THanks in advance for your help. My PCs are about to enter an airship race, and I am trying to figure out a good way to move them through the event without the race being either too short or too boring. Their current plan is to intentionally take a slower, more stable ship and attack their opponents, and take advantage of the ship's stability in the harsh winds of the trip. I am trying to figure out how much time should go by per turn, and what I should do with wind based hazards.
I like to do chases and races as 'scenes' where you gain or lose progress, as opposed to something strictly turn-based. Maybe it will work for you?
Essentially I set it up as Scene 1, set up some kind of obstacle of event that the players will need to react to in some way that I leave up to them, though I plan a few options in case they mind-blank so I can offer suggestions. If they succeed and avoid or overcome the obstacle, they gain progress. The better they do against the DC, the more progress they can gain. I wouldn't go much above a max of 3 and a minimum of -1, however, otherwise you might find that the gaps between racers become too large to be interesting. You'll want them close to the action.
After the skill check, they then get to take an action. If its a straight foot race, that action becomes something they can do as their character. In something like a mount race, or in your case a ship race, I would allow them to do one of their character actions OR they could use an action on their mount/ship.
For your ship those actions could be: to speed ahead, which decreases stability but increases progress; to stabilize, which gives advantage on a future save; to attack, using the ship's weapons or slamming the ship into opponents with varying effects; to fix, increasing the ship's HP from a previous enemy's damage. There's lots of options you can come up with, and remember that the opponents get a chance to do something, as well. I usually set the order each round based on the progress, the person/team at the front acts first, person/team at the back acts last.
I find doing high movement pieces like chases and races is served by doing these skill and action based scenes in place of a standard combat-style event as the choices can be so limited, and the changes can become dull quickly. Having different set pieces allows you to create tension and drama at each turn, at varying levels based on your plans.
Don't forget to give the opponents some kind of super special action each, so if the race starts getting too easy on the players you have a wrench to throw in and create more tension. Tension is what will sell your race as exciting!
THanks in advance for your help. My PCs are about to enter an airship race, and I am trying to figure out a good way to move them through the event without the race being either too short or too boring. Their current plan is to intentionally take a slower, more stable ship and attack their opponents, and take advantage of the ship's stability in the harsh winds of the trip. I am trying to figure out how much time should go by per turn, and what I should do with wind based hazards.
Fenchurch, Gnome Wizard, Red Skies in Mourning
I like to do chases and races as 'scenes' where you gain or lose progress, as opposed to something strictly turn-based. Maybe it will work for you?
Essentially I set it up as Scene 1, set up some kind of obstacle of event that the players will need to react to in some way that I leave up to them, though I plan a few options in case they mind-blank so I can offer suggestions. If they succeed and avoid or overcome the obstacle, they gain progress. The better they do against the DC, the more progress they can gain. I wouldn't go much above a max of 3 and a minimum of -1, however, otherwise you might find that the gaps between racers become too large to be interesting. You'll want them close to the action.
After the skill check, they then get to take an action. If its a straight foot race, that action becomes something they can do as their character. In something like a mount race, or in your case a ship race, I would allow them to do one of their character actions OR they could use an action on their mount/ship.
For your ship those actions could be: to speed ahead, which decreases stability but increases progress; to stabilize, which gives advantage on a future save; to attack, using the ship's weapons or slamming the ship into opponents with varying effects; to fix, increasing the ship's HP from a previous enemy's damage. There's lots of options you can come up with, and remember that the opponents get a chance to do something, as well. I usually set the order each round based on the progress, the person/team at the front acts first, person/team at the back acts last.
I find doing high movement pieces like chases and races is served by doing these skill and action based scenes in place of a standard combat-style event as the choices can be so limited, and the changes can become dull quickly. Having different set pieces allows you to create tension and drama at each turn, at varying levels based on your plans.
Don't forget to give the opponents some kind of super special action each, so if the race starts getting too easy on the players you have a wrench to throw in and create more tension. Tension is what will sell your race as exciting!
There's a UA for ocean-faring ship battles. You might look at it and see how adaptable it is to what you're aiming for with the airship battle/chase.
My Homebrew Backgrounds | Feats | Magic Items | Monsters | Races | Subclasses
This seems like a great time to have a Skill Challenge!
In addition to skill checks you could allow attack rolls and spells against the opposing ships to grant successes/failures.