My Campaign takes place during a comming war. The thing I think I will have the most trouble with is fighting in the air. The two sides have flying air ships of different sizes. I have a few ideas on how to do this but would like other ideas on how I could run a "battle" encounter.
I'd run it similarly to any naval encounter, except that a damaged vessel that can not longer fly crashes to the ground, likely killing whatever it falls on.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
The decks of the ships and any holds below deck are the active areas. The space in between and around the ships is death if the players do not have any means with which to maintain their location. Flight, ropes between the ships, gang planks, or mounts can remedy this and allow transitioning between locations. I use the clear dice box lids to indicate altitude differences, the ships can be simple cutouts on cardboard with 1" grid drawn on them, and then you place those on the battle mat.
I'd have one player/npc in charge of navigating the ships with an initiative. Ship board weapons are on an initiative, if a player takes to a weapon that particular weapon changes to the player's initiative until they give it up.
If you have ground and air combat, using the cardboard cutout and dice box lids should help keep track of what's going on fairly easy.
So, I had similar issues when trying to help my GM Homebrew a Spell Jammer Game in 5e.
It depends on what you are trying to accomplish. We initially use a modified version of the SkyCraft "Chase Rules", because they considered very well done. That worked great, for chases.... it feels a little klunky in a battle. This is because the rules are assuming someone is "running" and someone is "chasing", and in a battle both people could be "chasing". That said often times people are trying to "chase" or "run" to be in different range brackets to optimize certain weapons.
IF you're trying to do a battle the main problem is not everyone has something "fun" to do. I highly recommend looking at the rules in the Warhammer 40K RPG Rogue Trader. In that a "combat turn" is 30 minutes, I'd cut it down to 5 or 10 minutes, and EACH player chooses an action to try to help the ship. In our SpellJammer game unfortunately the game was often REALLY BORING for everyone except the Captain who was piloting the ship... because everyone else only got to do something every few turns as reloading takes a long time for siege engines, and the Captain got to do something every turn.
How I was going to do it was the ship has its own crew, and the players use their turns to directly attack the ship or its crew. I have one aarokacra, one wizard, a ranger, and a paladin. Only the paladin would have trouble getting to the other ship. That way the players can use their turn however they see fit.
I think you have the right approach. If you want to keep things dynamic, I'd suggest having the pilot of each airship make a Dexterity ability check each round to maneuver, either to stay alongside the other ship or to escape, and then have the PCs (and NPCs) make checks or saving throws depending on the motion of the ship. If it veers or tips suddenly, for example, you might have them make a Dexterity saving throw to avoid falling prone or being pushed/pulled a short distance.
Another way to keep things exciting is to use the various terrain elements of each ship. Let the PCs try to push enemies off the side of the ship; provide rigging for the PCs to climb or swing on to attack enemies. Cargo on the ships might provide cover or might come loose and slide or roll into PCs or enemies. Use ship weapons with different kinds of projectiles (mundane/magical, AoE or single target, direct damage or other effects) to add another tactical element to the battle. You can also make use of weather elements (wind, rain, even magical phenomena) to add more layers to the battle. You don't need to use all of these, but you can pick a couple things to spice up combat; just make sure you outline any tactical options that are available to the PCs at the start of the battle.
I would use caution with having enemies shove or throw the PCs or with PCs negotiating the gap between ships, since a fall could mean certain death. I'd give the PCs multiple checks or saving throws to avoid falling and give flying allies an opportunity to rescue anyone that starts falling.
If you're looking for something a little more complex, or if the PCs want to get involved with steering the ship or manning weapons, etc., I'd suggest this series on Naval Combat. You'll also have to account for the vertical dimension, but I think these rules do a decent job of modeling combat between ships.
My Campaign takes place during a comming war. The thing I think I will have the most trouble with is fighting in the air. The two sides have flying air ships of different sizes. I have a few ideas on how to do this but would like other ideas on how I could run a "battle" encounter.
I'd run it similarly to any naval encounter, except that a damaged vessel that can not longer fly crashes to the ground, likely killing whatever it falls on.
Are there rules for running a naval encounter?
The decks of the ships and any holds below deck are the active areas. The space in between and around the ships is death if the players do not have any means with which to maintain their location. Flight, ropes between the ships, gang planks, or mounts can remedy this and allow transitioning between locations. I use the clear dice box lids to indicate altitude differences, the ships can be simple cutouts on cardboard with 1" grid drawn on them, and then you place those on the battle mat.
I'd have one player/npc in charge of navigating the ships with an initiative. Ship board weapons are on an initiative, if a player takes to a weapon that particular weapon changes to the player's initiative until they give it up.
If you have ground and air combat, using the cardboard cutout and dice box lids should help keep track of what's going on fairly easy.
So, I had similar issues when trying to help my GM Homebrew a Spell Jammer Game in 5e.
It depends on what you are trying to accomplish.
We initially use a modified version of the SkyCraft "Chase Rules", because they considered very well done. That worked great, for chases.... it feels a little klunky in a battle.
This is because the rules are assuming someone is "running" and someone is "chasing", and in a battle both people could be "chasing".
That said often times people are trying to "chase" or "run" to be in different range brackets to optimize certain weapons.
IF you're trying to do a battle the main problem is not everyone has something "fun" to do. I highly recommend looking at the rules in the Warhammer 40K RPG Rogue Trader.
In that a "combat turn" is 30 minutes, I'd cut it down to 5 or 10 minutes, and EACH player chooses an action to try to help the ship.
In our SpellJammer game unfortunately the game was often REALLY BORING for everyone except the Captain who was piloting the ship... because everyone else only got to do something every few turns as reloading takes a long time for siege engines, and the Captain got to do something every turn.
How I was going to do it was the ship has its own crew, and the players use their turns to directly attack the ship or its crew. I have one aarokacra, one wizard, a ranger, and a paladin. Only the paladin would have trouble getting to the other ship. That way the players can use their turn however they see fit.
I think you have the right approach. If you want to keep things dynamic, I'd suggest having the pilot of each airship make a Dexterity ability check each round to maneuver, either to stay alongside the other ship or to escape, and then have the PCs (and NPCs) make checks or saving throws depending on the motion of the ship. If it veers or tips suddenly, for example, you might have them make a Dexterity saving throw to avoid falling prone or being pushed/pulled a short distance.
Another way to keep things exciting is to use the various terrain elements of each ship. Let the PCs try to push enemies off the side of the ship; provide rigging for the PCs to climb or swing on to attack enemies. Cargo on the ships might provide cover or might come loose and slide or roll into PCs or enemies. Use ship weapons with different kinds of projectiles (mundane/magical, AoE or single target, direct damage or other effects) to add another tactical element to the battle. You can also make use of weather elements (wind, rain, even magical phenomena) to add more layers to the battle. You don't need to use all of these, but you can pick a couple things to spice up combat; just make sure you outline any tactical options that are available to the PCs at the start of the battle.
I would use caution with having enemies shove or throw the PCs or with PCs negotiating the gap between ships, since a fall could mean certain death. I'd give the PCs multiple checks or saving throws to avoid falling and give flying allies an opportunity to rescue anyone that starts falling.
If you're looking for something a little more complex, or if the PCs want to get involved with steering the ship or manning weapons, etc., I'd suggest this series on Naval Combat. You'll also have to account for the vertical dimension, but I think these rules do a decent job of modeling combat between ships.
Well it may not be pretty but this should help keep track of whats happening.