The sahuguin all have shark telepathy and routinely ride sharks. Sharks are fast enough to keep up with the ships, take the dash action, and free their riders to do the attacking. They attack the hull from underneath. When the boat breaks up, they just wait for the loot to sink and retrieve it at their leisure. And their shark pets can eat the sailors. It’s really a pretty low risk endeavor on their part.
And once again we come to the point that they don’t actually have the means to damage the hull. Their default weapons are spears, and regardless of what weapon they have, they only have +1 to strength. Given the DMG outline of object Damage Threshold, they’d be unlikely to damage the hull in anything approaching a timely or realistic fashion. If you don’t believe me, buy a 2x4 and a screwdriver and tell me how long it takes for you to punch through the board with it.
They can always use a different weapon. They have a swim speed, so they’re not at disadvantage.
I admit I didn't read every post, but there's no mention of damage threshold. That considered, average a damage threshold of 15 points a hit, it may be awhile before a hole appears.
I admit I didn't read every post, but there's no mention of damage threshold. That considered, average a damage threshold of 15 points a hit, it may be awhile before a hole appears.
It’s pretty close to impossible on sahuagin stats; they’d only have a chance on a nat 20.
We know that hits from large whales (particularly sperm whales) could and did break open wooden whalers not the 1800s and earlier. So riding on a large shark (whale shark?) and having it hit a ship to punch a hole in it to sink it is probably reasonable. Also, realistically the sauhaugin etc don’t not have to punch holes n the wood, all they have to do is pull out the tar and rope caulking between the wooden pieces so the water spills in the chinks. Of course that may set up a race between the crew and enemy on who can pull out/ stuff in the caulking faster. As for defenses I can see the early evolution of double hulls being one ( ok so you pulled out all the caulking on the outer hull but it’s directly against but shingle lapped with the inner so now try to even get at the inner hull caulking - HA) , sheathing the hull with lead/copper/ bronze to prevent fouling as well as stopping most drills, cuts and caulk rakes being a second and even something as simple as lining the inside of a hull with oiled (waterproof?) canvas as an internal waterproofed liner. Then, how do you remove the buggers from your ship once they are detected - without jumping into the sea and getting slaughtered? How about a decent sized net and capstans - the bottom of the net is weighted and drops first then is drawn (underwater) to the back of the ship and raised above sea level. Then the front and sides are dragged along the outside of the hill scrapping the buggers off the hill along with tools, weapons, possibly some mounts etc. finally the cap stains and rear mast are used as an A frame hoist to lift the net up out of the water where you can slaughter the buggers with bows, javelins, etc. what if they start cutting the nets? You ask. Wire core rope for them of course - decent marine bronze.
Pulling the caulking out doesn't exactly sound viable either; once again this is a vessel whose base movement is such that any kind of rider can only realistically pace it for a few minutes. If they wanted to sabotage a docked one, sure, but in motion it's like saying someone could end a car chase by removing the nuts on the other car's wheels. Attacking one is like attacking a train- you don't try to run it down or take potshots at it, you either use the environment to stop it or you rush up, get on, and make with the looting and killing.
The normal way surface-based raiders on small boats would attack a larger sailing ship (which is faster than the boats) is by waiting for it to be slowed by something that doesn't affect the smaller boats -- generally one or more of:
Underwater hazards that the locals know well enough to map, and (because of area or movement) ship captains don't. Note that it doesn't really take all that many underwater rocks to force captains to slow down and cautiously make their way through an area, because it only takes one rock to wreck a ship.
Underwater hazards that small boats with shallow drafts can simply pass over.
Periods of calm that affect sailing ships but not oars. This also applies to things like coastal fog.
Darkness in shallow water. 60' darkvision is not enough to safely sail through coastal waters at night.
All of those are available to sahuagin. The first two also have distinct advantages for use in adventures:
Attacks are likely to occur in distinct, moderately small areas -- generally straights with navigation hazards that it isn't practical to simply go around. These aren't super small areas, but they're small enough that PCs can reasonably hear about attacks in a particular area and head out to investigate.
