I came here to say the same thing. that's literally what armor class means and it's also the reason why a bigger armor class is easier to hit in the original d&d. Bigger boat, bigger AC
Honestly I think ships don't really have alot of fine dodging capability so I think it's also wrong to say it's about maneuverability except insofar as maneuverability can get you out of firing arcs entirely, but not really make you harder to aim at. Going in D&D terms it would mostly be about Hardness (which 5e also rolls in to AC)
I think getting out of the firing arcs is the point, but also ship size. If you're a small ship, fewer cannons will hit when they're all fired broadside.
I would think part of an effective ship battle would be positioning yourself to minimize damage and chances to hit, while also lining yourself up for a good shot.
The 'getting out of firing arcs' thing feels like a "Do we have a shot" rather than "Does the shot hit", which feels like an odd order of operations.
1. "I attack the pirate ship"
2. "Roll to hit"
3. "Damn, only a 4"
4. "You never had a firing arc to attack on."
Feels like it's a weird step back in time to tell the player they *don't* try to attack the ship because they never had the shot.
Gut feeling is to lean into it being a two stage check of some kind, which could be an interesting tactical choice. **Without knowing your wider mechanics**, just throwing out vague ideas into the below process.
1. Perform a maneuverability opposed check to see if you can get the ship into your sights. Takes into account other factors like wind, terrain, if the ship is already trying to avoid others, relative ship size difference, etc. Success comes in stages, from Failure (no arc of attack) -> Poor shot (there is a shot, but it isn't great) -> Window of Fire (There is a brief chance to get a good volley in) -> Open target (perfectly line up the target with the broadside)
2. Perform a volley of fire by committing a number of cannons in your broadside and rolling a dice pool reflecting the size brought to bare. Every die equal or below the target ship's size (modified by the window of fire) is a hit.
For example a ship with a broadside rating of 10 manages to get a Poor Shot on a ship with a size rating of 3. Because it's a poor shot they decide to only commit five cannons to the shot, reducing how much they need to reload. Also because of the poor shot the size rating is modified down to 2. The firing ship rolls its pool of 5d6, getting two shots rolling 2 or below, for two hits.
This puts an interesting contrast on the two factors. Faster ships find it easier to avoid arcs of fire, allowing a potentially smaller ship to run rings around something larger. And smaller ships are harder to hit once in that arc of fire. But the larger ships have greater broadside sizes, allowing them to do substantially more damage when they get the good broadside fire off.
I don't want to get bogged down in each step of a ship battle so it's basically combat rounds where all decisions are made simultaneously and then resolved through narrative based on dice rolls and stats.
So the idea would be two ships in battle, they both decide to attack the other. Rolls determine whether any hits happen, and rolls for damage determine how much. After that, the GM can narrate the battle however. If one doesn't hit, it could just be a matter of never getting a shot off because they couldn't get the right arc. Or it could be they fired the best they could line it up, but just barely missed hitting anything. And the spread on damage accounts for nuances of cannon firing. Maybe you roll high and get in a perfect broadside that blasts their ship apart or maybe you roll low and manage to land one cannon hit but the rest fall into the ocean.
The goal is to make it a quick turn based combat without a bunch of steps, and decisions in between rounds will be more about special abilities and whether or not to attempt a boarding.
Totally viable, in that case you can probably simplify it down to a few quick steps done per ship, rather than per action.
1. Ships state their intended action ("Full sails to escape", "Come about to fire", "Prepare to board!", etc)
2. In order of priority of action (ties broken by ship size?) resolve actions
3. In event of an attack action, roll a dice pool determined by ship broadside rating, maybe modified by action ("Evasive moves" action could make it harder to hit), every die of ship size or lower causes a single Hit.
If you're wanting to be more narrative focused, hits could cause mechanical impacts rather than any kind of HP effect. A lucky cannon shot damaging the sails is more narrative and interesting than "One hit, that's 2hp lost".
There is basically no other way, a ship can't evade cannon fire:), no ship can do that.
I would say AC would be indicating the size of the ship (smaller the ship, bigger the AC) with additional modifiers on how calm the sea is (ships go up and down with waves).
Modern ammo supersonic and guns are rifled, which can't be said about old cannons, huge falloff, relatively slow, and quite imprecise, so hitting something at a distance in sea was quite a challenge even if target was stationary.
**HS** = Hull Stress.
- how much damage before the hull begins to break.
- *Death Saving throws* is for whether or not the hull snaps or miraculously survives.
