OOC Chat

Welcome aboard, @The_Evil_Dedd!

First, read the Session Zero and House Rules thread.

Next, visit the Character Creation thread to create your character for this seafaring adventure.

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Hey all, glad to be here.

We were misusing Control Water before. The Flood effect forces any Huge or smaller vehicles struck by the wave to roll a percentile day, with 25% chance of capsizing, but these ships are Gargantuan, and should be unaffected.

But let's go ahead and attempt to sweep undead into the sea. The crew rolls STR saves vs. Nela's spell save DC (16). Save failed! Skeletal crew's number has been reduced. Great job!

I suspect you're referring to Full Speed Ahead, which is one of only two currently available Special Officer Actions available. We'll add more at a later time.
The reason Valrakas is yelling for the crew to "heave to" (full stop) is to let the Sea Witch sail past, giving the Kestrel's guns line of sight to the skeleton ship. (see the battle map)

If I am understanding your intention correctly, Ian is using the Full Speed Ahead special officer action so that when the Kestrel's turn comes, it can use 1 ship action to Turn 90 degrees to starboard, and her other 2 ship actions to "Dash" northeast and engage the Skeleton Ship. (see Kestrel stats & ship action options here)

Am I reading you right?

Alecor, for that readied action, are you targeting the undead captain, members of his crew, or one of the ship's components (hull, sails, helm, or weapons)?

Let's give Phillip another day to post.

I don't know why every encounter I keep trying to put us on standard initiative when we've clearly established block initiative works way better in PbP. Once everyone has acted this round, we will shift to block initiative: good guys go first (in any order), then all the ships, then bad guys.

Lols, I feel like i may have borked my post but i'll roll with it :D

Well, the cannon fire is a ship action, not a character action. Those are pretty good rolls, so we can use them when the Kestrel's turn comes. With added advantage roll thanks to Ian's First Mate action. You can still act if you want, Phillip.

man the cannon(s) i've got nothing i can personally do to aid currently

I may have on and off access problems the next couple week. If it seems long, please play my character.

I've edited the Naval Combat houserules again. Now, the Full Speed Ahead officer action only enables a ship to take the Move action twice in a round. The previous version (where a ship given the Full Speed Ahead command could Move multiple times) felt excessive.



Speaking of Special Officer Actions, at present there are only two: Full Speed Ahead, and Take Aim. I'd like for there to be more options. Any suggestions for special commands that directly affect ship performance during combat?

I'd also love to create options for non-officers while ship vs. ship combat is happening over distances beyond spell and archery range.

Since the 1st officer is morale, I wonder if there's a way to use charisma to boost the crews ability to attack. Maybe advantage on the next roll, or adding the officers CHR mod to the next attack. I don't know if just a CHR roll, CHR saving throw, or a perform check would be used to see if it works

Take Aim, which I adapted from Ghosts of Saltmarsh without modification, grants one of the ship's weapons advantage on its next attack roll (I botched the implementation by granting advantage to all 3 starboard cannons). I considered modifying this to require a CHA roll from the officer, but decided it's more fun as is.

The skeletons pull a Bahubali maneuver.

Yes, it has moved outside the area of effect. I've gone back and edited every map posted after Control Water was cast. The area of effect is shown as a dotted square.
CURRENT MECHANICS
With our current mechanics, it doesn't take any of a character's actions to load or fire a cannon. In fact, because ships have their own actions, the cannons will fire without any of the PCs intervening. Although Grog and Phillip taking over gunner duties is cool, there's no mechanical effect. The only effect a PC can have on the cannons is when an officer spends their action on Take Aim, granting one weapon Advantage on its next attack roll before the end of the ship's next turn.

PROPOSED CHANGE
Any PC commandeering a cannon is considered as taking the Help action, granting that weapon Advantage on its next attack roll before the end of the ship's next turn.

The officer action, Take Aim does NOT grant advantage, but adds the officer's CHA modifier to ALL ship's weapon attack rolls. If the officer is proficient with firearms, they may add their Proficiency bonus instead. The effect lasts the end of the ship's next turn.

In this game, for the sake of simplicity, if you are proficient with martial weapons, then you are also proficient with firearms. Artificers are proficient with firearms.

SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES IN THE CURRENT SCENARIO
The Kestrel's NPC crew are Frightened. All cannon attacks have Disadvantage unless affected by a PC's Help action.

Thats kinda badass if it would work irl!!

The ships are about to take their turns (after Jhiros posts).

The Sea Witch is going to keep running northwest at her current speed 45 ft/round (double that if Leatha orders Full Speed Ahead). That's going to look like this:


The Skeleton Ship is going to close in for sure (roughly 3 squares west) and probably launch a couple of skeleton squads.

What do you guys want the Kestrel to do next? Remember that she has 3 actions per turn. Those can be spent on Turn, Move (speed depends on direction), or Fire Cannons.

Effects of the latest rules change on the Kestrel's next turn:
Ian gave the Take Aim command. So, until the end of the Kestrel's upcoming turn, cannons will add his CHA modifier to their attack rolls. In addition, Phillip and Grog have taken the Help action, negating Disadvantage suffered by their respective cannons due to the NPC crew having the Frightened condition. The third starboard cannon will continue to fire with Disadvantage.

Since the skeleton ship is so much faster than the Sea Witch I think this would be the only opportunity the fire all cannons one more time before they reach us and start actual combat.

Do you fire and then move to block, maybe?

Would the Skelly get an advantage roll on his DEX save? The canon ball isn't magical its the force that started it moving. The ball itself is still just a canon ball.

Even though I was leaning towards "yes, it gets advantage," I gave it a lot of thought before actually posting that advantage roll. For exactly the line of reasoning you posted above. I even posed a question on the GP Discord channel (I'll tag you ver there).

In the end, I ruled that yes, it does get advantage.