The sea is shallow enough that undersea rocks and reefs matter, and the sea floor is likely moderately complex.
If the PCs fail... a shipwreck is at least semi-survivable instead of game over.
Having established that sahuagin are in an area and raiding shipping, the next question is what they're actually trying to do.
A disorganized raiding party is probably not going to try and sink the ship -- wooden sailing ships take an awful lot of effort to sink -- they're just going to board the ship, probably at night. Other than the risk of being grappled and pulled overboard, this isn't an especially unusual combat.
An organized group of pirates will likely improvise a means of stopping the ship from moving (probably fouling the rudder with a rope, net, or similar) and then demand a ransom to let the ship move onward. Dealing with this pretty much requires someone going overboard and freeing the rudder.
An organized group of raiders will be trying to sink the ship, likely by staving in the hull with specialized tools, such as the aquatic equivalent of a ram. This combines the problem of pirates with likely surprise -- the ship may well be taking on water before anyone even knows combat has started -- though it's quite unlikely that the ship will actually sink before PCs can respond, unless the enemy has access to pretty high level spellcasters.
While a lot of folks are saying “just sink the ship and loot it later” that is really not such a good idea:
1) if it is fairly deep water the ship is likely to break up and scatter over a broad area making salvaging/finding what you wanted difficult even if you are an undersea creature. Yes, if the sinking occurs in shallow waters the ship may stay together for a while but that is also where the waves and currents are strongest, the sediments are highest and the rocky/coralline sea floors are most common. Then the goods are also sunk so see #2 below. 2) the vast majority of most boat’s cargo would be ruined by immersion in sea water - including most metals. Recovering the goods and fencing them - even at 1/4 the value is far more profit than the pittance you would get from from sinking and recovery. Historically pirates didn’t sink ships unless they had finished looting them and had too few crew left to man them - often the ship was more valuable than its cargo (or they damaged it so badly in taking it that was already sinking when they started looting). 3) the only reason sauhaugin (or anyone else - like the German (and American) navy in both world wars) simply sinks ships without looting is to deny the foe any shipping through those waters - a blockade by sinking. Now I can seem doing this potentially but I can also see them playing pirate to gain the wealth needed to trade with surface (criminal, etc) groups for the specific surface products they need - bronze, Mithril, Admantine armor & weapons (even “stainless” steel rusts under prolonged exposure to salt water), magic items, etc.
So they come up over the sides because while the dangers and risks are greater the rewards if successful are even more so. 30 sauhaugin coming over the side of a ship with 15-30 commoner sailors is a sure win for the sauhaugin. It’s when the merchant hires armed guards or is carrying adventurers that the sauhaugin lose the fight or simply abandon the attack as soon as they realize the are outmanned/“gunned”. Once they take the ship they can sail it (or have the surviving sailors sail it) to a “friendly” port for selling off the cargo and the ship then trading the profits for things they want/need.
That depends on what the sauhaugin are after. For a species that can only spend limited amounts of time out of the water, any cargo that is ruined by submersion is probably not valuable, same with the ship itself.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Actually it may be very valuable - that is my point. While they may only be able to leave the water for only relatively limited times it may be worth that time to actually board the ship, and strip it or sail it (using the remaining crew) to a place where they can trade the ship and goods for enough wealth to purchase surface goods that are useful below the waves. If all you do is sink as many ships passing over you as you can very quickly none will pass and your access to the limited amount of stuff you are getting dries up. The surface world will just go around them either in the water or overland. There is a limited amount of stuff in any section of the ocean floor worth trading with the surface and it brings only a small value over all. One of the common misconception is that pirates only attacked Spanish treasure galleons filled with gold, silver, gems, porcelain, etc. the reality was that they attacked anyone and most were things like fishermen, small traders and commercial vessels of all sorts then took the ships and goods back to ports like port royal and sold off the goods and extra ships ( then typically spent every dime partying so there was no buried treasure). If you take a world like the FR there is nothing like the Spanish treasure ships just commercial/merchant vessels. Using the FR as an example (and the inner sea where I have. Clue what is happening), the sauhaugin are in competition with the sea elves and their Allie’s who do trade with the surface so if the sauhaugin don’t they will be wiped out by superior equipment even if they have numbers (like the Russians vs the Ukrainians). The same thing is probably true on most other worlds.
