Ship Combat with Deluxe rules

[McCurmudgeon]

So my group and I just had our first ship battle on Sunday. It didn’t go very smoothly because I wasn’t that sure of the rules.

I ended up using the chase rules from the old savage worlds rule set because the chase rules for deluxe don’t seem to have any maneuvers. But the old chase rules ended up devolving into opposed boating roll after opposed roll.

I was thinking of using the new deluxe rules along with the maneuvers from the old rules. I’m looking for any suggestions on how to deal with facing when using the deluxe chase rules. I was thinking, unless you succeed a force maneuver, you can only turn half your side guns (rounded up) on your enemy.

Any suggestions on how you’ve done it are greatly appreciated.

Champion of Chronos

[Enno]

I prefer the old SWEX chase rules, too. Never liked the new rules, despite their advantages with more then one party in a chase. The crucial points are a lack of maneuvers and the preference of the “party in front”.

Won’t mix both systems because the old version is a better fit for our tastes of ship battles. I use the new rules only in multi-party space battles, while I use the revised chase rules while on foot or on a sled, depending on the circumstances. luckily the German SW core rules has ALL versions as options in the main book…

High Priest of Hoenir & Champion of Qedeshet

[TAG Wiggy]

Enno wrote:

I prefer the old SWEX chase rules, too.

And me!

Wiggy
Triple Ace Games Creative Director
wiggy@tripleacegames.com

[McCurmudgeon]

Do you have any suggestions on combat, because it just devolved into opposed rolls and the players had a huge advantage of +4 due to Ace and +2 handling.

I may have been doing it wrong too.

Champion of Chronos

[Enno]

That’s the way it is… The old Chase rules know some maneuvers and a lot of rolling.

Remember that modifiers and cooperative rolling are use on BOTH sides, and that your opponents may have Aces too.

Remember the specialties from the Sundered Skies Setting rules, like Climbing the Void and those special ammo for your cannons.

As a GM your are usually in an disadvantage because you have not as much Bennies at your disposal. So give your guys a few more Wild Cards. Not too much, to stay realistic, but enough to challenge your heroes.

Study the tactics of maritime battles a bit and mix it with some aviational wisdom. It doesn’t hurt to be a bit smarter, and nobody expects you to be a great general. Use your magic very smartly…

Think about using Tricks and Tests of Will even in Chases. Both don’t have fixed ranges, and could be a nasty surprise for anybody.

If you are a lucky dice roller like me as a GM, roll in the open and don’t fudge the dice. Nothing is more nerve wrecking like negating their exploding dice with some of your own.

Use some colorful descriptions for the scene to variate the dry dice rolling procedures.

These are a few tips that came to my mind. The rest depends on you and your players. You know them better, especially any flaws and character weakness on might exploit too.

High Priest of Hoenir & Champion of Qedeshet

[McCurmudgeon]

I actually totally forgot about cooperative rolls.

So for older rules I have the Revised version, which I’m not sure if that has any big differences to older versions. It’s saying that any attacks made are going to be the front mounted or tail mounted weapons unless you perform a maneuver. Is that how you’ve played it, because from what I understand there aren’t many forward mounted guns on sky ships?

Champion of Chronos

[Enno]

My Skies groups ain’t good examples, because we used a the SWEX rules chase rules and the vehicle rules when the ships came into spell/bow range. We even used some ship rules from Pirates of the Spanish Main if i remember correctly.

You are correct with the cannons (its crossing the T, it think), as long as you envisioned the vehicles like Tall ships like we did. I played in a few groups where the ships where more like flying tanks with side sails and such.

High Priest of Hoenir & Champion of Qedeshet

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