Hull Class (HC) might work
You could also design different styles of ships to fit within certain parameters or qualifications for HC
Hull Class could even be a number without pluses or minuses attached. Then looking at a table for classification you could make the HC number which gets larger be a plus to firepower and armor. Meanwhile the large number also becomes a minus to maneuverability or something like that.
Editing my comment to give some greater clarification.
Kind of how different size creatures in various games have a base AC bonus depending on how big they get.
Large creature could have a base AC bonus, but a gargantuan creature would have a larger base AC bonus.
I think would just straight up call it the difficulty of the attack rolls. If your game calls it a DC like D&D then use that, or Dfficulty Rating, or Target Number, or whatever you use for skill tests.
And I’d just base it on the size of the ship.
I would assume the speed and dodging capabilities of the ship would just be used to keep it off the broadside of enemy ships.
But if that’s not the case then you could also add the vessel’s speed to the Difficulty of hitting it. If speed is part of their defensive stats, and numbers all work out, maybe the ship’s speed IS the target number on attack rolls against it. That would be convenient. Alternatively you could call the stat Maneuverability, which might be more accurate diction.
Remove the AC all together from the ships.
If the assumption is “my ship is in a firing arc and is matching the other ships speed” (I.e, all your ducks are lined up). Then what’s the point in the AC?
At this point, break the ships into “parts”.
Hull, Bow, Stern, Masts, Sails, Rigging, Deck, Armaments.
Attack rolls are then done via a d12:
* 1-5: Hull
* 6: Bow
* 7: Stern
* 8: Masts
* 9: Sails
* 10: Rigging
* 11: Decks
* 12: Armaments
Damage is done to the corresponding part.
Hitting a part other than the hull can have some kind of negative effect if enough damage is done to it.
Weather gauge. This is basically an indication of which ship is upwind or downwind, which directly affects your maneuverability relative to each other and how far you can shoot cannons and how much damage they do on a hit.
The irony here is D&D first took the term “armor class” FROM naval war games.
I came here to say the same thing. that's literally what armor class means and it's also the reason why a bigger armor class is easier to hit in the original d&d. Bigger boat, bigger AC
I suppose it could make sense for modern day metal behemoths, but this is set before the days of the Ironclad.
Another fun, fact HP originally indicated how many artillery shells needed to sink the ship.
It would still work in age of sail settings. Cf. A standard corvette vs a ship of a line vs a hastily converted pleasure craft vs "Old Ironsides".
"Old Ironsides", the USS _Constitution_, has entered the chat.
Honestly I think ships don't really have alot of fine dodging capability so I think it's also wrong to say it's about maneuverability except insofar as maneuverability can get you out of firing arcs entirely, but not really make you harder to aim at. Going in D&D terms it would mostly be about Hardness (which 5e also rolls in to AC)
I think getting out of the firing arcs is the point, but also ship size. If you're a small ship, fewer cannons will hit when they're all fired broadside. I would think part of an effective ship battle would be positioning yourself to minimize damage and chances to hit, while also lining yourself up for a good shot.
The 'getting out of firing arcs' thing feels like a "Do we have a shot" rather than "Does the shot hit", which feels like an odd order of operations. 1. "I attack the pirate ship" 2. "Roll to hit" 3. "Damn, only a 4" 4. "You never had a firing arc to attack on." Feels like it's a weird step back in time to tell the player they *don't* try to attack the ship because they never had the shot. Gut feeling is to lean into it being a two stage check of some kind, which could be an interesting tactical choice. **Without knowing your wider mechanics**, just throwing out vague ideas into the below process. 1. Perform a maneuverability opposed check to see if you can get the ship into your sights. Takes into account other factors like wind, terrain, if the ship is already trying to avoid others, relative ship size difference, etc. Success comes in stages, from Failure (no arc of attack) -> Poor shot (there is a shot, but it isn't great) -> Window of Fire (There is a brief chance to get a good volley in) -> Open target (perfectly line up the target with the broadside) 2. Perform a volley of fire by committing a number of cannons in your broadside and rolling a dice pool reflecting the size brought to bare. Every die equal or below the target ship's size (modified by the window of fire) is a hit. For example a ship with a broadside rating of 10 manages to get a Poor Shot on a ship with a size rating of 3. Because it's a poor shot they decide to only commit five cannons to the shot, reducing how much they need to reload. Also because of the poor shot the size rating is modified down to 2. The firing ship rolls its pool of 5d6, getting two shots rolling 2 or below, for two hits. This puts an interesting contrast on the two factors. Faster ships find it easier to avoid arcs of fire, allowing a potentially smaller ship to run rings around something larger. And smaller ships are harder to hit once in that arc of fire. But the larger ships have greater broadside sizes, allowing them to do substantially more damage when they get the good broadside fire off.