That hinges on there being a place where you can easily fence stolen goods/ships. Sahaugin are not traditionally depicted as having a whole lot of interest in cooperating with surface-dwelling humanoids (or non-sahaugin in general). And as for ships passing or not, depends on the territory. If there's a choke point where ships can either choose to risk sahaugin-infested waters or travel hundreds or possibly thousands of miles to circumvent it, some captains are going to take the risk. Sahaugin are voracious predators, after all, and they're probably not going to be able to just stay in a narrow strait all the time without completely depleting the local environment of food. Which means that sometimes, a ship can pass through unmolested.
Pulling the caulking out doesn't exactly sound viable either; once again this is a vessel whose base movement is such that any kind of rider can only realistically pace it for a few minutes. If they wanted to sabotage a docked one, sure, but in motion it's like saying someone could end a car chase by removing the nuts on the other car's wheels. Attacking one is like attacking a train- you don't try to run it down or take potshots at it, you either use the environment to stop it or you rush up, get on, and make with the looting and killing.
You keep bringing up speed like it's some sort of insurmountable obstacle. It's obviously not. There are mounts that are fast enough, it would be the work of moments to secure oneself to the hull by a rope, or simply hang on with one hand (fin?) while sawing off the rudder with the other.
How to stop a ship dead in the water if you're a sahuagin, in three easy steps:
1: Do anything, really *
2: ....
3: Sink ship for fun and profit
* Literally anything works. You have the run of the oceans, you can map every trade route and conceivable ambush spot in the ocean. If the ship passes over shallows, set up a boom. If not, have your pet megalodon** bite off the rudder - or use a saw. Or use a sea anchor. Sink a nice big hook into the hull, and have a team of harnessed sharks haul it off course, out of the wind and to a full stop. Use proper tools (like, not spears) to break the hull - crowbars work wonders on timber. Larger timber? Larger crowbar. There's literally a hundred things sahuagin can do undisturbed under the ship, unless the crew get in the water - which may be ill advised.
** It might be a bit of an overreach to assume sahuagin have megalogons. But they should be able to acquire or produce saws and crowbars. And lesser sharks might still work.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Pulling the caulking out doesn't exactly sound viable either; once again this is a vessel whose base movement is such that any kind of rider can only realistically pace it for a few minutes. If they wanted to sabotage a docked one, sure, but in motion it's like saying someone could end a car chase by removing the nuts on the other car's wheels. Attacking one is like attacking a train- you don't try to run it down or take potshots at it, you either use the environment to stop it or you rush up, get on, and make with the looting and killing.
You keep bringing up speed like it's some sort of insurmountable obstacle. It's obviously not. There are mounts that are fast enough, it would be the work of moments to secure oneself to the hull by a rope, or simply hang on with one hand (fin?) while sawing off the rudder with the other.
How to stop a ship dead in the water if you're a sahuagin, in three easy steps:
1: Do anything, really *
2: ....
3: Sink ship for fun and profit
* Literally anything works. You have the run of the oceans, you can map every trade route and conceivable ambush spot in the ocean. If the ship passes over shallows, set up a boom. If not, have your pet megalodon** bite off the rudder - or use a saw. Or use a sea anchor. Sink a nice big hook into the hull, and have a team of harnessed sharks haul it off course, out of the wind and to a full stop. Use proper tools (like, not spears) to break the hull - crowbars work wonders on timber. Larger timber? Larger crowbar. There's literally a hundred things sahuagin can do undisturbed under the ship, unless the crew get in the water - which may be ill advised.
