5E Homebrew Seafaring Campaign

[Macabreus]

I am thinking about creating a homebrew campaign that involves the PCs traveling on a merchant ship to assist with trade negotiation between countries, odd jobs, etc. Are there any add-ons for Fantasy grounds 5E compatible that assist in sailing mechanics, ship travel, etc? Not really sure how to go about it. Im not opposed to abondoning 5e, but we are all familiar with the ruleset so was hoping to stay within those parameters.

Just thought i would throw it out there to the community if anyone has done something like this through Fantasy Grounds.

Thanks Mateys,
Macabreus

[LordEntrails]

Hmm, not that I've heard of. I would look at the DOE extensions. Though not written for this exact use case, they might have some fields appropriate for what you want.

I think though one thing, is how are you going to handle 'sailing mechanics' or travel? These things aren't covered by any rules I'm aware of. I guess the first question to answer is, how would you handle this on paper and pencil around a table?

[Macabreus]

Very good question. I have looked into this a bit and found a PDF someone created that was originally geared to 3.5, but revamped for 5E. It seems like it would work well, but it would take some training of the PCs. I was just looking/hoping for an easy way out with an extension or something since my primary focus should be on creating story for the roleplaying vs worrying about sailing mechanics :) A link to the pdf is below. Its actually quite thorough.

https://olddungeonmaster.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/5e_nautical_adventures.pdf

I would rather this campiagn be more about the politics than the journeys, but I should probably put some time into making sure a boat battle is possible and travel mechanics are in place.

[LordEntrails]

Like I said, one of the DOE's might have something to record vehicles against. Navigation will probably just be done on a large hex map to track position.

Everything else depends on what you want to use (loyalty, morale, etc), but I'm not aware of any extensions that do these types of things.

I would probably just use shared story entries as needed.

[damned]

Sailor Lovins was looking at ships/sailing/seaborne adventures I think...?

[Ken L]

I have something I've been working in private that creates ship combat as seen in Pillars of Eternity : Deadfire. It has a combat radial with distances alongside ship actions + piloting check. I haven't figured out the crew allocation yet but I'll get to it eventually. A majority of it is a port from my SR5E/Traveller campaign that was more sensor based.

Either way that's back-burner that probably won't get released. For what's currently available, 5e doesn't have have any vehicle/vessel templates. Best I can offer is a notes hand out with* ship statistics. For other systems assuming a fantasy setup. PF has a ship combat system but I wouldn't recommend switching to PF solely for that alone; it's also a bit clunky.

Stick with 5e if that's your linga-forte and perform some kind of narrative ship combat with wind advantage and firing arcs. I have my own ship combat system (for air ships however) that's been constantly in flux. Either way it'll be mainly homebrew as there is no official 5e ship combat.

[Three of Swords]

Can't help you with anything Fantasy Grounds specific, but a few years ago I was looking into nautical combat, and found a PDF that seemed like it would work well. You can find it at: https://olddungeonmaster.com/2015/05/05/dd-5e-nautical-adventures/

Good luck!

[Macabreus]

Thank you all for your suggestions! I will keep them in mind. This is the same PDF I found and I will proabbly make good use of it so i dont have to develop something myself. I will let you know how it turns out.