Evan Bernstein Celeste DeAngelis John Faugno Harald Henning Inger Henning Steven Novella Joseph Unfried John Faugno Steven Novella Jeff Himmelman Marcio Fiorito John Forish Jeff Himmelman Stephen Micheals Milos Milic Jose Pares Michael Lee Viviano Robin Mazzola Christina Schull Celeste DeAngelis Copy Editor: Jennifer Bernstein Special Thanks To: Larry Fitzgerald, Marc Gancsos, and David Kuhn This product requires the use of the Dungeons and Dragons Player s Handbook, published by Wizards of the Coast The LI logo is a registered trademark owned by Living Imagination, Inc. Both the Twin Crowns fantasy world and the Lione Rampant fantasy live-action roleplaying world are intellectual property owned by Living Imagination, Inc. All Living Imagination characters, Character names, and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks owned by Living Imagination, Inc. This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Living Imagination, Inc. This product is a work of fiction. VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT WWW.LIVINGIMAGINATION LIVINGIMAGINATION.COM
Table of Contents INTRODUCTION NTRODUCTION...3 CHAPTER 1: : NAVIGATION AND PILOTING ILOTING...4 New Nautical Skills...4 Navigation & Piloting...5 Nautical Instruments...6 Maps & Charts...8 Terrain...8 Weather...9 Using Wind Direction...10 Winds of the World...11 Seasickness...12 Flying Ships...12 Altitude...14 Chapter 2: : Ships...15 Ship Characteristics...15 Ship Classes...19 Ship Construction and Design...20 Chapter 3: : The Voyage...32 Outline the Voyage...32 Determine Weather...32 Piloting (River or Coastline)...33 Navigation (Open Ocean)...33 Piloting (Open Ocean)...34 Random Encounters...34 Chapter 4: : Naval Combat...35 Setup...35 Ship Initiative and Engagement...35 Tactical Ship Movement and Other Actions During Combat...36 Attacking...39 Ships Taking Damage...41 Crew and PC Damage...42 Armaments...42 Catapults...43 Ballista...43 Cannon...43 Drops...44 Allocating Damage...44 Towers and Arrows...45 Rams...45 Fireshooters...46 Spells and Ship Damage...46 Repairing Ships...46 Chapter 5: : Underwater Adventuring...47 Aquatic Creatures...47 Into the Water...47 Depth and Temperature...48 Abilities and Actions Underwater...48 Items and Possessions...49 Buoyancy and Holding your Breath...49 Elements and Gases Underwater...49 Taking Damage and Bleeding in the Water...50 Underwater Vessels...50 Underwater Ships...53 Underwater Combat...53 Chapter 6: : Nautical Equipment...54 Firearms...54 Gunpowder...54 Nautical and Underwater Equipment...55 Surgical Supplies...57 Weapons...58 Chapter 7: : Feats...61 Chapter 8: : Prestige Classes...64 Harpooneer...64 Marine...66 Oceanic Sentinel...68 Privateer...70 Surgeon...72 Sea Captain...74 Sea Scout...76 Chapter 9: : Spells and Rituals...78 Spells...78 Rituals...87 Chapter 10: : Nautical Magic Items...93 Armor...93 Weapons...93 Rings...94 Rods...94 Staffs...94 Wondrous Items...94 Cursed Items...96 Minor Artifacts...96 Chapter 11: : Sea Creatures...98 Ichthymus...98 Orctopus...99 Siren...100 Helicorpion...101 Tiger Dwarf...102 Jonah...103 Chapter 12: : Nautical Organizations...104 Chapter 13: : Adventuring...106 Sample Encounters...106 The Adventure of Captain McCrenshaw...111 Famous Pirates...114 The Ragged Corsair...114 Big Mike Styles...115 Sheila Grossman...116 Famous Pirates Ships...118 The Antilla Bussy...118 Vanessa Rose...119 Bright Hope...120 A Complete Record: The Fortuna Urania...121 Broadsides Ship Log of The Fortuna Urania...122 Blank Ship Log...123 Apendix...124 Glossary of Nautical Terms...124 Index Index...126 OGL...127 2
The world of d20 fantasy takes to the open sea! Ship captains sail the oceans, discovering and exploring new lands. Merchant vessels weave the people of the known world together in an intricate economic and social web. Naval vessels defend the trade routes from pirates and privateers, and engage enemy vessels in territorial battles. From time to time nations wage full-scale naval war with vast armadas. Explorers and treasure seekers venture into unknown waters, or even under the waves, in search of fame and fortune. Sleek vessels sail atop clouds as if they were the surface of the water. Broadsides presents a comprehensive naval system, suitable for any d20 campaign, and is an expansion of the core naval rules presented in Twin Crowns: Age of Exploration Fantasy, also by Living one location to another, hugging the coastline of known territory at little risk, or they may travel across the ocean, the journey becoming an adventure in and of itself. Players may also decide to focus their adventuring on the sea by signing onto a merchant vessel or chartering one of their own. Perhaps the heroes and patriots in the group may wish to become privateers, or the more nefarious parties might even decide to become pirates, seeking their fortune on the Introduction Imagination, Inc. Within this book are rules for ship construction, sea travel, naval combat and tactical maneuvering, rules for underwater