** It might be a bit of an overreach to assume sahuagin have megalogons. But they should be able to acquire or produce saws and crowbars. And lesser sharks might still work.
Saws aren’t gonna do anything worthwhile in this scenario; contrary to what you’ve seen in cartoons, you cannot simply insert a saw into wood like butter and start cutting. Trying to cut through several inches of treated wood from the center would take a long time, assuming you can actually get yourself into a workable position. Same for crowbars; the hull of a ship is designed to not come apart and your basic crowbar wouldn’t even get much of a grip. Finally, speed is relevant for all these “they’ll pull up alongside and attack the bottom” plans because basic speed is for combat time, not activity time. The only things who can even pace a ship without dashing at that speed are dolphins and whales, neither of which falls in the sahuagin’s typical purview, and regardless the ship has a faster traveling speed than given for humanoids or mounts, ergo they objectively cannot pace the ship for long enough to attempt to chip their way through the hull while staying mounted. Attempting to lash themselves to the hull makes even less sense, since that’s extra work just to try and get in place and then they’re fighting the current, can’t move freely, and can fall off/come loose. Again, it’s like trying to stop a moving car by unscrewing the nuts on the tires.
An aquatic peoples would use areas like this to trap ships and demand cash ransom. If they wanted gold and riches. They might just do it to keep people from finding their homeland and reporting back.
The Sargasso Sea is essentially devoid of (sailing) boat traffic because of the lack of wind. Atlantic mariners very quickly identified the region and the problem s in the “horse” latitudes and did what they could to avoid them. You and I might not pay much attention to daily, seasonal and global wind patterns (though we should for personal weather prediction) but ancient mariners were masters of the patterns.
Sauhaugin are portrayed as being vicious, bloodthirsty, antisocial critters indeed. But then so we’re orcs, goblinoids, gnolls, Drow etc until fairly recently. They were basically cannon fodder for the party when on ocean voyages without really paying attention to potential motivations. It’s only recently that these other groups have been being recognized as being far more variable in social and political outlook. Maybe we’ve been too accepting of the sea elve’s propaganda about them? I can see them (In FR anyway) allying themselves or at least trading with groups like the Untherites and Thayans. Taking goods from looted ships of the southern inner sea to trade for metals, magic etc. same for the their dealings with the pirates of the pirate isles in all three cases un ruined surface goods and ships would be more valuable trade items than ruined or damaged/ sunken ships and goods.
Saws aren’t gonna do anything worthwhile in this scenario; contrary to what you’ve seen in cartoons, you cannot simply insert a saw into wood like butter and start cutting. Trying to cut through several inches of treated wood from the center would take a long time, assuming you can actually get yourself into a workable position. Same for crowbars; the hull of a ship is designed to not come apart and your basic crowbar wouldn’t even get much of a grip. Finally, speed is relevant for all these “they’ll pull up alongside and attack the bottom” plans because basic speed is for combat time, not activity time. The only things who can even pace a ship without dashing at that speed are dolphins and whales, neither of which falls in the sahuagin’s typical purview, and regardless the ship has a faster traveling speed than given for humanoids or mounts, ergo they objectively cannot pace the ship for long enough to attempt to chip their way through the hull while staying mounted. Attempting to lash themselves to the hull makes even less sense, since that’s extra work just to try and get in place and then they’re fighting the current, can’t move freely, and can fall off/come loose. Again, it’s like trying to stop a moving car by unscrewing the nuts on the tires.
Didn't we just cover this? Ships do not travel 60' except at the very most favorable conditions. And I did mention, for a reason, setting an ambush, plus two additional methods of cutting the ships speed to a nice, round zero. It's totally off the rails to even pretend ships have a 'speed'. They have a potential: In the right wind, in the right direction, under the best circumstances, and depending on how heavily loaded it is, maybe it can travel 60'. And only 60'. It cannot, ever, hurry it up a bit. No dashing for ships, even if it does miraculuously attain it's maximum possible speed right at the time it needs it.
