[Mechanics] Game Mechanics and Serious Business

[Sir Alex]

I had a question! Are the siege weapons on the enemy ships relatively exposed? Specifically, are they sitting on the deck and vulnerable to melee attacks or are they enclosed inside metal boxes with a slit for the projectile, like a modern battleship? In most of the boat plans it looked like the catapult was just sitting there, but honestly you'd know best.

And wow, DR 30/- for the ships. That makes them pretty invulnerable to PC direct attacks. Makes sense, really, although it would be cool if adamantine weapons got past the DR.

[Fil kearney]

They are exposed yes.
and yeah. metal/stone is hard to just cut apart.
I'll need to update that a hull point is worth 10 hit points.. so the tradesman really has in melee and spell terms 650hp on top of the DR
also the way I've rigged reloading is that a shot can be fired every round by siege machinery as long as they are fully crewed... a lheavy ballista with only one operator, for example, can shoot every 3 rounds.. but with three men, it can be fired every round. That should keep ship combat from being boring.
and a ballista doing 1d6HD does mean it will do 10-60 HP if targeting individuals... but hitting an individuals are hard to hit.
gargantuan = ship
colossal = -1
huge = -2
large = -4
medium = -8
small = -16
tiny = -32
... so really tough to hit people on a deck.

[Battlechaser]

Would the first mate at the wheel be out in the open?

[Fil kearney]

our 1st?
that's an interesting question.
the spelljammer original setup had the helm inside the ship, and the person powering the helm could see everywhere, so exposure was neer an issue.
but we're not using sj helms, we've got elementals bound to the ships powering it, though normal-ish sailor activity still occurs to make the boat does what it needs to do, though I'm liking the idea of the spirit being able to move the ship on its own if left unattended... that's actually a fun little mechanic idea, like, the ship can fly unattended t a worse maneuverability than if it wer actually piloted... so the question them becomes how necessary is a set point of a bridge needed?
i'm thinking not so much. that setting up on the stern castle for a point of command couls simply be a convenient location that kees all the ship relatively visible at once by whoever has command.
This makes commandign the ship really about communicating with the spirit.. hell, it could decide it doesn't like you and not want to fly at all, worsening the maneuverability against your efforts... yu'd hav to speak the language to get the elemental working with you.. I think I like that. the wheel ofthe ship is just part of the rigging, but it is to just help aid the elemental to push the ship about more easily.

this prevents you from having to specifically be on board the boat at any speicific location, hell the ship could come looking for you if it anted to... but this also means stealing someone's boat is like kidnapping, and the ship itself could resist the attempts. I actually think that's pretty cool. the difference between an enslaved vessel vs an enthusiastic ship could be massive.


what do you all think?

[Battlechaser]

No, their first. I'm thinking of porting in, ripping his throat out and flying off.

[Sir Alex]

Nice, I like the idea of ships having an independent streak.

[Fil kearney]

I"ve got a simple size compariosn of ship to ship up on ROll20 that can act as a ship vs ship combat map .. i may resize the ships to have more space in the environment, but this will do for now as I convert character portraits to icons

Originally Posted by Battlechaser

No, their first. I'm thinking of porting in, ripping his throat out and flying off.

no reason why you couldn't.... they'll probably be speaking ignan, o that should give you an easier time of figgering out who's in charge.
There's a slew of hobgobs on those boats. like, 20 at a glance on each ship.. so you'll want to keep an eye out for who's barking commands. That's your guy.

[Fil kearney]

Originally Posted by Sir Alex

Nice, I like the idea of ships having an independent streak.

lol "ghost ships" could be craft that have gone rogue, abandoning it's crew and just doing it's own thing out in the wilds.... oh I could make cool use of that.

[Grenadier]

It might be better for those wishing to teleport to the enemy ship (or anything really) might want to hitch a ride with Princess or Brunner if possible. That way the whole ship doesn't have to be exposed to danger.

That, or wait until the enemy ships are about to catch us.

[Battlechaser]

Question. Could I force the ships to enter the storm once I kill the first mate?

[Fil kearney]

Originally Posted by Battlechaser

Question. Could I force the ships to enter the storm once I kill the first mate?

If you can establish control over the ship then yes you can.
I'm leaning towards sentient ships have control, so it would become an effort of you establishing the loyalty of the ship to the crew and exploiting through bluff intimidate or diplomacy... you could instead ignore the ship's attitude at the risk of reducing maneuverability, but you would need deckhands manually setting the rigging to force the ship where you want it to go.

so, with practicality: no.

Originally Posted by Battlechaser

Now where are you? Brunner hovered next to the first Scorpion...

the ship is about a half mile away.. it'll take about ten rounds for the ships to intercept... maybe a few rounds sooner for you to fly there.. so we need to hold offon this activity.

[Fil kearney]

Originally Posted by Battlechaser

Dice * RTA:

I'm sorry... what is RTA?
*readies to facepalm vs The Obvious*

[Sir Alex]

I think it's Ranged Touch Attack...

[Fil kearney]

LMAO
yeah. pretty obvious.

[Fil kearney]

Originally Posted by Eviltedzies

Just a quick update before we start. After realizing the way skills work I simply decided to use my floating feat to take a 4th level Warblade. I already have 3rd level Divine/Arcane casting. I might as well finish off having d12 HD and Full BAB

right on...
Hey, just looking over your build; I'm noticing the full divine and arcane casting, but that warweaver affects only arcane spells.
I'm not sure if you had intended on casting cleric spells through the weave, but it isn't possible... though 3 levels of Bard would allow you full access to the entire spell list for bards up through 3rd.
so in the 12 levels you have alotted to cleric and sorcerer, you could go cleric6/sor3/bard3 to have all three of these spell lists fully available to allocate amongst your slots and have full domain use at the cost of less bonus spells from sorcerer, or you could go sor6/cler3/bard3 which would give you the extra casting slots for sorcerer 4-6, but limit your domain access to cleric 1-3.

I just thought it was worth pointing out because weaving bard heal spells through the tapestry for group healing would be awful useful, considering you have WW5 so that they only have to be within 35 feet of you to receive the HP.

Food for thought, and I don't mind retconstruction for a potentially better solution to what you may have intended?