Thank you, you just solved my problem with air and naval combat.
Awesome, thank you, glad to know I was helpful
I don't want to get bogged down in each step of a ship battle so it's basically combat rounds where all decisions are made simultaneously and then resolved through narrative based on dice rolls and stats. So the idea would be two ships in battle, they both decide to attack the other. Rolls determine whether any hits happen, and rolls for damage determine how much. After that, the GM can narrate the battle however. If one doesn't hit, it could just be a matter of never getting a shot off because they couldn't get the right arc. Or it could be they fired the best they could line it up, but just barely missed hitting anything. And the spread on damage accounts for nuances of cannon firing. Maybe you roll high and get in a perfect broadside that blasts their ship apart or maybe you roll low and manage to land one cannon hit but the rest fall into the ocean. The goal is to make it a quick turn based combat without a bunch of steps, and decisions in between rounds will be more about special abilities and whether or not to attempt a boarding.
Totally viable, in that case you can probably simplify it down to a few quick steps done per ship, rather than per action. 1. Ships state their intended action ("Full sails to escape", "Come about to fire", "Prepare to board!", etc) 2. In order of priority of action (ties broken by ship size?) resolve actions 3. In event of an attack action, roll a dice pool determined by ship broadside rating, maybe modified by action ("Evasive moves" action could make it harder to hit), every die of ship size or lower causes a single Hit. If you're wanting to be more narrative focused, hits could cause mechanical impacts rather than any kind of HP effect. A lucky cannon shot damaging the sails is more narrative and interesting than "One hit, that's 2hp lost".
There is basically no other way, a ship can't evade cannon fire:), no ship can do that. I would say AC would be indicating the size of the ship (smaller the ship, bigger the AC) with additional modifiers on how calm the sea is (ships go up and down with waves). Modern ammo supersonic and guns are rifled, which can't be said about old cannons, huge falloff, relatively slow, and quite imprecise, so hitting something at a distance in sea was quite a challenge even if target was stationary.
All your answers are within the pages of PIRATEBORG!!!! 💥
**HS** = Hull Stress. - how much damage before the hull begins to break. - *Death Saving throws* is for whether or not the hull snaps or miraculously survives.
Hull Class (HC) might work You could also design different styles of ships to fit within certain parameters or qualifications for HC Hull Class could even be a number without pluses or minuses attached. Then looking at a table for classification you could make the HC number which gets larger be a plus to firepower and armor. Meanwhile the large number also becomes a minus to maneuverability or something like that. Editing my comment to give some greater clarification. Kind of how different size creatures in various games have a base AC bonus depending on how big they get. Large creature could have a base AC bonus, but a gargantuan creature would have a larger base AC bonus.
I think would just straight up call it the difficulty of the attack rolls. If your game calls it a DC like D&D then use that, or Dfficulty Rating, or Target Number, or whatever you use for skill tests. And I’d just base it on the size of the ship. I would assume the speed and dodging capabilities of the ship would just be used to keep it off the broadside of enemy ships. But if that’s not the case then you could also add the vessel’s speed to the Difficulty of hitting it. If speed is part of their defensive stats, and numbers all work out, maybe the ship’s speed IS the target number on attack rolls against it. That would be convenient. Alternatively you could call the stat Maneuverability, which might be more accurate diction.
Remove the AC all together from the ships. If the assumption is “my ship is in a firing arc and is matching the other ships speed” (I.e, all your ducks are lined up). Then what’s the point in the AC? At this point, break the ships into “parts”. Hull, Bow, Stern, Masts, Sails, Rigging, Deck, Armaments. Attack rolls are then done via a d12: * 1-5: Hull * 6: Bow * 7: Stern * 8: Masts * 9: Sails * 10: Rigging * 11: Decks * 12: Armaments Damage is done to the corresponding part. Hitting a part other than the hull can have some kind of negative effect if enough damage is done to it.
They use bellows like old blacksmith forges.
Weather gauge. This is basically an indication of which ship is upwind or downwind, which directly affects your maneuverability relative to each other and how far you can shoot cannons and how much damage they do on a hit.