You can absolutely saw off a rudder - and I'm not suggesting you do it with your trusty old fuchsschwanz, but with either a sturdy two-man lumberjack affair. And ships are designed, like all things, to not just fall apart. They are not, however, designed to resist concerted efforts to destroy them indefinitely, and crowbars are specifically designed for, and great at, breaking timber. Ever had one? I do. You can do almost anything with a large enough lever.
The extra work of shooting a nice fat spike into the hull of a ship, point blank with a crossbow or harpoon, to secure yourself to the hull, should be manageable, don't you reckon? I think that's done in the blink of an eye, and then, you're automatically pacing the ship for as long as you like.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Didn't we just cover this? Ships do not travel 60' except at the very most favorable conditions.
Don't overstate the case. D&D movement rates in general are nonsense (your basic adventurer, in an all out run, manages to travel at 6.8 mph) but ships under sail do travel at speeds that would be hard to keep up with in anything but short bursts (while the DMG permits ships to take multiple move actions per turn, that doesn't really make any sense; still, even moving once per round a sailing ship is a bit hard to keep up with). Also, they're basically tireless, so even if you can keep up with them short term, long term you're going to fall behind.
However, there are lots of reasons a ship might slow down, and there are also tricks would-be hunters can use to either keep up or slow them down.
Don't overstate the case. D&D movement rates in general are nonsense (your basic adventurer, in an all out run, manages to travel at 6.8 mph) but ships under sail do travel at speeds that would be hard to keep up with in anything but short bursts (while the DMG permits ships to take multiple move actions per turn, that doesn't really make any sense; still, even moving once per round a sailing ship is a bit hard to keep up with). Also, they're basically tireless, so even if you can keep up with them short term, long term you're going to fall behind.
However, there are lots of reasons a ship might slow down, and there are also tricks would-be hunters can use to either keep up or slow them down.
I don't mean to. And I don't think I am. It's indisputably true that dolphins follow ships for hours on end. That's not some sort of hokus-pokus nonsense argument I've pulled out of a hat, the world is full of documentation of this. And dolphins are fast, but so are their predators - like sharks.
That said, I did say in an earlier post that if you want to stick with RAW, most fish cannot keep up with a ship travelling at max speed. Which is why I bring up ambushes, and multiple ways to slow ships, and securing yourself to the hull - and so on.
Wait for the ship, harpoon a couple dozen sea anchors into the hull, and it won't be moving anywhere near 60' a round. Please, if you want to argue, counter that. If at all possible, refrain from telling me, yet again, that some set of rules claims a ship moves 60' each round, and maritime animals cannot keep up. I've answered that argument repeatedly.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
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They can always use a different weapon. They have a swim speed, so they’re not at disadvantage.
I admit I didn't read every post, but there's no mention of damage threshold. That considered, average a damage threshold of 15 points a hit, it may be awhile before a hole appears.
It’s pretty close to impossible on sahuagin stats; they’d only have a chance on a nat 20.
We know that hits from large whales (particularly sperm whales) could and did break open wooden whalers not the 1800s and earlier. So riding on a large shark (whale shark?) and having it hit a ship to punch a hole in it to sink it is probably reasonable. Also, realistically the sauhaugin etc don’t not have to punch holes n the wood, all they have to do is pull out the tar and rope caulking between the wooden pieces so the water spills in the chinks. Of course that may set up a race between the crew and enemy on who can pull out/ stuff in the caulking faster. As for defenses I can see the early evolution of double hulls being one ( ok so you pulled out all the caulking on the outer hull but it’s directly against but shingle lapped with the inner so now try to even get at the inner hull caulking - HA) , sheathing the hull with lead/copper/ bronze to prevent fouling as well as stopping most drills, cuts and caulk rakes being a second and even something as simple as lining the inside of a hull with oiled (waterproof?) canvas as an internal waterproofed liner.
Then, how do you remove the buggers from your ship once they are detected - without jumping into the sea and getting slaughtered?
