Cannons and Some Ship Stuff

With research into the nature of Age of Sail cannons and ships I think I’m starting to get a good feel for what is a good baseline as far as gameplay is concerned for a DnD campaign built around swashbuckling adventures. Taking a primarily Wikipedia based crash course in Age of sail ship armament and ship design while comparing it to the existing rules out of the Stormwrack book, I think I’ve developed a good starting point for this setting’s complex equipment requirements. There are still some bugs to work out and the system will be in flux for a while, but I’m pretty satisfied with this base line.

Cannon Type	Damage	Rang Increment	Load Time	Cost	Crew	Weight
Falcon/Falconet (Light, 5’x5’)	2D10, x3	200’	2 Rounds	~500 GP	2	¼ Ton
Minion (Light, 5’x5’)	3D10, x3	160’	4 Rounds	~1000 GP	4	½ Ton
Saker (Medium, 5’x10’)	3D10, x3	200’	4 Rounds	~1500 GP	4	1 Ton
Demi-Culverin (Medium, 5’x10’)	4D10, x3	180’	6 Rounds	~2000 GP	6	1.5 Tons
Culverin (Heavy, 5’x10’)	5D10, x3	180’	6 Rounds	~3000 GP	6	2 Tons
Demi-Cannon (Heavy, 5’x10’)	6D10, x3	160’	8 Rounds	~4000 GP	8	3 Tons
“Basilisk” (Super Heavy, 10’x 15+’)	+1D10 per X GP spent	~180’	+2 Rounds per 2D10	~2000 GP/ 1D10	2/2D10	1 Ton/2D10
Carronade (Template for L, M, and H Cannon)	Same as Base	½ Base	Same	+50%(?)	2/3(?)	½ Base
Banded Iron Cannon	Reduce to next lower Die (D10=>D8)	¾ Base	Same	75% Base	Same	Same
Increased Caliber	Increase to next higher Die (D10=>D12)	Same	Same	+50%	Same	Same
Mortar	*	*	*	*	*	*
Howitzer (Template?)	*	*	*	*	*	*

There are two cannons in each of the three main categories, Light, Medium, and Heavy. I tried my best to use historically accurate representations of each level of cannon. I used the “Light Bombard” as the baseline for the “Minion” and modified it for a more advanced age of sail. The funny thing is that each of these cannon types have their basic shot caliber equal to their number of damage dice. It worked out really well. Basically for every full inch of cannon ball size there is an equal number of damage dice.

I have full descriptions of all of these different types of cannons and will be writing it all out in a full guide for ship outfitting in this setting, but for now I’m just going to explain the basics of the philosophies I’m following for this. Each of the cannon types is pretty accurate as far as anachronisms are concerned. They have historically accurate effective ranges and minimum crew numbers. The costs for them are completely arbitrary right now and are only there as a guide. The Loading times are based off of the bombard timelines from Stormwrack.

The Basilisk is me just screwing around with a conceptual “build your own mega cannon” thing and might not actually be kept. Carronades are based off of a real thing and are there to allow smaller ships to carry bigger guns. The cannons are all built assuming they are cast bronze cannons, the option to have the cheaper, out of date Banded Iron type is there to offer more options and flavor. The Increased caliber is there for the same reason.

Mortars and Howitzers are still something I’m trying to work on. I think the Howitzer will be turned into a template for the 3 base types of cannons that turn them into indirect fire weapons with some type of penalty so you can’t just replace all your cannons with them to exploit the indirect fire rules. Mortars are a different story, they’ll be indirect fire, but I’m not sure how I’m going to deal with their power level yet. They should be allowed special alchemical types of ammunition though, I know that much is going to happen. They will also be prohibitively large to cut down on their shipboard usage, just like in real life.

I’m working on the ammunition types right now. I think I’ll have 3 versions of each of the major shot types for cost purposes. Not sure on the specifics yet of course, but I’m coming up with something.

I think the “Shotgun” style canister shots will be something along the lines of a spray attack of varying distances that can only damage crew members with different damage values with a reflex save required by those caught in it (Probably 10+damage rolled). The Chain shot style of ammunition will get bonuses to hit Rigging sections, maybe even some type of hardness bypassing or something while having either damage or hardness penalties against Hull sections. The regular shot will have something too, I think I know what, but I’m not quite sure yet.

