Ok so my players are often at sea when they need to travel from place to place. That's fine, the water can be dangerous, but they take longer routes to avoid said danger but still be faster than on land. They do this because they're still relatively low level (All level 4 with 4 players) and can't fight most water monsters that stay in the water to attack. Problem is I'm set to only a few options for encounters. I can do a Sahagian attack but 1: You can't do that more than once unless it's a story plot which it isn't and 2: Whenever something has to scale a ship to attack players it becomes a grand version of Whack-A-Mole which gets boring for players. So, what about pirates than? Well than there will be some kind of ship battle. And in this case the player's ship is not made for combat at all with only one basic cannon for defense. A pirate's ship would easily decimate them as long as it used its long-ranged attacks. So that's my dilemma, I don't know what threat I can throw at them that will be a challenge but also survivable. Hopefully there's a better DM than I who can help me with this problem.
1. You don't need to have a ship battle. Filler content isn't always necessary.
2. You can have a sahuagin attack, and they sneak up during night so they are already on the ship when combat starts
3. Pirates would not use a cannon to take down a ship, as they usually want to keep the ship intact and take the ship itself, as well as its crew and cargo.
4. Harpies are always a good ship enemy (or other flying creatures)
5. The crew could attack them for a variety of reasons
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Any sufficiently widespread magic is indistinguishable from technology.
The second funniest thing to make a D&D party do is explain morality
Ok so my players are often at sea when they need to travel from place to place. That's fine, the water can be dangerous, but they take longer routes to avoid said danger but still be faster than on land. They do this because they're still relatively low level (All level 4 with 4 players) and can't fight most water monsters that stay in the water to attack. Problem is I'm set to only a few options for encounters. I can do a Sahagian attack but 1: You can't do that more than once unless it's a story plot which it isn't and 2: Whenever something has to scale a ship to attack players it becomes a grand version of Whack-A-Mole which gets boring for players. So, what about pirates than? Well than there will be some kind of ship battle. And in this case the player's ship is not made for combat at all with only one basic cannon for defense. A pirate's ship would easily decimate them as long as it used its long-ranged attacks. So that's my dilemma, I don't know what threat I can throw at them that will be a challenge but also survivable. Hopefully there's a better DM than I who can help me with this problem.
Homebrew Stuff:
The Umbravore
Some possible options:
1. You don't need to have a ship battle. Filler content isn't always necessary.
2. You can have a sahuagin attack, and they sneak up during night so they are already on the ship when combat starts
3. Pirates would not use a cannon to take down a ship, as they usually want to keep the ship intact and take the ship itself, as well as its crew and cargo.
4. Harpies are always a good ship enemy (or other flying creatures)
5. The crew could attack them for a variety of reasons
Any sufficiently widespread magic is indistinguishable from technology.
The second funniest thing to make a D&D party do is explain morality
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I probably nitpick and scrutinize too much