How about a decent sized net and capstans - the bottom of the net is weighted and drops first then is drawn (underwater) to the back of the ship and raised above sea level. Then the front and sides are dragged along the outside of the hill scrapping the buggers off the hill along with tools, weapons, possibly some mounts etc. finally the cap stains and rear mast are used as an A frame hoist to lift the net up out of the water where you can slaughter the buggers with bows, javelins, etc.
what if they start cutting the nets? You ask. Wire core rope for them of course - decent marine bronze.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
An alternative anti-sahaugine defense would be to dump a few barrels of fish poison over the sides when you hear them attack.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Just dump from the bow not the stern 😳😁
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Pulling the caulking out doesn't exactly sound viable either; once again this is a vessel whose base movement is such that any kind of rider can only realistically pace it for a few minutes. If they wanted to sabotage a docked one, sure, but in motion it's like saying someone could end a car chase by removing the nuts on the other car's wheels. Attacking one is like attacking a train- you don't try to run it down or take potshots at it, you either use the environment to stop it or you rush up, get on, and make with the looting and killing.
The normal way surface-based raiders on small boats would attack a larger sailing ship (which is faster than the boats) is by waiting for it to be slowed by something that doesn't affect the smaller boats -- generally one or more of:
All of those are available to sahuagin. The first two also have distinct advantages for use in adventures:
Having established that sahuagin are in an area and raiding shipping, the next question is what they're actually trying to do.
A disorganized raiding party is probably not going to try and sink the ship -- wooden sailing ships take an awful lot of effort to sink -- they're just going to board the ship, probably at night. Other than the risk of being grappled and pulled overboard, this isn't an especially unusual combat.
An organized group of pirates will likely improvise a means of stopping the ship from moving (probably fouling the rudder with a rope, net, or similar) and then demand a ransom to let the ship move onward. Dealing with this pretty much requires someone going overboard and freeing the rudder.
An organized group of raiders will be trying to sink the ship, likely by staving in the hull with specialized tools, such as the aquatic equivalent of a ram. This combines the problem of pirates with likely surprise -- the ship may well be taking on water before anyone even knows combat has started -- though it's quite unlikely that the ship will actually sink before PCs can respond, unless the enemy has access to pretty high level spellcasters.
While a lot of folks are saying “just sink the ship and loot it later” that is really not such a good idea:
1) if it is fairly deep water the ship is likely to break up and scatter over a broad area making salvaging/finding what you wanted difficult even if you are an undersea creature. Yes, if the sinking occurs in shallow waters the ship may stay together for a while but that is also where the waves and currents are strongest, the sediments are highest and the rocky/coralline sea floors are most common. Then the goods are also sunk so see #2 below.
2) the vast majority of most boat’s cargo would be ruined by immersion in sea water - including most metals. Recovering the goods and fencing them - even at 1/4 the value is far more profit than the pittance you would get from from sinking and recovery. Historically pirates didn’t sink ships unless they had finished looting them and had too few crew left to man them - often the ship was more valuable than its cargo (or they damaged it so badly in taking it that was already sinking when they started looting).
3) the only reason sauhaugin (or anyone else - like the German (and American) navy in both world wars) simply sinks ships without looting is to deny the foe any shipping through those waters - a blockade by sinking. Now I can seem doing this potentially but I can also see them playing pirate to gain the wealth needed to trade with surface (criminal, etc) groups for the specific surface products they need - bronze, Mithril, Admantine armor & weapons (even “stainless” steel rusts under prolonged exposure to salt water), magic items, etc.