The Saker and Minion cannons are giving me trouble too. Both are historically accurate, but I need to figure out a way to make both desirable without screwing the other cannon types surrounding them. Saker cannons are the standard type of cannon you would see on merchant ships throughout the age of sail. It was one of the most common cannon types in the world, mostly because of what Henry the 8^th did with them. He basically went through almost all of Europe’s Tin supply at the time to outfit his entire navy with these things. They were easy to produce, relatively powerful, light, accurate and very long distance (easily a 2000’ effective range with the ability to shoot out to a 9000’ range with the proper angling). I’m just not sure how to do that with these stats right now. I think the Falcons and Demi-Culverins are at their appropriate power levels so I don’t want to touch them so I need to adjust the Saker and Minion in such a way that they both are desirable for different reasons. Any opinions on this would be greatly appreciated.

Next up we have the base line for creating ships. This one took some creative engineering on my part to figure out what system they used to figure things out but I did it and the information it showed me was enlightening to say the least. Basically in order to figure out how many Hull sections a ship has you find out the Area a ship takes up using overall Length multiplied by Width and Depth (Deck to keel at centerline). You then divide that total by 1000 and round down. Cargo space still needs some work because I can’t make heads or tails of all of their system. There doesn’t seem to be much consistency but I’ll figure it out somehow.

Hull section hit points are very easy to figure out and seem surprisingly accurate for the real world examples I’ve been screwing around with. (The HMS Victory and the USS Constitution are disgustingly powerful by the way, I’ll post those another time) War ships tend to have about 1 to 2 foot thick hulls depending on their size and role. Merchant ships measure in at anywhere between 2 and 12 inches depending on size of ship and expected seas. The core rules state that wood has a Hardness of 5 and has HP equal to 10 HP per inch of thickness. Comparing this with the power of the cannons and their average damage outputs makes this disturbingly accurate.

One of the next things to figure out is how to determine how many and what type of gun mounts are available on a ship among many other modifications a ship could have and what these modifications can be. I need to come up with some type of customization thing for the players to be allowed to use that I can also use for creating other ships in the world, especially important for establishing a baseline for standard classes of ship. Plus having that type of customization available allows the players to eventually create their own ships and potentially their own fleet of custom ships built around their own desires and needs if they so desired.

I need to also figure out how Damage Control works in relation to damage sustained. I think there’s a section in Stormwrack about it but I’ve got the feeling it isn’t very comprehensive which means I’ll need to add more.

There is also the problem of the number of cannons that are going to be showing up in sea battles as time goes on. As more challenging ships begin to show their broadsides we’re going to start seeing 100+ individual attack and damage rolls for a single ship at a time going at another ship that has tens of thousands of hit points spread out among several hundred hull sections. I need to find a way to streamline this if I’m ever going to have real Line of Battle style naval combat. If anyone has ideas or a direction they can point me in I’d greatly appreciate it. I think I’m going to start in Heroes of Battle, but I’m not sure if that’s going to be enough.

It is seriously a big problem though. When you get 2 big ships up against each other for a broadsides you are going to have so many shots flying that it’ll take an hour to sort through it all. My two real life ship examples I’m using as a baseline, the HMS Victory and the USS Constitution, each have dozens of cannons that they’re able to fire in a single broadside with varying sizes and ranges. The Victory alone is a 104-gun ship with a potential 52-56 shots she can fire in a single round from one side. The Constitution has around 25 she can fire on one side (rated as a 44-gun, but typically carried around 56 anti-ship cannons).

The Victory has 337 hull sections (84 must be destroyed to sink her) with a 2 foot think hull which gives each hull section 240 HP. The Constitution has 225 Hull sections (56 of them destroyed sinks her) with a 21 inch thick hull giving each section 210 HP. (For comparison a Pinnace, a basic ship from Stormwrack, has 4 hull sections with 50 HP each, historically speaking that is almost a perfectly accurate comparison). Both ships have cannons of varying sizes so there’s no consistent amount of damage and both sets are firing at around the same time so you’ll see an attack and damage roll for each one. Each cannon must also be aimed at a single section because they’re all direct fire weapons.

When these guns hit there must also be some way to cause some type of other thing to happen after the shot. Losing some guns, some crew members, some supplies, or some other type of thing must be something that can happen to simulate what types of terrible things happen to a ship once it takes hits. The base damage system cannot work practically for this setting. Something else must be created, but what?