Ships and Cannons

[elengond]

I am new to the BW system and am wondering if anyone has developed any ideas using the BW system in terms of ship to ship combat or simply how one might use the weapon mechanics for cannon both onboard a ship and from a base on land. I want to use this on a limited basis as I don;t want the whole campaigne to be about naval warfare, but the setting is nautical and involves traveling great distances by sailing ship. So, how might a battle between two frigates look using this system?

[luke]

can you give me a little bit more information about the scenario? what are the characters doing? what are the players doing?

-L

[elengond]

Hi, Luke,
Thanks for responding. This is a new campaign and the players are still working on (burning?) their characters. In the opening adventure they have been commisioned by a rich merchant to investigate the strange disappearance of several mechant vessels that were scheduled to arrive at a particular port but never did so. The players have been granted a ten-gun sloop and are acting in the adventure as privateers. I have asked all the players to choose at least one LP in the Seafaring Setting to give them at least some exposure to life at sea. A couple members of our group have been reading Patrick O'Brian. As a consequence, they have chosen to be either the ship's captain or the ship's doctor (Aubrey and Maturin) and are looking for adventure on the high seas. I must admit that I initially looked at a couple D20 systems, but the group convinced me to purchase BW and give it a go. ( I was planning on buying the revision anyway, so don't feel slighted). I really like the system but need some guidance in how to manage combat ship to ship and ship to shore using cannon fire. As these are new characters in a new adventure they haven't statrted to do anything yet. Most of them haven't even shown me a character sheet yet, so I can't speak to any beliefs, traits, instincts, affiliations, or circles as yet. The story has yet to unfold...

Is that helpful?
-Matt

[luke]

Not really.

So the characters are crewing the ship. The size of a 10-gun sloop means they'll probably need a few seamen around as well. And probably 20-30 gunners. But it would be a small crew nonetheless.

A ship to ship battle in what sense? A drawn out broadsides? A chase with one shot fired? How do you envision the scenario? What do you see happening? What do you see the players doing with their characters in the scenario?

A lot of this should just be handled with linked skill tests.


Damage for cannons= 1-2 horribly injured (Midi), 3-4 maimed (Tr) 5-6 killed (MW).

But I strongly urge against running a simulationist ship to ship in BW. The players will, as you can see, probably all be horribly maimed. I'd focus on conflicts that the players can sink their teeth into and can be solved with character action via skill checks.

-L

[Ozark Tim]

This isn't about cannon, but having just come off of a nautical campaign 2.5 years long, I'd encourage you to have folks both officers and folks 'before the mast'. This lets you enjoy both sides of the sailing life, and with battle casualties any sailor PCs can get promoted up quickly if they are unhappy with their lowlyl lot. And aboard a privateer naval convention is relaxed, so a sailor PC might still be able to address a captain without fear of punishment.



I'd think for naval combat you could just use a variation of the range and fire rules, taking into account the wind gauge, ship sizes, and sea conditions for modifiers. Positioning uses ship characterstics combined with the skills of the crews, maybe LOTS of forking and helping dice allowed to represent the benefits of managing a ship with large crews.

Having just read a couple of books on Trafalgar I've been having visions of a dice pool representing the crew, and it being divided up amongst gunners, sailors, boarding crews and etc. You sort of push the dice into different piles to represent what the crew is doing, and maybe have intermediate piles in between to represent the gunners being organized to repel boarders.

So the mass combat rules combined with range and cover.

[Michael S. Miller]

For an outline of how to use Range & Cover for ship-to-ship combat, see Thor's comments on Cog Combat (http://burningwheel.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=10049#10049)

[Kublai]

I too believe Range and Cover will work admirably for naval combat, as it will for aerial and space combat.

The trick is just to figure out the base skill and then what advantage dice are to be gained. This means you'll have to give ship types a list of stats; speed, maneuverability, # of guns, longest ranged guns. Then, have your two opposing Pilots make a Piloting tests - the winner gets an advantage die. Add all your advantage dice together and add them to the Captains' Command skills. Then have each Captain roll against each other, the winner earning actions like firing a volley or earning bonus positioning dice for next time.

Smooth seas will be a base Ob 2 to hit with Cannons, Choppy seas Ob 3, and Stormy seas Ob 4-6, depending on the severity of the storm.

Different type of cannons will offer longer ranges, obviously, but I have no idea of their names. Talk to my friend Google!

Ships will have a PTGS, I suppose. A MW means it sinks. Any other wounds can be attributed to lost sails, crew, and other ship parts. I'd recommend keeping it abstracted as much as possible.

Otherwise, you'll have to give sails a PTGS seperate from the ship. This will allow for the use of specialized shot - chain shot always reduces the sail's PTGS, grape shot reduces crew, explosive shot does extra damage to the hull PTGS, etc.

There'll have to be a way to keep track of crew losses. Perhaps lost dice translates directly into a percentage of lost crew? Maybe each die lost equals 10% of the crew wounded or dead?

[Enlil]

So far sounds good. Should ships have entirely grey woundscales? Doesn't seem like any real ship should be damaged by anything less than artillery.

I would think for two ships with broadsides, they should more often than not get a chance to fire at each other - maybe you could assume that both get a volley off unless the winner of the positioning test spends successes to cross the T.

For rigging in my cog combat, I am planning on having rigging hits act like a lock - subtract dice from positioning, and be fixed by a rigging check with an obstacle of the lock (perhaps added to some base obstacle for the complexity of the ship).

Christian

[Kublai]

I agree that most fighting ships will have a medium to high Grey MW. Smaller one- or two-sailed ships will have a high Black or very low Grey MW.

Cannon Volleys would have a high Black IMS, I imagine, maybe a Mark of B10-B12. After all, it took many shots to sink a fighting ship, right?

I would suggest rolling only once per broadsides. Perhaps an increase to the DOF calculated by the amount of cannon? 1 cannon equals straight DoF. 2 cannon equals +1 DoF. 4 Cannon equals +2 DoF. 8 cannon equals +3 DoF. 16 Cannon equals +4 DoF?

Perhaps that's how Positioning tests can effect DoF and allow ships to fire at each other at the same time? Each cannon fired requires a success from the Positioning test? For instance, in a roll off, I get 6 successes and my opponent gets 4. He can fire 1 while I can fire 2?

Crossing the T maneuver could cost 6 successes. You would need to get 6 successes more than your opponent to buy it. Then, only you can fire. So, if I got 10 successes and my opponent only got 3 successes, I could spend 6 and get the Crossing the T. I then spend my last success to fire a volley at a straight DoF. My opponent would be helpless.

[elengond]

Thanks for all the useful feedback. I found it useful, altho' I don't think we were getting at what L is looking for here. I will have to study and practice more before I can get to the esoteric elements of character play in such an encounter. I agree that I do not want to make this just a simulated miniature battle between sailing vessels, although I think the players might enjoy that element as well from time to time. I think I understand what L is getting at in terms of identifying how the battle involves the individuals in the campaign, context and so forth. Not having a sense of who the characters are as yet sort of inhibits plot development in the BW system. So, in a sense I am putting the cart before the horse. I'll have to get used to the idea af allowing the party more control over the events in my campaign world. As an old time D&D'er, I am use to having to develop it all then put on the show at the time of the game. So, in short, thanks for keeping me focused and thanks again for all the support.
-Matt