So they come up over the sides because while the dangers and risks are greater the rewards if successful are even more so. 30 sauhaugin coming over the side of a ship with 15-30 commoner sailors is a sure win for the sauhaugin. It’s when the merchant hires armed guards or is carrying adventurers that the sauhaugin lose the fight or simply abandon the attack as soon as they realize the are outmanned/“gunned”. Once they take the ship they can sail it (or have the surviving sailors sail it) to a “friendly” port for selling off the cargo and the ship then trading the profits for things they want/need.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
That depends on what the sauhaugin are after. For a species that can only spend limited amounts of time out of the water, any cargo that is ruined by submersion is probably not valuable, same with the ship itself.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Actually it may be very valuable - that is my point. While they may only be able to leave the water for only relatively limited times it may be worth that time to actually board the ship, and strip it or sail it (using the remaining crew) to a place where they can trade the ship and goods for enough wealth to purchase surface goods that are useful below the waves. If all you do is sink as many ships passing over you as you can very quickly none will pass and your access to the limited amount of stuff you are getting dries up. The surface world will just go around them either in the water or overland. There is a limited amount of stuff in any section of the ocean floor worth trading with the surface and it brings only a small value over all.
One of the common misconception is that pirates only attacked Spanish treasure galleons filled with gold, silver, gems, porcelain, etc. the reality was that they attacked anyone and most were things like fishermen, small traders and commercial vessels of all sorts then took the ships and goods back to ports like port royal and sold off the goods and extra ships ( then typically spent every dime partying so there was no buried treasure). If you take a world like the FR there is nothing like the Spanish treasure ships just commercial/merchant vessels. Using the FR as an example (and the inner sea where I have. Clue what is happening), the sauhaugin are in competition with the sea elves and their Allie’s who do trade with the surface so if the sauhaugin don’t they will be wiped out by superior equipment even if they have numbers (like the Russians vs the Ukrainians). The same thing is probably true on most other worlds.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
That hinges on there being a place where you can easily fence stolen goods/ships. Sahaugin are not traditionally depicted as having a whole lot of interest in cooperating with surface-dwelling humanoids (or non-sahaugin in general). And as for ships passing or not, depends on the territory. If there's a choke point where ships can either choose to risk sahaugin-infested waters or travel hundreds or possibly thousands of miles to circumvent it, some captains are going to take the risk. Sahaugin are voracious predators, after all, and they're probably not going to be able to just stay in a narrow strait all the time without completely depleting the local environment of food. Which means that sometimes, a ship can pass through unmolested.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
You keep bringing up speed like it's some sort of insurmountable obstacle. It's obviously not. There are mounts that are fast enough, it would be the work of moments to secure oneself to the hull by a rope, or simply hang on with one hand (fin?) while sawing off the rudder with the other.
How to stop a ship dead in the water if you're a sahuagin, in three easy steps:
1: Do anything, really *
2: ....
3: Sink ship for fun and profit
* Literally anything works. You have the run of the oceans, you can map every trade route and conceivable ambush spot in the ocean. If the ship passes over shallows, set up a boom. If not, have your pet megalodon** bite off the rudder - or use a saw. Or use a sea anchor. Sink a nice big hook into the hull, and have a team of harnessed sharks haul it off course, out of the wind and to a full stop. Use proper tools (like, not spears) to break the hull - crowbars work wonders on timber. Larger timber? Larger crowbar. There's literally a hundred things sahuagin can do undisturbed under the ship, unless the crew get in the water - which may be ill advised.
** It might be a bit of an overreach to assume sahuagin have megalogons. But they should be able to acquire or produce saws and crowbars. And lesser sharks might still work.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Saws aren’t gonna do anything worthwhile in this scenario; contrary to what you’ve seen in cartoons, you cannot simply insert a saw into wood like butter and start cutting. Trying to cut through several inches of treated wood from the center would take a long time, assuming you can actually get yourself into a workable position. Same for crowbars; the hull of a ship is designed to not come apart and your basic crowbar wouldn’t even get much of a grip. Finally, speed is relevant for all these “they’ll pull up alongside and attack the bottom” plans because basic speed is for combat time, not activity time. The only things who can even pace a ship without dashing at that speed are dolphins and whales, neither of which falls in the sahuagin’s typical purview, and regardless the ship has a faster traveling speed than given for humanoids or mounts, ergo they objectively cannot pace the ship for long enough to attempt to chip their way through the hull while staying mounted. Attempting to lash themselves to the hull makes even less sense, since that’s extra work just to try and get in place and then they’re fighting the current, can’t move freely, and can fall off/come loose. Again, it’s like trying to stop a moving car by unscrewing the nuts on the tires.
