[PnP] Ships, Yo!

[Burton Choinski]

The problem I see is that non-living structures must be handled  
differently from characters or creatures.  A creature's HP is not the  
damage required to destroy it, but enough so that it is dead.  For a  
ship you don;t need to disintegrate it, but do enough so that it leaks  
enough to sink.  For a building (or wall around a castle) you don't  
need to crumble the wall, but simply breach it.

I was figuring SAV (Ship Armor value) would be the resistance to  
damaging effects, and this would be primarily based on the thickness  
of the hull and any armor added.  However, it must have some sort of  
"degradation" level that makes sense.  A ship hull could be a foot  
thick of oak, and a single human strike with an axe will do nothing,  
but several hours of axe work will have an effect.

And SHP (Ship hit points) needs to be qualified to be "what kills the  
ship".  Is it simply the point at which it sinks, or is it the point  
at which it takes on water? Perhaps the way to handle ship hits is to  
figure the amount of damage at which a ship starts taking on water at  
1 ton a turn.  A ship may be multiply damaged so that it has multiple  
"wounds" each pouring in that 1 ton/turn rate.  So the actual "SHP"  
will be limited to an idea of how much surface area of ship must be  
damaged, based on the hull thickness, not in terms of how much overall  
mass of the ship to be cracked.

I thin that once we can decide on a "reasonable" value for a handful  
of ships, this can be plotted out into a formula that will allow us to  
figure it for any other designed ship.


On Jan 31, 2008, at 7:51 PM, Paul L. Ming wrote:

> Hiya.
>
>   I'd handle it in a slightly different way. I'd create something
> called a "Structure Point" ("SP"). It would be 'equivalent' to a  
> certain
> number of 'hit points' based on the type of material it was made from
> and how thick and well-made it was. For example, lets say I decide  
> that
> "Wood, Pine" has a SP multiplier of 2. Next, I figure it's a large
> freighter canoe (maybe 1" thick overall, and 14' long by 4' wide by 2'
> deep. Maybe multiply all that together; 112. It's SP mult is x2, so  
> that
> gives us 224 SP total for the boat.
>
>   Next I would divide a boat up into sections; maybe Aft, Port,
> Starboard, and Fore. Maybe even go so far as to divide Port and
> Starboard into sections that are in increments of, say 10' (or half if
> the total length is less than 20'). That gives our freighter canoe 6
> 'sections', with 'hp' 37hp per section (roughly).
>
>   I'd also have some sort of AV, based on the type of material. I'd
> also come up with basic adjustments and rules for the most common  
> damage
> types that boats would be affected by; fire, blunt, piercing,  
> slashing,
> electricity (fire attacks would get a simple multiplier to damage,
> piercing would get a division, etc.). Or maybe go the other way and
> add/multiply/divide it's AV (so AV vs. fire would be reduced in half,
> and AV vs. piercing type attacks would be doubled).
>
>   Thinking along that line, we might be able to get away with a
> modified AV/DR system for structures... would probably be more
> consistent with the P&P rules as they are now. Hmmm..... :)
>
> Paul L. Ming
>
>
> Burton Choinski wrote:
>> The one major thing that I need to hammer out is a decent way to
>> handle "ship hit points", primarily for ramming, magic spells and
>> monsters, but also for seige gear and ship weapons.
>>
>> I have my shipwright sheet and I'm going to try and play with numbers
>> on that.
>>
>> In your opinion, going with the "Bireme" standard, how many hits
>> should it take to founder a bireme?  Not crack it in half, but take
>> enough damage to have it take on more water than can be removed,
>> eventually turning it into a floating hulk?
>
>
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