Pirates are a classic. In a world with fireball, they'll be using different tactics than real-world pirates did. (Off the top of my head: many small, fast boats instead of a larger heavily-armed single vessel. Probably with magical concealment and/or speed.)
Ghost ships
Mysterious islands.
Mysterious islands that are really giant dragon turtles or some such.
Swarms of flying vampire squid.
Swarms of flying vampire giant squid.
If you're feeling lazy, you could raid The Odyssey for ideas. (Or many other works, but if you're raiding Pirates of the Caribbean, it's probably more work to file the serial numbers off.)
You can never go wrong with a giant cephalopod encounter. Arms on all sides of the boat with their own HP pools and grab attacks (there’s vines you can use as the base monster), then some kind of large head that surfaces every so often and must be killed. Add in elements of the boat being destroyed and/or having to rescue folks thrown into water to increase difficulty or dynamics of the encounter.
Dael Kingsmill has an excellent kraken encounter idea on her youtube channel MonarchsFactory. I ran her displacer beast encounter and the players loved it, I hope I to get to use her kraken encounter one day.
Depending on whatever timescale, urgency you may have to start/finish the sea voyage, but if you think everyone could enjoy a good one session of downtime, no threat of dying,
having a scrimshaw carving contest,
Tension among the crew especially regarding food in the galley, or not enough citrus to ward off scurvy or sea madness
Lightning storms, fiery oil slicks, other natural disasters run the risk of sinking the vessel and it's all hands on deck to save her
Visiting a floating middle-of-the-ocean trading post run by [insert funniest, most ironic monster of your choosing], items for sale have questionable quality but the tavern ale is spectacular
magical formed by elementals e.g leviathan, elder tempest or any other elemental. The big ones are just cool to see and their enviroeffects can be hazards for a low level party without ever having to face them
Thanks for all the responses! You’ve all given me some great ideas. Here’s a little more background on the particular voyage.
The players have journeyed to the coast with the goal of reaching the underwater city of Coralestra. To do so, they must find a way to breathe and travel underwater. They heard a local legend of a Marid named Isilia who lives on a island in the eye of the storm who would be willing to grant their wish for a favor.
Many magical storms of increasing magnitude have plagued the area in the last hundred years, causing sea travel to become very difficult except for between two small towns. Nevertheless, the players managed to secure a captain who wants to investigate the storms and has other, secret motivations.
I have plans surrounding the storms, some inner ship conflict, a ghost ship, and a battle with agents of a faction the players oppose, but I want to make sure I have some random, interesting occurrences during the lengthy voyage to keep the players on their toes.
My party will soon be going on a sea voyage by ship. I already have some ideas, but I was hoping for more. What are some good sea/ship encounters?
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
Ariendela Sneakerson, Half-elf Rogue (8); Harmony Wolfsbane, Tiefling Bard (10); Agnomally, Gnomish Sorcerer (3); Breeze, Tabaxi Monk (8); Grace, Dragonborn Barbarian (7); DM, Homebrew- The Sequestered Lands/Underwater Explorers; Candlekeep
Sahuagin Riding sharks.
Actually, anything riding sharks.
Depends partly on the characters' level.
Pirates are a classic. In a world with fireball, they'll be using different tactics than real-world pirates did. (Off the top of my head: many small, fast boats instead of a larger heavily-armed single vessel. Probably with magical concealment and/or speed.)
Ghost ships
Mysterious islands.
Mysterious islands that are really giant dragon turtles or some such.
Swarms of flying vampire squid.
Swarms of flying vampire giant squid.
If you're feeling lazy, you could raid The Odyssey for ideas. (Or many other works, but if you're raiding Pirates of the Caribbean, it's probably more work to file the serial numbers off.)
You can never go wrong with a giant cephalopod encounter. Arms on all sides of the boat with their own HP pools and grab attacks (there’s vines you can use as the base monster), then some kind of large head that surfaces every so often and must be killed. Add in elements of the boat being destroyed and/or having to rescue folks thrown into water to increase difficulty or dynamics of the encounter.
Dael Kingsmill has an excellent kraken encounter idea on her youtube channel MonarchsFactory. I ran her displacer beast encounter and the players loved it, I hope I to get to use her kraken encounter one day.
Depending on whatever timescale, urgency you may have to start/finish the sea voyage, but if you think everyone could enjoy a good one session of downtime, no threat of dying,
having a scrimshaw carving contest,
Tension among the crew especially regarding food in the galley, or not enough citrus to ward off scurvy or sea madness
Lightning storms, fiery oil slicks, other natural disasters run the risk of sinking the vessel and it's all hands on deck to save her
Visiting a floating middle-of-the-ocean trading post run by [insert funniest, most ironic monster of your choosing], items for sale have questionable quality but the tavern ale is spectacular
Boldly go
There is a whole bunch
1.Abandoned ship
2. Storm
3. occupied ship
4. internal strife
5 . monsters
6. Locations
Thanks for all the responses! You’ve all given me some great ideas. Here’s a little more background on the particular voyage.
The players have journeyed to the coast with the goal of reaching the underwater city of Coralestra. To do so, they must find a way to breathe and travel underwater. They heard a local legend of a Marid named Isilia who lives on a island in the eye of the storm who would be willing to grant their wish for a favor.
Many magical storms of increasing magnitude have plagued the area in the last hundred years, causing sea travel to become very difficult except for between two small towns. Nevertheless, the players managed to secure a captain who wants to investigate the storms and has other, secret motivations.
I have plans surrounding the storms, some inner ship conflict, a ghost ship, and a battle with agents of a faction the players oppose, but I want to make sure I have some random, interesting occurrences during the lengthy voyage to keep the players on their toes.
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
Ariendela Sneakerson, Half-elf Rogue (8); Harmony Wolfsbane, Tiefling Bard (10); Agnomally, Gnomish Sorcerer (3); Breeze, Tabaxi Monk (8); Grace, Dragonborn Barbarian (7); DM, Homebrew- The Sequestered Lands/Underwater Explorers; Candlekeep