Every ship has four vital statistics for use in our Naval Combat Rules: Speed, Difficulty and Weapon Pool. The Structure of the ship is also important.
Speed
This is how fast a ship can go. It's ranked on a scale of 0-10.
| Speed | Ship Type |
|---|---|
| 0 | Rowboat |
| 1 | Fishing Boat |
| 2 | Riverboat/Ferry/Pleasure Yacht |
| 3 | Heavily-armed Warship/Two-Masted Merchant Vessel |
| 4 | Three-Masted Merchant Vessel |
| 5 | Unladen High Quality Pirate Ship |
| 6 | Courier Ship |
| 7 | Opetkan Pursuit Ship |
| 10 | A ship the likes of which the world has never seen |
Ob-Lob ships get +1 speed for their type.
Difficulty
Difficulty represents the manoeuvrability of the ship. It's ranked on a scale of 0-6. This difficulty is imposed on any manoeuvre a ship makes in combat, as well as any time it's trying to deal with treacherous waters or storms or the like.
| Difficulty | Ship Type |
|---|---|
| 0 | Small Nimble Ship |
| 2 | Medium Attack Ship |
| 3 | Large Lightly-armed/Medium Well-armed Ship |
| 4 | Large Ship |
| 5 | Large Heavily-laden Ship |
| 6 | Heavily-armed Helusan Warship |
Ob-Lob ships get -1 difficulty for their type.
Weapon Pool
Naval shooting isn't the same kind of hand eye coordination that most weapons are, thus the skill of the user isn't as important, what counts is the Attack pool. Determine the number and type of weapons the ship has and consult the table below.
| Weapon | Rating per weapon |
|---|---|
| Archers | 1d |
| Ballista | 1d |
| Catapult | 2d (Ignores 1 point of Armour) |
| Flaming/Magical Catapult | 3d+Area 2 (Ignores 2 points of Armour) |
Catapults and Ballistas can only fire from one side of the ship so you have to manoeuvre into position before you can attack. Then you count up the number of each weapon you have in position to fire. Maybe your standard Ob-Lob ship has three catapults per side. After a successful manoeuvre into position it could roll 6d to attack.
Catapults and Ballistas do Width in Superficial and Structural damage. Area attacks do 2 superficial and 2 structural damage per die thrown. Attacks do not disrupt the other ship's sets unless you hit specific locations.
Archers and other normal scale weapons attack like Unworthy Opponents and do Width in Superficial damage. Armour values are doubled against such weapons. Archers can move from one side of the ship to the other, or even fire from the stern or bow, so they can fire on an enemy ship without needing to be manoeuvred into position. They're best for firing at enemy crew.
If a PC makes an Expert: Warmachines or Student: Artillery (or something similar) roll before the fighting begins you can add +1 to the attack pool for as long as the PC is helping. (If the PC has an ED or MD in the skill that can be added instead.)
Structure
Instead of hit points ships have Structure points. They're basically exactly the same as human hit points. You can do Superficial (Shock) damage and Structural (Killing) damage to a ship. As with bodies, if you fill up a location with Structural damage, the excess goes into the hull.
SP and AR
Big boats tend to be armoured. Or at least thick. A fast boat probably has less armour than indicated below. Also, AR values usually don't apply evenly to the whole ship. Open weapon decks have -2 AR (necessary for catapults), and the masts have -1 AR. As mentioned in the Attack section of the Naval Combat Rules, these AR values are doubled against normal scale weapons. Also, normal scale weapons do only Superficial damage to ships. Magical attacks or attacks made with fire/explosives do width in Superficial and Structural damage.
Here are some rough guidelines for the total number of Structure Points a ship would have.
| Ship Type | SP | Armour |
|---|---|---|
| Small boats | 36 | AR 0 |
| Large River Boats/Small Seagoing Ships | 48 | AR 1 |
| Medium Seagoing Ships | 60 | AR 2 |
| Large Seagoing Ships | 72+ | AR 3 |
Hit Locations and Effects
Just like in regular combat, the Height of the attack roll determines what part of the ship you've hit. Damage effects on ship locations differ if a location is filled with superficial damage or filled with structural damage.
| Height | Location | Filled Superficial | Filled Structural |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | Bridge | -1d Manoeuvre rolls1 | x3 Difficulty |
| 7-9 | Hull | Cargo may be damaged | Crippled |
| 5-6 | Starboard Deck | -1d Crew Actions, 1/2 Weapons2 | 0 Weapons |
| 3-4 | Port Deck | -1d Crew Actions, 1/2 Weapons2 | 0 Weapons |
| 1-2 | Masts | 1/2 Speed, +2 Difficulty | Speed 0, x2 Difficulty |
1 On any hit to the bridge, knock a die out of any Manoeuvre/Dodge/Flee sets. Normally ship hits don't knock dice out of sets. Also, hits to the bridge that get through the bridge's armour hit the command crew in highest Waste Die location.
2 On any hit to the decks, knock a die out of any Attack sets.
My gut says in general (depending on the ship of course) put about 1/2 of the SP in the hull, 1/4 in the masts and then more in the decks than the bridge. So for The Helusian Spirit a medium sized ocean vessel, we'd be looking at Hull 30, Masts 14 (seven per mast, which could be split into separate hit locations), Port Weapons 6, Starboard Weapons 6 and Bridge 4.
In the future we'll have detailed charts for different ship types.