Slow the ship in a 'Sargasso Sea' of plants and almost no wind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargasso_Sea
An aquatic peoples would use areas like this to trap ships and demand cash ransom. If they wanted gold and riches.
They might just do it to keep people from finding their homeland and reporting back.
The Sargasso Sea is essentially devoid of (sailing) boat traffic because of the lack of wind. Atlantic mariners very quickly identified the region and the problem s in the “horse” latitudes and did what they could to avoid them. You and I might not pay much attention to daily, seasonal and global wind patterns (though we should for personal weather prediction) but ancient mariners were masters of the patterns.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Sauhaugin are portrayed as being vicious, bloodthirsty, antisocial critters indeed. But then so we’re orcs, goblinoids, gnolls, Drow etc until fairly recently. They were basically cannon fodder for the party when on ocean voyages without really paying attention to potential motivations. It’s only recently that these other groups have been being recognized as being far more variable in social and political outlook. Maybe we’ve been too accepting of the sea elve’s propaganda about them? I can see them (In FR anyway) allying themselves or at least trading with groups like the Untherites and Thayans. Taking goods from looted ships of the southern inner sea to trade for metals, magic etc. same for the their dealings with the pirates of the pirate isles in all three cases un ruined surface goods and ships would be more valuable trade items than ruined or damaged/ sunken ships and goods.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Didn't we just cover this? Ships do not travel 60' except at the very most favorable conditions. And I did mention, for a reason, setting an ambush, plus two additional methods of cutting the ships speed to a nice, round zero. It's totally off the rails to even pretend ships have a 'speed'. They have a potential: In the right wind, in the right direction, under the best circumstances, and depending on how heavily loaded it is, maybe it can travel 60'. And only 60'. It cannot, ever, hurry it up a bit. No dashing for ships, even if it does miraculuously attain it's maximum possible speed right at the time it needs it.
You can absolutely saw off a rudder - and I'm not suggesting you do it with your trusty old fuchsschwanz, but with either a sturdy two-man lumberjack affair. And ships are designed, like all things, to not just fall apart. They are not, however, designed to resist concerted efforts to destroy them indefinitely, and crowbars are specifically designed for, and great at, breaking timber. Ever had one? I do. You can do almost anything with a large enough lever.
The extra work of shooting a nice fat spike into the hull of a ship, point blank with a crossbow or harpoon, to secure yourself to the hull, should be manageable, don't you reckon? I think that's done in the blink of an eye, and then, you're automatically pacing the ship for as long as you like.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Don't overstate the case. D&D movement rates in general are nonsense (your basic adventurer, in an all out run, manages to travel at 6.8 mph) but ships under sail do travel at speeds that would be hard to keep up with in anything but short bursts (while the DMG permits ships to take multiple move actions per turn, that doesn't really make any sense; still, even moving once per round a sailing ship is a bit hard to keep up with). Also, they're basically tireless, so even if you can keep up with them short term, long term you're going to fall behind.
However, there are lots of reasons a ship might slow down, and there are also tricks would-be hunters can use to either keep up or slow them down.
I don't mean to. And I don't think I am. It's indisputably true that dolphins follow ships for hours on end. That's not some sort of hokus-pokus nonsense argument I've pulled out of a hat, the world is full of documentation of this. And dolphins are fast, but so are their predators - like sharks.
That said, I did say in an earlier post that if you want to stick with RAW, most fish cannot keep up with a ship travelling at max speed. Which is why I bring up ambushes, and multiple ways to slow ships, and securing yourself to the hull - and so on.
Wait for the ship, harpoon a couple dozen sea anchors into the hull, and it won't be moving anywhere near 60' a round. Please, if you want to argue, counter that. If at all possible, refrain from telling me, yet again, that some set of rules claims a ship moves 60' each round, and maritime animals cannot keep up. I've answered that argument repeatedly.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.