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Thread: Ramming Speed!

  1. #1
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    And another thing, does anyone know how to ram in naval combat? I don't see any stats that indicate tonnage so I'm having trouble making a spot-ruling. Sure, you can ram in regular D&D combat between vessels but how does one resolve it in fleet actions using the war cards?

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    Arsulon wrote:

    >This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
    > You can view the entire thread at: http://www.birthright.net/read.php?TID=1162
    >Arsulon wrote:
    > And another thing, does anyone know how to ram in naval combat? I don`t see any stats that indicate tonnage so I`m having trouble making a spot-ruling. Sure, you can ram in regular D&D combat between vessels but how does one resolve it in fleet actions using the war cards?
    >
    Do you own the Seas of Cerilia naval battle rules?
    It clearly states on p. 13 "A ship cannot make "charge" or "melee"
    attacks. It might ty ramming an enemy, but only an oared vessel could
    back out of whatever wreckage it caused. A regular sailing ship would
    never survive this dangerous tactic, as the vessel has too little
    maneuverability to prevent its sinking target from dragging it down with
    it."

    Stay with grappling and then sending Errol Flynn taking the board... ;-)
    bye
    Michael Romes

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  3. #3
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    Those certainly are valid observations; however, sometimes PCs do things that don't make sense, or at least don't seem to make sense. While you're quite correct about oared vessels being the optimal class for ramming attacks, it's still possible to have suicide rams and fireships in the age of sail. Any ideas on how you'd simulate this?

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    Hello!

    Arsulon wrote:

    >This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
    > You can view the entire thread at: http://www.birthright.net/read.php?TID=1162
    >Arsulon wrote:
    > Those certainly are valid observations; however, sometimes PCs do things that don`t make sense, or at least don`t seem to make sense. While you`re quite correct about oared vessels being the optimal class for ramming attacks, it`s still possible to have suicide rams and fireships in the age of sail. Any ideas on how you`d simulate this?
    >
    It weren´t my ideas. It was an article by Rich Baker in Dragon Magazine.
    About suicide rams - no NPC would be crazy enough to die without hope
    for survival, for some player without a very good reason, would he in
    your campaign?

    Fireships were simply ships set on fire and set free to move in the
    direction of the enemy - who would sacrifice his own ships, which he has
    to build first and pay for them and then hope that they hit the enemy? Mmmh.
    bye
    Michael

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    At 05:40 AM 12/23/2002 +0100, Arsulon wrote:

    > Those certainly are valid observations; however, sometimes PCs do things
    > that don`t make sense, or at least don`t seem to make sense. While
    > you`re quite correct about oared vessels being the optimal class for
    > ramming attacks, it`s still possible to have suicide rams and fireships
    > in the age of sail. Any ideas on how you`d simulate this?

    There`s a D20 Campaign setting called Septentrionalis that has fairly
    extensive rules for ship to ship combat available at:

    <http://www.catspawcomics.com/sept/sept.html>

    While it is set at a tech level that is advanced several centuries beyond
    that of Cerilia, it is a better place to start than the ::shiver:: warcards
    if one is going to go with a tactical simulation of naval combat. Check
    out the "Captains & Crews" and "Ships" chapters in particular.

    Gary

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    Site Moderator geeman's Avatar
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    At 06:26 AM 12/23/2002 +0100, Michael Romes wrote:

    >>Those certainly are valid observations; however, sometimes PCs do things
    >>that don`t make sense, or at least don`t seem to make sense. While
    >>you`re quite correct about oared vessels being the optimal class for
    >>ramming attacks, it`s still possible to have suicide rams and fireships
    >>in the age of sail. Any ideas on how you`d simulate this?
    >
    >It weren´t my ideas. It was an article by Rich Baker in Dragon Magazine.
    >About suicide rams - no NPC would be crazy enough to die without hope
    >for survival, for some player without a very good reason, would he in
    >your campaign?

    Suicidal ramming need not necessarily be the result of some sort of fanatic
    frenzy. In fact, it can just be the result of being cornered and not
    seeing a way of retreat. In a naval conflict this isn`t particularly
    likely since one can usually sail off, but on those occasions when a
    ship/crew is so devastated and desperate that the decision is made to sell
    their lives as expensively as possible then a suicidal ramming attack is
    going possible. NPCs in D&D tend to sell their lives rather cheaply, so
    the "last ditch" ramming circumstance isn`t all that impossible to
    imagine. Having some set of rules available for that eventuality is a good
    idea.

    On possibility is to abstract/extend the vehicle combat rules from D20
    Modern into naval vessels. That seems to make sense to me. Of course, the
    vehicles in D20M are expressed in much more standard, 3e D&D terms
    (hardness, hit points, etc.) rather than the warcards, but that`s all good
    to me.

    Gary

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