adventuring, and a host of new nautical skills and occupations. Also included are new spells, rituals, prestige classes, magic items, monsters and feats specifically designed to enhance any naval adventure. Ready-made sea-born adventures and encounters are presented, both as a convenient resource for GM s and to demonstrate some of the possibilities these new rules offer. Fantasy campaigns can incorporate sea travel in many ways. Players may simply buy passage from open seas, hunting down lost treasures or hidden islands, and keeping one step ahead of the authorities. Broadsides is not a campaign setting, but a rules supplement. The naval rules are intended to be usable in a broad range of campaigns, from ancient and technologically primitive civilizations, to medieval monarchies, all the way to the age of exploration and beyond. Ships from all eras are described, including comprehensive rules for gunpowder and cannon. With these rules GM s can open up new avenues of adventure for their players, or even base an entire campaign on the open sea. 3
Chapter 1: Navigation and Piloting 4 New Nautical Skills Players who decide to make a career on the seas may wish to take naval skills. There are five new naval skills: Profession (navigator), Profession (pilot), Profession (sailor), Profession (artillerist) and Sea Legs. Sailors are skilled in basic seamanship and the everyday tasks of working on a ship. Navigators are skilled in charting courses across the sea, using charts, telescopes, and other instruments. Pilots are skilled in steering and controlling a ship. All three skills are professions, and so are class skills for all standard classes except fighter and barbarian, for which they are cross-class skills. Sea Legs is the skill of maintaining balance while standing on the pitching deck of a ship. Sea legs is a class skill for bards, monks, paladins, rangers and rogues, and cross-class for barbarians, clerics, druids, fighters, sorcerers and wizards. Profession: Artillerist (Int.; Trained only) Use this skill to load, aim, and fire cannons. Check: Aiming and firing a cannon requires a skill check in Profession (artillerist). The skill check, however, functions like an attack roll, with the total adjustments equaling the attack bonus. When an artillery crew fires a cannon, the crewman with the highest total adjustments in Profession (artillerist) makes a skill check against the DC of the target. Immobile targets have a DC of 5, adjusted for their size. A mobile creature has a DC equal to its AC minus any physical armor, but plus a bonus as if its size were two categories smaller. Most cannons, however, cannot be effectively targeted at mobile targets (exception - light swivel-mounted cannon) due to the difficulty of aiming and timing the cannon s fire, unless the target remains at the same targeting angle for at least one full round (for example - is charging straight at the cannon). For cannon fire at a ship, the DC is given in detail in Chapter 4 - Naval Combat. Profession: Navigation (Int.; Trained only) You use this skill to navigate a ship across open ocean. This skill includes the knowledge required to navigate a ship from one location to another out of sight of land as well as knowledge of how to read navigational charts, and how to use navigational devices such as telescoped and sextants Check: You may use this skill to determine your location (DC 15), and navigate out of eyesight of coastline - across open waters (DC 20). Boats that travel on rivers do not require navigation. Navigators may attempt to determine their location at any time. Each such attempt takes 10 minutes, and may be done in one of two ways. When within sight of land, either by naked eye or with a telescope, you may determine your location if you are familiar with the area or you have an accurate map. If you are on the open seas, you may also determine your location using a sextant and a map, which requires moderately clear skies. Profession: Pilot (Int.) You use this skill to pilot any ship. Piloting the ship usually means controlling the ship s rudder by using the captain s wheel or determining which banks of oars should row at which speed. On larger ships, the pilot is the one that determines the actions of the ship, shouting the orders to the proper crewmen to execute the maneuvers correctly, while a pilot can also be alone in a rowboat. The pilot is the person whose skill and
