So my party will be embarking on a massive nautical adventure with numerous ships which they are told will be sent across a violent sea to explore and discover a new continent. In reality they will be going to war, and discovering a new continent, but mostly war. The trip to cross this sea will take (roughly) 1 month in game time and the person bankrolling the operation behind the scenes is no fool, four the the ships are Chinese Baochuan model junks (think a real world ship comparable to noah's ark) specifically for carrying food and supplies.
Many other different types of ships from the Age of Sail (mostly) make up the fleet, including Galleons, Barques, Brigs, Gaff Cutters, Frigates, Schooners, Fusta Galleys, Turtle Ships, and Submarines*.
I've calculated out the minimum crew required to sail each vessel, the minimum required for them to fight, the optimal number for combat, and the maximum crew size for each vessel. Given the circumstances (without going into too much detail), I'm looking for anyone familiar enough to give me a rough percentage of the crew size the ships will likely have. (obviously more men equal less provisions and supplies bc cargo space is limited).
What do you mean by "rough percentage of the crew size the ships will likely have"? You say you have calculated the crew of the ship, did you basically double that (since ships were most often worked in shifts)? What are you after? The total number of crew? A soldier to crew ratio?
If the ships aren't carrying any trade goods for cargo they'll have more room for supplies and people. Back in the days, most of the crew slept where-ever there was room left over after the rest of the chip had been filled with other stuff so comfort wasn't really a thing. Also, a month at sea is a really long journey. You can more or less get halfway across the Atlantic in a month (depending on where you decide to cross it fo course).
I’m not entirely following. Particularly, is there a reason why there are 10 different types of ships? That just seems odd. Is the war anticipated by the financier bankrolling the whole operation, and if so is this supposed to be an invasion of this new continent or mostly a naval affair (for the former you’d probably want transports rather than fighting vessels and military troops that aren’t part of the crews; for the latter you want the crew and the fighters to be the same people), or is it more of a prepared-for-anything type situation? Does this expedition know there’s a continent out there somewhere, or is it a leap of faith (more specifically, do they have an idea of the amount of food needed or are they planning to travel as far as they can/need and turn back when food starts to run out)? Ship size aside (galleon crews can vary from roughly 50 to 500, for example), there are a ton of variables here that can affect the numbers significantly.
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Provisions should take up 0 space and weight, because it's so cheap to hire acolytes, apprentice wizards, and the like to cast spells - goodberry and create or destroy water will save you money, if you consider that with the need to carry food and water, you can reduce the number of ships you need for the same number of personnel. On top of that, being immune to supply chain problems is ideal for ensuring victory.
Replacing crew is much harder and more expensive - both constructs and undead require higher level casters. Saltmarsh has magic item upgrades you can buy for a ship that give it automatic oars, automatic sails, and an undead crew (the ship makes the undead and maintains their loyalty), but they cost *a lot* of gold, so I don't know how cost effective they are compared to live crew that cost wages, living space, consume food and water, etc. With all three upgrades a ship only needs "white collar" crew - navigator, captain, spellcasters, carpenter, etc - and a crew for competent violence. Undead crew for things like aiming ballistae and scrubbing the deck can be stored in the cargo hold (and they store themselves!), mitigating transport requirements.
Assuming you can't afford or don't have access to the crew mitigation upgrades, just use the DMG guidelines. As is tradition, we only know cargo weight, not volume, so assuming the density of water, each humanoid occupies about 6 tons of cargo capacity.
Sounds like you already did a lot of the work. But I wanted to suggest you check out Ghosts of Saltmarsh. They have stats, including crew sizes, deck layouts and cargo capacity for six different types of ships. And then, if you just re-skin a couple of them, but use the same basic stats, you can have the sort of rag-tag armada vibe it seems like you're going for.
OK, so in real world quantities, a Baochuan could have up to 1500 people, a barque is close to 260, a galleon up to 400, gaff rigged cutters could support up to 100... what I wanted was an average percentage of maximum crew size. so given all the ship types what percentage seems feasible i.e. 80%, 65%, 72% as a whole of the crew. My calculations of the full crew size for the fleet is 14,085 people. Currently I'm working with 10,000/14,085 [~71%].
OK, so in real world quantities, a Baochuan could have up to 1500 people, a barque is close to 260, a galleon up to 400, gaff rigged cutters could support up to 100... what I wanted was an average percentage of maximum crew size. so given all the ship types what percentage seems feasible i.e. 80%, 65%, 72% as a whole of the crew. My calculations of the full crew size for the fleet is 14,085 people. Currently I'm working with 10,000/14,085 [~71%].
There is no such thing as "average percentage of maximum crew size". If you have a bigger ship you'll need a bigger crew. How big? Well, it depends on how big the ship is. It's really the minimum crew you are interested in, though. and then you hade about 20-50% on top of that to account for accidents, battle casualties, desertions, kidnappings and so on. Not that it really matters in the end, since it's a game. 10 000 people is a huge number though.
To get a real world feel read Two Years Before the Mast. You can get free in some places as a ebook. The man power was very low.
