Vessel+Characteristics

VESSELS Adventurers exploring the seas or islands of the world need a good ship—a vessel swift enough to go in harm’s way and sturdy enough to stand up to mighty sea monsters, terrible storms, pirate attacks, and other hazards one meets on the water. While the // Player’s Handbook // describes a small number of typical vessels for river and ocean travel and provides some simple information about cost and speed, the exact characteristics of the heroes’ boat or ship play a much more important role in an aquatic or seafaring adventure. This section therefore describes almost two dozen distinct ship and boat types commonly found on the rivers and seas of the D&D world.

Since // Stormwrack // has the luxury of exploring this topic at greater length than the // Player’s Handbook, // the information given here supercedes the information presented in the // Player’s Handbook. //

VESSEL CHARACTERISTICS Any vehicle is an inanimate, unattended object, even if manned by hundreds of crewmembers. Since player characters usually rely on a ship to get them from place to place across stretches of water and keep them from drowning when they’re in the middle of the ocean, knowing how ships are damaged and how they move is important.

Sections Any boat or ship of Huge size or larger is not treated as a single object, but instead a composite of a number of different sections. A section is a 10-foot×10-foot×10-foot piece of a ship. Hull sections are used for recording combat damage to a ship, and serve no other purpose. A vessel 40 feet long, 10 feet in beam, and 10 feet from keel to deck has four hull sections in a line from bow to stern. It might not always be clear exactly how a small ship might be broken up into even 10-foot cubes. Consider a hull section to be roughly 1,000 cubic feet; round partial hull sections up to 1 full hull section. For example, a vessel 60 feet long, 15 feet in beam, and 15 feet from keel to deck has about 13,500 cubic feet, or 14 hull sections. You could treat such a vessel as 2 rows of 7 hull sections each. Each hull section would be about 7-1/2 feet wide, 15 feet tall, and about 8-1/2 feet long, if you ever needed to know exactly where each hull section was located. Remember, though, hull sections are intended to be an abstraction; a ship is not a big square block of uniform sections floating in the water.

In addition to the hull sections, any sailing ship also has a number of rigging sections. These sections might be quite large, since each one represents a mast and all its yardarms, sails, and lines. Destroying one section of a ship’s rigging might damage its maneuverability, but unless the ship has only one mast, it will retain some ability to move.

Propulsion While some crude rafts or barges might not have any ability to move under their own power, most vessels are designed to travel as their crews direct. This requires some sort of motive force—sails, oars, paddlewheels, propellers, or even draft animals. The most important types are // sails, oars, // or // propellers. // Some vessels have both sails and oars.

** Sails ** : A sailing ship’s speed varies with the wind conditions. As long as the vessel is steering downwind or across the wind (within 90º of downwind), its maximum speed is equal to the speed given in the vessel’s statistics block multiplied by the speed multiplier for wind strength (see Wind and Weather, page 22). For example, if the wind is out of the northwest, a ship sailing northeast, east, southeast, south, or southwest can move up to its maximum speed.

A sailing ship steering within 45º to 90º of the wind—north or west, in the example given here—is reduced to half speed. Finally, a sailing ship cannot sail directly into the wind; its speed is reduced to zero if it tries to do so, although a ship can tack close to the wind and make good a course to the northwest by alternating between sailing north and sailing west, in the example above.

A sailing ship with its nose pointing into the wind isn’t stuck there forever. The helmsman can “turn in place” 45º in one full round in order to fall off the wind and begin making way again.

** Oars: ** Vessels with rowers need not worry much about wind direction. They simply move their given speed in any direction the helmsman sees fit to steer.

** Oars and Sails: ** Some vessels have both sails and oars. The ship uses either its rowing speed or its sailing speed, as the master chooses. Changing propulsion modes requires 1 full round.

** Propellers: ** A few rare ships are built with mechanical or magical propellers, screws, paddlewheels, or even mechanical oars. Like oared vessels, vessels driven by paddlewheels or propellers ignore wind direction.


 * Maneuverability **
 * || **Good** || **Average** || **Poor** ||
 * Maximum Speed Change || 20 ft || 10 ft || 5 ft ||
 * Reverse* || 10 ft || 5 ft || 5 ft ||
 * Turn || 45°/ 35 ft || 45° / 60 ft || 45° / 120 ft ||
 * Turn In Place* || 180° || 90° || 45° ||
 * Maximum Turn || 90° || 45° || 45° ||
 * Normally available only to oared vessels.

** Maximum Speed Change ** : The maximum amount by which the vessel can change its speed (either speeding up or slowing down) in a single round. A vessel cannot exceed its maximum speed given the current wind strength and direction.

** Reverse: ** Only oared vessels can travel in reverse. A vessel cannot go backwards unless its speed was zero in the preceding round, and a vessel moving in reverse must first come to a dead stop for 1 round before moving forward again.

** Turn: ** How much the vessel can turn after covering the stated distance.

** Turn in Place: ** Normally, oared vessels are the only vessels that can turn in place. The vessel must begin the round with a speed of zero to turn in place. A sailing ship can turn in place only when its speed is zero and its bow is pointing into the wind (the ship raises enough sail to fall off the wind and assume a new direction that will permit it to sail in the following round).

** Maximum Turn: ** How much the vessel can turn in any one space.