

[strega]

The Shiphandling and Boating skills together with the ship information in A&E are enough to deal with chases. Fatigue might be an issue with a rowed ship. The naval weapons section omitted from MRQII A&E originally has enough detail to cover pre-gunpowder ship-to-ship combat and the ship data tables include ram damage.

While Pirates might be useful for other things naval combat isn't necessarily one of them.

Vikings turned sea battles into land battles by lashing ships together so no issue there except people falling off ships into the water.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I believe Mongoose will soon be publishing Pirates of Legend, should have just about everything you need (assuming you don't have it already!)

 

[Prime_Evil]

I believe Mongoose will soon be publishing Pirates of Legend, should have just about everything you need (assuming you don't have it already!)

Which month is Pirates of Legend due out? I can't remember...

 

[soltakss]

I believe Mongoose will soon be publishing Pirates of Legend, should have just about everything you need (assuming you don't have it already!)

And, once again, I wholeheartedly advise everyone to pick up a copy. If it's as good as the original RQ Pirates then it will be worth it. If it has been upgraded to be fully Legend compatible then it will be doubly worth it.

 

[mwsasser]

I've been holding off water based combat for months waiting on this data. I'm having to ignore it again during my next game, it would be nice if there were some real rules.

 

[strega]

How much more do you need?

I mean you have lots of ship type options in A&E, pre-gunpowder weapons are in A&E of Legend.

The sailing rules in A&E seem adequate to me for getting from A to B including being chased (opposed Shiphandling/Boating skill modified by ship ratings and wind with rowers taking fatigue).

Fleet actions aren't covered but how many of those do you need.

I've grabbed a bunch of sea monsters out of various MRQI/MRQII books or made them up based on the books stuff - Giant Octopus, Giant Squid, Sea Serpent, Plesiosaur, Shark. You could add Air and water elementals out of the MRQII core book.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I believe Mongoose will soon be publishing Pirates of Legend, should have just about everything you need (assuming you don't have it already!)

Which month is Pirates of Legend due out? I can't remember...

The list says it should be out in June.