It really depends. Merchant vessels had minimal crew (no need for extra hands); fishing boats had a bit more, because more hands means more work getting done; combat vessels had a fair amount of crew, because they were supposed to fight as well as sail the ship, and it depended a lot on the type of ship (cannon or no cannon, rowing complement or no, etc).
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
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So my party will be embarking on a massive nautical adventure with numerous ships which they are told will be sent across a violent sea to explore and discover a new continent. In reality they will be going to war, and discovering a new continent, but mostly war. The trip to cross this sea will take (roughly) 1 month in game time and the person bankrolling the operation behind the scenes is no fool, four the the ships are Chinese Baochuan model junks (think a real world ship comparable to noah's ark) specifically for carrying food and supplies.
Many other different types of ships from the Age of Sail (mostly) make up the fleet, including Galleons, Barques, Brigs, Gaff Cutters, Frigates, Schooners, Fusta Galleys, Turtle Ships, and Submarines*.
I've calculated out the minimum crew required to sail each vessel, the minimum required for them to fight, the optimal number for combat, and the maximum crew size for each vessel. Given the circumstances (without going into too much detail), I'm looking for anyone familiar enough to give me a rough percentage of the crew size the ships will likely have. (obviously more men equal less provisions and supplies bc cargo space is limited).
What do you mean by "rough percentage of the crew size the ships will likely have"? You say you have calculated the crew of the ship, did you basically double that (since ships were most often worked in shifts)? What are you after? The total number of crew? A soldier to crew ratio?
If the ships aren't carrying any trade goods for cargo they'll have more room for supplies and people. Back in the days, most of the crew slept where-ever there was room left over after the rest of the chip had been filled with other stuff so comfort wasn't really a thing. Also, a month at sea is a really long journey. You can more or less get halfway across the Atlantic in a month (depending on where you decide to cross it fo course).
I’m not entirely following. Particularly, is there a reason why there are 10 different types of ships? That just seems odd. Is the war anticipated by the financier bankrolling the whole operation, and if so is this supposed to be an invasion of this new continent or mostly a naval affair (for the former you’d probably want transports rather than fighting vessels and military troops that aren’t part of the crews; for the latter you want the crew and the fighters to be the same people), or is it more of a prepared-for-anything type situation? Does this expedition know there’s a continent out there somewhere, or is it a leap of faith (more specifically, do they have an idea of the amount of food needed or are they planning to travel as far as they can/need and turn back when food starts to run out)? Ship size aside (galleon crews can vary from roughly 50 to 500, for example), there are a ton of variables here that can affect the numbers significantly.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Provisions should take up 0 space and weight, because it's so cheap to hire acolytes, apprentice wizards, and the like to cast spells - goodberry and create or destroy water will save you money, if you consider that with the need to carry food and water, you can reduce the number of ships you need for the same number of personnel. On top of that, being immune to supply chain problems is ideal for ensuring victory.
Replacing crew is much harder and more expensive - both constructs and undead require higher level casters. Saltmarsh has magic item upgrades you can buy for a ship that give it automatic oars, automatic sails, and an undead crew (the ship makes the undead and maintains their loyalty), but they cost *a lot* of gold, so I don't know how cost effective they are compared to live crew that cost wages, living space, consume food and water, etc. With all three upgrades a ship only needs "white collar" crew - navigator, captain, spellcasters, carpenter, etc - and a crew for competent violence. Undead crew for things like aiming ballistae and scrubbing the deck can be stored in the cargo hold (and they store themselves!), mitigating transport requirements.
Assuming you can't afford or don't have access to the crew mitigation upgrades, just use the DMG guidelines. As is tradition, we only know cargo weight, not volume, so assuming the density of water, each humanoid occupies about 6 tons of cargo capacity.
Sounds like you already did a lot of the work. But I wanted to suggest you check out Ghosts of Saltmarsh. They have stats, including crew sizes, deck layouts and cargo capacity for six different types of ships. And then, if you just re-skin a couple of them, but use the same basic stats, you can have the sort of rag-tag armada vibe it seems like you're going for.
OK, so in real world quantities, a Baochuan could have up to 1500 people, a barque is close to 260, a galleon up to 400, gaff rigged cutters could support up to 100... what I wanted was an average percentage of maximum crew size. so given all the ship types what percentage seems feasible i.e. 80%, 65%, 72% as a whole of the crew. My calculations of the full crew size for the fleet is 14,085 people. Currently I'm working with 10,000/14,085 [~71%].
There is no such thing as "average percentage of maximum crew size". If you have a bigger ship you'll need a bigger crew. How big? Well, it depends on how big the ship is. It's really the minimum crew you are interested in, though. and then you hade about 20-50% on top of that to account for accidents, battle casualties, desertions, kidnappings and so on. Not that it really matters in the end, since it's a game. 10 000 people is a huge number though.
To get a real world feel read Two Years Before the Mast. You can get free in some places as a ebook. The man power was very low.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
It really depends. Merchant vessels had minimal crew (no need for extra hands); fishing boats had a bit more, because more hands means more work getting done; combat vessels had a fair amount of crew, because they were supposed to fight as well as sail the ship, and it depended a lot on the type of ship (cannon or no cannon, rowing complement or no, etc).
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].