knkowledge allows her to perform duties to control the ship or to give orders to crewmen. Check: Checks must be made whenever a pilot must make a maneuver. The base DC for maneuvering a ship depends upon the ship and the crew. Each ship has its own DC depending upon how large and complex the ship is and how well crewed it is. There are also a number of situational adjustments, such as weather and the difficulty of the terrain. For any voyage, the pilot must make a skill check for each leg of the journey. If the check is successful then the pilot has successfully directed the ship to the desired location. If the check failed then the ship will be off course (see below for more details). Another situation that requires a skill check is whenever the ship must be steered around or through an obstacle, including other ships. Therefore, if the ship must be piloted through a dangerous reef, the pilot must make a piloting skill check (base DC determined by ship and crew + an adjustment for the difficulty of the reef and any other situational adjustments). Also, if two ships are approaching each other and preparing for combat, then each pilot may make an opposed check to see which ship gains the advantage in positioning. The same occurs if one ship attempts to ram the other (see Rams section in Chapter 4 Naval Combat: for more details). Special: Those with five or more ranks in Intuit Direction gain a +2 synergy bonus to skill checks in Profession (pilot). Profession: Sailor (Dex.) Use this skill to sail boats and ships, either by yourself or in cooperation with other sailors. The sailor skill incorporates knowledge of the various parts of a sailing ship and how they work. Sailors are able to sail small one-person boats or serve as part of a crew on a large sailing vessel. This also includes basic skill in being an oarsman. Every boat and ship has a rating that indicates the minimum number of sailors that are required to sail the vessel, and also the minimum number of ranks a sailor must have to function on the ship. For example, a medium sized ship may require a minimum of 5 sailors each with a minimum of 6 ranks in the skill. Check: There are two types of skill checks that sailors need to make, individual and crew. Individual sailors do not have to make checks in order to carry out the normal components of ship duty. They may, however, have to make a skill check when attempting to perform a special or unusual task, for example climbing the mast in order to rescue a passenger who is tangled in the rigging. The crew of a ship may also be required to make a collective crew skill check during certain situations, in order to avoid a bad outcome, or to perform a special task. A collective crew check uses the average skill of all of the relevant crew. For example, if the hull of the ship takes a certain amount of damage, the crew may need to make a collective skill check in order to avoid sinking. If the crew is 20 men, the skill check is made using the average skill level of those 20. Severe weather conditions also may require the crew to make a crew skill check to avoid sinking. Sea Legs (Dex., General) Use this skill to maintain balance while on the deck of a pitching ship. Check: Sea Legs checks are required to perform a task on the deck of a ship in any sea condition other than calm, though a skill check is not necessary if you are merely trying to hold on, without performing any actions. Fighting, spellcasting, or even just walking across the deck, however, requires a skill check. If the skill check is failed, then you have fallen to the deck and lose your remaining actions for that round. Standing up requires a move-equivalent action, and another Sea Legs skill check. If this roll is failed, you again lose your footing and lose all of your remaining actions for the round. If the roll is successful you may act freely that round. You must make a successful Sea Legs skill check every round to take any action other than standing still. The DC of a Sea Legs skill check depends upon the condition of the seas. Special: Both the Sailor and Balance skills have synergy with this skill, so that if you possess 5 ranks in either of these skills you gain a +2 synergy bonus for skill checks in Sea Legs. These bonuses stack. Navigation & Piloting Sea voyages may be along a coastline or across open seas. Both carry their own dangers. Waters near a coast are often fraught with dangerous currents and reefs. A pilot familiar with the area is highly valued for such travel. Travel across oceans opens the world to exploration but requires the knowledge of how to navigate the winds and currents of the world lest the ship gets lost. Skilled navigators and pilots are in high demand and can often command a very high price for their services. Most ship captains have some skill in both navigation and piloting. Large military and merchant vessels, however, will often employ expert navigators and pilots to assist the captain in these duties. Skilled vs. unskilled navigation and piloting: Unskilled checks for piloting can be made, depending upon the size and complexity of the ship. Every ship has a DC assigned to it, indicating how difficult it is to pilot. Most large and complex sailing ships have a DC of greater than 20, and therefore unskilled checks in piloting are usually futile. For some small boats, such as a rowboat, the DC may be as low as 10, so anyone could make a reasonable attempt at piloting it. Unskilled pilots gain no benefit from any nautical instruments (see below). The only exceptions to this Chapter 1: Navigation and Piloting 5