First look at Leroy's 3rdEd SJ combat system

I was interested to look at this, and a lot of work has obviously
gone into it.  This looks like a good compromise between the
3rdEd individual combat system, and the SJ ship combat rules.

Please take what I say with a pinch of salt, as I am not a war
gamer, and have only rarely played in games involving ship-to-
ship combat.  And, I've always DM'ed such combats on a very
abstract level.

I know I am taking a risk here, as I have criticised in some
considerable detail the bits that I think I know something about,
but this should be taken in the spirit of supplying some
hopefully useful feedback to what looks like a well-designed
system.


Starting from a general viewpoint, ship-to-ship combat looks like
combat between several different military units, each one of
which is forced to stay together as a group.

In principle the attack and defence should be similar to combat
between several groups of individuals, who have restricted
movement, though in theory they can move in 3-D.

The ships will provide cover, and the relative velocity of the
various groups (ships) should be considered.


The basic structure of Leroy's combat system looks sound, though
I have not yet compared it with the original SJ rules.  It seems
to handle a lot of the 3rdEd combat concepts quite well. 

However, I am unsure about the ship's hit point rules, as I would
prefer to stay with hull points if possible.  Also, it would be
preferable if the ship size groups were just an extension of the
creature size groups, rather than just a related system.

As a side issue I looked at Leroy's 3rdEd Helm specs, which are
not really needed to make sense of the combat rules.  While these
are interesting and consistent I feel they move further away from
the existing SJ helms than is desirable for a straight
conversion.

Skills are added by this system: Operate Rigging (Dex, Trained
Only), and Pilot Spelljammer (Int, trained Only).  I am not sure
these are a good idea, as there is always the risk of skills
dilution, which has plagued some games systems.  For someone to
be a sailor the skills Climb, Jump, Spot, Use Rope and Profession
(sailor) already exist (see NPC Classes: Commoner), and look
sufficient.  For someone to pilot a helm just being a spellcaster
is supposed to be enough; possibly Concentration would help to do
difficult things.  If you want to know all the little tricks of
using a helm probably Profession (spelljammer helmsman) would
help.

Feats are also added by this system, which appear to mostly
involve ship weapons.  The existing way to use these is
Profession (siege engineer), (see Seige Engines).  Other Feats
look like they are reasonable extrapolations of the standard
Feats, such as Weapon Focus.  As a matter of design preferance
I'd avoid adding new Feats where there are existing game
mechanics (unless you believe them to be completely inadequate),
or new Feats where an existing one would do.  Extending Skill
Focus so its +2 bonus applies to groups of skills, but only
onboard a specific type of ship, might be a good idea.

Rigging Crews seem a little too good for the sort of sailors
listed in CoAS.  Green sailors should have the skills of whatever
Commoner background they come from - they are not even sailors. 
Average sailors at least have (space) sailing experience, and can
be assumed to have spent at least one Commoner level doing this;
they have at least got Profession (sailor).  Trained sailors are
'veterans of many voyages', and can be assumed to be at least 3rd
level Commoners.  Crack sailors can be assumed to be Trained
sailors who have Skill Focus for a specific type of ship.

It should be noted that CoAS allows crews to become experienced
quite quickly, faster than DMs might hand out XP to crews of
Commoners.

Weapons appear to have been done in considerable detail, but I've
not studied these carefully.

Looking at the Ship Size table maybe ship sizes should be named
by their minimum tonnage: T1, T3, T7 (Medium), T15, T31, T63,
T127; where the number is a power of 2, minus 1.  The modifiers
are then +2 and +1 for T1 and T3 respectively, and -1, -2, -4 and
-8 for T15 to T127 respectively.  The advantage of this is that
the name contains some information on the ship, you can work out
the name pretty quickly, and it should be easy to learn the
modifiers, or at least quickly work them out and jot them down.


In summary, with a quick skim, this looks like a well worked-out
combat system, though it goes into more detail than I would
probably use.  If the issues with regard to Skills and Feats, and
crew abilities, were modified I think this might make a good
basis for a 3rdEd SJ combat system.  DMs who wanted to add more
detailed Skills and Feats would then be at liberty to do so.

Again, please note: I am not a wargamer, or DM of ship-to-ship
skirmish warfare, which this system seems well suited for, and I
may have misunderstood the reason why certain parts of the rules
exist.

-- 
Dreamer
dreamer@??????.?????.??.uk
http://www.romsys.demon.co.uk/