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Limithron's Guide to Naval Combat
🕑 Added 2021-03-25 19:03:29 +0000 UTC
Update: Here is a Photoshop template, PNG assets, and fonts to make your own Naval Combat cards (Captain $5 Tier and higher): https://www.patreon.com/file?h=38142118&i=16889469
Updated: v2.3 of the PDF available now. Download it here: Limithron's Guide to Naval Combat v2.3.
After years of design and playtesting, I am proud to announce that Limithron’s Guide to Naval Combat is out now… and the core version is free!
I’ve always struggled with other naval supplements. Either they are way too complicated, wildly unrealistic, or they don’t provide a great bridge between ship scale combat and normal player character actions. Through years of games like Sid Meier's Pirates, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Oak & Iron, and Pirates Constructible Strategy Game, I think I’ve cracked the code to make ship combat work at the D&D table. In fact, I highly recommend picking up the last two: both have ship models at the perfect scale for use with this supplement.
This system is designed around hex based ship movement—which I promise you will love—and with the core ethos that ships are like big monsters and their stats are factored by a ratio of 5:1 in relation to creatures. If a ship has 100hp for naval combat, it has 500hp when the wizard throws a fireball at it. If a cannon does 1d6 damage against another ship, it would do 1d6 x 5 (or 5d6 if you like rolling dice) if you aimed it at a Dragon Turtle. This makes combat fast and fun instead of an exercise in counting huge dice rolls and consulting spreadsheets. There is also the added bonus of being able to upgrade or customize ships with any monster ability from the Monster’s Manual.
This system is also scalable and is enjoyable for players whether you have 6 PCs on one ship or each player has their own vessel. Don’t be afraid to let your players capture as many ships as they want… and then sink them all when the Pirate Hunters show up!
I’ve included ship cards and new art for all of the ships I have previously released: sloop, brigantine, frigate, galley, and 1st Rate Ship of the Line, and I meticulously rebuilt tokens and tiles for all these ships so they are as useful as possible. All ships (except the Ship of the Line) have 3x3 tokens and are designed for use on a 50ft per space hex grid. If you use Foundry, I recommend setting the token size to 1x1 but then scale the art up 3x so the ships turn and move on a single hex. The Ship of the Line is 6x6. The Tiles are 10x bigger and for use in creature scale combat.
Future ship and sea monster releases will have cards, and if you all enjoy this release I plan to do future supplements with more upgrades, ship options, forts, sea monsters… and down the road launch a Kickstarter with printed cards! So send me your feedback, requests, and suggestions for future releases.
If you aren't a patron, or what to purchase a level higher that your current tier (like the Foundry Module) you can do so here on my GumRoad store: https://gumroad.com/l/BZaAC
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Comments
vargr1
This is beautiful, and the ships sards are wonderful. I would love to have a blank cart so I could print it out and fill in values for custom ships.
yimmy
Hey so I wanted to incorporate this into my game I'm running, how would I allow my players to use this?
Limithron
Hey! I'd just use them as is but increase all the attacks to cost 2 action points instead. A few siege weapons is way less than a bunch of cannons, but if the enemy is in the same position it will be balanced.
Limithron
I've not had a chance to read that one so I'm not sure. Maybe you can ask in my Discord server?
Eric Mason
Absolutely beautiful work. Question: How does your system compare to Guy Sclanders Complete guide to nautical combat?
Leonard Anthony P. Arcilla
Hi Limithron! I love what I'm seeing, but is there any easy way to adapt this to the standard 5E "fantasy"/"medieval" ships which use siege weapons (mangonels and ballistas)?
Limithron
Hey Chris I added a Savage Worlds Channel in the discord server... I'd love to hear what you did with it!
Chris Edwards
This is great. I’ll be tweaking for our Savage Worlds pirate campaign me thinks!
Mirriky
You have no (probably some) idea of how grateful I am, we are in the first few sessions of a ship based campaign and I homebrew mixed Saltmarsh, Honor + Intrigue, and some new sutff and it worked but has 0 playtesting. I like how many of the same beats we are going for, but this one has so much more polish and simplicity to it, I can't wait to give it a try when we hit the water again
Le_Dragon_Reborn
Awesome stuff! I'm getting a Swavain Islands in Wildemount vibe.
Tiago Frossard
THIS IS RIGHT ON TIME! <3
Calvin Hilde
For sure, I'll take a look! I'm running some pirate stuff right now but wasn't doing much ship to ship combat.
Limithron
Honestly I'd love for you to take a look at it and tell me what would need to be tweaked. It's almost a d20 supplement instead of 5e... but I don't know Pathfinder well enough. Let me know!
Calvin Hilde
Maybe include a Pathfinder 2e stretch goal in that Kickstarter? :D?
